Meeme Liberty Pole

A Liberty Pole

The town of Meeme erects a liberty pole. This is the gist of a news story of the day. Liberty is somewhat taken as a matter of course these days. In the earlier days of this nation liberty was something to be prayed for and fought for and the community that deliberately flaunted the word by erecting a pole showed commendable but often dangerous temerity. So, the term "liberty pole" recalls to us the days of the Minute Men, the Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill and many other events that led up to our actual possession of the thing the words represents.

But why a Liberty Pole today? We would say that a reminder of that kind is just about as important today as ever it was. There is always a danger that the liberties of the people will be curtailed. Demagoguery always insists that liberty is being taken from us. The radical agitator seems to believe that it already has departed from among the possessions of the people. Some there are who believe that comparatively recent legislation has taken a cherished liberty that must be won back at whatever cost.

That towering Meeme Liberty Pole out to make all of these several factions to pause and consider just what Liberty means. It has a distinct meaning in this little rural community, which was working out its destiny before Wisconsin became a state. In Meeme Liberty always has meant the untrammeled right to worship God without restraint, to educate their children in the fullest measure permissible in the time and place, to help their neighbors in times of stress, to build up in fact a God fearing, honor loving citizenship with the ability to safeguard the rights and privileges of the people without infringement of one faction upon another.

The Meeme Liberty Pole dedication brought back to boyhood scenes men who had attained honors, successes, even eminence, since leaving the homes of their childhood. They had been born to no soft life, they had been compelled to labor with their hands from their earliest years. Yet the liberty that the crossroads pole represents had made it possible for these boys to work out their destinies, with no obstructions on the road to the heights excepting the measure of their mental and physical abilities.

That is the reason for a Liberty Pole at Meeme, a good reason for the erection of such a pole in every community. It would keep constantly in the mind of the beholder the fact that this is a country of liberty tempered by law, a country of opportunity, a country in which the strong protects the weak, a country in which real merit cannot be kept down.

There is a good reason for a Liberty Pole these days. We have the liberty, we must fight to keep it. A Liberty Pole will help us to keep that fact in Mind.