The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 21

SUNDAY, MAY 10, 1970 Qe Atlanta gotttnat and CONSTITUTION 21 -A 'Lost Cause Survives -Sectional Furor, Artistic Strife iiiiiiilllllp' SiFMt By DON WINTER The carving on the face of Stone Mountain has run into so many setbacks over the years that more than one commentator has alluded to the "Lost Cause" it memorializes. But all that is in the past now, and the officially dedicated sculpture of three Confederate heroes testifies to the fact that a Southern Strategy can succeed. Vice President Spiro Agnew's appearance at Saturday's ceremonies put the national seal of approval on a project that survived sectional furor, artistic turmoil and wavering public enthusiasm on its way to completion. THE MORE THAN 50 years of hope and disappointment needed to finish the carving may have inspired the dedicatory theme "Unity Through Struggle." The years certainly typify the white man's predicament about the mountain itself: What to do with it? Georgia's original settlers, according to Indian experts, Eicked out the mountain's outstanding characteristic being igher than anything else around and used it for a signal station. Indians may also have constructed simple fortifications on the mountain, as evidenced by large regular stones near the summit arranged (perhaps by time) into a haphazard fort-like pattern.

But when the white man came along a purpose for the mountain was not at ail obvious. The first settlers around Stone Mountain, in 1825, were few and far between. And in the next few years they constructed roads and railways, so they never needed a signal station. THE SETTLERS were predominantly Baptist, Methodist and Presbyterian, as an early observer noted. None of these churches prefer mountaintops to enclosed sanctuaries, so the Indians' additional use of the peak as a religious center did not continue either.

(Some time later, though, on Thanksgiving night in 1915, William J. Simmons and a few like-thinkers took part in the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan atop Stone Mountain. Their ceremonies, which they consider partly religious, continued until recently in the same place.) Early Georgians decided Stone Mountain could be useful as a sightseer's resort, but one early climber complained that the effort came to naught since, from the top, the "prospect (view) has the single fault of being rather too monotonous." When Decatur and Atlanta started raising two- and three-story skylines in the 1840s, the sightseeing business picked up and a Cloud's Tower opened on the mountain. The tower was the figure of Robert E. Lee was presentable enough by 1925 to stage a second dedication.

This time 10,000 persons turned out. SHORTLY THEREAFTER, artistic and financial differ- ences between Borglum and the memorial sponsors erupted into feuding. Borglum destroyed his working models and left the state. The new sculptor hired by the sponsors blasted away Bor-glum's figure of Lee and started anew. But in 1928 money ran out, the property reverted to the Venable family, which had deeded the property to a memorial association on the condition that a memorial be completed in 12 years, and affairs lapsed.

In 1930 an abortive effort to get Borglum to begin anew on the carving ran into financial difficulties as well as problems arising from a grand jury indictment voted by irate DeKalb Countians when Borglum left the first time. Until new sponsors came on the scene, the mountain stood idle, save for a new generation of picnickers and an occasional cross-burning by the Ku Klux Klan. THEN SCOTT Candler Sr. of Decatur, who had been buying up the mountain and land around it, and other interested parties sold the idea of a state park to the Georgia legislature. The idea was duly put into execution, and in 1964, Walter Hancock assumed charge of executing a carving based in part on a design by Augustus Lukeman, who followed Borglum.

Between 1964 and today work on the carving progressed smoothly, but the idea of the state park had rough going. dais erupted over various financial matters, including the purchase of 176 bidets for a motel inside the park. Eventually the political squabbles subsided and Stone Mountain Park has become a well-run and entertaining showcase for the memorial itself. THE CARVING, DEPICTING Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and StonewallJackson, is completed except for polishing touches and framing.

The mountaintop is once more adorned by a tower, and the view from it with Atlanta's skyline topping 40 stories, is no longer monotonous. Now the people most involved with Stone Mountain think it has a permanence and a purpose. They have a sense of mastery of the mountain, which has always piqued but never succumbed to man's programmatic bent. It may not succumb this time, either. In spite of the fine rhetoric Saturday, the memorial's sponsors may not have their way with the mountain after all.

The carving "in fact may be there so long that people won't be able to remember what it's for," says Dr. Willard Grant, professor of geology at Emory University. "It is going to last. It will be there a long, long time." XVyfV IVY! rt ii i jfci r'-rnkr i it i- iirri ti Staff Photo Charlet Bennett Sen. Herman Talmadge Hot Under the Collar While Gov.

Lester Maddox Keeps Cool miles of curbing and sidewalk, and the owners did operate a quarry at its base, without making much of a dent in it. Then in 1912 a clear purpose was found, and the United Daughters of the Confederacy formed the idea of turning the mountain into a memorial for the Confederacy. By 1916 public support was forthcoming and sculptor Gut-zon Borglum came up with a grandiose scheme. That resulted in the memorial's first dedication, on May 20 of the same year, which 5,000 people attended. World War 1 interrupted work, and after resuming in 1923, wooden, 165 feet high, and named for the proprietor, not the elevation.

It burned several years later, not to be rebuilt. AFTER THE CIVIL War, in which Stone Mountain served as a landmark for Union troops more than anything else, Georgians tended to regard it as a natural wonder worthy of occasional picnics and hayrides, and little else. Post-bellum New South boosters such as Henry Grady also made much of Stone Mountain's potential of being reduced to rrTAirnf FW A- VHP i -mate, i Too Much Chicken For Crowd By HUGH NATIONS Harry Hearn forlornly surveyed more than 6,000 boxes of cold chicken. "It's just like the doctors say," he noted. "The operation was a success but the patient died." The operation in this case consisted of 10,000 boxes of Wishbone fried chicken being ferried to the Stone Mountain carving dedication by a precision relay of trucks from 19 Wishbone din-eries to a helicopter, which picked up its cargo at six strategic points, hauled it to an airport near Stone Mountain, then turned to over to a bus which carried it to the ceremonies.

Wishbone, according to Hearn, was under instructions from Staff Photo Charlei Bennett Vice President's Helicopter Arrives at Stone Mountain from Dobbins AFB End Sectionalism Evil, Agnew Urges park authorities to prepare for 20,000 to 100,000 customers. It was ready. Continued from Page 1A ret Mitchell had become the first woman in the state Hall of Fame. Ben Fortson, whose classic Southern platform manner was the only one with sufficient voice to overcome a recurring loudspeaker failure, said that he had promised for years to give a Rebel yell when the Confederate memorial finally was dedicated. Grabbing up a gray Confederate hat, Fortson did just that.

When the audience showed par Maddox gave me a Agnew said, "for a "Gov. shock," THE CUSTOMERS, however, weren't. "When we saw that the crowd was not going to materialize," Hearn said, "we just stopped cooking. "It would have been helpful," he said with a touch of wistful-ness as his eyes swept the remainder of the sparse crowd, "If everybody who came had bought a dinner." Officials of the Atlanta Tran Tfc SVq JimJ it Iit ti i 'Irfi its mm iMimnnnif minute I thought he said Martha Mitchell." The audience showed its appreciation with gales of laughter. IN HIS SPEECH, Agnew of tiality to the idea, he did it again, leading a long lusty sit also had their re a war protest in nearby downtown Atlanta half as large as Agnew's audience.

He spoke of the young men of the North and South "fighting side by side in Vietnam" and commented that "the President has determined that there must be no close sanctuary from which these young men can be attacked." This comment drew mild applause. The allusion to the U.S. drive into Cambodia and the resulting protest on the nation's campuses led to Agnew's peroration: "Let no one here or abroad mistake disagreement with disunity: We are reminded here (Stone Mountain) today that we have paid too great a price for being one nation to let ourselves now come apart at the seams." Agnew was accompanied on his visit to Georgia by Postmaster General Winton Blount. Blount is from Montgomery, and was introduced as a "son of the South" who had achieved dis tinction in the Nixon administration. Blount did not speak.

The crowd fell far short of the 100,000 authorities predicted. But the audience was not the only group which failed to meet expectations. THE STAND erected for the podium and seating guests of honor also had some empty chairs, and the list of speakers was reduced by Rev. Billy Graham's unexplained absence and Sen. Richard Russell's need to attend the dedication in his honor of a federal laboratory in Athens.

The benediction was given by Dr. William Holmes Borders, pastor of the Wheat Street Baptist Church in Atlanta. Selection of Dr. Borders had been crti-cized by Ku Klux Klansman James Venable. Though the small crowd disappointed most persons involved in the dedication ceremonies, at least one participant displayed unabashed enthusiasm.

Georgia Secretary of State grets. The bus company had 104 buses shuttling back and forth from outside lots to the dedication scene, with another 50 in reserve. cheer. LATER, tanned and smiling, Agnew shook hands with the dozen or so Dobbins Air Force Base personnel who stood along the airport runway to wave goodby to the vice president. The vice president boarded his C135 presidential plane and left at 4:45 p.m.

When he tirst arrived at the The 50,000 to 70,000 who were expected to ride, the shuttle turned out to be 4,067. fered a conciliatory tone, speaking of America "drawing strength from our diversity and drawing even greater strength from our unity." He paid tribute to Robert E. Lee by quoting Lee's statement "make your sons Americans" as a sentiment which should be "graven in granite and impressed upon the minds of everyone in every region of this land today." Lee, who along with Jefferson Davis and Thomas Stonewall Jackson, are the trio of Confederate leaders whose like Staff Photo Robert Connell IN A WAY, though. Harry Hearn of Wishbone chicken was Georgia Secretary of State Ben Fortson Lets Out Rebel Yell STONE MOUNTAIN more fortunate than the transit system. Hearn had Gov.

