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Show : " f ' " .... . y - : r- , y y " " ( r .- v- "- l '..li-, , . , vlJ k ",.- Wife. iiJliT --"W'l rwiTx. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON r ' " s ' a TTTV.J ITU the federal build- ' " ' -A yAiT-Y niUloiml capital now III ?f? t f::'! Jr uler way at full ,i f..: ; ;l Aicy y speed and every Indi- '.':$ b. -'' 'jC-J TO I cation that It will be "S .-,c 4Lic4ii..s-:4' J carried forward unlu- . ' .. :m J '-: f2 tcrruptcdly to com- -!;ft.JN5,.'8frj. j 1 pletlou in lime for lie .ft'-.VA T:hAsJf :-sJiaaS' 5j j! sreat celebration In 1932 of the two Jr 5Sxi ' ' liundrcdth anniversary of the birth of ' fc:.rJX VSVl,' ' George Washington, the century-old -AvA V-i'SC H dream of l'ierre I.'Enfunt, is nearing V' V i Sfi!'- ' It9 realization. Few Americans know V A aAH J-7 I II anything more about L'Knfunt than a k-rr " H ' Cv somewhat vague Idea associating his VXs vVy" NN (Vjf' name with the phrase "the founder XxXwis " oT 'b''' of Washington." Yet had the advice V Vj'r7 . ""SV' WHfV of this young French engineer been MV'?kl ' .-tCUV V jy followed, the United States of America "CCjT X " T7 T" X would have now the most beautiful MmWXX I L ! t? vc?? nnd impressive capital citv in the iV; ' "T '"J?? "-y. world. F.veu though the nation al- JM Z " 247)) lowed him to die a disappointed man, ejfcKa .. rrfps) J V55 his goal unreaclied, yet lie dreamed -SJii-3- By ELMO SCOTT WATSON "'TT'V'Ty ITU the ftxleral build- ri I lng program for our s' tiiVll national capital now fffJ 'T UI1(l-,r w-ay at full Aicy y speed and every Indi-I Indi-I cation that It will be carried forward unlu-terruptedly unlu-terruptedly to com-pletlou com-pletlou in lime for the great celebration In 1932 of the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of George Washington, the century-old dream of l'ierre I.'Enfunt, is nearing Its realization. Few Americans know anything more about L'Knfunt than a somewhat vague Idea associating his name with the phrase "the founder of Washington." Yet had the advice of this young French engineer been followed, the United States of America would have now the most beautiful nnd impressive capital city in the world. F.veu though the nation allowed al-lowed him to die a disappointed man, his goal unreaclied, yet he dreamed and planned to such good purpose that not even a hundred years of blindness to beauty and neglect of the opportunity oppor-tunity at hand have been sutlicient to dim his vision splendid, and the United States may yet have the wonderful capital that he planned for it. l'ierre Charles L'Knfunt was born August 2, 175-1, somewhere in sunny France, lie was a lieutenant in the French army in 1777 . when he came to this country and offered his services1 to the Continental congress. By his ability he rose to the rank of captain and then to major. He planned and built Fort Mitllin and Fort Washington, Washing-ton, fought through the remainder of the war, was wounded at'the battle of Savannah, taken prisoner by Sir Henry Clinton in 17S0 and paroled three years later. With the war at an end, L'Enfant decided to remain in this country and continue his career as an engineer and architect. The city of New York presented him with a testimonial testi-monial for his services and his reputation repu-tation was so high that President Washington selected him in 1791 to lay out the new capital which was planned on the hanks of the Potomac, declaring that "Major L'Enfant is as well qualified for the work as any man living." To this Thomas Jefferson, secretary of state, added the indorsement, indorse-ment, "I am happy the President lias left the planning of the city in such goo-d hands." Certainly it needed the hand of a genius to transform the "dismal hamlet ham-let od the Potomac" into a city befitting be-fitting the dignity of the cupital of a nation. For when President John Adams transferred the seat of government govern-ment from the old-established and gay Philadelphia to tlii raw wilderness town, he found it a place of thirty or forty huts scattered around in the woods and swamps and the beginnings of the public buildings, described by g congressman In Adams' party as follows: fol-lows: "One wing of the capitol only has been erected, which, with the President's Presi-dent's house, a mile distant, both constructed con-structed with white sandstone, were Bhlning objects in dismal contrast with the scene around them. Instead of recognizing the avenues und streets portrayed in the plan of the city, not one was visible, unless we except a road with two buildings on each side of it called the New Jersey avenue. The Pennsylvania avenue, leading, as laid down on paper, from the capitol to the President's Mansion, was then nearly the whole distance a ,deep morass, covered with alder bushes, which were cut through the width of the intended avenue during the then ensuing winter." 