William Penn statue to remain in Philly park after backlash so severe Biden admin closed public comments

The proposal from the Biden administration's National Park Service to remove a statue of William Penn in the historic heart of Philadelphia, announced just last week, has already been scrapped and the public comment period shut down after unified outcry from Americans from across the political spectrum.

On January 5, the NPS announced the proposal to remove the Penn statue from Welcome Park, a park established in 1982 on the 300th anniversary of Pennsylvania's founding and named after the ship Welcome, which brought Penn to the area from his native England, Blaze News previously reported.

The purpose of removing the tribute to Penn — a Quaker whose pacificism resulted in decades of peaceful relations between colonists and indigenous tribes — was to provide an "expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia" and thereby create "a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience for visitors." To that end, the NPS consulted with members of the Haudenosaunee, Delaware, Delaware Tribe of Indians, Shawnee Tribe, and Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma nations, the announcement said.

However, it appears the agency did not consult representatives from many other groups because the backlash against the proposal was swift and severe. The initial announcement said that the NPS website would offer the public the opportunity to share thoughts and concerns about the proposal between January 8 and January 21. By the end of the day on Jan. 8 though, the NPS had issued a new statement confirming that the proposal had been withdrawn and the public comment period closed.

The original proposal was merely a "preliminary draft" that had been "released prematurely," as it "had not been subject to a complete internal agency review," the new statement said, even as the NPS was the agency that controlled the review and release process.

"No changes to the William Penn statue are planned," the statement reiterated.

Leaders from both major political parties are celebrating the proposal's demise. Democrat Gov. Josh Shapiro even claimed that he had a direct hand in making it happen.

"My team has been in contact with the Biden Administration throughout the day to correct this decision," he wrote on X.

Speaker of the Pennsylvania House Bryan Cutler, a Republican, expressed similar sentiments. "The reversal of the decision by the Biden administration and the National Park Service to remove the statue of William Penn from Welcome Park is the right call," he wrote on Facebook. "I am glad to see commonsense and an accurate portrayal of history prevail over this non-sensical and ideologically-driven attempted removal."

Despite this rare show of solidarity across the political aisle, some left-leaning outlets have derided the decision and dismissed the concerns seemingly shared by the overwhelming majority of respondents. "The proposed plan to remove the William Penn statue from Welcome Park in Old City was withdrawn by the National Park Service on Monday after it was sharply criticized by a Republican state lawmaker and other conservatives," sneered the PhillyVoice (emphasis added.)

The PhillyVoice also downplayed the historic and patriotic significance of the statue and Welcome Park by citing a leftist Philadelphia blogger who dismissed the park as a "forgotten brutalist plaza." Welcome Park is located just a few blocks from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell and is included among the stops on the Independence Hall Association's virtual "Historic Philadelphia History Tour."

"If they'd just removed the statue without announcing it, no one would have noticed or cared," tweeted another Pennsylvanian cited by the outlet.

Axios Philadelphia even seemingly hinted that scrapping the proposal might be the result of racism. In its reporting, it bemoaned that "women, African Americans and Indigenous people remain significantly underrepresented compared to white men in American monuments, including in Philly."

"The confederacy of tribal nations contends the site of the park was given to them in the 1700s and remains theirs," the outlet said.

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