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00:00:18Listen.
00:00:20We hold these truths to be self-evident.
00:00:23That all men are created equal.
00:00:25That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
00:00:30That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
00:00:37Thomas Jefferson.
00:00:41Many's the time I've been mistaken
00:00:47And many times confused
00:00:51Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
00:00:58And certainly misused
00:01:02Oh, but I'm alright, I'm alright
00:01:09Just weary to my bones
00:01:16Still you don't expect to be bright and born vivant
00:01:22So far away from home
00:01:34I don't know a soul who's not been battered
00:01:41I don't have a friend who feels at ease
00:01:46I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
00:01:52Or driven to its knees
00:01:57Oh, but it's alright
00:02:01It's alright
00:02:02It's alright
00:02:04For we lived so well so long
00:02:10Still when I think of the road we're traveling on
00:02:16I wonder what's gone wrong
00:02:21I can't help it
00:02:23I wonder what's gone wrong
00:02:38The statue's only a symbol
00:02:40The statue is only copper and granite and steel, iron
00:02:46It's what it speaks to us about
00:02:51What it makes us feel inside that's so important
00:02:55We are all the beneficiaries of those who've gone before us
00:03:00Who've worked, who've fought on occasion
00:03:04Who have cared immensely to the very depth of their soul
00:03:10To achieve liberty
00:03:13If we really want to know her
00:03:17The beginning should be the question
00:03:20What is liberty?
00:03:23Liberty is the most civilized and least of evils in this world
00:03:31Liberty is the absence of constraints and barriers
00:03:39Liberty is an impediment
00:03:44It's freedom to be oneself
00:03:47To do what one wants to do
00:03:50To remain oneself for as long as one chooses to
00:03:52And basically that's all
00:03:54It's not happiness
00:03:54It's not responsibility
00:03:56It's not truth
00:03:57It's just being oneself
00:04:02Well, liberty is the old French word
00:04:06That we have begun in English to equate with freedom
00:04:11What is liberty?
00:04:14Oh, wow
00:04:17That's quite a question
00:04:21Not, um, I suppose almost nobody really asks himself that question
00:04:30Well, I can always quote the, um, declaration
00:04:37We hold these truths to be self-evident
00:04:38That all men are created equal
00:04:42And the moment I do that, I'm in trouble again
00:04:44Because, um, obviously I was not included in that, um, in that pronouncement
00:04:54That they are endowed by their creator with certain and alienable rights
00:04:57But among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness
00:05:02Uh, what is liberty?
00:05:15Colossal statuary does not consist simply in making an enormous statue
00:05:19It ought to produce an emotion in the breast of the spectator
00:05:23Not because of its volume
00:05:25But because its size is in keeping with the idea that it interprets
00:05:30And with the place which it ought to occupy
00:05:34Frederick Auguste Bartholdi
00:05:47Daily News
00:05:48London, July the 3rd
00:05:50It towers to the skies
00:05:52From the factory yard of the Rue de Chazelle
00:05:56And the view from its coronet sweeps clear to the six-story houses
00:05:59And right beyond the walls of Paris
00:06:09In the autumn of 1875
00:06:11On a quiet residential street in Paris
00:06:14Where nothing much had ever happened
00:06:16Work began on a statue unlike any ever built before
00:06:21It would be a gift from the people of France
00:06:23To the people of the United States
00:06:25And it would celebrate an ideal
00:06:27Liberty
00:06:32When completed she would be the tallest structure
00:06:35In the New World
00:06:36Her torch stretching 305 feet above the harbor
00:06:40Taller even than the recently completed Brooklyn Bridge
00:06:45She was hand-built by Frenchmen in Paris
00:06:47Italian immigrant stonemasons
00:06:50Later foundation in New York
00:06:51And hundreds of thousands of French and Americans
00:06:55Ordinary people mostly
00:06:57Paid for her construction
00:07:00But she was primarily the creation of one driven man
00:07:04Frederick Auguste Bartholdi
00:07:06A man who wasn't even sure he liked Americans
00:07:10Monsieur Bartholdi has conceived this celebration of American independence
00:07:14Applying to it a sublime phrase
00:07:16Which sums up the progress of modern times
00:07:19Liberty enlightening the world
00:07:21He has chosen to represent this great idea
00:07:24By a statue of colossal proportions
00:07:26Which will surpass all that have ever existed
00:07:29Since the most ancient times
00:07:33But the idea for the Statue of Liberty was not Bartholdi's
00:07:38It was born over brandy and cigars at a country home near Paris
00:07:42One evening in 1865
00:07:45The host was Edouard de Labellay
00:07:47Historian, Professor of Law
00:07:49Chairman of the French Anti-Slavery Society
00:07:52The talk was of Liberty then in trouble in France
00:07:55Furtailed by the tyranny of Emperor Napoleon III
00:07:59And menaced by the revolutionary chaos that seemed the likely alternative
00:08:06Labellay believed passionately that democracy was the future
00:08:09And America its shining example
00:08:12And so very shrewdly he proposed a huge monument to celebrate liberty
00:08:17As America was about to celebrate its 100th birthday
00:08:23The great gift would both commemorate a century of French-American relations
00:08:27And help spur France to restore liberty at home
00:08:32No one who was gathered that evening at Professor Labellay's
00:08:35Was more interested than Bartholdi
00:08:37So deeply interested he wrote
00:08:40That the idea remained fixed in my memory
00:08:43I will try to glorify the republic and liberty over there
00:08:47In the hope that someday I will find it again here in France
00:08:50If it can be done
00:08:53Bartholdi
00:08:57He was born in the medieval city of Colmar in Alsace
