On this date in 1886 — 139 years ago — the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Grover Cleveland.

Originally known as “Liberty Enlightening the World,” she was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the people of the United States, commemorating the alliance of the two nations during the American Revolution more than a century earlier.

And there she has stood, tall and proud, her torch lighting the way to countless immigrants seeking refuge from persecution and poverty. In 1903, a bronze plaque was mounted inside her pedestal, inscribed with the now-famous sonnet by American poet Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” which reads in part:

“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!”

Those “huddled masses” included the likes of Albert Einstein, Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Enrico Fermi, Joseph Pulitzer, Irving Berlin . . . as well as my grandparents, and probably yours. These were people who thrived and worked to make America what it is today.

Or what it has been, until recently, when those words ceased to have meaning, and the torch in New York Harbor lost its light.

To Lady Liberty, and to the world: We Americans are so, so sorry. With luck and perseverance, may her next birthday be a happier one.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
10/28/25