Congressman Cleaver announces passage of bill to officially designate the Liberty Memorial the National World War I Memorial
Today, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II announced that by a vote of 418-1 he has secured House passage of a bill that will designate the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri as the National World War I Memorial. The bill also establishes a national Commission to begin planning the World War I Centennial Commemoration and houses that Commission in Kansas City. The announcement was made during Veterans Day observance at the Liberty Memorial.
Since 1921 the memorial in Kansas City has held the flame of the memories of those loved and lost in the Great War. Ninety-one years ago in November of 1918 a campaign began unprecedented in American history. The citizens of Kansas City with the honored dead still fresh in their minds, raised $2.5 million dollars in 10 days to raise a memorial to the Nation’s soldiers. Adjusted for inflation, the equivalent would be raising $30 million in 10 days today.
“This memorial, a reminder to the world of the cost of war, was born from a heartfelt desire from America’s heartland to memorialize our Nation’s sacrifice. Inscribed on the base of the tower is a dedication to all who died in the Great War. Hundreds of thousands of Veterans of World War I and their families have come to Kansas City to weep, remember and salute their fallen family, friends and brothers in arms. No other memorial will ever be able to claim the distinction that it has caught the tears of those left behind in the years after the world’s first global war. Our Memorial, our Nation’s memorial was built by those who knew first hand the horrors of the fields of Europe,” said Congressman Cleaver.
The Liberty Memorial opened on November 1, 1921 to a tumultuous crowd of 200,000 people. Included among the guests where all five Allied Commanders including General John J. Pershing the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in World War I. In the crowd in uniform that day was also the Captain of Army Company D, Harry Truman. Overtime, three United States Presidents have dedicated the memorial. President Coolidge laid the cornerstone in 1918 and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower rededicated the Memorial in 1961. Despite this history, efforts have emerged in Washington to designate the District of Columbia’s World War I Memorial the National Memorial.
“I appreciate the hard work of Congressman Cleaver and his Missouri and Kansas colleagues in the House who convinced their counterparts across the nation that Kansas City should be forever designated the home of the National World War I Memorial,” said National World War I Museum President & CEO Brian Alexander.
“Just because there are some in Washington who have forgotten that Kansas City was entrusted to tend the Nation’s Memorial to those lost in World War I does not mean that we forgot. We have taken our covenant made to those who grieved in 1918 seriously. In 1991, as Mayor, I went out for vote on a half cent sales tax, that the voters approved to repair the memorial and we later paid to establish the National World War I Museum at its base. The taxes passed in every precinct and every corner of our city,” said Cleaver. “There are those who may have forgotten the Great War, but none of them live here. We have always been the home of the National World War I Memorial. This bill merely makes it official.”
The House of Representatives moved the bill forward late last Thursday so that the announcement of its passage could be made at Kansas City's Veterans Day observance at the Liberty Memorial. The bill now goes to the Senate where Senators Bond and McCaskill are co-sponsors of its companion.