TRIBUTES TO THOMAS PAINE

Historical Association Honors His Memory at a Dinner.

Members of the Thomas Paine National Historical Association attended last night a dinner at the Hotel Martinique in honor of the 190th anniversary of Paine’s birth. Speakers included Professor Nelson Prentiss Mead, of City College; William D. Bosler, lawyer; Horace W. Corey, Vice President of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, and the Rev. Dr. A. Wakefield Slaten, pastor of the West Side Unitarian Church. All of the speakers lauded the part Paine played in shaping public opinion at the time of the American Revolution and declared that he had been misnamed an atheist.

Thomas A. Edison, who is a Vice President of the association, sent a letter which said in part:

“Many efforts have been made, both in Paine’s lifetime and since, to obliterate from the world his name and the eternal truths which he uttered, but the name and the work of a great man like Paine cannot be stamped out at will, and today Paine’s name shines brighter than ever before, and the world has grown stronger and wiser by reading and heeding his rational message.”

The President of the association, William M. Van Der Weyde, presided.

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Thomas Paine’s celebration from the Slovenian newspaper Glas Svobode (May 12, 1922)

Translated from Slovenian

Thomas Paine Honored in Philadelphia

On April 10th of this year, an American organization known as the “Brotherhood of the Union” celebrated the centennial of the birth of its founder, George Lippard. Lippard was a great writer. In his novels (Legends of the Revolution), Thomas Paine plays a major role. “The little man in the brown coat” became an inspiration to many, who subsequently sought to better understand this great and fearless freethinker.

Thomas Paine was a man of intellect. He was a fearless freethinker; he was a revolutionary. He participated in the French Revolution, which nearly brought him to the guillotine. On the door of his prison cell, a mark was made indicating that the executioners should take this prisoner to the scaffold. In the darkness, the executioners overlooked this mark and passed by. This saved his life. If Thomas Paine had been a clergyman, he would have been declared a saint long ago. His survival would have been attributed to a divine miracle, but since he was a freethinker, it was regarded as mere coincidence.

Thomas Paine was born in Norfolk, England, but he rendered such great service to America—which was then beginning to shake off British bondage—that he deserves the foremost place in the history of the American struggle for independence. Here in this country, at a time when British troops were defeating the rebel forces, he wrote the book The Crisis, in which he stated: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” These words instilled courage in the American fighters for freedom and became a battle cry.

He was a staunch advocate for human rights. When the Revolutionary Convention in France discussed what to do with the captured king and proposed his execution, Paine was the only one who said: “Let us kill the king, but not the man.” By this, he meant that Louis XVI’s royal authority and all privileges should be destroyed, but as a human being, his life should be spared. He wanted to banish tyranny forever. He was, of course, in the minority, and the king’s head fell.
When Burke wrote his reactionary work Reflections on the Revolution in France, justifying royal tyranny and portraying the revolution as a piece of bestial cruelty, Paine immediately responded with his brilliant treatise Rights of Man. People nearly fought over the book, and the British government grew seriously alarmed. They banned the book, and it is well known what the British minister Pitt said at the time: “Tom Paine is quite right, but what am I to do? If I allow such opinions to prevail, we shall have a revolution immediately.”

Thomas Paine was always popular, but when he wrote the work The Age of Reason, he drew upon himself the wrath of the entire Christian world. Only after many years did the world become tolerant enough to begin understanding his high intellect. None of the theologians could answer his arguments, which is why the churches hated him. Today, however, the time has finally arrived when even the most reasonable and courageous clergymen themselves agree with him.
At the aforementioned celebration in Philadelphia, Paine’s memory was also brilliantly honored. Dr. Leffman spoke about him, and among the listeners present were clergymen, several doctors of divinity, and even a bishop.

Dr. Leffman described Paine’s brilliant efforts and his influence during the Revolution. Despite the presence of the clergy, the speaker praised the book The Age of Reason, calling it a work that is not atheistic—as church exploiters have characterized it—but rather deistic. Like Voltaire, Paine believed in one God, but he refused to accept the ancient falsehoods in the Bible and rejected all churches that claim to be the sole path to salvation. He threw the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Mohammedan faiths into the same basket and flung them all into the mud.

We have decided to translate this magnificent work into Slovenian, so that our compatriots may also read the irrefutable arguments that Paine presents in his book. In today’s issue, we conclude Voltaire’s novels and satires, and in the next issue, the work The Age of Reason will begin its serialization. We highly recommend that all readers do not miss it. They will learn to know the truth exactly as it is.

We would also recommend that Zakrajšek’s clerical journalists read it. They are the ones who need the truth most. If they read The Age of Reason carefully, it might bring some relief to their brains, where they have lately been suffering from such severe attacks of dropsy.

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Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.), June 19, 1910

PAINE’S VINDICATION

Address at the One Hundred and First Anniversary of the Death of Thomas Paine

BY T. C. Jefferies 

Dennison, Ohio

June 1910

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Foremost among the Revolutionary patriots stands the name of Thomas Paine. His name is linked inseparably with the noble men who “brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created free and equal.”

As an American patriot, Paine stands with Jefferson and Washington in point of service to the country, and in unselfishness he stands in the unprejudiced mind higher then they, for we must remember that America was to Paine an adopted country and not his native land.

