The Follies Family

The Army engineer in charge of putting a new dome on top of the U.S. Capitol sat down to write a letter to the sculptor who was to design the statue that would adorn it. What or whom should the statue represent? ''We have too many Washingtons," wrote the captain firmly on May 11, 1855. "We have America in the pediment. Victories and Liberties are rather pagan emblems, but a Liberty, I fear, is the best we can get." And so Sculptor Thomas Crawford set to work in his studio in Rome. The model he made was nearly lost at sea. but eventually his 14,985-lb. statue, cast in bronze, was raised by steam hoist to its permanent perch. It is the strange figure that looms behind the heads of Senator Margaret Chase Smith and her opponent, Maine Assemblywoman Lucia Cormier, on this week's cover of TIME. It is a lady of earnest intention but of dubious quality, who is a member of a whole family of official American follies whose lives have been perfectly miserable.

Sculptor Crawford endowed his Armed Liberty with every cliche available--an olive branch, a wreath of wheat and laurel, the customary sword and shield. "These emblems are such.'' said he confidently, "as the mass of our people will easily understand." But somewhere along the line the olive branch was dropped, and for the head wreath Crawford substituted a liberty cap in a tribute to the freeing of the Phrygian slaves in ancient times. This was too much for Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. As a result, part of an eagle with a lot of feathers was scrunched on Liberty's head, and a circle of stars was added.

Who Is the Lady . . .? Now called Freedom, she has stood for 97 years as the nation seesawed between war and peace, Republicans and Democrats. Most tourists think she is an Indian, possibly Pocahontas or Chief Sitting Bull. She has also been accused of being Joan of Arc, Carry Nation, and Balboa discovering the Pacific. But most of those who bother to take note of her at all are almost sure to ask the question: "Why is that Indian wearing those Roman robes?"

Far away in Helena. Mont., another Liberty (or Justice, for no one seems to be quite sure) has also had her experiences. About 20 years ago she blew over on her side, and when she was stood upright again, the Montana secretary of state--an avowed enemy of Anaconda Copper--took the occasion to have her copper coating changed to aluminum. This caused quite a bit of talk for a while, until politically powerful Anaconda paid for having her tan restored.

Who's That Boy? In Montpelier, statehouse officials are regularly asked about Vermont's Ceres, who is called "that Indian," "that Green Mountain boy," or simply "that woman." Two years ago the body of Atlanta's poor Miss Freedom (alias Miss Justice, Miss Equality and Miss Liberty) was found to be riddled with bullet holes. The winged female in Phoenix. Ariz, has also had a hard time. Known to some as the Whirling Dervish or Biddy, she has no official name, though she carries a torch and a wreath, wears swirling classical robes. Riflemen have at one time or another shot off the wreath in one hand, the torch in her other, and part of her left arm.

In 1941 the late Columnist Ernie Pyle reported the kind of thing that is said about Nebraska's The Sower. "That blankety-blank--," said an oldtimer, "it's supposed to be a man sowing grain. But just look at it. He's barefooted. He's got the wrong foot forward for a sower, and in his hand where he should have grain, it looks like he's got a cannonball. Nobody in Nebraska ever looked like that." But of all capitol finials, none has had a sadder career than Hartford's Genius of Connecticut. When she was one year old in 1879. an ungallant Manhattan critic wrote of her: "She is the old conventional Greek woman with no clothing in particular about the upper part of her body, and a great deal more than is necessary about the lower half. She is devoid of expression." Years later, the publisher of the Hartford Courant, having heard that Genius' footing was getting shaky, is said to have observed: "We are faced with the question of whether we want a loose woman reigning over us or a fallen woman in our midst." The 1938 hurricane demonstrated that the fall was imminent, and the bronze Genius was taken down to be melted into wartime scrap in 1942. In her place today stands a lonely lightning rod.

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