FIFTY-FIRST CONGRESS, 1889-1891. 13861 
the United States are not to use them. I think I understand that they 
want the people of the United States to come here; and yet it would 
seem that if the District of Columbia should pay for part of this 
park they would want to exclude the people of the United States from 
coming here, and put uy an advertisement of that kind at their front 
door and their back door, and say they do not want people to come 
here, and thus manifest their sincerity in this desire to be excluded 
from the burdens of maintaining this park. 
While it is proper to be just to the people of the District, it is 
equally proper that we should be just to the great body of the people 
of the United States. This isa favored District. It is favored in the 
matter of taxation. There is no city in the United States where the 
taxes are so small as they are here. Iam glad of it. I do not care 
about that; I do not begrudge them any prosperity; but I undertake 
to say that it is one of those benefits which largely grows out of the 
fact that Congress has dealt with them with a generosity which cer- 
tainly is without a parallel anywhere else in this country. 
The Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Dawes] asks me what makes 
real estate here so valuable. It is because this is the capital. It is 
because the Government has assumed one-half the burden of main- 
taining the local government, and thereby makes it an attractive place 
for people to come; and on other grounds besides its being the capital 
the burden of taxation ought to be comparatively small. 
I did not start out to say, and I do not say now, as a matter of final 
conclusion, that this Zoological Park ought not to be the specific prop- 
erty of the Government, to be provided for and maintained out of the 
national Treasury, but I do want to file a caveat against the idea that 
we are to go on here upon the theory that these things are to be done 
out of the Treasury of the United States without making a correspond- 
ing burden on the people of this District. It has been proposed in the 
other body in regard to the enlargement of this park that some por- 
tion of the burden should be assessed upon the adjoining proprietors. 
That is a practice which prevails under the constitutions of various 
States in regard to public improvements, as well, I think, as in regard 
to railroads, and it is founded in justice. It would not be unfair, at 
all events, to say in reference to this park that inasmuch as the adjoin- 
ing property and all the property of the District is benefited it ought 
to pay some portion of the burden. Iam not saying now that it ought, 
but I say it would not be unfair to doit. I think when we come to this 
question it is just as well to take into account all these things, and the 
people out of whom these taxes must come outside of this District, as 
well as to enlarge all the while upon the duty of the Government to 
beautify the District and all that sort of thing,and having a large 
amount of property here of its own which is equally available for all 
H. Doc. 732——86 