When Thomas Paine was born there came into being a man who was destined to shape the affairs of nations. His influence was to be felt everywhere, and especially in three of the future great powers. His birth was practically in obscurity, but the man was not to long remain in that obscurity.

In America he fought with sword and pen. To him belongs the credit for a continuation of the hostilities with the mother country until the war was brought to a successful termination.

In France, his grandest act, and the act most characteristic of the man, was his plea against the death of the king, and for this he nearly lost his life.

It is seldom in the history of the world that we run across a man whose field of activity is so wide and extensive as was that of Thomas Paine. His field was unlimited, either as to place of subject. Anything that had to do with the welfare of humanity interested him personally and vitally. He had no particular sphere, he was universal. He concerned himself with all that had to do with the happiness of mankind and he went cheerfully wherever that great, broad, unselfish concern led.

My subject today is the vindication of Thomas Paine. In this age it seems a shame, a thing sad and fully unnecessary to vindicate a man who, in his life, did so much, and in a way so unselfish and so generously for the human race. They say that this man was not good; that he was not a drunkard, that he was not beastly, that he was not filthy. And if it were not for the love of God that some folks feel, it is for the love of their heavenly father which some folks have, it WOULD NOT be necessary to vindicate him, either. As a rule, whisky plays a leading part in the life of all infidels, it is said. If it were not for the infatuation of some folks for their God, for their Bible, for their religion, we would not need to say, and keep on saying, that Thomas Paine was not a bad man. Paine expounded a new gospel, a gospel of reason and love, of humanity and equality, he would make the world a better place in which to live and would banish sorrow from the world. And, of course, the clergy joined with those tyrants, even the clergy joined in singing his praises then. That was before he wrote the “Age of Reason,” and he was a good man in the eyes of all. He had not yet attacked the tyrants of heaven, but had confined his efforts to the destruction of cruelty and oppression on earth. He had not yet knocked at the clergy’s support, not yet shown them up in their real light and so he was acceptable and satisfactory to them at that time.

Before he wrote the “Age of Reason,” Thomas Paine was universally acknowledged as a benefactor of mankind, excepting in the castles of kings and czars. So long as he limited his activity and gave his attention only to the destruction of tyrants on earth, Paine was a hero in the eyes of all. But the moment he carried his work to the clouds, the moment he transferred his scene of action, and levelled his attack at the throne of God, the moment he carried his work where it logically led him, and destroyed the tyrants of heaven, that moment he drew down upon himself the everlasting wrath of those pious people who tell us to love our enemies and say that it is better to give than to receive. Those of the emotional preachers recognized in Thomas Paine a man who would make the people think, and this they resented as they always do. If there is anything a devout Christian dislikes to do it is to think. He prefers to pay men to do that for him.

Paine denied the god of the Bible. Paine would have nothing to do with such a god. This cruel deity conflicted too much with his idea of a happy state was Freedom, and not Slavery; Liberty, and not Oppression. And so when in the face of death he wrote his honest thoughts about religion in general he drew down upon himself the everlasting wrath of those pious people. They immediately arrayed themselves against him. With their usual keen perception they at once proceeded to get on the wrong side, as they always do and always have, but let us hope, not as they always will. They were immediately against this man. They could not answer his arguments nor deny his logic. And so, with customary skill in such matters, they abused him, slandered him, villified him. And they have not yet ceased lying about him. And so, while it should not be necessary for Thomas Paine to be vindicated, we must brand as contemptible lies these shameful tales which have had their origin in the pulpit.

Standing at the head of those priestly lies is the charge—most important to the clergy—that Tom Paine recanted on his death bed, and expressed great regret at ever having written the “Age of Reason.” Why the long-faced worshippers find such a death comforting is because they have been taught that all of those who die infidels die in agony and terror. And thus comes the necessity for truth loving citizens to arise and deny the falsehoods wrung from the pulpit and heaps of godless, unable to answer our logic. The clergy seem to think it wholly impossible for a man to die as he has lived, guided by reason and the laws of nature. They don’t seem to think it is possible for a man to balance the accounts of this life, and close his books and bid farewell, without grasping at an extenuation or a wafer or something of that sort, some manufactured article put out by the theology factory. They don’t seem to possibly conceive, that will close his eyes, and take his departure, and bid the life and world adieu, unless his room is filled with holy candles and his pillow is wet with looking priest or preacher comes and praises god, prays to god, asks god and thanks god in the customary way. Prayer in the sick room, flickering candles and a psalm singing doctor might be very idealistic, but we have to go back to the vindication of Thomas Paine. In this he showed that a man who had lived such a life, did so much, and in a face of death he went his honest way.

That Thomas Paine did not change the opinions he held about religion during his life-time, is proven to the fair minded mind by the works of the man, if in no other way. It has been claimed that while writing the “Age of Reason”, Paine was generally drunk, but all that is necessary to refute this lie is to submit the “Age of Reason” to any fair minded man or woman in the world and will say that that work is a masterpiece of a sane and sober mind. Those accusations have been made against Paine and both have been proven false. I cannot, will not believe this man was bad, that he was an objectionable character, excepting perhaps to the theologians and tyrants, of whom he was objectionable to them.

