Thread by @bdomenech

"What men worship that will they become. The heroes and holidays of a people which fascinate their soul reveal what they hold are the realities of life and mark out a line beyond which they will not retreat, but at which they will stand to overcome or die.

"They who reverence Bunker Hill will fight there. Your true patriot sees home and hearthstone in the welfare of his country.

"A detachment of men clad for the most part in the dress of their daily occupations, standing with bared heads and muskets grounded muzzle down in the twilight glow on Cambridge Common

"They heard Samuel Langdon, President of Harvard College, seek divine blessing on their cause and marched away in the darkness to a little eminence at Charlestown, where, ere the setting of an other sun, much history was to be made and much glory lost and won.

"When a new dawn had lifted the mists of the Bay, the British, under General Howe, saw an in trenchment on Breed’s Hill, which must be taken or Boston abandoned. The works were exposed in the rear to attack from land and sea.

"Disdained by the king’s soldiers in their contempt for the supposed fighting ability of the Americans, leisurely, as on dress parade, they assembled for an assault that they thought was to be a demonstration of the uselessness of armed resistance on the part of the Colonies.

"In splendid array they advanced late in the day. A few straggling shots and all was still behind the parapet. It was easier than they had expected.

"But when they reached a point where ‘tis said the men behind the entrenchments could see the whites of their eyes, they were met by a withering fire that tore their ranks asunder and sent them back in disorder, utterly routed by their despised foes.

"In time they form and advance again but the result is the same. The demonstration of superiority was not a success.

"For a third time they form, not now for dress parade, but for a hazardous assault. This time the result was different. The patriots had lost nothing of courage or determination but there was left scarcely one round of powder. They had no bayonets.

"Pouring in their last volley and still resisting with clubbed muskets, they retired slowly and in order from the field.

So great was the British loss that there was no pursuit.

"It was the story of brave men bravely led but insufficiently equipped...

In distant Philadelphia, on this day, the Continental Congress had chosen as the Commander of their Army, George Washington, a man whose clear vision looked into the realities of things and did not falter.

"On his way to the front four days later, dispatches reached him of the battle. He revealed the meaning of the day with one question, “Did the militia fight?”

"Learning how those heroic men fought, he said, “Then the liberties of the Country are safe.”

No greater commentary has ever been made on the significance of Bunker Hill.

"We read events by what goes before and after. We think of Bunker Hill as the first real battle for independence, the prelude to the Revolution. Yet these were both after thoughts. Independence Day was still more than a year away and then eight years from accomplishment.

"The Revolution cannot be said to have become established until the adoption of the Federal Constitution. No, on this June day, these were not the conscious objects sought.

"They were contending for the liberties of the country, they were not yet bent on establishing a new nation nor on recognizing that relationship between men which the modern world calls democracy.

"They were maintaining well their traditions, sons of Londonderry, lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray, sons of the Puritans, whom Macaulay tells us 'humbly abased themselves in the dust before the Lord, but hesitated not to set their foot upon the neck of their king.'

"It is the moral quality of the day that abides. It was the purpose of those plain garbed men behind the parapet that told whether they were savages bent on plunder, living under the law of the jungle, or sons of the morning bearing the light of civilization.

"The glorious revolution of 1688 was fading from memory. The English Government of that day rested upon privilege and corruption at the base, surmounted by a king bent on despotism, but fortunately too weak to accomplish any design either of good or ill.

"An empire still outwardly sound was rotting at the core. The privilege which had found Great Britain so complacent sought to establish itself over the Colonies. The purpose of the patriots was resistance to tyranny.

"Pitt and Burke and Lord Camden in England recognized this, and, loving liberty, approved the course of the Colonies. The Tories here, loving privilege, approved the course of the Royal Government.

"Bunker Hill meant that the Colonies would save themselves and saving themselves save the mother country for liberty.

The war was not inevitable. Perhaps wars are never inevitable. But the conflict between freedom and privilege was inevitable.

"That it broke out in America rather than in England was accidental. Liberty, the rights of man against tyranny, the rights; of kings, was in the air.

One side must give way.

"The rule of the people had begun. Bunker Hill had a deeper significance. It was an example of the great law of human progress and civilization.

"There has been much talk in recent years of the survival of the fittest and of efficiency. We are beginning to hear of the development of the superman and the claim that he has of right dominion over the rest of his inferiors on earth.

"This philosophy denies the doctrine of equality and holds that government is not based on consent but on compulsion. It holds that the weak must serve the strong, it applies the law of the animal world to mankind and puts science above morals.

"This sounds the call to the jungle. It is not an advance to the morning but a retreat to night. It is not the light of human reason but the darkness of the wisdom of the serpent.

"The law of progress and civilization is not the law of the jungle. It is not an earthly law, it is a divine law. It does not mean the survival of the fittest, it means the sacrifice of the fittest.

"This is the age old story. Men are reading it again today; written in blood. We could approve and join in the scramble to the jungle, or we could resist and sacrifice ourselves to save an erring nation.

Not being beasts, but men, we choose the sacrifice."

Gov. Calvin Coolidge, 1918.

Happy Birthday, Cal