The Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota, is a 1,278-acre or 517-hectare tract seized from the Sioux Nation of India. Into its mountain face are sculpted the 18-metre or 60-foot-high figures of four former United States (US) Presidents. They feature founding President George Washington, main drafter of the July 4, 1776, Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, leader of the Union in the US Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt, credited with developing the country. It is a monument dedicated to 150 years of the Declaration. It took the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, son of Danish Mormon immigrants, fourteen years, from 1927 to sculpt the figures.
However, controversy persists as the Sioux Indians, who rejected a 1980 Supreme Court compensation of $102 million, continue to insist that their confiscated ancestral land be returned to them. It was this monument President Donald Trump chose on the eve of the 250th Year of the Declaration to address the American public. It was a blistering attack against those he considers enemies of the country who must be fought and conquered and should not be allowed any electoral victory. He told his audience: “We stand beneath the monument of these heroes, a true group of unbelievable people, and we rededicate ourselves to being a nation as big, bold, noble, and as great as these American giants…” Trump warned his fellow citizens: “There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success. We’re not going to let this happen.”
