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 Why 
 America First"? 
 
 TAe Basis of Our Patriotism 
 
 Francis X. Reilly, S. J. 
 
 CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY 
 OMAHA 
 

 f8 
 
 WHY "AMERICA FIRSir 
 
 ^ei 
 
 can find no more fitting expression of sentiment to 
 sound the note of this occasion than the words of our 
 chief executive: 
 
 ''America now speaks with the great vohime of the 
 heart 's accord, and the great heart of America has be- 
 hind it the supreme moral force of righteousness and 
 hope and the liberty of mankind", One in faith, one 
 in patriotism, one in fellowship, inspired by the ideal- 
 ism of our Republic and convinced that the issue of the ordeal 
 through which we are passing rests upon our prevision and 
 singleness of purpose, we may well pledge ourselves anew to 
 bring the war to a close in victorious peace, even if it exhaust 
 our vast resources and take all the valiant lives in the United 
 States of America. It has been brought home to us, aye, branded 
 on our very souls by enemy conquest and kultur, as seen in 
 enemy war practices, that, if the deliberate and calculated bar- 
 barism of those leagued against us, should gain the ascendant 
 and triumph over the civilized world, the priceless heritage of 
 free government would be swept from the earth, and the future 
 of the race would be the darkest epoch of its history. 
 
 The records of the past go to show that military despotisms 
 have ever been the supreme evil of human society; when, how- 
 ever, jingoism joins forces with material progress and barbaric 
 ruthlessness, it becomes all the more dangerous, and all the more 
 hateful. With all the gravity and calm dignity which a con- 
 scientious executive has at his command, we are told that for us 
 the day of final test has come ; but we are assured that we will 
 win, that the issue is worth the brave lives and all the treasure 
 
Why "America FirstT' 
 
 the war will cost. As the preserver of peace and the guardian of 
 civilization, we as a nation are summoned by the God of battle 
 and the God of nations to do our full share in the emancipation of 
 man. The summons is to the heroic in us. It is our task under 
 God, and we, the eldest born of freemn, assume it willingly, 
 courageously in the cause of right and justice. 
 
 This is no time to fire the imagination. It is imperative for 
 us to follow in calm reason the way of truth, justice and right 
 with fidelity and courage. The war has put upon us grave re- 
 sponsibilities, neither anticipated nor foreseen. There are ob- 
 ligations to be met ; there are questions that demand an answer. 
 In honor and in conscience, we are bound to keep the covenants 
 we have made. The lofty moral purpose that fires the spirit of 
 America today, resting upon the broad principles of represent- 
 ative free government, will keep alert and true the best char- 
 acteristics of our people. If duty determines destiny, and our 
 duty is as clear as it is imperative, ours is a high and noble 
 destiny. It is not for us to foretell the outcome ; that is beyond 
 our vision; but as we can see how the hand of Providence guided 
 us through the crises of the last hundred years and more by 
 reason of our fidelity to His law, so in this our day will He make 
 issue for us, if we but hearken to the voice of authority, which 
 rules by His will and which under His guidance A\dll bring us to 
 the goal of our hopes — peace with victory. 
 
 Too much insistence cannot be laid upon the fact that the 
 result of the present crisis depends largely upon individual 
 public spirit. It is your affair and my affair and a very serious 
 problem. In the stress of activities for the successful conduct 
 of the war, there is danger of our losing sight of the fact that 
 our government is founded on the idea of equal individual man- 
 hood and equal individual responsibility. In the minds of our 
 fathers the individual was the one element to be taken care of ; 
 *'the sole business of government was to give him the rights of 
 civic manhood, to protect him in his personal freedom and 
 otherwise to leave him alone". This policy seems to have 
 worked well in those days, due to the quality of manliood, and 
 
The Basis of Our Palriotism 
 
 to the sense each had of his innate dignity and of his personal 
 responsibility to the state. There were no forces forever guid- 
 ing, supporting, directing, providing for him, telling him what he 
 might or might not, ought or ought not do. He was neither a 
 moral nor an intellectual cripple. To the idea of the manhood of 
 man, of a government formed to protect him in his rights, leaving 
 him free in his actions and his mode of thought, we owe it that 
 we are the nation we are. 
 
