|WHEN Patrick Henry put his old cast-iron spectacles on the top of his
head and whooped for liberty, he did not know that some day we would
have more of it than we knew what to do with. He little dreamed that the
time would come when we would have more liberty than we could pay for.
When Mr. Henry sawed the air and shouted for liberty or death, I do
not believe that he knew the time would one day come when Liberty would
stand knee deep in the mud of Bedloe's Island and yearn for a solid
place to stand upon.
It seems to me that we have too much liberty in this country in some
ways. We have more liberty than we have money. We guarantee that every
man in America shall fill himself up full of liberty at our expense,
and the less of an American he is the more liberty he can have. If he
desires to enjoy himself, all he needs is a slight foreign accent and
a willingness to mix up with politics as soon as he can get his baggage
off the steamer. The more I study American institutions the more I
regret that I was not born a foreigner, so that I could have something
to say about the management of our great land. If I could not be a
foreigner, I believe I would prefer to be a Mormon or an Indian not
taxed.
I am often led to ask, in the language of the poet, "Is the Caucasian
played out?" Most everybody can have a good deal of fun in this country
except the American. He seems to be so busy paying his taxes all the
time that he has very little time to mingle in the giddy whirl with the
alien. That is the reason that the alien who rides across the United
States on the "Limited Mail" and writes a book about us before breakfast
wonders why we are always in a hurry. That is the reason we have to
throw our meals into ourselves with a dull thud, and hardly have time to
maintain a warm personal friendship with our families.
We do not care much for wealth, but we must have freedom, and freedom
costs money. We have advertised to furnish a bunch of freedom to every
man, woman or child who comes to our shores, and we are going to deliver
the good whether we have any left for ourselves or not.
What would the great world beyond the seas say to us if some day the
blue-eyed Mormon, with his heart full of love for our female seminaries
and our old women's homes, should land upon our coasts and find that we
were using all the liberty ourselves? What do we want of liberty anyhow?
What could we do with it if we had it? It takes a man of leisure to
enjoy liberty, and we have no leisure whatever. It is a good thing to
keep in the house "for the use of guests only," but we don't need it for
ourselves.
Therefore, I am in favor of a statue of Liberty Enlightening the World,
because it will show that we keep it on tap winter and summer. We want
the whole broad world to remember that when it gets tired of oppression
it can come here to America and oppress us. We are used to it, and we
rather like it. If we don't like it, we can get on the steamer and go
abroad, where we may visit the effete monarchies and have a high old
time.
The sight of the Goddess of Liberty standing there in New York harbor
night and day, bathing her feet in the rippling sea, will be a good
thing. It will be first-rate. It may also be productive of good in a
direction that many have not thought of. As she stands there day after
day, bathing her feet in the broad Atlantic, perhaps some moss-grown
Mormon moving toward the Far West, a confirmed victim of the matrimonial
habit, may fix the bright picture in his so-called mind, and remembering
how, on his arrival in New York, he saw Liberty bathing her feet with
impunity, he may be led in after years to try it on himself.