gcls_WFP_443

The United States of America.

Our country! What a thrill that gives us! Yet great as has been its past, its future is uncertain. It stands at the peak of its power to-day. Will it maintain its position or sink into oblivion?

History proves so clearly that moral causes determine the destiny of a nation. If a country has righteousness and truthfulness in its business transactions; an honest government free from graft, policy, and wastefulness; justice without bribery administered in its courts; a high moral standard maintained in the personal life of its people that national will endure and live, especially if it is honest, unselfish, and just in its relations with other nations and peoples. The greatest contribution which every boy who attends this camp can make to the future of his country is by being being upright, honest, just, courageous for right, unselfish, and clean. No matter how much money he gives away, no matter how famous he may become, it is his character which will tell for his country. Every dishonest act, every lie told, every vote cast for an unworthy candidate is a nail in the coffin in which our nation will ultimately be buried.

America, O America.

History's pages with wrecks are strewn,
America, O America.
Standing armies, resources vast,
Humming business with wealth amassed,
Crowded temples with long-robed priests,
Gorgeous women, abundant feasts--
All this they had; but now, weird sounds,
Broken columns, and wind-swept mounds,
America, O America.

Honored judges their verdicts sold,
America, O America.
Crawling preachers bowed down to gold,
America, O America.
Counters laden with spoils ill gotten,
Families broken, the mothers rotten,
Truckling rulers the mob obeyed,
Hungry children for succor prayed--
Heeding nothing, they whirled to hell
Thinking surely that all was well,
America, O America.