Mt. Rushmore's Legend

Proud was South Dakota of having the 30th President of the U. S. spend a summer vacation near Rapid City in its Black Hills. Glad was South Dakota when that President electrified the country and drew all citizens' puzzled attention Dakotawards by his ten laconic words: "I do not choose to run for President in 1928." After the election of 1928 restored Calvin Coolidge to private life, South Dakota joined the parade of those seeking to enlist his laconic literary talent. It was arranged that he should write a 500-word history of the U. S. for Sculptor Gutzon Borglum to carve upon the granite face of Mount Rushmore, popular eminence in the Black Hills.

Last week the first two chapters of this history were made public, arranged the way Sculptor Borglum's mountain-carving crew will reproduce them. It was seen that the historian, beginning with the Declaration of Independence, had managed to reach the end of the Constitutional Connvention with an expenditure of only 75 words, thus:

In the year of our Lord

1776 the people declared the eternal Right to seek happiness--self Government and the divine duty to Defend that right at any sacrifice--

In 1787 assembled in convention they made

A charter of perpetual union of

Free people of sovereign States establishing a government of limited powers--

Under an independent president Congress

And court charged to provide security for

All citizens in their enjoyment of liberty--

Equality and justice--

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