PARK AND CEMETERY 
AND LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
Vol. XXI Chicago, August, 1911 No. 6 
The Great Lincoln Monument, Washington, D. C. 
The magnitude of the proposed Lincoln monument at 
Washington, D. C., entitles it to much consideration, and 
its progress will undoubtedly concentrate attention until 
its final accomplishment. The fact that Congress has ap- 
propriated the largest sum in its history for a monumen- 
tal purpose also encourages the hope that it may be the 
grandest public monument so far erected in the United 
States, and that both in dignity and beauty it may express 
the art and refinement of the people in their memorial 
to the man whom multitudes consider to have been the 
greatest the country has produced. Conferences have 
been held, since the appropriation became law, between 
President Taft, members of the Lincoln Commission and 
the Commission of Fine Arts relative to the site, as well 
as the selection of the professional man to design the 
monument. In regard to the site, the Fine Arts Commis- 
sion has endorsed the views of the 1901 Burnham. Com- 
mission and has recommended Potomac park at a spot 
near the river bank, south of the Washington monument, 
and on the axis line of the Capitol and that memorial. 
Things have materially changed in very recent years in 
the matter of securing designs and the men to devise 
them. The militant forces for unfitness are now fairly 
vanquished and a new era for government art has dawned. 
No commission of politicians utterly ignorant of the first 
principles of art or beauty would now be tolerated. So it 
comes about that after due consideration the President 
and the Fine Arts Commission, on August 2, designated 
Henry Bacon, of New York, as the architect to design 
the Lincoln memorial. This is practically following the 
successful method of the English government in the cre- 
ation of the recently unveiled Queen Victoria memorial 
in London, which was submitted entirely to the wisdom 
and artistic ability of now Sir Thomas Brock. This has 
resulted in probably the greatest of English public mon- 
uments. 
Ng 
Drinking Fountains 
“Old things are passing away, all things have become 
new,” has many applications in these strenuous, but let 
us hope better, times. In the majority of our large cities, 
however, the question of humanity is yet a very lame one, 
and we see countless instances of cruelty to animals, es- 
pecially horses, that, question it as we may, ranks us still 
low in the code of civilization. However, better times are 
coming, for a recent note in a New York daily says that 
■“work on a drinking fountain in Trinity Churchyard, 
Broadway, was begun today,” and it looks as though 
Eather Knickerbocker himself has “woke up.” Old Trin- 
ity with a drinking fountain! This is intended only for 
human kind, for a drinking fountain for horses and dogs 
had already been provided early this year on Trinity 
place by the donor of the more imposing one mentioned 
abovCi Mr. Henry C. Swords, one of the vestrymen of 
Trinity and a life-long member and communicant of the 
•church. The fountain now under construction is located 
■bn the Broadway side of the church and was designed by 
Mr. Thos. Nash, architect. The style is late Fourteenth 
'Gentury_,Go_thic ..and Jt _ has^ been adopted _ frpm^ the crjjsses 
seen in English churchyards and at the crossroads in 
rural England. It will stand fourteen feet high and be 
a handsome memorial to Anna Maria Cotheal Swords, 
the donor’s mother. Incidentally the majority of our 
large cities are shamefully deficient in drinking fountains 
for both man and beast; and it is strange that it should 
be so, not only as viewed from the standpoint of civic 
necessity, but from that of their availability as memorials 
of almost any degree of beauty or cost. Gratitude would 
flow as free and as pure as the water from their faucets 
on the part of all benefiting from such examples of pub- 
lic and private civic thoughtfulness. 
^ ^ 
The Community Mausoleum 
The legal troubles which appear to be revolving about 
the National Mausoleum Co. in its fight with the receiver 
appointed by the Ohio court will undoubtedly draw more 
thoughtful attention to the speculative features which have 
characterized the inception and progress of this corpor- 
ation and its alliances. The fact that a cheaper method 
of disposing of the dead was offered, and that together 
with that proposition, an opportunity for investment 
under lucrative promises was held out to the general pub- 
lic, had a stimulating effect upon the minds of country 
investors, and the erection of quite a number of concrete 
mausoleums followed, scattered over widespread locali- 
ties. From any standpoint it was a scheme involving a 
large share of temerity, for it was invading, even were it 
full of merit, a territory for ages dominated by estab- 
lished custom, a custom deep-rooted in the hearts of the 
great majority of the Anglo-Saxon people. But the 
commercialism of the age suggested that there was a 
good opening for speculative effort in the burial busi- 
ness, and the result is quite apparent. However, cemetery 
interests are rapidly awakening to the fact that a tres- 
passer upon their long established rights has appeared 
and will act accordingly. We deem it hardly possible 
that community burial can take a very serious hold upon 
the minds of the people. It must deprive them of many 
of their most cherished ideas. There is a vast difference 
between the associations attending the private mausoleum 
and those connected with above-ground burial among ab- 
solute strangers. And the thoughts upon the processes 
of decay and putridity, which affection will tolerate for 
the sake of loving memories, will only be abhorrent, to 
a surpassing degree, when one’s mind turns for a moment 
on the crowd of decomposing bodies in a community 
mausoleum. However, a number of cemeteries have per- 
mitted their erection on cemetery grounds, receiving 
therefor chapel privileges, the use of a certain number 
of the crypts, a share in the profits, or considerations of 
one kind or another. It is possible that the fear of their 
being erected outside the grounds in competition with the 
cemetery may have had its influence with some cemetery 
associations. It is certain, however, that community 
mausoleums should never be permitted in any cemetery 
without ample provision for perpetual care, and with the 
understanding also that their construction should be as 
perfect as possible, in view of the rapid deterioration to 
which such structures are liable. Incidentally it may be 
added that some time since a committee from Toronto, 
Canada, visited several cities in the States for the pur- 
pose of investigating this question, and upon their return 
reported adversely upon the proposition of permitting 
such mausoleums to be erected in their respective ceme- 
teries. ■ ' . 
