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Title: Mount Rushmore National Memorial - A monument commemorating the conception, preservation, and - growth of the great American republic
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Language: English
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_Mount Rushmore_
NATIONAL MEMORIAL
A MONUMENT COMMEMORATING THE CONCEPTION, PRESERVATION, AND GROWTH OF
THE GREAT AMERICAN REPUBLIC
[Illustration: Location practically in the Center of the North
American Continent]
PUBLISHED BY THE
Mount Rushmore National Memorial Society of Black Hills
1948
[Illustration: GUTZON BORGLUM]
CONTENTS
Foreword 1
The Mighty Works of Borglum 5
From the Beginning 9
The Role of the National Park Service 16
Wind Cave National Park 17
Badlands National Monument 17
Jewel Cave National Monument 17
Devils Tower National Monument 17
The Antiquity of Mount Rushmore 18
The Hall of Records and Great Stairway 20
George Washington 22
Thomas Jefferson 24
Abraham Lincoln 26
Theodore Roosevelt 28
As Great Men Saw It 30
Mount Rushmore National Memorial Society of Black Hills 31
_FOREWORD_
_A monument’s dimensions should be determined by the importance to
civilization of the events commemorated. We are not here trying to carve
an epic, portray a moonlight scene, or write a sonnet; neither are we
dealing with mystery or tragedy, but rather the constructive and the
dramatic moments or crises in our amazing history. We are cool-headedly,
clear-mindedly setting down a few crucial, epochal facts regarding the
accomplishments of the Old World radicals who shook the shackles of
oppression from their light feet and fled despotism to people a
continent: who built an empire and rewrote the philosophy of freedom and
compelled the world to accept its wiser, happier forms of government._
_We believe the dimensions of national heartbeats are greater than
village impulses, greater than city demands, greater than state dreams
or ambitions. Therefore, we believe a nation’s memorial should, like
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt, have a serenity, a
nobility, a power that reflects the gods who inspired them and suggests
the gods they have become._
_As for sculptured mountains—_
_Civilization, even its fine arts, is, most of it, quantity-produced
stuff; education, law, government, wealth—each is enduring only as the
day. Too little of it lasts into tomorrow and tomorrow is strangely the
enemy of today, as today has already begun to forget buried yesterday.
Each succeeding civilization forgets its predecessor, and out of its
body builds its homes, its temples. Civilizations are ghouls. Egypt was
pulled apart by its successor; Greece was divided among the Romans; Rome
was pulled to pieces by bigotry and a bitterness much of which was
engendered in its own empire building._
_I want, somewhere in America on or near the Rockies, the backbone of
the Continent, so far removed from succeeding, selfish, coveting
civilizations, a few feet of stone that bears witness, carries the
likenesses, the dates, a word or two of the great things we accomplished
as a Nation, placed so high it won’t pay to pull down for lesser
purposes._
_Hence, let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can,
the words of our leaders, their faces, to show posterity what manner of
men they were. Then breathe a prayer that these records will endure
until the wind and the rain alone shall wear them away._
[Illustration: _Gutzon Borglum_]
THE MIGHTY WORKS OF BORGLUM
_By_ RUPERT HUGHES
How big is great? How high is up?
In the wide and numberless fields of creative art, size is a matter of
spirit rather than of material bulk. A sonnet may be a masterpiece, and
an epic rubbish; or an epic may be sublime, a sonnet petty.
It is only affectation to confine one’s praise to small things. Because
a poet delights in a brook chuckling through a thicket of birches he
need not therefore despise Niagara. The word “colossal” should not be
surrendered entirely to the advertisers.
The Shakespeare of the sonnets wrote also “Hamlet” and “King Lear.” The
Beethoven who wrote the giggling _Scherzos_ wrote also the titanic Ninth
and added its mighty chorus. Michelangelo did statuettes and sonnets,
but also his “Day of Judgment” and his prodigious horned Moses.
To the sincere artist it is the idea that is vital. Once that has
inflamed him, he seeks only to give it the shape and the size that its
nature dictates.
So Gutzon Borglum, being sensitive to all the moods of life, a born
poet, with an innate love of form for its own sake, quick to glow with
inspirations of every kind and determined to give each its unique and
eloquent shape, has painted and carved without fear or favor the
exquisite and the tremendous with equal fidelity.
His genius shines in the little bas-relief of a nymph; in sardonic
gargoyles; in the tiny yet epic statuette of the dying Nero, a bloated
coward tangled in his toga and drooping to his ignoble death; in the
suave portrait of the seated Ruskin; the pathos of the old Boer warrior;
in the billowy rush of the stampeding “Mares of Diomedes”; in his
colossal head of Lincoln; in his war memorial for Newark, New Jersey,
with its marvellously composed forty-two figures and two horses; his
magnificent plan for the Stone Mountain, whose thwarting is one of the
great tragedies of art; and finally in his supreme achievement, the
Mount Rushmore Memorial, where he brought his art to the mountains and
left there the four great faces for all eternity.
This unparalleled accomplishment seems to have been not so much the
carving of those vast heads upon the peaks as the beating away of the
veiling, smothering stone and the releasing of the imprisoned statesmen
so that they might look out upon the world and utter their lofty
messages in a silence more pervasive and sonorous than any trumpet-tone.
The heads stand up there against the clouds like cloud-gods. Yet they
are not offered as gods, but as plain men who glorified the plain man.
Each of them is greater in magnitude than the so-called Egyptian Sphinx.
The Sphinx represented an unanswerable riddle and she cruelly destroyed
all who could not answer it. But these presidents of ours represent
brave, clear thinking towards safety and dignity and happiness for all
mankind.
The Sphinx was really a portrait, the largest portrait ever made till
Borglum came along. It is the head of King Khafre set on the body of a
crouching lion guarding the king’s tomb, with his pyramid back of it.
Khafre had it built during a reign that ended over four thousand, seven
hundred and fifty years ago.
Near the Sphinx and Khafre’s pyramid is the greater pyramid of King
Khufu, better known to us as Cheops. He lived from 2898 to 2875 BC. and
his pyramid contains over two million blocks of stone, of an average
weight of two and a half tons. Herodotus was told that it took a hundred
thousand men twenty years to build it.
Near Karnak there are still standing—or sitting—two portrait statues of
Amenhotep III, who ruled fourteen hundred years B.C.—just about the time
of Moses. These statues are seventy feet high.
One of the four colossal statues at Abu Simbel represents Rameses II,
who died about two thousand, six hundred years ago. Lying on its side is
a broken statue of Rameses II, once 90 feet high and carved from a
single thousand-ton block. This and another statue of him in granite
ninety feet high were, according to Breasted writing in 1905, “the
greatest monolithic statues ever executed.”
But Borglum’s bust of Washington is larger than the whole figure of
Rameses, Lincoln’s nose is 21 feet long and the sparkle in his eye is
secured by a block of granite thirty inches long.
Some of the Egyptian portraits were carved upon their cliffs somewhat as
Borglum’s statues are upon the peaks. At Abu Simbel there are four such
statues of enormous bulk.
The Assyrians also built huge monuments, and inscribed the texts of
whole histories on the faces of cliffs. Their kings were usually
represented as enormous winged bulls with the heads of bearded men.
These were called, strangely enough, “cherubs.”
The Greeks created for their greater gods statues of gold and
ivory—whence the epithet “chryselephantine.” Such was the colossal Zeus
that Pheidias made for Olympia. It was about fifty feet high. Pheidias
made also two colossal figures of Athena for Athens, one in bronze that
stood up like a lighthouse and was visible to sailors far out to sea.
The other had ivory flesh and robes of gold, and was seventy feet high.
The famous bronze Colossus of Rhodes, erected about 274 B.C. by Chares
of Lindus, was 105 feet high. It did not straddle a stream, as tradition
has it. Half a century after it was set up, an earthquake overthrew it;
in 656 A.D. it was sold for junk and carried off by a caravan of 900
camels.
