Lincoln Memorial dedication May 30, 1922
The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. was dedicated on Memorial Day a century ago (five score years). From the May 31, 1922 issue of The New York Times:
dedicated
WASHINGTON, May 30. – The Lincoln Memorial magnificent and compelling in its purity of line and simplicity, was dedicated this afternoon.
For ten years this white marble shrine with its massive Doric columns, has been slowly rising on the banks of the Potomac at the western end of the Mall, where once was a dismal, marshy waste. Its completion gives to Washington three dominating structures, each different but each fitting into a harmonious whole, on the Mall. At the east is the imposing dome of the Capitol, between the perfectly proportioned Washington Monument points upward a granite index finger, and to the west, glistening like a flawless gem in its setting, stands the memorial that perpetuates in marble, sculpture and fresco, the spirit of Abraham Lincoln.
Today, fifty-seven years after the tragedy in Ford’s Theatre, the Civil War tunes, the martial airs of Spanish War days and the stirring songs of the A. E. F. sounded through Washington streets as veterans of three wars marched to visit the graves of their dead. In the afternoon these processions converged at the Lincoln Memorial, where Chief Justice Taft, as Chairman of the Memorial Commission, turned over the building to the Government, represented by President Harding.
Thus a palfietic [?] handful of the fast dwindling survivors of the Civil War, some of whom knew Lincoln, had the satisfaction of witnessing within their lifetime the dedication of a marble symbol of Stanton’s announcement that the Great Emancipator belongs to the ages.
“in the name of 12,000,000 negroes”
Blue and Gray Join in Tribute.
The ceremonies were in keeping with the simplicity of the memorial. Grand Army men, led by Lewis S. Pilcer [Pilcher], Commander- in-Chief, presented the color and laid symbols of the army and navy at the foot of the structure. Across the aisle sat gray-clad Confederate veterans, and from their seats they could look over the Potomac to the Virginia hills, where Arlington, once the home of Robert E. Lee, nestles among the trees. Robert R. Moton, President of Tuskegee Institute, paid tribute to Lincoln in the name of 12,000,000 negroes. Edwin Markham read the revision of his poem, “Lincoln, the Man of the People.”
Chief Justice Taft, under whose administration as President the memorial was begun, gave a short account of the labors of the Memorial Commission and delivered the building into the Government’s keeping. President Harding then accepted the memorial and drew a lesson from Lincoln’s steadfastness under criticism, eulogizing him as not a superman but as a “natural human being with the frailties mixed with the virtues of humanity.” The Invocation and benediction were delivered by the Rev. Wallace Radcliffe, pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, where Lincoln worshipped.
part of the crowd with “granite index finger”
Thousands assembled at the approaches to the memorial and the crowd extended down along the quarter-mile long mirror basin in which the Washington Monument was reflected with the background of a cloudless sky. Amplifying devices, cleverly concealed so that they did not detract from the beauty of the memorial, carried the speakers’ voices several hundred yards, and by the same means the speeches were sent broadcast by radiophone.
Wilson Unable to Attend.
Just back of the east colonnade were seated the official members of the party, the president and Mrs. Harding, members of the Cabinet and their wives, Robert T. Lincoln, the martyred President’s son and Mrs. Lincoln; members of the Memorial Commission; Henry R. Bacon, architect of the memorial; Daniel Chester French, sculptor of the heroic seated figure of Lincoln placed in the centre of the memorial, and Jules Guerin, designer of the allegorical frescoes. Places were reserved for former President and Mrs. Wilson, but early this morning Mr. Wilson sent word to Chief Justice Taft that he would be unable to attend.
“martyred President’s son”
To the left along the colonnade were members of the Supreme Court and to the right Foreign Ambassadors and their staffs. On the terrace were other members of the Diplomatic Corps and members of both houses of Congress.
A conspicuous figure at the end of the row of Ambassadors was Otto Wiedefelt, the German Ambassador, who presented his credentials last week. He arrived late and alone and followed the proceedings with close attention, occasionally leaving his seat and standing against one of the columns to obtain a better view of the speakers and the crowd beneath.
There were two incidents that gave temporarily a touch out of keeping with the dignity of the ceremonies. One was at the end of the exercises, when the Chief Justice requested the people in the audience to remain in their places until the President proceeded to his car, whereupon several dozen members of
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According to documentation at the Library of Congress, Robert Russa Moton began his Lincoln memorial speech by looking back to 1620, when the Pilgrim Fathers “laid the foundations of our national existence upon the bed-rock of liberty.” Since then liberty had been the common bond of “our united people,” and Americans had fought to extend freedom throughout the world. In his second paragraph Dr. Moton looked back a year before the Pilgrim landing, when a ship landed in Jamestown, Virginia that brought the first African slaves to North America. Those slaves were “pioneers of bondage, a bondage degrading alike to body, mind, and spirit.”
