CHAPTER THIRTEEN

_AND DR. TRUDEAU_

Three works that Gutzon Borglum completed around 1915 had nothing at all to do with war or politics. One was a tablet with a bas-relief sketch in honor of Robert Louis Stevenson, the second a touching memorial to Governor Altgeld of Illinois, and the third a simple and beautiful memorial to “The Beloved Physician,” Dr. Edward Livingston Trudeau. The three are linked intangibly through the same fine quality of emotions that brought them into existence. The subjects of all three accomplished much in the world and were well loved.

Once in Stevenson’s wanderings as a consumptive vainly questing health he stayed for a year at Lake Saranac in the Adirondacks in the care of the not-so-well-known Dr. Trudeau. Trudeau, also tubercular, had cured others but had started too late to cure himself. He was the central character of Stephen Chalmers’ engaging book _The Beloved Physician_.

The idea of a memorial to Stevenson originated with Mr. Chalmers and was brought to the sculptor’s attention by his friend Bob Davis. Gutzon was busy at the time working on two monuments in the South, and Davis caught up with him in Grand Central Station as he was boarding a train for Chicago. His interest was aroused, and from the train he wrote to Davis to say he would be delighted to do anything “to promote attention to this kind of men of genius.” He further offered to make the bronze tablet, bas-relief of Stevenson and an inscription to be decided on by the committee for just what it would cost--somewhere around $200. The tablet would be placed on the cottage in Saranac where Stevenson had lived.

It was September 1915 before the sculptor could find time for a day at Saranac, where he looked over the ground, listened to all that was told him about Stevenson, was taken to see Dr. Trudeau and returned to New York on the night train. The work was finished and ready for unveiling in October of the same year, as the committee had hoped, “because it was the gorgeous month of the year.” The only sad note was that Dr. Trudeau was not well enough to take a prominent part in the proceedings. He died the following month.

On receiving the preliminary photographs of the tablet, Mr. Chalmers wrote to Borglum:

I congratulate you on the tablet. You have done something in that bas-relief that Saint-Gaudens didn’t do. You have brought out the spirit of the sick man who didn’t believe in lying in bed, and the little uplift of his head is a perfect expression of “Come!” said I to my engine, “let’s work anyway!” This thing requires no study. It hits you between the eyes first glance. I showed it to Mrs. Baker, who owned the cottage where the Stevensons lived, and the best compliment from that old lady is this: “Yes, it’s just the way he looked when he was here.”

A few months later Lord Guthrie, acknowledged leader of the Stevenson cult in Scotland, wrote:

Gutzon Borglum the sculptor, in his Saranac memorial bas-relief, has got beneath the surface and behind the mask as Saint-Gaudens, fine as his bas-relief is as a work of art, never did. I liked the first sight of Borglum’s work, and it grows on me. It has charm, it has strength, and it has pathos. It is the invalid, but the invalid who can say, “O Pain, where is thy victory?” It is the fascinating personality of a man of genius who, with all his gaiety of manner, was yet, in the matter of essential principle, like flint.

Hundreds of people whom Dr. Trudeau had cured were anxious to erect a memorial to him, but were too poor to contribute substantial sums. They appealed to Gutzon, who again responded generously. He was deeply impressed by Dr. Trudeau’s self-sacrificing work and by the devotion of the afflicted ones he sought to heal. He agreed to put up a bronze-and-marble memorial for the cost of materials--about $7,500. After studying the matter for some weeks he made a life-size clay model of the beloved physician seated out of doors, a rug over his knees, and invited the committee to come to his studio and pass on it. Mr. Chalmers wrote in the Saranac _News_:

By the end of the day something little short of miraculous had taken place, the sort of thing that may be called a miracle of genius. Before the figure was again shrouded in the wet clothes that keep the clay from cracking, it had become to us not a conventional photograph image but “The Beloved Physician” himself.

“Well,” said the sculptor, stepping back with a smile, “are you satisfied?”

“Yes,” said his visitor, but with hesitation.

“I know what you miss,” said Mr. Borglum. “It’s the artificial something you used to consider Dr. Trudeau’s expression.” As he spoke he was modeling a small piece of clay in his hands. Presently he placed over the strained eyes of the face the frame of a pince-nez. And at that instant the illusion was miraculously complete. It was as if the doctor would presently lean forward and say: “Have you read Osler’s _Redemption of Man_? No? Oh, you must, you must!”

