free government should believe in
a free capital.

_Question_. Are there any valid reasons why the constitutional
limitations to the elective franchise in the District of Columbia
should not be removed by an amendment to that instrument?

_Answer_. I cannot imagine one. If our Government is founded upon
a correct principle there can be no objection urged against suffrage
in the District that cannot, with equal force, be urged against
every part of the country. If freedom is dangerous here, it is
safe nowhere. If a man cannot be trusted in the District, he is
dangerous in the State. We do not trust the place where the man
happens to be; we trust the man. The people of this District cannot
remain in their present condition without becoming dishonored.
The idea of allowing themselves to be governed by commissioners,
in whose selection they have no part, is monstrous. The people
here beg, implore, request, ask, pray, beseech, intercede, crave,
urge, entreat, supplicate, memorialize and most humbly petition,
but they neither vote nor demand. They are not allowed to enter
the Temple of Liberty; they stay in the lobby or sit on the steps.

_Question_. They say Paris is France, because her electors or
citizens control that municipality. Do you foresee any danger of
centralization in the full enfranchisement of the citizens of
Washington?

_Answer_. There was a time when the intelligence of France was in
Paris. The country was besotted, ignorant, Catholic; Paris was
alive, educated, Infidel, full of new theories, of passion and
heroism. For two hundred years Paris was an athlete chained to a
corpse. The corpse was the rest of France. It is different now,
and the whole country is at last filling with light. Besides,
Paris has two millions of people. It is filled with factories.
It is not only the intellectual center, but the center of money
and business as well. Let the _Corps Legislatif_ meet anywhere,
and Paris will continue to be in a certain splendid sense--France.
Nothing like that can ever happen here unless you expect Washington
to outstrip New York, Philadelphia and Chicago. If allowing the
people of the District of Columbia to vote was the only danger to
the Republic, I should be politically the happiest of men. I think
it somewhat dangerous to deprive even one American citizen of the
right to govern himself.

_Question_. Would you have Government clerks and officials appointed
to office he