The American Republic seems to have accepted the eagle for its totem. We might have taken a bear or a caribou, but the eagle has pleased our mythologists more--and so, instead of belonging to the tribe of the Turkey, the tribe of the Dog, or the tribe of the Calf, we belong to the tribe of the Eagle. But what does our totem signify? The eagle in our symbolism and war-myth has come to us from the past. He was of old the totem of the Romans. From the Tiber he flew beyond the Alps, to perch on the standards of German chieftains and Gallic emperors. He has visited all lands that are affected with the civil and ethnic life of Rome. He has appeared here and there on the flags of the Latin races in the Old World and the New. He has made an eyrie in our mountains, and his scream has been heard in our wars. He has settled on our flagstaffs, and has been seen by certain and sundry poets who apostrophize him in verse. He has been admired by orators whose imaginations rise as high as battle and conquest, but not as high as the Stars and Stripes. He has been adored in academic essays. He has hovered over the pages of inchoate histories, until his claim to be regarded as the American bird is established. The eagle has become traditional as the totem of the United States. In so far as the eagle is the symbol of the independence and freedom of men, let us accept him! In so far as he represents the idea and sublimity of height and flight, let him soar! The eagle as a sign of the free voyage of the human mind, triumphant over nature, visiting on strong wing the far and otherwise inaccessible heights of escape and glory, is the noblest of all the totems ever discovered by man; for flight is the noblest and most sublime of earthly actions. Height is the sublimest of all earthly stations. Height and flight are precisely the dream which we would select from the infinite visions of the soul and have engraved on our seal as a motto for eternity. Height and flight and freedom! In so far as the eagle may be regarded as the bird of the past; in so far as he stands for violence and conquest; in so far as he represents the rending and destruction of life, the carnivorous passion in mankind, the rage of battle and triumph,--to that extent be there no eagle for the Republic or for us! It is high time that some race of men should rise to the height of discarding violence and blood as the beginnings of fame and power. It is high time that some race should renounce all bears and leopards and lions and mythological monsters as the symbols of its spirit and purpose. It is high time that some nation should ascend to a level from which it may look down on the savage emblems and beast-born symbolism of the past world as no longer fit to express the central purposes and noblest visions of an enlightened people.