00:09:01To a family of comfortable means
00:09:03He started out as a painter
00:09:05Turned to sculpture which allowed work on a bigger scale
00:09:08At age 21 he created a Napoleonic general so tall at 26 feet
00:09:14That it couldn't fit into the exhibition hall for which it was intended
00:09:18It made him famous all over France
00:09:22Bartholdi is an Alsatian as well as a Frenchman
00:09:24Still young for an artist of his reputation
00:09:26He gives you the impression of a man of power
00:09:28And his works confirm it
00:09:30He loves to model on a colossal scale
00:09:32Perhaps because this most readily conduces to the simplicity
00:09:35And massiveness of effect which he seeks in art
00:09:39He is a sculptor of the old
00:09:41And as most of us still think
00:09:42The best school
00:09:46He traveled to Egypt
00:09:48For the opening of the French built Suez Canal
00:09:50He wanted to build a mammoth monument at its entrance
00:09:54A lighthouse in the form of an Egyptian woman bearing a torch
00:09:58He presented his plan to the ruler of Egypt
00:10:01Gave it the grand title of Progress
00:10:03Or Egypt carrying the light to Asia
00:10:07He was turned down
00:10:08But only momentarily discouraged
00:10:10And he carefully saved his drawings
00:10:17In 1871
00:10:18Laboulaye urged Bartholdi to visit America
00:10:21And on June 21st
00:10:23Bartholdi sailed for the first time
00:10:25Through the Verrazano Narrows into New York Harbor
00:10:28He never forgot the moment
00:10:30It is exactly here that my statue should be erected
00:10:33Here where people have their first view of the new world
00:10:37I have found the admirable spot
00:10:39It is Bedlow's Island
00:10:41Just opposite the Narrows
00:10:43Which are so to speak
00:10:44The gateway of America
00:10:48His admirable spot had once sheltered a pest house
00:10:51A gallows
00:10:52A pauper's grave
00:10:53And was now an abandoned fort
00:10:54But Bartholdi was certain he had found the site for his masterpiece
00:11:00From New York he traveled across America
00:11:03Never missing an opportunity to promote his dream
00:11:07The size of the country impressed him
00:11:09He marveled at the immensity of Niagara Falls
00:11:13And Yosemite
00:11:13Monument Valley
00:11:14And the giant sequoias
00:11:17Everything is big here, he told his mother
00:11:19Even the peas
00:11:21All of these things are of the greatest interest
00:11:24What is lacking in the cities
00:11:26And most of the men however
00:11:27Is charm and taste
00:11:36In 1875
00:11:37A new and moderate republic had been established in France
00:11:41Paris was once again the cultural capital of Europe
00:11:44Some said the world
00:11:46For Laboulaye and Bartholdi
00:11:48The time was perfect to bring their idea to the French people
00:11:51They formed a French-American union
00:11:53And to raise money
00:11:54Launched a nationwide lottery
00:11:57In all
00:11:58181 municipalities
00:12:0040 general councils
00:12:0210 chambers of commerce
00:12:03And 100,000 individual subscribers
00:12:06Contributed the 600,000 francs
00:12:09Bartholdi thought he would need
00:12:13She will not resemble those bronze colossi so venerated
00:12:17Of which it is proudly declared
00:12:19That they have been cast from cannons
00:12:20Taken from the enemy
00:12:22Our statue will be made of pure copper
00:12:25And be the product of labor
00:12:27And of peace
00:12:37Bit by bit
00:12:38Bartholdi evolved the form of his statue
00:12:40Borrowing generously
00:12:44A woman in robes bearing the light of reason
00:12:47Had stood for liberty since classical times
00:12:51It was rumored all over France
00:12:53That the statue was modeled after the face
00:12:55Of Bartholdi's mother
00:12:56And the body of his mistress
00:13:01And there was still another influence
00:13:03The Freemasons
00:13:04A secret international brotherhood
00:13:06Linked to the ancient builders of the pyramids
00:13:08And the cathedrals
00:13:11Freemasons were devoted to peace
00:13:13To liberty
00:13:13And enlightenment
00:13:15George Washington was a Freemason
00:13:17So were Jefferson and Franklin
00:13:20And countless others who made America
00:13:27Freemasons designed the dollar bill
00:13:29Freemasons planned the Washington Monument
00:13:31An obelisk symbolizing the ray shining from God
00:13:34To enlighten mankind
00:13:37And Masonic symbols were to be present
00:13:40In the Statue of Liberty as well
00:13:41A torch
00:13:42The light of human intellect
00:13:44A book
00:13:45The laws of the supreme architect
00:13:47Indelibly inscribed with the date
00:13:49Of America's independence
00:13:53Bartholdi himself became a Freemason
00:13:55As he began construction
00:13:58Daily News, London
00:14:00The workshop was built wholly and solely
00:14:02For the accommodation of this one inmate
00:14:04And her attendants
00:14:06Some fifty workmen hammering for their lives
00:14:09On sheer copper to complete her tresses
00:14:12Now in the workshops of Gaget and Gautier
00:14:16At 25 Rue de Chazelle
00:14:18Work began in earnest
00:14:21Bartholdi drove himself hard
00:14:23Supervising every aspect of the work
00:14:27He built three successively larger models
00:14:30The last a quarter of the final size
00:14:33Each enlargement required more than 9,000 measurements
00:14:37Taken painstakingly from plumb lines
00:14:40And then multiplied accordingly over and over again
00:14:44Finally, a full-size model was built in pieces
00:14:47Made of wooden lab
00:14:48These first roughly covered with plaster
00:14:51Then carefully carved in full detail
00:14:54Craftsmen spent weeks working on fingers, toes and eyebrows
00:15:00May 13th, 1876
00:15:03A worker who is applying and smoothing clay
00:15:06Looks like a pygmy in relation to one of the fingers
00:15:11Daily News, London
00:15:13The farther the coppersmiths advanced with their task
00:15:16The more liliputian they became in relation to it
00:15:19What were men, for instance
00:15:20Or the children of men
00:15:21In that awful eye?
