Defacing of DC Mall landmark draws comments from visitors

Tourists to the Lincoln Memorial in the US capital on Wednesday expressed unanimous disapproval of the vandalism done to the national monument while offering insights into the recent violence in Virginia.

A column at the rear of the memorial was still papered over on Wednesday morning, a day after it was discovered to have been spray-painted with an expletive. The graffiti was found three days after a deadly protest broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the planned removal of a statue of Civil War Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

"It's a tragedy to have our national monument vandalized," said Joshua Hiller, a young father visiting with his family from Florida. "There are other ways you can make your opinion heard. There's no need to go and vandalize the memorial, especially now with the National Park Service budget being cut the way it is."

The National Park Service said in a statement that it was actively working to remove the graffiti, which was done with red spray paint and said "[expletive] law".

Hiller also said it "makes quite a bit of sense" for some states to dismantle the Confederate symbols.

Workers in Baltimore removed four monuments to the pro-slavery Confederacy before dawn on Wednesday as the city sought to avoid the sort of protests that occurred last weekend in Virginia.

The commanding statues, including one of Lee and one of General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, were dislodged from their bases in Baltimore's Wyman Park Dell and taken away on a flatbed truck after the City Council on Monday approved their removal, according to a Reuters report.

"I don't really think of the Confederate symbols to be a great part of American history," Hiller said.

Donald Blackett, a visitor from the UK, said vandalizing national heritage symbols isn't a good way to get a message out.

"If you got opinions, you'd better put it in a better way," he said.

A woman from Belfast, Northern Ireland, who identified herself as Caroline, said "it was an offensive thing to do" and "disappointing that someone would spray-paint on such an iconic memorial".

"We are a city (Belfast) that has a history of violence," she said in reference to the Troubles between Catholics and Protestants there, which have since subsided. "We spend a lot of time in Northern Ireland peace-building.

"Sometimes, in order to build a future, you can't forget the past, either," she said.

Yuan Yuan in Washington contributed to this story.

huanxinzhao@chinadailyusa.com

(China Daily USA 08/17/2017 page2)