Postcard from the Past: Old Glory’s Birthday

By: Dick Perue

An article in the June 20, 1918 issue of the Powell Leader in part proclaims:

Today, June 14, this Flag Day, Old Glory will float from the staffs of a million American  homes, perhaps from 10 or 20 million, but its greater glory – the greatest glory of its 140 years – is it will float in the breezes of France and Flanders beside the flags of France, Belgium and Great Britain and on the seven seas of the world, in the world’s greatest combat against autocratic brutality. 

No longer the flag of a group of colonies, Old Glory has become the banner of a world power, the emblem of the mightiest free people who existed.

Never were the stripes of our flag brighter or the stars more brilliant on their field of blue than they are today. In field, in mine, in factory, in home, in garden, in camp, on ship, in trench and in battle line the men, women and children of our vast free empire are united in one great cause, and the free flag of a free people floats over them, unstained and unspotted.

From generation to generation since Old Glory was born, flags have died, but Old Glory has had new birth. From generation to generation, our flag is born anew, recreated in our hearts, ever better loved and more sacred in our eyes, because it is the flag for which our heroes have died and because it is the symbol of the only government which can endure – a government of the people, by the people and for the people. 

It is the flag of no king or czar or emperor, but your flag and my flag and the flag of the brave boy who has gone with a song on his lips to die so we may remain free. Earth has no greater glory today than Old Glory. 

For a century and a half it has floated above our soil, a sign we are free. Today it floats on alien breezes, in foreign lands not for conquest but as an earnest plea all nations that desire freedom shall henceforth be free.

Those who wish to read the entire article can visit the Wyoming Newspaper Project’s website and call up the June 20, 1918 Powell Leader, then go to page five.