in your heart, and the heart of
America shall interpret the heart of the world.

MAKERS OF THE FLAG

The following address was delivered by the Honorable Franklin K.
Lane, Secretary of the Interior, before the officers and employees
of this Department, about 5,000 in number, at the Inner Court,
Patent Office Building, June 14, 1914.

This morning, as I passed into the Land Office, The Flag dropped me a
most cordial salutation, and from its rippling folds I heard it say:
"Good morning, Mr. Flag Maker."

"I beg your pardon, Old Glory," I said, "aren't you mistaken? I am not
the president of the United States, nor a member of Congress, nor even a
general in the army. I am only a government clerk."

"I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker," replied the gay voice, "I know you
well. You are the man who worked in the swelter of yesterday
straightening out the tangle of that farmer's homestead in Idaho, or
perhaps you found the mistake in that Indian contract in Oklahoma, or
helped to clear that patent for the hopeful inventor in New York, or
pushed the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in
Illinois more safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No
matter; whichever one of these beneficent individuals you may happen to
be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker."

I was about to pass on, when The Flag stopped me with these words:

"Yesterday the president spoke a word that made happier the future of
ten millions peons in Mexico; but that act looms no larger on the flag
than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn
Club prize this summer.

"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."

Then came a great shout from The Flag:

"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