1304 
November 5, 1921 
'The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
You promised to tell hoic the Pilyrims 
of Plymouth treated what you call the 
“lciclcers ” and “soreheads.” 
I did, but we were switched away from 
the story. The last historical scene at the 
pageant at Plymouth pictured the trial of 
John Lyford and John Oldham. These 
men conspired to break up the colony. 
Lyford was sent over from England as a 
minister. His record, as developed later, 
shows him as a vulgar, disreputable crea¬ 
ture—a true sanctimonious hypocrite. 
Somehow, he wore his cloak of respecta¬ 
bility so well and with such a fine air 
that he deceived the people until they 
found him out. I think much of the dis¬ 
credit and abuse which has been pasted 
on the memory of the Pilgrims was due 
to the behavior of a few mean characters 
like Lyford and Oldham, who are held up 
as fair samples of the entire company. 
That is a common trick of the prejudiced 
or malignant historian, or of those who 
write about any class of people. John 
Oldham, had he lived in this age, would 
have been called a demagogue, or labor 
agitator. Such men appeal to passion and 
prejudice—never to reason and patriot¬ 
ism. 
* »lc * # # 
In every community, large or small, 
there will always be found a class of dis¬ 
contented people. I could give a lengthy 
list of names given to those groups in his¬ 
tory, but the modern wo.rd “kicker” fits 
them well. John Oldham seems to have 
been a natural “kicker.” John Lyford 
was apparently what we call a “sorehead” 
—that is, one who feels that the public 
has not given him the power and recogni¬ 
tion he deserves. These two men got to¬ 
gether for the deliberate purpose of split¬ 
ting the Plymouth colony. They worked 
in two ways. Oldham tried to “organize” 
the lazy and lawless element in the col¬ 
ony. He worked in what you may call 
industrial lines. The colony was heavily 
- in debt to so-called “adventurers” in Eng¬ 
land. In order to insure this payment a 
small group of half a dozen or more of 
the leading men had made themselves per¬ 
sonally responsible for it, and the mem¬ 
bers of the colony had agreed by law 
to pay a share of all their earnings to 
this group so as to insure payment of the 
general debt. This arrangement gave 
Oldham his chance to make trouble. He 
seems to have told the lazy and ignorant 
element that these men who took all the 
responsibility were stealing part of the 
funds, getting rich at the expense of the 
colony. John Lyford worked in another 
way. He wrote secret letters to the cred¬ 
itors in England, telling them things were 
going wrong and that they were likely to 
lose their money. Thus we see that the 
methods of the “kicker” and the “sore¬ 
head” have not changed much in the past 
300 years. In this little colony of a few 
hundred souls they bad, in 1024, the same 
germ of industrial discontent that is'to be 
found today. Both sides in this old con¬ 
troversy resorted to the trick of opening 
letters for evidence. In those days such 
letters were private property, usually de¬ 
livered by individuals and not by public 
post. 
***** 
When the leaders among the Pilgrims 
were sure of their ground they called a 
“town meeting” to try Lyford and Old¬ 
ham. The last scene in the pageant pic¬ 
tured this group. The proof against the 
“kicker” and the “sorehead” was present¬ 
ed and they were given a full chance to 
reply. Lyford was a coward. lie cringed 
and begged for mercy. Oldham had more 
courage. He called on his friends to come 
out and back him up. but not one dared 
to support him. Oldham is not the first 
“kicker” or reformer who was left high 
and dry on the rocks when his supporters 
were called right up to the rack to sup¬ 
port him. Discontent and indefinite pre¬ 
judice raises an unorganized mob without 
discipline or endurance. It will usually 
melt under fire. Patriotism calls men to¬ 
gether in organized groups and enables 
the leaders to enforce a discipline which 
holds the crowd together. The great ma¬ 
jority of white men will always support 
the elements of society which seem to 
them to represent law and order. Thus it 
was at Plymouth. There were plenty of 
men who were ready to growl and “kick” 
when it was a popular thing to do so. but 
when it came to a straight, public “show¬ 
down” they realized that even a govern¬ 
ment which they could not fully endorse 
was better than taking chances with an 
experiment. So the entire town voted 
Lyford and Oldham guilty, and both were 
sentenced to expulsion. Lyford repented 
and did so much whining that they per¬ 
mitted him to remain for a time. Oldham 
was no whiner. lie stood up and defied 
the crowd, though expulsion meant living 
in the wilderness. I confess that my sym¬ 
pathies are usually with the under dog. 
even when I know he has not made a full 
case. As the lights went out on this 
scene I was thinking of the brave words 
of an ancient exile : 
“Banished from Rome? 
What's banished but set free?” 
This Oldham came back to Plymouth 
the following year, and evidently not be¬ 
ing a Prohibitionist, he “suffered his un¬ 
ruly passion to run beyond the limits of 
reason and modestie.” “He called them 
all to naught in this, his mad fury.” 
Bradford, in his history, thus describes 
how they treated “kickers”: 
“They committed him till he was tamer, 
and then appointed a guard of musketeers 
which he was to pass through, and every 
one was ordered to give him a thump on 
the briteh with the but end of his mus¬ 
ket. . . . Then they bid him go and 
mende his manners.” 
Needless to say this effective scene was 
not enacted in the pageant. And this 
Oldham did “mende his manners.” for, 
later on, he made “free and large confes¬ 
sion of the wrongs and hurts he had done 
to the people.” 
