[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 109 (Friday, June 30, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S9514]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                        AMERICA'S 219TH BIRTHDAY

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, next Tuesday, in homes, neighborhoods, and 
communities across the country, Americans will celebrate Independence 
Day.
  And since the Senate will not be in session on America's birthday, I 
wanted to take a minute today to share some very meaningful words with 
my colleagues.
  The words are not mine. Rather, they were first written in 1955, as a 
public relations advertisement for what is now the Norfolk Southern 
Corp. The words have been updated slightly since that time, and they 
eloquently encompass what America is all about.

       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 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 Fields, on the rock 
     of Corregidor, on the bleak slopes of Korea, and in the 
     steaming jungles of Vietnam.
       I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat fields 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. Three million 
     square miles throbbing with industry. I am millions of 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 in 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.
       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.

  Mr. President, I know all Senators join with me in wishing America a 
happy 219th birthday.


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