Give the man room

Because the memorial was to stand on the Gettysburg battlefield, it was highly important to locate it properly in relation to other incidents and heroes of the great battle. A special site committee was appointed, and as its chairman the sculptor had the chief responsibility. On one visit to the field he had the happy fortune to meet Mrs. Elsie Singmaster Lewars, a well-known writer who lived on Seminary Ridge, another famous part of the battleground. She was familiar with the whole historic region, knew its charges and countercharges by heart, and so gave invaluable help in selecting precisely the right site for the memorial.

The unveiling took place July 3, 1929, just sixty-six years after Pickett’s Charge failed to win its objective and the Confederacy was plainly doomed. Governor Gardner of North Carolina presided, and the sculptor’s old friend, former Governor Angus McLean, delivered the principal address.

A special train brought hundreds of North Carolina people to join in the dedication of their memorial. An airplane, engaged by the sculptor, dropped roses over the battleground and dipped its wings in tribute to the honored dead. By that time Gettysburg had become, as it has been ever since, a lure for tourists and sight-seers from every part of our country. Only a year after the unveiling of the Borglum monument C. W. McDevett published in the Raleigh News and Observer a long description of a visit to the battlefield, ending with this tribute:

A year before the Gettysburg memorial was dedicated, a foreign-looking letter, postmarked Morges, Switzerland, came to Gutzon at San Antonio. As he was away at the time and it was Mrs. Borglum’s job to oversee his vast correspondence, she opened this letter with some curiosity. She uncovered a six-page autograph beginning, “My great, good friend,” and signed, “Affectionately, gratefully and devotedly yours, I. J. Paderewski.”

The gist of the letter was that Paderewski’s compatriots desired to erect a monument “to the memory of Poland’s most generous benefactor, President Wilson”; that a competition had been staged; that the first prize had been awarded; that the prize winner’s model was “horrible”; and that, in despair of getting a satisfactory design at home, the committee had left the decision to the writer. The letter concluded: “My decision is that the statue of that great American should be done only by the greatest American artist, by the greatest living sculptor in the whole world.”

By way of explaining Paderewski’s greeting and highly emotional signature, one should remember how close the two artists had become in their efforts to promote an association of mid-European republics.

Gutzon had been present when the representatives of these states had met in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Paderewski was the first speaker at this convention, and in the few minutes of his oratory he was transformed from a civilian pianist into a soaring apostle of freedom. Professor Masaryk, who followed him with what was expected to be the key speech, could barely speak at all. He threw away his prepared address because, he said, Paderewski had said it all and said it better. “I have never listened to such an inspired speech,” he said in conclusion. “I can give no explanation other than that Ignace Jan Paderewski is an artist.”

Paderewski’s letter to Gutzon in San Antonio begged an immediate answer by cable, inasmuch as it was hoped to have the memorial unveiled on Wilson’s birthday the next year. Gutzon was in Georgia on another of his futile attempts to revive the Confederate memorial; so his wife sent him a telegram in care of the Venables:

The avowal of confidence by Paderewski, even more than his offer of the commission, was something that Gutzon appreciated. His answer was eager and quick:

Paderewski’s response, grateful and sympathetic, settled the matter of the Wilson statue in a few days. Because of the early date set for the unveiling, the sculptor should first have gone to Europe to confer with the committee and to study the proposed location of the memorial. But the work on Mount Rushmore was getting critical and it was impossible for him to leave. He decided to send his son Lincoln to Europe to arrange for the casting of the bronze in Paris, Florence or Naples, and then to confer with Paderewski at his home in Morges, Switzerland.

Lincoln, accompanied by his mother, went immediately.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

TRIBUTE TO WILSON

Gutzon had little trouble making sketches of his new subject. He had known Wilson fairly well; they had traveled the Atlantic in the same ship. Wilson had given him a degree at Princeton. They had seen much of each other when Gutzon was working on the decorations for the dormitory built by the class of 1879. And they had been close, though hardly harmonious, during the Borglum investigation of the aircraft scandal. However, to amplify his own impressions of Wilson’s characteristics, the sculptor wrote to several men who had known the President: Professor John Grier Hibben, the new president of Princeton University; William Allen White; President Coolidge; and several senators. He asked them to say frankly what characteristics he should portray.

