Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1883-07-26
What the Monolith Saws,


For about five years the colossal hand
of the great French statue of liberty
lifted up from Madison Square and
reached out over Fifth avenue, begging
money of the passing millionaires. Not
| a cent!
The big bronze hand was taken down
the other day, and now the sod has re-
sumed its place on the ugly site of it,
and the hand that was to have been a
light, Is dumped away somewhere in the
dark. This greatest gift that ever was
made to any country, this generous pres
ent of the weak but well-meaning French
Republic to the greatest republic on the
! earth and of all time, is tumbled away
in hole somewhere for want of money
enough to pay for pedestal. 1t is true
there have been meetings, and resolu-
tons, and committees, and all that; but
very little money-all talk and no cider,
as the Indian said; although enough has
been raised to start with, and work has
at last begun. But suppose this statue
had been stolen, as the obelisk was,
plundered from some old and exhausted
land no longer able or spirited enough
to care for its monuments, don't you
think plenty of rich men would have
been ready to reach handp think so.
Then it would have been in the rich
Gothamite's line.
An honor, of course, to the great engi-
neer whose skill and boundless patience
brought the monolith to our shores; he
did his work well and obeyed orders like
q soldier; but shame to those who con-
ceived the robbery, and infamy to those
who made it possible. What right had
any man to move this milestone, set up
by history on the highway of time? /
know you will answer that If we had not
taken 1t England would have knocked it
all to pieces the other day in the bonn
bardment of Alexandria. 1 answer you
that this is no excuse for the pillage.
And besides that, shall we despoil the
Egyptian because another country doesp
And again, l think if this obelisk had
been left standing not shotwould have
been fired and the ancient city had been
spared by the Christian. Our crime
made the greater crime seem less terri
BILE; made it possible, in fact. Look up
ut the lonesome, square-built birds that
top the obelisk as you ride by some day,
and see if they don't appeal to you
strangely, they seem to want to fly away,
60 back to silent Africa. They seem ter
ritied, frightened by the tumult and roar
and rush of this strange new world.
These birds that looked down on the fly
ing Israeltes. on Pharaoh's hosts. Sc
miramis, Alexander the Great, and
Napoleon, in all tranquility, are troubled
here. They want to 60 back. Well, some
day-it may be a thousand years-old
Father Time will take them out of their
prisons of stone; they will not endure
here; they will go back to Egypt.
wonder what the black man thinks
as he sits with folded arms on the box of
Shoddy's carriage and is whirled past
this imposing piece of plunderP The
obelisk is written full with the annals of
his race. Here is the chronicle OF his
people. In these granite chiselings lie
stored the archives of Lydia. And we
have stolen this great book, this history
about the black man, this story of the
poor old sick woman beside the Nile,
whom we have despised; but we can't
read line of the stolen book of stone
Joaquin Miller.