bus company. One doesn’t know if the farm wives were able to ride into
town on it more frequently, or if Gutzon was able to pasture his horse.
He got out of it after a while and turned his attention to new and more
stirring projects. The general belief is that he operated it until it
needed rewinding.
One of the amazing things about him is that his art work always seemed
to survive his other projects. Soon after moving up from New York he
built a temporary studio out of glass cold-bed frames and there began a
monument for North Carolina of the first soldier killed on the Southern
side in the War between the States. He also started a creative “pipe
dream” in marble called “Orpheus and Eurydice.” The boy who had been
guiding the oxen for much of the heavy work on the place was asked to
pose for Orpheus. His wife’s remarks, as repeated by Bill the husband,
were striking. When she was informed of his new and startling occupation
she demanded, “Did you have to stand in your underwear?” “No,” he said,
“I just had to take everything off.” She prefaced her critique with a
ladylike sniff. “Well,” she said knowingly, “you must have been a
sight.... Just a perfect sight!”
At this time a location for the permanent studio was chosen across the
Rippowam River, nearly half a mile from the house. The corner rock was
christened in champagne, accompanied by a stirring speech from Colonel
Whitman. For years the only way of reaching the studio by carriage or
automobile was through a cement-based ford, devised by Gutzon. There was
a swing bridge for pedestrians. At the very outset of the work Gutzon
had brought out his architect friend William Price of Rosedale, near
Philadelphia, who had helped him with the Newark Lincoln and other work.
On the river, at some distance below the ford, a group of campfire girls
used to have a summer camp under the guidance of Mrs. Lanier, whose
husband was the son of Sidney Lanier, the poet. On Sunday mornings the
sculptor used to give the girls talks on art and life which are still
remembered.
The studio was built entirely of stone from huge, pinkish granite
boulders which Gutzon had located within a few hundred feet of his
location half buried in the soil. These were dug out, cut and scraped by
a crew of Italian stonecutters who came from a neighboring town the
first of every week and returned on Saturday, camping out in the woods
near the work. The fireplace was unique. It was made to accommodate
six-to eight-foot logs and was open to a height of ten feet from the
floor, where sandstone blocks formed the mantel. The size of the
building was forty by sixty feet, and the style was Tudor Gothic.
When it was time to lay the sills of the studio doors, before the roof
with its heavy steel was up, Gutzon invited the officers of the Masonic
Grand Lodge of both Connecticut and New York, together with members of
his own Howard Lodge, to take part in the dedication. It was a grand
affair although something merely on the rim of the arts. Gutzon was
gradually increasing his interest in other matters. For one thing, he
was being inducted into a knowledge of the working of an elected group
in a community, chosen to govern the finances and public interests of
the electors. This was his conception of the meaning of politics.
Another matter to which he had given attention was the often debated
question of consolidation of the town and city governments of Stamford.
He worked out a scheme which he placed before the town selectmen in
1912, whereby, in successive steps, the selectmen would be placed in
charge of departments as commissioners thereof, and eventually the city
government would be abolished. The selectmen-commissioners would take
over its powers. Thus a joint-commission form of government would be
acquired for both town and city.
He wrote to Frank Butterworth, a prominent Progressive of Connecticut:
I enclose herewith a scheme that was put before the selectmen of
Stamford.... We cannot get rid of the town form of government in
Connecticut, so it has occurred to me and a great many before me
that we had better take the principle of town government with
selectmen, which from the very fact that it is primitive is good,
and develop that. My plan here is to bring everything in town and
city under one government.
In all these dealings Gutzon had come into close touch with the
political situation. It was common gossip that both town and city, more
particularly the latter, were boss-ridden and that it did not make much
difference whether a Republican or Democratic administration was in
control. The same machine went on and on, and expenditures for services
rendered were out of all proportion to values received.
