Placards carried by demonstrating members of the Procrastinators’ Society of America outside the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, London, 1976: “We got a lemon” and “What about the warranty?”
Parallel to the U.S. nation’s history-long effort to claim the patent and world distribution rights on liberty, one of the nation’s most enduring symbols for that ideal, the “Liberty Bell,” has been tolling a recitation that, like the bell itself, remains thuddingly inaudible—is, in fact, deafening in its silence. Why? Maybe because, as tokens and omens go, the flawed bell produces overtones that are hard to hear. The record is almost comical:
In 1751, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of founder William Penn’s charter, the bell is ordered from the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in east London, Britain’s oldest manufacturing company (still in business today and able to supply a droll subtext for ensuing events).
In 1753, the bell is duly hung in the Pennsylvania statehouse, known as “Independence Hall.” Its inscription—from the Old Testament—reads:
“PROCLAIM LIBERTY THROUGHOUT ALL THE LAND UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTSOn its first ringing, the bell cracks. Three years later, Pennsylvania’s native inhabitants, the Lenape, attack in a vain attempt to regain the land stolen from them in the so-called Walking Purchase Treaty of 1737.
THEREOF. LEV. XXV, v. x.,” etc.
Two Philadelphians (“two ‘ingenious’ workmen,” sniffs the Whitechapel website) volunteer to fix it. Breaking up the metal, they decide it’s too brittle and add copper to the alloy. (“They did not appreciate that bell metal is brittle, and relies on this to a great extent for its freedom of tone.”) The recasting cracks too. They go back to the original formula and recast it a second time, further improved with their autographs. Still unhappy with the result, Pennsylvania hangs the bell in the statehouse steeple and dickers with Whitechapel for a third model, but the Revolutionary War intervenes.
Emerging after the war from under the floor of the Old Zion Reformed Church in today’s Allentown, the bell is returned to Liberty Hall. It cracks again, starting probably with a hairline crack during its use on the death of Chief Justice John Marshall in 1835. Rung again on George Washington’s birthday, 1846, (by “eager boys,” harrumphs Whitechapel), it opens a crack running to its crown, rendering it unusable as an actual bell. This is the Liberty Bell as we know it today.
(“. . . The fact remains,” Whitechapel patiently explains, “that the principal crack is in line with the swing of the clapper and it is an established fact that many bells have been cracked by the improper operation of the clapper in this way. Good bell metal is extremely brittle. . . . If a bell is struck and not allowed to ring freely, because either the clapper or some part of the frame or fittings are in contact with the bell, then a crack can very easily develop.”) Whitechapel’s other noted bell, London’s Big Ben, is cracked also.
Nevertheless, in the 1880s, this Liberty Bell that will not ring starts a new career representing “America,” through the bully years of Manifest Destiny and beyond, at fairs and expositions across the country. For Bicentennial celebrations in 1976, Whitechapel is asked to cast 15 full-size replicas of the Liberty Bell, 2,400 one-fifth size replicas, 200 one-ninth size replicas—and a six-ton Bicentennial Bell (uncracked to date) that bears this revised inscription:
“FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICAIn 2001, the hapless, ringless Liberty Bell is struck several times with a hammer by a Nebraskan shouting, “God lives!” Repaired again, it is moved in 2003 to new quarters at the Liberty Bell Center, across the street from Independence Hall—and, as later develops, next door to former president Washington’s African slave quarters. There, minus at least 25 pounds of metal knocked off by souvenir-hunting tourists, it remains at this writing.
FROM THE PEOPLE OF
BRITAIN
4 JULY 1976
LET FREEDOM RING”
{From Looking for the Bahana, © 2008}
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