Washington and the nation

STOUT, JONATHAN

Washington and the nation By Jonathan Stout M/ctfeinaf**'* fttaN Ska/Hi WASHINGTON, D. C—The put week in the Nation's Capital has been another of those broiling, humid nightmares which...

...For the Russian establishment of a puppet government is the second betrayal of one of our bravest fighting Allies by the cynical combination of Stalin and Churchill...
...He said been 8en* by President Washington and pre-"nCL* ,etter from the President which spoke of him *' "of good repute" and "of much money...
...And that gave Carroll and his cabal the opportunity **F were seeking...
...On the record, the President said he would like la have Henry Wallace as his running mate again...
...Carroll instigated the District 'ummissionera to make a formal complaint to President Washington against L'Enfant...
...Within a year or two, these speculators held such a monopoly of Washington realty and were asking such prohibitive prices that sales entirely ceased...
...Two months later, a more prominent figure came ,10 ^Ity picture—Robert Morris, the Philadelphia lot \ k'r" He *lso wouW Purchase 8,000 lots, and he « be known publicly that he was Greenleaf's partner la the speculative venture...
...Carroll "*Med...
...Led by Daniel Carroll, the l-ord of Duddington, a cabal was formed to get rid of Major L'Enfant...
...I .'Enfant indignantly refused to comply with this '•quest...
...And what has happened in the latter two countries added up to a Stalinist effort at a Chinese hegemony...
...Had the Yugoslav people, unprompted by any outside pressure from Stalin, Churchill or anyone else, decided to dismiss Peter and Mikhailovitch, none would have raised a word in their defense, ami certainly not this column...
...For seven years thousands of Spanish Republicans, refugees from Franco, have been rotting in French concentration campsc...
...no indoor water supply...
...But the flame of democracy, however feebly, still burns fiercely in those Spanish Republicans—Socialists, Anarchists, Liberals, etc...
...A pretty reliable report has it that a very nice diplomatic pluas is being selected for Flynn...
...no electric lights...
...outdoor toilet...
...The establishment on Russian soil of a self-appointed "Polish Government," recognised and supported by the Soviet Union, give the final blew to the hope of the American people that their idealistic and selfless motives in this war will prevail and that the motive of power-politics will fail...
...and the other, Dr...
...Washington from its beginning has been a real estate ipeeuiavtor'a idea of heaven...
...The proceeds from every other lot were to go to the landowners...
...In what followed, the most prominent feature was the insatiable greed of the landowners, a quality which tver since has remained the distinguishing feature of Washington landlords...
...To complete the plans for the Capital...
...Under the new agreement, however, the buyers could secure title even*before they paid for the lots...
...Mrlnflc Profiteers **^UX)WING I/Enfant's dismissal, the real estate ,D«ctJators really moved into the picture...
...The Chinese Government was very worried about Stalin's deaigna on China...
...Cord of Dudding-tea, himself...
...This rrsiy Frenchmen was literally throwing away land that should come into the market as city lots...
...And lh* *»«idents letter concluded: "If you can find it...
...The building up of the Chinese Red Army had the Kuomintang Government worried until President Roosevelt answered their appeals by sending Vice-President Wallace to China on a personal mi vion...
...As you may remember, tele-grains of congratulations were banned by Presidential oriier on March 6, 1942...
...Two ¦tabs were made before the cabal succeeded...
...OvER a year ago, this column forecast precisely the course taken by Stalin with respect to Poland...
...Both •tabs were spearheaded by Carroll...
...And perhaps because of the terrible heat here this week, or is it because democracy is growing groggy under the succession of blows, Washington took the news of the betrayal of the first victims of the Nasi tanks and stukas with barely more than an irritated growl...
...Second, the politicos dripped from the jowls ss they discussed the probable reward destined for Bronx I>essocratic Boss Ed Flynn for engineering the sinking of Henry Wallace...
...He would do nothing to aid, he explained, ""peculators to purchase the best localities in the vistas and architectural squares and raise huddles of •aaatiea which would permanently disfigure" the creation...
