destal upon
which this great gift and emblem of Liberty should find its secure and
permanent home; without the aid of the Government and by the movement of
our own people in this city, an organization wholly voluntary, and
without pretension or assumption had the faith that the American people
would furnish a home fit for the statue of Liberty, however magnificent
should be the reception, that would comport with its own splendor.
[Cheers.]

This organization undertook actively its work in 1882, before the statue
was completed, and while it remained somewhat uncertain to many who
doubted whether the great statue would really be brought to its
anticipated prosperity and success. But we went on, and now, within
three years, this work, both of receiving and collecting subscriptions
and of raising the pedestal itself, will have been completed, and I do
not hesitate to say, in the face of all critics and all doubters, that a
work of so great magnitude, either in its magnificence, or in its labor,
has never before been completed in so short a time. [Applause.]

When we were reasonably assured of adequate funds, we commenced the
concrete base on which this pedestal was to rest; and no structure of
that kind, of that magnitude, of that necessity, of that perfection and
permanence has ever been accomplished in the works of masonry before.
[Cheers.] Commencing on the ninth of October, 1883, it was completed on
the seventeenth day of May, 1884--and then commenced the work of the
structure proper, of the pedestal, and it went on, and it went on, and
it went sure, and it went safe, if it went slow, and there it stands.
[Cheers.]

And now a word or two about the Committee. An eminent lawyer of our city
was once detected and exposed and applauded for being seen standing with
his hands in his own pockets [laughter], and for about three months, if
you had visited the meetings of this Committee of ours, you would have
seen the whole assembly standing with their hands in their own pockets
[applause], and taking the first step forward asking their
fellow-citizens to follow us, and not for us to follow them. [Cheers.]
And so we went on, and on the tenth of this present month, we had
received in hand $241,000, of which $50,000 came from the grand and
popular movement of a great newspaper--"The World" [three cheers for
"The World"]--fifty thousand dollars! and that made up substantially
what we had announced in advance as what would be requ