READERS OF The American Spectator need not be reminded
that the press was less than fair in its treatment of Ronald Reagan
and his presidency. Or that members of America’s intelligentsia, so
called, dismissed his popularity with odd allusions to luck or
magic. Now that President Reagan is ex-President Reagan, these
self-delusory seers are breathing relief with the force of fire
from a dragon’s snout and acting as though the great spellbinder
never existed. But just as they all looked on helplessly while our
President marched through the Republican primaries and straight
into the White House in 1980, they once more look helplessly on as
a movement gains momentum that may yet again pass them by, this
time on its way up, up, up. A proposal to give proper recognition
to the Reagan years has hit like a fever across the land; and with
a little effort from conservative organizations, including all
tabloid-size conservative magazines, we may just be able to get
this project “off the ground,” as we here at The American
Spectator are wont to say.
Specifically, we would like to see that the same resources that
helped propel Ronald Reagan and his ideas to the Oval Office be
tapped to place his congenial visage onto Mount Rushmore, located
somewhere in southwestern South Dakota. This does not mean
money—according to our plan, the Reagan head will appear on Mount
Rushmore only after a head-tax has been levied on the citizens of
South Dakota, who will then be immersed in a windfall of tourism
dollars. All we ask is that enough people make their voice heard
and their will known.
The American Spectator, under the valiant leadership of
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., has formed a new committee to play at least
a modest role in this patriotic endeavor. It was Tyrrell, after
all, who unsuspectingly inspired the project last July 26, when he
presented then-President Reagan with an artist’s rendition of how
Rushmore might appear with our fortieth President set comfortably
alongside Washington, Jefferson, T. Roosevelt, and Lincoln. The
President smiled graciously and accepted the gift for what it was:
a fond gesture to a man who had inherited economic chaos at home
and Soviet adventurism abroad, and who proceeded to quell the
anxieties of a populace driven by fear.
Fine. But the story kept popping up in the press, thanks to the
reproduction of the drawing in John Elvin’s influential “Inside the
Beltway” column, which appears in the Washington Times.
When Elvin gave the story yet another plug in early May, it
apparently caught the eye of a Village Voice reporter who,
the following week, discussed the Rushmore project in the
Voice’s otherwise somnolent pages. Then all hell broke
loose. Tyrrell began receiving phone calls from newspapers,
magazines, and radio and television stations at a frightening rate.
Naturally, to push things further along, he commanded that a press
release be prepared and mailed (at once!). And so it was done.
THE PRESS release, admittedly fashioned with the
Spectator’s penchant for levity, announced the formation
of the Committee for Monumental Progress (CMP) to institutionalize
the magazine’s support of the Rushmore project. CMP was designed to
be in touch with modern sensitivities, especially after Senator
Larry Pressler (R. SD) expressed concern that “any additional
blasting” might harm the 48-year-old monument. Pressler, our
research staff has discovered, was instrumental in widening the
highway that leads to Rushmore, and hence is not a man we wish to
alienate.
“Rushmore was dynamited in 1927 so that the famed sculptor
Gutzon Borglum could begin sculpting the presidential facades,”
CMP’s press release stated. “But in keeping with modern
environmental concerns, CMP recommends a more sensitive approach in
adding Ronald Reagan to the mountain’s collection of worthies. The
amount of rock chiseled away must be kept to an absolute minimum.
Thus we plan to fly in a concrete nose and chin, and possibly a
concrete ear. An artist is currently being sought to make a mold of
President Reagan’s head, which can then be enlarged using advanced
holographic techniques. The concrete appendages will be attached
and the whole thing suspended next to Abraham Lincoln in such a
manner that the mountain’s moss may double as Reagan’s hair.”
And so that those of our friends who appear regularly in
TAS’s “Current Wisdom” do not feel left out, CMP proposed
that the monumental nose, chin, and ear be supplied by the Soviet
Union, whose engineers are justly acclaimed as leaders in this
field. But if for any reason Soviet industry is unwilling to part
with all that concrete, CMP will engage the services of some other
Third World dictatorship (excepting the slap-happy Sandinistas, who
couldn’t produce so much as a concrete toe if you supplied them
unlimited funds, a blueprint, and a month in Erie,
Pennsylvania).
With the press release duly dispatched, Tyrrell, The
American Spectator, and CMP hit the media with a sudden splash
of ink, and we are pleased to report that the story is taking on a
life of its own. The New York Times, the Washington
Post, USA Today, the New York Daily News, Time,
Newsweek (its first Spectator citation in twenty-one
years!), the Chicago Tribune, National Public Radio, and
CNN, for starters, picked it up all in the span of a few days. A
slew of smaller papers around the country pitched in with reports
and editorials (some admittedly lukewarm). The San Jose Mercury
News, for instance, kicked-off its May 18 edition with the
excessively cute headline, “Rush on to Chisel Reagan.”
“Higher-ups” in the Mount Rushmore Society were immediately
alarmed. Tom Griffith, the executive secretary of this pernicious
little society, tried in vain to spike our proposal by claiming,
“The simple fact is that there is no suitable rock to carve anyone
at Mount Rushmore.” But why then does he bother adding this: “Why
fool with a masterpiece? Would you paint another figure next to the
Mona Lisa?” Clearly he feels terrorized by CMP (as does Al Hunt,
Washington bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, who on
CNN’s sprightly “Capital Gang” denounced the current groundswell to
affix Reagan to Rushmore as his “outrage of the week”). It is
evident, moreover, that Mr. Griffith’s credentials as an art critic
are in poor repair.
