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Show Purpose Of Bicentennial: Kerning Past Some have questioned the purpose of celebrating the nation's bicentennial year. And it's true that in some colonies about one-third the population opposed the revolution in the beginning and favored remaining in the British empire. IT MAY even be true that the United States would be reasonably well off today were K a dominion, as free and independent as Canada, m the British Common wealth. But it isn't, and the masterful mas-terful Constitution and the historic breakaway from throne rule on matters of high principle are highlights of western history every free man can be proud of. ONE ML ST understand the past to understand the present and future. As Wood row Wilson wrote years ago: "A national which does . not remember what it was I yesterday does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying try-ing to do. "We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know from whence we came or what we are about." AND SO this bicentennial year should rekindle in all Americans an interest in this country's past, its purpose and its goals. If it does that, it will have accomplished much. |