Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-12-06
Time and Patrick Henry
BY Frederic J. Hasktn

Washington, d. c., Dec Ga timely
act WAS the elevation of the namc and
picture of Patrick Henry the other day to
place in the American Hall of Fame.
Patrick Henry stood for the right Of a
man to walk the earth free: to say and
write what he pleased to eat and drink
what he pleased, to bear arms and defend
himself
He held that mans person and his
home were his own and that he should not
be arrested nor his home nor his belong
ings searched or seized without a warrant
He held fhat a man should pay no un-
just tribute to any power, governmental or
otherwise, and that it was the part of
manhood to fight any attempt to levy
such tribute.
Give me liberty or give me death,
meant something TO Patrick Henry. The
sentence has 80 long been parroted by
schoolboys and parodied by humorists, 1t
has so little in it of the spirit in which we
now live, that to us it is dead verbiage. 1t
sounds empty and rhetorical and even
little absurd. But to Patrick Henry 1t was
literal and passionate statement OF the
way he felt When he said 1t, we learn
from an old chronicle, the chords OF his
neck swelled and stood out like ropes, his
face flushed his eyes burned, and the
men who had hesitsted to risk what seem
ed n hopeless war were shamed and silent.
The men who felt as he did were lifted 10
their feet l,v n wave of feeling. The reso-
lutions that meant war with England were
carried without dissenting vote.
AN AGE OF ORATORS.
That was an age of orators age
that needed orators. Newspapers do the
work now They form our principles and
make our wars and our peaces. But IN
those davs newspapers did not amount TO
much The words of men like Patrick
Henry. spoken in small gatherings of in
tclligcnt, critical men, scattered by word
of mouth, by letter, To some extent by
print. were the real medium Of thought
and feeling \ man like Patrick Henry
who could speak with emotional effect and
vet with precision and sincerity was the
real mouthpiece of Colonial America. He
took the place alike of journalism and of
literature in that pioneering, fighting,
frecdom-loving land of 10000 Anglo
Saxons
The land in which we live is no more like
II han il is like China. We are dominated,
not by spoken words, but by pr nted ones.
In fact We are overwhelmed by them.
Thought and instinct alike are drowned
III tnt iiptd Oh slldlfbN Ifitittth Bidt-
tie for which our minds are little more than
cOnduIts. No longer can a sincere man
voice what thousands feel because they
feel only what they are told 10 feel The
orator among us has degenerated into the
sfter-dinner speaker, spewing platitudes
snd old jokes, boring us, putting us to
sleep. He is no more kin TO Patrick Henry
than q parrot is to an eagle.
Patrick Henry had to wait about a hum
drcd years for the approval of the best
people as represented by this niche which
tho college professors and other worthless
have given him in their Hall of Fame.
During most of his life Patrick was viewed
with alarm by the best people, regarded as
radical, a loafer, and demagogue. He
had no afiinitiex with universities having
gone TO school only few years, and he ex-
pressed his opinion Of erudition by making
II bis motto to study men
AN UNPHoMIsINa BOY.
Patrick WAS born poor and did no good /
In school. he wore old and dirty clothes.
He tried store-keeping twice, and farming
once, tended bar in a tavern for while,
and made complete, but undisrnayed .
failure in all these capacities. He then de- !
eided TO become a lawyer and after six