The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-07-04


 for the United States, but July 4th. 1919 is independence day for the world.
 In all of the thunder and forty three years since the signing of the great human document of liberty, no 4th of July ever dawned before over a world made safe for democracy.
 Little did our forefathers who fired the shot which was heard around the world dream that one day the spirit which had fired them to strike for lib- erty would be caught more than cen- tury afterwards by their descendants to free smaller nations in the yoke of bondage to greater ones
 It is we'll then that we should pause today to take a backward look at the sturdy pioneers who founded this great republic and learn from them the les- sons which they sealed in their pre- cious blood in order to better under stand the spirit which famed up in their sons in the twentieth century and sent them overseas to stop the march of autocracy which was threat ening to overrun Europe.
 
 I know that we got into the habit of looking on the 4th of July as kind of patriotic joke which gave occa- sion for a lot of perfervid oratory in the day time and a chance to turn loose a lot of fireworks at night and we made of it great fro1ic, and lost sight of the purpose behind our celebration. It was just our careless American way of doing things.
 Say what you please about Tam many Hall but for scores of years 1t set a good example to the rest of the country by making the celebration of the glorious Fourth an act of patrftism by meeting in the famous wigwam on 14th street in New York, to hear the Declaration of Independence read, and to listen to Americas greatest men pay tribute to the men who made it valid by taking up arms.
 I'll never forget the first celebra- tion I ever attended at Tammany Hall. It was packed to suffocation. I have forgotten who was the leading orator of the day for he never got to make his set address, for Col. E. T. Talia- ferro. formerly of Birmingham, and famed as an orator was put up for a 15 minute talk. But when the tall sycamore got into action he swept his crow along with him and when the chairman tried to call him down the audie ence would not hear to it and made him continue, much to its pleasure but to the chagrin of the programme com- mittee.
 I wish we had a great military band here to usher in the day we celebrate, with martial music. I wish we had a great auditorium in which We could gather to hear the immortal document read by some man with a voice like my friend Bill Brandon. I wish we might have a worth while address from Col Screws. I wish we might close with a prayer for our beloved dead from the lips of Chaplain Emmett P Smith.
 But as no such program has been arranged we can listen in the movie houses, the theatres, and the parks to short speeches from the "four-minute- men" and having heard them we car | inaugurated to honor the valorous deeds of our forbears, by making 3 l contri bu tion to the memorial building ] which is to be erected as a permanent hall of records in which the heroic acts of our Alabama boys can be kept l for future generations.
 We have just been fighting side by side with our British cousins overseas while the signing of the Declaration o1 I Independence, on the Fourth of July | 1776, declared that this country for | ever free from English rule. But blood l is thicker than water and today the | inhabitants of the tight little isle are vieing with us in the making the | day one of note by making much oi it. because at the cry of the mother country the strong sons of the west rushed to her side and put down the | Hun.
 l This is indeed a memorable day tc Englishmen as well as Americans fo1 | it means that under God the Anglo 1 Saxon has an opportunity for world I service which has never come to a race | in such power since the birth of Jesus ! of Nazareth I am glad that in spite of the efforts of German propaganda which sought to alienate the two countries that England and America l now understand one another better | than they ever did before, and thai out of the union a new and better day is dawning for mankind.
 viscount Bryce. whose long service | in the United States and his close study | of its history, peoples. and institution: fits him to speak for the British peo
 pie, we'll says: ''We have both come and that most notably within recen | months, to perceive that all over the l world the interests of America ant | England are substantially the same | The sense of our underlying unit, | over against the other races and form! | of civilization has been a potent fac l in drawing us together" This under | standing has been cemented and sealed | in blood, and shame on those who seel to array the English speaking peopl, of the world against one another fol selfish purposes.
 Every man in America has a righ to feel proud on this day of days Every Alabamian's heart ought tt swell with joy as he thinks of the i'm
 mortal deeds of the famous "Ffghtins
 Fourth" which will go down in sons and story as among the worlds great est heroes And shall we he o-rud dp