photographed the photograph tipped forward at an angle equal to
overcoming the distortion in reverse. Thus a distorted slide was made to
meet precisely the conditions on the mountain where the design was to be
placed. As a result the picture appeared at that high elevation as it
would directly in front of the lens. The picture was then traced on the
mountainside in white to guide the blocking-out process of the carvers.
The lamp, weighing about a ton, was bolted to a concrete foundation to
avoid the slightest movement. It would be swung to any angle, up and
down, right and left. A slide three inches high produced a picture 200
feet high. The enlargement was so great that a pin scratch on the slide
measured nine inches in width on the mountain. The head of Lee’s horse
was thirty feet from tip of ear to end of lip; the stirrup was nine feet
long. A man standing on Lee’s shoulder needed a nine-foot stepladder to
carve the ear.
In these dimensions absolute precision was of the utmost importance. A
telephone for communication between the operator and workers on the
mountain was installed so that with micrometer adjustments, the same
picture could be superimposed night after night on the incomplete
tracings. In addition to locating the design on the mountain the lamp
made possible infinite changes in the original plan. Even a complete
change in the composition of a dozen horses or a hundred soldiers could
be projected on the mountain and the effect of the change shown at once.
The picture as it appeared on the mountain shown at night was as clear
as the scene in a movie. In fact, one night when the photograph was
being shown a passer-by stopped in great excitement, thinking that the
figures had already been carved, so lifelike was the illusion. The
projection machine, Gutzon estimated, saved him at least two or three
years’ labor in placing his sketch upon the mountain.
A third problem, equally important and seemingly insolvable, was what
could be done to remove the stone with the rapidity and facility that a
sculptor enjoys when he works on a marble bust in his studio? This
thought occurred to Gutzon before he even measured the acreage he
intended to use for his carving. How could he whip these enormous
dimensions and reduce a mountain to a handful? He related this
experience in an article later produced in the Dupont trade magazine. He
said:
When I first put drill to that eight-hundred-foot-high block,
directing the hands of men I could hardly see at a distance of
fifteen hundred feet, I was still impressed by the thought that
without some effective substitute for the thousands of enslaved
craftsmen of the Egyptian days, our undertaking would never come to
an end. I spent weeks experimenting with the ways and means of
blocking out masses of unnecessary stone and trying by plug and
feather and wedge drills to split them off. All these efforts
proved childish and inadequate. After months of failures and
careful calculation of costs I began to see that the work would be
next to interminable with the labor we could afford and by the
known means at our disposal.
I had thought of explosives but, knowing little about them, had
vetoed their use. The general idea is that high explosives can be
used only to destroy. As I thought this subject over, much as I am
writing it, another thought came to me: Why not _control_ explosive
force? Firearms control it. Why not develop some means by which we
could blow off just what material we wanted to be rid of, in
precisely the quantities we wished to remove, and at the same time
preserve the stone left in place, intact and without injury? That
problem I pondered over for months without discussing it with
anybody.
Just at that time a Belgian engineer, who was passing through
Georgia, visited me at Stone Mountain. I told him what our
difficulties were, quite apart from the safety problem of carrying
men to such a height apparently unprotected, to work on the side of
the mountain. The removal of stone was costing too much and was too
slow. The old methods were detaining the development of the design.
“Why don’t you use dynamite?” he calmly asked.
“I’ve been thinking of it,” I said, “and I am on the point of
making experiments. But it’s close work.”
He then told me that he had recently enlarged a tunnel through a
ledge of granite only a few inches, and that by arranging his
drilling and adjusting the charges of dynamite, he was literally
able to cut off six or eight inches of the main ledge as cleanly as
if it had been channeled.
Of course anybody who knows anything about granite knows that it
splits easily in some directions and in others is stubborn and
cranky. I spoke of this and he said he had found means of
overcoming that trouble.
“Where I cross the grain of the granite,” he said, “I put my drill
holes closer together. While I drilled my holes to the same depth I
did not place my dynamite at the bottom of each one, but scattered
the charge, zigzagged it up and down the wall. Then I measured my
charge carefully, kept it so light that the six-inch shell often
only cracked the stone loose and sometimes a hand bar would be
required to release it.”
