more than most people interested in the project realized. Continuous
importunities for jobs and for permission to sell souvenirs and
postcards and photographs near the work were petty annoyances with which
he found it hard to cope. He knew that some such items had to be
provided as part of bringing knowledge of his work to the attention of
faraway people, but he would not tolerate cheap workmanship or poor
taste in anything sold near the carvings. He got along for a while by
keeping this trade under supervision in the Rushmore studio, but the
relief was only temporary. A resurgence of what he called “local petty
politics” presently involved him so that he called on the Department of
the Interior to send someone to protect him.
The Department of the Interior complied and Gutzon learned that nothing
is so bad that government intervention can’t make it worse. The
unimaginative, bureaucratic routines taught to Washington office workers
were wholly out of place in a work so constantly changing and so free
from fixed rules. The protector sent by the department turned out to be
an earnest young man who started out to confuse the South Dakota
politicians and did well at it. But he wished to do greater things. He
became aloof and secretive.
After some weeks he was discovered to be corresponding with an
engineering company in Switzerland known chiefly for its construction of
cog-wheel railroads. He thought the company might be interested in
building such a funicular line up and around the face of Rushmore so
that visitors might walk under Washington’s nose or sit in Lincoln’s
eye. Gutzon’s indignation set the young man right and was long
remembered.
The Park Service of the Department of the Interior had formulas for all
of its functions. Its personnel with whom Borglum came into contact
believed that the heads should be carved in orderly fashion. First, the
figure of Washington should be completely finished; then the workers
should move on to Jefferson, and so on. This, they pointed out, would
give people something to look at.
Once more the sculptor who had asked only that he be protected from the
harangues of would-be postcard peddlers made a protest against the
continuous suggestions of ignoramuses. Harold Ickes, head of the
department, understood Borglum’s position clearly and told him in
forceful language to ignore such suggestions. But the subordinates never
seemed to comprehend. One of Ickes’ engineers went so far as to offer to
relieve Borglum of all worry. “Why don’t you finish your models and give
them to us to reproduce on the mountain?” he inquired. “We have plenty
of men who can do that sort of work--and quickly, too.”
“Somebody has to put the life and expression into carved faces,” Gutzon
began to explain as he had been explaining since his first days on
Stone Mountain. “That’s why more good mechanics don’t turn out to be
good sculptors.”
There was also the question of “hiring and firing” workmen. The
bureaucrats could not understand that the sculptor had to discharge
anyone who refused to obey orders, or that he might suddenly need a
certain type of workman for a particular job and then need him no
longer. It was such a complicated procedure to get a worker placed on
the government payroll that it was no wonder they didn’t want to
discharge him again in a few days. There are many letters to show that
the sculptor’s relationship with the various heads of the Park Service
was most friendly. Difficulty was due to a misunderstanding of what an
art production of this unprecedented character required.
Even the Rushmore Commission suggested impractical sculptural plans and
picked out certain parts of the work it would “like to see finished.”
And while Gutzon was pushing the work, begging more funds to get more
power, more workmen, skilled carvers, so that the work might be finished
in his lifetime, it was irritating to be told that certain commissioners
and local interests would like to keep the project going as long as
possible because more tourists would come if they could see the sculptor
at work.
After 1932 the work dragged on with frequent interruptions and without
sufficient funds. Workmen were complaining of the daily climb to their
stations--1,500 feet with a rise of 500 feet, which the sculptor himself
made several times a day--resulting in a working time loss of from an
hour to an hour and a half every day for every man on the job. To date,
approximately seventy per cent of the roughing out of the entire surface
to be carved had been completed and thirty-five per cent of the
finishing, within a total working time of twenty-two months and an
average of four to six drillers at work.
The personnel of the Commission was so changed by illness, death and
lack of interest that it became increasingly hard to get a quorum at the
semiannual meetings. Mr. Cullinan had resigned as president to be
succeeded by Fred Sargent of the Chicago and North Western Railway. Only
Gutzon could not resign. As he remarked, the rock of Rushmore was
riveted to his neck.