In China one still sees enormous Buddhas, and in our own world the Mayan
monstrosities are being brought back from the jungle that swallowed them
like a sea.
The statue of Liberty—a gift to us from France—is 151 feet high; with
its pedestal it is 305 feet tall.
But none of the giants ancient or modern has approached the size of the
greater works of Borglum.
This carver of mountains was himself a mountainy man, born in the
mountainous state of Idaho on March 25, 1871. His full name was John
Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum. His parents had come over from Denmark. His
father, at first a woodcarver, became a physician and surgeon, also a
breeder of horses on a 6000-acre ranch. He had no money to give his
children, but he gave them a love of form and a knowledge of the horse
that not only inspired Gutzon Borglum to some of his most magnificent
work, but also made a splendid career for his younger brother, Solon.
Solon took fire from Gutzon’s fire, worked his way to Paris, won honors
there, and came home to his West where he turned out a stream of
important sculptures that perpetuate many poignant phases of Western
life. His life was suddenly ended in 1922 by an attack of acute
appendicitis.
Gutzon’s indomitable will carried him from the Idaho ranch to an art
school in San Francisco, thence to Paris. He began as both painter and
sculptor and was accepted as both by the French salons. In England,
critics and royalty heaped honors on him. After painting a series of
murals for a big hotel at Leeds and another series for a concert hall at
Manchester, he began to abandon the brushes for the chisel, and to turn
out statuary in almost every field and almost every imaginable form.
From the first, his works won the highest honors. The Metropolitan
Museum bought his “Mares of Diomedes” at once and the French Government
promptly purchased a partial replica of it for the Luxembourg Gallery.
Commissions rained on him and there was never any repetition in the
spirit or treatment of his responses.
There is not space here for even a catalogue of his triumphs. He also
wrote much and well. He was an engineer and an inventor, overcoming by
his own skill supposedly unconquerable problems involved in the
construction of his larger works. He was an orator of eloquence with a
practical skill in politics. At times he was a statesman and the close
associate of Paderewski and Masaryk in their re-creation of their lost
republics. During the first World War he investigated and exposed the
causes for a mysterious and dangerous failure in American aircraft
manufacture. His career has a strange kinship in its versatility with
that of Leonardo da Vinci, and I believe that his name will live as
long.
In 1909 he married Mary Montgomery, a distinguished scholar in ancient
Oriental languages, and a translator of cuneiform inscriptions. A son
and a daughter blessed this union of two great souls.
It was in 1907 that I first met Gutzon Borglum while preparing an
article on his work, to which I paid complete homage. This was the
beginning of a lifelong friendship of which I wrote him while he was
glorifying the South Dakota mountains:
“I have always had an awe and a reverence for you that fought with my
love for the simple, jovial, twinkling-eyed friend you always were.”
He answered: “You have said your say about me and it is a wet eye that
reads through the letter. You know how vandalism in the name of
Civilization raids the tombs of our ancestors and destroys the records
of History. One of my motives in this work was to carve these records of
our great West-World adventure as high into the heavens as I could find
the stone.”
As man and as sculptor he was passionately American and he has not only
given to his country monuments of art that equal the greatest of other
nations, but he has given artistic expression to the ideals that make
America America.
The Sphinx and its temple have only recently been recovered from the
sand that submerged them for thousands of years. Yet even now the worst
tyrannies and cruelties of the Pharaohs have been revived and paralleled
in Europe, just as our gentlest, noblest ideals were to be found
co-existing with savagery in ancient Egypt.
I hope, I believe that in 7000 A.D. there will be pilgrimages to Mount
Rushmore by Americans still keeping alive the flames of freedom kindled
and rekindled by the four heroes Borglum had immortalized, immortalizing
himself and his and their ideals along with them.
His Mount Rushmore Memorial presents to posterity four great Americans
who upheld the rights and equalities of all mankind, and who were
themselves the very personifications of Americanism.
Their noble heads are lofty enough to mingle with the clouds, and the
parading lights of sun and moon and stars, and the processionals of rain
and snow and mist give them a beauty that is always changing yet
everlastingly changeless.
Only a great soul and a great artist could have conceived or achieved
such a monument to them and to himself. His gifts of spirit and
execution were, I feel, unsurpassed by anything of their kind in the
history of the world.
[Illustration: The Memorial]
[Illustration: _The Memorial in winter with a light fall of snow
softening the surrounding landscape._]
FROM THE BEGINNING
_By_ MRS. GUTZON BORGLUM
A nation’s memorials are a record of its civilization and the artist who
builds them is the instrument of his time. He is inspired by the same
forces that influence the nation’s destiny—the greater the period, the
greater the art. The artist cannot escape his destiny. Like the “Hound
of Heaven” it “pursues him down the years,” forces him to leave his
home, to go into exile, to combat mountains even, to accomplish what
must be.
How else can we explain why a man should abandon a comfortable way of
life, among pleasant surroundings, to hurl himself against a gigantic
rock, to cling like a human fly to a perpendicular peak, to struggle
with hostile human nature, in order to carve against the sky a record of
the great experiment in democracy on this continent—a record which will
live on and be an inspiration to future generations, a shrine to be
visited, even after the thing it commemorated may have passed.
This is the history of Rushmore told in a few words. The contributing
factors are of interest and should be related but two outstanding facts
are that a few kindred souls, giants in their day, fostered a form of
democratic government and established a great nation and that a hundred
and fifty years later another group of Americans realized the importance
of making a record in the granite for all time of what manner of men
they were and what they achieved.
The initial step in this great enterprise was taken by Doane Robinson,
state historian of South Dakota, who had heard of the monument being
carved in Georgia by Gutzon Borglum to honor the heroes of the South in
the war between the states and thought it would be a fine idea to have a
similar patriotic shrine in South Dakota to bring that state to the
attention of the nation.
Mr. Robinson invited Mr. Borglum in 1924 to visit the Black Hills to see
what could be done. The first thought was to carve the likeness of
Washington and perhaps of Lincoln in one of the granite upthrusts known
as the Needles. The stone, however, was not suitable and there was no
special reason for memorializing Washington and Lincoln as individual
presidents in South Dakota. Then Mr. Robinson told the sculptor of a
lead tablet discovered by children playing near old Fort Pierre, which
had been planted there in 1743 by Verendrye, an emissary of Louis of
France, sent to establish French territory behind the English. This
fired his imagination. Here was a subject for the great memorial he
wanted to carve in the Hills.
South Dakota lies in the heart of the old Louisiana Territory, purchased
by Jefferson in 1803, in order to control the mouth of the Mississippi,
which marked the first step away from the Atlantic seaboard colonies in
the expansion of the little republic. That step led to the establishment
of Texas, the conquest of California, the acquisition of Oregon and
Alaska and the spanning of the continent from ocean to ocean by the
empire nation called the United States. This was a subject worthy of a
mountain—a monument to a nation, to its philosophy of government, its
ideals and aspirations, its great leaders. Here in this remote spot,
protected by its inaccessibility from the vandalism of succeeding
generations, would be carved a Shrine of Democracy, as an imperishable
record of a great people.
[Illustration: _Here is Mt. Rushmore as it stood for countless ages
before the poetic and patriotic idea of the great national memorial
was born in the mind of Gutzon Borglum._]
Mr. Borglum paid a second and third visit to the Hills and camped among
them for two weeks, exploring and examining every rock large enough to
suggest a monument, with the result that the huge granite upthrust
called Mount Rushmore was selected as the only stone sound enough to be
suitable for carving. Another reason for choosing Rushmore was the
important consideration of lighting. It was imperative that the cliff on
which the figures were to be carved should face the east in order to get
the maximum amount of sunlight all the day long. Washington’s face is so
placed that it catches the first rays of light in the morning and
reflects the last ruddy glow in the evening. Many beautiful works of art
are made insignificant by poor lighting.
