ys
of the Caesars. Great Britain is a lion, and Prussia is a leopard, and
Siam is an elephant, and Mexico is still a snake. As for Great Britain,
not satisfied with one lion, she repeats him seven times, rampant or
couchant, on the royal standard. She also preserves on her coat-of-arms
and coins the unicorn, that fabulous, one-horned monster of a horrid
dream.

The American Republic seems to have accepted the eagle for its totem. We
might have taken a bear or a caribou, but the eagle has pleased our
mythologists more--and so, instead of belonging to the tribe of the
Turkey, the tribe of the Dog, or the tribe of the Calf, we belong to
the tribe of the Eagle. But what does our totem signify?

The eagle in our symbolism and war-myth has come to us from the past. He
was of old the totem of the Romans. From the Tiber he flew beyond the
Alps, to perch on the standards of German chieftains and Gallic
emperors. He has visited all lands that are affected with the civil and
ethnic life of Rome. He has appeared here and there on the flags of the
Latin races in the Old World and the New. He has made an eyrie in our
mountains, and his scream has been heard in our wars. He has settled on
our flagstaffs, and has been seen by certain and sundry poets who
apostrophize him in verse. He has been admired by orators whose
imaginations rise as high as battle and conquest, but not as high as the
Stars and Stripes. He has been adored in academic essays. He has hovered
over the pages of inchoate histories, until his claim to be regarded as
the American bird is established. The eagle has become traditional as
the totem of the United States.

In so far as the eagle is the symbol of the independence and freedom of
men, let us accept him! In so far as he represents the idea and
sublimity of height and flight, let him soar! The eagle as a sign of the
free voyage of the human mind, triumphant over nature, visiting on
strong wing the far and otherwise inaccessible heights of escape and
glory, is the noblest of all the totems ever discovered by man; for
flight is the noblest and most sublime of earthly actions. Height is the
sublimest of all earthly stations. Height and flight are precisely the
dream which we would select from the infinite visions of the soul and
have engraved on our seal as a motto for eternity. Height and flight and
freedom!

In so far as the eagle may be regarded as the bird of the past; in so
far as he stands for violence and