Chapter 61 – Huddled Masses
A great state, one that lowly flows,
becomes the empire’s union, and the empire’s wife.
The wife always through quietude conquers her husband,
and by quietude renders herself lowly.
Thus a great state through lowliness toward small states will conquer the small states,
and small states through lowliness toward great states will conquer great states.
Therefore some render themselves lowly for the purpose of conquering;
others are lowly and therefore conquer.
A great state desires no more than to unite and feed the people;
a small state desires no more than to devote itself to the service of the people;
but that both may obtain their wishes,
the greater one must stoop.
Translated by D. T. Suzuki and Paul Carus (1880)
This chapter is not difficult to understand, though it is difficult for great and small states to apply.
Having said that, let me move directly into the digression – I often digress – portion of this week’s Tao Te Ching Tuesday reflection.
Most Americans are somewhat aware that the Statue of Liberty was a gift to this country from France. The gift was “accepted” by President Grant on his last day in office, even though the statue had not been constructed and there was no place to put it. The next day, President Hayes took over and selected a site on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor.
Although the statue itself was to be a gift, the United States was required to provide the pedestal, which of course was quite expensive. A fundraising drive was begun in 1882 (5 years after the gift was accepted by by President Grant) and included an auction of art and manuscripts. A New York poet named Emma Lazarus was reluctant to participate, though she finally submitted a sonnet called “The New Colossus,” which reads as follows:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “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!”
That sounds familiar to some because it was engraved on a bronze plaque and mounted inside the pedestal in 1903, but it seems that Ms. Lazarus felt at the time that she was too busy to write the poem. She had reacted strongly and emotionally to the anti-Semitic pogroms that “spontaneously” (with a little help from government officials) spread across portions of Russia – which included the Ukraine – after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Thousands of Jewish refugees fled to New York to escape that violence and Emma Lazarus was one of those working very hard to help them.
The pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe continued, and became even worse, for many years. Mark Twain published a Thanksgiving message to the American people Continue reading