Senator Peter Norbeck, who had created the park system of South Dakota
and played an important part in the creation of the Rushmore Memorial,
also agreed that, in spite of its remote position with only riding
trails leading to it, there was no other location possible.
[Illustration: _Ranging downward like spiders swinging on fine
threads, workmen made the strokes on the granite mountainside which
now bears the features of George Washington._]
[Illustration: _Scaffolding suspended from cables enabled the
workmen to reach down from the brow of the mountain in order to
carry on their courageous and difficult labors._]
That autumn a group of Rapid City women put on a pageant of flags,
designed by Mr. Borglum, on the top of the cliff to show the different
epochs through which the territory had passed. The French flag was first
hoisted, then the Spanish, then the flag of Napoleon, next the colonial
flag and finally the present flag of the United States. Thus was Mount
Rushmore officially dedicated to the Memorial. Mr Borglum then returned
to his temporary studio in San Antonio, Texas, to make the models and
decide what characters best illustrated the idea to which he was trying
to give form.
George Washington’s presence in the group was inevitable. He was the
rock on which the republic was founded—the plumb line to establish its
direction. So on Mount Rushmore his head is exactly perpendicular,
facing the east, unaffected by the others in the group, the measuring
rod determining the position of the others. Equally important with
Washington was Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of
Independence. By the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, as stated
above, he had taken the first step westward in the course of the
nation’s growth. He is represented on the mountain as a young man. He
was only 33 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence.
Abraham Lincoln, the saviour of the republic, was inevitable in any
record of the country’s history and finally Theodore Roosevelt was
selected because, by cutting the Panama Canal, he had accomplished the
dream of Columbus and opened a Sea-way from Europe to Asia and his name
was closely linked with the territorial expansion following the war with
Spain. He was also the first president to attempt the curbing of big
business interests and the only president who had been familiar with the
west. He had close associations with South Dakota.
[Illustration: _Models in the studio at the foot of the mountain
which guided construction of the actual figures (seen through
window)._]
The Mount Harney Memorial Association was authorized in 1925 by the
state legislature to undertake the project on Mount Rushmore. No funds
were voted for the purpose. Contributions were obtained from the three
railroads serving the state, from the Homestake Mine and from private
individuals, among them Mr. Charles Rushmore, a New York lawyer, after
whom, quite accidentally, the cliff had been named. The work went on
slowly, with considerable opposition, until President Coolidge’s visit
to the Black Hills in 1927. He made a splendid speech at a picturesque
ceremony held at Rushmore, immediately following which he took Mr.
Borglum aside, inquired about the financing and urged him to come to
Washington for help. It is doubtful whether, without this impetus given
by President Coolidge, the carving would ever have been accomplished.
The Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission came into existence as
the result of a Congressional Bill, passed on Washington’s Birthday in
1929. The act carried an appropriation of $250,000 for the memorial,
which was to be matched on a fifty-fifty basis by private subscriptions;
it designated Gutzon Borglum as the sculptor and designer of the four
figures and provided also for an inscription on the mountain.
The first ascent of the mountain was made up the canyon where the
present wooden stairway now is. After the initial survey was made, pine
trees with branches cut off and cleats nailed at right angles to the
trees were laid in the crevices to serve as ladders. Heavy ropes were
then carried by hand to the top and a small winch was carried as far as
possible by pack horse and then carried to the top by hand. After this
winch was fastened on the top of the mountain, it in turn was used to
pull up the heavy cable that became the tramway from the ground to the
mountain top. Building material was pulled up and shelters built for the
men. A small studio was also built to house the plaster reproductions of
the master models that were in the studio at the foot of the mountain.
These reproductions were used for measurements to save time required to
go to the studio 1500 feet away and 500 feet below. In some cases these
models were hung over the side of the mountain so that they could be
consulted and compared with the measurements as the actual stone work
progressed. By this method it was possible to save considerable time and
labor.
[Illustration: _Roughing out the face of Theodore Roosevelt. The
strong chin and the mouth are already visible. The mass of stone at
the top will be carved away to form the mustache._]
The work of fitting the figures into the cracked granite upthrust called
Mt. Rushmore has been a constant struggle between composition and
finding solid stone for each of the four heads.
[Illustration: _Close-up of Lincoln. Note the shafts of granite in
the eyes of Lincoln. The light reflected by these shafts gives the
eyes their lifelike glint when seen from a distance._]
In the first design Jefferson was placed at the right of Washington and
Lincoln on his left, and Theodore Roosevelt occupied the position now
occupied by Lincoln. However serious flaws developed in the stone on
this side of Washington; and it therefore became necessary to change our
design and place Jefferson to Washington’s left. This made it necessary
to place Theodore Roosevelt between Jefferson and Lincoln, and the stone
had to be removed to a depth of approximately 120 feet from the original
surface to get back far enough for the Roosevelt face. The heads were
finally relegated to their approximate position (being moved several
times as new conditions of the stone developed), that is they were
tilted or dropped or made to look more to the right or left as the case
might have been, to meet the composition or avoid flaws in the stone.
This movement being made simply by moving the respective heads on the
model and cutting the stone accordingly. It was not possible to fit the
heads so that they would be entirely free from fissures, but it was
possible to place them so that none of these fissures would be
unsupported from below and that removes the danger of some vital part
dropping off. As each head was started its center was located, and at
this center point on the top of the head a plate was located. This was
graduated in degrees 0 to 360 degrees, and at its center a horizontal
arm was located that traversed this horizontal are. This arm was about
30 feet long, in effect a giant protractor laid on top of the head. The
arm was graduated in feet and inches so that at any point we could drop
a plumb bob from this arm, and by measuring the vertical distance on
this plumb line determine exactly the amount of stone to be removed.
After determining this master center point on the mountain, we set a
smaller arc and arm on our model in the same relative position. With
this small device we would make all our measurements on our model and
then enlarge them twelve times and transfer them to the large measuring
device on the mountain. Thru this system every face had a measurement
made every six inches both vertically and horizontally. These
measurements were then painted on the stone and it was thru this means
that men totally unfamiliar with sculptural form were able to do this
undertaking. In fact all the men employed on the work were local men
trained by the sculptor.
Pneumatic drills are used for drilling and the compressed air is
provided by large compressors located on the ground and driven by
electricity. The air is forced or conveyed to the top of the mountain by
a 3″ pipe and then by the use of smaller pipes and rubber hoses is
conveyed to the drills.
Over 400,000 tons of granite have been removed from the mountain in
carving the figures, at a total expense of slightly more than $900,000.
This includes all building, stairways and machinery.
[Illustration: _Workmen putting the finishing touches on the strong
face of the Rough-rider President._]
The men are let down over the face of the stone in leather swings
similar to bos’n chairs used on ships. These swings are fastened on to
⅜″ steel cables which are in turn fastened on to winches located on the
top of the heads. These winches are operated by hand. There are about
seven winches on the top of each head. The men are lowered to their
place of work by these winches, taking with them their jackhammers or
pneumatic tools and other necessary equipment. One man is located in a
position where he can see all the men at work, and is “The Callboy,” and
has a microphone with a loud speaker at each of the winches and when any
of the men working in the swings wants to be raised or lowered they
signal this call-boy and he relays the message thru the loud speakers to
the winchman. He also keeps the workmen supplied with new drills as they
need them, by relaying their requests to the steelman who carries the
steel to the men in the swings as it is needed. This steel is used over
and over again; as it is dulled it is taken to the blacksmith shop on
the ground via the cable car, heated, sharpened, re-heated and tempered
and sent back to the mountain again. About 400 of these drills are
dulled each day. They drill on an average about four feet before being
sharpened. In some places the stone is so hard they will only last or
drill about six inches and in other places they will last seven or eight
feet before being re-sharpened.
