WASHINGTON (AP) -- The debate is heating up over the name of a Washington, D.C. fountain built in honor of an early-20th-century U.S. senator from Nevada who had white supremacist beliefs.

The Washington Post reports (http://wapo.st/17glv7o ) that seven descendants of Francis Griffith Newlands are urging the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission to reject a resolution calling for the removal of their ancestor's name from the fountain.

In a letter sent to the council last month, the family contends that using contemporary standards to judge Newlands' racial views -- fairly typical in their time -- discounts his legislative and civic accomplishments.

An advisory neighborhood commissioner introduced a resolution to rename the fountain in December.

Newlands was a three-term Democratic senator who once wrote that black people were a "race of children" unsuited for democracy."
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Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com

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