Give the man room

The monument was unveiled with much pomp and circumstance on November 25, 1908. Mrs. Sheridan herself pulled the cord that held the draperies in place. There was a parade of the armed forces that included every branch of the services. There were speeches by notables and concerts by brass bands. There was also a long account of the event in the Omaha Bee. The correspondent identified Gutzon Borglum as an Omaha boy, which, indeed, he once had been.

The turbulent figure of Sheridan was acclaimed as one of the greatest military statues in America. Critics noted the anatomical perfection of the horse and the faithful picturing of the general as a young man. But their praise was for the terrific action in bronze sculpture—the captured fear and climax of battle. It is hard to imagine that this memorial and the monument to President Lincoln in Newark were both the work of the same artist. Lincoln, shown in a moment of deep dejection during the Civil War when the news from the front was bad, is pathetic. He is every man’s friend just as he is every man’s other self, face to face with unhappiness, harried by disaster.

It was Lincoln’s custom to visit the War Office late at night to get the most recent dispatches, and the memorial in Newark shows him after such a call. He is sitting on a bench, his tall hat beside him, dispirited and alone. Borglum’s idea for the statue was inspired by a letter from Lincoln to a friend shortly after his election. “I could appreciate the feelings of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane.... I am now in my Garden of Gethsemane.”

Borglum received the commission to make this statue as a result of the exhibition of his marble head of Lincoln in the Capitol. Amos Van Horn, Civil War veteran and citizen of Newark, had bequeathed $150,000 for three public monuments, one to Washington, one to Lincoln and a third to the soldiers and sailors who had fought in the War between the States. He appointed three executors, chief of whom was Ralph E. Lum, a Newark lawyer who knew nothing of Borglum or his work except the Lincoln head. That seemed enough evidence. He gave the sculptor the commission for the Lincoln Memorial and thereafter was always his steadfast friend.

The work was carried out under pleasant, amicable, understanding relations. There was no competition. The executors had virtually no suggestions. They knew that Gutzon Borglum was a competent sculptor, and they left the details of the production to him. He submitted a small model which they considered and accepted. After that he made a full-sized model in clay. The location chosen for the memorial was in front of the Newark courthouse where much grading and change was needed. The city lacked a thousand dollars of enough to pay for what was needed; so Gutzon advanced the money to Park Superintendent Carl Bannwort. The architect who drew the plans for the setting was an old friend, William Price. The architect, Bannwort and Gutzon contrived to give the statue a perfect environment, and Bannwort seemed surprised to see it finished. “It’s the first time,” he said, “that I ever heard of a sculptor ever giving back a part of his own pay.”

Work was begun in 1909, and a year later the Gorham Company announced the arrival of the full-sized plaster model at their foundry in Providence, Rhode Island. The sculptor had asked that they cast the bronze in one piece, which cost forty per cent more and took more time. He thought it worth the extra expense because there would be no seams in the bronze and no danger of breakage due to extremes of heat and cold.

Gutzon was pleased with the work when it appeared in bronze. “Lincoln never left the Garden of Gethsemane,” he said. “He went right from Springfield to the labor of war. And Lee had hardly surrendered when Lincoln was shot. It is a curious and charming picture when you realize that he wandered away constantly into this garden alone.”

There was much favorable comment on the work after it was set in place. The sculptor himself thought that he had never made a finer thing. The appeal of the statue is evident in the actions of the children who cluster about it. All day in summer they come here to play. They sit in Lincoln’s lap, clasp their arms about his neck, roll about his feet, completely pleased. They could not say why. They don’t know much of who this man is supposed to be. They don’t know much about Lincoln. But they know his sadness and they feel his gentleness and friendliness.

Former President Theodore Roosevelt was principal speaker when the monument was dedicated on Memorial Day, 1913. Wildly cheering throngs of men, women and children lined his way of march and gave him an inspiring tribute all the way from New York City, an experience which Gutzon declared was what gave Roosevelt the idea of running for President for a third term.

