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THE AMERICAN 
 SPIRIT 
 
 A BASIS FOR 
 WORLD DEMOCRACY 
 
 EDITED BY 
 PAUL MONROE, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 Director School of Education 
 Teachers College, Columbia University 
 
 AND 
 IRVING E. MILLER, Ph.D. 
 
 Department of Education 
 
 Washington State Normal School 
 
 Bellingham 
 
 YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK 
 
 WORLD BOOK COMPANY 
 1920 
 
WORLt) BOOK COMPANY 
 
 THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE 'T'lJ 
 Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson '^ ' 7^^ 
 
 YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NeW YoRK y/) 1 ^ . 
 
 2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago ' x^ 
 
 The American Spirit, like the American 
 people, is a composite. Discoverer, ex- 
 plorer, colonist, pioneer, frontiersman, 
 immigrant, through social selection assure 
 independence, initiative, dissatisfaction 
 with existing attainments, a forward look, 
 a confidence in the powers of the common 
 man, and an ideahstic faith in his worth . 
 and destiny. Self-government, achieved 
 through patriotic struggle and secured 
 through hard experience, confirms them. 
 Democracy in government, preserved from 
 corruption only by constant vigilance and 
 continual practice, leads to social democ- 
 racy; the two, to ideals of industrial 
 democracy yet in the process of attain- 
 ment. Through civil war, ideals of na- 
 tional unity were achieved and of national 
 destiny were confirmed. Foreign war and 
 the compHcated problems of modern world 
 diplomacy enabled the nation to reject an 
 imperiahstic pohcy in favor of one of gen- 
 erosity and humanity towards the weaker 
 nations, of justice and honor among its 
 peers. The present crisis in the world's 
 history affords the supreme test of these 
 traits. How these characteristics have 
 united in the American Spirit is briefly 
 told in this volume. May the spirit ex- 
 pressed by the American people be worthy 
 of the sacrifices of our fathers and the 
 heroism of our sons I 
 
 MMAS-4 
 
 Copyright, 1918, by World Book Company 
 All rights reserved 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The past four years have been critical in the life of 
 our country. Repeatedly the question has been asked 
 whether we have such a thing as a national conscious- 
 ness. Have the many nationahties represented in our 
 ancestry and in our naturaUzed citizenship been welded 
 together into one unified whole? Has the "melting pot" 
 given us a single product, or only a loose amalgamation 
 which is ready to fall apart under special stress and ten- 
 sion? Is there one American Spirit, or are there many 
 and divided loyalties ? 
 
 M£my insidious attempts have been made in the past 
 three years to array group against group to the end that 
 we might not present a solid front in case we should be 
 drawn into the world conflict as partisans of democracy 
 against autocracy. Fortunately these attempts have in 
 large part failed. Our eyes were long bUnded as to the 
 real issues of the European War. But the very measures 
 employed to confuse us and to take advantage of our 
 neutrality have gradually brought to consciousness and 
 focused the American Spirit until it has asserted its su- 
 premacy over hyphenism of every sort. Whatever one 
 may think about the original causes of the war or of the 
 aims and purposes of the conflicting nations, we now see 
 clearly that the issue at the present time is that of making 
 the world safe for democracy in a world which autocracy 
 seeks to dominate. 
 
 While we have no doubt at the present time that our 
 liberties as weU as those of other democratic nations are 
 at stake, the slowness with which the American Spirit 
 has been aroused to consciousness of its danger and the 
 necessity of asserting its rights has compeUed us to raise 
 anew the question of education with reference to Ameri- 
 
 48341)3 
 
iv Introduction 
 
 can principles and patriotism. We see now, as never 
 before, the need of making our children understand and 
 appreciate the American Spirit which differentiates us 
 from the nations of the Old World. 
 
