National Garden of American Heroes

So President Trump announced the creation of a "National Garden of American Heroes" and specifically named the following people to be a part of it:

• John Adams
• Susan B. Anthony
• Clara Barton
• Daniel Boone
• Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
• Henry Clay
• Davy Crockett
• Frederick Douglass
• Amelia Earhart
• Benjamin Franklin
• Billy Graham
• Alexander Hamilton
• Thomas Jefferson
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Abraham Lincoln
• Douglas MacArthur
• Dolley Madison
• James Madison
• Christa McAuliffe
• Audie Murphy
• George S. Patton, Jr.
• Ronald Reagan
• Jackie Robinson
• Betsy Ross
• Antonin Scalia
• Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Harriet Tubman
• Booker T. Washington
• George Washington
• Orville and Wilbur Wright

Hoo boy. There are some big problems here. First, lets get rid of the people who already have National Memorials or Monuments, since that's just redundant: George Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, King, Hamilton, Lincoln, Booker T. Washington, Tubman, and the Wright Brothers. Adams has a memorial in the works, as well. When it comes to creating our list we'll also make sure we don't add anyone who has a Memorial or Monument not already listed (Grant, Chavez, LBJ, etc.).

But let's take it a step further. There is already a rather famous collection of statues in D.C., the National Statuary Hall at the Capitol. This collection of life-size works removes even more people: Reagan, Douglass, Madison, and Clay, as well as Graham and Earhart, who will soon be added.

So let's look at the new list. I've also gone ahead and marked which ones already have prominent, full-size public statues in bold:

• Susan B. Anthony
• Clara Barton
• Daniel Boone
• Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
• Davy Crockett
• Douglas MacArthur
• Dolley Madison
• Christa McAuliffe
• Audie Murphy
• George S. Patton, Jr.
• Jackie Robinson
• Betsy Ross
• Antonin Scalia
• Harriet Beecher Stowe

This leaves us with Barton, McAuliffe, Ross, and Stowe. I should point out a couple of small problems with Betsy Ross - 1) she didn't actually make the first American flag, and 2) no one knows what she looks like, making a statue rather difficult.

So. Barton - who founded the Red Cross; McAuliffe - who died in the Challenger disaster, and Stowe - who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. Not the first three women I'd pick, but sure. As a gesture of magnanimity to Trump I'll leave all three. Let's now fill out the rest, getting the number back to the original thirty.

First, we'll want gender balance, so since we have three women, we need another dozen. I'd suggest the following, who meet our previous requirement of not already having a prominent statue, Memorial or Monument (they also have to be dead - no living people):

• Alice Paul
• Lucretia Mott
• Jane Addams
• Ida B. Wells
• Nellie Bly
• Toni Morrison
• Margaret Sanger
• Dianne Fossey
• Grace Hopper
• Barbara McClintock
• Zitkala-Sa
• Liliuokalani

Then we need fifteen men, again, following all the previously stated requirements:

• John Ridge
• Harvey Milk
• John Dewey
• Langston Hughes
• Buckminster Fuller
• Fred Korematsu
• Malcolm X
• Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Edward R Murrow
• Earl Warren
• Ansel Adams
• Sitting Bull
• James Baldwin
• Linus Pauling
• Maurice Hilleman

Giving us thirty new National Heroes for a garden that is, as currently envisioned, a redundant and ridiculous proposal.