[Illustration: _The work in process as it appeared from an odd angle
... from the road running along the side of the mountain. Not many
have seen the Memorial from this point of view._]
The problem of finance has always been acute in connection with the work
of the Rushmore Memorial. The economic hardships of the country made it
increasingly difficult to match the Federal appropriation, without which
the carving could not go on. The sculptor made repeated trips through
the state and beyond its borders to arouse interest in the undertaking.
He succeeded in raising some money by publishing a small book about
Rushmore. There were never enough funds for as much power or as many men
as he would have liked to use. There were long months when the work was
stopped altogether. Finally the government took over the whole burden of
financing and the work continued regularly, after 1938, being halted
only by weather conditions. The sculptor was at last able to employ one
or two trained stone carvers to do the finer work of finishing.
The Washington head was unveiled in 1930, with Mr. Cullinan, first
chairman of the Rushmore Commission presiding. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt came for the unveiling of the Jefferson head in 1936. His
unfailing interest and support have insured the finishing of the
Memorial. At the unveiling of the face of Abraham Lincoln in 1937, a
nation wide radio hookup carried the speeches to all parts of the
country and again in 1939, when Governor Bushfield of South Dakota
conducted ceremonies celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the State of
South Dakota at Mount Rushmore, the radio carried the speeches and music
all over the United States. The upper part of the face of Theodore
Roosevelt was uncovered at that time.
[Illustration: _The face of Jefferson begins to take form. The nose
and the forehead are already plainly visible, but many tons of stone
must be removed before the picture is complete._]
Mr. Borglum was always scrupulously careful to protect his men from harm
and it was his boast that in all his years of hazardous mountain carving
no worker was seriously injured. He took no care of himself, however,
and physicians said that undoubtedly the strenuous work of carving at
that altitude weakened his heart and in March, 1941, it stopped beating.
The carving was practically finished; there remained only the finishing
of the hands and hair of the four figures and the Rushmore National
Memorial Commission entrusted that work to the sculptor’s son, Lincoln
Borglum, who had been with his father from the beginning of the work.
[Illustration: _A blast is set off. The handling of powder and
dynamite was an especially delicate problem, since a single badly
placed charge might easily spoil the work of many months._]
The faces of the four presidents, as carved on Mount Rushmore, are
approximately 60 feet from chin to forehead; if completed from head to
foot the figures would be 465 feet high. The entire head of the sphinx
in Egypt is not quite as long as Washington’s nose. The entire cost of
the Memorial, including all expenses of carving, buildings and salaries,
is $900,000. This is at the rate of less than two dollars for every ton
of stone removed, which is a cost incredibly low considering the
hardness of the granite and that every piece must be removed in such a
way as not to injure the surface behind. On this investment the Federal
Government has received from tourists from the one cent gas tax on the
increased sale of gas during the years since the work started over two
million dollars and the income to South Dakota is over twenty million
dollars annually.
[Illustration: _From these beginnings today shine forth the faces of
four of the greatest men of American history, to light the path of
freedom for countless generations yet to come._]
THE ROLE OF THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
[Illustration: {uncaptioned}]
Millions of Americans and liberty-loving people from all over the world
have come to the Black Hills of South Dakota to look upon Gutzon
Borglum’s _Shrine of Democracy_.
The exact number of visitors to the great granite carvings is not known
but each travel season the pilgrimage increases in size.
During the period of construction from 1927 to 1941, when work was under
supervision of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission, no
accurate records of visitors were kept. Hundreds came each day, however,
to keep a fascinated watch over the emergence of the likenesses of the
four great presidents from the great stone uplift.
Consecration ceremonies attended by President Coolidge and the
unveilings of Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lincoln
were attended by thousands of people. Distinguished guests participating
in these ceremonies included the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Then in 1939, the Memorial was placed under the supervision of the
National Park Service of the Department of Interior. World War II
intervened, but in the peace years since the transfer, the flow of
visitors has been measured at close to a half million persons each
travel season, 419,817 being reported for the 1947 travel year.
Among the nine great memorials in the National Park Service system,
Mount Rushmore, by 1947, had risen from seventh to fourth place in
attendance. So far as these memorials are concerned, those reporting
larger visitations were the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial,
and the Washington Monument, all in the District of Columbia.
As with other national parks, monuments, and memorials, Mount Rushmore
was designated for inclusion in the National Park system because it had
become a most inspiring site of historic significance.
Its present administration is designed to promote and regulate the use
of the memorial area to conserve the scenery and the natural and
historical objects and to provide for the enjoyment of it in such a
manner as to leave it unimpaired for the enjoyment of future
generations.
A total of nearly 1,800 acres of the Federal Game Sanctuary in the
Harney National Forest now comprises the memorial area. It is under the
administration of Superintendent Harry J. Liek with headquarters at Wind
Cave National Park. The memorial is directly under Acting Custodian J.
Estes Suter.
A brief description follows for Wind Cave National Park and the three
national monuments—the Badlands, Jewel Cave, and Devils Tower—that are
embraced in the Black Hills and Badlands area of southwestern South
Dakota and northeastern Wyoming.
WIND CAVE NATIONAL PARK
Wind Cave is the most widely known of the many limestone caverns found
near the margin of the Black Hills. Discovered in 1881, it was created a
national park in 1903. The strong currents of wind that blow alternately
in and out of the mouth of the cave suggested its name.
Boundaries of the park were extended twice and now embrace a total of
28,000 acres of federally-owned land, supporting a large buffalo herd in
its natural habitat and other wildlife, such as elk, antelope, and deer.
Chief feature of the park is the exceptional limestone cavern, noted for
its unique boxwork rarely found in other sections of the world. Other
crystalline formations in various color shadings line a series of
subterranean passages, known to be at least 10 miles in extent.
BADLANDS NATIONAL MONUMENT
In sharp contrast to the verdant Black Hills country, the White River
Badlands, a barren, treeless region, lies about 50 miles east of the
western foothills.
Here nature has beautified the earth with all shades of buff, cream,
pale green, gold, and rose. Fantastically carved erosion forms rise
above the valleys, some of them 150 to 300 feet high.
The constantly shifting color and the weird formations make this a
region of strong imaginative appeal.
JEWEL CAVE NATIONAL MONUMENT
A unique coating of dogtooth calcite crystals which sparkle like jewels
in the light distinguish Jewel Cave from other crystal caverns in the
Black Hills and provided its name.
One of the finest stands of virgin ponderosa pine remaining in the Black
Hills is found within the monument which was established in 1908. It was
originally part of the present Harney National Forest but was
transferred to the National Park Service, by Executive Order, in 1934.
DEVILS TOWER NATIONAL MONUMENT
Another unusual natural phenomenon of the Black Hills country is the
Devils Tower across the South Dakota state line in Wyoming. This is a
great column of igneous rock towering 1,280 feet above the Belle Fourche
river, whose course is near the base. Devils Tower has the distinction
of being the first national monument created under the Antiquities Act
of 1906. It was established by proclamation of September 24 of that
year, by President Theodore Roosevelt.
[Illustration: _Devils Tower in Wyoming’s western border of the
Black Hills National Forest._]
THE ANTIQUITY OF MOUNT RUSHMORE
_By the late_ JOSEPH P. CONNOLLY
_President, South Dakota School of Mines_
At the Battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon is reported to have exhorted his
men by saying, “Soldiers, from these pyramids forty centuries look down
upon you.” From the standpoint of human history four thousand years
represent great antiquity indeed. But as one gazes upon the rugged
slopes of Mount Rushmore, he is face to face with antiquity beside which
the age of the Egyptian pyramids seems but a moment.