Wilson was then, as he still is, a subject of controversy. Gutzon got some amazing answers. President Coolidge thought he should be depicted as a kind of Abraham Lincoln. Senator William E. Borah thought that his features should express humanitarianism and said, “The Versailles Treaty was a cruel, destructive, brutal document. The only touches of humanity it contains were put there by Wilson.” And a senator who shall be nameless said, “I feel incapable of making a suggestion along this line. If I undertook to do so, I’m afraid I should bear in mind that a man who is untruthful, no matter how exalted his position, should not be deified in sculpture or otherwise.”

Gutzon decided to represent Wilson slipping out of his Academic robes and standing alongside a martial female figure of Poland on the capitol steps. Poland, helmeted, was defending herself with a sword. Forced back she stood at bay under the President’s extended arm. It was a composition of great charm and historic truth. But it required more simple sentiment to be popular in Poznan, Poland, where it was to stand.

Paderewski’s message of regret, contrived after he had looked at the photographs of the model, was a shock. He wired:

So here was another crushing blow to Gutzon. To him it was like asking Beethoven to eliminate one of the movements of the Fifth Symphony. But he accepted the verdict with grace. And so he cabled Paderewski.

From Morges Paderewski had sent to the sculptor a group of photographs of the ancient square of Poznan where the statue was to be placed. Gutzon studied them closely to estimate how much light would strike his figure. Later, after wearisome correspondence with a Mr. Rucinski of the Official Council of Building Department, it was decided to move the memorial to the newly created Wilson Park.

Off and on, all winter, the sculptor worked on the model in his San Antonio studio. When completed it was generally acclaimed as a great portrait of the President. It had in it the idealism and the spiritual quality that the sculptor could give it. But he was never reconciled to the loss of the figure of Poland. He felt that the monument lacked something beautiful and significant that he could have given it.

Gutzon took his whole family abroad for the unveiling of the monument in 1931. It was his first visit to Europe in thirty years. Because he had to attend to its erection and the preparation of the pediment, they were several weeks in Poznan. One of the most interesting, and rather tragic, denizens was an old countess who had recently returned to her ancestral home. The place was more than a thousand years old, several miles out of town, and was on exhibition certain days of the week because of its historic interest.

The countess had been in exile for many years, and told an exciting tale of escape when the Germans came to her home. According to the tradition, the family fortune had started with the levying of tribute on travelers at a near-by crossroads. But most of it had been taken away by a similar process of collection. Little was left to her now. One day she invited the Borglums to “high tea,” and as the family sat around the ancient table eating raspberries off priceless china, they could hear the voices and steps of sight-seers in an adjoining room. The exhibition fee undoubtedly eked out her scanty income.

Gutzon took a great liking for this aged lady in her rusty black gown and pathetic shoes. He hired a car and invited her to the opera. His attentions and the unusual experience gave her great delight, and she was sparkling.

During her exile she had cared for the Polish children in Paris. Now she was anxious to insure religious instruction for the large number of Polish orphans there. It hurt her to think, she said, that their bodies were well nourished and their souls were neglected.

As the day of the unveiling drew near, it became known that Paderewski would not be present. This seemed evidence enough that there was something rotten in Poland. The man who had been Premier; who, more than anyone else, had brought the world’s recognition to Poland after the World War; who had made possible the return of territory snatched fifty years before by Germany; the man who had given most of the money for the nation’s tribute to Wilson—this man alone wasn’t going to be permitted to see the honoring of an American president whom he loved.

Large numbers of Polish-Americans came to share the tribute to Wilson. Three hundred priests had come from the United States, every one carrying a wreath of artificial flowers representing his district at home. The flowers, piled about the base of the statue with the fresh wreaths of local patriots, made an impressive display.

On the morning of the unveiling day Mrs. Woodrow Wilson arrived with her niece and a group of men representing the United States. Among them were Robert Underwood Johnson, ambassador to Italy, and Bernard Baruch, who had taken the opportunity to visit the early home of his parents not far from Poznan. Mrs. Wilson went through the ordeal on the arm of General Mosciki, President of the Polish Republic, and she bore up well despite interminable speechmaking.

The crowning event of the program was a banquet at the old Royal Schloss, which at times had been occupied by Kaiser Wilhelm. After that there was a reception for a thousand or more, with General Mosciki presiding.

