Do we need another US presidential monumental monstrosity?
Buildings should be banned in future and the funds spent instead to benefit the public good
In the 1930s the US government decided to retain the records of former presidents and the first individual to reliquish his papers for this purpose was Herbert Hoover. Hoover was the US president who led the United States from 1929 to 1932 directly into the Great Depression causing the loss of millions of jobs. His Iowa-based presidential library building was not constructed until the 1960s and it is now closed for one year whilst it undergoes a 20 million US dollar major renovation.
In 1941 the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Presidential Library was the first building constructed to contain the papers and honour the life and career of a former US president. The cost of construction was 350 thousand U S dollars on in 2025 dollars the equivalent cost would be approximately 7.5 million US Dollars.
A few years later a subsequent and very modest US president, named Harry S Truman agreed to have his library constructed in his hometown of Independence, Missouri. Truman may be best remembered for ordering the dropping of the atomic bomb on two cities whilst seeking an immediate end to the Second World War in Japan that resulted in killing and severely injuring hundreds of thousands of Japanese people. The cost for Mr Truman’s library in 1958 was 1.8 million U S dollars.
At the start of the new millenium still another former US president raised over 150 million dollars to build his own library in his home state of Arkansas. President Bill Clinton’s two terms in office were notably diminished by his having an affair in the White House with a young intern when he famously declared “I did not have sex with that woman!” The cost for his monumental achievements was over 150 million dollars.
All US presidential libraries are paid for by private donors. Therefore, I was astonished when I recently learned that former US President Barack Obama was raising over 800 million dollars to pay for his temple to his legacy in the generally neglected and impoverished south side of Chicago, Illinois.
I immediately wondered how many hospitals and state schools could be built for this same investment? The average cost of a hospital in the USA ranges from 60 to 200 million US dollars and the average cost of a new building is between 15 million for a primary school to upwards of 100 million US dollars for a senior campus.
Therefore, if the investment Mr Obama’s supporters are making in his soon to become monumental monstrosity of pomposity was converted for use by local communities to fund schools and hospitals the outcomes and impacts could be in my view, significantly greater.
At least four major hospitals providing life saving health care for tens of thousands of patients annually or 32 primary schools providing early childhood education for over 12,000 children (or a quarter of a million young people in one generation) could benefit from this same investment.
I wonder if the same US government that mandated that all US presidents must surrender their papers for future public use might also now ban the former occupants of this once hallowed office from using their fundraising ability to construct largely self serving private libraries designed to stimulate local tourism and whose economic impact is generally believed to be minimal?
There are currently 13 US Presidential Libraries. I worry that if another is constructed in what many would consider to be the speculative honour of the current occupant of the Oval Office if it would set, as has his current approval ratings, a new low measure in terms of our remembering this controversial period of public life?
Perhaps that is the actual long term benefit of these effigies to public life. They allow the public the opportunity to, as if watching a car crash, strain their necks as they agonise by staring at the triumphs and tragedies of our public leaders. Perhaps they do indeed serve a purpose by reminding future generations of visitors who are mostly tourists that once upon a time there may have been a leader whose behaviour was imperfect and the US managed to survive despite their accidental or purposeful misdeeds.
However, I believe that these monstrous icons of irresponsible spending should be banned in the future and the funds that could be raised should be used to benefit the public good.
The papers of these men (and hopefully one day soon women) may be preserved by the US government’s national archives in a digital format to be made available to individuals who have a scholarly or prurient interest in their contents.
The current and future buildings themselves should be converted for public use to symbolise that each of these former leaders remains dedicated to public service through his or her ability to raise millions to benefit their fellow citizens.
If we do not do something about this soon, the current president’s future library will cost well over 1 billion U S dollars and may require a casino within the building to subsidise the operating costs. Perhaps the entry could even include, in addition to the names of corporate sponsors, an unusual sign that would accompany the name of the former president with text stating …
No Public Funds Were Used to Construct this Building.
However, Dozens of Hospitals and Schools Were Not Constructed to
Satisfy the Egos of the Namesake and Donors.
Professor Joe Goldblatt is Emeritus Professor of Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland
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