BELL, PHOTOGRAPHER, WMSHINGTON ^.^^XA^^l cfe/ . (^^ri^J^^A^if-ySl^ BEAUTIFUL WASHINGTON BY - Colonel JOHN A, JOYCE Author Checkered Life, Peculiar Poems, Zig-Zag, Jewels of Memory, Oliver Goldsmith, Complete Poems, Edgar Allan Poe, Brickbats and Bouquets, Songs, Etc., Etc ^S«etutj^ ru/es t/io tSer/' anef „^t'ny, ^9eatfty rve^rts in eueryfAt'nff. — JOYCK Gibson Bros., Washington, D. C. THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Two Copies Received MAY 9^ 1903 Copyright Entry cuss C^ XXc. No. COPY 8. ^ COPYRIGHTED, 1903, BY COLONEL JOHN A. JOYCE. DEDICATION. I dedicate this volume to the purity and patriotism of the American people, whose bravery and blood, for more than a century, have cemented the foundation stones and structure of the National Capital, and solidified forever the Union of the great Republic. J. A.J. PREFACE. My object in writing this book is to show the world the great natural, his- torical, and architectural advantages of ¥7ashington City, the most beauti- ful capital on the globe ; and although Paris and London are fifteen hundred years older, the young Republican Giant of the West is the superior of ancient cities in the promulgation of universal education, mechanical and scientific invention, commercial prog- ress, libert}^ equal rights, and pros- perity for all mankind. It is my intention to deliver this as a lecture through the cities of the nation, and present on canvas more than a hundred vievv^s of the principal sights and scenes of Washington. J. A. J. Beautiful Washington DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. The discovery of America by the immortal Columbus was the greatest event in human history, with the sin- gle exception of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Cortez, Pizzaro, Balbao, Velasquez, and Magellan, Spanish adventurers and conquerors, following the pioneer pathway of Columbus, destroyed the aborigines of Central and South America, and left a trail of fire and blood from the everglades of Florida to the stormy waters of Patagonia. Americus Vespucius, John Cabot, 8 Beautiful Washington. Sir Walter Raleigh, and Captain John Smith navigated along the Atlantic shores of North America, and brought to this Western Continent the strict principles of the Puritan and the chivalric characteristics of the Cava- lier. At the dawn of the seventeenth century the settlements of James- town and Plymouth Town gave very poor promise of the rich blessings that crown our glorious Republic to- day, and w^hile the shores of Chesa- peake Bay were lashed with stormy waves and fed by the springs of the James, Rappahannock, and Potomac, they could not chill or kill the indom- itable will power of the daring and ambitious Caucasian, who for more than ten thousand years has mi- grated from the sunny plains of the Orient to the golden sands of the Beautiful Washington. 9 Occident with the rapid sweep of an eagle over the icy wastes of Alpine peaks ! From the mouth of Chesapeake Bay- to the headwaters of the Potomac, springing from the crests of the Ap- palachian chain of volcanic moun- tains, roaming tribes of red men filled the forests and lived a liie of peace and war along tangled vales and sun- kissed cliffs, where the deer, buffalo, panther, and bear gave food and rai- ment, and where the red bird, turkey, and eagle furnished feathers for the adornment of these children of Na- ture, who could be destroyed by the million to retain and preserve the wigwam and liberty of their ancestors, but would not be enslaved like the black man from the Congo or Sierra Leone. Captain John Smith, in the spring lo Beautiful Washington. of 1608, with his weather-beaten ocean crew, sailed up the Potomac to the mouth of the Anacostia, near the present site of the Government Ar- senal and Navy- Yard, Washington. They found the river full of fish, its romantic banks blooming with wild flowers and fruits, and birds of rarest plumage and melodious notes (alas! now banished forever by the cruel English sparrow) , flitting through this new Arcadia like variegated specks of shimmering sunshine. Captain Smith found bands of In- dians, who called themselves Patowo- macks. They greeted him kindly and traded furs, dried venison, and fish for glass beads, gaudy-colored calicoes, knives, and tomahawks. The waters of the Potomac, Ohio, Missouri, Mississippi, and Colorado, for ages, had echoed to the war- Beautifitl Washington. ii whoops of the roaming red man ; and even thousands of years before his advent on this continent the Mound Builders and Mayas of Yucatan — im- placable enemies — lived, loved, fought, and died, leaving unnumbered re- mains under the hillsides and banks of these grand rolling rivers. To-day only a torn remnant of the red man remains, and in a few short years he will be as extinct as the vast herds of bison that roamed over the plains and mountains of Columbia. As a race they have vanished from the land, and long ago saw their doom in the red colors of the setting sun. Powhatan, King Philip, Black Hawk, Osceola, Red Cloud, and Sitting Bull have gone to the "Happy Hunting Grounds," to rest in peace with the Great Spirit. There is nothing constant but 12 BeauHftil Washington. change. Morning follows night, and spring follows winter. Strange and unknown are the ways of Providence. " God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm." INFANT WASHINGTON — NATIONAL CAPITAL. The site of Washington City, two hundred and ninety-five years ago, was occupied by an Indian village, scattered along the vernal windings of the Potomac. "This is the forest primevaL The mur- muring pines and the hemlocks, Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight, . . . But where are the hearts that beneath it Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman?" A hundred years later, in 1798, the archives of this young Republic had Beautiful Washington. 13 been removed from Philadelphia to the straggling farm village of the Car- rolls, Duddingtons, Beals, and Burns. The seventeen original Government reservations, consisting of 541 acres, were sold by the land proprietors for sixty-eight thousand dollars ($68,- 000). The other day, one lot, 30 by 150, on Pennsylvania avenue, sold for one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000). The assessed value of the Govern- ment real estate in the District of Columbia, untaxed, is $300,000,000, while the total valuation of private property, taxed, is $200,000,000, mak- ing a grsCnd total valuation of $500,- 000,000. At the beginning of this century Washington was tauntingly called "The Serbonian Bog;" "a city of streets without houses;" "a capital 14 Beatitiful Washington. of miserable huts," and a "city of magnificent distances," where the croak of the bull-frog and the lone cry of the heron echoed back the caw of the crow and the shriek of the hawk and the eagle. Peter the Great and Washington established and surveyed the capitals named in their honor, and out of swamp and woods erected on the Neva and Potomac two of the grand- est cities in the world, destined for a thousand years to rule the nations of the globe. Russia and the United States com- bined possess an internal force of rugged manhood that is not equaled on earth, and so long as the bear and the eagle remain friends the earth and the air shall be their undisputed dominion ! The progress of this city and nation Beautiful Washington. 15 is the most marvelous in human his- tory. In the single span of a hundred years, only a lifetime, we have ex- celled in science, manufacture, litera- ture, statesmanship. Who can surpass our Franklin, Morse, Henry, and Edison in the broad field of electricity? Who can compete with Fulton, Howe, Whitney, McCormick, and Professor Bell in mechanics? Who can excel for beauty of diction and originality of thought Washing- ton Irving, Henry W. Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe? In statecraft Washington, Hamil- ton, Paine, Jefferson, Henry Clay, and Lincoln excelled and outwitted all the diplomats and monarchs of Europe; and these illustrious names will go ringing down the ages as long 1 6 Beautiful Washington. as Liberty lingers on the earth or stars sparkle in their eternal spheres. In the last three hundred years the world has progressed more than it did during the previous three thousand. Contrast the small brass cannon, three feet long, of Cortez the con- queror of Mexico — on exhibition at the Washington Navy- Yard — with the thirteen-inch rifled cannon, forty feet long, being manufactured at the great gun establishment, not fifty feet away from the Spanish progenitor. Compare the New Mexico and Ari- zona wooden-wheeled ox-cart with the electric automobiles now running in Washington and every city of the Union. Look at the first railroad locomo- tive built in the United States, run- ning 20 miles an hour, and compare it with that magnificent locomotive. Beautiful Washington. 17 No. 999, that runs a hundred miles an hour on the New York Central. Then gaze on the Indian war canoe in the National Museum, that may speed seven miles an hour, and con- trast it with the great war canoe Oregon, that can skim over the ocean waves at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and grapple and conquer any war vessel that monarchy can send against us. GEORGE WASHINGTON, GENERAL AND STATESMAN. George Washington, the adventur- ous surveyor, the daring and dignified general, and the pure and lofty states- man, was President of the United States when the Capital was estab- lished in Washington. The Massa- chusetts patriots, led by the eloquent James Otis, had, long before, de- 1 8 Beautiful Washington. fied the British Government by throwing the taxed tea into Boston Harbor. The ringing words of Patrick Henry: "Give me Libert}^ or give me Death!" sounded Hke a fire bell at midnight, startling the nations and shaking the thrones of the Old AVorld with the seismic force of an earth- quake ! The Declaration of Independence had been proclaimed from the towers and housetops of Philadelphia, and the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, cherished as emblems of our freedom, remain yet to cheer our children omvard and upward to a higher and nobler destiny. The Revolutionary War had been desperately fought for nearly nine years ; the Constitution of the United States had been adopted by the thir- teen original States, and that glorious Beautiful Washington. 19 and immortal instrument of the Creator — Washington — first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, was the living vidette of the young Republic, spring- ing like Minerva out of the tottering and tyrannical head of the Jupiter of Monarchy ! Washington! Look at him! See that noble face and loft}^ brow that towers among us like Mount Rainier, shining through golden sunsets above the crags and hills that nestle at its base. "Art to his fame no aid has lent; His country is his monunient!" REGULAR ARMY SOLDIERS' HOME. Stand and contemplate w4th me for a few moments at the statue of Gen- eral Winfield Scott on the heights of 20 Beautiful Washington. the Soldiers' Home for the Regular Army, located northeast of the Capi- tal. The Home was established in 1848, just after the Mexican War, from a fund of ninety thousand dollars ($90,- 000), part of a forced levy made on the city of Mexico by the hero of "Lundy's Lane." The principal income of the Home is from a tax of twelve and a half cents per month, retained from the pay of the enlisted men of the Army. There are generally about one thousand soldiers enjoying the bene- fits of Uncle Sam's hospitality, and they range in age from nineteen to ninety, disabled by long service, sick- ness, or wounds. The annual expense of the Home is about $200,000, and the accumulated surplus fund has reached the snug Beautiful Washington. 21 sum of $2,500,000, invested in United States bonds. So you see republics are not ungrateful, not ours at least ; and if we consider the annual pension appropriation of $140,000,000, the people of the United States may congratulate themselves as the most generous benefactors on the globe to their soldiers. And yet, when you stop and seri- ously think that were it not for the battlefield soldiers, from the Revolu- tion of 1776 to the close of our Rebel- lion in 1865, we w^ould have no coun- try to-day, and the God-given colors of "Old Glory" would not flash and float over our grand Capitol and country. It's easy now to talk, criticize, and fight battles with yowi pen and mouth, but the real " soldier boys" never did it that way! We quit fighting at 2 2 Beautiful Washington. Appomattox, and shook hands as friends and Americans; the "Boys in Blue" and the "Boys in Gray," retiring quietly to their homes to live in peace as law-abiding citizens. Such a sudden disbandment of a victorious and conquered army, in the spring of 1865 and 1866, melting away from the furrows of war to the furrows of peace, was never before witnessed on the earth; and the magnanimity of the victors and the loyal acceptance of the imposed con- ditions by the vanquished, is un- paralleled in history. Like dashing ocean spray, The "Boys" in "Blue" and "Gray" Sank back to lives of peace When war had its surcease. A GLORIOUS VIEW. Gazing from the Soldiers' Home, as the slanting beams of evening irra- Beautiful Washington. 