Give the man room

by Robert J. Casey; Mary Montgomery Borglum

The defensive character of American wars is suggested in the first part of the work, consisting of a group of four figures. I have drawn the figures of men who will resist anything they think unjust. I have clothed these men in the uniforms of three wars, over a century apart, and strangely enough there is no incongruity of effect.

Although these figures represent mass resistance in the Colonial and Civil War and World War periods, only one man in the group has drawn a weapon. I have shown here four men who form the front and bulwark of a group of forty-odd characters, representing an entire nation mobilizing under pressure of war, and only one man among them displays an implement that could injure another. I have chosen the sword because it is symbolic of authority.

Immediately back of this group I have represented the only organized mass action indicating battle. There are five or six figures, infantry and marines, charging forward with their rifles, six guns in the hands of as many men, and they represent the entire armament of this national monument.

Just at this point, as an allegro of the symphony, I have introduced the two horses to accent the power and movement of an irresistible forward plunge, with plain indication of the loss of control that always appears under great stress. In these horses I have shown a different character to indicate their separate response to the movement.

From this point backward the composition indicates organization, preparedness, equipment and such confusion as extends behind the battle line to the recruiting source and into the home, indicating, I feel, that America’s battles are all for the defense of her homes.

Nine different models were made, and the development of the composition covered considerably over two years of time. The entire composition was modeled full size, as it appears in bronze, without having been “pointed out” as is usually the custom. About forty tons of clay were used. Every bit of it was handled four or five times. The large group itself required about three years of incessant labor.

The characters of the group are known people of our time. They are portraits which it is not necessary to indicate. For example, the aviator was a personal friend of mine, John Purroy Mitchell, former mayor of New York, whom I included because of his patriotism and because he, like so many other gallant airmen, was a sacrifice, I have been told, not to battle but to criminal mismanagement behind the battle line.

This group in bronze is the first accomplished part of a plan I have had in mind for over thirty years—to develop monumental art into a living, active, historical record of moods, lives and characters of the men and women who are responsible for our national development.

In the enlargement of the idea and the making of various models Ralph Lum, whom the sculptor had come to know in the making of the Lincoln memorial, played an important part. The mutual trust and regard established between the lawyer and the sculptor was a dominating factor in producing the memorial. Such a relationship between sponsor and creator is unique in the annals of public memorials in America. A like relationship is not a matter of record anywhere else unless, perhaps, between Pericles and Phidias.

On February 11, 1921, ten years after the completion of the Newark Lincoln memorial, Mr. Lum, acting for the three executors, awarded the commission to Gutzon Borglum and authorized him to go to work. When photographs of the model were published wagers were laid among artists that it would be impossible for any sculptor to keep his creative impulse fixed on one subject long enough to produce an art work of such proportions. They did not know that monotony or dulled interest was an impossibility to an artist who regarded variety not as the spice of life but as its bread and butter. Always he had two or three productions on hand as well as an enormous correspondence, a lecture to art students, a promised magazine article and a political campaign in which a “progressive” candidate must be elected lest the heavens fall.