![]() "This sentiment has been assigned to one who was ![]() PLYMOUTH ROCK AND THE PILGRIMS ADDRESS AT THE FIRST ANNUAL DINNER, N. When they stopped laughing, would the sons of the Puritans in his audience have felt the need to do anything else about the pattern of injustice MT articulates? As humor, this "protest" shocked and entertained its audience - at the same time. But he does so always as a comedic performance. He re-views American history in a way that profoundly anticipates the revisionist historicism of our times. MT gave his speech last, after a number of other toasts to New England and the "sons" who had gathered to pay homage to the legacy of the "fathers." MT's speech was the only one to notice all the other native sons and daughters who had been excluded from the Society's version of America: native Americans, slaves, women and other "Others." As with Huck Finn's voice, MT here chooses to occupy and speak from a place at the denigrated margins of society. This was a major theme of the keynote address at this dinner, as you can see by reading the account of the banquet from the Philadelphia Press. While the many speakers at these annual dinners paid homage to the Pilgrim Fathers, their filio-piety also nurtured their self-righteous belief that the descendants of such fathers were the "true" America, the legitimate heirs to the nation's places of privilege, the guardians of American culture across the dislocations of space and time. The various New England Societies scattered across the country (there was even one in Charleston) met on the anniversary of the arrival of an immigrant group - the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock - yet one of the forces behind the spread of these Societies throughout the nineteenth century was a reactionary resistance to the recurring waves of immigration from non-Anglo-Saxon ethnic groups. It was delivered at the first annual dinner of Philadelphia's New England Society (the same kind of occasion as his 1882 toast "To Woman," although New York's New England Society was 77 years older). To me this speech, besides being my favorite, is the best performance to look at to see what MT could and couldn't achieve morally as a humorist. Plymouth Rock & the Pilgrims "I rise to protest"
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