Editor’s note: This commentary is by Douglas J. Gladstone, who is a magazine writer and author from New York. His book “Carving a Niche for Himself; The Untold Story of Luigi Del Bianco and Mount Rushmore,” was published by Bordighera Press and is sold nationwide by Small Press Distribution.
[U]nited States Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont needs to put on his cowl and cape and help the late Luigi Del Bianco.
Leahy, who reportedly learned to read when he was 4 years old, says he can quote Batman comic books of 40 to 50 years ago.
Perhaps because of his position, he’s parlayed his passion for all things Bruce Wayne into several movie appearances.
“We aren’t intimidated by thugs,” he famously says to the late Heath Ledger, as The Joker, in “The Dark Knight.”
But it is becoming increasingly obvious that Leahy is afraid of actually helping out a fellow landsman.
Del Bianco, a talented stone carver who came to this country in 1907 and settled in Barre, Vermont – the self-proclaimed “Granite Center of the World” — died on Jan. 20, 1969, of accelerated silicosis, which he got from never having worn a mask while working as the chief carver of the Mount Rushmore National Memorial from 1933 through 1940.
An immigrant from the Italian Province of Pordenone who was tasked with giving the four presidential faces their “refinement of expression” by no less than Rushmore sculptor and designer Gutzon Borglum, the latter’s own letters in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress clearly attests to Del Bianco’s importance. In one of these letters, dated July 30, 1935, Borglum specifically refers to him as the chief carver.
But that’s not enough to satisfy the folks at the National Parks Service (NPS), which is a branch of the United States Department of the Interior.
You would think that Leahy, who is a member of the Italian American Congressional Delegation, and whose grandfathers were both stone carvers in Vermont, would jump at the chance to go to bat for Del Bianco.
“I have seen the letter in which Borglum refers to Del Bianco as chief carver,” Maureen McGee Ballinger, of the NPS, reportedly said recently. “But I consider Gutzon Borglum the chief carver.”
Del Bianco? He was just one of the workers under Borglum, says the NPS.
The policy of the Parks Service is that all 400 individuals who worked at the monument from 1927 through 1941 receive the same credit, irrespective of their jobs. While that’s very egalitarian, it also presupposes that the man who ran the elevator lift was as important as Del Bianco.
The Parks Service is clearly dropping the ball here. They could be telling this great narrative about an Italian American immigrant who in 1929 became a citizen of this country, who was the chief carver on what is arguably the most iconic landmark in this country. Instead, the Park Service continues to recognize only Borglum for his work at the monument.
You would think that Leahy, who is a member of the Italian American Congressional Delegation, and whose grandfathers were both stone carvers in Vermont, would jump at the chance to go to bat for Del Bianco. But rather than go up against Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, all Leahy has done so far is issue statements through his press secretary.
“Every time I cross the Supreme Court’s threshold, I remark to anyone listening that its white façade is etched in Vermont marble. So are the columns of the Jefferson Memorial,” he was quoted as saying last year in remarks published by Seven Days. “Even iconic Mount Rushmore bears the timeless mark of Vermont craftsmanship. It’s a legacy well worth remembering, valuing and preserving.”
If you really believe that, Senator, actions speak louder than words. Get Secretary Jewell on the phone. Don’t be intimidated. Be Luigi Del Bianco’s Caped Crusader once and for all.
The 47,000 individuals in Vermont, as well as the 18 million people in this country, who identify themselves as Italian Americans, will thank you for it.