How old is the granite of Rushmore? We have a yardstick by which we can
measure that quite accurately. Not far from the mountain, in a
subsidiary mass of granite, there was found a few years ago a small
piece of coal-black, lustrous mineral known as pitchblende or uraninite,
of which the chief constituent is the heaviest known element, uranium.
We know that uranium continually undergoes atomic disintegration,
changing at a slow, but uniform and measurable rate into lighter
elements. The end product of this change is the metal lead. If we submit
the specimen of pitchblende to chemical analysis, determine how much
lead it contains, how much uranium is still left, it is a comparatively
simple calculation to determine from the known rate of change, the
number of years that have elapsed since the pitchblende came into
existence. That experiment has been performed and the result is one
billion four hundred and sixty-five million (1,465,000,000) years. Bear
in mind that this enormous figure represents the time that has elapsed
since the molten rock came to rest at some depth under the surface of
the earth, and cooled sufficiently to crystallize into granite. It
represents the age of the solid granite.
But, although the granite of which the mountain is composed dates back
to a period almost inconceivably remote, Mount Rushmore itself is much
younger. We know that all of the granite mountains of the southern Black
Hills were carved out of the rocks by the process of erosion. Field
evidence indicates that fairly early in the Tertiary period,
approximately thirty million years ago, erosion had carved out the
topography of the Black Hills into much the same stage as we see it
today. Perhaps Mount Rushmore was not fully born in that period; its
form may not yet have been completely sculptured under the chisel of
time, but we know that its age must be measured in millions of years and
not in centuries.
Mount Rushmore is a child of weathering and erosion. They brought the
mountain into being and gave it form. But those relentless parents will
not be content to leave their child as they fashioned it. They will
continue their work of disintegration on the surface of the rock and
along the cracks, until eventually they will completely destroy the
mountain they formed, and long before the mountain will have been
destroyed, the magnificent carvings of man will disappear. “How long,”
we anxiously ask, “will the carvings endure?” Two processes will tend
eventually to destroy the memorial, chemical weathering and physical
disintegration.
[Illustration: _A typical view from the Needles highway with the
Cathedral Spires in the background._]
[Illustration: _Fantastic formations in the Badlands. The variegated
coloring is at its best in the early morning or the late evening._]
Chemical weathering will take place very slowly, so slowly that if it
were the only destructive process we had to consider, we could with some
confidence say that the memorial would endure for hundreds of thousands
of years. And the progress of chemical weathering will probably be
impeded by the sculpturing of the memorial, for on the figures the rock
will be smoother, water will drain off more rapidly instead of
penetrating, lichens and other vegetation will not have as secure a
foothold as on the natural face of the rock, and thus will not
contribute to so great an extent their destructive acids to such waters
as do penetrate.
Physical disintegration is somewhat more to be feared. This operates in
two ways, by exfoliation due to changes in temperature, and by frost
action. Differential stresses set up by unequal expansion and
contraction, owing to the poor heat conductivity of granite, tend to
spall off or _exfoliate_ the surface layers of rock.
When water gets into the cracks and pores of the rocks and freezes, it
exerts an enormous pressure, a pressure that will spall off flakes and
blocks of rock. The artist and his associates, fully aware of this
hazard, have guarded against it. All cracks and fissures have been
carefully avoided in the sculpturing so far as is possible. Such as have
been impossible to avoid are being sealed to prevent the ingress of
water, thus inhibiting to a very large extent both frost action and
chemical weathering.
We have traced in part the geological history of the Mount Rushmore
region, hoping that by learning something of its past we may predict
something of its future. We see the hazards to which the memorial is
exposed. We must frankly recognize them and guard against them so far as
possible, as it would be folly to ignore them. If the science of geology
can do no more in a practical way for mankind than to point out dangers
and sound warnings, it does a worth while service. “How long will the
memorial last?” Geology cannot answer specifically. An eminent geologist
has already given as definite an answer as it is possible to give, and I
can do no better than to close by quoting from the address given by the
late Dr. C. C. O’Harra at the unveiling of the head of Washington.
“How long will Mount Rushmore last? Many millions of years. The number
nobody knows. How long will endure this monumental, sculptured figure of
the Father of our Country which today we unveil? One hundred years? Yes.
One thousand years? Yes. A hundred thousand years? In all likelihood,
yes. A half million years? Possibly so, nobody knows. The time at any
rate will be long, far longer than we can readily comprehend. And this
doubtless will abundantly suffice.”
THE HALL OF RECORDS AND GREAT STAIRWAY
_By_ LINCOLN BORGLUM
The Hall of Records and Stairway have been part of the Memorial plan
from the beginning and are provided for in the so-called “Rushmore Bill”
of 1938. A good start has been made in the carving of the Hall, which
already has been excavated to the extent of seventy feet. Great care has
to be exercised in the use of dynamite in carving this hall, as in
carving the faces on the mountain, not to injure the stone which is to
remain. Careless explosions of large amounts of powder might crumble the
walls.
The Hall is located about two thirds of the way up to the mountain: the
entrance to it is in a small gorge or canyon, cut by the ice aeons ago,
to the right of the carved faces as one looks at them from below. The
Hall is on the opposite side of the gorge from the heads and is not
under them. The following is quoted from Mr. Borglum’s plan.
“The façade to the Hall’s entrance is the mountain wall 140 feet high;
supporting pylons, cut into the mountain, flank the entrance. The
entrance door itself is 12 feet wide and 20 feet high; the walls are
plain, dressed granite and of a fine color. I want to finish the inner
entrance wall in mosaic of blue and gold lapis. The depth to the door
entrance from the outer façade is 20 feet. The door, swung on a six inch
offset of the wall, will be of bronze and glass. Small, carefully
modeled bronze figures of historic importance from Columbus and Raleigh
to the present day will ornament the doors or be modeled into the
supporting frame. The walls of the entrance will carry in gilded bronze
immediately within the entrance ancient Indian symbols; British, French,
Spanish and American seals.
“The floor of the Hall will be 100 by 80 by 32 feet to an arched
ceiling. At the height of fifteen feet an historic frieze, four feet
wide, will encircle the entire room. Recesses will be cut into these
walls to be filled with bronze and glass cabinets, which will hold the
records stamped on aluminum sheets, rolled separately and placed in
tubes. Busts of our leaders in all human activities will occupy the
recesses between the cabinets. The original thought of a hall of human
records I developed at Stone Mountain in Georgia and my drawings and
full plans are extant; that was never completed.
“The records of electricity, beginning with Franklin, which has given us
light, heat, music, the radio, the telegraph, the telephone and controls
in power the extent of which we can hardly imagine, must be here,
together with the records of literature, the records of travel,
immigration, religious development and also the record of perhaps the
largest contribution that we have made to humanity, which has been free
controlled peace, a government of the people, by and for the people.
Struggle as we will that great contribution is today the cause for the
real unrest of Europe. Despotism, tyranny of every form is fighting us
wherever it can, to take away from humanity the power freedom gives
it—the power that freedom has given America.
[Illustration: _Opening of a gorge reached by the Great Stairway is
the massive twenty-foot-high entrance to the Hall of Records._]
“The Hall will be reached by a monumental flight of steps varying from
15 to 20 feet in width, which will ascend the mountain in front, a
little to one side of the sculpture, rising from a great granite disk or
platform in the canyon below, which may be used as a rostrum from which
speakers may address the public occupying the amphitheater facing the
great group.
[Illustration: _This picture shows the workmen busy in the early
stages of the work of carving the Hall of Records from the
granite._]
“These steps of granite and cement will be provided with seats at
intervals of every fifty feet; they will have a five inch rise and an
eighteen inch tread. The ascension from the foot of the steps to the
floor of the great entrance is four hundred feet; the entrance way from
the steps’ landing to the great Hall is 190 feet; the floor of this
Hall, reached by three steps, is two feet above the floor of the
entrance way in the canyon; this to provide for proper drainage.”
