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If you seek Hamilton's monument, look around. You are living in it. We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton's country, a mighty industrial nation with a strong central government.

The Eisenhower Memorial competition and project have stirred a remarkable polemic, the center of which is not President Eisenhower or Washington, D.C. but Mr. Gehry and the values he promulgates.

The American world had - seemingly, at least - become a Jeffersonian world by the election of 1800, which placed Thomas Jefferson in the presidency. Jefferson had been Hamilton's rival in the new government's early years, and Hamilton has figured in the public memory almost as much for that rivalry as for his positive achievements.

To have united the purposes of an entire Nation, is the great historical achievement of the man in whose strong hands our President has placed the fate of our people.

As the contest proceeded, public interest increased and the entire country watched to see which company would win the big government subsidies through the mountains.

It was Chicago with its World's Fair which vivified the national desire for civic beauty.

There will be a competition for the memorial. And then it can be developed with trees, with planting. It can become a very beautiful place protected from the streets, because it is below. And it can be something very moving and very private.

The return to the Organization of the United States of America, the bearers of a great and diversified democratic culture that has inspired many other peoples.

George Washington sets the nation on its democratic path. Abraham Lincoln preserves it. Franklin Roosevelt sees the nation through depression and war.