00:15:26The Bartholdi statue must be modeled after some Ohio girl
00:15:30The ears are three feet long
00:15:37Once the plaster carving was finished
00:15:39A wooden negative was built
00:15:41A honeycomb conforming exactly to the pieces of the model
00:15:46In another corner of the shop
00:15:47Men took big sheets of copper
00:15:49About the thickness of a silver dollar
00:15:51And hammered them into the honeycomb
00:15:53Until they had precisely the same shape and contour
00:15:56As the plaster original
00:15:58By the time they were finished
00:16:00300 copper sections were readied for assembly
00:16:07Bartholdi finished the right arm and torch first
00:16:10So they could be displayed
00:16:11At the American Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia
00:16:18Though the statue was to be a gift from France
00:16:20Americans were expected to provide the place for her to stand
00:16:26But Bartholdi had no guarantee the Americans would come through
00:16:30There had been complaints about the statue all along
00:16:33It would unquestionably be impolite to look a gift's statue in the mouth
00:16:39But inasmuch as no mouth has yet been cast of the bronze liberty
00:16:42We may be permitted to suggest that when a nation promises to give another nation
00:16:46A colossal bronze woman
00:16:48And after having given one arm
00:16:50Calmly advises the recipient of that useless gift
00:16:53To supply the rest of the woman at its own expense
00:16:55There is a disproportion between the promise and its fulfillment
00:16:59Which may be forgiven
00:17:00But which cannot be wholly ignored
00:17:03New York Times
00:17:07Some Americans distrusted the French
00:17:09Whom they believed radical or effete
00:17:11Even immoral
00:17:13Clergymen worried about a pagan goddess on American soil
00:17:16An art critic scoffed that the statue would look like a bag of potatoes
00:17:20With a stick projecting from it
00:17:22Of course the female arm has its uses
00:17:25But it is only of secondary importance
00:17:28A woman without arms might be of considerable value
00:17:31But arms without any accompanying woman
00:17:34Would be utterly valueless
00:17:38When New Yorkers seemed less than enthusiastic about the gift
00:17:42Bartholdi hinted he would be just as happy to have his statue stand in Philadelphia
00:17:48But Bartholdi had no intention of setting the statue he now called
00:17:52My American anywhere but in New York Harbor
00:17:55If there is any place on earth that needs light
00:17:58It is certainly New York
00:18:04The arm and torch were eventually returned to Paris
00:18:07But there was a problem
00:18:09Bartholdi wasn't exactly sure how to hold all the pieces together
00:18:14The more than 40 foot span of her shoulders
00:18:16High above the tides and squarely into the wind
00:18:19Would create a sail as big as on any ship
00:18:21And how would a structure so enormous actually be built
00:18:24Transported across an ocean
00:18:26And kept stable on its pedestal
00:18:29A new man was enlisted
00:18:31One of the greatest engineers of the century
00:18:33Alexander Gustave Eiffel
00:18:36Already celebrated throughout France for his daring bridges
00:18:40Eiffel would later create the world's most famous tower
00:18:43He spent a year devising a sturdy but elastic framework
00:18:47That would not only carry the 80 ton copper skin
00:18:50But be heat, cold and storm proof
00:18:55Now in the courtyard of Gaget and Gautier
00:18:58Eiffel began building his statue
00:19:02It was a sturdy pylon made of cross-braced iron posts
00:19:06Ninety-six feet high
00:19:08And this supported a framework of light beams
00:19:10A forerunner of the skyscraper
00:19:14Most ingenious of all were the hundreds of short thin iron bars
00:19:18Fitted to the framework which would attach directly to the inside of the copper skin
00:19:25They would act like springs
00:19:26Allowing the statue to sway, expand and contract
00:19:29And breathe
00:19:33Each copper piece would be separately riveted to the frame
00:19:36Thus no one piece would carry the weight of any other
00:19:41When Eiffel's pylon was finished workers began wrapping it in copper
00:19:47Bartholdi, ever the promoter, held a lunch in the leg
00:19:50To introduce Eiffel to the press and to keep his structure front page news
00:19:55The New York Herald, April 5th, 1884
00:20:00The entry is by the sole of the uplifted foot
00:20:03A fairly spacious doorway
00:20:05It is rather dark inside
00:20:07But the gloom is pierced by thousands of little islets of light
00:20:10Marking the holes left for the rivets
00:20:13From the gallery of the torch
00:20:15All the glory of Paris bursts on the view
00:20:18Miles and miles of house roofs
00:20:20All as even as if they had been mown like grass with a scythe
00:20:24She was proclaimed a modern cathedral
00:20:27The Freemasons were delighted
00:20:31Jules Grevy, the president of the French Republic, came to see her
00:20:34So did Victor Hugo, the venerable poet of French democracy
00:20:38Eighty-two years old and only months from death
00:20:41But determined to see for himself this huge testament
00:20:44To the ideals for which he had struggled all his life
00:20:48He stood silently for a long time
00:20:50Staring first at the statue, then at Bartholdi
00:20:54Finally he spoke
00:20:55The idea, he said, it is everything
