The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-09-14
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

the whole his life was A most interes+. ing career.
 But this Is not to be a biography ar even a sketch of him, but I lug him in
 here to give little fuller account of
 ms antipathy to his countrys adop- ton Of the eagle on the seal as an
 emblem, for he was continually pokins fun at what he termed"an ornithological
 monstrosity,' combination big
 enough to weight down the wings of the king of birds.
 As matter of fact, there was some thing in his strenuous objections for with a short period excepted that of ! the Roman republic, 1t was the typical bird of royalty and the insignia of in- perlalisnl and no wonder that the plain American, whose reputation for common sense has become proverbial in Poor Richards Alamanac, took little ! stock in such an aristocratic bird and offered as a substitute our indigenous wild turkey.
 It has been charged against the eagle, which from the earliest date of American coinage has been favorite adornment of our metal money that he ] usually looks inebriated. often wears shield for a chest protector, and sometimes shakes in his beak what i looks like ring of nice country saus- ages. Yet. in spite of these draw | backs. it is not upon record, where any
 citizen in his right senses has ever refused to accept American eagles
 when he got chance, as they are gold
 coins of the value of $10.
 
 | But Franklin took a shot at the eagle borne on badge, which had been presented to the society of the Cincin- l natl, an association founded by the regular officers of the Continental army at the headquarters of Baron Steuben on the Hudson river. in 17S3, its name being derived from the Roman dictator, l.. Quinctius Cincinnatus de-
 noting the fact that there was to be a change from military to more peace { ful pursuits whose chief air, however, was to raise an immediate fund for the relief of the widows and orphans of those who fell in the Revolutionary war, and to promote a closer ppliti- l cal union between the states. Now the man, who had the power to bring down lightning from the sky by
 using a bunch of keys and a kite. was just the fellow to strike a soaring inn perialistic eagle in the blue of an American sky with democratic feather plucked from it's own wing.
 l say this, because, in spite of the fact that the emperors of Rome converted the republican bird into a royal one I am sure that some of the plumage still waved in the breeze for demo- cracy.
 This is a reference to "the struck
 eagle" a phrase known in literature and made famous by the lines of Byron in his English and Scotch Reviewers in the lines commemorative of Kirke White:
 50 the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
 Viewed his own feathers on the fatal dart,
 And winged the shaft which quivered in his heart;
 Keen were his bangs, but keener far
 to feel,
 He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel
 While the same plumage, which had warmed his nest, | Drank the last life-drop of his bleed ing breast"
 | But if further referene is needed, | I'll cite Waller, who in his Lines to a Lady Singing a Song of His Own Composing" says:
 l ''The eagles fate and mine are one, | Which on the shaft that made him die | Espied a feather of his own | Wherewith he'd wont to soar so high" ! Moore the old favorite never let
 such a good figure pass by and so he l sang:
 Like young eagle, who has lent his, 1 To Hedge the shaft by which he meets his doom,
 l See their own own feathers plucked to l wing the dart, | Which rank corruption destines for l their heart.
 | The trouble with the moderns comes | from the fact that nearly all the good l
 ancients. and they can only repeat or
 modify what's been embalmed in litera- | ture. It was Aeschylus, who first used l the imagery of the struck eagle- ef- | fectively in the Myrmidons. He has it
 thus, and I give it to show how one l gives birth to an idea and others l evolve from it something of their own; ] and yet he is no plagiarits for in the | opening line he confesses his debt: | "So in the Libyan fable, it is told That once an eagle. stricken with a Said, when he saw the fashion of the
 shaft
 l hands,
 | Are we now smitten."
 And so when the Revolutionary fathers outvoted Franklin and struck | that the wise old bird of the Revolu-
 ton, one Benjamin Franklin had power l to pluck out a feather from his shaft
 of wit and bring down the proud eagle l even though in so doing he was after 1 killing the symbol of the republic so dear to his heart. Listen to his diatribe anent the society of Cincinnati. for it
 shows his ability as an archery expert Others object to the bald eagle as | looking too much like the dindon or
 turkey. For my part. wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as the rep resentative of our country; he is a l bird of bad moral character; he does not get his living honestly; you may haye seen him perched op Soue dead