Owing to repeated requests from important organizations of women, the
urging of some senators and congressmen and Mr. Borglum’s own
realization of the part women have played in the development of our
country, plans had been under way for some years to include women in the
great Shrine of Democracy. There was no room in the rock which contains
the heads of the four presidents and the only other place seemed to be
the west wall of the granite cliff, or in the hall of records. To quote
again from Mr. Borglum, from a letter written in January 1940: “If we
decide that the west side of the mountain is suitable, I am for it. We
must work out a design that is fitting and in no sense harmful in the
matter of lighting or location to subjects determined upon and I am
entirely in favor of carving the faces of two or three women. If that is
determined upon, these figures will be near what has been known in the
Rushmore Law as the Inscription and there will be a special paragraph
given to the work and services of women. The original inscription
referred to the framing of the Declaration of Independence; that was
Jefferson’s work and the second was the Constitution. That was
Washington’s greatest service. The third dealt with the purchase of the
Louisiana Territory and the fourth, fifth, and sixth, the progress
towards the south and southwest, involving Florida, Texas and
California, which included Arizona, a portion of Nevada, Utah and a
portion of Idaho. The seventh paragraph brought in the Oregon cession
from England and the purchase of Alaska. There was one paragraph for
Lincoln and one for the finishing of the Panama Canal, which was
achieved by Theodore Roosevelt.
[Illustration: _The corridor leading from the doorway into the Hall
of Records, showing the marks of the stonecutters’ tools._]
“So by these suggestions you will see that a splendid paragraph can be
developed for the part women have played in the development of the
nation.” In another part of the letter Mr. Borglum made a place for
women in the Hall of records and even suggested that a special hall
might be carved for them, as there is ample rock for many rooms.
Calvin Coolidge had been asked to collaborate on the inscription and
wrote the first two paragraphs. Mr. Borglum stood strongly for “Justice”
in the wording, whereas Mr. Coolidge insisted upon “Justice under the
Law.” Newspaper accounts exaggerated the discussion, which unfortunately
was terminated by Mr. Coolidge’s death.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
_In carving the head of George Washington, Mr. Borglum studied all the
known portraits of him and drew heavily on certain famous likenesses
which he preferred because he believed them most faithful to the
character of the man. Borglum was confronted by an extraordinary
problem. He had undertaken to place his sculpture on a mountain peak
over 6000 feet above sea level. His face of Washington, tall as a
five-story building, was to be far up in the sky “where the clouds fold
about it like a great scarf, where the stars blink about its head, and
the moon hides behind a lock of hair.” As Borglum himself pointed out,
it has been the practice of the sculptors of history, immediately they
departed from the normal dimensions of men, to conventionalize and
simplify their faces and to generalize the portraiture, and, in so
doing, lose those qualities which gave distinction. Such methods had no
appeal to Borglum. Vehemently, he brushed aside “the claptrap standards
of Good Enough.” The faces he placed upon the mountain to gaze down upon
hundreds of generations of mankind must be true, great, and noble faces,
and that of Washington would be the gauge of all the rest. Borglum spent
thirteen years digging into every corner of Washington’s life in order
that his portrait might say the last word about the man who is called
the Father of his Country. He made an extensive study of his character
and was deeply impressed by the picture presented by Thomas Jefferson in
the following letter to Dr. Walter Jones, dated at Monticello, January
2, 1814_:
I think I knew Gen. Washington intimately and thoroly; and were I called
on to delineate his character, it should be in terms like these.
His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order;
his penetration strong, tho not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or
Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow
in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure
in conclusion. Hence the common remark of his officers, of the advantage
he derived from councils of war, where hearing all suggestions, he
selected whatever was best; and certainly no general ever planned his
battles more judiciously. But if deranged during the course of the
action, if any member of his plan was dislocated by sudden
circumstances, he was slow in readjustment. The consequence was that he
often failed in the field, and rarely against an enemy in station, as at
Boston and York.
He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest
unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence,
never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely
weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but when once decided, going thru
with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed.
His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever
known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship, or
hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense
of the words a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally
high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and
habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he
was most tremendous in his wrath.
In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contribution to
whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary
projects and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm
in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man’s value, and gave
him a solid esteem proportioned to it.
His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish,
his deportment easy, erect and noble; the best horseman of his age, and
the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback. Altho in the
circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took
a free share in conversation, his colloquial talents were not above
mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas nor fluency of
words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready,
short, and embarrassed.
Yet he wrote readily, rather diffusely, in an easy and correct style.
This he had acquired by conversation with the world, for his education
was merely reading, writing, and common arithmetic, to which he added
surveying at a later day.
His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only
in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became
necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agricultural
proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within doors.
On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad,
in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said that never did
nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to
place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited
from man an everlasting remembrance. For his was the singular destiny
and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully thru an
arduous war, for the establishment of its independence; of conducting
its councils thru the birth of a government, new in its forms and
principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train;
and of scrupulously obeying the laws thru the whole of his career, civil
and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other
example....
[Illustration: {George Washington}]
THOMAS JEFFERSON
Writing just a century ago, and a few years after Jefferson’s death, one
of his earliest biographers said that it had been that statesman’s fate
“to be at once loved and praised by his friends, and more hated and
reviled by his adversaries than any of his compatriots.” The fact that
much the same could be said of the writing about him today merely shows
that the man is still alive in so far as his influence is both felt and
feared. So is his great antagonist Hamilton. These two exponents of
contrasted philosophies of government, though dead, yet live and are in
the thick of the fight today. The issues for which they fought with all
their strength are not yet settled. Indeed these issues have broadened
and deepened until one in especial has become perhaps the most burning
of all in a bewildered and angry world, the question whether the people
can govern themselves or must be governed.
Although a political philosopher, Jefferson never set forth his views in
any formal treatise, as did John Adams in his voluminous works or
Hamilton in _The Federalist_. Probably the most widely read man of his
time in America, Jefferson had a broader range of interests—political,
religious, economic, agricultural, aesthetic and scientific—than did any
other of the leaders. His curiosity was insatiable, but in spite of what
has so frequently been asserted, usually by his enemies, although
sometimes by his friends, he was not a mere theorist. He kept his feet
on the ground. It was the practical application of ideas and their
practical effects which appealed most to him and not the ideas in
themselves as viewed by a philosopher. Even when he could not use the
touchstone of experiment in such matters as his belief in the common man
or religious freedom, he was never a doctrinaire. He not only believed
but said over and over that government and institutions had to be suited
to a people of any given time and place and could not be true or good
everywhere and always.
We do not look to Jefferson for a theory of government or of the state.
To a great extent the things he had to say about government, and the
things for which he strove in his active political life, were based on
the America of his day and the slowly developing agricultural one which
he envisaged in the future, writing as he did, before the machine age.
What gave Jefferson his profound importance in his own day, as it does
now, was his view of human life. He was, and still is, the greatest and
most influential American exponent of both Liberalism and Americanism.
Liberalism is rather an attitude than a program. It is less a solution
of governmental problems than it is a way of looking at them. It is
based on the doctrine of live and let live. The Liberal is willing to
take risks feared by both Conservatives and Socialists. Not being a
fool, he realizes, as do the others, that society must have a structure;
but he is more concerned with the freedom and fullness of the life of
the citizen within that structure than with the structure itself.
It may also be noted that even in his native Virginia, Jefferson
antagonized many of the most important interests and families by what
was considered his undermining of a social order. His struggle to break
down entail and primogeniture, to free religion from the fetters of a
State church, and his well-known opposition to slavery, have not even
yet been forgiven by many Virginians who feel that the downfall of the,
in many ways, charming and delightful society of the eighteenth century
was due to one whom they consider a renegade from his own order. As we
shall see later, when Jefferson was involved in financial difficulties
in his old age, the citizens of his own State, unlike many elsewhere,
did not offer him the slightest aid.
