page_title: Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar
section_title: Production and conflict
hierarchical_section_title: Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar / Production and conflict
caption_attribution_description: Sculptor Gutzon Borglum at the White House, 1924
context_page_description: The Stone Mountain Memorial half dollar was an American fifty-cent piece struck in 1925 at the Philadelphia Mint. Its main purpose was to raise money on behalf of the Stone Mountain Confederate Monumental Association for the Stone Mountain Memorial near Atlanta, Georgia. Designed by sculptor Gutzon Borglum, the coin features a depiction of Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson on the obverse and the caption: "Memorial to the Valor of the Soldier of the South" on the reverse. The piece was also originally intended to be in memory of the recently deceased president, Warren G. Harding, but no mention of him appears on the coin.
  In the early 20th century, proposals were made to carve a large sculpture in memory of General Lee on Stone Mountain, a huge rock outcropping. The owners of Stone Mountain agreed to transfer title on condition the work was completed within 12 years. Borglum, who was, like others involved, a Ku Klux Klan member, was engaged to design the memorial, and proposed expanding it to include a colossal monument depicting Confederate warriors, with Lee, Jackson, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis leading them.
context_section_description: The Medallic Art Company of New York converted Borglum's models to coinage dies. The first 1,000 Stone Mountain Memorial half dollars were struck on a medal press at the Philadelphia Mint on January 21, 1925, the 101st anniversary of General Jackson's birth; Borglum and officials of the Association were present.  The first piece struck was mounted on a plate made of gold mined in Georgia for presentation to President Coolidge. The second was mounted on a silver plaque, and presented to Secretary Mellon. The remainder of the first thousand were placed in numbered envelopes; some were presented to officials or those involved in the Stone Mountain project. Between January and March 1925, that mint struck 2,310,000 of the authorized mintage of 5,000,000, plus 4,709 pieces reserved for inspection by the 1926 Assay Commission. Except for the first thousand, for which Randolph paid in gold, the pieces were sent to the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, which advanced the funds to purchase them from the government.
  Although the Association unveiled the completed head of Lee on January 19, 1924 (the general's birthday), within months, its relations with Borglum had become strained.  Technical problems over the medal and the work on the mountain caused tensions, and political differences between Borglum, a Republican, and Randolph, an active Democrat, led to poor relations between the two.  Borglum, Venable, and Randolph backed different KKK members for national leadership.  Both Borglum and the Association accused each other of graft; the sculptor proposed that he form a syndicate to purchase the half dollars from the Mint and sell them with the profits to be applied directly to construction costs.  Randolph ridiculed the suggestion, stating that it would allow Borglum to carve "whatever he pleased on the mountain".  Borglum accused Randolph of using donations for his own benefit, and spending freely on an expense account. These dissensions became public, and in February 1925, the Association fired Borglum.  Randolph stated, as one reason for dismissing the sculptor, that Borglum had taken seven months to design the coin, when, he said, any competent artist could have done it in three weeks.  He accused Borglum of delaying so that the Association would be embarrassed. According to Freeman, "despite all the points of conflict between Borglum and the committee, it was actually the commemorative coin that ended his career at Stone Mountain."
  Upon being dismissed, Borglum wrecked his models for the monument; the Association sought to have him jailed for destruction of property.  Borglum was addressing the ladies of the Atlanta chapter of the UDC when his assistant, Jesse Tucker, burst in and hurried him out the door with a minimum of explanation, only moments before a sheriff's deputy arrived to serve the warrant. He left the state, but was arrested in Greensboro, North Carolina, though quickly allowed bail, and the Association abandoned extradition proceedings. Freed, the sculptor soon took up a project in South Dakota, Mount Rushmore. The publicity surrounding these events hurt the Association's fundraising, as did allegations that the Association had misused hundreds of thousands of dollars put aside for the project.
caption: Borglum at the White House, 1924
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