Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 151, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 June 1913 — LIBERTY BELL IN DANGERs [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LIBERTY BELL IN DANGERs

tINCE negotiations have already been opened by the management of the Panama exposition and commonwealth of California with the city of Philadelphia to obtain the Liberty Bell as one of the exhibits for that occasion, and since it seems that the crack in the bell is extending, a definite settlement of the question as to whether the relic should be permitted to travel any more appears to be about due, and jußt now, when the anniversary of the nation’s independence is upon us, is a reasonable time for discussion of the matter. Wilfred Jordan, curator of the Independence Hall Museum, measured the second crack before the bell’s last journey and then measured It again after its return. He found that it had increased' in length to a slight degree. No one knows Just when this second crack occurred, and opinions difTer; but compared to the old crack it is of recent origin and is distinctly visible. Mr. Jordan, however, was the first to call attention to a long and almost invisible extension of the second crack and finds that it now reaches one-third way around the bell, from the end of the old original fracture, which was chiseled out in 1846 in an attempt to make the bell sound properly. Putting an end to the bell’s pilgrimages would in no Sense at all be due to a disinclination of the people or councils of Philadelphia to allow the west to view and possess the sacred relic even for a short time. Indeed Philadelphia would be only too glad to send it, for since the bell has already helped by Rb travels to lessen the sectional feelingß between the north and south, so it would help unite the citizens of our republic who live on the Atlantic seaboard with those who live on the Pacific. Little do either sections realize how Intimately the bell is connected with the consummation of our nation, early political Ideals and with the fondest of its impulses in Colonial days. This old broDze relic not only helped to proclaim Independence, but for years before 1776 rang loud to celebrate the hopes of the people and rang low to Intone their woes! Upon its sides is this inscription: "And proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.” —Lev. 26, 10. A strange Providence Indeed wrote that Inscription on its crown many years before its throbbing Clangors and melodious eloquence had aught at all to do with liberty! Announcing proclamations of war and treaties of peace; welcoming the arrival and bidding Godspeed to departing notables; proclaiming some accession of the English royal family to the throne and the secession therefrom of the American colonies! Its more customary use, however, was to call the members of the assembly of Pennsylvania together at the morning and afternoon sessiohe and to announce the opening of the courts.

Despite the fact that the Liberty Bell is one of the most treasured of national relics, it is not ortginally an American product, but a foreign importation; and imported frorh England, too, where it was first cast according to the order given in October, 1751, by the superintendents of the state house of the Province of Pennsylvania —now Independence Hall. Thomas Lester of White Chapel, London, cast the bell, and by August, 1752, It arrived in Philadelphia and was erected on trusses in the state house yard. While being tolled and early in September of the same year It was cracked by the clapper, though by no unusually powerful stroke. Concerning this accident, Isaac Morris wrote, March 10, 1753: “Though the news of our new bell cracking is not very agreeable to us, we concluded to send it back by Captain Budden. who had brought it from London last August, but he could not take it“ on board, upon which two ingenious workmen undertook to cast it here, and I am just now informed they have this day opened the mould and have got a good bell, which, I confess, pleases me very much, that we should first venture upon and succeed in the greatest bell cast, for aught I know, in English America. The mould was finished in a very masterly manner, and the letters, I am told, are better than (on) the old ope. When we broke up the metal our judges here generally agreed it was too high and brittle, and cast several little bells out of it to try the sound and strength, and fixed upon a mixture of an ounce and a half of copper to the pound of the old bell, and in this proportion we now have it.” Herman Pass, from the Island of Malta, and Jacob Stow, a son of Charles Stow, the doorkeeper of the assembly, were the two ingenious workmen referred to in the above letter. After the second casting of the bell it was again hung and tested in the spring of 1753. More defectß were soon found, however. The American casters. Pass and Stow, who were not bell founders by trade at all, had put too much copper in the .metal so that its sound was impaired. Disappointed with that failure and also nettled at the gibes of their townsmen concerning it, they asked permission to cast the bell a second time. Thomas Lester, the original maker of it, also offered his services, but the authorities decided to allow Pass and Stow to proceed again, and thus the third and present casting was made, and again the bell was raised; this time in the state house steeple Itself. That operation was completed by the end of August of 1763, when the American casters were paid £6O 13s. 6d. for their labors. Then began its chimes, August 27, 1763, when it called the assembly together, ringing out the old, ringing in the new; sounding its melodies for innumerable pnblic and private events during more than four-score of years. The first individual for whom it rang was Pranklln; sent “home to England” to ask redress for the grievances of the colonies in February, 1767.

The bell echoed the hopes of the people’s hearts and its melodious “Bon Voyage” sounded over the Delaware as he sailed away. When the planing and splitting mills were closed and the manufacture of iron and steel products was prohibited by acts of parliament in Pennsylvania and the king’s arrow was affixed upon pine trees and the trade of the colonies in all parts of the world restrained, the bell was again tolled to assemble the people in the state house yard to protest against such outrages. Thus did the bell, long before the Revolution, become the beloved symbol of truth and freedom, reinforcing with pugnacious and violent peals, the cry of determined citizens, in the largest political meeting held up to that time in the state house yard, that none of the ship “Polly’s detestable tea,” that had just been brought into the port, should be funneled down their throats with parliament duty mixed with it.” When the port of Boston was closed in May, 1774, and the heart of the country was growing heavier with its affliction, the bell was once more carefully muffled and tolled in a solemn and prophetic manner, both to announce the clqsing of the port and, a little later, to call a meeting to relieve suffering in Bostop on account of the restriction of its trade. As the conflict with England approached the bell was rung more and more; its use became a matter of course, and then, on April 25, 1775, Just after the reports came to Philadelphia of the Battle of Lexington, it rang wildly to assemble 8,000 people in the state house yard and to ..Inspire their souls to a resolution pledging their all to the cause of liberty. It rang also to assemble the Continental congress to its dally sessions, both at Carpenter’s hall and Independence hall, and, finally, its crowning achievement, the one wild, defiant and joyful ringing that, more than all the previous reverberations it made, gave it the sacred name of "The Liberty Bell,” occurred on July 8 (and not the 4th, as is generally believed), after the Declaration of Independence had been adopted. This greatest of its jubilees called the citizens together in the yard to hear read in the stentorian tones of John Nixon the first public proclamation of the Declaration, and never did the old wooden rafters of the state bouse steeple rock and' tremble with more sympathetic vibration than at this time. Whan returned to the old state house steeple again one of Its first uses was to ring upon the announcement of the surrender of Lord Qornwal11s, In October, 1781, and In the following month to toll in welcoming Washington to the city. A year and a half later It helped to proclaim the treaty of peace with Great Britain, and In December, 1799, it was muffled for the first time in many years, though not to mourn for lost liberty or over tyrannical deeds, but to lend Its almost hushed music to the funeral solemnities of Washington himself. •