Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 107th Congress, First Session, Volume 147, Part 7 Page: 8,847
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May 22, 2001
CONGRESSIONAL RECORD-HOUSE
The fact that we have not already
built a monument, to me, is atrocious.
I am glad that Democrats, Repub-
licans, and Independents are united on
this. Let us pass this bill and let us
break ground by Memorial Day.
Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 8
minutes to the gentlewoman from the
District of Columbia (Ms. NORTON).
Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank
my friend, the gentleman from Illinois,
for yielding time to me.
May I begin by thanking the gen-
tleman from Arizona (Mr. STUMP) for
his work on this bill, and for his work
with the Senate in getting a bill that I
think is one that we all appreciate for
what it will mean for the memorial
that has been under discussion.
I honor the gentleman from Arizona
for his service, and understand and ap-
preciate his anxiety to get on with the
memorial. Let me say, as a child of
World War II who grew up during the
war here in the city, I understand why
this memorial means so much to the
men who fought this war.
It is the case, however, that anyone
who loves the city and admires the
uniqueness of Washington and the Mall
could not possibly want the particular
memorial that will go up. The memo-
rial, of course, as I said in my own re-
marks on the House floor on last Tues-
day, was pretty much a done deal, in
any case. At least we will not be adding
to the injury that many Americans feel
about having any man-made object in
the midst of one of Washington's great
vistas, especially a very controversial
design that does not begin to do justice
to the men and women of World War II,
who brought justice to the world.
At least now we have understood that
no memorial can rise without adminis-
trative review and oversight. The bill
assures us that there will be experts
from the National Capital Planning
Commission to wrestle with the many
problems that remain when we are put-
ting a football field-sized memorial
where no object was ever meant to be.
This poses unprecedented challenges
that I hope the NCPC will meet.
What we are doing is putting a huge
memorial below the water table, and
we have to have somebody there, for
example, to figure out how to pump
water, which will need to be pumped
out continuously, and how to make
sure that it is treated and does not go
into the Potomac River and the Chesa-
peake Bay.
Let me put everybody on notice now,
they had better not put a contraption
on the Mall that looks like some kind
of machinery in order to do that. We
have to find a way to do that.
We were very concerned about the
wooden foundations on which the
Washington Monument is built. In
those days, that is how one built a
monument. Disturbing the subsoil
when the water is pumped out presents
a real challenge to the NCPC. Nobodyhas ever figured out how to do that.
They had better figure out how to do
that.
What do we do to deal with the old
growth trees that are a proxy for the
beauty of the Mall itself? We had cer-
tainly better not knock them down. If
the NCPC had not already been there,
the National Park Service, in prepara-
tion for the memorial, would already
have concrete helicopter pads on the
Mall. The NCPC, I thank them very
much, stopped that. That is but one in-
dication of why we do need administra-
tive oversight.
For those who come in from Mary-
land and Virginia, for the millions of
tourists who come every day, the NCPC
still has to figure out how this memo-
rial, with its tour buses, with its traf-
fic, can go up without closing 17th
Street to traffic. That is a challenge I
would not want to have.
Many of the elements of the Mall
now, such as the lighting and sculp-
tural elements, will be in the hands of
the NCPC, so not just anything the
builders chooe~se will go up.tohv hs
wonderful memorial put in a unique
spot. I want Members to go to Con-
stitutional Gardens. Constitutional
Gardens is a huge space hidden right
off from the Mall. The reason nobody
knows about it is because there is a
line of trees as one marches toward the
Lincoln Memorial, and we have to go
up over a hill to see it, but then we
come upon a huge space with a wonder_-
ful pool and we say, why is there noth_-
ing here?
There is nothing there, and that was
the first site that everybody wanted for
the World War II memorial. I am very,
very sorry that that was not the site
chosen. Then it would not have been in
competition with anything else. It
would have been the first memorial to
rise there. It is a huge and wonderfully
undiscovered space.
Mr. Speaker, I worry about what we
are doing to our Mall, quite apart from
the World War II memorial, because ev-
erybody knew that the World War II
memorial, if any memorial deserved to
be on the Mall, the World War II me_-
morial did.
I just want to use my 3 minutes left
to warn the Congress away from fool-
ing with the Mall. We who live in the
District have, in essence, been left by
the Framers to be guardians of our
city. The Framers always wanted peo-
ple to live here, people who did not
come and go, like Members of Congress
or tourists.
I am a fourth-generation Washing-
tonian for whom this city and its his-
tory, not just the city as it is today,
means everything. The Mall, Mr.
Speaker, is the urban equivalent of the
Grand Canyon. There should never be
anything in the middle of the Grand
Canyon. There should never be any-
thing planted straight in the middle of
the Mall.That is done now. What we have to
remember, though, is that the Mall is a
very small, centrally-located spot.
There is a huge competition to con-
tinue to put things on the Mall. It is
already crowded. We are grateful that
President Reagan signed the Com-
memorative Works Act, which keeps us
from willy-nilly putting anything that
comes to mind on the Mall to any per-
son whom we happen to admire.
There was opposition to this memo-
rial, and that opposition has done an
important service. Without that oppo-
sition, the memorial design would not
have been scaled down. There was op-
position in the Senate, there was oppo-
sition throughout the country. What
we would have had was a gargantuan
embarrassment to all Americans, and
especially to our veterans.
In a democracy, opposition of this
kind matters, and often can and in this
case has resulted in improvement.
Here, unfortunately, we have had a re-
design which, like so many redesigns,
is pedestrian and will be, unfortu-
nately, invidiously compared with the
evocative simplicity of the Vietnam
Memorial.
Let this memorial be the last of its
kind on the Mall. The NCPC has
thoughtfully suggested many other lo-
cations in and around the Mall for fu-
ture memorials.
Finally, let me ask Members to take
a walk before the construction begins.
Go up to the Washington monument
site and look at that unobstructed
vista for the last time. I ask Members
to see it while they can still con-
template our two great Presidents
whose monuments lie at either end of
that axis.
And please remember this, that the
only eternal cities in the world are not
located abroad. They are not only
Rome and Paris. Washington is meant
to be an eternal city because it is the
home of our eternal democratic values.
D 1030
One of those eternal places in this
eternal city is our Mall. It is one of our
last remaining spaces left to us by the
framers. Let us remember what it was
really meant to be.
Mr. STUMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield
such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. SHIMKUS).
Mr. SHIMKUS. Mr. Speaker, I want
to thank the gentleman from Illinois
(Mr. EVANS), who is the ranking mem-
ber of the Committee on Veterans' Af-
fairs. I know that for Members one of
the most special times we have is when
we get a chance to help World War II
veterans receive the medals.
Most of them decided not to wait
around for them. They decided to get
home. They received their couple dol-
lars and change and got their train
pass and skedaddled home so they
could be with their loved ones and get
back with everyday living.8847
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United States. Congress. Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 107th Congress, First Session, Volume 147, Part 7, book, 2001; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc31062/m1/6/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.