CHAPTER XLVII.INTERNATIONAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BARTHOLDI STATUE.
Great as an Achievement of Art, but Greater as the Embodiment of the Idea of Universal Freedom the World Over.—It is a Poetic Idea of a Universal Republic.—Enlightenment of the World Must Result in the Freedom of Man.
The following was sent by me to the New YorkWorld, as briefly embodying my views on Bartholdi’s great work, a few days prior to the dedication of the Statue of Liberty:
“When, several years ago, the gigantic forearm, with the torch in its hand, of the Statue of Liberty was exhibited in Madison square, the people who gazed at it with idle curiosity had little idea that the mammoth structure of which it was a part would so soon be completed, or that it would be so great an achievement as it now stands. Thanks to the New YorkWorld, which gave the impetus to the subscription fund movement, which enabled the great sculptor to realize the greatest artistic dream of his life within a reasonable period. Some people may imagine that the time has been long, but many people who understood the magnitude of the work, and observed the slowness of the subscriptions, had no hope of seeing it finished in this generation prior to the time the subscription for the pedestal was under way.
“Until the last few days, when this colossal goddess arose on Bedloe’s Island in all her full, finished and magnificent proportions and artistic splendor, like the ancient divinity emerging from the foam of the sea, the people did not begin to realize the magnitude of Bartholdi’s idea. In mere mechanical size the statue with its appurtenances excel anything and everything of the same character in the world.It is the biggest thing of its kind either ancient or modern, and is, therefore, the most appropriate emblem to show forth the evolution and the international and historic associations of the two greatest Republics that the world has yet seen. The Colossus of Rhodes, the great Sphinx and other colossal statues sink into insignificance when compared with the latest production of Bartholdi’s brain.
“But great as the statue is as a work of art, the international idea which it embodies is greater still. When taken in connection with that earlier and comparatively insignificant effort of the same eminent artist, the Statue of Lafayette in Union square, the Colossus of Liberty suggests a whole century of history, replete with greater events than the thousand years which preceded it. In these two statues the interdependence of the two great nations is clearly portrayed, and their destiny as the pioneers of universal Republicanism brought out in bold relief. If Tennyson’s poetic dream of a universal Republic is ever to be realized it will come through the idea which the chisel of Bartholdi has immortalized, and which theWorldhas been chiefly instrumental in providing with a local habitation and a name on Bedloe’s Island. European monarchs are now trembling on their thrones, which are doomed to crumble into ruins at no distant day, through the very idea which ‘The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World’ is destined to propagate from this day forward in its imposing position in our spacious harbor. The Israelites of old were cured of their bodily maladies by gazing at a serpent erected on a pole. In a similar way the politically afflicted and oppressed of all nations, as soon as they emerge through the narrows of our magnificent bay, either by day or night, will find a panacea for all their ills in the sight of that wonderful statue, with all that its name implies.
“And one word as to what is in that name which has been so severely criticised. On account of it Americans have been charged with egotism, but those who talk in this way seemto forget that Bartholdi himself, as the representative of the French nation, is the author of the name. So, as it comes from him in his representative capacity, we can receive it with good grace, and without being amenable to any such charge as that referred to. Taken, with all its broad, historical associations, I don’t think the name is at all too pretentious. I have no hesitation in predicting that, ere the present century draws to a close, results will fully justify the assumption.
“The magnificent gift of the French people, and the years of toil and study which Bartholdi has devoted, gratis, to his unprecedented labor of love, cannot fail of the great and only reward which both have so earnestly and magnanimously sought, namely—to enlighten the world.”