A new phase of the work began in 1934 when the federal government
assumed the burden of financing the memorial. Frequent stoppages,
constant lack of sufficient power and skilled workmen, plus the
unpredictable condition of the stone, had greatly increased working
costs. Congress first voted to remove the fifty-fifty matching
restriction attached to the first appropriation, making it immediately
available, and next passed a second appropriation of $200,000. There
were those near Mount Rushmore who said it was about time.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
_--AND FINAL PEACE_
So then there was no trouble at all save bureaucratic misunderstandings
and the vagaries of Rushmore rock. Accurate estimates of the time
required to finish the work were impossible because of the constant
shifting and reconstruction of design. The stone on Mount Rushmore,
although the best in the Black Hills, offered interesting surprises.
Some new reddish substance appeared on Lincoln’s cheek. Silver and tin
crystals were found at the end of his nose. The feldspar crystals on
Rushmore are unusually large and add to the difficulties. This was
especially true on the lapels of Washington’s coat where no powder could
be used. Finally Jefferson’s head had to be slightly turned so that the
poor stone came in the hollow between his cheek and nose and could thus
be removed entirely.
An unfailing support to the sculptor through these difficulties was
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who wrote a dozen or more sympathetic
letters. One of them he closed by saying, “I am very much interested in
the work you are doing, and will be glad to remove any drawbacks that
may handicap you.... With best wishes always....”
So it is not surprising that he was present at Rushmore on August 30,
1936, for the unveiling of the head of Thomas Jefferson. He had been
touring the West to see for himself the results of desperate drought and
had been routed to reach Rapid City on time.
At the President’s request the exercises were informal. Flags of Bourbon
France and Hapsburg Spain, fluttering from the top of the mountain, were
lowered as the huge American flag was swung back to reveal the face of
Jefferson. In a few words Gutzon asked the President to dedicate this
memorial as a shrine which for years to come would bring people of all
the earth to see what manner of men struggled here to establish
self-determining government in the Western world. Mr. Roosevelt
responded:
On many occasions when a new project is presented to you on paper
and then later you see the accomplishment, you are disappointed.
But it is just the opposite of that in what we are looking at now.
I had seen photographs. I had seen the drawings. I had talked with
those who were responsible for this great work. And yet I had no
conception until about ten minutes ago, not only of its magnitude
but of its permanent beauty and of its permanent importance.
Mr. Borglum has well said that this can be a monument and an
inspiration for the continuance of the democratic-republican form
of government, not only in our beloved country but, we hope,
throughout the world.
This is the second dedication. There will be others by other
Presidents in other years. When we get through there will be
something for the American people that will last through not just
generations but for thousands of thousands of years. And I think
that we can perhaps meditate a little on those Americans ten
thousand years from now when the weathering on the faces of
Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln shall have proceeded to
perhaps a depth of a tenth of an inch, meditate and wonder what our
descendants--and I think they will still be here--will think about
us. Let us hope that at least they will give us the benefit of the
doubt, that they will believe we have honestly striven every day
and generation to preserve for our descendants a decent land to
live in and a decent form of government to operate under.
Doane Robinson, Senator Norbeck and William Williamson occupied seats in
the front row of the platform, with John Boland immediately behind. The
President remained in his automobile throughout the ceremony, with his
party, including Governor Berry of South Dakota, around him. It was
Senator Norbeck’s last public appearance. At the end he smiled and
handed to Gutzon a note of a few lines reminding him touchingly of the
satisfaction he must feel to see this accomplishment.
At this time, the summer of 1936, the work on the Lincoln face had
advanced enough to show his eyes and part of his nose. It was pushed on
so that on September 17, 1937, the 150th anniversary of the adoption of
the Constitution, this head also was ready for unveiling.
For years Gutzon had been undecided whether to carve Lincoln with or
without a beard. He had tried it both ways in other carvings with almost
equal effect. But he had a feeling that a beard added strength to the
face and that the world was more familiar with a bearded Lincoln. That
was the face he finally decided to carve. He sent a small model of it to
Franklin Roosevelt, carrying out his promise that Roosevelt would be the
first to know.
The Lincoln head was dedicated on schedule and for the first time a
Rushmore program was carried by radio broadcast to the entire country.
Former Congressman Williamson, a member of the Rushmore Commission,
presided. United States Senator Edward R. Burke was chief speaker. There
was an impressive moment when the sculptor called the roll of “all those
friends of Rushmore whose understanding sympathy and instant aid made
this great memorial possible, and who are now with the gods--Calvin
Coolidge, Peter Norbeck, James Cullinan.” Then taps sounded from the
distant heights. The trooper who blew the call was suspended from the
side of Washington’s head, a quarter of a mile away.
