Part 3

“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.

“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....

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_

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

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.