The figure was complete and ready for casting by the end of May 1917, but there were delays caused by the sculptor’s enforced absence on other work and the beginning of the aircraft

[Illustration:

_Courtesy of Lillian Taylor_

STONE MOUNTAIN, SHOWING SUPERIMPOSED CARVING OF CENTRAL GROUP]

[Illustration: NORTH CAROLINA MEMORIAL AT GETTYSBURG]

investigation. Also there were vexatious problems of cutting, setting and preparing the site for the statue. All these were generously solved by Doctors Walter James and Lawrenson Brown and others of Trudeau’s physician friends. Eventually the memorial was unveiled in August 1918. On the marble was carved Dr. Trudeau’s favorite quotation:

_Guerir quelquefois, soulager souvent, consoler toujours._ (Heal sometimes, soothe often, comfort always.)

Carl Snyder, the writer, at that time connected with _Harper’s_, after driving to Saranac to examine the statue wrote this friendly word to the sculptor:

May I tell you that I have never seen a portrait that impressed me so deeply. This was equally true of my wife. She and I agreed that we never had seen a piece of sculpture that seemed so alive. It seems to tell the whole life story of an extraordinary man. And I am told you only saw him once!

Man! Man! Man! With the genius to do magnificent things like this, to create and to embody the living likeness of a great man, why, why, why do you waste your precious time on anything else?

One answer to the query, which he was often heard to give, was that he was never given half the work that he was capable of and wanted to do. In quick succession members of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn wanted a monument to Henry Ward Beecher, the famous pulpit orator; the Wheeler family in Bridgeport wanted a memorial fountain in honor of the inventor of the sewing machine. For St. John’s Church, near by, he was asked to make a reredos back of the altar. From North Carolina came a call from the Daughters of the Confederacy to build a memorial to Henry Wyatt, the first Southern soldier killed in the War between the States. From England came a committee to join with Americans to plan monuments along the border between the United States and Canada to celebrate the hundred years of peace between the two nations.

All these were not enough to keep him busy. He wrote an incredible number of letters to committees that were planning public monuments, but he got very few commissions that way. Most of his jobs came through friends or others who had seen his work and liked it. Every commission brought a different set of characters and circumstances with it and threw different side lights on the sculptor’s personality. His commission to build a memorial to Altgeld in Chicago was due to the crusading spirit which had made him widely known as a champion of democracy in art as well as in politics.

Governor Altgeld of Illinois had become widely and unfavorably known as “the governor who pardoned the Haymarket rioters” after they had been tried and condemned as bomb throwers. Such was his reputation for a long time, during which he remained silent. Then an unbiased study of his career brought about a reversal of public opinion. It was presented that he was wholly unselfish; that his life motive had been to help the underprivileged; that, in the words of the poet Vachel Lindsay, “He set himself tasks which took a lion’s courage and a martyr’s heart,” and that to carry out his purpose “He threw his reputation and his health into the furnace every hour.”

So it happened in 1913, eleven years after Altgeld’s death, the Illinois legislature appropriated $25,000 for an Altgeld monument. A committee of five was appointed, including Louis F. Post of the Department of Labor, with instructions to select a sculptor after a public competition. Two competitions were held, bringing over thirty models, none satisfactory. In a letter to the committee the landscape artist, Walter B. Griffin, wrote:

This particular task should be committed to a sculptor who has attained in his art that fundamental character, the American ideal, which Altgeld served in his own field and exemplified in his career. There appears to be in our time at least one sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, who is recognized as bearing to the plastic arts a relation like Whitman’s to literature. It would be a pity not to avail ourselves of the opportunity to bring together such a man and the work he is so eminently fitted for.

Following this suggestion the committee awarded the commission to Gutzon, who received it with intense satisfaction as a recognition of what he stood for in public life as well as a testimonial to his ability as an artist. When the news came out the Chicago _Tribune_ published this comment:

A powerful illustration of how not to do it is the history of the competition for the Altgeld monument. The commission has now been awarded to Gutzon Borglum without his being required to furnish any preliminary sketch, design or idea. That is, the committee has done what it should have done in the first place--selected a sculptor and left him free to do the work.