Letters of good men and good women, to the effect that Thomas Paine did not recant, and that he did not die a drunken death, did not die disgraced. Were there no such statements and letters showing that Thomas Paine died as he had lived, a Man, I would still refuse to believe that the man who wrote the “Rights of Man,” and “Common Sense,” who cheered and inspired men at the front with “The Crisis” and who in the face of Death wrote the “Age of Reason,” died a hypocrite and a slave to vice. I would still deny that he who said, “The World is my Country, to do Good is my Religion,” died so bad and worthless, when he had lived so good and so useful.

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By HELEN M. LUCAS

Marietta, Ohio

Our annual celebration just closed has been the biggest and best in the history of the movement. Both of our town papers published the program as requested, with James’ picture. The next day the Times printed a good report under the headlines, “Paine Memorial Held. Good Program Presented at Public Meeting.” 

The Register-Leader repeated the program and said, “A fair-sized crowd was present and greatly enjoyed the interesting program.” It had a fine little editorial about it being the birthday of two of America’s noted men, Thomas Paine, the distinguished patriot, and William McKinley, soldier and statesman, late President of the United States.

I had told the editor to be sure to mention Mr. McKinley, as the people might forget him while there was no doubt about their remembering Paine. The editorial went on to say that Paine memorials of different kinds were being held all over the land.

The audience was much larger than could have been expected, and nearly half were strangers to me, which proves that it pays to have the celebrations public.

Miss Flossie Reed touched the hearts of the audience with her songs, “Far Away” and the always popular “Old Kentucky Home.” She was accompanied on the piano by Mrs. Metcher, who also accompanied Mrs. MacDonald’s song, “Thomas Paine,” which was listened to with intense interest. Her recitations were fine, as every one who has heard her will believe. When Lucinda Sings, parts of “Rock of Ages” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” which were given in full tones, keyed to exactly suit the singers’ voices. Angelina Johnson gave pleasant variety to the program by bringing in dancing.

Mr. Coil, who was chairman, has had so much to do that I had not the face to ask him for a speech. He read the last number of The Crisis. He is a good reader, and showed by appropriate emphasis his high appreciation of Paine’s writings. At the close of the printed program he volunteered an enthusiastic speech for Paine, and read some out of the first number of The Crisis. He thoroughly understands Paine’s religion, and always explains it to an audience, seeming to realize that is where Paine is misrepresented so often. All Freethinkers should be grateful to Mr. Coil for his work for Paine. It has been so very efficient partly because of personal popularity and partly because of the prestige his profession gives.

Mr. Follette, too, has earned our gratitude. Being Prosecuting Attorney and County Humane Officer, he is a very busy man and could get time to read at the conclusion of the program and, hurrying away to an official meeting in the midst of Mr. Coil’s reading. At our centennial he eulogized Paine for his humanity and the first program was a pleasure to me to know him well enough to say something in his praise at the kind of a meeting that would meet his approval so entirely.

The annual Paine day for the newsboys and messengers came on Feb. 4th, when all went to Pinafore. The opera was well done, the singing beautiful, and the dancing between the acts charmed every one. The presents are always given on Jan. 29. This year they were pictures of Paine, his name, and the date, Jan. 29, 1910, with calendars below.

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Testimony of the Camera Brought Before a Christian Evidence Society and It Could Not Be Contradicted.

By James B. Elliott, Secretary Paine Societies

From time immemorial it has ever been the aim of Christian believers to misrepresent, slander and abuse the world’s brightest and best, if the latter, by sign, word or deed, contributed aught to weaken and impair the senseless and futile superstition in which those Christians believed. No man, who was born, lived and worked and died within the last two centuries, has been more slandered and misrepresented than has Thomas Paine. The Christians slandered him living, and now that he is dead they slander his memory.

For the past one hundred years the defenders of Thomas Paine have been kept busy answering Christian aspersions upon his personal character and denying the numerous falsehoods concerning his works that have been thrown broadcast in the religious papers and magazines. There is one particular incident in point, to which attention is here invited. It is concerned with the house known as No. 59 Grove St., New York City, built and now standing upon the precise spot upon which once stood a small frame cottage in which Thomas Paine breathed his last, June 8, 1809. It was in this very house that John Wesley Jarvis, who was Paine’s personal friend and biographer, took the death mask which is now in the Historical Society of New York City, and will be given in these columns later.

This description of the house is as necessary as the accompanying illustration in order to give ocular demonstration of a genuine Christian lie which passed current as genuine truth in certain religious periodicals about a quarter of a century ago and repeated more or less since that time by preachers who would not take the trouble to investigate and did not know the facts. This lie still finds advocates among certain rural preachers and believers among their simple-minded congregations. Advertising himself as an “Infidel Annihilator,” some years ago, one Rev. Charles Clausen, D. D., of New York, and professor in some divinity school, re-echoed this miserable, outgrown fable, namely: That upon the site of the house where Tom Paine, the noted Infidel, died in New York City, where “I” preach the gospel (thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor) of Jesus Christ, there is erected a large publishing house which prints one million bibles that are circulated among the population of the world, and to counteract the pernicious influence of Tom Paine’s work on infidelity and immorality, and whose bones were stolen from their grave to make buttons for the trousers of his disciples in England, and whose grave is still unmarked on the farm where he was buried; his memory has passed into deserved oblivion.

