Gutzon was not disturbed because many of his commissions came to him through people who knew nothing whatever about sculpture except that it was expensive.
“It’s no matter,” he would say. “If they knew anything about it, they’d probably be calling for somebody else.” Nevertheless, it is true that the commissions came from people and localities as varied as those he had to do with in his own swirling life. There is, for instance, the story of the John Mackay statue in Nevada. It begins with the revival of his boyhood friendship with Bob Davis, and it is typical of how things came to him.
One day in 1908 in some puzzlement he answered a telephone call from Munsey’s Magazine and heard the explosive voice of Editor Bob Davis, a voice he hadn’t heard in nearly twenty years.
“I knew you in Los Angeles—remember?” the editor began. “I have something in your line I want to talk to you about. Can you have lunch with me?”
So they had a reunion at a hotel near the studio and a pleasant meal during which nothing at all was said about sculpture. Gutzon thought that Davis was going to ask him to write an article and had quickly decided to do it. Then suddenly Davis came to his subject:
“Borglum,” he said, “would you like to make a statue of John Mackay?”
“Of course,” Gutzon answered in astonishment. “Who wouldn’t make a statue of a citizen like that?”
“Well,” said Davis, “my brother Sam is in town. The state of Nevada has trusted him with a commission. The state has authorized and voted some money for the statue, but Clarence Mackay has taken over the responsibility of financing it. So if you will take the job——”
“Let us go and see Sam,” Gutzon suggested. The next day, after a meeting with Mackay, he got the commission.
Gutzon was more than ordinarily pleased. He was doing a lot of work but nothing spectacular. He had known of Mackay since boyhood and felt that a statue to him would attract national interest.