DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 2X^ 



What I wish especially to be noticed in this connection is the 

 oft-mentioned division of expense between the United States and 

 the District. As we have seen, Congress took notice of this 

 principle in the act of 1820 relating to the Corporation of Wash- 

 ington, and in its act of 1848 on the same subject gave the prin- 

 ciple more specific and extended application. In short, the 

 principle may be said to have existed from the first : and with 

 good reason, seeing that the District was esrablished primarily 

 for the purposes of the National government and that that gov- 

 ernment is the owner of quite half of all the property here with 

 which governmental agencies as the fruit of taxation are con- 

 cerned, as in protection against fire and theft, water supply, 

 &c. Moreover, the National government always bore its due 

 share of the cost of street improvements, &c., adjoining its 

 properties and for long bore exclusively the cost of the fire ser- 

 vice and almost exclusively the cost of the water service in the 

 District. All in all, if either party to the double government of 

 the District ought to be favored in the matter of expense it is 

 the local and not the National government. 



I have expressed the hope that this latest phase of our polit- 

 ical development will be its last. If not this, it seems destined 

 to be the last for some time to come, in view of the light in 

 which it is regarded by the Supreme Court of the United States. 

 In Eckloff v. District of Columbia (135 U. S. 240, 243-4), that 

 Court, speaking of the act of 1878 says : 



The court below placed its decision on what we conceive to 

 be the true significance of the act of 1878. As said by that 

 court, it is to be regarded as an organic act, intended to dispose 

 of the whole question of a government for this District. It is, 

 as it were, a constitution for the District. It is declared by its 

 title to be an act to provide " a permanent form of government 

 for the District." The word permanent is suggestive. It im- 

 plies that prior systems have been temporary and provisional. 

 As permanent it is complete in itself. It is the system of gov- 

 ernment. The powers which are conferred are organic powers. 

 We look to the act itself for their extent and limitations. It is 

 not one act in a series of legislation, and to be made to fit into 

 the provisions of the prior legislation, but it is a single complete 

 act, the outcome of previous experiments, and the final judgment 

 of Congress as to the system of government which should ob- 



