The splendor of the flag shall gleam
In every radiant star,
And finer shall the banner seem
Because of what we are.
To-day new glory for the Flag
We give our best
to build;
Of us shall future ages brag,
By us their blood
be thrilled;
And as to us the flag has
meant
The greatness
of the past,
The Stars and Stripes shall
represent
Our courage to
the last.
The children in the years
to be
Our trials shall
discuss,
And cheer the emblem of the
free,
In part, because
of us.
To the Men at Home
No war is won by cannon fire alone;
The soldier bears the grim and dreary role;
He dies to serve the Flag that he has known;
His duty is to gain the distant goal.
But if the toiler in his homeland fair
Falter in faith and shrink from every test,
If he be not on duty ever there,
Lost to the cause is every soldier’s best.
The men at home, the toiler
in the shop,
The keen-eyed watcher
of the spinning drill
Hear no command to vault the
trench’s top;
They know not what it
is to die or kill,
And yet they must be brave
and constant, too.
Upon them lies
their precious country’s fate;
They also serve the Flag as
soldiers do,
’Tis theirs
to make a nation’s army great.
You hold your country’s
honor in your care.
Her glory you
shall help to make or mar;
For they, who now her uniforms
must wear
Can be no braver
soldiers than you are.
From day to day, in big and
little deeds,
At bench or lathe
or desk or stretch of soil,
You are the man your country
sorely needs!
Will you not give
to her your finest toil?
No war is won by cannon fire
alone.
The men at home
must also share the fight.
By what they are, a nation’s
strength is shown,
The army but reflects
their love of right.
Will you not help to hold
our battle line,
Will you not give
the fullest of your powers
In sacrifice and service that
is fine
That victory shall
speedily be ours?
From Laughter to Labor
We have wandered afar in our hunting for pleasure,
We have scorned the soul’s duty to gather up treasure;
We have lived for our laughter and toiled for our winning
And paid little heed to the soul’s simple sinning.
But light were the burdens that freighted us then,
God and country, to-day let us prove we are men!
We have idled and dreamed in life’s merriest places,
The years have writ little of care in our faces;
We have brought up our children, expectant of gladness,
And little we’ve taught them of life and its sadness.
For distant and dim seemed the forces of wrong,
God and country, to-day let us prove we are strong!


