Nation: Boomtown on the Potomac

Public service has its own rewards, notably prosperity

If you are poor, you have no business in Washington." So said snippy Journalist Anne Royall in the early 19th century. Her observation is hardly less true today. Only now it must be added that anyone with business in Washington faces little risk of poverty. The great company town on the Potomac is booming. Humorist Russell Baker may garnish the truth when he writes of suburban lawns "green with money." And admittedly not everybody rushed to get at the $13,000 Chinese vases when the new...

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