There was a weary imbroglio. The sculptor sent his assistant, Hugo Villa, to superintend the whole bronze-casting business. Hugo reported in 1925 that the first group of figures which had been shipped in 1922 were only partly cast; that later groups to arrive had been cast and were scattered all over the foundry; that the contract made by the sculptor’s friend was a pretty bad one. In Newark, meanwhile, all the burden of explanation fell upon Ralph Lum, a man of exemplary patience, who was being constantly asked by artists, reporters and expectant citizens what had become of the memorial. In answer to one of his many letters Gutzon wrote in 1922: The new studio I had to improvise for this memorial has been a great physical burden, while the sheer labor of creating such a group has been terrible. However, that is all overcome now, and I have simply to take up figure by figure and group by group, with some concentrated work of course, but it will be like revamping a manuscript you have written. Now about finishing the group of horses by the first of this month, as you hope. This is quite possible in point of time and labor, but it would be bad and harmful. You will be surprised to hear me say I’m a little sorry the main figures are gone to be cast so I cannot work more on them. I do not need to tell you I shall do nothing that will hurt the final result, but I ought to say that I work so rapidly no allowance is made for my slowing up. This work is a colossal undertaking. A true, clear perspective of it as a whole must be maintained throughout its making. Handling a mountain of material is of itself a man’s job continuously. For that I calculated, but the housing and the danger of freezing and the responsibility of caring for so much I did not consider as I now would. If a sculptor should undertake to do one figure a month, complete--twelve figures a year--it would be undertaking the unheard of in art. Yet as the work stands today, I’ve done much more than that. In the next sixty days I shall have done nineteen human figures and two horses. I have spent at least half my working time, by necessity, to properly house and protect the work. These nineteen or twenty figures are all separate and amount to about two thirds of the whole. I don’t believe anything like it was ever done before. I certainly could not repeat it and should not want to. As to its value, you know better than anyone else that the group is worth half a million if it is worth a cent. In a previous letter the sculptor had written in a different mood: “The work is going splendidly, but I am terribly tired--more constantly tired than at any time in my life--and it’s not because I have reached the age of one hundred.” Answering both letters, Mr. Lum wrote: