CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

_AND SO FORWARD_

Texas owed something to Gutzon for the suggestion of the Four-City Centennial celebration of 1936. This hundredth year that Texas had been independent of Mexican rule had to be something unique. The sculptor wrote a letter about his idea to Jesse Jones, the managing director, stating that the great fair should begin in San Antonio, the ancient Mexican capital, then proceed to Dallas and Fort Worth and end in Houston. He outlined the historical features of these cities, listed their natural advantages as exhibition towns and finished with an unusual thought: “These cities will draw enormous income from the tourist travel that the centennial will surely set in motion. For that reason all exhibition buildings should be made permanent in character, thus saving what might otherwise be considered an enormous total loss.”

But though many of his suggestions were carried out, and though an art committee from each of the four cities consulted him, not one of the more than forty monuments they built was his design. The explanation is that each committee was hidebound by the idea of a competition with prizes, and Gutzon would have none of that.

He worked hard for the beautification of roads in that part of Texas where the greenery gives way to the desert. He was appointed chairman of an advisory committee to supervise the spending of the W.P.A. and the Federal Highway Department funds. But local rivalries kept many a town out of funds, and the Federal Highway Department’s $5,000,000, allotted for _road beautification_ in Texas, was demanded by an influential highway engineer who outweighed Gutzon. All road funds, he declared, must be under the State Highway Department’s control; and to this simple proposition the federal government would not agree. So Texas got little, and the beautification of Texas roads was left to Texas.

Looking back over the record of those years, one can’t but figure them the most disheartening in all of Borglum’s life. The sculptor himself hadn’t changed much--except for the better. He was still motivated by his love for the big things--for the projects that would give more joy, more comfort or more safety to humankind. But somehow none of the plans was working out well.

Stone Mountain, as he must have known in his heart, was finished. The head of Lee would presently be an outrageous blot on a tall cliff. He had had no part in the Texas Four-City Centennial celebration; he had been thrust out of any plans to beautify Texas highways. He had been thwarted in his effort to provide a sea-front development and bridge for Corpus Christi. He had lost the job of designing the San Antonio open-air theater, which he would have enjoyed doing. Five times in a row he had put out his best effort and finished nowhere.

He might have been saved a lot of trouble had he known that few outsiders ever succeed in getting anything out of the preserves of Texas politicians--especially those busy keeping happy a Texas tenor. But those who knew him in San Antonio say that he showed no consciousness of his reverses. He was gracious to the people he thought deserved his kind words. He blasted the louts that he thought needed blasting. And on the whole all went well. He continued to be Gutzon Borglum.

His art work was by no means neglected because of his apparent absorption in civic improvements and expositions and music festivals. Nor had ill repute deriving from the Stone Mountain Association’s adverse publicity given him any lack of employment. He had not quite finished the Trail Drivers’ memorial when he was given a commission for the memorial to Alexander Stephens. The armchair in which Stephens is seated was made in the San Antonio studio and cut out of marble at a local stoneyard. The marble was the gift of the Georgia Marble Company at Marietta.

The place of this model in the studio was immediately taken by a memorial to General John Greenway, of Rough Rider and earlier Yale football fame. He was a resident of Arizona, engaged in copper mining when the First World War broke out. Though past the age limit, he bought a uniform and, with the aid of Washington friends, got into the army.

His widow, Isabella Greenway, one of the most distinguished women in the country, came to the Stamford studio, bringing with her a request for the statue by the state of Arizona. Greenway had been honored as a favorite son and chosen for a place in Statuary Hall, Washington.

Unfortunately Gutzon Borglum was in Texas. Telegrams were exchanged, and he met Mrs. Greenway in 1928--at the Democratic National Convention in Houston. Mrs. Greenway brought to the San Antonio studio not only photographs of her husband but some of his clothes and favorite gear. She knew, the sculptor said, more about her husband’s appearance and characteristics than any person he had ever met who tried to tell him what he wanted to know of a departed hero--and must know if he were to complete a perfect likeness.