 We have not been without instruction in patriotism in 
 the past, but it came too largely through chance occasions 
 / and through indirect channels. There has been too much 
 V spread-eagle oratory and too much emotional patriotism. 
 There has been plentiful "twisting of the lion's tail" and 
 of cultivation of the impression that the United States 
 can "lick any country on earth." Our teaching of Ameri- 
 I can history has often been narrow and one-sided. Chil- 
 dren have been left with an erroneous impression of 
 distrust of Great Britain and antipathy to that country. 
 The fact is often ignored that there was a democratic 
 movement in England as well as in the Colonies in 1776, 
 and that great patriots there challenged the autocratic 
 ideas and practices of their German king, George III. 
 The democratic movement in England as well as in the 
 Colonies finally won the victory. Yet we spend a lot of 
 time in cherishing an ancient wrong instead of studying 
 the world-wide progress of democracy. Even within our 
 own national life, we have not heeded the example and 
 the wisdom of Lincoln, but have permitted an undue 
 emphasis both in North and in South to be placed on the 
 things which divided us fifty years ago instead of exalt- 
 ing the things which unite us in 1918. 
 / While the crisis through which we have been passing 
 / has emphasized the necessity of systematic instruction 
 I in American ideals, the American Spirit, and patriotism, 
 I this instruction must go farther than sentiments and 
 \ feelings : it must have in it something constructive^ We 
 must inculcate ideas and ideals which will work out inlx) 
 
r 
 
 Introduction 
 
 everyday life and citizenship, which apply in the crises 
 of peace as well as in those of war, which make us conscious 
 of the rights of other nations as well as of our own. Let 
 us not merely glory in our country in an emotional way, 
 but also learn how we may best serve her ; let us slough 
 off the Idwer and more sordid national ideals and strive 
 to perpetuate and to propagate those which are highest 
 and best. 
 
 In the preparation of this ^little reader, the attempt i 
 has been made to focus attention upon Ihe conslruetive I 
 aspect of patriotism. Due regard, however, has been 
 paid to certain of the traditional and emotional elements 
 that cannot be ignored. That which tends to divide us 
 in thought from one another or from the other democratic 
 nations has been largely eUminated. We do not wish 
 to plant the seeds of distrust of other nations, nor can we 
 afford to stress the literature of hatred. We want a whole- 
 some and sane regard for our own country, without the 
 development of undue national egotism. We want our 
 children to recognize at this time that the democratic 
 movement is universal, — a world movement, — in some 
 places struggling under a crushing burden of autocracy, 
 in others expressing itself through different political 
 forms from our own, but everywhere working toward 
 the same ends. We have been more favorably situated 
 for the realization of democratic ideals than others ; we 
 have a correspondingly greater obligation to be true to 
 them and to consider all other peoples who aspire to 
 democratic control of their governments as our brothers 
 and friends. 
 
 There is something in the long history of our pioneer 
 life that everywhere has emphasized freed^jn, initiative, 
 and individuality. From the time of Columbus to the 
 
vi Introduction 
 
 present day America has breathed the spirit of the pioneer. 
 To us "all things are possible." All men, regardless of 
 birth, are human ; all are divine. The spirit of idealism 
 rests hke a sunrise glow over the whole land. The very 
 air we breathe is that of opportunity and democracy. 
 The pubhc school makes intelligence common property. 
 Newspaper and magazine are brought to the very doors 
 of every man. Public opinion is shaped by the thought 
 and the ideals of the common man; we feel the moral 
 judgment of the man in the sod hut on the prairie, the 
 miner in his mountain cabin, and the tenement dweller 
 of the great city as well as that of the college professor, 
 the lawyer, and the captain of industry. There is some- 
 thing inherent in our life that binds us together ultimately 
 into one great national whole. The process is often slow 
 and uncertain, however, and it has been left too much to 
 chance. Even the sons and daughters of the old Colonial 
 stock have not always become conscious of the funda- 
 mental principles which differentiate a democratic social 
 order from one which is autocratic in principle. We need 
 as never before in home, church, and school to make sure 
 that the rising generation gets a correct impression of 
 the real American Spirit. It is hoped that this volume 
 may be found useful in this task. 
 