During the rest of 1937 much work was done on the Roosevelt head. Gutzon
wanted it in condition to photograph for the appropriations committee.
He himself had to spend much time in Washington worrying about the
financing. He also made a brief trip to France to look after the
erection of his statue of Tom Paine, modeled in the Hermosa studio.
As a model for Roosevelt he used a bust of the President that he had
made during his lifetime. There was trouble finding stone enough for the
head. He had to go back 120 feet in the rock before the model could be
fitted. This was trying work.
All in all, 1937 was a typical Borglum year. His contract with the
Commission was due for revision. The matter dragged along for months
before an agreement could be reached. The sculptor got no pay for all
that year, and he had to pay his lawyers a quarter of what he would have
received to get any contract at all. The new contract was, in the main,
satisfactory. It provided that the sculptor working with the Commission
should prosecute work on the memorial to a successful conclusion. Gutzon
felt that nothing but his death could stop it now.
In 1938 there was a tremendous rush of tourists who could hardly be
accommodated. Congress appropriated $300,000 for the comfort of visitors
and the finishing of the carvings. In the same year the Rushmore
Commission was reorganized. Senator Key Pittman, long a friend of
Rushmore, became chairman, succeeding Fred Sargent, who had died. Kent
Keller, chairman of the House Library Committee, became vice-chairman.
An executive office was established at Rushmore for the handling of
accounts and materials.
The new commission met at Rushmore in August 1938, and the sculptor made
a report. He wasn’t worried about the statues any more, now that he’d
hit enough rock to take Roosevelt’s face. But his plans for the future
included a lot of other things, including a big storehouse, more
electric power, an adequate water supply to replace the trucking of
water four or five miles in cans. He said it was time to begin work on
the Hall and Stairway under the figures as specified in the original
contract. And he got everything but the Hall and Stairway.
The President’s reorganization bill of 1939, which conferred additional
control over Rushmore to the Department of the Interior, caused havoc.
Work on the Hall was immediately discontinued over Gutzon’s protest.
Construction of the storehouse was stopped. Lumber and materials were
left strewn about to be ruined by the weather. He complained to the
President and got a compromise order. The Commission was authorized to
control carving and finish the storehouse. But the Commission still
refused to permit Gutzon to dig his Hall.
It would have been an amazing thing, this Hall, and one day possibly
will be. It was to be a room cut out of the solid rock 100 × 80 × 32
feet to an arched ceiling, finished in dressed granite. Here Borglum had
planned to store the records of electricity beginning with
Franklin--light, heat, music, radio, telephone, telegraph and controls
of power as they were used in the spread of the republic. Man’s
accomplishments were to be preserved here, sealed in airtight glass
cases. If such an exhibition could be provided, he declared, the world a
thousand years from now would have something interesting and educational
to look at.
In 1939 South Dakota celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of its
statehood, and a meeting of the people was held at Rushmore. Governor
Harlan J. Bushfield, later U. S. Senator, said, “At this time, when
freedom and democracy have been challenged in so many parts of the
world, no better place for this ceremony could possibly be selected than
the Black Hills and particularly this Shrine of Democracy.”
The Sioux Indians were there under Chief Henry Standing Bear, camped in
wigwams around the base of Rushmore cliff. Some 15,000 people had come
from all parts of South Dakota and neighboring states. Doane Robinson
appeared in the same suit of clothes and the same hat he had worn on
statehood day fifty years before. It seemed to be a fitting
contribution to Rushmore’s most enthusiastic celebration.
Across the country in Washington, Congressman Francis Case, now Senator,
of South Dakota, whose home at Custer was virtually in the shadow of the
memorial, was carrying on the old fight for funds. To a Congressional
committee he said:
The best answer to every question about Rushmore is to see it.... I
have seen it grow from a dream to a reality.... The soundness of
Doane Robinson’s idea, the dogged persistence of the late Senator
Peter Norbeck, and the ability of Gutzon Borglum to inspire people
with the works of his hands and with his vigorous exposition of
American ideals, have kept the project going on....
And Mr. Case read into the record a letter from John Boland which said
in part:
Mr. Borglum is an artist. I am a businessman. Therefore it is only
natural that we should at times disagree regarding the business
functions of the commission. Such differences, however, have never
been serious and an amicable understanding has always been reached.
