Part 1

_Washington_ _ITS SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS_

BY

MRS. HARRIET EARHART MONROE

_Author of "The Art of Conversation," "The Heroine of the Mining Camp," "Historical Lutheranism," etc._

_NEW AND REVISED EDITION_

FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY NEW YORK AND LONDON 1909

COPYRIGHT, 1903 AND 1909, BY HARRIET EARHART MONROE [_Printed in the United States of America_] Revised Edition Published September, 1909

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. The City of Washington 1

II. A Genius from France 4

III. The Capitol Building 12

IV. Interior of the Capitol 17

V. The Rotunda 21

VI. Concerning Some of the Art at the Capitol 26

VII. The Senate Chamber 33

VIII. The House of Representatives 40

IX. Concerning Representatives 46

X. The Supreme Court Room 53

XI. Incidents Concerning Members of the Supreme Court of the 58 United States

XII. Teaching Patriotism in the Capitol 67

XIII. People in the Departments 73

XIV. Incidents In and Out of the Departments 80

XV. Treasury Department 84

XVI. Secret Service Department of the Treasury of the United 92 States

XVII. Post-Office Department 100

XVIII. Department of Agriculture 105

XIX. Department of Chemistry on Pure Foods 109

XX. Department of the Interior 114

XXI. Branches of the Department of the Interior 121

XXII. Bureau of Indian Affairs 126

XXIII. The Library of Congress 131

XXIV. The Pension Office 138

XXV. State, War, and Navy Departments 146

XXVI. State, War, and Navy Departments (_Cont'd_) 155

XXVII. Department of Commerce 161

XXVIII. The Executive Mansion 166

XXIX. Interests in Washington Which Can Not Here be Fully 179 Described

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

President Taft _Frontispiece_

Bird's-eye View of Washington, Looking East _Between_ 4 _and_ 5 from the Monument

Bird's-eye View of Washington, Looking Down _Between_ 8 _and_ 9 the Potomac from the Monument

The Capitol _Between_ 12 _and_ 13

Plan of the Principal Floor of the Capitol 15

Brumidi Frieze in Rotunda 22

Brumidi Frieze in Rotunda 23

The First Reading of the Emancipation 27 Proclamation

The Mace 41

The Speaker's Room 42

GROUP I _Between_ 48 _and_ 49

Statuary Hall

"Westward Ho!"

Washington Declining Overtures from Cornwallis

The Senate Chamber

Some Prominent Senators

The House of Representatives in Session

Some Prominent Representatives

New House Office Building

Seating Plan of the Supreme Court Chamber 54

GROUP II _Between_ 80 _and_ 81

Justices of the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court Room

The Treasury Building

New Municipal Building

Government Printing Office

New Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Union Station

The Smithsonian Institution

The New National Museum

Macerating $10,000,000 of Money 88

The Patent Office 114

GROUP III _Between_ 128 _and_ 129

The Bureau of Indian Affairs

The Congressional Library

Grand Stairway of the Congressional Library

The Rotunda (Reading-room) of the Congressional Library

The Pension Office

The State, War, and Navy Departments

The German Embassy

The British Embassy

The New French Embassy

The Russian Embassy

One of the Bronze Doors of the Congressional 133 Library

The Declaration of Independence 148

Fish Commission Building 163

Mrs William H. Taft 166

GROUP IV _Between_ 176 _and_ 177

The President and Cabinet

Entrance to the White House

New Wing of the White House

South Front of the White House

North Front of the White House

Grand Corridor—White House

State Dining-room—White House

Mount Vernon—From South Lawn

Tomb of Washington—Mount Vernon

Home of General Lee

Monument to the Unknown Dead, Arlington National Cemetery

The Washington Monument

Charlotte Corday 181

WASHINGTON

_ITS SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS_

I THE CITY OF WASHINGTON

THE CITY OF WASHINGTON is the central point of interest of that stage on which is being performed the second century act in the great drama of self-government.

The actors here are the representatives of 85,000,000 of people. The spectators are all the peoples of the world, to be succeeded by those of all future ages.

If this experiment in self-government should fail, all other republics will surely perish; but we believe that the Republic of the United States of America has taken its place as a fixed star in the galaxy of great nations, and that the stars on its flag will not be dimmed till dimmed in the blaze of humanity's millennium. Therefore, the actors and the buildings of this great city, which are parts of the _dramatis personæ_ and the furniture of the stage, can not fail to be interesting to any child of the republic.

