MOUNT RUSHMORE

 Deep in the Black Hills of South Dakota, near Custer State Park is located a mountain, known to the Lakota Sioux as "Six Grandfathers". In 1885, it  was renamed by and for a mining company lawyer, Charles E. Rushmore. In a unique twist of fate, it became the location of one of the most iconic vistas of Americana. 

In the early 1920's, an absurdly insensitive proposal to promote tourism to the Black Hills, South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson sought to sculpt the Cathedral Spires into historic figures of the old west.  Notwithstanding that these mountains are considered sacred by the Sioux, the desecration of the natural beauty of these unique geological formations would have been criminal!

When the originally desired sculptor proved unavailable, Robinson sought out Danish born Gutzon Borglum who had a different concept for the statue which fortunately dictated a different location as well.

"I want to create a monument so inspiring that people from all over American will be drawn to come and look and go home better citizens" - Gutzon Borglum

"The preservation of the sacred fire of Liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are considered as deeply, perhaps as finely staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." - George Washington

"We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race.  The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self government."- Thomas Jefferson 

" We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received and each must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune." - Theodore Roosevelt 

"I leave you hoping that the Lamp of Liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall be no longer any doubt that all men are created free and equal."- Abraham Lincoln

"Freedom is not America's gift to the world, freedom is Almighty's gift to every person who lives in this world"- George W. Bush

So why is a monument built on the sacred land of native Lakota Sioux honoring four white men, two of whom were slave owners, important to Americans?  Simply, the American ideal however imperfectly implemented has produced the most free, the most prosperous, the most technologically proficient civilization the world has ever known.  Americans need not apologize for our history for we are an imperfect people striving for a self perfecting ideal, that all people are created equal and are endowed with unalienable rights as human beings.

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in our bloodstream.  It must be fought for, protected, and handed on to them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was like in the United States when men were free." -  Ronald Reagan