Fourth of July

“ It would be a nice way for you to celebrate the Fourth of July, wouldn't it?"
"For me, as a kind of mild and clerical dissipation, I suppose," laughed the Bishop. "Bless my soul, I don't believe there is such an unpatriotic man in America as I! Last Fourth of July I forgot to celebrate at all, and here's another Fourth hours old before I realize its birth."
Joan looked at her uncle with round shocked eyes. "Why, godfather! I didn't know you'd think that a right way to feel. I make our children pray every night for our country and the President and our continued independence." ”

“ You will generally observe that, of all Americans, your foreign-born citizens are the most patriotic—especially toward the Fourth of July. ”

“ We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license ”

“ That afternoon Buddy and his chums had more Fourth of July fun, and Brighteyes and her friends played with their dolls.
Then at night Buddy and the boys sent up skyrockets and Roman candles (which were sticks covered with lightning bugs) , and prettier ones you never saw. And they even had a lightning-bug pinwheel. Oh, it was the nicest Fourth of July that ever was! I hope you children have as nice a one and that none of you get burned or hurt when you celebrate Independence Day. ”

“ The blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated [350] temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. ”

“ We ought to have a victory day too.’ And Mary began to describe the American Fourth of July, its flags and ice cream, its brass bands and processions and fireworks, until it seemed to the boys that the American children must live in a perpetual circus. ”

“ So the society of which she was the head launched its movement for a “sane Fourth of July celebration,” an expression which has since become familiar throughout the whole country and has been universally heeded, not only by individuals, but by thousands of municipalities, large and small. Largely through these efforts, it may now be said that the old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration, by means of explosive toys, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. ”

“ Accidents occur, the sick are made worse by these frenzied demonstrations, and the young fail to appreciate the significance of the day which is being so unbeautifully celebrated.
Of all these “noise-fests,” the most shocking is the Fourth of July, and its grim statistics probably furnish a sadder commentary on human folly than that afforded by any other celebration in the world. ”

“ Our Fourth of July which we honor so much, and which we love so much, and which we take so much pride in, is an English institution, not an American one, and it comes of a great ancestry. The first Fourth of July in that noble genealogy dates back seven centuries lacking eight years. ”

“ And this Fourth of July, even as we celebrate, we should be not only grateful for the freedom we enjoy; we should rededicate ourselves to the work of responsible citizenship. For example, on the Fourth of July, families and friends come together all over America at backyard barbecues and parks for picnics. ”

“ In contrast were the Fourth of July thoughts, when the country sang its own hallelujahs and, like another deity, contentedly meditated its own perfections. On these occasions every American man was better than any foreigner, and American women were all saints. ”

“ The National birthday, barring the firecrackers of the children and the fine clothes of the militia men, has become an excessively sober and commonplace affair. The flaming Fourth of July speech, which formerly was listened to with real delight and enthusiasm, is now apt to meet rather ridicule than applause, and those who consent to serve as Fourth of July orators prefer, for their own credit, critical reviews of the situation, admonitions and warnings, to the self-glorification which formerly was so honest, exuberant and confiding. ”

“ Professor Young and Mrs. Young both kept remarking all day how lovely it was to be able to spend the Fourth of July in a cool ravine instead of in the horrid city where there were so many smells of gunpowder and little boys. ”

“ My subject, then fellow-citizens, is American Slavery. I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slaveʼs point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. ”

“ The Fourth of July, however, is essentially Young America’s day, and in any programme arranged by a municipality especial consideration should be given to the little ones. With this detail not overlooked, there will be no question of the real success of any Fourth of July celebration. Certainly the experiment which the National Capital has successfully inaugurated has proven worth while; and if the example is generally followed by other cities, there will be safety and sanity everywhere, nor need the splendid fervency of our full-blooded patriotism suffer loss. ”

“ When, on the fourth day of each July, Americans keep the birthday of the nation we celebrate as our greatest secular holiday, the one which has the honor of being sanctioned by statute in every state of the Union. ”

