wanted. He was about to dress the mountainside for the entablature, he
said, and would appreciate some copy. Mr. Coolidge sent the two
paragraphs which read:
_The Declaration of Independence_--The eternal right to seek
happiness through self-government and the divine duty to defend
that right at any sacrifice.
_The Constitution_--Charter of perpetual union of free people of
sovereign states establishing a government of limited powers under
an independent President, Congress and Court, charged to provide
security for all citizens in their enjoyment of liberty, equality
and justice under the law.
Gutzon changed the wording slightly. He cut out the word _through_
before _self-government_ in the first paragraph. In the second he
eliminated the phrase _under the law_ after the word _justice_. Mr.
Coolidge objected to the editing. The newspapers raised another storm.
Coolidge complained of the publicity. The sculptor assumed all blame and
got this somewhat annoyed reply from Coolidge:
I know that you are a great artist. What I meant to convey is that
I do not wish to be engaged in putting up a monument to myself. I
wished my name kept off the mountain. I do not see any reason for
your committee giving the press any statement of any kind in
relation to me. I wish you every success....
Then there were letters to the _Times_, and essay contests in the
newspapers, and speeches by high-school students, and resolutions by the
Rushmore Commission. But in the end there was not one single
contribution of the required length. Flaws in the granite caused a shift
of figures that left no room for the entablature; and the Commission set
the whole matter aside for future reference.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
_CARVING THE MOUNTAIN_
Some sons of God must stand upon the mountaintops
And there through all the deathless generations guard
The continents, and guide the gracious stars of fate:
So God made mountains for the throne of these.
Upon this mountaintop America enshrines
Her sturdy sires, exalts her noblest knight.
Where children of the earth may lift appraising eye
And feel his virtue while his strength invests their souls.
--DOANE ROBINSON
Gutzon Borglum carved a mountain. And as the years went by he became a
dynamiter, a geologist, a practical miner and, very definitely, an
engineer. He got used to crawling about on the face of a cliff, and in
time he used to say that his sculpture was not greatly different from
the cutting of a large block of stone in a studio. But, of course, the
stone of the mountainside wasn’t dressed or prepared. It couldn’t be
shifted into the light or away from it. The amount of stone to be
removed was prodigious, and injury of the material left for carving was
always a serious possibility. How one of these projects ever got itself
done is something that he wasted thousands of words trying to explain.
When Gutzon first used dynamite for carving on Stone Mountain it had
been taken by the world as a fantastic idea. But there was no coyness
about its use when it came to Rushmore. It was laid out there in all
proportions and all quantities. The sculptor had experts who knew what
could be done with a six-inch stick, or half an ounce of it, or with a
percussion cap alone. And they had to be in touch not only with the
drilling of the moment but with the design of the whole monument to
avoid the chance of an overcharge at one point injuring stone at a
distance.
Such drilling skill was developed that the sculptor could depend on them
to block out a nose to within an inch of the finished surface, to shape
the lips, grade the contours of the neck, cheek, brow and all round
areas. He could even shape the eyeball as a whole, but the defining of
the eyelids and the pupils was done by drills, air tools and by hand.
The sculptor’s first concern was the position of Washington. He put in
days studying the surfaces, shadows, reflections and the course of the
sun; and eventually he chose the place where Washington’s head rises
today. It was the best spot on the mountain.
He began to make models to suit the cliff. He discussed the angle of the
head with Carothers, one of the literary secretaries of the Hoover
administration, and he had long conferences about the character of the
first President with Hoover himself. They decided that _uprightness_
should be emphasized in Washington’s statue. The head should not incline
to right nor left, nor forward nor back, but should be set on the
shoulders so that it would show dignity and poise. Carothers drew a
straight line down the middle of a paper, put a ball on the top of it to
indicate the head and remarked quite gravely, “This is the way it should
be drawn.”
And that is the way it was drawn. The center of Washington’s head was
fixed at the point where the horizontal line going across the brows met
the vertical line through the chin. In roughing off they had to remove
fifteen feet of rock before they found a hard, undamaged surface. This
was done late in the summer of 1927. Blasting was not resumed until
1929.
