Bird of Freedom

“ It is the type of liberty and freedom, of an airy joyousness, bound down neither by rule nor method, an incarnation of Bohemianism, and an existence free from labour, care, and restraint. The bird may have as joyous a life during the summer, but in winter its lot, if it tarry in northern climes, is a hard one indeed, while if it migrate south it has a long, arduous, and perilous journey to undertake, a journey to which countless thousands fall victims. The squirrel is free from these vicissitudes. ”

“ These two birds that were hatched in the home that was more than seventy years old lived to see the end of the war the young soldiers were training for when they took their first flights together near the shore of the same lake. And perhaps they will live to a time when the people of their country learn to deal more and more justly with each other and with the great bird of freedom chosen by their forefathers to be the emblem of their proud land. ”

“ Even a child can reason out for himself that a bird was created for freedom in the upper air, not for confinement in a cage, and that, even if it is bred in a cage, it is no more just or right to put it to such purposes than it would be to keep a dog chained all day, or a horse tied in a stable all his life, or a man confined within the narrow limits of prison walls. ”

“ It is said that in a state of freedom, strong in their spirit of association, and in their numbers, they hazard the most audacious games, even to watching the absence of the eagle, stealing into his redoubtable nest, and robbing it of the eggs. And, what is more difficult to believe, naturalists pretend to have seen great troops of them, which, when the eagle is at home, and defending his family, deafen him with their cries, defy him, entice him forth, and contrive, though not without a battle, to carry off an eaglet. ”

“ The figure of this noble bird is well known throughout the civilized world, emblazoned as it is on our national standard, which waves in the breeze of every clime, bearing to distant lands the remembrance of a great people living in a state of peaceful freedom. ”

“ Motorists along our interstate highways can enjoy the frequent sighting of red-tailed hawks resting in trees along the rights of way. Indeed, bird-watching for birds of prey is becoming an economic plus to many local economies.
Thanks to increased public interest and effective conservation law enforcement, illegal shooting of these great birds is on the decline. More and more, our citizens grow to understand the importance of these creatures to the American landscape and to treasure the spirit of strength, freedom, and boldness they represent. ”

“ "Freedom, sir," I began unceremoniously, without greeting or inquiry, "freedom is the biggest thing for man. Nothing can be compared to it— nothing at all!"
Surprised at my outburst, my master looked up at me in silence.
"One can understand nothing from books," I went on. "We read in the scriptures that our desires are bonds, fettering us as well as others. But such words, by themselves, are so empty. It is only when we get to the point of letting the bird out of its cage that we can realize how free the bird has set us. ”

“ There is truth in every ancient fable, and there is here even something of it in the fancy that finds the symbol of the Republic in the bird that bore the bolts of Jove. Owls and bats may wander where they will in darkness, and for them as for the sceptics the universe may have no centre; kites and vultures may linger as they like over carrion, and for them as for the plutocrats existence may have no origin and no end; but it was far back in the land of legends, where instincts find their true images, that the cry went forth that freedom is an eagle, whose glory is gazing at the sun. ”

“ America is destined to become the Light of the World.
With her grand Constitution for guide and compass, her boundaries will extend until her banner of true freedom and liberty shall spread its folds and protect every nation in the Western Hemisphere, gathering them into one flock and one mighty Republic.
In the year of grace, 1999, the light of God’s sun will reveal to the admiring gaze of the World, the noblest creation of Man,—a United America, the law giver unto the nations of the earth, a mighty power that shall dictate peace and banish war and make True Freedom ring throughout the world. ”

“ For several years I kept birds in captivity, and closely studied their ways and their characters, and I say, without hesitation, that most birds can be made so contented and happy that they will prefer - 90 - their captivity, with its several advantages, to freedom without them. The advantages of captivity to a bird are three; viz., abundant food supply, protection from enemies, ease of life—without labor or concern about weather. ”

“ Of course there ought to be jungle-cats and birds of prey and other agencies of sudden death to add to the illusion of liberty, but the bird’s own imagination is capable of inventing those—look how a domestic fowl will squawk an alarm note if a rook or wood pigeon passes over its run when it has chickens. ”

“ I have often wished myself a beast, or a bird—anything, rather than a slave. ”

“ At first he was quite docile, taking his food from my hand and even allowing some of his feathered companions to feed him; but in a few weeks he grew so wild and manifested such a fierce desire for the outdoor world that I was glad to carry him out to the woods and give him his freedom. A young red-winged blackbird and a pair of meadowlarks developed a different disposition. ”

“ The object of government is to guarantee the utmost allowance of freedom to the citizen, and blessed indeed is the nation that can govern itself without having to maintain a huge standing army to hurl at any moment’s notice at its neighbors. Such barbarism may answer well enough for Europe, whose governments are founded upon wrong principles, but in great, free America, we want none of it, nor never shall.
America always will be the land of the free. Her principles of government are founded upon justice and equity. The voice of the people is heard in the land and it is supreme. ”

“ It is upon this yearning for liberty and its manifestation that the bird trappers depend to secure more victims. No sooner does the piping call go forth from the golden throats of the little prisoners, than a reply comes from the thistle tops, far down the field. ”

“ Is it not time to say to these "little children" that they must find a new toy—a fresh amusement to fill their vacant hours: that birds—living flying birds—are a part of nature, of this visible world in this island, the dwelling-place of some forty-five or fifty millions of souls; that these millions have a right in the country's wild life too—surely a better one than that of a few hundreds of gentlemen of leisure who have money to hire gamekeepers, bird-stuffers, wild-fowlers, and many others, to break the law for them, and to take the punishment when any is given? ”

