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Charles Moore, Jr. (October 20, 1855-September 25, 1952) was an American journalist, aide to a United States Senator, and urban planner. He was the secretary to the Senate Park Commission, which issued the McMillan Plan which guided the development of Washington, D.C., throughout the 20th century. He was also the second chairman of the United States Commission of Fine Arts, serving for 22 years. In both roles, he deeply influenced the growth and look of Washington, D.C. As historian H. Paul Caemmerer noted, "...he was regarded as the man under whose guidance, for a period of almost fifty years, the City of Washington developed from a shabby 'town' into one of the most beautiful cities in the world."

Early life
Charles Moore was born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, on October 20, 1855. He was the only son of Charles Moore and Adeline (MacAllaster) Moore. He had two older sisters.

Moore was the ancestor of John Goffe, an American colonist from Boston, Massachusetts, who later settled in New Hampshire and fought in Father Rale's War, King George's War, and the French and Indian War. Goffe's daughter married Samuel Moore, a Scotch-Irish immigrant to British Colonial America. Their descendent, Charles Moore Sr., married Adeline MacAllaster in 1836. The Moores traveled by stagecoach, steamer, and horse-drawn wagon to Ypsilanti, where his father established a general store. Moore's parents died when he was 14, and he inherited a large sum of money. His guardian, his father's brother-in-law and a former speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives, sent him every year back to New Hampshire for his education. In 1870, Moore was enrolled at the Kenmore School-a middle school operated by an Episcopal church in New Brighton, Pennsylvania. In 1871, he enrolled at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. Moore then enrolled at Harvard University, graduating in 1878. He wrote for the Harvard Crimson, and was the Boston correspondent for the Detroit Post and the Detroit Tribune. He studied under Charles Eliot Norton, a lecturer in archeology, art, and literature who deeply influenced Moore's views on art.

After college, Moore returned to the Ypsilanti area. He leased the Ypsilanti Commercial newspaper, and purchased Every Saturday (a Detroit newspaper). In 1883, he purchased the Detroit Times, but a fire in 1884 destroyed the printing plant and he lost his entire investment. Moore than took a job with the Detroit Evening Journal as their Washington, D.C., correspondent. While covering the 1888 Senate elections, Moore became acquainted with James McMillan, a Republican Senator from Michigan.

The Senate Park Commission
In 1890, McMillan hired Moore as his political secretary. Moore became the clerk to the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia in 1901. Moore served as clerk on the committee until 1903, during which time he produced notable studies on railroad/street crossings, health care delivery, the school system, and the need for a revision in charitable giving laws to spur the creation of nonprofits. Moore also edited D.C.'s first comprehensive legal code in 1901, and convinced McMillan to support passage of legislation to build the city its first "slow sand" water purification and filtration system (now known as McMillan Reservoir). During this time, he returned to school, receiving his master's degree in history from Columbian College in 1899 and his PhD from Columbian College in 1900.

Creating support for a commission
Moore's interest in urban planning helped lead to the establishment of the Senate Park Commission. Moore was a member of the Cosmos Club, a nationally known private club of explorers and scientists and their benefactors. In 1898, he and prominent local architect Glen Brown began meeting at the Cosmos Club (then located in the Cutts-Madison House near the White House) to discuss ways in which a master plan for the development of the District of Columbia might be drafted. Brown had recently completed the first history of the United States Capitol, and Moore arranged to have Brown's history published as an official document of the United States Senate. Brown's book emphasized the Capitol's role in the never-completed L'Enfant Plan, and Moore (by now Brown's close personal friend) became increasingly interested in finishing the plan.

Moore was also a close associate of George H. Harries, a reporter for the Evening Star, a local D.C. newspaper. By 1896, Harries had quit journalism for business. He was an officer of the Metropolitan Railroad, the United States Lighting Company, and other utilities. When the Metropolitan Railroad and U.S. Lighting Company merged in 1897 to form the Washington Railway and Electric Company, Harries was named a managing officer in the new firm. He was secretary of the Washington Board of Trade in 1900. The Board of Trade was one of the key backers of the legislation to form the Senate Park Commission, and Harries' friendship with Moore proved critical in obtaining passage of the legislation.

