00:00:01.251 --> 00:00:03.944
[piano playing "America The Beautiful"]

00:00:03.944 --> 00:00:07.027
[train signal ringing]

00:00:14.730 --> 00:00:15.600
- [Narrator] On a rare day

00:00:15.600 --> 00:00:18.780
when smoke from distant
wildfires obscures the summit

00:00:18.780 --> 00:00:20.040
of Pike's Peak,

00:00:20.040 --> 00:00:24.360
scores of arriving tourists
are reminded that in 1893,

00:00:24.360 --> 00:00:28.687
the view from here inspired
America's most popular song.

00:00:28.687 --> 00:00:30.840
- "America the Beautiful.

00:00:30.840 --> 00:00:33.120
Oh, beautiful for spacious skies,

00:00:33.120 --> 00:00:35.340
for amber waves of grain."

00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:37.320
- [Bates] When those
words first came to me

00:00:37.320 --> 00:00:40.686
way up there on Pike's Peak,
I never imagined

00:00:40.686 --> 00:00:43.350
that my little poem
would eventually be known

00:00:43.350 --> 00:00:45.543
and loved by all Americans.

00:00:47.112 --> 00:00:52.112
♪ Oh beautiful for spacious skies ♪

00:00:52.890 --> 00:00:57.890
♪ For amber waves of grain ♪

00:00:58.829 --> 00:01:04.829
♪ For purple mountain majesties ♪

00:01:06.883 --> 00:01:11.883
♪ Above the fruited plain ♪

00:01:12.878 --> 00:01:17.878
♪ America, America ♪

00:01:18.924 --> 00:01:23.924
♪ God shed his grace on thee ♪

00:01:25.894 --> 00:01:31.994
♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood ♪

00:01:35.346 --> 00:01:39.946
♪ From sea to shining sea ♪

00:01:47.610 --> 00:01:52.440
- I love that song because it
stirs my kind of patriotism.

00:01:52.440 --> 00:01:54.570
It should be our national anthem.

00:01:54.570 --> 00:01:57.330
- [Bates] But truth be told,

00:01:57.330 --> 00:01:59.910
most of my words aren't sung anymore,

00:01:59.910 --> 00:02:02.133
and their message is all but forgotten.

00:02:04.440 --> 00:02:07.890
So let me tell you the
story behind my song.

00:02:07.890 --> 00:02:10.170
- When I hear "America
the Beautiful" today,

00:02:10.170 --> 00:02:11.520
I remind myself

00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:14.613
that it has all these verses
that I don't know about.

00:02:15.720 --> 00:02:18.750
- [Bates] Whitman heard America singing,

00:02:18.750 --> 00:02:21.243
but I saw America suffering.

00:02:24.510 --> 00:02:25.620
Saw the factories

00:02:25.620 --> 00:02:29.190
where children were
deprived of body and soul.

00:02:29.190 --> 00:02:30.570
Saw the immigrants

00:02:30.570 --> 00:02:33.870
scorned and cheated by
the sons of immigrants.

00:02:33.870 --> 00:02:36.566
Saw the women who could not even vote.

00:02:36.566 --> 00:02:40.290
♪ Oh beautiful for spacious skies ♪

00:02:40.290 --> 00:02:43.170
- [Bates] I wanted to
see a different America,

00:02:43.170 --> 00:02:47.400
immersed in beauty with
liberty and justice for all,

00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:49.688
as it was meant to be.

00:02:49.688 --> 00:02:54.688
♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood ♪

00:02:54.831 --> 00:02:58.490
♪ From sea to shining sea ♪

00:02:58.490 --> 00:03:01.657
[church bell ringing]

00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:06.603
- [Bates] I was born here on
Cape Cod by the shining sea.

00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:11.850
My father was a minister,
but I never knew him.

00:03:11.850 --> 00:03:14.490
He died when I was four weeks old.

00:03:14.490 --> 00:03:17.160
Mother did every kind
of work to feed us.

00:03:17.160 --> 00:03:20.010
My brothers chipped in
with the fish they caught.

00:03:20.010 --> 00:03:21.963
So many neighbors helped, too.

00:03:24.120 --> 00:03:27.210
When I was five, President
Lincoln was shot.

00:03:27.210 --> 00:03:29.253
I'll never forget my mother's grief.

00:03:32.040 --> 00:03:36.090
- She wrote that she imagined
the church bells ringing

00:03:36.090 --> 00:03:39.468
so that even her father who
was buried in the graveyard

00:03:39.468 --> 00:03:40.950
could hear them ringing

00:03:40.950 --> 00:03:43.323
to toll for Abraham Lincoln.

00:03:44.640 --> 00:03:47.190
- [Bates] How I admire
the men of my village

00:03:47.190 --> 00:03:49.350
who gave their lives for his cause

00:03:49.350 --> 00:03:51.603
that slavery be abolished forever.

00:03:53.169 --> 00:03:58.169
♪ Oh beautiful for heroes prove ♪

00:04:00.491 --> 00:04:03.741
♪ In liberating strife ♪

00:04:04.950 --> 00:04:06.330
- [Ponder] These were men who had died

00:04:06.330 --> 00:04:09.510
in the Revolutionary War,
fighting for the Colonies,

00:04:09.510 --> 00:04:11.610
and then men who had
died in the Civil War

00:04:11.610 --> 00:04:12.993
fighting for the Union.

00:04:20.125 --> 00:04:22.110
- [Bates] From far beyond Nantucket,

00:04:22.110 --> 00:04:24.540
the whole world came to us.

00:04:24.540 --> 00:04:27.000
- [Ponder] And I think this
is what eventually made her

00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:28.953
what I would call a global citizen.

00:04:30.210 --> 00:04:32.670
- [Bates] Most men in
our town were sailors.

00:04:32.670 --> 00:04:34.893
Many never returned home alive.

00:04:39.720 --> 00:04:41.940
Hattie Gifford was my best friend.

00:04:41.940 --> 00:04:45.153
We played everywhere,
even in the old burying ground.

00:04:55.200 --> 00:04:57.045
- One day, Hattie and her mother

00:04:57.045 --> 00:04:58.770
were going to meet her father,

00:04:58.770 --> 00:05:00.960
a mariner who was out to sea.

00:05:00.960 --> 00:05:04.200
What they didn't know was
he had died coming home,

00:05:04.200 --> 00:05:07.020
and they placed the wooden
coffin at their feet

00:05:07.020 --> 00:05:08.847
and said, "This is your father."

