“Compared with the setting of the rest of the project,” said Gutzon, “they were ultramodern.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
DEDICATION
One of the favorite jibes of the scoffers who didn’t think the Shrine of Democracy would ever amount to more than a big scar on a hill was that the workmen spent all their time dedicating it Gutzon listened to these charges gravely and without heat. “People like to go to dedications,” he said. “And if you don’t get people out here, nobody is going to know what you’ve got.” In addition to being a top sculptor he was also a good showman.
One remembers that the enterprise had virtually no friends in the summer of 1927—certainly no friends with ready money. The citizenry knew about it. That is to say, the citizenry of the Hill towns knew about it. They had heard it was buried somewhere out in the bosque near Keystone. Gutzon Borglum and a couple of aides went up there each day on rented horses and surveyed and measured. In Keystone Gutzon talked with representatives of the power company and salesmen from machinery companies. But certainly nobody was cutting any rock off the surface of Mount Rushmore.
And then, in one of the most fantastic journeys that the history of the Presidents records, Calvin Coolidge came out to look at the West. The White House Correspondents’ Corps has never reached a decision about why Coolidge chose the Black Hills for his vacation that year. He caught trout with bait. Somebody should have advised him not to put on Sioux eagle feathers. He played a weird game of golf on a private course that was nearly vertical. And the best thought of the Washington press on the subject was that he was just a New Englander who had learned how to be a tourist. Now it is permitted to wonder.
Coolidge came out to the Game Lodge, thirty miles southwest of Rapid City, chiefly because Peter Norbeck suggested it and carefully laid the way for him. Norbeck was one of two South Dakotans who was really enthusiastic about making the Harney Peak region an object of national interest. Norbeck and Gutzon were friends who believed in each other’s magic, and Gutzon was a friend of Calvin Coolidge. You may make out of these premises anything you like. But there isn’t any doubt that the carving of Rushmore ceased to be idle conversation when the President arrived and slogged three miles up the hill through the dust to raise his hand and give the project its sacred quality.
The President was rolled out over a new road from Rapid City to the Game Lodge, a hostelry on Squaw Creek, handed a fishing rod and assigned to a preserve that had been packed with specimens from the state hatchery. Indian chiefs came and made obeisance. The grumbling correspondents installed themselves in Rapid City. Then, on the second day, Gutzon Borglum paid his respects to the distinguished visitor. He hired an airplane—which nobody else had thought of—and flew over the Game Lodge to drop a huge bouquet of mountain flowers on Mrs. Coolidge’s lawn.
The next day he arrived more formally at the President’s picnic plot to arrange, as he afterward reported, “a visit of dedication to Mount Rushmore.” And it is significant that the interview seems to have been previously arranged and the subject of the discussion well understood. Nobody was surprised when the date for the dedication was set—August 10, 1927. By that time everybody near enough to see was convinced that the President was just doing the things he had his heart set on. Recalling his interview with President Coolidge, Gutzon wrote:
It was a fine interview. Coolidge was a silent man. But he always talked with me—fishing, politics, even a little about art. He was happy he had come to the Black Hills for his summer outing. He said they reminded him of the Vermont mountains.
When the day arrived for the dedication we drove up as far as we could and walked the rest of the way. The President was mounted on a safe horse, led by an orderly on each side on foot, until we reached the cabin I had taken over as a studio. It was about 1,500 feet from the cliff.