THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FLAG.-June 14, 1777, the United States flag had its statutory beginning, when the Continental Congress adopted the banner designed by Betsy Ross. It consisted of thirteen horizontal stripes alternately red and white, and a field of blue inclosing a circle of thirteen white stars representing a new constellation in the universe of nations.

The admission of Vermont and Kentucky added two more stars and two more stripes in 1794, and it was then discovered that the addition of both stars and stripes would soon rob the emblem of its symmetrical proportions, so it was decided in 1818, after the second war with England, marked by most brilliant achievements under the flag, had left us still an independent nation, to provide for an increase of stars for states, and to retain the original thirteen stripes for the union.

The attempted secession of the slave-holding states of the south was prevented by four years of civil war, but the flag never lost a star, and with the constant reminder of perpetual union waving aloft the nation stands to-day a model for the world in the arts of industry, peace and commerce.

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Copyright, 1911, 1912, 1913, Copyright, 1914, 1916, 1917 Copyright, 1922

BY

BUREAU OF NATIONAL LITERATURE

Government

Is Man's Most Exalted Work.

Republican Government

Is the Supreme Type of Organization.

The United States Government

Is of All Governments the Best.

Therefore, the men who performed that most difficult of human undertakings— the establishment of law-and who performed that task with a success without parallel, the men who constructed the American Republic are leaders whose works have proved their wisdom con

summate.

That Wisdom is concretely bodied forth in the MESSAGES AND PAPERS OF THE PREsidents. In these Papers our Chief Magistrates and the statesmen, jurists, financiers, warriors who composed their Cabinets discuss questions perpetually before the voter, and define the fundamental policies on which is based this greatest human achievement. Their Doctrines form our Governmental Gospel.