The Lincoln Conspirator

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A Memorial's History

The Lincoln Memorial nearly sank in the swamp of politics. Here, a look at the history of its construction.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

Cannon drove his new electric automobile to the final Agriculture Building site on a Sunday in July 1905. The speaker, nearly 70 years old, got out of his car and hobbled to the construction area to see for himself. He climbed over the high fence surrounding the site. When he saw how far away it was from where Congress had said it should be and how large an area had already been dug for the foundation, "he said things no man really ought to say on a Sunday afternoon," according to The Washington Post.

BY 1908, A YEAR BEFORE THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY, even Cannon had to acknowledge that public sentiment in favor of a national memorial to the late president was too strong to be ignored. So he backed a proposal to place a memorial near the new Union Station. No place was more convenient. Visitors arriving by train would see it without going out of their way, whereas they'd have to make a special trip by streetcar or carriage to the Potomac River location. Cannon said from the beginning that he wanted the monument located "where all who visit Washington would see it without expense."

The Union Station proposal was part of a bill to expand the Capitol grounds by purchasing the six blocks between the Capitol and the station. A monument to Lincoln would fit nicely somewhere in between, Cannon told the Washington Star. It only made sense for the government to acquire the land. The Irish slum that occupied the area was hardly a dignified approach to Congress. Nicknamed Swampoodle because of its marshy land near Tiber Creek, it was a mix of shanties, run-down buildings and alleys where many of the Irish laborers lived in crowded tenements. Schott's Alley, next door to the new Russell Senate Office Building, was home to 220 people, most of them fruit vendors. On one shack that housed a restaurant, the owner regularly painted his comments about current events on the outside walls.

The city's alley slums were notorious. The dilapidated brick or wood dwellings -- built to house emancipated slaves after the Civil War -- had dirt floors and typically lacked sewers, water, heat and light. Two families often shared four small rooms. A local doctor who took congressmen on tours of the alleys near the Capitol to motivate them to clean up the unsanitary conditions had a dramatic way of making his point. He'd open up an outhouse door and say, "Gentlemen, these flies are the same ones that come in your open window and land on your sandwich while you're having lunch on Capitol Hill," according to photographer Godfrey Frankel's book In the Alleys: Kids in the Shadow of the Capitol.

Cannon's effort to beautify the area around Union Station marked a total reversal of an earlier position. He'd tried to eliminate the 1,000-foot-long plaza in front of the train depot, calling it an unnecessary extravagance when the House approved the plan in December 1902. "Would it not be more harmonious still if we should make the plaza include 10 acres and . . . clean out all the buildings between the Capitol and the depot?" he sarcastically asked during the debate. His objection to the plaza was the only opposition to the bill to create Union Station. But now that the train depot had opened, Cannon agreed with the popular sentiment in Congress that such a slum-clearance project was exactly what was needed.

Former congressman James McCleary soon published a magazine article with a new idea for memorializing Lincoln that received considerable attention. He had been a member of the Lincoln Memorial Commission authorized by Congress in 1902, before Cannon was House speaker. At the group's one and only meeting, the members decided to send McCleary to Europe to study its monuments, as McKim and the other Senate Park Commission members had already done. McCleary went abroad but still hadn't submitted his report to the commission three years after it was due. The commission was basically defunct by that time anyway because its members didn't want to do anything that would anger Cannon.

What had most impressed McCleary during his tour of Europe was the Appian Way, the ancient road in southern Italy built by Roman censor Appius Claudius. "Who has not heard of the Appian Way?" he wrote in the article. "What a fitting memorial to Lincoln would be a noble highway, a splendid boulevard, from the White House to Gettysburg."

"The Lincoln Way" would include one roadway for automobiles and one for horse-drawn carriages and wagons; plus two electric railway tracks: one for express trains, the other for local trains. Stately rows of trees would border the highway. Down the middle would be a well-kept lawn 40 to 50 feet wide, with beautiful fountains and monuments at intervals along the way. Given "the possibilities of electrical illumination, the beauty of this boulevard when lit up at night may be left to the imagination," McCleary wrote.

He wasn't the first to think of combining a memorial to a great American with some practical purpose. In 1882, there was serious talk of putting a weather station at the top of the Washington Monument once it was completed.

But, with widespread support in Congress, the proposed Lincoln Memorial near Union Station seemed certain to win quick approval. Cannon confidently told newspapers that he planned to have the bill passed and ready for Roosevelt to sign on the upcoming Lincoln centennial February 12, 1909.

McKim was in poor health by then. So, Glenn Brown, secretary of the American Institute of Architects, took over advocating for a memorial near the Potomac River. He was from a distinguished old Southern family. His background was similar to that of his elite clientele. But his modest, gentlemanly demeanor belied his tenacity and shrewd political skills. He was determined to stop the Lincoln Memorial from being built near Union Station, where it would be overshadowed by the station and the Capitol building and obstruct the view. Besides, a statue of Christopher Columbus was already planned for the most prominent spot in front of the station.

It's ironic that Brown grew up admiring Robert E. Lee more than he did Abraham Lincoln. His father, a physician, had been a field surgeon in the Confederate Army and later inspector of hospitals and camps. Brown used to sneak over to the slaves' cabins as a boy to teach them to read. One day, he saw his grandfather standing on the back porch and telling the 150 slaves on his 1,000-acre North Carolina plantation that they were free, plunging the family into financial ruin.