[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 138 (Monday, September 30, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1869]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             PROVIDING FOR RELOCATION OF PORTRAIT MONUMENT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday September 26, 1996

  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, I do not 
intend to object, but I would like to express my reservations about 
this resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, today as we end the 104th Congress we will vote on a 
resolution to move the statute of Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, and 
Elizabeth Cady Stanton from the Capitol Crypt to the Capitol Rotunda.
  The struggle over this statute of the leaders of our suffrage 
movement has a long and tumultuous history. More than 75 years ago, 
Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party commissioned sculptor Adlaide 
Johnson to create a statute to commemorate the passage of the 19th 
amendment and to celebrate those remarkable women whose lives were 
devoted to gaining for women the right to vote and the opportunity to 
participate fully in American life.
  On February 15, 1921, Susan B. Anthony's 101st birthday, the statute 
was welcomed into the Rotunda--6 months after American women won the 
right to vote. Yet 2 days later, it was moved into storage in the 
Capitol Crypt. That same year, Congress ordered workers to scrape off 
the statute's blasphemous feminist inscription, which in gold gilt had 
read: ``Woman, first denied a soul, then called mindless, now arisen 
declared herself an entity to be reckoned.''
  Since 1921, many resolutions to move the statute have failed, 
including ones in 1928, in 1932 and 1950, when Congress refused to 
approve bills that would have let the suffragists out of the basement.
  In 1963, when the crypt was renovated and opened to the public, the 
statute was open for viewing. Still, treatment of the statute did not 
improve. Placed a few feet from a souvenir stand, the statute does not 
even carry a sign identifying the women by name. And the memorial's 
name has been changed from ``The Woman Movement'' to ``The Portrait 
Monument.''
  To commemorate the 75th anniversary of women's suffrage, a bipartisan 
group was established in 1995 to move the statute to the Capitol 
Rotunda. On July 14, 1995, Senator Ted Stevens introduced Senate 
Concurrent Resolution 21, which called on the Architect of the Capitol 
to restore the Portrait Monument to its original state and place it in 
the Rotunda of the Capitol. It also sought to make arrangements for the 
rededication ceremony of such statute in the Rotunda and procession in 
cooperation with the 75th anniversary of Woman Suffrage Task 
Force. Senate Concurrent Resolution 21 unanimously passed the Senate on 
July 17, 1995.

  Unfortunately, Republican House Members objected to passage of the 
same authorizing resolution because they objected to using $75,000 in 
Federal funds to move the statue. Since then the Woman Suffrage Statute 
Campaign, a project of the National Museum of Women's History, has 
raised the $75,000. The group raised $40,000 on their own. A pledge of 
$25,000 came from Abbott Laboratories, and a $10,000 pledge came from a 
woman in Connecticut.
  As I wrote in my letters to Speaker Gingrich asking him to act on 
moving the Portrait Monument, ``American women ask as they asked 
President Wilson for the right to vote. How long must we wait?''
  This resolution before us today, House Concurrent Resolution 216, 
places the 9-ton statue in the Capitol's most prestigious hall, and 
finally breaks the all-male lock on the statues in the Rotunda. It is a 
victory for all American women who believe that it is important to 
honor our American female heroes, in the same manner that we honor our 
American male heroes.
  I would like to acknowledge the fine work of my colleague Connie 
Morella for bringing this resolution to the floor today. I salute Karen 
Staser of the National Woman's Suffrage Statue Campaign and all of the 
women's organizations that have worked tirelessly to bring this 
initiative to fruition. It is to their credit that we are here today 
acting on this resolution.
  Although the resolution at hand will finally move the statue, it is 
flawed. It would place the statue alongside statues of our male 
American heroes in the Capitol Rotunda--but only for 1 year.
  At that time, a commission will be established of 11 interested 
parties that will make recommendations about the final resting place 
for the statue. Apparently, there are differing views as to what should 
happen to the statue. Why? Perhaps because half the population gaining 
the right to vote was not historically significant enough to merit the 
statue's full-time display in the Rotunda alongside statues of our 
great male leaders.
  The Republican leadership initially opposed the move on the grounds 
that it would cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. They 
said that if money could be raised privately, the statue could be moved 
to the Rotunda. They then came forward with a compromise resolution 
that creates a Commission to decide what should be done with the 
Portrait Monument
  We now have secured private funding to move the statue this year. 
When then would a compromise resolution call for possibly moving it 
twice? The bottom line is that taxpayer expense was never the real 
issue.
  If this Congress was 90 percent female and 10 percent male--not 90 
percent male and 10 percent female as it is today--I believe that there 
would not be a 1-year clause and that the women's suffrage statue would 
become a permanent fixture in the Rotunda.
  Furthermore, statues are about history. And in historical context, 
moving the statue in this particular congress is incredibly ironic 
since many of our hard fought victories of the past were eroded and 
threatened in the past 2 years.
  Moving this statue of these three heroines of the women's suffrage 
movement is a significant step in recognizing the rich history of the 
America's women's rights movement. Fortunately Mr. Speaker, the 104th 
Congress will soon be history, too.

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