Europe, in the early days of our country, was filled with restraints and
barriers. Jefferson felt that the America of his day offered a unique
opportunity in the annals of mankind to try out the great experiment of
self-government on an unprecedented scale. His Americanism, written in
part into the Declaration of Independence, which he preached throughout
life by word and act, grew out of his personal experience of America
itself. In so far as those qualities of the American people which we
group under the word “Americanism” have been fostered by any one man, in
addition to the natural forces of the American environment, Jefferson is
beyond question that man.
The struggle going on almost everywhere today, in our own country no
less than in some of those others which have already lost their
liberties, is the struggle between the conception of a strong
centralized state controlling the lives of the citizens for the sake of
economics and national power, and the conception of personal liberty
affording the greatest possible scope for the individual to live his
life as he wills. The old questions which Jefferson and Hamilton fought
over were who is to rule, why are they to rule, what is the object of
their rule? These are now being fought out again, as they always have
been, but with increasing bitterness among vast masses of populations.
That is why both men are living today and why it is worth while to
consider again the life particularly of the one who laid more stress
upon freedom and toleration for the individual than on the strength of
national power.
JAMES TRUSLOW ADAMS
_from “The Living Jefferson,” 1936_
[Illustration: {Thomas Jefferson}]
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Carlyle once said to Holman Hunt: “I’m only a poor man, but I would give
one third of what I possess for a veritable, contemporaneous
representation of Jesus Christ. Had those carvers of marble chiseled a
faithful statue of the Son of Man, as he called himself, and shown us
what manner of man he was like, what his height, what his build, and
what the features of his sorrow-marked face were, I for one would have
thanked the sculptor with all the gratitude of my heart for that
portrait as one of the most precious heirlooms of the ages.”
Remarkable as it may seem, were it not for photography and one life
mask, this, with equal truth, might be said of a man who, as the ages
run, has hardly gone from among us.
Lincoln, one of the greatest of observers, was himself the least truly
observed. God had built him in the backyard of the nation and there,
wrapped in homely guise, had preserved and matured his pure humanity. He
was heard, but seems rarely, if ever, to have been truly seen. The
reports we have of him do not satisfy, do not justify, are inconsistent.
The eastern, old-world eye could not read beyond the queer hat, bad
tailoring, and boots you could not now give away—and he was so long he
fairly had to stoop to look the little world in the face. Never has bad
tailoring, homely, deferential manner, so completely hidden seer,
jester, master of men, as did these simple accoutrements this first
great gift of the West. But it is surprising that professional
observers, artists and writers alike, have drawn and redrawn the untrue
picture.
A great portrait is always full of compelling presence, more even than
is seen in the original at all times, for a great portrait depicts great
moments and carries the record of the whole man. It is, therefore, not
enough to draw a mask.
Lincoln is a comfort and a reality, an example, a living inspiration to
every mother and every son in America. No mask will satisfy _us_; we
want to see what we care for; we want to feel the private conscience
that became public conduct. We love this man, because he was all in all
one of us and made all the world peers. Now we begin to see him truly.
Within his coming the West has steadily rolled back the East, and of his
ways the world has many. The silk hat, the tall figure, the swing, the
language and manner have become American, and we all understand.
Official Washington was shocked by his address. Men, who could have
given us master pictures of a master man, remained unconvinced until he
had passed away. The great portrait was never drawn, and now it is too
late; we must wade through mountains of material and by some strange
divination find in fragments the real man, and, patiently, lovingly, yet
justly, piece them all together.
It was speculation of this kind that gradually led me to a careful
analysis of Lincoln the man. The _accepted_ portraits of him do not
justify his record. His life, his labors, his writings, made me feel
some gross injustice had been done him in the blind, careless use of
such phrases as _ungainly_, _uncouth_, _vulgar_, _rude_, which were
commonly applied to him by his contemporaries. These popular
descriptions do not fit the master of polished Douglas—nor the man,
whose intellectual arrogance academic Sumner resented.
I believed the healthy, powerful youth and frontiersman, the lover,
lawyer of spotless record, legislator, the thrice candidate for
President, had been falsely drawn. I believed if properly seen and truly
read, the compelling and enduring greatness of the man would be found
written in his actions, in his figure, in his deportment, in his face,
and that some of this compelling greatness might be gotten into the
stone. To do this, I read all or nearly all he had written, his own
description of himself, the few immediate records of his coming and
going. I then took the life mask, learned it by heart, measured it in
every possible way—for it is infallible—then returned to the habits of
his mind, which his writings gave me, and I recognized that _five_ or
_six_ of the photographs indicated the man.
Whether Lincoln sat or stood, his was the ease of movement of a figure
controlled by direct and natural development, without a hint of
consciousness. Chairs were low for him and so Lincoln seemed when he sat
down to go farther than was quite easy or graceful. His walk was free
and he moved with a long but rather slow swinging stride. His arms hung
free, and he walked with an open hand. He was erect; he did not stoop at
the shoulders. He bent forward, but from the waistline. His face was
large in its simple masses. His head was normal in size; his forehead
high, regular and ideal in shape. His brow bushed and projected like a
cliff. His eyebrows were very strong. His mouth was not coarse or heavy.
His right side was determined, developed, ancient. The left side was
immature, plain—and physically not impressive.
You will find written in his face literally all the complexness of his
nature. We see a dual nature struggling with a dual problem, delivering
a single result—to the whole. He was more deeply rooted in the home
principles that are keeping us together than any man who was ever asked
to make his heart-beat national—too great to become president, except by
some extraordinary combination of circumstances.
GUTZON BORGLUM
[Illustration: {Abraham Lincoln}]
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Fromentin said of Peter Paul Rubens, one of the greatest masters who
ever used brush and paint to interpret human character: “He is
systematic, methodical and stern in the discipline of his private life,
in the ordering of his work, in the regulating of his intelligence, in a
kind of strong and sane wholesomeness of his genius. He is simple,
sincere, a model of loyalty to his friends, in sympathy with every one
of talent, (and) untiring and resourceful in his encouragement of
beginners * * *.” The same might have been said with equal truth and
propriety of Theodore Roosevelt.
Of all the great leaders of this country, he was the most typically
American. The grief and melancholy that seized him following the death
of his first wife drove him into Dakota. Here upon the range he found
surcease from sorrow and sufficient time off from his duties as manager
of his ranch to write about the West. This work won instant recognition
and not only established his place among the literary men of his day but
made him the idol of the Great West. The cowboys with whom he rode the
night herd liked and admired him, and even the roughnecks soon learned
to respect his cool courage and resourcefulness. One encounter with him
did not give encouragement to a second.
But he was more than a frontiersman and writer. He represented all that
was best in the home, in business and in government. He was energetic,
intelligent and purposeful. He had an aim in life and drove hard and
steadily toward his goal. His enemies seldom outmaneuvered him and he
knew how to strike when a bold stroke was required to accomplish a
desired end. His association with men of all types and his keen
observation gave him an insight into men that enabled him to distinguish
quickly and accurately the spurious from the real. Surface indications
or social position had for him little meaning. He would rather associate
with an uneducated but quick-witted cowpuncher than with the dull and
unimaginative. This accounts for his friendship with men and women in
all walks of life. Talent and ability, usefully employed, always had for
him a special appeal but he was bored and annoyed by the pretentious
commonplace.
He was by instinct and inclination a reformer and sought to improve all
that was best in public morals, both spiritually and politically. No man
struggling as mightily as he could escape making mistakes, but he was
great enough to recognize them and fair enough to seek to rectify any
injustice that had resulted. His enthusiasm, zeal and sureness of
himself sometimes led him to pursue hopeless and occasionally
ill-considered causes that he later had reason to regret, but by the
large he was a most useful and inspiring personality.
