The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1940-07-10

saIutine the Flag
America Is Men, Women
Who Dare 10 Do Right
America Is in Deeds, Not
Words and Symbols
MATERIAL which gets into
A'l the appendix of the Con-
gressional Record covers null
titude of sins and wastes a great
deal of white paper, but occa-
sionally there is among the fine
print bit of good sense, fine
rhetoric and human philosophy.
A days reading o. recent issues
revealed in the back pages
fine piece of writing on What
the Stars and Stripes Stand For"
The following excerpts are
worth reading:
America Is more than a
Flag. more than an anthem.
more than patriotic oratory.
II Is more, even. than this land.
America is the sum total of
many, many men, and women,
great and small. quick and dead.
1t is the sum total of the things
they did and are doing to make
democracy work II is action. 1t
is work undertaken to give SUBJ
stance to ideals.
America is George Washington
forsaking the pillow at Mount
Vernon for the cold and the hun
ger of Valley Forge. 1t is Thorn
as jefferson, with no taste for
public office and skin too thin
for the acrimony of politics, ac-
cepting that office and enduring
that acrimony for the sake of
high duty.
II Is Abraham Lincoln taking
up the sword to save the Union,
and then bidding the States to
bind up their wounds with NAL
ice toward none. with charity for
ALL" America il the sum total
of Its heroes giving meaning TO
Jefferson's inalienable rights:
life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness.
But, perhaps even more. Amer
lea is a great host of lesser fig
ures with less glamorous his
tories-men who saw tasks that
needed to be done and did them,
men who saw wrongs that cried
to be righted and righted them.
There are, for example, the
able and far-sighted administra-
tors like Albert Gallatin, Jeffer-
sons secretary of the treasury.
This French-Swiss immigrant,
who never learned to speak good
English. put an end to the con-
gressional custom of making
lump-sum appropriations with
out designating the specific pur-
poses for which public money
was to be used.
He also introduced the present
system of treasury reports, halved
the national debt, financed the
War of 1912. and became the
father of federal aid for the
building of our great network of
roads that he saw to be neces-
sary for binding together great
country.
Then there are the men of
righteous anger like Benjamin
II. Bristow, of Kentucky, whom
Grant unwittingly called to be
secretary of the treasury. Bris-
tow was Mortified to see how
greedy hands were lOOting the
public Golfers. Investigation
soon convinced him that the dis
tillers of st. Louis were paying
taxes on only a third of the
whisky that left their ware
houses. That was the beginning
Of the exposure of the whisky
ring. The trial of bribery led ia
the White House itself.
In St. Louis, Joe Folk fought
Butlerism. In New York, the
lances were raised against the
Tweed ring. Only the other day
Boss Pendergast left the federal
penitentiary at Leavenworth
The prosecution of the heirs of
Huey Long is current history in
louisiana. So the crusade con-
tinues on one front and another.
Courage is perhaps the best
synonym for this concept of
America-courage as it was ex-
emplified by old Bob La Toilette
and Nebraska's George Norris