Alvo High School - Oriole Yearbook (Alvo, NE)

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I AM AN AMERICAN Parents; Faculty, Friends, and Fellow Classmates: I have been chosen to bid you farewell in behalf of the class of 1950. Tonight another class of Alvo High School leaves the familiar scenes of our school and community life to take on new responsibilities in the world outside. No doubt, in the days to come we will miss our par' ents' and teachers' guiding hands as we face the many problems which we will be called upon to solve. We have chosen for our class motto, The Word Ameri- can Ends in fI Can' . I wonder if any of us ever wonder about the worn American . Do any of us, especially we young people, realize how wonderful it is to be an American? We have 30 many things that people of other lands would call luxuries. Just to mention a few of them, we have plenty of food, clothes, jobs, and opportunities, and perhaps more important than all of these, our free- dom. America is the land of the free and home of the brave to two k ’.nd3 of Americans. The first are the children of those who won her independence; the second are tho children of those who, having suffered oppres- sion abroad, sought her shores as a haven, a promised land. Did the early Americans realize that the word Amer- ican ends in I Can when they started fighting for Independence? Surely, they must have had some idea, since they fought long end stubbornly to win for them- selves end for us our precious liberty . They must have kept in mind the two words I Can . The modern generation should also keep in mind these magic words, I Can . Today our problem is one of win- ning Peace for the world. It is only through a peace- ful world that this precious liberty , of ours canbe preserved. Today our democratic nations are arming, not to pre- pare for another war. but to hold within bounds dicta- tor nations who threaten that peace. Today there are many D. P's coming to our shores to find a haven from oppression abroad. In the past many foreigners found freedom here. Among them was a young Russian by the name of Elias Lieberman. He expresses tho feeling of an adopted son of America in his poem I Am An American from which these lines are taken: (Continued on the following page)

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The history of my ancestors is a trail of blocd To the palace-gate of the Great White Czer. But then the dream came-- The dream of America. In the light of the Liberty torch ihe atom of dust became a man And the straw in the wind bacame a woman for the first time. See, said my father, pointing to the flag that fluttered near, That flag of stars and stripes is yours; It is the emblem of the promised land. It means, my son, the hope of humanity. Live for it—die for it I Under the open sky of my new country I swore to , do so; Every drop of blood in me will keep that vow. I am proud of my future. I AM AN AMERICAN. Berdina Rueter Valedictorian