 The Editors 
 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 
 The editors and publishers wish to express their appreci- 
 ation of courteous permission received from publishers, 
 authors, and others for use of selections as follows : 
 
 The Adjutant General's Office, United States War Depart- 
 ment, for "Flag Etiquette," by General H. P. McCain. 
 
 The Atlantic Monthly Company and the author for "Western 
 Idealism" and "The Influence of the West upon Democracy," by 
 Frederick Jackson Turner. 
 
 Emily Greene Balch for the translation of "Ode to Columbia," 
 by Hurban Vajansky. 
 
 Barse and Hopkins, New York, for "Carry On!" by Robert W. 
 Service. 
 
 The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, for " Our Kind of a 
 Man" and "The Name of Old Glory," by James Whitcomb Riley; 
 "A Song for Flag Day," by Wilbur Dick Nesbit; and "One Coun- 
 try," by Frank L. Stanton. . 
 
 The Century Company, New York, for "The Character of Wash- 
 ington," by Henry Cabot Lodge, and "The Loyalty of the Foreign 
 Born," by M. E. Ravage. 
 
 The Christian Work, New York, for editorial on "The Higher 
 Patriotism." 
 
 Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, for "General Grant's 
 Greatest Victory," by Elbridge S. Brooks, and "America the Beau- 
 tiful," by Katharine Lee Bates. 
 
 M. A. Donahue & Co., Chicago, for " Aristokrats," by Josh Billings. 
 
 The Dresden Publishing Company, New York, for "Abraham 
 Lincoln," by R. G. Ingersoll. 
 
 John H. Finley for address on "The Thirtieth Mtm." 
 
viii Acknowledgments 
 
 Samuel Gompers for "Labor and Democracy" and "The Prussian 
 Menace," from Declarations of the American Federation of Labor. 
 
 Harper & Brothers, New York, for "Wheeler at Santiago," by 
 Henry Cabot Lodge, and "The American Republic" and "The 
 Moral Quahty in Patriotism," by George William Curtis. 
 
 Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, for "Our 
 Pan-American Policy," by EUhu Root. 
 
 Archbishop John Ireland for address on "The Duty and Value of 
 Patriotism." 
 
 Otto H. Kahn for "America's Cause and the Foreign-Born Citizen" 
 and " The Poison Growth of Prussianism." 
 
 V^RANKLiN Knight Lane for address on "The Makers of the Flag." 
 
 Little, Brown & Co., Boston, for poem "Columbus," by Edward 
 Everett Hale. 
 
 The McClure Company, New York, for "The Foreigner in a 
 Democracy," by Carl Schurz. 
 
 David McKay, Philadelphia, for "0 Captain! My Captain!" by 
 Walt Whitman. 
 
 The Macmillan Company, New York, for "Lincoln's Sympathy," 
 by Ida M. Tarbell, and "The Making of an American," by Jacob 
 Riis. 
 
 Harriet Monroe for poem on "Democracy." 
 
 The New York Sun for "Cub Sawbones," by Sydney Reid, and 
 "Wheeler at Santiago," by James Lindsay Gordon. 
 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, for "America First," by Theodore 
 Roosevelt, and "When the Great Gray Ships Come In," by Guy 
 Wetmore Carryl. 
 
 Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, for "From AUen to 
 Citizen" and "Confessing the Hyphen," by Edward A. Steiner. 
 
Acknowledgments ix 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt for "Americanism," "America First,*' and 
 "With Firmness in the Right." 
 
 The Roycroft Press for "A Message to Garcia," by Elbert Hub- 
 bard. 
 
 Carl L. Schurz for "The Foreigner in a Democracy," by Carl 
 Schurz. 
 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, for "The Founding of 
 Jamestown," by Thomas iVelson Page; "Martial Valor in Times 
 of Peace," by John Grier Hibben ; and "America for Me," by Henry 
 van Dyke. 
 
 Edwin Du Bois Shurter for "The Homes of the People," by 
 Henry W. Grady. 
 
 Henry D. Sleeper for "When the Great Gray Ships Come In," by 
 Guy Wetmore Carryl. 
 
