WHEN Patrick Henry put his old cast-iron spectacles on the top of his head and whooped for liberty, he did not know that some day we would have more of it than we knew what to do with. He little dreamed that the time would come when we would have more liberty than we could pay for. When Mr. Henry sawed the air and shouted for liberty or death, I do not believe that he knew the time would one day come when Liberty would stand knee deep in the mud of Bedloe's Island and yearn for a solid place to stand upon.

It seems to me that we have too much liberty in this country in some ways. We have more liberty than we have money. We guarantee that every man in America shall fill himself up full of liberty at our expense, and the less of an American he is the more liberty he can have. If he desires to enjoy himself, all he needs is a slight foreign accent and a willingness to mix up with politics as soon as he can get his baggage off the steamer. The more I study American institutions the more I regret that I was not born a foreigner, so that I could have something to say about the management of our great land. If I could not be a foreigner, I believe I would prefer to be a Mormon or an Indian not taxed.

I am often led to ask, in the language of the poet, "Is the Caucasian played out?" Most everybody can have a good deal of fun in this country except the American. He seems to be so busy paying his taxes all the time that he has very little time to mingle in the giddy whirl with the alien. That is the reason that the alien who rides across the United States on the "Limited Mail" and writes a book about us before breakfast wonders why we are always in a hurry. That is the reason we have to throw our meals into ourselves with a dull thud, and hardly have time to maintain a warm personal friendship with our families.

We do not care much for wealth, but we must have freedom, and freedom costs money. We have advertised to furnish a bunch of freedom to every man, woman or child who comes to our shores, and we are going to deliver the good whether we have any left for ourselves or not.

What would the great world beyond the seas say to us if some day the blue-eyed Mormon, with his heart full of love for our female seminaries and our old women's homes, should land upon our coasts and find that we were using all the liberty ourselves? What do we want of liberty anyhow? What could we do with it if we had it? It takes a man of leisure to enjoy liberty, and we have no leisure whatever. It is a good thing to keep in the house "for the use of guests only," but we don't need it for ourselves.

Therefore, I am in favor of a statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, because it will show that we keep it on tap winter and summer. We want the whole broad world to remember that when it gets tired of oppression it can come here to America and oppress us. We are used to it, and we rather like it. If we don't like it, we can get on the steamer and go abroad, where we may visit the effete monarchies and have a high old time.

The sight of the Goddess of Liberty standing there in New York harbor night and day, bathing her feet in the rippling sea, will be a good thing. It will be first-rate. It may also be productive of good in a direction that many have not thought of. As she stands there day after day, bathing her feet in the broad Atlantic, perhaps some moss-grown Mormon moving toward the Far West, a confirmed victim of the matrimonial habit, may fix the bright picture in his so-called mind, and remembering how, on his arrival in New York, he saw Liberty bathing her feet with impunity, he may be led in after years to try it on himself.