Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-12-11
A ROAD OF GREAT MEMORIES


TT TOOK a mind as imaginative as that
Of Joseph Pennell to suggest the imme-
diate coordination Of innumerable unre-
lated plans for American ar memorials
in nationalized scheme centered upon the
Lincoln Highway. But once the idea is
viewed whole, little imagination Is needed
to realize the dignity and splendor and
general usefulness of the project which
the gifted Philadelphia artist outlined on
this page yesterday.
What Mr.. Pennell proposes IS nothing
less than a new and advanced experiment
in nationalism. He would link up, without
further delay, a thousand independent
plans for war memorials in the communi-
ties on the route of the Lincoln Highway
and place the whole work under the in
spring guidance of the National Commits
sion Of Fine Arts, with a view to writing
in bronze and marble and granite along
the successive reaches of the great trans
continental road a magnificent record of
the trials and triumphs through which
civilization has just passed. BY this means
a new impetus would be given to road
building and new energy might be applied
in the general effort for a scientific system
of open highways in all parts of the
country.
With this end in view Mr.. Pennell, bor-
rowing an lea from ancient Rome, would
have war memorials erected in the form Of
monumental bridges wherever bridges are
needed. Museums and monumental groups,
figures and shafts would be designed and
erected to beautfy the approaches to these
6ri1 nj Of tba hipb-
way.
In the future the Lincoln Highway will
be a worlds highway. It is destined to
be a main artery for new and expanded
ties of traffic between Europe and the
Orient. Were it to be decorated as Mr..
Pennell has suggested, it would indeed be
to the traveller Of the future a road of
great memories, as the Roman roads are
to this day in Europe
The Romans made even tteir milestones
beautiful and significant. Similarly it is
now proposed that the small communities
in America might depart from the old
habit of lifting stiff and ugly granit' eft1-
gies in their public squares and leave, in
stead appropriate monumental groups at
the highways edge The smallest COM
munity could erect a milestone de-
signed as to be fitting memorial to its
soldier who did not come back. And so
the memory of an infinite number Of lads
who otherwise will be forgotten might be
kept green through future years in the
mind of the world upon its journeys.
Certainly Mr.. Pennells scheme is dra-
matte. Like all other wide departures from
habit, it suggests impossible difficulties at
first glance. 1t involves a demand that
| road systems be scientifically planned as
the equipment of great utilities is planned
not for the moment but for the needs of
the future. The ancients planned their
| roads with this general view, In America
| we are entering an age of motored traffic
| with road systems that havU evolved from
| accidental trails. 1t will :ot do to say
| that the plan of nationalized war me-
MORALS is impossible of realization. 1t
would require merely the mobilization Of
national sentiment and extended authority
| for the National Fine Arts Commission.
| The practical advantages Of the scheme
| should be apparent to every farmer, every
| maker of automobiles and every one who
has a habit of looking ahead. 1t is not
| likely that Washington could be preju-
diced agains. a plan merely because it
unites an extremely high artistic ideal
with unmistakable utilitarianism.