A REMINISCENCE BY THOMAS JEFFERSON WHEN the Declaration of Independence was under the consideration of Congress, there were two or three unlucky expressions in it which gave offense to some members. Although the offensive expressions were immediately yielded, those gentlemen continued their depredations on other parts of the instrument. I was sitting by Dr. Franklin, who perceived that I was not insensible to these mutilations. "I have made it a rule," said he, "whenever in my power to avoid becoming the draughtsman of papers to be reviewed by a public body. I took my lesson from an incident which I will relate to you. When I was a journeyman printer, one of my companions, an apprentice hatter, having served out his time, was about to open shop for himself. His first concern was to have a handsome signboard, with a proper inscription. He composed it in these words, "JOHN THOMPSON, HATTER, makes and sells hats for ready money," with a figure of a hat subjoined; but he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word "Hatter” tautologous, because followed by the words "makes hats," which show he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word "makes" might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats. If good and to their mind, they would buy, by whomsoever made. He struck it out. A third thought the words "for ready money" were useless, as it was not the custom to sell on credit. Every one who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, "John Thompson sells hats." "Sells hats!" said his next friend. "Why, nobody will expect you to give them away; what, then, is the use of that word?" It was stricken out, and "hats" followed it, the rather as there was one painted on the boards. So the inscription was reduced ultimately to "JOHN THOMPSON" with the figure of a hat subjoined. REVERENCE FOR THE LAWS BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN LET every American, every lover of liberty, every wellwisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution never to violate in the least particular the laws of the country, and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of Seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and the laws let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. In short, let it become the political religion of the nation. AMERICA FOR ME1 BY HENRY VAN DYKE 'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down Among the famous palaces and cities of renown, To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings, But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things. So it's home again, and home again, America for me! I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack : The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back. But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free, We love our land for what she is and what she is to be. Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me! sea, To the blessed land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars, Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars. 1 From Poems of Henry Van Dyke; copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner's Sons. THE NATIONAL FLAG BY HENRY WARD BEECHER A THOUGHTFUL mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself. And whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history, that belong to the nation that sets it forth. When the French tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. When the new-found Italian flag is unfurled, we see resurrected Italy. When the united crosses of St. Andrew and St. George, on a fiery ground, set forth the banner of Old England, we see not the cloth merely; there rises up before the mind the idea of that great people. This nation has a banner, too; and wherever it has streamed abroad, men have seen daybreak bursting on their eyes. The American flag has been a symbol of liberty, and men have rejoiced in it. Not another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went forth upon the sea carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope to the captive, and such glorious tidings. The stars upon it were, to the pining nations, like the bright morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams of morning light. Wherever this flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no ramping lion, and no fierce eagle; no embattled castles, or insignia of imperial authority; they see the symbols of light. It is the banner of Dawn. It means Liberty; and the galley-slave, the poor oppressed conscript, the trodden-down creature of foreign despotism, sees in the American flag that very promise and prediction of God: "The people which sat in darkness saw a great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." Is this a mere fancy? On the 4th of July, 1776, the Declaration of American Independence was confirmed and promulgated. Already for more than a year the colonies had been at war with the mother country. But until this time there had been no American flag. The flag of the mother country covered us during all our colonial period; and each state that chose had a separate and significant state banner. In 1777, within a few days of one year after the Declaration of Independence, and two years and more after the war began, upon the 14th of June, the Congress of the Colonies, or the Confederated States, assembled and ordained this glorious national flag which now we hold and defend, and advanced it full high before God and all men, as the Flag of Liberty. It was no holiday flag, gorgeously emblazoned for gayety or vanity. It was a solemn national signal. When that banner first unrolled to the sun, it was the symbol of all those holy truths and purposes which brought together the Colonial American Congress. If one, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him: It means just what Concord and Lexington meant, what Bunker Hill meant; it means the whole glorious Revolutionary War, which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny, to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had |