CHAPTER XXI
PUBLIC AND SEMIPUBLIC BUILDINGS
THE CAPITOL
The site for the Capitol, or the Federal House, as selected by L’Enfant, is on what was then known as Jenkin’s Hill, 88 feet above the level of the Potomac River.
The northwest cornerstone of the main building was laid on September 18, 1793, by President Washington with Masonic ceremonies. The building is of Virginia sandstone from quarries on Aquia Creek.
The north wing was finished in 1800 and the south wing in 1811. A wooden passageway connected them. Congress convened there for the first time at the second session of the Sixth Congress, which began November 17, 1800, and ended March 3, 1801.
The original designs were prepared by Dr. William Thornton, and the work was done under the direction of Stephen H. Hallet, James Hoban, and George Hadfield. Benjamin H. Latrobe was the architect. Washington and Jefferson favored the classical type of architecture for the building, and it was adopted.
On August 24, 1814, the interior of both wings was destroyed by fire set by the British. Many books of the small Library of Congress housed in the building at that time were burned, whereupon Congress purchased the library of Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. The damage to the Capitol was immediately repaired.
In 1818 the central portion of the building was commenced under the architectural superintendence of Charles Bulfinch, architect, of Boston. The original building was finally completed in 1827. Its cost, including the grading of the grounds, alterations, and repairs, up to 1827, was $2,433,844.13.
Because of the growth of the Republic, after half a century it became necessary to build a Senate Chamber on the north and a House of Representatives Chamber on the south. The cornerstone of the extensions to the Capitol which increased it to its present size was laid on July 4, 1851, by President Fillmore. Daniel Webster was the orator of the day. This work was prosecuted under the direction of Thomas U. Walter, Architect of the Capitol until 1865, when he resigned, and was completed under the supervision of Edward Clark. The House extension was first occupied for legislative purposes December 16, 1857, and the Senate extension January 4, 1859.
The white marble used in the walls is from Massachusetts and that in the columns from Maryland.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of Commercial Photo Co._
THE CAPITOL]
The entire length of the building from north to south is 751 feet 4 inches and its greatest dimension from east to west is 350 feet. The area covered by the building is 3¹⁄₂ acres.
The Dome of the original central building was constructed of wood, covered with copper. The present structure of cast iron was commenced in 1856, and completed in 1865. The entire weight of iron used is 8,909,200 pounds.
The Dome is crowned by the bronze Statue of Freedom, 19 feet 6 inches high and weighing 14,985 pounds. It was modeled by the sculptor Thomas Crawford. The height of the Dome above the base line of the east front is 287 feet 5 inches. The height from the top of the balustrade of the building is 217 feet 11 inches. The greatest diameter at the base is 135 feet 5 inches.
The Rotunda is 97 feet 6 inches in diameter, and its height from the floor to the top of the canopy is 180 feet 3 inches. The canopy overhanging the Dome, portraying the Apotheosis of Washington, was painted by Brumidi.
The Rotunda frieze, 65 feet above the floor, making a circle 300 feet in length around the walls, illustrates important periods in American history.
Paintings in the Rotunda are as follows:
The Landing of Columbus on San Salvador, October 12, 1492, by Vanderlyn.
The Discovery of the Mississippi by De Soto, 1541, by W. H. Powell.
The Baptism of Pocahontas, Jamestown, Va., 1613, by John G. Chapman.
The Embarkation of the Pilgrims from Delft-Haven, July 22, 1620, by Robert W. Weir.
The Signing of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, July 4, 1776, by John Trumbull.
The Surrender of Burgoyne, Saratoga, October 17, 1777, by John Trumbull.
The Surrender of Cornwallis, Yorktown, Va., October 19, 1781, by John Trumbull.
The Resignation of General Washington, December 23, 1783, by John Trumbull.
The Senate Chamber is 113 feet 3 inches in length by 80 feet 3 inches in width and 36 feet in height. The galleries will accommodate 682 persons. The House of Representatives Chamber is 139 feet in length by 93 feet in width and 36 feet in height. In 1800 the Chambers were lighted by lamps and tallow candles, and the 142 Representatives were seated in chairs. To-day there are 435 Members of the House of Representatives, in addition to 2 Delegates and 2 Resident Commissioners, who are seated on benches, which are arranged in a semicircle like those of the theater of Dionysius. To-day the Capitol is lighted by electricity and equipped with a modern ventilating system.
The room later occupied by the Supreme Court of the United States was the Senate Chamber until 1859. Previous to that time the court occupied the room immediately beneath, now used as a law library.
Beautiful paintings by Brumidi, Trumbull, and others adorn the Capitol, and many statues, gift of the States, may be seen in Statuary Hall, set apart as such in 1864, being formerly the House of Representatives Chamber.
[Illustration: THE CAPITOL AT NIGHT]
[Illustration: STATUE OF FREEDOM]
Massive bronze doors by Rogers, depicting scenes from the life of Christopher Columbus, are at the main entrance, the east, and open from the portico to the Rotunda. They call to mind the Ghiberti doors in Florence.
There are 24 columns of Maryland sandstone, 30 feet high, in the central portico. Statues by Greenough and Persico flank the steps.
The Capitol is to-day the most significant building in this country. Its assessed value in 1930 for building and grounds was $45,000,000.
On the east portico of the Capitol newly elected Presidents of the United States take the oath of office.
STATUE OF FREEDOM
As has been stated, the Statue of Freedom surmounting the Dome of the Capitol is the work of one of America’s great artists, Thomas Crawford. The modeling was done in Rome, and at the time of his death, in 1857, he was endeavoring to secure the necessary funds for the casting of it at the Royal Foundry at Munich. On April 19, 1858, the plaster model was shipped from Leghorn, Italy, and after a perilous voyage to New York it arrived in Washington in April, 1859. At that time work on completion of the Capitol was proceeding under the supervision of Thomas U. Walter, architect.
On May 24, 1860, the Secretary of War, in a statement concerning the casting of the statue stated that--
it will be cast by Clark Mills and he will be paid for his services and for the rent of his foundry [at Mills Avenue toward Bladensburg, where the Andrew Jackson equestrian was cast in 1853] and necessary expenses at the rate of $400 per month and that the material, fuel, labor, etc., will be paid for by the Government.
This arrangement had been entered into and the work had progressed to quite an extent, when Captain Meigs, who had returned to duty at the Capitol, issued a formal statement of the existence of war, on May 15, 1861, suspending work on the Capitol extension and the new Dome. But subsequently, even though the existence of war between the States handicapped the Government, the necessary arrangements for completing the Dome and for casting the statue were made. The statue was hoisted in place on the Dome amid a salute of 35 guns on December 2, 1863.
The original model of the statue may be seen to-day in the rotunda of the Museum of History Building of the Smithsonian Institution.
BRONZE DOORS OF THE CAPITOL
These bronze doors, the central and most elaborate of the Capitol, were modeled by Randolph Rogers at Rome in 1858, and cast at the Royal Bavarian Foundry in Munich by Ferdinand von Muller, director, at a cost of $17,000. Each of the doors is 19 feet high and 5 feet wide. They are surmounted by a semicircular transom-panel or lunette representing the landing of Columbus in the New World on October 12, 1492. The casing border is a decorative scheme composed of anchors, rudders, and armor; four figures in low relief typify Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. At the top of the casing arch is a bust of Columbus.
[Illustration: BRONZE DOORS AT MAIN ENTRANCE TO THE CAPITOL, BY ROGERS]
Each of the doors is separated into four panels, portraying scenes in alto-relief from life of Columbus.
The lowest panel on the left-hand door pictures Columbus before the Council of Salamanca. Then follows his departure from the Convent of La Rabida for the Spanish Court. The next is the audience before Ferdinand and Isabella, and the last the sailing from Palos on the first voyage.
The top panel on the right-hand door represents the first encounter with the Indians. The next the triumphal entry into Barcelona. Then follows Columbus in chains, and the last depicts the death of the discoverer.
The borders of the separate doors each contain eight figures representing prominent personages of the fifteenth century who played important parts in the events connected with the discovery of America.
BRONZE DOORS OF THE SENATE WING
The bronze doors of the Senate wing were designed by Thomas Crawford, sculptor, though the actual work of executing the plaster models was done by William H. Rinehart. They represent Crawford’s last work as a sculptor. It was first contemplated that one of the doors should be cast at the Royal Bavarian Foundry in Munich and that the other door should be cast in this country. The death of Thomas Crawford in 1857 and the subsequent occurrence of the Civil War caused many of the plans to be changed. The doors, the first of that kind in America, were finally cast in 1868 at Chicopee, Mass., by James T. Ames, and the expense, $50,000, was far greater than was anticipated at the time when it was planned to have the work done in this country. They weigh 14,000 pounds. The sculptor, Rinehart, received about $9,000.
Each of the doors consists of three panels and a medallion picturing events of the Revolutionary War.
The upper panel of the right-hand door contains a representation of the death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775; the center panel shows General Washington rebuking Gen. Charles Lee at the Battle of Monmouth, N. J., on June 28, 1778; the lower panel pictures the storming of a redoubt at Yorktown, Va., led by Alexander Hamilton, on October 14, 1781; the medallion at the bottom represents a conflict between a Hessian soldier and a New Jersey farmer.
The medallion at the bottom of the left-hand door represents Peace and Agriculture. Above is a panel showing General Washington passing underneath an arch of flowers at Trenton, N. J., while on his way to New York City to be inaugurated as the first President of the United States; the middle panel represents Washington taking the oath of office as President, which was administered by Chancellor Livingston on April 30, 1789--the United States Supreme Court had not as yet been organized, so that the oath could not be administered by the Chief Justice. The top panel represents President Washington laying the corner stone of the Capitol on September 18, 1793.
[Illustration: BRONZE DOORS AT THE SENATE WING, BY CRAWFORD]
BRONZE DOORS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WING
The bronze doors of the House of Representatives resemble in general outline and arrangement the bronze doors of the Senate. Each door consists of three panels and a medallion picturing events in American history. The design is that of Thomas Crawford, sculptor, but the modeling and completion was that of William H. Rinehart. The models after being transported to this country remained for a long time in storage and were finally cast by M. H. Mosman, at Chicopee, Mass., who had succeeded to or continued the business organization of James T. Ames, by whom the Senate doors were cast.
The doors were installed in the autumn of 1905, the cost to the Government being $45,000.
The upper panel of the left-hand door portrays the Massacre of Wyoming, July 17, 1778; the center panel the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775; the lower panel presentation of flag to Gen. William Moultrie for his defense of Sullivans Island, Charleston Harbor, June 28, 1776; and the medallion at the bottom shows the death of General Montgomery in the attack on Quebec, December 31, 1775.
The upper panel of the right-hand door depicts the reading of the Declaration of Independence; the center panel the signing of the Paris treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain, September 3, 1783; the lower panel Washington’s farewell to his officers at New York, December 4, 1783; and the medallion at the bottom contains a seated figure of Franklin in his study.
THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES
Congress is one of the three coordinate branches of the United States Government. It is the legislative branch and consists of a Senate, to which the Members, two from each State, are elected for a term of six years; and the House of Representatives, to which the Members are elected for a term of two years. The membership is based on the population of the United States, and in January, 1939, numbered 435 Members. The apportionment is made among the several States in the ratio that the whole number of persons in each State bears to the total population of the country. States arrange for their own congressional districts after the number of Members of the House of Representatives from each State has been determined upon. There are in the House, also, 2 Territorial Delegates--1 each from Alaska and Hawaii--and 2 Resident Commissioners--1 from the Commonwealth of the Philippines and 1 from Puerto Rico. They have the right to debate but not to vote.
[Illustration: BRONZE DOORS AT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WING, BY CRAWFORD]
[Illustration: SENATE CHAMBER]
[Illustration: HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CHAMBER]
The Constitution provides that Congress shall assemble on January 3 of each year (20th amendment); and each Congress usually consists of two sessions.
[Illustration: SENATE OFFICE BUILDING]
The powers of Congress are set forth in Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, which is divided into 18 clauses. The power to raise revenue originates in the House of Representatives, which carries the burden in providing necessary appropriations; the Senate has the power of confirming or rejecting appointments made by the President and to ratify treaties. Measures are originated in the form of bills or resolutions, which are thereupon referred to committees for report before being introduced in the Senate or House of Representatives.
The age requirement for eligibility as a Member of the House of Representatives is 25 years, and for the Senate 30 years; each person must have been a citizen of the United States for seven years and a citizen of the State from which elected.
Members of Congress are by the Constitution granted exemption from arrest under certain conditions while attending the sessions of their respective Houses and in going to and returning from such sessions, “and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.”
The proceedings and debates in Congress are published in the Congressional Record, which is printed daily at the Government Printing Office with such rapidity that even though a session of Congress may continue until late in the night a copy of the Record is at hand for each Member the following morning.
[Illustration: OLD HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OFFICE BUILDING]
[Illustration: NEW HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OFFICE BUILDING]
A bill or resolution, to become a law, must be passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate and approved by the President. If there are points of disagreement in the Senate or House of Representatives in the enactment of legislation, each body appoints conferees to settle the points in dispute. The President has the power to veto a bill, but the measure can become law if reconsidered and passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives by a two-thirds majority. Occasionally the President makes use of the “pocket veto”; that is, if the bill was passed within 10 days (Sundays excepted) of the adjournment of Congress, the President may retain (pocket) the bill, which is thus killed at the end of the session without the interposition of a direct veto, and without risking the chances of its passage over the veto. If the President does not interpose the ordinary veto, a bill becomes law at the expiration of 10 days.
[Illustration: UNION STATION]
The President is given authority by the Constitution to convene either or both Houses of Congress in extraordinary session.
SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OFFICE BUILDINGS
The Senate and House Office Buildings, the former flanking the Capitol to the north and the latter to the south, were designed by Carrere & Hastings, architects, and are in the classical style of architecture. A new House Office Building, designed by the Allied Architects, Inc., of Washington, has recently been completed, and also the East Wing of the Senate Office Building, designed by Wyeth & Sullivan, architects of Washington. Each Senator is provided with offices of from two to three rooms, and likewise each Representative, excepting a few whose offices are in the Capitol.
UNION STATION
In the design of the station much thought was given to the architectural features. Since Greece and Rome have furnished architectural inspiration for so many of the public buildings of Washington, a freely interpreted classic may be considered as the recognized architecture of these structures; and as the new station was to be the monumental gateway to the National Capital, it seemed fitting that the architectural motives should be drawn from the triumphal arches of Rome. They inspired Mr. Burnham to design the Union Station as he did. Construction work was begun in August, 1902, the terminal opened October 27, 1907, and was completed in April, 1908.
Some of the elements entering into the design of the terminal were unique. In most cities the probable future growth and nature of the traffic plays an important part in the planning of a passenger terminal. Washington has very little suburban traffic; and as it will never become a commercial center, the question of providing for future growth was of minor importance. The main problem was how to care for and provide against abnormal conditions, which arise at least once every four years. The handling of inauguration crowds had always been a heavy expense to the railroads, because they had to provide such elaborate temporary facilities. On the other hand, to provide adequate permanent facilities meant a large expenditure, with the attendant heavy carrying charges. On account of the dilapidated condition of the passenger facilities owned by the companies, and the urgent need of larger and better terminals, a union terminal seemed to show advantages over the separate stations provided for in the acts of 1901.
[Illustration: _Courtesy of Commercial Photo Co._
UNION STATION--CONCOURSE]
The layout embraces every feature and facility involved in the construction of a first-class terminal, including a depot building planned and constructed after the most modern lines, and containing every feature for the convenience, comfort, and pleasure of the traveling public; the most complete and up-to-date facilities for conducting the business of a large railroad station; a main power plant for furnishing power of every kind required for the successful operation of the station and yards; a large and completely equipped express terminal for caring for the express business handled by the companies; a modern commodious roundhouse and shop layout for caring for repairs to equipment; the most complete interlocking layout and intercommunication system ever constructed; one of the most complete passenger-equipment yards ever built; and a track system covering yards and main tracks within the passenger-terminal zone aggregating about 60 miles of single track.
The station building proper is 626 feet 10 inches long and 210 feet 9 inches wide, exclusive of the space taken up by the columns in front of the central pavilion or main portico. The front and ends are made up of groups of semicircular arches characteristic of Roman architecture. The main portico or central pavilion consists of 3 arches, each 29 feet 6 inches wide and 48 feet 9 inches high. Flanking it on either side are 7 arches, each 12 feet 4 inches wide and 24 feet 8 inches high, while the end pavilions are composed of arches 22 feet wide and 38 feet 6 inches high.
The west end is made up of 5 arches 19 feet 2 inches wide and 37 feet 7 inches high, and 1 arch 12 feet 4 inches wide and 24 feet 8 inches high. The former are used as exits for carriages from the carriage porch, the latter to carry out the open portico treatment across the front. At the east end leading to the open portico are 2 windows with arch treatment, and there are 5 arches 12 feet 6 inches wide and 24 feet 8 inches high, 1 arch 22 feet wide and 38 feet 6 inches high, leading to a carriage pavilion.
The east pavilion leads to a suite of rooms for the use of the President and the guests of the Nation, the west pavilion to the carriage porch at the west end of the ticket lobby. The central and end pavilions are connected by a portico or loggia from 14 feet 6 inches to 16 feet 6 inches wide, the portico and pavilions forming a continuous covered porch the entire length of the structure, and affording protection from the elements. The east and west wings of the building are 69 feet 7¹⁄₂ inches above the floor level, and the domes over the carriage entrances are 78 feet 3¹⁄₂ inches above the same point. The dome over the main waiting room is 122 feet 10 inches high.
[Illustration: UNION STATION--WAITING ROOM]
The concourse in the rear of the main building is 760 feet long and 130 feet wide, exceeding by nearly nine feet the length of the Capitol. It is covered by a segmental arched ceiling 45 feet high in the center and 22 feet at the springing line above the main floor. About 40 per cent of the ceiling area is of glass, the remainder is artistically coffered ornamental plaster. The concourse is divided by the usual train fence into two sections, that on the station side being 83 feet and that on the track side 47 feet wide.
There are 32 tracks leading to the station--20 on the level of the waiting rooms and 12 depressed below the street level a distance of 20 feet. Two tubes of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co. and Southern Railway Co., each 16 feet wide, run from the station south along First Street between the Library of Congress and the Capitol for about a mile. At the Fountain of Neptune the tunnel is 40 feet below the surface. Approximately 285 trains enter and leave the railway station each day; the daily number of passengers is approximately 30,000.
The general waiting room has a clear width of 120 feet, is 219 feet long, exclusive of the colonnades, and is covered by a Roman barrel-vaulted ceiling, its highest point, exclusive of coffers, being 96 feet above the floor level. The decorations are sunken panels patterned after the baths of Diocletian. It is lighted by a semicircular window 72¹⁄₂ feet in diameter at the east end, by three semicircular windows in the south side and five on the north side, each 27¹⁄₂ feet in diameter, and by the glass roof over the ticket lobby at the west end. Imperial Rome at her greatest did not possess a hall of such proportions.
The Union Station is built of Vermont white granite. In the construction of this massive building Mr. Burnham set a standard for civic improvement for the construction of railroad terminals in this country.
The complete architectural treatment of the front elevation of the station includes six stone statues and four eagles, the former over the central pavilion, and the latter over the carriage entrances at the east and west ends. This statuary is placed in front of the great friezes over the main entrance arches and over the carriage archways and, with the inscriptions in the panels between, have been made a special architectural feature.
Before the adoption of the scheme a number of suggestions for the subjects of the statues and inscriptions were secured, ranging from the explorers and discoverers of this country to the various inventors who have had most to do with the development of transportation. The general architectural treatment of the building, however, was such as to preclude the usual portrait statues. To make them take their place as part of the architecture required that they be limited to allegorical draped figures, forming simple, massive silhouettes against the vast frieze. In the development of the complete scheme, embracing the subjects for the statuary, with appropriate inscriptions in the intervening panels, the late Charles W. Eliot, former president of Harvard University, was consulted. The result is an appropriate and adequate treatment of the decorative frieze over the doorway of the vestibule to the Capital of the Nation.
The general decorative features of the main entrance to the building consist of six massive stone columns, two on each side and one in front of each pier supporting the main arches. Upon pedestals on the tops of these columns the granite statues, about 18 feet high, are placed, those on the west side of the entrance representing Prometheus and Thales, typifying Fire and Electricity, those on the east side Ceres and Archimedes, typifying Agriculture and Mechanics, while Freedom and Imagination are depicted by the central figures. Those on the west side represent two of the great forces connected with the operation of railroads, while those on the east owe much of their development and wealth to the railroads. The central figures typify the atmosphere of freedom in which the inventive imagination has been able to accomplish such great results. The columns flanking the carriage entrances are surmounted by stone eagles about 8 feet high.
