Evening star., 1925-04-19
Capital Sidelights

The presentation to President Cool
idge Of the most beautiful book that
ever came out of the Government
Printing Office by Lieut.. Col. Clarence
o. Sheriff., containing the report on
the Grant Memorial, recalls the very
mountaineering and tragically pa
thetic story of Henry Merwin Shrady,
the great unknown artist whose i'm
aginatiVe brain conceived and whose
skilled hands created this most colos-
sal sculpture that any country has in
modern times erected to any man.
Shrady put 20 years of unremitting
labor into this task-a massive group
with a pedestal 252 feet long and a
central figure rising 65 feet above the
ground-and died just Is days before
the dedication exercises, in April, 1922.
Five years before he started on this
monument Shrady, just out of Colum-
bla University, was employed in the
ONCE of a manufacturing con-
Germ and hankering to become a law
yer, when typhoid fever laid him low
Tor time. During the long, slow
months Of recupation he amused him.
self sketching animals, sometimes
stopping at the window of a bird store
or again wandering through the Zoo.
He had no idea of entering upon a
serious pursuit of art. But Mrs.
Shrady took a sketch of dog to the
National Academy exhibition, where 1t
was accepted by the committee. OBJ
livious of the plot, Mr. Shrady visited
the exhibition rooms and nearly col
iapsed when he saw his own sketch,
ana again when it was sold for $50.
X y 4
The two bronze groups represent.
Ing 9rfillnfu q nd 1r,r
nank OF the monument, are said To
be the largest bronze groups which
nave been cast and erected in America.
Ihey measure % feet in length by
10 feet in width and about IL feet
In height. They weigh IA tons each.
The equestrian figure of Gen. Grant
Is about II feet in height, and un.
doubtedly holds the record for size
IN TINS country. 1t weighs 10,70O
pounds.
e. F. Concklin, the veteran assist.
ant and chief clerk of the office of
public buildings and grounds, calls
attention that the location of the
with the location Of the Lincoln
Memorial at the west end of the
Mall, has fixed forever the Mall in
general accordance with the early
dream of George Washington. I'VE.
therefore," he comments, have three
of our most illustrious Presidents
suitably and nobly remembered by in.
spring memorials at the three con.
trolling points of the Mall" And
now we are to have the new Roosevelt
Memorial located near the river on the
north and south axis of the Mall.
with the Washington Monument as a
center.
y X X
What of Vermont? 1t Is usually a
nttie-heard-of State-but now that
president Coolidge has put the native
sons on the honor list, and now that
we nave new Attorney General Sar.
gent from the Green Mountain en-.
virons-we must take notice.
With the forthcoming celebration
of the 150th anniversary of the battle
of Bennington, where American spirit
had its BIRTH" we are reminded by
Representative Ernest w. Gibson
who, by the way, is very active and
sympathetic member of the House
District committee, that the sons OF
vermont have been at the crucial
points of every conflict"
They led the charge up the heights
OF Chapultepec, on the plains of Mex
leo. They stood as the rock at Get
tysburg, against which the brave sons
of the South broke in their magnifi.
cent charge. Her Dewey struck the
shackles Of 800 years OF misrule from
the Fi1ipinos and opened wide the
gates of those Oriental islands to the
civilization of the West Her Clark
brought the Oregon across the tropics
and around the Horn. 5 5000 miles, to
g q loo ~
Spanish navy.
20 of her population into the service,
75 per cent of whom were volunteers.
Her Collamer and Foote, Edmunds,
Proctor and Dillingham; have stood as
giants in the halls of legislation. Her
artists. educators and inventors have
given a wealth unmeasured to the
Nation. Out from among her people
have come the direct forbears OF
three Vice Presidents and four Presi-
dents of the Republic.
She has been a leader in great
movements. She was the first State
to declare that human slavery should
not exist. In 1893, when the well de-
fined movement to break up the Union
was under way, it was the Legislature
of Vermont that boldly declared for
one indissoluble Union, now and for
ever, adopted principle that 65 years
after became the guiding idea and the
uniting bond Of the sisterhood."
Such an inspiring summary warns
us that it is we'll occasionally to take
stock and get better acquainted with
our several States and what they have
done for the Union.
One of the heart-interest students
of the immigra ton problem. who has
taken a very active part in legislation
for the last four years, is Representa-
tive John l.. Cable of Ohio. A recent
survey made by him discloses that
Greeks, Italians, Japanese, Poles, Por-
tugueses, Rumanians, Slovaks and
Turks have been leaving the United
States in larger numbers than they
have been coming in. But our citi-
zenship shows an increasing Infusion
of such blood as the Dutch, Flemish,
English, French, Germans, Irish, Nor
wegians, Danes. Swedes and Scotch
More male than female aliens come to
our shorer, but fewer females leave,
so we get a net gain of two females
to one maIe. Farmers and farm labor
ers constitute the largest class by oc-
cupationaI accounting. with laborers
next, then servants, clerks and ac-
countants, carpenters. teachers, edi-
tors, brewers and tobacco workers, in
order.
Thirty years ago we had 800 motor
vehicles of all kinds registered in the
whole United States, Representative
Harry B. Hawes of Missouri points
out. Twenty years ago there were
II 900 and ten years ago 2,A45, 900.
Today we have 15,000,000 registered
motor vehicles and an annual output
of 100000. Twenty years ago there
were but 400 motor trucks where to-
day there are more than 1000, 900.
He has warned his colleagues in Con-
gress that we are facing a new and