Tabor City tribune. (Tabor City, N.C.) 1946-1991, 1947-07-04
MANY HAPPY RETURNS

happy bIrtHuay, America. inns lndepenQ-
ence Day you'll be I'll years old Just kid
In this old world of nations. But your birth
inevitable. You had to be, America.
You were needed in Babylonia when an
cent Adolf Hitlers enslaved their brothers.
They needed you when Egyptian newspaper
scratchings on hunk of clay to free
millions of slaves who built the pyramids for
long line of vain pharoahs People prayed for
you when glorious Roman generals dominated
the shores of the Mediterranean A handful of
Jews who said Jesus Christ was God needed
you to grant them the freedom to fall on their
knees in alteration of their Master.
As the centuries tumbled into each other,
generations of browbeaten little people in every
country where so-caled civilization spread look
ed for you, America to answer one question:
Has the MIR. Nobody got a right to live in this
world, to pursue his personal happiness, to plan
his own destiny?"
Then you came along. A scattering of
people along the Atlantic coast decided things
had gone long enough. They took affairs
to decide the issue and. once convinced. entered
q war to show the world that big men have no
right to push around little men.
Then it happened. On July 4. 1916. they
signed paper granting all men the right to
''hfe. liberty. and the pursuit of happiness" and
they stipulated that all men "are created free
and equal" A few years later. some of these
me1>sfnet again to establish a constitution for
me infant among nations. And again emphasis
on the rights of the Mr.. Nobody.
Oh, what you started then America. The
loud voices of few people echoed throughout
the world and all the little peope everywhere
took up the cry Frenchmen wanted to be free.
Though they did messy job of winning it, they
finally got their freedom. Country after country
followed suit as soon as the little men learned
they held all the aces after ALL
Looking back upon your short ife Amer
ica men see much that is wonderful and quite
a bit that is not good Like the overenergetic
boy that you are, you made several mistakes
But you learned from those mistakes. And you
proved that you not nation of individuals
disinterested in each other, but oneness,
unity, actually one person demanding equal
rights for all people everywhere.
We know today-and we admit it because
we are honest-that the first few years of your
life were complicated by the human trait of
expecting too much all at and almost los
ing everything We know you became involved
in q few wars you could easily have avoided.
We remember, though in these parts we don't
talk about it. that split opinions almost ruined
the union which made you powerful. we
realize YOU have had some presidents who were
assassinated and perhaps or two others who
should have been. And we are aware that from
the day YOU were born until today there
are lot of men in high place whose chief con-
Germs have been themselves and not the nations.
But the whole is the total of its parts and so
this too is America.
In the America that wanted freedom and
Justice for all were people who wanted free
dom and Justice for all except the Jews, the
Catholics, the Negroes the press, the schools
the business, the farmer, all the Mr.. Nobodies.
In the America that said, "It can't happen here,
were people who wore brown shirts, silver shirts,
black shirts, and white sheets; people who had
secret meetings and planned how grand the
country would be without minorities; people
who burned wood crosses on hiltops; people VINO
felt Hitler, Mussohni, and Stain had things fig
ured the right way; people who thought taclsm
was restricted to Germans and didn't realize IL
was an international mental disease of hatred OF
another man because his skin had another color
because he worshipped God in different way
because he wanted to own couple OF acres
of land and devote himself to the care OF his
wife and kids in the way he felt best.
Do YOU know what you are America? You're
nothing but bunch of little minorities You're
John JONES' Methodist, Democrat Mason, Ro-
tartan, barber, father of three kids You're Sam
Smith, Catholic Republican, Knight OF Column
bus doctor, great-grandfather of six You're
Mary Moore, Presbyterian Socialist Jobs daugh-
ter spinster. You're 40 million people, each be-