* * * * *

Baron Humboldt, in 1804, when standing on the west balcony of the Capitol building, said: "This point gives the most beautiful view of its type in the world."

Senator Sumner said: "The City of Washington is more beautiful than ancient Rome."

Besides what one can behold of the great city from that point, across the Potomac can be seen the heights of Arlington, where sleep so many of the sacred dead of the nation.

The place is also famed as having been the home of Robert E. Lee, noted in early days for a generous Southern hospitality. If walls could speak, what thrilling stories of chivalrous men and fair women could be there heard!

On the south of Washington, in plain view, lies the quaint old town of Alexandria, where Ellsworth was killed, while far to the north is Howard University, used chiefly for the education of colored people—the one the type of the departing past, the other the emblem of the possibilities of a coming hopeful future.

Washington is the only city in the world built exclusively to serve as a capital. Just after the Revolution, Congress, sitting in Philadelphia, was grossly insulted by the unpaid returning troops, against whom the city offered no adequate protection. Congress then adjourned to the collegiate halls of Princeton, where resolutions were offered to erect buildings for the exclusive use of Congress, either on the Delaware River or on the Potomac River.

Several States were applicants for the permanent seat of government, but diplomacy and a good dinner settled the question in favor of its present site.

We are apt to think everything was done in _that_ day on the high plane of patriotism, but prejudice, provincialism, and avarice each played its part.

Hamilton was desirous of having his treasury policy adopted. The North favored this policy, but the representatives from that section, accustomed to the comforts of New York and Philadelphia, had no inclination to establish the Capitol on a swampy Southern plantation, away from the usual lines of travel.

Washington was with the South. Jefferson gave a great dinner, where, under the influence of rare old wine and the witching words of Hamilton, Northern ease, in exchange for Southern consent to the treasury policy, gave way to the Southern desire that the nation's Capitol should be located in its present position.

The land was purchased from four planters—Young, Carroll, Davidson, and David Burns. Mr. Burns was not willing to part with his land at the rates offered. When Washington remonstrated, the old Scotchman said: "I suppose, Mr. Washington, you think that people are going to take every grist that comes from you as pure grain; but who would you have been if you had not married the widow Custis?"

Posterity is apt to inquire, Who would ever have heard of the widow Custis if she had not married George Washington?

But government had ways, then as now, of bringing about conclusions when property was wanted for public purposes.

II A GENIUS FROM FRANCE

AMONG the pathetic figures of the early days of the Capitol City is that of Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who was selected by Washington to draft plans for the new city.

L'Enfant was a skilful engineer who had come to America with Lafayette in 1777. He did not go back to France with his countrymen in 1783, but remained in this country, and was employed by Washington as an engineer in several places.

He devoted the summer of 1791 to planning, not the capital of a small nation, but a city which could be sufficiently enlarged should this continent be densely populated from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

There was no other man in this country at that time who had such knowledge of art and engineering as Major L'Enfant. Plans of Frankfort-on-the-Main, Carlsruhe, Amsterdam, Paris, Orleans, Turin, Milan, and other European cities were sent to him from Philadelphia by Washington, who had obtained the plan of each of these cities by his own personal effort.

Washington himself desired the new city planned somewhat like Philadelphia, a plain checkerboard, but L'Enfant, while making the checkerboard style the basis, diversified, beautified, and complicated the whole by a system of avenues radiating from the Capitol as the centre and starting-point of the whole system. The streets running east and west are designated by letters. They are divided into two classes or sets—those north of the Capitol and those south of it. Thus, the first street north of the Capitol is A Street North, and the first street south of it is A Street South, the next is B Street, North or South, as the case may be, and so on. These distinctions of North, South, East, and West are most important, as forgetfulness of them is apt to lead to very great inconvenience.

The streets are laid off at regular distances from each other, but for convenience other thoroughfares not laid down in the original plan have been cut through some of the blocks. These are called "half streets," as they occur between, and are parallel with, the numbered streets. Thus, Four-and-a-half Street is between Fourth and Fifth streets, and runs parallel with them.

