14 Friday, June 13, 1986 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS *LIBERTY' S PROMISE* Forever Free Spreading liberty throughout the world is not an easy chore. Yet, The Lady has done it with dignity, modesty and a silent language that all people hear. ARTHUR J. MAGIDA Editor of This Special Section he stands in New York harbor, just beyond where the waters stop being the Atlantic. At that point, they are still salty enough not to be fresh and frigid enough to be virtually unswimmable. Facing due east, she has a fine view of the Narrows that separate Brociklyn and Staten Island. One imagines that if she could raise herself onto her toes, she would also have a clear view of that line that separates the Old World from the New, a line that she has symbolized now for a century. The Statue of Liberty looks beyond all of this — the bulge of Brooklyn and the sweep of Staten Island and the broad, cold waters of the Atlantic — with a gaze that is at once huge, foreboding, stern. And forever inspiring. Miss Liberty's eastward gaze reminds us of her birth land and of ours: The French gave her to us and all lands gave us to America. Her towering immensity — all 151 feet and one inch of her — reflects the immensity of the dream which she symbolizes, a dream that knows no borders, no ideologies. For over 100 years, the Statue has been doing her best to spread liberty throughout the world. It has not been an easy chore. She, like liberty itself, has too often been forgotten or neglected. And we, in our fondness for freedom (and also perhaps, in our naivete) have often thought of liberty as something peculiarly American. We have had Liberty Bonds and Liberty Ships and we still have a cracked, but venerable Liberty Bell. But liberty is not an American pro- duct, something on which we can put our label and distribute to friendly markets around the globe. Liberty is a human reflex, as natural as breathing, as indispensable as prayer. The Statue speaks to all men in all places. There is nothing parochial about her, nothing chauvinist. And yet, Miss Liberty is an icon of America. A gift from France, she is more American than apple pie or Uncle Sam. It seems that at the same time she is "liberty" and she is "America - and if in the popular imagination, the two are the same, then so be it. She has earned it. Under her torch have passed hungry and hopeful immigrants, tired and worn soldiers, men in top hats and women in shawls, tailors and bankers and artists and gamblers. The Lady has heard "Over There" played on outgoing troop ships and - Home Sweet Home" played on returning ships. She has heard Italian accordions and Jewish violins and Irish penny-whistles coming from steerage and 12-piece bands coming from the finest ocean liners. And from just over her left shoulder, she has eavesdropped on the noisy, confused arrival of immigrants on Ellis Island and then listened to their scattering throughout the country — some to the grand opportunities and narrow streets of New York, most to the great unknowns of Indiana or Texas or Maryland or, for the brave and the fearless, even of faraway California. The Statue has heard it all and she has seen it all. Many of us have seen the Statue from Manhattan and, as with anything that has burnished its way onto our memories, not thought much about her. She — like the liberty she symbolizes — has always been there. But this year, there is nothing ordinary about The Lady. We have finally learned not to take her for granted. After her facelift, we will look with a new respect at the same resolute face, at the same arm holding aloft a newly gilded flame of liberty, at that same copper torso that towers over New York harbor. With the realization that Miss Liberty is who she has always been — just stronger and guaranteed, say the workmen who have lovingly restored her, to stand at least another 100 years — there also comes the recognition that we take another look at what she symbolizes. In 1878, the Statue's sculptor, Frederick Bartholdi, told a New York reporter, "I have a horror of all frippery of detail in sculpture. The forms and effects of that art should be broad, massive and simple." Liberty, too, needs to be simple. It should not be gussied up and paraded about. It is an impulse that speaks to all of us in the most simple and elegant manner. And this the Statue does with modesty and power. Standing there in New York, greeting the poor and the talented and the homesick and the war weary, she speaks a silent language that all men hear. And to which all people aspire. The Statue of Liberty has symbolized hope and opportunity for several generations of immigrants.