1955 piece honors nation’s history

Dear Readers: Happy Fourth of July! Here’s one of our favorite pieces, originally written in 1955 as a public relations advertisement for the Norfolk and Western Railway company magazine (now the Norfolk Southern Corporation) and updated in 1976. Although some of the statistics have changed over the years, the sentiment remains the same. (Here’s an abridged version.)

“I Am the Nation” by Otto Whittaker

I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am many things and many people. I am the nation.

I am 250 million living souls – and the ghost of millions who have lived and died for me. I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard around the world. I am Washington, Jefferson and Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys and Davy Crockett. I am Lee and Grant and Abe Lincoln.

I remember the Alamo, the Maine and Pearl Harbor. When freedom called, I answered and stayed until it was over, over there.

I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific – my arms reach out to embrace Alaska and Hawaii.

I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am 110,000 schools and colleges and 330,000 churches where my people worship God as they think best. I am a ballot dropped into a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium and the voice of a choir in a cathedral. I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to a Congressman.

I am Eli Whitney and Stephen Foster. I am Tom Edison, Albert Einstein and Billy Graham. I am Horace Greeley, Will Rogers and the Wright Brothers. I am George Washington Carver, Jonas Salk and Martin Luther King Jr.

Yes, I am the nation and these are the things that I am.

May I possess always the integrity, the courage and the strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom and a beacon of hope to the world.