_______________________________________________________
---Patriotic Sentiments, July 4th, 1908---
_______________________________________________________
Being disappointed today in not going out with others to celebrate on this the one hundred and thirty-third anniversary of that great and notable day of victory won which brought freedom to our fathers, their wives and their children forever. I wish you to pause with me for just one moment and reflect on their great struggle, yes, think with deep and reverential awe on the trying scenes through which they passed while pursuing and achieving their precious boon of liberty.
Then lift your voices and shout the shout of victory and freedom; may we fail not to honor those brave soldiers, notable patriots and wise statesmen who made such blessings possible for us, and may we not fail in our duty of teaching our children to appreciate their present happy lot of living in a free land.
I am now nearing the close of my earthly existence and as the shades of life's evening appear on the distant horizon, I glance over my past life and review the blessings and experiences and and potent blessings which have ever encompassed my pathway, fully realizing that through it all there ever abides this one great source of thankfulness--that I have in each instance and under all circumstances so lived as to honor those noble founders of our great institution and by so teaching my sons and daughters to live that they honor not only my name and their own lives but also their sacred lives as law abiding citizens, and whatever may be their views of the questions of the day, or in whatever capacity they may be called upon to act may they never neglect their privilege of honoring the noble founders of our nation--our noble republic.
May we all sing with a realizing sense of its beauty and grandeur of the theme, the words and sentiment contained in our national anthem, "Sweet Land of Liberty." It has always been a source of great pleasure to me to hear the children of our land sing of the "landwhere our fathers died; land of the pilgrim's pride."