Old World monarchs tremble. And still to us it tells of that
mighty force that brought it here in the dim past--to be the
corner stone of our republic. Its ringing text is still sounding
from shore to shore.

"Tradition has kept the memory of the rock on which the Pilgrims
first set foot, and which lay on the foot of the hill. It has
become an historic spot, to which the name Forefathers' Rock has
been given. No other in America possesses such hallowed
associations or has so often been celebrated in song and story."

"Here," said De Toqueville, "is a stone which the feet of a few
outcasts pressed for an instant, and the stone became famous. It
is treasured by a nation. Its very dust is shared as a relic.
And what has become of the gateways of a thousand palaces? Who
cares for them?"

Tradition also says that Mary Chilton and John Allen were the
first to leap upon this rock, as we read in the lines to Mary
Chilton--

"The first on Plymouth Rock to leap!
Among the timid flock she stood,
Rare figure, near the May Flower's prow,
With heart of Christian fortitude,
And light heroic on her brow."


But whoever was the first to step upon this stone, that act we
now cherish as the first one toward the founding of a nation,