The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-02-19
M E N w o M EN
 A ND T H N G s

smell as sweet, but camouflage drive
 as you will and yet there Is the taint
 of money ,out it which cannot pc
 gotten rid of.
 If the thing could be done. it would [ have been done by the drive this week
 which the Highlands Methodist church has made for its bell tower, for in many ways the campaign has been
 unique in the history of the many which have been staged in Birming- ham.
 Tn the first place there is an air or
 romance and mystery about the whole thing which makes its appeal to the individual as well as to the public. l thought that before the campaign was day old it would be an open secret erously yet so tantalizingly dangled before the eyes of the church the offer
 As a matter of course I went to one of the leading members and as a newspa perman asked that be put q. I.s ment was told that he didn't even know whether it was a man or wom- an who was being so gracious, ana that he supposed the bells would be ringing long before the donor un- masked. So the plot thickens and ey- cry one is asking and wondering wno it can be-
 Curiosity may have killed cat, but all inc same in spite of the fact that I am a male I have more than my share of the attribute which many seem to think is monopolized by the fair sex. I am in the attitude often of the refrain of French song winch I used to hear in the Latin quarter dur ing my student days in Paris. T am not at all curious, but I would Ike very much to know" 1 suppose this is the case with most of us whether we are men orwomen,it is just very human trait
 Now Frank Dominick in whose bosom the secret reposes is near neighborS of mine and often picks me up on his way to town in his auto mobile, but I am sure that he is too close mouthed to tell Methodist, se- cret to Baptist and then he is hedRed about with all the red tape of professional ethics. He is mighty polite gentleman, but has way o.
 side stepping any question as to his client which is most provoking, for 1T
 reporter can't find out, how In the
 name of goodness can he spread the
 news.
 I believe more people in Birming-
 ham are wondering and discussing just
 who the generous individual is than
 are interested in the League of Ma tions, or any of the. public questions
 now before the public. It's good
 thing to have something to talk about
 now that there is full in politics, 7ths
 baseball season some months away, and the inauguration to be drab af- fair, and prohibition settled fact,
 and the blue laws in the distance.
 This secretive man or woman in our
 midst is quite different from the one
 who gave, the gfeat bell in the Glas-
 gow cathedral for it's inscription
 says Tn the year of grace 15SS,
 Marcus Knox. merchant in Glasgow,
 jealous for the interest of the reformed
 religion, caused me to be fabricated
 in Holland. for the used of his fellow
 citizens of Glasgow, and placed me
 with solemnity in the tower in their cathedral.'' For more than 300 years |it has been pealing and everyone who mounts the belfry can learn the name of the donor.
 Hut I like the rest of the story, which the bah carries, for on it one reads: My function was announced by
 the impression on my bosom: Me audito, venias, doctrinam sanctum ut discas,' and I was taught to proclaim
 the hours of unheeded time. One hun-
 dred and ninety-five years had |
 sounded these awful warnings, when
 I was broken by the hands of incon-
 siderate and unskilful men. In the
 year 17s0 was cast in the furnace,
 my sacred vocation. Reader! Thou
 also that know rescurrection; may
 lit be to eternal life! Thomas Mears
 fecit London, 17so.'
 dropped the above into the story
 to show that in old Scotland nearly
 200 years before our own precious
 Liberty Bell announced the celebration
 to the anxious throng on the outside of Independence Hall of the signing of tho Declaration of Independence,
 but fulfilling, the prophecy contained in it's inscriptions: Proclaim liberty throughout the world and unto all the inhabitants thereof" the great bell in Glas8low cathedral, the gift of a merchant was calling men and Wom-
 an to worship and preaching a ser-
 mon on the future life through tho
 inscription on It's side.
 Now here in tho newest of the cities of America to reach nationaLim portancc, an unknown person. emulat-
 ing the precedent of the Scottish mer- chant who lived in the sixteenth con- tury Is going to give to Birmingham a set of chimes. I like to let my im-
 agination run riot and picture in my
 minds eye the lapse of centuries and
 what the Magic City will be and won-
 der If the men and women Of that day
 will stop as they hear tho sweet notes
 of the bells and think of their forbears
 who listened to them in tho opening of the twentieth century.
 But I'll quit dreaming and Eet back to tho really wonderful drive put ovef under the superb leadership of Jay Smith. chairman of the board of dea- cons and hin enthusia4tio follow work orS. The plan was carried out . n allied army. Tho systems which N1old Narshal Frank Rushton modeetly admits is the best ever devieed, pro- vided. of couYse. that tho general. colonels. captains and the entire per- sonnel Is Tod by such one as himself. Frank never fails to skids himsalf about 1t in public. but the public n willing to admit that had he lived in Napoleonic days he would have carried a baton. s.s The various teams worked like