Correspondence from Joseph Lewis, Secretary of the Thomas Paine Bi-Centennial Committee, requesting permission to erect a statue of Thomas Paine in Fairmount Park and a Fairmount Park Commission resolution declining the request on grounds of Paine's religious views (1942), and correspondence from citizens protesting the decision and a Fairmount Park Commission denial of reconsideration (1942-1944). Also includes a letter from Philadelphia Inquirer President Charles A. Tyler recommending that if the question ever came before the Commission again it be 'buried for all time,' a poem by Phyllis McGinley published in the New Yorker satirizing Philadelphia's rejection, clippings (1942-1944), and a 1948 press release announcing the statue would instead be placed on public property in Morristown, New Jersey.