Valdez daily prospector., 1915-09-14
THE FLAG SEEN BY A POET
An Interpretation of Patriotic Senti'
 ment in All Nations.

An Interpretation of Patriotic Senti. ment in All Nations. It is twenty-seven years since the one poem on Gettysburg adequate to the theme was written by then un- known author, described as an lex confederate soldier "The High Tide at Gettysburg written by Will H. Thompson, a fighter of '61 in the army of Northern Virginia, has climb ed to higher fame since, and is as sure to be as any poem can be of an American immortality. But those who can thrill at it's noble lines know little or nothing of it's author and probably suppose that he is dead.
 He is still alive and at Seattle, Washington. He delivered an ad- dress few days ago before the Sons of the American Revolution, called "The Shadow of Flag" The mean ing of flag, the unaccountable love men have for it, was his theme, and he told of how, in the tramp home ward from Appomattox, he and his boy comrade "sat down in the dust and ashes of Sheridan's awful path, and divided small square of bunt- | ing which one of then had torn from his regimental flag, and hidden in his bosom, had borne it away from the field of his last despairing fight. He told how in the Bloody Angle, Fed eral flag was planted on the famsy log breastworks he and his comrades he was a Georgia boy-were de- lending.
 "Its folds were riddled and it's staff was splintered. but it placidly waved above friend and foe alike, whose bayonets were tangled togeth- CT above the works. And once the shadow of the foeman's flag fell upon the young Georgian's face, and as he looked up his heart gave startled leap as he saw that Georgia's flag was on the old banner yet.
 And he saw "Ticonderoga and Yorkstown, Monterey and Chapulte pee fluttering in it's folds as the ra- diant thing stood in the shriveling mouth of Tell and waved and waved" We begin to see that it is a parable of nationality he is telling and to see that the love of the flag is as little to be analysed and as proof against argument as the love for a mother. He told the same story in his poem the confederates lest, they could not win.
 "They smote and fell who set the bars
 Against the progress of the stars,
 And stayed the march of mother
 land!'
 And the love of the flag, which is the love of the nation, is, strong whether what the nation stands for is good or bad, for liberty or tyran- ny; so he aTgues, and he says: "This spirit of nationality, we'll symbolic ed by frenzied loyalty to nations flag, is both lofty and a danger ous thing" He finds in it the true explanation of the mysterious out break in Europe and waves aside the white and red books and other books and all the labored argument of the statesmen. What brought on the war was "the proud pose of republic or empire, which says, Everything for our people, nothing for those beyond the border!"
 My, country is better than yours! My destiny is greater than yours! A place in the sun for me and not for you!" These are the cries that the rifles are speaking and the cannon have thundered them until their bru- tai lungs are hoarse Some day this fever of nationalism must cool. No imaginary line can make one man better than another. The shad ow of no flag should be a sanctuary for one and menace to another. Yet because of this mad spirit of nation ality the earth is drinking blood with a hot thirst"
 GERMAN HAVE FIFTY-EIGHT