One result of the publication of such a violent fiction was that I, in a quiet way, managed to draw Mr. Clausen into an argument before his own bible class. The expose took place before the so-called “Christian Evidence Society of Philadelphia.” Before undertaking this task, I went to New York City, and with some difficulty located the house formerly known as 59 Grove St., now Bleecker St., engaged a photographer and secured a photograph of the house now occupying the site. Mr. William van der Weyde took the photograph and made the plates, for which I am under obligation to him. The accompanying illustration, as shown here, may look like a bible publishing house to the imaginative Christian preacher, but certainly not to an unprejudiced mind.

That eventful Sunday when the expose was made, is one never to be forgotten. Mr. J. C. Hannon was also present. I had selected him as my support and Rev. Clausen selected another preacher. Clausen brought in a manuscript weighing at least five pounds in preparation to refute a lecture which had not yet been delivered. We had a crowded house. Mr. Hannon afterwards wrote: “It was pitiful to see the look on Clausen’s face when Elliott flashed out the picture which had been enlarged to 16×20, and asked him if this was the house referred to by him on a previous occasion. And as he could not deny it in the presence of the same people, he admitted his mistake publicly.”

It is fitting that in this, the centennial year of Paine, some reference be made to this subject. Future generations will thus be kept informed. Later, I will give a full account of the Paine dinner at Thetford, England, where Paine was born, presided over by the Mayor of that city. After that I will review J. W. Jarvis’ work in defense of Paine.

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NEWS FROM ACROSS THE DEEP WATERS

LONDON NEWS LETTER TELLS OF HONOR TO THOMAS PAINE IN ENGLAND

Orangemen Are Celebrating Today—Prince John Charles Francis Is Four Years Old Today.

LONDON, July 12

(Special)

During “the times that tried men’s souls,” England placed a price upon the head of that “prince of traitors,” Thomas Paine, thus esteeming the cranial appendage of the stormy petrel of the American revolution as of even greater importance than that of George Washington. Paine’s great work, “The Rights of Man” stung the British autocrats to the quick and its suppression was looked upon as a vital necessity.

While Paine is still denied his meed of honor and rightful place in history by the prejudices of that America he did so much to free, British newspapers in this centenary year of his death, are recalling with pride that Paine was of English birth. Practically all of the great papers of England, including the Times, Mail, News and Manchester Guardian, have recently published appreciations of Paine, and a movement has been set on foot to erect at his birthplace in Thetford a magnificent monument to his memory.

English newspapers have praised Paine principally as a journalist, the Manchester Guardian referring to him as the “first journalist in the fullest and best modern sense of the word”, and the first “to realize the power and value of a cheap press.”

It is also pointed out that Paine was responsible for the first newspaper “beat” when, as a Philadelphia journalist, he answered a speech by the king before it reached America and had the journal containing his answer on the streets when the king’s speech arrived.

The London Daily News says that Paine was more than a century ahead of his time, and declares that Paine’s religious views have now won such wide acceptance as to permit the election to the presidency of the United States of a man who entertains similar religious opinions.

The Daily News adds that “to Paine is due the first project of international arbitration.” and also that Paine was the first “to declare for the emancipation of the slaves, the first to champion the cause of woman, to insist upon the rights of animals, and to expose the criminal folly of dueling.”

Perhaps the most interesting matter in regard to Paine which the Daily News points out is that he formulated in the second part of “The Rights of Man,” a detailed scheme for “old-age pensions and a graduated income tax.”

These radical reforms, the suggestion of which more than a century ago caused the English government to offer a liberal price for Paine’s head, are now in full force and effect.

It is said that several thousand pounds have already been offered by wealthy admirers of Paine toward the monument at Thetford, and that the project now appears to be a certainty. There is only one small Paine monument in America, and the English memorial will be so much more imposing as to serve as proof that “republics are ungrateful.” The monument should be erected, if only to show that monarchical England can be more magnanimous to its greatest enemy than republican America to its foremost friend.”

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WESTERN TRIBUTE TO THOMAS PAINE

Synopsis of an Address Delivered at a San Francisco Celebration of the Paine Centennial

By Augustus Seymore — “The Iconoclast.”

The following tribute was delivered by Mr. Seymore before the Materialist Association of San Francisco, June the 8th, 1909

Ladies and Gentlemen:

It is difficult for me to conceive how a glow worm can add to the lustre of the noon-day sun; however, we are met here for the purpose of honoring the memory of Thomas Paine, defender of the faith of “The Rights of Man.”

In the words of the great Emancipator, let me say: “It is altogether proper and fitting that we should do this, but in a larger sense, it is rather us the living, who honor ourselves by meeting here in his name, since we can neither add nor detract from the honor, glory and fame which is his. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what Thomas Paine did.”

Like Abraham Lincoln, Tom Paine knew the bitterness of poverty. Unlike Voltaire he never did accumulate much wealth. Like Ingersoll he drank heavy and deep at wisdom’s purest source. He had more brains than books; he filled the world with light. Confined as he was behind the gloomy prison walls of St. Lazaire, he wrote his Age of Reason, without the “sacred book,” in the immediate prospect of violence and death. His name was on the list of the condemned; had Robespierre lived but three more days Tom Paine would surely have lost his head and liberty its champion.

This great and gifted man whose soul was oak, whose will was steel and flint—was barren of all fear. He did not fear to stand alone. His mighty quill was wet with ink in freedom’s holy cause, while cruel priests did stain their hands with human blood, until the holy cross became the pioneer of sword and stake, the symbol of the iron boot and molten lead.

