Dur Country (Read July 4, 1883) BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER (New England Quaker poet, 1807-1892; a prominent antislavery advocate) WE give thy natal day to hope, O country of our love and prayer! Thy way is down no fatal slope, Tried as by furnace fires, and yet By God's grace only stronger made, In future task before thee set Thou shalt not lack the old-time aid. Great, without seeking to be great Of virtue which thy children hold. With peace that comes of purity, O land of lands! to thee we give (593) The New Freedom BY WOODROW WILSON (President of the United States, born 1856. The following is from his campaign speeches, 1912) ARE RE we preserving freedom in this land of ours, the hope of all the earth? Have we, inheritors of this continent and of the ideals to which the fathers consecrated it, have we maintained them, realizing them, as each generation must, anew? Are we, in the consciousness that the life of man is pledged to higher levels here than elsewhere, striving still to bear aloft the standards of liberty and hope; or, disillusioned and defeated, are we feeling the disgrace of having had a free field in which to do new things and of not having done them? The answer must be, I am sure, that we have been in a fair way of failure,-tragic failure. And we stand in danger of utter failure yet, except we fulfil speedily the determination we have reached, to deal with the new and subtle tyrannies according to their deserts. Don't deceive yourselves for a moment as to the power of the great interests which now dominate our development. They are so great that it is almost an open question whether the government of the United States can dominate them or not. Go one step further, make their organized power permanent, and it may be too late to turn back. The roads diverge at the point where we stand. An Ode in Time of hesitation BY WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY (In these noble words the poet voices his pain at the Philippine war, and the wave of "imperialism" which then swept over America) WAS it for this our fathers kept the law? This crown shall crown their struggle and their ruth? Are we the eagle nation Milton saw Mewing its mighty youth, Soon to possess the mountain winds of truth, And be a swift familiar of the sun Where aye before God's face his trumpets run? Or have we but the talons and the maw, Shall some less lordly bird be set apart? Some gross-billed wader where the swamps are fat? Ah, no! We have not fallen so. We are our fathers' sons: let those who lead us know! . . We charge you, ye who lead us, Breathe on their chivalry no hint of stain! Turn not their new-world victories to gain! One least leaf plucked for chaffer from the bays Of their dear praise, One jot of their pure conquest put to hire, The implacable republic will require; With clamor, in the glare and gaze of noon, Or subtly, coming as a thief at night, But surely, very surely, slow or soon The cup of trembling shall be drained quite, With ashes of the heart shall be made white Shall our intolerable self-disdain Wreak suddenly its anger and its pain; For manifest in that disastrous light We shall discern the right And do it, tardily.-O ye who lead, Take heed! Blindness we may forgive, but baseness we will smite. CHE The Price of Liberty BY THOMAS JEFFERSON (See pages 228, 332) HERISH the spirit of our people and keep alive their attention. Do not be too severe upon their errors, but reclaim them by enlightening them. If once they become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions; and experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor. To the Goddess of Liberty (New York Harbor) BY GEORGE STERLING (See pages 504, 552) H! is it bale-fire in thy brazen hand OH! The traitor-light set on betraying coasts |