If ever I had that gentleman’s name and address I have lost it,
but that night in the lamp room I projected the photographs of my
models of Lee, Jackson and Davis on Stone Mountain, which was a
little over eleven hundred feet from our location. The slide was
small enough so that I could hold it in the hollow of my hand, but
the picture projected without distortion over nearly an acre. We
studied it together. It was this traveling engineer who gave me the
assurance and impetus that resulted in the practical use of
dynamite in the carving of gigantic figures, in dimensions to
harmonize with the colossal thought and life of our day.
I spoke of this experience to a great friend of the mountain
memorial idea--the late Coleman Dupont--and, following his
suggestion, I communicated with the Dupont powder people at
Wilmington, requesting that one of their experts be sent to Stone
Mountain to instruct me and my assistants in the use of explosives.
They responded very graciously and sent a man who, I believe, was
on special duty in Florida. So it was that the amazing, almost
fantastic idea of carving with dynamite came into being.
A charming letter from the Belgian engineer has recently come to light,
written after the visit referred to above. His name was Jean Vanophem,
and he appears to have been summoned back to Belgium. He did not have
time to visit Stone Mountain again.
Mr. Tucker remembers that the Dupont man was recalled after a few days
at Tucker’s own request, because he insisted on using too large a
charge--one or two sticks of half-pound strength--whereas Mr. Tucker had
found out that a half ounce was a successful charge. Mr. Tucker, after
much experimenting, trained one of his crew in the use of dynamite so
that the man, Cliff Davis, became such an expert in this artistic form
of blasting that he was known as “Dynamite Davis.” Cliff could place a
row of charges, draw a line on the rock under them and make bets that
the result of the explosion would not be more than three inches from the
line.
* * * * *
It soon became apparent that the women of the Atlanta chapter of the
United Daughters of the Confederacy alone could never raise funds for
the tremendous undertaking, estimates for which ranged from two to three
and a half million dollars.
The first voluntary contribution had been $5,000 from J. S. Cobb, a
North Carolinian as was his friend W. W. Fuller, both of whom were
connected with the American Tobacco Company. Forrest Adair, one of the
first and most loyal supporters of the memorial, succeeded in raising a
few thousand dollars for the most pressing necessities--lumber,
compressor, electric motor, etc. Venable and Gutzon both advanced large
sums for materials, the sculptor going even more deeply into debt. His
Stamford property was heavily mortgaged. It was characteristic of him
not to ask pay for services until creditors were making such insistent
demands that he was obliged to take action of some kind. This led to
misunderstandings. Unfriendly persons called him mercenary. He resented
the charge and was called irascible. And, bitterly denying it, he proved
that he was.
It was decided to invite some of the bankers and businessmen of Atlanta,
as well as other prominent Southerners interested in the Confederate
cause, to serve on the executive board of the Stone Mountain Confederate
Memorial Association. Neither the name nor the constitution of the
original organization was changed in any way, and the United Daughters
of the Confederacy continued to comprise the main body of the
membership, annual dues for which were fixed at five dollars. It was
distinctly understood that the men were to help only in financing the
design and plan created by Gutzon Borglum and adopted by the Atlanta
chapter. It was not a question of a civic committee engaging a sculptor
to carry out a design made by someone else.
Mrs. C. Helen Plane was made president-emeritus. W. W. Fuller was made
nonresident honorary president and vice-chairman of the executive
committee. Four members of the U.D.C. were made vice-presidents, and
four others served on the board in different capacities.
Hollins N. Randolph of Atlanta was made president of the association. R.
Rivers, familiarly known as “Petie” (not to be confused with a later
governor of Georgia named Rivers), was head of the executive committee.
Rogers Winter was made publicity director. These three with their
lawyer, Reuben Arnold, were the most active in controlling the policy of
the memorial association. David Webb became executive secretary and
furnished many constructive ideas for raising the necessary cash. So did
the sculptor. The remaining members of the executive committee were Sam
H. Venable, Robert Harvey, Eugene Black, W. A. Sutton, Thomas W.
Connally and Mrs. Sam Inman, a woman of wealth and social prominence.
