Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 21

ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL Wednesday, November 5, 1986 B5 New York City Gives Liberty Poet Long-Delayed Tribute 'The New Colossus' by Emma Lazarus Statue Pathway Renamed To Honor Emma Lazarus By Virginia Byrne ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land, Ilare at our sea-washed, sunset-gates shall stand A woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name 7 Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome, her mild eyes com- mand The air-bridged harbor that twin-cities frame: "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sa. With silent lip "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" (J substandard conditions, she became an advocate for their welfare. "Out of these experiences, the sonnet was born," said Schappes.

The poem that assured her place in history was not written. In 1883, well-known American writers and artists were asked to contribute works that would be sold at auction for the benefit of the statue. Miss Lazarus was asked to contribute, along with Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. At first she declined, explaining she wasn't able to write to order. But two days later, she wrote "The New Colossus," containing the lines: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore; Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" The sonnet sold for $1,500. Three years later enough money was raised to build the statue's pedestal but Miss Lazarus wasn't among the dignitaries at the dedication ceremony. Suffering from cancer, she traveled to Europe in 1884. She returned to New York in July 1887 and died four months later. Her sonnet was not read at the unveiling of the statue.

According to Schappes, "Her poem was completely forgotten until 1903, when a friend of hers came across it and wanted it put on a bronze plaque inside the statue." In 1945 the tablet bearing the poem was moved to the statue's entrance. Emma Lazarus was "a very good minor poet," according to Schappes. "If she hadn't written 'The New she would be remembered more by Jewish literary circles rather than the general public. It so happens the poem is one of the best of her poems." If public recognition of the poet has been a bit belated, it is no less welcome to the Emmas. "We hope that the spirit of Emma Lazarus will live on," Mrs.

Raynes said. "We made a little dent during the Liberty festival. More people are now aware of her name." NEW YORK In this centennial year of the Statue of Liberty, one group has sought to honor Emma Lazarus, the poet who wrote the Lady's enduring welcome to the "huddled masses yearning to breathe free." A week ago last Tuesday, the anniversary of the 1886 dedication ceremony, their efforts were rewarded as -the city renamed a Battery Park pathway leading to the Liberty Island Ferry as Emma Lazarus Walk in tribute i to the author of "The New Colossus." Behind the effort are the women of the The Emma Lazarus Federation. They number about 2,500 nation wide and are mostly in their 60s and 70s, according to their president, Rose Raynes. "We're doing everything we can to promote her status," said Mrs.

Raynes, who is 83 and a charter member of the 35-year-old women's service group affectionately known as "The Emmas." "We wanted a commemorative stamp issued in her memory," she said. "We almost got one in 1986, but lost out with the postal authorities." The group plans to try again next year on the 100th anniversary of Miss Lazarus' death. At Beth Olom Cemetery in Brooklyn, where the poet is buried', the Liberty celebrations have not brought an influx of visitors to her ivy-covered grave. "Few people recognize her," acknowledged Max Rivero, 30, the caretaker. "When I first came here, I said to myself, who's Emma Lazarus?" The simple granite gravestone is inscribed with the dates of her birth, July 22, 1849, and her death, Nov.

19, 1887. Several years ago, members of the Manhattan congregation that the Lazarus family belonged to, The Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, set up a footstone inscribed with the text of "The New Colossus." Some people do stop. Rivero reached between the footstone and the ivy and pulled out a five-inch bronze-colored replica of the Statue of Liberty, left by a local historian who visited. Miss Lazarus, a fourth-generation American, was born and spent most of her life in Manhattan. Her father, Moses, made a fortune in the sugar refining business.

Her first book, "Poems and Translations," was published when she was 18 and received critical acclaim from Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others. It Enjoy comfort and value with easy-walking casuals. I mm. mi Emma Lazarus Honored for writing Lady's welcome was Emerson who urged her to turn away from classical themes and write more about "the despised present." "She developed a social consciousness in the 1880s" after the start of the Russian pogroms and the flood of Russian and Eastern European Jews began, according to Morris Schappes, 79, a historian who has edited three books of Miss Lazarus' prose and poetry. After a tour in 1882 of a refugee shelter on Ward's Island, where hundreds of immigrants were living in 22.99 You'll feel right at home in our crepe-soled tan suede casuals by Weyenberg.

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