The article in our June issue on the crack in the Liberty Bell (“Whose Fault Was It?”) brought an interesting comment from John Hinshaw, president of the Chatham Press, which last month published a book called Ring In the Jubilee: The Epic of America’s Liberty Bell, by Charles Michael Boland. Mr. Hinshaw observes, first of all, that the misspelling of the word “Pennsylvania” in the bell’s inscription must be charged to Isaac Norris, speaker of the Assembly of the colony, who made the same error in the original order for the bell sent to London in 1751. Furthermore, according to the new book, the bell’s famous motto from Leviticus was probably not chosen by Norris, a solid, unimaginative citizen, but by his good friend Benjamin Franklin—already in 175 la notable member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. That was the year of the fiftieth anniversary of William Penn’s Charter of Privileges, which, as Franklin observed in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette, had brought the colony a period of “vast improvement … Orpheus is said to have built a city by his music … but the sweetest of all sounds is LIBERTY; and wholesome Laws with good Government make the most enchanting HARMONY.” It was also the year in which Franklin first made his radical proposal of a union of the American colonies: “… a voluntaryUnion entered into by the Colonies themselves, I think, would be preferable to one imposed by Parliament.” When such ideas as these are compared with the quotation on the bell and its context in Leviticus, says Mr. Hinshaw, the likelihood of Franklin as selector of the inscription becomes convincing, even in the absence of hard historical evidence. “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year,” Verse 10 of Leviticus 25 reads, “and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubile unto you.…” (The added italics indicate the part of the quotation that appears on the bell.)
If Ben Franklin went to heaven, as he often said he hoped he would, he must have looked down with peculiar satisfaction upon the ultimate celebrity of the bell as a symbol of American independence and unity.
SAVING THE QUEEN
It is all too rarely that we can offer our readers truly good news about the progress of historic preservation, but some has recently come our way that we are delighted to pass on. Those who read “The Fight for the Queen” in our April, 1971, issue will recall that the majestic old stern-wheeler Delta Queen, last of the Mississippi River packets, was in danger of being forced into premature retirement largely through the opposition of one man. The man was Edward A. Garmatz, a representative from Maryland, who presided over the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. This committee had decided that under the stipulations of the 1966 Safety at Sea Act, the Queen was a deathtrap. Never mind the million-dollar improvements that made the ship as safe as any vessel afloat; her superstructure was made of wood, and she had to go. Congressman Garmatz, apparently feeling that his prestige was being challenged, quietly pigeonholed every one of the twenty-five bills to spare the Queen. Finally, through some elaborate congressional sidestepping, the Queen was given a three-year extension, which is due to expire this November.
Does this mean that the same wearing fight will have to be waged all over again? Probably not. Garmatz has left the House, and his committee is now presided over by a true friend of the Delta Queen, Missouri Democrat Leonor K. Sullivan, senior woman in the House and the first of her sex to head a House committee in the past twenty years. On March 16 she introduced a bill to give the Delta Queen a five-year reprieve. Though the salvation of the Queen is still not certain, there should be far less opposition than in 1970.
Concomitant good news is that while the Queen is sliding up and down the Mississippi during the next two years, an elegant sister riverboat will be under construction for Greene Line Steamers, the operators of the Delta Queen. The 379-foot vessel will be built of modern materials—no wood—and is designed to look like the old riverboats (see picture of model, opposite page). For a while it was thought that she would be propelled by gas-turbine jet engines; but in the end tradition prevailed, and the moving force will be a steam-powered stern paddle wheel. Accommodations and décor will be as de luxe as anything ever seen by Mark Twain, and the cost of the vessel—fifteen and a half million dollars—probably would stun him into total silence.
NINEVEH, TYRE, AND…
Those who look for parallels between the past and the present may draw some rather gloomy conclusions from this statement by Professor Gerald F. Else, director of the University of Michigan Center for Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies. It appeared in a recent issue of Humanities magazine. In answer to the question “If you were a guest lecturer addressing a Political Science class, what would you say to arouse their interest in studying the Classics?” Professor Else replied: I might say this: Once upon a time there was a young republic which had onlyminor interest or importance in international affairs, devoting herself instead to internal development. Then came a day when she played a leading role in the victorious effort to defeat an aggressor who was threatening the entire free world. In gratitude, the other members of the victorious coalition acknowledged her leadership, through various treaties, and she became by far the richest and most powerful state in the free world. In time, however, her management of her power alienated her friends, and the world was more and more divided between her orbit and that of the second greatest power, a former ally. Finally she allowed herself to be drawn into a war with that former ally, and in spite of her incomparably greater wealth, freedom, and technical know-how, she was defeated and never became a world power again, except for one brief period—the republic is, of course, Athens between 480 and 380 B.C.