In March of 1923 the real financing of the memorial began. A working
organization was perfected, and Atlanta was asked to set a precedent for
the United States as a whole. The city responded and tentatively pledged
$100,000, payable in five years. Fulton County pledged a like amount.
Individual subscriptions totaled approximately $40,000.
Dave Webb suggested the idea of memorial tablets to be placed in the
U.D.C. Hall, at the base of the mountain, to carry the names of
relatives who had served in the Confederate Army. Each contributor of
$1,000 or more to this fund for carving the memorial was to have the
privilege of designating a name for one of the tablets. A family or
group contributing a thousand dollars could designate the name of one
man for a tablet. Each bronze tablet was to show the name, rank, company
and regiment of the soldier or officer so immortalized. This was known
as the Founders’ Roll and became very popular and lucrative. In setting
forth the purpose of the tablets an announcement was published with the
following eloquent preamble by Rogers Winter:
As old as human nature is the yearning to memorialize the buried
dead, to perpetuate the tradition of illustrious heroes, but never
has mankind in all the centuries succeeded in erecting an
imperishable monument. Stonehenge is a jumble of granite slabs. The
Colossus of Rhodes collapsed two hundred years before Christ and
lay in ruins for a thousand years. The Parthenon of Greece, whose
marble figures were the most perfect sculpture ever produced, has
been virtually dismantled by vandals and art collectors. The
pyramids of Egypt are slowly crumbling. Those marvelous temples
which adorned the Nile when Egyptian civilization was in its glory
are but mounds of debris. The Roman Colosseum is a skeleton of
pagan grandeur.
But now, in the Providence of God, it becomes our privilege to
create here in the heart of the South, in memory of Southern
heroes, the one supreme imperishable monument of human history.
The sculptor made all the designs for this hall, working on them for
weeks and delivering the blueprints of them to the committee in July
1923. It was to be cut in solid rock to a depth of sixty-seven feet; in
width it was to be 265 feet. It was divided into three rooms: Georgia
Hall in the center, with Venable Hall on the right and U.D.C. Hall on
the left. There was to be room for 2,890 memorial tablets.
The first work of carving anything at all on Stone Mountain was started
on June 18, 1923. The first figure to be carved was, of course, that of
Robert E. Lee. The sculptor had made a heroic-size model of the head,
seven feet high, in his Stamford studio, and a plaster model of this was
brought to the mountain. Much blocking out and roughing off of the
surface had to be done before the actual surface of the final figure was
reached. The whole area had been gone over carefully and marked out with
the aid of the projection lamp.
The sculptor appointed Mr. Tucker superintendent, giving him complete
charge of the work. He was assisted by Hugo Villa, an Italian sculptor
from Milan, who had crossed the Atlantic years before with a commission
to erect a monument in Mexico. A revolution had put an end to the
project. Villa had worked his way up to New York and went to Gutzon’s
studio, where he soon became a permanent fixture as sculptor’s
assistant. The best in the world, Gutzon called him.
With these two men in charge and on the spot, the “Master,” as Villa
called his chief, felt that he could safely go back and forth to
Stamford or wherever else the business of the Southern memorial called
him. He was greatly in demand to speak at U.D.C. gatherings and women’s
clubs all over the United States, and the Memorial Association expected
him to attend such meetings. It also expected him to be on hand to show
off the work on the mountain whenever there was a convention of Elks or
Rotarians or Sunday-school workers, and there was a continual procession
of such events in Atlanta.
In July 1923 the sculptor wrote to Mr. Rivers, reporting a meeting he
had attended with Hollins Randolph in Cleveland and their visit to the
factory where some of the new machinery for the mountain work was being
completed. In the same letter he mentioned that Mr. Tucker had reported
to him several times that Mr. Rivers had cautioned him to go slowly with
the work on account of lack of funds. Gutzon warned Mr. Rivers that no
real carving could be done without the preliminary work Tucker was
doing, repeating that the carving was the most important thing and the
only thing that would get subscriptions. He deplored the fact that he
himself had to be concerned with the money-raising, and cautioned Mr.
Rivers against spending more money in the office than was being spent on
the mountain, which he had learned was also a fact.
