Viewing page 30 of 44

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

-10-

the Smithsonian Institute. This avenue will end at the Washington Monument; and, beyond the Monument, at the point where the new axis meets the Potomac, has been placed that beautiful white marble structure, the memorial to Abraham Lincoln.

From the foot of the Lincoln Memorial a great Bridge, commemorating the Union of the North and South, is now in process of building. When completed it will lead across the Potomac to the slopes of Arlington, where, surrounding a mansion once the home of General Robert E. Lee, are the graves of those who died in their country's service, including that newly erected national shrine, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. From Arlington a boulevard will stretch to Mt. Vernon, the home of Washington; and all of this region and the section known as Potomac Park, with its river drives and famed cherry trees, will be joined, under plans now being carried out, with Rock Creek Park and that section of the city where the great Gothic Cathedral is rising on the wooded heights of Mount St. Alban.

Now, I must ask you to return for a moment to a consideration of another vast project which will eventually realize L'Enfant's dream for a great avenue bordering the Mall and leading from the Capitol to the White House. You are familiar with the distressing spectacle which Pennsylvania Avenue presents today. It is perhaps our most important street and certainly there is no avenue of corresponding importance in any capital which can compare with it in sheer ugliness or lack of architectural dignity. It is the street over which our great processions pass in triumph to the Capitol. Yet never, in the days of either the ancient or the modern world, has any one seen before a great triumphal way bordered, throughout much of its length, by gasoline stations, lodging