The Temperance Fountain is thematically embellished with decorations that allude to water. The fountain spouts are concealed within an ornate (but slightly disturbing) set of fish. And a life-sized brass heron stands sentry on the roof of the fountain.

Washingtonians liked to drink, and despite the good intentions of Henry D. Cogswell, they did not appreciate the do gooder Temperance Fountain.

A surprisingly colorful passage from Wikipedia captures public opinion:

"Although the D.C. statue survived mostly unscathed, the San Francisco one was torn down by 'a lynch party of self-professed art lovers' including Gelett Burgess (who was subsequently fired from his job at University of California at Berkeley) and one in Rockville, Connecticut, was thrown into Shenipsic Lake. In Dubuque, Iowa, a statue of Cogswell that sat in Washington Park was pulled down by a group of vandals in 1900 and buried under the ground of a planned sidewalk. The next day the sidewalk was poured and the object was entombed."

The Temperance Fountain didn't do much to decrease alcohol consumption in the District, but it did have an unintended impact on public policy. The unpopularity of Temperance Fountains spurred the creation of fine arts commissions across the country to weed out similar unwanted "gifts".