 Harr Wagner Publishing Company, San Francisco, for poems 
 "Columbus" and "The Exodus for Oregon," by Joaquin Miller. 
 
 Henry Watterson for address on "How 'The Star-Spangled 
 Banner' Was Written." 
 
 The selections from John Fiske, James Russell Lowell, John Green- 
 leaf Whittier, Richard Watson Gilder, Henry Cabot Lodge (on 
 page 86), Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Hay, Edmund Clarence 
 Stedman, Abraham Mitrie Rihbany, and Henry Wadsworth Long- 
 fellow are used by permission of and by special arrangement with 
 Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, authorized publishers of 
 their works. 
 
i 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE PIONEER SPIRIT 
 
 PAGS 
 
 Columbus Joaquin Miller 1 
 
 Columbus Edward Everett Hale 2 
 
 To the Virginian Voyage Michael Drayton 3 
 
 The Founding of James- 
 town Thomas Nelson Page 6 
 
 The North and the South 
 
 One in Their Origin . JohnFiske 7 
 
 The Puritans .... Thomas Babington Max:aulay ... 11 
 
 The Landing of the Pil- 
 grims Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans . 14 
 
 The First Landing at 
 
 Plymouth .... William Bradford 16 
 
 New England Civiliza- 
 tion James Russell Lowell 18 
 
 The Quaker of the Olden — 
 
 Time John Greenleaf Whittier 23 
 
 God Makes a Path . . Roger Williams 24 
 
 Western Idealism . . . Frederick Jackson Turner .... 25 
 
 The Exodus for Oregon . Joaquin Miller 29 
 
 II. TWO GREAT AMERICANS 
 
 Washington .... Lord George Gordon Byron .... 33 
 The Character of Wash- 
 ington Henry Cabot Lodge 33 
 
 Washington .... James Russell Lowell ..... 36 
 
 Counsels of Washington George Washington 37 
 
 Abraham Lincoln . . . James Russell Lowell 43 
 
 Sayings of Lincoln . . L. Lamprey 45 
 
 Lincoln's Sympathy . . Ida M. Tarbell 50 
 
 Lincoln a Typical Amer- 
 ican Phillips Brooks 51 
 
 Abraham Lincoln . . . Robert G. Ingersoll 54 
 
 Lincoln's Birthplace . . Woodrow Wilson 56 
 
 Abraham Lincoln . . . Tom Taylor 58 
 
 O Captain! My Cap- 
 tain ! Walt Whitman ........ 61 
 
 The Gettysburg Address Abraham Lincoln 62 
 
 xi 
 
xii Contents 
 
 III. CHARACTERISTIC IDEALS 
 
 (1) The Faith of the Fathers 
 
 Characteristics of Amer- pagb 
 
 ; ica Benjamin Franklin 65 
 
 H Pitt's Last Speech . . William Pitt, Earl of Chatham . . 67 
 
 What is Patriotism ? . . Fisher Ames 68 
 
 4 Liberty or Death . . . Patrick Henry 70 
 
 Government in the In- 
 terest of All . . . . Declaration of Independence ... 72 
 Faith in Our Govern- 
 
 \ ment Thomas Jefferson 73 
 
 * The Monroe Doctrine . James Monroe 74 
 
 Liberty for All .... William Lloyd Garrison .... 77 
 
 (2) MopvAL Heroism 
 General Grant's Great- 
 est Victory .... Elhridge S. Brooks 78 
 
 Cub Sawbones .... Sydney Reid (Robert Charles Forneri) 79 
 
 The Fleet at Santiago . Henry Cabot Lodge 80 
 
 Wheeler at Santiago . . James Lindsay Gordon 82 
 
 When with Their Coun- 
 try's Anger .... Richard Watson Gilder 83 
 
 (3) The Fight for a Cause 
 American Ideals Not 
 
 Imperialistic . . . William McKinley 85 
 
 The American Flag Not 
 
 the Dollar Sign . . . Henry Cabot Lodge 86 
 
 Our Pan-American 
 
 Policy Elihu Root 89 
 
 Americaniim . . . . Theodore Roosevelt 91 
 
 America for Me ! . . . Henry van Dyke 93 
 
 IV. DEMOCRACY 
 
 Democracy Harriet Monroe 95 
 
 The American RepubUc George William Curtis 97 
 
 Peculiarity of American 
 
 Liberty Daniel Webster 100 
 
Contents xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Freedom Ralph Waldo Emerson 102 
 
 What Constitutes a 
 
 State? Sir William Jones 103 
 
 Liberty John Hay 104 
 
 The Thirtieth Man . . John H. Finley 105 
 
 Labor and Democracy . American Federation of Labor . . 108 
 
 HovJ^ Democracy Sur- 
 passes Monarchy . . Andrew Shan Draper 110 
 
 The Influence of the 
 
 West upon Democracy Frederick Jackson Turner . . . . 112 
 
 Democracy James Russell Lowell 116 
 
 V. DEMOCRACY AND LIFE 
 
 A Man's a Man for 
 
 A' That RoberiBwns 123 
 
 The Democratic Ideal of 
 
 Labor Orville Dewey 125 
 
 Work Thomas Carlyk 125 
 
 Aristokrats Josh Billings {Henry W. Shaw) . . 128 
 
 The Homes of the People Henry W.Grady 129 
 
 Our Kind of a Man . . James WhitcOmb Riley 132 
 
 A Message to Garcia . . Elbert Hubbard 133 
 
 VL PATRIOTISM 
 
 America Samuel Francis Smith 139 
 
 The Duty and Value of 
 
 Patriotism .... Archbishop John Ireland .... 140 
 
 The Glory of Patriotism Cardinal Mercier 143 
 
 Love of Country . . . Sir Walter Scott 145 
 
 The Man without a 
 
 Country Edward Everett Hale 145 
 
 The Moral QuaUty in 
 
 Patriotism .... George William Curtis 154 
 
 America the Beautiful . Katharine Lee Bates 158 
 
 Martial Valor in Times 
 
 of Peace . . . . . John Grier Hibben 160 
 
 The Higher Patriotism . The Christian Work 161 
 
 Recessional Rudy ard Kipling 166 
 
XIV 
 
 Contents 
 
 VII. THE 
 
 The Story of Old Glory . 
 
 The Star-Spangled Ban- 
 ner 
 
 How " The Star-Spangled 
 Banner" Was Written 
 
 The American Flag . . 
 
 The Symbol of Our Na- 
 tion 
 
 A Song for Flag Day . . 
 
 Flag Etiquette . . . . 
 
 The Makers of the Flag . 
 
 The Name of Old Glory . 
 
 STORY OF THE FLAG 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Anonymous 167 
 
 Francis Scott Key 170 
 
 Henry Walter son 172 
 
 Joseph Rodman Drake 179 
 
 Henry Ward Beecher 181 
 
 Wilbur Dick Nesbit 184 
 
 Adjutant General H. P. McCain . . 185 
 
 Franklin Knight Lane 190 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley 193 
 
 VIII. AMERICANS ALL 
 
 Liberty Enlightening the 
 World 
 
 America 
 
 The Making of an Amer- 
 ican 
 
 Americans of Foreign 
 Birth 
 
 The Foreigner in a De- 
 mocracy 
 
 The Loyalty of the 
 Foreign Bom . . . 
 
 From AUen to Citizen . 
 
 Confessing the Hyphen . 
 
 America Alone .... 
 
 A Far Journey . . . . 
 
 America's Cause and the 
 Foreign-Born Citizen 
 
 The Freedom of the 
 Land . . . 
 
 America First . 
 
 America First . 
 
 Ode to Columbia 
 
 One Country . 
 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman .... 197 
 
 Bayard Taylor 199 
 
 Jacob Riis 200 
 
 Woodrow Wilson 202 
 
 CarlSchurz. 206 
 
 M.E. Ravage 209 
 
 Edward A. Steiner 217 
 
 Edward A. Steiner ...... 219 
 
 Rudolph Blankenburg 222 
 
 Abraham Mitrie Rihbany .... 223 
 
 OttoH.Kahn 228 
 
 L. Lamprey 230 
 
 Woodrow Wilson 230 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt 233 
 
 Hurban Vajansky 235 
 
 Frank L. Stanton 237 
 
Contents xv 
 
 IX. THE PRESENT CRISIS 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Introduction 239 
 
 The Present Crisis .... James Russell Lowell . . . 241 
 
 The Prussian Menace to 
 
 American Freedom . . . ElihuRoot 245 
 
 With Firmness in the Right . Theodore Roosevelt .... 256 
 
 The Prussian Menace . . . American Federation of Labor 258 
 
 The Poison Growth of Prus- 
 
 sianism OttoH.Kahn . . . . . .259 
 
 The World Safe for Democ- 
 racy Woodrow Wibon 261 
 
 Battle Hymn of the Repubhc Julia Ward Howe 274 
 
 Flag Day Address .... Woodrow Wilson 275 
 
 Armageddon Sir Edwin Arnold .... 284 
 
 The Meaning of American 
 
 Democracy Woodrow Wilson 286 
 
 America's Purpose in the War Woodrow Wilson 292 
 
 When the Great Gray Ships 
 
 Come In . . . . . . . Guy Wetmore Carryl .... 302 
 
 X. ONWARD 
 
 A World Peace Woodrow Wilson 305 
 
 Freedom against the Will to 
 
 Power William E.Borah .... 310 
 
 Our ResponsibiUties .... Theodore Roosevelt .... 314 
 The Right of the People to 
 
 Rule Theodore Roosevelt .... 316 
 
 Look Up, Look Forth, and On I Bayard Taylor . . . . . 318 
 
 The Ship of State .... Henry Wadsworih Long fellow . 319 
 
 A Basis for World Democracy David Starr Jordan .... 320 
 
 The New Independence Day Woodrow Wilson 323 
 
 Carry On ! Robert W. Service 326 
 
 Index to Subjects 329 
 
 Index to Authors, Titles, and the First Lines op Poems 333 
 
I. THE PIONEER SPIRIT 
 
 COLUMBUS 1 
 Joaquin Miller (1841-1911) 
 
 Behind him lay the gray Azores, 
 
 Behind the Gates of Hercules ; ^ 
 Before him not the ghost of shores, 
 
 Before him only shoreless seas. 
 The good mate said : "Now must we pray, 
 
 For lo I the very stars are gone, 
 Brave Adm'r'l, speak ; what shall I say?" 
 
 "Why, say : ' Sail on I sail on I and on ! "* 
 
 *'My men grow mutinous day by day ; 
 
 My men grow ghastly, wan and weak.'* 
 The stout mate thought of home ; a spray 
 
 Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. 
 "What shall I say, brave Adm'r'l, say, 
 
 If we sight naught but seas at dawn ? " 
 "Why, you shall say at break of day : 
 
 ' Sail on I sail on ! sail on ! and on I ' ** 
 
 They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow, 
 Until at last the blanched mate said : 
 
 "Why, now not even God would know 
 Should I and all my men fall dead. 
 
 1 From Joaquin Miller's Poems (Bear Edition), Vol, II. Copy- 
 right, 1909, by C. H. Miller. Published by Harr Wagner Publishing 
 Company, San Francisco. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
 2 The gates or pillars of Hercules were terms often applied to the two 
 great promontories, Gibraltar and Abyla, on the opposite sides 
 of the strait leading from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic 
 Ocean. In Greek mythology these were said to have been torn 
 asunder by Hercules in his journey to Gadez (now Cadiz). 
 
