conquest; in so far as he represents
the rending and destruction of life, the carnivorous passion in mankind,
the rage of battle and triumph,--to that extent be there no eagle for
the Republic or for us! It is high time that some race of men should
rise to the height of discarding violence and blood as the beginnings of
fame and power. It is high time that some race should renounce all bears
and leopards and lions and mythological monsters as the symbols of its
spirit and purpose. It is high time that some nation should ascend to a
level from which it may look down on the savage emblems and beast-born
symbolism of the past world as no longer fit to express the central
purposes and noblest visions of an enlightened people.

The American eagle in the better and more glorious sense--in the sense
in which he typifies freedom and height and flight--is a totem of which
neither philosopher nor peasant need be ashamed. The eagle's wing is
more than pinion; it is thought. The eagle's eye is more than fierce
disdain; it is a flash of ineffable light. His glance is more than
terror; it is an arrow shot into the darkness. His breast is more than
pressure and force; it is defiance of wind and battle-rack. His spirit
is more than destruction; it is supremacy over chaotic elements and the
triumph of the emancipated spirit. His scream is more than the shriek of
carnal victory and rage of destroying strength; it is the cry of liberty
and the shout of progress to all peoples in the valleys of the world.

Give man the spirit of the eagle. Give him height and flight and
freedom. Give us who are Americans the splendid arena of the plains and
the open vault of heaven. Give us the mountain, the beetling crag, the
precipice, the gnarled oak, the lightning, and the cloud. Give us the
warfare of the lawless elements, the world-blaze of the magnificent sun,
the starlight of the profound and unspeakable night. Give us the
transport of the unchained seasons, the snow-blast and the sun-flash,
the tenderness of the dawn, the sorrow of the evening, the rainspout of
the bursting nimbus, and the mellow light of autumn. Give us the
splendid apocalypse of October and the infinite air-bath of the perfumed
June. Give us all the aspirations of the man-soul standing in the midst
of this splendor and mutation, standing high and opening the eagle-wing
to cloudland and the sky, soaring and circling unfettered, viewing all
lakes and hills from the aerial curves o