Dear Readers: Today is July 4th and the 232nd anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The following was written in 1955 (readers can update the statistics if they choose). We hope you enjoy it:

I Am The Nation

by Otto Whittaker

I was born on July 4, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence is my birth certificate. The bloodlines of the world run in my veins, because I offered freedom to the oppressed. I am many things and many people. I am the nation.

I am 213 million living souls — 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 Washington, 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, the Maine and Pearl Harbor. When freedom called, I answered and stayed until it was over, over there. I left my heroic dead in Flanders Field, on the rock of Corregidor and on the bleak slopes of Korea.

I am the Brooklyn Bridge, the wheat lands of Kansas and the granite hills of Vermont. I am the coalfields 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 110,000 schools and colleges and 330,000 churches where my people worship God as they think best. I am a ballot dropped into 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 Stephen Foster. I am Tom Edison, Albert Einstein and Billy Graham. I am Horace Greeley, Will Rogers and the Wright Brothers. I am George Washington Carver, Jonas Salk and Martin Luther King.

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 the strength to keep myself unshackled, to remain a citadel of freedom and a beacon of hope to the world.

Dear Annie: This is in response to "Patriotic Idiot," who asked about putting one's hand over the heart during the singing of the national anthem. You mentioned the 1942 guidelines stating that civilians should place the hand over the heart and those in uniform should salute.

A bill (S.1877) sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., was passed by unanimous consent in 2007, amending those guidelines so that all those serving in the military, along with all veterans, should render a military salute to the flag, whether they are indoors or out, in uniform or not, to differentiate them from those who have never served. — D.W. in Hettinger, N.D.

Dear D.W.: Thanks to you and all the others who wrote regarding the updated bill. We appreciate the clarification.

Annie's Mailbox is written by Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, longtime editors of the Ann Landers column. Please e-mail your questions to anniesmailbox@comcast.net, or write to: Annie's Mailbox, P.O. Box 118190, Chicago, IL 60611. To find out more about Annie's Mailbox, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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