Milford chronicle., 1958-08-29
OUR LIBERTY BELL : 2O6 YEARS OLD

The famous Liberty Bell, symbol of our
freedom, will be 206 years old this month.
There were actually four liberty bells cast,
two in England and two in Philadelphia.
The original purpose of purchasing liberty
bell was to celebrate the 18th anniversary of
William Penn's granting a charter to the
Quaker City.
Isaac Norris, speaker of the Pennsylvania
Colonial Assembly, ordered the first liberty
bell from Lester and Peck of London. His
Instructions to the bell makers were that the
following words shaped iii large letters round
it, should be put on the bell: "By order of
the Assembly of the Province of <Pennsyl-
vania, for the State House III the City Of
Philadelphia, 1852"
Below was to be: proclaim Liberty
throughout all the Land unto ali the Inhabi-
tants thereof. Lev. XXI TO-"
The bell was delivered in August of 1852
and the local committee was completely sat-
isfed except for one thing: when it was set
up in the ward to try out its tone and carry
ing quality, "it was cracked by stroke of
the clapper without any other violence.
Charles Stow and John Pass of Philadel-
phia were commissioned to recast the bell
They believed that the old bell was too brittle
so they added more copper to the mixture,
with a resulting tone that did not please the
colonial fathers Stow and Pass cast third
bell, which turned out to be our famous lib
erty bell, for which they were paid about
1908.
The bell weighed a little over 1000
pounds, and measured twelve feet in circurn-
ference around the lip of the bell. This is
the bell that pealed forth with our rallying
notes of freedom on July s, 1776. This is
the bell that was hidden in the straw in a
wagon and taken from Philadelphia until the
British had evacuated.
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IF MERCHANT SHIPPING STOPPED
AS you read this, merchant ships flying
the American flag are entering or leaving our
ports with loaded holds. You may never have
seen one of these vessels. But suppose that,
all of a sudden, merchant shipping stopped.
What would be the effect on you and all other
Americans?
1t would be a drastic effect. Our living
standards would drop. All of the tin that
goes into ordinary tin cans comes from a.
broad. So do all of our cork, coffee, cocoa,
tea, bananas and many other foods and
spices. SO do 80 per cent of our olive oil and
35 per cent of our fish. So do varying per-
centages of all manner of articles in general
USE. ~saA
And the list is certainly not limited to
consumer goods. We must import a long list
of raw materials, because we have none with
in our own borders or because our own supply
is insufficient. These materials are needed
by major industries-steel, machinery and
others. Many of them are essential to mill
tary production as well.
Finally, we sell all manner of foods and
goods abroad-and the money thus obtained
flows into the pockets of farm and factory
people everywhere.
Vice President Nixon recently pointed out
that 4,50O,O0O Americans owe their jobs to
foreign trade The significance of it can be
gained from the fact that when, during this
years recession, unemployment reached the
S million point it was considered a very grave
national problem.
Those u. S.-hag merchant ships are a
buwark of American strength and prosper
ity.
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