University of Virginia Library

6. SIXTH INSTALLMENT.

I cannot say that I loved Richmond as much as I did
Lynchburg and Curdsville, but it was the capital of my
State, needed, I may say nearly everything, contained
males and females whom I liked far more than they liked
me, and was a good field for expenditures and experiments.
Therefore, I spent money right freely for it.

In the first place, it was in 1878, when I commenced

active operations, the worst-paved city, as to sidewalks,
in the civilized world, and, large as it was, it did not
contain one of several kinds of edifices much needed.
The Great Moral Donator told me that a man who could
donate himself a hack-ride every hour in the day need
not be concerned about sidewalks or railroad stations;
one good theatre would, in his opinion, be of more use
and comfort than anything else. But I had corns, many
and grievous corns, and loved to walk sometimes, much
as it pleased me at other times to look down from my
own carriage at Jack ——, but I will not call his name.
So I paved the better part of the city, and thus made it a
pleasure, not a pain, to walk the streets.

[I have just been informed that, for many years, the
common council consisted wholly of ostlers, who were in
league with the cordwainers, cobblers, and boot and
shoe men of every description. The town of Lynn, I am
assured, contributed annually ten thousand dollars towards
the maintenance of a perfect system of detestable sidewalks.
To the best of my recollection those sidewalks
were not touched from 1860 to 1878, say eighteen years;
meanwhile, the streets were kept in good condition, many
of them being repaved, and many new and long streets
built. Thus the ostlers had the happiness of seeing their
horses properly considered, while the shoe men enjoyed
an immense business obtained at a most trying expense to
the pockets and toes of the most patient and uncomplaining
public in the world. 1892.]

What I wanted to do, above all things, was to clear
away every building, except St. Paul's Church, from the
Exchange Hotel to Eighth Street, and from Main to Broad,
so as to give me room enough for my new State Capitol.
But this, like many other projects dear to my heart, had
to be given up. In my earlier dreamings I had always
intended to complete, on an improved design, the Washington
Monument, in Washington, and to erect on the
vacant lot, between that monument and the Smithsonian
Institute, an Academy of Art (painting and sculpture)
which should be without an equal in the world. That
idea had, of course, been long abandoned. The little
money I owned wasn't a hundredth part of what was

needed in Virginia. But it was hard to give up the
design of that enlarged and splendid square in Richmond,
with its stately capitol, modeled upon the original,
but far loftier, more capacious, and imposing. How often
I had seen and gloated over them in fancy! My principal
was untouched, but much was to be done, and the
best I could do (in fact, it was all I could do to that
particular end) was to offer the State a gift of one million
of dollars on condition it would issue its bonds for a like
amount, the total of two millions to be devoted to the
building of a capitol worthy of Virginia and its history.

Although I offered to take all the bonds myself, the
proposition produced an uproar in the legislature, and
brought down upon me a shower of abuse.

“This bloated capitalist, Adams,” said the member
from Zedville Court-House, “offers a gross indignity to
the Commonwealth. Sir, the State of Virginia is not a
pauper. She wants no capitol, and when she does, she'll
build it herself out of the surplus arising from the sale of
the West Virginia certificates. In my humble judgment
this insidious capitalist has designs upon the virtue, integrity,
and manhood of this Commonwealth.”

“My learned and honorable friend,” said the delegate
from Xton Xroads, “does not put the case too strongly.
I, sir, consider that the great and mighty State of Virginia
is bound to uphold this building, and to cherish it
forever as an immortal, priceless legacy bequeathed from
the fathers. This, sir, is a high hill. From here down
to the river is a matter of sixty or eighty feet, and if we
want more room, why, sir, we can dig down to any
extent, and have as many basements as we please. If
we strike water we can pump it out, and if cement is
needed, as good cement, sir, can be had at Belcony Falls
as thar is in this world—pure Old Virginyar cement,
sir. What does the bloated Adams say to that, sir?”

“They tell me, sir,” exclaimed the senator from
Bullaningunsopolis, “that the building is rotten. True,
sir, for I myself have punched a hole in its heaviest timbers
with my little finger. But, sir, we can bind the
dear edifice together with competent hoop-iron, or better
still, with resolute and unyielding grape-vines from our

native hills, and so, sir, fondle, sir, and encourage it,
sir, that, sir, it will not fall till it crumbles into small,
sacred dust. True, sir, that many have been killed in
this loved mansion of the mighty, departed dead. But,
sir, what is human life compared to this blessed and venerated
old building? It is as the infinitesimal droplet
of the ordinary aqueous fluid in the bounding and boundless
ocean of unfathomability. Besides, sir, we need not
assemble in these ancient old halls. Temporary and cheap
sheds should be erected for our accommodation against
the railings of the Squarr, to be used during the brief
but economical session, and then took apart, sir, for
future reference. Once a day we could, in joint body,
emerge from our sheds, and, with locked hands, gaze in
speechless joy, awe, and adoration upon this ancient, old,
and uninhabited (except by a few officials) contraption.”

I left my offer standing for a year or two, and then, by
the advice of my friends, withdrew it.

[The capitol as it now appears with its grape-vines and
bands of hoop-iron is considered a curiosity. Many
strangers from Japan and North Carolina come every day
to look at it. The four hundred large pine-trees, carefully
whitewashed, with which it is propped on every
side, are specially admired. A collection of long iron
rods running through and through the building, and
secured to the tail of the horse of the equestrian statue
of General George Washington, also attracts attention.
1910.[1] ]

[No antiquarian can fail to applaud the large public
spirit which incased the Bell-house in massive walls of
French plate-glass, so that it can readily be seen with the
naked eye, and, at the same time, be secure from the
profane punching of people whose business in life is to
job things with walking-sticks. And while I cordially
indorsed the importation from Lynchburg of the old
market-house and its re-erection in the square as a unique
monument of the past, I must be allowed to say, with

due humility, that it is not, perhaps, the fittest place for
the storing of public documents. 1912.]

Considering the two millions refused by the State as so
much clear gain, I could no longer refuse my assent to a
proposition of a practical turn which had been urged
upon me with great force by some of my business acquaintances.
My opinion had always been, and still is,
that Richmond, before the war, was plenty large enough
and very nearly rich enough. It seemed to me then, as
it does now, that there is no more need for monstrous
cities than for monstrous individuals. But in this no
Richmond person agreed with me, the universal opinion
being that the bigger the city became, the better off
everybody would be. So I gave my consent to the establishment
of a bank, which should not be a side-show to
some big shaving-shop in New York, but should be conducted
solely in the interest of Richmond merchants,
millers, manufacturers, and mechanics. The result was
astonishing even to me, with my astute and capacious
business mind. New industries in iron, cotton, pork,
canned fruits and oysters, and a hundred other products
sprang up like magic, and each reacting upon the other
caused so sudden and so vast an increase of prosperity as
to alarm calm men and to sadden me to the uttermost,
for to me the growing city meant growing wealth to the
comparatively few (no matter what their number might
be), and growing poverty to the many, with accompanying
vice and crime. But the force had been put in
motion, and the work went on with ever-accelerated
speed. Within five years we had wrested our coffee
trade from Baltimore and New Orleans, established a
Birmingham reputation for our wares in steel, started a
fair rivalry with Lowell in cotton goods, and what is of
more importance than all of these put together, we had
gained enough of common sense to know that our flour
ships could bring from Brazil not only coffee but hides as
well. Boston became scared, as indeed she could not
help being, at our shoe and leather business, which outstripped
all our other businesses. Money fairly rolled into
Richmond.

But I cannot dwell upon these practical matters. To

recall them, brings nothing but pain. What earthly right
had a humorist to meddle with such things? Here is
this great city [numbering now fully half a million of
souls, 1911], and here are all the evils that belong to all
such cities. One cannot go to see his friends without
traveling from two to ten miles on the street railways.
[Rich as people say I am, it is out of the question to
consume an hour in my private carriage when the cars,
drawn by dummy engines, will carry me the same distance
in a few minutes, and at a cost of only a penny.]

[Just here it is due to myself to say that the suggestion
about hides, with its dreadful results in the increase of
business, wealth, and population, was not my own. I
disclaim it utterly, and am in no way whatsoever responsible
for its origin. The suggestion was made to me as far
back as 1873, by Hon. James McDonald, and he alone
is to blame for all the deplorable consequences. For if
my money enabled Richmond men to carry it out, they
could not have carried it out had no such suggestion ever
been made. I wash my hands of the whole business,
which I regard as deplorable in the highest degree.
1919.]