SATURDAY'S SINGLES - I AM THE NATION and THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

[maggot]

Good morning gang and welcome to the Independence Day edition of Saturday's Singles. Today we bring you two spoken word pieces that capture the then and the now and speak to the Freedom we have found in our national DNA, as we commemorate the 244 years since the Continental congress declared that the original 13 colonies were now united, free, and independent of the British crown and no longer subjects of King George III.

Our first selection is the poem, "I Am The Nation" originally written in 1955, by Otto Whitaker, as a public relations advertisement for the Norfolk and Western Railway company magazine. It was revised in 1976 and has been updated with it's use through the years to include a couple of newer events. It was produced by George Crumbley Advertising Inc.   Our copy,  produced by George Crumbley Advertising Inc. is from 1966 and appears to be a promotional item from the Atlanta Federal Savings who was the Freedom Foundations Award Winner for that year. It was designed and printed by the General Lithographing Company, in Atlanta.  I can find a couple of copies on Discogs, but unfortunately I cannot find a name for the speaker.  I will print the text as it appears on our 45, which has the poem on both sides. 

"(Ladies and gentlemen, Atlanta Federal Savings is proud and humbled to have been selected as the principal awardee in the Americana general category for television, by the Freedom's Foundation at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. And now the 1966 award winning Freedom's Foundation program : I Am The Nation) "

"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 left my heroic dead in Flanders Field, on the rock of Corregidor, on the bleak slopes of Korea and in the steaming jungle of Vietnam.

I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas and the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coalfields of the Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile lands of the West, the Golden Gate and the Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor and the Merrimac.

I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific — my arms reach out to embrace Alaska and Hawaii. I am more than five million farms. I am forest, field, mountain and desert. I am quiet villages — and cities that never sleep.

You can look at me and see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia with his breadloaf under his arm. You can see Betsy Ross with her needle. You can see the lights of Christmas and hear the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" as the calendar turns.

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.

I am Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman and Thomas Paine.

Yes, I am the nation and these are the things that I am. I was conceived in freedom and, God willing, in freedom I will spend the rest of my days.

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."

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Our second selection comes to us in the form of a Burger King giveaway from 1969. We have this cool little cardboard record with The Pledge of Allegiance by Red Skelton. It was taken from theRed Skelton Hour on Jan 14, 1969.

("I remember a teacher that I had. Now I only went, I went through the 7th grade. I left home when I was ten years old because I was hungry. This is true, I work in the summer and went to school in the summer, but I had this one teacher who was the principal at the Harrison School in Vincennes, Indiana. To me this was the greatest teacher, a real sage of my time anyhow. He had such wisdom and we were all reciting the Pledge Of Allegiance one day and he walked over this little old teacher, Mr. Laswell was his name.")

"I've been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance all semester and it seems as though it is becoming monotonous to you. If I may, may I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word?"

I
"Me, an individual, a committee of one."

Pledge

"Dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self pity."

Allegiance

"My love and my devotion."

To the flag

"Our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom. Wherever she waves, there's respect because your loyalty has given her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybody's job!"

of the
United

"That means that we have all come together."

States

"Individual communities that have united into forty-eight great states. Forty-eight individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose; all divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to a common purpose, and that's love for country."

And to the Republic

"Republic. A state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people and it's from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people"

For which it stands,
One Nation under God

"One Nation, meaning 'so blessed by God'"

Indivisible

"Incapable of being divided."

With liberty

"Which is freedom -- the right of power to live one's own life without threats, fear or some sort of retaliation."

And Justice

"The principle or quality of dealing fairly with others."

For all.

"For All. Which means, boys and girls, it's as much your country as it is mine."

And now, boys and girls, let me hear you recite the Pledge of Allegiance:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands; one Nation under God, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.

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Have a solemn Independence Day.