The time was the dawn of the Progressive movement which aimed to do away
with bossed and machine-controlled government, demanding honesty and
efficiency in high places. A new national election, that of 1912, was in
the offing. Gutzon’s old friend, Theodore Roosevelt, was running for
President on a third-party Progressive ticket. What was more natural
than that the sculptor should enter this campaign with gusto. He became
chairman of the Progressive Party of Stamford, and nearly wore himself
out trying to arouse the progressive element in the citizenship of the
whole state of Connecticut.
There was a strong element of drama in the campaign as waged in the city
and town of Stamford. In the first place, the “Old Guard” was not going
to allow a newcomer to meddle unchallenged with their ancient customs.
One of the most respected members of the community wrote an indignant
letter to the Stamford _Advocate_, the only local paper, protesting
against the upstart sculptor who “had not been able to achieve fame in
his own calling” and was trying to gain a little notoriety by attaching
himself to Roosevelt’s kite.
Gutzon addressed mass meetings from the Town Hall steps. He spoke on
street corners and in front of the huge Yale and Towne Lock factory
where men and women were going home from work. He got to be a ready
speaker and learned to think on his feet. One incident was memorable.
Some heckler had asked why Roosevelt had suddenly changed his mind on a
certain question. “Don’t you know,” Gutzon shot back at him, “that Saint
Paul lived to be fifty-two before he suddenly changed his whole way of
life and became a Christian?”
People in Stamford still remember the picturesque and effective fight
carried on by the Progressives under the leadership of the imaginative
Gutzon. On one occasion a torchlight procession was arranged in which
the Borglum donkey, “Shamrock,” a large, gray, intelligent creature,
appeared as a symbol of both the old parties, wearing on his rear end an
elephant head, the trunk of which concealed his tail.
Two Stamford citizens, who were Gutzon’s chief lieutenants in the fray
and remained his friends ever after, were featured in the press of the
day as “Handsome Harry” Abbot and “Young” Arthur Crandall. The latter
lived and worked with Borglum at one time and never got over his
youthful reverence for Gutzon, which was not diminished by close
contact. When he heard this book was being written he said: “Don’t
forget to mention his real humility,” which was a side of the sculptor’s
nature revealed only to those who knew him best.
Joseph Alsop was state chairman of the Progressive Party of Connecticut,
and Gutzon developed a deep friendship with him. Mr. Whittaker, editor
of the Stamford _Advocate_ for many years and a reactionary and
autocratic individual, came to the Borglum farm one night about midnight
to try to influence the sculptor to change his attitude. The mayor of
the city, Charles P. Rowell, came out at dusk, wearing a big black hat
and a long cape, like a villain in a play.
He would not come into the house, where someone might hear what he had
to say, but asked Gutzon to come outside. They talked by the footbridge
on the way to the studio. Mr. Rowell tried to make a deal, and when the
sculptor refused he exclaimed with conscious drama, “Then it’s a
fight--a fight to the finish!”
“Yes,” agreed Gutzon solemnly, “and a sword to the hilt!”
A few days after the election S. E. Vincent, the newly elected
Progressive congressman, wrote to Gutzon.
With election over it is now time to figure up and take inventory
of conditions. If I have a clear idea of how the Progressive party
stands, that party has every reason to be proud of the results
accomplished in a campaign of only ninety days, without funds or
party machinery, with all the papers against our cause and some of
them not overcareful about telling the whole truth.
Herbert Knox Smith, a Connecticut leader of the party, wrote on November
4: “I cannot let this fight close without sending you my heartfelt
personal thanks for what you have done. It has certainly been fine, and
I appreciate it more deeply than I can say. Best regards to you.”
And the colonel wrote from Oyster Bay, November 12, 1912:
My Dear Borglum: In this great fight for elementary justice and
decency, for fair play in the industrial no less than in the
political world, and for honesty everywhere, there are many men to
whom I feel peculiarly grateful, not only personally but because of
what they have done for the people as a whole. You come high among
these men; and in this very inadequate but far from perfunctory
manner, I wish to express my profound acknowledgment.
Faithfully yours,
Theodore Roosevelt.
In his records Gutzon somehow fails to note that the Progressives,
despite Roosevelt’s defeat, did rather well in Connecticut. After all,
what interested Gutzon was the fight.
