Evening star., 1946-08-18
Capital Sidelights

Erection at the seat OF the United
Nations of a monument symbplizing
peace is proposed in a resolution in
troduced In the House by Representative
Richard F. Hairless of Arizona. The
United States would pay the cost, with
the design to be approved by the
National Commission of Fine Arts. Mr..
Hairless provides that on this monument
shall be inscribed these lines from the
poem New Roads to Rome" by James
Patrick McGoyern: WAR Would Ever
Be Fugitive If Only Christ Among Us
All Might Live" He says: II feel the
special Importance in the present
epochal trend of international relations
at the new crossroads of peace and war
to bring before the Congress sentiment
which might contribute towards those
Intangible but most far-reaching moral
and spiritual forces essential for not
only the progress but also the very
survival OF civilization"
The poem quoted was written by
Capt McGovern, who served in the
American Expeditionary Forces in World
OF health, where he edited a tabloid
newspaper which has become one of the
leading weeklies of the Southwest-tne
Coconino Sun Of Flagstaff. The poem
was first printed in the Congressional
Record by request of Representative
j. Glenn Beall Of Maryland, reprinted
in the Notre Dame Scholastic, the Chris
tlan Advocate, and in other religious,
patriotic, fraternal and general publica-
tions. Capt. McGovern now is a WASH
tngton attorney
It's long mental trek back through
the pages of history for we'll over
century to the days when the National
Capital was famous for its fields of
honor or dueling grounds, where some
OF the most famous men in our history
as Nation demanded or gave satisfac-
ton under the code. 1t was on February
~ that a law was passed by Congress
prohibiting dueling In the District,
Still farther back, three and a quarter
centuries ago, our Pilgrim Fathers who
came over in the Mayhower prohibited
dueling, and yet on June ID, 1921, two
OF their hot-headed young men, Edward
Lister and Edward Dotey, fought the
first recorded duel of white men on the
American shore with swords and dag
gers They fought, beseemingly, through
jealous regard for Constance Hopkins,
eldest daughter of their master, but the
'knave' of the colony, John Ellington.
was accused by Capt. Miles Standish,
who hastened to stop the scrap: 81
heard thee and saw thee-to hound
them on at each other, as If it were a
bull-baiting for thine own amusement"
Doty received a slight wound on his
thigh and Lister slash on the palm of
his hand. They were sentenced by the
treemen of the colony, with Bradford
presiding, to be bound neck and heels,
laid at the meeting of the four roads
for "a hours without food or water. 1t
was the whimsical surgeon, Samuel Full
Ter, who suggested this punishment. "a
Chronological History of New England
by Thomas Prence" records that within
an hour, because OF their great pains,
at their own and their masters humble
request, upon promise Of better carriage
they were released by the Governor.
Ellington was executed nine years later
on a gallows erected by Bradford's or
ders for deliberate murder of John
Newcomer, thus opening the gloomy
chapter of capital punishment in New
England Constance Hopkins, innocent
cause of the first duel, was married
about five years later, to neither of the
duelists, but to Nicholas Snow. who ar
rived in the Ann in the summer of 1923.