At dinner Mrs. Borglum was seated next to a delightful Pole whom she had met before. She asked him why there were so few at the table when she could hear the throng waiting for the reception in the next room. He seemed surprised that she shouldn’t know. “But Madam,” he said. “There are only twenty-four plates in the old Emperor’s dining service.” And he turned over a plate to show the label “W. Rex” stamped on the bottom.

Paderewski sent this telegram to Gutzon:

And what happened to this noble Wilson monument? When Hitler’s troops came plowing through Poland at the beginning of the Second World War it was pulled down and, presumably, turned into ammunition.

The Borglums had several other chance encounters with Paderewski. On one occasion he was to give a concert in Abilene, Texas, and invited Gutzon and his family to see him. He was in a private car and the three met him for dinner after the concert. The evening was delightful—at any rate it was delightful to Paderewski and Gutzon. They talked all night until the car was coupled to an outbound train. And then Paderewski invited them to ride on to the next stop.

Gutzon had an immense faith in Paderewski. One day in Washington during the First World War, he stated his theory to Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane. “One of these days,” he said, “you people will realize that imagination and disinterestedness are powerful factors in the building of a state. I believe Paderewski is capable of rebuilding Poland and of rebuilding Europe if the occasion demanded. He is capable of any sacrifice, and he has the mind and soul to keep him going.”

“You artists always talk in big terms,” said Lane. “So far I am with you. But there’s a great practical side to nation building.”

“Don’t you think Paderewski has that, too?”

“Yes,” said Lane, “and that’s why I’m interested. That’s why he’s succeeding. They tell me he’s abandoned music and set aside his entire fortune to arm Poland and place her on the side of the allies. Just as certainly as I’m sitting here, this great artist is going to be the liberator of modern Poland. This artist!”

“Yes,” commented Gutzon. “That’s what I’ve been telling you. He’s an artist.”

When the next great crisis came for Poland, there were no great artists to deal with it—only politicians.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

FOR THE PARKS

Gutzon was one of the observers of Orville Wright’s first sustained flight at Fort Myers when the inventors were trying to prove the value of their plane to the United States Army. He saw “a little mechanism that looked like the wreck of a covered wagon” travel around a half-mile course for sixty-seven minutes. Then, after an enthusiastic greeting to the pilot, he and Orville, Colonel Bromwell, Captain Squier and Lieutenant Selfridge rode into town aboard a streetcar. As a representative of the Aeronautical Society of America, he saw the collapse of the plane the next day and the tragic death of Lieutenant Selfridge.

Still he went on. He became acquainted with Alexander Klemin and his wind tunnel. He was greatly interested in Major Ocker’s development of blind flying. He invented an airplane brake which, with modifications, was the type used in the Second World War.

In a speech before the Aeronautical Society at the Astor Hotel in New York early in 1904 he outlined his plans for a “cylindrical type of machine with the engine in the pointed nose directly behind the propeller and winglike fins to steady the flight.” He demonstrated what he meant with two little models that flew gracefully over the audience. He said:

There is something in that speech to remind one of Cellini’s departures from art, and the activities of Da Vinci when he was looking most clearly at the patterns of a future life. But his friends weren’t impressed. Mrs. William Brown Meloney of the Herald-Tribune and This Week magazine, with whom he carried on a ceaseless correspondence, gave him a sharp rebuke and told him that art needed him more than the airplane business. And he sent her this prompt answer:

Gutzon spoke a lot. He liked public speaking and he was good at it. Any good cause was his cause, and, inasmuch as he never seemed to be looking for any personal reward from his public fighting, he made a lot of friends in unexpected places.

He loved children and he was disturbed by New York’s lack of room for them. He remembered his own childhood—so much of it in the fresh, open air—and he campaigned vigorously for playgrounds or parks or unplanned pieces of the outdoors that would give them a chance to stretch their legs. He began to write on such subjects for the newspapers and spent most of his days in wordy controversy. He wrote largely on political subjects and was rated among the country’s foremost essayists on the subject of world peace. His peace article, “An Essay on Economic Boycott,” was one of twelve selected from 20,000 for publication in the book “Ways to Peace.” It was widely reported in the newspapers, widely discussed, and carried abroad by President Wilson when he went to make his futile treaty of Versailles.

The park controversies pleased Gutzon for two reasons. He thought they might bring about a little better living for the children. And they might promote a general love for flowers—bring a new generation into the open air and give it a consciousness of nature. He loved growing things—green trees, soft grass and the smell of aromatic shrubs. He never forgot his chase to capture the moon in Fremont.

