Official Organ Of The Slavonic Benevolent Order Of The State Of Texas, Founded 1897. HUMANITY
BENEVOLENCE VOLUME 59. — NO. 26
BROTHERHOOD
Postmaster: Please Send Form 3579 with Undeliverable Copies to: SUPREME LODGE SPJST, FOB 100, TEMPLE, TEX 76501
JUNE 30. 1971
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK This issue will come to our readers befolt Independence Day and this page brings some useful suggestions on the flag. There seems to be a decreasing interest among some citizens to display our nation's flag on patriotic holidays. As members of the SPJST, we should display the Flag of the United States with pride for it is a symbol of our great country, our heritage, and it represents individual libeity, justice and equal opportunity for all. • • Means — Edward F. What the Flag Hutton wrote: The Flag is many things. It is a mark of identification of ships at sea and of armies in the field. It is a means of communication. When you see our flag in front of a home, it says for all the world to read, "Here lives a family that is American in spirit." The flag is a mirror, reflecting to each person his own ideals and dreams. It is a history. Its thirteen stripes and fifty stars embrace a record written during the years since 1'176. It is a mark of pride in a great word — the word "American." It is an aspiration of what small children want their lives to be. It is a memory at the end of life of all that life has been. It is a ribbon of honor for those who , have served it well in peace and war. It is warning not to detour from the long road that has brought our country and its people to
Flying the Flag at Half- gtaff — The Army's Institute of Heraldry was asked about laws, policies and customs governing the display of the American flag at half-staff. The Institute is the government authority on the flag. Aside from a 1968 law prohibiting the abuse of the American flag, the federal government does not have jurisdiction over the flag display on any non-federal property.
INDEPENDENCE DAY, JULY 4, 1971 Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness . . . these were the inalienable rights that our founding fathers believed in and fought for at Lexington and Concord . . . these are the rights that Americans still believe in today. Not all men enjoy the rights and privileges that are our heritage . . . men still live in oppression in many countries of the world. Let us keep the bell of freedom ringing, especially the 'freedom of the press and expression, so that its message of inde pendence may find an answering echo 41 every heart. a degree of prosperity and happiness never even approached under any other banner.
In 1954, President Eisenhower signed a proclamation setting forth in detail occasions when the American flag is to fly at half-staff on federal property, including ships. They are lowered for 30 days upan the death of a president or former president and for 10 days for the death of a vice president, a chief justice of the Supreme Court, a retired chief justice, or the speaker of the House. For governors of states, associate justices of the Supreme Court, members of the Cabinet, former vice presidents and the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force flags are to be at half-staff from the time of death until burial. When a member of Congress dies, the flag is to be lowered the day of his death and kept at half-staff the following day. The President can order the flags lowered on federal property at his discretion. While this 1954 proclamation applies only to flags flown on federal property, it is widely followed by states, cities and others