“What the Girl with the Lamp means toThem” ‘She gives th
“What the Girl with the Lamp means toThem” ‘She gives the first greeting to our soldiers, the Statue of Liberty, as she stands out in the wide harbor,welcoming, aspiring. From the deck of battleship or transport they gaze on her,for the most part silently. She is infinitely, breathlessly beautiful to them,with her soaring gesture; she may be gleaming in the dawn, or shining under thesunshine of full noon, or she may be grayish in the rain. But no weather can changeher significance: she is no mere figure of stone and iron; she is not merely a symbolof freedom, of power, of opportunity. Oh, much more than all this to these menof ours who have for so long been sick for home!Ascitizen soldiers, they want the American people to make this country all the Statue of Liberty proclaims it to be and to aspire to be.We stand now, as individuals and as a country, breathless from the deepemotional experience of this war. It is a moment when weare more malleable than we shall ever be again. Now is the moment to begin overon a higher plane, to strive toward the highest kind of patriotism; moretolerance, more humanity, more brotherhood, more altruism— we must put allthese qualities in the government of our country and in our own lives. Themagnificent achievement of those common heroes, our soldiers, has preached us asermon that we need. May the Girl with the lamp light us on!’Summer 1919, war correspondent Maude Radford Warren – Photo: 1919 “The Girl withthe Lamp” – Missouri Over There -- source link
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