Philadelphia Despises Tom Paine

This is a scene along South 3rd Street in Philadelphia in it you can see a plaque that marks the former site of the print shop that printed the pamphlet Common Sense by Thomas Paine. Beyond the plaque is the sign for Thomas Paine Place, which is the name given to this one section of Chancellor Street.

This is not an interesting scene. There is no statue or landscaped space with benches to think about liberty on. There is the plaque and the sign. The site of the print shop is now a parking lot. You could walk past this spot and not think about US History at all, even if your mind was looking for something to do. These two markers might have cost the city two or three thousand dollars to devise, create, and install.

This scene shows the Philadelphia's loudest and most prominent statement of recognition for Thomas Paine. It is a nearly silent and invisible statement.

Philadelphia is the city where Thomas Paine did his most important revolutionary writing, and it is an absolutely certain fact that without his tracts being circulated, the United States of America would not have been born. This city calls itself the Cradle of Liberty, the Birthplace of Independence. The events that formally created the nation all took place here, and this was its first capital. Yet in spite of the fact that the individual man named Thomas Paine caused the revolution to succeed and clearly influenced the form of the new government, the public historical memory of this city takes great care to avoid mention of that particular man.

Paine's pamphlets were the great blockbuster bestsellers of his age, but he refused to be compensated as their author. All those profits went to the revolutionary cause, and none to Paine. It was a lot of money. He walked away from real wealth, in addition to putting his life on the line by becoming a very wanted criminal by writing the propaganda.

Aside from inspiring the troops to win a war instead of going home, Paine seved as a soldier in the Continental Army. He was offered a commission, but he declined in order to remain among the regular men. This means he passed up a good salary, much better food, and a horse.

There is no way by which Thomas Paine could have been a greater hero of this country, nor made a more important and lasting contribution.

Why does the city of Philadelphia despise Tom Paine? It's because in 1794 he wrote,

"I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."

Religious bigotry has turned Philadelphia into a historically retarded city.