Little more need be told here. The sodden soil plowed up by Shepherd was gradually harrowed and seeded, watched and watered, till it brought forth a new city, which under later administrations, in spite of many vicissitudes, has prospered in the main. Presidents Cleveland, Harrison, and McKinley took an interest in it which, while kindly, had some of the detached quality of their interest in any of the States or Territories; under them, however, the beautiful Rock Creek National Park and its neighbor the “Zoo” were planned and largely developed, and the pleasure-ground and suburban expansion programs received a considerable impetus. President Roosevelt felt a lively sense of the importance of the city as the capital of a great nation. It was in his time that the White House underwent its restoration, and the L’Enfant plan generally was revived as a standard. He was responsible, also, for attracting to Washington, as permanent residents, many literary and scientific workers whom it had formerly welcomed only as visitors, and the foundation of the Carnegie Institution went far to make this period notable in local annals. Mr. Taft’s interest took more the neighborly bent, as if Washington were his home. He bore an active part in the popular movements for beautifying the city, not so much because it was a capital, as because he wished to have a hand in the civic enterprises of his fellow townsmen.
President Wilson’s attitude has not thus far been so clearly defined as that of his recent predecessors. Other pressing public concerns have left him scant time for looking into municipal improvement projects. Mrs. Wilson, however, gave them much attention; and a hope expressed during her last illness so touched the heart of Congress as to bring about the enactment of some long-delayed legislation to abate the use of unwholesome alleys for the tenements of the poor.
CHAPTER III
“ON THE HILL”
IN the ordinary conversation of Washington, one rarely hears Congress mentioned by name. The respective functions of its two chambers are so generally understood that it is common to distinguish between them: the Senate yesterday did so-and-so; something is about to occur in the House of Representatives. In speaking of the lawmakers collectively, the familiar phrase is “the gentlemen on the hill.” Washington has several hills, but “the” hill is by universal consent the one on which the Capitol stands.
To the visitor who knows the city only in its present aspect, the choice of this hill for the monumental building now crowning it seems most natural. This is not, however, the place originally considered for the purpose. James Madison favored Shuter’s Hill, an eminence a little west of Alexandria, now embraced in the tract set apart for George Washington Park. Thomas Jefferson supported Madison in this preference; but President Washington, feeling that Virginia had already had her full share of the honors in launching the new republic, insisted that the most important architecture at the seat of government should stand on the Maryland side of the Potomac. His view prevailed; and, when the sites of the principal public buildings were marked on L’Enfant’s plan of the city, that selected for the Capitol was the elevation which, besides being fairly central, commanded in its outlook, and was commanded by, the greatest area of country on both sides of the river.
Like almost everything else architectural in Washington, the Capitol is a pile of gradual growth, subjected to many changes of detail in the plans. Sketches were submitted in competition for a prize; the two competitors who came nearest to meeting the requirements, though adopted citizens of the United States, were respectively of French and English birth; and the drawings finally evolved from the general scheme of the one modified by the more acceptable ideas of the other were turned over to an Irishman to perfect and carry out. Most of the credit belongs, undoubtedly, to Doctor William Thornton, a draftsman by profession, who afterward became Superintendent of Patents. The material used was freestone from a neighboring quarry. Only the north or Senate end was far enough advanced by the autumn of 1800 to enable Congress to hold its short session there, and the disputes which arose over the succeeding stages of the work led President Jefferson to call in Benjamin H. Latrobe of Richmond, the first architect of already established rank who had had anything to do with it. Under his direction, the south end was made habitable by 1811; and the House of Representatives, which till then had been uncomfortably quartered in such odd places as it could find, took possession. There was no central structure connecting the Senate and House ends, but a roofed wooden passageway led from the one to the other. In this condition was the Capitol when, in 1814, the British invaders burned all of it that was burnable.
The heavier masonry, of course, was unaffected by the fire except for the need of a little patchwork here and there; but in his task of restoration Mr. Latrobe found himself so embarrassed by dissensions between the dignitaries who gave him his orders that after three vexatious years he resigned, and the celebrated Charles Bulfinch of Boston took his place. In 1830 Mr. Bulfinch pronounced the building finished and returned home, and for twenty years it remained substantially as he left it. Then, the needs of Congress having outgrown the space at their disposal, Thomas U. Walter of Philadelphia was ordered to prepare plans for an enlargement, and he was far-sighted enough to make the extension the vehicle for some other improvements. The great wings attached to the northern and southern extremities were built of white marble, which has rendered imperative the frequent repainting of the old freestone surfaces to match; the dome was raised proportionally; and additions made, then and since, to the surrounding grounds, have given the building an appropriate setting and vastly enhanced its beauty of approach.
This is, in brief, the story of the Capitol as we find it to-day. A stroll through it will call up other memories. As you look at the building from the east, you will be struck by the difference in tint between the painted main structure and the two marble wings. Imagine the wings cut off and the dome reduced to about half its present height and ended abruptly in a flat top, and you have in your mind’s eye a picture of the Capitol as Bulfinch left it, and as it remained till shortly before the Civil War. Its most conspicuous feature now is its towering dome, surmounted by a bronze allegorical figure of American Freedom. As the sculptor Crawford originally modeled the image, its head was crowned with the conventional liberty-cap; but Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, objected to this on the ground that it was the sign of a freed slave, whereas Americans were born free. The cap was therefore discarded in favor of the present helmet of eagle feathers.
Filling the pediment over the main portico is a bit of sculpture which enjoys the distinction of having been designed by John Quincy Adams, because he could not find an artist who could draw him what he wished. It consists of three figures: the Genius of America in the center and Hope and Justice on either side, Justice appearing without her customary blindfold. Flanking the main staircase are two groups of statuary. That on our left is called “The Discovery”—Columbus holding aloft a globe, while an Indian woman crouches at his feet. It was done by the Italian sculptor Persico, who copied Columbus’s armor from the last suit actually worn by him. And now comes a bit of politics; for Congress, having awarded this work to a foreigner, was besieged by a demand that the next order be given to an American, and accordingly engaged Horatio Greenough to produce “The Rescue,” which stands on our right. It represents a frontiersman saving his wife and child from capture by an Indian.
The portico has an historic association with another President besides Adams, for it was here that an attempt was made upon the life of Andrew Jackson. At the close of a funeral service in the House of Representatives, he had just passed out of the rotunda to descend the steps, when a demented mechanic named Lawrence sprang from a place of hiding, aimed a pistol at him, and pulled the trigger. As they were less than ten feet apart, the President was saved only by the failure of the powder to explode. Lawrence instantly dropped the useless pistol and tried another, with like effect. Jackson never could be talked out of the idea that Lawrence was the tool of political conspirators who wished to put some one else in his place as President.