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Letter: Remember the Mayflower Compact?

Editor, Gazette-Journal: Four hundred years ago, the Pilgrims tried an experiment in communism in the New World, which was almost fatal. And we want to give it another try? About 228 years before Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto appeared, an attempt was made by a small group of persons to live in a community where all was commonly held in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Only about 40 of the 102 were true Pilgrims, sailing from England in 1620 on the Mayflower in search of religious freedom. The hardships the group endured are well documented: starvation, the tenuous relationship with the native population, the diseases, the deaths (45 people died during the first year). Because they went off course, the ship landed outside the designated Virginia Company of London, sponsoring the venture, in return for eventual profit. Recognizing the need for self-governance, The Mayflower Compact was drawn up and signed (by 41 men of the group) while still aboard the Mayflower. The agreement was made that ...

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