The avenues run diagonally across the city. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware avenues intersect at the Capitol, and Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, and Connecticut avenues intersect at the President's house. Pennsylvania Avenue is the main thoroughfare. It is one hundred and sixty feet wide, and extends the entire length of the city, from the Eastern Branch to Rock Creek, which latter stream separates Washington from Georgetown. It was originally a swampy thicket. The bushes were cut away to the desired width soon after the city was laid off, but few persons cared to settle in the swamp. Through the exertions of President Jefferson, it was planted with four rows of fine Lombardy poplars—one on each side and two in the middle—with the hope of making it equal to the famous Unter den Linden, in Berlin. The poplars did not grow as well as was hoped, however, and when the avenue was graded and paved by order of Congress in 1832 and 1833 these trees were removed. Pennsylvania Avenue is handsomely built up, and contains some buildings that would do credit to any city. The distance from the Capitol to the President's house is one mile, and the view from either point along the avenue is very fine.

Every circle, triangle, and square dedicated to monuments bears testimony to the taste of the original design. So little respect, however, was held for Major L'Enfant's plans that Daniel Carroll, one of the original owners of the land, was in the act of building a handsome house right across New Jersey Avenue. L'Enfant ordered it torn down. This was done, much to the disgust of Carroll and to the indignation of the commissioners. The government rebuilt the house for Carroll, but was careful to place it in a more suitable location. The old Duddington House, on Capitol Hill, was long a landmark of the early Washington architecture.

There were some other acts of irritability on the part of L'Enfant, acts which now show his just appreciation of his own great work. He was paid $2,500 for his services and dismissed. He believed he should have been pensioned, as would have been done in Europe.

Afterward he saw the city expand as the nation grew strong, while he, a disappointed, poverty-stricken man, wandered, a pathetic figure, about the Capitol until 1825, when he died. He had lived for years on the Diggs farm, about eight miles from Washington, and was buried in the family cemetery in the Diggs garden, and when the dead of that family were removed his dust was left in an unmarked grave.

Mr. Corcoran, the great banker of Washington, who died in 1888, said he remembered L'Enfant as "a rather seedy, stylish old man, with a long green coat buttoned up to his throat, a bell-crowned hat, a little moody and lonely, like one wronged." The heart of a stranger in a strange, ungrateful land.

The City of Washington is his monument. No one can now rob him of that honor. Let us hope that he has awakened in His likeness and is satisfied.

Could the Colonial Dames or the Daughters of the Revolution do a more beneficent and popular act than to mark the resting-place of Peter Charles L'Enfant, who drew the original plans of that city which is to become the most beautiful city in the world?[1]

Footnote 1:

On April 28, 1909, the body of Major L'Enfant was moved to the National Cemetery, at Arlington, where a suitable memorial will soon be erected.

The letters of General Washington abound in references to the difficulty of obtaining money to fit the new city for capital purposes. Virginia made a donation of $120,000 and the State of Maryland gave $72,000. Afterward the latter State was induced to loan $100,000 toward fitting the city for a capital.

The City of Washington was officially occupied in June, 1800. Since then it has been the ward of Congress. Strangers, even at this late day, often comment on the long distance between the Capitol building and the Executive Mansion; but Washington strongly impressed upon the mind of Major L'Enfant that the latter must be at a considerable distance, so that members of Congress should not fall into the habit of coming too frequently to call upon the President, and thus waste the time of the executive head of the nation.

It is not the purpose in these sketches to dwell too much on the history of Washington, but rather to make a picture of the city as it is in the first decade of the twentieth century. A glimpse of it, however, in the summer of 1814 is really necessary to complete our references to the early days of the nation's capital.

In 1814 the city was captured by a small British force under General Ross, and both wings of the Capitol building, with its library and almost all the records of the government up to that date, were destroyed by fire, also the White House, as the Executive Mansion was even then called, and most of the departments, including the Navy-yard.

Mrs. Madison, in a letter to her sister, gives a graphic picture of the time:

"DEAR SISTER,—My husband left me yesterday morning to join General Winder. He inquired anxiously whether I had courage or firmness to remain in the President's house until his return on the morrow or succeeding day, and on my assurance that I had no fear but for him and the success of our army, he left me, beseeching me to take care of myself and of the Cabinet papers, public and private. I have since received two despatches from him, written with a pencil; the last is alarming, because he desires that I should be ready at a moment's warning to enter my carriage and leave the city; that the enemy seemed stronger than had been reported, and that it might happen that they would reach the city with intention to destroy it.