The goal set for the finishing of Lee’s head was January 19, the
general’s birthday. The sculptor left Stamford for Atlanta more and more
frequently as the work neared the final surface. It was his practice to
do the finishing himself. He never finished a model perfectly and handed
it over to someone else to copy or enlarge, as is common practice among
sculptors. Especially in enlargements, he believed that better, more
individual results could be obtained if he himself modeled the figures
in their full size. If he had
[Illustration: WOODROW WILSON MEMORIAL AT POZNAN
Mrs. Wilson is at the center.]
[Illustration:
_Photo by Lincoln Borglum_
TORSO AND LEG OF DANCER]
already expended much of his creative interest on finishing a small
model, the final figure, he felt, would lack spontaneity and vigor.
In mountain carving this practice was absolutely necessary, owing to the
unpredictable character of the stone surface. Blemishes are often found
in a block of quarried marble when the sculptor starts to carve into it.
It requires little imagination to realize the imperfections that are
bound to appear on a cliff exposed to all the elements for thousands of
years. As an example, when the Jackson head was being carved a crack
suddenly appeared on the bridge of the nose. In previous cases such
cracks were not deep, but in this instance the blemish persisted even
after the position of the head had been pushed back four times. One more
move and the whole design would have had to be changed.
The crack was slight and might have been left, except for the danger of
water getting into it and freezing. After fifty years or so it might
have become a serious defect. Jackson’s face in the original model was
looking at Lee. The sculptor decided to turn it to look in the direction
toward which Jackson’s arm seemed to be pointing. Thus that crack was
lost in the six-foot hole of the eye socket, and the nose occupied an
area of solid stone.
Only the sculptor made the change possible. He stood over the carvers
directing the work. A man trained only to copy a model would have been
helpless and hopeless in a situation like this.
During the final six weeks of working on Lee’s head, when it appeared
that the carving could not be finished otherwise, the men worked all day
and all night, in shifts of eight hours each. Gutzon worked with them
and was there virtually all the time. Frequently he worked the whole
night through.
It was cold on the mountain in the winter, and a canvas was stretched
over the work to break the wind. Huge pots of burning coals were placed
on the platform and slung along the surface of the rock. The
stoneworkers, for the first time in the lives of many of them, were
dressed in heavy clothes. They wore what they could keep tied to them
and swathed their feet in bulky wrappings of burlap and blankets. But
the work was still cold and miserable, and only the calm presence of
Borglum gave them any indication that it was ever going to be finished.
Borglum, however, was tired but satisfied. He had never carved a
mountain before and in all truth he must have had his moments of
misgiving. But Lee’s face, as it began to emerge human and
understandable from the stone in those last weeks, must have answered
all his queries. Nobody would ever tell him again that he didn’t know
how to carve mountains. Here was the proof. He knew.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
_THE EMERGENCE OF LEE_
There have been few days in the history of Atlanta so festive as the one
set for the dedication of the Confederate memorial. And, possibly, there
will never be another. The progress of the carving against unspeakable
odds had been such that visitors were pouring in from all over the
United States. There were artists, engineers, dynamite salesmen,
machinery designers, Civil War veterans, politicians and unaffiliated
patriots.
When three governors--Brandon of Alabama, Neff of Texas and Trinkle of
Virginia--had appeared two days before the unveiling, Gutzon decided
that it would be proper to give them a luncheon on Lee’s shoulder. It
would give them some idea of the size, he thought.
So, with the aid of Hetty McCurdy, who ran “The Golden Glow,” a Stone
Mountain tearoom, Mrs. Borglum arranged the luncheon. The stoneworkers
hung out a pulley, and hot fried chicken, hot biscuits, hot coffee and
other things were served with very little trouble. Twenty leading
citizens of Atlanta sat down with the governors on Lee’s shoulder. One
of the governors turned pale when he descended the 400-foot stairway,
and sat down to rest several times. At every move he seemed to be
stepping off into the infinite.
