The New Colossus - Give Me Your Tired Your Poor

“Give Me Your Tired Your Poor……”

These words, which appear on a plaque mounted on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, cannot be found in the words of the Constitution of the United States or the Bill of Rights.  These words were not written by any of our founding fathers nor do they reflect any of founding principles which drove a group of British Colonists to fight for and gain their independence.

“Give Me Your Tired Your Poor ……“  is a phrase that is found in The New Colossus, a sonnet that was written and donated to be auctioned to raise money for the construction of the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal, nothing more, nothing less.

The author, American born Emma Lazarus, was the daughter of Portuguese immigrants.  The poem was certainly influenced by stories told to her by her elders and reflected the feelings of those, such as her parents, who were welcomed by a country filled with great opportunity and in need of those eager to work hard for the country that had much to offer. 

But that was over a century ago and this country has grown, changed and is no longer in need of the tens of thousands of immigrants who came to this country each year, as it was once upon a time.  No longer are their vast opportunities available to anyone who wished to come to this country to better themselves, today there are hardly enough opportunities for those who are already here.  

And then, immigrants who came to this country paid their own way, they came wishing for nothing more than a simple opportunity to take a chance on themselves.  Now, the majority of immigrants that swarm to this country do so knowing that they will become part of this nation’s social entitlement society, a culture perpetuated by a liberal ideology paid for by the sweat of hard working Americans born of immigrants from generations ago.

So the next time your hear the someone make claim that helping those who come to this country is one of the founding principles of this nation, or as then president Obama put it, “it’s in our DNA”, you might suggest that they check their history.  The principals that guide this nation can be found in the documents written by our founding fathers not in a poem written for a fund raiser.