The bronze statue was unveiled in Washington in 1930, and Mrs. Greenway ordered a replica to be placed in Arizona. The friendship between her and the sculptor which began at first sight was without a flaw during their lifetime.

From the state of North Carolina, meanwhile, came a commission for a bronze group in memory of Carolina soldiers who led the immortal Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg, a dramatic climax that marked the high tide of the Confederacy and from which Lee’s army reeled back in defeat, never to attempt another invasion of the North. The sculptor had submitted a small-scale model of the group, made in his Breckenridge Park studio at San Antonio in 1928. This was accepted and he was busy with an improved large-scale model when the same wearisome correspondence began, caused by some misunderstanding of the artist’s habit of developing, that is, bettering, the original plan.

Here, for example, is a letter from Mr. Barringer, a member of the memorial committee, written to another member, Mr. Fuller, after seeing photographs of the large-scale model and noting with anxiety that changes had been made from the original. He said:

It is out of the question for me to go to San Antonio to examine the model. I am perfectly willing, however, to abide by your judgment. I confess to being somewhat disappointed, particularly in the expressions of the faces. They do not give promise of being as good as those on the smaller model. Moreover, I cannot help agreeing with the governor that the model does not seem to be completely finished.

If Borglum will put his best into this monument, as we have the right to believe he will do, it will be a great monument. I feel sure of that. Such is my confidence in Borglum I know that if he can make a good small model, he can also make a good large one.

To the sculptor this same Mr. Barringer made the following interesting comment about facial expressions:

It was Darwin, I think, who pointed out that the sneer originated in an unconscious effort to uncover the canine or fighting tooth. Most men, when very angry or about to go into a fight, have a sneering expression. I have seen somewhere the expression “a snarling grin,” which conveys the idea very well. Might it not be well to put on one of your faces this “snarling grin?” For it is doubtless the characteristic of many men when they are charging the enemy.

Gutzon was quick to welcome any suggestion for improving his work from any interested source. In answer he wrote:

Thank you for your letter just received and also for the suggestion you have made. I not only think it is good, but I have just the man on whose face I would like to put that sinister expression. The man in front must be too thoughtful, too conscious of his danger and too indifferent to it, to have any emotional feelings. He is too determined. The one just back of him, the boy, will express amazement, fear--a little--but surprise and youth more. To the bearded man next to him, the one you thought was crowding him a little too close, I will give an expression of anger and supply the snarling grin. Of course, the boy back of him with the flag is too much occupied with the load he is carrying and too important to be anxious about anything but getting forward.

Because the memorial was to stand on the Gettysburg battlefield, it was highly important to locate it properly in relation to other incidents and heroes of the great battle. A special site committee was appointed, and as its chairman the sculptor had the chief responsibility. On one visit to the field he had the happy fortune to meet Mrs. Elsie Singmaster Lewars, a well-known writer who lived on Seminary Ridge, another famous part of the battleground. She was familiar with the whole historic region, knew its charges and countercharges by heart, and so gave invaluable help in selecting precisely the right site for the memorial.

The unveiling took place July 3, 1929, just sixty-six years after Pickett’s Charge failed to win its objective and the Confederacy was plainly doomed. Governor Gardner of North Carolina presided, and the sculptor’s old friend, former Governor Angus McLean, delivered the principal address.

A special train brought hundreds of North Carolina people to join in the dedication of their memorial. An airplane, engaged by the sculptor, dropped roses over the battleground and dipped its wings in tribute to the honored dead. By that time Gettysburg had become, as it has been ever since, a lure for tourists and sight-seers from every part of our country. Only a year after the unveiling of the Borglum monument C. W. McDevett published in the Raleigh _News and Observer_ a long description of a visit to the battlefield, ending with this tribute:

It may be a quiet day at Gettysburg with only a few hundred visitors scattered through its tens of thousands of acres, while on other days the visitors are numbered by thousands. But the biggest group anywhere, any time, will more than likely be found around North Carolina’s memorial.