Three more governors--Morrison of North Carolina, McLeod of South
Carolina and Walker of Georgia--were present when Lee’s head was
presented to the world, besides former governors, representatives of
governors, two representatives of the President of the United States,
and a long list of distinguished individuals appearing for the Daughters
and Sons of the Confederacy and for Georgia and other states. The event
was accompanied by all the pageantry and oratory that the South knows so
well how to produce. There were pieces about it, too, in the _Stone
Mountain Magazine_, published by the Confederate Memorial Association.
Said one of these bits:
The dream of the world’s greatest memorial began to come true
Saturday afternoon at 3 o’clock. With a stately dignity that held
something of a caress, a bright, broad national emblem was lifted
and gathered as a flowing coronet on the majestic brow of Robert E.
Lee, looking now and forever from the sheer wall of Stone
Mountain....
And nobody knew--or had even a remote inkling--how wrong that was.
Mrs. Helen Plane, the Old South’s daughter, who had hoped for this great
memorial, stood by the sculptor’s side and leaned on his arm as she gave
the signal for the unveiling. Under the gray sky of a typical January
afternoon the flag swept aside and the calm, sad eyes of Lee looked down
upon ten thousand of his people. The crowd stood hushed in awe and
admiration.
Since before noon a pilgrimage had been under way from Atlanta and
surrounding communities toward Stone Mountain. There were no good roads
hereabouts--not in that day--so presently there was a crush of vehicles
parked on the approaches for nearly a mile from the mountain. They never
reached the unveiling. Hundreds upon hundreds of automobiles were in
fields along the highway, and in ditches and on crossroads. The
occupants of some of them walked on miles and miles to the ceremony.
Others were stopped in their tracks when the first trickle of cars back
to Atlanta began at 3:30.
Ten thousand people stood bareheaded and silent as the statue of Lee was
unveiled. Another ten thousand were in the group that could not see,
blocked in the crush of traffic miles from the mountain.
Hollins Randolph, president of the Memorial Association, stood on the
platform briefly to introduce Dr. David Marx, who delivered the
invocation. Mrs. Plane, in a costume of the sixties, was carried onto
the rostrum by the sculptor. With bared head he stood motionless as she
waved her hand.
Up on the mountain platform, a thousand yards away in an air-drawn line,
tiny figures moved beneath the two vast American flags that hung like a
curtain. Mrs. Plane’s hand was scarcely raised before boulders of
granite began to slip from resting places under the flags and flash down
the sheer drop of the precipice--five seconds in their fall from the
flags to the base of the mountain, then two more seconds before the dull
thunder of their impact rolled across the valley.
The flags parted and rose, and between them, to the thunder of cascading
granite, the head of Lee appeared--a majestic head that even in its
colossal size and distance seemed vibrant and lifelike. The silence of
the spectators was long. Then suddenly out of the stillness spoke a
voice clear though quavering--an old man’s voice: “It’s General Lee!
It’s the general!”
Borglum turned wonderingly toward the source of this unscheduled salute.
It was a bent old man who spoke--an old man in a gray uniform. His day
seemed to be done. Not many had heard his outcry--not more than a
hundred or so who happened to be standing near him--but his voice had
brought the awakening of the throng. Applause--cheers, screams and the
shrill rebel yell--crashed across the valley and came echoing back
again, an amorphous sound like the din of a hurricane. Lee had been well
acclaimed.
Gutzon, holding the trembling arm of Mrs. Plane who seemed to have
undergone a tremendous emotional shock, suddenly realized what the
people were cheering for: the head of Lee. And he gazed up at it
openmouthed, conscious that he was looking at it for the first time.
Gutzon Borglum had worked on this massive carving for weeks on end, day
and night. He knew every dimension of it, every curve. Its magnitude was
no surprise to him, because standing on the upper lip of the statue he
had been unable to reach the upper eyelid. He had swung across the face
in a bosun’s chair, drilled holes along the nose, placed his dynamite
sticks and exploded them. But he had had no time to travel down the face
of the mountain and into the distance to look at it.
It was a pleasing sight that day. The monument looked logical, perfect
in scale on the great wall of granite. The day was mild and gray, and
the light was fading; but for all that, there were lifting shadows in
the face. Each part of it stood out in its proper place. And for the
first time in months Gutzon was really happy.