Nobody seems to have remembered what he said as he pledged the country’s support to what Lincoln had stood for—Lincoln who sat with bowed head, worried and disconsolate, on a bench before him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

STAMFORD AND POLITICS

Miss Montgomery taught French for a year in New Haven, then joined two other girls in a literary agency that did translations, research work and special articles until they married and broke up the partnership. She worked with Dr. Henry Smith Williams on The Historians’ History of the World and there met Rupert Hughes, another friend of Gutzon’s. She also worked with Dr. Isidore Singer as manager in the preparation of The Jewish Encyclopedia. Much of her life was spent in the vicinity of Thirty-eighth Street. After leaving Dr. Williams she did secretarial work, some of it for Gutzon, and became acquainted with many more of the Borglum friends. She learned a great deal about the operations of the Thirty-eighth Street studio.

So, in 1909 they were married at Short Beach, Connecticut, with a New Haven divine, Dr. T. T. Munger, and Miss Montgomery’s two brothers officiating. The Borglums went for a honeymoon to some trout stream in Canada and thence to a place on the Gunnison River in Colorado. By that time Mrs. Borglum was certain that her life was going to be vastly different.

And so it was. In 1910 Gutzon announced that they would move to Stamford, Connecticut, where they would cultivate peace and associate with gentle, quiet people. Almost overnight he was making speeches for the common man and beating the drums for politics.

In Stamford he was promptly introduced to the famous Connecticut Town Meeting and was intensely interested because he had never heard of anything like it. He went home with staring eyes to write that he had just learned the part an individual could play, first in his home town, next in his state and finally in his native land. He rewrote a pair of sentiments from his diary: “A man’s first love is his mother; his second, his sweetheart; his third, art; his fourth, all.” And he underlined this warning: “No individual’s life is worth the immortality he seeks unless he articulates the voice of his tribe.”

You may take that as typical of Gutzon. He had been in Stamford one or two nights and he belonged to it as much as the oldest inhabitant.

The moving from the old duplex apartment in New York to the country was a momentous undertaking. The two horses, Smoke and Halool, were taken to New Rochelle for the night by the faithful Banks. The next day Gutzon and a friend, like knights of old, rode on horseback to the new domain. The feat wasn’t so startling to beholders as it might have been in New York. Horses in Stamford in 1910 were regularly in view and continuously in use. Gutzon himself became a familiar figure in the countryside as he drove Smoke back and forth between the railroad station and home. Wife and furniture arrived in Stamford on that first day by train and van.

Most of the stable equipment came from the old establishment of Colonel Whitman in Washington. Much of it accompanied the colonel, who arrived to spend the summer. The procession of visitors who came to luncheon, to dinner or to spend the week seems appalling from this distance of time, and emphasizes the contrast of that era when there was no difficulty about entertaining. Stamford grocery stores of the day were primitive. They made no delivery to the Borglum ménage six miles away; so hampers of foodstuffs were shipped by express twice a week from New York.

The old farmhouse was completely rebuilt, partitions pulled down and new rooms added. The house stood on a slope, and one large living room was dug out of the bank after the master bedroom, above, had been finished and was being lived in. The barn, which had been close to the house, was hauled a thousand feet and placed beside a brook. The brook was dammed to make a pond. Gutzon took an active part in all the digging, trimming of trees and laying out of roads.

Road building had always been one of Gutzon’s hobbies, and in later years he was to become associated with national highway-building projects. On his place in Stamford he built a road, cutting the arc on the Wire Mill Road, which until that time had passed close to the Marshall House, the new home. The town accepted the sculptor’s changed road and thirty-five years later it was still in use. After the passing of those years a local highway engineer located and unearthed an old drainpipe, placed there by Gutzon. “Well,” he said, “Borglum was known throughout the town as a good builder.”

Filled with the old Town Meeting spirit, the sculptor quickly organized the neighbors living along the main road leading into Stamford as an association to beautify and improve their grounds bordering on it. Next he managed to get lighting for the road from the town electric company and a similar gift for the Long Ridge Road, which was equally important.

By studying the town, county and state road-building and bonding regulations, he discovered that the town could borrow money against the stipulated return to it of the same amount from the state or county, thus securing funds for the building of improved roads at once. The matter was taken to the Town Meeting, of course, and it caused much debate. But eventually it passed, and both High Ridge and Long Ridge roads were benefited.