00:21:10On July 4, 1884, she was formally handed over to the Minister of the United States, Levi P. Morton
00:21:18She was at last what Bartholdi had called her
00:21:21My American
00:21:29In New York, though no one had figured out how to pay for it
00:21:33The pedestal was underway
00:21:35The designer was America's most fashionable architect, Richard Morris Hunt
00:21:39During 1882 and 83, he sketched out innumerable designs
00:21:45Toying with pyramids and ziggurats and other less exotic styles
00:21:51Corresponding frequently with Bartholdi, although each man heartily disliked the other
00:21:55Hunt arrived at last at the final form
00:22:01It was a solid monument of classical and Egyptian features
00:22:04That took into account the contours of the abandoned fort
00:22:09Almost as tall as Liberty herself
00:22:11Hunt's pedestal would complement Bartholdi's statue
00:22:14But not compete with it
00:22:16If that is, someone could come up with the money
00:22:22Back in Paris, workers dismantled the statue and packed her in 210 crates
00:22:2736 just for nuts, bolts and rivets
00:22:30And put her aboard the sleek white warship, Iserre
00:22:33The statue sailed on May 21, 1885
00:22:37And very nearly didn't make it
00:22:39Halfway across, the Iserre was struck by a storm
00:22:42For 72 hours, she struggled to remain upright
00:22:45As her huge, wildly shifting cargo threatened to capsize her
00:22:52Nearly a hundred ships greeted the battered Iserre on her arrival in New York Harbor
00:22:58But it was still not certain the dismantled statue would ever be reassembled
00:23:04It is ridiculous for Frenchmen to continue to impose on Americans a present they refuse to accept
00:23:10To worry them with a souvenir that offends them
00:23:13To humiliate them with a generous idea they do not comprehend
00:23:17And to beg for thanks that they will not give
00:23:22The greatest difficulty, I believe, will be the American character
00:23:27Which is hardly open to things of the imagination
00:23:31But Toldy is said to be so mad about the wrangles over the pedestal of his statue
00:23:35That he has serious thoughts of remodeling part of his work
00:23:38So that liberty may appear in the attitude of applying her thumb to her nose and twiddling her fingers
00:23:45As the Iserre began to unload her precious cargo
00:23:49Work on the pedestal stopped
00:23:51The money had run out
00:23:58This torch and arm ought to be extended as if asking for alms
00:24:03Instead of triumphantly raised toward heaven
00:24:06It would be an irrevocable disgrace for the city of New York
00:24:10And the American Republic to see France send us this splendid gift
00:24:15Without our having furnished simply a place to put it
00:24:19There is only one thing to do
00:24:21We must collect money
00:24:24Joseph Pulitzer
00:24:27Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant
00:24:30Was the new publisher of an old newspaper, the New York World
00:24:34He was a strange, brilliant man
00:24:37Half blind and almost wholly neurotic
00:24:40A self-styled champion of the ordinary people of his city
00:24:43He could not abide the noise they made
00:24:45Lining the walls of his office with cork to shut it out
00:24:49And eventually running his paper from far out at sea
00:24:52On a yacht called Liberty
00:24:56In 1885 he launched an attack on wealthy New Yorkers
00:24:59Who would allow their city to be disgraced by not having provided a foundation for liberty
00:25:05From that moment on, he promised he would publish the name of every man, woman and child
00:25:09Who contributed to the statue, no matter how small their contribution
00:25:14The 250,000 that the statue has cost was paid out by the mass of French people
00:25:20By workers, shopkeepers, sales girls, craftsmen
00:25:24Let us not wait for the millionaires to give this money
00:25:27This isn't a gift from French millionaires to American millionaires
00:25:31But the gift of the whole French people to the whole American people
00:25:35Give something, no matter how little
00:25:38Let us hear from the people
00:25:41He did hear
00:25:43Pulitzer and the world raised $120,000
00:25:46Much of it in contributions of a dollar or less
00:25:50We have taken three lessons in French and we don't like it
00:25:54But we love the good French people for giving us the beautiful statue
00:25:57And we send you a dollar
00:25:59The money we have saved to go to the circus with
00:26:03Since leaving off smoking cigarettes, I have gained 25 pounds
00:26:07So I cheerfully enclose a penny for each pound
00:26:13Finally, in the spring of 1886, workmen began prying open the wooden crates
00:26:18That had been sitting on Bedloe's Island for a year
00:26:21In just three months, the statue once again rose up around its skeleton
00:26:2721 years after the dinner at Professor Laballais
00:26:3015 years after Bartholdi first sailed through the Verrazano Narrows
00:26:34Ten years after the American centennial celebration
00:26:38For which the statue had originally been intended
00:26:43Three days before the official unveiling, Bartholdi nervously surveyed his finished work
00:26:49I was very anxious about the formation of some of the lines
00:26:54But it is a success
00:26:56I believe that it will last until eternity
00:27:17October 28, 1886 dawned cool and cloudy
00:27:21And at 10 in the morning, a steady rain began to fall
