en them by law, under the flag, to throw it off. The
boss-ridden city is boss-ridden only because it is satisfied to be so. The
generation that is throttled by trusts and monopolies may at any time
effect a peaceful revolution. The flag gives us freedom, but even a man's
eternal salvation cannot be forced upon him against his will.

Another thing for which the flag stands is justice--the "square deal," as
it is called by one of our Presidents. To every man shall come sooner or
later, under its folds, that which he deserves. This means largely "hands
off," and is but one of the aspects of freedom, or liberty, since if we do
not interfere with a man, what happens to him is a consequence of what he
is and what he does. If we oppress him, or interfere with him, he gets
less than he merits; and if, on the contrary we coddle him and give him
privileges, he may get more than his due.

Give a man opportunity and a free path and he will achieve what is before
him in the measure of his strength. That the American Flag stands for all
this, thousands will testify who have left their native shores to live
under its folds and who have contributed here to the world's progress what
the restraints and injustice of the old world forbade then to give.

This sense of the removal of bonds, of sudden release and the entry into
free space, is well put by a poet of our own, Henry Van Dyke, when he
sings,

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back,
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free--
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.

Finally, the flag stands for the use of physical force where it becomes
necessary.

This simple statement of facts will grieve many good people, but to omit
it would be false to the truth and dishonorable to the flag that we honor
today.

Its origin, as we have seen, was in its service as a rallying point in
battle.