The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World was dedicated OCTOBER 28, 1886.
The 450,000 lbs statue, standing 305 feet above the pedestal base, was gift from France.
Built by Gustave Eiffel, builder of the Eiffel Tower, it was designed by Auguste Bartholdi, who wrote:
"The 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 the moral influence which it ought to have."
At the Statue's dedication ceremony, Reverend Richard S. Storrs prayed:
"Our
Heavenly Father...by whose counsel and might the courses of the worlds
are wisely ordained and irresistibly established...We bless and praise
Thee...
It is in Thy favor, and through the operation of the
Gospel of Thy Grace, that cities stand in quiet prosperity; that
peaceful commerce covers the seas...
We pray that the Liberty which it represents may continue...for all the nations of the earth;
that
in equity and charity their sure foundations may be established...that
they may be ever the joyful servants of Him to whose holy dominion and
kingdom shall be no end."
On the Statue of Liberty's 50th Anniversary, OCTOBER 28, 1936, Franklin D. Roosevelt stated:
"Rulers...increase
their power over the common men. The seamen they sent to find that gold
found instead the way of escape for the common man from those rulers.
What they found over the Western horizon was not the silk and
jewels of Cathay but mankind's second chance - a chance to create a new
world after he had almost spoiled an old one.
The Almighty
seems purposefully to have withheld that second chance until the time
when men would most need and appreciate liberty..."
FDR continued:
"For over three centuries a steady stream of men, women and children followed the beacon of liberty...
They
brought to us strength and moral fiber developed in a civilization
centuries old but fired anew by the dream of a better life...
The
overwhelming majority of those who came from...the Old World to our
American shores were not the laggards, not the timorous, not the
failures.
They were men and women who had the supreme courage
to strike out for themselves, to abandon language and relatives, to
start at the bottom without influence, without money...
Perhaps Providence did prepare this American continent to be a place of the second chance.
Millions...adopted
this homeland because...the things they most desired could be theirs -
freedom of opportunity, freedom of thought, freedom to worship God."
Dwight Eisenhower remarked April 8, 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."
Relighting the Statue of Liberty, July 3, 1986, Ronald Reagan said:
"I've
always thought that a Providential Hand had something to do with the
founding of this country, that God had His reasons for placing this land
here between two great oceans to be found by a certain kind of people."
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