It must have been hard for the second generation of Latter-day Saints, those whose parents – or they themselves – had trekked west, not to have Joseph Smith be an intimate part of the Zion they had set up in the desert. Proposals were made from time to time to build monuments to Joseph Smith, of one sort or another, in Salt Lake City. For some reason, none of those proposals have materialized – even today, beyond some minor statues and plaques, the only tangible marker to Joseph Smith is the former hotel renamed the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

In 1904, the Church announced plans to build a monument to Joseph Smith, something along the lines of Grant’s Tomb in New York City, only smaller. The memorial would be completed in time for Joseph Smith’s centennial in 1905, and the committee assigned to work out the details selected the southeast corner of Temple Square as its site. The Brigham Young monument, then in the center of the intersection at that corner, would be moved one block east (near the Beehive House, Eagle Gate, and other properties associated with Brigham Young), and the wall around Temple Square would be removed at that corner to open up a view of the Joseph Smith monument from the most prominent downtown streets.

It was a popular idea. An engineering student at Cornell University – Richard R. Lyman, son of the president of the Quorum of the Twelve and himself a future apostle – wrote from New York to suggest “that every individual, whether man, woman or child, that believes in the divinity of the mission of these two great men, be given an opportunity to contribute something to the funds that will be required,” a suggestion that met with approval in Salt Lake. The editor of the Deseret News hoped that “the work will be as worthy as material elements and human skill can make it.” Approval was near universal.

Near universal.

J. Leo Fairbanks didn’t hear about the proposal immediately – in 1904 he as in Paris, studying and winning prizes for both painting and sculpture. When the idea reached him via the Salt Lake newspapers he subscribed to, he thought for a while, then picked up his pen to write to influential friends at home.

His concern had nothing to do with the monument itself – he didn’t say much about it at all. He didn’t give his ideas, or put out feelers for any commission to design it.

His concern, rather, was with the wall around Temple Square – walls that

are of themselves a grand memorial to the devotion of the emigrants who came from the world in God’s own cause. They were built under difficulties and with sacrifices, heartaches and tears. …

I know it is the intention to tear down only a small part of the wall. But if it is commenced anyone can predict the end. Those who cry for “public interest, modern improvement,” and “away with the old stuff,” etc. will continue to cry until the whole wall is demolished and the Temple square will become a public park.

J. Leo said he had spoken with other artists in Paris who had visited Salt Lake City. To a man, he said, they had pleaded,

“If you have any influence use it to preserve those old and historic structures. Why, we can see fine modern buildings in any city into which we go, even in Salt Lake City, but they are of no interest comparatively with the Lion House, Bee-Hive House, Tithing walls, etc. Where else on earth can they be found The modern structures are everywhere. Travel over the earth and you can not find such beautiful grounds with magnificent sacred buildings surrounded by such an historic structure a the temple wall. Preserve it. Do not let it be destroyed if you can help it.”

“I have always been deeply interested in preserving our historic places,” he wrote; “let us preserve them as long as we are able.”

His concern for the wall around Temple Square should not be misunderstood as any coolness toward the monument itself.

I am intensely enthusiastic over the proposed Memorial to our leaders. I hope it will be a magnificent structure that will not only be a memorial to our Prophet and Patriarch but will also be a lasting monument to the intelligence, skill, artistic ability and good judgment of the Latter-Day Saints.

We have artists among us, and others who are preparing that will be able to do credit to such a work. With a little encouragement they will be able to paint wall decorations, illustrating events in our history, and to erect statues, representing individuals and characteristics of our leaders, that would do credit to any people.

Since this building is to be one into which the public will be admitted I hope that it will be made as beautiful as to be admired by all the world, and one which we may be justly proud, because it is constructed and decorated by our own hands.

J. Leo was himself “ready and willing to do all in my power to make it a grand success.” But please, don’t tear down earlier monuments to build new ones.

I don’t know why the proposed monument was not built in 1905 – but I am glad that the wall around Temple Square remains. Oh, it’s not the original wall – that has been torn down and rebuilt so many times that not a particle of the original, pioneer-built wall remains. But still, the temple and its associated buildings remain, in J. Leo’s plea, “enclosed within the quiet sacredness of the high temple walls. … With the walls intact, the busy, bustling world [can] not molest.”