Robert Russa Moten in 1916
Those two contrasting principles eventually led to the costly Civil War, which, with Lincoln at the helm, the Union fought to win, and which, at its conclusion, Lincoln’s life was sacrificed. Dr. Moton agreed that Lincoln fought the Civil war to keep the Union together, but he also fought it to free the slaves. Despite doubt and adversity, President Lincoln “put his trust in God and spoke the word that gave freedom to a race, and vindicated the honor of a nation” by making it live up to the principle of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.
In answering the question of whether Abraham Lincoln’s sacrifice was worth it, Mr. Moton first pointed out the loyalty of African-Americans, from Crispus Attucks killed during the American Revolution to the black doughboys who had recently sacrificed their lives in France. He used statistics to detail all the progress African-Americans had made in less than sixty years of freedom. Lincoln’s sacrifice was worth it because the black race “had taken full advantage of its freedom to develop its latent powers for itself and for the nation.” There was still more to do, but progress was being made: “As we gather on this consecrated spot, his spirit must rejoice that sectional rancours and racial antagonisms are softening more and more into mutual understanding and effective cooperation.” Dr. Moton hoped that the nation would be dedicated anew to the task for which Lincoln died – “equal opportunity and unhampered freedom” for all citizens, even the most humble, regardless of color or creed.
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poet
at the dedication
“the Captain with the mighty heart”
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Robert Lincoln ascends the steps
Taft, Harding, Lincoln (Robert Todd)
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According to Abraham Lincoln Online the Bliss copy of the Gettysburg Address is the version reproduced on the Lincoln Memorial. A couple places of the places where you can read more about Robert Russa Moton would be Encyclopedia Virginia and Tuskegee University. In 1920 Dr. Moton wrote the introduction to The Upward Path: A Reader For Colored Children:
INTRODUCTION
The Negro has been in America just about three hundred years and in that time he has become intertwined in all the history of the nation. He has fought in her wars; he has endured hardships with her pioneers; he has toiled in her fields and factories; and the record of some of the nation’s greatest heroes is in large part the story of their service and sacrifice for this people.
The Negro arrived in America as a slave in 1619, just one year before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth in search of freedom. Since then their lot has not always been a happy one, but nevertheless, in spite of difficulties and hardships, the race has learned many valuable lessons in its conflict with the American civilization. As a slave the lessons of labor, of constructive endeavor, of home-life and religion were learned, even if the opportunity was not always present to use these lessons to good advantage.
After slavery other lessons were learned in their order. Devoted self-sacrificing souls—soldiers of human brotherhood—took up the task in the schoolroom which their brothers began on the battlefield. Here it was that the Negro learned the history of[Pg x] America, of the deeds of her great men, the stirring events which marked her development, the ideals that made America great. And so well have they been learned, that to-day there are no more loyal Americans than the twelve million Negroes that make up so large a part of the nation.
But the race has other things yet to learn: The education of any race is incomplete unless the members of that race know the history and character of its own people as well as those of other peoples. The Negro has yet to learn of the part which his own race has played in making America great; has yet to learn of the noble and heroic souls among his own people, whose achievements are praiseworthy among any people. A number of books—poetry, history and fiction—have been written by Negro authors in which the life of their own people has been faithfully and attractively set forth; but until recently no effort has been made on a large scale to see that Negro boys and girls became acquainted with these books and the facts they contained concerning their people.
In this volume the publishers have brought together a number of selections from the best literary works of Negro authors, through which these young people may learn more of the character and accomplishments of the worthy members of their race. Such matter is both informing and inspiring, and no Negro boy or girl can read it without feeling a deeper pride in his[Pg xi] own race. The selections are each calculated to teach a valuable lesson, and all make a direct appeal to the best impulses of the human heart.
For a number of years several educational institutions for Negro youths have conducted classes in Negro history with a similar object in view. The results of these classes have been most gratifying and the present volume is a commendable contribution to the literature of such a course.
Robert R. Moton
Tuskegee Institute, Ala.,
June 30, 1920
mall mapped (1927)
I took the New York Times material from The New York Times The Complete Front Pages 1851-2008. New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers Inc., 2008. on one of the DVDs.. The 1916 portrait of Robert Russa Moten is from Wikimedia Commons.
“laying the cornerstone” February 12, 1915
under construction
From the Library of Congress: the long view of the dedication; part of the large crowd with Washington Monument in background; 1927 map of the Mall in Washington, D.C.; laying the cornerstone on Lincoln’s birthday in 1915; Robert Russa Moton paying tribute to Mr. Lincoln; Taft, Harding with Robert T. Lincoln; Edwin Markham out in the country, apparently; Markham at the Lincoln Memorial dedication; Markham’s poem; the Memorial from the Washington Monument (1935);Robert Todd Lincoln seated; Robert and (I’m guessing) wife arrive; the Memorial under construction; July 4, 1939 fireworks as viewed from Lincoln Memorial; the memorial being cleaned. According to the Library the photo was taken on June 4, 1991. The cleaner was James Hudson, “who died at the Lincoln Memorial 4 July 1993.”
Happy 4th of July!
memorial maintenance
Memorial from Monument