My only desire is to have the Mount Rushmore memorial completed in
the best possible manner and to have Mr. Borglum carry on his great
work with the assistance of his son, Lincoln, the continued
co-operation of the commission and the efficient supervision of the
National Park Service.
So presently all human troubles had been wafted away from Rushmore, and
briefly the atmosphere was filled with the sweetness and light that
Gutzon had foreseen. As the park was landscaped and the carving of the
mountain went on with effortless speed, nobody could remember the charge
that Gutzon Borglum had an ungovernable temper. He was a keen observer,
but he was temperate and he was polite.
One remembers the day when Walter Travis of the Rapid City _Journal_
paid one of his routine calls at Rushmore. Gutzon beamed on him. Travis
knew that Gutzon had recently been in a long and futile argument with
Rapid City’s administration on the desirability of straightening and
decorating Rapid River. But he smiled, too. It was none of his business.
Gutzon pushed out his hand for a hearty greeting. “Welcome, Speedy,” he
said. “And how is everything in your backward and objectionable little
village?”
“Only a Borglum could say,” answered Travis, “because Borglums never
forget.”
People whose contacts with Borglum spread over a long time know that in
his own opinion he was indubitably _right_. But looking back over the
years they realize that most of the time he really was right, and for
the rest of the time, however reluctantly, he would listen to reason. He
wanted to get things done and he had a great impatience with people who
stopped him. But no one of his friends who knew his generosity and
gentleness ever hinted that his most vocal indignation could be classed
as ungovernable temper. Temper, possibly ... but not ungovernable.
He was one of this generation’s most accomplished showmen. He took the
jibes of the newspapermen with good grace. And he gave them back the
same way. You may remember the matter of Washington’s nose. Some
reporter, trying to spur him into a grand speech, asked him if he would
call the figures on Rushmore as _perfect_ as they might be. The great
sculptor shook his head. “Not today,” he said. “The nose of Washington
is an inch too long. It’s better that way, though. We are slowly
approaching perfection. It will erode enough to be exactly right in
10,000 years.”
Borglum, possibly, was not the man that a dullard could understand. It
is not enough to say that he was a great sculptor--perhaps the greatest
of his generation. He had to be many more things to get the Mount
Rushmore memorial finished. Looking back over his story one is
definitely confused. Should he be given world honors for his art, or
for his remarkable aptitude for getting money out of smooth and
experienced politicians, or for his incredible knowledge about the
weakness of stone, or for his skill as a dynamiter, or for his
absolutely unbreakable will? You may take your choice and be partly
right. If he had lacked any of these attributes, Rushmore would still be
back in a wilderness with dead trees piling up about its base.
* * * * *
Borglum died suddenly on March 6, 1941, in Chicago. He had spoken a few
nights before for Dr. Harry Kelly, a friend of many years’ standing, in
Park Ridge. He was in severe pain, yet he stood for more than an hour to
deliver an impassioned plea for faith in America and the principles of
personal liberty on which the government was founded. He was plainly ill
at the close. He was taken to a hospital the next day and eventually
failed to survive a coronary thrombosis. The years on Rushmore had done
his heart no good.
Despite the fact that he was supposed to have been making his fortune in
the Black Hills, he died thousands of dollars in debt. It was years
before the hospital and doctor bills could be paid. Lincoln Borglum knew
what details were still lacking on the almost finished figures on
Rushmore. The Commission, with the concurrence of the Park Service,
designated him to finish the work. Lincoln refused to make any changes
or to carry the work any farther than indicated by his father’s models.
Congress passed a resolution for Gutzon Borglum’s interment in a tomb to
be carved in the rock at Mount Rushmore. But Gutzon, some time before
his death, had extracted a promise from Lincoln that he should be buried
among the flowers in California. His friends, led by Commander E. F.
McDonald, Jr., decided with the family that his wishes should be carried
out.
So he was buried in a memorial court of honor with the inscription
composed by his lifelong friend Rupert Hughes close by him:
His birthplace was Idaho; California first taught him art,
Then France who gave him fame;
England welcomed him: America called him home.
His genius for the exquisite as for the colossal
Gave permanence on canvas, in bronze,
In marble, to moods of beauty or passion,
To figures of legend and history.
