The Obligation to Uplift

“The New Colossus” is underscored by an unspoken, but nonetheless potent ideal prevalent in the United States of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the duty to liberate or uplift oppressed nations around the world. While this role of ‘world policeman,’ as it is sometimes disparagingly termed, did not fully emerge until the interwar period (between World Wars I and II), its origins can be traced back to the long Progressive Era in which Lazarus was writing. As a spate of activist groups and charitable aid societies sprung up in American urban centers, citizens became ever more conscious of their ‘good fortune’ to live in a free nation, as well as their apparent obligation to enlighten all other corners of the globe. While this optimistic perspective occasionally led to dubious military actions — including the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars — it also established a...