So, there it is. In full megaphone mode. Heard from coast to coast and by all the ships at sea. The dog who once pricked up its ears at tantalizing whistles now winces-winces-winces under the bed with a hammer-on-anvil headache. Let the state-issued newsfeed proclaim without glitch or disconnect: on July 3, 2020, in the shadow of Mount Rushmore, near the small town of Keystone, South Dakota…
Gutzon Borglum had become, like Rodin, a de facto national sculptor. In 1925, the United States Mint, with the approval of Congress, issued a Stone Mountain commemorative silver half dollar to help fund the project. Borglum’s many other statues, celebrating various luminaries, some locally and some widely known, were raised in places as disparate as Portland, Oregon, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Paris. He continued to be immune to the tensions that inhere in his projects and beliefs.