CHAPTER TWELVE
_CHICAGO CONVENTION_
The First World War started in August 1914, and was catalogued as
somebody else’s trouble by nearly everybody in the United States. Its
effect on local politics was to start arguments about whether or not our
government should spend money to rearm.
Anyway, the situation in 1914 was different than that of 1912. Woodrow
Wilson, who had become President largely as a result of the
Progressive-party movement in 1912, was being looked at askance by
manufacturers, bankers, shippers and conservative politicians who
thought that he was a mistake.
Borglum, still standing fast by the Progressive banner, figured that
another election would see his party in power if enough people got
interested in the prospect. At the moment, he pointed out to those who
would listen to him, the policies of the federal government involved
something besides a waste of money. Human lives were concerned. He
declared that if England had been prepared, the Kaiser would never have
invaded Belgium, and that he would certainly have stayed at home if the
United States and England had been prepared and had showed they would
support France. Theodore Roosevelt had always advocated preparedness.
His words, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” were well known and
often quoted.
In the crisis during the Congressional election of 1914 the sculptor did
not advise Progressives to return to the Republican party. Instead he
tried to persuade Republicans to nominate candidates whom Progressives
could support. In Connecticut the Progressives held the balance of
power. Gutzon did not believe that they should put a ticket of their own
into the field. They should keep their identity, he felt, and place
their power as a group behind the best candidates nominated by other
parties.
At the same time, he believed that the Progressive element was stronger
in the Republican than in the Democratic party. He advised adopting a
liberal attitude toward Republicans to avoid a further breach with the
parent organization. By following such a policy in the 1914 election, he
hoped that by 1916 it would be possible to elect Theodore Roosevelt
President. At all events, he considered a strong Congress essential in
1914.
After careful consideration Gutzon decided to support for Congress
Ebenezer J. Hill of Fairfield County, a man who had previously been in
Congress and had been defeated by the Progressives in the 1912 election.
He chose Hill because of his stand on the nonpartisan tariff board,
which he favored, and his open quarrel with boss rule.
The sculptor’s stand for Hill was strongly opposed by Herbert Knox Smith
of Connecticut and George W. Perkins of New York, national leader of the
Progressive party. Gutzon and Perkins had an argument over the matter on
Mr. Childs’s yacht on Long Island Sound one night about midnight. Other
Progressives were there, including Colonel Roosevelt, who appears to
have been noncommittal on the subject of Progressives supporting
Republicans. Gutzon always believed, however, that Roosevelt approved
his action.
The sculptor was concerned only with what he believed to be right. He
walked out of a meeting in March 1914 when Herbert Knox Smith had put
through the state central committee a resolution that only enrolled
Progressives could vote in the primaries. Smith’s methods were unfair,
Gutzon declared, and he wrote an open letter accusing him of gag rule.
Despite such difficulties, however, he did take time to prepare and
deliver a resolution of welcome and allegiance to Roosevelt at a public
rally held in Hartford in August 1914.
There is some evidence that to him politics had begun to look less like
a fine tournament. To Isaac Ullman of New Haven he wrote: “I am pretty
sick and discouraged with what is called politics. You know only too
well what I mean--the sordid and selfish side of the little ones and
their own personal advancement. The best we can do is to do our best,
and I try to do that all the time....”
Another disappointment to the sculptor in this campaign was the placing
in the field, by the state central committee, of an independent
Progressive ballot which he had consistently opposed. The fact that he
was named candidate for one of the offices in no way placated him. He
refused to let his name appear on the ticket, and he was bitter in
giving his reasons.
In the 1916 campaign Gutzon again supported Mr. Hill, who had been
elected two years before with about eighty-five per cent of the
Progressives voting for him. But by that time the sculptor had become
conscious of the political boss John T. King, who had appeared at the
first Bridgeport meeting sponsoring Mr. Hill. The congressman entered
into long correspondence with him explaining Mr. King’s motivation.
