tead of trying to attune our ears to that
voiceless mass of men who merely go about their daily tasks, try to be
honorable, try to serve the people they love, try to live worthy of the
great communities to which they belong. These are the breath of the
nation's nostrils; these are the sinews of its might.

How can any man presume to interpret the emblem of the United States,
the emblem of what we would fain be among the family of nations, and
find it incumbent upon us to be in the daily round of routine duty? This
is Flag Day, but that only means that it is a day when we are to recall
the things which we should do every day of our lives. There are no days
of special patriotism. There are no days when we should be more
patriotic than on other days. We celebrate the Fourth of July merely
because the great enterprise of liberty was started on the fourth of
July in America, but the great enterprise of liberty was not begun in
America. It is illustrated by the blood of thousands of martyrs who
lived and died before the great experiment on this side of the water.
The Fourth of July merely marks the day when we consecrated ourselves
as a nation to this high thing which we pretend to serve. The benefit of
a day like this is merely in turning away from the things that distract
us, turning away from the things that touch us personally and absorb our
interest in the hours of daily work. We remind ourselves of those things
that are greater than we are, of those principles by which we believe
our hearts to be elevated, of the more difficult things that we must
undertake in these days of perplexity when a man's judgment is safest
only when it follows the line of principle.

I am solemnized in the presence of such a day. I would not undertake to
speak your thoughts. You must interpret them for me. But I do feel that
back, not only of every public official, but of every man and woman of
the United States, there marches that great host which has brought us to
the present day; the host that has never forgotten the vision which it
saw at the birth of the nation; the host which always responds to the
dictates of humanity and of liberty; the host that will always
constitute the strength and the great body of friends of every man who
does his duty to the United States.

I am sorry that you do not wear a little flag of the Union every day
instead of some days. I can only ask you, if you lose the physical
emblem, to be sure that you wear it