entirely different memorial to the great emancipator. The success of that move- ment would have meant a diversion of energies and expenditures from a care- fully organized project of city improve- ment, and it might have been genera- tions before interest and attention could have been once more focused upon the original scheme.
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VIEW LOOKING ACROSS THE POTOMAC FROM ARLINGTON, SHOWING THE MALL, WITH THE LINCOLN MONUMENT ON THE LEFT, THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT NEAR THE CENTER AND THE CAPITOL ON THE RIGHT.
It is curious to note how accident and design have worked together to bring us to the present assurance that Washing- ton is destined to be a city of striking individuality and surpassing attractive- ness. As everybody knows, the broad general plan of the city was made by Major L’Enfant, a French engineer selected for that task by General Wash- ington. The scheme of diagonally radiating avenues, some of them center- ing at the Capitol and others at circular parks scattered about the city, was L’Enfant’s idea. The circles, embow- ered in turf and shrubs and splendid trees, constitute a chief beauty of the national capital.
Tradition brings to us the story that L’Enfant, who had lived through the French Revolution, believed that every great capital was likely some day to be the seat of revolutionary uprisings, and that it should be so planned as to facilitate the movement of soldiers through its streets. Therefore the French artillerist, having in mind cer- tain early experiences of Napoleon in quelling riots in Paris, devised his plan of circles and radiating avenues, in order to simplify the problem that some future Napoleon might confront in dealing with riot and revolution in Washington. Nothing could be sim- pler than to plant a park of artillery in each of these circles, and command every street and avenue approaching it. A few regiments of troops and plenty of grape and canister would insure the city’s order.
The military sharps assure us that L’Enfant was entirely right in dealing thus with what he conceived to be the prime problem in planning a great city. In truth, he builded vastly better than he thought, for while our capital has been happily spared the necessity of testing the military advantages of this plan, the scheme has peculiarly fitted itself to the national purpose of making
