In this article are Bush’s latest outrageous falsehoods to justify moving the Alamo Cenotaph. Following the article is the TRUTH rebutting his claims.





Bush to GOP: Alamo Cenotaph Needs to Be Moved to Keep It From ‘Falling Apart’





by Brendan Gibbons -The Rivard Report May 14, 2020





Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush on Thursday defended moving the Alamo Cenotaph in an hour-long call with state Republican party members and activists.





During the call, Bush argued that relocating the 1930s monument meant as an empty tomb for Texas revolutionaries is essential to keeping it from crumbling. Bush also said the Cenotaph’s new location 500 [feet] south will be more “historically accurate” than its current location north of [on] the Alamo grounds.





“This is the most important restoration project in the country, and, arguably, in the world,” Bush said.





Bush for the past few years has been under fire from conservative activists for his role in the $450 million Alamo redevelopment, whose first phase began late last year. The conflict involved inaccurate rumors that Bush intended to put a statue of 1830s Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna outside the Alamo, a charge Bush called “flat-out racist.” The son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and nephew of President George W. Bush, George P. Bush has Mexican heritage on his mother’s side.





Thursday’s call came as the Texas General Land Office awaits a decision by the Texas Historical Commission on competing cemetery designations for the Alamo and Alamo Plaza. No date has yet been scheduled for that decision.





In March, 97 percent of Republican primary voters approved an Alamo resolution many saw as a vote against moving the Cenotaph.





However, Bush said in the call that the Alamo redevelopment is in no conflict with the ballot language, which states that “Texans should protect and preserve all historical monuments, artifacts, and buildings, such as the Alamo Cenotaph and our beloved Alamo, and should oppose any reimagining of the Alamo site.”





Still, many of the callers pressed Bush on why the Cenotaph needs to be moved from where it has sat since its installation.





Bush told party members that when he took office in 2015, he received reports that the Alamo Church, Long Barrack, and Cenotaph are “falling apart before our very eyes.”





Later that year, the General Land Office and the City of San Antonio, which owns the Cenotaph and Alamo Plaza, began jointly developing the Alamo master plan. Part of that plan calls for the Cenotaph to be taken apart, restored, and rebuilt outside the Menger Hotel.





“I don’t claim to be an engineer or a scientist, I’m just your basic politician,” Bush said Thursday. “But the Cenotaph, the experts tell me, is basically falling apart from within … and that essentially the only way to fix it is to relocate it.”





Bush then claimed that the only ways to repair the monument would be to “ship it off to a warehouse” or to move it “to an area that’s historically more accurate.”





Bush said the Cenotaph’s new location is the one of the sites the Mexican forces that sieged the Alamo in 1836 chose to burn the bodies of Texans killed in the battle.





“So the Cenotaph would actually be relocated and moved to where that funeral pyre is, where the revolutionaries’ bodies were burned,” Bush said. “The Cenotaph would actually be fixed for the first time and reconstructed in a way in terms of its foundations so that it’s around for hundreds of years.”





Bush also pointed out that the Cenotaph is missing at least 12 names of Texan fighters discovered in the decades following the monument’s installation. Other names are misspelled.





Bush’s explanations are unlikely to end the opposition. J.T. Edwards, a Galveston-based Republican state senate committeeman, told Bush during the call that the Cenotaph issue “is near and dear to our grassroots.”





Maggie Wright, a longtime GOP activist in Burleson, said the Alamo defenders were the “first veterans of Texas, and we need to leave our headstone right where it is.”

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Here is the truth regarding Bush’s latest claims.





No. 1: The statement by George P. Bush that the Alamo redevelopment is in no conflict with the ballot language of Proposition 7 is totally ludicrous. The wording of Proposition 7 that the citizens voted for reads: “Texans should protect and preserve all historical monuments, artifacts, and buildings, such as the Alamo Cenotaph and our beloved Alamo, and should oppose any reimagining of the Alamo site.” Bush’s blatant spin attempt is completely duplicitous and worthy of no further comment.





No. 2: The statement by George P. Bush that the Cenotaph is “falling apart before our very eyes” and that it is “basically falling apart from within” are made up entirely from whole cloth. Also that it is necessary to “move the Cenotaph in order to repair it.” These claims are totally unsubstantiated hyperbole and are demonstrably false.





The engineers’ report commissioned by the City of San Antonio (which they kept hidden for 4 years and then only divulged due to a Freedom of Information Act request) stated that the Cenotaph only needed re-pointing with a modern more moisture-resistant mortar and the possible repositioning and repair of a few of the marble sculptured stones. It did NOT indicate any need to move the Cenotaph in order to repair it. It did NOT indicate any deterioration of the internal metal structural support at all, and there has been no subsequent internal testing that proves otherwise. In point of fact, the actual words of the 2014 engineers’ assessment were: “As a whole the monument is in fair to good condition but it is suffering the effects of long-deferred maintenance [i.e., neglect by the City of San Antonio that allowed some deterioration of parts of the exterior mortar].” Bush’s statements to the contrary are completely groundless.





The Cenotaph can be repaired IN PLACE more simply, more cost effectively, and much more safely; the sculptural experts have testified that any attempt to move it will almost certainly result in severe and most likely irreparable damage to the Monument—damage that is totally unnecessary.





No 3: The most recent claim by George P. Bush that the Cenotaph is being moved “to an area that’s historically more accurate” because it will be near one of the two Alamo funeral pyres is also totally without merit. It is well documented that there were three funeral pyres—not two—and that all three were located along East Commerce Street near where the street crosses the modern-day San Antonio River extension way back on the opposite side of Rivercenter Mall. This area is some 350 yards southeast of the Alamo Church—NOWHERE NEAR where they want to move the Cenotaph. This is not mere speculation. It is proven historical fact. The pyre locations were clearly stated in both Juan Seguin’s official report to the Republic of Texas government and the newspaper account which described in detail the memorial ceremony he conducted at those sites in 1837. There are also several other period eyewitness accounts which specifically place the funeral pyres at the East Commerce Street location.





No 4: Concerning Bush’s claim that “the Cenotaph is missing at least 12 names of Texan fighters discovered in the decades following the monument’s installation.” First of all, neither George P. Bush nor any of the uninformed nitwits advising him have nary a clue about who the missing Defenders are or how many there are. They are amazingly ignorant regarding the facts about the Alamo. See No. 3 above. (And I did not bother to go into the claim by one of Bush’s GLO advisors to a Texas State Representative that the Cenotaph is to be moved because “that is the place where the first Defender was killed.” That one is too ridiculous to even address.) None of the people who DO actually have in-depth knowledge about the Alamo are working with them—and would not be listened to anyway.





Secondly, and as anybody with any common sense would automatically realize, it is not necessary to move the Cenotaph in order to correct the listed names of the Defenders. There are some names that do need to be added and a few that need to be deleted or corrected. The corrected list can and should be placed on a new plaque next to the Cenotaph where it currently stands. The corrected list cannot be re-engraved on the Cenotaph itself regardless of where the Cenotaph is located.









As you all know, there is no good reason to move the Alamo Cenotaph, and every reason not to. For the REAL reason behind all of this, don’t ever forget George P. Bush’s original quote 3 years ago when his plan was first revealed: “The focus at the Alamo has to be taken off of the Battle in order to promote unity and not racial division in our society.” That says it all.





Remember the Alamo!

Rick Range

P.S.—. Just as soon as there is a date certain for the hearing and vote by the Texas Historical Commission to approve the permit to remove the Alamo Cenotaph we will be letting you know. We will ALL need to be prepared to act at that time.