Moore's opportunity to create a master plan came in 1900. The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad's Sixth Street Station occupied a spot on the north side of the National Mall. The station's train shed jutted halfway across the Mall, and its tracks continued across the Mall and through the Southwest portion of the city. Senator McMillan had indicated his support to keep the railroad on the Mall, but then sponsored legislation to have it removed. Furthermore, the American Institute of Architects' annual convention, which met December 13-14 in Washington, D.C., had strongly criticized the Army Corps of Engineers' federal construction aesthetics and was threatening a pressure campaign. Moore, who attended the meeting, brought their concerns to McMillan, and the architects and McMillan met. Moore encouraged McMillan to sponsor legislation that would establish an expert commission to make recommendations regarding the capital city's parks (including the National Mall). McMillan agreed. Moore drafted a bill, which the Senate passed but the House of Representatives did not. Moore then drafted a resolution to establish a Senate Park Commission. The resolution had the effect of insulating the Senate Park Commission from critics in the House as well as the United States Army Corps of Engineers (which at that time had responsibility over public works in the District of Columbia). Moore also set up meetings between key senators and backers of the resolution, which built support for it in the Senate. Moore also met with several of the leading urban planners of the day—architect Daniel Burnham, architect Charles F. McKim, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., and sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens—to define the scope of the commission.

Service on the commission
In 1901, the United States Congress created the Senate Park Commission (also known as the "McMillan Commission" for its chairman, Senator James McMillan) to reconcile competing visions for the development of Washington, D.C., and especially the National Mall and nearby areas. McMillan appointed Moore to be the commission's secretary.

Moore played a critical role on the Senate Park Commission. Burnham, McKim, and Olmsted were appointed to the Senate Park Commission, which was nominally chaired by McMillan. (Saint-Gaudens would be appointed later.) Moore assisted McMillan in choosing Daniel Burham to lead the commission because of his spectacular work on the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and because he had been chosen to design the Pennsylvania Railroad's new station in Washington, D.C. McMillan chose Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. because he had worked with him on the creation of Belle Isle Park in Detroit in the 1880s. Moore wanted McKim, but left the choice to Burnham and Olmsted. As Burnham had worked closely with McKim on the Columbia Exposition, he offered the third slot to the New York architect. Moore accompanied the commissioners on a three-month long tour of parks, gardens, and cities in Europe. When the commission pressed for the B&O Railroad station to be removed from the National Mall, Moore represented McMillan in these difficult negotiations—and secured the railroad's agreement to have the station removed (in favor of the construction of a new facility, Union Station). In 1901, the commission ordered highly detailed, expensive models that would show what their plan for the city would look like. The commission had already spent far more than its minimal budget, and McMillan balked. But Moore convinced McMillan that not only were the models needed, but that McMillan should pay for them out of his own pocket. Daniel Burnham, not easily impressed, said Moore's "power is very great, although he keeps in the background."

The commission's plan for development of the city, popularly known as the McMillan Plan, proposed the razing of all residences and other buildings on Lafayette Square and building tall, Neoclassical government office buildings with facades of white marble around the park to house executive branch offices. It also proposed clearing large spaces north and south of the National Mall, realigning some streets, and constructing large museums and public buildings along the Mall's length. The commission also proposed significant expansion of the district's park system, the creation of a system of parkways, and major renovation and beautification of existing parks. The report was co-written by Moore and Olmsted. Secretary of War Elihu Root suggested that they cast the plan as a natural outcome of the L'Enfant Plan to protect it from criticism, advice Moore and Olmsted wholeheartedly adopted. Moore carefuly edited the text to remove some of the more florid language.

