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In 1884 the statue was completed, set up temporarily in Paris. France's gift was the statue itself. The base, a mass of almost solid granite designed by famed Architect Richard Morris Hunt, was to be provided by the U. S. In the winter of 1884-85 the base was less than half built and funds were completely exhausted. To the rescue came exuberant Publisher Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World. With screaming editorials, cartoons, prize contests, fancy dress balls, all the impedimenta of modern publicity, Publisher Pulitzer had the $100,000 necessary to finish Liberty's pedestal oversubscribed in less than six months.
Carefully taken apart, the Goddess of Liberty was packed in 214 enormous crates, consigned to the steam-and-sail gunboat Isère for shipment to the U. S. In charge of the shipment was a 19-year-old French lieutenant, Rodolphe Victor de Drambour. No hatches on the little ship were big enough for the enormous crates. He cut open the side of the ship, pushed the dissected goddess straight into the hold. Throughout a 72-hour storm with canvas cut to staysail & spanker, Lieutenant de Drambour stayed on the bridge of his ship, while the crates shifted wildly, threatened any instant to sink him. Two days after his 20th birthday he dropped anchor off Sandy Hook, welcomed by the New York World, the New York Yacht Club, the U. S. Fleet, and a spanking good dinner at the Hoffman House.
Last week newshawks found Rodolphe Victor de Drambour, 70, hale, hearty and long a U. S. citizen, comfortably seated in his apartment at No. 2482 Valentine Ave., The Bronx.