Work on Washington taught them how to proceed quickly with other
figures. It established methods, determined tools, temper of steel,
arrangement of scaffolding for hoists and a labor gauge on the men who
were to perform most of the rough toil on the monument.
The first preparation for carving was to draw in its proper position on
the mountain an oval of the required length and width. This oval was
divided into three sections--one at the line of the eyebrows, one at the
end of the nose and a third at the end of the chin. These measurements
were in the scale of the model; in other words, a model sixty inches in
height had an enlarged outline sixty feet in height.
The work on Rushmore was done from swing harnesses developed at Stone
Mountain. They were made of a leather-covered steel frame and were quite
strong. The men were buckled into them. Thereafter they might be bumped
or fall, but they could not get out without unbuckling themselves. The
swings were suspended at the end of a 300-foot steel cable from a winch
on the top of the cliff. They were housed in a shack on Washington’s
head.
Ordinarily the practical method would have been to determine precisely
where in the cliff the head was to be located, then fix the model at the
same angle; next, to begin at the top, peel off the rough stone and
finish as you went down. That’s the way any good mechanic or engineer
would carry on such work, relieving the features, finishing as he
descended and using the stone shelf that the work always left under his
feet to stand on.
But this was a work of art, not of mechanics. The revelation of the face
by the sculptor was as if he were releasing a living thing. Each drill
hole must pierce the stone with certainty, so as not in any way to
injure what was below. Gutzon said he could not allow mechanical
methods to reduce his art production to a lifeless form.
Each day they carefully surveyed the rough-blocked face. When they
reached the chin line they were thirty feet in from the original granite
cliff. There they stopped and built a scaffold from chin to forehead,
and the sculptor sent to Texas for his old friend and assistant Hugo
Villa. It was then June and an unveiling was scheduled for July.
No man on the Rushmore project had ever carved a mountain before. But no
matter. He had less difficulty with them than with any other phase of
the undertaking. Most of them were the so-called forgotten men of
Keystone--veteran miners, the one-time workers of the idle Holy Terror
Gold Mine. They were hard-rock men; they were used to explosives; and
they did not need many instructions.
In the end the sculptor had several experts on the mountain as adept as
any in the country, and a loyal group of helpers. Gutzon established a
boardinghouse near the blacksmith shop, engine room and other buildings
at the foot of the cliff, and frequently came with his guests to eat
with them. He knew them all.
Gutzon’s original contract with the Mount Harney Memorial Association
had specified that Captain Jesse Tucker of Stone Mountain be named
superintendent of the work at Rushmore and given a fixed salary of
$10,000. To make this sum possible the sculptor reduced the amount to be
paid to himself. The reason for Tucker’s position, he frankly stated,
was that he must give part of his time to other sculptural work, and
that while he was absent from Rushmore he needed someone to take his
place.
But presently the Rushmore Commission hadn’t any money to pay to
anybody. There were arguments and misunderstandings, and Tucker
resigned. After that the full burden of the work fell on Gutzon. He
moved with his family to the Black Hills and built a studio some
distance from Rushmore at Hermosa.
Gutzon probably missed Tucker more than anybody else with whom he had
ever worked. Correspondence between them during the first few months of
construction on Rushmore shows the great concern of both of them for the
safety of the workers. Tucker, who thought the men careless, was certain
that they would contrive some bad end for themselves. But the years went
on and the carving got done and somehow there were no serious accidents.
The nearest approach to disaster came when a lightning flash exploded a
percussion cap just as the worker was making an artificial electrical
connection. The man in the swing harness was shot out into space but by
instantaneous muscular reaction flexed his knees as he was hurled back
against the side of the mountain. He was badly bruised but not otherwise
hurt. The sun was shining when the accident happened. Thereafter no
blasts were set off without the advice of the weatherman.
The other accident occurred when a steel wire controlling the hoist
broke. The open box in which three or four men were riding came hurtling
down. The quick wit of a young man from Stamford, the assistant
superintendent, prevented a serious crash. He stuck an iron rod between
the hoist wheel and the cable that retarded the descent of the car. Only
one worker jumped out as the car hit. He was treated for a minor chest
injury.
