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THE Old
Bay State has built itself into the very bone and sinew of the
republic. Interests throughout our land are too often local, and
loyalty is too apt to be merely civic pride; but the story of
Massachusetts, as it is known to all Americans, is dear to all,
for it is, to a certain extent, the story
of America.
Pilgrim and Puritan, rebel and “revolutioner,”
pioneer and patriot, dissenter and democrat, reformer and
republican,—these names and the ideas they represent, the
crop of Massachusetts planting and of Massachusetts reaping, were
borne, in seed or pollen, north, west, and south upon the
searching, health-laden breezes that blow straight inland from the
broad and glorious Bay.
The names and deeds of Standish and Winthrop and
Vane, of Otis and all the Adamses, of Hancock and Revere, of
Daniel Webster and Horace Mann, of Andrew and Everett and Sumner,
belong not to Massachusetts alone, but to that great republic of
which they were forerunners, founders, or loyal and devoted sons.
It is to
foster this broad national spirit rather than simply to gratify
State pride that these stories of the
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Old Bay State have been written.
With full acknowledgment of the errors which far too many
Americans place to the discredit of Massachusetts alone,
remembering the chain of intolerance, persecution,
fanaticism, isms,” theories, reforms, and ideas that links
the past and the present, the writer still feels that even
these shortcomings did indeed bring health and vigor to the
land, and were not of Massachusetts alone, but are the
heritage of all America from the days when our fathers were
slowly laying, through error as well as justice, the firm
foundations of the republic.
These stories of the Old Bay State have been
prepared as a contribution toward this record of foundation
laying. Although each is complete in itself, the reader will
readily discover the vein of connection or association
running through the series, and can from the several stories
make the complete story, —a sort of Bay State e
pluribus unum, as
it were: out of many, one!
By them may the children of the Old Bay
State, and of those greater States to whose growth,
upbuilding, and defense the commonwealth of Massachusetts
gave so freely of its blood, brains, and vigor, be knit anew
to love for the dear old commonwealth and for that nobler
republic in which all the American commonwealths have equal
part and equal pride.
ELBRIDGE S.
BROOKS.
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