The document goes on at considerable length to discuss the policy of Atlanta banks in keeping the Association alive, and the piecemeal sale of coins to pay back loans that the banks advanced. The banks at the time of Borglum’s departure from Stone Mountain held the Association’s notes for $78,862.72. The marketable property owned by the Association including its bank balances was listed at $6,406.39. The banks in time were paid off by receipts from the coin sale. The statement closes: Members of the Atlanta Chapter organized the original Stone Mountain Memorial Association and secured its charter. Members of the Atlanta Chapter personally invited Mr. Randolph to become president of the Association. Mr. Randolph has discarded the original models entrusted to him, altered the style, and reduced the size of the memorial. He has plunged the work into a national scandal on false charges. He has destroyed the confidence of the public in the work by false statements and lowered the standard of Georgia and Georgians throughout the United States. And that isn’t all of the story of Stone Mountain. While Sam Venable and Gutzon were quietly waiting for the group then in control to take a false step and fall, the Association’s directors suddenly decided that something had to be done about Stone Mountain. Gutzon’s first intimation that something was wrong came with the publication of a news story in which the new sculptor said that Borglum had deliberately left large holes in the rock to interfere with further carving. Inasmuch as Gutzon had not known that he was to have a successor and had not been in Georgia since, the accusation seemed silly. Next came Randolph’s announcement that Lee would never have worn his hat in the presence of ladies and that the Association was planning to remove the hat. Leading sculptors of the United States said that this could not be done without destroying the head. But the public had nothing to do with it anyway. There was little talk about it, and the work was done behind a canvas. The book _Famous Statues and Their Stories_, published by Edwin Rayner in 1936, pictures Stone Mountain with a photograph of the second sculptor’s designs superimposed upon it. The horses’ legs are very prominent. The design is attributed to Gutzon Borglum, and there is no suggestion in the text that he had left the work. Had Gutzon suspected what was about to be done to his head of Lee, it is probable he would have fought to retain it. It remained in his mind as one of the greatest things he had ever produced. And one close to him recalls that its destruction was caused by men who had boasted that until the end of time nothing could injure it. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO _BACKSIGHT_