any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a strike for higher wages. Civilization is one long, anxious search for just such individuals. Anything such a man asks shall be granted; his kind is so rare that no employer can afford to let him go. He is wanted in every city, town, and village-in every office, shop, store, and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed, and needed badly the man who can carry a message to Garcia.

The National Flag

Henry Ward Beecher

This declamation, which is an adaptation of a speech by Beecher, presents vivid pictures and varied emotions, to be voiced in dynamic, ringing tones. By gradual and natural steps lead up to the strong climax in the paragraph next to the last.

I HAVE seen the glories of art and architecture, and mountain and river; I have seen the sunset on Jungfrau, and the full moon rise over Mount Blanc; but the fairest vision on which these eyes ever looked was the flag of my country in a foreign land. Beautiful as a flower to those who love it, terrible as a meteor to those who hate it, it is the symbol of the power and glory, and the honor of one hundred million Americans.

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag, but the nation itself. When the French tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. When the new-found Italian flag is unfurled, we see

unified Italy. When the united crosses of St. Andrew and St. George, on a fiery ground, set forth the banner of old England, we see not the cloth merely; there rises up before the mind the idea of that great monarchy.

If one asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him: It means just what Concord and Lexington meant, what Bunker Hill meant. It means the whole glorious Revolutionary war. It means all that the Constitution of our people, organizing for justice, for liberty and for happiness, meant. Its stripes of alternate red and white proclaim the original union of thirteen states to maintain the Declaration of Independence. Its stars, white on a field of blue, proclaim that union of states constituting our national constellation. The two together signify union, past and present. The very colors have a language which was officially recognized by our fathers. White is for purity; red, for valor; blue, for justice; and all together-bunting, stripes, stars and colors, blazing in the sky-make the flag of our country, to be cherished by all our hearts, to be upheld by all our hands.

Under this banner rode Washington and his armies. Before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the highlands at West Point. It streamed in light over the soldiers' head at Valley Forge and at Morristown. It crossed the waters rolling with ice at Trenton, and when its stars. gleamed in the cold morning with victory, a new day of hope dawned on the despondency of this nation.

I like to think of our soldiers and sailors as defenders of the flag, and I like to think of the flag as our defender from foes within or foes without. During the Cuban revolution of '73, an American citizen was imprisoned, and by a Spanish courtmartial sentenced to be shot as a spy. The American consul at Havana demanded a suspension of the sentence pending an investigation, which was peremptorily refused, and preparations for the execution of the court-martial's finding were hurriedly made. The prisoner was led forth, and a company of Spanish soldiers stood ready, at the word of command, to execute the death warrant. At this critical moment appeared the American consul and, winding about the body of the prisoner the stars and stripes, turned to the Spanish officer and said: "Now shoot if you dare!" The silence of the Spanish guns was the only reply.

And so in any foreign country, if our flag in very truth be the emblem of national honor and international fair-dealing, then may the American citizen rest secure beneath its protecting folds in conscious assurance that "thrice is he armed who hath his quarrel just."

Texas-Undivided and Indivisible

Joseph W. Bailey

This is an extract from a speech delivered in the United States Senate in January, 1906. The principal transitions are indicated by the paragraphing, but on the whole this speech has the wellrounded periods of the oratorical style, and should be delivered in moderate rate, with voluminous and forceful tones.

THROUGHOUT this discussion we have heard many and varied comments upon the magnitude of Texas. Some senators have expressed a friendly solicitude that we would some day avail ourselves of the privilege accorded us by the resolutions under which we entered the Union, and divide our state into five states.

Mr. President, if Texas had contained a population in 1845 sufficient to have justified her admission as five states, it is my opinion that she would have been admitted. I will even go further than that; I will say that if Texas were now five states, there would not be five men in either state who would seriously propose the consolidation into one. But, sir, Texas is not divided now, and under the providence of God, she will not be divided until the end of time. Her position is exceptional, and excites in the minds of all her citizens a just and natural pride. She is now the greatest of all the states in area, and certain to become the greatest of all in population, wealth, and influence. With such a primacy assured her, she could not be expected to surrender it, even to obtain increased representation in this body.

But, Mr. President, while from her proud emi

nence to-day Texas looks upon a future as bright with promise as ever beckoned a people to follow where fate and fortune lead, it is not so much the promise of the future as it is the memory of the glorious past which appeals to her against division. She could partition her fertile valleys and broad prairies, she could apportion her thriving towns and growing cities, she could distribute her splendid population and wonderful resources, but she could not divide the fadeless glory of those days that are past and gone. To which of her daughters, sir, could she assign, without irreparable injustice to all the others, the priceless inheritance of the Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto? To which could she bequeath the name of Houston, Austin, Fannin, Bowie, and Crockett? Sir, the fame of these men, and their less illustrious but not less worthy comrades, cannot be severed.

The world has never seen a sublimer courage or a more unselfish patriotism than that which illuminates almost every page in the early history of Texas. Students may know more about other battlefields, but none is consecrated with the blood of braver men than those who fell at Goliad. Historians may not record it as one of the decisive battles of the world, but the victory of the Texans at San Jacinto is destined to exert a greater influence upon the happiness of the human race than all the conflicts that established or subverted the petty kingdoms of the ancient world. Poets have not yet immortalized it with their enduring verse, but the Alamo is more resplendent with her heroic sacrifice than was Ther