| OCR Text |
Show CITY WITHOUT PEER ! ADMirtERS GIVE WASHINGTON PRECEDENCE OVER ALL. I Cartalnly None Other In the United States Is as Beautiful Points of Superiority Over. Paris. Washington Is absolutely unique among the cities of tho United Stales. ' It Is the most American hocnuse Its . population Is made up of people from all thu states, and yet It Is not Amerl-1 can at all, for thu reason that Its iesl-j dents cannot vote. It Is the uiont ros. j inopolltau because representatives of all other nations dwell In It, yet It has no foreign quarter. Washington's grenlvst Industry Is government, and ' Its greatest product Is polities, but tho Issues aio all national. It Is the only Aiucilrun city whore there Is no locnl party politics; lu fact, It Is the only city "of thu civilized world which cannot can-not choose any of Its locnl olllcers by vole. Tho .president appoints the executive ex-ecutive and Judicial officers, and congress, con-gress, sitting as u city council, "exercises "exer-cises excluslvu legislation." Despite the anomalous apeetnele presented by thu cnpltal city. of a demoerntle country coun-try being governed In theory by an autocracy, the people nro content, public pub-lic opinion rules .nnd tho city Itself It a masterful argument Tor the continuation continua-tion of the present plan. Washington Is thu most beautiful city In thu United States, and Is claimed by many authorities to have no peor In tho world. ParlB has moru magnlllcont vistas, but theru are quarters quar-ters of the French capital with never a claim to beauty. There aro more shade trees In Washington than lu any city In tho world. It has 92,000 trees, while Paris, the next In tho list, has only 85,000. It must bo remembered remem-bered In this connection that Paris has Man ' IttiS&S&xv? Home of the Papal Delegate In Washington, One of the City's Show Places. nearly .1,000,000 ixipulatlon, while Washington has but 330,000. Tho national capital Is thu only city In tho United States which had nn artificial arti-ficial origin. Alt tho other places "Jos' growud," Topsy-fashlon, but It was a city completo lu tho mind or Oeorgo Washington buforo It was traced on paper by MaJ. L'Kutnnt and MnJ. Kill-cott. Kill-cott. Tho plan niado for tho cnpltal whoro there was naught but "squares lu morasses and obelisks In trees" has been suftlclent for thu needs of the great city of to-day, and extensions or .tho syatom as Indicated by the original plan will open thu whole territory of tho District and uvuntually accommodate accommo-date ten times us many people us live thuru now. Washington streets are wider than those of other cltlua, being originally f i om SO to 100 root wide. Many of these were too wide for tho demands of traffic, and when thu Improvement of thu city began In thu seventies thu thoroughfares wcro narrowed nnd portions por-tions next to tho buildings were reserved re-served us parking spaces. The pietty strip of gieun along both sides of Washington thoioughfares Is really a part of tho street. It Is tho property of thu United States, and Is not under thu coutiol of the owner of tho abutting property, although he must keep up thu lawn. Thu real estate Is always sold by tho squuio root, Instead or by the clumsy front foot method. Theru Is no law to compel thu people to sweep the snow off thu sidewalks In winter, becauso they are thu property of Uncle Ham, and a private citizen cannot bo compelled to euro for government propurty. Moru than half or the property lu tho District or Columbia Is owned by tho United States, which pays half tho totnl expenses, while thu propurty owners of thu district pay thu other hair. Until 1878 thu general government govern-ment pnld nothing nt nil toward the maintenance or tho l)lstrlct. Bven now tho great" undertakings lor the permanent Improvement of thu capital, outside of tho public buildings, of course, aro half paid for by tho residents resi-dents or tho District of Columbia, although al-though the whole people nro Interested In tho completion of the plans which will mnltu Washington thu envy of tho nations. |