00:27:24Nobody seemed to mind
00:27:27Enthusiastic crowds of more than a million lined the streets
00:27:3020,000 New Yorkers paraded down Broadway
00:27:37Early in the afternoon, some 600 dignitaries were ferried out to Bedloe's Island for the great unveiling
00:27:44The general public was not invited and exactly two women were present for the ceremony honoring this giant statue of
00:27:52a woman
00:27:52An irony not lost on a group of suffragists who circled the island in a chartered boat
00:27:58Shouting their outrage through a megaphone
00:28:02But their words went largely unheard in the unceasing din
00:28:13The French flag hung over the statue's face
00:28:16Bartholdi himself, dressed in evening clothes
00:28:19And climbed into the torch where he sat ready to pull the silken cord that would formally unveil his creation
00:28:25Once President Grover Cleveland completed his formal remarks
00:28:29But somehow signals were misinterpreted
00:28:32The sculptor gave a sharp pull before the President had even made it to the podium
00:28:53Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic printed every word of every speech and all the songs and anthems
00:28:59The Times of London, however, looked upon the proceedings with skepticism
00:29:03We question why liberty should be sent from France, which has too little, to America, which has too much
00:29:22Nobody said a thing about welcoming immigrants
00:29:32The Times of London
00:29:33After all, I'm back in and reading a book called The ê¼ard
00:29:33The Times of London, however, here are quite a few women
00:29:39You may only come back into this
00:29:40But the Japanese people
00:29:40Of the times of London
00:29:41The Times of London
00:29:41The Times of London
00:29:42The Times of London
00:29:42The Times of London
00:30:05On they go, from this pen to that, towards a little metal wicket, the Gate of America.
00:30:11Through this wicket drips the immigrant's stream.
00:30:15All day long, every two or three seconds, an immigrant with a valise or bundle into a
00:30:21new world.
00:30:23H.T. Wells, 1905.
00:30:30Anyone that came through it, I mean, there was gates to go through, but once people passed
00:30:36by this here, they felt just like a newborn baby.
00:30:47I felt like the world opened up.
00:30:50It was the most beautiful sight I have seen.
00:30:53I felt like reaching for it.
00:30:55I thought maybe I was going to climb over it.
00:30:58But it was the most gorgeous sight I have seen.
00:31:01And since then, I always look at the statue and I feel that's like a godsend country.
00:31:10Personally, I believe that the Statue of Liberty is supposed to be remembered by anyone who
00:31:15passed by the Statue of Liberty.
00:31:17I mean, for people that came after that, they don't seem to realize how much tears and also
00:31:24how much laughter people lost or gained by going through the Statue of Liberty in those days.
00:31:37I think more than any other American symbol, it probably endures in the heart warmly, as
00:31:44does the poem inscribed on the base of it.
00:31:47But I feel that perhaps it was an early symbol of our intention toward equality and a country
00:31:58made from a human community, built as a human community, a global community.
00:32:06Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from land to land,
00:32:12here at our sea-washed sunset gate shall stand a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is
00:32:20the imprisoned lightning and her name Mother of Exiles.
00:32:25From her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome.
00:32:29Her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
00:32:34Keep ancient lands your storied pomp, cries she with silent lips.
00:32:40Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
00:32:47The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
00:32:55I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
00:33:06Symbols are important.
00:33:09You send a Christmas card or a Hanukkah card.
00:33:12You go to a wake, you embrace, you kiss, you touch.
00:33:17Symbols are important.
00:33:20And reminders of the essence of this country are very, very important.
00:33:23Because the further we get away from our essence, the deeper trouble we're in.
00:33:28So it's good to have a great statue in the harbor that says,
00:33:32this is why we came and let's not forget it.
00:33:41Well, from childhood when I was in Tabriz, Iran, on the U.S. stamps and everything,
00:33:46was the Statue of Liberty.
00:33:48And I had a very idealized notion of America, a land of freedom.
00:33:53And everything you've heard in the textbooks, I bought it as a child.
00:33:58So that even though later years I went to school and I learned about nuances,
00:34:04ambiguities, shades, and all kinds of shadows the Statue of Liberty had,
00:34:11the first day that I approached New York, it was a shattering experience for me
00:34:15to find that the whole nation was welcoming me spiritually to a new land.
00:34:20.
00:34:20.
00:34:21.
00:34:21.
00:34:21.
00:34:29.
00:34:30.
00:34:30.
00:34:31.
00:34:34.
00:34:40.
00:34:41.
00:34:41.
00:34:41.
00:34:42.
00:34:42.
00:34:42.
00:34:42.
00:34:42.
00:34:43.
00:34:43.
00:34:44.
00:34:44.
00:34:44.
00:34:44.
00:34:44.
00:34:44.
00:34:49.
00:34:49.
00:34:49.
00:34:50.
00:35:00The way I described its a fictional interview on Ellis island of my mother.