General competitions are so unjust to the competitors and so unproductive of good results as to be forbidden by the American Institute of Architects. The best architects never enter them, and the better sculptors have learned to follow their example.

When the contract was signed in April 1914 the sculptor began to work on two different models. Before they were done he wrote to his friend Felix Frankfurter saying that he had been reading up on Altgeld’s life and ending his letter with this statement: “That man has become a perfect giant to me. He was a kind of hero when I was a kid, but he lived out his governorship and died before I got back from Europe. So he comes along almost like a new star to me.”

Of the two small models submitted, the one selected by the committee represented Altgeld standing on a slight eminence, his right hand extended as if quelling a disturbance, his left stretched over a man, woman and child beside him. The pedestal was low, so that the governor seemed to be near his audience, his expression was noble, almost defiant in his determination to protect his charges. The committee unanimously accepted the full-size model of this statue except for slight changes which the sculptor approved. The figure was cast in bronze and erected in Lincoln Park for unveiling on Labor Day, 1915.

Then a thing occurred which to the sculptor was incomprehensible. The model had been on exhibition in the Chicago Art Institute for a whole year with no voice raised against it. Then various municipal art commissions suddenly declared they didn’t approve of it and would not permit it to be unveiled. The reason, they said, was that it was not big enough and that the laborer’s family seemed to occupy a servile position. To this the chairman of the purchasing committee, Daniel Cruice, made a quick and indignant reply:

I take exception to the criticisms which have attempted to show an insult to labor. I do not believe that labor is making a fight on the statue. Altgeld’s enemies in life are the enemies of his memory. They do not wish the perpetuation of the principles for which he stood. Consequently they are doing all in their power to destroy any reminder that such a man lived.

When the sculptor declared in characteristic fashion that he forgot more about art overnight than ordinary art commissions learn in a lifetime the Brooklyn _Eagle_, always quick to record a Borglum controversy, declared editorially:

The controversy between Gutzon Borglum and the Municipal Art Commission of Chicago over the statue of the late John P. Altgeld adds to the gaiety of nations. The Art Commission criticizes the conception of the work--Altgeld raising a protecting hand over a man, a woman and a child, typifying the working classes. It likewise objects to the proportions of the Borglum design. And the artist answers in his characteristic temper.

It was the fate of John P. Altgeld to be a storm center in his life. Now he becomes a post-mortem center. Large elements of the Chicago electorate still doubt the historic proportions of the Governor who pardoned the Haymarket bomb men. It is not to be wondered at if the proportions of the Borglum Altgeld annoy them. Nor is it surprising that the design, representing the Governor as the laboring people’s defender, gives offense to them. It is a safe wager that this element in the electorate is represented by the Municipal Art Commission.

The issue is really not an art issue at all. In essence it is historic and political, or rather sociological. Altgeld’s keenness as a thinker and debater no one who ever heard him doubts. That he showed moral courage in that historic pardon, most of his enemies will concede. Our guess is that Borglum will succeed in immortalizing him as the friend of labor, though many obstacles may first have to be overcome.

The surprising denouement was furnished by William H. (Big Bill) Thompson. He was then mayor and had made an appointment to discuss the matter with the Art Commission. They were waiting for him at the Art Institute where his messenger rather bluntly announced to them that the Commission was no longer in existence nor had any authority, its term of office having expired. “The statue looks good to me,” said the mayor, “and the committee doesn’t.”

So the memorial was unveiled as scheduled on Labor Day, 1915, before an immense crowd including thousands of labor-union men and women. Governor Edward F. Dunne presided, and William Jennings Bryan delivered the speech of the day. The sculptor made a puzzled comment:

I have been not a little surprised that in America, the foster mother of mankind, there exist no memorials of consequence dealing with the struggles and pathos of life. It is a matter of amazement and regret that Chicago, a city whose life has been crowned through sacrifice and struggle as it has been sweetened by suffering, should show antagonism to a memorial which develops or suggests a humane situation where one human being befriends another.

There is something stern and vital behind this. But censorship, be it ever so official, will not arrest one beat in the natural heart of mankind, nor stop the natural expression of what is true, of what is good. And that which is true and good is, at least, a full sister of that which is beautiful. Millet’s “Angelus” and his “Man With a Hoe” would be subjects of supreme beauty and pathos in sculpture, admirably composed for public parks. How much more human and akin would be this interpretation of life than the cheap allegories or conventional vagaries which the unthinking call art.

General Daniel Butterfield was a Union hero who distinguished himself at “Little Round Top” in the battle of Gettysburg. His wife outlived him and at her death bequeathed a fortune, part of which she specified should be spent on a monument for her husband. She left instructions for the unknown sculptor who might be chosen by her executors. He was to visit the battlefield, familiarize himself with Little Round Top and, so far as possible, incorporate the contour of that famous site in his design for the monument. He was also to study certain photographs of the general, one of which represented him standing with folded arms and wearing a cocked hat, “as in the bas-relief at Utica.”

In the contract all that was said about the figure was that it was to be over eight feet high, in the dress uniform of a major general, supported by a foundation of natural work representing Round Top. It was specified that the sculptor was to make a model forty inches high and that when that was approved he would proceed with a full-size model “which shall be submitted to the executors for their approval and acceptance and shall be in accordance with the will of Julia L. Butterfield.”

All that appears plain enough, but there was a catch which would presently cause the sculptor no end of tribulation. To him it seemed that in financial reward it was the best commission he had ever received, the only one from which he might expect a reasonable profit. For a single figure, with side panels at the base, he was to receive $54,000, a generous allowance. The chairman of the executive committee, Colonel E. M. Ehlers, a Dane by birth, showed him one photograph of the general in full-dress uniform, arms folded, wearing an imposing military hat with a plume. Another photograph showed him hatless, with his hands at his side. But this, said Colonel Ehlers, should be ignored because Mrs. Butterfield preferred the other.

Following his instructions in good faith the sculptor made a forty-inch model, using the selected photograph as a guide for the pose. One of the executors, Mr. Hagar, criticized the nose and mustache of the model and the sculptor changed these features to his satisfaction. All four executors then approved the model and signed the voucher for the payment due at this stage of the work. When the full-size model was accepted only three executors were present, but again the voucher for payment was signed by all four. The model was then cast in plaster and sent to the Gorham Company to be put into bronze.

Gutzon was delegated to find a place for the memorial, preferably in Central Park, New York City. He was told that the park was out of the question but was offered a site near Riverside Drive, opposite Grant’s Tomb, where the statue was placed in January 1917. The secretary of the executors, Dr. May, in formal acknowledgment that the work was completed, added this friendly, personal word:

I am sure that it will ever remain a monument to your art. Could Mrs. Butterfield see it, it would have her complete approval and gratify her pride in leaving a memorial so creditable to her husband and to the city. It is located, as I can tell you, only a short distance from the home of her birth and girlhood.

And then the unbelievable happened. The three executors with whom most of the sculptor’s contacts had been made all died within a very short time of one another. Everything was left in the hands of the fourth, Albert Hagar, who announced that he had never liked the statue, that the “bas-relief in Utica” mentioned in the will showed the general without a hat, with his arms down, and that he didn’t think the figure was big enough. He wanted the whole thing done over and refused any further payment unless this was done. The worst feature of this arbitrary decision was that many beneficiaries of Mrs. Butterfield’s will could not be paid until the status of the monument was settled. Hagar’s sudden reversal was no doubt sincere but it made inconvenience and trouble for many.

The Gorham Company offered to handle the suit which had to be brought against Hagar. The case dragged into the time when the sculptor had the aircraft investigation on his hands. Meanwhile the contractors who had done the granite work sued Gutzon for the payment of their bill. Gorham had not been paid for the casting, the architects were clamoring for their money and Stamford taxes were in arrears. The suit was carried on at Cold Spring, near Poughkeepsie, so far away that the sculptor lost a whole day every time he appeared as a witness.

Of course the Gorham Company won the suit eventually, but payments were not made until 1920. By that time the sculptor had assigned what little would have been left over for him to other debtors, so it is doubtful if he ever received a penny for all his work on this big contract. It was said by people who should know that some of the Butterfield heirs went to the poorhouse while waiting for their inheritance. Gutzon blamed himself for having accepted the commission in the first place. When later the location of the statue had to be changed on account of the Rockefeller church construction he declared he wouldn’t mind if they dropped it into the Hudson River.

The Vance memorial for North Carolina, of which a copy stands in Statuary Hall in the nation’s capital, was made during this period. It remains where it was put in the first place.