The Greatest Light Since the Star of Bethlehem

On the Fourth of July: Capra, Washington, de Tocqueville, Douglass, Lincoln, Chesterton, Coolidge, Twain

"I celebrated my sixth birthday in the black, dark hold of a ship, crammed with retching, praying, miserable people. After 13 days, the ship stopped and my father brought me up on deck.

‘Chico,’ he said, ‘look at that.’

And I saw the statue of a great lady, taller than a church steeple.

‘That's the greatest light since the star of Bethlehem,’ my father …