Beck, Bok, Burk

Beck, Bock, Burk

The people who came to the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, on the day a prize was to be awarded to that Philadelphian who had performed the most noteworthy service to the community of which his city is the centre, had no idea to whom it would be given. Most of them were distinguished Philadelphians, including the giver of the prize, Edward W. Bok, onetime editor of the Ladies Home Journal; a few looked with hope and excitement at the ivory casket, which stood on the speaker's stand, containing a gold medal, a scroll and a check for $10,000. Pierre Monteux conducted the Philadelphian orchestra in the absence of its regular leader, Leopold Stokowski, a onetime winner of the Bok Prize. The other winners were all present except for the late Dr. Russel H. Conwell ("Acres of Diamonds") ; there was Samuel S. Fleisher, founder of the Graphic Sketch Club; Charles Custis Harrison, onetime provost of the University of Pennsylvania; Samuel Yellin, master ironworker; Dr. Chevalier Jackson, who "devised" the bronchoscope. Tension in the audience increased as Congressman James M. Beck began to speak.

He made veiled reference to "Valley Forge ... a dreamer ... a man with a great vision. . . ."At last it became apparent who the man was. The audience cheered and clapped when a little white-haired clergyman, looking for all the world like a sly puppy, gave an uncertain, embarrassed smile, got up from his chair, tiptoed toward the centre of the stage, and took the ivory box. The little clergyman was the Rev. Dr. William Herbert Burk. He had been awarded the Bok Prize for founding and forwarding the Washington Memorial at Valley Forge.

By some charming alchemy in nature, those places are often the most lovely where men have most suffered. George Washington marched his men to Valley Forge, now a vast well-kept park, along roads that were rutted with ice. The tents went up along the hilltop and the soldiers built their fires in the dark. Night after night the wind blew down like a white wolf, blew the snow up over the small starry fires and howled at Washington's army from a cold, tremendous sky. Soldiers have been brave before and since; Washington's men heard the wind capering like a white wolf in the snowy sky and they held out their hands to fires that were colder than the stars. Food was scarce at Valley Forge. The general, his bleak face pinched by the agony of that winter's cold, could promise no comfort. The spring came slowly and the army stayed through a warm June, when trout jumped at twilight in Schuylkill River.

Dr. Burk, when he was a boy in Philadelphia, was sensitive to the extraordinary past whose echoes were still in the country around him. He picked up an Indian battle axe one day and, like many another U. S. urchin, stared with a long wonder at this emblem of forgotten hatred and forgotten fear. After he became a parson, he could not lose his intense feeling for the past; when he told his Sunday school about Joshua, he could hear trumpets sounding and the roar of falling walls. His parish was in Norristown, Pa.; on winter nights he could imagine that the cold wind crying at his window was still blowing snowdrifts over an army's fires. In 1903 he outlined the Washington Memorial at Valley Forge. That same year, 125 years after Washington's soldiers had marched down the hill to win a war, the cornerstone of the Washington Memorial Chapel was laid, and the life work of Dr. William Herbert Burk began in earnest.

Ever since then, Dr. Burk has lived for his memorial. The Chapel rose slowly. Dr. Burk wrote books about Valley Forge, founded the Valley Forge Historical Society and became its president. In 1911 he left his large Pennsylvania parish to organize one for his new Chapel. Dr. Burk worked hard for 17 years. A few weeks ago he announced that ground for the $10,000,000 National Washington Memorial Church will be broken on Feb. 22; if the work moves forward as it should, the Church will be finished in 1932, on the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birth.

When completed, the memorial will include: The Patriots' Hall, Washington Memorial Chapel (now complete), Cloister of the Colonies, Porch of the Allies, Thanksgiving Tower, Woodlawn Cathedral, Eight Halls of History. In the past five years not less than 200,000 people have visited the Memorial Chapel. Some of these have been sensible, some have claimed that their ancestors fought in the "battle of Valley Forge." The late President Wilson, referred to it as "the shrine of the American People."