Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/71

 1868.] The Removal of the National Capital, the Capitol, Etc. 51 fear of ridicule, among associates, has a rapid tendency to make any particular soul worse, compared with former and present self. All this experienced, con- versant, or incipient wickedness, is i*e- ferred by those who practise it to the entire multitude of the city, and many individuals belonging to that city are not loth to do what they are accused of. Far different is it, in a large self-sus- taining city. The officials may be in it, but they are not of it. Its citizens are profitably busy with their own concerns, and live not upon lobbying, or its fruits. Good reputation in it depends upon quite another character than inordinate office-seeking implies, so that its people will not corrupt, and may improve the strangers abiding among them. Its life may be fostered by good policy, but evil policy injures it only after long periods of misrule, when said policy has hope- lessly corrupted the whole common- wealth by continuous and glaring breaches of public good faith, which ulti- mately sap private honor. Hence, until the better days surely to arrive, when good shall rule politics, as some little town would be vitiated, or some un-urbaned locality would be de- graded, we say, let bad enough alone where it is, and some day it may be altered to well enough. At any rate, do not smirch a new neighborhood with the old stain. Legislators must, however, do some- thing, or they will have no subsequent terms, and not be able to rise in their vocation. Yet it is a very nice problem to do any thing when nothing needs an act. Still, rather than do nought, many will do mischief, as the good people of this land have learned to their cost. In this we refer not to the present mover, who really represents a pervading senti- ment of his section, and one which has possessed it long. There is great ado about centrality with those who wish to effect the re- moval ; but, since the introduction of steam-railroads, and electro-magnetic telegraphs, that is really not worth con- sidering. Given the completion of the Central Pacific Railroad, and San Fran- cisco is nearer the seat of government than Pittsburgh was sixty years ago. Time then, cannot enter into the ques- tion, distance is rendered easy to the honorable members' pockets by mile- age, and a little fatigue should not be avoided by any ambitious of serving the republic. The true central point for our era is the Atlantic sea-board, in the neighborhood of the fortieth parallel of north latitude. Whether for the opera- tions of peace or war, this, for us, is the nearest practicable centre of the civilized world. The present course of trade, and, consequently of exchange, is ruled in Europe, and towards Europe must we look. The nearer we are to Europe therefore, the more quickly can we seize advantages, the more closely scan clan- gers, news being used in a thousand quarters before it has fairly quitted the vessel. Even when the course of trade shall veer from Asia, through Europe, to North America, its present channel, to its certain future one, within the next few generations, from Asia, through North America, to Europe, leaving its choicer profits in the northern half of the new world, it will not demand a territorially central metropolis, but one attached to, or near, the most practicable port in the median line of the Pacific coast, in other words, San Francisco. Until, however, the great change oc- curs, the Capital is not far from the right spot. If the sheer sectional renown, not to say personal advantage, of West- ern Congressmen must be gratified, then by all means let the Capital go to St. Louis, as the chief central city on our great inland water-course, although the exigency does not demand it. For the good of the nation, not by any means the advantage of the city — as while we would certainly purify the pub- lic offices, and perhaps their incumbents, though as certainly losing by the con- tact ; and thus Philadelphia's future