The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1909-10-07


have recently been the guests of
Father knickerbocker. The tercenten-
airy celebration of Henry Hudson's dis
covery of the beautiful stream that
tears his name will live in history.
Sharing honors with the old navigator
and explorer was the man who, two
centuries after the shallow Half Moon
piunibeG its way gingerly up wha-
Hudson is supposed to have at first
thought the northwest passage, navi-
gated the same stream in a steamboat
10 the admiring gaze and fearsome
participation of the venturesome
floods of century ago.
What must the shades of these virile
progressives of one and three centuries
ago think of the panoply of progress
sion unfolded on the Hudson and the
North and East rivers in this TWEEN
tieth century? The very pageant
which opened the memorial celebration
Of discovery and invention was of such
magnitude and variety as TO cause
even we mortals of the present to gasp
when we pause to consider all the
marvels of accomplishment it repre-
scented. No more fitting year could
have been chosen by Encouragement
and advanced preparation than the
present one for such a memorial fete,
Chicago Record-Her 1t has been
year of record smashing in almost
every field of endeavor.
Less practical in its effect than
would have been the fulfillment of
Hudson's continual quest, navigable
north passage from the Atlantic to the
Pacific, the accomplishment sought by
adventures for 400 years has been
achieved. The north pole has been
discovered. Men and women possessed
of the same explorative restlessness as
resulted in the name of Hudson dot
ting the geography of the western
hemisphere have been busy scaling the
highest mountain peaks. Another Eng
lishman-for Hudson was a son of
Great Britain despite the fact that
his most notable achievements were
made with the assistance of the Dutch
has traversed the difficult wastes of
the antarctic to within Ill miles of
the south pole. Records for globe Cir
cling have been broken. But while
Peary, with his Roosevelt,a pigmy boat
compared with the present ocean lin
ers, but infinitely larger than the Half
Moon, divides honors with his success
full fellow explorer, Dr. Cook, ii was
not so much the accomplishments of
these intrepid men and their kindred
spirits that astounded the shades of
Hudson and Fulton as the marvels of
invention they witnessed.
An Age of Superlatives.
This is the age of electricity; of
aviation; of annihilation of distance
beyond the dreams of the veriest Wis
ionary. Before these virile spirits, on
the mighty Hudson; about and be-
meath them on land and sea: above
them in the air were the foremost ex-
amples of what their successors have
been doing in the world they left so
long ago. Nimble as these ETHEREAL
inspectors. Curtiss and Wright navi-
gate the air. These disembodied spirits
must, from sheer surprise and force of
human habit, have stepped agilely
from the terrific approach of racing
self-propelled vehicles; the brilliant
light of electricity and its demon pow
err must have astonished even the soul
OF the enterprising, far-seeing Fulton.
And on the iron rails he could note
the climax of the practical use of the
steam he harnessed to his bidding on
the same spot century ago For his
part, the shade of Hudson must have
gazed with wonder lighted eyes at the
leviathans that pillow the sea he loved.
Ocean greyhounds that cross the At
lantic now in less days than it tool
him months on his first crossing rear
ed their hulks high above the blue
waters; their iron bellies buried in
the depths a distance greater than
enC hciSh' VI many SIupcHuOuS DuIlu-
ings. Torpedo boats and submarines
astonished the explorers shade more
than that of Fulton. for the inventor
had experimental with these before
his death. almost century ago.
Advance in Battleships.
But to Hudson the long lines of the
the maLeuvering battleships of many