Some unknown friend whom Gutzon always identified privately as Sam
Insull set out a Diesel engine for him at a town in the western part of
the state. For two years it furnished all the power needed not only to
run the air compressors and drills on the mountain but the pumps of the
Holy Terror Mine as well. A Wyoming company was started and Gutzon, on
the promise of electricity for less than his own plant would furnish it,
agreed to shut down. Shortly before the day scheduled for the unveiling
of the Washington head the power company informed him that he must sign
a contract to use the company’s electricity for twenty years or be cut
off. Gutzon snorted and turned to the Diesel engine. But there was no
hope from that source. Somebody had dismantled it and carried away most
of the movable parts.
Commissioner John Boland rushed out from Rapid City and thereafter
Gutzon bought power from the new company. But he refused to sign the
twenty-year contract. The cost of the power was a matter of bitter
discussion forever after.
Lincoln came to the mountain in 1932 and worked two years without pay.
Gutzon trained him to do the “pointing,” which consists of measuring the
models and locating their enlargements on the rock. It is the direct
translation of the work of the artist from studio to the material which
he will cut, and Lincoln was carefully prepared.
Gutzon declared that Lincoln was a master of this work, understanding
its complicated mathematics, and father had confidence in son. Under him
a staff of three assistants served as a “pointing crew” for the
measurement of all models to be enlarged on the mountain. When not
measuring they acted as aids and guides to the drillers. The
instructions given to Lincoln at one period when the sculptor’s arrival
at Rushmore was delayed indicate the dramatic quality of the work. The
sculptor instructed his son thus:
I want you, in beginning the work and allotting the positions to
the men, to avoid the two finished faces completely. Do not touch
the hairlines around the face of Washington or his chin, or under
his chin. Do not approach the face lines of Jefferson, or to the
side of his face or under his chin.
On Photograph No. 1, I have drawn a circle where you can locate
Payne [a driller] to begin down-drilling under what will be
Washington’s ear and the left-hand lapel of his coat. Put one or
two men on the lapel, which I have marked No. 2. Put two men on
Washington’s shoulders and work carefully from the top, which I
have marked No. 3. That will dispose of five or six men.
I have marked Lincoln’s eye. You can put two men in cages in each
of the eyes. I would use Anderson on the one side and Bianco on the
other, putting Bianco where the feldspar streaks run down, and
Anderson on the outside. I would give Payne, with Bianco, a
position on the nose and have them begin to take off stone by
drilling in squares and breaking it off down to within six or seven
inches of the finished surface. But do not try to cut the eyelid or
eyeball. Make a round mass for each of these. Lincoln’s face in
that way will take up probably six more men.
You can put about three men on the Roosevelt stone, marking
carefully the contour of Lincoln’s face so that none of that is
disturbed, and going back into the hole next to Jefferson’s face as
deep as you can. If you can put any men down on the block that I
have marked No. 8, without any danger of tools and stone falling on
them, all right. I would put about three men down on the big crag.
We still have seventy or eighty feet to take off that. I think this
will keep you busy until I get there.
It did.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
_CONVERSATION_
In those days Gutzon Borglum found time to smile once in a while,
although anybody who knew the trials of mountain carving might have
wondered why. He had been written down for a comfortable part of a
million-dollar memorial project. Seldom, during any one carving period,
did he get much of it. Some years he got none. People were donating
toward Rushmore begrudgingly in nickels and dimes. He was always
shorthanded. The experts he needed couldn’t exist on the cash available.
Somebody raised the price of electricity. Somebody dismantled the Diesel
engine. There were wrangles over concessions and concessionaires and
small-town politics. There were road troubles, and supplies were late.
And there were other things. The question of why anybody should wish to
become a topflight sculptor seemed unlikely to be answered--ever.
The head of Washington was officially unveiled on July 4, 1930. The rest
of the cliff was unchanged, and Washington’s chin seemed to rest on the
ledge from which it had been carved. But when the great flag swung aside
to reveal the sculptured face the witnesses, strangers to Stone
Mountain, felt that from then on the memorial would never die.