“ Europe must be kept out of the Western Hemisphere. [99] America will always belong to Americans only. In the twentieth century the Monroe Doctrine lost none of its force, and for many centuries its principles will still remain a living issue.
With a Monroe Doctrine to maintain and defend, it is not surprising to learn that in 1999 the United States of the Americas, with a population of 531,000,000, maintained a small army of 150,000 men. The absolute freedom of America from military burdens in 1899 and 1999 was the glory of the Republic and the envy of a whole world. ”

“ America boasts of freedom, and of such a progress as the world has never seen before; but while the tide of the Anglo-Saxon race rolls across her continent, and while we contemplate with pleasure a vast nation governed by free institutions, and professing a pure faith, a hand, faintly seen at present, but destined ere long to force itself upon the attention of all, points to the empires of a by-gone civilisation, and shows that they had their periods in which to rise, flourish, and decay, and that slavery was the main cause of that decay. ”

“ If young birds were taken from the nest for food, the despoiler's life depended on the mother going free. God would not let the mother-bird suffer in one day the loss of her young and her own liberty. ”

“ If he marks any thing curious in the natural world, he ‘sticks a pin there,’ and keeps it for future reference; any thing from a lady-bug ready to unfold suddenly the gauze upon its hard back, where you would think no wings existed, and fly away, to an offensive black beetle that snuffs the candle, or cracks its head against the wall, thence upward in the scale to the bird which Liberty loves as her sublimest emblem, the proudest of the proud, the bird of our own mountains, and the eagle of our own skies. ”

“ So frequent, indeed, are acts of intolerance, and so readily awakened into activity is the pugnacious nature of the bird, that the fighting will almost bear comparison in volume with that which occurs between individuals of the same species. ”

“ Long ago, when it was full-plumaged, when its eyes were clear and piercing, and its talons firm and relentless in their grip, it was a proud and noble bird that held its own against both West and North, and protected all who took refuge under its wing most generously. ”

“ For it is unquestionably the fact that the misery we inflict by tyrannously using the power we possess over God's creatures, is great in proportion to the violence of the changes of condition to which we subject our prisoners; and while canary and eagle are both more or less aerial in their mode of life, and possessed of boundless energy, the divorce from nature is immeasurably greater in one case than in the other. The small bird, in relation to its free natural life, is less confined in its cage than the large one. ”

“ Take away your restrictions, open all doors, leave women at liberty to go where they will. The caged bird forgets how to build its nest. The wing of the eagle is as strong to soar to the sun as that of her mate, who never says to her, "back, feeble one, to your nest, and there brood in dull inactivity until I give you permission to leave!" ”

“ So you see that Citizen Bird is a patriot; for, though he may be in the midst of plenty in a tropical forest, when the time comes he travels hundreds of miles to his native land to make the young, that will fly from his nest, citizens like himself."
"But the birds that can eat seeds and other things do not travel so far, do they?" asked Rap.
"No, the birds who rove about the United States throughout the year are either Weed Warriors, or Seed Sowers, or those Tree Trappers who creep about tree-trunks picking the eggs and grubs of insects from the bark. ”

“ We welcome our chains, of course,—we would barter our souls for the lovely fetters; but there always comes, if but for the briefest of seconds, the appalling thought, "Freedom has gone forever!" Is there a single husband who, during the period of courtship, has never been "afraid with any amazement"? ”

“ For in captivity they do not "sweeten" my life, as the Maidenhead guidebook writer would say, with their shrill, piercing cries for liberty, but they "sing me mad." Just as in some minds this bird's music--a sound which above all others typifies the exuberant life and joy of nature to the soul--cannot be separated from the cooked and dished-up melodist, so that they turn with horror from such meat, so I cannot separate this bird, nor any bird, from the bird's wild life of liberty, and the marvellous faculty of flight which is the bird's attribute. ”

“ You have already made a law that no one shall kill a harmless song-bird or destroy our nests or our eggs. Will you please to make another that no one shall wear our feathers, so that no one will kill us to get them? We want them all ourselves. ”

“ If you were free in your sense, what would bind you to life or to people? Now, birds are free, but still they build nests; you, however, wouldn't even build a nest, but would gratify your sexual feeling anywhere, like a dog. You think seriously, and you will come to see, you will come to feel, that this freedom is ultimately emptiness, boundlessness. ”

“ He said all well-behaved birds, who have their own nests, and belong to the guilds of the Brotherhood, are American Citizens and should be protected!"
"How badly the Cowbirds must feel!" said the chorus.
"Hip, hip, hurrah! for Citizen Bird and friendly House People!" drummed the Downy Woodpecker, beating away for dear life on a telegraph pole.
Then all the Swallows and Flycatchers began to dash about the air, whispering "Citizen Bird! Citizen Bird!" And the Bluebird flew down to the garden bushes to tell his winter companion, the Song Sparrow, all about it. ”

“ One day, hearing the sound of battle up in the treetops, I hurried over to the scene of action, when out dashed a pair of courageous little dull-colored birds in hot pursuit of a blue jay, whom they dove at till they drove him from the field. My sympathies were enlisted at once. Fearless little tots to brave a bird four times as big as themselves in defense of their home! How hard to have to build and rear a brood in the face of such a powerful foe! ”

“ His eye had that gaze which so wonderfully remains with wild animals who are prisoned from the great free natural spaces that belong to them, whose birthright is a liberty of no sparrow-and-robin size, but a colossal liberty, the range of the primal world, where fences and statutes are not. ”

“ When the bird is out of the cage, which it must be in order to be a perfect bird, the more serious question emerges, what use it shall make of its newly-acquired liberty. Here certainly to men, as to birds, there are great dangers to be faced ”