23 diate the earth, and the cardinal colors of the dying day blend the gloaming with the night, you behold the rolling hills of the " Old Dominion" lift their vernal crests over the rippling waters of the upper Potomac. The far-off forest trees of Arling- ton and Oak Hill nod their eme- rald heads to the traveler, while the sighing w^inds chant a requiem over the soldiers and citizens, encamped forever on the upland slopes of Om- nipotence. Oak Hill entombs the dust of many illustrious men. Edwin M. Stanton, the great War Secretary, and Iron Arm of the Rebellion, rests under a granite shaft, not more com- pact or firm than the heroic character it memorializes. 24 Beautiful Washington. Immortal Stanton, thy name and fame shall grow, While all our lakes and streams shall flash and flow; Or while Columbia holds her onward sway, And lifts her eyes to greet the God of day. Green be your memory and glorious be your grave ; Forever over mountain crag and wave, Your loyal name shall shine as pure and bright, As stars that glitter in an arctic night. The "Boys in Blue" and every Union soul. Shall sound your praises while the centuries roll; And Honor, with unfading flowers of fame. Shall twine her tributes round your death- less name! James G. Blaine, the Plumed Knight, rests in this romantic ceme- tery, beside the remains of his son and daughter, with a small head- stone, and no monument to mark the lonely spot where sleeps the late edi- Beautiful Washington. 25 tor, author, Senator, and Secretary of State. Yesterday his name and glory filled the hearts of men. To-day he lowly lies, scarcely mentioned by the long train of devotees that waited on his smile; and to-morrow he will be but a faded memory, to point a moral or adorn a tale. " How soon we are forgotten when we are gone!" Ah! vain, vain all his pomp and his pride; Broken-hearted, bereft, disappointed, he died, And left to the world, but the sound of his name, The sheen of ambition, the shadow of fame! John Howard Payne, author of "Home, Sweet Home," has a marble monument and bust, erected to his memory by the philanthropist, W. W. Corcoran. In life Payne was a poor, forlorn, wandering Bohemian, 26 Beautiful Washington. often without food, shelter or home; and yet his simple words will go sounding down the years, when even the memory and productions of states- men and warriors a^re lost in forgotten graves. The man who could not bor- row a shilling in life from old friends has had erected to his memory a costly marble monument; and so, for thousands of years, shafts, towers, temples, and pyramids have been reared, not for the glory of the dead, but for the laudation, vanity, and glory of the living! "^ My own poetic lines may fit this special case: When I am. dead, let no vain pomp display, A surface sorrow o'er my pulseless clay; But all the dear old friends I loved in life, May shed a tear, console my child and wife ! When I am dead, some sage for self-renown, May urn my ashes in some park or town; And give, v/hen I am cold and lost and dead, A marble shaft where once I needed bread! Beautiful Washington. 27 No ! my friends : If you have a flower to give me, Let me know its sweets to-day; Place it not upon my coffin When my soul has passed away! Poets have been particularly un- fortunate in not securing plenty and peace in life, and yet when the shad- ows of death and time have enveloped their frail forms and sensitive souls, monuments in marble and bronze lift their heads to tell the world of the genius that sleeps below. The poet's life is crushed by cruel wrong; He learns in suffering what he thinks in song! If Homxr, Dante, Tasso, Burns, Keats, Poe, and Payne could, by some mysterious power, rise from the grave to-day, they would view, no doubt with amazement, the fulsome and generous tributes received after death 28 Beautiful Washington. as a contrast to the thoughtless neglect and poverty endured in life. Many a poet, profound or ethereal, is like a wandering spirit shot out of a celestial sphere into a strange planet where his soaring and sensitive nature wears out his weary wings battling against the sordid creatures that stare in wonder at the brilliant colors of his plumage. Some day he is found dead in a little corner of the globe, his bright wings folded forever, his lips closed, his impulsive, warm heart cold, and his classic face furrowed with the wrinkles of uncongenial elements that have left him a broken wreck on the cheerless shores of time. Over the cold ashes of the poet the world will halt for a moment with mournful mien and heave a sigh over the grave of buried genius. Yester- Beautiful Washington. 29 day he suffered for sympathy and bread ; to-day a funeral train honors his memory ; to-morrow a monument will point posterity to a prodigy of celestial aspirations whose sympa- thetic songs will thrill the hearts of mankind adown the crowding ages! CLASSIC ARLINGTON. Arlington, the great National Cem- etery, holds within her emerald bosom seventeen thousand heroic warriors. Like an Egyptian queen, in mournful majesty, gazing on the eternal waters of the Nile, Arlington rears her roman- tic head to the sky and bathes her feet in the murmuring waters of the Potomac. The gnarled oak, the cedar, and sighing pine echo back the caw of the crow and the song of the wild bird, 30 Beautiful Washington. and through the morning sunHght and evening twilight the various voices of nature chant a requiem over the moldering remains of our loyal dead. This spot is dedicated to heroism. Its green sward is the mausoleum of patriotic hearts; its dome the bend- ing heavens, and its altar candles the watching stars of God! As the years glide away and com- ing centuries usher into life millions of human beings, Arlington shall be a mecca for the unalterable principles of truth, and around its undulating vales and green hillocks the spirit of love and loyalty shall kneel at the vespers of nationality and swing per- fumed censers at the holy shrine of prayer and patriotism. Monuments in marble, granite, and bronze lift their modest or preten- Beautiful Washington. 31 tious heads, appealing to the memory of those who wander near the lowly bed where valor sleeps; but when these emblems of love and remem- brance shall have passed away and crumbled into impalpable dust, the truth for which they died shall shine out like the rising sun and be as last- ing as eternity. The home of romance, wealth, and slavery has become at last the sepul- cher of the dead, and the laughing musical voices of the proud past are but a memory in the columned man- sion of General Robert E. Lee. A man of modest worth and sincere mold, Who never sold his soul for gain or gold; And when the Fates decreed that war should cease, Surrendered manly and retired in peace ! Sheridan of the Army, and Porter of the Navy, sleep their last sleep in 32 Beautiful Washington. front of Arlington, and the Stars and Stripes, floating from the tall staff, throws its glinting shadows over the heroes that rest below. Long regimental lines of white headstones fade away into forest vistas, and Sheridan seems to ride again down the valley through Win- chester to turn retreat into victory. Templed unlike the Roman Pan- theon or Coliseum, the divinities of Arlington are dedicated to lofty patri- otism, and its worshipers are a Chris- tian people. From its classic porch the eye beholds to the east and north, across the Potomac, the mansions, steeples, and domes of Washington and Georgetown Heights, framed in by the rolling hills of Maryland. To the south and east the eye of the traveler may linger on the his- toric Long Bridge and Alexandria, Beautiful Washington. ^t^ and the church where Washington worshiped, and the hotel where Jackson shot Colonel Ellsworth on the loth of May, 1861, and where, in turn, Frank Brownell, whom I knew intimately, killed Jackson. In the dim distance a chain of forts and earthworks rear their crumbling heads. Thirty years of rains, snows, and suns have wrinkled their bald brows, yet Dame Nature, with her universal kindness, has covered the rude scars of war with the daisy, the morning-glory, forget-me-not, and Virginia creeper. The ploughshare of industry has leveled down the red ridges of rebel- lion, and where once the reveille and long roll of battle resounded, the horn of the husbandman calls his toilers of peace from fields of waving grain and golden fruit to the rustic board of joy and love. 34 Beautiful Washington. The brave hearts that are stilfed forever at Arlington dedicated their lives to liberty and immortalized their devotion by death. Who will care for their loved mounds when we are gone? Who will then strew roses and plant bright flowers in the May time of nature? Other patriotic hands of brave men and fair women will take up the task of duty, and even when all but liberty has perished from the earth, the robin and the blue bird, the red bird and the mocking bird, will warble at sun- rise sweet songs over the green sod that wraps their sacred clay. Nature herself will deck the graves of our fallen heroes, and the caressing winds of heaven will chant a requiem to their memory and kiss the loved spot where valor slumbers. Thousands of loved soldiers rest in Beautiful Washington. 35 the "Unknown" grave. Here is the tomb of 2,111 soldiers whose remains were picked up on the battlefields of Virginia. Many of the "unknown" sleep in a land of strangers, where the tears of love cannot moisten the green shroud that mantles their ashes. But if no kind hand is near to strew sweet flowers or loved eye to shed the tear of sorrow, there is One that reigns among the eternal stars that daily floods the "Unknown" grave with sunshine and nightly w^aters the bud- ding wild flowers with dew^s from heaven. The known and the "unknown" are gone forever — No more to battle where muskets rattle, And blood flowed free as water from a spring; At rest forever beside the river — The Nation's chalice with its offering. 36 Beautiful Washington. The flag they fought for, the end they sought for, Shine grandly in the Union of to-day; And no false reason or trumped-up treason Can from its granite moorings ctit away. No sunlight streaming or moonlight beam- ing, Shall ever shine for those brave hearts again ; Their race is finished, yet undiminished, Their glory triumphs o'er the battle plain. Unborn ages on golden pages, Shall tell the story of their loyal cause; And how they perished for rights they cher- ished — Defending freedom and her honest laws. VALOR NEVER CONQUERED. The Confederate Cemetery, for many years outside the north wall of Arlington, contains the remains of two thousand "Boys in Gray" who were killed or died in prison or hos- pital in and around Washington, and they sleep as peacefully as those in- Beautiful Washington. 37 side the National enclosure. No word of mine shall ever impeach the bravery of the men who fought and fell for the sunny South, and died for what they deemed to be the right. We were brothers of the same mater- nal line ; and God grant that hereafter we may kneel at the same shrine and worship at the same altar of prayer and patriotism, upholding "sl govern- ment of the people, by the people, and for the people !" And, my friends, let us honestly remember that — The grass grows as green o'er the conquered. As where the victorious lie ; They fell, with a " Yell" for a watchword, That taught their proud manhood to die. And when victory garlands her heroes, Who perished in bloody detail, She will not crown the long line of Neroes, But the truthful, who struggle and fail! 38 Beautiful Washington. "The Blue and the Gray" sleep forever side by side, and no man or nation now or hereafter will dare doubt the valor of American soldiers. " These, in the robings of glory, Those, in the gloom of defeat, All with the battle-blood gory, In the dusk of eternity meet. Under the sod and the dew. Waiting the judgment day; Under the laurel, the ' Blue,' Under the willow, the ' Gray.' " No more shall the war cry sever, Or the winding river be red. They banish our anger forever, When they laurel the graves of our dead. Under the sod and the dew. Waiting the judgment day — Love and tears for the ' Blue,' Tears and love for the ' Gray.' " ALEXANDRIA AND MOUNT VERNON. From Arlington step aboard the fast electric train along the banks Beautiful Washington. 39 of the Potomac to Alexandria, seven miles away. Christ's Church, with its shining steeple, is soon in view. It is built of brick and was dedicated in 1765, ten years before the battle of Lexington and Concord. Washington worshiped here for many years, and was an active mem- ber of the vestry. The "First Fam- ilies" of Virginia w^ould wait about the church door every Sunday morn- ing for the good and great George to put in an appearance with his loving wife Martha, when mutual salutes were given and all entered the house of worship. The pew where Washington sat is still used, and thousands of travelers have reclined on this relic. About forty years ago I met an old man whose grandfather, George Jack- son, was a personal friend and neigh- 4© Beautiful Washington. bor of Washington. He was in the habit of boasting that young George Washington could outdance, outrun, outwrestle, and outride any of the "bloods" of Fairfax County, and was a favorite with " the girls," and a field champion with "the boys" in the rural sports of the day. He was stalwart in mind and body ; weighed two hundred pounds, stood over six feet in his socks, wore a number eight hat, twelve-inch boots, and had his gloves made to order. His wife Martha, with the aid of her colored servants, wove on her own loom the brown jeans suit he wore when sworn in as President of the United States. She wore a cloak of blue " linsey-w^oolsey " on the same occasion, and she didn't have any variegated bird wings, tails, or top- knots on her bonnet either. Beautiful Washington. 41 Washington was one of those broad- gauge, wide-open men, with a high, square brow and a great gray eye, that looked into the motives and acts of his fellows. In fact, he was a born leader, and his very presence was a command. No wonder that King George, Lord North, Burgo^me, and Cornwallis quailed and surrendered to this lofty and liberty-loving ' ' Rebel ! ' ' Let us now proceed south over roll- ing hills and winding creeks to Mount Vernon, the home and last resting place of the Father of his Country. Here is the old-fashioned. Southern home, embowered amid lofty trees, encircled by ancient boxwood, trail- ing vines, and fragrant flowers — situ- ated on a high hill overlooking the broad waters of the Potomac, with a view from its turret sixteen miles away to the Capital of the Republic. 42 Beautiful Washington. Mount Vernon, like Jerusalem and Mecca, shall be a central point through the ages for the faithful who believe in Liberty, Law, and Religion. After retiring from the Presidency, Wash- ington, with his charming household and slaves, lived a life of Arcadian bliss, reveling in rural sports, com- mingling with admiring neighbors, and going to the polls and depositing his ballot, like the simplest citizen, for the man of his choice. Like another Cincinnatus, he left the cares of state behind him and again put his hands to the plough of domestic duty. As lord of the soil, with point of the plough, He recorded the fruits of the year; On the parchment of earth by sweat of his brow, He toiled with a jolly, good cheer! Here is the room and the bed where he died, after an overseer and four Beautiful Washington. 43 doctors tried to strengthen and save his life by a Hberal "blood letting" — at least a quart; and all this ancient medical treatment for the cure of quinsy. And it was not much of a day for bleeding either. But the doctors did the best or worst they could. The present tomb of Washington is a modest brick enclosure, contain- ing the marble sarcophagus of the great man and his wife. Martha might have been a typical Grecian or Roman matron in the palmy days of those renowned republics. The "Ladies' Mount Vernon Asso- ciation" is now the custodian of the estate. It cost $200,000 in i860, and has a surplus fund and an income sufficient to maintain it in good con- dition. 44 Beautiful Washington. POTOMAC SCENERY. Let us now embark from Mount Vernon by river on the steamer that plies between this Mecca of American patriotism and Washington City. Fort Washington, three miles up the Potomac on the Maryland side, has been recently remodeled and equipped with modem armaments for war emergencies; and I'm not giving any secrets away by saying to the monarchies of Europe that if they should ache for a land or water fight. Uncle Sam can give them a first- class torpedo and dynamite reception from Cape Henry and Cape Charles, at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay, to the Washington Arsenal and Navy- Yard, where our great guns are manu- factured. The Arsenal has been a noted spot Bemitifiil Washington. 45 for nearly a hundred years, being mainly an artillery camp. It was here in the spring of 1865 that Mrs. Surra tt, Atzerot, Harold, and Payne were executed for the conspiracy and assassination of President Lincoln, the greatest crime since the murder of Caesar. There has been a great deal of maudlin sentiment expressed about the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, but if any unbiased person will read the di- rect testimony in the case he will find absolute proof of her complicity in the dastard conspirac}^ General Winfield Scott Hancock, the hero of Spottsylvania, was presi- dent of the court that tried her, and Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, the pure patriot and loyal statesman, was Judge -Advocate, while Andrew John- son, of Tennessee, was President of 46 Beautiful Washington. the United States, and could have extended clemency if he desired. I know of no good reason, however, in morals or law, why a female con- spirator should not be punished equally with the male criminal. Lu- cre tia Borgia was as bad as Booth. Let us continue, northwest on the Potomac, through the draw^ of the Long Bridge, built under the admin- istration of General Andrew Jackson for the purpose of joining the District of Columbia with "Old Virginia." Could this old bridge speak what a tale it could tell of the millions of human hearts that beat across its creaking timbers, who lived, loved, and passed away like the mist of the morning. The scattering retreat of the Union * Army over this bridge, after defeat at Bull Run on the 21st of July, 1861, Beautiful Washington. 47 might furnish many thrilHng, pathetic, and ludicrous scenes. Stragghng sol- diers, political patriots, mercenary camp followers, cattle, and mules were swept away in a wild rush to the rear. THE ARMY SUTLER. But there was one historic charac- ter, the army sutler, and his mule team, that halted long enough to dis- pose of his stock in trade to the weary "Boys in Blue." The sutler, if you but knew him, was a great patriot in his w^ay — and for revenue only. When we ad- vanced to "the front," he was always in the rear, and when we retired to the rear, he was always in front. Some years ago Governor Curtin, at a Loyal Legion banquet at the Arlington Hotel, asked me to im- 48 Beautiful Washington. mortalize this peripatetic army store and saloon-keeper in verse, and with your permission I'll give a pen pic- ture of that benevolent genitis, who "would a sutler be, that profits might accrue": I sing the song of the Sutler, Who fought in the battle of life, The song of the prize-package "Artist," Who never got into the strife. Not the song of the jubilant soldier, Who never forgot to lay claim To the "greenbacks" that stuck in the "Jack Pot" At the end of a winter-night game. But the song of the beautiful Sutler, Who traveled in sunshine and rain, For the sake of the "Almighty" dollar, And whatever else he could gain ; And his youth bore no flower on its branches But his age was a bright sunny day, For the prize that he gloriously grasped at Was the cash that he carried av/ay. And the work that he did for the army — In the rear of the soldiers was seen. Beautiful Washington. 49 Where he set up his crackers and herrings, And the smell of the festive sardine, That he sold to the boys on a credit, Or the clamp of a paymaster's lease; And six boxes he gave for five dollars, While the rest brought a dollar apiece. AVhile the world at large sheds a tear, To the hero that may be bereft, I drink to the Grand Army Sutler, Who never was known to get left ! Who rushed to the front when the camp-fires Lit up all the hills without fear; But at the first crack of the rifle, He galloped away to the rear. With his pipes, his tobacco and whiskey, And his barrels of sour lager beer, And he never let up on his running Till the Long Bridge appeared to his view. Where he opened up shop in his wagon. And "roped in" the gay " Boys in Blue." How he held to his faith unseduced, With the glint of the cash in his eye; And for this great cause how he suffered! For the cash, not the country, he'd die! Then rear to the Sutler a temple, Of granite and brass that will stay. Where the spirit of Shylock shall hover. And beam on the " Blue and the Gray," 50 Beautiful Washington. That once paid a tribute to genius, With a gall that no mortal could rule, And a smile like a lightning-rod peddler, And a cheek like the Grand Army mule! GEORGETOWN HEIGHTS. A couple of miles up the Potomac from the Long Bridge, near the head of Analostan Island, you behold the so-called Aqueduct Bridge and the classical Georgetown University, its sky and star-kissing towers looming up like another group of castles on the romantic Rhine. The bridge once carried along its creaking and crumbling timbers the turbid waters of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, conceived and encour- aged by General Washington for the purpose of intermarrying the trick- ling rills of the Ohio River with the mountain brooks of the Potomac — Beautiful Washington. 51 That leaps and roars and glides and pours Its waves o'er rocks and lea; And through the bay, so far away, Is tossed into the sea. Georgetown College was estab- lished by Bishop John Carroll, cousin of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, signer of the Declaration of Independence, in the year 1789, and has been ever since successfully carried on by the Jesuit fathers, brave and faithful fol- lowers of St. Ignatius Loyola, Las Cassas, Marquette, and De Shmitt, and were among the earliest pioneers of religious and material civilization in this Western Hemisphere. They have left their footprints and their names indelibly impressed on the mountains, lakes, streams, and cities of this giant Republic. The greatest good to the greatest number, and the largest liberty for all, was their motto. 52 Beautiful Washington. Freedom for all to worship God ! Should be our country's pride; I care not how you kneel or pray — For man, our Saviour died. CABIN JOHN BRIDGE — GREAT FALLS. Continuing up the Potomac we see pine-clad cliffs throwing their ghostly shadows over the storm-scarred rocks and troubled waters of the Little Falls and Chain Bridge. Close to the southern end of this bridge Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and John Randolph, of Virginia, fought a duel in 1826. Randolph at the first fire sent a bullet through the dress coat of Mr. Clay, when the seconds interfered and insisted on a truce. Courtesies were finally exchanged, when Clay jocularly remarked: **Mr. Randolph, you owe me a new coat." The satirical and eloquent Virginian replied: /'Mr. Clay, I shall be de- Beautiftd Washington. $3 lighted to give you an order on my tailor for a new suit." Thus did statesmen settle affairs of honor in those chivalric days, but not always with such happy results. The Cilly and Graves, Barron and Decatur, and many Bladensburg duels closed with blood and death. The code, at least, made people par- ticular about giving insults. We may now take the electric train along the Palisades of the Potomac to Glen Echo, a festive and musical resort, where — "Joy leaps on faster with a louder laugh, And sorrow tosses to the sea his staff; Then pushes back the hair from his dim eyes To look entrancedupon our shining skies !' ' Cabin John Bridge, a mile away, spans a brawling creek, and carries over its granite shoulders the great 54 Beautiful Washington. volume of water that supplies Wash- ington and its three hundred thou- sand people. The bridge and conduit were built by General Meigs of the Regular Army, under the administrations of Pierce, Buchanan, and Lincoln, cost- ing up to date nearly five millions of dollars. It is the longest single stone arch in the world — 220 feet long and 100 feet high from the center of the creek. Standing beneath the lofty arch, in the month of June, with the wild flowers in bloom, the birds building nests and singing to their mates, and the warm sunshine glinting among the emerald hills and the soft south wind sporting with zephyrs among the palpitating leaves of the forest, lovers of nature and her gracious God may gaze entranced upon the summer scene. Beautiful Washington. 55 Echo, the wood nymph, also plays her sportive and fantastic part, for, under the northwest end of the grace- ful span, sweethearts and gallants, youth and old age, may talk to each other in whisper or organ tone, and receive in return — "measure for measure." The traveler can get a volume of ''back talk;" and, my friends, that's where the ladies have no natural advantage over us "poor," "downtrodden," "humble," so-called "Lord's of Creation." Seven miles to the northwest we suddenly come upon the roaring waters of the Great Falls and a long granite dam, that turns the rushing Potomac aside into the head of the brick tunnel, nine feet in diameter and sixteen miles to Washington. The eternal voice of the falls sounds in the lingering ear like the wizard 56 Beautiful Washington. wail of Time. Day and night, through countless ages, this incessant chorus has no ending. Rains, snows, storms, and lightnings have beaten and lashed these rugged rocks and foam- tossed waves. Grand and sublime are the works of the Creator ! I hear in the voice of the thunder, The glory and greatness of God; I see in the flash of the lightning The sweep of his glittering rod. I feel in the rush of the rain, The flow of His melting tears; And I hear in the midnight winds The music of all the spheres. I see in the limitless ocean, The swell of His heaving breast, And long for the hour when I shall sink To His bosom of infinite rest! ARCHITECTURAL BEAUTIES. A closer view of Washington will fascinate the traveler with its rare Beautiful Washington. 57 sights, and strongly impress him with the progress and patriotism of our young RepubHc ; and, wonderful to say, there are living to-day men and women who were present at its birth. Grouped along and around Penn- sylvania avenue are a number of in- teresting objects to the tourist from foreign lands, and even local citizens should endeavor to see and know the rare things that lie at their doors, un- noticed and unappreciated. Strange to say, how ignorant we are of the beauties and romantic scenes of our own country while running after the gaudy and glittering sights of the Old World. We, of course, cannot boast of templed ruins, six thousand years old, dedicated to Isis and Osiris, crumbling, ivied mantled palaces and pyramids erected by slaves, as homes and tombs to the memory of for- gotten kings. 58 Beautiful Washington. No! but we can point to the lofti- est stone monument on the globe, five hundred and fifty-five feet high, raised by freemen to the memory of General George Washington, whose name shines out to-day and shall shine adown the ages with a luster that time cannot dim nor tyrants destroy. The corner-stone of this grand monument was laid in the hearts of the American people ; its shining mar- ble face is typical of their purity and patriotism, and its bright aluminum cap, courting the radiant sunbeams and mystic moonbeams of Jehovah, is the symbol of their celestial aspira- tion ! A bird's-eye view from the top of this great stone shaft, with Wash- ington and the rolling hills of Mary- land and Virginia shining at your feet, with the serpentine Potomac flowing by its base, is well worth a trip from any part of Europe. Beautiful Washington. 59 Poetry — the sigh and song of the soul; Music — the essence of the Di- vine; Sculpture — breathing thought in marble and bronze, and Painting, purity of ideal on canvas, finds a hearty reception and earnest wel- come in this land of Law and Liberty. The new Corcoran Art Gallery is the classic resting place and mauso- leum of ideals, evolved and fashioned by the soul of genius — a poem in pure white marble. Millions yet unborn will visit the columned corridors of this gallery, and get inspiration for a better and higher life from the dumb, though speaking memorials that artists have left behind in marble, bronze, and pictured poetry. 6o Beautiful Washington, CHARLOTTE CORDAY. Charlotte Corday, whose melan- choly face you see behind those prison bars, is one of the most sought for memorials in the gallery. The self- sacrificing, heroic act of this beauti- ful country girl, appeals to the heart of mankind; and so long as love of liberty finds lodgment in the soul, her honored name and daring deed will be fondly remembered. Al- though poor, she was descended from a noble family. The French Revolu- tion, with its untold horrors and dying groans, echoed over the vine- clad hills of France and rebounded among the crags of the Pyrenees, where this young girl heard its fear- ful wail. Her father and friends had been arrested, thrown into prison, or sent unceremoniously to the guillo- Beautiful Washington. 6i tine. She belonged to the liberty- loving Girondists and hated the mon- strosities of the jacobins, led by Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. In the silence of her own soul she con- ceived and determined to rid the world of Marat, a tyrant and fiend incarnate. He had been known be- fore the Revolution as a quack doctor, a blackmailing, scurrilous newspaper fellow, and a thief! This glorious girl, after days and weeks of hunger and toil, arrived in Paris, and after several efforts, found the tyrant in his bath-tub. She presented a petition for the release and pardon of her father and friends, and received the reply : '' To- morrow they shall go to the guillo- tine, and 200,000 more shall follow in their pathway!" Hearing this, she immediately plucked from her 62 Beautiful Washington. gown a concealed dagger and plunged it through the tyrant's heart, who gave one wild shriek and died like a poisoned rat! Thus perished that devil incarnate on the 13th of July, 1793. Four days after, the Revolutionary Tri- bunal sent her to the guillotine. Her last words to her confessor were — *' I killed a tyrant, and I'm proud of my act! " NAPOLEON AND C^SAR. Behold Napoleon sitting in marble contemplation looking over a map of the world, figuring, no doubt, how to rob, ruin, and murder mankind for his inordinate and insane ambition. ''Such a consistency and inconsis- tency were never united in the same man." "A professed Catholic, he imprisoned the Pope; a pretending Beautiful Washington. 63 patriot, he impoverished the country, and in the name of Brutus he grap- pled without remorse and wore with- out shame the diadem of the Cassars." He w^as the incarnation of egotism! The king's charity scholar from Corsica became the enemy of his benefactors. He was naturally mean and mathe- matical, daring and cowardly, as shown by his bold attack and flight from Waterloo, and his murder of three thousand Arab prisoners in Egypt. Instead of perishing with his Old Guard, on the field of slaugh- ter, he fled like a poltroon to Paris, and was immediately forced to ab- dicate his imperial crown, and, in fear of his own people, sneakingly ran away and surrendered to a British sea captain, and was swept over the ocean to die a broken-hearted exile on the barren rocks of St. Helena. 64 Beautiful Washington. " The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, And all that beauty, all that wealth ere gave. Await alike, the inevitable hour — The paths of glory lead but to the grave!" Julius Caesar, born July 12, one hundred years before the birth of Christ, surpassed in military genius Pompey and Crassus. His assassina- tion by his illegitimate son Brutus and sixty other Senators, was the acme of ingratitude and cowardice. During the career of this wonderful man, poet, orator, warrior, historian, and statesman, the conquering eagles of Rome swept like a cyclone over the romantic crags of the Appenines, the hot sands of Egypt, the vales and mountains of Spain, the isles of Greece, the plains of Gaul, the Black Forest of Germany, and over the sea to Britain and Ireland. Beautiful Washington. 65 Then, as if wheeling in a circle of victorious grandeur, he crossed the Rubicon, in defiance of a jealous Senate, and entered Rome, with his battle-scarred legions, to perish at last by the hands of cowardly con- spirators. He was of a noble and kingly pres- ence, standing more than six feet, slender and pale, with prominent nose, large flashing black eyes, bald head, wearing no beard. He had marvelous versatility, and excelled in everything he undertook, and died at the age of fifty-six. The divine Shakespeare singles him out of the human race as the greatest mortal of all ages. Listen to his sententious encomiums pro- nounced by his friend and compeer, Marcus Antonius: 66 Beautiful Washington. " O Mighty Cassar! dost thou lie so low? Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils. Shrunk to this little measure? Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times. . . . But yesterday, the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world; now lies he there. And none so poor to do him reverence!" WAR DEPARTMENT. Emerging from the east door of the gallery, guarded by two bronze lions, we look across the street and see the imposing State, War, and Navy Department rearing its bright gran- ite columns, six stories high, into the glaring sunlight. The War Depart- ment was first established in 1789; and when the Government archives were removed to Washington in 1800, a brick building was erected. In 1 88 1 this grand structure was Beautiful Washington. 67 erected to accommodate three De- partments; and the stone columns of the old building were removed to Arlington Cemetery and set up as memorial gateways to that beautiful home of the dead. This building is four hundred and seventy-one feet long, two hundred and forty feet wide, and two hundred feet high. At the old site, on the northeast comer, Jefferson Davis once sat as Secretary of War, under the admin- istration of Franklin Pierce. After- wards his name became world-wide and notorious as the President of the Southern Confederacy. Stanton, his former Democratic friend, became his successor as Secre- tary of War under the administra- tion of the immortal Lincoln. For a period of four years of battle and blood Stanton struggled against re- 68 Beautiful Washington. bellion with inveterate desperation, and with the aid of Grant and his sol- diers throttled and choked it to death and tumbled its fabric into the crim- son waters of the Appomattox ! WHITE HOUSE — PRESIDENTS. The White House, or Executive Mansion, immediately to the east of the War Department, is an object of great interest to travelers from for- eign lands, and a never-failing source of joy and pride to every American. Thousands of strangers visit and view the building every week in the year, and every American school boy is taught to believe that he may occupy it as President of the United States, if, like George Washington, he is truly good and never told a lie ! Many of our Presidents came from the common people ; and we have had Beautiful Washington. 69 very few aristocrats, and even those were not like Royal Bluffers. Jackson was a poor orphan boy and Indian fighter; Polk was rocked in a sugar- trough cradle; Taylor, "Old Rough and Ready," was a farmer's boy; Lincoln was a rail-splitter and boatman; Johnson was a tailor; Grant was a tanner; Garfield was a roustabout canal boy, and McKinley was raised on a farm and enlisted as a private soldier. Roosevelt had the advantage of wealth, education, and ambition. All our Presidents have been men of veracity. The promises they give before election, they keep after elec- tion — in cold storage! Put absolute trust in man when he is a corpse. The White House was the first Gov- ernment building put up in Washing- ton. The comer-stone was laid, with 70 Beautiful Washington. Masonic honors, on the 13th of Octo- ber, 1792. James Hoban, a bright young Irishman, was the architect. He planned the building almost ex- actly after the beautiful palace of the Duke of Leinster at Dublin, and Washington himself inspected and superintended its erection. After much financial trouble, the sandstone building was finished and occupied in the winter of 1799, a few days before the death of Washington. It cost a quarter of a million of dollars — a big sum for the young Republic to pay for the home of its Executive. The satirists of the day called it the "President's Palace." Washington, who really originated its expansive halls and rooms, looked far ahead. Even after a lapse of a hundred years it looks well and fills its purpose to- day. We are proud of it anyhow. Beautiful Washington. 71 because it has sheltered some of the greatest men that ever lived on the earth. On the 24th of August, 1814, after the battle of Bladensburg, our good friends, the British soldiers, set fire to the building, after eating a very fine dinner that the beautiful *' Dolly" Madison had prepared for a large number of invited guests. For some reason the "redcoats" fled precipi- tately, and, strange to say a heavy, providential fall of rain poured down and extinguished the fire. The house was afterwards repaired. President Madison and his "Darling Dolly" living temporarily in the Oc- tagon House, or Tayloe Mansion, still standing, as you may see, on the corner of Eighteenth street and New York avenue. The East Room is the largest and 72 Beautiful Washington. finest in the White House, being eighty feet long and forty feet wide. Many grand receptions have been held here. Emperors, Kings, Queens, Princes, Dukes, Lords, Earls, States- men, Warriors, Orators, Painters, Sculptors, Musicians, and Poets, of world-wide renown, have trod these halls, embelHshed with all the gay and brilliant hues of pomp and glory. I have enjoyed some rapturous moments circulating under its grand chandeliers, with the pictures of Washington and his good wife Martha beaming, in lifelike pleasure, on the shifting scene. Youth, beauty, gallantry and love enhanced the fleeting hour, while Pro- fessor Sousa and the Marine Band rendered mellifluous airs. Beautiful Washington. 73 " A thousand hearts beat happily ; and when Music arose with its voluptuous swell, Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spoke again, And all went merry as a marriage bell!" Yes, I truly felt there the philoso- phy of my own verse : Laugh, and the world laughs with you! Weep, and you weep alone! This grand old earth must borrow its mirth; It has troubles enough of its own! Sing, and the hills will answer; Sigh, it is lost on the air; The echoes bound to a joyful sound, But shrink from voicing care. Be glad, and your friends are many; Be sad and you lose them all. There are none to decline your nectared wine, But alone we must drink life's gall. There's room in the halls of pleasure For a long and a lordly train, But one by one we must all file on Through the narrow aisles of pain. 74 Beautiful Washington. Feast, and your halls are crowded; Fast and the world goes by; Succeed and give, t'will help you to live, But no one can help you to die. Rejoice, and men will seek you, Grieve, and they turn and go; They want full measure of all your pleasure, Bvit they do not want your woe. STATUES — ^JACKSON, LAFAYETTE. The angles, circles, squares, and parks of the Capital are numerous^ and among its most attractive adorn- ments. There is no city in the world that excels Washington for its broad streets and long avenues. Viewed from the dome of the Capitol, through the soft airs and warm sunshine of leafy June, the "City of magnificent distances," with its steeples, towers, and lofty mansions, looks like a cluster of rubies and opals enmeshed in an emerald setting — brilliant as the varie- gated gems in a jeweler's window. Beautiful Washington. 75 Lafayette Square, across Pennsyl- vania avenue from the White House, is a broad open space, embellished with rare flowers and evergreens, shrubs, pines and old elms, shading bronze statues of illustrious heroes. The equestrian statue of General Andrew Jackson, posed on a rearing bronze horse, is a sight to behold ! I have been on horseback in actual war myself, but I have never had an ani- mal "cavort" with me in that im pulsive fashion! Surrounding the base of the statue are four weather- beaten cannons that were captured at the battle of New Orleans from the British General Packenham, who was killed in that memorable battle. It was the greatest fight in history for the number and kind of troops en- gaged. A few thousand Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana "bush- 76 Beautiful Washington. whackers, " " hunters, ' ' ' ' farmers, ' ' and ''storekeepers," killed and wounded more than two thousand lordly "redcoats." They had been with Wellington on the "Continent," and at the imperial battle of Water- loo! And yet, " Old Hickory" Jack- son, an Irishman's son, humbled the pride of the British lion, and tore from its staff the "Union Jack" and the "Cross of St. George," trampling the colors of monarchy into the swamps of Louisiana! The statue of Marquis de Lafayette and his compeers, presented to the United States by France, adorns the southeast corner of Lafayette Square, originally named in honor of the illus- trious general. The Government placed it on a pedestal of granite in sight of the White House, where he was entertained in 1824 by President Monroe. Beautiful Washington. 77 The name of Lafayette shall never die; 'Twill shine as bright as stars in arctic sky; And Freedom shall his glorious deeds illume Resplendent o'er the darkness of the tomb! The statue of Rochambeau, on the southwest corner, is a splendid speci- men of the heroic warrior. See the Thomas statue, with Luther in the background. TREASURY AND PATENT OFFICE. The Treasury Department, nearby, is an object of great interest, par- ticularly to bondholders ! The people manage to get along with a few "greenbacks" and ** silver certifi- cates," while the national banks have a way of helping themselves. Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice and War Secretary of the Treasury was the father of the "greenback," that conquered the rebellion. Alexander Hamilton, bom in the West Indies, of Scotch and French 78 Beautiful Washington. parents, was the first Secretary of the Treasur}^ He was the greatest in- tellectual manipulator of the Revolu- tionary War, the pioneer of the Con- stitution, and the Jupiter of American finance. Daniel Webster says of this great man, who was murdered by Aaron Burr: *'He smote the rock of national resources and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth! He touched the dead corpse of public credit and it sprang to its feet ! ' ' Would that some power might send us to-day another Hamilton! But, alas! most of our modern statesmen seem but grasshopper politicians buz- zing and chirping only for their per- sonal ambition — pork people in power. The Patent Office is the most per- fect public building in Washington. Its massive Doric marble columns and BeaiitiJMl Washington. 79 full length windows are broad gauge, and fashioned after the classic masters of Grecian architecture. The inven- tions of american genius exhibited within its lofty halls, dazzle the be- holder, and no nation in the world but France excels us in the number of pat- ents annually allowed . In electricity , steam, air, and mechanics we outrival any nation on the globe, and the day is nigh when our inventors and sa- vants will solve the problem of the flying machine. I firmly believe that before the end of the twentieth cen- tury we shall master the navigation of the air. The idea that a crow, or condor, with blood, bones, flesh and feathers, can outdo lordly man, the image of his Creator, is preposterous. My friends, we will not tolerate such an idea, and if some Yankee don't invent a practical flying machine, I'll So Beautiful Washington. try and make one myself, even if I have to straddle Pegasus! See the Government Printing Office — the largest in the world. THE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY. The Free Public Library of Wash- ington, donated by Andrew Carnegie, is built of pure white marble and of Grecian architecture. President Roosevelt, Commissioner Macfarland, and Mr. Carnegie made eloquent speeches on the dedication of the in- stitution, and I contributed the fol- lowing poetic spray to the laurel wreath of victorious education : Temple of Knowledge, pure and white. Shine on in beauty, day and night, The young and old, from sun to sun, Who come and go from Washington, Shall here find food without a stain, To nourish every working brain, That wish to write a lasting name Upon the templed towers of fame. Beautiful Washington. 8i Diffuse thy light adown the ages, Where Hope and Love on golden pages Shall teach this truth in every clime and soil "That those who think must govern those who toil." And to Carnegie shall great glory spring. For. to the people, he is more than king; A man who builds upon the God-like plan. Believing in the "royalty of man!" ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN. Only a block away from the Patent Office, on Tenth street, we behold Ford's Theater, where Wilkes Booth, the crazy actor, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, on the night of the 14th of April, 1865 — five days after the sur- render of Lee at Appomattox. Across the street you behold the house where "Honest Old Abe" breathed his last, at seven o'clock the next morning, surrounded by his Cabinet and sorrowing friends. 82 Beautiful Washington. Though Hberty, justice, and truth have often been nailed to the cross, they have always had a resurrection day. Those who die for liberty become famous on earth and immortal in heaven. The centuries are filled with men and women of heroic mold, but the lofty characters of Christ, Socrates, Galileo, Columbus, Roland, Emmet, John Brown, and Lincoln are eternal in their self-sacrifice and martyrdom for truth. Onward moves the crowding ages Like a flood of golden pages, Filled with treasures of the mind And liberty for all mankind! The assassination of this great man sent a shock through the hearts of mankind, as if a universal earthquake had rocked the firm foundation of the world. Beautiful Washington. S^ The nations went in mourning for his loss, and the crape of sorrow, Hke a lowering cloud, darkened every heart. From the headwaters of the Columbia to the limpid rills of the Indus and from the mountain falls of the Ama- zon to the crags and peaks of the Danube, one universal sigh broke on the breeze and reverberated in the heavy hearts of his own fellow-citi- zens. He was very dear to all the Union soldiers, because he w^as our "Commander and Chief," and we fondly called him " Father Abraham." Rooted firmly and deeply in the rifted rocks of time shall be his temple of everlasting glory. The mountains of America, lifting their heads unto the boundless blue, and the murmur- ing rivers of the continent shall min- gle forever with his fame, but the noblest monument to his memory 84 Beautiful Washington. are the four million shackles struck from the galling limbs of the bonds- men. The example of the immortal Lin- coln shall continue to bless the human race until, crowned with the diadem of Liberty, we shall acknowledge the image of God in all men and pluck from the calendar of our hearts the demon of caste and persecution ! So long as liberty endures, His deathless name shall be A beacon light for every soul That struggles to be free! GRAND REVIEW — A CONQUERING ARMY. A few weeks after the death of this pure patriot a mighty procession took place in Washington. The grand re- view of the Army of the United States in celebration of its blood-bought vic- tories. Although Lincoln was not Beautiful Washington. 85 permitted to behold this vast multi- tude of soldiers and citizens, he knew that the God of battles had given vic- tory to the Union, and like Moses of old, he saw the glory of the "Prom- ised Land" before his eyes closed on earthly scenes. On the 23d of May, 1861, the Union Army crossed the Potomac into Vir- ginia to subdue and conquer the Re- bellion, and exactly four years later, after a terrible war, unparalleled in modern times, the soldiers of the Union who had saved the nation from disintegration and ruin marched in triumph through the Capital, amid the reverberating shouts of multitudes. Cavalry, infantry, artillery, and engineers marched in company front from the heights of Capitol Hill to the heights of Georgetown. From sunrise on the 23d of May to sunset 86 Beautiful Washington. on the 24th these battle-scarred war- riors, more than two hundred thou- sand, tramped along Pennsylvania avenue, in dusty and faded uniforms, with tattered flags waving in the breeze above shining bayonets, and all keeping step to the music of the Union. President Johnson, Secretary Stan- ton, General Grant, the hero of Ap- pomattox, and many noted states- men occupied the reviewing stand in front of the White House. And as General Meade and his Army of the Potomac rounded the corner of Pennsylvania avenue and Fifteenth street, one universal shout was sent up into the air, and echoed and re- echoed until his invincible columns passed the reviewing stand. The second day was more than a repetition of the first ; and when General William Beaiitiftd Washington. 87 Tecumseh Sherman appeared at the head of his unconquerable "Bum- mers," with Logan, Blair, and Slo- cum as his loyal lieutenants, the mul- titude seemed to have lost their heads, and a pandemonium of pleas- ure reigned in the hearts of all true and loyal Americans. Look at those bronzed-faced vet- erans, in torn hats, coats, breeches, and tattered shoes, carrying dented canteens, bulging haversacks, sttiffed knapsacks, cackling chickens, squeal- ing pigs, and followed by crying goats and braying donkeys, and you may get some idea of "Sherman's Bum- mers." I was one of them myself — and, in fact, I haven't got entirely over the disease yet! But, remember, when your laugh and curiosity are over, that those were the boys that captured Buckner 88 Beautiful Washington. at Fort Donelson, killed and routed Johnston's army at Shiloh, defeated and scattered Bragg' s army at Stone River, Chicka manga, Missionary Ridge, and Lookout Mountain, and finally put to flight Johnston, Long- street, and Hood at Knoxville, Re- saca, New Hope, Kenesaw Mountain, Atlanta, Franklin, Nashville, until "Uncle Billy's Bummers" marched through the heart of the Confederacy and planted "Old Glory" over the broken wrecks of the rebellion down by the sounding sea. "So we made a thoroughfare for Freedom and her train, Sixty miles in latitude, three hundred to the main; Treason fled before us, for resistance was in vain — While we were marching through Georgia!" Beautiful Washington. 89 GENERAL JUBAL A. EARLY ALARMED WASHINGTON. The glorious joy of the people of Washington at the "Grand Review" was a great contrast to their conster- nation when General Jubal Early, in the fall of sixty- three, threatened the Capital with his raiding lines of "gray." From the amphitheater of hills to the north, he beheld the dome of the Capitol and the steeples and towers of the city. The men who sleep at the National Cemetery, near Fort Stevens, on the Seventh street road, could once tell the story. Convalescent hospital sol- diers. Department clerks, storekeep- ers, and mechanics held the rebels in check for twenty-four hours. But when the Sixth Army Corps came in sight, with General Wright at its head, 90 Beautiful Washington. he immediately deployed his skir- mishers to the front, and followed them up with column after column of weather and battlefield soldiers, who made quick work of Early and his raiders, driving them from the field in a few hours, never to appear before Washington again. President Lincoln witnessed the fight. It is stated, as a fact, that if Gen- eral Early had not stopped at Silver Springs, the home of old Francis Blair, to drink of its sparkling waters, embellished with "Kentucky trim- mings," he might have captured Washington. What "might have been" never found a place in my philosophy. The eternal now is all of life. It's no use talking or wailing about the past. All successful rebels are patriots. All defeated rebels are traitors. Sue- Beautiful Washington. 91 cess and might make right. Does it? No ! For right is right, and wrong is wrong forever. SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE. The Smithsonian Institute, with its sandstone turrets, towers and gables, is a gift to the United States by James Smithson, an English philanthropist and scholar. It is dedicated to sci- ence, progress, and the diffusion of knowledge, and has been the pioneer and supporter of many colleges and universities. Professor Joseph Henry, whom I had the honor of knowing, one of the fathers of magnetism and electricity, was for many years Superintendent of the Institution. His bronze statue adorns the grounds to-day, while his remains rest under the shadows of 92 Beautiful Washington. Oak Hill. He was a peculiar man, and some people called him "a crank," because he tethered and pastured an alderney cow on the public lawn in sight of his office window, to make sure of getting unadulterated milk. But the eagle heeds not the chirp of the sparrow, or croak of the vulture, and sails right on through its own shining, starlit realm. How true! "The shallows mur- mur, while the depths are dumb." Those who love the study of orni- thology, and wish to while away the hours with the beautiful feathered tribe, can here behold rare specimens artistically arranged in glass cases. The irridescent colors of the hum- ming bird and bird of Paradise, the drab gray colors of the auk, eagle, condor, and wild turkey, with their variety of colored eggs, can be seen here in rich profusion. Beautiful Washington. 93 And the National Museum, a re- cent adjunct, is largely overcrowded with the rarest specimens of natural, artificial, and scientific relics and me- morials. It is a great object-lesson for the rising generation, and school children should often visit this re- pository of rare and interesting sights. Behold the Halls of the Ancients, on New York avenue. BOTANICAL GARDEN. The Botanical Garden, ten acres in extent, at the west end of the Capi- tol grounds, on Pennsylvania avenue, was virtually established about the time the Government archives were removed from Philadelphia, a hundred years ago. It is devoted to the propa- gation of rare plants, flowers, and trees, and can produce those from any land on the globe. Many speci- mens are exchanged for those of the 94 Beautiful Washington. royal gardens of Europe, and the few gardens of London are represented here. Mr. WilHam R. Smith, and his Scotch colHe, in front, both of Cale- donian lineage, have presided over the garden for forty-five years. I mean Smith, not the dog, although he takes as much interest in the flowers and visitors as the superintendent. The dog is poetically inclined, and can bark in the language of Bobby Burns, the patron saint of Mr. Smith, who boasts of his rare collection of Burns' s works. Carnegie, the librar}^ builder, is chummy with Smith. In the background of this picture you see the great Bartholdi fountain that was exhibited by the French Government at the Philadelphia Cen- tennial, and looming over all you see the great glass greenhouse contain- ing the rarest floral productions. Beautiful Washington. 95 Senators, Representatives, Cabinet ministers, their wives and daughters, receive many floral tributes from this garden, and thousands of dollars have been spent by Uncle Sam to teach his nephews and nieces how to culti- vate rare plants and beautiful flow- ers, bright-eyed emblems of the Cre- ator. The money is well spent, and I trust each succeeding year greater appropriations may be made for the propagation and enlargement of these perfumed beauties. "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." The progress and glory of a nation is known by its cultivation of beauti- ful things and grand ideals. For, after all, the ideal is the real' Music is in the soul of the musician before it springs from the lute or the Steinway piano; color and form are in the painter's mind before brushed g6 Beautiful Washington. onto canvas ; the God-like form is in the heart of the sculptor before it ap- pears in marble and bronze, and the sweet songs and sublime periods of the poet thrill his fevered brain before flashed upon an admiring world. POST-OFFICE AND PENSION OFFICE. The Washington City Post-Office on Pennsylvania avenue is a gray granite building of lofty proportions. It covers a whole square, is eight stories high, with a pointed roof and square tower 365 feet from the pavement to the pinnacle. There is a great clock in the tower, with illuminated dials, at the cardinal points fifteen feet in diameter. The minute-hand is eleven feet long, and the hour six feet six inches. The Ro- man numerals are twenty-six inches, Beautiful Washington. 97 and, taking the great " town clock" all in all, it is the finest in the United States. The office has as good facilities for the entrance and exit of mail matter with light and ventilation as any in the world. Like the Washington Monument, National Library, and Capitol, the great City Post-Office is one of the most prominent objects of Washington, seen for many miles around under the mellow moonbeams or shimmering sunlight. The site and structure of this building cost three millions and a quarter of dollars ana has forty acres of floor area. The Pension Office, the largest brick building in the world, employs three thousand clerks in adjusting and pay- ing the biggest pension roll in the world, for the largest triumphant army of modern times. 9 8 Beautiful Washington. The great building is used for the purpose of inaugural balls, where the new President and thousands of his friends shine in resplendent glory, and gorgeous banners, golden mottoes, and enchanting music thrill the hearts and souls of brave men and fair women. General M. C. Meigs, Quartermaster General of the United States, and en- gineer, was the architect of the Pen- sion building. This loyal, honest Army officer disbursed during the late rebellion the sum of three billions of dollars and accounted for every cent. He rests from his labors under the oak shadows of Arlington, and as long as the murmuring Potomac at its feet glides onward to the sounding sea, Meigs and his soldier comrades shall be gratefully remembered by a liberty- loving people. Beautiful Washington. 99 PRIVATE MANSIONS. There are many fine private man- sions in Washington, with spacious halls bordered with onyx and marble staircases, with mahogany and rose- wood balusters, and lofty golden gilt parlors, bearing on their walls oil paintings and pictured tapestries from the hands of old masters. Fifty thousand dollars would not purchase some of these art treasures. Among the large number of costly and artistic buildings may be seen Henderson castle, at the head of Flor- ida avenue and Sixteenth street, over- looking the Capitol, from whose towers, on a clear day, the woodland heights of Mount Vernon, twenty miles away, may be distinguished by the traveler. Ex-Senator John B. Henderson, of L.cfC. 100 Beautiful Washington. Missouri, is the fortunate owner, and, with his charming wife and son, enter- tains lavishly. He is a national poli- tician, a daring diplomat, a noted financier, an able lawyer, and a gen- erous patron of belles lettres, art, and science. The Sherman mansion, opposite Franklin Park, is built of gray rock, as solid and true as the bold Secretary of the Treasury, who resumed specie payment in the face of chronic grow- lers and financial fakirs, who forever prophesy ill and do nothing ! On the north side of Lafayette Park you behold the home of John Hay, the author of ''Little Breeches," *'Jim Bludsoe," private secretary of President Lincoln, and Ambassador to England. He was once a poor newspaper Bohemian, and, like Whitelaw Reid, late Ambassador to Beautiful Washington. loi France, married a fortune. But his money and political power will soon pass away, and be lost and forgotten like the sparkling dews of morning, when the rich philosophy of "Ji^ Bludsoe" will carry the name of the Poet Hay down the circling years. "Hewar'nt no Saint, but at Judgment day I'd stand my chance with 'Jim;' Alongside 'er some pious 'Gent' That wouldn't shook hands with him. For he saw his duty clar, And he done it thar and then; And Christ aint a goin' to be too hard On a man what died for men!" There are a number of business buildings in Washington devoted to banking, trade, and merchandise, and while the Capital is not a city of great firms or manufacturing establish- ments, there is no good reason why the waters of Rock Creek and the falls of the Potomac should not be har- 102 Beautiful Washington. nessed to electric machinery that would light and heat the National Capital as well as turn the mill wheels of great manufacturing structures. The Washington Loan and Trust Company building is a fine symmet- rical granite and iron structure, oc- cupied by the best business men of the city. Its first floor is devoted to banking, and contains large safe deposit vaults with untold wealth within its lockers. John Joy Edson, of the institution, in conjunction with B. H. Warner and others, have been the main props in its organization. They are self- made, typical business men, and an honor to any community. The new Western Union Telegraph building is a landmark of practical progress, having a connection with twenty-five thousand miles of wire, Beautiful Washington. 103 five ocean cables, and a telegraph transfer money system that reaches around the civilized world. The Baltimore Sun building is a ten-story brick, stone, and iron foundation, filled with various pro- fessional people, its three upper stories being used as offices for the Interstate Commerce Commission. Its tapering tower is a center point of Washington, and from its windows can be seen the variegated hues of the Capitol, nestling in a sea of emerald foliage at its base. The Washington Star newspaper building is one of the finest offices in the nation, ten stories high, built of white marble. THE STAR. Twinkle, twinkle, Evening Star! It's no wonder that you are Far above the world so high — Marble poem in the sky! I04 Beautiful Washington. For through all your growing years, With the people's smiles or tears, You have sympathized and wrought In the noblest, loftiest thought. The Washington Post building, constructed of gray rock from the Buckeye State, is one of the most prominent buildings on Pennsylvania avenue, sheltering newspaper cor- respondents of distant cities and the Associated Press. See the great New Willard Hotel. The Boston Dry Goods House, on F street, is a point of constant in- terest to the passing tourist, male or female. From four to five o'clock of a sunny afternoon, when the pigeon- hole people of the various Depart- ments or clerical galley slaves es- cape from their official sweat-boxes, and airs, not from Araby the blessed, mingle with the universal run of human fish that wiggle, squirm, Beautiful Washington. 105 glide, and dart along this highway of Vanity Fair. The moving mass is certainly a sight to the contempla- tive beholder, who has eyes to see, ears to hear, and heart and brain to feel. WASHINGTON VANITY FAIR. Ethnologically speaking, Washing- ton can show in the winter season a variety of humanity seldom seen elsewhere. See the tall Texan and cavalier Kentuckian jostle against the quick- step man from Michigan and Massa- chusetts. The Creole from New Or- leans crowds the corporation counsel from New York. The listless man from the everglades of Florida cir- cles around the independent Cali- fomian. The rushing hustler from Colorado and Kansas elbows the io6 Beautiful Washington. pride of Old Virginia, and the Hoosier from the Black Jack prairies and sycamore bottoms of Indiana bumps against the Buckeye from the '' United States of Ohio," who holds an elastic mortgage on political power and claims a fee simple on the earth. Then pepper this moving throng of Americans with the Italian dago, the cruel and swarthy Spaniard, the fan- tastic Frenchman, the stolid Ger- man, the arrogant EngHshman, the wild-eyed, mercurial Irishman, the canny Scotchman, the smart dressed- up Jap, the moon-faced Chinaman, the bell-crowned Korean, the tur- banned Turk, the fur-faced Russian, the lonely, lingering Indian, the emancipated negro, the sharp and everlasting Jew — and you have a kaleidoscopic view of peripatetic hu- manity rarely seen on the face of the globe. Beautiful Washington. 107 And to make the scene more en- hancing and thrilUng, you hear the rush and roar of electric cars and the rumble of shining carriages swept along by bobtail bays, among dodg- ing bicycle riders and automobiles, all moving over smooth asphaltum pavements that extend for one hun- dred and ten miles, running over three hundred and sixty-six miles of sewers, ranging from two to twenty-two feet in diameter, large enough to drive through with a farm hay wagon. Washington is a city of severe contrasts. You may behold any day in the week the ramshackle shanty of the Caucasian or colored citizen stand- ing beside the mansion of the million- aire, and the creaking cart of the rag- picker rolling along beside the costly carriage and royal outfit of foreign io8 Beautiful Washington. diplomats. There is less toadyism among the business and independent people of Washington than any class of citizens in the United States. They give no flattery or genuflec- tions to official functionaries from the backwoods, who accidentally or other- wise come to Congress, and even periodical President's and Cabinet clerks are not sought after by solid citizens, and are only great for a short season, in their own estimation, or the shining sycophants who follow in their social or official trail. Washingtonians know how hollow, insincere, and ephemeral are all the blandishments of official life, and pass them by with supercilious in- difference, or studied contempt. Beautiful Washington. 109 CURIOUS AND NOTED PEOPLE. For more than thirty-five years I have known many curious, notori- ous, and famous people about the National Capital. Beau Hickman, a kind of Beau Nash or Beau Brummel, lingered around the city as a sport and genteel "dead beat," claiming to be one of the F. F. V.'s — a fellow of stale jests, who lived on his wits, pandering to the vanity and credulity of the pass- ing throng — a cast-off garment of rural gentility. See *'Col." Pinch over, the railroad "inventor." Billy McGarrahan, the genial and jolly Irishman, died a short time ago of a broken heart, after trying for nearly forty years to get back the ranch and quicksilver mine that was filched from him by a California corporation. no Beautiful Washington. But the celebrated "McGarrahan claim" is only one of the vast number that have been on the calendar of Congress and the Departments for a number of years. Poverty-stricken heirs have struggled in vain, genera- tion after generation, to induce the Government to liquidate its honest obligations. If the individual would act the part of a bluffer and official robber, as the Government does through its pampered officers, bank- ruptcy or the prison would be its portion. The progress of great cities has been advanced and pushed forward by bold or brilliant men. Pericles and Phidias pushed Athens up to the highest pinnacle of art and power, with the classical Parthenon shining as a crown of architectural glory, while Alcibiades and Aspasia reigned as fashion monarchs of the hour. Beautiful Washington. iii Paris, with its crooked streets, dens of poverty and iniquity, was straightened out into great avenues, open parks, spacious sewers, and im- mense water works by the daring Baron Haussmann, architect for Louis Napoleon. And Washington City, the Paris of America, was taken from a cobble- stone, straggling town, filled with dust and garbage, and built up out of the mud of ignorance and slavery and placed in the concrete of freedom, by that other Baron Haussmann, Alexander R. Shepherd, whose bronze monument will soon decorate one of the most extensive parks of the Capi- tal. There is one character that has lingered around Washington for a hundred years, more or less, and he is a consolidated individual known as 112 Beautiful Washington. the ''office-seeker," "office-holder," and "office-loser," who, as you may- observe, has arrived at the last stage of the game. A Texas blizzard seems to have visited the retired statesman. He is one of the "Ex's" that can be found out without an X-ray, and this is his parting soliloquy: Yesterday, I was a seeker for office and glory and cash; To-day I'm a "holder" and settled and dine upon fresh turkey hash. Yesterday, I climbed the ladder the people put up for my cheer — To-day I'm a big bloated bladder — And drawing five thousand a year. To-morrow, then, I am forgotten, and off for the wild woolly West, To feel like an outcast that's rotten — Or a cuckoo without any nest! NATIONAL LIBRARY. The diffusion of knowledge and the education of the people is the best Beautiful Washington. 113 guarantee of the perpetuity of the nation. Adversity is the common school of philosophy, and prosperit}^ the uni- versity of wisdom, while grand archi- tectural beauty elevates the soul into the realms of sublimity. From the invention of letters and hieroglyphics by the Babylonians and Egyptians to the pen parchments of Greece and Rome and the type print- ing of Germany, there has never been such a magnificent structure erected for the reception and repository of letters and books as that recently completed by the United States. A thousand years hence, Mac- aulay's traveler from New Zealand, after sketching the ruins of St. Paul from the broken arches of London Bridge, may take his aerial flight west- ward over the roaring billows of old 114 Beautiful Washington. ocean, with the speed of a wild pigeon and, resting for a moment on the aluminum pinnacle of the Washing- ton Monument, sketch the granite columns and golden dome of the Na- tional Library, still towering into the sunlight of freedom and shining with- pristine glory over a Republic of five hundred millions of independent Americans. There it stands, a mausoleum for the general sheaves of genius; a beacon light of hope and love, where the poet, musician, painter, and sculptor clasp hands with science and religion, irradiating the world with their lofty thoughts in books and bronze. Washington City is the national granary for books; and from all the fields in the world it daily, weekly, and yearly gleans sheaves and stacks of thought that is mounting to an Olympus of universal knowledge. Beautiful Washington. 115 The people of Washington are the most omniverous thinkers and readers in the country; and there are more private, club, school, society, frater- nal, and public places where books of all kinds can be found than any other city in this Republic. Advantage for education, both theoretical and through noted object- lessons, are greater here than else- where, and it is considered a privilege by the citizens of the various States of the Union to live in the intellectual and social atmosphere of the Capital. This building is the largest, safest, and most costly library in the world, constructed of granite, marble, onyx, brick, terra-cotta, steel, iron, and glass, lit by two thousand windows, and absolutely fireproof. It is four hundred and seventy feet long, three hundred and forty feet ii6 Beautiful Washington. wide, and two hundred feet high to the tip of the golden torch that illumes its crest. More than four hundred thousand cubic feet of granite, twenty- three millions of brick, four thousand tons of steel and iron, and a hundred thou- sand barrels of cement were used in the construction of this grand Pan- theon of ideals. It cost about seven millions of dollars. The colossal fountain, with the sea god Neptune and his court, strikes the eye of the beholder when first he views the west front, and the main entrance pavilion, with its flowing granite steps, lamps, columns, and statues, is unequaled on the globe. There is the grand staircase, beau- tiful, artistic, and lofty, with the lamps of genius illuminating the footsteps of the traveler, while the great octag- Beautiful Washington. 117 onal reading-room, sixty feet high, with statues of great thinkers crowning its rim and artistic paintings bright- ening its concave dome. Every school boy and girl and teacher in the Republic should view and contemplate this poem in stone, once in their lives; and when age comes on they should speak of its beauty and glory to their children and children's children, teaching them — That Truth and Beauty never die, But like the star-lit radiant sky, They shine resplendent o'er the wave And gild the gloom that wraps the grave. FIRST VIEW OF WASHINGTON. One cold, drizzling evening in No- vember, 1866, I viewed for the first time the straggling outskirts of Wash- ington, with the great white dome of ii8 Beautiful Washington. the Capitol beating back the whirhng clouds of a gloomy sunset. Arriving at the ramshackle Balti- more and Ohio depot, on New Jersey avenue, under the very shadow of the Halls of Congress, where it still dis- figures and disgraces the city, I made my way to Pennsylvania avenue along First to Second street over a rus- tic wooden bridge spanning the slug- gish Tiber or Goose Creek, putting up for the night at the old Washington House, a noted resort for Congress- men and Indians. The new Union depot, with its approaches, costing five millions of dollars, will be one of the greatest pas- senger terminals in the world. It is seven hundred feet long, two hundred feet wide, and fifty feet high, present- ing an architectural front as imposing as the classic structures of Ionian Isles . Beautiful Washington. 119 When all the railroads and coal mines of the nation are consolidated, purchased, and operated by the Gov- ernment, the day of strikes and riots will be at an end, and the people will be the common and preferred stock- holders in all our commercial traffic. Broken macadam and cobble-stones constituted the street equipment, and board planks and rough bricks were used for foot pavements. Loaded wagons drawn by mules often sank in the mud to the hubs on Pennsylvania avenue. Seventh, and Fourteenth streets, while hogs, cattle, goats, geese, ducks, buzzards, and vagrant dogs acted as scavengers for the city. These animals seemed to constitute themselves into a board of health, as it were, not finally relieved until 1871, when Senators, Representatives, and Executive awoke to the fact that this I20 Beautiful Washington. was a civilized age and this city the Capital of the great Republic. Soon after, Governor Alexander R. vShepherd, with a competent Board of Health and Board of Public Works, began the real foundation of the new Washington, and ever since the au- thorities of the Capital have been working out the grand plan made by Major L' Enfant, who first surveyed, under the eye of George Washington, the City of Magnificent Distances. I remember muddy Tiber Creek, running across Second street, through the Government propagating garden, Missouri Park, Smithsonian Grounds, Agricultural and Monument lots, along B street to Nineteenth, where it flowed in lazy ripples, smelling in summer and freezing in winter, where the small boy, black and white, swam and skated as the season permitted. Beautiful Washington. 121 Those were 'happy, bhssful, igno- rant days for the citizens of Wash- ington, who were just rubbing their astonished eyes and waking up out of the Rip Van Winkle sleep of slavery. The blue coats of the North, like the blue birds of the forest, brought in the spring of life and progress in their train, and began to build up the waste places of the South, so fearfully ravaged by the terrible hands of fratricidal war. At that time, 1866, Washington City and Georgetown looked more like the wreck of a military and hospital camp than a stately city. Its hills, vales, and houses had been scarred and thrilled with the passing tramp of a conquering army, and the sur- rounding country bordering on the Potomac and Anacostia presented a network of rifle pits, redoubts, and 122 Beautiful Washington. forts, some of the bold red crests still battling with the rains, snows, and suns of forty years. These scars of war remain long on the bosom of mother earth, like the scars of defeat linger in the mind of an old soldier ; yet Time, with its heal- ing balm, smooths away the wounds of memory and wrinkles of regret, lifting the soul to a higher plane, where the songs of the victor and the vanquished may mingle in harmonious chorus over the eternal establishment of Union and liberty for all man- kind. The northwest part of Washington has improved with wonderful rapidity, and will continue its onward prog- ress as long as the rolling hills of Georgetown and Rock Creek look down upon the shining spires, tem- ples, and mansions of the Capital. Beautiful Washington. 123 I have seen domestic beasts of all kinds feeding on the grass and gar- bage clumped about the sites of the British Legation, Blaine, Leiter, Pat- terson, and Walsh mansions, and I have warmed myself in the midnight hours on my way to Georgetown by the roaring and flashing fires of brick kilns along P street and Massa- chusetts avenue, where the Blaine and Walsh mansions now stand. The head of Eighteenth and Nineteenth streets, abutting on Florida avenue, was the site of the old Holmead Ceme- tery. Little do the sleepers in those aristocratic brick blocks and flats know that they are living over a graveyard. Yet the whole earth is nothing but the cold and silent tomb of man, and those alive to-day on its rushing surface are not a handful to the millions that rest within its capacious bosom. 124 Beautiful Washington. In the winter of 1867 and 1868 the citizens of the Capital had great fun skating on Babcock Lake from Fifteenth to Nineteenth streets, through the lower end of the White Lot and Monument Grounds, on to the glassy surface of the winding Potomac. The freeze lasted several weeks, and a "rink" was erected where the boys and girls of the city skated day and night, their pathway lit by the light of Luna, whose pale rays shone on love's vows and kisses to the ring and clink of merry revelers. Who can forget those bright, flitting, passionate hours — When hearts beat warmly on that icy shore, Alas ! long vanished to the Nevermore ! Romantic Rock Creek, from the location of the Zoo and Lyon's Mills Beautiful Washington. 125 on to the mouth of the Potomac, was filled with jolly skaters. Where love and laughter thrilled the scene, And life was rushing, brave and keen ; When leaping blood through every vein Destroyed the pangs of earthly pain. Washington is yet in its boyhood. One hundred years from now it will contain two millions of inhabit- ants, and the United States be popu- lated with two hundred millions of free citizens. The Great Falls of the Potomac will be harnessed to mammoth electric dynamos that will generate sufficient power to light the city and run the wheels of great factories and mills that will line the rolling hills of the Potomac on to tidewater, Alexandria, and the Chesapeake Bay. Lordly millionaire mansions will top each knoll and hill around the circling rim of the Capital. ^^ 126 Beautiful Washington. Art and science will find its choicest home in the "City of magnificent distances," and genius, with its tire- less brain, will come from all lands and climes, nestling at last under the glinting glory of the Goddess of Liberty. 4 The patrons o^ poetry, music, painting, and sculpture will find its greatest encouragement in this mod- ern Athens of the Occident, and will "some day" surpass the boasted productions of oriental grandeur. Washington is destined to be the most picturesque city in the world, and while Babylon, Rome, and Constan- tinople boast of their vanished glory and classic heroes, young America, in his strenuous strides of architectirral and electric progress, will outstrip the loftiest dreams of antiquity. Transportation by pneumatic tubes Beautiful Washington. 