If I remember correctly there was a fund raiser to build the base for the statute. Part of that effort was a writing contest & that poem was selected, I presume, by the people raising the money. I just find it frustrating that some people point to a poem that became attached to an international gift celebrating liberty & claim that any policy that doesn't strictly adhere to the theme of poem is unacceptable. It's nonsense & I lament that such thinking is so ingrained in our political discourse.