Add Some New Stone Faces To Rushmore Does Harry S. Truman Belong Up There With Abraham Lincoln?

The men chiseled into that granite outcropping lived between 1732 and 1919, when TR died. As it turned out, the career of the first Roosevelt president signifies little more than a preface to our nation's wide-ranging, 20th-century role. He was really a man of the 19th century, as was, of course, Lincoln. Jefferson and Washington belong to the 18th century.

So, to bring Mount Rushmore up to date, the gap must be closed, and a couple of new stone presidents added to the Black Hills gallery.

Arthur Schelesinger, Jr. recently polled American historians and found three presidents deserving of the title ``great.''

The only one of these not now on Mount Rushmore is the second Roosevelt, Franklin, and he ought to be a shoo-in.

Of the presidents in the ``near great'' category, there are two from the 20th century - Woodrow Wilson and Harry S. Truman.

If Teddy Roosevelt launched America on a century of internationalism, would Woodrow Wilson (League of Nations) or Harry Truman (United Nations) more completely capture the evolution of that spirit across the entire century?

What to do?

The late l990s, to say the least, are not the 1920s. Whether Congress would budget the millions of dollars needed to bring Mount Rushmore up to date is a fair question in these fiscally troubled times.

And who would decide?

President Clinton, some say, is not overly decisive. But fate has designated him to be this century's page turner. It is on his watch that we must look backward and tidy up the past.

In his final term, he should use his bully pulpit to make sure Mount Rushmore is, once again, a true account of who we are as a nation. To that, TR would undoubtedly say, ``Bully.''

Ronald Fraser is a writer in Virginia.