It is small wonder that after such an arraignment as this the lawmakers aroused themselves. The following bill was passed, and was signed by President Monroe, April 4, 1818:-- SECTION 1. _Be it enacted, etc._, That from and after the fourth day of July next, the flag of the United States be thirteen horizontal stripes, alternate red and white; that the union have twenty stars, white in a blue field. SECTION 2. _Be it further enacted_, That on the admission of every new State into the Union, one star be added to the union of the flag; and that such addition shall take effect on the fourth of July next succeeding such admission. So it was that the flag of the United States was finally decided upon. Captain S. C. Reid designed it, and his wife made a specimen flag, which was hoisted on the flagstaff of the House of Representatives a few days after the law legalizing it was passed. Forty-one years later, in 1859, Congress formally thanked Captain Reid. The one weak point in this law was that the arrangement of the stars on the blue field was left to the taste of the owner of the flag. Captain Reid arranged them in one large star; but it was evident that if this plan was continued, as new States were admitted, the stars would become too small to be seen distinctly. The Navy Commissioners issued the order that in naval flags the stars should be arranged in five rows, four stars in a row; but for many years merchant vessels paid small attention to this decree. Indeed, in 1837 the Dutch Government inquired, with all respect, "What is the American flag?" Twenty years later an observant man in Jersey City amused himself on the Fourth of July by noting the numerous fashions in which the stars were arranged. He said that all flags had the thirteen stripes--though not always in the proper order--but that he had counted nine different fashions in which the stars were arranged. They appeared in one large star, in a lozenge, a diamond, or a circle, and one vessel in the river flaunted an anchor formed of stars. It was suggested that Congress ought to order some regular arrangement, but Congress did not take the hint. The Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy gave orders in 1912, after the admission of New Mexico and Arizona, that the stars, now forty-eight, should be arranged in six rows of eight stars each. This was approved by the President, but no decree has been passed by Congress.