Thursday, June 3, 1937
THE HERMISTON HERALD, HERMISTON, OREGON
U N CO M M O N
A M E R IC A N S
THE SUNNY SIDE OF LIFE
• ----------- • ------------•
Clean Comics That Will Amuse Both Old and Young
I
By Elmo
j Scott Watson
e w«(t«rn
Union
THE FEÄTHERHEADS
E a r lie s t R e b e l
..Ü
FRONT of the statehouse in
1 Boston stands the statue of a
woman, with a Bible in her hand and
a child snuggled against her. The in
scription on the monument tells you
that this woman was a “Courageous
Exponent of Civil Liberty and Reli
gious Tolerance.” But 300 years ago
Massachusetts wasn't calling her by
any such complimentary names. In
the year 1637 she was “that proud
dame, that Athaliah," a “ notorious
Imposter,” a “ dayngerous Instru
ment of the Devell raysed up by
Sathan” and a “ Breeder of Her
esies.” For she was Anne Hutchin
son, the earliest rebel ir this coun
try.
She became a leader of a group
of people who fell under the dis
pleasure of the stern Puritans of
Massachusetts Bay colony. Because
these people held meetings in her
house to discuss and criticize the
sermons of the Puritan ministers,
they finally placed her on trial for
heresy, a trial that has teen com
pared to that of Joan of Arc at
Rouen.
Under their questioning, she
proved herself more than a match
fer her prosecutors. But just at th e !
moment when it seemed that she
had defeated her accusers, she burst
forth into a long speech describing
God’s revelations to her. Thus she
convicted herself and her penalty
was banishment from the colony.
But Anne Hutchinson was more
than the first defender of religious
freedom in America. She was our
earliest feminist. The meetings held
in her house, although primarily
for religious discussion, were the
forerunners of thousands of meet
ings since her day, wherever women
gather together to improve them
selves or the rest of the world. So
her house became the “ birthplace
of the women’s clubs of America”
IN
After her banishment from Mas
sachusetts Bay colony she went to
that haven of religious freedom, the
colony of Rhode Island, founded by
Roger Williams. There she lived un
til 1642 when, left a widow, she
took her brood of children (she
had borne 14) to the Dutch colony
of New York where later she and
all of her children were killed.
But she had not lived in vain for
“ civil liberty and religious tolera
tion, the principles for which she
suffered exile and death are written
into the Constitution of the United
States.”
The
E
WAS
N a t io n ’s J e s te r
baptized
as
Charles
F arrar Browne but the whole
H nation
once loved him and laughed
with him under the name of Arte
mus Ward. Born in Maine in 1834,
Browne served an apprenticeship in
a print shop and then became a
journeyman printer. Finally he
wandered to Cleveland, Ohio, where
he became a local reporter for the
Cleveland Plain Dealer and invented
the character of “ Artemus Ward,”
supposed to be a traveling show
man, writing to the paper to give
information and to ask for it. Read
ers of that paper roared over “ Art- :
emus Ward’s” bad spelling and
humorous descriptions of his ad
ventures and it was not long until
Browne got a call from New York
to become editor of Vanity Fair,
a comic paper.
But this editorship did not last
long for the wandering foot of the
former journeyman printer soon be
gan to assert itself. He published
“ Artemus Ward, His Book” which
had a phenomenal sale. Then he
took to the lecture platform and
“ Artemus Ward,” until now a ficti
tious character, became a living
reality to thousands of Americans.
One of Ward’s devoted readers
was President Lincoln and his book
played a role in an historic scene
at the White House during the Civil
war. In September, 1862, Lincoln
called a meeting of his cabinet 0 1
members whom he astonished by
reading excerpts from Ward’s book.
When they failed to join in his
laughter, Lincoln threw down the
book and said“ Gentlemen, why don’t
you laugh? With the fearful strain |
that is upon me night and day, if
I didn’t laugh, I should die and you
need the medicine as much as I do.” i
He then told them the real pur
pose of the meeting which was to
read to them a paper he had pre
pared and which he proposed to
issue when the time was ripe That |
paper was the Emancipation Proc
lamation. When he had finished
reading P, Secretary Stanton ex
claimed “ M r President, if reading
chapters of Artemus Ward is a pre
lude to such a deed as this, the book
should be filed among the archives
of the nation, and the author can
onized.”
The author was never canonized
but before he died in 1867, Artemus
Ward had not only become Ameri
ca's favorite jester but he had won
fame as a humorist in England such
as no ether American before him
bad e ver know n.
The Curse of Progress
R a r e F o r e s ig h t
]D
Bridget had just started on her
duties as housemaid, and on the
very first day she came up to her
new employer.
"Please, mum,” she raid, "would
yez moind givin’ me a recommen
dation?”
“ A recommendation, Bridget!”
exclaimed the mistress, with a look
of alarm. “ W’hy, you have only just
cornel”
"Yes, mum,” admitted Bridget,
“but you might not be wantin’ to
give me one when Oi’m lavin’,
mum.”—Buffalo Courier-Express.
What a Menu
The little girl was tired of waiting
for the store clerk to pay some at
tention to her so she resorted to
strategy. "Hey, she called. “ My
father is borne waiting for his break
fast.”
The clerk succumbed. "What can
I do for you?”
“ I want a bar of soap, a bottle of
ammonia, and a can of lye.”—Bos-
J
ton G lo b e .
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