The Eisenhower Memorial is a $142 million design put together in the early ’90s. It is an expensive, bureaucratic mess. The Eisenhower family does not support the current iteration, and it has yet to break ground. How has this project not been scrapped yet?
The immortalization of a historic figure through a memorial is a messy process. It is essentially sinking government funds into an investment that creates no tangible reward. This is not to say that monuments don’t possess any inherent utility, such as the ability to incite happiness, patriotism, to recall a memory or even a particularly important narrative.
Yet it is difficult to justify spending money on an intangible reward, given the generally bleak economic climate.
Congress is charged with determining who, if anyone, should be memorialized. This is not as simple as finding someone who deserves a monument but recognizing who the American people want immortalized. The legislature cannot just determine when a monument is merited. Congress has not proven it can make this decision effectively, and therefore, the decision should not be left up to them.
Yet the Eisenhower Memorial is still in progress. The Eisenhower family’s rejection of the initial design should have been a red flag. The process should have ended there.
The Eisenhower family has stated the memorial should be focused on Ike’s childhood in Kansas, while Congress is aiming for a site honoring his work in office and on the battlefield. This puts the legislature in a difficult position, as it would be a large misstep to anger the family with a memorial meant to honor one of its members. Yet Congress needs to make a monument that honors a president rather than a relative — a goal which stands in stark contrast to that of the family.
The legislature is left with two options. They can cut their losses and scrap the project, or they can push the currently accepted design forward despite opposition of the family. Either option would bring the stalemate to an end and minimize any future waste in government spending.
Rep. Robert Bishop, R-Utah, stands in favor of a third option. However, he wants to start at square one with a new design. This is the wrong move. Restarting a decades-long process will land Congress in the same position it is in now, 10 years in the future. The Eisenhower family has already proven uncooperative with the goals of the monument and can be expected to remain so in the future.
Congress is left to either spend money to save face or save money by admitting defeat. While President Eisenhower is deserving of a memorial, the collapse of the project will not make his life any less impactful or respected. People will remember him without a memorial, as they have up until this point.
Memorials are an expression of honor and grief. They come from the demand of a public that needs to mourn. The Eisenhower Memorial’s drawn-out crusade cannot seem to be shaped together, and it might be time Congress swallows its pride and abandons it.