00:05:09.810 --> 00:05:12.210
- [Bates] With so much death around us,

00:05:12.210 --> 00:05:13.683
I wrote my own will.

00:05:14.647 --> 00:05:16.260
"I, Katie Bates,

00:05:16.260 --> 00:05:18.930
do hereby bequeath all
my worldly possessions

00:05:18.930 --> 00:05:21.150
to Hattie L Gifford with the wish

00:05:21.150 --> 00:05:23.727
that she will give them
to poor Indians."

00:05:26.340 --> 00:05:29.460
Reading was my window
to the outside world.

00:05:29.460 --> 00:05:31.410
I was shy and nearsighted,

00:05:31.410 --> 00:05:33.630
with my head mostly in a book.

00:05:33.630 --> 00:05:35.493
I wrote down every one I read.

00:05:37.440 --> 00:05:38.820
One day a paddler came by

00:05:38.820 --> 00:05:40.980
and put some spectacles on my nose,

00:05:40.980 --> 00:05:44.583
and suddenly I saw that the
trees outside had leaves.

00:05:47.507 --> 00:05:50.340
Mother gave me this
little book to write in.

00:05:50.340 --> 00:05:54.757
I had nothing important to say,
but I said it anyway.

00:05:54.757 --> 00:05:58.080
"Boys are necessary, but
when they kiss the girls,

00:05:58.080 --> 00:06:01.320
write love notes, can't
talk sense, and hug girls,

00:06:01.320 --> 00:06:04.200
they are the greatest
bores in existence."

00:06:04.200 --> 00:06:05.223
Katie Bates.

00:06:07.200 --> 00:06:11.790
In 1871, Mother moved us to
Wellesley, Massachusetts,

00:06:11.790 --> 00:06:14.673
only 20 miles from the
big city of Boston.

00:06:16.918 --> 00:06:21.270
I wrote for my high school
newspaper and the local daily.

00:06:21.270 --> 00:06:23.250
My school was right near the site

00:06:23.250 --> 00:06:25.473
where a new woman's
college was being built.

00:06:26.970 --> 00:06:28.920
- They really founded this school

00:06:28.920 --> 00:06:32.490
as a powerful educational institution

00:06:32.490 --> 00:06:34.380
that would educate women

00:06:34.380 --> 00:06:38.220
from different socioeconomic strata.

00:06:38.220 --> 00:06:43.220
And that founding principle
has held true for 150 years.

00:06:44.250 --> 00:06:48.060
- [Bates] I entered
Wellesley College in 1876,

00:06:48.060 --> 00:06:50.143
class of 1880.

00:06:50.143 --> 00:06:53.070
Katie of '80, the other girls called me.

00:06:53.070 --> 00:06:54.900
We lived in College Hall,

00:06:54.900 --> 00:06:57.690
which was too fancy
for my mother's tastes.

00:06:57.690 --> 00:07:01.710
Palm trees in the atrium,
in Massachusetts?

00:07:01.710 --> 00:07:06.480
Voted class president,
I was popular but not happy.

00:07:06.480 --> 00:07:08.400
- [Ponder] They had to come
and eat in the dining room

00:07:08.400 --> 00:07:11.334
at a certain table,
and then all day long

00:07:11.334 --> 00:07:14.250
they had daily chapel she had to go to.

00:07:14.250 --> 00:07:16.170
It was very rigid.

00:07:16.170 --> 00:07:17.520
- [Bates] After vacation,

00:07:17.520 --> 00:07:21.360
I just wanted to keep reading
books in my hammock forever,

00:07:21.360 --> 00:07:23.250
books I chose.

00:07:23.250 --> 00:07:26.880
But I admired Mr. Durant,
Wellesley's founder.

00:07:26.880 --> 00:07:30.330
He made sure nearly all
our professors were women,

00:07:30.330 --> 00:07:33.543
and he brought beauty to
every corner of the campus.

00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:38.223
At Lake Waban, I found a
cure for my college blues.

00:07:39.307 --> 00:07:41.700
- [Reader] "Oh, the delight of nature!

00:07:41.700 --> 00:07:42.780
Where she leads...

00:07:42.780 --> 00:07:45.000
Refresh your heavy lids

00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.943
while you behold how sunshine
revels in the lowliest weeds"

00:07:50.880 --> 00:07:53.100
- I majored in English and Greek,

00:07:53.100 --> 00:07:58.100
but my real love was verse,
Chaucer, Shakespeare.

00:07:58.410 --> 00:08:01.380
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
was her favorite poet,

00:08:01.380 --> 00:08:05.070
and he was a big influence
in many ways in her life.

00:08:05.070 --> 00:08:08.340
And he had wanted Americans

00:08:08.340 --> 00:08:10.983
to see their own history in his poetry.

00:08:12.660 --> 00:08:15.840
- [Bates] He invited our class
to his home in Cambridge.

00:08:15.840 --> 00:08:18.990
When he told me he
liked my poem "Sleep,"

00:08:18.990 --> 00:08:20.903
I nearly wept for joy.

00:08:20.903 --> 00:08:22.380
I told a friend

00:08:22.380 --> 00:08:25.950
that if I could write a poem
people remembered after I died,

00:08:25.950 --> 00:08:27.723
I'd consider my life worth living.

00:08:28.650 --> 00:08:32.850
My poems were mostly serious,
but I loved humor too.

00:08:32.850 --> 00:08:34.987
Writing of our class:

00:08:34.987 --> 00:08:38.340
- [Reader] "This, O this
is the Classical Class

00:08:38.340 --> 00:08:41.520
Who even at play on
the green young grass

00:08:41.520 --> 00:08:44.610
Gossiped in Greek, or punned, alas!

00:08:44.610 --> 00:08:48.003
In Latin that might
or might not pass..."

00:08:49.260 --> 00:08:50.700
- [Bates] I taught high school

00:08:50.700 --> 00:08:54.840
till I joined the
Wellesley faculty in 1885.

00:08:54.840 --> 00:08:57.480
By then, my stories
were being published.

00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:00.393
Though I needed money,
I wrote mostly for the joy of it.

00:09:05.310 --> 00:09:08.430
Life brings blessings in disguise.

00:09:08.430 --> 00:09:12.030
In 1888, I was exposed to smallpox.

00:09:12.030 --> 00:09:15.082
Forced to quarantine,
I wrote a novel for teens

00:09:15.082 --> 00:09:18.060
about a rich girl and a poor boy.

00:09:18.060 --> 00:09:20.940
Rose learns that Thorn,
a crippled beggar,

00:09:20.940 --> 00:09:24.270
is a brother abandoned in childhood.

