Posted By thestatedtruth.com on January 14, 2011

From the one and only Art Cashin on the floor of The New York Stock Exchange!

On this day in 1886, a major American symbol was saved from almost not being a major American symbol.  Actually, it was saved from being saved and thus became a major American symbol.

We’ll restate all that in English….. 

Frederick Auguste Bartholdi had convinced the government of France (where he lived) to commission a sculpture (which he did for a living) of a statue of  liberty to award to the U.S. on the centennial of its Independence.  Bartholdi settled on a model (his mom who had a face that would curdle milk and a disposition to match – she reportedly drove Fred’s younger brother into an insane asylum).  As you further recall, Bartholdi had difficulty finding a way to keep the huge copper statue from toppling.  So he asked his pal, Al Eiffel, to design a metal skeleton for the statue.  (Eiffel later had a towering success with the concept.)

Anyway that brings us to this day in 1886.  So here you have the largest freestanding statue ever created (her index finger is 8 feet long).  But to hold such a colossus statue would require a large (and expensive) base or pedestal.  That was the problem.  Several groups who had promised funding for the pedestal failed to deliver.  No pedestal meant no statue – and worse an insult to the French.

To the rescue came corporate America.  One household name offered to pay for the base or pedestal.  All they sought was the right to carve their slogan or ad on the base.  The proposal was considered and then on this day rejected for some strange reason.  Who was this beacon of American enterprise who hoped to make the Lady with the Light a bit of billboard -it was the folks who made “Fletcher’s Castoria” that gentle laxative.  So much for comings and goings in America.  As you recall, Joseph Pulitzer then ran a campaign for “pennies from school children” that eventually financed the pedestal.

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