Betsy Ross
Dr. Koster
WRIT 102
25 September 2001
Stars and Stripes Forever
What do you think of when you hear the following? Red. White. Blue. Did you automatically think of the flag of the United States of America? The flag as we know it today is not the original Stars and Bars. We only began to see the beginnings of our current flag in 1776. However, that flag did not have stars on it, according to a recent study; it had the British Union Jack on it instead. In M.R. Bennett’s …So Gallantly Streaming, we learn further how Congress brought together the idea for the flag as we have it today. Bennett states, “Congress on June 14, 1777, adopted the following resolution: ‘Resolved that the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field.’ The significance of the colors was defined thus: ‘White signifies Purity and Innocence; Red, Hardiness and Valor; Blue, Vigilance, Perseverance and Justice’” (6). Historians credit Betsy Ross of Philadelphia with sewing the first flag. Ross’ flag would go through many changes to become the flag that we see everywhere today.
When the colonies broke away from the British Empire, our founding fathers wanted a way to symbolize our freedom. The flag was our chance. There was to be a star for each state on the flag. We all learned in school that every time a new state joins the union, a new flag would be made that added a star for that state and would be put out on July 4th of the following year. The last new flag the United States had was produced in 1960, after Hawaii joined the union in 1959. For the last forty-one years, we have had fifty stars to go with the thirteen stripes that still stand for the original colonies.
Through experiences in school, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, the military, or other means, people have learned how to show proper respect to the flag. This includes how to display the flag properly, how to fold the flag, and when to display the flag. According to the Betsy Ross Homepage, the proper display of the flag depends on the situation that you are in. If, for example, you are displaying the flag on a flagpole with other flags, the American flag must be on the top. When folding the flag, you fold it in half and repeat so that the union is on the outside. Then you start on the striped end and fold it into a triangle. When you reach the end of the flag you tuck it into the triangle. Display of the flag was originally meant for special holidays, according to the website, but now people fly it all year round. The flag should be flown only during the day, unless it is raining, and should be taken down at night; only a few places are authorized to fly the flag twenty-four hours a day. These include the U.S. Capitol and the White House (Betsy Ross). Most of us learned things like this about the flag through our school days, but many people do not know what you can’t do with a flag.
Believe it or not, the United States actually has a flag code, which is part of the United States Code that makes up federal law. Under Title Thirty-Six, chapter 10, you can find how to do anything from displaying the flag to learning what is considered misuse of the flag, according to the Legal Information Institute. Its website points out that letting the flag touch the ground or water is misuse of the flag. So is imprinting the flag on any form of merchandise; no one but the United States Government is legally allowed to use the flag in advertising (Legal Information Institute). There is no mention of the flag in the Constitution or Bill of Rights; the flag code was developed much later. Now we all learned in fourth grade that letting a flag get wet or touch the ground was disrespectful, but how many of us realize that having the flag on our clothes or cars is illegal? And using the flag in advertising, too? Have you realized that we as Americans can be put in jail or fined for doing these things? Title Eighteen, chapter 33, of the United States Code states that “whoever knowingly mutilates, defaces, physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon any flag of the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both” (Legal Information Institute). Fortunately this does not apply when the flag is being disposed of because it has become worn or gotten soiled. Then it is supposed to be burned. Washing our flag-imprinted Old Navy T-shirts, you see, is against the law.
But burning the flag has been a much bigger issue in our history. Burning, of course, is the only way that a flag can be disposed of. If you read the Constitution, nowhere does it mention that burning the flag for any other reason, such as political dissent, is illegal. The same goes for the Bill of Rights. In today’s patriotic climate, there are people who want to see flag-burning prohibited by a Constitutional Amendment. But many people believe that burning the flag as an example of dissent is covered by our First Amendment Freedom of Speech. Former United States Senator and astronaut John Glenn made the following statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee: “Anybody burning the flag in protest is clearly saying something. They are making a statement by their body language, and what they are doing makes a statement that maybe speaks far, far louder than the words they may be willing to utter on such an occasion” (American Civil Liberties Union). Yet many Americans feel that burning the flag is symbolically wrong, and want to make flag burning as a protest a major crime.
The subject of flag burning is brought up in the movie The American President, where Michael Douglas plays the President. There is a scene in the movie that depicts the President’s girlfriend burning a flag. In the end of the movie, the President reacts to the personal attacks on her by a Senator. Douglas’ character states, “You want to claim this land as the land of the free, then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free” (Sorkin).
Right now it seems almost everyone in our country is feeling patriotic, and naturally they associate those feelings with the flag. So it’s natural that they think that burning the flag in protest is wrong, just as they think that wearing the flag on their clothes and slapping it on bumperstickers everywhere is right. But just as the government has better things to do than to throw us in jail for wearing Old Navy T-shirts or throwing out our patriotic paper plates and cups after a 4th of July picnic or using our flag-stamped toilet paper, so should it have better things to do than to prosecute Americans for expressing their right to free speech that the people who framed our Constitution believed in. Senator Glenn is right and screenwriter Adam Sorkin of The American President and all those people who believe that burning the flag is covered by freedom of speech are right. Our flag code should stick to how and when the flag is displayed, not to merchandising and protest. Otherwise we are saying that the symbol of our freedom is more important than the freedom it symbolizes—and that’s not the American way. As Lee Greenwood sings in his song “God Bless the U.S.A.,” “I thank my lucky stars to be living here today, ‘cause the flag still stands for freedom and they can’t take that away” (Greenwood).
Works Cited
American Civil Liberties Union. “Statement of John Glenn.” Online posting. 1999. American Civil Liberties Union.
28 Sept. 2001 < http://www.aclu.org/congress/lg0042899b.html >.
Bennett, M.R., ed. …So
Gallantly Streaming: The Story of Old Glory. The History and Proper Use of Our
Flag from
1777 to the Present. NY: Drake, 1974.
Greenwood, Lee. American Patriot. Capitol Records, 1992.
Independence Hall Association. “Betsy Ross Homepage: Flag Rules and Regulations.” 4 July 1995. 28 Sept. 2001
< http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/flagetiq.html >.
Legal Information Institute. “United States Code.” Online posting. Cornell U. 28 Sept. 2001
< http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/unframed >.
Sorkin, Aaron. The American President. Online posting. 27 Sept. 2001 <http://blake.prohosting.com/
awsm/script/apresident/txt>