It’s hard to imagine what New York City would look like without the Statue of Liberty. Yet there was a time in American history over a century ago when Lady Liberty almost ended up in Philadelphia or San Francisco. The fact that she still holds up her torch on Liberty Island in New York Harbor is a testament to the will of the American people – although the call to action came from Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant who came to this land and himself destitute to a new a successful newspaper publisher.

Pulitzer’s name is linked to many things: the sensational style of his newspaper’s reporting, sometimes referred to as yellow journalism; the bitter rivalry he had with William Randolph Hearst, another newspaper mogul; and of course the Pulitzer Prize, which Pulitzer set up in his will through a foundation.

He was also a galvanist who believed that print media could be used to influence people for the good of society. Perhaps the best example of this “journalism of action,” as his rival Hearst called it, is how Pulitzer handled the news that the Statue of Liberty was in danger.

In 1885 the dismantled statue was shipped to America as a gift from France. It was meant to be a symbol of American freedom and democracy, as well as a sign of the bond that was forged between the two allies during the American Revolution. France had paid for the statue in full; All it needed was a pedestal to stand on. America was on the hook to design and build the pedestal at a cost of about $ 250,000 (about $ 6.55 million in 2019).

The American Statue of Liberty Committee, charged with raising funds for the monument’s construction, raised just over half of the funds. Both New York State and the US Congress refused to do the rest. The Lady Liberty pieces ended up in a warehouse, and at some point the fundraising committee threatened to send the statue back to France if it didn’t get the funds.

This was before the advent of American philanthropy, which began around the time Andrew Carnegie published his “The Gospel of Wealth” in 1889 – an article calling on other Gilded Age millionaires to donate some of their wealth for the common good . So, if the committee wanted to get the money for its pedestal, they had to get it from the average American. The committee publicly called for donations across the country, “any amount, how big or how small”. In return for their contribution to the statue fund, the donors were promised an illustrated certificate.

But convincing Americans outside New York to open their paperbacks proved difficult. As one Indian put it, the memorial was viewed as a “New York matter” rather than a “national matter”. Another person asked why the fundraising committee was trying to “get the people of Chicago and Connecticut … to pay for the expenses New Yorkers want to avoid,” according to newspaper reports.

Several cities offered to pay for the pedestal in exchange for the exclusive right to erect the statue on their territory. An article published by the Philadelphia Press said the city would welcome the statue to Fairmount Park. San Francisco said that Lady Liberty would look beautiful standing in front of the Golden Gate Strait (the bridge that would bear the name of the strait was not yet built). Boston and Baltimore have also made offers for the statue.

Pulitzer stepped in. He sponsored small fundraisers including boxing matches, theater productions, art shows, and mini-statue of liberty sales, and published several editorials in his newspaper, The New York World (later shortened to The World). to gain sympathy for the plight of the statue.

In his most famous editorial, Pulitzer wrote: “We have to raise the money! The world is the people’s newspaper, and now it appeals to people to come up and collect the money. “

He added:

“The $ 250,000 it took to make the statue was paid for by the masses of the French people – the workers, the merchants, the shop girls, the artisans – regardless of class or condition. Let us answer in the same way. Let’s not wait for the millionaires to give us this money. It is not a gift from the millionaires of France to the millionaires of America, but a gift from the whole people of France to the whole people of America. “

Remarkably, it worked. Pulitzer received small donations from 125,000 people, totaling $ 102,000 (or about $ 2.7 million in today’s dollars). The money was sent to the Statue of Liberty Fundraising Committee and the future of the monument in New York was secured.

As a thank you to the donors, Pulitzer printed their names in his newspaper, regardless of whether they donated a cent or a dollar. This early experiment in pre-internet crowdfunding proved to be a landmark example of what average Americans could accomplish without the support of the rich.

Pulitzer’s newspaper continued to publish news of the statue’s evolution, and it did so in a most peculiar way. “In one editorial after another, the editor spoke of the statue as if it were human, and went so far as to ‘question’ her about the 1886 New York mayoral campaign,” writes Edward Berenson in The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story (she chose eventual winner Abram Hewitt over future US President Theodore Roosevelt).

The Statue of Liberty eventually became a symbol of America and American values ​​that stretch well beyond New York Harbor. And we owe it to Pulitzer and his persuasiveness.

The post How Joseph Pulitzer Saved the Statue of Liberty appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The daughter of a rape victim waved him obscenely and cursed him for the first of four days of trial in the Sacramento Supreme Court before he was officially sentenced to life in prison on Friday.

Some read statements made on behalf of loved ones who couldn’t testify in person, while others proudly gave their names after DeAngelo, 74, went to jail.

“He and his knife were in complete control of me for the next two hours,” read rape survivor’s daughter Patricia Murphy from her mother’s testimony. “He really is an evil monster with no soul.”

Murphy raised her middle finger on her own testimony, saying DeAngelo “can go straight to hell.”

He was a retired California police officer who had escaped capture for four decades.

The scale of the crimes “is simply mind-boggling,” said prosecutors in a court summary released on Monday: 13 known murders and nearly 50 rapes between 1975 and 1986.

Sixteen of his Sacramento County rape victims began confronting him on Tuesday in a courthouse that is otherwise still protected from the public due to the coronavirus. A similar number was set to tell Sacramento Supreme Court Justice Michael Bowman on Wednesday and Thursday how DeAngelo’s crimes changed her life.

Pete Schultz shared how he “did terrible deeds against our mother while she was handcuffed and blindfolded”. He himself was tied to a bed post at the age of 11 while his 7-year-old sister was locked in her room during the attack on Wini Schultz. He called DeAngelo a “sick monster” and noted that the only trait that was his Mother could remember was that “she was certain he had a very inadequate penis”.

This was a recurring theme for Witnesses trying to break through to DeAngelo. He was sitting in orange prison overalls, wearing a mask to slow the spread of the coronavirus, and staring straight ahead.

DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 murders and 13 rapes in June, but publicly admitted dozens more after the statute of limitations for sexual assault had expired.

Defense attorneys did not respond to requests for comment and did not respond to the prosecutor’s outline.

In total, he admitted harming 87 victims at 53 different crime scenes in 11 California counties, saving him the death penalty, prosecutors said. That is a larger number of victims than prosecutors, who were charged in 161 crimes involving 48 people after his admission in June. However, Ventura District Attorney Greg Totten said the higher number includes those who chose not to publicly admit DeAngelo to crimes where he could not commit crimes will not be officially charged.

His nicknames showed the escalation and geographic spread of his crimes, prosecutors said: The Visalia Ransacker, believed to be responsible for about 100 break-ins and one murder in this farm town in the San Joaquin Valley; the East Area Rapist; the original night stalker. And finally, the Golden State Killer, when investigators finally linked the crimes that spanned much of the state.

“Each time he escaped, slipped silently into the night and left the communities frightened for years,” said the prosecutor.

He wasn’t identified and arrested until 2018 using a new form of DNA tracking.

“I’ve had that in my head for 44 years. It’s been a long time,” said Jane Carson-Sandler before her testimony.

Certain triggers can still bring back flashbacks to that night in 1976 when DeAngelo confronted her with a butcher knife while snuggling into bed with her 3-year-old son after her husband went to work at a nearby military base.

“I hope he is listening, but we know he never raised his head during the hearing when he pleaded guilty,” she said.

She is one of the survivors and prosecutors who claim that DeAngelo is simply disguised as a weak old man in a wheelchair.

Prosecutors cited “his slow pace, the twisted twist of his hands” and his hesitant replies to Bowman in June. But they said his “agile movement and behavior in his prison cell suggest a person who is healthy and physically active”. ‘

Check out all of ABC7’s stories, photos, videos, and more from the archives about the Golden State Killer.

Copyright © 2021 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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