The following inscriptions are cut in the granite panels over the main entrance:
_West_ (_Prometheus and Thales_)
FIRE--GREATEST OF DISCOVERIES ENABLING MAN TO LIVE IN VARIOUS CLIMATES USE MANY FOODS--AND COMPEL THE FORCES OF NATURE TO DO HIS WORK
ELECTRICITY--CARRIER OF LIGHT AND POWER DEVOURER OF TIME AND SPACE--BEARER OF HUMAN SPEECH OVER LAND AND SEA GREAT SERVANT OF MAN--ITSELF UNKNOWN
THOU HAST PUT ALL THINGS UNDER HIS FEET
_Central_ (_Freedom and Imagination_)
SWEETENER OF HUT AND OF HALL BRINGER OF LIFE OUT OF NAUGHT FREEDOM O FAIREST OF ALL THE DAUGHTERS OF TIME AND THOUGHT
MAN’S IMAGINATION HAS CONCEIVED ALL NUMBERS AND LETTERS--ALL TOOLS, VESSELS AND SHELTERS--EVERY ART AND TRADE--ALL PHILOSOPHY AND POETRY--AND ALL POLITIES
THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE
_East_ (_Ceres and Archimedes_)
THE FARM--BEST HOME OF THE FAMILY--MAIN SOURCE OF NATIONAL WEALTH--FOUNDATION OF CIVILIZED SOCIETY--THE NATURAL PROVIDENCE
THE OLD MECHANIC ARTS--CONTROLLING NEW FORCES--BUILD NEW HIGHWAYS FOR GOODS AND MEN--OVERRIDE THE OCEAN--AND MAKE THE VERY ETHER CARRY HUMAN THOUGHT
THE DESERT SHALL REJOICE AND BLOSSOM AS THE ROSE
In the panels over the entrances to the carriage porch and state apartment the following inscriptions are cut:
_Carriage Porch_ (_south elevation_)
HE THAT WOULD BRING HOME THE WEALTH OF THE INDIES MUST CARRY THE WEALTH OF THE INDIES WITH HIM SO IT IS IN TRAVELLING--A MAN MUST CARRY KNOWLEDGE WITH HIM IF HE WOULD BRING HOME KNOWLEDGE
_State Apartment_ (_south elevation_)
LET ALL THE ENDS THOU AIMEST AT BE THY COUNTRY’S, THY GOD’S, AND TRUTH’S, BE NOBLE, AND THE NOBLENESS THAT LIES IN OTHER MEN--SLEEPING BUT NEVER DEAD--WILL RISE IN MAJESTY TO MEET THINE OWN
_State Apartment_ (_east elevation_)
WELCOME THE COMING SPEED THE PARTING GUEST
VIRTUE ALONE IS SWEET SOCIETY IT KEEPS THE KEY TO ALL HEROIC HEARTS AND OPENS YOU A WELCOME IN THEM ALL
The decorations immediately in front of and along the sides of the east and west entrances consist of stone balustrades upon which at proper intervals are ornamental lamp posts.
Immediately in front of the main entrance to the Union Station there are three ornamental iron flagstaffs 110 feet in height, the ornamental base and decorative portions of which are in bronze. These were designed by D. H. Burnham & Co., architects of the Union Station.
Since the completion of the Union Station in 1908 there have also been placed on the Plaza the Columbus Memorial Fountain in front of the main entrance, and two large fountains, one on each side of the memorial.
All stone used in the decoration of the Plaza, except that in the bowls of the fountains, is Vermont white granite, from the same quarry as that used in the station building. The fountain bowls are of Maine green granite. The upper bowls are 13 feet in diameter and cut from a single piece of stone; the lower bowls are 22 feet 6 inches in diameter, the rims being made from eight separate pieces of granite. The bottoms of these bowls are of reinforced concrete and are lined with sheet lead.
WASHINGTON CITY POST OFFICE
The Washington City Post Office moved into its present quarters on September 5, 1914. The building faces on Massachusetts Avenue and extends from North Capitol Street to First Street NE.
At the time of occupancy it was considered the model post office for the rest of the country, being provided with the most modern mail-handling equipment that human ingenuity could devise. There are conveyor belts through a tunnel under the streets for bringing the enormous amount of Government mail from the Government Printing Office directly into the post office, where it is made up for dispatch to trains; other belts for conveying mail from one section of the office to another; bucket lifts for raising mail from a lower to a higher floor; gravity chutes to send mail from an upper to a lower level; miniature trolley systems to carry smaller amounts of mail, or even single important letters, from one section of the workroom floor to another; and other devices to save footsteps of the employees and conserve their time.
The building is three stories above the ground level and two stories below. The two upper floors and one of the lower ones are given over to Post Office Department activities, such as the Postal Savings Division, the Division of Stamps, the Division of Equipment and Supplies, and others. The building is so constructed that the maximum of natural daylight is permitted to enter. It has no heating plant of its own, being supplied with heat from the plant located at First and E Streets SE. that supplies the Capitol, Senate and House Office Buildings, and the Government Printing Office. The necessary pipes are brought into the building through underground tunnels.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON CITY POST OFFICE]
There are approximately 6 acres of floor space available for the Washington Post Office. This additional space was secured by a new addition. It was thought at the time the post office moved into its new quarters that the floor space provided would be ample to take care of all increases in the volume of mail for a period of 50 years. In a few years the office far outgrew this space, and Congress appropriated for an addition to the building about equal in size to the original one. The construction of this addition cost $4,000,000.
The original building cost $3,028,000, and the general style of the architecture is that of the monumental work of Roman times and was designed by Peirce Anderson, architect, to harmonize with the Union Station, which adjoins, and to which it is connected by a covered bridge, over which mail to and from the trains is trucked.
The main exterior motive consists of an Ionic colonnade flanked by corner pavilions treated with round arches, inclosed in a strong frame of columns and pilasters and surmounted by solid attics carrying inscriptions as follows:
MESSENGER OF SYMPATHY AND LOVE SERVANT OF PARTED FRIENDS CONSOLER OF THE LONELY BOND OF THE SCATTERED FAMILY ENLARGER OF THE COMMON LIFE
CARRIER OF NEWS AND KNOWLEDGE INSTRUMENT OF TRADE AND INDUSTRY PROMOTER OF MUTUAL ACQUAINTANCE OF PEACE AND OF GOOD WILL AMONG MEN AND NATIONS
Many visitors to Washington will stop and read these inscriptions and, being interested in the authorship thereof, will make inquiry concerning it. Research shows that the originals were prepared by Dr. Charles W. Eliot, at that time president of Harvard University, but that some slight changes were made in the text by the late President Wilson to the extent of the alteration of some three or four words. It is this revision that appears on the building.
The material of the exterior of the building is Vermont white granite and is the same as that used in the construction of the Union Station. The general treatment of the main lobby, which is 250 feet in length, is that of a high cella, 30 feet wide and 53 feet high, and surrounded by an order of pilasters in Tavernelle marble. The adjoining vestibules are ornamented by 24 monolithic columns of gray-green granite from New Hampshire. These columns are 2 feet and 4 inches in diameter and 20 feet in height. The floor is of Tennessee marble, laid in patterns of pinks and grays. The main lobby ceiling has an elaborate coffered design inspired from the best period of the Italian Renaissance.
[Illustration: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS]
The gross receipts of the Washington Post Office have increased from $1,792,917 in 1914 to nearly $7,000,000 in 1938.
In order to make postal facilities as easily accessible as possible, there are located throughout the city 31 classified and 41 contract stations.
To properly transport mail from the main office to the various stations, electric-line terminals, steamboat wharves, and aviation fields, and to make collections from the street letter boxes and deliver parcel-post packages, the office operates a fleet of fully 100 Government-owned automobile trucks.
Designed by Graham Anderson, Probst & White and built of white Vermont granite, the addition was completed in 1937 and it doubled the size of the city post office.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
The Library of Congress, the world’s largest and most elaborate building devoted wholly to library uses, occupies two city squares east of and facing the Capitol Grounds, also an addition recently completed.
The architecture is of the Italian Renaissance order, from plans made by J. J. Smithmeyer and Paul Pelz, and modified by Edward P. Casey. The exterior walls are of New Hampshire granite. Fifty masters of painting and sculpture worked together to make it a treasure house of the best contemporary American art, fit to shelter one of the greatest libraries of the world. Army engineers superintended its construction.
Begun in 1886, completed in 1897, the building measures 340 feet by 470 feet and covers about 3¹⁄₂ acres. Its cost to date has been $7,868,951. The addition was designed by Pierson & Wilson, architects of Washington, and built of Georgia marble.
In front of the Library is a bronze fountain by Hinton Perry, sculptor, representing the Court of Neptune.
The grand stair hall of the entrance pavilion is of Italian white marble, is particularly beautiful at night, when visitors delight to see it. It leads to the great rotunda, which is the reading room. To the right are the library rooms of Senators and Representatives and the periodical room. To the left are the rooms for the blind and the conservatory of music.
On the second floor at the head of the staircase is Elihu Vedder’s famous mosaic, Minerva. On this floor also are on exhibition the original Declaration of Independence, the original Constitution of the United States, and the Gutenberg Bible. To the right is the prints division, now called the division of fine arts, and to the left the manuscripts division.
[Illustration: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS--GRAND STAIRCASE]
The reading room contains the card-index catalogue of the books in the Library, will accommodate 1,000 readers at a time, and is free to any reader over 16 years of age. The alcoves are devoted to books on particular subjects.
The reading room is under the dome, which is 100 feet in diameter and 195 feet high to the lantern. In the lantern of the dome is a female figure indicating Human Understanding, and on the collar surrounding the lantern, 150 feet in circumference, is the Evolution of Civilization, symbolic of the 12 nations and epochs which have contributed to the world’s advance--both great works of art by Edwin Howland Blashfield. The dome is beautifully decorated, and the series of statues in bronze by famous American sculptors at intervals on the balustrade encircling the rotunda make the scene impressive.
The pillars in the rotunda are 40 feet high, the windows 32 feet wide.
There are 16 bronze statues surrounding the railing of the gallery under the dome, representing leaders in great fields of learning, as follows:
_Religion_: Moses the great lawgiver, holding the Tables of the Law, given at Mount Sinai, by Charles Henry Niehaus; St. Paul, with sword and scroll, by John Donoghue.
_Commerce_: Christopher Columbus, by Paul Bartlett; Robert Fulton, holding a model of his first steamboat, Clermont, by Lewis Potter.
_History_: Herodotus, the “Father of History,” by Daniel Chester French; Edward Gibbon, author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by C. H. Niehaus.
_Art_: Michelangelo, by Paul Bartlett; Beethoven, by Theodor Bauer.
_Philosophy_: Plato, by John J. Boyle; Francis Bacon, by John J. Boyle.
_Poetry_: Homer, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens; Shakespeare, by Frederick W. MacMonnies.
_Law_: Solon, by F. Wellington Ruckstuhl; James Kent, by George E. Bissell.
_Science_: Newton, by Cyrus E. Dallin; Joseph Henry, by Herbert Adams.
Numerous paintings, mosaics, and inscriptions adorn the interior walls. The dark Tennessee, the red Numidia, and the shades of yellow Sienna marble give the room a rich color effect.
When the collection of a million books was moved from the crowded Capitol it was believed that the increase for the next hundred years had been amply provided for; but before 15 years had passed it had been found necessary to roof over one of the four great open courts (more than a quarter of an acre in extent) and fill it with a 10-story steel bookstack to hold 1,500,000 volumes. By 1927 another court had been filled with a 14-story stack. Two years later four levels were added to the first of these court stacks, making the two equal.
To meet the great increase in the future, Congress appropriated for the purchase of a square and a half of land to the eastward and the construction of an annex building costing $9,300,000. To the annex will be transferred the copyright office, card division, printery, and bindery, but leaving room in it for eight or ten million volumes of less active material, such, for example, as the 97,000 volumes of bound newspapers. There are 20 acres of floor space in the new building.
The Library’s resources for research are unsurpassed in the Western Hemisphere; its service as a national library is unexcelled. The printed book collection on June 30, 1938, totaled 5,591,000, surpassed in numbers only by that of the Bibliothèque National in Paris, and increasing at a greater rate than those in any other library. Last year 196,000 volumes were added.
[Illustration: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ADDITION]
Founded in 1800 by an act appropriating $5,000 for the purchase of “books for the use of both Houses of Congress,” the Library continued, down to the midpoint of its 139 years of history, to be no more than its name implies--a collection for the use of the National Legislature. By 1865 the Library had attained a growth of 82,000 volumes, which was notable among American libraries neither in size nor in service rendered.
The collections include the library of Thomas Jefferson (6,760 volumes, the nucleus of the present collections, purchased for $23,950 in 1815), the Peter Force and the Toner collections of American history, the Smithsonian Institution’s unequaled collection of the proceedings of learned societies of the world, the Yudin collection of Russian books (with later additions probably the largest outside of Russia), the collection of John Boyd Thacher (fifteenth-century books, and books on the French Revolution, early Americana, autographs of European notables), the Schiff-Deinard collection of Hebrew literature, and 130,000 Chinese books, understood to be one of the largest and best-organized collections outside the Orient. Most notable among recent accessions is the Vollbehr collection of 3,000 fifteenth-century books (incunabula), for whose purchase Congress appropriated $1,500,000 in July, 1930. The gem of this group is the Gutenberg Bible, one of the three extant perfect copies on vellum of the first great book printed in Europe from movable type (A. D. 1450-1455).
[Illustration: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS--READING ROOM]
Manuscripts relating chiefly to American history are among the Library’s greatest treasures. The reproducing by photography of manuscript materials for American history in foreign archives and libraries, which since 1927 has formed so significant a portion of the division’s work, has added more than 2,000,000 pages to the resources which students of that history can use in Washington without going to Europe.
Chief among originals beyond all price are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States--both added in 1921--the personal papers of President Washington, many Presidents, and other statesmen.
The Library is rich in music. This collection numbers over 1,194,000 pieces and volumes, surpassed only in two or three European libraries. An auditorium of 500 seats, given and richly endowed by Mrs. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, provides free concerts and lectures.
Other notable groups are 1,400,000 maps and views; 542,000 engravings and other pictorial reproductions, including the splendid Pennell collections; the law library (404,000 volumes). The social and political sciences are represented by 890,500 volumes, language and literature by 350,000, history by 420,000, and pure science by 265,500.
The most recent important development in service is the division of aeronautics, established through a benefaction of $140,000 from the Daniel Guggenheim Fund for Aeronautics, now supplemented by an annual congressional appropriation.
Special facilities for serious research include some 50 individual study rooms and (elsewhere) 125 special desks or tables. Interlibrary loans for investigators whose work is likely to advance the boundaries of knowledge are sent far and wide through the United States and some abroad.
There is a service for blind readers which last year loaned 42,000 volumes in embossed type to some 3,000 readers in the United States.
Printed catalogue cards, numbering 110,000,000, prepared by the Library for its own catalogues, are sold at cost to some 6,300 other libraries, effecting for the subscribers prodigious savings in their cataloguing bills but yielding a revenue to the Treasury of $328,405.
Until very recently Congress alone provided the funds to meet all the Library’s expenses, excepting one gift of $20,000 received in 1904. But in 1925 the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board was created by Congress, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Librarian of Congress being ex officio chairman and secretary of the board, respectively. The act authorized the board to receive and invest funds for permanent endowments, and the Librarian to receive gifts of money for immediate disbursement. Already endowments aggregating about $2,000,000 and gift funds of $1,415,000 for immediate expenditure have been received and have yielded an income from 1925 to 1938 of $726,000. These new resources add to the bibliographic apparatus and support a project for developing an archive of American folk song. One endowment yields $4,000 per year for the purchase of recent Hispanic literature and employs a consultant to suggest items for purchase in this particular field.
[Illustration: THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE CONSTITUTION]
Six consultants, men of professional rank and experience, are engaged (without any administrative duties) in advising the maturer users of the Library in their investigations. This unique service is to be found nowhere else in libraries.
Notable among gifts are those of John D. Rockefeller, jr.--one of $450,000 for the acquisition in facsimile copies of source material for American history existing in the archives of foreign countries, and another of $250,000 for the development of a great union catalogue of important books in other American libraries.
The scheme of classification, covering 5,000 printed pages, has been adopted in 80 large libraries in America and Europe.
Herbert Putnam, the Librarian, took office on April 5, 1899.
The Library staff, organized in 30 divisions, consists of 1,055 persons, of whom 585 are doing library work proper; 136 handle the copyright business, which since 1870 has been under direction of the Librarian; 204 constitute the building force, which guards the building day and night, keeps it in beautiful order, attends to heating, lighting, and ventilating the 15 acres of floor space, vacuum cleans--the year round--the 162 miles of books, and looks after the countless other mechanical matters. The remainder (111 persons) are printers and bookbinders engaged on Library work, but under the Public Printer’s direction; 19 are engaged on special projects.
FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY
When Henry C. Folger, of New York City, decided to build the library his first thought was to have this monument to the glory of Shakespeare designed in harmony with the architecture of Shakespeare’s time. However, the library being in Washington, very near the Capitol, the House of Representatives and Senate Office Buildings, and the Library of Congress (to which group was added the Supreme Court Building), made it appear somewhat dangerous to introduce Elizabethan architecture in such a classical frame.
After a conference with Dr. Paul Cret, architect, and Alexander B. Trowbridge, consultant, Mr. Folger agreed with this view, and a white marble structure of classic design was agreed upon. However, if the façades of a building are part of the scenery, once the door is passed, it is quite legitimate to harmonize the interiors with the collections therein displayed. It was with this end in view that the general plan was studied and adopted.
[Illustration: FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY]
The requirements of the donor necessitated a reading room as free as possible from disturbance, and to find, for the benefit of the public, a room where could be displayed some selected material--books, prints, costumes, paintings, and works of art relating to Shakespeare. An exhibition room and theater were laid out to form a somewhat separated unit. The location of this reading room on the courtyard side away from the street noise is also more favorable to study. Below the reading room are two stories of stacks fully lighted by the courtyard.
The exhibition hall and the reading room form the center of the plan. The east wing is occupied by the lecture room-theater, which has its own lobby, and can be used at night independently of the rest of the building. The retiring rooms and dressing rooms are in the basement, and stairs lead to the balcony.
The west wing is occupied by the administration. On the main floor are the founder’s rooms and the offices of the director, his assistants, and clerks. On the second floor are the library staff workrooms and five private study rooms for scholars.
The over-all size of the building is 226 feet by 111 feet. It rises to a height of 48 feet on a property 364 feet by 186 feet. Work was started in November 1929. The façades were to harmonize in masses and material with classic Washington. A quiet modern Georgia marble façade, with silver grilles and balconies, was designed, using, as principal decoration, a set of nine bas-reliefs illustrating Shakespeare’s plays and some inscriptions emphasizing its purpose of memorial to a great poet.
[Illustration: EXHIBITION HALL--FOLGER SHAKESPEARE LIBRARY]
The sculptural theme is based on the following plays: Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Richard the Third, Hamlet, and Henry the Fourth. Their execution was entrusted to John Gregory of New York. They are placed so as to have more importance than the usual frieze--below each window of the exhibition room, at the proper height for the passer-by, and along a marble terrace raised 3 feet above the street level.
[Illustration: SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION]
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
The Smithsonian Institution was established by act of Congress in 1846, under the terms of the will of James Smithson, an Englishman, who in 1826 bequeathed his fortune to the United States to found, at Washington, under the name of the “Smithsonian Institution,” an establishment for the “increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.” The Institution is legally an establishment, having as its members the President of the United States, the Vice President, the Chief Justice, and the President’s Cabinet. It is governed by a Board of Regents. The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution is its executive officer and the director of its activities. The building was designed by James Renwick, architect.
The regents are empowered to accept gifts without action of Congress, in furtherance of the purpose of the Institution, and to administer trusts in accordance therewith. Throughout its history, the Smithsonian Institution has conducted and encouraged important scientific researches, explorations, and investigations, which have contributed largely to the advancement of knowledge, and thereby accomplishing the “increase of knowledge.” The “diffusion of knowledge” is carried on through several series of publications based on its researches and collections, through its museum and art gallery exhibits, and through an extensive correspondence. The Smithsonian issues 13 series of scientific publications which are distributed free to libraries, learned societies, and educational institutions throughout the world. It also maintains a library of 876,000 volumes, which consists mainly of transactions of learned societies and scientific periodicals.
The Institution has charge of the National Museum, the National Gallery of Art, the National Collection of Fine Arts, the Freer Gallery of Art, the International Exchange Service, the Bureau of American Ethnology, the National Zoological Park, and the Astrophysical Observatory (with several field stations).
The United States National Museum is the depository of the national collections. It is rich in the natural history, geology, paleontology, archeology, and ethnology of America, and has large and important collections illustrating American history, including military and naval material, and also valuable series relating to arts and industries. It is an educational and research museum and issues scientific publications. Its aeronautical collection includes the airplane _The Spirit of St. Louis_, deposited by Col. Charles A. Lindbergh in the spring of 1928.
The National Gallery of Art is a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution created by joint resolution of Congress approved March 24, 1937, as a result of the gift of Andrew W. Mellon to the Nation of his art collection of masterpieces valued at $50,000,000 and $10,000,000 to erect a building to house it. The above act accepting Mr. Mellon’s gift provided that the art collections already in possession of the Smithsonian Institution and therefore designated the National Gallery of Art should thereafter be known as the National Collection of Fine Arts. The National Gallery of Art is administered for the Smithsonian Institution, in which title is vested, by a Board of Trustees. The monumental marble building, designed by John Russell Pope, is now under construction on the site on the north side of the Mall between Fourth and Seventh Streets. (See p. 281 for illustration.)
The Bureau of American Ethnology is engaged particularly in the collection of information relating to the American Indians. The National Zoological Park has an area of 175 acres and is located adjacent to Rock Creek Park. Its collection comprises about 3,000 animals.
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
The Government Printing Office, in which the printing and bookbinding for the various branches of the National Government is executed, is located on North Capitol Street between G and H Streets NW. Covering almost a city block with its eight-story, red-brick building, this plant is the best-equipped and is reputed to be the largest printing office of its kind in the world.
Printing for the Government of the United States was first mentioned during the initial session of Congress, in 1789, in the form of a recommendation to that body that proposals be invited for “printing the laws and other proceedings of Congress.”
