Give the man room : $b The story of Gutzon BorglumCasey, Robert J. (Robert Joseph)
General
Give the man room : $b The story of Gutzon Borglum
Casey, Robert J. (Robert Joseph)
Borglum, Gutzon, 1867-1941
Since before noon a pilgrimage had been under way from Atlanta and
surrounding communities toward Stone Mountain. There were no good roads
hereabouts--not in that day--so presently there was a crush of vehicles
parked on the approaches for nearly a mile from the mountain. They never
reached the unveiling. Hundreds upon hundreds of automobiles were in
fields along the highway, and in ditches and on crossroads. The
occupants of some of them walked on miles and miles to the ceremony.
Others were stopped in their tracks when the first trickle of cars back
to Atlanta began at 3:30.
Ten thousand people stood bareheaded and silent as the statue of Lee was
unveiled. Another ten thousand were in the group that could not see,
blocked in the crush of traffic miles from the mountain.
Hollins Randolph, president of the Memorial Association, stood on the
platform briefly to introduce Dr. David Marx, who delivered the
invocation. Mrs. Plane, in a costume of the sixties, was carried onto
the rostrum by the sculptor. With bared head he stood motionless as she
waved her hand.
Up on the mountain platform, a thousand yards away in an air-drawn line,
tiny figures moved beneath the two vast American flags that hung like a
curtain. Mrs. Plane’s hand was scarcely raised before boulders of
granite began to slip from resting places under the flags and flash down
the sheer drop of the precipice--five seconds in their fall from the
flags to the base of the mountain, then two more seconds before the dull
thunder of their impact rolled across the valley.
The flags parted and rose, and between them, to the thunder of cascading
granite, the head of Lee appeared--a majestic head that even in its
colossal size and distance seemed vibrant and lifelike. The silence of
the spectators was long. Then suddenly out of the stillness spoke a
voice clear though quavering--an old man’s voice: “It’s General Lee!
It’s the general!”
Borglum turned wonderingly toward the source of this unscheduled salute.
It was a bent old man who spoke--an old man in a gray uniform. His day
seemed to be done. Not many had heard his outcry--not more than a
hundred or so who happened to be standing near him--but his voice had
brought the awakening of the throng. Applause--cheers, screams and the
shrill rebel yell--crashed across the valley and came echoing back
again, an amorphous sound like the din of a hurricane. Lee had been well
acclaimed.
Gutzon, holding the trembling arm of Mrs. Plane who seemed to have
undergone a tremendous emotional shock, suddenly realized what the
people were cheering for: the head of Lee. And he gazed up at it
openmouthed, conscious that he was looking at it for the first time.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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