DEVELOPMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 319 



grow. While we find everywhere minute regard for the local, 

 as in the case of the Levy Court and the simple forms of 

 municipal government of the cities, we are everywhere also 

 brought face to face with the National, as in the original Com- 

 missioners of the city, the Superintendent of the City, the Com- 

 missioner of Public Buildings, the Chief of Engineers of the 

 Army, the Metropolitan Police and the Board of Public Works. 

 And, strangest of all, at the very heart of a nation grounded in 

 the notion of " government of the people, by the people and for 

 the people," we see from the beginning the almost aggressive 

 expression of distrust of the popular vote, the absence of which 

 has so often been remarked as the most striking feature of the 

 government of the Capital. Thus always the Levy Court was 

 in its personnel the creature of the President and Senate, while 

 for long the Mayors of the cities were either the choice of the 

 President or of the vote of the people only when filtered through 

 the Aldermen and Councils. Anomalous enough this seems ; 

 but how much more anomalous is it that in the existing and best 

 form of government of the District yet devised, local suffrage is 

 wholly eliminated and that the only real guarantee of local 

 participation in government is the residence qualification of the 

 civilian Commissioners. Food for thought there surely is in 

 this, and an irresistible suggestion to turn again and again to 

 those words of President Monroe which I read to you in the 

 outset. 



But who shall be heard to complain of any of this, when we 

 look about and see the result as shown in our beautiful and or- 

 derly city? beautiful in its topography, plan and embellishment, 

 and orderly beyond all other cities ; rich in wealth and richer 

 still in intelligence : the very Mecca of the patriotism and intel- 

 lect of the country ; the site of the great public institutions of 

 our land and the depository of its priceless archives and scientific 

 and literary collections, which are at once the possession and the 

 pride of the people of the whole nation ; in a word, truly the City 

 of Washington : Washington, who has been aptly characterized 

 as " the greatest of good men and the best of great men," and of 

 whom the soundest of English historians, John Richard Green, 

 has truly said that " no nobler figure ever stood in the forefront 



