"Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the door of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan worked from sunrise until far into the night, to give her boy an education. She, too, is making the flag.
"Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to a boy who will one day write a song that will give cheer to the millions of our race. We are all making the flag."
"But," I said impatiently, "these people were only working."
"THE WORK that we do is the making of the flag.
"I am not the flag; not at all. I am but its shadow.
"I am whatever you make me, nothing more.
"I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a people may become.
"I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heartbreaks and tired muscles.
"Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do an honest work, fitting the rails together truly.
"Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and cynically I play the coward.
"Sometimes I am loud, garish and full of that ego that blasts judgment.
"But always I am all that you hope to be, and have the courage to try for.
"I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope.
"I am the day's work of the weakest man, and the largest dream of the most daring.
"I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and the statute makers, soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk.
"I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of to-morrow.
"I am the mystery of the men who do without knowing why.
"I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution.
"I am no more than what you believe me to be and I am all that you believe I can be.
"I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this Nation. My stars and my stripes are your dream and your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you have made them so out of your hearts. For you are the makers of the flag and it is well that you glory in the making."
Speech of General Fitzhugh Lee at a dinner given by the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick and the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia, at the city of Philadelphia, September 17, 1887. The occasion of the dinner was the one hundredth anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. General Lee, then governor of Virginia, was the guest of Governor Beaver at the dinner. The Chairman, Hon. Andrew G. Curtin [Pennsylvania's war governor], in introducing General Lee said: "We have here to-day a gentleman whom I am glad to call my friend, though during the war he was in dangerous and unpleasant proximity to me. He once threatened the capital of this great state. I did not wish him to come in, and was very glad when he went away. He was then my enemy and I was his. But, thank God, that is past; and in the enjoyment of the rights and interests common to all as American citizens, I am his friend and he is my friend. I introduce to you, Governor Fitzhugh Lee."