The walls of the extension are composed of pilasters, resting on a base which rises some twelve feet above the ground on the southern or lower side. Between the pilasters are antæ or belt-courses, nobly moulded; the facings of the doors and windows bear mouldings in harmony. The southern, western and northern fronts present magnificent porticoes. Its lofty pillars are of the Ionic order, and the entire building is at last surmounted by a massive balustrade. The south wing was completed and occupied in 1860. The west wing was completed in 1863—the north in 1867—the whole at a cost of $6,750,000. The exterior is four hundred and sixty-four feet by two hundred and sixty-four feet.
The Treasury was begun and consummated on a truly magnificent scale, and with the expectation that it would meet every demand of its own branch of the public service for at least a century. Like every one of the public buildings, it is already too small to accommodate the over-crowded bureaus of its own departments, several of which, for want of room in the Treasury Building, already occupy other houses in different parts of the city; and yet there is not space left for those who remain. Before the year 1900, another Treasury Building as magnificent as the one now our pride, will be indispensable to the ever-increasing demand of the departments of the financial service.
The Treasury borrowed its face from the Parthenon; and, as it turns it toward the Potomac this May morning, it is one of the fairest sites in Washington. From the southern portico we look across sloping tree-shaded meadows. Beyond, we see the shimmering river, with its girdle of green, and above, “the flush and frontage of the hills.” When flowers, and trees and soft lights shall have taken the place of all this glare—how beautiful it will be to the eyes of generations to come. But even now the bright grass, flower-parterres and lapsing fountains are pleasant to behold, while the southern front of the Treasury is an object upon which the eyes must always rest with a sense of satisfaction.
The Capitol lords it over the east, but the Treasury reigns over the west end. To be sure, it stands upon the poorest make-believe of an Acropolis, but coming along Pennsylvania avenue we look up to its noble façade and fair Ionic columns gleaming before us, as a compensation for the poverty of beauty in the streets which we travel. The western windows overlook the grounds of the presidential mansion, now gay with flowers and dazzling with sunshine, their trees decked in the vivid foliage of a southern June-time.
How many pairs of weary human eyes look up from their tasks within these walls, and, without knowing it, thank God for this fair outlook. The breeze-blown grass, the fragrant winds, the lavish light of these open windows—to dusty lips and tired eyes which take them in—are God’s own benedictions. Hundreds of such look up from their desks. Past the great fountain, tossing its diamonds below, past the sunny knolls and mimic mounds of newly-cut grass, above the bloom-burdened trees and all the tender verdure of early spring and summer, they see the windows of the presidential reception-room, whose doors, through all the winter months, are besieged by an army of office and favor seekers, but which are shut and silent and deserted now, while “the Government” drives among the hills or loiters by the sea.
But I began to talk about the Treasury, and no matter how I wander for ever so many pages, I must come back to it again.
It is easier to comprehend the outside than the inside of it. One might as well try to snatch up a city and portray it in a sitting, as even to outline the Treasury of the United States in a single chapter.
It holds a metropolis within its walls. It affords daily employment to over three thousand persons, and thousands more daily throng its halls. Just a glimpse into this vast human hive makes us long for a Dickens to embody the romance and reveal the mysteries of the Treasury. The story of the Circumlocution Office and the Court of Chancery pale before the revelations and undreamed of human experiences which it holds. Before you, behind you, and on either side stretch out the great marble paved halls. Out of these open numberless rooms, whose shut doors stare blankly, or whose half-open blinds wink and blink at each other through the gleaming cross lights.
Over these doors you read significant inscriptions, such as First Comptroller’s Office, First Auditor’s Office, etc. You ascend the great stairs and find other halls, such as those below, and like them lined on each side by doors. Over these you read, “Loan Branch,” “Redemption Branch,” “Office of the Register,” “Office of Secretary of the Treasury,” etc. Many of the open doors reveal to you large airy apartments filled with busy men and women. Many more show you narrow, one-windowed apartments, each containing a desk, or desks, with its scribe, or scribes.
Here we see men who have grown gray, weak-limbed and wizened in those rooms beside those desks. They have grown to be as automatic as their pens, and as narrow as their rooms. Here also are thousands of men in their prime and in their youth representing every phase of character. In this hall, just by this door, Mary Harris watched for the man who had robbed and ruined her—and just here she shot him. Poor thing! With her blighted face she is a maniac, now in the Asylum across the river. These halls are as thronged as Broadway, and their denizens are as cosmopolitan. People of all nations and costumes come and go along their vast vistas.