Republicans created the Mount Rushmore National Memorial
Grand Old Partisan celebrates more than seventeen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. Today, I thank the GOP for creating the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Doane Robinson, a Republican activist and South Dakota state historian, had first conceived the project. His original vision had been for statues of Native American heroes, but the sculptor he selected opted instead for statues of U.S. presidents. Next, a Republican Governor secured passage of authorization in the state legislature and a Republican Senator did so in Congress. August 10th 1927, the President arrived at the site on horseback. Calvin Coolidge was there for a ceremony marking start of construction. He brought steel drill bits, for use in carving granite. Two thousand people gathered. His speech noted that depictions of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt "will constitute a distinctly national monument. It will be decided...