00:35:05What's your name?
00:35:06De Cordano Cuomo, Where you from, Trimonte.
00:35:09.
00:35:09How old are you, twenty-five.
00:35:11.
00:35:16.
00:35:16.
00:35:16.
00:35:16.
00:35:16Any skill, any job? No.
00:35:17Where are you going to meet my husband?
00:35:19Where is he in New Jersey? Does he have a job?
00:35:21No, but he makes ephos.
00:35:23What is that? Trenches.
00:35:24Oh, he's a ditch digger. Yes.
00:35:26Well, what do you have?
00:35:27Well, we have nothing much except one child.
00:35:30You have no money, no skill, no friends, no job.
00:35:32Your husband's a ditch digger. You have one child.
00:35:35What did you come here for?
00:35:36Well, we came because over there was worse.
00:35:39And what do you expect of this country with the little you brought us?
00:35:42Well, not much. Just one thing.
00:35:44Before I die, I'd like one of my sons to be governor of the state of New York.
00:36:00How are you?
00:36:07What do you want?
00:36:08Do you want to hear me?
00:36:11What did you want to hear?
00:36:12Talk English.
00:36:15I learned.
00:36:18All right.
00:36:19First thing you learn,
00:36:21To Statue of Liberty you don't say how are you.
00:36:24To people you say how are you.
00:36:27To Statue you say,
00:36:28It's pretty, it's beautiful, not how are you.
00:36:38My first reaction was very disappointing
00:36:43because she looked small from the distance, you know.
00:36:47And then she grew up in my eyes
00:36:50when I was standing there looking at her.
00:36:55When I look back, I think she's been probably the only woman
00:36:58I've always been in love with from the age of 12.
00:37:02And for a long time, I thought I would never meet her in person.
00:37:06And when I arrived here, I was 24.
00:37:09That's probably the first trip I have made.
00:37:11The first photograph of myself in New York
00:37:13was of myself in front of her.
00:37:16There I was, finally joined with the object
00:37:18of what was actually long love.
00:37:24To me, the Statue of Liberty is like the light
00:37:26that's left on at home.
00:37:28You're coming back on a passenger ship,
00:37:30coming back on a troop ship, coming home.
00:37:34There she is, saying, you knew you were here.
00:37:37You'd taken the right boat.
00:37:44But then you're right under it, and you look up, and you say,
00:37:47my God.
00:37:49My God.
00:37:50And you feel something, I think, really,
00:37:53much more than just being an American.
00:37:54You feel the importance of being human.
00:37:58And you feel a kind of fraternal bondage
00:38:03with everybody who has come here.
00:38:06We came from Russia.
00:38:07We came from Kiev.
00:38:09And then we went to...
00:38:12Our mother died, so we went to Italy.
00:38:15And then we came here.
00:38:18I come from Austria.
00:38:20I ended up in New Jersey.
00:38:24I went to Italy.
00:38:26I said, oh, he knows.
00:38:28Libertat.
00:38:29Freedom.
00:38:30He says it's a nation that you can go out.
00:38:37You don't have to get scared.
00:38:38It's a free country.
00:38:41And it's different from Europe altogether.
00:38:44You could say anything you want.
00:38:46You could get home any time you want.
00:38:47You don't have to get scared, you know.
00:38:49It's a different country altogether from Europe.
00:38:53Liberty means freedom.
00:38:55Yeah. And that's what it's all about.
00:38:59He loves it very much. He loves America.
00:39:02And then when I saw the statue, I really cried.
00:39:05I cried. It made me feel, made me remember all those years
00:39:09when I used to be a kid, you know.
00:39:11And I used to run with my father, you know,
00:39:14and all in the fields over there playing ball
00:39:17and all those things, you know.
00:39:19I never thought ever in my life that I was going to lose it.
00:39:24Until you lose it, you don't know what freedom means, really,
00:39:26and liberty means to you.
00:39:29I went through hell in Europe.
00:39:33My grandparents and my only brother
00:39:37was taken to concentration camp.
00:39:40And when I was lucky enough and fortunate enough
00:39:44to get a visa to this country,
00:39:46which we and my parents elected,
00:39:49because we could have gone to Israel or any other country,
00:39:53but we picked the United States.
00:39:58And when I first saw the Statue of Liberty,
00:40:03I broke down in tears,
00:40:06and I could have fallen on my knees and kissed the ground.
00:40:10I was fortunate enough to reach this blessed country.
00:40:28He had to come because he could not live no more in his country.
00:40:32So he had to find a way to survive.
00:40:36And that's why he came here.
00:40:45The earliest image I have of the Statue of Liberty
00:40:48is in the Romanian cartoons in our communist newspaper,
00:40:51which always portrayed her with not a torch in the hand,
00:40:55but either a bloody knife with North Korea written on it,
00:41:02or aimed at the Soviet Union,
00:41:04or, you know, your basic propagandistic political cartoon.
00:41:08And from that point to the commercial
00:41:11that has the Statue of Liberty with her hand raised,
00:41:14saying, I'm sure, I'm sure everything is all right.
00:41:16I have enough deodorant.
00:41:18There is an entire range, you know,
00:41:20that goes from the polemic against that image
00:41:23to the trivialization of it,
00:41:25that actually includes a great range of emotion,
00:41:27including a genuine one.
