Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1914-07-09

Sherwood, author of the "dollar-a-day' pension law, and for many years {
 member of Congress from Toledo, O.
 has contributed chapter on the God
 dess of Liberty which makes inter
 esting reading matter. It is as fol lows:
 Tt is popular impression that the
 crowning status on the encircling zone
 above the great dome of our nationa
 capitol is the Goddess of Liberty. This
 is a mistake. Furthermore, it is 2
 matter of grave doubt whether we
 have any real Goddess of Liberty, out
 side of the French imitationi in New
 York harbor
 Tt was in the December of 1887
 that I first took a critical view oi
 this historic figure on the great dome
 AS I stood on Capitol Hill in the bright
 sunshine of crisp December morn ing, optically surveying the surro lnd | 1l1So W1IA d l4C1O Iul lOu u lOOh upward at a group of excursionists
 who were standing on the upper
 balustrade of the great dome, 21S ! feet above. AS I looked above the
 lantern of the dome to see the so called Goddess of Liberty, was some what surprised to observe that the headgear. is not the bilerty cap, but Roman helmet, pierced with eagle quills. This was to me revelation be. yond comprehension.
 This great statue is 1912 feet high, and weighs 14,9S5 pounds. It was cast in 1864 at Bladenburg, near Washing ton and cost $23,7S6 It stands on bronzed globe with an encircling zone, bearing the words "E Pluribus Unum," which forms the cap of the dome. I went into the Library Of Congress to find some description or conception of the Goddess of Liberty. But in none of the encyclopedias HAAAAOA ANetll, 11uSol1On Ol lily did l find any satisfying information.
 q went into the House of Represen- tatives and interviewed Representa- tive Randall of Pennsylvania an accomplished scholar, who had been in Congress for twenty-five years. He did not even know that the figure on the great dome was not the Goddess of Liberty. I next interviewed the Hon. Sunset" Cox, of New York who had been in Congress twenty eight years, a historical writer and student, and who had passed under the dome some S,400 times. He said we borrowed the idea of the goddess on the dome from the ancient Greeks.
 q approached the Honorable Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts, then conceded to be the ripest scholar, and more thoroughly versed in the Pagan classics than any member on the floor of Congress; a graduate of Harvard in both law and letters. I was almost ashamed to ask him the simple ques- ton: From whence came our God dess of Liberty?' but he made my ignorance bliss when he said very promptly, I am frank ao say that I don't know. It is certainly an inter- esting question, and if you are looking nm I Ch Ro clusions at the end
 Next, I visited Senator Dawes. of Massachusetts then a venerable states man who was in Congress at the time Crawford was in Rome preparing the symbolic statue for the dome of the Capitol. Senator Dawes remembered the controversy over the crowning statue, between Jefferson Davis and Crawford and advised me to look up the correspondence in the War Depart ment. 1 visited General Phil Sheridan (then in command of the army) and learned that the records of the War Department previous to 1861 had been deposited in the basement to max. room for the tremendous records of | the Civil War. At my request, Gen. | Sheridan detailed an expert clerk, 1 who, after a three-days search, found | among the records a damp and musty letter (never published) from Jeffer- son Davis, which explains fully wh, Sculptor Crawfords first idealization of the Goddess of Liberty was not placed on the great dome. have kept this letter for more than a quarter of l century among my "reminiscences and historic papers of the Civil ar.
 "The first photograph of a model, sent by Crawford from Rome in 1855, vas an entirely different creation from he present statue. This was the fig Ire of woman, with a liberty cap on ler head, blazed with thirteen stars, representing the original thirteen states. The drapery was gathered about the waist by a belt bearing stars for all the states of the Union