By John Andrews

Did you know that sculptor Gutzon Borglum's eccentric social attitudes once drew the ire of Adolf Hitler? We didn't either, until we read a column from the Twin Falls (Idaho) Times-News that a reader recently sent to us.

Much of the column was about Borglum's ties to the Ku Klux Klan. He supposedly joined the Klan after starting work on a bust of Robert E. Lee in Georgia. Before long he was a member of the Koncilium and was rubbing elbows with Klan leader D.C. Stephenson.

The Klan in the 1920s and 1930s was much more anti-Catholic, anti-Jewish and anti-immigration than the Klan that appeared immediately following the Civil War. The 20th century version was most popular in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. South Dakota even had small Klan populations in the Black Hills and in the southeastern corner of the state.

While Borglum had many Jewish friends, who often defended the eccentric artist, he still believed Jews were "greedy and antisocial." But when Hitler embarked upon his anti-Semetic campain in the 1930s, while Borglum toiled on Mount Rushmore, the sculptor called him barbaric. So when Hitler's army invaded Poland, he destroyed a statue of Woodrow Wilson that Borglum sculpted. Surely Hitler destroyed the statue partly because of what it represented: Wilson was president during World War I and served in the peace negotiations that placed blame for the war and heavy reparations on Germany (perhaps inevitably leading to World War II). But he couldn't avoid a dig at Borglum and his artistic abilities. Hitler said the statue was an eyesore, and "all out of proportion."