"... I am accordingly ready; I have pressed as many Cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transportation. I am determined not to go myself until I see Mr. Madison safe and he can accompany me, as I hear of much hostility toward him.... Disaffection stalks around us.... My friends and acquaintances are all gone, even Colonel C., with his hundred men, who were stationed as a guard in this enclosure.... French John (a faithful domestic), with his usual activity and resolution, offers to spike the cannon at the gate and lay a train of powder which would blow up the British should they enter the house. To the last proposition I positively object, without being able, however, to make him understand why all advantages in war may not be taken.

"Wednesday morning (twelve o'clock).—Since sunrise I have been turning my spyglass in every direction and watching with unwearied anxiety, hoping to discover the approach of my dear husband and his friends; but, alas! I can descry only groups of military wandering in all directions, as if there was a lack of arms, or of spirit, to fight for their own firesides.

"Three o'clock.—Will you believe it, my sister? We have had a battle, or skirmish, near Bladensburg, and I am still here within sound of the cannon. Mr. Madison comes not—may God protect him! Two messengers, covered with dust, come to bid me fly; but I wait for him.... At this late hour a wagon has been procured; I have had it filled with the plate and most valuable portable articles belonging to the house; whether it will reach its destination, the Bank of Maryland, or fall into the hands of British soldiery, events must determine. Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments. I have ordered the frame to be broken and the canvas taken out; it is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York for safe-keeping. And now, my dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be to-morrow, I can not tell."

We all know the story of Mrs. Madison's flight, of her return in disguise to a desolated, burned, ruined home. She would have been without shelter except for the open door of Mrs. Cutts, her sister, who lived in the city. From that point she visited the ruins of all the public buildings while she awaited her husband's return.

We are apt to think of the White House as a place of teas, receptions, gayly dressed people, light, music, flowers, and laughter; but it, too, has seen its tragedies.

Fifty years after the burning of the city the famous Stuart picture of Washington, referred to in Mrs. Madison's letter, was retouched and hung in the East Room, and still constitutes one of the few ornaments of the Executive Mansion.

During Mr. Roosevelt's administration (1902-1903) extensive alterations and additions were made to the Executive building.

The conservatory, so long an object of enjoyment to the public, was removed to give place for a long white esplanade on the west, forming the approach to the Executive offices, while on the east side a white colonnade now provides a most desirable entrance for large crowds on public occasions.

It has been a matter of regret to D. A. R. women, and to all the patriotic women of the nation, that the portraits of the ladies of the White House have been remanded to the basement corridors. Here are now the portraits of Mrs. Van Buren, Mrs. Tyler, Mrs. Polk (presented by ladies of Tennessee during Mr. Arthur's administration), Mrs. Hayes (presented by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union during Mr. Hayes's term), and Mrs. Benjamin Harrison (presented by the D. A. R.), and the portrait of Mrs. Roosevelt, by Chartran.

III THE CAPITOL BUILDING

THE corner-stone of the old Capitol, which constitutes the central portion of the new edifice, was laid the 18th of September, 1793, by General Washington, in the presence of a great concourse of people and with imposing ceremonies.

The corner-stones of the wings were laid by President Fillmore, July 4, 1851. Webster delivered the oration of the occasion.

The old building is of yellow sandstone, kept painted white to beautify and preserve it; the wings are of white marble. On its central portico all our Presidents, from Andrew Jackson to President McKinley, have taken the oath of office. President Roosevelt took the oath of office at Buffalo. This building, which fronts the east, was set in accordance with the astronomical observations of Andrew Ellicott, an engineer from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who succeeded Major L'Enfant as general surveyor and engineer in the new city.

Ellicott is described as bearing a marked resemblance to Benjamin Franklin, except that he was more of a Quaker in appearance, wearing a long, fine gray broadcloth coat and a Quaker hat. He awaits the resurrection in an unmarked grave at Ellicott City, Maryland.

The original building was constructed from plans submitted by Stephen Hallet, the work undergoing some modifications from the plans of Dr. William Thornton.

The great wings were added during Fillmore's administration from designs submitted by Thomas N. Walter, architect, who not only superintended the building of the additions, but also managed to harmonize them with the original design.

Years ago it was quite the fashion for Americans returning from Europe to make disparaging remarks concerning the Capitol building, but that spirit seems to have passed away, and the dignity, grace, and beauty of its architecture now receive universal commendation.

Prince Henry of Germany remarked of this noble structure: "For Capitol purposes it surpasses every other building in the world. Its architectural beauty is most impressive."