and so, too, have said, within the last six months, three of the greatest industrial corporations in that same state and almost every railroad that crosses its plains.

That is the function of the so-called "financial" commercial banking in New York. It is the oldest and truest activity of Wall Street, of Capel Court in London, of the Bourse in Berlin, and of every financial market in the world.

That it has been abused no one denies. We paid for some of the evils of the system in 1907; and we shall pay for others in other days no less dark and dangerous. But the pivoting of banking power on one man and one house, the piling up of hall-marked bonds and stocks on the counters of banded

banks and trust companies, the rigging of stock-market traps by banking pools, the stringing of flimsy chains of banks about the town, one hanging by the other, the secret pools and treaties, the handing to and fro of other men's business secrets for private gain, the peremptory demands made by the underwriters upon the funds. of banks and savings institutions, the stealthy use of other men's money for speculative profits-all these and many other greater or lesser sins do not obscure the fact, and should not obscure the fact, that the task of "getting the capital to start things" is, first of all, the business of the New York banks. That it is not the sole business of these banks is another story perhaps worth telling.

C

ONGRESS last year set aside $2,000,000 to provide a fitting memorial to Abraham Lincoln. It also appropriated $250,000 for a monument to commemorate the victory of Commodore Perry in the Battle of Lake Erie and the termination of one hundred years of peace between this country and Great Britain. And Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, New York, Rhode Island, Kentucky, and Minnesota have swelled this Perry Memorial fund to $700,000. Both of these memorials are of such dignified character and of such impressive size as to arouse the interest and satisfaction of everyone who treasures in his heart a pride in the nation's past and in her great historical figures.

A little more than a year ago Congress created the Lincoln Memorial Commission with President Taft as chairman. The members of the commission are

Senators Shelby M. Cullom and George Peabody Wetmore, former Senator Hernando de S. Money, Speaker Champ Clark, former Speaker Joseph G. Cannon, and Representative Samuel W. McCall. The Commission's first corporate act was to call upon the Fine Arts Commission for its advice regarding a suitable site for the nation's tribute to Lincoln's memory and regarding the employment of an architect.

The Fine Arts Commission consists at the present time of Messrs. D. H. Burnham, Thomas Hastings, Cass Gilbert, Daniel C. French, Charles Moore, Francis D. Millet, Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and Col. Spencer Cosby, U. S. A., Secretary. It is a standing commission, appointed by an act of Congress that provided for the appointment of "seven well qualified judges of the Fine Arts, whose duty it should be to advise upon the location of statues, fountains, and monuments in the public squares, streets and parks in the

District of Columbia, and upon the selection of models for statues, fountains, and monuments erected under the authority of the United States, and upon the selection of artists for the execution of the same."

Acting upon the request made by the Lincoln Memorial Commission, the Fine

Arts Commission called attention to the fact that, a decade ago, the Park Commission presented to Congress a plan for a better Washington, modeled on the famous plan evolved by Major L'Enfant; and that the Park Commission, in this plan, had suggested a site at the end of the proposed Mall as a most appropriate location for a monument to Lincoln. The Fine Arts Commission reported that it felt that no other site could compare in fitness with this one.

The Mall is to be the wide plaisance starting from the Capitol at the eastern end and centring upon the Washington Monument. Prolonged beyond this, it ends upon the bank of the Potomac River, having a total length of a little more than two miles. Across the river at this point are the heights of Arlington.

There is a symbolic significance in the site in Potomac Park that every one will note. At one end of the city's chief monumental axis stands the Capitol, the home of the legislative and judicial bodies of the Government; at the other end there is the possibility of a fitting memorial to Lincoln, the man who saved that Government; and between the two is the monument to Washington, its founder. Each of these three focal points is sufficiently far from the others to stand serenely above the necessity for intimately related design, yet the three, stretching in one grand sweep from Capitol Hill to the Potomac River, will be visually related and each will have its value increased by the associations and memories binding the group together.

Such is the site advised by the Fine Arts Commission. To carry out the design for the Memorial itself and its setting, the Commission suggested Mr. Henry Bacon, an architect of New York. In accordance with the Memorial Commission's invitation, Mr. Bacon examined the proposed site and, after four months'

sculpture and painting telling in allegory of his splendid qualities evident in those speeches.

The statue will occupy the place of honor, a position facing the entrance which opens toward the Capitol. This position is in a central hall, separated by screens of columns from the spaces at each side, in each of which will be one of the other memorials. Each of these three memorials will thus be secluded and isolated and will exert its greatest influence.

By means of terraces the ground at the site of the Lincoln Memorial will be raised until the same level is obtained as the ground at the base of the Washington Monument. First a terrace, 1,000 feet in diameter, is raised 11 feet above the present grade. On its outer edge will be planted four concentric rows of trees, leaving a plateau in the centre 750 feet in diameter, which is 4 feet greater than the length of the Capitol. In the centre of this plateau, surrounded by a wide roadway and walks, will rise a terrace 16 feet high and 500 feet in diameter, making the total elevation of grade 27 feet above the present grade.

On a granite rectangular base is placed a series of plinths or steps, thirteen in number, typifying the thirteen original states. The top step supports on its outer edge a Greek Doric colonnade of thirty-six columns, symbolizing the Union of 1865, each column representing a state existing at the time of Lincoln's death. This colonnade of the Union surrounds the wall of the Memorial Hall which rises through and above it, and at the top of the wall is a decoration, supported at intervals by eagles, of forty-eight memorial festoons, one for each state in the Union to-day. The above three features of the exterior design represent the Union as originally formed, as it was at the triumph of Lincoln's life, and as it is when we plan to erect a monument to his memory.

The memorial Hall itself is 60 x 135 feet; the colonnade around it is 108 x 171 feet; and the granite base is 168 x 231 feet. The Doric columns are 40 feet high and 6 feet 9 inches in diameter at their base. Above the finished grade at the granite base the structure attains a total height of 88 feet. Inside the hall the columns forming the two screens are 50 feet high and are of the Ionic order.

The plan provides that the exterior, above the granite base, shall be built of white marble. Inside the hall the walls and floor will be of colored marble to form a suitable setting for the statue, which will be

of white marble. The ceiling, 60 feet high, will be supported by heavy bronze beams.

Mr. Bacon intends to introduce a large lagoon to the east of the memorial, thus contributing to the setting a further element of beauty in the tranquility and repose that a reflection of the memorial will add. And to the west of the memorial he proposes that a memorial bridge shall join the end of the Mall with Arlington.

The National Government and the governments of nine states intend to commemorate in 1913 the victory of Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry and the officers and men under his command at the Battle of Lake Erie, as well as the hundred years of peace that have since then been enjoyed between Great Britain and the United States. An important feature of this celebration will be the erection of the Perry Memorial at Put-inBay. Commissioners representing the National Government and the states have organized under the title, The Interstate Board of the Perry's Victory Centennial Commissioners.

Through its building committee, consisting of Mr. George H. Worthington, Chairman, Col. Henry Watterson, and Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles, the Inter-state Board organized a competition among architects to decide upon a suitable design for the memorial. Mr. Frank Miles Day, past president of the American Institute of Architects, was appointed a professional advisor to assist the committee in the preparation of a programme and in the conduct of the competition.

The competition for the selection of an architect was admirably arranged. Eightyone leading architects, from all parts of the country, were permitted to compete. Their designs were submitted anonymously, and were judged by the National Commission of Fine Arts. The commission to design and supervise the erection of the memorial was awarded to Messrs. J. H. Freedlander and A. D. Seymour, Jr., associate architects, of New York.

Enclosed between South Bass Island, Gibraltar Island, and the isthmus that connects them, lies Put-in-Bay, at the western end of Lake Erie. It was here that Commodore Perry's squadron lay