McMillan Plan public relations campaign
Moore helped guide the Senate Park Commission's public relations campaign to publicized and push for enactment of the McMillan Plan. The models Moore secured funding for were the centerpiece of a dazzling display at the Corcoran Gallery in early 1902, which was attended by President Theodore Roosevelt. Moore arranged to have pre-written articles placed in sympathetic newspapers across the country. The public relations campaign also claimed that the McMillan Plan was an outgrowth of George Washington's vision for the city, a claim which was tenuous but which also helped to minimize criticism. In order to sidestep the opposition of House Appropriations Committee chairman Joseph Cannon (who attacked the McMillan Plan as extravagant), Moore quietly lobbied members of the House to support the plan by emphasizing the opportunities it presented to home-district architects, artists, and others to win important commissions in the nation's capital. Moore's public relations campaign did not openly attack the Corps of Engineers, but rather more subtly undercut it by pointing out deficiencies in the Corps-build city's infrastructure and parks. The public relations campaign also criticized "mere engineers" for being untrained and unable to build a beautiful city (without directly mentioning the Corps by name). Moore helped build a coaliltion of senators, local civic groups, city leaders, and others to support the McMillan Plan.

Over the next few years, the President and Congress established several new agencies to supervise the approval, design, and construction of new buildings in the District of Columbia to carry out the McMillan Plan: The Commission of Fine Arts in 1910 to review and advise on the design of new structures, the Public Buildings Commission in 1916 to make recommendations regarding the construction of buildings to house federal agencies and offices, and the National Capital Parks and Planning Commission in 1924 to oversee planning for the District.

McMillan died in 1903. But pending at the time was legislation critical to removing the Pennsylvania Railroad's station from the National Mall, construction of the new Union Station railroad terminal, and the relocation of railroad tracks on the National Mall. Republican Party leadership in the Senate agree to leave the chairmanship of the Committee on the District of Columbia open so that Moore could continue as the committee's chief of staff. This allowed Moore to complete work on these critical bills, and see them through to passed.

Post-Park Commission work
Moore returned to Michigan and became the chief assistant to Francis Clergue, a leading industrialist and railroad owner. Clergue's businesses failed in 1904, and a receiver—the Union Trust Company—assumed control of these enterprises. The Union Trust company hired Moore as its secretary. Moore moved to Boston in 1906 to become chairman of the board of directors of the Submarine Signal Company, a maritime safety equipment manufacturer founded in 1901. He returned to Detroit in 1908 to take a position as vice-president of the Security Trust Company. During the next few years, Moore became friends with Charles Lang Freer, director of the Michigan Car Company (which manufactured railroad cars). Moore persuaded Freer to permanently exhibit his 8,000-piece collection of Oriental art in Washington, D.C. Freer did so, and paid for a building to house it as well. The Freer Gallery of Art opened in 1923.

The Commission of Fine Arts
In 1910, President William Howard Taft appointed Moore to the Commission of Fine Arts. He served as the commission's chairman from 1915 to 1937.

Tenure as a commissioner: 1910-1915
During his 13 years as a Senate aide, Moore became aware that university-educated professionals were becoming a powerful political force in the city of Washington. In particular, Moore was attracted to urban planning, both as a consequence of his role on the Committee on the District of Columbia and because of his university training in the arts. He was drawn to the City Beautiful movement, an architectural and urban planning philosophy which emphasized Beaux-Arts architecture and urban parks as a means of inculcating civic virtue and democratic values in urban populations. McMillan had also taught Moore how to navigate politically treacherous waters, and how to build support among key elites in the city, the private sector, and in Congress.

