July 4th – this is our day to breathe deeply the sweet air of freedom, to wave our flag proudly, to picnic with families and friends.

For the joy of freedom cannot be contained. It must be celebrated around backyard barbecues or on cabin cruisers, as well as in simple shacks hugging Rocky Mountain cliffs.

Yet, when the drums have stopped cheering the social and political revolution set in motion on that great day in 1776, and the rockets no longer light the night with joyous bursts of color, we pause to think of better times.

Many Americans belong to the generation that stormed the beaches of Normandy, worked in defense plants, then turned around and accepted the burden of Korea.

We recall there was a time when America stood for honesty and quality, that one’s word was one’s bond. We preferred to purchase appliances made in the United States because whatever came from Japan was considered junk.

We remember when the majority who didn’t need welfare fled from it as though it were a curse, because, while putting a jingle in their jeans, it placed a blight upon their pride.

We look back to nights on the town free of worry about slashed tires or being held up for kicks.

Gradually, the ethics-of-the-moment philosophy spread across our land, clouding our vision and weakening our sense of national purpose.

The Vietnam War destroyed our trust in political and military leaders.

We have seen our schools become training grounds for anarchy.

Purveyors of dope and pornography rob our young of their present and future.

Lobbyists in Washington sell our national interests to the highest bidders at home and abroad.

Most of our steel furnaces are cold and dark, our workers betrayed and bitter.

We learn from the congressional Research Service that we are now the world’s number one arms merchant, and we wonder what type of people we have become.

How difficult it is to make Robert Louis Stevenson’s prayer our own: "Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind."

Yet, it is only courage that will give us the strength to put our hands to the plow and to sow again the seeds of honor, the dignity of work, and hope for the oppressed.

Gaiety of purpose will give impetus to our steps, knowing we are on the way to restoring our personal and national integrity.

It is only with quiet minds that we can clearly assess the work to be done and the most direct course to follow.

The tasks before us are immense, but we can meet them because we have a heritage of a people undaunted by hardships.

Most of us cannot blast off rockets of great deeds, but we can join our fellow Americans who are lighting sparklers of small ones across the nation.

Archibald MacLeish’s tribute to Judge Augustus Hand seems to me applicable to everyone who "does what one can do."

"We are neither weak nor few
As long as one man does what one can do.
As long as one man in the sun alone
Walks between the silence and the stone
And honors manhood in his flesh, his bone,
We are not yet too weak, nor yet too few."

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