Adam Schiff Can Help the Late Luigi Del Bianco

RECOGNITION POLITICS-No, I’m not talking about the fictional New York County District Attorney from the original Law and Order television show.

Although a prosecutor's job is to seek justice on behalf of all the state's citizens. 

I am of course referring to the man who represents California's 28th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. 

Del Bianco, a talented stone carver who came to this country in 1907, was an immigrant from the Italian Province of Pordenone. He died on January 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.

You read that right. An immigrant to these shores was the chief carver of what is widely considered to be one of the world’s most renowned sculptures.

Tasked with givingthe four presidential faces their "refinement of expression"by no less than Rushmore sculptor and designer Gutzon Borglum, whose own letters in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress clearly attests to his importance, Del Bianco is specifically referred to as the chief carver by Borglum in one of these letters, dated July 30, 1935.

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.

"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. 

Naturally, members of Del Bianco’s family, including his 69-year-old surviving child, Gloria, who resides in West Hollywood – which is part of Representative Schiff’s district -- are none too pleased by this. 

"I'm not ready to say it's a slap in the face yet," says Gloria in my recently released book, Carving a Niche for Himself; The Untold Story of Luigi Del Bianco and Mount Rushmore(Bordighera Press, 2014). "But I'm pretty close to that." 

How can Representative Schiff help?  Well, he can get Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on the phone. He can tell her that there are 96,000 constituents of his who live in Los Angeles County who identify themselves as Italian Americans who would puff up their chests with pride if they found out that one of their fellow landsmen was recognized by the federal government as Mount Rushmore’s chief carver. 

And then politely remind her that, since he’s a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, he has more than some influence on how much her federal agency receives come budget time. 

The 18 million people in this country, including the 1.5 million in California who identify themselves as Italian Americans, will thank him for it.

(Douglas J. Gladstone 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", is sold nationwide by Small Press Distribution, of Berkeley, California. This column provided CityWatch by the author.)

-cw

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CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 5

Pub: Jan 16, 2015