American Monthly Magazine

VOL. XIV. WASHINGTON, D. C., FEBRUARY, 1899. NO. 2

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN HISTORY.

In a panoramic view from the mountain tops over a hundred years of American history we find that perils without and dissensions within have not prevented the crowning triumph of liberty and law. We have sometimes been forced to stop and see that our loins were girded about and our lamps kept burning that the faith within us should not falter and that hope should be renewed, as we have watched the rugged pathway over which our people have trod.

When the Articles of Confederation were adopted something over a hundred years ago there was no united government. It was a struggling infant thrown up on the shores of time, a waif not recognized as having conquered a place among the family of nations. Exhausted by a seven years' war, with no hands held out to help-alone, beating back the waves that threatened her destruction, each State looking jealously lest their own rights be invaded. Not only had the colonists to fight the armies of a powerful nation, but the opinions of a large majority of mankind which were opposed to the theory that supreme authority could be safely entrusted to the guardianship of the people themselves. What a love of liberty. What indomitable courage. What inherent faith that all men are created equal must have pervaded the hearts of these men that gave them the strength to try the profound experiment. of self-government.

The trying hour had come. Congress in 1787 convened for the first time in the world's history for the purpose of deciding upon a form of government made by the people for the people. They found that there was a vulnerable point in the heel of the confederacy of States that would weaken the growing

Republic. The same courage that brought our forefathers across the sea helped them to set this aside and in its place rose the National Union founded directly upon the will of the people clothed with self-preservation.

Two conditions pervaded the convention. One worked for a Republic that should be one and indivisible. The other a confederacy of States. These views became harmonized, by leaving each State in control of its own internal affairs, but to the Federal Government was committed all matters that concerned the Nation as a whole when completed. The legislative or law-making power, the executive and judicial powers were all under one authority-the Constitution-so that in 1789 all the States had accepted the Constitution and when the various electors met, George Washington, without dissenting voice, was chosen President of the United States. At this time, one hundred years ago, Washington City was an ideal city on paper. This beautiful site on the banks of the Potomac was a wilderness-bogs and marshes covered the valley. Yet in ten vears the city must be built for the Congress was to leave Philadelphia for its home on the Potomac. L'Enfant, the French engineer, who was assigned by George Washington to lav out the city, took the gridiron plan of Thomas Jefferson, which was the old Babylonish plan of Philadelphia of right angles, and threw over it thirteen broad avenues named after the thirteen original States. These avenues were to radiate from thirteen green circles to be adorned with flowers and foliage, but, to lead where to? Out into the woods, bogs and quagmires.

When John Adams, the first President to live in the White House, entered the city, there were not houses enough to accommodate the small retinue of officials, fifty-four in number, including the President, secretaries and clerks. The streets were roadways and the sidewalks cow-paths; one wing only of the capitol was finished.

When Mr. Adams entered the White House Robert Fulton's steamer "Claremont" had not sailed up the Hudson. At the end of this century, where there is water enough to float a craft there is found a floating steam palace and the commerce of the earth has put on new proportions.

President and Mrs. Adams and Congress traveled by horse and chaise to the new Capital and were lost in the forest enroute. To-day the smallest capital of the States in the Union is entered by a palace car over the steel highways of the continent.

As yet, from this city Morse had not sent his message of God's love on wire chariots through space, but it was the potent influence of this century that bade it spring into life, and the electric currents to-day not only reach town and hamlet, city and plain, "but deep calleth unto deep" and "the deep uttereth his voice" and prophecy is fulfilled, for the nations of the earth speak with one tongue and at the rising of the sun and the going down thereof they are in touch with each other.

The spirit of discovery dominates other minds for it has been a century of invention. Thomas Edison has divided the electric current and its light indefinitely so that man holds a torch in his hand and the dark places of the earth are made light.

Franklin drew the lightning from the clouds but the century has harnessed it to chariots and it has become a winged messenger.

Of the beautiful Capital City of to-day I need not speak, but what a hundred years has wrought in this city has its counterpart in our glorious Republic. At the end of the last century the White House was not completed, and Congress was still in Philadelphia. Marvelous with results has been this century, and as we are looking into the coming of a new century so were our fathers, wondering and watching the new developments. Undoubtedly they often thought what century can equal ours in great achievements. Out of the Dutch in New York, Germans in Pennsylvania, French in South Carolina, Scotch and Swedes in New Jersey, and English over them all, a Nation was created that is Anglo-Saxon to the core.

They had some populous cities-six colleges-Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, and Kings or Columbia. They had Franklin and his thunderbolts, Arkwright and his weaving machine, Mrs. Gen