Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1902-07-17
THE LIBERTY BELL.
ST. Louis Wants To Borrow the Great
est Memento Of Our country's
Fight for Freedom.
PHILADELPHIA Record.

Managers Of the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition are anxious to have the Lib
erty Bell broughA to St. Louis In 1904.
Should Philadelphia permit its removal
once again from Independence Hall it will
be the first visit OF this memento of Amer
lean independence to the territory west
Of the Mississippi river.
The great bell is perhaps the most re-
vered and the best adapted for public
worship of all the mementos of the stir
ring days of '76. The original draft of the
Declaration of Independence is too small,
too valuable and too destructible; the
state house of Philadelphia, THE Cradle
of Liberty" Is too large and tmmovable;
the chair and the table which figured in
the signing of the Declaration Of Inde-
pendence are too commonplace to meet the
popular idea of what a great memento
should be. sfU
The bell fills every want. 1t Is heavy
its weight is 1850 spounds--yet not too
heavy. It is sufficiently destructible to
warrant the ,ceremontous guarding which
1t is receiving, and yet not so destructible
as to prohibit it's public exhibition.
great bell-the Liberty Bell is four feet
in diameter at the lip and three feet high
is an unusual sight. Usually to see a
big bell one must climb a ladder to a
dusty, cobwebbed belfry, where the light
enters awesomely between slanted louvre
boards psychic influence is in the the
prophetic inscription Of the bell Pro
claim liberty throughout all the land unto
all the inhabitants hereof'-Leviticus
XIV, 10-cast on 1t a quarter OF century
before 1t accomplished its epochal task
of calling the colonists to the first pubic
reading of the Declaration of Independ-
ence six score and six years ago. There
is qualification to the morbid and senti-
mental hint at the mutability of things
in the crack which has parted the sound
ing lip of the Liberty Bell and silenced 1t
forever.
Persons who do not know, or care to
know, that the bell did not ring in Amer
lean Independence July 4, 1776. but only
its public proclamation four days later,
ask with surprising interest how the bell
came by the crack. and are disappointed
to learn, that 1t came, not in fire or bat
tie. but from the impact of its own clap
per on July s, 1885, while tolling the flu
neral of John Marshall.
Briefly the history of the bell is this:
Cast in London in 1852 after the model
of the ''Great Tom Of Westminster" in
scribed, as now, under the direction OF
the assembly of the province of Penn
sylvania. 1t was cracked by a blow of
its own clapper a month after 1t was
hung in the state house at Philadelphia.
Pass & Stow, Americans, recast 1t on the
same model and with the same main in
scription. The first recasting was unsat-
isfactory and 1t was recast again.
Justify the bell rang out from the state
house tower at Philadelphia the meet
tngs of the continental congress, the ses-
sions of the continental supreme court
and the meetings of protest against Brit
ish oppression; its clapper, mufled in
saclxing and burlap, tolled the announce
ment of the passage of the stamp act,
the arrival of the British embargoed car
goes and the closing Of the port of Bos-
ton.
Contrary to the popular impression, the
bell did not ring at Philadelphia on July
A. 1776, after the passage of the Declar-
alton of Independence. Its services to
American independence was that it called
the colonists to a public meeting at the
state house on July 8, 1776, at which
the Declaration of Independence was first
proclaimed.
If the Liberty Bell goes to st. Louis
II will be the sixth journey which the
bell has taken. The bells first journey
was from Philadelphia to Allentown in
I'M to save IL from falling into the hands
of the British when the Americans evac-
uated Philadelphia. The other four jour
news of the bell have been to American
expositions. To New Orleans. on the east
bank Of the Mississippi river, in 1883; TO
Chicago, in 1898; to Atlanta, in 1895, and
to Charleston, In 1901. In each case the
bell was escorted by the mayor and
delegation from the councils of Philadel-
phia 1t was welcomed all along its
route from Philadelphia to the exposition
city by watching thousands, by bonffres
and by torchlight demonstrations. 1t was
watched day and night by ceremontous
guard during it's exhibition.