The guardian. [volume] (Boston, Mass.) 1901-1960, 1956-01-28

| NN'f W NSa AC&Ao anu
flat-tOps. His Big "a"
is as familiar today as
Ed SulIivan's Big "NI'' on
TeIevisiOn.
Ironically, another ia
nous Salemite of the pc
riOd, Nathaniel Bowditch,
is almost a forgotten
man. His great book on
Navigation merely saved
Lives and made possible
Salem's Maritime Glory.
| No appeal to passion!
This city is internationally
infamous as the Stage on
which was played the Ira
gedy of Witch Graft Perse-
cution. Every effort is made
to keep alive legends of
Sadist Torture as brutal as
anything in Shakespeare.
RemorSe?
| Signs, markers, and build
ingS pock-mark the town
with lurid details of civilized
savagery. VINO speaks for
the Radicals who dared re-
Sist, and finally stopped the
Blood Purge? None; virtue
lacks Box-Office Appeals
Any well-informed Salem
lite can fill you in on spine
chilling aspects of the Delu-
sion. Some do so with the
proud luStineSS of head
shrinkers on exhibition. The
Witches are commonly dam
ned as Queers or CrackpotS.
Inquiry about names like
William Milborne or Robert
Calef rings few bells. They
were on the Unspectacular
Side; militant leaders in the
fight against Injustice. Such
men disturb the conscience,
and make dull reading. ~
N7ilborne was the first
man in the Colony to es-
tabIish a Free Press, and
be arrested for Political
I Libel. He published
hand bills, assailing the
Elegantly of the Witch
Hunt. No one knows how
or where he died.
I Calef was Historian,
who dared tell the truth
about his own times. His
/ writings so riled Witch
Batting Cotton Mather
that they were publicly
burned in Harvard Yard.
Calef is still studied, but
no Best Seller.
Similarly, the South
will never let us forget
that the infamous At
rican Slave Trade began
at Salem in l645. How
much is written about
the towns Anti Slavery
words and deeds, before
or since? We love viii
liany!
This historical inclination
to remember the obnoxious
and muff1e the heroic is
not peculiar to Salem. 1t is
quite common in Essex Coun-
ty, and probably elsewhere.
For all I know, it may be
the nature of us Beasts:
Another horrible example
popped into my mind one
day last month while 1 was
mentally wrestling an Uncle
Dudley Editorial in the Bos-
ton Globe. My own English
is Low-Brow, but l enjoy
deciphering his Long Hair
Dialectics.
Uncle was sounding off, in
deathleSs prose, on Human
ity's Debt to Newburyport's
William Lloyd Garrison, the
fiery 18th Century Crusader
against Slavery, sometimes
called The Liberator. Uncle
was very eloquent.
Garrison came of fierce
Irish American stock and
was intolerant of all intol-
erance but his own. Rum
and Slavery ruled Newbury-
port at the time. The Liberia
tor was branded Public
Nuisance; and the label has
stuck.
Uncle'S editorial brought
me back to my own Tossed
Salad Days in the Depres-
sion Thirties when I did a
journalistic stint ja New
buryport with the Hon.
Bossy ellis. Garrison should
have had it so goodl
Bossy's paper, like Garri-
sons, was published in a
clutter-closet. 1t was called
the "Liberator7 and spoke
with the same noisy insis-
tence on being heard. ellis
and Garrison had a flare
for colorful Chewing OUT.
Being an Alien in town,
and therefore Suspect, I had
to be more conservative.
There were other considera-
tions, too. In those days, l
was built along Skeleton
Lines, with Mickey Mouse
Biceps.
II seemed best to scan
the dead past for an