touched by it, it proves that we have forgotten much which it would become us to recall.  Before our nation was, the democratic idea had been for many years existing and expanding among the French people; crushed again and again by tyrants, it ever rose, renewed and fresh for the irrepressible conflict.  Through all their vicissitudes the people of France have upheld, unfaltering, their ideal—­liberty, equality and fraternity.  Our own republic exists to-day because France helped us when England sought to crush us.  It is never amiss to freshen our memories as to these historic facts.  The symbolism of the colossus would therefore be very fine; it would have a meaning which every one could understand.  It would signify not only the amity of France and the United States, and the republican idea of brotherhood and freedom, as I have said; but it would also stand for American hospitality to the European emigrant, and Emma Lazarus has thus imagined the colossus endowed with speech: 

  “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she. 
  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, temptest-tost to me—­
  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Now, there can be no two ways of thinking among patriotic Americans as to this aspect of the Bartholdi colossus question.  It must be agreed that the motive of the work is extremely grand, and that its significance would be glorious.  The sculptor’s project was a generous inspiration, for which he must be cordially remembered.  To be sure, it may be said he is getting well advertised; that is very true, but it would be mean in us to begrudge him what personal fame he may derive from the work.  To assume that the whole affair is a “job,” or that it is entirely the outcome of one man’s scheming egotism and desire for notoriety, is to take a deplorably low view of it; to draw unwarranted conclusions and to wrong ourselves.  The money to pay for the statue—­about $250,000—­was raised by popular subscription in France, under the auspices of the Franco-American Union, an association of gentlemen whose membership includes such names as Laboulaye, de Lafayette, de Rochambeau, de Noailles, de Toqueville, de Witt, Martin, de Remusat.  The identification of these excellent men with the project should be a sufficient guarantee of its disinterested character.  The efforts made in this country to raise the money—­$250,000—­required to build a suitable pedestal for the statue, are a subject of every day comment, and the failure to obtain the whole amount is a matter for no small degree of chagrin.