Nations, cities, colleges paid him tribute.
As patriot he stripped corruption bare. As
Statesman he toiled for equality in the
Rights of man. At last he carved a
Mountain for a monument: He made the mountain
Chant, “Remember! These giant
Souls set America free and kept her free.
Hold fast your sacred heritage, Americans!
Remember! Remember!”
So, for a time, there is a pause in the story of Gutzon Borglum. You may
still rouse an argument about the art of mountain carving. Some relicts
of the Stone Mountain Association are still convinced that he was
angry-tempered and erratic and that nobody could get along with him.
What they do not see is that all such things make no difference. The
Four Faces of Rushmore stand looking into the sun. And Gutzon Borglum
seems likely to live as long as any human man who ever trod this earth,
except the four he helped make immortal.
_INDEX_
_INDEX_
Abbot, Harry, 110
Adair, Forrest, 177, 183
Alderman, Edwin A., 151-152, 153
Altgeld, Governor John P., 126, 130-133
Anglin, Margaret, 272
Anthony, Susan B., 281
Arkright, Preston, 184, 223
Arnold, Reuben, 190
Art Students’ League, 74
Aycock Memorial, 154-156
Bad Lands, 279, 280
Baillie, Robert (“Bob”), 80, 168, 170
Baldwin, “Lucky,” 43
Baker, Newton D., 139, 144-145
Bannwort, Carl, 163-164
Barlow, Lester, 180, 210, 263
Barnard, George Gray, 71
Bates, Blanche, 273-274
Beecher, Henry Ward, 129
Bell, Marian, 79
Biddle, A. J. Drexel, 259, 261
Black Hills, 276-280 _et seq._
Blavatsky, Madame Elena, 37
Boland, John A., 290, 298, 304-305, 314
Borglum, Elizabeth Putnam, 42-43, 55-56
Borglum, Gutzon, 15 _et seq._
Borglum, Ida Michelson, 28
Borglum, James de la Mothe, 27-28, 30-34, 36-38
Borglum, Lincoln, 177, 237, 238, 270-271, 298, 302, 314, 316
Borglum, Mary Ellis, 177, 271
Borglum, Mary Montgomery, 104 _et seq._
Borglum, Solon, 28, 39, 68
Borglum Kloster, 25, 26
Borglum Memorial Studio, 226
Borie, Adolph, 268
Bradford, Ralph, 266
Brady, “Diamond Jim,” 63
Brangwyn, Frank, 58
Bricka, Madame Helen, 63
Bryan, William Jennings, 133
Bulow, Governor William J., 301
Burke, “Calamity Jane,” 277
Burke, Senator Edward R., 311
Burmeister, Charles, 248
Bushfield, Harlan J., 313
Butterfield, General Daniel, 134
Butterworth, Frank, 109
Cameron, Colonel Beniham, 214
Cannon, Speaker Joseph G., 119
Case, Francis, 314
Chalmers, Stephen, 126, 127
Chavannes, Puvis de, 47, 49
Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, 17
Chicago and North Western Railway, 17, 308
Clarke, Sir Purdon, 85
Coolidge, President Calvin, 17, 202, 284-288, 290, 291, 311
Connally, Thomas W., 190
Corot, Jean Baptiste Camille, 49
Corpus Christi, Texas, sea wall, 229, 231
Crandall, Arthur, 110-111
Crane, Charles R., 290
Crews, Laura Hope, 272
Cullinan Joseph S., 290, 300-301, 303-304, 307-308, 311
Czecho-Slovak Army, 250-254
Dalou, Jules, 49
Daniels, Bebe, 40
Daniels, Judge Frank, 155
Daniels, Josephus, 154, 155, 215
Davis, Bob, 41, 94, 126, 268
Davis, Cliff (“Dynamite”), 188, 223
Davis, Jefferson, 171, 175, 188, 199, 203, 204, 209, 217
Davis, Madge, 268
Davis, Sam, 95, 96-98
Day, C. M., 290
Dempsey, Jack, 260
Drought, Mrs. J. P., 227-228
Duncan, Isadora, 64
Dunne, Governor Edward F., 133
DuPont, Senator Coleman, 17, 262
Eassie, R. M., 64
Edwards, Henry Stilwell, 201
Ehlers, Colonel E. M., 135