The first specific appropriation for public printing was passed in 1794, when an expenditure of $10,000 was authorized for “firewood, stationery, and printing.”
Between 1804 and 1814, Congress had no fixed policy in relation to printing. A contract system by the lowest bidder was adopted. The plan prevailed for 5 years but was very unsatisfactory, and Congress was compelled to look for a better method. In December, 1818, both houses passed a resolution appointing a joint committee to “consider and report whether any further provisions of law are necessary to insure dispatch, accuracy, and neatness in printing the documents of the two Houses of Congress.” The inquiries by this committee led them to New York and Philadelphia, where they studied printing costs and methods, and upon returning to Washington they made a report declaring most emphatically for the establishment of a national printing office as the only means by which Congress could secure necessary printing at reasonable costs.
No definite action was taken on the report, with the result that for the next forty-odd years the method of handling public printing was constantly changing. Some years there was a “Printer to the Senate” and a “Printer to the House,” both elected by a ballot of Congress, and in other years there was a “Superintendent of Public Printing.” Altogether it was expensive and impractical, and by act of Congress on June 23, 1860, a national printing office was authorized. On February 19, 1861, $135,000 was appropriated, and with this money the printing establishment of Joseph T. Crowell, located at H and North Capitol Streets, Washington, D. C., was purchased, upon approval of the Joint Committee on Printing. This building had been constructed in 1856 by Cornelius Wendell, as a private office. The building at that time was 243 by 61¹⁄₂ feet, 4 stories high, but by subsequent appropriations up to 1876 several additions were made to the original structure.
[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE]
The plant, as taken over in 1861, employed between 300 and 400 persons and evidently was, for that period, very complete. It consisted of a drying room, pressroom, wetting room, job room, folding room, reading room, office, bindery, machine shop, boiler house, and stable. Among some of the items of equipment were 1 timepiece, 5 wrenches, one 40-horse engine, 104 pressboards, 2 wetting tubs, and a large assortment of book and job type. The reading room had eight armchairs, two pine desks, and one mahogany desk. The bindery had but few machines, with only 2 ruling and 2 cutting machines, but the list carried 10 pairs of shears, 4 bodkins, and other minor equipment. The pressroom had 23 Adams presses and 3 cylinder presses. With the stable came two horses, one wagon, and one carryall, and the boiler house had one 60-horse boiler, 525 feet of fire hose, five buckets, etc.
On March 23, 1861, President Lincoln appointed Hon. John Defrees, of Indiana, as the Superintendent of Public Printing. He reported that at once the cost of work decreased at least 15 percent from the old contract prices.
On March 3, 1873, the printing of the debates of Congress, then known as the Congressional Globe and handled under private contract, was taken over by the Government Printing Office and thereafter became the Congressional Record.
In 1876, Hon. A. M. Clapp, then Congressional Printer, was designated the first Public Printer, at a yearly salary of $3,600. Composing rooms employed 520 persons, pressroom 209, and bindery 591; in all, 1,361 persons were on the roll. The total yearly pay roll was $786,493. It cost $188,198 to print the Congressional Record in 1876, while binding of all kinds cost $402,069, paper $298,251, and the total output of the Office was charged at $1,617,469. The total purchase of machinery and equipment in that year was only $342.50.
In 1878 the building known as the Globe Vault was purchased from the private owner, together with the bound and unbound volumes of the Congressional Globe and all the stereotyped plates. The price paid was $100,000.
Fireproof extensions to the Government Printing Office were erected in 1879 and 1880. In 1882 the first fire escapes were installed, and force pumps proved such an attraction to the public that the apparatus had to be covered with canvas. Bows and arrows were also provided which would enable life lines to be “shot” through the upper windows.
By the act of January 12, 1895, the Office of the Superintendent of Documents was established in the Government Printing Office. Previously it was a part of the Interior Department. The principal functions of the office were the preparation of the official catalogs and indexes of the Government and distribution and sale of Government publications.
The Office was placed under operation of the civil-service law August 1, 1895. In the same year the Annex Building, formerly used by the Superintendent of Documents, was constructed, and in the following year the Public Printer reported the total floor space of the entire Office had increased to 8³⁄₄ acres.
In 1898 Congress appropriated $190,000 for the purchase of ground occupied by the present building. In 1899 the building was started. It was completed about 4 years thereafter, at a cost of $2,430,000.
In 1903 a small space in the Old Building was set aside as the “sick room.” Its equipment consisted of a cot, blanket, and a small supply of medicines contributed by the employees. This was the nucleus from which developed the first emergency hospital in any Government establishment and was the initial step toward scientific medical and surgical service. In 1907 an emergency room was installed and an additional physician and matron were assigned to that service.
The first linotype machine and the first monotype keyboard were installed in 1904. In 1912 electric trucks displaced the horse-and-wagon delivery. In 1915 the Government Printing Office was an exhibitor at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition held in San Francisco, Calif.
Between 1921 and 1934 several innovations were made. A few of the outstanding are as follows: The eighth floor was remodeled and raised to provide room for the Cafeteria, Harding Hall, recreation rooms, rest rooms, and large space for productive work. The Cafeteria serves around 2,800 meals daily, and Harding Hall, seating 1,200, is devoted to social activities of employees and may be quickly converted into a ballroom, a motion-picture theater, or a forum. Recreational activities include orchestra, baseball clubs, bowling alleys, dances, moving pictures and lectures, annual excursions, and similar affairs. The photo-engraving plant was also added as one of the new mechanical departments and is also located on the eighth floor. A roof garden was built, covering practically the entire building. The emergency hospital was enlarged, and wards for men and women were provided, with beds, toilets, and shower baths.
Two hundred apprentices received training for occupational pursuits in the various printing and bindery trades represented in the Office.
A testing laboratory was established in the Office for the purpose of standardizing all materials, supplies, and stock used in the manufacture of printing.
The boiler and generating rooms were abolished, and the purchase of electric current and steam from the Capital Power Plant was started.
Since 1934, under the direction of Public Printer A. E. Giegengack, the Government Printing Office has continued to grow not only in size but also in public esteem. Under his leadership, appropriations for a much-needed building program were granted by Congress, and the erection of a warehouse and an eight-story, red-brick addition to the main Printing Office building was accomplished. The cost of this building program, which included buildings, machinery and equipment, furnishings, the expense of moving, and other incidentals, amounted to $7,700,000.
Among the many noteworthy improvements inaugurated for the betterment of service to the Government, to the public, and to the 5,500 employees of the Office, are the following:
The establishment of a department of typography, through which there are incorporated into Government printing the accepted improvements in the field of typography; the standardization of a type-metal alloy for all type-casting machines; the installation of a more efficient cost-finding and pay-roll bookkeeping system; the reestablishment of the Government Printing Office Apprentice School; and encouragement of greater employee participation in all social, fraternal, and welfare activities sponsored by the Office.
Uncle Sam’s Book Shop sold 10 million copies from its list of 65,000 publications in 1937. This department is called the Office of the Superintendent of Documents, which is located in the Government Printing Office building, and these Government publications, covering almost every phase of human endeavor, are for sale to the public at a reasonable price.
THE WHITE HOUSE
The site of the White House, or the President’s House, was selected by President Washington. It was part of the David Burnes farm, and at the time it was chosen a cornfield extended one-half mile south to the Potomac.
The cornerstone of the President’s House was laid on October 13, 1792, but not by George Washington, as the records show that he and his family were in Philadelphia at the time. The design was made by James Hoban, an architect of Dublin, Ireland, who won a $500 prize and a lot for the best plan. In its exterior it somewhat resembles the palace of the Duke of Leinster in Ireland. That, however, has Corinthian columns over a rusticated base, showing the influence of the Renaissance in England; and there are other distinctions in their classical motives.
The White House was first occupied by President and Mrs. John Adams, who moved in the latter part of November, 1800, the year Washington became the seat of government. At the time it was very incomplete, and much discomfort was experienced, particularly as to heating and lighting. The East Room was used to dry the family wash. The White House was not finished until 1826. Then and for many years following it secured its water from springs a short distance to the northeast, in the vicinity of what is now Franklin Square.
[Illustration: THE WHITE HOUSE--NORTH SIDE]
The President’s House, as it was then called, was considerably damaged by fire by the British, who threatened the destruction of the city in 1814. The building, except for the wings at each side, which were used for offices and servants’ quarters, was restored by Hoban. Of white sandstone, the building which became discolored by the fire was thereupon painted white and has since been known as the White House. It was first lighted by gas in 1848, and a system of heating and ventilating was installed in 1853.
The White House was remodeled during the administration of President Roosevelt in 1902, when the Executive Office was taken out of the building and placed in a temporary building to the west of the main building. This was enlarged during the administration of President Taft in 1909 to twice its former size. It was further remodeled in 1927 by making the building fireproof and constructing a third story out of the attic.
In 1929 it was found necessary by President Hoover to use also the basement for an office. In the same year the building was partially burned, but has since been rebuilt. It is thought by some that in the years to come the remodeled State Department Building will become the permanent Executive Office Building, and the State Department will have a new building on the west side of Lafayette Square.
The White House has a length of 183 feet (east and west) and a width of 85 feet; it is 58 feet high. The portico of Ionic columns forms a porte-cochère and measures 40 feet by 59 feet (east and west), and is 50 feet high.
The building contains many beautiful paintings and other works of art, among them a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, called the Lansdowne Stuart, which was saved by Dolly Madison by cutting the picture from its frame when the White House was burned by the British in 1814. It is now in the East Room, which is the great reception room, 82 feet long (the width of the mansion), 40 feet wide, and 22 feet high. From the ceiling hang three massive crystal chandeliers. In addition to numerous paintings, large vases and other articles adorn the room.
Other interesting rooms are the State Dining Room, the scene of brilliant State functions; the Blue Room--the President’s reception room--the walls of which are covered with rich blue corded silk, with window hangings of blue; the Red Room, the walls and window draperies of which are of red velvet; and the Green Room, which has on the walls green velvet. The wainscoting of the Green Room is of white enamel.
Large and beautiful grounds bound the White House on the south. Here the Marine Band plays every Saturday afternoon during the summer months. Also it is here where the annual Easter egg rolling takes place, always a great day for the boys and girls of Washington. The area is called the White Lot because about 1850 a board fence that later was painted white surrounded these grounds.
[Illustration: DEPARTMENT OF STATE BUILDING AS IT WILL APPEAR WHEN REMODELED]
Originally the main entrance to the White House was on the south side, while the portico on the opposite side was a garden where the family spent their evenings. This is the arrangement observed to-day at Arlington House and at Mount Vernon, and is an indication that in the colonial days the back yards of homes were as nicely kept as were the front yards.
