10 
PARK AND CEMETERY 
A National 
Congress has authorized an expenditure of some 
millions of dollars for a building to be erected for the 
Department of Agriculture in the City of Washington. 
Its proposed location has been fixed by President 
Roosevelt and the Committee on Agriculture of the 
House of Representatives, in such a manner as serious- 
ly to interfere with the extensive plans of the expert 
commission for the beautifying of the National Capi- 
tal. 
There seemed to be good reason to hope that com- 
prehensive and publicly approved plans, involving an 
expression of the highest type of civic art — so long 
neglected in America — would receive the official stamp 
of approval by the federal government, in a manner 
typically American in its promptness, wisdom and posi- 
tiveness. Such endorsement has, it is much to be re- 
gretted, never been given. As one result of this de- 
Question. 
This plan has in its essential features been restored, 
interpreted and extended by the Special Commission. 
Building limits as proposed by the Commission are to 
be established 890 feet apart throughout the length of 
the Mall. 
It is reported that the location of the new depart- 
mental building is fixed with 600 feet as a basis of 
spacing between the front facades flanking the Mall. 
This alteration is supposed to have been prompted by 
reason of the Commission’s plans removing a large 
amount of eligible building space. It is to be borne in 
mind that the Mall is primarily a park space for the 
decoration of the Capitol, for giving it a dignified ap- 
proach, properly proportioned and withal suitably 
simple. The occupation of its margin by buildings 
is purely incidental to its main purpose. To use es- 
sential parts of this open space for the sake of- gain- 
PLAN OF THE MALL AT WASHINGTON. 
From the report of the Expert Commission of 1902. 
(The line of the Mall is adjusted to the actual location of the 
Washington Monument.) 
PLAN OF THE MALL AT WASHINGTON. 
Showing advanced position of Building Lines adopted by Com- 
mittee of Agriculture of 1904, in accordance with which 
the new Agricultural Building is about to 
be erected. 
lay it is proposed to locate the new Agricultural De- 
partment building with a total disregard to the essen- 
tial features of the general design proposed by the 
special commission. 
Hitherto, the development of the City of Washing- 
ton has proceeded with more or less regard to a plan 
made by Major Peter Charles L’Enfant, in 1791, and 
approved by President Washington. This plan was 
drawn to a small scale and does not show details. The 
description of the plan stated that there was to be 
an avenue or mall 400 feet wide, but it did not state 
whether this width was to include trees or whether it 
was to be of this width between the two innermost 
rows of trees. The buildings on the mall as diagram- 
matically represented in the officially adopted plan of 
the city are spaced at variable distances. The least 
spacing from the outside of a portico to the building 
opposite is 875 feet and at most points the buildings 
are indicated 1,160 feet apart. 
ing building ground is a violation of the fundamental 
conception of the city planned by Washington and 
named for him. This essential space is to the National 
Capitol what the Common is to Boston, with the dif- 
ference that the design of the Mall is so simple and di- 
rect in its impressiveness that any encroachment will 
be a conspicuous blot forever. 
This question is fundamentally one of the propor- 
tion of the constituent parts of a general design. There 
is excellent reason to believe that this feature has re- 
ceived the most careful and thorough consideration of 
the Commission, whose professional ability, integrity, 
and singleness of purpose has never been questioned. 
This Commission was the result of the popular 
movement to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary 
of the seat of the government in the District of Colum- 
bia, which took shape in 1900 in the form of com- 
memorative exercises, held at the White House and at 
the Capitol. During these exercises the American In- 