00:09:24.270 --> 00:09:28.233
Her heart goes out to those
like him, as mine did.

00:09:29.700 --> 00:09:31.830
- [Ponder] She wanted to write a novel

00:09:31.830 --> 00:09:35.820
to foreground the
problems in this country

00:09:35.820 --> 00:09:38.130
with the sweatshops

00:09:38.130 --> 00:09:40.260
and the women living in tenements

00:09:40.260 --> 00:09:43.383
who had such terrible
working conditions.

00:09:46.147 --> 00:09:48.210
- [Reader] "For them, there is no day.

00:09:48.210 --> 00:09:51.120
For them, there is no Sabbath.

00:09:51.120 --> 00:09:54.270
For them, there is no Easter.

00:09:54.270 --> 00:09:56.820
In that dreary tenement house,

00:09:56.820 --> 00:09:59.784
they are as the dead and buried."

00:10:04.020 --> 00:10:08.130
- [Bates] Mark Twain called
the era "The Gilded Age."

00:10:08.130 --> 00:10:10.970
The rich lived in luxury while the poor,

00:10:10.970 --> 00:10:13.770
arriving by the millions,
grew destitute.

00:10:13.770 --> 00:10:17.373
Fortunes rose from their work,
but they did not benefit.

00:10:18.210 --> 00:10:19.890
Railroads opened the west,

00:10:19.890 --> 00:10:22.080
and the Indian treaties were broken,

00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:24.690
leaving them only slivers of land.

00:10:24.690 --> 00:10:27.753
Soldiers slaughtered the
Indians' buffalo for sport.

00:10:36.180 --> 00:10:38.679
- In later works she
describes in more detail

00:10:38.679 --> 00:10:40.110
the shame of the Indians,

00:10:40.110 --> 00:10:42.360
meaning United States'
abhorrent treatment

00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:44.403
of Indigenous peoples on the continent.

00:10:45.577 --> 00:10:49.050
- [Reader] "Our wigwams shall
vanish from these, our lands,

00:10:49.050 --> 00:10:52.770
Our paths be lost in the blowing sands,

00:10:52.770 --> 00:10:55.650
Our hearts are bitter and clamorous,

00:10:55.650 --> 00:10:59.386
Red Sun, Red God, O comfort us!"

00:10:59.386 --> 00:11:02.586
[rhythmic drumming]

00:11:06.300 --> 00:11:08.220
- [Bates] My novel wasn't much,

00:11:08.220 --> 00:11:11.880
but I won a literary
prize of $700 for it,

00:11:11.880 --> 00:11:14.820
enough to travel to
England the next summer.

00:11:14.820 --> 00:11:16.380
I'd study at Oxford

00:11:16.380 --> 00:11:18.843
and receive a master's
degree for my efforts.

00:11:23.490 --> 00:11:27.840
My friend Annie Scoville and
I left Brooklyn in May, 1890.

00:11:27.840 --> 00:11:31.710
She brought two big cases filled
with bottles of ginger ale.

00:11:31.710 --> 00:11:34.443
It took both of my brothers
to get them on the ship.

00:11:36.030 --> 00:11:39.810
The seas were so rough,
I arrived exhausted.

00:11:39.810 --> 00:11:42.240
After touring in Scotland and England,

00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:44.190
I spent months at Oxford

00:11:44.190 --> 00:11:46.713
polishing my credentials
in English literature.

00:11:50.580 --> 00:11:54.330
While I was there, the trustees
of Wellesley College decided

00:11:54.330 --> 00:11:57.663
to require that every professor
pledge her Christian faith.

00:11:58.530 --> 00:12:02.370
That requirement had nothing
to do with education.

00:12:02.370 --> 00:12:03.660
I refused to sign,

00:12:03.660 --> 00:12:06.300
and thought I wouldn't
return to Wellesley.

00:12:06.300 --> 00:12:08.820
I wasn't even sure I wanted to.

00:12:08.820 --> 00:12:11.430
I was always nervous about my teaching.

00:12:11.430 --> 00:12:14.913
When I was sick, I'd put a
note on my classroom door.

00:12:16.470 --> 00:12:18.690
But the trustees backed down,

00:12:18.690 --> 00:12:21.510
so I came back to take
over the English department

00:12:21.510 --> 00:12:22.833
as a full professor.

00:12:32.670 --> 00:12:35.790
In England, men sought me out.

00:12:35.790 --> 00:12:38.943
- [Ponder] That was when her
first suitor, Oscar Triggs,

00:12:38.943 --> 00:12:40.230
started courting her.

00:12:40.230 --> 00:12:43.800
- [Bates] I even considered
marriage, but in those days,

00:12:43.800 --> 00:12:47.130
if a Wellesley teacher
wed, she lost her job.

00:12:47.130 --> 00:12:50.520
- They had to sacrifice
marriage to become scholars.

00:12:50.520 --> 00:12:54.060
That was one of the weaknesses
of education at that time.

00:12:54.060 --> 00:12:56.880
- [Bates] But Wellesley
offered me a vibrant community

00:12:56.880 --> 00:12:58.440
of brilliant women.

00:12:58.440 --> 00:13:03.180
- Can you imagine teaching
at Wellesley in the 1890s?

00:13:03.180 --> 00:13:05.520
This educational endeavor must have been

00:13:05.520 --> 00:13:07.773
so exciting for women.

00:13:08.610 --> 00:13:10.680
- [Bates] Though I'd always
been quite conservative,

00:13:10.680 --> 00:13:13.173
my colleagues had a
great influence on me.

00:13:14.160 --> 00:13:16.740
- The women there were
representing all causes

00:13:16.740 --> 00:13:20.280
in the United States,
whether it was the urban poor,

00:13:20.280 --> 00:13:23.100
helping immigrants,
getting the vote for women.

00:13:23.100 --> 00:13:25.230
- All of these issues
were hotly contested,

00:13:25.230 --> 00:13:27.405
and I would argue that they still

00:13:27.405 --> 00:13:29.880
are being hotly contested today.

00:13:29.880 --> 00:13:32.893
- [Bates] Vida Scudder,
a Christian socialist,

00:13:32.893 --> 00:13:34.170
stood out among us,

00:13:34.170 --> 00:13:37.653
but we all shared her passion
for women's emancipation.

00:13:38.880 --> 00:13:41.310
I grew closest to Katharine Coman,

00:13:41.310 --> 00:13:44.100
an economist and historian.