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
[Illustration: DEPARTMENT OF STATE BUILDING, 1801]
In 1788 the Department of Foreign Affairs moved from Fraunce’s Tavern to a house owned by Philip Livingston, on the west side of Broadway, near the Battery, in New York City. Later it moved to another house on the same street on the opposite side. The Capital having been again located at Philadelphia, the department took up its abode first on Market Street, then on the southeast corner of Arch and Sixth Streets, then in North Alley, and finally at the northeast corner of Fifth and Chestnut Streets, where it remained until it was moved to Washington, except for an interval of three months--from August to November, 1798--when it occupied the statehouse at Trenton, N. J., the office being moved from Philadelphia on account of an epidemic of yellow fever.
On July 27, 1789, the act establishing an executive department to be called the Department of Foreign Affairs was approved; but the Sedgwick Act, approved September 15, 1789, changed this title to the Department of State and that of the principal officer to the Secretary of State. A few days later John Jay, who was Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the Confederation, was nominated to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and Thomas Jefferson to be Secretary of State, and both were commissioned on September 26. Jay accepted at once, but continued to discharge the duties of Secretary of State for some months. Under date of October 13 President Washington informed Jefferson of his appointment, and added that Mr. Jay had been so obliging as to continue his good offices. When this letter was written Jefferson had not returned to America from his mission to France. Upon his arrival Jay recommended to him favorably “the young gentlemen in the office.” Jefferson formally entered upon the discharge of his duties on March 22, 1790.
When the seat of government was established in the District of Columbia in 1800 the archives and the seven employees of the Department of State were crowded into the Treasury Office, a building of 30 rooms, to the east of the White House. It was the only Government building sufficiently completed to receive them. John Marshall was then Secretary of State. On August 27, 1800, the Department of State was removed to one of the Seven Buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue and Nineteenth Street NW.
It has been interesting to determine positively the name of this historic group of buildings, because some confusion has arisen through there being in 1800 two groups or rows of houses, near to one another, one called the Six Buildings and the other the Seven Buildings. Christian Hines, in his Early Recollections of Washington City (1866), says, when giving a list of the few houses standing in the year 1800:
One square between Pennsylvania Avenue and K and Twenty-first and Twenty-second Streets, the Six Buildings, three stories high, owners and occupants not recollected * * *. One square bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue and I and Nineteenth and Twentieth Streets, 10 houses--one 3-story frame, occupied by a Mr. Middleton; one 2-Story frame, owned and occupied by William Waters, Esq., and the Seven Buildings, brick, 3 stories high.
Samuel C. Busey, in his Pictures of the City of Washington in the Past (1898), refers to and confirms Hines’s statements as to these two sets of buildings, and adds that in the Six Buildings was located O’Neal’s famous hotel. All writers apparently agree that the first home of the Department of State in Washington was in the house on the northwest corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and Nineteenth Street. This row of buildings--Nos. 1901-1913 Pennsylvania Avenue--is still standing, though it has undergone considerable change.
From the early part of 1820 to November, 1866, the Department of State was located at the corner of Fifteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW., in what was known as the Executive Building. The picture shown below was given to William McNeir, chief of the division of accounts of that department, by Thomas Ridgate, who found it in the attic of the old building. It will be noted from the picture, which shows the Treasury Department Building columns at the extreme left, that it was taken before the building was razed to make room for the north wing of the present Treasury Department Building; the rest of the new building had at that time been erected. Of this building Jonathan Eliot states, in his Historical Sketches of the Ten Mile Square, describing Washington in 1830:
At the distance of about 200 yards, on the east of the President’s house, are situated two buildings for the Department of State and of the Treasury; and at the same distance on the west are two others for the War and Navy Departments. These buildings are all of the same dimensions and construction; they are 160 feet long and 55 feet wide, of brick, two stories in height; they are divided in their length by a broad passage, with rooms on each side, and a spacious staircase in the center. The two most northerly buildings are ornamented with an Ionic portico of six columns and pediment. The grounds about these offices have been graduated and planted of late years, and the shrubbery begins to present a pleasing appearance.
[Illustration: EXECUTIVE BUILDING, 1820-1866]
W. K. Force, in his Picture of Washington for 1850, said, speaking of the northeast Executive Building:
The first floor is occupied by the Fifth Auditor of the Treasury at the east end, and the Second Comptroller of the Treasury at the west end. On the second floor are the apartments of the Secretary of State and his suite; also the library of the department, containing some ten or twelve thousand volumes.
John Quincy Adams was Secretary of State when the move to this new home was made, and thereafter followed a long list of distinguished Secretaries, the last to occupy this building being William H. Seward, from 1861 to 1869.
The north wing of the present Treasury Department Building bears on its exterior wall on Fifteenth Street a tablet, erected April 30, 1929, by the Kiwanis Club of Washington, in cooperation with the Committee on Marking Points of Historic Interest, which contains the following inscription:
FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA WAS DEVELOPED AND STRENGTHENED BY THE SIGNING OF THE WEBSTER-ASHBURTON TREATY, ON AUGUST 9, 1842, IN THE OLD STATE DEPARTMENT BUILDING WHICH STOOD ON THIS SITE. THIS TREATY ESTABLISHED THE NORTHEASTERN BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES.
On March 3, 1871, Congress appropriated half a million dollars to start work on the State, War, and Navy Departments Building. The act provided:
For the construction under the direction of the Secretary of State, on the southern portion of the premises now occupied by the War and Navy Departments, of a building which will form the south wing of a building that, when completed, will be similar in ground plan and dimensions to the Treasury Building and provide accommodations for the State, War, and Navy Departments.
The original plans were drawn by Thomas U. Walter, a noted Philadelphia architect, who designed the Dome of the Capitol and the completed Treasury Building, but A. B. Mullett, Supervising Architect of the Treasury, undertook the work, and finally only the interior conformed to the original plans.
The building was erected in five different sections. The south wing was commenced in 1871 and completed in time for the Department of State to move in July 1, 1875. The east wing was commenced in 1872 and completed seven years later, so that on April 16, 1879, the War and Navy Departments moved into that wing. The old War Department Building, which had occupied the site of the north wing of the present building, was demolished in 1879, and the new building or north wing was completed three years later, the War Department moving into it in December, 1882. The west and center wings were the last to be erected, work on them commencing March 31, 1883, and being completed January 31, 1888. For a long time each wing was necessarily separated by a solid wall--and later by an iron grill, or gates in the corridors--but finally these disappeared, and the beauty of the long corridors as they now are appeared. The total cost of the whole building was slightly more than $10,000,000, and appropriations therefor spread over a period of 17 years. Separate permanent buildings for the War and the Navy Departments are now to be erected, these two departments being housed at present largely in temporary buildings. The Department of State alone remains in the building.
In 1910 a building for the Department of State was recommended for a site along Fifteenth Street, south of Pennsylvania Avenue, where now the Department of Commerce has been built. In 1917 it was recommended that a Department of State Building be erected on the west side of Lafayette Square.
In the new Federal building program Congress has provided that the present State, War, and Navy Building be remodeled to conform in design to the Treasury Department Building, and to be known as the Department of State Building. The building will thus properly balance the White House. Congress made a fund of $3,000,000 available for this work. The Secretary of the Treasury appointed Waddy Wood, architect of Washington, to prepare the design, which has been approved by the Commission of Fine Arts. However, the project has been held in abeyance.
The Department of State was created as the first department of the Government in 1789, in order to help the President in carrying on our foreign relations. However, in the early years of our country the Department of State not only had charge of foreign affairs, but, as Thomas Jefferson, the first Secretary of State, once wrote, it also had charge of all important matters of domestic government as well, except matters of war and finance. In the early days the Secretary of State even managed the mint. Until 1849 he had charge of the Patent Office, until 1859 handled all copyright matters, and until 1850 the census of the United States was taken under his direction. Before the Civil War, United States judges, marshals, and attorneys all received their instructions from the Department of State, but in 1870 a new Department of Justice was established to take care of these matters, and little by little much of the domestic work was taken from this department and put under new departments, such as the Department of the Interior, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Commerce. Therefore, to-day the Department of State devotes most of its time to handling foreign affairs, although it is still the custodian, or the keeper, of the great seal, the official seal of the Government of the United States. When Congress passes new laws the original copies are kept in this department, and when there is any correspondence between the various States of the Union and the Federal Government it is carried on through the Department of State.
The Secretary of State has a force of some 950 people in the department in Washington, and about 3,800 people scattered over all the world in the Foreign Service of the United States. The department in Washington is divided into 35 divisions and offices, each with its special work to perform. Six divisions have charge of matters pertaining to foreign countries--South and Central America; the Far East, as China, Japan, and Siam; the division of Western European affairs; Eastern European affairs; a division of the Near East; and the Mexican division.
One of the largest offices in the department is the passport division, which issues passports to American citizens traveling in foreign countries. Last year 134,737 Americans obtained passports so that they might travel abroad, the fees for which amounted to nearly $1,500,000, almost enough to pay the entire expenses of the Department of State.
[Illustration: DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BUILDING]
When foreigners wish to come to this country they must first go to one of our American consuls to obtain a visa or a permit. The immigration of foreigners into this country is now restricted by law. Therefore our consuls examine the foreigners abroad, so that they may know before starting on their journey whether they will be allowed to remain in this country. The visa division of the Department of State has charge of that work.
Whenever there are expositions or meetings of various kinds abroad, and it is decided that the United States Government shall take part in them, such participation has to be arranged through another of the divisions of the Department of State. As many as 150 cables are sent every day to all parts of the world, which are taken care of in the department’s telegraph office. In many foreign countries our Government is now buying and constructing its own buildings for our ambassadors and consuls, and one of the offices in the department attends to these matters.
The Secretary of State is assisted in the direction of all these officers and offices by an Under Secretary of State, four Assistant Secretaries of State, and a legal adviser. The United States has an ambassador or minister in 54 different countries of the world. There are 314 foreign commercial cities where the United States has a consul general, consul, vice consul, or consular agent, who, among other duties, help steamship lines and great business establishments to promote commerce with the United States. Our consuls protect and assist the hundreds of American missionaries whose stations are in remote foreign regions of the world. In addition to their many duties they help thousands of visitors during trips abroad who seek advice. And when an American is visiting in a foreign land, even though scenery and ruins that recall civilizations of past ages give him pleasure, there is nothing that gives him more joy than to see in such places the Stars and Stripes waving over a United States consulate.
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
The Department of the Treasury was created by act of Congress September 2, 1789. Robert Morris, of Pennsylvania, financier and statesman, one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, was the first financial officer of the Government and was Superintendent of Finance from 1781 to 1784. Upon the resignation of Morris the powers conferred upon him by the Continental Congress were transferred to the Board of the Treasury. This board served until Alexander Hamilton, of New York, the first Secretary of the Treasury, assumed office. Hamilton served from September 11, 1789, to January 31, 1795, thus serving under President Washington. Since the formation of the Government there have been 50 Secretaries of the Treasury; the present incumbent, Hon. Henry Morgenthau, jr., of New York, assumed office January 1, 1934. The Secretary of the Treasury, of course, has supervision over the finances of the Government. The annual estimates, however, since 1921 have been transmitted to Congress by the Director of the Budget for the President of the United States.
