A manual on the origin and development of Washington

by H. Paul Caemmerer

QUOTATIONS FROM GREAT AMERICANS ON WASHINGTON, THE NATIONAL CAPITAL

“I most earnestly hope that in the National Capital a better beginning will be made than anywhere else; and that can be made only by utilizing to the fullest degree the thought and the disinterested efforts of the architects, the artists, the men of art, who stand foremost in their professions here in the United States and who ask no other reward save the reward of feeling that they have done their full part to make as beautiful as it should be the Capital City of the Great Republic.” Theodore Roosevelt.

“If General Washington, at a time when his country was a little hemmed-in nation, boasting but a single seaboard, with a population of only five million, and with credit so bad that lot sales, lotteries, and borrowing upon the personal security of individuals had to be resorted to in order to finance the new capital, could look to the future and understand that it was his duty to build for the centuries to come and for a great nation, how much more should we do so now?” William H. Taft.

It is hereby ordered that whenever new structures are to be erected in the District of Columbia under the direction of the Federal Government which affect in any important way the appearance of the city, or whenever questions involving matters of art and with which the Federal Government is concerned are to be determined, final action shall not be taken until such plans and questions have been submitted to the Commission of Fine Arts, designated under the act of Congress of May 17, 1910, for comment and advice. (Executive order of November 28, 1913.) Woodrow Wilson.

“We are embarking on an ambitious building program for the city of Washington. The Memorial Bridge is under way with all that it holds for use and beauty. New buildings are soon contemplated. This program should represent the best that exists in the art and science of architecture. Into these structures, which must be considered as of a permanent nature, ought to go the aspirations of the nation, its ideals, expressed in forms of beauty. If our country wishes to compete with others, let it not be in the support of armaments but in the making of a beautiful capital city. Let it express the soul of America. Whenever an American is at the seat of his Government, however traveled and cultured he may be, he ought to find a city of stately proportions, symmetrically laid out and adorned with the best that there is in architecture, which would arouse his imagination and stir his patriotic pride. In the coming years Washington should be not only the art center of our own country but the art center of the world. Around it should center all that is best in science, in learning, in letters, and in art. These are the results that justify the creation of those national resources with which we have been favored.” Calvin Coolidge.

“This is more than the making of a beautiful city. Washington is not only the Nation’s Capital, it is the symbol of America. By its dignity and architectural inspiration we stimulate pride in our country, we encourage that elevation of thought and character which comes from great architecture.” Herbert Hoover.

“In the Capital an example should be set for the country as a whole in the matter of planning. Our national monuments will attract seekers of the ideal in art. More and more it will become the tendency to establish the headquarters of societies of literature and art in Washington and to make bequests of collections to the National Capital. Already there is a definite project to establish here in Washington a national gallery of painting. Thus the Capital may be foreseen as an art center responding to the desire of visitors from all over the world and satisfying that demand. The public buildings, as finally located and constructed, should place Washington in the forefront of the architecturally beautiful cities of the world.” Andrew W. Mellon.

“The people of America are beginning to see that it is not necessary to be commonplace in order to have common sense * * *. They wish for themselves in the public buildings of municipalities and of States and Nation to have the best results of time and the best attainments of genius. What the people desire, their representatives in State legislature, in municipal body, and in the Congress of the United States desire for them. The art of our fathers, the art of our private citizens, is to be the art of our people and of our whole people.” Elihu Root.

“A city planned on such a noble scale as Washington is rare in the world. It is almost unique. One hundred years of use has demonstrated its merit. The plan of its founders should be maintained as the basis for future development.” Cass Gilbert.

A TRIBUTE FROM VISCOUNT BRYCE

“In these circumstances may not the city of Washington feel that its mission in life is to be the embodiment of the majesty and the stateliness of the whole Nation, representing all that is finest in American conception, all that is largest and most luminous in American thought; embodying: the Nation’s ideal of what the Capital of such a Nation should be * * * the highest aspirations as to external dignity and beauty that a great people can form for that which is the center and national focus of their life.”