According to news reports from Virginia’s capital city, state commissions are considering designs for monuments to women and to Virginia Indians. Both are to be located in Capitol Square, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has said.

And both monuments, it appears, have attracted a raft of competing designs, making the selection of a finalist rather difficult. In both cases, as well, a mass tribute is envisioned, with a variety of features and characters competing for our attention … because in our multicultural society, no one representation of anything sums up what people are looking for.

Call us stodgy, but we still prefer a one-theme tribute. What bespeaks struggle and triumph better than the Iwo Jima flag-raising memorial in Arlington? What could be more dignified than Houdon’s statue of George Washington in our state capitol? Instead of constructing a statue of him in the midst of newly-freed slaves, and of soldiers, both blue and gray, sculptor Daniel Chester Fr...