The greatness of America

I am writing on July 3. Tomorrow I will raise the American flag near the front entrance of my home. I am very pleased to be an American. It is a privilege for which I am profoundly thankful.

About 50 years ago, when living in Southern California, my wife and I decided to take a month long drive through the eastern portion of the United States. We flew to Chicago and rented a car. We covered 22 states. Some states we simply drove through. In others we lingered. New York City was a place of special interest. Neither of us had ever before visited the Big Apple. Three stops were very special. We watched a Broadway play. Broadway! There is nothing like it in the whole world. I do not remember the play that we watched, but being a part of the Broadway phenomenon is truly special. We watched a baseball game in Yankee Stadium. As I recall it was the Yankees vs the Athletics. I do not remember who won, but seeing a ball game in “The House that Ruth Built” is a world class experience for an avid baseball fan such as I am.

The third New York experience was the finest. We took a ferry ride around the Statue of Liberty. I took a special interest in the statue and its significance to America. I wanted to know more. The statue was a gift of the people of France to the people of the Unites States. It was designed by French sculpture Frederic Bartholdi. The background for the project was the Napoleon Bonaparte era of France. The Napoleon reign is seen by some as the greatest years of the French people. It is also seen by others as a disaster from which the French have never recovered. Many French people found a kinship with the birth of the nation founded for citizens rather than emperors. Not a few French folk made America their new home.

Significantly the great statue in the middle of the New York harbor is a woman lifting high the torch of liberty, not a warrior with sword in hand.

When Emma Lazarus penned her now famous poem “The New Colussus,” she had no idea of the fame that would be attached to her words. While the poem is rightly associated with the original construction, it was not placed in the pedestal of the statue until decades later. Meanwhile, the statue itself in New York harbor became the welcome to immigrants who passed “the lady” on their way to Ellis Island. People were greeted not by a warrior image, but by a woman with a torch of liberty. Emma Lazarus’ poem captures that dynamic.

I quote the entire poem……

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land,

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose fame

Is the imprisoned lighting, and her name

MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!

With silent lips, “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-lost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

The title of the poem and the first two lines refer to the Colussus of Rhodes, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

The poem does not come from any founding document of the United States. It does not come from the pages of the Bible. Rather it comes from the pen of a Jewish immigrant of the nineteenth century, who had become a privileged citizen of the United States. Her poem did not receive proper public recognition until it was used by President John Kennedy and later by President Barack Obama. The true power of the poem is found in the ideal that it sets forth. America’s “lady in the harbor” was not intended to be a symbol for immigration, but it took on that role as immigrant laden ships passed by.

America’s greatness is still being sought. In the search, too many Americans have forgotten their immigrant roots. My own grandfather was the first American born child to a couple, who had fled German militarism. We have millions of citizens, who somehow believe that America’s greatness is found in wealth and power. My own roots tell me that the greatness of America is to be found in the immigrants we welcome. This conviction is reinforced by my devotion to Jesus from Nazareth, the great champion of the poor.

A wall to “protect” our southern border is abhorrent. New welcoming statues should be sculpted and placed at strategic places on our southern, western and northern borders. New poems need to be written that declare our welcome to fleeing refugees. New offices are needed to speed orderly processing. American communities need to be putting up welcoming signs.

Our American greatness is found in our welcome.

The End

The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.