That was the case on a day this summer. It was a quiet day, but there were dozens before the five bronze giants, silent dozens, studying the master’s work in reverent admiration. They were from Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Maryland, as their automobile licenses indicated. They murmured praise of the picture in stone and metal. The men doffed their hats unconsciously. All gazed into those faces of bronze--faces that seemed filled with life--and paid tribute to the likenesses of men--strong, purposeful, clean-limbed, clean-minded men--who had been their fathers’ and their grandfathers’ foes. Borglum had imagined them worthy foemen, indeed, and his genius had made his hands the servant of his thoughts. Borglum carves mountains into battle panoramas. Borglum will never carve anything to equal his Tar Heel heroes at Gettysburg.

A year before the Gettysburg memorial was dedicated, a foreign-looking letter, postmarked Morges, Switzerland, came to Gutzon at San Antonio. As he was away at the time and it was Mrs. Borglum’s job to oversee his vast correspondence, she opened this letter with some curiosity. She uncovered a six-page autograph beginning, “My great, good friend,” and signed, “Affectionately, gratefully and devotedly yours, I. J. Paderewski.”

The gist of the letter was that Paderewski’s compatriots desired to erect a monument “to the memory of Poland’s most generous benefactor, President Wilson”; that a competition had been staged; that the first prize had been awarded; that the prize winner’s model was “horrible”; and that, in despair of getting a satisfactory design at home, the committee had left the decision to the writer. The letter concluded: “My decision is that the statue of that great American should be done only by the greatest American artist, by the greatest living sculptor in the whole world.”

By way of explaining Paderewski’s greeting and highly emotional signature, one should remember how close the two artists had become in their efforts to promote an association of mid-European republics.

Gutzon had been present when the representatives of these states had met in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Paderewski was the first speaker at this convention, and in the few minutes of his oratory he was transformed from a civilian pianist into a soaring apostle of freedom. Professor Masaryk, who followed him with what was expected to be the key speech, could barely speak at all. He threw away his prepared address because, he said, Paderewski had said it all and said it better. “I have never listened to such an inspired speech,” he said in conclusion. “I can give no explanation other than that Ignace Jan Paderewski is an artist.”

Paderewski’s letter to Gutzon in San Antonio begged an immediate answer by cable, inasmuch as it was hoped to have the memorial unveiled on Wilson’s birthday the next year. Gutzon was in Georgia on another of his futile attempts to revive the Confederate memorial; so his wife sent him a telegram in care of the Venables:

SIX PAGE LETTER FROM PADEREWSKI WANTS MEMORIAL TO PRESIDENT WILSON BY QUOTE THE GREATEST SCULPTOR IN THE WHOLE WORLD END QUOTE. CAN YOU GUESS WHO? WANTS CABLE ANSWER.

The avowal of confidence by Paderewski, even more than his offer of the commission, was something that Gutzon appreciated. His answer was eager and quick:

MRS. MASON GAVE ME YOUR MESSAGE. SEND PADEREWSKI AT ONCE BY CABLE QUOTE AM DELIGHTED TO ACCEPT DOUBLE HONOR FOR YOURSELF AND WOODROW WILSON. TIME AMPLE IF WE ACT SOON. MEANS ALSO AMPLE FOR BEAUTIFUL MEMORIAL UNQUOTE. LOVE TO YOU ALL.

Paderewski’s response, grateful and sympathetic, settled the matter of the Wilson statue in a few days. Because of the early date set for the unveiling, the sculptor should first have gone to Europe to confer with the committee and to study the proposed location of the memorial. But the work on Mount Rushmore was getting critical and it was impossible for him to leave. He decided to send his son Lincoln to Europe to arrange for the casting of the bronze in Paris, Florence or Naples, and then to confer with Paderewski at his home in Morges, Switzerland.

Lincoln, accompanied by his mother, went immediately.