[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 60 (Friday, March 31, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4988-S4989]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          SOUTH DAKOTA GRANITE

  Mr. DASCHLE. Mr. President, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once 
called Mount Rushmore ``the shrine of American democracy.''
  Because of his love of that shrine, it is especially fitting that, as 
we approach the 50th anniversary of FDR's death on April 12, the new 
memorial that is being built now in our Nation's Capital to honor 
President Roosevelt will be carved, like Mount Rushmore, out of South 
Dakota stone.
  There is another reason that South Dakota rock is being used for the 
memorial. It is, as geologists will tell you, quite simply one of the 
most beautiful granites in the world.
  It is called carnelian granite, named for the warm, mahagony color of 
the rock. It has been quarried in Milbank, in the northeast corner of 
South Dakota, since 1908.
  Because of its rich color and brilliant shine, Milbank granite has 
been used for public monuments in nearly every State and Canada. In 
Pierre, the capital of South Dakota, it was used in 1912 to build our 
statehouse. In Washington, it was used to build the National Catholic 
Shrine and the poignant memorial to the women who fought in the war in 
Vietnam.
  The Roosevelt Monument, which will be completed in spring 1997, will 
use 135,000 square feet of Milbank granite. That is about as much 
granite as you would need to construct an 80-story building.
  The memorial will depict 12 pivotal years in America's history 
through a series of four rooms, each devoted to one of FDR's four terms 
in office. The granite from my home State will form the walls of those 
rooms, into which will be carved President Roosevelt's own inspiring 
words. Among the bronze sculptures to inhabit the rooms will be a 
statue of Eleanor Roosevelt, a champion of women's rights, who had a 
profound effect on FDR and on this Nation.
  Like Theodore Roosevelt before him, Franklin Roosevelt was always a 
little awe-struck by the stark beauty of the American West, and 
particularly South Dakota. In 1944, he suggested that the United 
Nations be located in the Black Hills of South Dakota so that world 
leaders might ponder the profound solitude and the magnificence of the 
Earth as they faced tough issues.
  South Dakota is a land of awe-inspiring geological resources: the 
Black Hills, the Badlands, vast caves and glacial deposits, and of 
course, the 2\1/2\ billion-year-old Milbank granite.
  Among the oldest rocks in the world, the South Dakota granite will 
produce a tribute of geological, almost infinite, duration to an 
extraordinary President who led this Nation through the depths of the 
Depression and the horrors of the Second World War to a far better 
place.
  In 1936 when FDR came to Mount Rushmore to preside at the dedication 
of Jefferson's likeness, he said ``we can mediate and wonder what our 
descendants will think about us 10,000 years from now when they see 
this mountain.''
  We in South Dakota are proud that future generations will gaze upon 
the rock of South Dakota when they reflect on the lasting contributions 
to American society of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
  It is especially appropriate that we honor President Roosevelt now.
  There are people in Washington who truly hope and aspire to the great 
things that President Roosevelt had wanted and to which he dedicated 
his life. But the fundamental ideals in which President Roosevelt 
believed--fairness, genuine opportunity for all Americans--go beyond 
Democratic and 
[[Page S4989]] Republican politics. They go beyond the fights that we 
may have on the floor of the Senate as late as this afternoon. Those 
beliefs, those strong feelings about the directions this country should 
take, are every bit as enduring as the hard South Dakota granite. And, 
like that granite, they will endure long after we are gone.

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