TO RESOLVE the dispute, CMP has contacted the Department of the
Interior in Washington, D.C., urging them to undertake a
feasibility study of at least 150,000 words. We simply cannot take
the Mount Rushmore Society’s claim of “no room” seriously. The
claim is clearly antihistorical: the American presidency did not
stop with Teddy Roosevelt, and the Mount Rushmore Society should
have realized this when they lit that first stick of dynamite sixty
years ago. It is also the cavil of a Luddite. Obviously, through
innovative use of laser technology, many more Presidents could
appear on Mount Rushmore—at least nocturnally. Calvin Coolidge, for
one, would make another splendid addition.
But if it is indeed a genuine problem to have five Presidents
physically occupying Mount Rushmore National Park, CMP would like
to spark a national debate on the purported greatness of Teddy
Roosevelt, who may very well turn out to be expendable. Gutzon
Borglum admitted he put TR on Rushmore for the sole reason that the
Panama Canal was cut on his watch—a mere technocrat! And
environmentalists, of all people, should be clamoring for
Roosevelt’s head—literally—in view of the brutality this
“sportsman” exhibited toward wildlife year after year. He mowed
down the gamut of creatures God deposited in North America, from
the affable buffalo to the nimble whitetail deer. If Teddy bows
out, the Reagan likeness will be cleared for landing between
Jefferson and Lincoln, and the Democrats would be placated knowing
there will be no net gain of Republicans on the mountainside. (We
also believe, incidentally, that considerable thought should be
given to effacing the flaky Jefferson, but that is a different
campaign.)
Along with discussions about the feasibility of improving Mount
Rushmore with what historian Garry Wills so aptly labeled the
“Reagan magic,” the Rushmore movement has also spurred a growing
debate over the success of the Reagan presidency itself. As CMP
officials, Tyrrell and I have lately done multitudinous radio talk
shows, and the talk invariably focuses on Reagan’s accomplishments
in his eight-year reign as top executive and
commander-in-chief—accomplishments the aforementioned
“intelligentsia” would prefer were kept hush-hush. CMP wasted no
time in arranging for the first clash on this emotional issue in
the national prints, a heated exchange between Tyrrell and Mr.
George Thompson of Florida Today on the editorial page of
the seismographic USA Today. “[Reagan] spent more on
peacetime defense and less on education, the ill, the homeless and
unemployed than any other president, ever. Worse, his legacy
included a weak successor chained to a witless promise of ‘no new
taxes.’” Precisely! Tyrrell chiseled away at each of these yelps
and concluded, “Let us have a national referendum, and wise
politicians will make it a key issue of the 1990 congressional
elections.”
ACCORDINGLY, MOST Of CMP’s efforts will be directed at
elucidating President Reagan’s genuine successes. For openers,
consider the economy. Energy shortages and the “misery index” are
ancient news. Jobs are being created faster than people can fill
them. The rest of the world is quietly cutting tax rates, not
wanting to draw too much attention to its earlier scorn for
“Reaganomics.” (Incidentally, on May 19, the day a
Reagan-for-Rushmore item was sent over the Associated Press wire,
the Dow Jones index soared to 2501 with 240 million shares traded,
hardly a coincidence.) And one of the Gipper’s truly monumental
economic achievements was conning liberal Democrats into decrying
the evils of federal deficits!
In foreign affairs, who would have predicted eight years ago the
drama now unfolding around this tilted orb? Reagan’s America
catalyzed the forces for liberty now strengthening on every
continent save Antarctica, though its penguins are restless. The
Soviet Union has been stung smartly thanks to Reagan’s support of
the mujahedeen, and a Communist regime was heaved out of power in
Grenada in a refreshing reversal of history’s march. Then, against
the fond desires of our liberal elites, our Ron rebuked Gorbo in
Iceland by refusing to let go of SDI—a program Reagan
single-handedly initiated in 1983 that could quite possibly render
nuclear missiles too costly an offensive weapon for the USA’s
enemies, thereby protecting our fair land and all its contents,
including our national monuments. And who can deny that the
national mood has swung from gloom to the kind of healthy pride
that did in the intelligent Mike Dukakis?
To establish our role in this ongoing national debate, CMP has
enlisted flesh-and-blood persons to proclaim the truth that
Reagan’s epic deeds have indeed earned him a spot on Mount
Rushmore. Lyn Nofziger, Peter Hannaford, Victor Gold, John Elvin,
Baron von Kannon, Edwin Meese, Anthony Dolan, and countless other
notables have enthusiastically agreed to sit on the board of
directors, with R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. as its chairman. Clare
Boothe Luce has been named a board member emeritus, a bow to her
many inspired conversations with Tyrrell on the importance of
recognizing the Reagan legacy.
Please join these and other grateful citizens in our ambitious
plot to put President Ronald Reagan both onto Mount Rushmore and
further into the parlors of enlightened debate. Write your
Washington representative today, even if he is under indictment or
about to resign. Initiate support groups. Spread public awareness.
Raise your neighbor’s consciousness. The Committee for Monumental
Progress is asking for your help. But remember: we don’t need your
money, we need your sympathy.
The whole world is watching.
David Shanahan is the executive director of the Committee
for Monumental Progress.
