1192 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
made touching expenditures for this District. The distinguished 
gentleman who is now the chairman of the Committee on the District 
of Columbia alleges that the Federal Government ought to be liberal 
in the matter of appropriations here because it owns one-half of the 
property. The gentleman from Tennessee rightly suggested that in 
ascertaining the one-half of the property of the United States it con- 
sisted mostly in streets, alleys, and parks. 
Now, sir, I wish to know if any gentleman will gainsay the question 
that the streets and parks are for the people of this city; and if they 
are, will you undertake to close your eyes to it and charge it as a mat- 
ter inuring to the benefit of other people outside of this District? 
Why, sir, it is strange that such argumentation should obtain in so 
intelligent a body as this. In reference to the water supply here, the 
Government originally paid for it out of the Federal Treasury, and 
this people got it asa gratuity. Then these same people came in a 
few years ago and insisted that the Government of the United States 
should give them an additional water supply; and because, forsooth, 
there may have been some mismanagement in some given place, anwill: 
ing to take their own misfortune, they turn upon the Federal Govern- 
ment and charge it as a crime, wild insist that we shall make it good. 
It is said, sir, that the city a Washington has not been and is not 
fairly treated, is not liberally treated, and has not the same opportu- 
nities that other cities have. What city, sir, in this country—is it New 
York, Philadelphia, or any city in this country—that has the Federal 
Government come to it and take one-half of its burdens in the shape 
of taxation? Yet, sir, that was their singular argument. 
Again, sir, only a few years ago the people of this District com- 
plained that the public health was affected by the Potomac Flats, and 
if we would appropriate, as we have done, millions of dollars for the - 
reclamation of it—and it is going on to-day—we would reclaim 700 
acres of beautiful land lying along the Potomac. A large part of it 
has been reclaimed, a large part is being reclaimed, and yet none 
of the gentlemen who have come before the House conferees, none of 
the gentlemen who appeared before the Committee on the District of 
Columbia, offer to use any portion of the 700 acres or any other area 
owned by the Government of the United States. It is always private 
property that we are to buy. No matter what we have, we can not 
utilize it. There is always some special reason why the necessary 
improvement should not be put on Government land, where it would 
take nothing out of the Treasury. 
My friend from Iowa says he has not heard of this matter at all in 
his interviews with the Senate conferees. It does not appear that that 
committee or the Committee on the District of Columbia ever hear of 
anything in connection with this question of the pur chase of land 
except Rock Creek Park. My friend, the chairman of the Committee 