He saw oppression and injustice like giant twins, walk hand in hand. Venality on the bench. Hypocrisy kneeling at the altar. Labor crawling in the dust. Honesty begging for a crust. Truth assassinated. Rascality wearing the purple; the strong enslaving the weak, and the few spending the profit and the substance of the many, until his soul revolted and gave the world his three great books: “Common Sense,” “Age of Reason,” and “Rights of Man,” and these three books made gods and popes and kings look sick and pale and tremble for their crumbling thrones and falling crowns.

These three great books opened the eyes of a sleepy world and form today the foundation of that mental liberty which you and I enjoy. In the days of Thomas Paine red hats walked in the open street, while men of science met under cover of darkness. To give to the world your honest opinion was fraught with danger. In the folds of his dress the priest carried a dagger. Thomas Paine knew this but unmindful of his own safety he wrote and spoke and fought with pen and ink, with brain and book, for freedoms’ brilliant star and won.

He lived to sign the Declaration of Independence. The whole declaration glitters with his genius and his thought. Take from us the word liberty and the world becomes a damp, dark, dreary, dismal prison cell, where crawl the slimy beasts of mental slavery.

Tom Paine was great; his heart was with the slave; he ate the bitter bread of sorrow as his share while giving to the world the “Rights of Man.” “He made two ears of corn grow where formerly there grew but one.” He looked on sin as stumblings of the blind, and knew that in the heart of every man there is a longing for the good and honest upright things to do.

He knew that man is but a plant, a part of nature; self a feeble fragile, pliant plant, limited in power, harassed by passion’s storm; that life, at best, is but a narrow, winding path midst sin and sorrow, tears and thorns—a mere flash of light upon a dark and clouded midnight sky.

Acquainted with lifes bitterness, its fears and faiths its joy and folly, this great and loving man—now dust these hundred years today wearied with the toil and strife of a long and useful life, using his burdens and his grief for a pillow laid down by lifes wayside for a brief and needed rest—but fell into the everlasting sleep.

Thus passed this soul from this seat of iniquity and sin to the great unknown, hissed by the unclean birds of Christendom. His name is a jewel fit for any nation’s crown, torch and starlight of his age. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget the name of one who placed upon a nation’s brow these stars of hope: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, greater words than ever issued from Jehovah’s shrivelled lips.

I hope the name of Thomas Paine will ever live within the hearts and memory of every thankful citizen.

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TRIBUTES TO THOMAS PAINE

NOT SPOKEN OF AS AN INFIDEL 100 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH

Trustees of a $1,500 Marble Bust of Him Not Accepted by Independence Hall in 1905 Present at New Rochelle.

NEW ROCHELLE, June 5

Thomas Paine was not spoken of as an infidel at the celebration here to-day of the centenary of his death, which occurred in New York on June 8, 1809. The speakers, who included two clergymen, spoke of him as the pioneer of democracy.

“We speak glibly of democracy,” said Dr. David Saville Muzzey, a leader in the Ethical Culture movement, “but we do not realize that Thomas Paine was the pathfinder of our present condition. He was a devotee of liberty and he saw the sevenfold struggle between the rulers and their subjects. To-day we look to our Executive, to our popular juries, to our legislative bodies to make us see that one-man power cannot rule. It was the principle of international brotherhood that Thomas Paine advocated, and only to-day is the world beginning to overcome the prejudice of caste and recognize its appreciation of Thomas Paine.”

Elbert Hubbard of East Aurora also spoke.

Among the 500 or 600 persons present were James B. Elliott of Philadelphia, secretary of the Thomas Paine International Association, and three trustees of the $1,500 marble bust of Thomas Paine which was refused by the authorities of Independence Hall, Philadelphia, in 1905. They were Dr. Henry Leffmann, William H. Harvey, and Professor J. J. Macfarlane.

The celebration was held under the auspices of the Thomas Paine Historical Association, of which Moncure D. Conway was the first president.

The actual anniversary of the death of Paine is next Tuesday, and it will be celebrated in various parts of the country.

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Centenary of Thomas Paine

Illustrious Political Agitator Whose Admirers Will Soon Meet at His Tomb In New Rochelle to Celebrate the One Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth.

The Apostle of Liberty In Three Lands Who Originated Many Humanitarian Movements — Deemed “True Author of the Declaration of Independence.”

BY JAMES A. EDGERTON

This is centenary year. It is the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Lincoln, Darwin, Gladstone, Tennyson, Poe, Holmes, Chopin, Fitzgerald and many more almost as illustrious; it likewise measures the completed century following one notable death, that of Thomas Paine, who breathed his last in the city of New York on June 8, 1809. On Saturday afternoon, June 5, many societies and individuals from New York and other cities will journey to the Paine monument at New Rochelle, N. Y., to celebrate the event. There will also be services by the Brooklyn Philosophical association and many other bodies both in the United States and in Europe.

The misunderstanding of Paine is rapidly passing away. It is now recognized that his religious views were no more radical than those of modern Unitarianism and that his unquestioned services for political and intellectual liberty, his conspicuous works for human rights in three lands, and especially in the United States, the country of his adoption, deserve generous recognition. The changed attitude toward him has been shown in many ways, notably by the acceptance of his statue in Independence hall and generally by the more kindly treatment of him throughout the world. The case of New Rochelle is typical. That city has not only accepted his monument, placing it in the center of the old road that led up to his house, which it calls Paine avenue, but the Huguenot Association of New Rochelle has moved his house to its park near his grave and will convert it into a museum of historical relics.

