The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1910-02-18
SUPERVISION OF
PUBLIC STATUES
Provided in Bill That Pass
ed National House.
Genial President Taft Complains
Of The Formally Of White
House Entertainments.

washington, ID. u, rep. ia piii
which has passed the lower House OF
Congress provides for some sort OF
authoritative supervision of the Pub
lie statues which are to be set up
in the National Capital in the future.
The need of such law will have been
apparent to any one who has visit
ed Washington at any time during
the has. decade. Too little attention
has been paid to the merit of he So
called works of art which bestrew the
city. There Is no National commits
sion of artists to reject the mere
tricious monuments and the Capital
sufferers under an exhibition OF sculp-
tural atrocities that have been erect
ed in parks, circles and squares from
one boundary to another. In the en-
thusiasm that infected our legisla-
tors when it was first seriously pro-
posed to make Washington the most
beautiful Capital in the world appro-
priations were made for mnay statues
and monuments that have become
ayesores to a growing native aesthe-
tic discernment. Our art is much r1dl-
culed by foreign visitors. AS the dec
ortive mania struck Congress after
the close of the Civil War 1t was
difficult for the members and even
for the people at large to conceive
of any American worthy OF a monu-
ent who had not been warrior.
The result was the erection of stat
utes to Revolutionary. Mexican and
Civil war heroes until the city be-
came an arnea for the display of
prancing steeds mounted by military
idols of every degree. The effect pro-
duced by coming upon these impossi-
BILE horses rearing in every park
would have been absurd enough but
so much bad workmanship, lack of fl
delity and inferior ideals of art have
been displayed in many that the
equine exhibition in bronze has be-
come a joke among foreign visitors
and a subject of modification to jul
dicious residents. In the beginning
of the adjoining period a few con-
gressmen had been TO Europe and
the sight of magnificent monuments
in Paris and Berlin aroused in their
aspiring but ignorant consciousness a
desire for emulation comparable only
to the young housewife who seeing
cloisonee vases in a neighbors house
stops at the five and ten cent store
on the way home to equip her own
mankel with works OF art. To them
a statute was statute and one hugh
pile on bronze was just as good as
another But since then the Ameri-
can ideals in art have been develop
ed and chastened. Foreign travel has
educated the public taste and the
demand for more aesthetic and har-
monious effects in architecture and
statuary has been the result. With
the exception of the Post Office the
public buildings erected In Washing
ton in the last few years have been
beautiful and satisfying The Munich
pal Building, the New Museum and
Agricultural Buildings, the magnif-
icant Union Station are all good mod
els of their kind. With this lates
proposal to restrain an ignorant or
careless disregard with reference to
the statutes that are to be erected
the public may be protected against
a repetition of the offenses that blur
the beauty and dignity Of the Nation
al City.
President Taft, the most genial and
democratic President that has ever
occupied the White House has COM
planned about the formality of the en-
tertainment that his position makes
necessary and has furnished copy for
the professional humorists by his
plaintive remark that he wished his
friends might 'just drop In" at the
White House. Mr. Taft notwithstand-
ing mis- vigorous mind. his personal
dignity and wide experience among
mon Is above all things a good fell
low" In tho better sense Of that ex-
preston and the restraints of hds Of
fetal position wear ON him. He has
always dtested fosmaftty. The es-
sence Of his intercourse with men