Evening Star Newspaper, February 16, 1930, Page 87

THE SUNDAY STAR, ‘WASHINGTON, D. C, FEBRUARY 16, 1930. How the George Washington Memorial B uilding will look when completed, at Sixtl} and B streets, on the Mall, in the F ederal triangle. Tracy & Swartout, Architects. Work Now Soon to Be Resumed on the $10,000,QOO George Washington Memorial in the Federal Triangle, After Long Delay Caused by the War, to Carry Out the Desire of the First President for an American Center of Education in the Nation’s Capital. BY HUDSON GRUNEW ALD. ETERMINED that the $10,000,000 George Washington Memorial Build- / ing, which promises to be th: most x magnificent tribute ever paid to the Father of His Country, will be ready for dedication as the headquarters for the bicentennial celebration of the first President’s birthday in “m that on t:r his wishes for a - sy at last be fulfill struction work, of the foundations, at Sixth and B streets, on the Mall, eight years ago, is ted to be re- sumed by the builders within the next few e : 'azfier a period of inactivity, during which - the war interrupted further progress, the George Washington Memorial Association recently be- gan a renewal of its efforts to raise the money needed for the completion of the project, and, in addition to many donations received in re- mmmvummo(theeountry,bnh were introduced in the House and Senate last month calling for an appropriation of $5,000,000 to guarantee continuance of the construction work now soon to begin. According to Robert Loyd, director of the . pational finance committee of the -association, it is now thought that actual construction of the building can be started on Washington’s birthday this year, or shortly thereafter, in view of the wonderful responses accorded the appeal for contributions. i “Nineteen hundred and thirty-two, the 200th anniversary of the birthday of George Wash- ington, will soon be here,” declares Mrs. Henry ¥. Dimock, president of the association. “The country is planning a world-wide celebration, and nothing can be more appropriate than to have the great celebration in the George Wash- ington Memorial Building.” A GREAT fear was felt in the early part of 1929 that the campaign might fail of its purpose and the building be unfinished in 1932, In a letter written by former Chief Justice William H. Taft, last February, he expressed this fear in the following words: “We have the site, we hm?«he founda- tion ¢ th2 building. It would be bad enough if we had no structure at all. It would be a glaring omission. But worse, far worse, would it be if all that we should have would be humiliating evidence of effort made to honor the real father of our country an ignomin- ious failure.” Since that time, however, over 60 United States Senators and Representatives, as well A model of the proposed W ashington Memorial tending from the main floor to the roof im the form of an ellipse and completely canopied by an acoustical dome, providing seats for 11,000 people. This vast assembly room will be equipped with one of the largest and finest organs ever built, and so endowed that the finest organists in the country can be engaged for a concert every Sunday afternoon, which will be open to the general public. Several placed on display in the Treas- ury Building as part of the sa-called “central area” exhibit of which the build- ing is to be an outstanding feature. as many others held in high esteem through- out the country,” have become enthusiastic members of the national finance committee, and 34 governors have agreed to head the com- mittees forming in their respective States. The memorial building will be of white marble, American classic in style, similar to the Treasury and Capitol buildings. Its cen- tral feature will be a spacious auditorium ek- smaller halls will seat from 500 to 2,500. On each side of the main auditorium will be rooms set aside as museums for the archives and relics of the Nation's struggles for liberty. the first floor it is planned to have rooms for the permanent national headquarters of military and other patriotic organizations. On , the third floor will be spacious quarters for the exclusive use of each State and Territory, Mgin auditorium of the George Washington Memorial, looking north toward, she rostrum. - and the fourth floor will be arranged for addi- tional offices for various ties whose ob- ject it is to promiote the weilfare of the United It is also proposed to give the Army, Navy, - Marines and aviators a space 350 feet long for their memorial headquarters, consisting of. a museum, library and archive quarters, and to endow the same so that the Army, Navy, Ma- rines and aviators can have full control of that - portion of the building. The portico fronting on the Mall will have 16 Ionic columns, each 48 feet high and 5% feet in diameter. The caps are to bear the American eagle and shields between the volutes. . The portico will be 250 feet long and 20 feet wide, and the cornice, 12 feet high, will bear an -inscription taken from the last speech of ‘Washington's: .Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair—the result is in the hands of God. A suggestion has been made that the third- floor- State headquarters plans could be revised to take care of the problem of properly placing the statues now in Statuary Hall, in the United States Capitol, which eventually will have to be moved. A proposal being considered is that two statues from each State could be placed on either side of the entrance to each State’s per- manent headquarters in the building. Pro- vision has been made in the plans for a spa- cious hall from which these rooms open, and this would afford space for future statues in appropriate settings. One room will be set aside in thegbuilding in. honor of Washington's mother, to be known as the Mary Washington room. In her appeal to the women of the country for this memorial to a great woman Mrs. Dimock said: “It was from his mother that George Washington re- ceived those lessons and that training which made him the greatest man the United States has ever produced.” A model of the memorial building on the same scale as the other models of the triangle development was made and placed on display in the Treasury Building, at the request of Col. U. 8. Grant, 3d, director of public buildings and parks, of the board of the memorial association, The model completed the exhibit of the so- called “central area,” of which the building is to be an outstanding feature. IN a pamphlet discussing the memorial edifice Reeves T. Strickland of Washington says$ “It would be gratifying, indeed, to know that a citizen or a group of citizens or all the pee- ple of the United States have erected a structuse in the City of Washington, the Capital of thejr country, as beautiful, as grand and as noble as the Parthenon, and now herald that city as the foremost of the world, as illustrious as the combined fame of Carthage, Athens and Rome. Here in the heart of America another Demos= . thenes might be born to fill the world’s audi- torium with elpoquence ‘speaking out of the abundance of the heart’' for the good of the people of the world. . “The George Washington Memorial Building will be the finest, as well as the most useful creation of architecture known to the world, measuring 350 feet on all of its sides, with beati- tiful Parthenon-like columns, while its interior will have the resplendency of the Temple of the Sun of Palmyra or Tadmore in the Wilderness.” ‘The memorial will be the gift of the people ‘of the United States. The association plans “to make the building truly a temple of the people, raised to honor the meémory and to carry out the will of their first great leader.” 4 ‘The American people preserved Washington’s home at Mount Vernon. They erected the Washington Monument, and even the City of Washington itself stands as a tribute to the greatness of the Father of His Country, but erection of the new george Washington e i Continued on Thirtgenth Page