“ Every day in the week in Paris looks like an American town on the Fourth of July, and on Sunday it is Fourth of July and Christmas together and then some. The men who are working at wages that would make Americans vicious, are as light-hearted and pleasant appearing as a Sunday school picnic. ”

“ Patriotism has in it a dignified reserve which asks for a solemnity on the national birth-day; and so instead of a general rejoicing, there is a special and limited celebration—and when the celebration falls into party hands, then the day is neither holy nor sanctified. At best the Fourth of July must be celebrated with pomp, show, military display, bonfires, and eating and drinking. Appropriate as all these may be, they are not the ingredients for a real general holyday in which the fancy, the feelings, and the affections find play, and gravity is dismissed to the next sun rise. ”

“ I have your letter of July 1st with respect to the celebration of the Fourth of July. I am very sorry that I shall not be in the city on that day because of a previous engagement; but I am heartily in sympathy with the movement to rid the celebration of our country’s natal day of those distressing accidents that might be avoided and are merely due to a recklessness against which the public protest cannot be too emphatic. ”

“ Dating, as we justly may, a new era in the history of man from the Fourth of July, 1776, it would be well, that is, it would be useful, if on each anniversary we examined the progress made by our species in just knowledge and just practice. Each Fourth of July would then stand as a tide mark in the flood o time, by which to note the rise and fall of each successive error, the discovery of each important truth, the gradual melioration in our public institutions, social arrangements, and, above all, in our moral feelings and mental views. ”

“ And upon each recurring Fourth of July every girl and boy in the land is as joyous and jubilant a young patriot as was even young Joe Nixon when, with bonfire and rude, old-time fireworks, with hurrah and shout and song he celebrated, in the days when George the Third was king, the first Fourth of July on the Eighth.
[256] THEIR FLAG DAY [U] By Herbert O. McCrillis
A grandfather tells a group of patriotic little Americans how his grandfather was a redcoat at Lexington. ”

“ And look to the regular tread of their feet!
Keeping time to the sound of the kettle-drum's beat.
“This, mother, you know, is a glorious day,
And Americans all should be joyous and gay;
For the Fourth of July saw our country set free ”

“ Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is, to-day, in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave-markets, where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest bidder. ”

“ America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery—the great sin and shame of America! ”

“ There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every day practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. ”

“ Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day, in the presence of Americans, dividing, and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom? ”

“ Let them burn the buildings and tear up the Ship—but they must not destroy these papers. Let the Rocket Project be dead, utterly dead, torn to shreds by the people of this strange twilight world, but the dream need not die—
He heard a sound behind him, and he whirled, staring up into Moe Arhelger's bearded face. ”

“ I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has a right to form an opinion of the constitution, and to propagate that opinion, and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one. ”

“ I mean, said the devil, that of what the land shall bear, two lots shall be made, one of what shall grow above ground, the other of what shall be covered with earth. The right of choosing belongs to me; for I am a devil of noble and ancient race; thou art a base clown. I therefore choose what shall lie under ground, take thou what shall be above. When dost thou reckon to reap, hah? About the middle of July, quoth the farmer. Well, said the devil, I'll not fail thee then; in the meantime, slave as thou oughtest. Work, clown, work. ”

“ He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side, is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe, and are bound, in deciding in the case of a manʼs liberty, to hear only his accusers! ”

“ Behold the practical operation of this internal slave-trade, the American slave-trade, sustained by American politics and American religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our Southern States. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation, with droves of human stock. ”

“ We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave, by the church and ministry of the country, in battle arrayed against us; and we are compelled to fight or flee. From what quarter, I beg to know, has proceeded a fire so deadly upon our ranks, during the last two years, as from the Northern pulpit? As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared—men, honored for their so-called piety, and their real learning. ”

“ Look, the people don't know all the reasons for the collapse. They don't know the whole picture—but they know one thing. They know they've been taxed beyond endurance, their gasoline has been requisitioned, their boys taken for military and labor service, their money devaluated again and again so that the government could get a Rocket off the Earth before the Asians did. And they know that now the whole world has fallen in a heap, and they're starving to death. And they know that this Rocket was being worked on when the crash came. ”