J. S. Cullinan, first president of the Rushmore Commission, presided and
gave the monument its name: “The authority of Congress to carve
colossal portraits of these great men in the granite of the Black Hills
has created a perpetual _Shrine_ for political _Democracy_.” And
Borglum, tired, dejected, almost conquered by a world where nobody ever
seemed to want to do anything, was pleased with that. A head was
finished on Rushmore, and the dullest of these laymen looking at it knew
that it was a finely done piece of sculpture. He heard someone saying
that it would be there forever, and he hoped that it would last longer
than Lee’s at Stone Mountain.
The crowd at the unveiling got safely back to Rapid City with no trouble
at all. And nobody thought of Borglum’s connection with the district’s
good roads.
In the spring of 1930, trying to get from Rapid City to Keystone with
two cars and tow aids, he had been ditched six times. He never got to
Mount Rushmore that week. However, he did get to the telegraph office
and sent word to President Hoover that the roads were impossible and
that he would shut down the project unless conditions were improved and
men could get to their work. Hoover sent the message to Governor William
J. Bulow, who in turn made an appointment for his state road commission
to meet the sculptor that week.
Meanwhile the governor telegraphed this message to Mr. Cullinan:
BORGLUM HAS THE TEMPERAMENT OF ALL GOOD ARTISTS, GETS MAD WHEN HE
CANNOT CONTROL WEATHER CONDITIONS. NOTHING SERIOUS EXCEPT THAT HE
GOT A NEW EXPERIENCE AND A NEW TOUCH OF LIFE. AM SENDING HIGHWAY
ENGINEER TO SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE. WITH GOD’S AID AND PATIENCE HOPE
TO GET HIM SMOOTHED OUT.
Within three days they had planned the beautiful road now leading from
Rapid City to the memorial. Strange as it seems, South Dakota spent
$480,000, plus a quarter of a million on other roads, to reach a
monument on which she had not spent a dollar. Meanwhile Senator Norbeck
with his Custer State Park Commission was working on a road approaching
Rushmore from the opposite direction by way of Iron Mountain.
Iron Mountain Road is one of the country’s finest examples of what can
be done with economical engineering. Engineer Charles E. Smith who laid
it out hadn’t much money to spend. The highway runs along part of its
highly beautiful journey between Keystone and Grace Coolidge Creek on
two lanes that are widely separated. It climbs terrific grades on
corkscrew uplifts built of pine logs. It is well paved, well graded and
safe.
One of the features of the highway is said to have come by accident.
Work was started from the south end and presently struck a mountain that
had to be tunneled. The hole was surveyed with no plan save to keep it
in line with the approach already built. When the miners finally broke
through they were looking into the face of Washington on Rushmore. The
two remaining tunnels were cut at the same angle, framing the memorial
with a showmanship worthy of Gutzon Borglum himself. Borglum was
intensely pleased. “Norbeck’s Iron Mountain Road,” he said, “is as much
a work of art as the carving of the mountain.”
Another Norbeck road over the so-called Pine Creek route between
Rushmore and Hill City, again a masterpiece of scenic road building, was
the cause of the sculptor’s abandoning his original plan of placing
Jefferson on Washington’s right in the Rushmore grouping. There was a
contributing factor in this decision due partly, he thought, to poor
work. Up to summer of 1931 Gutzon had been trying to place the figure of
Jefferson where he believed he belonged--on Washington’s right. Work had
continued after the unveiling until the fall of 1930 and was resumed in
the following spring. In July of that year the sculptor went to Poland,
taking Lincoln Borglum with him, to erect his statue of Woodrow Wilson.
He left Tallman and Villa in charge.
There was no way of testing the stone in the location for the Jefferson
head, so he had quickly roughed out the block and left Villa pointing
the face.
When he returned from Europe and motored out to Rushmore he noticed
while still a mile away that something was radically wrong. He exclaimed
to Villa, “What’s wrong with the Jefferson head?” Villa answered by
turning to Tallman: “Didn’t I tell you the master would notice it from a
long way off?” Then he said, “Well, there was a little difficulty about
the pointing.” The trouble, he explained, was too deep a depression
under the eye and there was not enough stone to push the head farther
back.
