The Flag goes by _Henry Holcomb Bennett_ 98
What the Flag stands for _Henry Cabot Lodge_ 100
Union and Liberty _Oliver Wendell Holmes_ 101
Your Country and your Flag _Edward Everett Hale_ 103
The Home Flag _Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_ 104
Old Flag _Hubbard Parker_ 105
Britannia to Columbia _Alfred Austin_ 107
Makers of the Flag _Franklin K. Lane_ 109
Our Flag _Margaret Sangster_ 112
Our History and our Flag _William Backus Guitteau_ 113
The American Flag _Joseph Rodman Drake_ 115
The Flag of our Country _Robert C. Winthrop_ 116
America _Samuel Francis Smith_ 117

INDEX 119

THE LITTLE BOOK OF THE FLAG

[Illustration]

CHAPTER I

THE FLAGS THAT BROUGHT THE COLONISTS

More than three hundred years ago a little sailing vessel set out from
Holland, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, and followed down our coast from
Greenland. Its captain, Henry Hudson, was in search of a quick and easy
route to Asia, and when he entered the mouth of the river that is named
for him, he hoped that he had found a strait leading to the Asiatic
coast. He was disappointed in this, but the Indians welcomed him, the
mountains were rich in forests, and the ground was fertile. "It is the
most beautiful land in all the world," declared the enthusiastic navigator.

Henry Hudson was an Englishman, but he sailed in the employ of the Dutch
East India Company, and soon the flag of this Company was well known
along the Hudson River. It was the old flag of Holland, three horizontal
stripes, of orange, white, and blue, with the initials of the Company on
the white stripe. Hudson had not found a new route to Asia, but he had
opened the way for the fur-trade. In a few years the Dutch had
established trading-posts as far north as Albany. They had also founded
a city which we call "New York," but which they named "New Amsterdam."
So it was that in 1609 the Dutch flag first came to the New World.

Nearly thirty years after the voyage of Henry Hudson, a company of
Swedes made a settlement on the Delaware River. This had been planned
by the