Lester Maddox himself at work on his problem and the governor is Marietta base, he was welcomed by about 200 Air Force officers and base personnel along with a force of security agents. a man who knows his chicken. Maddox, an old drumstick en Strange Contrasts Mark Dedication of Memorial When the vice president's plane docked at 2:58 p.m., he was welcomed by Postmaster General Blount, who had arrived trepreneur, stopped by on his way out of the park. Hearn quickly shoved a complimentary box of chicken at him. earlier in a C140 JetStar.

Also in the welcoming party was Col. Carl F. Rudder, base "Ummm, good," the governor declared, masticating a drum the Stars and Stripes replaced one of the Stars and Bars By HUGH NATIONS Inside the curio shop, auto stick. AGNEW'S party of about 11, "Yeah," chimed in a voice plates depicted a grizzled rebel vowing: "Hell No, I Ain't Fer- AGNEW drew resounding ap from the crowd. "There's just too much of it." gettin." mostly security personnel left around 3:05 p.m.

in two Army helicopters, which were brought down to the base here from Boll- FAX Outside, beneath the monu plause when he quoted Geh. Robert E. Lee: "Abandon all these local animosities and make your sons Americans." HEARN went on to explain mental carving of leaders of the most divisive, destructive conflict in this nation's history, ling AFB in Washington, D.C. A Federal Aviation AdminiS' Sixteen mties west, in aown- nesses are carved on the granite mountain, became moral exemplars in Agnew's speech. Agnew said Jackson's life illustrated the virtue of loyalty, that Davis' conduct after the Civil War stood for dignity and that Lee set "an example of the highest principle of all-honor." Agnew said these three principles "are the bedrock of idealism that underlies our hopes for future generations." THEN turning to what must be done to achieve the principles, Agnew said Americans must "overcome the new slavery" and "set aside the evils of sectionalism once and for all." He defined "new slavery" as the "willingness of some to become slaves to their passions, devoid of reason and individuality." He sharpened his warning against sectionalism by condemning discrimination within the South and against the South.

That brought sustained applause, the greatest for anything he Spiro T. Agnew, made certain they left before Agnew arrived. Yet the black director of the Stone Mountain High School Band led his group in entertaining early arrivers. Almost all were white. The City of Stone Mountain, proud of its role on this once-and-forever day, bedecked the main streets with American flags.

Inside the park, however, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were flanked by flags of the Confederacy. Eventually, apparently after someone had second thoughts, that the concession had sold less than 2,000 boxes out of the fried before the operation was turned off. Arrangements already had been made to give tration spokesman said that a town Atlanta, an estimated 5,000 people marched to protest the plane spotted over the dedica actions of American sons tion area was in violation of 1,000 to the salvation Army and regulations. The plane was fly Cambodia and the rest of South-ast Asia.

the youth voices of the Sylvan High School chorus intoned: "With God as our Father, brothers all are we. "Let me walk with my brother in perfect harmony." For Stone Mountain, Dedication Day was also a Day of Dichotomy. ing about 400 to 500 feet above ground instead of a required io to the union Mission. That left more than 6,000 to Over the dedication ceremo nies for what essentially is a far 2,000 feet. go, and Maddox suggested a television appeal.

memorial, a light plane pulled FAA inspectors are trying to i A A I A get identification of the plane. The governor opined that all The foot-stomping chords of "Dixieland" mingled with the The pilot could be fined as much the unrest in the country had It. Prep School Coeds kept down the crowd, because as $1,000 or lose his license. There were no special regula incongruous strains of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." people were afraid to come out CONCORD. N.H.

(UPI)-St. a banner: "Our Problems Demand Peace Now." Davis, Lee and Jackson, three dissenters who helped plunged a young nation into war, brooded down on the rites, whose theme was "Unity Through Sacrifice." For Stone Mountain', Saturday indeed was a Day of Dichotomy. to what could nave proved to tions for Agnew's visit and the Paul's School, a 115-year-old Episcopalian boys prep school, has announced plans to enroll a dedication, the FAA spokesman stressed. These are norma be a confrontation. "And then Nixon," the gover nor allowed, "chickened out." Harry Hearn flinched.

A FAMILY group of Negroes from Mississippi, learning that their visit coincided with an appearance of Vice President Staff Photo Hugh Stovall limited number of female stu regulations over "congested Agnew also talked of the situation which Saturday caused Visitor Eugene Tims from Baton Rouge dents by September 1971..