Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1911-06-27
Answers 1Mr. Americana

To the Editor of the Evening star:
This Is an open letter in reply to mfr.
Americans" letter in the Sunday Call
of the 25th headed Flag Foolishness."
Dear Sir-Not that your letter is of so
much account or that 1t can do much
that you take occasion to
slap at the G. A. r. and to question
their intelligence, their memory and
knowledge of American history, etc.
AS the representative of about 1000
who stood with me on the. firing line,
and in justice to the 1000 o who gave
their lives as their last full MEASURE
of devotion to the land they loved
and their flag, I feel called upon to
resent your remarks and your desire to
place on our public schools the flag
of a monarchy, and, sir, / say to you
that I think the old soldier is about as
familiar with the affairs and history
of our country as you, sir, and further
more, helped to make a good bit of it.
and no n of us is in any way
ashamed of 1t. I simply ask that
II you have anything further to say,
that you come out from under cover
and we will hire a hall and test u
mental faculties and our veracity.
I want to. tell you that we know there
are dear, good people in England, Just
as well as you, sir. and that 1 fought by
the side of an Englishman In the battles
of Fredericksburg and Charlottesville.
Hp uUp a hro Va orp1I aal 1.,r
ing tasted liberty was willing and did
help to fight for it. But, sir, we are
not discussing the English people in
general nor their poor who die in the
bitches of poverty, with never a chance
to protest against spending five or six
millions of dollars for browning of a
monarch, as was the ease the other
day, but 1t is the oligarchy, and no one
knows where they have always stood
when they had a chance to do us
quite as we'll as the American soldier.
1t is very fresh and irrevocably fixed
in our minds what England did and
tried to do during those awful days of
81 to IS. When we were endeavoring
to see If a government of the people,
by and for the people, could long en-
dure. yet how early in the game they
showed their hand and did all they
dare to embarrass and hurt us; how
well we remember the Mason and Sill
dell affair, the harboring, aiding and
abetting of pirates. the cahooting
with Napoleon to NEEDLE with Mexican
affairs. which they never would have
dared to have lone were we not how
ering between life and death for our
existence.
We can easily imagine where we
might be today had 1t not been for
these veterans and the manifest friend
ship of Sweden. Denmark, Switzerland
and Italy; also for poor old and often
misunderstood Russia, whose feet of
warships lay anchored in our New
York harbor during those dreadful
days.
How glad England would have been
to have made part or all of this goodly
land q stamping ground for aristoc-
racy. Well, as it was, they had to pay
for It, and now (to use one
of Poor Richards sayings) that
we have a sheep and a COW
they bow and scrape to us. Sir
we say to o again. hands off of ouI
free institutions. In our schools today
we have about 100000 or $4,000, oOt
children under the care Of about $780, Ot
good men and women. Here are hun
dreds and hundreds of thousands OF
children from the homes of parents
who have come to our shores to get q
breath of freedom. They not only die
not love their rulers and their flag
but many of them hated them. Oul
hope of reaching and A~mericanizine
them is through III schools, where, in
addition TO getting an education. they
J learn to luow of God and about the