 If there has been a departure from this principle on the 
 part of the government, is it because the citizen has lost his 
 sense of individual dignity, lost his grasp on his relations and 
 responsibility to the government f Can it be that the original 
 American idea has been modified with time by influences that are 
 alien, nay, hostile to the fundamental principles of American 
 institutions? This is our government, our country, and when 
 there is a question of preference, when it is America or some 
 other countrj^, it is and must be America first. We are the last 
 to call in question the hearty love and veneration that another 
 may have for his native land. We know that it is natural and 
 entitled to respect. Moreover, we have always respected it. 
 We have a right to expect, however, nay, we demand that native 
 sons, as also men who have sworn allegiance to the United States, 
 never forget for a moment that this Republic, on questions in- 
 volving peace and war, commands absolute subordination of 
 any and all political interests to the interests of the United 
 States. 
 
 Much is left to the individual, to his sense of duty, to his 
 patriotism ; for the one thing to be said of our system is that it 
 is free. "It is the production of men of practical business, of 
 experience, of wisdom, and is suited to what man is, and to what 
 it is in the power of good laws to make him". Its power is 
 the power of the nation; its will, the will of the people. Such 
 as it is, it is the result of our deliberate study and choice. It 
 was not revealed to us, nor dictated to us, nor taught to us by 
 doctrin^aries, nor foisted upon us at the point of the bayonet. 
 Framed by our fathers for themselves and their children, it 
 
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Wh\) "America FirstT' 
 
 was purchased by American valor; not "a transient glimmer- 
 ing ray shot from the impulse of passing resentment", but a 
 valor that for seven long years braved every hardship and fought 
 an unequal fight against the might of imperial England. That 
 noble struggle, the inspiration of later times, was even less re- 
 markable than the battles which won for us in deliberative 
 assembly the constitution of the United States, a constitution 
 whose characteristic quality is its recognition of the individual, 
 and the part he plays in successful government. We live, thanks 
 to them, ^' under the only government framed by the unrestrained 
 and deliberate consultations of the people", the first of its kind 
 in the history of the w^orld. It is your government and my gov- 
 ernment. Upon us depends its stability. Upon our moral worth, 
 our attachment, our fidelity in every detail, rests its honor, 
 its greatness, its future. Ours is a duty of justice and gratitude. 
 *'Our country fosters our dearest interests and protects our 
 hearths and altars. We share in her development and pros- 
 perity; we thrive under her guarantee of safety to life and prop- 
 erty". Ours is her heritage of wisdom; ours is the resplendent 
 glory of her name written in letters of gold across the fairest 
 pages of the world's history. Justice and gratitude tell us in 
 no uncertain terms what return we must make for what she 
 has done for us. Justice demands the last full measure of devo- 
 tion; gratitude, the best we can offer. 
 
 Apart from gratitude, apart from the idea of justice, duty 
 to such a country as ours we base upon a deeper principle. AVe 
 believe that when she calls upon us, it is by right divine ; for she 
 has received the authority needful for her life, her work, her 
 mission. With us, next to God is country; next to religion is 
 patriotism; God and country is our watchword. The love of 
 country, because it is God's law, goes hand in hand with our 
 religion. In view of the work allotted to us by Him, who rules 
 the destinies of nations, we realize that His purpose must be 
 our purpose, and that only through loyalty to those who under 
 Him guide the Ship of State, will His purpose for the future 
 generations of freemen be accomplished. 
 
The Basis of Our Patriotism 
 
 As educated, patriotic citizens, we know our duty ; we know 
 the attitude of the Church towards the Republic today, as 
 always. She has taught us to ^ive our unqualified, whole-heart- 
 ed support and loyalty to the United States, to cherish an en- 
 lightened, generous patriotism, to labor to consecrate this vast 
 land of teeming millions to the honor of God for the welfare of 
 man, that the song of the freemen, blending with the hymns that 
 ascend like incense from the sanctuary, may rise in one paean 
 of majestic melody, a song of praise and thanksgiving worthy 
 of the God of nations, worthy of the freeborn people of United 
 America. 
 
 In love of country, in loyalty to its life and well being 
 we cannot be outdone. Our love is strong ; our love is enduring ; 
 our loyalty so disinterested that we shrink from no labor, we 
 stop at no sacrifice. We venerate the spirit of our people 
 and our institutions; we cherish the spirit of freedom, the 
 spirit of '76 and '61, because it is the very life of our national 
 existence anrl honor, the cause of our development, the bulwark 
 of our safety. Today we live by that spirit, the spirit of in- 
 tense single-hearted loyalty. Today that spirit is ours in all 
 its significance, in all its heroic nobility, for ours are minds 
 that appreciate, ours are hearts that are generous. 
 
 In this supreme hour, the country we love, she who is set 
 as the hope of nations in travail, is calling upon the devotion 
 of her myraid sons and daughters, asking them for the active, 
 intense, unwearied patriotism that shows itself in deeds, in 
 sacrifice; a patriotism that grasps the situation as she sees it, 
 and is willing to put the welfare of the nation above every 
 personal consideration, to throw down the gauntlet to death 
 itself that the nation may live. We who take a legitimate pride 
 in our citizenship, wdio deem it the greatest honor and the high- 
 est dignity possible to man as man, we have but one answer: 
 ''To the very end". Our country as the land of human dignity, 
 of human liberty, where government may be likened to the Provi- 
 dence of the Most High, whose minister she is, — our country is 
 the crowning glory of our race, the embodiment of the spirit of 
 
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Wh]) "America FirsiT' 
 
 human liberty in its struggle for the aggrandizement of man. 
 Heie alone is manhood the sole condition of the gift of civil 
 liberty; here alone is found the recognition of men's greatness 
 and dignity; here, at last is realized the haunting dreams of 
 the race for six thousand years — Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. 
 
 Liberty, our pride and boast, is impossible without order, 
 and order demands government. Without conviction of its 
 legitimacy and the obligation of obedience to its mandates gov- 
 ernment is futile. Civil authority is but a natural means to a 
 natural end. It is by no convention, no compact or contract 
 that authority says to a man * * do this or do not do that ". " The 
 point fixed by nature and by God is that there must be authority 
 existent under some form, and under that form obeyed. Civil 
 authority is the moral power to command. It is from God, not 
 be revelation or divine institution, but by the fact that God is 
 the author of nature. Nature requires that civil authority be 
 set up and obeyed; what nature absolutely requires or forbids, 
 God, the author of nature, must command or forbid, since nature 
 is the expression of His will". Obedience, then, is a moral duty, 
 not a physical necessity. The right to govern and the duty to 
 obey are correlative; one cannot exist without the other. 
 
 ''The nation as a moral unit, that is, as distinguished from 
 the citizens taken distributively, is sovereign; but the people 
 taken distributively owe allegiance to and are bound to obey 
 the enactments of the government, since it governs by divine 
 right. This fact confirms the people's rights by the highest 
 sanctions, and at the same time commands them to obey the 
 laws for conscience sake. The whole people is sovereign; the 
 government legitimate and sacred; the nation, as a moral unit, 
 makes the laws; the people, as individuals, are held to obey 
 them". 
 
 Human government rules by the authority of God, not 
 by its o^vn. Its right to rule is God's right. It receives its 
 power as a trust. The citizen therefore is bound to obey in as 
 far as God authorizes it. This asserts a solid basis for liberty 
 and provides for the stability of Government and the good order 
 
The Basis of Our Patriotism 
 
 of society. As we are bound to obey God, we are bound to obey 
 the state as the minister oi Clod. The law binds in conscience 
 because legitimate government exists by divine appointment and 
 has the right to make laws. For the reason that we are bound 
 in conscience to obey God, we are bound in conscience to obey 
 the Law. "By Me kings reign and lawgivers decree just 
 things". ''Let every soul be subject to higher powers, for 
 there is no power but from God, and those that are, are ordained 
 of God. Therefore, he that resisteth the power, resisteth the 
 ordinance of God". When, then, the country declares war, the 
 war is the law of the land, and binds the subjects to the same 
 extent and for the same reason as any other law. It is a ques- 
 tion of the obligation of the citizen to obey the law. So far as 
 he is bound to obey the law, he is bound on his allegiance to 
 render the service or the aid which the government commands, 
 and to render it in the form which it specifies. There is no 
 option. ' ' The generative and conservative principle of political 
 institutions is divine Providence". 
 
 "Constitutions are sacred so far as they are written in the 
 hearts, habits, manners, customs of a people ; they are the living 
 soul of the nation, that by virtue of which it is a nation, able to 
 live a national life and perform national functions. Govern- 
 ments fall not for want of physical force, but because of the 
 lack of moral support on the part of the citizens". Loyalty is 
 of first importance to the life of a democracy, loyalty built on 
 a sense of sacred duty. True, affection and interest play their 
 part ; but affection when not founded on principle and sustained 
 by a sense of duty is a wayward, fickle thing. As to interest, 
 it, too, is variable, for men mistake their true interests. ' * Views 
 change as to where interest lies, and interests veer with age, 
 pursuits and social conditions". As treason is a crime, so 
 loyalty is the highest, noblest, most generous of human virtues. 
 "It is the human element in that sublime altmism which the 
 apostle tells us is the fulfillment of the law." It has in it the 
 principle of devotion and self-sacrifice that make man most 
 Christlike. Where this spirit is rife, where it animates a na- 
 
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Wh^) "America FirstT' 
 
 tion, there is nothing great, generous or heroic of which a loyal 
 people is not capable. 
 
 The sentiment that binds a man to the land of his birth 
 is as universal as it is natural; as unreasoned as it is impossible 
 of analysis. In varying degrees, in every age, apart from any 
 conscious design to foster or develope it, attachment to and 
 love of country exists everywhere. It is the thread of the story 
 that winds its way through the records of tribes and peoples and 
 races ; it is the inspiration of the bards, the theme of the death- 
 less song of national poetry. Patriotism is not the glow of soul 
 that rises from the contemplation of signal natural advant- 
 ages, — the beauty, fertility, power, prosperity of the country, 
 the sources of enjoyment or the means of advancement it affords. 
 Be it what it may, bleak or balmy, north or south, sterile or 
 fraitful, the tendency to cling to it, to glorify or idealize one's 
 native land is as common as it is creditable to those who love it. 
 Like other human ties it is modified by influences like character, 
 culture, religion and the political institutions to which it owes 
 allegiance. In remote times and at low stages of civilization, 
 while it may evince intensity of devotion, individual loyalty or 
 loyalty to an individual, it lies too close to the instinct of self- 
 preservation and to blind partisanship to take rank as the virtue 
 of patriotism. Loyalty to country, however, is the essence of 
 patriotism ; even in its lowest stages, it is a noble thing in itself, 
 and w^orthy of men. 
 
 ** Patriotism as an enlightened principle springs from the 
 soil of a broad culture and from the civilization which real 
 culture induces". Culture implies high moral principles and 
 lofty social aims. These constitute a country's greatness; by 
 these alone it flourishes. Material wealth, arts, literature, 
 science, valuable and effective in their way and in their proper 
 sphere, are not the index to a nation's standing. With them 
 a country may be on the decline; fair to the eye, but with the 
 principle of dissolution active in its vitals. '*A country is 
 gauged by the depth of its wisdom; by the hold that religion, 
 virtue, freedom, the pillars of civilized society, have upon its 
 
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The Basis of Our Pairiolism 
 
 people". Where these are, we find true patriotism, namely 
 the embodiment in her sons of the enlightened principles of 
 devotion and service based upon a sense of moral right and 
 duty. 
 
 The test of a country's worth is the quality of the men it 
 produces. Where devotion to country is grounded upon moral 
 conviction and love of God-given freedom, we find the patriot, 
 men who live in the affection of their fellows because of their 
 exalted moral worth. Consecrated to a mighty work '^they 
 were men of conviction, of tempered zeal, of energetic person- 
 ality, of exalted principle"; they met the test, proved their 
 worth and enriched the country and the age that summoned 
 them to its service. Their title to respect, to veneration, is 
 their intrinsic excellence, for their names are synonymous with 
 noble deeds, and manly virtues. 
 
 The mere mention of such men as our beloved Washington 
 and the great-hearted Lincoln lifts us above the dead level of 
 common existence, stirs our better selves within us, until we re- 
 solve that these men shall not have lived for us in vain. The 
 lives of patriots are of more value to the civic welfare of the 
 nation that produced them, than all the material wealth and 
 prospects it can boast. Time has flung a shadow over all save 
 their splendid lives, and sent into oblivion their little world 
 of men and events; yet in heightening their noble isolation, 
 time has bequeathed to us a deathless inheritance. We are apt to 
 grow unmindful of the harrowing circumstances of the times in 
 which their lot was cast, the dark days and foreboding when 
 their hearts grew faint and all but failed ; yet, human even as we, 
 they had to suffer and be strong. Their deep-rooted faith kept 
 their vision clear and their determination fixed; and in the 
 darkest hour the God of destiny favored them with a pillar of 
 cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. 
 
