How a Poem Changes the Meaning of the Statue

For those of you who aren't familiar with history, France had a part in the American Revolution. The main part was to stick their finger in the eye of the British and keep them from doing a full out attack on the Colonies. Because of this action, the Colonies were able to defeat the strongest military at the time and gain their freedom. Ironically enough for France, a few decades later, they would be involved in their own revolution to overthrow their own sovereignty, partially due to the money spent on helping out the Colonies.

When the Constitution was written, it was a great leap forward in freedom for a country. Unlike what was going on pretty much elsewhere in the world, the Colonies agreed upon a plan to put an elected official in office and make it clear that the position was not a sovereign seat, but a choice given to the holder by the power of the people. If you want to learn how truly amazing this step was, pick up The Five Thousand Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen. The Founding Fathers had taken ideas from the Greeks and built upon the Magna Carta to give ordinary people the ability to prosper and be free from servitude to others who held position based on blood and handshakes.

Benjamin Franklin- "I have so much faith in the general government of the world by Providence that I can hardly conceive a transaction of such momentous importance as the framing of the Constitution...should be suffered to pass without being in some degree influenced, guided, and governed by that omnipotent, omnipresent, and beneficent Ruler in whom all inferior spirits live and move and have their being."

In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the United States of America to study the prison system. While he was there, we was so enamored with democracy and the freedom that was displayed by the wealth and economics of the American States, that he wrote Democracy in America. A book that was very popular in both America and France when it was published. For de Tocqueville, this was an awakening, because he wasn't a big fan of democracy before he arrived.

I bring these things up for an important point about the Statue of Liberty. But, before we look at the New Colossus, we must first look at the Old Collossus. One of the Great Ancient Wonders, The Colossus of Rhodes.

To you, O Sun, the people of Dorian Rhodes set up this bronze statue reaching to Olympus, when they had pacified the waves of war and crowned their city with the spoils taken from the enemy. Not only over the seas but also on land did they kindle the lovely torch of freedom and independence. For to the descendants of Herakles belongs dominion over sea and land.

Other than the knowledge that the statue stood, there is no real proof of how it stood in the harbor of Rhodes. Modern belief is that there was no way ancient people could have built a 100+ foot high statue made of bronze and steel that could straddle the harbor. And, there was no way the Romans could have figured out how to build the statue in the harbor and let ships go by during the construction.

What we do know, is the statue was a tribute to the Greek god Helios for the victory over Cyprus. And we know that the statue was destroyed by an earthquake after only being up for a few decades. Also, if you study statues, most triumphant statues have the icon standing still, sitting or riding a beast. The Colossus of Rhodes was most likely standing still, guarding the harbor.

The Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French. It was commissioned in 1870, sculpted by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and built by Gustave Eiffel. Before it's dedication in 1886, there was concern that the statue would not have a pedestal to stand on, so in 1883, Emma Lazarus wrote a poem in part of an overall fundraiser that had hopes to raise enough money to complete the construction. Other items were auctioned off and the poem was just a minor portion, so minor, that it wasn't even read at the statue's dedication.

The New Colossus

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!"

It wasn't until after Lazarus's death, that in 1901, a friend of hers made an effort to put the forgotten and unused poem on the statue's pedestal in 1903 and this is where the troubles began.

If you look at the image above, you will notice that lady liberty is walking. The flame is blown backwards as she takes great strides forward, holding open a book with the Roman numerals "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" displayed for those coming in view to see. The statue was a dedication to independence gained by the colonies. The defeat of tyranny and the claiming of victory for the individual. France and the world was in awe at what had happened and how democracy had given the republic the ability to make regular individuals more powerful than kings and lords.

The statue was about bringing the Light of Freedom TO the world.

By the time the statue was dedicated, the United States were in the midst of what is called the Gilded Age, due to Mark Twain's satirical writing of the times. For better or worse, the time after Reconstruction and before 1890, was good for economics in the USA. This was a time that symbolized what was great about America and drew a large wave of immigrants, starting in 1890. Which means, by the time the 1901 push to add the poem to the statue the mindset was that the statue represented immigration due to the ships having to sail past it in order to register the new immigrants on Ellis Island.

Now, we have the false impression that the statue is about immigration.

Another STEEMian, @theblindsquirl, posted a series on The Fate of Empires and we had a brief discussion on how the Gilded Age drew in a bunch of immigrants that did not have the same view point as those who made it possible for the Gilded Age to happen. As the immigrant influx of the late 1800s and early 1900s changed the melting pot of America into a buffet of cultures, some of the things that made the country free, began to slip through the cracks. The USA managed to start electing progressives and socialists and more and more freebies and controls, which have basically eroded the freedom to the bone.

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. ~ Alexis de Tocqueville

And as we lose focus of what is important and what our traditions are to the point that supposed journalist Jim Acosta assumes that a poem on the Statue of Liberty influences immigration law.

For those of you who still haven't got it. It doesn't. It was never about immigration.

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Let the positive energy sing!

More Power to the Minnows!!