Forecasted Modern Reforms

Thomas Paine first suggested American independence; by his writings and otherwise he powerfully aided the Revolution.

He first suggested the federal union of the states.

He first proposed the abolition of negro slavery.

He first suggested protection for dumb animals.

He first proposed arbitration and international peace.

He first suggested equal rights for women.

He pointed out the reality of human brotherhood.

He first proposed old age pensions.

He first suggested international copyright.

He first suggested the education of poor children at public expense.

He suggested a great republic of all the nations of the world.

In addition to these, several of his notable achievements occur to my mind.

He wrote for liberty in three lands and never took a cent for any of his writings, putting them out for the most part anonymously. All are agreed that the “Common Sense” converted the colonies to independence. When he was secretary of the Pennsylvania assembly and there was no money to buy food for Washington’s army, Paine started a subscription list by heading it with his whole year’s salary, raising a million and a half and starting a bank. Yet he was a poor man. At another crisis he planned a trip to France to procure a loan, accompanied Colonel Laurens, who was sent on the mission, and brought back the money.

In the French Revolution

When the king fled from Paris at the beginning of the French Revolution, Paine with others issued a circular, placarded Paris and aroused the French capital as he had before aroused America.

His “Rights of Man” had a phenomenal sale throughout England, and the younger Pitt said that if it had not been suppressed it would have resulted in a revolution there. The peaceful reforms that came later to England were from the seeds then sown. With Condorcet he wrote the first French constitution.

Perhaps the most sublime act of his life was in opposing the sending of King Louis to the scaffold. “Kill the monarchy, but spare the man,” was his cry. Yet he knew that by this act he would endanger his own life. As a matter of fact, Paine was thrown into prison for eleven months and escaped the guillotine only through a chalk mark on the wrong side of his door. For this arch democrat to risk his own life to save that of a friendless and dethroned king strikes me as the finest piece of heroism seen in modern times.

These are but the beginning of Thomas Paine’s services to humanity. Throughout most of the adult period of his seventy-two years of life he was working for the advancement of man in some quarter of the world.

Perhaps the greatest service of all, the credit of which he unselfishly gave to another, was in writing the Declaration of Independence. After careful study of the subject I have absolutely no doubt that Paine was the actual author of this document.

Several years ago, writing under a nom de plume, I gave my reasons for believing this. For the most part they were arguments that had already been advanced by William Henry Burr and Van Buren Denslow, and there is not space to give them in detail here. One was that a paper in Newark, N. J., in 1802 practically said that Tom wrote the Declaration. Jefferson never claimed to be the author until just before his death, years after Paine was dead.

The style is unquestionably that of Paine, the sentiments—meaning of writing views on slavery, on taxation, on deity, on government, on liberty, on the Scotch and on many other subjects being those of Paine rather than Jefferson. There are several stock phrases of Paine’s in the Declaration. In addition to all these marks, there is one that I discovered myself, the use of the word hath in the Declaration. Jefferson never used that word in his life. Paine used it.

He wrote spirited numbers of The Crisis that are read at the heads of the regiments and have been described as worth an army.

Since writing that article I have read a convincing post-sentiment of Paine’s authorship in a book issued anonymously but which I have recently learned was written by Joel Moody of Kansas. I had few doubts on the subject before. After reading that book I have none at all. I have space to refer to but one of Moody’s telling points. It consists in proving both Paine’s and Jefferson’s ideas of a proper pronounciation—ideas that the Declaration was unique in style, in thought, in argument and in every possible way. Jefferson’s statement is utterly different from the Declaration of Independence. On the other hand Paine six months before the Declaration was adopted said that such a document should be given out. Not only so, but he set forth the four grand divisions that should be included in the instrument and gave them in the exact order afterward found in the Declaration itself.

The tradition of the authorship of this charter of American liberty follows: Paine’s “Common Sense” appeared about six months before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. During this time it is known that he worked incessantly for independence. He was so ardent that he drafted a tentative paper that might be used by the congress as a reason for the step. Of this his friend Jefferson knew and used it as the basis of the Declaration when he came to draw it up. Not being a member of congress, Paine never claimed the authorship.

Expert Opinions on Authorship

That Paine assisted Jefferson in writing the Declaration or actually penned a tentative draft for him is now accepted by most students. The New York Herald in a recent half page review of a new twelve volume edition of Paine’s works and life says:

“Then when Paine was editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine he wrote a paper called ‘A Serious Thought’ which was the Declaration of Independence in embryo. Indeed, Paine is said to have assisted Jefferson in drawing up the first draft of the Declaration itself. It has been epigrammatically said of him that even if he did not write it he was its author.”

Albert Payson Terhune in the New York World, using as a basis an article written by myself, gives a review of the argument that is strongly in favor of Paine. He does not absolutely commit himself, but says: “Though the evidence may or may not be conclusive, it is at least interesting and has found many supporters.”

William Cobbett, the famous English member of parliament and reformer, puts the case thus:

“Jefferson and some others have had the credit of being the authors of the Declaration of Independence of America. Either of them may have written it, but Paine was the author of it.”

