GREAT LEADERS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21821, 26 November 1940, Page 8

GREAT LEADERS

MONUMENTS FOR THE FUTURE The Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which is due to be completed shortly, illustrates the American passion for bigness. The figures of the United States’ four greatest leaders of the past—Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt—have been carved, many times larger than life, out of the granite mountain at a cost of close on £200,000. Mount Rushmore is in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When the mas-ter-sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, started work 13 years ago it was “miles from anywhere.” His associates were alarmed. Shouldn’t the site be nearer a road? they asked. What was the use of a national memorial where nobody would be able to see it? “If the mountain is carved as proposed,” replied Borglum, “roads will be built for the world to visit the work.” His faith was justified. Roads have been made, and long before it was finished the memorial was attracting streams of tourists. It is estimated that over 1,500,000 people have watched the figures of the “Big Four” taking shape. They’re just as big in the memorial as they are in American history. Each of the heads is roughly 60 feet from top to chin. The shoulders, 100 feet across, suggest the giant burdens the four presidents bore in life. Borglum himself is on the way to becoming a legendary figure, too. All sorts of stories are told about this remarkable man, still an alert, vigorous figure at over 70. John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, to give him his full name, was born in Idaho in 1867. He has always believed in doing the big thing—and in the Mount Rushmore Memorial he was able to give free rein to his taste for size. He’s driven both himself and his workmen on this job, But on the whole he gets on well with his men. When he is annoyed with one of them he sacks his secretary. She takes a day off and comes back next morning to tell him how much she enjoyed her holiday.