New-York tribune., 1870-04-09
PHILADELPHIA PROFANITY.

There is n certain square patch or grass over
grown by old trees, which has become, III the
lapse of a century, holy ground-literally sort
of Gods acre-to the people of America. 1t Is
the cround where the declaration of human
rights was first given to the struggling nation
"a the basis of its future life, over which the
old bell obeyed tho legend that by curious
prophesy it chanced to bear. and proclaimed
"Gberty throughout the land, to all the inha0-
itants thereof"
Ueretofore Philadelphia has been content to
fulfill the trust cOnfided in her, and has pre-
served the State House and this square intact,
as. indeed, she is legally compelled to do, the
ground having been ceded to her by Pennsyl-
yania only on condition that 1t should be kept
ga public green forever" Perhaps she was
not ignorant of the fact that it was the posses
sion of this ground and these Old build
ings which actually gave her rank ana
place among American cities. 1t has be-
come Mecca foreigners and Americans alike
make pilgrmages to the old State-HOuse as the
birth h-place 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 Nationallife. We have, unfortunately, too few
of such Meccas. We are too hurried 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 a Past. 1t is noble thing to make
"history hand overland" but it is as noble to
understand and build upon history. Our lakes
like seas, our thousand-acre fields of corn, our
magnificent mushroom cities, are matters to
,toin pth
health into our bodies and money in our purse;
but if fields and cities were stamped with the
record of a mighty Past of heroic deeds or
thoughts, they would serve, perhaps, nobler
purpose: we would find in them the ennobllng
and softening education which now we lack,
and become wiser and more thoughtful peo-
ple. The nation who reads upon its soil and
its buildings such history, lives in the con-
slant hearing of lofty poem. 1t lnherlts
honor; it knows itself Of good birth-nObleSSe
0Jlge. The vague consciousness OF this want
drives the most cultured class among us back
to Europe, to claim kinship, to root into old
ruins, look at old houses. We are not content
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 ii
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 diff
Guilty to listen to any great lesson which the
past may have left for u.s. We slight the few
mementoes we possess, font at associations
which foreigners coming among us hold sacred
We are in the condition of the vulgar school
boy who would make a bonfire of the records
which proved his inheritance 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-H and ggound of which she
was left in custody by the nation; she fenced
in the square with offices, and even shouldercd
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 pro-
poses 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 yet echo through the world.
Philadelphia will substitute her own peculiar
annals. There the murderer Probst was tried,
and Haggerty broke from the Black Maria
and there can man rid himself of any crime
by straw-bail. Is it for so ill-favored a mess
of pOttage as this that she is willing to sell her
birthrght and ours 2 The matter is yet unde-
cided 1t is pushed, we are told, by few
needy politicians who own property in the
neighbOrhood of the State-House. We hope
this is true, and that there is enough wisdom
among the people of Philadelphia to prevent
an outrage so dishonest to the nation and
damning to their own character for enligbten.
ment or refinement.