In his early life he wished to be a horticulturist. Years afterward he found at the door of his New York studio an opportunity to practice his green thumb and at the same time to put his play-spot theories into practical development. In 1907 he was invited to join the board of directors and serve on the executive committee of the Metropolitan Parks Association which became the Parks and Playgrounds Association of the City of New York. His membership was one of his special interests for twenty years. He was appointed chairman of a subcommittee which later became an independent body looking after the affairs of Central Park.

Gutzon was highly pleased with his work as permanent chairman. Forty years had passed since the country’s two pioneer landscape artists had made one of the most famous parks in the world from some rocks and a swamp in the middle of Manhattan Island. They had brought in hundreds of tons of soil and thousands of rare trees and shrubs. They had laid out driveways for carriages and winding paths for pedestrians. They had provided lakes and playgrounds for children. In 1907 Samuel Parsons, the landscape architect under Mayor Green, was begging uselessly for better park equipment and a new watering system. The sculptor felt that he had been cast in the right role. An appropriation of $100,000 for improving the water system was passed that year.

The sculptor gathered the curses of the old school of artists when he joined the parks association to keep the Academy of Design from putting up a building in Bryant Park. He won a taxpayer’s suit against the city in 1911 to prevent the slovenly extension of Riverside Drive in the Washington Heights region. In 1918, in a similar action, he prevented the building of an unsightly pumping station in Morningside Park. And routine park business, outside of the courts, amused him continuously because it was so full of trouble.

In 1910 Mayor Hylan appointed Charles Stover, who had worked under the direction of the park association, his Commissioner of Parks. Stover promptly turned the park into a playground, principally by digging swimming pools and wading puddles wherever there was room for them. He came into direct opposition with Parsons the landscape architect. They quarreled. The commissioner held up the architect’s salary on the ground that he was absent from his office too much.

Gutzon entered the fight with a letter to the New York Sun, pointing out that the new commissioner had “not rotted enough manure to fertilize a ten-acre lot, nor mustered enough courage to contract for a single manure pit.” He reminded his readers that “Last year a $100,000 high pressure water system remained absolutely idle for the lack of a little hose, and $100,000 worth of property was allowed to go to ruin.” He arrayed himself against a movement to impeach Stover and put his own report on the needs of the park before the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. With him on the committee was a fine array of talent—Jacob Schiff, Francis Lynder Stetson, William J. Gibson, George W. Perkins, Charles L. Burmeister and some others. They got a respectful hearing.

The sculptor submitted with his report sixty samples of Central Park soil that had been analyzed by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The budget committee gave him hearty approval and allotted enough funds to save the park.

During the years Gutzon served on its board of directors, many important questions were discussed by the Parks Association, such as what to do with the old Arsenal building, what about additions to the Metropolitan Museum, what about monuments and statues, what about Riverside Park and the New York Central Railroad tracts. He deplored the usual attitude of the Association which in its zeal to “save the park” objected to almost every new proposal, regardless of merit. He took most of his indignation to the newspapers.

In 1922 he fought for the request of the National Sculpture Society to hold an open-air exhibition near the Metropolitan Museum, although he was not a member of the society. The Association opposed him. He declared in the New York Times:

And he took an active part in the city’s big stir about the proposed development of Riverside Park in connection with the New York Central’s right of way along the Hudson River front. It was part of his plan that “The park from the Drive, with its river glimpses, should be the most tempting in Manhattan, and every walk into it should possess a separate individual interest.” And so in February 1917 he wrote to Mayor Mitchell.

The First World War put a stop to many of the plans of the park designers. Mayor Mitchell went into a training camp in Florida and was killed in an airplane crash. Gutzon resigned from the Association in 1922, but he listened to the plea of George Gordon Battle, the president, and reconsidered. He remained active for many years.

One of Gutzon’s last appearances in New York was in 1939 at a dinner party given by “Missy” Meloney. Present were the new Park Commissioner Robert Moses, and Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. He was surprised to see them and obviously pleased.