A year later when Colonel Roosevelt met Mr. King in Stamford the
sculptor wrote an open letter of protest to Roosevelt. The former
President took the rebuke good-naturedly. When a reporter in 1918,
during the aircraft investigation, asked Roosevelt if it was not true
that Borglum was a traitor on account of his charges against the
administration, Roosevelt snapped back, “What! Borglum a traitor? If he
isn’t a patriot there aren’t any!”
“But Colonel,” the newsman persisted, “didn’t Borglum criticize even
you?”
Roosevelt laughed. “Oh, that,” he said. “Nothing! Borglum just didn’t
like the company I kept.”
As for the national situation after 1914, the chief question was: “What
will Theodore Roosevelt do in 1916?” It was discussed wherever men
gathered. Come to think about it, 1916 is now some thirty-six years
behind us, and to much of the populace the interesting characters of
that season’s presidential campaign are merely a confused collection of
names.
Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, veteran of the Spanish-American War,
governor of New York from 1898-1900, had been drafted to run for the
Vice-Presidency of the United States in William McKinley’s 1900
presidential campaign. He became President in September 1901, after
McKinley was killed by the terrorist Leon Czolgosz, and was re-elected
in 1904.
Roosevelt was a man of vision. He was popular and he was fearless. He
was also an experienced and naturally shrewd politician. He began his
service as President with an outcry against Big Business in politics. He
dissolved the Northern Securities Company and other corporations for
violation of the antitrust laws. In 1903 he instituted the Department of
Commerce and Labor. Also in 1903 he promoted the Elkins Act which
forbade railroad rebates to favored corporations. In 1906 he sponsored
the Hepburn Act which regulated railroad fares. That same year he was
behind the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act. And it was his
influence that made possible the Reclamation Act and the employers’
liability laws. He mediated the peace between Japan and Russia in 1905
and won the Nobel Peace Prize. By recognizing Panama he made possible
the construction of the Panama Canal, which was started during his
administration. He was a great showman and singularly active, and most
Americans loved him whether they liked his political philosophy or not.
In 1908 he got the presidential nomination for his friend William Howard
Taft, and Taft was elected. But there was some difficulty during the
next four years. Roosevelt turned a bit sour on the President because
he thought Taft wasn’t liberal enough. A real political crisis came in
1912. Taft wanted the presidential nomination and he got it. Roosevelt,
it seems, also wanted the presidential nomination. So he walked his
delegates out of the Chicago convention and organized the Progressive
party. Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate, was elected.
The Progressives turned out to be a pretty strong organization, and they
made some gains during the next four years. The split in Republican
thought was still pretty wide when it came time to think about the 1916
campaign, and Theodore Roosevelt was still one of the biggest men in the
country. There were some indications that in his promotion of harmony
between the Progressives and the regular Republicans he might accept a
nomination and run for a third term.
Gossip had touched on two other men who might be considered by the
delegates--Charles Evans Hughes, who had been governor of New York for
two terms, and Major General Leonard Wood, former Chief of Staff of the
U. S. Army, commander of the Department of the East and close friend of
Theodore Roosevelt. Hughes was an old-line Republican. Wood was a
Progressive.
To the former President, Gutzon sent a five-page letter showing his fear
for the disunity between the different groups and the certain disaster
it could bring to the nation. He said:
You can be the next nominee for the Presidency of the U. S. if that
is what you wish. But it will be wrung from the powerful grip of
powerful forces, and I very much question the result that would
follow such a conquest.
I think you should boldly and frankly name a man close to you, a
man long known and tried by you, a man who would include you in his
private councils. There is another advantage in this besides
quieting the antagonism and putting the lie to a million or more
irreconcilables. You would enter for good that position so enviable
as the First American.