Thaddeus Burr Wakeman, who is perhaps the most thorough student of Paine now living, states:

“The claim of some that Paine made a first draft of a declaration for the of Union and part of the balance for the use of Jefferson is not improbable, for he was certainly an active and inspiring man in Philadelphia during these fateful six months.”

For a World Republic

Mr. Wakeman, who regards Paine’s ideas as still very factors in the progress of democracy and of liberalism throughout the world, gives the five great objects of Paine’s life as follows: (1) American independence, (2) the modern democratic republic, (3) the American federal union and “nations of humanity” (4) the religion of humanity (5) the republic of man and of the world.

In an adequate consideration of the work of Thomas Paine several further facts should be considered.

He was introduced to the United States by a letter from Benjamin Franklin.

Thomas Jefferson was admittedly a disciple of Paine and sent a war vessel to France to bring him back to America.

Washington avowed, in effect, that Paine had converted him to the cause of independence.

Paine’s services were considered so valuable to the United States that he was voted large sums of money and two farms.

Among the other reforms he favored was the abolition of dueling.

He was so popular in France that, although a foreigner, he was simultaneously elected to several different constituencies to represent them in the national convention.

He advised with Napoleon about the invasion of England and had the invasion been made was to have written a new constitution for England.

He was born a Quaker and was in reality a most religious man. The “Age of Reason,” which raised the theological storm against him, was written to combat French atheism and at a time when Paine momentarily expected death from the guillotine.

Thomas Paine has been frequently called the greatest political writer that ever lived. Some of his sentences have passed into the common speech of the world—for example, “These are the times that try men’s souls,” and “The world is my country, to do good is my religion.”

It is known that Abraham Lincoln was an admirer of Paine and read him with avidity in his early years. Lincoln’s ideas of democracy and their views of religion were not dissimilar, as would be universally acknowledged if the popular misacceptations of Paine’s notions were swept aside.

It requires a century or more for the world to come to just estimate of its benefactors, but at last the scale is balanced, as it now is being balanced for Thomas Paine, the true author of the Declaration of Independence and the apostle of liberty in three lands.

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THOMAS PAINE
CENTENNIAL MEMORIAL MEETINGS
OFFICIAL PROGRAM

The official announcement of the program for the Paine Centennial is now made through the medium of a printed circular, a copy of which is being sent to all friends of Paine, as far as these are known.

From it we now learn that two meetings will be held. Both are under the joint auspices of the Thomas Paine Historical Association, Paine Memorial Association, Brooklyn Philosophical Association, Society for Ethical Culture, and the Hugenot Association of New Rochelle. The first of these meetings will be held in the rooms of the Long Island Business College, Eighth Street, near Bedford Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y., Sunday afternoon, May 30th. The following speakers are announced for this meeting: Rev. Robert J. Lockhart, of the Presbyterian Church, Nichols, N. Y.; Rev. Henry Frank, of New York City; and Mr. Henry Rowley, of Brooklyn.

The next and greatest meeting will be held at New Rochelle, N. Y., on the afternoon of Saturday, June 5th. The services will be held on North Street and Paine Avenue, located between the Paine Monument and the old Paine House. The exercises will commence at 2 p. m. Following is the program:

“Thomas Paine as the Devotee of Liberty”—Rev. Thos. R. Slicer (Pastor All Souls’ Unitarian Church, N. Y.).

“Paine as a Prophet of Democracy”—David Saville Muzzey. (Society for Ethical Culture.)

“Paine the Pioneer of International Peace”—Prof. Thaddeus Burr Wakeman, (Pres. Thomas Paine Historical Society).

Special Round Trip Railroad Rate of Fifty Cents from New York City. Tickets to be had of Dr. E. B. Foote, Treasurer, 120 Lexington Avenue; W. M. Van Der Weyde, Secretary, 241 Fifth Avenue; W. A. Winham, Asst. Sec., 296 Hewes St., Brooklyn, N. Y., or at the Grand Central Station before 1 o’clock, at the entrance on Lexington Avenue, facing 44th Street.

Train leaves on New York & New Haven R. R., at 1.08. Trolley at New Rochelle runs up North St. from Depot to monument. Distance, one and one-half miles of good, level walk.

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Blue-grass blade (Lexington, Ky.), April 4, 1909

THE PAINE CENTENNIAL

But little more than two months now intervene before the date set for the Centennial celebration of the great patriot whose feet trod American soil, to take place at New Rochelle.

What are the Freethinkers of America doing, they who have profited mentally by his labors, to make this event the success it must be?

In another column is a letter from Secretary Elliott, stating what has taken place in foreign lands to commemorate the name of Paine and, as he suggests, America of all nations on earth cannot afford to be laggard in this respect. The Christian world will ignore the event; it may strive to detract from it. The promoters need not look in that direction for support, but the Freethinkers, ever the vanguard of liberty’s great army, they who keep up the fight Paine fought in his day, must not neglect this opportunity.

During the past few weeks the daily newspapers of the country have printed columns of news about Paine, his great services to the nation, to humanity and to all posterity. This is, in itself, encouraging in the extreme. It is an indication that, in spite of bigoted historians, the name of Thomas Paine is growing into greater reverence and will, ere long, be accorded its rightful place in American history.

