Mount Rushmore

I just read that, as a result of the movement to eliminate all statues and monuments that have a racial connotation, removing the faces of the former presidents on Mount Rushmore is being considered. To quote Richard Nixon, “Let me say this, about that!”

In 2009 we took an RV trip from Canada south to Arizona on the western side of the Rockies and back up again on the eastern side. On the way back up to Canada we stopped in Rapid City, South Dakota. The main reason was a planned visit to the Mount Rushmore Memorial. Here is part of my blog entry for that day.

“We departed the Crooked Creek Resort bright and early so as to catch the morning sun shining on the faces of the presidents on Mount Rushmore - and we saw the morning sun on their faces, from far away already. It seems that you can't escape the great men's solemn gaze if you are anywhere within several miles of Mount Rushmore in the direction that they are facing. The detail of the sculptures is amazing, even the rim of Theodore Roosevelt's glasses can be seen and the eyes seem to be alive because of the light effect in the hollowed-out pupils. It was a monumental job (if you pardon the pun) to carve these, to me, perfect likenesses. Many tons of stone had to be blasted away at the cost of millions of dollars, an enormous engineering feat in itself, as can be seen by looking at the photograph of what the mountain looked like before it became the home of these distinguished heads of state (pun intended). Having said that, I can't suppress the question that came to me while looking at the great work of art: Why? No doubt the great men for whom this monument was created deserve our respect and admiration, but that is already being done in a myriad of ways, even in daily life. Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln we encounter daily as we handle our money and "Teddy" Roosevelt is present in almost every home that has children, in the form of the Teddy Bear. From reading the information posted at the Mount Rushmore Memorial this undertaking was a private effort, financed by donations and federal money. But, I could not help getting the feeling that there were some people involved, including the artist, who were mainly interested in their own aggrandizement. I can't say any more about this, it is just a feeling I got from reading the narratives associated with photographs of the initiation, progress, and dedication of the project. Furthermore, what for me was distracting from the solemnity that could accompany a traditional site such as this was the bombastic architecture that makes up the memorial. A huge parking garage system (buses one way, vans and trailers another, and cars yet another), heavy stone arches with rows of flags - reminiscent of sites where Nazi rallies took place - and a huge cafeteria that could hold many busloads of tourists formed the core of the memorial. It is run by a private enterprise and therefore only the view of the presidents is free and that one can get from miles away, as I said at the beginning. Actually, there is no entrance fee to the memorial, only a $10 parking fee. So if you are hardy and like to hike, you can walk to the memorial from some distance away because there is no parking allowed for some distance on the road leading to the memorial. We stayed only a short time, you can only take so many pictures and look up at the great men so many times, so that we were able to depart the area just as the masses of tourists started to arrive. As we drove away the great men kept watching us, especially since we then toured Custer State Park which lies within viewing distance from Mount Rushmore. ...”

You can see that even 11 years ago I had a sinking feeling that there was something not right with this memorial. The mountain we now call Mount Rushmore and the surrounding area was and is sacred land to the Lakota Sioux. According to Wikipedia, the federal government initially granted the Sioux ownership of the Black Hills, where the monument is carved, in an 1868 treaty. But the U.S. government reclaimed them in 1876 as part of a series of post-Civil War campaigns against Native Americans after gold was discovered in the Black Hills. A federal court awarded the tribes $17.1 million for the territory in 1979, but the Sioux Nation declined the money rather than give up their claim to the Black Hills.

If one reads the account of when and how the faces of the presidents came to be one gets an idea how a small group of people “railroaded” the project through. I just learned that the monument was carved by artist Gutzon Borglum, a known member of the Ku Klux Klan.

I am not sure if I favor the destruction of this monument. What would it bring? The mountain the Sioux called “Six Grandfathers” would never be the same it was before. Other objectionable statues that have any historical significance are being removed to museums. This isn't possible in this case. Although Gutzon Borglum was the designer and supervisor of the project, the Chief Carver of the mountain was Luigi del Bianco, artisan and headstone carver who emigrated to the U.S. From Friuli in Italy, and was chosen to work on this project because of his remarkable skill at etching emotions and personality into his carved portraits (according to Wikipedia).

So, is it a work of art worthy of preservation or a statement of white supremacy? You decide!

On a lighter note, some kind soul sent me the following explanation.