...In Yugoslavia, it resulted in the dismissal from national leadership of every one of the brave band, headed by Mikhailovitch, who wrested Yugoslavia from the Nazi grip into which Regeirt Prince Paul's Government had delivered that unhappy country, and who led the courageous Yugoslavs into the war on the side of the Allies...
...Washington and the nation By Jonathan Stout M/ctfeinaf**'* fttaN Ska/Hi WASHINGTON, D. C—The put week in the Nation's Capital has been another of those broiling, humid nightmares which periodically make „„, wonder how the real estate speculators horn-tweggied the Father of Our Country into buying this obnoxious piece of real estate...
...Sitting behind that formidable Red Army, the only compromise being offered by Stalin these days is: "Take it or leave it" How much more wholehearted could have been the rejoicing over the Red Army's triumphal sweep towards Berlin if the Atlantic Charter were a living document today instead of the "scrap of paper" Stalin and Churchill between them have made it...
...And because there has been no world outcry by the Allied peoples against this betrayal of a brave ally, the pattern is now being repeated in Poland...
...Reword Veer Enemies o»d Punish four Friends BlJT what 1 started out to tell you before I got sidetracked into my pet peeve about Washington's real estate sharks was that the terrific heat this wee,k seemed to preclude anything but the lightest of topics in the Capital's favorite haunts for our local celebrities...
...President Washington engaged Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, a Frenchman and military engineer, to lay out and create a Capital "magnificent enough to grace • great nation...
...37.60 a month...
...Myment was to be spread over a period of aeven years *'*out interest...
...The Stalin-Churchill deal resulted in the elevation into power in the new Yugoslav Government two men, one of whom...
...It was obvious from the beginning that any talk of compromise, of ironing out the differences between Poland and the Soviet Union was so much stuff to gull the naive...
...The question that is now bothering the Chinese is...
...It was there that the issue was first tested whether the Allied peoples would permit and whether it was right for one of the Allied powers to interfere hi the political set-up of any of the other United Nations...
...And you should have heard all the fancy theories spun out of that sequence of colossal triviality...
...Aid that's not wartime inflation, because there is aa OPA ceiling on rents in Washington that dates from 1»41...
...That was snd remains the sole issue in the question of Yugoslavia, not whether King Peter and General Mikhailovitch remained the officially-recognized leaders of the Yugoslav people...
...Since then you have had to restrain that impulse to "Don't write telegraph...
...The renewed activities of the Chinese Communists, their attacks on the Kuomin-tang and Chiang, their failure to participate in China's war against Japan, all reminded Chinese Government leaders of similar Communist tactics in Yugoslavia and Poland...
...Washington landlords have been getting away with this kind of gouging for decades...
...For instance, one of the Washington papers last Sunday carried this rental ad: "four rooms...
...The pattern of that betrayal was first tried out in Yugoslavia...
...First, that merry mix-up on Western Union and those congratulatory messages...
...when •resident George Washington allowed Daniel Carroll, the manorial "Lord of Duddington," as the letter's vast plantation on the banks of the Potomac was called, to talk him into buying a useless piece of swamp and bottom land he had been unable to sell or give away...
...After seven years one would not have thought that a single physically-fit man could be left in those concentration camps...
...Considering that Wallace held second rank in the United States Government, and that America had not heretofore sent so important a representative on a personal mission to any of our other Allies, the Chinese Government felt assured that this spelled a guarantee of American aid and assistance against anything Stalin might be planning for the Far East...
...They saw him stripped of his power and Influence...
...Here, for instance, was what the politicians weie loaning the ball about...
...ftussia's Puppet Government...
...President Washington in March, 1791, met the local landowners is Suter's Tavern in Georgetown and persuaded them to sell at 166.66 an acre (mors than 10 times their value) any land the Nation might need as sites or {rounds for public buildings, and to permit the re-nsinder of the proposed city area to lie divided into Ms and sold...
