The New York herald., 1922-09-27
Samuel Adams's Bicentenary.

To-day we celebrate the 200th ami
versary of the birth of SAMUEL
ADAMS, the Father of the Revolu-
tion," as he is sometimes called in
New England. Boston is going to
commemorate the event with appro-
rriate ceremonies.
Starting at the site Of his birth
place and ending at his tomb in the
Old Granary Burying Ground, a pro-
cession will follow in a tigurative
way the stout old patriots footsteps
from the cradle to the grave. The
old State House, Faneuil Hall, the
Old South Church and other land
marks and localities of Colonial Bos-
ton will be objective points on the
line of march.
II is not long route. The area
inclosed within its limits is not large.
Yet in all the United States it would
be hard to find an equal area that Is
richer in associations sacred to all
Americans. In Taneuil Hall there
is to be an old fashioned town meet
ing, as near as possible in forms and
methods of procedure to those OF a
century and a half ago, when within
the same walls the clear, concise
oratory of SAMUEL ADAMS reused SEN
t.ments that ultimately found i'm
mortal embodiment in the document
which THOMAS JEFFERSON wrote and
which the Continental Congress pub
lished to the world on the Fourth OF
July, 1776.
And yet he was no orator as his
cousin JOHN ADAMS was. His gifts
Of utterance were far removed from
the fiery, tempestuous outpourings or
IPATRrcK HENRY. None the less his
influence on mems minds was as
great and quite as lasting perhaps in
it's impelling effect as that OF either
of these great orators of the Revolu-
tionary epoch. In 1926, when SAMUEL
ADAMS had been asleep in the Old
Granary Burying Ground for twenty
three years and only about eight
months before his own death, THOMAS
JEFFERSON said Of the great New Eng
lander: "If there was any Palinurus
tn the Revolution, SAMUEL ADAMS
was the man. Indeed, in the Eastern
States for a year or two after it
began he was truly the Man Of the
Revolution"
or course every one of MAcAULAY's
schoolboys knows that Palinurus
was the sailor who acted as pilot to
the pious Eneas ON certain memo
rable voyage. So to that extent, the
Jeffersonian comparison will do, for
SAMUEL ADAMS was nothing IL not
helmsman during the stormiest
days OF struggle for American inde-
pendence. But the legend has 1t that
Palinurus went to sleep while on
watch and fell overheard. Whereas
SAMUEL ADAMS never slept during all
the perilous voyage. but was continu-
ously on deck and on watch until the
craft that carried our liberties and
cur dignity as nation was safe In
port. "a truly great man." wrote
JEFFERSON in 1919, wise in counsel.
fertile in resources, immovable in his
purpose, he had, / think, more than
any other member to do with advis-
ing and directing measures in the
northern war;"
And above all things was SAMUEL
ADAMS a democrat Of democrats, for
Eis day and generation a radical.
No wonder the great virginian was
devoted to him and to his memory.
There was, moreover, that disparity
liz the ages of the two that justified
the feeling akin to veneration which
the Sage of Monticello had for the
Puritan of Massachusetts.
Whether II BE Lawful to Resist
the Supreme Magistrate IL the Com
monwealth Cannot Otherwise Be Pre-
served" was the title of the thesis
which SAMUEL ADAMS argued vigor-
ously in the Affirmative at the age of
Is on his graduation from Harvard.
Sound Jeffersonian doctrine that. 1t
was enunciated by SAMUEL ADAMS in
174O. three years before THOMAS
| JEFFERSON was born.