The Irish standard., 1899-12-30
THE SENATOR FROM MASSACHUSETTS
Said that Miles Standish was a
Good Roman Catholic.
THE PURlTANS WERE INTOLERANT
But the Pilgrims Brought Along
Liberty of Conscience.

| Somebody has unearthed all Grafton
made by Senator George F. Hoar on
the occasion of the celebration of the
275th anniversary of the landing OF the
Pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, says C.
Savoyard in the Louisville Courier
Journal. 1t is masterpiece of the Eng
lish tongue. Here is passage from
the address alluded to:
"This is the one story to which, for
us, or for our children, nothing in hui
man annals may be cited for parallel or
comparison, save the story of Bethle-
hem. There is none other told in heav-
en- or among men like the story OF the
Pilgrim. Upon this rock is founded our
house. Let the rains descend and the
floods come and the winds blow and
beat upon that house; it shall not fall
The saying of our prophet-our Daniel
is fulfilled. The sons of the Pilgrim
have crossed the Mississippi and pos
sess the shores of the Pacific. The tree
our fathers set covered at first little
space by the seaside. It has planted its
banyan branches in the ground 1t has
spread along the lakes. 1t has
girdled the Gull. 1t has spanned the
Mississippi. 1t has covered the prairie
and the plain. The sweep of its lofty
arches rises over the Rocky Noun
tains and the Cascades and the Nevadas.
Its hardy growth shelters the frozen re-
gion of the Northwest. Its boughs hang
over the Pacific. And in time-in good
time-it will send its roots beneath the
waves and receive under its vast canopy
the islands of the sea-"
l have never seen New Englander
who appeared to understand that Vir-
ginia had something to do with the
shaping and fashioning of the country.
Take man from Massachusetts,, in
either House of Congress, and if he
cannot find precedent for course of
conduct in John Q. Adams he will balk
right there and refuse to bulge peg.
Every school boy knows about Bunker
Hill, British victory; few ever think
of Kings Mountain, an American vic
tory. Had the American victory been
gained in New England and the Ameri-
can defeat been in North Carolina, no.
body would have heard of Bunker Hill
and everybody would have heard of
Kings Mountain. Not much ado is
made over Bennington, brilliant and
glorious American victory. That was
gained by a lot of Scotch-Irish, clan
with whom Massachusetts, was never
much in love.
The Pilgrims deserve all praise. They
knew what intolerance was and they had
suffered the tortures it could invent.
There were only 1o2 of them when they
landed that bleak November day. By
the following spring half of these were
dead, and ten years later the colony
only numbered 300 souls. Miles Stand
ish, the military commander, was a
Catholic-at least the preponderance OF
the testimony is to that effect. There
was plenty of liberty of conscience
among the Pilgrims. They had fled
from England to escape persecution.
They did not fare very we'll in Holland,
and they came to America and founded
a good system.
1t was the Puritans who played the
devil. Carver and Bradford brought lib
crty with them; Endicott and Winthrop
brought intolerance. They turned Rog-
er Williams out because he believed in
liberty OF conscience and because he de-
MED the right Of the King OF England
to give away the land that belonged to
the Indians; they prosecuted the Quak-
ers as heretics; they executed some old
women as witches; they sold Indians
into slavery; they kidnapped Negroes
into slavery. Nobody but Puritan had
right to vote. And the Puritans out
numbered the Pilgrims 100 to I.
Now, to read Senator Hoar, or any
other New England orator, it was that
handful at Plymouth that made this
great country of ours-not word about
the Dutch who settled New York, about
the English Quakers who settled Penn
sylvania, about the English Catholics
who settled Maryland, about English
Cavaliers who settled Virginia, about
| the Scotch-lrish who settled North Ca
rolina, about the sHuguenots Of South