The Civil War in the equally misnamed United States may have ended officially in 1864, but, in this writer's opinion, it will never be over.   I needed no reminder of the country's pathological racial attitudes when I noticed the All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors, one of Logan Square's monuments.  No one has yet to substitute a less demeaning word for Colored.  In 1934, when the belated tribute was unveiled, that was the official term for Americans of African ancestry.  And it was far more genteel than the popular designations for dark-skinned people then in use. 

          The memorial had the feeling of an afterthought, an intuition which proved accurate when I learned that it had not been moved from Fairmount Park to its present, more prestigious location, until 1994.        

J. Otto Schweizer was the monument's sculptor.  Schweizer received more municipal and federal commissions to produce Civil War bronzes than any other 20th Century sculptor.   He was an immigrant from Switzerland who settled in Philadelphia.  Of course, Schweizer was a white man.  

             The Benjamin Franklin Parkway terminates in two towering pylons at Logan Square,  the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial.  Completed in 1921, it was designed by Hermon A. MacNeil, a prolific sculptor whose fame may have exceeded that of Schweizer during the last century.  Like fraternal twins, these marble towers on granite bases resembled one another.  Both had groups of uniformed men in battle at their bases.  On each, bas-reliefs of winged, idealized knights rose above writhing knots of male statues.  One pylon commemorated the sacrifices of the Union soldiers.  The other was dedicated to the Union sailors.  I admired the art even as I deplored the hypocrisy that still presents a brutal economic struggle as a noble cause.       

For the Union Soldiers

For the Union Sailors