00:13:44.100 --> 00:13:46.890
- [Witherow] Katharine
Coman was brilliant.

00:13:46.890 --> 00:13:49.530
I think she was one of those
people that burned fiercely.

00:13:49.530 --> 00:13:54.003
She was the social
conscience of the pair.

00:13:55.110 --> 00:13:57.510
- [Bates] In time we
became almost inseparable.

00:13:58.669 --> 00:14:01.950
My literature classes
quickly attracted students

00:14:01.950 --> 00:14:04.113
who believed in Wellesley's Creed.

00:14:07.290 --> 00:14:09.129
- [Witherow] There were comments

00:14:09.129 --> 00:14:10.020
from some of her former students

00:14:10.020 --> 00:14:14.673
describing how she lit a fire
or a passion within them.

00:14:18.990 --> 00:14:21.917
- [Bates] In 1892, my colleagues and I

00:14:21.917 --> 00:14:25.470
opened a settlement house for
immigrant women in Boston.

00:14:25.470 --> 00:14:27.210
- [Ponder] Katharine Coman
was organizing

00:14:27.210 --> 00:14:29.850
these Italian women into a union

00:14:29.850 --> 00:14:32.490
to get better pay for their sewing.

00:14:32.490 --> 00:14:37.230
And the settlement house
had classes for children.

00:14:37.230 --> 00:14:39.060
- [Bates] But there were
always more poor

00:14:39.060 --> 00:14:40.500
than we could care for.

00:14:47.340 --> 00:14:50.190
The next year, Katharine
and I were invited

00:14:50.190 --> 00:14:53.024
to teach summer school in Colorado.

00:14:53.024 --> 00:14:57.690
♪ O beautiful for pilgrim feet ♪

00:14:57.690 --> 00:15:00.840
- [Witherow] This epic
train journey was something

00:15:00.840 --> 00:15:03.960
that many Americans were eager to take.

00:15:03.960 --> 00:15:06.900
She kept fantastic notes along the way.

00:15:06.900 --> 00:15:09.312
- [Bates] I'd never been west before.

00:15:09.312 --> 00:15:12.645
♪ Across the wilderness ♪

00:15:13.680 --> 00:15:15.291
- [Witherow] And for Katharine Lee Bates

00:15:15.291 --> 00:15:16.680
this was additional income,

00:15:16.680 --> 00:15:18.753
but also was a built-in vacation.

00:15:23.040 --> 00:15:26.490
- [Bates] On the way,
I stopped at Niagara Falls.

00:15:26.490 --> 00:15:28.503
Oh, beautiful America.

00:15:30.720 --> 00:15:32.700
I met Katharine in Chicago.

00:15:32.700 --> 00:15:35.040
She took me to the Colombian Exposition

00:15:35.040 --> 00:15:37.256
with its famous White City.

00:15:38.320 --> 00:15:43.320
♪ Thine alabaster cities gleam ♪

00:15:43.469 --> 00:15:48.011
♪ Undimmed by human tears ♪

00:15:48.870 --> 00:15:51.173
- [Bates] So many new
things were introduced

00:15:51.173 --> 00:15:55.593
for the first time there,
all promising a bright tomorrow.

00:16:01.320 --> 00:16:05.280
But only blocks away,
another city presented itself,

00:16:05.280 --> 00:16:07.957
filled with suffering humanity.

00:16:07.957 --> 00:16:11.730
- [Reader] "Beyond the circle
of her glistening domes,

00:16:11.730 --> 00:16:16.050
A bitter wind swept by
to waste and wither.

00:16:16.050 --> 00:16:19.800
A cry went up from
hunger-smitten homes,

00:16:19.800 --> 00:16:21.692
But came not hither."

00:16:23.430 --> 00:16:26.217
- [Ponder] That year,
America was in the grip

00:16:26.217 --> 00:16:28.216
of economic depression.

00:16:29.820 --> 00:16:31.380
- Banks were closing.

00:16:31.380 --> 00:16:35.280
Coal, steel and railroad
industries were striking.

00:16:35.280 --> 00:16:38.280
The haves and the have-nots
were fighting in the streets.

00:16:38.280 --> 00:16:42.000
Corporations were making money
and the people were not.

00:16:42.000 --> 00:16:44.310
- [Bates] Oh, my beloved country!

00:16:44.310 --> 00:16:47.265
It was hard to see her in such pain.

00:16:49.382 --> 00:16:53.700
[train whistle blaring]

00:16:53.700 --> 00:16:57.180
After Chicago we sped
across golden wheat fields

00:16:57.180 --> 00:17:00.900
to Colorado Springs at the
foot of the Rocky Mountains.

00:17:00.900 --> 00:17:04.380
I had arrived in the
west of my imagination,

00:17:04.380 --> 00:17:06.090
to teach Chaucer.

00:17:06.090 --> 00:17:09.570
Our fellow teachers at Colorado
College were noted writers.

00:17:09.570 --> 00:17:11.610
- [Witherow] So it wasn't
all work and no play

00:17:11.610 --> 00:17:16.050
for these amazing
assemblage of professors.

00:17:16.050 --> 00:17:19.260
At the Colorado College
summer session in 1893,

00:17:19.260 --> 00:17:22.635
they went on a moonlit
drive in Garden of the Gods,

00:17:22.635 --> 00:17:24.240
which must have been terribly romantic.

00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:27.810
They went dancing in
the Broadmoor Casino.

00:17:27.810 --> 00:17:29.940
- [Bates] And on July 22nd,

00:17:29.940 --> 00:17:32.730
I rode to the top of Pike's Peak.

00:17:32.730 --> 00:17:35.970
What a bouncing,
bone-shaking ride it was.

00:17:35.970 --> 00:17:39.213
But the view from the top
made it all worthwhile.

00:17:40.680 --> 00:17:43.320
- [Witherow] On the summit,
she pens a telegram

00:17:43.320 --> 00:17:46.417
that she sends to her mother,
and she describes,

00:17:46.417 --> 00:17:49.800
"This is the most glorious
scenery I've ever beheld."

00:17:49.800 --> 00:17:53.190
- [Bates] And suddenly
words were filling my head,

00:17:53.190 --> 00:17:55.860
stirred by the great
mountains to the west

00:17:55.860 --> 00:17:59.190
and the plains so far below in the east.

00:17:59.190 --> 00:18:01.800
That night I scribbled the first lines

00:18:01.800 --> 00:18:03.453
of poetry into my notebook.

00:18:07.290 --> 00:18:11.610
America is beautiful,
yet in so many ways

00:18:11.610 --> 00:18:13.686
we've made it ugly.

00:18:15.540 --> 00:18:18.870
We saw that ugliness down in
Cripple Creek mining camp,

00:18:18.870 --> 00:18:21.813
where crazed men dug madly for gold.

00:18:22.680 --> 00:18:25.680
- As miners pour into the district,

00:18:25.680 --> 00:18:29.430
money is being made,
millionaires are being minted,

00:18:29.430 --> 00:18:31.302
and mines are going up everywhere.

00:18:31.302 --> 00:18:34.050
Of course, the hillsides
are being denuded.

00:18:34.050 --> 00:18:37.713
The mine activity is
feverish and furious.

00:18:40.770 --> 00:18:44.610
- [Bates] And I wrote,
"America, America,

00:18:44.610 --> 00:18:47.460
God shed thy grace on thee,

00:18:47.460 --> 00:18:51.807
Till selfish gain no longer
stain the banner of the free."

00:18:52.830 --> 00:18:56.043
I would later soften those lines,
but not my meaning.

00:18:57.557 --> 00:19:04.001
♪ America, America ♪

00:19:04.366 --> 00:19:08.430
♪ May God thy gold refine ♪

00:19:08.430 --> 00:19:11.130
- [Bates] If our country
was materially rich,

00:19:11.130 --> 00:19:13.830
but without compassion,
it would surely end up

00:19:13.830 --> 00:19:16.980
like every previous empire in history.

00:19:16.980 --> 00:19:18.930
That's what I thought.

00:19:18.930 --> 00:19:23.927
My poem "America" was first
published on July 4th, 1895.

00:19:25.050 --> 00:19:27.720
I got $5 for it.

00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:30.895
People immediately began
to sing my words.

00:19:30.895 --> 00:19:33.990
By the time the official
melody was published,

00:19:33.990 --> 00:19:37.500
there were at least 75
others floating around.

00:19:37.500 --> 00:19:41.340
So many people wrote
asking me for rights to it.

00:19:41.340 --> 00:19:43.270
I gave it away.

00:19:45.570 --> 00:19:49.140
- She felt that her poem
was a gift to the nation.

00:19:49.140 --> 00:19:50.610
That was how she viewed it.

00:19:50.610 --> 00:19:53.760
So, of course, she didn't view it

00:19:53.760 --> 00:19:56.010
as something that was
going to make her money.

00:19:56.010 --> 00:19:58.863
That would be against all of her values.

00:20:03.780 --> 00:20:06.150
- [Bates] Those were happy times for me.

00:20:06.150 --> 00:20:09.240
But as the 19th century grew to a close,

00:20:09.240 --> 00:20:12.753
my faith in America would be
challenged as never before.

00:20:13.680 --> 00:20:16.677
Having taught myself Spanish,
I was preparing to visit

00:20:16.677 --> 00:20:20.160
the International Institute
for Girls in Spain.

00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:24.600
Just then, assistant Navy
Secretary Theodore Roosevelt

00:20:24.600 --> 00:20:27.420
urged that America expand its territory

00:20:27.420 --> 00:20:29.520
by seizing Spanish colonies,

00:20:29.520 --> 00:20:33.003
including Cuba, Puerto Rico,
and the Philippines.

00:20:34.260 --> 00:20:36.780
- 1898 was the year

00:20:36.780 --> 00:20:40.320
when the United States
changed so radically

00:20:40.320 --> 00:20:43.650
from a country that seemed
satisfied within its own borders

00:20:43.650 --> 00:20:47.100
to a country that was always
looking to influence others.

00:20:47.100 --> 00:20:50.340
- [Bates] It was the very sin
our founding fathers opposed

00:20:50.340 --> 00:20:52.263
when we were England's colony.

00:20:55.260 --> 00:20:59.920
In February 1898, an American
battleship, The Maine,

00:20:59.920 --> 00:21:02.910
exploded and sank in Havana, Cuba.

00:21:02.910 --> 00:21:05.490
Immediately, and with no real evidence,

00:21:05.490 --> 00:21:07.860
our leaders blamed Spain.

00:21:07.860 --> 00:21:12.844
- [Kinzer] Americans
went wild with the idea

00:21:12.844 --> 00:21:17.748
of saving Cuba from Spanish brutality.

00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:23.010
- [Bates] The war cries grew insistent,

00:21:23.010 --> 00:21:24.663
led by Teddy Roosevelt.

00:21:26.160 --> 00:21:29.010
- He never saw a war he didn't like.

00:21:29.010 --> 00:21:31.650
He felt like the only real way a man

00:21:31.650 --> 00:21:34.500
or a nation should behave
would be combat.

00:21:34.500 --> 00:21:37.860
So he had complete contempt
for non-white people,

00:21:37.860 --> 00:21:41.520
and thought the idea
that a country like Cuba

00:21:41.520 --> 00:21:44.340
or the Philippines could govern itself

00:21:44.340 --> 00:21:46.380
was completely absurd.

00:21:46.380 --> 00:21:48.810
- [Bates] In April, we declared war.

00:21:48.810 --> 00:21:52.470
In May, our Pacific fleet
sank most of the Spanish Navy

00:21:52.470 --> 00:21:53.583
in Manila Bay.

00:21:55.380 --> 00:21:58.170
Remembering the horrors
of the Civil War,

00:21:58.170 --> 00:22:00.870
I wrote articles urging peace.

00:22:00.870 --> 00:22:04.023
Ours should be the flag
of right, not might.

00:22:09.150 --> 00:22:10.410
- I think Katharine Lee Bates

00:22:10.410 --> 00:22:13.260
represented a larger tradition.

00:22:13.260 --> 00:22:16.890
There was a belief that America
had been put on this planet

00:22:16.890 --> 00:22:19.860
for a reason, that this
was gonna be a new nation,

00:22:19.860 --> 00:22:21.810
that was gonna be better
than other countries.

00:22:21.810 --> 00:22:23.490
We weren't gonna be like

00:22:23.490 --> 00:22:25.680
all those imperial powers of Europe.

00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:28.413
We were gonna liberate nations,
not oppress them.

00:22:31.440 --> 00:22:35.280
- [Bates] Mark Twain, Booker
T. Washington, Jane Adams,

00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:38.220
William Jennings Bryan, Andrew Carnegie,

00:22:38.220 --> 00:22:40.890
even former presidents
Cleveland and Harrison,

00:22:40.890 --> 00:22:44.493
joined the cause, but our
pleas were for naught.

