The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-15
THE TENAcITY OF FICTION.
Idea That Puritans Came to America ''to Establish Religious Liberty"
 Dies Hard.
Washin1ton p,st

tNdSHiHBtOn ROSt.
 The impression that the Puritans emigrated to the United States in order to establish re- ligious liberty has been so widely diffused and 80 sedulousiy cultivated that 1t dies hard That idea was prominent in the literature of the country during the first half of the last century, and still survives in the song and story of that period. For many years, and until very recent time, 1t constituted the sta- pie of oratory on Forefathers Day. Some of the school readers of fifty or more years ago contained extracts from addresses based on that impression-utterances as full of eloquence as they were deficient in truth But they were not lies, for there was no intention to de- ceive. The orators and poets who glorified the Pilgrim Fathers for their ardent love for and devotion to liberty were themselves deceived
 As was inevitable, the advance of educa- ton and the multiplication of boc..s, magazines and newspapers checked the all-conquering progress of that beautiful fiction. It could not stand the light of truth. The facts of his tory were fatal to its perpetuity. But 1t still survives in some quarters, where It's existence would not be suspected if 1t did not proclaim itself. For example, the New York Commer- cial of Sept. 2. in an editorial rebuking a mercantile house in Chicago for surrendering to the demands of labor union, incidentally remarks:
 ''The small band of Puritans who set sail for the inhospitable shores of America, and suf- Tered indescribable hardships made the sac rifice to keep alive that spark of liberty which was so nearly stamped out in Europe A great people are their descendants and a great na- ton owes its birth to them. What must the spirits of John Alden, Elder Brewster Miles Standish and Roger Williams think of the spec tacle presented in Chicago. where liberty is al- lowed to perish the threshold of 0 com mercial house powerful enough to make its Influence felt around the world?'
 Our contemporary Is just little unfortunate in putting Roger Williams into that list. It would be really interesting to know what were his reflections on that spark of liberty which the Puritans were keeping alive while he trudged through the wilderness from the will lage of Salem to the site of the future city of Providence. As an interesting sidelight on this theme we recall the recent effort to in- duce the Massachusetts Legislature to rescind the decree of it's predecessor, "The Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts' banishing Roger Williams from that Jurisdiction, Whittier has told us some thing of the sentiments of the Quakers, sore from their cart-tail scourgings and from the pillory lame" and delivers in musty records have brought to light a hundred acts for the punishment of heresy passed by the devotees of Puritan fanaticism
 Is 1t true that "a great nation owes its birth to them?" Had the sons of the Cavaliers no share in that creation? Where was Virginia when "her old house of burgesses spoke out George Washington and Patrick Henry and the long list of patriot-heroes in the Southern colonies7
 It is true that the Puritans were strong, brave men, who did what they believed to be their duty. But they would have resented as B base libel the assertion that they came here to establish freedom of worship or any other freedom inharmonious with their convictions The false impression paraded for their glori- fcation would have met their detestation