...What Flynn did was to frustrate and prevent thai...
...Streets 100 to 110 feet wide, avenues 160 feet wide, or* grand avenue 400 feet wide and a mile long...
...Bet then the manorial Lord of Duddington began to muild a new manor house squarely in the middle of °"s »f L'Enfant's magnificent avenuee...
...no heating plant...
...Last week we described the results of the success of the Stalin-Churchill plot to divide the European and Asiatic worlds between themselves...
...And that was the fate of the »r»t of Washington's broad-visioned, socially-minded Hansen L'Enfant died, impoverished and broken-¦P'rued, in 1838 and was buried in an obscure grave 1,1 ^nce George* County, Md...
...TkT**' he wiU *• * T»Jn*M« acquisition...
...The first stab was when Carroll, using his position ss one of the District's Commissioners, asked L'Enfant for a detailed copy of his plan, "to be used in connection with a public sale of the city lots...
...l?"*f*nt with your duty to the public to attach Mr...
...Spanish Republicans fscane lllKKK is so much in the news that is unhappy, that it becomes almost a delirious pleasure to report an action of such selfless daring as to make description almost impossible...
...The beginning dates back to October, 1790...
...and the Major was J*reejptorily dismissed...
...On this issue, President Washington supported L'Enfant...
...w-iktt Commi8»i°ners found it quite consistent...
...Ivan Subasitrh, the new Premier, publicly supported the signing of that pact and had instituted the Nazi anti-Jewish laws in Croatia...
...Patrick's Day and Erev Succotb, Then came the Republican and Democratic conventions recently and, in about this order, Wendell Willkie was unable to wire congratulations to Tom Dewey, Herrry Wallace was unable to wire congratulations to Harry S Truman, Jimmy Byrnes was able to wire Truman that Western Union refused to accept his wire of congratulations, and President Roosevelt found no trouble in wiring congratulations to Truman...
...As L'Enfant proceeded with his planning, the landowners began to open their eyes in amazement...
...Juraj Sutej, the new Acting Minister of War arrd Minister of Finance and Commerce, was one of those who actually with his own hand had signed the pact between Regent Prince Paul's Government ami Hitler...
...Ifce Osvamlseknera Were quite willing to cancel Greenleaf's first purchase, inasmuch as the two now made a joint purchase of 6,000 lots at 880 each...
...and within a few days they had sold James Greenleaf 3,000 "r lots at 866.60 each...
...It struck one observer aa curious that any reward at all should be planned by Roosevelt for Flynn...
...So the observer raised the question: How did Flynn earn a reward7 » * • Welloce m»4 Ckh»* Crisis SpEAKING of Wallace brings up the new dilemma in which the Chinese now find themselves...
...Year after year, the weaker ones have been dying off like files in the first frost...
...And that is the story of the beginning of this real eatate speculators' dream of heaven, as it is told in the records in the Government Archives...
...n September, 1798, James Greenleaf, a young t n*?1*'1 rel,t,d **• Vice-Preaident Adams, arrived h 2i °*fice of Dujtriet Commissioners...
...on iniiivei saries, Christmas, St...
...And they knew that the ¦tripping in Chicago waa only a formality, that actually the derision had been made and that it really occurred before Wallace left for China...
...This site, 10 miles square altogether, became the site ef what is now the Nation's Capital...
...Major L'Enfant promptly went to work...
...how much weight to put on anything Wallace ¦aid . . . how much dependence to put on any assurance given by an ambassador without weight and influence in his own country or with his own head of government...
...But no money changed hands...
...The indignant '•'Enfant ordered Carroll to cease and desist...
...So L'Enfant, who was more of an artist than • Politician, had the foundations raised and removed "*ml hundred feet out of the middle of the street...
...This week there comes the report that 3,000 Spanish Republicans managed to escape from one of the French concentration camps and have joined the Allied armies fighting the Nazis in Normandy...
...A week ago the Chinese aaw Wallace virtually dismissed from office...
...And one of the three Commissioners of the new Federal District appointed by Washington to administer the whole busines was none other than the fast-talking real estate speculator, Daniel Carroll...

Vol. 27 • July 1944 • No. 31


 
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