Washington Patterns Future
After Original L’Enfant Plan
Spring Brings Influx
Of Tourists to
Capital
Prepared by National Geographic Society,
Washington, D. C.-WNU Service,
The spring tourist trek is
descending on Washington.
The Capital City has changed
so rapidly in the last decade
through a $200,000,000 gov
ernment building program
that even those who live there
have difficulty keeping track
of the shifting scenes.
The problem faced by the
commission of fine arts and
the builders of the new Wash
ington is twofold. In carry
ing out the plan of 1901,
worked out to incorporate vir
tually all that was feasible
in Major L’Enfant’s original
plan, they are striving to produce
the most beautiful capital in the
world and at the same time to pro
vide suitable quarters for the ever
increasing bureaus of the federal
government.
To erect a truly graceful build
ing large enough to house the thou
sands of employees of one of the
major departments, such as com
merce, interior, or agriculture, is a
task so difficult as to challenge the
most skilled architects. There must
be hundreds of offices, all with out
side windows; no gloomy medieval
castles will prove satisfactory.
Hugeness is a physical necessity,
grace an artistic obligation.
Federal Triangle Large.
To their everlasting credit, the
architects who have designed the
new edifices have mastered seem
ingly impossible difficulties. The
federal triangle, where are concen
trated more official activities than
in any other capital, covers an area
of about 20 city blocks from its
Fifteenth street base, the enormous
department of commerce building,
to its Sixth street tip, the Apex
building, which is to be occupied
by the federal trade commission.
Within the nine buildings of this
group are offices for more than 25,
000 government employees; yet, de
spite the vastness of the structures,
the development has genuine archi
tectural attractiveness and dignity.
Fortunately L’Enfant planned a
Federal City with room to expand.
Even the largest edifices can be
made to look graceful if surrounded
by grounds sufficiently spacious, and
the new buildings are so framed by
pleasant parks and plazas that they
escape the charge of crowded awk
wardness.
With its new south extensible sec
tion, the department of agriculture
building has become the largest gov
ernment office structure in the world,
housing in its 4.292 office quarters
6,450 employees; yet even in such
a commodious building only about a
third of the department’s Washing
ton personnel can be brought to
gether.
Wings Added.
Constant expansion of activities
requires an increase in government
office forces too rapid to be taken
care of in any single structure, even
though it be extensible by merely
adding wings and be placed, as is
this, in a 35-acre park.
One of the latest of the new struc
tures to be occupied is the new in
terior department building, into
which some 3,000 workers recently
moved. Designed by Waddy B.
Wood, in consultation with Secre
tary Harold L. Ickes, this building
departs somewhat from the classi
cal style of its neighbors. No pil
lars adorn it, but setbacks provid
ing outside walls for its many wings
give the appearance, at a distance,
of Doric columns.
Building Has Electric Stairway.
This gray stone giant, Just north
of the marble edifices that form the
frame for the Lincoln memorial, is
the first government office building
to be equipped with electric stair
ways. Two of these have been in
stalled to carry passengers between
the C street and E street levels and
to relieve congestion during the rush
hour when lunch is being served in
the big cafeteria in the basement.
Besides the moving stairs there are
20 high-speed elevators and 11 com
plete stairways. Like others re
cently constructed, the building has
WASHINGTON OFFICIAL
DOM—A typical departmen
tal home, quarters of the
United States Department of
Agriculture. Photo shows the
administration building at the
left, with east and west wings,
and the south building at the
right.
a completely automatic air-con
ditioning system.
The structure Is virtually a city
within a city. It has a telephone
system now handling 2,200 main
lines and 1,100 extensions. At a
peak, 2,600 main lines can be
served. The system is equivalent
to one serving a city of 30,000.
Along the north side of broad Con
stitution avenue, across from the
munitions building, stand the white
marble edifices described by the
commission of fine arts as the frame
for the Lincoln memorial. Erection
of a home for the federal reserve
board between Twentieth and Twen
ty-first streets completes this com
position, and when eventually the
temporary buildings, result of war
time haste, are removed, one of the
major dreams of L’Enfant will be
realized.
