"HATS OFF"

It was more than fifty years ago that Philip Nolan shouted: "Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear of the United States again!" Today, as in the days of the Civil War, this sort of blasphemy is scarce, yet a new feeling has come into vogue, quite as dangerous as that of the "man without a country," and far more widespread.

It is the "don't care" attitude of the citizen who has never bothered to learn the national anthem, who looks on the flag merely as a holiday banner. Last Saturday the men in the Boston crowds who uncovered as the colors passed were exceptional. Hardly a voice was raised in protest against the hundreds who did not. Stupidly good-natured and lackadasical, they were there to see the glitter and color, to hear the bands play, and, quite naturally, to stare at Marshal Joffre. And in the midst of all the spirit of celebration, to the thousands who lined the streets the flag seemed to have no particular significance.

Many of the American people today have not yet waked up to the real meaning of the flag. For nearly half a century we have rested in comparative ease and luxury. Save for the brief campaigns of the Spanish War, the colors have been used largely as part of the bright dress of holiday rejoicings, of national anniversaries and expositions. They have not, in the thoughts of the present generation, been closely associated with the blood and grime of battlefields, with the sort of self-sacrifice of which a man offers the best that he has--his life.

But this sleepy forgetfulness must stop! If we are to enter the fight a nation united in one cause we must be conscious of the traditions of the flag, of the battles of the Revolution and the Civil War, which made the United States "safe" until today, "for democracy." We must look up to the flag once more as the standard of our forefathers, as the symbol of the ideals which we, as a democratic nation, stand ready to defend.