The Statue of Liberty, guarding the great port of entrance to America, symbolizes the spirit in which foreigners and natives alike think of her--as the champion of the weak and the oppressed; the guardian of justice; the standard-bearer of freedom. This spirit of America is treasured to-day in the hearts of millions of her citizens. To the masses of the American people America stands to-day as she always stood. They believe in her freedom; they boast of her liberties; they have faith in her great destiny as the leader of an emancipated world. They respond, as did their ancestors, to the great truths of liberty, equality, and fraternity that inspired the eighteenth century. The tradition of America is a hope, a faith, a conviction, a burning endeavor, centering in an ideal of liberty and justice for the human race. Patrick Henry voiced this ideal when, a passionate appeal for freedom being interrupted by cries of "Treason, treason!" he faced the objector with the declaration, "If this be treason, make the most of it!" Eighteenth century Europe, struggling against religious and political tyranny, looked to America as the land of Freedom. America to them meant liberty. "What Athens was in miniature, America will be in magnitude," wrote Tom Paine. "The one was the wonder of the ancient world; the other is becoming the admiration, the model of the present." ("The Rights of Man," Part II, Chapter 3.) The promise of 1776 was voiced by men who felt a consuming passion for freedom; a divine discontent with anything less than the highest possible justice; a hatred of tyranny, oppression and every form of special privilege and vested wrong. They yearned over the future and hoped grandly for the human race. FOOTNOTES: [1] "It is, Sir, the people's constitution, the people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people."--Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne, 1830. "Speeches and Orations." E. P. Whipple, Boston, Little, Brown and Co., p. 257. [2] Tom Paine held ardently to this doctrine, "It is always the interest of a far greater number of people in a Nation to have things right than to let them remain wrong; and when public matters are open to debate, and the public judgment free, it will not decide wrong unless it decides too hastily!" "Rights of Man," Part II, Ch. 4. [3] "Rights of Man," Thomas Paine. Part II, Chapter 3. II. THE COURSE OF EMPIRE 1. _Promise and Fulfillment_