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There are two entirely independent reasons to lay this urban legend in its grave. First, there is the historical fact that there was no actual swamp here. Some people may not discern the difference between a tidal marsh and a swamp, but there are differences and there's no reason to ignore them because they might seem "small" to casual observers. As John Adams said, "facts are stubborn things," and these facts cannot and should not be discarded. Second, the alleged physical "swampiness" of "the District" has been used more as a way to attack or condemn either the federal government, the local government, and/or the District itself -- which means as well the people here -- than it has been used as a way of describing the geography of the District. Joe Cannon's remark, in the context in which it was made, is more an attack on putting the monument in the vicinity of what he saw as political corruption than it was an attack on putting it on physically wet ground. Joe Cannon wasn't stupid and it's probable that he knew a swamp might be drained and wet land made dry, so why take such an extreme position, if "wet ground" was all he thought was at stake? Maybe Congress is properly described as a "swamp" and maybe local government of the District has been through "swampy" periods, but the real sting of these attributions hurts not Congress and not the local government -- it hurts the half million people who live in the District, most of whom have little or nothing to do with the federal government and almost none of whom have any power to change it. When some pundit in Birmingham, Alabama (to pick a place at random) slams "that swamp, the District of Columbia," you can bet that the pundit is really after Congress, but thousands of people who have nothing to do with Congress and who have less power to do something about it than the good citizens of Alabama (who, after all, vote for Senators and Representatives, unlike those of D.C.) are swept up into the slander. This tendency to take all who reside within the boundaries of the District as co-conspirators in whatever foibles can be laid at Congress' feet is no small part of the reason the people of the District are still prevented from exercising their political rights. Thus, whether the District ever was a swamp or not, the attribution is still damaging because most of those making it are less concerned with recounting history than they are interested in making political points, even at the expense of innocent people. George LaRoche <LaRoche@us.net> Matthew Gilmore H-DC list co-editor, web editor dc-edit@mail.h-net.msu.edu http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/~dclist/ [list website] http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/lists/subscribe.cgi?list=H-DC [subscribe to H-DC] Remember to check http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=lm&list=h-dc for past list messages.
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