00:22:46.230 --> 00:22:50.190
On June 15th, Congress
voted to seize Hawaii.

00:22:50.190 --> 00:22:53.073
Three days later, our navy took Guam.

00:22:54.060 --> 00:22:56.280
- This would be the first
time in world history

00:22:56.280 --> 00:23:00.810
that a country that itself
had once been a colony

00:23:00.810 --> 00:23:02.790
would take other colonies.

00:23:02.790 --> 00:23:05.100
- [Bates] Regiments
embarked for the Caribbean

00:23:05.100 --> 00:23:07.770
with Roosevelt leading
troops into battle.

00:23:07.770 --> 00:23:11.223
In July we took Cuba,
in August the Philippines.

00:23:13.260 --> 00:23:15.570
- [Kinzer] Even the president
of the United States admitted

00:23:15.570 --> 00:23:17.550
he knew nothing about it.

00:23:17.550 --> 00:23:19.170
When he was asked,
"Where is the Philippines?"

00:23:19.170 --> 00:23:21.000
He said, "Somewhere over there

00:23:21.000 --> 00:23:22.827
on the other side of the world."

00:23:25.230 --> 00:23:28.020
- [Bates] About that time,
I left for Europe.

00:23:28.020 --> 00:23:31.350
Spending months in Paris
before I could enter Spain,

00:23:31.350 --> 00:23:34.560
I found a defeated country there.

00:23:34.560 --> 00:23:36.330
Mothers were mourning the death

00:23:36.330 --> 00:23:39.210
of fathers, sons, and brothers.

00:23:39.210 --> 00:23:41.520
I wrote articles for The New York Times

00:23:41.520 --> 00:23:43.980
trying to win sympathy
for Spain's people,

00:23:43.980 --> 00:23:46.290
who never wished to be our enemies.

00:23:46.290 --> 00:23:49.080
- When she went over there,
became a correspondent,

00:23:49.080 --> 00:23:52.350
got paid $500 from The New York Times

00:23:52.350 --> 00:23:53.820
to write weekly letters back about

00:23:53.820 --> 00:23:55.620
what it was like on the ground

00:23:55.620 --> 00:23:58.953
after the conclusion of
the Spanish American War

00:23:58.953 --> 00:24:01.233
when the United States had beat Spain.

00:24:02.280 --> 00:24:04.020
- [Bates] After Spain surrendered,

00:24:04.020 --> 00:24:06.540
Filipinos hoped for independence.

00:24:06.540 --> 00:24:10.140
How could we,
with our ideals, refuse them?

00:24:10.140 --> 00:24:12.478
But we shot them instead.

00:24:12.478 --> 00:24:15.330
Peasants armed only with sticks were

00:24:15.330 --> 00:24:17.100
slaughtered by our soldiers.

00:24:17.100 --> 00:24:19.503
I expressed my dismay in verse.

00:24:21.984 --> 00:24:25.860
- [Reader] "The flag that
dreamed of delivering

00:24:25.860 --> 00:24:29.580
Shutters and droops like a broken wing.

00:24:29.580 --> 00:24:32.371
Silvery rice fields whisper wide

00:24:32.371 --> 00:24:36.897
How for home and freedom
their owners died."

00:24:39.090 --> 00:24:41.670
- [Bates] Even Roosevelt,
who was president by then,

00:24:41.670 --> 00:24:43.590
began to have doubts.

00:24:43.590 --> 00:24:45.480
- [Kinzer] Although he
defended the Philippines war

00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:49.170
to the end, the revelations
about the horrific tortures

00:24:49.170 --> 00:24:51.150
that were carried out
there and the brutality

00:24:51.150 --> 00:24:54.630
of American occupation must
have had an effect on him.

00:24:54.630 --> 00:24:58.125
He was proud of the fact that
once he became president,

00:24:58.125 --> 00:25:00.450
he never ordered an
intervention anywhere

00:25:00.450 --> 00:25:02.480
in which anybody was killed.

00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:07.200
- [Bates] By 1904,

00:25:07.200 --> 00:25:10.080
I had revised "America
the Beautiful" again,

00:25:10.080 --> 00:25:11.688
adding the words,

00:25:11.688 --> 00:25:17.688
♪ ...America, God mend
thine every flaw ♪

00:25:20.944 --> 00:25:26.943
♪ Confirm thy soul in self-control ♪

00:25:27.450 --> 00:25:31.190
- [Bates] I changed the chorus
to include my deepest wish.

00:25:31.190 --> 00:25:37.290
♪ And crown thy good with brotherhood ♪

00:25:39.620 --> 00:25:44.562
♪ From sea to shining sea ♪

00:25:45.690 --> 00:25:48.391
- [Bates] If the first
decade of the 1900s

00:25:48.391 --> 00:25:52.248
was bad for my America,
it was good for my college.

00:25:53.760 --> 00:25:56.610
Under our new president,
Caroline Hazard,

00:25:56.610 --> 00:25:58.740
Wellesley grew rapidly.

00:25:58.740 --> 00:26:01.530
But as more wealthy girls
began going to college,

00:26:01.530 --> 00:26:04.328
they demanded extensive
social activities.

00:26:05.211 --> 00:26:08.430
To ensure their tuition,
academics were de-emphasized,

00:26:08.430 --> 00:26:10.293
and our faculty grew alarmed.

00:26:14.077 --> 00:26:17.700
In 1906, I spent the summer
in England with Katharine,

00:26:17.700 --> 00:26:18.870
fall in the Alps,

00:26:18.870 --> 00:26:22.230
and my sabbatical in the Middle
East with President Hazard.

00:26:22.230 --> 00:26:26.700
We saw the pyramids of Egypt,
the grandeur that was Luxor,

00:26:26.700 --> 00:26:28.923
evidence of fallen empires.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.200
I visited the Holy Land,
walked on the shore of Galilee

00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:37.530
and climbed the mount where
Jesus gave his famous sermon,

00:26:37.530 --> 00:26:39.607
taking his words to heart.

00:26:39.607 --> 00:26:43.980
"Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.

00:26:43.980 --> 00:26:46.680
Blessed the peacemakers."

00:26:46.680 --> 00:26:49.923
How far our world had
come from those teachings.

00:26:52.230 --> 00:26:55.410
When I returned, it was to
a new and beautiful home

00:26:55.410 --> 00:26:57.870
that Katharine and I would
share with my mother,

00:26:57.870 --> 00:27:01.170
my sister Jennie,
and our collie Sigurd.

