The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-12-23
M E N, w o ME N
 A ND T HIN C s

I ] A ND T IN C 5 made almost at every meeting of state legislature, it is hard to keep up with them all unless one card indexes them.
 
 Speaking of holidays and legislatures reminds me that in the old days when made my debut as a young advocate it was naturally supposed that l would seek political honors. My friends, the bank clerks, got together and told me they would SC that was elected to the Legislature if l would add another bank holiday.
 | got to thinking about the multiplicity of memorial days of one kind or another on picking up The Age-Herald of Decem- Der ?. in which there was an Associated Press dispatch telling of the celebration of the formal landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, Mass, on Decep1- Der P (new styie) 1920.
 ] Down south we do not make mucn os Forefathers Day, as this celebration is termed up north. but throughout New England and in the chief cities of the middle states the day is kept by various societies who seek to keep alive and com 'memorate the sturdy virtues of the Pii- grims, the "Forefathers." There are literary and festive gatherings in honor of the great event and the principles it illustrated
 ] The standby recitation on Forefathers Day is the immortal lyric of Mrs. He mans, "The Landing of the Pilgrim
 Fathers ' which is either recited or sung. I will use a few of the verses: | There were men with hoary hair l Amidst that Pilgrim band; ! Why had they come to wither there I Away from their childhood home. There was woman's fearless eye. | Lit by her deep loves truth There was manhood's brow serenely high. l And the fiery heart of youth. I What sought they thus afar, i Bright jewels of the mine?
 The wealth of seas, the spells of war? l They sought faiths pure shrine!
 "Ay, call it holy ground
 The soil where first they trod; They have left unstained what there they | found
 Freedom to worship God" 1 It will be remembered that the tyranny of the ecclesiastical commission in Eng land raised up a host of dissenters, anu | in 1850 they chose John Robinson for their leader. Their independence soon threw upon them. the heavy hand of the {, law, and they left the kingdom in 1sT. The larger part settled in Holland where they lived for 1s years. most of the time in the city of Leyden Then they made iup their minds to plant colony in Amer lica where they could worship God in 1 their own way.
 There were 1O2 Puritans Englisn, Scotch and Dutch), who set sail in De- ] cember, 1920, in a ship called the May flower, with he rprow turned towards America. It may be tedious, but I'll set down the male passenger list: John Car iver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, William Brewster, Isaac Allerton, Capt. Miles Standish. John Alden, Samuel Fui- Her, Christopher Martin, William White, Richard Warren, John Rowland, Stephen Hopkins, Edward lilly, John lilly, Peter Brown, Richard Britteridge, George lSoule, Richard Clark, Richard Gardiner, Francis Cook, Thomas Rogers, Thomas Tinker, John Rigdale, Edward Fuller, John Turner, Francis Eaton, James Chil- ton, John Crackston, John Ellington, Moses Fletcher, John Goodman, Degory Priest, Thomas Williams, Gilbert Wins low, Edward Margeson. John Allerton, Thomas English, Edward Dotey, Edward Leister. From the number of their descendants now living, they lived up to the biblical Injunction of replenishing the earth. But llaugh at them as you may, the Pllgrlms, so named because of their wanderings, deserved Longfellow's tribute, when in the "Courtship of Miles standish.' he says:
 i i"Men in the middle of life, austere and
 grave in department lGod had sifted three kingdoms to find
 the wheat for this planting" The adventurous and God-fearing band first set foot on the bare rock at Ply mouth on the bleak coast of New Eng Hand, while all around the earth was
 covered with deep snow
 This rock so dear to the heart Of the New Englander. for it is to them what tho Palladium was to ancient Troy, or the ! shield of Minerva to Athens, has just ibeen fixed so that it is now fully exposed Ito view after years. The rock had been
 broken into two pieces One part re-
 mained in it's original position at Hedges
 wharf. Plymouth; the other was taken Ito the center of the town and surrounded ,by an iron railing. In 1880 this portion
 which had been dragged into Plymouth by 20 yoke of oven. in 1174, over which the
 whigs erected liberty pole, was returned
 to it's original position.
 After the. exercises the other day, the
 guests trod Ieyden street. the first thor ,oughfare of the colony in pilgrimage to the rock. A. few alert in the morning hours had obtained chips of the historic
 boulder as workmcn trimmed it's base Of cement bed, and others who sought