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As attested by the annals of the world's most illustrious peoples, the first government to be established on earth, the foremost empire to be organized among the nations, was Persia's throne and diadem.
O people of Persia! Awake from your drunken sleep!
Rise up from your lethargy! Be fair in your judgment:
will the dictates of honor permit this holy land, once
the wellspring of world civilization, the source of glory
and joy for all mankind, the envy of East and West, to
remain an object of pity, deplored by all nations? She
was once the noblest of peoples: will you let contemporary
history register for the ages her now degenerate
state? Will you complacently accept her present
wretchedness, when she was once the land of all mankind's
desire? Must she now, for this contemptible