With Franklin D. at Dinner Time

By Rick Horowitz

WASHINGTON -- Five bronze men, and lined up right behind them, four teenaged girls. The men stand silent (they're bronze, after all), overcoats wrinkled, eyes downcast; the girls, in jeans and short-sleeved shirts, try to mimic their mood, their body language.

The men -- one-two-three-four-five along a dark brick wall -- wait for a large black door to open. Behind the door, what? A bowl of soup? Some bread? A job? The girls -- six-seven-eight-nine -- wait for classmates to snap their pictures. If the classmates opt for the wide-angle view, they'll also capture the words engraved in the red Dakota granite, above the men and the line and the door:

"I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished."

Last Friday, in Washington's West Potomac Park, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial was dedicated with ceremonies and dignitaries. Saturday and Sunday were weekend days, with weekend crowds. This is Monday, the first "normal" day at the memorial, and it's late Monday afternoon, when most of the tourists are back at their hotels and the locals have dinner, and not a rendezvous with destiny, on their minds.

Late on a Monday afternoon, there's space, and time to look, and room to watch other people watching. And already it's clear: The five bronze men are a hit. They're more popular than the worried-looking bronze farm couple standing nearby, more popular even than the seated bronze man leaning intently into his radio, listening to the president's latest fireside chat.

The five bronze men, it says here, will be one of the two most popular locations in the entire seven-plus acres of water and stone, shade trees and monumental views. The other one? FDR's right forefinger.

Stand in front of the larger-than-life Roosevelt for another round of pictures -- he's seated in a chair, his trademark cape draped around him, his arms crossed in front of him with the finger in question slightly extended -- and the temptation to grab hold seems all but irresistible. A boulder-sized rendition of Fala, FDR's famous little Scotty, stands guard nearby, but makes not a move to protect The Boss. Children pose with Fala, but their grandparents clutch the president's finger, as once they might have clutched his programs and his confidence.

There's a small but nagging problem: This statue of Roosevelt doesn't quite look like Roosevelt. The statuary FDR is full in the face, almost pudgy; the FDR of photographs and newsreels was far more angular. Perhaps it's the cape; the most memorable pictures of Roosevelt in his cape are of Roosevelt at Yalta, positively skeletal, looking -- accurately, it turned out -- like a man in his last months on the planet. Better to view this statuary Roosevelt in profile.

Or better still, view the bas-relief Roosevelt set high on a wall in an earlier "room" of the memorial. This is FDR at his first inaugural, waving his top hat to the crowd from a passing automobile. There are other figures in the car, in the scene, but Roosevelt's relief is not quite as "bas" as the others, and the westering sun makes it stand out all the more. "Here," the sculpture whispers, "look here."

Roosevelt's face is indistinct in this sculpture -- the effect is that of a photograph slightly blurred, of a car (and a man) in motion -- but the feel of it is exactly right. If more is left to the imagination, so much the better; so it was in the age of radio.

His words, though -- his words are carved throughout this memorial, and they're perfectly distinct.

"The test of our progress," says Franklin Roosevelt, elsewhere on the wall near the five bronze men, "is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

Late on a Monday afternoon, people are lining up and taking pictures.

5/6/97

©1997 Rick Horowitz. All rights reserved.