The Polish contribution to America goes way back to the Revolutionary War

The Polish contribution to America goes way back to the Revolutionary War
My son Andrew and I were at a museum Saturday and it happened to be Polish Heritage day. It got me to thinking about the contribution Polish people have made to the United States. I got to thinking about that point when I saw a picture of Ronald Reagan walking alone with Pope John Paul II in the Papal Gardens at the Vatican. Both men are deceased now but many historians credit them with the fall of communism. We do know that the two men worked very closely together during the critical period in the mid-1980s when communism was coming unraveled. That certainly was a great contribution to peace and stability in this world.


The Polish contribution to America goes way back to the Revolutionary War. The Poles identified with the American Revolution because the Poles saw in Americans a mirror of themselves as they had just fought a war to be independent.
Tadeusz Kosciuszko served in the Colonial army against the British. He turned out to be a brilliant military strategist. He won the Battle of Saratoga which was the turning point in the war. He also built West Point.
He was also a patriot in Poland. On a plaque in West Point commemorating Kosciuszko, it says simply "Hero of Two Worlds." He was also known as being in favor of the emancipation of the Negros. I n fact when he died he left is wealth toward that end.
In fact General Pulaski came to the aid of the North in the Civil War. He gave his life in the Battle of Savannah.
There were several waves of Polish immigration. The largest wave occurred in the late 1800s when 1.5 million Poles left their native land for America. Many of these were farmers seeking to avoid religious persecution from the Germans. Polish-Americans have made many contributions in America. Stephanie Kwolck invented the fiber used to make bulletproof vests. Kurczak Zielkowski carved the Crazy Horse statue in the Black Hills of the Dakotas. He also helped to carve the heads at Mount Rushmore.
When I went to high school, our principal Msgr. Stanley Witkowiak managed to get Pianist Arturo Rubenstein to do a concert there. They formed the Kosciuszko Club in 1871 with the motto "a good Pole is a good American."
More recently, prominent Poles served in public life. Sen. Ed Muskie of Maine served in the Senate, and then after running as the Democrat candidate for vice president, then for president, he ended up as secretary of state in the Carter Administration. Another prominent Pole is Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter's national security adviser. At first, Poles were reliably Democrats, but since Reagan, they have trended Republican.
Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
Alex Lech Bajan
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