**Previously recorded by Phyllis Schlafly // October 2015 **
Today is the anniversary of the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, which was dedicated on October 28, 1886. The impressive statue was a gift of the government of France. It was designed by Auguste Bartholdi, who wrote: “This statue was born for this place which inspired its conception. May God be pleased to bless my efforts and my work, and to crown it with success, the duration and moral influence which it ought to have.” On its 50th anniversary in 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt stated: “The Almighty did prepare this American continent to be a place of the second chance. Millions have found freedom of opportunity, freedom of thought, freedom to worship God.”
President Dwight Eisenhower said in 1954, “I have just come from the dedication of a new stamp. The stamp has on it a picture of the Statue of Liberty and ‘In God We Trust.’ It represents a nation whose greatness is based on a firm unshakeable belief that all of us mere mortals are dependent upon the mercy of a Superior Being.”
On July 3, 1986, President Ronald Reagan relighted the Statue of Liberty and said, “I’ve always thought that God had His reasons for placing this land here between two great oceans to be found by a certain kind of people.”
I grew up during the Great Depression and our family never had the money to take any vacations. After I finished school and was making a salary, I was able to fulfill one of my father’s great desires. I took him to New York to see first-hand the Statue of Liberty, and that was a thrill for him and for me.
Someday you will have the chance to ride through New York Harbor and be able to rejoice that America was founded to be a land of liberty.
