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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ^lAGAZINE 



judges of the fine arts, appointed b}^ the 

 President and serving for a period of 

 four years each. The law provided that 

 it should be the duty of such a commis- 

 sion to advise upon the location of statues, 

 fountains, and monuments in the public 

 squares, streets, and parks of the District 

 of Columbia, and on the selection of 

 models for statues, fountains, and monu- 

 ments erected by the government, and 

 upon the selection of artists for the exe- 

 cution of the same, and that it should be 

 the duty of the officers authorized by law 

 to determine such questions, in each case 

 to call for the advice of the Commission. 

 It was also provided that the Commission 

 should advise generally upon questions of 

 art when required to do so by the Presi- 

 dent or by any committee of either 

 House of Congress.* 



The first appointees upon this Com- 

 mission included all the members of the 

 first Park Commission organized by Sen- 

 ator ]\Ic]\Iillan, and others of high artistic 

 achievement who sympathized with the 

 purposes of the law, including a gentle- 

 man who had been most active and use- 

 ful in all this work, and at one time 

 Senator J\Ic]\Iillan's private secretary, 

 Mr. Moore, of Detroit. In this way it 

 was considered that continuity and con- 

 sistency could be given to the architect- 

 ural progress of Washington, and that 

 the spirit of the report of the Burnham 

 Commission would be made vital and en- 

 ergizing in everything that was done 

 thereafter. 



I have said that the Mall was the axis 

 upon which hung most of the recom- 

 mendations of the Park Commission, and 

 it is pleasant to note that in spite of great 

 opposition at times the report and recom- 

 mendation of the Burnham Commission 

 have ultimately prevailed. A grand eques- 

 trian statue to General Grant was pro- 

 vided for by Congress and the question 

 of its site gave rise to much controversy. 

 The Special Commission decided that it 

 ought to be in the axis of the Mall, at 

 the foot of the Capitol grounds, in a line 



* The present members of the Commission 

 of Fine .\rts are Daniel C. French, Frederick 

 Law Olmsted, Thomas Hastings, Cass Gilbert, 

 Charles Moore. Edwin H. Blashfield, Peirce 

 Anderson, and Col. William M. Harts, U. S. 

 Army. 



with the ^Monument and in the inclosure 

 then occupied by the Congressional Bo- 

 tanical Garden. 



TtlE LIXCOI^N ME^MORIAI, 



A suitable memorial for Abraham Lin- 

 coln has been strangely wanting in Wash- 

 ington. Shelby ]\I. Cullom, the veteran 

 of the Senate from Illinois, sought to 

 close his distinguished career by efl^ective 

 provision for it. The delay had not been 

 due, of course, to a lack of desire to do 

 honor to Lincoln's memory, but to doubt 

 as to the form that the memorial should 

 take. A commission had been appointed 

 to recommend such a memorial, and time 

 and money had been spent, but the report 

 was not satisfactory, or at least it never 

 made an impression upon the House and 

 the Senate. Senator Cullom's bill was 

 given the unusual form of naming the 

 persons to constitute the Commission, 

 which w^as given ample powers, through 

 architects, sculptors, and artists, to pro- 

 cure a suitable design and to locate a 

 proper site, subject to the approval of 

 Congress. 



Upon the recommendation of the Fine 

 Arts Commission, Henry Bacon was se- 

 lected as the architect of the memorial, 

 and the site upon the axis of the Mall, 

 near the bank of the Potomac River, was 

 selected. This was in exact accord with 

 the recommendations made a decade be- 

 fore by the Park Commission (see pages 

 250-251). 



The work upon the memorial has gone 

 on with great speed, the foundations are 

 completed, and the work upon the super- 

 structure is begun. Daniel C. French, 

 the greatest of living American sculptors, 

 has been selected to design and execute 

 the statue of Lincoln which is to stand 

 within the shrine, and I think we may 

 reasonably expect that in two years' time 

 the memorial will be complete and will 

 be an inspiring tribute to the great mar- 

 tyred President, suggestive in its shining 

 ]uu-ity and beauty of his great soul. Thus 

 we shall have the great axis of the Mall 

 beginning with the Capitol Dome, run- 

 ning through the Grant ^lonument at the 

 foot of Capitol Hill, and the Washington 

 ]\Ionument two-thirds of the distance to 