Then, presently, he had a new and interesting idea. He founded a bus company “so that,” as he said, “the farm women might have a chance to come to town when their husbands are using the horses in the fields.” He was very happy in the designing of bus bodies to be fitted onto Reo Truck chassis and in arranging a suitable pageant to celebrate the beginning of the service.

There is a lamentable lack of detail in available information about the bus company. One doesn’t know if the farm wives were able to ride into town on it more frequently, or if Gutzon was able to pasture his horse. He got out of it after a while and turned his attention to new and more stirring projects. The general belief is that he operated it until it needed rewinding.

One of the amazing things about him is that his art work always seemed to survive his other projects. Soon after moving up from New York he built a temporary studio out of glass cold-bed frames and there began a monument for North Carolina of the first soldier killed on the Southern side in the War between the States. He also started a creative “pipe dream” in marble called “Orpheus and Eurydice.” The boy who had been guiding the oxen for much of the heavy work on the place was asked to pose for Orpheus. His wife’s remarks, as repeated by Bill the husband, were striking. When she was informed of his new and startling occupation she demanded, “Did you have to stand in your underwear?” “No,” he said, “I just had to take everything off.” She prefaced her critique with a ladylike sniff. “Well,” she said knowingly, “you must have been a sight.... Just a perfect sight!”

At this time a location for the permanent studio was chosen across the Rippowam River, nearly half a mile from the house. The corner rock was christened in champagne, accompanied by a stirring speech from Colonel Whitman. For years the only way of reaching the studio by carriage or automobile was through a cement-based ford, devised by Gutzon. There was a swing bridge for pedestrians. At the very outset of the work Gutzon had brought out his architect friend William Price of Rosedale, near Philadelphia, who had helped him with the Newark Lincoln and other work.

On the river, at some distance below the ford, a group of campfire girls used to have a summer camp under the guidance of Mrs. Lanier, whose husband was the son of Sidney Lanier, the poet. On Sunday mornings the sculptor used to give the girls talks on art and life which are still remembered.

The studio was built entirely of stone from huge, pinkish granite boulders which Gutzon had located within a few hundred feet of his location half buried in the soil. These were dug out, cut and scraped by a crew of Italian stonecutters who came from a neighboring town the first of every week and returned on Saturday, camping out in the woods near the work. The fireplace was unique. It was made to accommodate six-to eight-foot logs and was open to a height of ten feet from the floor, where sandstone blocks formed the mantel. The size of the building was forty by sixty feet, and the style was Tudor Gothic.

When it was time to lay the sills of the studio doors, before the roof with its heavy steel was up, Gutzon invited the officers of the Masonic Grand Lodge of both Connecticut and New York, together with members of his own Howard Lodge, to take part in the dedication. It was a grand affair although something merely on the rim of the arts. Gutzon was gradually increasing his interest in other matters. For one thing, he was being inducted into a knowledge of the working of an elected group in a community, chosen to govern the finances and public interests of the electors. This was his conception of the meaning of politics.

Another matter to which he had given attention was the often debated question of consolidation of the town and city governments of Stamford. He worked out a scheme which he placed before the town selectmen in 1912, whereby, in successive steps, the selectmen would be placed in charge of departments as commissioners thereof, and eventually the city government would be abolished. The selectmen-commissioners would take over its powers. Thus a joint-commission form of government would be acquired for both town and city.

He wrote to Frank Butterworth, a prominent Progressive of Connecticut:

In all these dealings Gutzon had come into close touch with the political situation. It was common gossip that both town and city, more particularly the latter, were boss-ridden and that it did not make much difference whether a Republican or Democratic administration was in control. The same machine went on and on, and expenditures for services rendered were out of all proportion to values received.

The time was the dawn of the Progressive movement which aimed to do away with bossed and machine-controlled government, demanding honesty and efficiency in high places. A new national election, that of 1912, was in the offing. Gutzon’s old friend, Theodore Roosevelt, was running for President on a third-party Progressive ticket. What was more natural than that the sculptor should enter this campaign with gusto. He became chairman of the Progressive Party of Stamford, and nearly wore himself out trying to arouse the progressive element in the citizenship of the whole state of Connecticut.

There was a strong element of drama in the campaign as waged in the city and town of Stamford. In the first place, the “Old Guard” was not going to allow a newcomer to meddle unchallenged with their ancient customs. One of the most respected members of the community wrote an indignant letter to the Stamford Advocate, the only local paper, protesting against the upstart sculptor who “had not been able to achieve fame in his own calling” and was trying to gain a little notoriety by attaching himself to Roosevelt’s kite.

Gutzon addressed mass meetings from the Town Hall steps. He spoke on street corners and in front of the huge Yale and Towne Lock factory where men and women were going home from work. He got to be a ready speaker and learned to think on his feet. One incident was memorable. Some heckler had asked why Roosevelt had suddenly changed his mind on a certain question. “Don’t you know,” Gutzon shot back at him, “that Saint Paul lived to be fifty-two before he suddenly changed his whole way of life and became a Christian?”

People in Stamford still remember the picturesque and effective fight carried on by the Progressives under the leadership of the imaginative Gutzon. On one occasion a torchlight procession was arranged in which the Borglum donkey, “Shamrock,” a large, gray, intelligent creature, appeared as a symbol of both the old parties, wearing on his rear end an elephant head, the trunk of which concealed his tail.

Two Stamford citizens, who were Gutzon’s chief lieutenants in the fray and remained his friends ever after, were featured in the press of the day as “Handsome Harry” Abbot and “Young” Arthur Crandall. The latter lived and worked with Borglum at one time and never got over his youthful reverence for Gutzon, which was not diminished by close contact. When he heard this book was being written he said: “Don’t forget to mention his real humility,” which was a side of the sculptor’s nature revealed only to those who knew him best.

Joseph Alsop was state chairman of the Progressive Party of Connecticut, and Gutzon developed a deep friendship with him. Mr. Whittaker, editor of the Stamford Advocate for many years and a reactionary and autocratic individual, came to the Borglum farm one night about midnight to try to influence the sculptor to change his attitude. The mayor of the city, Charles P. Rowell, came out at dusk, wearing a big black hat and a long cape, like a villain in a play.

He would not come into the house, where someone might hear what he had to say, but asked Gutzon to come outside. They talked by the footbridge on the way to the studio. Mr. Rowell tried to make a deal, and when the sculptor refused he exclaimed with conscious drama, “Then it’s a fight—a fight to the finish!”

“Yes,” agreed Gutzon solemnly, “and a sword to the hilt!”

A few days after the election S. E. Vincent, the newly elected Progressive congressman, wrote to Gutzon.

Herbert Knox Smith, a Connecticut leader of the party, wrote on November 4: “I cannot let this fight close without sending you my heartfelt personal thanks for what you have done. It has certainly been fine, and I appreciate it more deeply than I can say. Best regards to you.”

And the colonel wrote from Oyster Bay, November 12, 1912:

In his records Gutzon somehow fails to note that the Progressives, despite Roosevelt’s defeat, did rather well in Connecticut. After all, what interested Gutzon was the fight.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHICAGO CONVENTION

Borglum, still standing fast by the Progressive banner, figured that another election would see his party in power if enough people got interested in the prospect. At the moment, he pointed out to those who would listen to him, the policies of the federal government involved something besides a waste of money. Human lives were concerned. He declared that if England had been prepared, the Kaiser would never have invaded Belgium, and that he would certainly have stayed at home if the United States and England had been prepared and had showed they would support France. Theodore Roosevelt had always advocated preparedness. His words, “Speak softly and carry a big stick,” were well known and often quoted.

In the crisis during the Congressional election of 1914 the sculptor did not advise Progressives to return to the Republican party. Instead he tried to persuade Republicans to nominate candidates whom Progressives could support. In Connecticut the Progressives held the balance of power. Gutzon did not believe that they should put a ticket of their own into the field. They should keep their identity, he felt, and place their power as a group behind the best candidates nominated by other parties.

At the same time, he believed that the Progressive element was stronger in the Republican than in the Democratic party. He advised adopting a liberal attitude toward Republicans to avoid a further breach with the parent organization. By following such a policy in the 1914 election, he hoped that by 1916 it would be possible to elect Theodore Roosevelt President. At all events, he considered a strong Congress essential in 1914.

After careful consideration Gutzon decided to support for Congress Ebenezer J. Hill of Fairfield County, a man who had previously been in Congress and had been defeated by the Progressives in the 1912 election. He chose Hill because of his stand on the nonpartisan tariff board, which he favored, and his open quarrel with boss rule.

The sculptor’s stand for Hill was strongly opposed by Herbert Knox Smith of Connecticut and George W. Perkins of New York, national leader of the Progressive party. Gutzon and Perkins had an argument over the matter on Mr. Childs’s yacht on Long Island Sound one night about midnight. Other Progressives were there, including Colonel Roosevelt, who appears to have been noncommittal on the subject of Progressives supporting Republicans. Gutzon always believed, however, that Roosevelt approved his action.

The sculptor was concerned only with what he believed to be right. He walked out of a meeting in March 1914 when Herbert Knox Smith had put through the state central committee a resolution that only enrolled Progressives could vote in the primaries. Smith’s methods were unfair, Gutzon declared, and he wrote an open letter accusing him of gag rule. Despite such difficulties, however, he did take time to prepare and deliver a resolution of welcome and allegiance to Roosevelt at a public rally held in Hartford in August 1914.

There is some evidence that to him politics had begun to look less like a fine tournament. To Isaac Ullman of New Haven he wrote: “I am pretty sick and discouraged with what is called politics. You know only too well what I mean—the sordid and selfish side of the little ones and their own personal advancement. The best we can do is to do our best, and I try to do that all the time....”

Another disappointment to the sculptor in this campaign was the placing in the field, by the state central committee, of an independent Progressive ballot which he had consistently opposed. The fact that he was named candidate for one of the offices in no way placated him. He refused to let his name appear on the ticket, and he was bitter in giving his reasons.

In the 1916 campaign Gutzon again supported Mr. Hill, who had been elected two years before with about eighty-five per cent of the Progressives voting for him. But by that time the sculptor had become conscious of the political boss John T. King, who had appeared at the first Bridgeport meeting sponsoring Mr. Hill. The congressman entered into long correspondence with him explaining Mr. King’s motivation.

A year later when Colonel Roosevelt met Mr. King in Stamford the sculptor wrote an open letter of protest to Roosevelt. The former President took the rebuke good-naturedly. When a reporter in 1918, during the aircraft investigation, asked Roosevelt if it was not true that Borglum was a traitor on account of his charges against the administration, Roosevelt snapped back, “What! Borglum a traitor? If he isn’t a patriot there aren’t any!”

“But Colonel,” the newsman persisted, “didn’t Borglum criticize even you?”

Roosevelt laughed. “Oh, that,” he said. “Nothing! Borglum just didn’t like the company I kept.”

As for the national situation after 1914, the chief question was: “What will Theodore Roosevelt do in 1916?” It was discussed wherever men gathered. Come to think about it, 1916 is now some thirty-six years behind us, and to much of the populace the interesting characters of that season’s presidential campaign are merely a confused collection of names.

Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, veteran of the Spanish-American War, governor of New York from 1898-1900, had been drafted to run for the Vice-Presidency of the United States in William McKinley’s 1900 presidential campaign. He became President in September 1901, after McKinley was killed by the terrorist Leon Czolgosz, and was re-elected in 1904.

Roosevelt was a man of vision. He was popular and he was fearless. He was also an experienced and naturally shrewd politician. He began his service as President with an outcry against Big Business in politics. He dissolved the Northern Securities Company and other corporations for violation of the antitrust laws. In 1903 he instituted the Department of Commerce and Labor. Also in 1903 he promoted the Elkins Act which forbade railroad rebates to favored corporations. In 1906 he sponsored the Hepburn Act which regulated railroad fares. That same year he was behind the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act. And it was his influence that made possible the Reclamation Act and the employers’ liability laws. He mediated the peace between Japan and Russia in 1905 and won the Nobel Peace Prize. By recognizing Panama he made possible the construction of the Panama Canal, which was started during his administration. He was a great showman and singularly active, and most Americans loved him whether they liked his political philosophy or not.

In 1908 he got the presidential nomination for his friend William Howard Taft, and Taft was elected. But there was some difficulty during the next four years. Roosevelt turned a bit sour on the President because he thought Taft wasn’t liberal enough. A real political crisis came in 1912. Taft wanted the presidential nomination and he got it. Roosevelt, it seems, also wanted the presidential nomination. So he walked his delegates out of the Chicago convention and organized the Progressive party. Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate, was elected.

The Progressives turned out to be a pretty strong organization, and they made some gains during the next four years. The split in Republican thought was still pretty wide when it came time to think about the 1916 campaign, and Theodore Roosevelt was still one of the biggest men in the country. There were some indications that in his promotion of harmony between the Progressives and the regular Republicans he might accept a nomination and run for a third term.

Gossip had touched on two other men who might be considered by the delegates—Charles Evans Hughes, who had been governor of New York for two terms, and Major General Leonard Wood, former Chief of Staff of the U. S. Army, commander of the Department of the East and close friend of Theodore Roosevelt. Hughes was an old-line Republican. Wood was a Progressive.

To the former President, Gutzon sent a five-page letter showing his fear for the disunity between the different groups and the certain disaster it could bring to the nation. He said:

There was no doubt whatever that General Leonard Wood was the man Gutzon had in mind when he made this appeal. He had been on friendly terms with the general for years, and had boundless respect for the abilities he had shown as a soldier and as the chief administrator of Cuban affairs after the Spanish-American War. He had never been more cheered than when a newspaper reported that Colonel Roosevelt had himself proposed General Wood as a nominee to be considered by the Chicago convention. Promptly, in April 1916, he wrote to Roosevelt, “In naming Leonard Wood, your lifelong friend, you have given the conservatives and the irreconcilables the key to the threatened deadlock, or, as some have boasted, ‘deathlock.’ You have said the first thing that has been said to make impossible a bitter struggle.”

He had many friends who did not share his belief that Roosevelt would turn out to be altruistic at Chicago. It is interesting to see how he clung to his faith in his hero despite all indication that for once he might be wrong ... and it is also a little pathetic.

Meanwhile, he went about the country on artistic commissions, interviewing Progressive leaders on the way for the information of George W. Perkins. He was on his way home from Atlanta in May when he got a mysterious call to stop in Washington. There he learned that Progressives had made overtures to the Republicans asking that a representative acceptable to both sides be chosen to act as a confidential go-between for the inside leaders. An approach had been made to Colonel Roosevelt by Congressman William B. McKinley of Illinois, who asked if Borglum would be acceptable. The colonel had said that he would. Gutzon was notified. And that is not the least fantastic thing that happened at this fantastic convention.

Old Guard Republicans would not allow Roosevelt to be nominated, but they knew they couldn’t win without his aid. They were willing to accept Leonard Wood if Roosevelt wanted him, and they were glad to have Borglum to carry such important messages.

The sculptor called on McKinley, then interviewed Colonel Roosevelt and General Wood. Their agreement, plainly stated, was that if Roosevelt could not be nominated, he would throw his influence to Wood. Others aware of this agreement were John A. Stewart of New York, and E. B. Johns, correspondent of the Army and Navy Journal in Washington.

Gutzon went to Chicago early in June and registered at the Union League Club. There he met Speaker Joe Cannon, Representative McKinley and other high-ranking Republicans with whom he kept in constant touch. Also, he visited Perkins and Governor Hiram Johnson and other Progressive leaders at Progressive headquarters. He was as widely and officially informed of the situation, he thought, as any man could hope to be. Everybody was friendly and straightforward. His great advantage, he felt, was that, as a well-known artist who had no political ties or aspirations, he was to be trusted. Well, maybe....

