The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 92

16 THE BALTIMORE SUN A Great Rebel joins the Immortals JEFFERSON DAVIS' STATUE PLACED IN THE NATIONAL' CAPITOL' by JOSEPHINE TIGHE Wi I THIN the recollection of many still the additional thirty-five is puzzling David Lynn, architect of the Capitol, and Charles E. Fairman, art curator of that building. Statuary Hall, semi-circular in form, contains 5,533 square feet, of which space noble columns occupy 330 square feet. Allowing sixteen feet as an average-size base for each statue's pedestal, the square feet occupied by the sixty-one statues amounts to 876 square feet, leaving but 4,227 square feet for display of the present and forthcoming marble or bronze heroes, warriors, inventors, explorers, signers, prelates and statesmen. In simpler language, by the time these additional ladies or gentlemen are contributed by grateful State governments an sign will be in position and a semiphore necessary to direct tourists through congested lanes of bronze and marble.

States as finally to meet again in the Hall of Fame! For as late as 1908, when the statues of George Washington and Robert E. Lee were presented to Congress and to the Ameri- can people by Virginia for erection in Statuary Hall, considerable feeling smoldered on both sides of the Mason and Dixon line. Since that time the heat and fire of a World War have welded North and South and the statue of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, stands, together with those of Lee and Joe Wheeler, shoulder to shoulder with such Union leaders as Lew Wallace, Phil Kearney and last though not at all least Francis H. Tierpont.who was elected Governor at Wheeling (later West Virginia) and in 186S-8 served as Provisional Governor of Virginia, who assisted in the mobilization and sending to the front more than 40,000 Union troops-well, it doesn't create enough sectional feeling to even write home about to one's Senator. the finely executed statue is by the sculptor, Augustus Lukeman, of New York, as is the Senator George memorial.

They contribute to the present total of sixty-one bronze or marble heroes, warriors, inventors, explorers, signers, prelates, statesmen (including one lady, Frances E. Wiliard, of W. C. T. U.

fame), to stand or sit and look down on two men dating from the time they were West Foint cadets together and the imprisonment had pained and distressed none more than my father, so that the release gave him corresponding joy." General Lee personally wrote to Mr. Davis of the misery which he (Lee) had suffered during the long imprisonment and telling of the load which had been lifted from his mind and heart. Captain Lee also is authority for the statement that a lady asked his father's opinion of Mr. Davis' part during the war, and that General Lee answered: "If my opinion is worth anything, you can always say that few people could have done better than Mr. Davis.

I know of none that could have done as well." Returning from the Southern trip taken during the spring of 1870 in hope of aiding his fast-failing health, General Lee stopped off at Wilmington, N. to pay a short visit to his old friends, ex-President and Mrs. Davis. It proved to be the long farewell, General Lee dying six months later. HOW PAR FROM THEIR MOST VACRANT DAYDREAMS in Reconstruction days could have been the passing thought that each would be so signally honored by nation and respective i.v order to clear this traffic jam of notables Representative Tinkham last April introduced a bill providing for "preparation of, plans and estimates of cost of erecting a Hall of Fame," the bill carrying with it an appropriation of $50,000 which the Director of Public Parks and the Architect of the Capitol were empowered to spend on preliminary work.

As evidenced by the body of his bill, Mr. Tinkham had in mind a real and separate Hall of Fame whose cost perhaps would run into several millions and which would have separate and spacious rooms where each State might show to best advantage its glorified sons or daughters. Frederic W. Ruckstull, the sculptor and the only artist represented in visitors to Statuary Hall. With allotment of two statues ta each of the forty-eight States this means that there are thirty-five more to be presented by grateful States, to say nothing of what will happen should our Territories claim similar representation.

Where to put alive Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy crushed, was a Federal prisoner at Fortress Monroe, and a considerable number in the North were heartily in favor of hanging him for treason. Today his statue stands ready for unveiling in Statuary Hall at Washington under the Dome of the Capitol, and we may profitably recall an address of a generation ago: And I shall also mention that Jefferson Davis is entitled to stand in the Tantheon of the world's greatest men on a pedestal not less high than those erected to Hampden, Sydney, Cromwell, Burke and Chat' ham of the Fatherland, and Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Franklin of the New World, Mho, however varying in their circumstances or in personality, were liberty leaderg and representatives of great people, great ideas and great deeds. Thus declared John W. Daniel, "Lame Lion of the Senate," before the General Assembly of Virginia, January 25, 1890, seven weeks after the death of the Fresident of the Confederacy. And today, forty years later, Jefferson Davis stands there in Statuary Hall, the American Tantheon, at the Capitol in Washington, on a pedestal not less high than that of President Washington and, incidentally, on a pedestal no lower than the one on which are planted the bronze boots of Gen.