The first building of the Treasury Department situated at this location east of the White House was a small wooden structure, called the State and Treasury Departments Building. It was built at the time the seat of government was established in the District of Columbia in 1800 and comprised 30 rooms. This original building was burned by the British during the invasion of Washington in 1814. A second building was erected. This was destroyed by fire in 1833. In 1836 Congress authorized the erection of “a fireproof building of such dimensions as may be required for the present and future accommodations.” Also the material for the building was to be similar to that used for the Capitol and the White House. The architect was Mr. Robert Mills, who at the same time was designing the Patent Office Building and later won the competition for the design of the Washington Monument. When it came to the question of location of the new building, it is said that President Andrew Jackson, becoming impatient at the delay, said “Here, right here, is where I want the corner stone laid.” Thus the building stands where it is to-day. In 1839 the department was installed in the unfinished building.
The Treasury Building consists of a 4-story rectangle around a large central court; this court is divided by a corridor of offices. On the west the building faces the beautiful White House Grounds, its north side is on Pennsylvania Avenue, its east front runs along Fifteenth Street, and its south side overlooks a half-mile stretch of park leading down to the Potomac River.
The building completed in 1842 included only the middle portion of the present east wing and the central corridor and offices. The south wing was completed in 1861, the west wing in 1864, and the north wing in 1869. It is an imposing granite structure. In design it is pure Grecian, furnishing what is claimed to be one of the finest examples of this style of architecture in Washington, if not in the entire country. There are great pediments on the north, south, and west sides. Monolithic columns of the Ionic order adorning the façades are the distinguishing feature of the building architecturally. There are 72 of these columns, each 36 feet in height, 30 being set to form an unbroken colonnade 341 feet long on the east front. Most of the granite used was brought to Washington in sailing vessels from Maine. The building has 488 rooms and cost over $6,000,000.
The department long ago outgrew the building. The personnel in Washington now numbers more than 22,000, with some 26 main bureaus and divisions. At present Department of the Treasury bureaus occupy, in addition to the main building, 9 entire buildings and part of 6 other buildings owned by the Government and 5 rented quarters. The Treasury Annex is an imposing building, designed by Cass Gilbert, across Pennsylvania Avenue on the north. Congress has authorized its extension to H Street.
The Department of the Treasury is the central agency through which the Federal Government conducts its financial affairs. Generally speaking, it receives and has custody of all funds paid to the Government and disburses all moneys of the Government. At the head of the department are the Secretary of the Treasury, the Under Secretary of the Treasury, and three Assistant Secretaries of the Treasury, whose offices are all located in the main building.
The receipts of the Government come chiefly from internal-revenue collections and customs duties. The Bureau of Internal Revenue administers and enforces the internal-revenue laws and collects all internal-revenue taxes. The personnel of this bureau has been brought together and now occupies a beautiful new building recently completed as part of the development along the Mall. Import duties or customs are collected by the Bureau of Customs.
Disbursements of Government funds can be made only on the authorization of Congress. When any payment is authorized, a warrant signed by the Secretary of the Treasury and countersigned by the Comptroller General of the United States is drawn. Upon this authority payment is made. The division of bookkeeping and warrants, under the general supervision of the commissioner of accounts and deposits, keeps complete records of all appropriation accounts as well as of public moneys covered into the Treasury and of warrants authorizing disbursements.
The Treasurer of the United States is charged with responsibility for the actual receipt and disbursement of all public moneys that may be deposited in the United States Treasury and in all other depositaries authorized to receive deposits of Government funds for credit in the account of the Treasurer of the United States. He has also many other fiscal duties.
The public-debt service handles the records and operations pertaining to the issue and retirement of the public debt and the interest payments thereon, under the supervision of the commissioner of the public debt.
The Bureau of the Mint manufactures the coin circulating medium of the country. It maintains mints at Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Denver for the coinage of money, as well as assay offices in New York and elsewhere. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing at Washington engraves and prints notes, bonds, securities, stamps, checks, etc.
The Comptroller of the Currency is charged under the law with the supervision of national banks.
[Illustration: VIEW NORTHWEST FROM THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT]
OTHER IMPORTANT BUILDINGS
Lack of space in this book makes it necessary merely to mention the more important of the other monumental buildings in the National Capital. Detailed information concerning them may be found in the author’s Washington the National Capital and in other books on Washington. They should be studied in connection with the buildings described in this chapter.
Attention is called first to the group of monumental semipublic buildings, classical in design, on Seventeenth Street north of Constitution Avenue and along that Avenue from Seventeenth Street west to the Potomac River. It has been said that nowhere else in the world is there such a fine group of marble buildings.
THE CORCORAN GALLERY OF ART
This Gallery had its beginning in the year 1869. It ranks as one of the great art galleries in the United States. The present building (at New York Avenue and Seventeenth Street) was designed by Ernest Flagg, architect, and completed in 1897. It is built of Georgia marble. It houses rare masterpieces of painting and sculpture.
THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS
Adjacent to the Corcoran Gallery on the south, the American National Red Cross occupies three large buildings constructed of Vermont marble. They were designed by Trowbridge & Livingston, architects, of New York City. The Red Cross had its beginning during the Civil War. In 1905 the organization was chartered by Congress along its present lines. There are 5,500,000 adult members and 8,500,000 Junior members (as of June 30, 1938).
MEMORIAL CONTINENTAL HALL
The next building to the south is the headquarters of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution. It faces Seventeenth Street, was designed by Edward Pearce Casey, architect, built of Vermont marble, and completed in 1905. The cornerstone was laid April 19, 1904, the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington. On that date the organization holds its convention in Washington each year. It was founded October 11, 1890, and on February 1, 1938, numbered 142,744 members, with about 2,500 chapters in all parts of the United States.
CONSTITUTION HALL
Another of the Society’s buildings, facing Eighteenth Street, in this square, is the leading auditorium of the city. It was designed by John Russell Pope, architect, built of Alabama limestone, and completed in October, 1929. The auditorium seats 4,000 persons. On page 278 there is a picture of the building. The mural decorations of the interior are by J. Monroe Hewlett, architect.
THE PAN AMERICAN BUILDING
This building, at the corner of Seventeenth Street and Constitution Avenue, is considered by some to be the most beautiful in Washington. It was designed by Albert C. Kelsey and Paul P. Cret, architects, in the Spanish-classical style of architecture. It was built of Georgia marble and was dedicated April 26, 1910. It is the headquarters of the 21 Republics of the Pan American Union. In it is the famous Hall of the Americas. Andrew Carnegie contributed $850,000 toward the building, and the United States Government contributed the 5-acre tract, on which stood the Van Ness Mansion (1815) and the David Burnes cottage, which stood there in the days of George Washington.
THE NEW DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR BUILDING
Designed by Waddy B. Wood, architect, the new Department of the Interior building occupies two squares between C and E and Eighteenth and Nineteenth Streets. It is built of Indiana limestone and is the largest air-conditioned office building in the world.
PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE BUILDING
This building, designed by J. H. deSibour, architect, is classical in design and built of white Georgia marble. It was completed in 1933. It is four stories in height and houses the large and growing office of the Surgeon General of the United States and his staff of assistants. In its location on Constitution Avenue it forms a part of the frame for the Lincoln Memorial.
FEDERAL RESERVE BOARD BUILDING
Completed in 1937, this building forms the center of the group of monumental marble buildings along Constitution Avenue west of Seventeenth Street. The design, by Paul P. Cret, architect, is based on classical motives. It is built of white Georgia marble. It is the headquarters building for the Federal Reserve Board. In it is a large mosaic map of the United States by Ezra Winter, mural painter, showing the location of the 12 Federal Reserve branch banks in the different sections of the country.
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
This building, designed by Bertram G. Goodhue, architect, is immediately east of the Federal Reserve Board building. It is classical in design and built of white marble from Dover, N. Y. The building was dedicated by President Coolidge in April, 1924. The interior is decorated with paintings and decorations by Hildreth Meiere and Albert Herter; the sculptural decorations are by Lee Lawrie.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PHARMACY
Immediately north of the Lincoln Memorial stands the American Institute of Pharmacy. It was designed by John Russell Pope, architect, and built of white Vermont marble. It is classical in its style of architecture, and in its location west of the National Academy of Sciences completes the group of buildings on Constitution Avenue that form a frame for the Lincoln Memorial. The building is the headquarters of the druggists in the United States. More than 14,000 druggists subscribed toward the building fund. The Pharmacopoeia of the United States, under which prescriptions and drugs are standardized, is supervised by the Institute.
SCOTTISH RITE TEMPLE
This building, at Sixteenth and P Streets NW., is the headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Thirty-third Degree, of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction. It is modeled after the tomb of Mausolus, at Halicarnassus, in Asia Minor, which was regarded by the ancients as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Its 33 Ionic columns are 33 feet tall, suggesting the 33 degrees of Masonry. On each side of the main entrance is a colossal sphinx, symbolic of Divine Wisdom and Power, executed by A. A. Weinman, sculptor. The building was designed by John Russell Pope, architect.
CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON
At 16th and P Streets NW. is the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The building was designed by Carrére and Hastings, and shows an influence of the French classical style of architecture.
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES
Dedicated in 1925, this building, at Connecticut Avenue and H Streets NW., is classical in its style of architecture and is adapted to modern office requirements. It was designed by Cass Gilbert, architect. Fully 13,000 business men representing almost 200 cities of the United States contributed toward the building.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
The National Geographic Society, organized in 1888, “for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge,” is the largest educational and scientific body in the world.
In its 50 years the society has sponsored a series of notable explorations, discoveries, and research activities of our times, and it has developed its unique and beautifully illustrated National Geographic Magazine as a means of disseminating geographic information among its world-wide membership.
[Illustration: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY]
[Illustration: CONSTITUTION HALL]
The society’s administrative and editorial offices, at Sixteenth and M Streets NW., were enlarged by an addition which extends its handsome and dignified headquarters along a 214-foot frontage. A commodious and modern office building at Third Street and Randolph Place NE., is used for mailing its magazine, maps, and communications to its world-wide membership.
In its editorial, research, technical, photographic, and clerical departments, and in the publishing of the National Geographic Magazine, the society now employs more than 800 persons. It is the largest non-Government user of the National Capital’s post office facilities.
The society’s members, numbering 1,150,000 (December, 1938), represent every community of 100 or more persons in the United States, while its foreign membership of 183,709 includes residents in every country, colony, principality, and mandated area of the world which has any semblance of a postal system.
To each member goes monthly the National Geographic Magazine, which has been called the foremost educational periodical in the world; each member also receives every map and panoramic illustration as issued. Thus the society has distributed among its more than a million member homes some 20,000,000 wall maps, in color, in addition to the numerous sketch maps which accompany articles in the magazine.
The society’s weekly lectures, which are held in Constitution Hall, have become a part of the intellectual life of the National Capital. Since their inception more than 1,400 explorers, statesmen, and world travelers of note have addressed the Washington meetings. Such explorers as Rear Admiral Peary, Sir Francis Younghusband, Capt. Roald Amundsen, Colonel Lindbergh, and Rear Admiral Byrd have related their findings to the society’s members; also such noted travelers as the late Viscount Bryce, former Ambassador Jusserand, the late William Howard Taft, and Colonel Roosevelt, after his return from his African game hunt and his Amazon expedition.
When these lectures are of general interest they are reprinted and illustrated in the magazine for the society’s entire membership.
At its Sixteenth Street headquarters the society maintains a library of up-to-date geographic information, comprising some 20,000 volumes, in addition to maps, periodicals, and reports from foreign governments and geographic societies.
The leading universities of the city, such as Georgetown University, founded 1789; George Washington University, founded 1821; Catholic University, founded 1889; American University, founded 1893; Howard University, founded 1867; Columbia Institution for the Deaf, founded 1857; and Trinity College, Brookland, founded 1897; also have their monumental buildings.
In the Triangle group are to be found: Department of Commerce Building, York & Sawyer, architects; Department of Labor and Interstate Commerce Commission Building, Arthur Brown, architect; Post Office Department Building, Delano & Aldrich, architects; Department of Justice Building, Zantzinger, Borie & Medary, architects; Internal Revenue Building, Louis Simon, architect; National Archives Building, John Russell Pope, architect; Federal Trade Commission (Apex) Building, Bennett, Parsons & Frost, architects.
[Illustration: THE TRIANGLE GROUP OF PUBLIC BUILDINGS ALONG CONSTITUTION AVENUE]
[Illustration: THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART]
[Illustration: THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES BUILDING]
[Illustration: THE MAKERS OF THE CONSTITUTION]
[Illustration: THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE]
Other buildings are: The Central Heating Plant (for heating 75 buildings), Paul P. Cret, architect; Bureau of Engraving and Printing, W. B. Olmstead, architect; Smithsonian Institution (begun in 1846), James Renwick, architect; National Museum Building, Hornblower & Marshall, architects; Freer Gallery of Art, Charles A. Platt, architect; Department of Agriculture Building, Rankin, Kellogg & Crane, architects; Department of Agriculture South Building, the Supervising Architect; Naval Observatory; State, War, and Navy Building, A. B. Mullett, supervising architect; Old Pension Office Building (General Accounting Office); Army War College, McKim, Mead & White, architects; Walter Reed Hospital; Naval Hospital; Public Library, Ackerman & Ross, architects; United States Bureau of Standards; National Zoological Park (large new buildings completed in 1937); National Gallery of Art (now under construction), John Russell Pope, architect.
IMPORTANT BRIDGES OF WASHINGTON
Arlington Memorial Bridge, McKim, Mead & White, architects; Calvert Street Bridge, Paul P. Cret, architect; Francis Scott Key Bridge, Nathan Wyeth, architect; Connecticut Avenue (Taft) Bridge, Edward P. Casey, architect, lions by R. Hinton Perry; Q Street Bridge, Glenn Brown and Bedford Brown, architects, A. Phimister Proctor, sculptor; Klingle Ford Bridge, Connecticut Avenue, Paul P. Cret, architect; New Chain Bridge, designed under supervision of Brig. Gen. Dan I. Sultan, former Engineer Commissioner of the District of Columbia; John Philip Sousa Bridge, Southeast, McKim, Mead & White, architects.
CATHEDRAL OF ST. PETER AND ST. PAUL
(WASHINGTON CATHEDRAL)
The cathedral is situated on Mount St. Alban, in the northwestern part of the city, on a hill 400 feet in height, said to be the highest point in the District of Columbia, giving a superb view over the National Capital.
The cathedral, also known as the National Cathedral, was designed by George F. Bodley, of London, and Henry Vaughn, of Boston. It is a typical fourteenth century Gothic edifice. The cornerstone was laid in 1907, and since then a large part of the cathedral has been completed. Its ultimate cost, it is estimated, will be $20,000,000. The central nave is about complete, the apse and north transept are finished as are also several of the chapels, such as the Bethlehem Chapel, the Norman Chapel, the Chapel of St. John, and the Chapel of St. Mary. There are costly stones in the building from many parts of the world, including a stone from Bethlehem, which formed the cornerstone.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON CATHEDRAL]
[Illustration: WASHINGTON CATHEDRAL]
[Illustration: NATIONAL SHRINE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION]
The building is constructed of limestone. The sculpture and beautifully stained glass windows form the principal decorations.
The total length of the building from the exterior of the apse at the eastern end to the main entrance at the western end will be 534 feet. The total spread of the transepts will be 215 feet, and each of these arms of the cross will be 105 feet wide. The ground area of the cathedral will be 71,000 square feet, and this will be ample to provide standing room for 27,000 persons or seating space for 7,500. The central tower will rise to a height of 262 feet and each of the two western towers will be 195 feet high. The nave will have a span of 40 feet and its height will be 95 feet.
Within the cathedral are buried Woodrow Wilson, our World War President; also Admiral George Dewey, General Nelson A. Miles, and several bishops of the Episcopal Church.
The grounds comprise 67 acres, and the carefully designed Bishop’s Garden forms an interesting feature. The National Cathedral School for Girls and for Boys and the College of Preachers are within the grounds.
NATIONAL SHRINE OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
This cathedral has been designed in the Roman-Byzantine style of architecture. It is located on Michigan Avenue, Brookland, in the Catholic University grounds. The cornerstone for the church was laid in 1920. It is estimated that the total cost will be $50,000,000. The architects are Maginnis & Walsh, of Boston, and Professor Frederick V. Murphy, architect, of Washington.
The building as designed is cruciform in plan, with a triple apse, at the focus of which is placed the central altar within a great baldachin. The apse is of vast scale and, with the presbytery that separates it from the transepts, will admit of important ceremonies. The dome will be 250 feet high; the tall campanile, or bell tower, 330 feet high. The building is to take its place with such notable memorials as Santa Maria Maggiore, of Rome, and Santa Maria del Fiore, of Florence. It is to stand as a symbol of American Catholic devotion to the Virgin Mary. The availability of the Byzantine tradition for the rendering of this idea was readily perceived. The crypt, capable of seating approximately 1,500 persons, has been completed. Here a most interesting decorative scheme in terms of faïence has been introduced to enrich the effect of the vaults. The central altar is of Algerian onyx. The pavement is of Italian marble. The crypt is richly treated with still other marbles and with mosaics.
NATIONAL CHURCHES IN WASHINGTON
There is no city in the country that has so many representative churches as the city of Washington, which is undoubtedly due to the fact that this is the National Capital. The leading denominations of the country, recognizing the importance of religion in the life of the Nation, have erected or are raising funds for the erection of great edifices, including memorial churches, fittingly to represent them at the seat of government.
In chapter XX attention has already been directed to the earliest churches in Washington.
EMBASSIES AND LEGATIONS
Among the notable buildings in the National Capital that have had a distinguished place since the early days of the Republic are the residences, embassies, and legations of the representatives from foreign countries. At the present time there are 53, representing the leading countries of the world.
The legation and embassy buildings are held territory of the respective countries to which they belong, and fly the flag of their respective nations, excepting on state occasions, when they fly both their own flag and that of the United States.
L’Enfant, in his plan of the city, contemplated diplomatic buildings to line the Mall. But as the Mall was delayed in its development for over a century, the museum type of building has been erected on the Mall and the diplomatic establishments located elsewhere. In later years the suggestion was offered to locate them in the vicinity of the State Department.
At the present time the embassies and legations are located, for the most part, in the residential section of northwest Washington. Quite a number are on Sixteenth Street in the vicinity of Meridian Hill Park. In more recent years several of the leading countries have built new embassies on spacious grounds. In this Great Britain has taken the lead, having built a large embassy on 4 acres of ground at 3100 Massachusetts Avenue, near the Naval Observatory. Three blocks beyond, the Norwegian Legation building has recently been completed. In recent years the Imperial Japanese Government built a new embassy at 2514 Massachusetts Avenue. The French Government recently purchased the home of John Hays Hammond for its new embassy.
A list of the countries having embassies and legations in Washington (with the exception of Estonia, whose representative is located in New York City) is as follows:
[Illustration: BRITISH EMBASSY]
[Illustration: ITALIAN EMBASSY]
Albania: The Mayflower Hotel.
Argentina: 1806 Corcoran Street.
Belgium: 1777 Massachusetts Avenue.
Bolivia: Fifteenth and K Streets.
Brazil: 3007 Whitehaven Street.
Bulgaria: 2881 Woodland Drive.
Canada: 1746 Massachusetts Avenue.
Chile: 2154 Florida Avenue.
China: 2001 Nineteenth Street.
Colombia: 1520 Twentieth Street.
Costa Rica: 2128 Bancroft Place.
Cuba: 2630 Sixteenth Street.
Czechoslovakia: 2349 Massachusetts Avenue.
Denmark: 1868 Columbia Road.
Dominican Republic: 2633 Sixteenth Street.
Ecuador: Barr Building.
Egypt: 2301 Massachusetts Avenue.
El Salvador: 2400 Sixteenth Street.
Estonia: Rockefeller Plaza, New York City.
Finland: 2416 Tracy Place.
France, Chancery: 1601 V Street.
Germany: 1439 Massachusetts Avenue.
Great Britain: 3100 Massachusetts Avenue.
Greece: 2221 Massachusetts Avenue.
Guatemala: 1614 Eighteenth Street.
Haiti: 5017 Sixteenth Street.
Honduras: 2611 Woodley Place.
Hungary: 1424 Sixteenth Street.
Ireland: 2310 Tracy Place.
Italy: 2700 Sixteenth Street.
Japan: 2514 Massachusetts Avenue.
Latvia: 1715 Twenty-second Street.
Lithuania: 2622 Sixteenth Street.
Mexico: 2829 Sixteenth Street.
Netherlands: 1470 Euclid Street.
Nicaragua: 1521 New Hampshire Avenue.
Norway: 3401 Massachusetts Avenue.
Panama: 1536 Eighteenth Street.
Paraguay: Wardman Park Hotel.
Peru: 1300 Sixteenth Street.
Poland: 2640 Sixteenth Street.
Portugal: Wardman Park Hotel.
Rumania: 1601 Twenty-third Street.
Siam: 2300 Kalorama Road.
Spain: 2801 Sixteenth Street.
Sweden: 2247 R Street.
Switzerland: 2419 Massachusetts Avenue.
Turkey: 1606 Twenty-third Street.
Union of South Africa: 3101 Massachusetts Avenue.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: 1125 Sixteenth Street.
Uruguay: 1010 Vermont Avenue.
Venezuela: 2400 Sixteenth Street.
Yugoslavia: 1520 Sixteenth Street.