The Washington times., 1914-11-01
FIXING UP HISTORY.


Mems Association, together with
delegates from various other organi-
cations of the metropolis, met at the
Coffee Exchange yesterday and took
steps to have history rewritten.
Rather large order, but Wall Street
should easily be equal to it, provided
Wall Street can get back into its old
time form and find buyers for the re-
written history that is to be greatly
superior to the old.
1t seems that American history
has never given New York square
deal. In the first place, the Boston
tea party didn't do much for the
cause of American liberty; and even
if it did, why, it wasn't the only tea
party. New York had one, too; only
New York never got on the first
page the way Boston did, because
Boston was long to the press agent
stuff. 1t had George Bancroft and
about all the other history writer's on
its staff, and they persistently put
Boston under the big display heads
on Page l, while little old New York
was given the obscurity of the back
inside pages, and the copy desk
worked under general orders to "cut
it to the bone"
If the thing was as bad as the
New York Coffee Exchange confer
ence alleges, nobody will blame New
York if it decides to abolish all the
history and have complete new
stock manufactured. There is no
good reason why Boston should get
past with this patriotism business
any longer unless it has the goods.
For instance, Boston has always
pushed over that old dope about how
every bean-eater was true-blue
patriot thirsting for British gore and
shedding pint or so of it every day
or so; whereas New York was full of
toryism, disloyalty to the patriot
cause, and ambition to make as much
money as possible out of the war.
The Lower Wall Streeters declare
that this does prodigious injustice to
New York, which not only was just
as loyal as Boston. but shed blood
before Boston thought of it.
And that brings up the incident of
the Boston Massacre and the Battle
of Golden Hill. The L. w. S. B. M.
A. declares that the Boston Massacre
was in fact rather a one-horse af-
fair, which had nothing to do with
the propagation of the everlasting
principles of American liberty. 1t
was just a nasty little fracas, in no.
wise creditable to Boston; whereas
the Battle of Golden Hill, which oc-
cured a month earlier in New York
was a real, Simon-pure effort to as
piring patriotism to crush out tyran-
ny. If history gave things their
just dues, the Golden Hill affair
would be splashed all over it's front
pages, while the measly Boston af-
fair would be relegated 20 the obliv-
ion which alone could 10 it justice
and which would have been its por-
ton if only the scriveners had not
been corrupted in the effort to manu-
facture for Boston a reputation it
never earned and never sustained af-
ter getting it.
Leastways, that seems to be the
general view the L. w. S. B. M. A.
entertains. In it's effort to have his
tory made over, it will meet some
trifing prejudices, we have no doubt;
but it should not be discouraged
What it needs to do is to hustle
around and find a set of moving pic
ture films, made on the spot, of all
the great events of the early revolu-
tionary days. These would be thor
oughly convincing; and they could be
had just as easily as history could be
reorganized now.