Pan American Annex Planned.
Other splendid buildings in this
"frame” are those occupied by the
National Academy of Sciences, the
public health service, and the Phar
maceutical association. Plans for
an annex to the Pan American un
ion have been prepared.
Although a short sight-seeing tour
seldom includes a trip through the
public health service, that bureau
is one that will richly repay a spe
cial visit. Within its laboratories
men are constantly at work, seek
ing out causes of diseases that men
ace life.
Here Dr. Edward Francis discov
ered the nature and origin of tula
remia, or "rabbit fever.” Here he
is now conducting a study of inter
mittent fevers. He has exposed him
TROPICAL SETTING? —
The famous Washington mon
ument stands out in severe
contrast against a black sky,
| apparently in the midst of a
Florida palm grove as Inde
pendence day firetcorks hurst
overhead.
self to the bacteria of so many dis- j
eases that it seems a miracle that
he still lives. Other earnest scien
tists are his colleagues. They work
tirelessly, risking their own lives
for the safety of others.
The late Andrew Mellon, former
secretary of the treasury, in pre
senting to the nation his collection
of art, together with a $10,000,000
building to house it, made a gift
valued by experts at probably $50,
000,000. For a site, the location
across Constitution avenue from the
Apex building has been chosen.
Mr. Mellon’s magnificent gift is not
to bear his name, for he has asked
that it be called the National Gal
lery of Art.
Any discussion of Washington art
treasures must include at least
mention of the Corcoran gallery, the
Phillips Memorial gallery, the Freer
gallery and the National Collection
of Fine Arts, formerly the National
gallery. All are distinctive. In the
Phillips gallery the pictures are
hung as they would be in a home.
Washington circles, parks, and
plazas are adorned with many me
morials, some of outstanding artis
tic merit. For those interested in
sculpture and other arts, the city
offers a field for months of study.
NATIONAL
AFFAIRS
Revitwtd by
CARTER FIELD
Netv Deal Democrats talk
about possibility of Repub
lican success in 1940 . . .
Probably propaganda . . .
Whatever is done about the
cotton situation will prob
ably be wrong ...“A ppease
ment** program apparently
profited only two big cor
porations.
WASHINGTON.—It’s rather curi
ous that lor some weeks now one
hears more talk about Republican
victory in 1940 from Democrats,
and particularly from New Deal
Democrats, than from Republicans.
This is not just a strange situa
tion. There is plenty of logic back
of it. Some of it is founded on cold
reason. But a good deal of it is
propaganda.
The answer to why there is not too
much talk of Republican victory
from the G. O. P. leaders them
selves is that they realize their own
weakness. Despite the Republican
victories last fall in many states,
which had been held by the Demo
crats for six years, most of the
states are still ruled by the Demo
cratic party.
The importance of this lies in or
ganization. It means that the Dem
ocrats have the state house crowd,
men on the state payroll who want
to stay there, and whose main Job
next year will be carrying their own
states for the Democratic ticket re
gardless of who is the presidential
nominee and what may happen to
be written in the platform.
Most politicians believe that con
trol of the county governments
is more important than control of
the state government when it comes
to carrying a state in an election.
And by the same token the Demo
crats are in control of a tremendous
majority of the county governments
in this country.
Most Democrats Don't Want
A Conservative Candidate
Then, too, a careful survey of the
1938 election does not present the
bright forecast for Republican suc
cess which some seem to think. If
the Democrats in 1940 can only
hold the states they carried beyond
question in 1938, leaving out such
doubtful problems as Indiana, Iowa
and Colorado, they will have a com
fortable margin in the electoral col
lege.
Moreover, the Republicans don’t
like the idea of getting too enthusi
astic until they know who their lead
er is apt to be. Thomas E. Dewey
is way out in front now, but there
is plenty of talk about Senator Rob
ert A. Taft of Ohio, and Governor
John W. Bricker of Ohio, and others.
