The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-09-05
An ENGLISH VIEW
OFlTHOMAs PAINE

Even hundred years is not enough
to cover the evil left by some men
when they pass on. Thus, an editorial
writer in BIackwood's Magazine:
1t has long been practice, worthy
of all respect, to mark the eentenaries
Of famous men. It is but just that we
should remember those VINO by arts or
arms have deserved well of their coun- !
try. Should we not, also, by way OF
an awful warning, keep the anniver. |
saries of those who have used their
talents to make mise hief in the worlds
Should we not nail them to the barn /
door Of time, as game-keepers expose
rats and owlsR A hundred years ago
there died in New York the inetfable
Tom Paine, who, with nothing more
than glib eloquenee to help him,
spent his life in attempting to stir up
sedition against his native land. He
belonged to a class familiar enough in
this country Being of the stuff whereof
pro Beers. are made, he fought with
an energetic pen for the enemies of
England, rebel or foreign. His were
the instincts of the true cannibal. He
would have been boisterously happy II
he could have devoured Britain at
meal Wherever England had foe he
found friend, and the best that can be
said for him is that he fought in the
open, and did not offer to the nation
of his hate false support. For this
we prefer him to the pro Beers of
later date, who gave comfort to En-
gland s enemies from the platform of a
public hall, and thought it honorable to
escape by back doors disguised as
policemen. Tom Paine did not stoop
20 this kind of deceit. At the first
outbreak of the American Revolution
he was on the side of the rebels. No
sooner had he crossed the ocean than
he believed he was breathing a larger,
purer air. He was among the first to
invent this amaz ng superstition.
|'Those who are conversant with
Earope,'' he wrote in 1874, "would be
tempted to believe that even the air
of the Atlantic disagrees with the con-
stitution of foreign vices; If they sur
vive the voyage they either expire on
their arrival or linger away in an in
durable consumption. There is a happy
something in the climate of America
which disarms them of all their power
both of infection and attraction. +"
How many poor victims have crossed
the sea with this illusIon. And how
many on landing have been roughly
awakened from their dream!
Tom Paine, however, was never dis
illusioned. He was of those who know
nothing and learn nothing. His mind
was made mp from the very first, and
nothing so foolish as facts could ever
avail to move him. For HIM liking
George was the royal brute of Brit
AIM and there was an end of it.
Wherever he went he used the same
phrases. he put the same spawned argu-
ments through their PAGES. He was
quite sure that monarchy and arts
toeracy have in al ages been the vehi
elets of slavery not because the study
of history drove him to that conclusion
for he had never studied history, but
because, as the saying is, he felt it III
his bones Indeed. he felt good dea
in his bones; and as he was the master
of a singularly energetic style, he pu
It all down upon paper for the mis-
guiding of the world. Wherever Their,
was Il revolution, there was Tom Paine
When the American Colonies hat
thrown off the English yoke, Paine re
turned to the country which he has
slandered, and escaped the gallows onI,
by the customary forbearanee of En-
glishmen. On the triumph of tn
French Revolution, Paris seemed tn
proper theater for Paine s talents. an.
he was eagerly welcomed as the autho
Of 1.-The Rights of Man, by an exult
Snt mob, In 1892 he escaped fror
England, where tardy Justice had a
.. last pursued him, and came to Calai.