Periodically, we hear about adding a face to Mount Rushmore, which includes sculptures of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt.
The problem is that there is no room for another face--unless we eliminate one. Washington, of course, can't be undone because he pioneered the birth of America by courageous military action and undying commitment; European kings and dictators were astounded by his personal dismissal of power and his voluntary retirement to private life.
Jefferson, in his turn, provided the intellectual justification for American liberty, the very source of the country called America
Later, during a national conflict resulting in civil war, President Lincoln stepped up--tortured by moral conflict though he was--to expand the breadth of American sovereignty and the depth of American liberty.
These three men were Fathers, in DEED, of our country.
Which leaves us with Teddy Roosevelt.
Why is he there? On Rushmore?
Well, to get approval of government funds for the sculpture, the project's advocates appealed to President Calvin Coolidge, who stipulated that the faces should include, in addition to Washington, two Republicans and one Democrat. Jefferson was the Democrat, Lincoln was the first Republican, and Roosevelt filled the bill, being a recent, popular Republican (Later, he formed the Bull Moose Party and became its candidate for President. The Bully Moose lost, but there on Rushmore, he remains).
I think we would be safe, in honor of America, to re-sculpt Roosevelt's face--but to whom?
Conservatives have championed Ronald Reagan, and liberals have suggested Barack Obama.
I think not.
Reagan was a champion of individual liberty and American values, but he can't rise, 200 years later, to the level of Rushmore, which can and should include only four of America's greatest intellectual leaders.
Obama, too, is not an option for the monument, even though he qualifies as an historic American figure--the first black man to head the nation. Although he is equally half white, he identifies--and is identified--as a man of the black race, a people who are a vital and integral part of America. A black man on Rushmore would be a perfectly appropriate reflection of our history and a profound icon of the liberty on which the country was founded.
But Obama is an American by happenstance (like most of us), born and at least partially raised in the good old USA (a privileged place, indeed). I would love to see a black man on Rushmore, but one who was willing to give his life for American liberty to complete the promise of America. There were lots of such black men, now gone and forgotten, but, to me, the giant of American blacks was Frederick Douglass. Douglass risked his life every day to fight the institution of slavery and, later, added women's rights to his fight. He had the ear of Lincoln and carried the day by example. He was American to the core.
So, okay, if we can't get Douglass, let's at least replace Teddy the Bull Moose.
My nominations for Rushmore:
Frederick Douglass.
Samuel Adams.
Patrick Henry.
