| Raise the flag with shouts of gladness, ’Tis the banner of the free! Brightly beaming, proudly streaming, ’Tis the flag of liberty. |
I decided to use this as the first song and I called the little book:
” Raise the Flag,
And other Patriotic Canadian Songs and Poems.”
On the front of the stiff cardboard cover a well-executed, brightly-coloured lithograph of a school-house with a fine maple tree beside it was seen, with a large number of children, boys and girls, waving their hats and handkerchiefs and acclaiming the flag which was being run up to the top of the flag-pole, the master apparently giving the signal for cheering. On the back of the cover was a pretty view of Queenston Heights, with Brock’s monument the prominent object, and over this scene a trophy of crossed flags with a medallion containing Queen Victoria’s portrait imposed on one, and a shield with the arms of Canada on the other. Over both was the motto “For Queen and Country.”
On the title page a verse of Lesperance’s beautiful poem was printed just below the title. It contained in a few words all that we were fighting for, the object we were aiming at, and the spirit we wished to inspire in the children of our country:
| Shall we break the plight of youth And pledge us to an alien love? No! we hold our faith and truth, Trusting to the God above. Stand Canadians, firmly stand Round the flag of Fatherland. |
I asked a number of friends to assist me in the expense of getting out this book, and I feel bound to record their names here as loyal men who gave me cheerful assistance and joined me in supplying all the necessary funds at a time when we had many vigorous opponents and had to struggle against indifference and apathy:—George Gooderham, John T. Small, John Hoskin, J. K. Macdonald, J. Herbert Mason, Edward Gurney, Wm. K. McNaught, W. R. Brock, Allan McLean Howard, A. M. Cosby, Walter S. Lee, Hugh Scott, Thomas Walmsley, W. H. Beatty, A. B. Lee, John Leys, Jr., E. B. Osler, John I. Davidson, J. Ross Robertson, Hugh Blain, Hon. G. W. Allan, Henry Cawthra, Fred C. Denison, Oliver Macklem, G. R. R. Cockburn, James Henderson, R. N. Bethune, Sir Casimir Gzowski, C. J. Campbell and W. B. Hamilton.
We published a good many thousand volumes and scattered them freely through the country before the election of 1891.
I gave Lord Derby, then Governor-General of Canada, about a dozen copies, and he sent one to the Queen, and some months after he received a letter from Sir Henry Ponsonby asking him at the request of the Queen to thank me for the book.
When the schools throughout the country received the flags which they had won, in many instances demonstrations were organised to raise the flag for the first time with due ceremony. I was invited to go to Chippawa to speak when their flag was first raised. There was a very large gathering of people from all over the county, and as an illustration of how the opportunity was used to stir up the patriotism of the people, I quote part of my address from the Empire of the 30th December, 1890.