 1 
 
2 '■'•'' jT^g American Spirit 
 
 These very winds forget their way, } 
 
 For God from these dread seas is gone. \ 
 
 Now speak, brave Adm'r'l ; speak and say — " i 
 
 He said : "Sail on ! sail on I and on l" j 
 
 They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate : \ 
 
 "This mad sea shows his teeth to-night. ] 
 
 He curls his lip, he hes in wait, I 
 
 He Ufts his teeth, as if to bite I ■ 
 
 Brave Adm'r'l, say but one good word : i 
 
 What shall we do when hope is gone ? " \ 
 The words leapt like a leaping sword : 
 
 *' Sail on I sail on I sail on I and on I " • ' 
 
 Then pale and worn, he paced his deck, j 
 
 And peered through darkness. Ah, that night, i 
 
 Of all dark nights ! And then a speck — j 
 
 Alight! Ahghtl At last a light I ; 
 
 It grew, a starlit flag unfurled I • 
 
 It grew to be Time's burst of dawn. 3 
 He gained a world ; he gave that world 
 
 Its grandest lesson : "On I sail on ! " ■ 
 
 COLUMBUS 1 
 
 Edward Everett Hale, D.D. (1822-1909) j 
 
 Give me white paper ! 
 
 This which you use is black and rough with smears ! 
 
 Of sweat and grime and fraud and blood and tears, . 
 
 ^ In this poem the author, who was eminent as clergyman, orator, j 
 
 historian, essayist, editor, and writer of fiction, aptly expresses the ; 
 
 thought of the New World as offering humanity's great opportunity. ; 
 
 From address on "The Result of Columbus's Discovery," in "' 
 
 Works of Edward Everett Hale, Vol. III. Copyright, 1900, by ■ 
 
 Little, Brown & Co. , Boston. Used by permission of the pubhshers. , 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 8 j 
 
 Crossed with the story of men's sins and fears, 
 
 Of battle and of famine all these years, ; 
 
 When all God's children have forgot their birth, \ 
 
 And drudged and fought and died like beasts of earth. ; 
 
 Give me white paper I 
 One storm-trained seaman listened to the word ; 
 What no man saw he saw ; he heard what no man heard. 
 
 In answer he compelled the sea | 
 
 To eager m£ui to tell ; 
 
 The secret she had kept so well. 
 
 Left blood and guilt and tyranny behind, \ 
 
 Sailing still west the hidden shore to find ; ] 
 
 For all mankind that unstained scroll unfurled. 
 
 Where God might write anew the story of the World. \ 
 
 TO THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE i 
 
 Michael Drayton (1563-1631) 
 
 You brave heroic minds. 
 Worthy your country's name. 
 
 That honor still pursue. 
 Whilst loitering hinds 
 Lurk here at home, with shame, 
 
 Go, and subdue. 
 
 Britons, you stay too long. 
 Quickly aboard bestow you, 
 
 ^ This spirit of adventure, achievement, and faith in the future 
 felt by the EngUshmen of the seventeenth century is a part of the 
 inheritance entering into the American spirit. 
 
 From the Works of Michael Drayton, Esq., Vol. IV. Printed for 
 W. Reeve at Shakespear's Head in Fleet Street, London, 1753. 
 
. The American Spirit 
 
 And with a merry gale 
 Swell your stretch'd sail, 
 With vows as strong 
 As the winds that blow you. 
 
 Your course securely steer, 
 West and by south forth keep. 
 
 Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals, 
 
 When Eolus scowls. 
 You need not fear. 
 So absolute the deep. 
 
 And cheerfully at sea. 
 Success you still entice. 
 
 To get the pearl and gold, 
 
 And ours to hold, 
 Virginia, 
 Earth's only paradise. 
 
 Where nature hath in store 
 Fowl, venison, and fish. 
 
 And the fruitfulest soil. 
 
 Without your toil. 
 Three harvests more. 
 All greater than your wish. 
 
 And the ambitious vine 
 Crowns with his purple mass 
 
 The cedar reaching high 
 
 To kiss the sky. 
 The cypress, pine, 
 And useful sassafras. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 5 \ 
 
 i 
 
 When as the luscious smell ' i 
 
 Of that deUcious land, j 
 
 Above the seas that flows, ■ 
 
 The clear wind throws, ; 
 
 Your hearts to swell, ; 
 Approaching the dear strand. 
 
