In the infancy of this Republic, when its government was looking about for a permanent home, Gen. Washington was moved to found and lay out the City of Washington as its Capitol. With a marvelous prescience he foresaw the coming needs and future greatness of the newly-united states. Impressed with visions of the glorious destiny awaiting his beloved people, his cherished republic, he wisely concluded to provide generously for the growth of a magnificent city which, a century later, should reflect credit as the capital of a mighty nation. Careless of the gibes and sneers of many of his most intimate friends, Washington, the far-seeing statesman, the invincible soldier, deliberately planned, platted and surveyed through the wilderness of forest at that time covering the great triangular basin lying between the Heights of Columbia and the waters of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers; such a bewildering array of broad streets, wide avenues, and roomy public parks, as would be ample and suitable for a brilliant city like Paris, (whose system of streets he had taken as a model,) at least sufficient for the wants of a population of a half million. The dawn of the twentieth century saw a complete realization of General Washington's brightest hopes, a verification of his prophetic visions. The wand of progress had transformed the straggling village of "magnificent distances," into the most royally beautiful city on the continent. A city which had become the pride and delight of one hundred millions of free people, who individually felt a personal interest in the vastness, the beauty and the imposing grandeur of its magnificent public buildings, which represented the crowning loveliness of architectural design, the highest artistic expression of American genius; altogether most perfectly and fittingly adorning the unrivaled capitol city of the most progressive, powerful, and meritoriously dominant republic on the face of the planet! To this Mecca of republics, as the social and political center of the western hemisphere, came the great thinkers, scientists, artists, orators and statesmen of the world.