Guest Editorial: New Statue Of Liberty (06/27/04)

ARAS SHEVCHENKO IN WASHINGTON: 1964-2004

The Ukrainian Weekly, July 3, 1964

Guest Editorial: New Statue Of Liberty

by Dr. Frederick Brown Harris
Chaplain, United States Senate

For America and all the world, both slave and free, a new Statue of Liberty has been unveiled. The plaudits of thrilled thousands still rend the air. The familiar and "Loved Lady with the Lamp" in New York Harbor salutes new-world pilgrims in the form of an heroic figure symbolic of liberty enlightening the world. But the impressive sculptured monument now standing in a dedicated spot in Washington, Capital of the Free World, speaks of freedom from coercive shackles of the body and mind, in the physical likeness of one who, himself, was tortured by cruel tyranny and who, in Abraham Lincoln's time, yearned for an emancipator for his enslaved land like unto the Washington of American Revolution. His name - Taras Shevchenko - who, in the depths of Russian serfdom and thraldom, cried out in desperate hope that some day the liberating principles made flesh in the Father of the American Republic would snap the imprisoning chains of his loved Ukraine.

This new and deeply significant Statue of Liberty has been fashioned by authority of Congress in an action signed by the then President Eisenhower, who has declared: "There can be no true peace which involves acceptance of the status quo in which we find injustice to many nations and repression of human beings on a gigantic scale."

The new Statue of Liberty is vocal with righteous indignation that burned like fire in Shevchenko's bones and smoldered in his very soul during the years of his enforced exile by the Russian Czar from under his Ukrainian skies. His angry protest flamed against the coercive Moscow sword which dripped with Ukrainian blood as it does today. The same sort of atrocities which Shevchenko denounced by the Russian autocracy were being perpetrated then by Czardom as they are today by the ruthless policy of the Soviet regime. Who knows more than do the Ukrainians that in its contemporary colonizing aggression Red Russia is a ferocious leopard which has not changed its czarist spots. In accomplishing its foul objectives, as Secretary of State Rusk declares: "The very language of international intercourse has become distorted. Aggression is whatever stands in the way of their world order." That is what makes every one of their embassies and legations a nest-bed of spying and infiltration.

It is no wonder that the Soviets, with their fixed manifest destiny complex of world domination, rant and rave at the achievement of this new Statue of Liberty. They claim with perverted, upside-down logic that, if living today, this apostle of democracy, who they admit was a child of genius, would be found aiding and abetting the enslavers. To make Taras Shevchenko a partner of the Kremlin conspiracy is akin to saying that if Washington were living today he would follow the perdidious betrayals of Benedict Arnold. To the cruel billingsgate, which has been hurled at those in this free land who insist on telling the historic truth about Russia, and about Shevchenko, there has been a silence quite vocal in our American officialdom. Any refutation by stubborn facts, from history not rewritten, might tend to upset the applecart of brotherly coexistence, which peaceful-looking vehicle stripped of its camouflage is more than likely to turn out to be a totalitarian tank, crushing into dust all obstacles to world rule.

Before he went so tragically, President Kennedy had this to say regarding Shevchenko: "My congratulations on the anniversary of the Shevchenko Scientific Society. Among your numbers have been some of the great names in learning to whom the world owes an incalculable debt."

Our new Statue of Liberty is a sacred altar where the light of all captive nations will be lifted by a neverending procession to the Author of Liberty whose decree is, "Let My People Go!" It will be a mecca for representatives of the peoples held in the grip of this new colonialism who at the feet of this great Ukrainian, will cry out, "Oh lord, how long, how long?" Here it will be remembered that this poet was not a narrow nationalist. His concern was not only for the liberty of his people but also for the Poles, the Lithuanians, the Georgians, and the other ancient peoples subjected by Russian aggression.

The Ukrainians who have fled from "The Utopia" on the other side of the iron curtain have plenty of company. From the captive nations the estimated number of refugees from communism since World War II is 13,083,000, plus other millions who have been liquidated. In terms of human misery and suffering this vast up rooted army speaks with deafening and terrifying voice that the hope of the common man is not Lenin but Lincoln.

And so, brave poet-prophet, even your deadening years in serfdom could not put out the fire in your soul but rather turned your eyes to the emancipating principles of the American Revolution. Tens of thousands acclaiming voices welcome you to America to stand near the glistening memorials of patriots whose principles and ideals fired your own heart - Washington and Jefferson. When 50 years had passed since he penned the declaration, and at the very end of his mortal days, Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs with the favored few booted and spurred to ride them."

Here - Shevchenko - you will watch and wait for the saddle on the back of Ukraine which has never belonged to Russia (except by conquest) to be torn away and its booted and spurred riders dethroned in that sure "some day" of which you dreamed when, for your captive millions and for all the captive nations inside and outside the Soviet colonial empire will come "ANOTHER WASHINGTON!"

(Courtesy: The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C., June 28, 1964)

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