The duties of the Commission, therefore, now embrace not only advising upon the location of statues, fountains, and monuments in the public squares, streets, and parks in the District of Columbia, etc., but in fact all questions involving matters of art with which the Federal Government is concerned. [Illustration: CAPITOL GROUNDS AND UNION STATION PLAZA, 1917] [Illustration: THE MALL, 1930] The Commission has been in existence 29 years, during which time many great artists of this country have served as its members. The membership comprises three architects, a sculptor, a painter, a landscape architect, and a lay member. Congress permits the Commission to hold meetings, including committee meetings, both in and outside of the District of Columbia, thus enabling it to give attention to works of art in any part of the country in which the Government is interested. A meeting of the Commission is usually held in Washington each month, where the public-buildings program and other great projects under way for the development of the National Capital are requiring its particular attention. In the work of the Commission of Fine Arts we see the splendid results achieved through the collaboration of architects, sculptors, painters, and landscape architects. The Commission exists primarily to serve the Congress and its committees, the President, and the heads of the Government Departments. There are exceptional cases when the Commission of Fine Arts is called upon to advise with reference to fine arts projects submitted by individuals. The Commission aims to maintain standards of taste. The members themselves are prominent in their respective professions and are “well-qualified judges of the fine arts.” Prior to the establishment of the Commission of Fine Arts it was the practice of Congress when legislation was enacted providing for a public building, a monument, or other work of art to authorize the appointment of a committee to advise it concerning the specific fine arts project. Such a committee was as a rule composed of laymen, unqualified to give advice on matters of art. Thereupon money was appropriated to meet the expenses of a jury of award, in addition to those of the committee; and when the project was completed, the committee disbanded, leaving Congress without a recognized body to whom matters pertaining to the fine arts could be referred, and requiring a repetition of the appointment of a new committee for procuring some new work of art desired by Congress. It was just such a situation as this that existed in 1910 when Senator Root was a member of the Committee on the Library. In a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts at the twenty-fifth anniversary of its establishment in May 1935, Senator Root stated: