NOW PUBLICLY FOR ANY CANDIDATE, THE REST MIGHT AS WELL GO HOME. HE
ADDED THAT THIS POSITION CAN’T LAST. HAVE SEEN LEADERS OF OHIO,
PENNSYLVANIA, NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY, INDIANA, ILLINOIS, NEBRASKA,
CALIFORNIA, MASSACHUSETTS; ALSO HITCHCOCK, WHOM I KNEW PERSONALLY.
BAD EFFECT CREATED BY PROGRESSIVES NOT DARING TO WORK ON FIRST
BALLOTS WITH FAVORITE SONS. PROGRESSIVES PASSIVE TOWARD HUGHES. OLD
GUARD SAY THAT UNDER NO CONSIDERATION WILL THEY ACCEPT HUGHES
UNLESS FORCED.
Before this message he had sent two to the colonel on Wednesday, June 7:
The first message read:
FAVORITE SONS SUCCEEDED IN PASSING RULE TO GIVE A MAN AS MUCH TIME
AS DESIRED FOR NOMINATING SPEECHES. NUMBER OF FIVE-MINUTE SPEECHES
UNLIMITED. THIS GIVES US TIME TO ARRANGE FORCES BEHIND WOOD IF YOU
WANT HIM.
And the second read:
CRISIS REACHED. IF ANYTHING BUT PULLING DOWN TEMPLE ON OUR HEADS IS
TO BE DONE WE MUST DO IT NOW. IMMEASURABLE CONSEQUENCES TO OUR
COUNTRY AND VAST INEVITABLE ADJUSTMENTS FACING AMERICA HANG IN THE
BALANCE. THEY WAIT FOR YOU. DELAY MEANS SUICIDE.
But there was no response from the big man in Oyster Bay.
On Wednesday and Thursday Gutzon received two telegrams from General
Wood on Governor’s Island. Both were hopeful. The first one read:
NO INDICATION ANY CHANGE IN ATTITUDE OF COLONEL. REMAIN IN TOUCH
HERE FOR FEW DAYS.
And later:
SAW THE CHIEF YESTERDAY. POLICY AND ATTITUDE UNCHANGED.
The sculptor, putting all this together, continued his report to General
Wood. Here is part of that revealing document:
Before three o’clock the next morning (Friday) I was awakened by
’phone call telling me that the favorite-son group had over 518
votes and that they did not need the colonel. That was the first
definite rebuke, and my telegram of Thursday indicates my feeling
at the time. I am of course bearing in mind what I learned months
ago, and I cannot understand why Progressive leaders do not know
it, or why the colonel did not know it--that he never had a chance
in Chicago. When I found that he was not willing, or that his
agents in Chicago were not willing to risk their ability on the
floor of the convention against the favorite sons, I felt, and many
felt, that they were simply playing poker with the threat of an
independent Progressive convention back of them.
Thursday night I sat with a number of gentlemen at Union League
Club. We went over the entire situation regarding the colonel’s
candidacy. There were in this group men representing three states
that had favorite sons. Finally, after their declination to
consider the colonel on any terms, I urged upon them your
availability. I pointed out to them the colonel’s friendship for
you and his _absolute faithfulness_ to the friendship, and I urged
upon them the desirability of nominating you directly. They replied
that they would be glad to do this and that in ordinary
circumstances it would be done, but, because of their relation to
the favorite-sons group, such a step would be considered disloyal
and would endanger the whole situation.
They further said that your great value as a candidate was the
colonel’s loyalty to your lifelong friendship and that your
nomination would secure the colonel’s support of the old
organization. After considerable debate I proposed sending a
telegram to the colonel. This telegram was duly approved and
Speaker Cannon remarked, “If the colonel answers that in the right
spirit, we will know that he is sincere. And if he doesn’t----” Mr.
Cannon shrugged his shoulders. Here is the telegram:
“Colonel Roosevelt, Oyster Bay, New York, Thursday, June 8, 1916, 2
A.M.
“Please send me a line confirming your approval of Wood. Powerful
members of Old Guard approve and ask your approval. They say he can
be nominated. Address me, Union League Club.”
I sent this telegram and, as you see, it contained my address and asked
for a reply. I waited twelve hours, until about 2 o’clock in the
afternoon. Having promised a reply to these Old Guard gentlemen, I was
extremely anxious. I called the colonel on the phone and succeeded in
getting him. The day was wet.
The wire was noisy and the connection bad. I told the colonel that I had
wired him and was waiting for an answer. He replied, “Didn’t you get my
telegram?” I told him I had not. He then said he had answered my
questions by telegram and told me that if there was anything else I
wanted to know, to see his son Theodore. The connection was bad, the
answer unsatisfactory.
I immediately tried to find Theodore, Jr., but could not locate him. I
searched political headquarters in Chicago for the telegram the colonel
said he had sent me. I went to the head office and had them search the
wires, but could find no telegram. None had reached Chicago. I requested
both companies to go back over the lines to Oyster Bay and locate the
message. They did and reported in two hours that no message had been
received at Oyster Bay or in New York for me from Colonel Roosevelt.
Following the failure to receive a telegram from the colonel that would
support you, or any definite answer whatever on the subject, I sent
another telegram warning him of the situation and the loss of time. And
again I received no response. That there might be nothing lost by
oversight on my part, I sent a copy of this telegram to you; also one to
Mr. Perkins, together with a letter. Perkins, too, remained silent and
continued to believe that Roosevelt would be nominated. At least he said
so, and that no one else would be nominated or could be. Reports were
being circulated bearing his name saying that you would not be nominated
and that you could not be nominated. Perhaps I ought to add here that
the only objection I have heard to your nomination came out of Mr.
Perkins’ headquarters.
Friday arrived. The convention was ready to ballot. We all waited on the
result of the conference for which we had long worked and from which we
believed some harmonious solution might come. It reported--failure. But
we all still hoped. By that time we knew that the conference was not a
party conference; that the Progressive party no longer had any
authority, having lost what standing it possessed. The only conference
now was between Oyster Bay and Republican leaders.
On the other hand, this Republican convention was the soundest, solidest
body of men of that sort ever assembled in America. They were patient;
they were independent; they knew the world of politics; they wanted the
Progressives; they wanted the colonel to join with them in naming a
President. They were even willing that he should try his strength with
them openly. But 900 delegates absolutely declined to let him either
force the convention or to destroy the party’s chances of defeating
Wilson.
About 2 A.M. Saturday all hope was really abandoned, and the most
influential member of the Central States group said, “Well, no man can
say I have not done everything, tried everything, and waited till the
last minute to harmonize this situation. And here we are forced to move
in the nomination none of us wants.”
After two in the morning, quick and definite plans were made for the
Saturday-morning session and wholly without consideration of Oyster Bay.
What happened at Perkins’ headquarters I do not know. But results came
quickly and everybody soon knew that a great harmonious plan, each group
compromising for the common interest, had failed, and the cause of its
failure was at Oyster Bay.
The Central States had the key, and they had the moral courage to
sacrifice personal advantage for the larger good. At 2 o’clock they took
the bull by the horns and turned sharply to Hughes. Illinois and Indiana
were from the beginning the brain and the power of that convention, and
it was this powerful group that wished to work with the colonel and who
favored you. When forced to follow another leader they showed their
wisdom by selecting McCormick, a late Progressive, to announce the move
of Illinois toward Hughes--which swung the whole convention into line
behind them.
The reading of the colonel’s message was unfortunate. It came too late.
It was too long. In naming Lodge, it was as disappointing a thing as
could be contributed by the colonel’s worst enemy. It was met without
applause of any sort. All Roosevelt interest died then and there.
Regarding your name at the Convention, it rose head and shoulders above
the names of other candidates, and I heard nothing but praise of you,
such as would most gratify a sincere man. Some fear of a military man
was expressed, but I heard no one among the influential inner group of
Republicans who did not always say, “Wood has a record. We can elect him
if the colonel will work with us.”
Several years later Gutzon learned, from inside sources not to be
doubted, several items of information which threw light on the
bewildering events of the last night of the convention. In relation to
that urgent telegram to the colonel that was never answered, he learned
that someone at Progressive headquarters had tapped the line to Oyster
Bay; that Gutzon’s message, which had been endorsed by Republican
leaders who anxiously awaited the answer, was instantly followed by a
message from Progressive headquarters saying that Borglum was all wrong,
the author or victim of a “frame-up,” and that the colonel would surely
be nominated by acclamation on Saturday morning. It was presented that
he, Roosevelt, should withdraw and nominate Senator Lodge, who would
refuse by agreement, and the convention would then turn immediately to
the colonel.
Another item was that Nicholas Murray Butler had likewise talked to
Colonel Roosevelt on that fateful Saturday at early dawn and in answer
to a query about Leonard Wood’s chances had shaken his head.
“Impossible,” he said. “At this juncture in the international situation
it would be suicide for us to nominate a military man.” This was told to
Gutzon by Herman Hagedorn.
All parties returned from the convention in a state of complete
exhaustion. E. B. Johns wrote, “It was three or four days before I got
back to normal, and I am still doing some mental swearing at the
stupidity of Colonel Roosevelt and some of his advisors.” For Gutzon it
was one of the bitterest experiences of his life.
Wilson, it will be remembered, was elected by the vote of California
after most of his newspaper support had conceded the victory to Hughes.
It took three days to find out who had won.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
_AND DR. TRUDEAU_
Three works that Gutzon Borglum completed around 1915 had nothing at all
to do with war or politics. One was a tablet with a bas-relief sketch in
honor of Robert Louis Stevenson, the second a touching memorial to
Governor Altgeld of Illinois, and the third a simple and beautiful
memorial to “The Beloved Physician,” Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau. The
three are linked intangibly through the same fine quality of emotions
that brought them into existence. The subjects of all three accomplished
much in the world and were well loved.
Once in Stevenson’s wanderings as a consumptive vainly questing health
he stayed for a year at Lake Saranac in the Adirondacks in the care of
the not-so-well-known Dr. Trudeau. Trudeau, also tubercular, had cured
others but had started too late to cure himself. He was the central
character of Stephen Chalmers’ engaging book _The Beloved Physician_.
The idea of a memorial to Stevenson originated with Mr. Chalmers and was
brought to the sculptor’s attention by his friend Bob Davis. Gutzon was
busy at the time working on two monuments in the South, and Davis caught
up with him in Grand Central Station as he was boarding a train for
Chicago. His interest was aroused, and from the train he wrote to Davis
to say he would be delighted to do anything “to promote attention to
this kind of men of genius.” He further offered to make the bronze
tablet, bas-relief of Stevenson and an inscription to be decided on by
the committee for just what it would cost--somewhere around $200. The
tablet would be placed on the cottage in Saranac where Stevenson had
lived.
It was September 1915 before the sculptor could find time for a day at
Saranac, where he looked over the ground, listened to all that was told
him about Stevenson, was taken to see Dr. Trudeau and returned to New
York on the night train. The work was finished and ready for unveiling
in October of the same year, as the committee had hoped, “because it was
the gorgeous month of the year.” The only sad note was that Dr. Trudeau
was not well enough to take a prominent part in the proceedings. He died
the following month.
On receiving the preliminary photographs of the tablet, Mr. Chalmers
wrote to Borglum:
I congratulate you on the tablet. You have done something in that
bas-relief that Saint-Gaudens didn’t do. You have brought out the
spirit of the sick man who didn’t believe in lying in bed, and the
little uplift of his head is a perfect expression of “Come!” said I
to my engine, “let’s work anyway!” This thing requires no study. It
hits you between the eyes first glance. I showed it to Mrs. Baker,
who owned the cottage where the Stevensons lived, and the best
compliment from that old lady is this: “Yes, it’s just the way he
looked when he was here.”
A few months later Lord Guthrie, acknowledged leader of the Stevenson
cult in Scotland, wrote:
Gutzon Borglum the sculptor, in his Saranac memorial bas-relief,
has got beneath the surface and behind the mask as Saint-Gaudens,
fine as his bas-relief is as a work of art, never did. I liked the
first sight of Borglum’s work, and it grows on me. It has charm, it
has strength, and it has pathos. It is the invalid, but the invalid
who can say, “O Pain, where is thy victory?” It is the fascinating
personality of a man of genius who, with all his gaiety of manner,
was yet, in the matter of essential principle, like flint.
Hundreds of people whom Dr. Trudeau had cured were anxious to erect a
memorial to him, but were too poor to contribute substantial sums. They
appealed to Gutzon, who again responded generously. He was deeply
impressed by Dr. Trudeau’s self-sacrificing work and by the devotion of
the afflicted ones he sought to heal. He agreed to put up a
bronze-and-marble memorial for the cost of materials--about $7,500.
After studying the matter for some weeks he made a life-size clay model
of the beloved physician seated out of doors, a rug over his knees, and
invited the committee to come to his studio and pass on it. Mr. Chalmers
wrote in the Saranac _News_:
By the end of the day something little short of miraculous had
taken place, the sort of thing that may be called a miracle of
genius. Before the figure was again shrouded in the wet clothes
that keep the clay from cracking, it had become to us not a
conventional photograph image but “The Beloved Physician” himself.
“Well,” said the sculptor, stepping back with a smile, “are you
satisfied?”
“Yes,” said his visitor, but with hesitation.
“I know what you miss,” said Mr. Borglum. “It’s the artificial
something you used to consider Dr. Trudeau’s expression.” As he
spoke he was modeling a small piece of clay in his hands. Presently
he placed over the strained eyes of the face the frame of a
pince-nez. And at that instant the illusion was miraculously
complete. It was as if the doctor would presently lean forward and
say: “Have you read Osler’s _Redemption of Man_? No? Oh, you must,
you must!”
The figure was complete and ready for casting by the end of May 1917,
but there were delays caused by the sculptor’s enforced absence on other
work and the beginning of the aircraft
[Illustration:
_Courtesy of Lillian Taylor_
STONE MOUNTAIN, SHOWING SUPERIMPOSED CARVING OF CENTRAL GROUP]
[Illustration: NORTH CAROLINA MEMORIAL AT GETTYSBURG]
investigation. Also there were vexatious problems of cutting, setting
and preparing the site for the statue. All these were generously solved
by Doctors Walter James and Lawrenson Brown and others of Trudeau’s
physician friends. Eventually the memorial was unveiled in August 1918.
On the marble was carved Dr. Trudeau’s favorite quotation:
_Guerir quelquefois, soulager souvent, consoler toujours._
(Heal sometimes, soothe often, comfort always.)
Carl Snyder, the writer, at that time connected with _Harper’s_, after
driving to Saranac to examine the statue wrote this friendly word to the
sculptor:
May I tell you that I have never seen a portrait that impressed me
so deeply. This was equally true of my wife. She and I agreed that
we never had seen a piece of sculpture that seemed so alive. It
seems to tell the whole life story of an extraordinary man. And I
am told you only saw him once!
Man! Man! Man! With the genius to do magnificent things like this,
to create and to embody the living likeness of a great man, why,
why, why do you waste your precious time on anything else?
One answer to the query, which he was often heard to give, was that he
was never given half the work that he was capable of and wanted to do.
In quick succession members of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn wanted a
monument to Henry Ward Beecher, the famous pulpit orator; the Wheeler
family in Bridgeport wanted a memorial fountain in honor of the inventor
of the sewing machine. For St. John’s Church, near by, he was asked to
make a reredos back of the altar. From North Carolina came a call from
the Daughters of the Confederacy to build a memorial to Henry Wyatt, the
first Southern soldier killed in the War between the States. From
England came a committee to join with Americans to plan monuments along
the border between the United States and Canada to celebrate the hundred
years of peace between the two nations.
All these were not enough to keep him busy. He wrote an incredible
number of letters to committees that were planning public monuments, but
he got very few commissions that way. Most of his jobs came through
friends or others who had seen his work and liked it. Every commission
brought a different set of characters and circumstances with it and
threw different side lights on the sculptor’s personality. His
commission to build a memorial to Altgeld in Chicago was due to the
crusading spirit which had made him widely known as a champion of
democracy in art as well as in politics.
Governor Altgeld of Illinois had become widely and unfavorably known as
“the governor who pardoned the Haymarket rioters” after they had been
tried and condemned as bomb throwers. Such was his reputation for a long
time, during which he remained silent. Then an unbiased study of his
career brought about a reversal of public opinion. It was presented that
he was wholly unselfish; that his life motive had been to help the
underprivileged; that, in the words of the poet Vachel Lindsay, “He set
himself tasks which took a lion’s courage and a martyr’s heart,” and
that to carry out his purpose “He threw his reputation and his health
into the furnace every hour.”
So it happened in 1913, eleven years after Altgeld’s death, the Illinois
legislature appropriated $25,000 for an Altgeld monument. A committee of
five was appointed, including Louis F. Post of the Department of Labor,
with instructions to select a sculptor after a public competition. Two
competitions were held, bringing over thirty models, none satisfactory.
