OCR Text |
Show NO AMERICAN BABY IS GUARDED MORE CARFULLY THAN THE CHILD OF AMERICAN FREEDOM-DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE BY GEORGE B. W ITERS. N. E v Btafl Correspondent. WASHINGTON, July 4. No baby in America Is tucked away In his crib with more lender care than Is accorded ac-corded the Child of freedom of the eighteenth century t.he. American Declaration of Independence. The original parchment of that wonderful won-derful document. In honor of which all Americans are celebrating today, j faded and worn by time, Is literally, to be given am w the breath of life. For year it has been locked In a safe, kept from the sunlight. Three experis on "preserving famous documents and ardhlves'recently employed by Secretary Secre-tary of State Colby, recommended thai the Declaration of Independence bo taken from the dark safe and placed In shaded llghf. where the air can pass over It gently. This is no plpe-rlrea.m, but a reality The famous document In honor of which we are r.ll taking a holiday this minute. Is Just an much alive toda ai It was on July. 177C. when tho president of the Continental congress put his John Hancock pn It, and It needs oxygen, literally and flgtiri- tlvely. John A. Tenner, librarian at the thp state department, Is nurse and keeper of the Declaration of Independence. Inde-pendence. Tenner's Job now Is to see that the Declaration stays In the steel safe, and that It Is always the- when he locks tho door to iht- fire-prcof vault at night. When arrangements an- made to give the document more oxygen ami shaded light, it will be his duly Lo keep a guarded eye upon it The Declaration of Independence 1 has taken but one trip In the 144 years of Its life, from Philadelphia to Wash- Ington "That steel s:ift- was built especially! to take the Declaration of Indepond-enco Indepond-enco to the Chicago World's Pair Iri 1SD2." said Tonner. "But after It was finished the secretary of state decided ' not to take a chance on sending It ' The worst thing that happened to the Declaration of Independence was1 In 1823. when President Monroe an-j thorlzed W J Stone to make fac- ! simile copies of it by a wn- stamp process, to be sent to eacii of the original signers or their heir?. ' Stone made a copper itatc that the tats department still preserves, but the chemicals used took the life out of th, Ink in the signatures. As a I iSaj. . ,4- School children Hewing ihc original cop of tbi- Declaration of Imir-cnoe, Imir-cnoe, and, in sel s picture of John v Tonner, official custodian or ib-famous ib-famous document of kmorlcan lib- rile. result most of the signatures ha- e Fad-j ed off, and scarcely a trace of John , Hancock's name can be Been. Din the department has many fac simile copies of both the. Declaration and the names that are as plain as the day ! they wen- written. Four months ago, for patriotic rea-i sons, the fninous Declaration was tak-' en from the safe to be viewed by thel school children of the capital. Two; months ago the Daughters of the Revolution Rev-olution viewed il on Invitation of Bfl retary Colby. Both occasions were since experts told Colhy the document, should have air, and those were tho first times the parchment has se-n light since 1911, when Former Secretary Sec-retary Knox invited newspapermen lo j take a peep nt it. |