The privilege of freedom is not handed down to man on a silver platter. Freedom is the exercise of the normal activities, the thoughts and the honest hopes of a democratic people. Freedom cannot be enjoyed unless it is understood and exercised.
Flag Day Exercises at Rice Park, under the auspices of the St. Paul Lodge No. 50, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, St. Paul, Minn. June 14th, 1918.
MEN and women, is it necessary at this time and in this world struggle when not only freedom, but civilization itself, is hanging in the balance, to talk patriotism, to talk of love of country, to talk of love of home or wife or children or friends? It is to the lasting disgrace of any man or woman in this country who will not proclaim himself or herself devoted unreservedly to the cause of America, of Americanism, democracy, the cause for which our country entered into this world struggle, to help to make it possible that the people of the United States shall have full freedom and opportunity to live their own lives since God has instilled into their hearts the hope of living as a free people, unafraid of domination from without or failure to appreciate their duties at home. The privilege of freedom is not handed down to man on a silver platter. Freedom means more than a term, a word. Freedom is the exercise of the normal activities, the thoughts and the honest hopes of a democratic people. Freedom cannot be enjoyed unless it is understood and exercised. There is no question about it, that even among the peoples of Germany prior to this world war, they sang of freedom. They had their folk lore, they had their songs dedicated to freedom. But it was a freedom that they themselves did not understand or exercise. It was of the dim, dim future, perhaps the freedom of the "sweet by-and-by," when we propose to exercise and live for that freedom now, in our time.
Freedom springs from the heart outright. Freedom is the concept of living our own life and not to have some one dominate us in our every relation and in our every activity. Freedom is a term so broad and deep that it has not yet percolated to the benighted minds of the poor, oppressed, deluded, boastfully intelligent, but actually ignorant, people of the Central Powers.
It was my good fortune to have twice in my life opportunities to visit Germany. You who know me now perhaps a little better than you knew me in the past (for I want to tell you as a matter of fact I have not changed one jot; you have changed your conception of me, that is all), know that the things, the ideals, the thoughts, which I now proclaim are the same that I have held from my young boyhood. It is this critical time through which the world of freedom is passing that has broadened the minds of all of us. We understand now that we are engaged in one common cause,—the defense of the right, the defense of justice, the defense of the ideal of the common brotherhood of the people of the United States.
If there be any one institution in America which typifies and exemplifies and justifies the whole course and cause to which the American labor movement is committed, it is the teachings of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. To be helpful to our fellows; to do right; to bring about the common uplift of the people and to have impressed upon our minds and hearts the exalted principle of loyalty to our country and the symbol of its character and life,—The Red, White and Blue, the Stars and Stripes of Old Glory, is the purpose of the Elks.
So I find myself in most excellent company with the boys who hail each other as Brother Elks, the men who will give the warning in the hope of preventing wrong and of doing right, who will extend the helping hand who will do that which one man should do unto another and spread the gospel of nationalism in America, the doctrine of taking into our hearts, which are large enough and broad enough in human sympathy and affection, the whole human race, the manhood and womanhood of the world who are willing to accept the doctrines of democracy, of freedom and of brotherhood.
It is not possible for the people of our country and the people of the democratic countries fighting in this contest, to lose the war against Germany. We must win! We dare not lose! It were better to die fighting than to accept the heel and the yoke of kaiserism upon the people. If we fight, and while fighting if it could be possible to lose, at least the spirit of freedom would be handed down to our people. The spark of freedom would be lighted in the hearts and the minds of generations yet unborn and some day, somehow, that spark would grow to a torch and a flame which would burn people into desire and willingness to sacrifice, to fight again to establish freedom.
If we fail now,—if we accept the yoke, as some pacifists, or more properly speaking, pro-Germans, would have us do, then there is no hope for liberty, either to-day or for the future.
If we fail, the Lights of Freedom go out over the whole world. But we cannot fail! We must not fail! We must be true to the men who in the long ago gave up their all that this Republic, this new nation might be founded. We cannot be untrue, we dare not be untrue to them, the men who gave to us a new republic with a new meaning for the rights of man, together with the opportunity to work out our own destinies. So I say to you, my friends, let us take heart and courage, hope and determination, that nothing shall stand between us and our Allies on the one hand and the crushing of kaiserism in all the world on the other.
It may not be amiss to say that within ten minutes of the close of the morning session of the convention of the American Federation of Labor, every man and woman, delegates, officers, visitors, arose and stood in reverential enthusiasm for the Red, White and Blue, the American Flag.
There is no one who, in verse at least, or perhaps in any other way, has expressed that for which the American Flag stands better than the man whose two stanzas of poetry I propose to read to you in closing. YOUR FLAG AND MY FLAG By Wilbur D. Nesbit
Your flag and my flag,
And how it flies to-day, In your land and my land,
And half a world away! Rose-red and blood-red,
The stripes forever gleam; Snow-white and soul-white—The good forefather's dream. Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars to gleam aright—The gloried guidon of the day, a shelter through the night.
Your flag and my flag,
And, oh, how much it holds—Your land and my land—Secure within its folds! Your heart and my heart
Beat quicker at the sight; Sun-kissed and wind-tossed
Red and blue and white. The one flag—the great flag—the flag for me and you,—Glorified all else beside—the red and white and blue.