Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, July 20, 1995                   TAG: 9507200068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

RESOLUTION MAY MOVE WOMEN UP IN CAPITOL

Imagine a statue of George Washington shoved into a broom closet at the White House, or a portrait of Abraham Lincoln tucked behind a door.

That would never happen, but there is a strangely similar phenomena at the United States Capitol, where thousands of visitors stream through the Rotunda each year viewing memorials to great Americans.

Downstairs in a former basement storage area for broken furniture, a 3-ton marble statue of three of this nation's most revolutionary activists has sat in exile for almost 75 years. Their names face the wall, and an 8-by-12-inch plaque gives the only explanation of their accomplishments.

They did not found a colony or sign the Declaration. They did not lead battalions or save a strife-torn nation. Still, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott changed America.

Now, 75 years after American women gained the right to vote in August of 1920, historians and women's rights activists say ``Portrait Monument'' should be moved back upstairs to where visitors view memorials to men.

Thanks to a resolution by Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, that may happen soon. The Senate unanimously approved the resolution; the House must vote next.

The statue was commissioned by Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman's Party and author of the voting rights amendment.

Sculptor Adelaide Johnson carved the images, with Mott flanked by Cady Stanton to her left and Anthony to her right. Behind those two women, a hunk of uncarved stone represents the generations who followed them.

The memorial was presented to Congress on Feb. 15, 1921, but a joint committee of the Library of Congress balked at its inscription, labeling it ``pagan language'' that glorified the feminist movement.

Those word were as follows:

``Spiritually, the woman movement is the all-enfolding one. It represents the emancipation of womanhood. The release of the feminine principle in humanity, the moral integration of human evolution come to rescue torn and struggling humanity from its savage self.''

The day after the statue was dedicated in the Rotunda, it was transferred to the basement, where it has been ever since.

Since 1921, five resolutions to move the statue failed.

If the move upstairs is successful, it would significantly upgrade the image of women in the Capitol, said Caroline Sparks, head of the 75th Anniversary Women's Rights March and a leader of the 5-year-old Move the Statue Campaign. There are only three images featuring women now on display upstairs, all of them murals.

``Just what does this tell the average girl visiting the Capitol?'' Sparks said. ``That women never did anything important in our history, and that's just not true.''