00:41:28Beautiful lady, glorious lady,
00:41:33beautiful lady,
00:41:37liberty
00:41:38Offering rest to the oppressed
00:41:43who yearn to be free,
00:41:46yearn to be free
00:41:48Beautiful lady, glorious lady,
00:41:53beautiful lady,
00:41:56liberty
00:41:57May you hold your touch raised
00:42:00Under God, may it blaze
00:42:03You're eternally
00:42:05Eternally
00:42:08The lady in the harbor
00:42:12Harbors the flame
00:42:14That enlightens the world
00:42:16Give me your time, your hope
00:42:20Yearning to be free
00:42:24Yearning to be free
00:42:25To be free
00:42:26To be free
00:42:27To be free
00:42:27To be free
00:42:28To be free
00:42:29Welcome you proud
00:42:30And masses
00:42:32To America's golden shore
00:42:36Majestically crowned
00:42:39Stands lady,
00:42:42Stands lady, liberty
00:42:43Stands lady, liberty
00:42:44Lady, liberty
00:42:45Oh beautiful lady, glorious lady, beautiful lady, liberty
00:42:55To be free
00:43:06Offering rest
00:43:08Offering rest
00:43:08Offering rest
00:43:35To the oppressed
00:43:39Who yearn to be free
00:43:41To yearn to be free
00:43:44To yearn to be free
00:43:46Beautiful lady, glorious lady, liberty
00:43:50Beautiful lady, beautiful lady, beautiful lady
00:43:53May you hold your touch raised
00:43:56Under God, may it blaze
00:44:00Eternally
00:44:02Eternally
00:44:16Here is an enormous symbolic work of sculpture at the gateway to our country. It isn't a warrior. She isn't
00:44:28bombastic or domineering or threatening.
00:44:33She isn't a symbol of power. The Statue of Liberty is an act of faith.
00:44:43My parents came from overseas and I look upon and think first of what they saw, what their hopes were.
00:44:51That they came as refugees. They came escaping a world they never wanted to see again. They came enchanted by
00:44:59an idea that here they could be themselves and be the best that was within them now.
00:45:05They were coming to a place where every human being could stand erect and with dignity as a child of
00:45:09God. That's what I think they believed in. And that's what I see in it. It reminds me of how
00:45:15much we yet have to do to achieve the full promise of that statue. You know it was Archibald MacLeish
00:45:23who said America is promises. It is indeed. But for a lot of people in this country it's still a
00:45:28land of unfulfilled promises.
00:45:29I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its
00:45:41creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.
00:46:00I suppose it occurs on two levels. One is inside, one is outside. So that finally, or first of all
00:46:08perhaps, liberty is the individual passion or will to be free.
00:46:20But this passion, this will is always contradicted by the necessities of the state. Everywhere.
00:46:32Well, as long as we've heard of mankind, as long as we've heard of states. I don't know if it
00:46:37will be like that forever.
00:46:42It, for a black American, for a black inhabitant of this country, the Statue of Liberty is simply a very
00:46:51bitter joke.
00:46:55Meaning nothing to us.
00:47:01America is a symbol of everything good, great, generous, rich, comfortable, wonderful in the world.
00:47:13And you come here and you must be inevitably let down after a while.
00:47:21You know, the first two, three days or two, three weeks are always wonderful, but then the everyday life comes,
00:47:27you know?
00:47:27And then you learn all the other aspects of life and it's a let down and you must be disappointed,
00:47:33right?
00:47:34Now, do you have statistics? How many people then turned, finally, and left and went back from where they came
00:47:42from?
00:47:43Such a tiny percentage. That means that there is something deep down in this society which is so valuable, so
00:47:54strong and so inspiring that in spite of all of difficulties, all of troubles, all of evil, all of the
00:48:01crime you see around yourself, all of greed, all of hypocrisy you see, that still this is the best.
00:48:08This is the best. This is the best. And that lady up there, she symbolizes that.
00:48:16No one was ever born who agreed to be a slave, who accepted it.
00:48:28That is, slavery is a condition imposed from a doubt.
00:48:32Because the moment I said that, I realized that multitudes and multitudes of people, for various reasons of their own,
00:48:38enslave themselves every hour of every day to this or that doctrine, this or that delusion of safety, this or
00:48:45that lie.
00:48:47Anti-Semites, for example, are slaves to a delusion. People who hate Negroes are slaves.
00:48:52Slaves, people who love money are slaves.
00:48:57You're living in a universe, really, of willing slaves, which is what makes the concept of liberty so dangerous and
00:49:03the concept of freedom so dangerous.
00:49:18Alleluia makes the most vulnerable, the place of freedom so dangerous and the world is a place to be seen.
00:49:21Alleluia makes the most vulnerable to this.
00:49:22No, yes.
00:49:22It's a very clever thing.
00:49:24No, yes, I'm a clever.
00:49:25And that you're in a prairie of the world.
00:49:26Alleluia makes the most vulnerable, of course, the world is a great place to be seen.
00:49:26Who knows the love is that.
00:49:26chair is the most vulnerable.
00:49:27In a space to be seen, before the world dies.
00:49:28And that will also have been shown in the midst of your arms and senses.
00:49:51¶¶
00:50:05The greatest threat is the inattention of the people of this country to liberty.
00:50:14If we don't attend to it, if we take it for granted and let people trample on it in even
00:50:26minute ways,
00:50:27it can gradually suffer an erosion just like the statue itself suffered some erosion.
