World's grandest monument waiting in sight of us for the Confederate dead by John Temple Graves.

001




Reprint of Article Published in Heart's Sunday American on Sunday, July 19, 1914.
World's Grandest Monument Waiting in Sight of Us for The Confederate Dead
By JOHN TEMPLE GRAVES

To
the veterans of the dead Confederacy, to the daughters and sons, and to all who revere the memories of that historic and immortal struggle, I bring to-day the suggestion of a great memorial, perfectly simple, perfectly feasible, and which if realized will give to the Confederate soldier and his memories the most majestic monument, set in the most magnificent frame in all the world.
It is a wonder that it has not been suggested and realized many years ago. Just now while the loyal devotion of this great people of the South is considering a general and enduring monument to the great cause “fought without shame and lost without dishonor,” it seems to me that nature and Providence have set the immortal shrine right at our doors, and that we have only to open our eyes to see it, and our hearts and hands to make it wonderful.
I will not build up to the proposition. I will state it briefly—bluntly—directly. It will speak for itself—more eloquently than words can speak.
Stone Mountain is distinctly one of the wonders of the world. Its glories have never been fully appreciated or utilized by the people who see it every day. It is a mountain of solid granite one mile from its summit to its base. Much of Atlanta has been builded from it, and there is enough left to build ten more Atlantas without touching the lofty spot that is nearest to the sun.
On the steep side of Stone Mountain, facing northward, there is a sheer declivity that rises or falls from 900 to 1,000 feet.
Here, then, is Nature's matchless plan for a memorial. On this steep side let those who love the Southern dead combine to have the engineers cut a projection 30 feet wide and 100 feet deep. Into this projection and as high as it may be made let us ask Lorado Taft, the republic's greatest sculptor, to chisel a heroic statue, 70 feet high, of the Confederate soldier in the nearest possible resemblance to Robert E. Lee. Let him chisel also the insignia of the Confederate uniform, of which the gray stone is the natural base.
And there—twelve hundred feet above the plain—let us place the old gray granite hat upon that noble head, with its grand eyes turned toward Atlanta—Phoebus and Phoenix—holocaust and miracle of the Civil War—and from this Godlike eminence let our Confederate hero calmly look history and the future in the face!
Shut your eyes and think of it. It will grow upon you until the glow and glory of the idea will keep you awake at night—as it did with Forrest Adair and General Andrew West, to whom I first confided it.
There will be no monument in all the world like this our monument to the Confederate dead. None so majestic, none so magnificently framed, and none that will more powerfully attract the interest and the admiration of those who have a soul.
The Lion of Lucerne, carved upon the mountain rock, commemorating the courage of the Swiss Guards and attracting the attention of visitors all over the world, lies couchant five hundred feet lower than our Confederate soldier's feet. Every traveler to Egypt from Herodotus through the Roman Caesar, the French Napoleon and the English Gladstone to the American Roosevelt has stood in awe beside the silent Sphinx—massive and solemn—cut from the stone, and now remaining as a monument to a departed civilization. In far-away India, a thousand miles northeastward from Bombay and as far westward from Calcutta, thousands go yearly to the little city of Agra to gaze upon the Taj Mahal, the world's masterpiece of architecture. Rome is famous for the Coliseum, Milan for its great Cathedral, Versailles for the Palace, Cairo for the Pyramids, Delhi for its Kutab-Minar, Rangoon for its Pagoda, and Kamakura for the bronze statue of the Buddha.
And so, with this historic statue to Robert Lee, the flower and incarnation of the Southern soldier and all for which he stood, chiseled by an American architect into the towering crest of the most remarkable mountain of solid granite in the world, the little town of Stone Mountain, nestling modestly upon the outer garments of the Capital of Georgia, will hold henceforth an object of artistic, romantic and sentimental interest unique among the wonders of the age. The passing crowd of men and women will come to see it from all round the world. And our own people day by day from every window and housetop in Atlanta and surrounding territory will look with comfort and inspiration upon this matchless materialization of all that is noblest and most heroic in their history.
These are fine words, you may say, gilding a fine idea, but is it feasible? I answer yes, unhesitatingly, upon the authority of the engineers and the examples of heroic architecture. What is to prevent the stonecutter and the engineer from cutting that 30 by 100 projection from the mountainside? What is to prevent Lorado Taft, on his safe and swinging platforms, from chiseling the great statue there?
Is Lorado Taft the man to do the work? It would seem so. He has cut from the stone and concrete at Aurora, Illinois, a statue of the American Indian whose force and meaning are attracting international attention. He is molding to-day the great figures to adorn the Panama Exposition at San Francisco. If he is not the best man we must and will surely find the best man we must and will surely find the best man for our great conception here.
Will Sam Venable permit this chiseling of his mighty granite hill? I do not know, for I am writing upon one of the impulses that have been behind every good thing I ever did, from the Grady Memorial speech to the defense of the South at Chicago. But I do know Sam Venable, and I make bold to say that the brave and loyal spirit of this gallant Georgian will not refuse the consent which will make of his Georgia mountain more than a Parnassus. Mr. Venable need not sell it, and he will never miss the one granite side that he gives to sentiment and to history.
The all-important question is—what will you do about it—you who read these skeleton lines of suggestion, and you who love the heroes who made the dead Confederacy?
On next Sunday The American will print a full page drawing now being made by Henz and Reid, giving to the eye in outline and detail that which I here present to the mind and heart of the Southern people.
When that picture comes I will not be here to follow it, but I ask that General Andrew West and Mr. Forrest Adair and Mr. Walter Lamar form an organization of Confederate veterans and Confederate veterans' sons and daughters to begin to get ready for the work.
Heartfelt Indorsements From General Andrew J. West
(Commander Confederate Veterans.)
A more unique, original, patriotic and appropriate suggestion never came from the pen of man than the remarkable production from Colonel Graves in Sunday's American urging a Confederate monument on Stone Mountain.
Such a monument would not be surpassed by any in this world, not even equaled by Cleopatra's Needle, which has stood on the banks of the Thames, in the city of London, for nearly sixteen hundred years.


GEN A. J. WEST


For a thousand years such a monument on Stone Mountain as Colonel Graves' fertile brain originated will enrich the world's art and inspire the world's patriotism.
FROM JOSEPH A. M'CORD:
(Governor of the Regional Bank.)
We are indebted to Mr. Graves very much indeed for this splendid thought and suggestion, and I do hope that our people will take up this proposition at once and erect this well thought out memorial to the “Lost Cause of the Confederacy.”
HON. A. D. SMALL:
“I have waited for years for the opportunity, for the privilege, of making my modest donation to such a monument as suggested by you in Sunday's American.
The glory of this idea has thrilled me as nothing ever has or will until I behold with my eyes the finished work.
MRS. ETHEL HILLYER HARRIS:
I consider the idea one of divine inspiration—the eternal granite to tell the story. Where is a higher, finer type?
Perhaps this is what God left Stone Mountain for.
I congratulate you in behalf of the South and her traditions.
J. B. SAUNDERS:
The published article in the last issue of The Sunday American by Hon. John Temple Graves, we believe, will go down in history as the beginning of one of the world's great achievements.
MRS. HELEN PLANE:
(Mother of Confederacy.)
It takes a soul to comprehend this mighty idea. I can not sleep for thinking of it. God grant I may live to see this master work completed.

LC


002




LC


14/39