To the editor,

In 1955, Mr. Otto Whittaker penned "I Am the Nation" and it appeared as a public relations piece for the Norfolk and Western Railway company magazine.

It resurfaces occasionally, especially around Independence Day. 

Many have narrated it against the backdrop of an orchestra.

Johnny Cash released his narrated version in 1974.

While statistics and names have changed over the years, Whittaker's message remains the same, especially as America looks ahead to the next 250 years.

“I Am the Nation” by Otto Whittaker

I was born on July Fourth, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run through my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am many things, and many people. I am the nation.

I am 195 million living souls (now 349 million). - - and the ghost of millions who have lived and died for me.

I am Nathan Hale and Paul Revere. I stood at Lexington and fired the shot heard around the world. I am Washinton, Jefferson and Patrick Henry. I am John Paul Jones, the Green Mountain Boys and Davy Crockett. I am Lee and Grant and Abe Lincoln.

I remember the Alamo, and Maine and Pearl Harbor. When freedom called I answered and stayed until it was over, "over there."  I left my heroic dead in Flanders Fields, on the rocks of Corregidor, on the bleak slopes of Korea and in the steaming jungles of Vietnam.

I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas and the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coal fields of the Virginias and Pennsylvania, the fertile lands of the West, the Golden Gate and the Grand Canyon. I am Independence Hall, the Monitor and the Merrimac.

I am big. I sprawl from the Atlantic to the Pacific . . . my arms reach out to embrace Alaska and Hawaii . . . three million square miles throbbing with industry. I am more than five million farms. I am forest, field, mountain and desert. I am quiet villages - and cities that never sleep.

You can look at me and see Ben Franklin walking down the streets of Philadelphia with his breadloaf under his arm. You can see Betsy Ross with her needle. You can see the lights of Christmas, and hear the strains of Auld Lang Syne as the calendar turns.

I am Babe Ruth and the World Series. I am 130,000 schools and colleges, and 320,000 churches where my people worship God as they think best. I am a ballot dropped in a box, the roar of a crowd in a stadium, and the voice of a choir in a cathedral. I am an editorial in a newspaper and a letter to a congressman.

I am Eli Whitney and Stepen Foster. I am Tom Edison, Albert Einstein and Billy Graham. I am Horace Greely, Will Rogers and the Wright brothers. I am George Washington Carver, Daniel Webster and Jonas Salk.

I am Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman and Thomas Paine.

YES, I AM the Nation, and these are the things that I am. I was conceived in freedom and, God willing, in freedom I will spend the rest of my days.

May I possess always the integrity, the courage and strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom and a beacon of hope to the world.

Bill Rubin

North Hudson