1,'Enfant's plan called for connecting connect-ing the President's House and the Ccn- gross House, as he called them, by a series of parks. But President-elect John 'Adams could not see the sense of having these two important buildings build-ings so far apart. He wanted the executive nnd legislative buildings huddled together. Convenience and not beauty was his Idea. However. Washington stood steadfastly by L'Enfant L'En-fant and the buildings were so placed, although L'Enfant's dream of the parks between was never realized. In fact, he was repeatedly frustrated in his planning; he was ridiculed by unimaginative un-imaginative and materialistic men who were high in office and from the time the seat of government was moved to Washington, he was constantly begging beg-ging congress to pay him the money due him. Finally, that body in 1S10 passed a bill for his relief, giving him SOOC.fiO with interest from March 16, 1792, amounting in all to $1,394.20. This was done more because congress was becoming weary of his importunity impor-tunity than for any other reason and it was typical of the tardy justice with which the new republic rewarded many of the men, including Revolutionary Revolu-tionary war heroes, to whom it owed so much. L'Enfant died in 1S25, a heartbroken heart-broken man. During his last years he lived with a man named Dudley Diggs and he was buried in the Diggs family graveyard outside the city of Washington. Wash-ington. There his body lay in an unmarked un-marked grave for nearly a hundred years. Then through the efforts of the American Institute of Architects It was removed to Arlington cemetery. ceme-tery. He was given a military funeral and tributes were paid to him by hign government officials, both American and French. A monument, with his plan carved on the marble slab, overlooks over-looks the city for which he had dreamed on such a grand scale and which during the years while he lay in the unmarked grave had sprawled haphazard hap-hazard over the landscape. For "backwoods-ruled congresses saw no utility in beauty. Homespun and jack-booted solons knew no more about architecture than they did about poetry and thought both the comical diversions of 'dudes,' or was 'macaroni' 'maca-roni' still the word, or 'dandy'?" So Vfrites Charles Willis Thompson in an article in the New York Herald-Tribune a year or so ago, telling of the plans for preserving the beauty of the capital as L'Enfant had conceived it. He writes: So it ts wonderful that the idea persisted per-sisted through a century of Hannibal Chollops and Elijah Programs. For it did. The shades of L'Entant brooded over the city, and still broods over It. Essentially, it is still his city. Nothing Noth-ing that ignorant politicians and greedy speculators could do to it has effaced his indelible impression. The worst that has happened to Washin-gton hnp- Idealized portrait of L'Enfant on the medallion made by Leon Chatdain, in the Chevy Chase Savings bank, Washington. pened outside the boundaries he set for it. He could not foresee that it would grow so big, L'Enfant's city was to be only two and a half mies wide and three and a half miles lohg. His plan for that city is today as he made It, needing only beautiflcation. The city did not grow much bigger until the War of Secession, when it underwent a sudden and fictitious expansion. ex-pansion. Then the speculators began to get in their work. Washington immediately im-mediately grew beyond the limits known to L'Enfant and President Washington, and in building up the outer sections nothing was thought of but money returns. Yet so meticulously meticulous-ly had L'Enfant laid out the plan it was not possible to turn It into confusion con-fusion even when ged and ignorance had done their worst. The new city, the greater Washington, had to grow generally along L'Enfant's lines in spite of itself. But it was cursed and degraded by defacements Impertinent buildings interjected in-terjected themselves into the plan; streets ambled off into the Land of Nod -nnd disappeared. L'Enfant's pet fantasy, the Mall, lay fallow, though he had planned so wisely that nothing can prevent its flowering Into consummation consum-mation whenever congress so wills. The distortion of the original idea had become such an eyesore by 1901 that a congressional commission, headed by Senator James McMillan, of Michigan, set about restoring the L'Enfant plan wherever it had been departed from, and embodied its praiseworthy attempt in legislation which still rules. Ever since then the task of unifying and greatening Washington has been carried indefatigably on, and succeeding succeed-ing congresses have been more and more friendly and attentive. The present plan, put into operation opera-tion some two years ago by the public pub-lic buildings commission, headed by Senator Smoot of Utah and having an initial fund of 5,000,000 at its disposal, dis-posal, follows closely the plan of L'Enfant. L'En-fant. The outstanding feature in it is the Mall or Monument Gardens, extending ex-tending from the Washington monument monu-ment to the capitol and flanked by new federal buildings. And if this plan is completed, as it is hoped it will be, in time for the George Washington Wash-ington celebration in 1932, some of the honor paid that great American then will be shared by the young French engineer whom he backed in his effort to give this country a capital city beautiful. |