00:27:01.170 --> 00:27:06.000
- The four women, all sort
of independent single women,

00:27:06.000 --> 00:27:07.440
occupied this house,

00:27:07.440 --> 00:27:11.040
and they were a center
of intellectual life.

00:27:11.040 --> 00:27:12.900
- [Bates] We called it "The Scarab,"

00:27:12.900 --> 00:27:16.350
for Egypt's beetle of
rebirth and wisdom.

00:27:16.350 --> 00:27:20.280
It was close to the college
and the train station downtown.

00:27:20.280 --> 00:27:21.210
- She didn't own a car.

00:27:21.210 --> 00:27:24.300
She would've walked and
ridden a bike everywhere.

00:27:24.300 --> 00:27:26.610
So she was obviously physically fit.

00:27:26.610 --> 00:27:30.930
- [Bates] In 1909, I heard
Woodrow Wilson at Harvard

00:27:30.930 --> 00:27:33.060
betting a friend five pounds of coffee

00:27:33.060 --> 00:27:35.370
that he would be our next president.

00:27:35.370 --> 00:27:37.183
I won the bet,

00:27:37.183 --> 00:27:40.920
but my life was about
to take a terrible turn.

00:27:40.920 --> 00:27:47.399
- Katharine Coman found a,
quote, "tiny lump" in 1911.

00:27:49.890 --> 00:27:53.010
- [Bates] My beloved Katharine
battled through cancer,

00:27:53.010 --> 00:27:55.920
never complaining, forever noble.

00:27:55.920 --> 00:27:57.480
- [Swenson] She continued to travel

00:27:57.480 --> 00:28:01.860
and kind of carry on with
her life, remarkably.

00:28:01.860 --> 00:28:05.550
- [Bates] Twice she surrendered
to the surgeon's knife.

00:28:05.550 --> 00:28:08.310
I could hardly imagine
how much she suffered,

00:28:08.310 --> 00:28:09.660
always in pain.

00:28:09.660 --> 00:28:12.660
- And the surgery itself
was quite dangerous

00:28:12.660 --> 00:28:14.400
at the time that Coman had it,

00:28:14.400 --> 00:28:17.340
because they didn't have
all the kind of antisepsis

00:28:17.340 --> 00:28:19.740
that they have now.

00:28:19.740 --> 00:28:22.350
- [Bates] Though her
faith remained steadfast,

00:28:22.350 --> 00:28:25.050
her prayers for recovery
went unanswered.

00:28:25.050 --> 00:28:29.819
- Bates wrote about Coman
that God spared her nothing,

00:28:29.819 --> 00:28:34.110
and it was clear that
she suffered terribly.

00:28:34.110 --> 00:28:37.290
I mean, it's hard for us
today to imagine

00:28:37.290 --> 00:28:41.673
how little could have been
done to modify her pain.

00:28:49.530 --> 00:28:52.372
- [Bates] 1912 began with a bang.

00:28:52.372 --> 00:28:54.860
[gun firing]

00:28:54.860 --> 00:28:59.850
♪ As we go marching, marching
in the beauty of the day ♪

00:28:59.850 --> 00:29:02.670
- [Bates] Only 40 miles
from me, in Lawrence,

00:29:02.670 --> 00:29:05.610
hundreds of workers, many
of them immigrant women,

00:29:05.610 --> 00:29:07.590
left their textile mills to strike

00:29:07.590 --> 00:29:10.400
for better wages and working hours.

00:29:10.400 --> 00:29:13.737
♪ Yes it is bread we fight for ♪

00:29:13.737 --> 00:29:17.940
♪ But we fight for roses too ♪

00:29:17.940 --> 00:29:21.300
- [Bates] People called it
the Bread and Roses Strike.

00:29:21.300 --> 00:29:23.940
We all sympathized with those workers.

00:29:23.940 --> 00:29:26.790
How little they were asking for!

00:29:26.790 --> 00:29:28.830
- She was not an Emma Goldman.

00:29:28.830 --> 00:29:33.150
She was not a Carrie Nation
who took an ax to saloons.

00:29:33.150 --> 00:29:36.900
Vida Scudder was much
more outspokenly radical.

00:29:36.900 --> 00:29:39.240
- [Bates] Vida, my friend and colleague,

00:29:39.240 --> 00:29:42.919
left Wellesley to join the
strikers on the picket lines.

00:29:42.919 --> 00:29:46.782
But wealthy donors,
unsympathetic to the strikers,

00:29:46.782 --> 00:29:49.982
deserted Wellesley,
and I agonized between

00:29:49.982 --> 00:29:52.080
my concern for the women of Lawrence

00:29:52.080 --> 00:29:54.810
and the survival of my college.

00:29:54.810 --> 00:29:59.520
- She was a careful person,
and she had strong ideals,

00:29:59.520 --> 00:30:01.890
but she didn't wanna rock the boat.

00:30:01.890 --> 00:30:05.580
- [Bates] The trustees
demanded that I fire Vida.

00:30:05.580 --> 00:30:07.410
Though I disagreed with her methods,

00:30:07.410 --> 00:30:09.570
I admired her commitment.

00:30:09.570 --> 00:30:12.740
I was torn. What should I do?

00:30:12.740 --> 00:30:14.539
We compromised.

00:30:14.539 --> 00:30:16.920
Vida was allowed to continue teaching

00:30:16.920 --> 00:30:19.683
after apologizing for
putting Wellesley at risk.

00:30:21.390 --> 00:30:25.380
The next year, I left for
another European sabbatical

00:30:25.380 --> 00:30:27.633
and returned to another tragedy.

00:30:28.500 --> 00:30:32.910
In March 1914,
fire consumed College Hall

00:30:32.910 --> 00:30:34.920
and several other buildings.

00:30:34.920 --> 00:30:36.873
Many faculty lost everything.

00:30:37.710 --> 00:30:39.993
Immediately, we started to rebuild.

00:30:42.532 --> 00:30:46.474
But by August, the world
itself was in flames.

00:30:46.474 --> 00:30:48.450
[explosions thundering]

00:30:48.450 --> 00:30:51.360
By the thousands, young men perished

00:30:51.360 --> 00:30:53.820
in Europe's bloody fields.

00:30:53.820 --> 00:30:56.913
In my sorrow, I turned again to poetry.