Most of the lads he was meeting had never in all their lives trusted anybody. What Gutzon seems never to have realized is that he was squarely in the middle of what amounted to a species of civil war. The Republican party was definitely split—make no mistake about that—and its two factions, after giving the Presidency to the Democrats, had been doing well enough in other elections to survive. Neither side was as good as it said it was. Neither side could stand any losses. So the leaders of each side wore broad, confidential smiles in public, and in private they moved in the fashion of morose and wary conspirators. Each side feared the other with a real, practical fear, and each side looked on a messenger from the other as a self-seeking ferret who must be lulled by soft—and wrong—answers.

Excerpts from Gutzon’s detailed report to General Wood give one coherent account of the convention, many details of which are still the subject of controversy after more than thirty years. The sculptor shows himself to have been an able observer, though puzzled; and he seems to have overlooked one fairly evident feature—that Roosevelt in the midst of turmoil was serenely waiting for a miracle, well aware of his importance and convinced that in the failure of others he might well grow stronger. He certainly would have liked to be nominated ... and who can say that he overestimated his chances?

In the beginning of his report to Major General Wood the sculptor said:

On the subject of the Progressives’ failure to join Republicans in presenting favorite sons in the early balloting, the sculptor wired Colonel Roosevelt on Thursday, June 8:

Before this message he had sent two to the colonel on Wednesday, June 7: The first message read:

And the second read:

But there was no response from the big man in Oyster Bay.

On Wednesday and Thursday Gutzon received two telegrams from General Wood on Governor’s Island. Both were hopeful. The first one read:

And later:

The sculptor, putting all this together, continued his report to General Wood. Here is part of that revealing document:

Several years later Gutzon learned, from inside sources not to be doubted, several items of information which threw light on the bewildering events of the last night of the convention. In relation to that urgent telegram to the colonel that was never answered, he learned that someone at Progressive headquarters had tapped the line to Oyster Bay; that Gutzon’s message, which had been endorsed by Republican leaders who anxiously awaited the answer, was instantly followed by a message from Progressive headquarters saying that Borglum was all wrong, the author or victim of a “frame-up,” and that the colonel would surely be nominated by acclamation on Saturday morning. It was presented that he, Roosevelt, should withdraw and nominate Senator Lodge, who would refuse by agreement, and the convention would then turn immediately to the colonel.

Another item was that Nicholas Murray Butler had likewise talked to Colonel Roosevelt on that fateful Saturday at early dawn and in answer to a query about Leonard Wood’s chances had shaken his head. “Impossible,” he said. “At this juncture in the international situation it would be suicide for us to nominate a military man.” This was told to Gutzon by Herman Hagedorn.

All parties returned from the convention in a state of complete exhaustion. E. B. Johns wrote, “It was three or four days before I got back to normal, and I am still doing some mental swearing at the stupidity of Colonel Roosevelt and some of his advisors.” For Gutzon it was one of the bitterest experiences of his life.

Wilson, it will be remembered, was elected by the vote of California after most of his newspaper support had conceded the victory to Hughes. It took three days to find out who had won.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

AND DR. TRUDEAU

The idea of a memorial to Stevenson originated with Mr. Chalmers and was brought to the sculptor’s attention by his friend Bob Davis. Gutzon was busy at the time working on two monuments in the South, and Davis caught up with him in Grand Central Station as he was boarding a train for Chicago. His interest was aroused, and from the train he wrote to Davis to say he would be delighted to do anything “to promote attention to this kind of men of genius.” He further offered to make the bronze tablet, bas-relief of Stevenson and an inscription to be decided on by the committee for just what it would cost—somewhere around $200. The tablet would be placed on the cottage in Saranac where Stevenson had lived.

It was September 1915 before the sculptor could find time for a day at Saranac, where he looked over the ground, listened to all that was told him about Stevenson, was taken to see Dr. Trudeau and returned to New York on the night train. The work was finished and ready for unveiling in October of the same year, as the committee had hoped, “because it was the gorgeous month of the year.” The only sad note was that Dr. Trudeau was not well enough to take a prominent part in the proceedings. He died the following month.

On receiving the preliminary photographs of the tablet, Mr. Chalmers wrote to Borglum: