Maryland was put to question. This took the cruel, unnatural pressures
of war to bring it about and in the scar we can read the lesson that the
whole world has so expensively learned—that war is not the way to decide
the questions of civilization, that representative government is a stronger
weapon than guns.

REMARKS ON THE STATE FLAG

ANNAPOLIS

March 16, 1961

I am highly honored to have this opportunity to present to Carvel Hall
this flag of the State of Maryland. We have a most distinctive State
flag. If you ever see it displayed with the flags of the other states, you
will note how brilliantly it stands out among the others.

The flag we have unfurled here this evening became official by an act
of the General Assembly passed in 1904. The statute refers to it as the
historic and traditional emblem of Maryland from earliest times.
Although there was no official State flag before that time, history records
that variations of it were used from the earliest days. Its essential
feature, of course, is the quartering of the arms of the Calvert and
Grassland families.

The father of George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, was Leonard
Calvert, a Yorkshire country gentleman. He married Alicia Grassland,
daughter and heiress of John Grassland, another Yorkshire gentleman.
After he became a baronet, George Calvert, who founded the colony of
Maryland in 1634, petitioned to have the Calvert arms certified. This
quartering of the coats of arms of the Calvert and Crossland arms was
used as the great seal of Maryland from the earliest times, but its use
as the design for a flag came much later. Maryland, thus, has the
distinction of having the only flag in the United States that is based on
heraldic emblems.

Another outstanding feature of the Maryland flag is the staff
ornamention—the gold cross bottony. In 1945, the General Assembly
passed an act stating that "If any ornament is affixed to the top of a
flagstaff carrying the flag of Maryland, it shall be a gold cross bottony. "
And thus, the cross which you see at the top of the staff of this flag is
officially a part of this State emblem. In heraldry, the cross bottony is a
cross with extremities resembling a trefoil plant.

It is a pleasure to present to Carvel Hall, on behalf of Mr. and Mrs.
Walter Lears, this beautiful flag of the State of Maryland.

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