“I’ve been anxious to see you fellows,” he said as he sat down. “I’ve been wanting to tell you about my new plan for the development of Central Park.... Now what I’ve had in mind is this——”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THE CZECHO-SLOVAK ARMY

Gutzon was interested in this, as he was in all new republics that were brought to his attention. He looked into the matter and shortly found himself in spirited correspondence with its leaders. The republic makers, he discovered, called themselves Czecho-Slovaks, and with them, as a sort of motivating influence, was Thomas Masaryk. The cause seemed to be popular. Large numbers of these foreigners who had found security and freedom in the United States were now volunteering to go back and fight for their countrymen in Europe, and, since the draft law had not yet gone into effect, nobody stopped them.

Masaryk was mostly in Washington trying to get the United States to aid his cause. There Borglum met him and helped him to get a $12,000,000 appropriation from the U. S. Treasury. The two then collaborated in writing a constitution for the new Republic of Czecho-Slovakia. In Gutzon’s files was found a parchment-bound copy of this document with Masaryk’s signature on it, together with a letter expressing the leader’s gratitude for Borglum’s help.

That’s how it came about that the sculptor offered a part of his property in Stamford to serve as a military post. The land was vacant, there was plenty of space, and there the Czech volunteers could be trained while they waited for transports to carry them across the Atlantic. As headquarters Gutzon donated an old farmhouse. The volunteers built their own barracks and cleared a parade ground across the woods.

The first recruits to arrive at the camp looked a little confused. As a military force they were a lonely lot. The United States had nothing to do with them. They were under command of the French and were to be sent to a French sector when they reached the front. But there wasn’t any French control of them in this country. Whatever military control they had was purely theoretical.

The Czecho-Slovak organizers in New York and Washington were pleased by the patriotism of the men who volunteered to fight. But, once they had expressed their satisfaction, they forgot all about the army. It was easy to send passage money to worthy young men all over the country and move them on to the camp in Stamford. As a result of this carefree policy, most of the business of handling the volunteers fell automatically to the Borglum family.

Frequently a batch of recruits would be sent from New York without advance notice or arrangements for provisions. The Borglums would then have to scour the neighborhood to borrow blankets and appeal loudly to the Red Cross for a quick food supply. Once in 1918 when the painter George Luks was spending the summer with Gutzon he and the sculptor painted posters which were sold at auction to raise funds for the camp. The boys needed some adequate kitchen materials, such as a stove, knives and a collection of pots and pans.

The Czechs, after a little pushing by Borglum, put on a sort of pageant which showed an attack on an Austrian village by a band of the new republic’s troops. It was realistic, and press reports said that it was very thrilling.

The soldiers had hurriedly put together a few thatched-roof cottages and hung up a background to give the illusion of the Austrian village. Everyone who came to Wire Mill Road that night was in Czech costume, and that included the Borglums and their guests. It was a gala night, and it brought another tide of volunteers.

On another evening there was an impressive musical program. Masaryk came with his daughter Anna and one of the Benes brothers presently to become famous in Europe. Miss Kitty Cheatham, a singer who had made many concert tours in Europe, was present also. She heard the massed male chorus of the soldiers sing her composition “America” as it probably would never be sung again. The boys were born singers, and they meant what they sang.

Gutzon telephoned one night that he had heard important news and would deliver it to the camp in person. So the Czecho-Slovak army stayed up late that night. There was no radio. The late evening papers would arrive with Gutzon Borglum. So there was nothing to do but wait. About 10 o’clock the sculptor arrived. The boys stood at attention in dead silence. “I won’t keep you long,” he said. “But I have heard good news and I wanted to tell it to you myself.... President Wilson this afternoon announced that the United States has recognized the independence of the Republic of Czechoslovakia.” The boys were enthusiastic that night. They built a huge bonfire on the parade ground. They marched around it and over most of the neighborhood singing and shouting for a large part of the night.

The camp commander, a Czech, was a professional agnostic. He said it hurt him to look at any sort of religious observance. This made things difficult for him because the greater part of the Czecho-Slovak volunteers were deeply religious. They were always aware that they were going into danger, and until they came to Stamford they had always been able to go to church when and if they wanted to. The conflict between the commander and his troops was rapidly approaching a state of open mutiny when Borglum intervened. He arranged to have mass celebrated in his home whenever a contingent of soldiers was due to go abroad. Father Kubacec would come up from Yonkers on the eve of their going, to hear confessions. In the morning he would celebrate mass on the open terrace. And everybody in the camp would attend except the commander.

