The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-11
sP1R1T OF xHn PRESS.
Editorial Opinions ofthe Leading Journals
upon Current opios Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
PHILADELPHIA PROFANITY.

PHILADELPHIA PROFANITY.
From the NJ Y. Tribune
h There is a certain square patch of grass
overgrown by old trees, which has become,
in the lapse of a century, holy ground-lite-
rally o sort of Gods acre--to the people of
America. 1t is the ground where the decla-
ration of human rights was first given to the
struggling nation as the basis of its future
life, over which the old bell obeyed the legend
that by q curious prophecy it chauced to bear,
and proclaimed ''liberty throughout the land,
to ali the inhabitants thereof"
Heretofore Philadelphia has been content
to fulfill the trust confded to her, and has
preserved Che State House and this Square
intact, as, indeed, she is legally compelled to
do, the ground having been ceded to her by
Pennsylvania only on condition that it SHOULD
be kept public green forever" Perhaps
she was not ignorant of the fact that it was
the possession of this ground and these old
buildings which actually gave her rank and
place among American cities. 1t has become
a Mecca foreigners and Americans alike
make pilgrimages to the old State House as
the birthplace of Liberty. There is no spot
in the country SO instinct with noble meaning,
or so suggestive of the highest and purest
motives of our National life. We have,
unfortunately, too few of such Meccas.
We are too hurried q people, too full of
the rank vigor and brute strength of
youth, of love of money, and intolerance of
the old shapes of government and civilization
left behind us, to appreciate as we ought our
need of past. 1t is noble thing to make
history hand d-over-hand, but it is as noble to
understand and build upon history. Our
lakes like seas, our thousand-scre fields of
corn, our magnificent mushroom cities, are
matters to boast of only to q certain length.
They put health into our bodies and money
in our purse; but if fields and cities were
stamped with the record of mighty past, of
heroic deeds or thoughts, they would serve,
perhaps, nobler purpose: we would find in
them the ennobling and softening education
which now we lack, and become wiser and
more thoughtful people. The nation who
reads upon its soil and its buildings such
q history, lives in the constant hearing
of lofty poem. 1t inherits honor; it
knows itself of good birth-110bIeSse
06Rge. The vague consciousness of this want
drives the most cultured class among us back
to Europe, to claim kinship, to root into old
ruins, to look at old houses We are not con-
tent with our free institutions; to be only able
to brag of our hardly earned liberty, or our
pork or cotton, or iron-clads; we want our
share in Shakespeare and in Milton; in the
soil where Cromwell was born or Hampden
was buried. The signs of our own mental
history in the two great wars for liberty are
yet too close at hand for us to rightly read
their meaning; our hands are full; we are in
too great haste to settle the Mormon problem
or the tax difficulty to listen to any great les
son which the past may have left for us. We
slight the few mementoes we possess, fout at
associations which foreigners coming among
us hold sacred. We are in the condition of
the vulgar school-boy who would make bon
fire of the records which proved his inheri.
tance of nobility to warm himself and his
ignorant companions.
Especially is this the case with our frugal
minded neighbor, Philadelphia. She has
tried for long time to turn an honest penny
out of the old State House and ground OF
which she was left in custody by the nation;
she fenced in the square with offices, and
even shouldered the poor old bell almost out
of sight with cake-stands. Now, however,
the ground has become SO valuable that
although it does not in any sense belong to
her, she cannot afford to be honest about
it any longer, and therefore proposes to
quietly squat upon it with her nest of criminal
courts, and blot it now and forever out OF
sight Hereafter we shall be unable to point
to the spot where Hancock read the
words which vet echo through the world
Philadelphia will substitute her own peculiar
annals. There the murderer Probst was
tried, and Haggerty broke from the Blacl
Maria; and there can a man rid himself o.
any crime by straw-bail. Is it for SO ill-fa
vored a mess of pottage as this that she il
willing to sell her birthright and ours
The matter is yet undecided. 1t is pushed
we are told, by few needy politicians wht
own property in the neighborhood of tn
State House. We hope this is true, and tha
there is enough wisdom among the people o.
Philadelphia to prevent an outrage so disho
nest to the nation and damning to their owl
character for enlightenment or refinement.
THE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY.
From the ~ Y World
Whatever may be our views of the intrins