And then the misfortune that had dogged the sculptor if ever he went into a business deal was again at his heels. He had an Italian friend in the United States who said he was going abroad and for the honor of being a part of so noble a work would gladly make all the business arrangements with the Vignali firm. Into the contract the friend inserted two wholly unexpected clauses—that the sculptor was to be penalized for every day’s delay in getting the plaster casts to Florence, and that the friend was to receive a ten-per-cent commission on such a penalty as well as on the contract with the sculptor himself. It was later learned that the friend sued Vignali for refusing to inflict the penalty on the sculptor. Vignali, being familiar with the optimism of art, had never expected Gutzon to deliver the models on time.
There was a weary imbroglio. The sculptor sent his assistant, Hugo Villa, to superintend the whole bronze-casting business. Hugo reported in 1925 that the first group of figures which had been shipped in 1922 were only partly cast; that later groups to arrive had been cast and were scattered all over the foundry; that the contract made by the sculptor’s friend was a pretty bad one.
In Newark, meanwhile, all the burden of explanation fell upon Ralph Lum, a man of exemplary patience, who was being constantly asked by artists, reporters and expectant citizens what had become of the memorial. In answer to one of his many letters Gutzon wrote in 1922:
The new studio I had to improvise for this memorial has been a great physical burden, while the sheer labor of creating such a group has been terrible. However, that is all overcome now, and I have simply to take up figure by figure and group by group, with some concentrated work of course, but it will be like revamping a manuscript you have written.
Now about finishing the group of horses by the first of this month, as you hope. This is quite possible in point of time and labor, but it would be bad and harmful. You will be surprised to hear me say I’m a little sorry the main figures are gone to be cast so I cannot work more on them. I do not need to tell you I shall do nothing that will hurt the final result, but I ought to say that I work so rapidly no allowance is made for my slowing up. This work is a colossal undertaking. A true, clear perspective of it as a whole must be maintained throughout its making. Handling a mountain of material is of itself a man’s job continuously. For that I calculated, but the housing and the danger of freezing and the responsibility of caring for so much I did not consider as I now would.
If a sculptor should undertake to do one figure a month, complete—twelve figures a year—it would be undertaking the unheard of in art. Yet as the work stands today, I’ve done much more than that. In the next sixty days I shall have done nineteen human figures and two horses. I have spent at least half my working time, by necessity, to properly house and protect the work. These nineteen or twenty figures are all separate and amount to about two thirds of the whole. I don’t believe anything like it was ever done before. I certainly could not repeat it and should not want to. As to its value, you know better than anyone else that the group is worth half a million if it is worth a cent.
In a previous letter the sculptor had written in a different mood: “The work is going splendidly, but I am terribly tired—more constantly tired than at any time in my life—and it’s not because I have reached the age of one hundred.” Answering both letters, Mr. Lum wrote:
I can realize, as you know, better than anyone else all that you say, except the single fact of your having grown so terrifically fatigued by the labor of our great work. I can’t think of you as tired. Somehow I don’t associate it with you. Can’t you just go away from it all for a week or two and then get the labor of the rear group out of the way and get it shipped and boxed? I am leaving for abroad next week, and of course I realize now that we can’t possibly unveil this fall. But I know I will have to move out of town if everything isn’t in readiness by early spring. That you should have a million dollars and ten years’ time for this work I know full well.
Gutzon was still at his wit’s end. The first group of four figures had not been shipped until September 1922, and by contract all the forty-two figures in eight groups were to be returned before the end of December. There had been delays in getting clay into wax, delays which eventually made the unveiling four years late. For these delays the dimensions of the group and the sculptor’s determination that only his best work should be fixed in bronze were responsible.
The Stone Mountain project, started in 1915 before the Wars of America project had been authorized, had now been suddenly revived and the sponsors were demanding Gutzon’s return to Atlanta. Still the sculptor’s work was virtually done when again, as the Italians say, “The devil put his tail in the business.” The total expense of shipping the crates of plaster casts to Florence had been about $2,000, as done by an American shipper, Caldwell and Company. Now came a bill for twice that amount for returning bronzes which occupied less space. The shipment was handled by an Italian who added extra fees for trucking from Florence to Leghorn and “deck charges.” Finally there was a peremptory demand from Gutzon’s friend for $2,000 as his commission.