When the first group left for the front they wanted to carry the new republic’s flag, which, so far, they had seen only on the camp stationery. Gutzon requisitioned one from the headquarters in New York, but there was none there, either. So he toured the New York shops for suitable flag material and brought it home. It was cut by a Bohemian tailor from Chicago on the table in the Borglum dining room. Four stars, representing four provinces, were eventually stitched to the field. The camp commander said that very likely there was no other flag like it anywhere in the world. He was probably right.

A hundred men marched with this flag down Wire Mill Road to entrain in Stamford for the boat from New York. They were dressed in blue-gray uniforms with berets of the same color. And somehow, they looked like soldiers. Gutzon frequently wondered how many of them had survived the war.

Every few weeks a similar pageant rolled out of the Borglum estate. Altogether several thousand volunteers learned squad drill and the manual of arms on Gutzon’s front porch. Several hundred were still there on Armistice Day and went roaring to town to join in the general celebration.

In the meantime the sculptor and some other Americans had formed an association of independent mid-European nations. Leaders of the nations and American aides assembled on October 25, 1918, in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, where they drew up a declaration of common aims. This much-bandied declaration of independence was signed by Paderewski for the Poles, Masaryk for the Czechs and five other lesser lights for nations in being or about to be.

A preceding Victory Meeting had been held in Carnegie Hall with Masaryk and Paderewski as principal speakers. It was a conclave volcanic in its enthusiasm for two nations that now have been allowed to die. It is remembered chiefly for Paderewski’s remarkable speech.

Much of the labor of getting these ill-assorted people together for the Philadelphia meeting was the free gift of Lieutenant John Townsend, a young American. He had learned his Europe while living with his father who was in the diplomatic service, and he had given his time day and night to the campaign for the unity of the small nations. He worked too hard and on the evening of the ceremony at Independence Hall, he suddenly collapsed. He never recovered. Gutzon was impressed by him. To a group of Czecho-Slovak officers he had this to say:

Everybody was touched. Nobody said anything about Gutzon’s part in the raising of the Czecho-Slovak army.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

THE NOBLE SPORT

3. After the war an extraordinary number of returned veterans (the estimate of the trade is 20,000) wanted to take up boxing as a profession because they liked it, or because there was a living in it with big money for those who reached the championship in any grade from bantam to heavyweight.

There was no tangible evidence that the sculptor had gone very deeply into the study of these matters. But as a man who had raised an army on his own grounds he was one who undoubtedly would listen to any harangue about what was good for soldiers being just the stuff for virile men who were not soldiers. And the appeal came to him without his making any move to ask for it.

One Sunday afternoon in 1917 there came strolling up the driveway to the Borglum home in Stamford a stranger somewhat noticeably costumed. As he alighted from his cab and started a leisurely march to the terrace the Borglums were conscious of a broadly checked suit, a flaming tie, a monocle and a bright-yellow cane. The man’s face may have shown a hint of Irish, but otherwise he was unmistakably British and impressively advertising it.

At the door he introduced himself as William A. Gavin of London. “But I have come originally from old Ireland,” he mentioned. “I was taught to love the arts at my mother’s knee. I have never forgotten the precepts she laid down for me.... ‘A great artist,’ she always said, ‘must live very close to God.’ And I have come here, sir, as a humble pilgrim. I have seen some of your magnificent work and I stand in great awe of it. I should esteem it a great privilege, Mr. Borglum, if I could go home and tell some of my friends that I have had the chance to shake your hand....”

Mr. Borglum invited him in.

Whatever else Mr. Gavin may have been, he was a finished worker. He has been described by some of those who knew him best as a somewhat small, round, dapper gentleman with an amiable manner who was stiff enough to be nearly pompous. But he knew how to take his time.

In due course he mentioned what had given him his interest

in sculpture. “I have learned,” he said, “what the human body looks like in motion. I know there must be strange techniques in the art that permits the transfer of this motion to blocks of stone or metal. I can sense it. I can see it although I cannot comprehend it. I have been able to recognize master productions. I have never failed to see that they were master productions—and I may say that so far I have never seen any that move me the way that yours do.”

“And you are not an artist?” inquired Mr. Borglum.

Mr. Gavin sighed. “Ah, no,” he said. “I wished to be. As a child I haunted the art galleries. But there were financial difficulties in the family and I was discouraged. I have given much of my life to sports.”

“Interesting,” murmured the sculptor.

