Trainman News

Flags and Loyalty

HARRY DANIEL, Lodge 1040, Vancouver,
B. C., had the grace and generosity to write
that our treatment of Canadian news and our
recognition of men as members of the human
race, rather than just citizens of the particular
part of the globe they occupy, gives evidence
that TRAINMAN NEWS has a welcome breadth of
view. "While you are a citizen of the greatest
nation on earth," he wrote, "a nation so huge
in power and achievement, and gifted with in-
estimable productive capacity, you recognize the
existence of other nations."

That gives us inspiration for Flag Day. The
Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen has brought
together men of different nations, men whose
loyalty to their respective flags does not detract
from their divine purpose of working together.
The flags of Canada and the United States of
America flying together, each neither above nor
below the other, at our conventions and other
get-togethers in the United States and Canada,
portray a human fellowship that should be imi-
tated throughout the world. Another inspiring
example of constructive human relationships, are
meetings of the Pan American Union, where the
flags of the many nations of the American con-
tinent fly together as the people under them live
and work together.

All of this will be changed if Sen. Edward
Martin (R-Pa) and the Senate Judiciary Com-
mittee have their way. Martin introduced S 694,
approved by the Committee, making it an offense
punishable by fines and jail sentences to display
the "flag of the United Nations or any other
national or international flag equal, above, or in
a position of superior prominence or honor to, or
in place of, the flag of the United States at any
place within the United States or any Territory
or possession thereof . . ." In a burst of con-
descension, S 694 makes exception for "the head-
quarters of the United Nations or at any place
at which any official meeting or proceeding of
the United Nations is in progress."

To some, flags are a source of vain display. To
others, they are symbols of deathless principles.
The love, loyalty and devotion residing in men's
hearts constitute the sturdy staff that keeps a
flag flying on high, even though in the din of
battle it may trail in the dust.

To tyrants, who never have learned that al-
though disloyalty can be punished, loyalty can-
not be ordered, flags have a different meaning.
Tyrants conceive of men as having only one
loyalty. S 694 pays greater honor and respect to
the one-color, one-loyalty of the red flag of
Russia or the black swastika of Hitler than to
the red, white and blue flag that flies with the
flags of the 48 states we call the United States
of America.

The fellow who knocks the hat from the head
of the old man so engrossed with devotion as the
flag goes by that he forgets to remove his hat,
does not reveal patriotism: he only reveals him-
self. S 694 reminds us of the fellow who wore a
flag on his necktie and went around exclaiming,

"Nothing above the flag!"

Could the Good Book have appeared as witness
before the Senate Judiciary Committee, it would
have testified:

"Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not
sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites
do in the synagogues and in the streets, that
they may have glory of men . . . And when thou
prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are;
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues
and in the corners of the streets, that they may
be seen of men."-Matthew 6: 2, 5.