Patriotism, like many other virtues, is easily counterfeited. Gruff old Dr. Johnson called it “the last refuge of a scoundrel.” It has one thing in common with charity, “it covers a multitude of sins.” It often expends itself in mere bawling. Our holiday oratory brings out no end of inspired and inspiring utterances; but allowance ought to be made for considerable leakage of gas. Indiscriminate praise of everything American is a cheap way of drawing applause, but the truest friends of the country are they who make us worthier to be free, who helped to save mankind, ’till public wrong be crumbled into dust, and drill the raw world for the march of mind, ’till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.
–courtesy of Tom Giessel – July 28, 1899, Tiller and Toiler newspaper, Larned, Kansas