There was no doubt whatever that General Leonard Wood was the man Gutzon
had in mind when he made this appeal. He had been on friendly terms with
the general for years, and had boundless respect for the abilities he
had shown as a soldier and as the chief administrator of Cuban affairs
after the Spanish-American War. He had never been more cheered than when
a newspaper reported that Colonel Roosevelt had himself proposed General
Wood as a nominee to be considered by the Chicago convention. Promptly,
in April 1916, he wrote to Roosevelt, “In naming Leonard Wood, your
lifelong friend, you have given the conservatives and the
irreconcilables the key to the threatened deadlock, or, as some have
boasted, ‘deathlock.’ You have said the first thing that has been said
to make impossible a bitter struggle.”
He had many friends who did not share his belief that Roosevelt would
turn out to be altruistic at Chicago. It is interesting to see how he
clung to his faith in his hero despite all indication that for once he
might be wrong ... and it is also a little pathetic.
Meanwhile, he went about the country on artistic commissions,
interviewing Progressive leaders on the way for the information of
George W. Perkins. He was on his way home from Atlanta in May when he
got a mysterious call to stop in Washington. There he learned that
Progressives had made overtures to the Republicans asking that a
representative acceptable to both sides be chosen to act as a
confidential go-between for the inside leaders. An approach had been
made to Colonel Roosevelt by Congressman William B. McKinley of
Illinois, who asked if Borglum would be acceptable. The colonel had said
that he would. Gutzon was notified. And that is not the least fantastic
thing that happened at this fantastic convention.
Old Guard Republicans would not allow Roosevelt to be nominated, but
they knew they couldn’t win without his aid. They were willing to accept
Leonard Wood if Roosevelt wanted him, and they were glad to have
Borglum to carry such important messages.
The sculptor called on McKinley, then interviewed Colonel Roosevelt and
General Wood. Their agreement, plainly stated, was that if Roosevelt
could not be nominated, he would throw his influence to Wood. Others
aware of this agreement were John A. Stewart of New York, and E. B.
Johns, correspondent of the _Army and Navy Journal_ in Washington.
Gutzon went to Chicago early in June and registered at the Union League
Club. There he met Speaker Joe Cannon, Representative McKinley and other
high-ranking Republicans with whom he kept in constant touch. Also, he
visited Perkins and Governor Hiram Johnson and other Progressive leaders
at Progressive headquarters. He was as widely and officially informed of
the situation, he thought, as any man could hope to be. Everybody was
friendly and straightforward. His great advantage, he felt, was that, as
a well-known artist who had no political ties or aspirations, he was to
be trusted. Well, maybe....
Most of the lads he was meeting had never in all their lives trusted
anybody. What Gutzon seems never to have realized is that he was
squarely in the middle of what amounted to a species of civil war. The
Republican party was definitely split--make no mistake about that--and
its two factions, after giving the Presidency to the Democrats, had been
doing well enough in other elections to survive. Neither side was as
good as it said it was. Neither side could stand any losses. So the
leaders of each side wore broad, confidential smiles in public, and in
private they moved in the fashion of morose and wary conspirators. Each
side feared the other with a real, practical fear, and each side looked
on a messenger from the other as a self-seeking ferret who must be
lulled by soft--and wrong--answers.
Excerpts from Gutzon’s detailed report to General Wood give one coherent
account of the convention, many details of which are still the subject
of controversy after more than thirty years. The sculptor shows himself
to have been an able observer, though puzzled; and he seems to have
overlooked one fairly evident feature--that Roosevelt in the midst of
turmoil was serenely waiting for a miracle, well aware of his importance
and convinced that in the failure of others he might well grow stronger.
He certainly would have liked to be nominated ... and who can say that
he overestimated his chances?
In the beginning of his report to Major General Wood the sculptor said:
I had been in Chicago hardly twenty-four hours when I found out
that the Progressives would not have anything to do with
Republicans. They were playing a foolish game of waiting to be
called on. They had even turned down the proposition of entering
the convention on equal terms for the first few ballots and
adjourning at will. Apparently they were afraid to run the risk,
although they were boasting that they had as high as 400 votes.
Where they could get half that number nobody knew but themselves.
On the subject of the Progressives’ failure to join Republicans in
presenting favorite sons in the early balloting, the sculptor wired
Colonel Roosevelt on Thursday, June 8: