Browsers of our metropolitan dailies are well aware of these papers’ attempt at rebranding our national holidays. Thanksgiving has become Immigration Day, and so has the Fourth of July. But, as we should have learned by now, it can get worse. Readers of the editorial page of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (founded in 1878 by Joe Pulitzer) might have spilled their coffee on the morning of June 21 to see that the editors have arrogated to themselves the authority to rebrand the Gateway Arch, a symbol of the westward expansion of the American people, as a welcoming sign for non-European, non-Western immigration. The editorial cartoon (by Matson) features the Arch framing the Statue of Liberty (another stolen symbol originally signifying liberty and Franco-American friendship) with the words “Gateway to Prosperity” (instead of “Gateway to the West”), and “Send us your tireless, your ambitious, your hardworking masses, so our economy can grow a lot faster.”
It would be hard to satirize such crass boosterism and multicultural stupidity, but it is nothing new for the Post, which manages to combine a smug and self-righteous xenophilia with its water-carrying role for the chamber of commerce.
The occasion for this editorial poke in the eye is a study commissioned by St. Louis “economic development officials,”...