48 ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL. BOTANIC GARDEN, 



have been interested in getting the extension of Maryland Avenue 

 now for 11 solid years. Eleven years ago a bill was introduced pro- 

 viding for the extension of Maryland Avenue, and we have been 

 trying to get it through, but have never succeeded in getting a favor- 

 able report by the commissioners until the 1st day of December, 1919 ; 

 and I say to you, Mr. Chairman, that here are 80,000 or 90,000 people 

 who are adversely affected by the present construction at that point. 

 Mr. Johnson, sitting here, knows something of the difficulty sub- 

 sisting at that point ; anyone who has been there knows of the condi- 

 tions; and it seems but a simple act of justice that an avenue, an im- 

 portant avenue, which is already a show point of the District, should 

 be extended out to the boundary line of the State in whose honor it 

 was named. 



Mr. Moore. I would like to ask the speaker if the residents of that 

 region are in favor of the Mount Hamilton project? 



Mr. Wood. Why, certainly. There is not a soul opposed to it. I 

 have in my possession here in this room now petitions signed by sub- 

 stantially all the residents there — a large number of residents — and 

 addressed to the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, and 

 they are addressed to the House Committee on the District of Colum- 

 bia, one being an original and the other a duplicate original, because 

 the residents signed both; and they pray that it be clone before fur- 

 ther obstructions are placed in the way. Suppose this were Kentucky 

 Avenue. If this were Kentucky Avenue, I know that this gentleman 

 [indicating Mr. Johnson] would be interested in wiping out the situ- 

 ation there: I know he would be immensely interested. 



Mr. Johnson. I am not so sentimental that I would be controlled 

 by a name. 



Mr. Pell. How much of the improvement that you are advocating 

 would lie paid for by the residents of that particular district, by the 

 people who live down on Bladensburg Road and Benning Road?' 



Mr. Wood. In the bill providing for the extension of Maryland 

 Avenue it is provided that of the amount found to be due and awarded 

 by the jury as damages for and in respect of the land taken for the 

 opening and extension of Maryland Avenue 50 per cent thereof shall 

 be assessed as benefits against abutting property owners, and that the 

 other 50 per cent thereof shall lie taken out of the general tax fund 

 of the District of Columbia: so it will not cost the people of the 

 United States outside of the District of Columbia one single penny: 

 the cost was taken care of that way. If this committee decides upon 

 the acquisition of this land for botanic-garden purposes, then the 

 bill introduced in the House may at once be amended so as to stop 

 the avenue at Twenty-fourth Street, because from that point on in 

 that event we are quite willing to leave the extension and develop- 

 ment of Maryland to the owners, or management, or superintendent 

 of this proposed botanic garden. I have been all over this territory 

 numbers and numbers of times. When you get to Twenty-eighth 

 and M Street here 1 [indicating] Twenty-eighth Street is a perfect 

 Moor, almost like the top of this table, and I think Maryland Avenue 

 should follow the contour of the land rather than run in a straight 

 line. 



We simply urge upon this committee to take action that will duly 

 consider the fact that the Potomac Electric Power Co. owns this Grace- 



: See map 38, end of vol. 2. 



