“And why is this?” the sculptor demanded witheringly.
“But, Mr. Borglum,” answered the treasurer, “we just haven’t the money. We’re sure to have it next week.”
Out of nowhere came the plan to persuade the United States to issue fifty-cent pieces carrying the picture of Stone Mountain Memorial to be turned over to the committee for resale at a dollar. This looked like a wonderful solution to all money problems and, to tell the truth, that’s what it was. There was some argument about who had first disclosed the idea. Dave Webb was warmly mentioned by some of those close to the subject. But in the end, Henry Stilwell Edwards got official credit for it and is said to have received $30,000 as a reward from the Stone Mountain Memorial Association. Mr. Edwards was certainly a well-known writer, and even without his fifty-cent-piece idea his support seemed to be worth paying for.
Once the plan had been accepted and Edwards properly acclaimed, there seemed to be some difficulties. It was a difficult matter, some Atlantans pointed out, to ask the government to memorialize the valor of soldiers who had so recently been at war with that government. Nobody on the committee had friends in high places or, for that matter, knew much about where to go for help. Gutzon Borglum had come into the Stone Mountain situation as a sculptor whose almost impossible task was the carving of a granite precipice, but he had friends in Washington from the President down. So the executive committee approached him, and all the labor of fostering the memorial coin fell on his shoulders.
It is common knowledge that many things annoyed Gutzon during his vigorous lifetime and that he spoke of them sometimes loudly and witheringly. A careless hard-rock man on Stone Mountain had once observed of him with reasonable fairness, “He’s a pretty good stonecarver—but he ain’t no sweet talker.” And there had been little cause for him to improve his ways since the committee began to think about finance.
The idea of the resalable half dollar appealed to him. It would get funds—plenty of funds. But, he pointed out, the promotion of it wasn’t his job. And he was cold and hard about it. He would undertake the work, he said, because he was ready to do almost anything to see the monument finished, but he didn’t want to be tripped up every five minutes by petty politics or local interference or advice. He would do the job in his own way, he said, or he would be just as glad not to do it at all. They agreed and he went to Washington.
Borglum wasted no time with professional lobbyists. His first call was on Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, of Boston, cradle of the “damyankees.” Lodge thought the idea was grand and directed Gutzon to take it to Senator Smoot. Senator Smoot was chairman of the finance committee. He was also leader of the Republican party, and the sculptor was a little worried about him. He knew that he wasn’t going to get votes for himself or his party in the South, no matter what he might do, and he must have been aware of possible censure in the North. But Smoot was a showman no less than Borglum.
“It is a noble idea,” he said. “It will be recognized as a gesture of friendship on the part of a victorious government toward its late enemy. I shall be glad to handle it for you.”
Borglum then went to President Calvin Coolidge, and what had looked like an almost impossible job was finished. Coolidge, the skeptical, taciturn and unemotional, broke out with one of his rare enthusiasms. He would give the matter his personal support, he said. And he did.
Congressman McFadden, who had helped Gutzon in the aircraft investigation, introduced in the House the bill authorizing the coin, and presently it was through both houses. But the making of a model for a coin and having it approved by the Treasury Department and the Art Commission and the Director of the Mint entails countless visits to offices in Washington, Philadelphia and New York, and it is a tedious process.