December 31, 1999
Today as we enter the 21st Century we should pay tribute to the Statue of Ellis Island. This grand symbol of our government's power and majesty was not always so grand. Only twenty years ago the Lady was a broken, corroded heap of copper and iron. Even her name, Liberty Enlightening the World, was outdated, nearly forgotten, and seriously in need of modernization. The old makes way for the new; it has always been so.
But before we embrace the new—before we enter the next century—let's briefly look back at the long and difficult journey our nation and this Lady have traveled together. We will never pass this way again.
The journey originated in the Middle Ages. During those terrible grim centuries, people were uneducated and they did not yet understand the beauty of political power. Many thought it wrong to have a government empowered to legislate—that is, empowered to make whatever laws appear necessary without regard to moral principles or other idealistic nonsense.
Instead these poor wretches labored under the mistaken assumption that laws should change rarely and only when logically consistent with basic moral principles. A strange legal system called Common Law began to develop.
This ludicrous system was based on the two fundamental laws common to all major religions, philosophies, and other superstitions. These laws were (1) do all that you have agreed to do and (2) do not encroach on other people or their property.
Century after century, Common Law evolved. Government officials knew it was degenerative and they tried to alter or abolish it, but the ignorant common folk clung to their superstitions.
Then during the 1600s shipbuilding technology advanced to the point that many individuals could escape to America, beyond the reach of government. They hoped to live under Common Law only, without benefit of legislative law.
A curious and greatly misunderstood chain of events then occurred, and these events produced both our country and our Lady.
Since the Common Law changed only slowly, and mostly in ways consistent with the two fundamental laws, Americans found they were able to plan ahead in their work, investment, and trade. Their stable legal environ' ment produced what was known in 1776 as "The System of Natural Liberty." Incorporating what economists call "effective economic calculation," this system was the free market.
For a while the free market seemed to produce considerable abundance for the common people. Poverty declined and America became the most prosperous land ever known.
Then during the 1760s government officials became concerned about our forefather's contempt for authority. They tried to levy the taxes and regulations that would make Americans accustomed to legislative law.
Our forefathers became angry and violent. The 1776 revolution brought a split from England, and a new nation founded in principIes of Common Law.
Other people around the world saw the abundance of America and assumed this was due to the system of Liberty; they launched their own revolutions. The French were some of the first to revolt, and they did seem to achieve a certain abundance in the wake of this.
Poverty Declined
In gratitude, they donated the statue of Liberty Enlightening the World to America in 1886. This was their way of saying, thank you for teaching us that liberty is the source of prosperity. As the name implied, the upraised torch was the most important part of the statue.
Of course we all know today that the torch is really quite meaningless. Prosperity has little to do with Common Law, the system of liberty, or any other such nonsense. It has to do with technological and industrial advancement wrought by enlightened government.
This advancement has lain dormant since the beginning of time, and it just happened to awaken, by coincidence, at the precise moment in history when liberty had awakened. This was an amazing accident, and today thousands of scholars working in government-funded research projects, colleges, and universities have been unable to account for it.
Nevertheless, we all know it was an accident. Advancement comes not from Common Law or the system of liberty, but from dynamic, powerful government. In fact, the archaic Common Law has fallen into such disrepute that it is not even mentioned in schoolbooks.
This is a primary reason the Statue of Ellis Island had to be rebuilt and renamed. It was useless, a broken-down structure dedicated to a broken-down ideology.
In 1982 a publicity campaign was launched to solicit funds to rebuild not only the physical structure of the statue but also the statue's meaning.
The Lady's original meaning was absent from the deluge of pamphlets, news releases, and TV commercials. Nowhere was there even one line about Common Law. The System of Natural Liberty was not mentioned, nor were, of course, "effective economic calculation" or the free market.
Instead the Ellis Island Foundation accelerated a trend begun in 1903 when Emma Lazarus' poem, "Give me your tired, your poor, etc." was added to the statue. The Lady's connection with her original meaning was severed and she was forevermore linked with immigration and Ellis Island.
One pamphlet, for instance, spoke of "the essential unity of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island." It first told the story of the immigrants, then explained that this story "reveals the meaning of the Statue of Liberty." A news release explained the statue had become "closely identified with the great flow of immigrants who landed on nearby Ellis Island."
The chairmanship of the foundation was offered to Mr. Lee Iacocca who, as you know, would later rise from this prestigious position to become the 42nd President of the United States. Mr. Iacocca wrote and spoke at length about his immigrant parents and the way "the project gives us a chance to honor those who came before us."
The publicity campaign even swathed the statue in a mantle of nationalism, and tied its new meaning to the power of the government. The literature spoke of "the national symbol" and "the most powerful symbol." It praised "the grace and power" of this "national treasure," and of "the national monument."
Today as we move boldly forward into the 21st Century, we have as our most important symbol, the Statue of Ellis Island. May we never forget its new meaning.
