Evening star., 1941-08-02
Memher of the Assnciated Press.
Arlington Cemetery

One of the things that the War
Department and the House seem to
have lost sight of in planning for
erection of a $35, 900 900 War Depart
ment building on the Arlington
Experimental Farm site is the
forty-year-ol program for future
expansion of Arlington National
Cemetery toward the Potomac River.
Although it's advice was not sought
by Army or congressional authori-
ties in their consideration of the
office building project, the Fine Arts
Commission quite naturally felt i'm
PEELED yesterday to call public at
tention to the long-range plans for
development of the cemetery
The commission points out that
the general policy for keeping the
area between the cemetery and the
river free of permanent structures
even monumentS-dateSb back to 1901,
when the Senate Park Commission
declared: The noble slopes toward
the river should be vigorously pro-
tected against the invasion of monu-
mentS which utterly annihilate the
sense of beauty and repose. This is
one of the most beautiful spots in
the vicinity of Washington; it should
not be defaced or touched in any
way" Shortly after the 1918 Armis-
tice, the Fine Arts Commission, with
the cooperation of the Quartermas-
ter General of the Army, who has
general supervision of the cemetery,
submitted to the War Department
report which, in part, said: "Arling-
ton prospectively is a portion of the
great central composition of Wash
ington, extending from the Capitol
through the Mall to the Monument
and on to the Lincoln Memorial,
whence the Memorial Bridge, already
authorized by Congress, will cross
the Potomac to the newly created
park area adjoining the Arlington
estate. 1t is time now to see
about recovering those portions of
the Arlington estate which have been
given up to the Agricultural Expert
mental Station. The recognition of
the need and possibility of extending
Arlington Cemetery will tend to pre-
vent the crowding of graves within
the present area, a tendency which
is already marked" In 1921 the
commission and the QuartermaSter
General approved a definite plan
under which the experimental farm
site was designated for future ex-
panSion of the cemetery.
In the light of this background, it
Is not surprising that the Fine Arts
Commission should look askance at
the hastily drawn plan for erection
directly opposite the cemetery Of
what has been called the worlds
largest office building. Since this
proposed structure is to be of rein
forced concrete, designed, according
to one of its proponents, to stand
100 years, it would seem in order for
the War Department and Congress
TO weigh carefully any proposal
which, in effect, would scrap the
long established program for pro-
tecting Arlington Cemetery and its
environs from permanent develop
ments not in harmony with the pur-
poses of the Nations resting place
for its honored dead.
The Fine Arts Commissions state
ment indicates the radical nature
of the building plans, which would
throw verboard-without mature
consideration-the traditional de-
signs for the future expansion and
the setting of Arlington National
Cemetery. 1t is more to the point
than suggested compromises for a
building only half as large as the
one approved by the House. The
size of the building is not so i'm
portant as the question whether any
permanent building should be erected
on the site now under consideration.