In a letter to the committee the landscape artist, Walter B. Griffin,
wrote:
This particular task should be committed to a sculptor who has
attained in his art that fundamental character, the American
ideal, which Altgeld served in his own field and exemplified in his
career. There appears to be in our time at least one sculptor,
Gutzon Borglum, who is recognized as bearing to the plastic arts a
relation like Whitman’s to literature. It would be a pity not to
avail ourselves of the opportunity to bring together such a man and
the work he is so eminently fitted for.
Following this suggestion the committee awarded the commission to
Gutzon, who received it with intense satisfaction as a recognition of
what he stood for in public life as well as a testimonial to his ability
as an artist. When the news came out the Chicago _Tribune_ published
this comment:
A powerful illustration of how not to do it is the history of the
competition for the Altgeld monument. The commission has now been
awarded to Gutzon Borglum without his being required to furnish any
preliminary sketch, design or idea. That is, the committee has done
what it should have done in the first place--selected a sculptor
and left him free to do the work.
General competitions are so unjust to the competitors and so
unproductive of good results as to be forbidden by the American
Institute of Architects. The best architects never enter them, and
the better sculptors have learned to follow their example.
When the contract was signed in April 1914 the sculptor began to work on
two different models. Before they were done he wrote to his friend Felix
Frankfurter saying that he had been reading up on Altgeld’s life and
ending his letter with this statement: “That man has become a perfect
giant to me. He was a kind of hero when I was a kid, but he lived out
his governorship and died before I got back from Europe. So he comes
along almost like a new star to me.”
Of the two small models submitted, the one selected by the committee
represented Altgeld standing on a slight eminence, his right hand
extended as if quelling a disturbance, his left stretched over a man,
woman and child beside him. The pedestal was low, so that the governor
seemed to be near his audience, his expression was noble, almost
defiant in his determination to protect his charges. The committee
unanimously accepted the full-size model of this statue except for
slight changes which the sculptor approved. The figure was cast in
bronze and erected in Lincoln Park for unveiling on Labor Day, 1915.
Then a thing occurred which to the sculptor was incomprehensible. The
model had been on exhibition in the Chicago Art Institute for a whole
year with no voice raised against it. Then various municipal art
commissions suddenly declared they didn’t approve of it and would not
permit it to be unveiled. The reason, they said, was that it was not big
enough and that the laborer’s family seemed to occupy a servile
position. To this the chairman of the purchasing committee, Daniel
Cruice, made a quick and indignant reply:
I take exception to the criticisms which have attempted to show an
insult to labor. I do not believe that labor is making a fight on
the statue. Altgeld’s enemies in life are the enemies of his
memory. They do not wish the perpetuation of the principles for
which he stood. Consequently they are doing all in their power to
destroy any reminder that such a man lived.
When the sculptor declared in characteristic fashion that he forgot more
about art overnight than ordinary art commissions learn in a lifetime
the Brooklyn _Eagle_, always quick to record a Borglum controversy,
declared editorially:
The controversy between Gutzon Borglum and the Municipal Art
Commission of Chicago over the statue of the late John P. Altgeld
adds to the gaiety of nations. The Art Commission criticizes the
conception of the work--Altgeld raising a protecting hand over a
man, a woman and a child, typifying the working classes. It
likewise objects to the proportions of the Borglum design. And the
artist answers in his characteristic temper.
It was the fate of John P. Altgeld to be a storm center in his
life. Now he becomes a post-mortem center. Large elements of the
Chicago electorate still doubt the historic proportions of the
Governor who pardoned the Haymarket bomb men. It is not to be
wondered at if the proportions of the Borglum Altgeld annoy them.
Nor is it surprising that the design, representing the Governor as
the laboring people’s defender, gives offense to them. It is a safe
wager that this element in the electorate is represented by the
Municipal Art Commission.
The issue is really not an art issue at all. In essence it is
historic and political, or rather sociological. Altgeld’s keenness
as a thinker and debater no one who ever heard him doubts. That he
showed moral courage in that historic pardon, most of his enemies
will concede. Our guess is that Borglum will succeed in
immortalizing him as the friend of labor, though many obstacles may
first have to be overcome.