“Yes, indeed,” returned Mr. Gavin. “In a way it has been an odd path—and not one, perhaps, that I should have chosen if I had been given the selection. But I feel that I have done a worthwhile thing. The strength of the nation may be said to depend upon its horses, rifle shots, swimmers, tennis champions, boxers, and, of course, cricket players. I have tried to make these people constantly better—and, in my small way, I have succeeded.”

“I like boxing,” admitted the sculptor.

“I had believed you would,” said Gavin. “At the moment boxing is my own principal interest. That is one of the reasons why I have come to talk with you. Unfortunately few people in New York have ever seen a boxing match. They do not know what it means to watch the effortless movement of a pair of skilled boxers—to note the extreme precision with which their effort is controlled.” To him, he said, such contests were the most beautiful thing in the world—expressive of the fundamental male instincts, inspiring. And after that he got around to the reason for his visit.

It had occurred to him, he said, that Mr. Borglum might be of help to him in raising the level of boxing in the United States. He had come from England because he hoped to do what Lord Lonsdale had done over there to get outstanding people interested in the art instead of the heedless ruffians who now controlled it. Gutzon’s name had been given him, he said, as that of a man whose integrity was well known to the community and who had expressed some sympathy with the people who were trying to make ring contests legal. If Gutzon would join his list of sponsors, he said—and he named several highly respectable men of Gutzon’s acquaintance—he would form an immense club, restore the manly art and form a national association to promote it. He, himself, he mentioned, would advance all preliminary expenses.

The sculptor joined this crusade without further pressure. Nobody connected with him could have doubted that he would. Boxing had some of the artistic appeal for him that it theoretically had for Gavin. He had known about fisticuffs since boyhood, and, as his sculpture progressed, his continuous swinging of the tools had broadened his shoulders and put power behind his punch. Boxing had become one of the things that he thought he might learn to do better than anybody else, and he had tried to prove it. His friend Bob Davis had brought the world’s heavyweight champion Bob Fitzsimmons to the sculptor’s studio just as a test. Borglum had made a somewhat secondary showing against the champion, but that hadn’t hurt his enthusiasm. Maybe he didn’t know as much about ring mayhem as a champion, but he still knew as much about the theory of boxing as anybody else. That’s what he was thinking when he signed Gavin’s prospectus—which was quite a prospectus.

It turned out that there was a lot of business about the boxing reform movement that Gutzon had not suspected. In September 1919 there came into being The International Sporting Club, Inc., of New York, an organization that was to show the National Sporting Club of London how sports really should be conducted. According to the plan ably outlined by Mr. Gavin, there would be 2,250 members. Each member, to get the great movement started, was to buy a gold-debenture bond for $500 as a sort of initiation fee. The bond was to pay six per cent annually. After that the dues would be $100 a year.

Land was bought and plans were drawn for a magnificent clubhouse at Lexington Avenue and Forty-ninth Street. Excavators came with suitable tools and began to dig a hole for this great temple of sport. Members rushed in to buy their gold debentures. The hole deepened and presently was surrounded by a high fence to keep New York’s enthusiasts from falling into it.

By the end of 1920 Gavin was beginning to be one of the most talked-about men in New York. He, of course, was managing director of the club. He was mentioned in press reports as the man in control of “organization and development,” which seem to have been his chief concern.

Major A. J. Drexel Biddle was first president of the organization. Gutzon Borglum, still eager for the return of boxing, suddenly found himself treasurer. The Army and Navy were well represented in the membership by people who had been active in the First World War—admirals and generals, and commanders and colonels. And there were so many more figures from financial and social eminences that the roster was a sort of Who’s Who. There was quite a sensation when this list of magnificent members moved into the struggle to get boxing back again.

Whatever may be said about Gavin’s effort to raise the level of the boxing industry, it is certain that the club presently began to make some headway. Senator James J. Walker, presently to be known as New York’s playboy mayor, led the fight at Albany and presently won it when the Walker Bill (Chapter 714, Laws of 1921, N. Y.) was passed. But he had a lot of amateur assistance. Biddle made an impassioned plea to Governor Alfred Smith and later broke through Tammany obstructions to lay the matter before Boss Murphy and demand his support.

When the bill was passed, as nearly everybody thought it would be, a testimonial dinner was given to Gavin. Jimmy Walker declared that the legalization of boxing in New York was due to Gavin’s skill in organization and to his tireless energy. He read a letter to the banqueters that Borglum, still full of crusading zeal, had written to him: