A SUMMING-UP OF SIXTY YEARS.
The progress of Washington City during the past sixty years--1827-
1887--has been phenomenal. The United States of America, then
twenty-four in number, now number thirty-eight, bound together by
iron bands, then unknown, while the telegraph and the telephone
add their usefulness to that of the railroads. Domestic rebellion
showed itself, to be overthrown only after a struggle in which the
courage and endurance of the North and the South were equally
demonstrated. The teeming population of Europe has overflowed into
every section of the Republic where wealth is to be won by enterprise
and industry. The fertile prairies of the far West not only supply
the inhabitants of the Eastern States with food, but they export
large quantities of meat and of grain. The workshops and factories
resound with the whir of wheels and the hum of well-paid labor,
which, in turn, furnishes a market for agricultural and horticultural
products. There has been of late a fomentation of ill-feeling and
jealously between classes dependent upon each other, and both
equally valuable to the nation. But, on the whole, it is impossible
to deny that the United States is a free, a prosperous, and a happy
country.
The national metropolis has, during these past sixty years, enjoyed
peaceful progress. In 1827 the population of the entire District
of Columbia was less than seventy-five thousand, of whom sixty-one
thousand were inhabitants of the city of Washington; now the
population of the District is two hundred and three thousand, and
that of Washington is about one hundred and fifty thousand. The
increase of wealth has been even greater than the increase of
population. Then there was not a paved street, and it was often
difficult to extract carriages from mud-holes in the principal
thoroughfares; now there are many miles of stone and asphalt street
pavements, shaded by thousands of forest trees. Then there were
twenty-four churches, now there are over two hundred. Then there
were no public schools for white children that amounted to much,
and it was forbidden by law to teach colored children, now there
are scores of schools, with their hundreds of teachers, and twenty-
six thousand six hundred and ninety-six pupils in the white schools,
and eleven thousand six hundred and forty pupils in the colored
schools--thirty-eight thousand three hundred and thirty-six pupils
in all. The streets, then dark at night when the moon did not
shine, are now illuminated by electricity and gas. The public
reservations are ornamented with shrubs and flowers, while numerous
statues of the heroes and the statesmen of the country are to be
seen in different parts of the city.
That the tone of society has been wonderfully improved during the
past sixty years the earlier chapters of this book bear testimony.
Duels and personal encounters are no longer witnessed at the
national metropolis, and yet our legislators have not grown craven-
hearted, nor do they lack indomitable energy and sound judgment.
Neither is it true that Congress has become demoralized by railroad
speculations, or degraded by the influence of shoddy, although the
war subjected its members greatly to these influences, and some
succumbed to them.
When the silver-toned trumpets of peace proclaimed the close of
hostilities, Washington suffered from the laxity of morals and
corruption attendant upon the presence of a great army of soldiers
and a more unscrupulous legion of contractors. "I have seen," said
Senator Hoar, on the impeachment of Secretary Belknap before the
Senate, "the Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs in the
House, rise in his place and demand the expulsion of four of his
associates for making sale of their official privilege of selecting
the youths to be educated at our military school. When the greatest
railroad of the world, binding together the continent and uniting
the two great seas which wash our shores was finished, I have seen
our national triumph and exultation turned to bitterness and shame
by the unanimous reports of the three Committees of Congress, two
of the House and one here, that every step of that mighty enterprise
had been taken in fraud. I have heard in the highest places the
shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public offices that
the true way by which power should be gained in the Republic is to
bribe the people with the offices created for their service, and
the true end for which it should be used when gained is the promotion
of selfish ambition and the gratification of personal revenge."
The time was when the "Rex Vestiari," as the King of the Lobby
styled himself, on a silver cup which he impudently presented to
a retiring Speaker, had no difficulty in assembling the leading
Congressmen and prominent diplomats around his table to enjoy his
exquisite repasts. But there has come a more vigorous code of
morality, and society is now rarely disgraced by the presence of
these scoundrels.
The tone of the political newspapers of the country has greatly
changed since the Democratic organ at Philadelphia, then the seat
of Government, thanked God, on the morning of Washington's retirement
from the Presidential chair, that the country was now rid of the
man who was the source of all its misfortunes. The Federal newspapers
at Washington City denounced President Jefferson for his degraded
immorality, and copied the anathemas hurled against him from the
New England pulpits as an atheist and a satyr. The letters written
from Washington to newspapers in other cities used often to be
vehicles of indecent abuse, and once one of the caused a duel
between two Representatives, which resulted in the death of Mr.
Cilley, of Maine. While there is less vituperation and vulgar
personal abuse by journalists of those "in authority," the pernicious
habit of "interviewing" is a dangerous method of communication
between our public men and the people. The daily and weekly press
of Washington will compare favorably with that of any other city
in the Union.
A sad feature of Washington life is the legion of Congressional
claimants, who come here session after session, and too often grow
old and destitute while unsuccessfully prosecuting before Congress
a claim which is just, but in some respects irregular. These ruined
suitors, threadbare and slipshod, begging or borrowing their daily
bread, recall Charles Dickens' portraiture of the Jarndyce _vs_.
Jarndyce Chancery suite, which had become so complicated that no
one alive knew what it meant. The French spoilation claims that
were being vigorously prosecuted in 1827 are yet undetermined in
1886. None of the original claimants survive, but they have left
heirs and legatees, executors and assignees, who have perennially
presented their cases, and who are now indulging in high hopes of
success. Government, after more than fourscore years of unjustifiable
procrastination, is at last having the claims adjudicated, and in
time the heirs of the long-suffering holders will be paid.
Up to the commencement of the great Rebellion, Washington was
socially a Southern city, and although there have since been
immigrations from the Northeast and the Northwest, with the
intermediate regions, the foundation layer sympathizes with those
who have returned from "Dixie" to control society and direct American
politics. Many of those known as the "old families" lost their
property by the emancipation of their slaves, and are rarely seen
in public, unless one of the Virginia Lees or the daughter of
Jefferson Davis comes to Washington, when they receive the
representatives of "the Lost Cause" with every possible honor.
There are but few large cities at the South, and intelligent people
from that section enjoy the metropolis, where they are more at home
than in the bustling commercial centres of the North, and where
their provincialisms and customs are soon replaced by the quiet
conventialities and courtesies of modern civilization. There are
a few of the old camp-followers here who perfected their vices
while wearing "the blue" or "the gray," and they occasionally
indulge in famous revels, when, to use one of their old army phrases,
they "paint the town red."
Washington society does not all centre around the Capitol, or in
the legal circle that clusters around the Supreme Court, on in the
Bureaucracy, where vigor of brains atones for a lack of polish, or
among the diplomats, worshiped by the young women and envied by
the young men. Vulgar people who amass fortunes by successful
gambling in stocks, pork, or grain can attain a great deal of cheap
newspaper notoriety for their social expenditures here, and some
men of distinction can be attracted to their houses by champagne
and terrapin, but their social existence is a mere sham, like their
veneered furniture and their plated spoons.
Meanwhile, Washington, from a new settlement of provincial
insignificance, has become the scientific and literary, as well as
the political capital of the Union. Unfitted by its situation or
its surroundings for either commerce or manufactures, the metropolis
is becoming, like ancient Athens, a great school of philosophy,
history, archaeology, and the fine arts. The nucleus of scientific
and literary operations is the Smithsonian Institution, which,
under the direction of Professor Spencer F. Baird, reflects high
honor upon its generous founder, and is in fact what he intended
it should be--an institution "to increase and diffuse knowledge
among men."
In the National Museum there is a judicious admixture of the past
and present, and still more, happily blending with these, are not
only the wonders of the vegetable and floral kingdom, but of those
geological, zoological, and ethnological marvels which it is the
privilege of this age to have brought to light and classified. It
is not only the storehouse of the results of scientific expeditions
fitted out by the United States, but the depository of the
contributions of foreign nations, which added so much to the
Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876. The work of the
United States Fish Commission is too well known to require description,
and is of itself well worth a journey to Washington. Then there
are the museums of the State, the War, and the Navy Departments,
with that of the Department of Agriculture and the Army Medical
Museum.
The Observatory, with its magnificent instruments for astronomical
purposes, the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and the Naval Hydrographic
Bureau, each with its stores of maps and charts; the Bureau of
Education, the Indian Office, the General Land Office, and the
Geological Survey are all scientific institutions of acknowledged
position. The Corcoran Art Gallery, and the Roman Catholic and
the Protestant Colleges, with their law and medical schools, add
to the scientific and artistic attractions of the capital, while
the facilities afforded by the Congressional and other libraries
for study and research are of such a superior character that many
men engaged in scientific pursuits have been attracted here from
other sections.
There are also in Washington the Philosophical, the Anthropological,
and the Biological Societies, devoted to general scientific
investigation, and at the Cosmos Club the scientists develop the
social side of their natures. The house long occupied by Mrs.
Madison has been fitted up by the Club, the membership of which
includes about all of the prominent scientific men in the city,
and it is said that there are more men of distinction in science
in Washington than in any other city in the country.
L'ENVOI
It is not without regret that I lay down my pen, and cease work on
the Reminiscences of Sixty Years, of my life. As I remarked in
the Preface, my great difficulty has been what to select from the
masses of literary material concerning the national metropolis that
I have accumulated during the past six decades, and put away in
diaries, scrap-books, correspondence with the press, and note-books.
Many important events have been passed over more lightly than their
importance warranted, while others have been wholly ignored. But
I trust that I have given my readers a glance at the most salient
features of Life in Washington, as I have actually seen it, without
indulging in sycophantic flattery of men, or glossing over the
unpleasant features of events. "Paint me as I am," said Cromwell,
and I have endeavored to portray the Federal Metropolis as I have
seen it.
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