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Show i x -- . -v? vi yA'r y- w!m-v- 1 By ELMO SCOTT WATSON SX&dSfT ITU tlie flerl build-' build-' 4 Ing prognim for our jftjJUF ' national capita now "li v under way at full ;, speed and every indi- g (Fs J cation that it will be q V carried forward uniii- (1 terraptedly to com- ,, pletiou in lime for the ;i great celebration in 1932 of the two hundredth anniversary of the .birth of George Washington, the century-old dream of I'ierre L'Enfant, is nearinji Its realization. Few Americans know anything more about L'Enfant than a somewhat vague idea associating his Dame with the phrase "the founder - of Washington." Vet bad the advice of this young French engineer been followed, the United Stales of America would have now the most beautiful 1 mi impressive capital city in the s wwlrl. Even though the nation al- lowed him to die a disappoint ed man his gnul unreached, yet be dreamed and planned to such g:iod purpose that Dot even a hundred years of blindness ;, to beauty and neglect of the oppur J (unity at hand have been suiiicient to . dim his vision splendid, and the United j States may yet have the wonderful capital that he planned for it. Pierre Charles E'Enf:;nl was .born August 2, I7."i4. somewhere in sunn France, lie was a lieutenant in the French army in 1777 when be came to this counlry and offered bis services i to the Continental congress. Ey bis ability he rose to the rani; of captain ! and theu to major, lie planned and j built Fort Miliiin apd Fort Washing tn, fcuglil through the remaindr 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 bis 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 ,4 Washington selected him in 171)1 to toy out the new capital which was Planned en the banks of the Potomac, declaring that "Jlnjor 1. 'Enfant is as "li qualified for the work as any man living." To thU Thomas Jefferson. 4 secretary of state, added the indorse-0! indorse-0! nit, "I am happy tile President has itd li'ft the planning of the city in such ! P'd hands." Certainly it needed the hand of a i:s to transform I he "dismal ham-,n ham-,n Iet "" 1 he Potomac" into a cily bean be-an fitli"S the dignity of the capital of a 4- tuition, for when President Joho It Adams transferred the seat of govern KD 'ent from the old-established and gay nj ''hilailelphia to this raw wilderness '"n, he found it a place of thirty or pst '"fty nuts scattered around in the for lt0'ls and swamps and the beginnings ;i 51 'he public buildings, described hv :? congressman in Adams' party as fol-m fol-m lows: 'ud , "0ne wi"S of the capitol only has ,p seen erected, which, with the Presi Jt's house, a mile distant, both con lite strueted with white sandstone, were e'J "uniiij. objects in dismal contrast tviUi the scene around them. Inste.ao " reignizii,g n,e avenues and streets jrt Portrayed in the plan of the city, not J lne was visible, uidess we except a road with two buildings on each side ' It called the New Jersey avenue. . 'e I'ennsyhania avenue, leading, ''own on paper, from the- capitol 0 'he President's Mansion, was then ids' J"1'1!' the W,e ,1'stance a deep ei ' m"!"SS' ('"V(,',(1 with alder- hushes "kh wore cm through the width of le Intended avenue during the then ot ",siS winter." air yi'aifanfs pl!m called for connect S the I'resiilent's Mouse and the Con gross House, as he called them, by a series of parks. Cut President-elect John Adams could not see the sense of having these two important buildings build-ings so far apart. He wanted the executive and 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, nil hough I-'Enfant's dream of the parks between was never realized. In fact, be was repeatedly frustrated in his planning; he was ridiculed by unimaginative un-imaginative and materialistic men who were high in ofiiee 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 ()GO.fiO with interest from March 16, 17!)2. amounting in all to $1,394.20. 'This was done more because congress was becoming weary of li Is importunity impor-tunity than for any other reason and it was typical of the tardy justice with which the new republic rewarded n:.iy of the men, including Revolutionary Revolu-tionary war heroes, to whom it owed so much. IEnfant died in tszo, a neart-broken neart-broken man. During Ids last years be lived with a man named Dudley Diggs and be 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 liign government ofiicials. both American and French. A monument, with bis 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. Home'spun and jack-lMiyted solons knew no more about architecture than they did about poetrv and thought both the comical diversions of 'dudes.' or was 'macaroni' 'maca-roni' still the word, or 'dandy'?" So -rites Charles Willis Thompson in an article in the New York Herald-Trib une a vear or so ago,, telling of the plans for preserving the beauty of the capital as L'Enfant had conceived it. He writes: So ,t Is wonderful that the Idea per-SK,.-d through a century of liana, b; ChnHnps and Elijah Program tor ,t did The shades of L'Enfant brooded over the city, and still hrnods over it Essentially. It is still his city NoU, las thai lBnoranl politicians and tieedy speculator's could do to. I. Has eficed his Indelible Impress, on The un.st that has happened to Washington hap- 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 jirow so big, L'Enfant's city was to be only two and a half miles wide and' Three and a half miles long. His plan for that city is today as he made It. needing only beautification. The city did not grow much biggei 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 gff'ed 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 and 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 1001 that a. congressional commission, headed by Senator James McMillan, of Michigan, sel 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 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 So.OUU.OUO 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 Hanked by new federal buildings. And if this plan Is completed, as it is nopeu n will be. In time for. the George Washington Wash-ington celebration in 10112, some of the honor paid that great ' American then will be shared by the young French engineer whom be backed in his effort to give this country a capital city beautiful. The Old Rocking Chzir Some one becomes sad and despond cut over the passing of the family r,,i-kiiig chair. It lias no place in modern mod-ern life. One now demands something that he can easily jump out of, for the automobile or airplane may be wait ing at I lie door. For a quick exit, the old family rocker is a hazard. Hart ford Pity News. |