The sculptor did not wait to find out what had gone wrong--rock or work.
He was almost too angry for words. Gutzon thought he had taken all
precautions. About half the work was finished and it wouldn’t do. Who or
what was to blame did not matter. The damage was done. There was not
enough stone to allow free modeling of Jefferson’s face, and Norbeck’s
new road, exposing the back of the head, made a change in the
composition advisable. The sculptor made a bold decision to abandon what
had been done on Jefferson and place his figure on Washington’s left.
This necessitated a change in the whole grouping, while the flaws in the
rock in Jefferson’s new position were so deep that he had to go back
sixty feet before he found good stone for the carving. Senator Norbeck,
the only one consulted in the matter, gave complete approval.
Villa left shortly after this incident, but came to see his old master
in Texas a year or so later and greeted him with his old-time affection.
Nothing ever came between them again. Subsequently he flitted in and out
of the Rushmore studio at unpredictable times. But Villa was a city man
and was not at home in this rugged community. Gutzon missed him, for he
brought to the studio a breath of the charm found in the Old World
wherever art is active.
The year of Washington’s bicentennial, 1932, witnessed the shutdown of
work at Rushmore for lack of funds, which to the sculptor seemed an
unforgivable disgrace. However, there on the mountain was the portrait
of the first President, which Mr. Cullinan had declared was the best in
existence. The face seemed to belong to the mountain, having taken on
its elemental courage, and Gutzon figured it as vital as he could make
it. He occupied himself with regrouping the models in the studio. It had
disturbed him to have the figures as close together as in the original
composition, and now this had been opened up by putting Jefferson so far
inward that it gave room for the sun to pass back of Washington and
light Jefferson’s face. The flaws in the rock which made this necessary
began to appear a blessing in disguise.
The recomposition also involved changing Washington’s shoulders in
relation to his head. The left shoulder was moved back seven feet and
then another seven feet, while the right shoulder was moved seven feet
forward. When word got around that Borglum was moving Washington’s head
there were loud alarms. Norbeck was flustered. Monument lovers from
Rapid City rushed out to the mountain to see how a head that weighed
several tons could be transported. There was some disappointment when
they saw nothing more novel than the chiseling of the shoulders; but
they talked, and the story, it is said, made good publicity.
John A. Boland of Rapid City, chairman of the executive committee of the
Rushmore commission, was charged with the hiring of workers, purchase of
materials and payment of salaries and bills. And it must be said that
these worthy endeavors were seldom fraught with any sweetness and light.
Boland’s office was in Rapid City--too close to Rushmore, he
thought--and he could not move it because of his statewide business. He
sat there quietly and never interfered with the carving operations. He
felt that Borglum was a great artist and that the carving of Mount
Rushmore was a noble undertaking. He may one day be considered a great
patriot.
One of Boland’s handicaps in the situation was his unwillingness to
spend any money that he didn’t happen to have. This attitude was, of
course, diametrically opposed to that of Borglum, who never could be
convinced that money really mattered. And it is said that these two
stalwarts had “occasional clashes.” “Occasional clashes,” one regrets to
say, is a highly erroneous and short-weight title for what they had.
Gutzon once said that he could feel his blood pressure rising when he
got within 500 miles of Rushmore and faced the prospect of seeing
Boland. Boland’s blood pressure went up only when Borglum needed money.
But the men met, discussed the Shrine of Democracy, swapped observations
about the current financial situation and brought the language of
toe-to-toe wrangling to a new high.
Gutzon declared, of course, that he never took these arguments
seriously. No row, he said, was ever worth remembering after its cause
was gone; and that, probably, is a true report on his reactions. The
last time he and Boland met he was pleased with the course of the world
and mellow toward Boland. He had his arm across the chairman’s shoulder
and was calling him “Johnny.”
What Boland thought about these goings on is, of course, an entirely
different matter. He never talks much about his struggles in behalf of
majestic art. “Borglum was a great sculptor,” he sums it up. “He
certainly was that.”