even commissioned a 30-minute film lauding the idea. The establishment of the George Washington Bicentennial Commission was the critical event which got the highway bill through Congress. During hearings in the House of Representatives on the issue, the American Civic Association, the National Council for the Protection of Roadside Beauty, and other groups testified that the existing roads to Mount Vernon were heavily lined with tawdry billboards, tourist traps, garish filling stations, and fast food joints. Representative R. Walton Moore introduced legislation in early 1924 to build a memorial highway to Mount Vernon, which was endorsed by the District of Columbia Chapter of the Colonial Dames of America and Charles Moore, chairman of the United States Commission of Fine Arts. During House hearings in April 1924, the BPR drew attention to the poor condition of the existing roads, and their inability to handle more traffic. Although the existing Mount Vernon Avenue from Arlington National Cemetery to Alexandria was in good condition, the roads from Arlington Memorial Bridge to Mount Vernon Avenue and from Gum Springs to Mount Vernon were not. The BPR said a highway along the existing ridge-top route would cost $890,000 to $1.2 million (and it recommended the latter). But the 1924 bill went nowhere. Rep. Moore introduced another bill in 1926. Although this bill also failed, the House Committee on Roads passed a bill authorizing BPR to survey "a route" and provide cost estimates for construction. Historic American Buildings Survey historian Sara Amy Leach has suggested that BPR's emphasis on an extremely wide right-of-way indicates that the agency was willing to abandon the inland, ridge-top route in favor of one along the Potomac River's edge. Just who suggested the river's edge route is not clear, but Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. of the famed nationally known park landscaping firm from New York, is known to have suggested it in March 1926, to Commission of Fine Arts chairman Moore, who passed it along to Rep. Moore, who in turn passed it on to BPR. But in May 1926, the BPR issued a draft report in which it still favored the ridge-top route. BPR then abandoned this idea, and produced a final report in January 1927, advocating the river's edge route. The river's edge route was relatively flat (unlike the ridge-top route, which had steep grades), had few intersecting roads, needed few underpasses and overpasses, and nearly all the land