127 and flying machines will soon be re- solved to practical utility; and we will wonder at the slow progress of our fathers who, in their ignorance, were content with the creeping rail- road trains of to-day! It is preposterous to think and acknowledge that the pigeon, duck, crow, and bustard, that wing the upper ocean of air, have more brains and knowledge than man! No! we shall soon have electric buggies, cars, and trains, filled with human freight, flying over the tallest moim- tainsand stormiest seas, and in our criscross sky sailing we may meet the inhabitants of old Luna or red Mars, who will lead us to the shining worlds beyond this sphere, where life and love are eternal ! The decline, decay, and danger of future Washington, following the 128 Beautiful Washington. role of the rich and illustrious capi- tals of antiquity, will be found in its sordid greed, purse-proud folly, lux- urious display and military tyranny, where the heart and soul are sacri- ficed for the pence, pounds, and dol- lars of Mammon. Then poetry, mu- sic, painting, and sculpture will take flight to other lands, where purity and virtue can find a congenial, happy, and honest home. We bloom and rise but to decay, And then like leaves we pass away, While other hearts and other hands Shall occupy our homes and lands. MONUMENT AND CAPITOL. The traveler from foreign or do- mestic lands approaching the City of Washington by stage, boat, or rail, whether from the foothills of the Blue Ridge, the rocky crags of the Beautiful Washington. 129 Alleghenies, or the placid waters of the Potomac, beholds very often, when thirty of forty miles away, the pinnacle point of the Washington Monument, and the broad swelling dome of the National Capitol rearing its grand proportions three hundred and fifty feet above the Peace Monu- ment on Pennsylvania avenue into the shimmering sunshine of this glorious Republic. The rising sun of dewy morn gilds the Goddess of Liberty with his earliest beams, and as he sinks to rest over the Appalachian chain of mammoth mountains, bathes her form in a flame of mellow, golden light. Before the permanent establish- ment of the Capital at the beginning of this century, it was tossed about like a tramp or poor relation to nine 130 Beautiful Washington. different cities, seeking "a local habitation and a name." The personal efforts of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson finally prevailed with Congress, and it found a lasting home on the vernal banks of the Potomac, where the North and South clasp hands in fra- ternal fellowship forever. The corner-stone of the old sand- stone Capitol was laid by Washington himself, with Masonic ceremonies, on the 1 8th of September, 1790; and the corner-stone of the new marble extension was laid by Millard Fill- more, with mystic rites, on the 4th of July, 1 85 1, and finished in the fall of 1867. The following account is from an eyewitness reported in the Alex- andria Gazette: Beautiful Washington. 131 ACCOUNT OF CEREMONY. " On Wednesday last one of the grandest processions took place which, perhaps, ever was exhibited on the like important occasion. ''Abont 10 o'clock Lodge No. 9, Georgetown, and Lodge No. 22, Alexandria, with all their officers in regalia, appeared on the southern banks of the grand river Potomack. One of the finest companies of volun- teer artillery that has been lately seen paraded to receive the President of the United States, who shortly appeared in sight from Mount Ver- non, with his suite, to whom the artillery paid their military honors, and his excellency President Wash- ington and suite crossed the Potomack and was received in Maryland by the lodges, whom the President 132 Beautiful Washington. headed, and preceded by a band of music, the rear, brought up by the Alexandria Volunteer Artillery, with grand solemnity of march, proceeded to the President's Square, in the city of Washington, where they were met and saluted by Lodge No. 15, of the city of Washington, in all their ele- gant regalia, headed by Brother Joseph Clark, Rt. W. G. M., P. T., and conducted to a large lodge pre- pared for the purpose of their recep- tion. " After a short space of time, by the vigilance of Brother C. W. Stephen- son, grand marshal P. T., the broth- erhood and other bodies were dis- posed in a second order of procession, which took place amid a brilliant crowd of spectators of both sexes ac- cording to the following arrange- ment: Beautiful Washington. 133 " The Surveying Department of the City of Washington. Mayor and Corporation of Georgetown. Virginia Artillery. Commissioners of the City of Washington and their Attendants. Stone Cutters. Mechanics. Two Sword Bearers. Masons of the First Degree. Bibles, &c., on Grand Cushions. Deacons with their Staff of Ofhce. Masons of the Second Degree. Stewarts with Wands. Masons of the Third Degree. Wardens with their Truncheons. Secretaries with Tools of Office. Past Masters with their Regahas. Treasurers with their Jewels. Band of Music. Lodge 2 2 , of Virginia, Disposed in their Own Order. Corn, Wine, and Oil. Grand Master P. T., George Washington, W. M., No. 22, Virginia. Grand Sword Bearer. 'The procession marched two abreast in the greatest solemn dignity, with 134 Beautiful Washington. bands playing, drums beating, colors flying, and spectators rejoicing from the President's Square to the Capitol, in the City of Washington, where the grand marshal ordered a halt and directed each file in the procession to incline two steps, one to the right and one to the left, and face each other, which formed a hollow oblong square through which the grand sword- bearer led the van, followed by Grand Master P. T., on the left, the President of the United States in the center, and the Worshipful Master of No. 22, Virginia, on the right. All the other orders that com- posed the procession advanced in the reverse order of march from the President's Square to the southeast corner of the Capitol, and the artil- lery filed off to the destined ground to display their maneuvers and dis- charge their cannon. Beautiful Washington. 135 'The President of the United States, the Grand Master P. T., and the Worshipful Master of No. 22, taking their stand to the east of a huge stone, and all the craft forming a circle westward stood a short time in silent, aweful order. " The artillery discharged a volley. " The Grand Master delivered the Commissioners a large silver plate with an inscription thereon, which the Commissioners ordered to be read, and was as follows : ' ' The southeast corner-stone of the Capitol of the United States of America, in the City of Washington, was laid on the i8th day of September, 1793, in the thirteenth year of American Independence, in the first year of the second term of the Presidency of George Washington, whose virtues in the civil ad- ministration of his country have been as conspicuous and beneficent as his military valor and prudence have been useful in establishing her liberties, and in the year of 1.36 Beautiful Washington. Masonry, 5793, by the Grand Lodge of Maryland, several lodges under its jurisdic- tion, and Lodge 22 from Alexandria. Va. THOMAS JOHNSON, DAVID STEWART, DANIEL CARROLL, Committee. JOSEPH CLARK, R. W. G. M., P. T. JAMES HOBAN, STEPHEN HALLETTE, Architects. COTTON WILLIAMSON, Master Mason. ARTILLERY HEARD. '^ The artillery discharged a volley. " The plate was then delivered to the President of the United States, who, attended by the Grand Master, P. T., and three most worshipful masters, descended to the Carvellon trench and deposited the plate and laid on it the corner-stone of the Capitol of the United States of America, on Beautiful Washington. 137 which was deposited corn, wine, and oil, when the whole congregation joined in aweful prayer, which was succeeded by Masonic chanting hon- ors and a volley from the artillery. ' * The President of the United States and his attendant brethren ascended from the Carvellon to the east of the comer-stone, and there the Grand Master, P. T., elevated on a triple rostrum, delivered the following ora- tion: " My Worthy Brethren: " I presume you expect I shall in some measure address you on this very important occasion, which, I confess, is a duty incum- bent on me, although quite inadequate to the task, and entirely unprepared, for until high meridian yesterday I was not solici- tous, neither had I a conception to have the performance of this duty. " Therefore, you will accept my observa- tions with brotherly love; they are, I assure you, sincere, and dictated by a pure Masonic heart, though very brief. 138 Beautiful Washington. " Brothers, I beg leave to declare to you that I have, and I expect that you also have, every hope that the grand work we have done to-day will be handed down, as well by record as by oral tradition, to the latest posterity — as the like work of that ever- memorable temple to our order, erected by our ancient G. M., Solomon. '^ Twelve volleys of artillery punctu- ated the oration. ^'The prayer was succeeded by Ma- sonic chanting, and a fifteenth vol- ley from the artillery. ^' The whole company retired to an extensive booth on the Capitol grounds, where an ox of 500 pounds was barbacued, of which the com- pany generally partook, with every abundance of other refreshments. The festival concluded with fifteen successive volleys of artillery whose discipline and maneuvers merit every commendation. Beautiful Washington. 139 " Before dark the whole company departed, with joyful hopes of the production of their labors." CONCLUSION — CAPITOL. One night in June, when the full round moon was bathing that vast dome in a flood of silver light, I sat with my sweetheart on that mar- ble Corinthian column you behold on the southeast comer of the Capi- tol. This was the last column hoisted into place, and I trust when our spir- its hover over this Republic a thou- sand years hence we shall still see this wilderness of angles, pilasters, and classic columns shining in the midday of freedom, in a land where liberty is law and union is eternal ! It would require a month of days and a genius for a guide to describe the beauty and grandeur of the 140 Beautiful Washington. scrolls, stairs, halls, and wide and lofty rotunda of that magnificent struc- ture, the finest in the world. A thousand years that dome shall stand, Above a great, united land; Where Freedom rules from sea to sea And man is only majesty! That Glorious Flag shall ever wave, Above the Tyrant and his grave — And all the people proud and free Shall sing the songs of Liberty! Flash THE Flag in glinting glory To the sunlight and the breeze, While you hear its grand old story Over land and stormy seas. And you'll gather from its beauty The great lesson everywhere — That those who do their duty Are the heroes who will dare. It was born in blood of battle When the glorious, rising sun, Ushered in the musket's rattle On the field of Lexington, Where the "red coats" found a foeman, Who, alert on hill and gorge. Beautiful Washington. 141 Would bow the knee to no man Nor the minions of King George. And Paul Jones of glorious memory, The great captain of the sea, From the masthead of Bonhomme Flew the flag for you and me. And captured the Serapis Upon the English shore, Defeating pirate tyrants On the seas forevermore. And we see it waving proudly Over Yorktown and the James, Where Washington so loudly With cannon voice proclaims, 'Surrender, Cornwallis, With your raiding, robbing crew, And drink the bitter chalice To the 'red and white and blue.' " And again we see it flutter O'er the swamps of New Orleans, Where the wounded "red coats" mutter Round those bloody, deadly scenes. While brave Jackson with his yeomen On grounds so low and mucky Routed all the British foemen With his rifles from Kentucky. And far across the mountains Where the vine and cactus grow, 142 Beautiful Washington. Amid dashing streams and fountains On the plains of Mexico, ''Old Glory" and its heroes Swept the tyrant from his lair, Destroyed the cruel Neros That would chain the people there. And we shall all remember Until our dying day, The storms of wild December, Where the rushing Blue and Gray In deadly grapple battled Over river, vale and crag. Where cannon loudly rattled For the triumph of the flag. From Sumter unto Shiloh From Vicksburg to the sea ; From Gettysburg to Petersburg, With Meade and Grant and Lee. The flag, though torn and tattered, Unconquered still remains, Our Union still unshattered Where love and law still reigns. And over every ocean Has kept its right of way, Alive with brave emotion On to far Manila Bay. Where Dewey and his gunners Wiped out the tyrant stain — Beautiful Washington. 143 Destroyed the naval runners And the prestige of old Spain. And up from Santiago We hear the glorious cry- Where Spanish Don and Dago Yield to men who do or die. And there in bloody battle, Beneath the tropic sky, The heroes of the action Were Wainwright, Clarke, and Schley. And the flag must still go forward Through many bloody scenes, To carry faith and freedom To the far-off Philippines, Where boys in blue are bearing "Old Glory" in the van — The pioneers of daring, For the libertv of man ! END. p^