New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-02-01
TOM PAINE.

Now we have that Oh Done OF contention,
Tom Paine, thrown down again for opposing
sects to fight over. The Liberal Leagues OF
San Francisco and Philadelphia raised, it ap-
pears, one or two thousand dollars for bust
of the great agitator. and presented it to the
latter city, last week, to be placed in the
National Museum. The Phiadelphians, how
ever, would have none Of it, and through
councils rejected the gift on account, OF course,
of Paine's peculiar religious views; whereup0n
the Liberal League, which appears to be prln-
cipaly composed Of women and spirltuallsts,
was furious public meetings are held, dcnun-
Citations are hurled to and fro, and poor Pane,
his good aud evil deeds, are all dragged out
from the grave and fought over, inch by inch
Middlc-aged people will remember him as the
bugaboo of their childhood, if they happened
to belong to orthodox families, and remember
too how the horrors of his death-bed were
used to tcrrify tcn-yearolds from the remote
chances of iniidcity. Here they have the old
story again, and Walt Whitman coming to the
front assuring us that history has all been
wrong, and that Paine was the most sober,
discreet, and mild-mannered of men; gen
tlcman of half dozen old schools and of the
best in ALL and that his death was a blisstul
erlthanasa of high philosophy.
Really, it seems to us that this particularly
muddy water had better be allowed to rest
Nobody doubts the service which Paine rem
deled to the cause of the Republic. He was
rewarded for it by the hearty appreciation OF
both the thinking people and the populace II
his own time and of pOsterity. The Republic
itself was not ungrateful. Paine was promptly
10 Of Sousp
by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and re-
ceived 800 acres Of cultivated land and re-
munerativc office from this State. Jefferson,
to whom the nation owed its birth more than
to any other man, was literally preycd upon
by his wOrsliping cOuntrymen until they barely
left him a scant subsistence for life Paine's de-
istical views do but little harm. Nobody now
adays reads The Age of Reason except from
curiosity. As to whether he was drank
ard or moderate tippler whether in his last
moment he was firm to his lifelong creed OF
doubt or endeavored to accept another, con-
Germs nobody now, it seems to rs, but himself
and his God The Philadelphia councils have
not thought fit to examine into the religious
faith or the lack of it OF the other worthless
whose pictures and busts fill Independence
Hall, and we suspect, would not have done so
in this instance if the character Of the associa-
ton Offering the gift had not given to it the
aspect of an honor paid to Paine the free
thinker rather than to Paine tho defender Of
liberty.
We are quite sure that the author of Com
mon Sense himself who had a keen apprccia-
ton of absurdity, would look upon the present
squabbe, if he could look at all, as capital
Joke, and would hardly recognize the coarse,
vehement face of the cX-eXclseman which he
used to see in the glass, in the fine philOsophic
image presented of him by some Of his present
admirers Neither are at all sure that he
would covet the honor which he has been re-
fused He might lin marble) have borne him
self with dignity in independence Hall III the
company of jefferson and of even the orderly,
well -cOnductcd Father of his Country. But to
be slowed in the National Museum with the
pucrile face of the English King, whom he
hated, Oh one side of him, and the swaddimg
clothes of the Adams family on the other, were
enough to make even stone Tom Paine cry
out in mutlny.
We wish Philadelphia safe deiyerance
from the weight of her ancient renown. What
with busts and monuments and old family
preiudiccs against progress, she finds these
worthless of 1776 set as heavy on her soul as
those of his murdered victims on the sight of
the miserable Richard.