(Editor's Note: This article was published first in the October 2022 print edition of The Stand.)
Once upon a time, there was a land filled with such opportunity and promise that people from every tribe and tongue clamored to her shores.
Since 1886, a colossal iron “Mother of Exiles” welcomed with open arms all who came to this place of possibilities, saying:
“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-tossed to me.”
Less than a mile beyond this welcoming Statue of Liberty, weary travelers disembarked at Ellis Island’s immigration station. Today, almost 2,000 of their oral histories are preserved in its National Museum of Immigration.
In one recording, Einar Heino described the end of his family’s 1922 journey from Finland. “Everybody rushed on the deck,” he explained, “to see the Statue of Liberty. … They were yelling and welcoming the new country.”
In 1914, Elizabeth Friedman’s family arrived from Russia, and she recalled: “We just hugged and cried. America … it was just something brand new for everybody. It was a start.”
A new country and a fresh start truly were possibilities symbolized by Lady Liberty.
Built to stand
Though like her immigrant children, the statue’s journey to America was neither easy nor short. Designed by French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, her construction lasted from 1876 to 1884. But the idea of gifting a large monument to America was first suggested by French historian and libertarian Edouard de Laboulaye at a dinner party in 1865.
In attendance that night, Bartholdi never forgot Laboulaye’s excitement that America’s ideal of liberty had endured the dark years of its Civil War. So inspired, the young sculptor visited the land of liberty in 1871.
Arriving in New York City, Bartholdi spent the summer traveling America, meeting everyone from the president to tenant farmers. He was amazed the young nation had accomplished so much.
“Everything is so big here.” Bartholdi wrote his mother. “My statue will be right at home.” But he struggled to find one, specific symbol of American independence.
He settled on the design of a lady, titled “Liberty Enlightening the World.” Holding her torch of freedom aloft in one hand, she would clutch the Declaration of Independence in the other.
Funded mostly by French day laborers, mothers, and schoolchildren, this 125-ton gift of friendship celebrated America’s centennial birthday and served as a reminder of France’s part in that independence.
Moreover, the statue symbolized a shared hope for humanity – a prayer that this brash, bold new country called America just might be the one place on earth where all men really could be equal.
Lest America forgets
For generations, Lady Liberty stood witness to that answered prayer as millions poured into America in pursuit of freedom and opportunity. But she seems to be leaning now, far from the very ideals that inspired her creation.
Ironically, when the monument was first dedicated in 1886, many Americans worried that the Statue of Liberty would be idolized. Perhaps a legitimate concern then, but nothing from the historic past is deemed sacred anymore.
In fact, this generation has recently witnessed statue after statue destroyed by angry, liberal mobs. Granted, some national symbols represent parts of U.S. history that are difficult to remember, much less revere.
But that is exactly why citizens must candidly remember the past. For American history is just that – the story of this nation’s best accomplishments and its ugliest mistakes. If America fails to learn from that past, history will almost certainly be repeated.
Christian citizens must pray that Lady Liberty never leans so far to the left that she erases her past. If she falls, America’s constitutional republic may crash alongside her.
