New Britain herald., 1920-12-21

Ing officer was Louis K. Liggett of
 Boston. chairman of the Massa- chusetts Pilgrim Tercentenary com mission.
 After the formal exercises the I guests of the day were entertained at luncheon. The remainder of the day | they gave over to a pilgrimage to Plymouth Rock, the Coles Hill Bury ing ground and other parts of the town intimately connected with the Pilgrims history.
 Senator Lodge Speaks.
 Senator Lodge touched upon "the peevish, meaningless objection that if the great men of history had not accomplished the specific deeds at- tached to their names somebody else would have done all these things" and continued.
 The might have beens' have no claim to celebration. That which alone is entitled to this high honor is what was-' The actual deed and the men who did the deed which breaks the horizons level line,' not those who did not do it. evenfif they thought about it. alone deserve honor. reverence and commemoration.
 @1h ~Cs AhSus JuSIy pidSC "hdl happened here at Plymouth. and the men and women to whom we owe the great act in the small, high class of decisive events due to the actual doers of great deeds? Clearly. I think we can. Jamestown and Plymouth were the cornerstones of the foundations upon which the great fabric of the United States has been built up.'
 Lessons From the Past.
 The senator sketched briefly the early struggles of the Pilgrims and went on:
 That which now concerns us most, as 1t seems to me. is. first. to. know Pilgrims who thus influenced his cory and affected the fate of western Next and more impor- tant. we must consider just what they were and what meaning they had for our predecessors and now have for us. Above all let us find out if possible l what lessons they teach which will | help us in the present and aid us to meet the imperious future ever at the door.
 Tt is clearer than anything else to those who look into it with con- siderate eyes, that these men. the
  sciousness that they were engaged in vastly greater task than establish ing a colony. They felt in the depths of their being that they were laying +he foundation of an empire-of a mighty nation"
 Tn our own country" he said. there is a stronger hope in the pop liar conception of progress. and bet ! ter apparent grounds for it perhaps than in any other; but as the months have slipped by since the war no observant man can deny that there s q growing doubt. a rising tide of pessimism. among those who think and who are the first to see and to weigh the chances of the future.
 The Pilgrims encountered the de- r1ands of life with unfailing courage They had a very strong and active : ssnse of public duty. They promised 10 obey the laws made and accepted by the community.
 "'Liberty' said Georges Clemen- ceau, a great man of our own time, is the power to discipline oneself | and this was the spirit which inspired the Englishmen who signed the May flower compact.
 They knew that there could be no organized society unless laws made ny the sIdIs "cre obsStu Uy dli xAlu this mighty principle they planted definitely in the soil of their new country where it has found it's latest champion in a successor of Bradford and winsiow, tho present governor of Massa chusetts
 Spiritual Above Material.
 'The underlying and the lasting causes which made the action of the Pilgrims a decisive event in history seem to me to be not what they did with their ships and farms, their trade and their fisheries but with their | minds and with their thoughts. It matters not whether we agree with their theology or. with their forms of Christian worship. That which | counted then and has counted ever since was that they set the spiritual | above the material
 They never for a moment thought 1 that life and it's mysteries could be l expressed in economic terms which | seems, if not actually avowed. to be | the tendency among all classes to- | day. They set character first. They sought to give men freedom both in | body and mind. They tried to reduce l the sum of misery. Whatever our i faith, whatever our belief in pro- gross, there can be no nobler pur- poses for man than thus to deal with | the only earth he knows and the frag- ment of time awarded him for his | existence here. As we think of them in this, the only true way. our rev. l al