Evening star., 1933-04-16
ARLINGTON DEVELOPMENT
In ORDERLY WAY URGED
National Cemetery's Future May Mar
Esthetic Capital Plan if Allowed to
Run Haphazardly, Says Architect.
BY LORIMER RICH,

AiSAitSSb WIN DcSlBHcO tuc 4OtIlU OI Inc
Unknown Soldier
TINE recent completion of the Ar
lington at; Memorial Ana ilo,I5 Bridge con;
i and the City of Washington
with the Arlington National
Cemetery again brings to the fore
a problem which long has agitated
those who have watched the de-
velopment and growth o. our National
Capital. This problem is the inpera-
tive and immediate need of a COM
prehensive plan for the development
of Arlington. For years vain protests
have been made against the condi-
tions which prevail there. Each report
OF the National Commission Of Fine
Arts, quotations from which appear
in which Arlington IS allowed to ex-
pand and develop. These reports, II
read at all, are apparently soon rele-
gated to the files.
This great national cemetery-the
burial place of our national heroeS-a
shrine visited each year by millions of
Americans-no longer should be per-
mitted to grow in the undisciplined
manner of the past. The great COM
position of the Washington plan, start
ing at the Capitol and eliminating at
tilC AulSOAll McIIlOlldl, COIllllUcS dCI OoS
the Potomac. The arches of the Me-
mortal Bridge now for the first time
have drawn that other great memorial,
the Arlington National Cemetery, into
the composition. We should now give
thought to the future of Arlington.
The Arlington reservation has great
natural beauty. There are splendid
mature trees and great rolling slopes
affording fine views Of Washington.
These areas have been painfully dis
figured in the past with a most gro
tesque array of monuments erected by
well meaning but misguided survivors
of the deceased. This effect. which
has been likened to the results of
mentS, completely destroys the sense of
natural beauty. the feeling of quiet re-
pose. of sacredness and dignity, which
should pervade the spot.
Civil War Section Orderly.
There is notably one place where
this confusion does not exist. It is the
section occupied by the graves of the
enlisted men of the Civil War. Here
is one Of the sacred places of America.
Here one sees rank after rank of small
white stones, uniform. inconspicuous in
themselves. covering the gentle wooded
slopes and producing the effect of a
vast army at rest" In surveying this
scene one is reminded of the letter
Mark Twain wrote to his daughter
years ago from Bethlehem, Pa, in
which he describes the Moravian ceme-
terry there. He said, "The shape, size
of a small mattress covered with 500.
The graves are all alike. Imagine,
acres of them! Not a monument-not
&. vault-not a shaft-nothing but this
absolute simplicity-this entire and
complete acceptance of death as a
great leveler-a king before whose tre-
mendouS ajesty shades and differences
in httleness cannot be discerned-an
Alp from whose summit all little things
are the same size" Could anything
more properly describe the ideal mill
tary cemetery?
There are now more than 10000
graves in Arlington and the average
number of new buriaE each year ap-
proaches 1000. The World War has
brought a great increase in the num-
ber of new burials; and what Is even
more serious Is the fact that 100000
more men have now right to demand
and receive a burial site in this ma
tional cemetery. steps should be taken
at once to regulate the monuments be-
ing erected so as to assert and mal,i-
tain the essential military character
of these grounds. The same rule that
applies to the World War cemeteries in
Europe should prevail here. The grave
stones should be absolutely uniform.
It is high time to consider Arlington as
a military cemetery and to insist that
its military aspect be maintained in
its headstones and its monuments.
The fantastic, the bizarre and the un-
usual should have no place in Arling-
ton. No more reason exists for this
condition than would hold for some
soldiers in parade to appear in the
non-descript garments of civil life"
more than the military and this feel
ing should continue in the last resting
place of these men.
Grounds Enlarged in 1924.
In 1924 the Secretary of War author
lied the addition to the cemetery of
the Government Experimental Farms,
which lie between Arlington and the
Potomac River. This area is approxi-
mately three-quarters the size Of the
present cemetery grounds. No steps
since then have actually been taken to
effect this change or to prepare for 1t.
At the present rate of burials in Ar
lington 1t will not be long before it
will be necessary to increase the bounds
of the cemetery. We should prepare for
this, and 1t should be unnecessary to
enter into argument as to the impor-
tance of providing for the adequate,
systematic and orderly development Of
the cemetery as a whole. We must not
make the mistake again of proceeding
without plan, or else we shall repeat
the atrocities of the older parts Of Ar
1ington.
From time to time the occasion has
arisen to mark in an important man
ner the grave of some distinguished
person. This has happened in the
cases Of Gen. Miles, Admiral Peary,
Gen. Leonard Wood, Robert Todd