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ir a family affair Official Organ Of The Slavonic Benevolent Order Of The
tate Of Texas, Founded 1897
HUMANITY
BENEVOLENCE
BROTHERHOOD
Postmaster: Please Send Form 3579 to: SUPREME LODGE, SPJST, P.O. Box 100, Temple, Texas 76501 VOLUME 65, NUMBER 26 JUNE 29, 1977
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK The Liberty Bell — Its inscription reads: "Ye shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the Inhabitants thereof." In 1775 it was rung for the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. Then in 1776 it celebrated the signing of the Declaration. It was in 1835 when the bell cracked as it tolled for the death of John Marshall. In 1846 it was enshrined in the State House in Philadelphia (Independence Hall). In 1816 the bell rang commemorating the 100th year of American independence, at the Centennial in Philadelphia. Another important date was in 1915 when its voice was carried to San Francisco, on the occasion of the first linking of the Atlantic Coast with the pacific by longdistance telephone. In 1926 its note was broadcast for the first time at the opening of the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Then in 1944 it announced the landing of the Allied armies on the beaches of Normandy — June 6th, "D Day." * * How Our Country Got Its Name
—The name "United States" was officially adopted in 1776, while the American colonies were fighting for their independence. Before
INDEPENDENCE DAY
and independent states." * * Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — These were the in-
alienable rights that our founding fathers believed in and fought for at Lexington and Concord — these are the rights that Americans still believe in today. But not all men enjoy the rights and privileges that are our heritage — men still live in oppression in many countries of the world. * * Let's keep the bell of freedom ringing so that its message of independence may find an answering echo in every heart. Independence Day, 1977—What-
the outbreak of the American Revolution in April, 1775, each colony had been a unit under the British Crown. With the war, however, the American patriots then began to speak of the "united colonies." The leaders of the united colonies, meeting as the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which became the central gov -ernmtofhe13clonis,prclaimed the colonies to be united in a resolution on June 7th, 1775, and also stated that the "colonies are, and of right ought to be, free
ever stresses we face today fade into comparative insignificance when one contemplates the events of those turbulent times that led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and our observance of the Fourth of July. During 1776, life was short and far from tranquil. Many people of that day were hardly aware that they were presiding over the birth of a nation. Sectional interests were rampant. If there was a sense of destiny, it was confined to a few visionaries. Only with the passage of the years did order grow out of seeming chaos. History leaves the impression that there was one unifying force that nourished the growth of the infant U.S. -- that force wa4 a