In the 7/17 TFP, Mr. Bennett had a cartoon in the editorial section showing the Statue of Liberty with her torch on the ground, holding a sign with the word France, and her right hand out to hitch a ride back to France. This clearly represents the liberal view of immigration control efforts currently under consideration, and which we seem to be losing from a conservative point of view.
The purpose of Liberty, however, had nothing to do with immigration. She was a gift from France for three reasons (A) to commemorate the lasting friendship between France and the U.S.A. (B) to commemorate our signing of the Declaration of Independence, and (C) to honor the U.S.A. for having created a viable democracy.
Liberty was dedicated in 1886. Seventeen years later the passage “Give me your tired, etc.” was added on a plaque affixed to Liberty’s base This is where the concept of open borders has become a part of Liberty’s purpose. It had, and still has, no such relationship to Liberty’s original intent.
Al Hockert
Hixson
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Al Hockert’s recent letter about the origins of the Statue of Liberty is incomplete and misleading. While it is true that the phrase “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” was not part of sculptor, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi’s, design, it is inextricably linked to the statue and the effort to have it erected. In like manner, while Lady Liberty (actually the Roman goddess Libertas) was intended, in part, to commemorate U.S.-French, friendship, the Declaration of Independence and our viable democracy, the primary impetus for its creation lay, as the broken shackles and chains at the statue’s feet symbolize, with the French Anti-Slavery Society and its spokesman, Edouard de Laboulaye, who wanted to honor the Union victory in the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery that resulted from it. It was his vision, made manifest by Bartholdi, that led to the construction and placement of the Statue of Liberty.
As for the “give me your tired…” phrase, it is a line from a sonnet written by Emma Lazarous, who was a tireless fighter for the welfare of immigrants coming to America. She wrote it as a donation to be auctioned to raise funds for the construction of the statue’s pedestal and it was widely disseminated by the media before and at the time of the statue’s dedication. Even though its noble sentiments were not part of the original motivation for the statue’s creation, the Statue of Liberty was soon strongly identified with them and became “a symbol of hope to the outcasts and downtrodden of the world” long before the plaque was placed inside the statue’s pedestal. The Statue of Liberty is still most commonly associated with these sentiments today whether Mr Hockert, and his “conservative” friends like it or not.
The full text of The New Colossus is reprinted below:
The New Colossus
By Emma Lazarous
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Harry M. Hays