American Thinker-

With storied statues having come down from sea to shining sea the past year, it’s time for the same to happen with something somewhat newer: the socialist-born plaque in the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal.

Yeah, it’s the one with the “huddled masses” bit. There are good reasons for it to be removed, too — above and beyond the fact that our whole nation is being turned into a huddled mass.

The plaque contains the poem “The New Colossus,” written by socialist writer Emma Lazarus. It didn’t come with the statue, a gift from France unveiled in 1886, but was slapped on smack dab in the middle of the “Progressive Era” (in 1903). This was also the period that gave us other things as American as Lazarus’ poem, such as entry into World War I, the income tax, and the notion that the Constitution could be considered a “living document” (Woodrow Wilson loved to bloviate about this).

The poem remained relatively obscure for decades, and we’d be well served if it stayed that way. Alas, though, it’s now well known. What’s not so well known is that the Statue of Liberty had nothing to do with immigration. That the poem helps create the confusion that it does is enough of a reason to remove it, but there are others as well: MORE