Flag Day, 1922

Wherever Children Are
Flag Day
By Angelo Patri
Author of "A Schoolmaster in the City."

     June the fourteenth is the birthday of the flag.  One hundred and forty-five years ago a great people unfurled it in a vision of hope and love and faith, a vision of human happiness, a vision of man grown to full stature, abounding in freedom; unfurled it as a constant reminder and challenge lest the vision fade from before our eyes and be lost forever.
     The vision has not failed.  It is that I would teach the children of America today.  The vision of their forefathers, their dream of freedom and happiness and justice, is still alive in our hearts; still holds us, still inspires us, still challenges us to struggle on towards its ultimate fulfillment.
     I would teach the children the seriousness and the sacredness of the flag.  When the men in Valley Forge left their bloody footprints in the snow and prayed and starved and held on grimly until death or victory released them, they hallowed the flag for all time.  Time cannot wipe out those footprints, traced in snow though they were.  They were offered and accepted as sacrifice and woven into the folds of the flag.
     The flag, then, is no cheap thing to be flapped about in the hands or on the tongues of the ignorant and thoughtless and selfish.  It is to the American people what the cross is to the Christian, the holy sepulchre to the pilgrim, the six-pointed star to the Jew.  It is the emblem of spiritual travail, a challenge to righteousness, a vision of beauty and peace yet to come.
     It has carried food to the famished, health to the sick and the suffering.  It has given hope to the oppressed, help to the weak and faltering.  It has sped on the errands of mercy and love.
     Under the shadow of the flag brave men have fought and suffered and died.  Blood and tears and the soil of the road that leads through the Valley of the Shadow have sanctified it.  Mothers have given their hearts' dearest in its service.  Fathers have choked back their grief and sent their only sons to its altar.
     On this day, then, Little Boy, Little Girl, say over with me the rosary of your flag.  Tell again the sacrifices that are its soul.  Name over those who followed the vision, took up the challenge for your dear sake.
     Washingon and '76.  Lincoln and Grant and '65.  Dewey and Schley in '98.  Roosevelt.  Wilson.  Pershing.  The people of these United States.
     Our Father which art in heaven, hold us to the vision!  Teach us to serve it in the spirit of those who have lived and died in its service.  Let nothing of fear or hate or selfishness dim for us this light set on high by our fathers.  Make it ever clearerd to us as we struggle to bring its glory among us here upon earth.  For love's sake.  Amen.
(Copyright 1922)

Published in The Youngstown Vindicator, June 14, 1922.

–Nancy.

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