The Huguenot Association of New Rochelle, descendants of the famous French organization, have arranged to purchase the old home of Thomas Paine, and the homestead is to be converted into a sort of revolutionary museum for the benefit of visitors, in which some of the Paine relics are to prominently figure. This Huguenot Association is a newly formed body, and its unaided financial resources are inadequate to the demands made upon it by the purchase of this property and its proper equipment, and as this project is of such national importance, they desire to enlist the support of every patriotic citizen in the work it has undertaken.

Next to the Centennial itself, which has been arranged by the Paine Memorial and Historical Association, is the saving of the Paine home, but it is of the Centennial we would now direct immediate attention.

Thaddeus B. Wakeman is president; James B. Elliott, of Philadelphia, is secretary; and Dr. E. B. Foote, of New York City, is treasurer of the combined Paine Societies. It is to their efforts that the Centennial must look for its success, but it is to the financial help of the Freethinkers of America that these gentlemen must look for the means of making it a success.

It is needless to say that plans are now being carefully laid for a splendid program of music, songs and speeches, the detail of which will be announced later. The problem of carrying out that program is to be solved only by the united help of all friends and admirers of Paine.

The Blade’s Editor may not be able to attend the Centennial, although it is his earnest desire to do so. To the end that help may be given, the columns of this paper are open to the friends and managers of the movement for the purpose of communication with those who can and are willing to aid. If you cannot attend, you can help to some extent by making a donation to the movement and striving to make this demonstration a new challenge to the orthodox institutions of the land.

Notes

We are in receipt of the initial number of The Common Sense Bible Teacher, and it is all that its name implies. It is published in an acceptable magazine form, and its plan is to conduct a sort of class among its readers for an interpretation of the entire Bible text in the light of evolution. It means, in the end, a new translation of both the old and new testaments under the guidance of evolutionary truth, and is destined to accomplish a work of great usefulness in destroying myth and superstition. It is edited by C. L. Abbott, of St. Paul, Minn., and ought to receive a wide circulation. It is a quarterly publication. Single copies sell at 25 cents. Annual subscription, $1.00. Write for sample copy free.

Among the pamphlets that recently have come to our desk is one by Eleanor Kirk, of 59 West 89th Street, New York, entitled Black and Blue and Other Happy Studies. It has 32 pages and while made up of reminiscence it contains enough of modern philosophy to pay one for having read it.

Wait not until a man is driven to crime by the iron law of necessity, a woman to dishonor, but put forth a hand now in time to avert the sin and shame.

One new subscriber from each present subscriber would mean that our present circulation would just double itself.

Send a contribution to Dr. E. B. Foote, 120 Lexington Avenue, New York City, to aid in preparing for the Paine Centennial.

Any of our friends desiring Dr. Wilson’s A Trip to Rome, or Dogfennel in the Orient, by our late editor, C. C. Moore, we have copies on hand which we will sell now at one dollar each and prepay all postal charges thereon. Order a copy now.

Gone are all the gods from High Olympus. These appeal no more to the wondering minds of men. Gods are but crude conceits of the world’s infancy, the coat of many colors with which it clothed its ignorance.

The post The Paine Centennial Two Months From Today appeared first on Thomas Paine Historical Association.

LIBERALS CELEBRATE BIRTHDAY OF PAINE

Edward Adams Cantrell Gives Eloquent Oration, Replete with Details as to Life of Emancipator.

The Los Angeles Liberal club last night celebrated the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Paine, Edward Adams Cantrell being the speaker of the evening. Mammoth hall, where the meeting was held, was crowded, many being compelled to stand, and large numbers being unable to obtain admission by any means.

Mr. Cantrell introduced his subject with a quotation from Victor Hugo to the effect that as one life goes out another enters, and said that the tragedy of progress arises from the fact that the life of yesterday is arrayed against the life of today; that the night is ever in conflict with the day and that the limitations of one age, seeking to perpetuate themselves, attempt to prevent all growth. As in 1809 Paine had gone forth so other great souls had followed—Lincoln, Darwin and a countless host.

Paine was a great emancipator, and so was Darwin, who was the emancipator of the human mind, and Lincoln, the emancipator of the human race.

The speaker went into much detail as to the life of Paine, showing that he had been a volunteer under Washington, secretary of foreign affairs, clerk of the legislature of Pennsylvania and originator of a private subscription fund of $1,500,000 to feed and clothe the army. He was also the American agent who obtained from the French nation in the hour of its direst need a present of 6000 livres and a loan of $10,000,000. He was a member of the American Philosophical society, a master of arts of the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the French national convention. Furthermore, he was the man of whom Napoleon said:

“A statue of gold ought to be erected to him in every city of the universe.”

With this was contrasted the derogatory and well known description given by Theodore Roosevelt.

David Swing was quoted as saying:

“Judging by his writings Paine was one of the grandest and best men that ever trod this planet,”

to which was added the statement of Moncure D. Conway, who constituted himself specially Paine’s biographer, that

“all efforts to stain the good name of Thomas Paine have recoiled on those who made them, like poisoned arrows shot against the wind. In his life, in his justice, in his truth, in his adherence to high principles, in his disinterestedness I look in vain for a parallel in these times.”

Special reference was made to the Torrey revivals held recently in the city as showing the necessity for keeping ever green the name and principles that Paine had taught.

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