00:50:37You have to attend to liberty.
00:50:42I was out on the Circle Line ship and I passed the statue.
00:50:47She is now in a protective cage while reconstruction is being done.
00:50:52It occurred to me that she seems to be webbed or imprisoned now at a time when I feel we
00:51:01have, as Americans,
00:51:03become less welcoming of people from other countries who would like to make their homes here.
00:51:11That's very evident to me and it's a heartbreaking image for me to see her encased in scaffolding.
00:51:20I know what it's for, but it also for me symbolizes something that I wish were not true or as
00:51:28true as it seems to be.
00:51:46I think probably everything threatens liberty. Everything is a potential threat, hence one has to be on a lookout.
00:51:54Anything can become a potential threat because basically it's a very fleeting state of being.
00:52:01And in a way to be free is, in a sense, a transgression.
00:52:05One's freedom always threatens someone else and someone else's freedom threatens mine as well.
00:52:10And so it's a very precarious balance between my freedom to be myself and someone else's freedom to be himself
00:52:16or herself.
00:52:19She makes me think more than feel.
00:52:23Makes me think how important it is to remain vigilant, especially now as a governor where every day there are
00:52:32new temptations to forget that our strength is liberty.
00:52:38It can be very, very tempting to squash a little freedom here, to restrain a little bit there.
00:52:45So she makes me think.
00:52:48You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading the land of the free in history books.
00:52:55When they get to be men, they forget even more.
00:52:59Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books, Miss Saunders.
00:53:03Men should hold it up in front of them every single day of their lives and say,
00:53:07I'm free to think and to speak.
00:53:11If my ancestors couldn't, I can.
00:53:14And my children will.
00:53:25Oh, my God.
00:53:28We finally really did it.
00:53:31You maniacs!
00:53:34You blew it up!
00:53:36Oh, damn you!
00:53:39Oh, God damn you all to hell!
00:53:50If you could say one single force that is threatening liberty, in my opinion, it's ignorance.
00:53:56Second is to treat ourselves as only economic units rather than as spiritual beings.
00:54:04America is not an actuality, but it's a potentiality.
00:54:09We have to remember that the universe is not going to be seeing somebody like you again.
00:54:14It's entire history of creation.
00:54:15So it's up to you to become a dot, a paragraph, a page, blank page, chapter in the history of
00:54:23creation.
00:54:26I don't think anybody who was born in this country really cares.
00:54:31I think that if this show is for American audiences, forget it.
00:54:36You know, it's, you know, you are born here and you take everything for granted and all you really mainly
00:54:42see is what bothers you and what irritates you.
00:54:45You know, we are so complacent, it's so easy to accept pleasant things.
00:54:49It's like that I should be here and that I am, you know, entitled to them, you know.
00:54:56No, I think that this pile of granite and iron means a lot only for people who came from abroad,
00:55:06who came following that light in the torch.
00:55:13You know, we are so used to freedom. I mean, we are so used to doing whatever we want.
00:55:19We are so used to if we want to insult the president, we do it.
00:55:23But you know, when you look around the world, if you travel, you begin to realize right away that we
00:55:30don't know people can do all this in the world without any static.
00:55:53I'm going to say it's your birthday.
00:55:57I'm not busy too yet.
00:56:00I say it's your birthday.
00:56:02We're gonna have a good time
00:56:06And now it's your birthday
00:56:09Happy birthday to you
00:56:21I say it's your birthday
00:56:26Happy birthday to you
00:56:28I say it's your birthday
00:56:32Happy birthday to you
00:56:36I say it's your birthday
00:56:39Happy birthday to you
00:56:53Liberty is what we Americans
00:57:00Have always wanted first of all
00:57:03It's what the country was founded for
00:57:06It's what the revolution was fought for
00:57:10All the great songs and sayings and pronouncements of those revolutionary figures
00:57:17Were about liberty
00:57:19And they knew what it meant
00:57:23And because the French sent the statue here
00:57:28It was their way of saying implicitly
00:57:31We recognize that that is the gateway to a new world
00:57:38And to the hope of the world
00:57:43And I dreamed I was dying
00:57:48I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
00:57:55Looking back down at me
00:57:57Smiled and reassuring me
00:58:00And I dreamed I was flying
00:58:05And high up above my eyes could clearly see
00:58:11The statue of liberty
00:58:13Sailing away to sea
00:58:17Sailing away to sea
00:58:18And I dreamed I was flying
00:58:23For we come on the ship
00:58:25For we come on the ship they call the Mayflower
00:58:27We come on the ship that sails the moon
00:58:33We come on the ship that sails the moon
00:58:36We come in the ages most
00:58:37Searching out and singing that American crew
00:58:44Oh, and it's alright
00:58:47It's alright, it's alright
00:58:50You can be forever blessed
00:58:57Still tomorrow's gonna be another working day
00:59:04And I'm trying to get some rest
00:59:08That's all I'm trying
00:59:11To get some rest
00:59:33To get some rest
00:59:33To get some rest
00:59:40That's all I'm trying
00:59:40To stay
00:59:41Let's walk
00:59:41And have a great
00:59:45Be a good
00:59:45Peace
00:59:46In a beautiful
00:59:46Let's go
00:59:47Take care
00:59:47To get some rest
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