Good Citizenship

It's election day in the United States -- have you voted yet?

Today as I thought about the election I rememberd an excellent little book I picked up some ten years ago. It contains two speeches by former President Grover Cleveland and was published in 1908. The first speech is titled Good Citizenship and is as applicable today as it was 100+ years ago when written.

As typical you can't get the entire text via Google Books (such a shame as the book is only 78 pages long), but you can read a good deal of it, so check it out! Here's the opening quote:

"There is danger that my subject of American good citizenship is so familiar and so trite as to lack interest. This does not necessarily result from a want of appreciation of the importance of good citizenship, nor from a denial of the duty resting upon every American to be a good citizen. There is, however, abroad in our land a self-satisfied and perfunctory notion that we do all that is required of us in this direction when we make profession of our faith in the creed of good citizenship and abstain from the commission of palpably unpatriotic sins...."Read more here.

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Quote: Patriotism

"The lines of red are lines of blood, nobly and unselfishly shed by men who loved the liberty of their fellowmen more than they loved their own lives and fortunes." ~ President Woodrow Wilson, 1915

America The Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates

O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassion'd stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness.

America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.

America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness,
And ev'ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.

America! America!
God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

Pariotism

Today is the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I have a stack of books that I want to review, including some really cute children's books, but while sitting at my desk my radio suddenly went silent. I realized they were observing a moment of silence for the victims of September 11. The silence was then followed by our National Anthem. I felt a swell of pride as I heard the music and my thoughts turned towards books on American patriotism, heroes, and the like.

Have you read a book or several books that have filled you with feelings of patriotism and love for your country -- be it the United States or somewhere else in the world? If so, what was it?Please leave a comment and let me know which and why. It doesn't have to be current history or current heroes, it could be heroes from history too.