INDEPENDENCE DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25579, 5 July 1944, Page 4

INDEPENDENCE DAY

NEW ZEALAND FELICITATIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF DEBT (PA) WELLINGTON, July 4. In an Independence Day statement to-day, Colonel C. H. Weston, president cf the British-American Co-opera-tion Movement, said the United States had always stood for democratic rights, and had always been a champion of liberty and freedom. It was not strange that the United States and the British Commonwealth should be fighting side by side to-day, and that the people m New Zelaand had been proud and pleased to have the American fighting forces as their guests. “From our knowledge of the recent history of the South Pacific we realise just how great is the debt of gratitude we owe to the American forces for preventing a potential Japanese invasion of parts of New Zealand,” he added. “On this important date in American life, the British-American Co-operation Movement and many other friends of America in the Dominion Extend to our great ally sincere felicitations, with the hope’ that .July 4 next year will upon a happier state of world affairs.”

For 168 years. July 4 has been a symbol to the people of the United States of the democratic freedom which citizens claim as their birthright. On this day 168 years ago the American colonies declared themselves independent of Britain, and claimed the rights of free and independent States. The Declaration of Independence, which was drawn up by the third President, of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, and slightly amended by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin, was adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The most famous phrase in this historic document, which marked the birth of one of the world's great democracies, declared “ that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."