Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 127, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1917 — BIRTHDAY OF THE U. S. FLAG [ARTICLE]

BIRTHDAY OF THE U. S. FLAG

Flag Day Being Observed Tbrougbout U. S.—Let Us Realize Worth. W- ■ - Lafayette Journal. Today, June 14, 1917, is Flag day and throughout the nation the Stars and Stripes will ripple gaily like things of life from a million staffs. Old glory is the most beautiful flag on earth; compare it with every other and it is in a class by itself. We could love it for its beauty alone, but we reverence it for the things that it signifies—deep and abiding patriotism, loyalty and courage, and ideals that scale the sun-kissed heights of imagination and blaze the way for a world struggling upward out of the mire of ignorance and greed and selfishness. The Stars and Stripes was not the first flag that flew over the colonies in the new World. There were numerous predecessors of the emblem that was established by resolution of our continental congress on June 14, 1777. Of this flag Washington said: “We take the star from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty.” John Paul Jones is said to have been the first to fly the Stars and Stripes on the high seas, on the Ranger, in November, 1777. Today the Stars and Stripes are floating over innumerable troop camps, but it made its first appearance over American troops at Fort Schuyler, Rome, N. Y., on August 6, 1777. Our flag is not the emblem of a house or a family, but the flag of a whole people, emblem of liberty and freedom, individual independence, and yet symbolic of a united and closely bonded people. It represents the constitution and government of a hundred million free people, and records the history of the people themselves. Prior to 1834 the army did not carry the Stars and Stripes in battle, although the navy universally displayed the national flag from the time of its* adoption. In 1834 the war department regulations gave the artillery the right to carry the Stars and Stripes. In 1841 the infantry acquired the right to carry the flag and in 1887 the cavalry was given a similar privilege. However, the artillery branch of the service even now does not carry the flag into action, although It floats over the headquarters. . - . . ' So today let us fly the flag. Let us realize what it really means to us as individuals and as a nation. The times are pregnant with portent of evil, and under the brilliant folds of Old Glory we are commanded to rally to the defense of those things that.have been purchased at amazing cost, the rarest jewels in the earthly crown of humanity. “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching.” Marching away to battle, and in the vanguard there ripples the stripes of the flag unfurled; its stars seem to dance and twinkle and beckon us on. It recalls the stirring scenes of ’6l. “Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twiljght’s last gleaming?” Yes, yes, we see it; we feel it emblazoned upon our hearts. We will follow where it leads for it goes only forth to battle in behalf of the rights of mankind. It would droop and lose its lustre and its inspirational force would flee away if its presence were invoked in any other cause. “The Star Spangled Banner, long may it wave, o’er the home of the free and the land of the brave.”