Two outstanding achievements stand to his credit. One of these was the
building of the Panama Canal, an accomplishment of transcendent
importance to the American people. It is the link that binds the East to
the West by water and has helped to make this country one of the great
commercial and industrial nations of the world. The canal is also of
first importance from the standpoint of national defense and has added
greatly to the mobility and usefulness of our Navy, which has always
been our first line of defense against any possible foreign foe.
The second was the injection of morals into our politics and the
insistence upon the square deal for every American, be he small or
great. It was this characteristic more than any other that endeared him
to the ordinary man and made him one of the most powerful political
figures and one of the greatest moral forces that has taken possession
of the hearts and minds of men in any age. It was not that he was always
right, but men and women clung to him because they felt that he was
right most of the time and was trying to be right all of the time.
As a lone fighter he was without a peer in his day and generation, and
had the impetuosity and zeal required to arouse a mighty following in
any cause which he espoused and upon which he had deep convictions.
Every word that he spoke and every manifestation of his personality left
a profound impression upon all those who came into contact with him
either personally or upon the hustings. Everywhere he was impressive,
persuasive and compelling. While he may never be loved as Lincoln was
loved, or rise to the stature of Washington, his example, fortitude in
adversity, and fight for the betterment of his fellow men will ever be
like a beacon going before to inspire men and women everywhere who are
seeking to make the world a better place in which to live.
It was President Calvin Coolidge who said to Sculptor Gutzon Borglum
that among the immortals to be carved upon Mount Rushmore a place must
be found for Theodore Roosevelt, “because he was the first president to
say to Big Business, ‘thus far you shall go and no farther.’” Washington
is there because he was the trusted leader that made these United States
possible, and was great and strong enough to refuse a crown and lay down
the scepter when his work was done. Jefferson stands at his side because
of his contribution to the rights of man as set forth in the bill of
rights; Abraham Lincoln because he saved the Union from division by his
own martyrdom and his infinite compassion for those who suffered, and
Theodore Roosevelt because he was the greatest moral force for clean
government and the square deal of modern times.
WILLIAM WILLIAMSON
[Illustration: {Theodore Roosevelt}]
AS GREAT MEN SAW IT
[Illustration: {Calvin Coolidge}]
Excerpts from speeches at dedicatory and unveiling ceremonies or
comments made during personal visits to the Memorial.
President Calvin Coolidge (Consecration Ceremony, August 10, 1927)
“We have come here to dedicate a corner stone that was laid by the hand
of the Almighty.... This memorial will be another national shrine to
which future generations will repair to declare their continuing
allegiance to independence, to self government, to freedom and to
economic justice....”
President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Jefferson Unveiling)
“An inspiration for the continuance of the democratic republican form of
government, not only in our own beloved country, but, we hope,
throughout the world.”
Lord Halifax (Visiting the Black Hills, March 29, 1946)
“The most remarkable confluence of the wonder of nature and the art of
man I have ever witnessed.”
Judge Albert R. Denu (Borglum Banquet, December 28, 1938)
“The historian of the future ... will record America’s enduring
achievements and include in his history the name of a Master Sculptor,
whom the earth’s inhabitants of the twentieth century knew as Gutzon
Borglum.”
[Illustration: {Franklin D. Roosevelt}]
_Photograph Credits: Bell Studios, Lincoln Borglum, Charles d’Emery,
Verne’s Photo Shop, Publishers’ Photo Service, Inc., Wyoming Department
of Commerce & Industry, and Rise Studio._
MOUNT RUSHMORE NATIONAL MEMORIAL SOCIETY OF BLACK HILLS
[Illustration: John A. Boland, Sr.
_President of Mount Rushmore National Memorial Society of Black
Hills_]
The state of South Dakota and the community of the Black Hills have
logically and with undiminished zeal accepted a considerable financial
and moral responsibility in the evolution of this magnificent Shrine of
Democracy.
Through the successive stages of locating, planning, sculptoring,
improving and publicizing Mount Rushmore, a liaison with Sculptor Gutzon
Borglum and his son, Lincoln, the President, the Congress and the
Department of Interior has been maintained through the instrumentalities
of three nonprofit organizations.
The Mount Harney Memorial Association was first authorized to “carve a
memorial in heroic figures” under an act of Congress, approved by
President Coolidge on March 4, 1925. Brought into being through a bill
passed by the South Dakota Legislature, the Association entered into a
formal contract with Gutzon Borglum and work was commenced in 1927.
Subsequently in 1929, when Federal funds were appropriated for matching
purposes, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission was created,
consisting of twelve members to be named by the President.
Appointed by President Coolidge to serve on the commission were John A.
Boland, Rapid City, S. D.; Charles R. Crane, New York, N. Y.; Joseph S.
Cullinan, Houston, Texas; C. M. Day, Sioux Falls, S. D.; D. B. Gurney,
Yankton, S. D.; Hale Holden, Chicago; Frank O. Lowden, Oregon, Ill.;
Julius Rosenwald, Chicago; Fred W. Sargent, Evanston, Ill. and Mrs.
Lorine Jones Spoonts, Corpus Christi, Texas.
Mr. Cullinan became the Commission’s first president and Mr. Boland was
named chairman of the executive committee at a session in the White
House, where it met upon invitation of the President on June 6, 1929.
It was the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Commission which assumed
financial responsibility for the Memorial, taking over all property and
contracts from the Mount Harney Association, employing the services of a
staff for the sculptor and disbursing federal and privately-solicited
funds during the course of construction.
It was also the parent organization for the present Mount Rushmore
National Memorial Society of Black Hills, incorporated under the laws of
the District of Columbia in 1930. And while the Society’s objectives
were identical with those of the Commission, it had additional
authority, including the sale of memberships, management of concessions
and the use of available funds for advertising and publicity.
A long list of “Who’s Who” in America and South Dakota have been
recorded in the annals and on the membership roll of the Mount Rushmore
Society. Membership certificate No. 1 is held by John Hays Hammond,
world famed mining engineer, lecturer, consultant of Cecil Rhodes and
active in the development of hydro-electric and irrigation projects.
Number two belongs to Newton D. Baker, Secretary of War under President
Wilson and a one-time member of the Permanent Court of International
Justice at The Hague.
Other original members, some of whose heirs hold the certificates, are
John N. Garner, vice president of the United States; Julius Rosenwald,
American merchant and philanthropist; Sewell L. Avery, chain store
magnate; Mary Garden, American operatic soprano; Walter Dill Scot,
author and president of Northwestern University; Nicholas Murray Butler,
president of Columbia University and Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1931,
and Vilhjalmur Stefanson, Arctic Explorer, to mention a few.
The Society’s Board of Trustees presently is composed of Paul E.
Bellamy, John A. Boland, Mrs. Gutzon Borglum, Lincoln Borglum, Francis
Case, Fred C. Christopherson, Miss Nina Cullinan, George E. Flavin, Mrs.
William Fowden, Mrs. Peter Norbeck, Robert E. Driscoll, Sr., Eugene C.
Eppley, Mrs. Frank M. Lewis and William Williamson. Walter H. Johnson is
treasurer and K. F. Olsen secretary. The Commission is not active at
this time.
Originally a portion of the Federal Game Sanctuary in the Harney
National Forest, the 1,686-acre tract that comprises the Mount Rushmore
National Memorial was established in 1929 but did not come under the
National Park Service jurisdiction until 1939.
During the interim, the South Dakota State Highway Commission
constructed the present Memorial Highway from its junction with U. S.
Highway 16. It also built the Iron Mountain Drive with the three tunnels
that frame the Shrine of Democracy. The planning and intricate
engineering skill that went into building the Iron Mountain Highway was
extremely ingenious in itself.
Transcriber’s Notes
—Silently corrected a few typos.
—Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook
is public-domain in the country of publication.
—In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
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