On the Democratic side there is an
entirely different situation. Down
in their hearts most of the Demo
crats, especially of the New Deal
variety, believe the Democratic par
ty will be successful again—but—
they would never think of conceding
that the party can win with a con
servative as the nominee!
For instance, most New Dealers
would regard the nomination of a
man like Senator Harry Flood Byrd
of Virginia, or Josiah W. Bailey of
North Carolina as little short of a
catastrophe, and none of them
would throw their hats up in the air
over the idea of John Nance Garner
being nominated.
So the strategy of these New Deal
ers at present is to keep the Demo
crats scared about the next election.
Whatever Is Done About
Cotton Is Sure to Be Wrong
Only one thing seems sure about
the cotton situation. That is that
whatever is done will turn out to be
wrong. In fact, economists who
have studied the situation, who
know about the rest of the world as
well as about the United States, and
whose judgment is not affected by
political considerations, say frankly
that not one of the proposed plans
will work in the long run; that all
of them would be expensive as well
as futile.
With hindsight, the nonpolitical
experts say they could have rem
edied the situation had they started
on it in 1928. Now, they are not
sure that anything could be done.
But as a matter of fact, this hind
sight would have been of no prac
tical value, for the simple reason
that even if one could have foreseen
the future, back in 1928, it is incon
ceivable that a politically minded
government would have taken the
proper course. It would have
seemed too brutal—too hard on the
cotton farmers—at the time.
The year 1928 is picked not be
cause it was the year before the
business crash began, but because
in a way it marks the starting of
Brazil on its path to becoming one
of the great cotton producing coun
tries of the world. It was the year
before President Hoover began to
worry about the farm problem. It
was before the farm board of that
administration. For there is no
doubt whatever that it has been
federal interference with the nat
ural course of cotton growing that
has raised the present problem.
Let’s look at the history of cotton
before that. Every now and then
there would be a terrible overpro
duction, the price would go to pot.
and the southern statesmen would
scream their heads off about the
census bureau issuing misleading
figures, or the gamblers on the cot
ton exchange preying on the poor
farmers, or something of the sort.
Then, another season would see
fairly good prices, and every one in
the cotton states would be so happy
that no one up north would even
hear that the trouble was over.
Every time the rest of the country
heard about cotton it was the bad
news, not the good.
Scheme Was Set Up Which
Made the Trouble Permanent
With the Hoover farm board in
action, however, a scheme was set
up which inevitably made the
trouble permanent instead of just
every few years. For a century
before that the British cotton mill
owners had been hoping to develop
some other section of the world as
a cotton producer. They wanted
something which would prove a
check on high cotton prices in the
short-crop years.
Every one interested in cotton
could see that, with the starting of
this idea of the government doing
something for the cotton farmers,
the period of occasional low prices
for cotton had gone forever—that is
the possibility of the United States
dumping a cotton surplus at very
low prices had passed. This was
made even more clear when the
United States government started
paying farmers not to grow cotton.
With this “guarantee” of high
world prices, development of cotton
growing in other areas grew by
leaps and bounds. Uncle Sam was
holding an umbrella over them.
Danger of cheap cotton from the
United States in any particular year
was averted.
As a result of this, Brazil expand
ed her cotton growing. She found
that she could sell cotton at six cents
a pound and make money. There
has never been a chance since that
she would abandon this expansion,
for there is not a state east of the
Mississippi where cotton can be pro
duced, at a profit, at any such
price.
Appeasement Program Helped
Only Two Big Corporations
Curiously enough, apparently the
only two big corporations in the
country which profited from the
"appeasement" program—during
this short span of life—were the big
electric utility holding companies
which President Roosevelt is known
to dislike so cordially. One of these
is Electric Bond and Share. The
other is Commonwealth and South
ern.
It will be recalled that one of the
most convincing steps in the so
called appeasement program was
the agreement on the part of TVA
to buy out the interests in Chat
tanooga of the Commonwealth and
Southern, and in Memphis of the
Electric Bond and Share (this lat
ter held through a subsidiary).
