HERALD Official Organ Of The Slavonic Benevolent Order Of The State Of Texas. Founded 1897. BENEVOLENCE
VOLUME 53 — NO. 23
HUMANITY
BROTHERHOOD
Postmaster: Please Send Form 3579 with Undeliverable Copies to: SUPREME LODGE, SPJST, P. 0. Box 100, TEMPLE, TEXAS
JUNE 9, 1965
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK YOU ARE YOUR FLAG You are your flag. Whether it flies in Viet Nam or over a bombed embassy or in front of your county courthouse, it stands for you as an American. It is your valor in facing the Cold War and the new income tax that keeps the red strips red; it is the liberty of your ballot and your Letter To The Editor that keeps the blue field blue. White represents purity and sincere patriotism is a part of it. You are your flag; and what's more, your flag is you. You may have become part of it at Ypres, Omaha Beach, Guadalcanal or Pork Chop 11111, or perhaps it happened some otherwise ordinary day when you sat back for a moment and thought about being an American. It is important to feel as well as to be a part of the Flag; •America can be Americans only as long as Americans believe in America. As a nation we always have. How the Revolutionary War came to be fought beneath banners bearing pine trees, anchors and rattlesnakes explains how the lives of the colonists gave meaning to their flags just as their flags gave meaning to their lives. It is to this meanig that National Flag Day, June 14, is dedicated. As a special activity of Fraternal Week, June 13-19, the fraternal benefit societies of the United States seek to refurbish this feeling for the flag in every American. This feeling comes
FLAG DA OLD FLAG FOREVER She's up there — Old Glory — where lightnings are sped; She dazzles the nations with ripples of red; And she'll wave for us living, or drop o'er us dead, The flag of our country forever! She's up there — Old Glory — how bright the stars stream! And the stripes like red signals of liberty gleam! And we dare for her, living, or dream the last dream, 'Neath the flag of our country forever! She's up there — Old Glory — no tyrant-dealt scars, No blur on her brightness, no stain on her stars! The brave blood of heroes hath crimsoned her bars. She's the flag of our country forever! —Frank L. Stanton
with the understanding of our flag's history. An Appeal. To Heaven Sheltering Hanover Square. Boston, meeting place of the Sons of Liberty, was a fine old elm known as the Liberty Tree. Citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, gathered beneath a massive live-oak to hear the Declaration of Independence read for the first time. All the money minted by the Colony of Massachusetts bore on one side a tree. Because trees were so much a part of colonial life, the colonists made them a part of their flags. A white maritime flag bearing a green pine tree and the inscription "An Appeal To Heaven" became the ensign of cruisers commissioned by General Washington. That same pine emblazoned the flag that flew at Bunker Hill and the Continental Flag of the Sons of Liberty. Early in 1776 Benjamin Franklin's PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE: suggested turning loose a cargo of rattlesnakes in London parks to retaliate for British injustices. The idea appealed to the patriots and by the end of the year American flagpoles were flying the famous coiled rattlesnake which defended the words "Don't Tread On Me." One writer of the time explained that "As the rattlesnake's eye exceeds in brightness that of any other animal, and as she has no eyelids. she symbol-