Much of the Moore's first decade on the commission was spent analyzing sites and design proposals for the Lincoln Memorial. Although a site and design had been recommended by the Senate Park Commission, the CFA revisted both aspects of the memorial repeatedly. (In fact, in March 1902, McKim, Moore, and Saint-Gaudens personally visited West Potomac Park, then a barren expanse of earth, determined where the axis with the Washington Monument and U.S. Capitol building was, and staked out the site on which the Lincoln Memorial should be built.) Moore was not involved in the final decision of which type of marble to use for the memorial, but did participate in the decision to approve the stone used for the steps and retaining walls. The commission also spent much time working on the Reflecting Pool. As originally designed, the Reflecting Pool had cross-arms. The width and length of the pool, the natural of its sides (sloping or straight), the height of the surrounding landscape, the type and number and position of trees to be planted around the pool, and much more concerned the commission from 1910 to 1919. Moore argued against lighting the memorial with floodlights, arguing this was "trick" lighting. (Congress approved floodlighting in 1926, and it was installed in 1927.)

As the memorial neared its dedication in 1922, the CFA approved a dedicatory inscription, written by Henry Bacon's art critic friend, Royal Cortissoz. The inscription was to be carved on the wall immediately behind the head statue of Abraham Lincoln. Moore was strongly opposed to the inscription. He felt the use of the world "temple" was undemocratic, that the inscription detracted from the statue, and it was a form of cheap sentimentality. Bacon defended his friend's quotation before the chairman of the Lincoln Memorial Commission, William Howard Taft. Taft approved the quote and its carving. Moore did not give up, campaigning through the 1930s to have it removed.

As a commissioner in his early years on the CFA, Moore also helped approve the design and location of the Francis Scott Key Monument, the General Henry Ware Lawton memorial (at Arlington National Cemetery), and McMillan Park. He also oversaw the design of unbuilt statues and memorials to George Washington, Ferdinand de Lesseps, Admiral David Dixon Porter (at Arlington National Cemetery), and Admiral Charles Wilkes (at Arlington National Cemetery).

Moore was elected chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts in 1915. Daniel Burnham had died in 1912, and Daniel Chester French was elected as his successor. After the election of Woodrow Wilson as president of the United States in November 1914, French met with Wilson and agreed to resign from the commission so that Wilson could make his own appointement. French resigned on June 15, 1915, and was replaced as commissioner by sculptor Herbert Adams. Moore was elected chairman of the commission on July 30, 1915.

Tenure as chairman: Infrastructure
Moore spent a great deal of time as chairman focusing on schools and parks in the District of Columbia. One of his first acts as chairman was to review the athletic fields in West Potomac Park, and he pushed for an even distribution of parks and athletic facilities across the city. He also reviewed plans for a fieldhouse in East Potomac Park and the city's plans for purchasing more playgrounds and parkland, and actively pushed in 1921 for development of the parkland around the Washington City Canal and the southwest waterfront to be developed into a vast park and playground. In August 1922 he proposed a system whereby the city would purchase land before development occurred, to ensure adequate playground space in residential neighborhoods and that it could be purchased at a low price. In March 1923, the CFA approved a beautification plan for the waterfront along the Washington Channel. Moore ordered the Corps of Engineers to build a quay in the area, remove all utilitarian buildings, build a boulevard down Water Street SW, and clear and maintain a wide space near the water for parkland. Moore said in April 1924 that he envisioned a series of island parks running the length of the Potomac River by 1932.

Early in Moore's tenure, there was a push to replace the Aqueduct Bridge (which connected Georgetown, D.C., and Rosslyn, Virginia). Replacement of the Aqueduct Bridge was first proposed in 1901, but postponed because of the issuance of the McMillan Plan. A second attempt emerged in early 1914, and was successful in May 1916. Moore was a member of a CFA committee which met with the Army Corps of Engineers and other architects in September 1916 to review "nearly complete" plans for the new Francis Scott Key Bridge. Initially, the commission considered a double-deck structure, with an electric trolley running on the lower deck and automobiles and pedestrians on the upper deck. The plan included a viaduct over M Street NW, and a tunnel through Prospect Hill in Virginia.

Moore also presided over the approval of the design for the Calvert Street Bridge (renamed the Duke Ellington Bridge in 1974). The initial design was approved in 1917,

Moore also presided over the choice for the location of the United States National Arboretum in 1921. The McMillan Plan had proposed a large arboretum in East Potomac Park in 1902. But the Army Corps of Engineers felt a better site would be Mount Hamilton, a wooded area in the northeast section of the city on the west bank of the Anacostia River. But no action was taken to procure this land. In 1917, the American Association of Nurserymen began pressing for an arboretum, and Moore led a committee of the CFA which began studying the issue. Moore's committee also recommended Mount Hamilton. But their plans were put on hold by World War I. As the war neared its end in 1920, the American Association of Nurserymen was joined in pressing for an arboretum by the American Horticultural Society, National Academy of Sciences, Society of American Foresters, Botanical Society of America, and other groups. Moore pressed again for the purchased of the Mount Hamilton site in 1921.

One of the most important infrastructure issues faced by Moore was the construction of Arlington Memorial Bridge, which first came before the CFA in 1922. A new bridge across the Potomac somewhere between the Aqueduct Bridge and the Long Bridge had first been proposed on May 24, 1886. Various types of bridges, of wide design and dedicated to several individuals and causes, were proposed over the next quarter century, but none were built. The McMillan Plan proposed siting a major new memorial at the western end of the National Mall, an area of newly-created land known as West Potomac Park. Congress enacted the Public Buildings Act on March 4, 1913, which, among other things, created and funded an Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission. But it was inactive due to lack of funding. The issue took on new urgency when, during the dedication events for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on November 11, 1921, President Warren G. Harding was caught in a three-hour traffic jam on Long Bridge. Initially, the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission proposed that the bridge begin where New York Avenue NW reached the Potomac. Moore wrote a report to the bridge commission which not only opposed the New York Avenue site but also the type of building material (masonry), the width of the roadbed and pedestrian walkways, and the axis on which the bridge should be laid (from the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington House). With President Harding presiding, the Arlington Memorial Bridge Commission held a joint meeting with Vice President Calvin Coolidge and the CFA on December 18, 1922, at which time it was unanimously decided to adopt Moore's recommendations. The parties also agreed at this meeting to construct a low (rather than monumental) bridge with a bascule bridge (drawbridge) in the center to permit ship traffic to reach the Georgetown waterfront. Arlington Memorial Bridge opened on January 16, 1932.

Another infrastructure issue which arose was the design of the city's street lights. As the city moved from gas to electric lighting, the CFA took the opportunity to force the Corps of Engineers to adopt a new, improved design for the city's lampposts. Preliminary discussions betwee the Corps and CFA led to an agreement that there should be two lights on each lamppost, that the armature for the lights should appear to be organic to the post, and that the post be large enough for electrical wiring and easy to clean. The Potomac Electric Power Company drafted the initial design, delivered to the CFA in November 1923.

Highways and traffic flow were also major concerns of Moore's. He pushed the CFA to approve a design for the traffic circle around the Lincoln Memorial which was highly efficient, and in April 1924 he asked Congress to build parkways between D.C. and Baltimore and between D.C. and Virginia. In January 1926, the CFA took its first steps toward what would become the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Moore was a member of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission, It began discussing plans for a gateway into Washington, D.C., on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and a major new parkway along the Potomac River. The CFA pushed for the parkway to cover new territory, and not a widening of an existing road.

Tenure as chairman: Buildings
Another of Moore's great achievements on the CFA was winning approval of the massive Federal Triangle complex of government office buildings on Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Tenure as chairman: Memorials and artwork
Moore partook in the consideration and approval of a wide range of memorials and public artworks while chairman of the Commission of Fine Arts. Among these were the George Gordon Meade Memorial (1971), the John Ericsson National Memorial in 1923, the Nuns of the Battlefield memorial in 1923,

In the summer of 1923, Moore (in his dual role as a member of the American Battle Monuments Commission) toured the American World War I battlefield cemeteries. He reported that the cemeteries were being well-developed architecturally and the landscaping was vastly improved, but expressed dissatisfaction that wooden crosses were still being used.

One of the first medals considered by the CFA under Moore's leadership was the Dominican Campaign Medal, designed by Adolph Alexander Weinman and approved in November 1923.

Criticisms
Moore was often seen as an autocratic chairman. After commissioner Henry Bacon's death in February 1924, President Calvin Coolidge appointed New York architect William Adams Delano to the CFA at Moore's urging. Local architects were angry, as they had pushed Edward W. Donn, Jr. forward as a candidate. The local architect community believed Moore was slighting local artists.

Architects and urban planners often believed that Moore frustrated plans to improve the buildings and parks of Washington, D.C. by adhering too strictly to the McMillan Plan. Many felt that Moore refused to endorse any architectural style other than Beaux-Arts. They also felt he too often sacrificed pragmatic solutions to housing, infrastructure, and public health to aesthetics.

Retirement and death
After his retirement in 1937, Moore moved to Gig Harbor, Washington, and lived with his son, MacAllaster. He died there of a stroke on September 25, 1942. He was buried in Merriam Cemetery in Middleton, Massachusetts.

Other roles, writings, and honors
In 1902, Charles F. McKim wrote a report on the condition of the White House for Theodore Roosevelt, in which he outlined a significant restoration of the century-old structure. Moore wrote the report for McKim. When McKim was president of the American Institute of Architects from 1902 to 1903, Moore wrote his presidential reports.

Moore was appointed president of the Detroit City Plan and Improvement Commission in 1912, and served until 1919. He treasurer of the American Historical Association from 1917 to 1930. In 1918, he was appointed a Acting Chief and special advisor to the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. In this position, he helped build many important collections, among them the First World War Collection, the the Robert Todd Lincoln Collection, and the Papers of William Howard Taft. He was appointed a member of the American Battle Monuments Commission in 1923, and served as an Overseer of Harvard University from 1924 to 1930. Moore was appointed a member of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission when it was formed in 1924.

Moore was a member of a wide range of professional association, including the American Historical Association, the American Institute of Arts and Letters, the National Sculpture Society, the American Planning and Civic Association, and the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He was an honorary member of the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and the Institut Français de Washington. He was also a co-founder and life member of the American Academy in Rome, and was its secretary for a time.

Moore wrote his first book in 1900. Titled The Northwest under Three Flags, 1635-1796, it documented the history of the Pacific Northwest during the period of European discovery and colonization. In 1909, he edited Daniel Burnham and Charles F. McKim's Plan of Chicago. He followed that with Washington Past and Present in 1929. Moore also wrote biographies of two of the men he worked with on the Senate Park Commission: Daniel H. Burnham: Architect, Planner of Cities in 1921 and The Life and Times of Charles F. McKim in 1929.

Moore received the Gold Medal of Fonor of the American branch of the Société des Architectes Diplômés par le Gouvernement Français in 1924, the Legion of Honour (Chevalier) in 1928, the New York Architectural League's Medal of Honor in 1927, and the Carnegie Corporation award for public service to the arts in 1937. In 1935, the Commission of Fine Arts commissioned a gold medal designed by Lee Lawrie featuring a portrait of Moore by Eugene Savage. The medal was awarded to Moore for his many years of service to the commission.

He received an honorary doctor of laws (Hon. LL.D.) from George Washington University (1923), an honorary doctor of laws (Hon. LL.D.) from Miami University (1930), and an honorary Doctorate of Arts Harvard University (1937).

Personal life
Moore married Alice Williams Merriam of Middleton, Massachusetts, on June 27, 1878. They had two sons, MacAllaster and James. Alice Moore died in 1914.

A Presbyterian, Moore was a member of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. He helped raise the funds to furnish the church's Abraham Lincoln Prayer Room.