At the time these agreements
were made, Harry L. Hopkins had
been talking to senators and mem
bers of the house as to the necessity
of doing something to encourage
business.
One of the main reasons for “ap
peasing" the electric industry was
that Hopkins had been thoroughly
sold by the arguments for the pre
ceding 18 months by William O.
Douglas, now on the Supreme court,
that if something could be done to
encourage the electric industry,
there would be such a flood of spend
ing that it would be almost enough
alone and unaided to produce the
return of prosperity.
But a far more important part
of the appeasement program, and
one which affected all business and
new investment instead of merely
the electric business, was tax revi
sion.
President Intervenes in
Fight for Revision of Taxes
Suddenly the President intervened
in the fight for tax revision with an
ultimatum which seems to have def
initely ended all chance for it. This
does not apply, of course, to the post
ponement of the increase in the so
cial security taxes, but to the levies
on corporations.
His ultimatum was that if any re
duction should be made in the es
timated revenues, this must be
made up by adding additional taxes
somewhere else—but on the corpo
rations. In short, his verdict is that
congress may shuffle the present
taxes on business in any way it may
deem to be helpful, but that the net
result—in estimated revenues—must
De uie same.
What so many of his lieutenants
had hoped, and this goes not only
for important members of the house
and senate but for the treasury de
partment and the department of
commerce, was that the government
would take a chance—that it would
encourage business by reducing
taxes on business, hoping that busi
ness would thereupon boom, and the
actual revenues of the treasury
would be increased by the reduction
rather than cut.
This phase of the problem the
President ignored completely. He
still insists that if estimated rev
enues are reduced, then government
spending, for relief or something
else, must be reduced to precisely
the same amount. He attacks the
problem just as though the federal
budget were now balanced, and any
reduction of the corporation taxes
would throw it out of balance.
This has divided business as to
the tax revision, will keep it divided
unless congress forces the gamble
on the President, which does not
now seem likely.
C Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
Collegiate Gastronomes Challenge Professional
Though Donald Mulcahy, left, of Brockton, Mass., Junior at Boston college, swallowed 29 live goldfish to
set a temporary record, and John Patrick, right, University of Chicago student, consumed three phonograph
records, they are still rank amateurs. Hadja AH, center, can swallow a walnut, a frog, a bullet and a fish,
and without regard to the order in which they go down, return them to the surface in any sequence be desires.
Los Angeles medical men proved that he could control his abdominal muscles.
YES, THEY’RE REAL
Juliette Marglen, Hollywood beau
tician, is a fingernail expert. She
should know her business, as her
own nails are between three and
four inches long, and she seldom
even chips one.
Franco Representative Makes Initial Visit
Juan Francisco de Cardenas, charge d’affaires of the Nationalist
Spanish government, made his first official call on Secretary of State
Cordell Hull recently, inaugurating diplomatic relations between the
Franco government and the United States. Left to right: Cardenas, Senor
Don Felipe A. Espii, Argentine ambassador, and George T. Summerlin,
chief of the division of protocol of the state department.
Biggest Gold Shipment Arrives in New York
This $60,000,000 cargo of gold which was brought to the United States from Europe recently is believed
to be the biggest ever carried from Europe on a single ship. It was believed to have been made because of
anxiety over Chancellor Hitler’s new drive in eastern Europe. Although officials refused to divulge informa
tion, it was learned from an authentic source that the gold cargo was worth $60,000,000 or more.
Upper Berth for the Motorist-Camper
One of the latest devices for the touring motorist who likes to pitch
camp at night is this tent which can be put on top of the car. It was
shown at a recent camping and hiking exhibition in London, and proved
popular with the many motorists who prefer the by-paths instead of main
traveled roads.
TERRIBLE TERRIER
ww.wmwbmw.:.^ rrtm
“Baby Toots,” two-months-old fox
terrier of St. Louis, Mo., weighs only
11 ounces against the normal av
erage weight of five pounds. His
tireless antics point to an otherwise
I normal condition.