00:30:58.867 --> 00:31:02.250
- [Reader] "How long shall
folk of the burned villages

00:31:02.250 --> 00:31:05.070
in starving, staggering throng

00:31:05.070 --> 00:31:08.370
Flee from the armies that, in turn,

00:31:08.370 --> 00:31:11.460
are mangled, maddened, slain,

00:31:11.460 --> 00:31:14.700
Till earth is all one stain

00:31:14.700 --> 00:31:16.017
Of horror..."

00:31:18.090 --> 00:31:19.740
- It's an eloquent message,

00:31:19.740 --> 00:31:21.870
and it's extremely well delivered.

00:31:21.870 --> 00:31:26.867
It's delivered in poetry
that is remarkably modern.

00:31:28.560 --> 00:31:31.980
- [Bates] At first America
kept out of the war,

00:31:31.980 --> 00:31:34.530
but tragedy did not spare me.

00:31:34.530 --> 00:31:39.300
In 1915, my beloved
Katharine died of cancer.

00:31:39.300 --> 00:31:41.013
She was only 57.

00:31:43.530 --> 00:31:48.210
Loneliness seized me like a
cold wind from the far north.

00:31:48.210 --> 00:31:52.263
I didn't have her courage or
her deep faith in an afterlife.

00:31:53.340 --> 00:31:56.220
I consoled myself by writing poems,

00:31:56.220 --> 00:31:59.043
honoring the partner who
brought me so much joy.

00:32:04.166 --> 00:32:09.083
♪ The boys are coming,
the boys are coming ♪

00:32:11.690 --> 00:32:15.720
- [Bates] In 1917, my country
entered the Great War.

00:32:15.720 --> 00:32:19.623
"The war to end all wars,"
as optimists called it.

00:32:20.550 --> 00:32:23.880
How horrible it was, the destruction,

00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:26.433
the endless hemorrhaging
of young blood.

00:32:30.690 --> 00:32:32.760
But despite many misgivings,

00:32:32.760 --> 00:32:36.360
most of our faculty stood
behind President Wilson.

00:32:36.360 --> 00:32:38.280
We feared that the Kaiser's armies

00:32:38.280 --> 00:32:40.653
might destroy European civilization.

00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:46.666
The war finally ended
on November 11th, 1918.

00:32:49.500 --> 00:32:53.522
- When the Yankee division
of soldiers from New England

00:32:53.522 --> 00:32:56.850
heard that the armistice
had been signed,

00:32:56.850 --> 00:33:00.600
the fighting stopped on
a hillside in Verdun,

00:33:00.600 --> 00:33:02.580
thousands of these soldiers stood up

00:33:02.580 --> 00:33:05.067
and sang "America the Beautiful."

00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:09.420
- [Bates] I was told they were weeping.

00:33:09.420 --> 00:33:11.313
How deeply that touched me.

00:33:12.270 --> 00:33:14.700
Soon I had a new cause.

00:33:14.700 --> 00:33:17.130
President Wilson proposed
a League of Nations

00:33:17.130 --> 00:33:21.300
to settle disagreements
peacefully and put an end to war.

00:33:21.300 --> 00:33:25.890
I gave my heart to it,
but the US refused to join,

00:33:25.890 --> 00:33:27.753
dooming the league to failure.

00:33:28.800 --> 00:33:30.513
There was good news, though.

00:33:32.190 --> 00:33:36.810
In 1920, our dream of
votes for women came true.

00:33:36.810 --> 00:33:38.850
What a glorious day.

00:33:38.850 --> 00:33:41.070
Surely we women would move the world

00:33:41.070 --> 00:33:43.713
toward peace, justice, and love.

00:33:44.730 --> 00:33:47.233
The poems I wrote for
my beloved Katharine

00:33:47.233 --> 00:33:48.993
were published two years later.

00:33:49.837 --> 00:33:54.044
- [Reader] "By seven springs
has your far grave been passed

00:33:54.044 --> 00:33:58.290
Have I not sometimes
felt your presence nigh?

00:33:58.290 --> 00:34:02.427
I give you joy, my dearest,
Death is done."

00:34:04.770 --> 00:34:07.620
- [Bates] I would wait another
seven springs to join her.

00:34:12.720 --> 00:34:14.760
But I was slowing down.

00:34:14.760 --> 00:34:18.600
In 1925, as Wellesley turned 50,

00:34:18.600 --> 00:34:21.543
I retired after 40
years of teaching there.

00:34:22.530 --> 00:34:24.030
Three years later,

00:34:24.030 --> 00:34:27.090
a great crowd filled
Boston's Mechanics Hall

00:34:27.090 --> 00:34:29.610
to hear my final speech.

00:34:29.610 --> 00:34:33.270
I told them they should
think of the whole world

00:34:33.270 --> 00:34:37.801
as one community
from sea to shining sea.

00:34:42.060 --> 00:34:45.300
One fine spring day in 1929,

00:34:45.300 --> 00:34:47.553
I took my last ride around the campus.

00:34:49.053 --> 00:34:53.733
I imagined it as it was,
with College Hall still there.

00:34:54.840 --> 00:34:57.273
All my lovely memories came back.

00:34:59.310 --> 00:35:02.505
I had lived a blessed life.

00:35:27.660 --> 00:35:32.340
Now, here in my hometown,
I rest beneath the grass.

00:35:32.340 --> 00:35:34.323
But my song is not buried with me.

00:35:36.030 --> 00:35:38.910
New generations have made it their own,

00:35:38.910 --> 00:35:43.910
maintaining my hope that America
might acknowledge its flaws

00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:46.503
and honor its most beautiful ideals.

00:35:54.677 --> 00:35:56.755
[Music - Larry Long, "American Hymn"]

00:35:56.755 --> 00:36:01.755
♪ Freedom, oh Freedom ♪

00:36:01.971 --> 00:36:05.862
♪ What does that mean ♪

00:36:05.862 --> 00:36:10.862
♪ Like waves out on the ocean ♪

00:36:10.957 --> 00:36:15.957
♪ Crossing the deep blue sea ♪

00:36:15.984 --> 00:36:20.610
♪ America, America ♪

00:36:20.610 --> 00:36:25.610
♪ God shed her grace on thee ♪

00:36:25.689 --> 00:36:30.689
♪ Sisterhood, brotherhood ♪

00:36:31.441 --> 00:36:36.441
♪ Today I do believe ♪

00:36:36.867 --> 00:36:41.438
♪ America, America ♪

00:36:41.438 --> 00:36:46.438
♪ God shed her grace on thee ♪

00:36:46.500 --> 00:36:51.500
♪ Sisterhood, brotherhood ♪

00:36:55.539 --> 00:36:59.264
♪ Today I do believe ♪