Robert E. Lee. The other New World celebrities mentioned by Senator Daniel are all represented at the Capitol by statue or bust, though not all are in the Statuary Hall itself as allotted selections from their several States. an the statue or jefferson dams, recently erected but not yet unveiled or officially presented to the United States Government, is one of two offerings of the State of Mississippi and completes her quota to the Hall of Fame, each State in the Union being invited to contribute marble or bronze figures of two of her illustrious sons. The second statue is that of James Z.

George, 1826-1890, famous as a Senator from that State and a soldier in the Civil War with the Mississippi Rifles. Virginia is represented in the Hall of Fame by the bronze statue of George Washington, modeled after Houdon's marble statue in the State Capitol, Richmond, and by a bronze figure of Robert E. Lee, the work of Edward Virginius Valentine, of that city. (Mr. Valentine also is the sculptor of the recumbent Lee over that general's grave at Lexington.) The new marble figure of President Davis stands not far from that of his compatriot and lifetime friend, General Lee, so that in this Pantheon again are united two of the South 's most outstanding men.

The friendship of General Lee and President Davis extended over a period of almost fifty years and was broken only by death. Lee graduated in 1829 from West Point, where Jefferson Davis had received his commission with the class cf 1828. So that it was at this college of war that was formed a comradeship that bitterness, complications or ramifications of war never interrupted; a fast friendship that withstood criticism heaped upon both at certain times by their own ungrateful "Republic" of the South; a loyalty toward one another that illness, loss of prestige, failure in battle or financial difficulties never even strained. WHEN THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT Was moved from Montgomery, to Richmond and President Davis assumed charge of all militarymovements Lee was at his side, sometimes in person, always in loyalty, assistance and understanding. Capt.

Robert E. Lee, writing of his distinguished father in Recollections of General Lee, states: "President Davis kept my father near him as his trusted and constant adviser." And trusted and constant adviser he, remained until death, in 1870, quieted the yet-aching heart. Some historians, notably McCabe, suggest that relations between President Davis and General Lee were not entirely cordial during the war period, but this is refuted in Davis' memorial address of Lee as well as bis letter refusing acceptance of General Lee's resignation tendered after the repulse at Gettysburg. Captain Lee, writing of the release of Mr. Davis from Fortress Monroe, says: "There was a warm personal friendship between these Statuary Hall by three statues, fell with Mr.

Tinkham's visualization and prepared a rough plan for the Hall of Fame. This drawing appears in Mr. Fairman's Art and Artists of the Capitol, lately issued by the Government Printing Office. The Tinkham-Fairman-Ruckstull plan sponsors tlie idea that many figures in the Hall of Fame as it stands today at the Capitol are notional rather than conspicuous only within State boundaries. In the proposed new Pantheon' a dome-room 240 feet in diameter would take care of the really national effigies and allow States so drawn on to recontribute the statue of one or more persons whose fame was chiefly State-wide.

For example, Maryland's gift to Statuary Hall is represented in two bronze statues, both sculptured by Richard Edwin Brooks. One is of Charles Carroll of Carrollton; the other, John Hanson, patriot of the Revolution and President of the Continental Congress. Both these men have claims to national rather than State-wide fame Carroll certainly. Standing for independence of the colonies, belonging to the Council of Safety of his State, a delegate in the Continental Congress, he was, in the last analysis, a national hero as a signer (and the last surviving signer) of the Declaration of Independence. With erection of the proposed magnificent new theon the withdrawal of the bronze of Charles Carroll as a State hero and the placing of it in the great dome-room with other national figures, Maryland would then have a chance to honor some other personage cherished within the State.

an as statuary hall now stands, or sits, it to some degree merits the name "The Hall of Horrors." Little men, big men; a grave ministerial figure beside one rarin' to go; many of the figures the work of good and famous sculptors; others, modeled after new-thought art a clod of clay, unworked and dauby, which the 'sightseer is asked to recognize as hand or foot and which might be both or neither. Men in Prince Albert coats, men warrior-clad, men with overcoats and men without, men with guns, men with hats on and hats off; Sam Houston, of Texas, in fringed garments. And one lone woman Frances E. Wiliard, splendid reformer and spinster, who when added to the galaxy of American-famed personages by Illinois caused some comment as to her presence among so jnany gentlemencomment quickly silenced by the relieved discovery that Father Marquette, of Wisconsin, was present to see that all the proprieties were observed The present Statuary Hall was the original House of Representatives until that branch of the legislature was moved into the present hall, the south extension, in 1S57. Seven years later a joint resolution turned the vacated House of Representatives into Statuary HalL At this time each State of the Union was invited to contribute marble or bronze figures of two of her most notable sons connected with her military, civic or historical renown.

I I (Z f-' I I -At I 4" THE JEFFERSON DAVIS STATUE.