While the land of the free is the home of the brave

It is the fourth of July. Don't know why but it has always been my favorite holiday of the year. I always have a great time on the fourth. Conversely, my New Years Eve's usually tend to suck. Anyway looking forward to another great day, and spending the evening with friends.

When I was in San Francisco last Saturday I stopped by the Francis Scott Key Memorial in front of the DeYoung Museum. Key of course wrote the Star Spangled Banner, our national anthem. I don't remember ever reading the second verse before but took it was chiseled into the rock so I took a picture.

 I have never been a big fan of the anthem, being in the group that prefers America the Beautiful.

A bit vengeful and warlike like the drinking dirge of some Viking brigand. "Thru the mist of the deep where the foes haughty host in dread silence deposes..." Ouch.

Our national anthem was written in 1814 by a 35 year old lawyer, Francis Scott Key. The original title was the Defence of Ft. McHenry. Key had witnessed the bombardment of the fort on Chesapeake Bay by the British in the War of 1812.  The song was set to the tune of a British song "To Anacreon in Heaven" written by a member of an 18th century British gentlemen's club, The Anacreontic Society, John Stafford Smith. It became the nation's Navy's anthem in 1889. Here is the full song:

O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?


On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner, O! long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.


And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.


O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation.
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the Heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!


Oliver Wendell Holmes added a fifth stanza after the start of the Civil War:
When our land is illumined with liberty's smile,
If a foe from within strikes a blow at her glory,
Down, down with the traitor that tries to defile
The flag of the stars, and the page of her story!
By the millions unchained,
Who their birthright have gained
We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave,
While the land of the free is the home of the brave.

A handwritten copy by Key written in 1840 changed the third line to:
"Whose bright stars and broad stripes, through the clouds of the fight"
*
I have been thinking a bit about this great country of ours this morning. My father came here on a third class steamer in 1939, penniless and speaking no english. His father had fled the pogroms in Russia and Poland. My mother's family came from Moldava for the same reasons in 1922, seeking a refuge from brutal oppression. I am a child and grand child of immigrants that were in near desperate straits.   And Americans need to consider that unless you are a native american, whose forefather's long ago traversed the Bering Sea fleeing their own particular travails, you are also of similar immigrant stock.


Next time you demonstrate against those damn illegals consider what would have happened if the door was slammed in your ancestor's faces. Perhaps you would be whistling a different tune?


I am not a believer in general amnesty or illegal immigration. But I do think that we have to remember that we were formed as a refuge for those of all colors and creeds fleeing oppression and seeking a better life and there are still people today in similar straits.  We must always strive to be the best nation that we can be.