 Through the heartening influence of the lives of the patriots 
 of old, we are ready to act and to suffer if need be for the cause 
 of civilization and humanity. We can leave all to battle for the 
 right, for principles that live close to the heart of freemen ; we 
 
Wh]) "America FirstT' 
 
 can make light of life, if the alternative be the threatened loss 
 of liberty. The loyalty we owe our country, is the loyalty we 
 owe to honor and to God. **With enlightened and unreserved 
 devotion, with the full consent of our higher nature, from the 
 honest promptings of noble sentiment", we pay the greatest 
 tribute a man can offer — ''All and to the end". ''To defend 
 by force of arms the honor, the independence, the existence of 
 our country, is a fundamental, a sacred duty; but it must be 
 dominated by the spirit of justice and philanthropy" and be 
 consistent with our relations to our enemies as to our allies. 
 Times that try men's souls come but once in a lifetime. It is 
 then especially that the citizen is bound to meet his obligations 
 to the country that shelters him and pay them in full either 
 with his property or with his blood. When the dark days come and 
 danger threatens, as it does today, the patriot is at his post, 
 one with his government in thought, word, deed, ready to act 
 his part in the capacity that his country requires. 
 
 We may reckon our duty to our country in her hour of trial 
 by the unnumbered blessings which God through her has be- 
 stowed upon the least of us. From him to whom much has been 
 given much shall be required. According to the number and the 
 splendor of the gifts which nature and our forebears have be- 
 queathed to us, shall we be judged by the generations to come. 
 They shall know that we were set as a beacon of hope and 
 bright promise to all the nations of the world, and their verdict 
 will be just because based on the findings of unerring time. 
 Never has a nation been so favored as we have. Range round 
 the whole world, north temperate or south temperate zone and 
 show me 3,000,000 square miles that are in any way comparable. 
 See this vast country set in the fairest portion of the new world, 
 amidst mighty waters that temper all the winds that blow, with 
 mineral wealth untold and lands that might feed the world! 
 Here are the wonders of nature, here vast inland lakes, and a 
 network of majestic rivers that bear her argosies to the en- 
 circling seas. Here, a puissant race, a nation 100,000,000 strong 
 dedicated to liberty; here the sacred guarantee of life, liberty 
 
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The Basis of Our Patriotism 
 
 and the pursuit of happiness with the means thereto, education 
 and equal suffrage. 
 
 Set in the wilderness, on a bleak and storm-swept coast 
 three hundred years ago, in 150 years we grew to such stature 
 that we measured our might with the might of the mother count- 
 try— and we prevailed. A hundred years ago, we were an ex- 
 periment, a handful of colonies stretched along the Atlantic; 
 today we occupy the place of honor among the nations of the 
 world, the arbiter of the fate of humanity and civilization ; we are 
 the source of the world's supplies, for we rival in every species 
 of wealth, the combined resources of the rest of the world. 
 Please God, we will be worthy of our privileges. Upon us 
 rests the responsibility of living up to the principles through 
 which and by which our prosperity has accrued to us as a na- 
 tion and upon which our future and the future of the world 
 depends. Ours is a high and noble destiny. We are to make 
 love of country one with sincere love of fellow-man and his 
 real interests, giving to the world a concrete compelling argu- 
 ment that we recognize the brotherhood of man as we admit 
 the fatherhood of God. 
 
 Here, beneath the flag, the symbol of all for which we as 
 freemen stand, the embodiment of all we love; here under the 
 egis of freedom's banner, wherein the red of American heroism 
 blending with the white of unflinching faith and loyalty waves 
 midst the unclouded blue of hope and peace in starlit glory; 
 here, America, we pay thee our tribute of love and loyalty. 
 With hearts that are pledged to thee, we do thee homage. Thy 
 fair name is our pride and boast; thy matchless glory our in- 
 spiration. In thy keeping is our hope, the future of the human 
 race. For thy mission is to show the world, to convince them 
 that dwell in the outer darkness, that man, even as we, is fit for 
 the highest civil and political freedom. Through thee, thy ex- 
 ample and thy aid shall the light of liberty be shed across this 
 night 0^ darkness, and the cause of mankind as man, triumph 
 over all the world, because we, thy sons, have taken up this 
 
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JVhp ''America FirstT' 
 
 work, have put our hands to the plow, not to rest, not to look 
 back, '^till the very end"! 
 
 America : 
 
 '* Humanity with all its fears 
 With all the hopes of future years 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate. 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes are all with thee, 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 Are all with thee, are all with thee!" 
 
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