Keep the Dream Alive

We must keep the dream of America under God alive. Martin Luther King along with writers and poets consistently expressed this idea: “God, give us (honorable) men!” in a sonnet by Josiah Gilbert Holland, America as “God’s Crucible, “ ( Israel Zangwill),
a place were a “just God … presides over the destinies of nations” ( Patrick Henry), where the 2nd of our two main characteristics according to John Buchan ( the first being that ordinary man believes in himself and his ability to govern his country), is the Christians’ fundamental belief in the worth of every human soul, where Francis Scott Key’s star- spangled banner flew over a “Heaven-rescued land,” where His “Power made us a nation,” and where Samuel Francis Smith” in America sang to thee, “Our Father’s God,” … “author of liberty,” where “God shed His grace” for Katherine Lee Bates, where Julia Ward Howe saw a country “link thy ways to those of God,” where James Russell Lowell saw Freedom “God’s express design,” “where God’s peace is shed,” for Katherine Janeway Conger, and where, regarding our Ship of State, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow confirmed, “We know what Master laid thy keel.”

God and God’s country have been inextricably intertwined throughout our history. Yet the present Obama administration and his supporters want to ‘totally transform’ America. What does this mean? Does it mean that we cannot as Harry Golden said, only in America go to a public library – and just for the asking – have made available “the sum total of all of human thought and experience; at no cost whatever?” Does it cease to mean that “America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses?” as expressed in a speech by Woodrow Wilson in Chicago? Does it mean that we live in a country where no longer the “President’s taking off his hat to them ( the common people) not they to him - ” according to Walt Whitman? Does it mean that we all are not Americans,, no Republican, no Democrat, “That their country is greater than party?” a view from James Gillespie Blaine on an Independence Day?

A full-fledged American ( according to Struthers Burt) practices “sober discussion, a deep contemplation.” “Circumstances are forcing him into deep, straight, independent form of thinking. “ “Pseudo-patriotism, Burt says, “may be the last refuge of a scoundrel.” “Real patriotism… will be… the last, and only possible, refuge of the intelligent and far-visioned citizen, but also his sword, his rallying cry, and the emblem of his advance.” America needs full-fledged citizens now.

America is still in the uplifting lines of Henry Van Dyke who called America home, “the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars, / Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars. Better yet, let’s let Teddy Roosevelt offer his challenge to a “new nation, based on a mighty continent, of boundless possibilities. No other nation in the world has such resources. NO other nation has ever been so favored. If we dare to rise level to the opportunities offered us, our destiny will be vast beyond the power of imagination. We must master this destiny; and make it our own; and we can thus make it our own only if we, as a vigorous and separate nation, develop a great and wonderful nationality, distinctively different from any other nationality, of either the present or the past. For such a nation all of us can well afford to give up all other allegiances, and high of heart to stand, a mighty and united people, facing a future of glorious promise.”

American, beautiful under God, where Freedom rings with opportunity for all – penned about pledged to by optimists throughout our history. Until now. Can we let the dream die?

Keep the Dream Alive Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die For when dreams go
Life is a broken-winged bird Life is a barren field
That cannot fly. Frozen with snow.
Langston Hughes
“Dreams”

“I am Christmas carols, … the Golden Rule, … I am America as long ago as I can remember and as far ahead as I can dream.” ( George Mendoza).