Arizona weekly citizen., 1884-12-06
What the Monollth Says.

For about five years the colossal hsEt of the great French statue of liberty lifted up from Madison Square and reached out over Fifth avenue, begging moneyof the passing milliOnaires. NOi q centi
 The big bronze hand was taken down he other day, and now the sod has re-
 umed it's place on the ugly site of it, md the hand that was to have been iigLt, Is dumped away somewhere in the dark. This greatest gift that ever was made Co any country, this generous pres ent of the weak but twell-meaning French Republic to the greatest republic on the earth and of all time. is tCmbled away in a hole somewhere for want of money enough to pay for pedestal. It is true there have been meetings. and resOlu- tiOns, 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 Co reach hand? l 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 worlswell and obeyed orders like soldier; but shame tO those who con- ceived the robbery, and infamy to those who made 1t 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 no: taken it England would have knocked il all to pieces the other day in the bom- bardment of Alexandria. I answer you that this is no excuse for the pillage. And besides that, shall we despOil the Egyptian because another country does? And again. think if this obelisk had been left standing not q shot would have been fired and the ancient city had been spared by the Christian. Our crime made the greater crime seem less terri blc; made it possible, in fact. Look up at the lonesome, square-built birds that top the obelisk as you ride by some day. and see if they don't appeal 10 you strangely. they seem to want to fly away. 20 back to silent Africa. They seem ter riiicd. frightened by the tumult and roar and rush of this strange new world. These birds that looked down on the fly ing Israeiites. on Pharaoh's hosts. Sc- mirlmiS, Alexander the Great. and Napoleon. in all tranquility, are troubled here. They want to go back. Well. some dav-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 20 back to Egypt.
 l wonder what the black man thinks as he sits with folded arms on the box of Shoddy's carriage and is whirled past .his imposing piece of plunder? The obeiisk is written full with the annals oi 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 uoOr old sick woman beside the Nile whom we have despised; but we can't read line of the stolen book of stOne.-- ECggUiu Miller.