HEROES: Jefferson's 200th

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On the south bank of Washington's broad Tidal Basin, the new Jefferson Monument shimmered in the thin April sunlight. A stiff spring breeze cut through the tall, white marble pillars, swept over the austere white marble dome, bent the yew and dogwood trees clustered near by. Now & again the wind shook a film of spray over the broad steps; against the marble columns it tossed puffs of cherry blossoms and coal smoke from the railroad tracks.

In the big rotunda, 96 ft. below the dome, workmen unpacked the statue of Thomas Jefferson, raised it section by section to its black marble pedestal. The sun, streaming between the pillars, cast moving patterns of light and shadow over the workers. Their voices echoed somberly in the great room. A few visitors peered in.

The workmen finished. The statue of Thomas Jefferson—in plaster until the end of World War II makes bronze available again—stood 19 ft. tall in the great room, looking across the basin toward the White House. After seven years of planning, after four years of work, the Jefferson Memorial was finished, built as the southern and last wing of the famed kite-shaped "L'Enfant plan," of which the White House is the northern wing, and the Capitol, the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial are the east-west line, connected by the Mall. Next week, on the 200th annivesary of Thomas Jefferson's birth, the celebrities will gather, the speeches will be read.

Lines and the Line. The Memorial's neoclassic lines, drawn by the late John Russell Pope, are out of tune with the times. From afar, it appears compact, forbidding, lonely as a mausoleum. From hard by, it is too huge, too white, too coldly monotonous. Yet it will stand as a great national monument, for inside is the spirit of a great man.

In sculpture as in life, the figure of Thomas Jefferson contains no repose. He was a tall and restless man, redheaded, lean, gangling, with a frontiersman's hard body and a philosopher's brooding brow. The statue by Sculptor Rudulph Evans has caught that quality: Jefferson stands erect, rebellious, staring toward the White House with strained and unyielding eyes. Around the walls above his head, his carved words stand out like a shout in the Memorial's massive silence: I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Three Proudest. Thomas Jefferson, man of many accomplishments, was proudest of three: writing the Declaration of Independence, drawing up Virginia's statute of religious freedom, founding the University of Virginia. His words, cut into three walls of the Memorial, recall those deeds in his own clear and exalted prose.