there was no bluster in it. They were men who thought along the lines of duty, not along the lines of selfaggrandizement. They were men, in short, who thought of the people whom they served and not of themselves. But while we think of these men and do honor to them as to those who have shown us the way, let us not forget that the real experience and life of a nation lies with the great multitude of unknown men. It lies with those men whose names are never in the headlines of newspapers, those men who know the heat and pain and desperate loss of hope that sometimes comes in the great struggle of daily life; not the men who stand on the side and comment, not the men who merely try to interpret the great struggle, but the men who are engaged in the struggle. They constitute the body of the nation. This flag is the essence of their daily endeavors. This flag does not express any more than what they are and what they desire to be. As I think of the life of this great nation it seems to me that we sometimes look to the wrong places for its sources. We look to the noisy places, where men are talking in the market place; we look to where men are expressing their individual opinions; we look to where partisans are expressing passions; instead of trying to attune our ears to that voiceless mass of men who merely go about their daily tasks, try to be honorable, try to serve the people they love, try to live worthy of the great communities to which they belong. These are the breath of the nation's nostrils; these are the sinews of its might. How can any man presume to interpret the emblem of the United States, the emblem of what we would fain be among the family of nations, and find it incumbent upon us to be in the daily round of routine duty? This is Flag Day, but that only means that it is a day when we are to recall the things which we should do every day of our lives. There are no days of special patriotism. There are no days when we should be more patriotic than on other days. We celebrate the Fourth of July merely because the great enterprise of liberty was started on the Fourth of July in America, but the great enterprise of liberty was not begun in America. It is illustrated by the blood of thousands of martyrs who lived and died before the great experiment on this side of the water. The Fourth of July merely marks the day when we consecrated ourselves as a nation to this high thing which we pretend to serve. The benefit of a day like this is merely in turning away from the things that distract us, turning away from the things that touch us personally and absorb our interest in the hours of daily work. We remind ourselves of those things that are greater than we are, of those principles by which we believe our hearts to be elevated, of the more difficult things that we must undertake in these days of perplexity when a man's judgment is safest only when it follows the line of principle. I am solemnized in the presence of such a day. I would not undertake to speak your thoughts. You must interpret them for me. But I do feel that back, not only of every public official, but of every man and woman of the United States, there marches that great host which has brought us to the present day; the host that has never forgotten the vision which it saw at the birth of the nation; the host which always responds to the dictates of humanity and of liberty; the host that will always constitute the strength and the great body of friends of every man who does his duty to the United States. I am sorry that you do not wear a little flag of the Union every day instead of some days. I can only ask you, if you lose the physical emblem, to be sure that you wear it in your heart, and the heart of America shall interpret the heart of the world. UNION AND LIBERTY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES FLAG of the heroes who left us their glory, Borne through their battle-fields' thunder and flame, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, Loud rings the Nation's cry, Union and Liberty! One Evermore! Light of our firmament, guide of our Nation, Let the wide beams of thy full constellation Empire unsceptred! what foe shall assail thee, Yet if, by madness and treachery blighted, Dawns the dark hour when the sword thou must draw, Then with the arms of thy millions united, Smite the bold traitors to Freedom and Law! Up with our banner bright, etc. Lord of the Universe! shield us and guide us, Sprinkled with starry light, Spread its fair emblems from mountain to shore, Loud rings the Nation's cry, - E PLURIBUS UNUM GEORGE WASHINGTON CUTTER THOUGH many and bright are the stars that appear And the stripes that are swelling in majesty there Their light is unsullied as those in the sky, From the hour when those patriots fearlessly flung That banner of star-light abroad, Ever true to themselves to that banner they clung, As they clung to the promise of God; By the bayonet traced at the midnight of war, On the fields where our glory was won Oh! perish the heart or the hand that would mar Mid the smoke of the contest, the cannon's deep roar, How oft it has gathered renown, While those stars were reflected in rivers of gore, Where the cross and the lion went down; And though few were their lights in the gloom of that hour, Yet the hearts that were striking below Had God for their bulwark, and truth for their power, And they stopped not to number their foe. |