Unconscious of what awaits you, you
surrender yourself so eagerly to the sway of sentiment that you are
unable to observe the perfections of your idol. You see only its vast
size. You are content to believe the official statement that 305 feet
separate the tip of the lady's torch from low water. You know that
you gaze on the largest statue upon earth. And surely it should be the
largest, for it symbolises a greater mass of Liberty than ever before
was gathered together upon one continent.

For Liberty is a thing which no one in America can escape. The old
inhabitant smiles with satisfaction as he murmurs the familiar word. At
every turn it is clubbed into the unsuspecting visitor. If an aspirant
to the citizenship of the Republic declined to be free, he would
doubtless be thrown into a dungeon, fettered and manacled, until he
consented to accept the precious boon. You cannot pick up a newspaper
without being reminded that Liberty is the exclusive possession of
the United States. The word, if not the quality, is the commonplace
of American history. It looks out upon you--the word again, not the
quality--from every hoarding. It is uttered in every discourse, and
though it irks you to listen to the boasting of "Liberty", as it irks you
when a man vaunts his honour, you cannot but inquire what is this fetish
which distinguishes America from the rest of the habitable globe, and
what does it achieve for those who worship it.

In what, then, does the Liberty of America consist? Is it in freedom
of opportunity? A career is open to all the talents everywhere.
The superstitions of Europe, the old-fashioned titles of effete
aristocracies, are walls more easily surmounted than the golden
barricades of omnipotent corporations. Does it consist in political
freedom? If we are to believe in the pedantry that Liberty is the child
of the ballot-box, then America has no monopoly of its blessings. The
privilege of voting is almost universal, and the freedom which this
poor privilege confers is within the reach of Englishman, German, or
Frenchman. Indeed, it is America which sets the worst stumbling-block in
the voter's path. The citizen, however high his aspiration after Liberty
may be, wages a vain warfare against the cunning of the machine. Where
repeaters and fraudulent ballots flourish, it is idle to boast the
blessings of the suffrage. Such institutions as Tammany are essentially
practical, but they do not help the sacred cause comme