* * * * $ 
Thus the Pilgrims quickly “deported” 
those who tried to stir up trouble. There 
has been much criticism about this. It 
has been said that the Pilgrims came here 
seeking lioerty of conscience and then at 
once denied that liberty to others. The 
trouble with that statement is that those 
who make it do not seem to know how to 
separate liberty from license. Men like 
John Oldham were not concerned in mak¬ 
ing other men free. I take it he was nat¬ 
urally a selfish man with a high opinion 
of his own ability. He had what we 
would call in these days a case of the “big 
head.” The great majority of those com¬ 
mon men at Plymouth were far better off 
under the direction of stronger minds. 
Like all men of inferior intellect, they 
would not admit it, and they resented any 
such assumption. Oldham played upon 
this feeling and it was as dangerous as 
playing with matches in a powder house. 
The colony had not been firmly rooted. It 
was in debt and in constant danger. Its 
only hope was in presenting a solid front 
and in working as a unit. It was no 
time for a “reformer” or labor leader. A 
split in the colony would have sunk it as 
surely as a hole in her keel would have 
sunk the Mayflower. A few strong men 
had evolved a definite policy. It probably 
did not suit some of the people, but their 
only salvation lay in strong and firm dis¬ 
cipline. Lyford and Oldham would have 
ruined that discipline and split the col¬ 
ony. I think the Pilgrims were justified 
in treating them as they did. We are not 
living in the seventeenth century now, but 
there is still a lot of this insistence that 
bherty and license mean the same thing. 
We have got to get rid of that idea, and 
the sooner we do it the better. 
♦ * * * $ 
And another thing about the bigotry 
and intolerance of these Pilgrims. It is 
true that they were governed by a small 
and able group of men. That is still the 
way we are governed today in this coun¬ 
try—from our national government down 
to every successful co-operative society. 
In their practice of this form of govern¬ 
ment the Pilgrims were less intolerant 
than our modern institutions. In old Ply¬ 
mouth public matters were settled in 
“town meeting,” where every man could 
get up and say what he pleased. As a 
little boy in that old town I have known 
plain, everyday men like my father, me¬ 
chanics and laborers, to get up in town 
meeting and talk down lawyers, doctors 
or “leading citizens.” A small group of 
leaders might dominate affairs, but it was 
open to all and these men ruled only 
through superior power and personality. 
Today, while we are still governed by lit¬ 
tle groups of strong men, the principle 
of the old town meeting has vanished. 
The cards are not on the table, but there 
are invisible wires beneath it.' I do not 
think that such a state of society as an 
absolutely pure democracy could ever ex¬ 
ist for long in a world where there are 
great differences in humanity, both by 
reason of birth and education. I still 
think that the old time New England 
town meeting was the most successful 
form of community government the world 
has yet seen. 
And yet we probably have in this coun¬ 
try millions of people who firmly believe 
that these Pilgrims were a set of de¬ 
praved hypocrites or worse. I have just 
been reading the review of a new book 
by an European author entitled “Man’s 
Descent from the Gods.” Among other 
things this author says: 
“What are the United States of Amer¬ 
ica? Apart from the worthier elements 
which constitute quite a small minority— 
T mean the non-Puritanical colonists of 
Elizabeth’s and the early Stuarts’ reigns 
—the backbone of the population con¬ 
sists of the descendants of renegade Puri¬ 
tans of the seventeenth century (who fled 
their country for their country’s good), 
reinforced by the slave drivers of the 
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, 
and mixed with the blood of all the people 
of Europe and Asia. What is their prin¬ 
cipal achievement? Is ii art? Letters? 
Philosophy? Learning? 
“No, it is Machinery! Puritanism, 
’slave driving and machinery—the three 
characteristic features of all late Prome¬ 
thean civilizations.” 
Well, this nation still has a pretty 
strong backbone. Happily it is located in 
the rural districts—with the mouth in the 
cities. I am inclined to agree, however, 
that the consolidation of machinery in the 
great cities has proved a mistake. The 
nation would be stronger if this machin¬ 
ery could be scattered, back to the water 
powers and villages, where it came from. 
- h. w. c. 
Why should you follow 
a crooked path ? 
Often a cowpath has been allowed to become 
a village street, and as the village expanded, 
tradition has made the winding way an expres¬ 
sion of a cow’s will. 
Habit is always forging chains to enslave us, 
so that what has been found bearable by the 
fathers is accepted by the sons. 
Who cannot recall the coffee-pot Mother put 
on the stove early in the morning, warning us 
not to let it boil over? 
As children, we were not permitted to drink 
tea or coffee, because it would stunt our growth 
or make us nervous and irritable. When older, 
however, we craved a hot drink with meals, and 
custom gave us our tea or coffee. 
Finally upon the instructions of the doctor, 
Mother gave up her tea and coffee. But that 
meant nothing in our young lives. Our vitality 
was then strong enough to throw off any ill effects. 
But our time came, and we learned by ex¬ 
perience that we could not drink tea or coffee. 
When we had it for breakfast it put our nerves 
on edge. When we drank it at the evening meal, 
we tossed about in wakefulness most of the night. 
And then we found Postum, a pure cereal 
beverage, free from the harmful drug, caffeine, in 
tea and coffee. We liked the rich, satisfying flavor 
of Postum—and also the better health which re¬ 
sulted. And, too, we were surprised to find how 
many of our neighbors had made the same dis¬ 
covery-had learned the value of “health first.” 
Postum comes in two forms: Instant Postum (in tins) 
made instantly in the cup by the addition of boiling water. 
Postum Cereal (in packages of larger bulk, for those who 
prefer to make the drink while the meal is being prepared) 
made by boilingfor 20 minutes. Sold by all grocers. 
Postum for Health 
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guarantee editorial page. 