 In kenning of the shore j 
 
 (Thanks to God first given) i 
 
 you the happiest men, ' 
 
 Be froUck then, j 
 
 Let cannons roar, j 
 
 Frighting the wide heaven. • 
 
 i 
 
 And in regions far • i 
 
 Such heroes bring ye forth ' 
 
 As those from whom we came, | 
 
 And plant our name | 
 
 Under that star i 
 
 Not known unto our north. ^ 
 
 1 At certain seasons the fragrance of blossom-laden vines could be ; 
 
 detected by ships approaching the shores of the Virginia colonies, 3 
 
 before land was visible. ! 
 
6 The American Spirit 
 
 THE FOUNDING OF JAMESTOWN * 
 Thomas Nelson Page (1853- ) 
 
 On that May day three hundred years ago, when the 
 company of those little ships debarked and made their 
 final landing on American soil, they faced every peril and 
 danger that the human mind can imagine. 
 
 Every tree and bush and patch of weeds might conceal 
 a crafty Indian with his deadly arrow. 
 
 The Spaniard with sword and stake was ever on the 
 horizon. The shadow of " Melindus " ^ was yet black. 
 
 No one who has the least conception of what those men 
 endured will question their courage. It is possible, 
 however, that had they known what they had to face 
 in their new home the stoutest-hearted of them might have 
 quailed. To face death was nothing to such men, it was 
 an incident of the fife of every man, as it is today of the 
 life of the soldier in the field. Indeed, this Httle band was 
 the forlorn hope of volunteers sent to seize a continent. 
 They made the breach and held it against all odds, and it 
 is to the lasting renown of the English Race that as fast 
 as their numbers failed they were replaced. On their 
 maintaining their position hung the fate of North America, 
 and possibly of the world. They had reached a charmed 
 
 ^ In the volume from which this selection is taken, Thomas Nelson 
 Page has dealt with the history of his native state in a style not 
 less charming than that of his stories. Dm-ing the great war 
 Mr. Page has ably represented the American government as am- 
 bassador to Italy. 
 
 From the essay on "Jamestown, the Birthplace of the American 
 People," in "The Old Dominion : Her Making and Her Manners." 
 Copyright, 1908, by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Used 
 by permission of the pubhshers. 
 
 * Pedro Menendes de Aviles, a Spanish explorer and military leader 
 who massacred a colony of French Protestants in Florida in 1565. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 7 
 
 but an unknown land with a changeable and an untried 
 climate. Their provisions, intended only to last until 
 they could seed and harvest a new crop, had been 
 wasted during their long voyage and would not last 
 them out. 
 
 Their form of government, under which the president 
 could always be removed by a majority of the Council, 
 was one well framed to breed faction. The community 
 of interest which was imagined to be necessary in a new 
 land placed the industrious at the mercy of the idle, 
 and the zealous supported the shirker. But it is weU for 
 the Anglo-Saxon race to pause, and take note of the one 
 great fact, that, however their perils may have alarmed 
 them, however their vast isolation may have awed them, 
 there always survived spirit enough to preserve them, and 
 they remained in this far and perilous outpost of the 
 Anglo-Saxon civiUzation, and, with the devotion of the 
 vestal virgin of old, kept the fire, however dim its spark, 
 ever alight on the sacred shrine. 
 
 THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH ONE IN THEIR 
 ORIGIN 1 
 
 John Fiske (1842-1901) 
 
 It is impossible to make any generalization concerning 
 the origin of the white people of the South as a whole, 
 or of the North as a whole, further than to say that 
 their ancestors came from Europe, and a large majority 
 of them from the British Islands. The facts are too 
 
 1 From "Old Virginia and Her Neighbours." Copyright, 1897, by 
 John Fiske. 
 
 Published by Houghton Mifflin . Company, Boston. Used by 
 permission of the pubUshers. 
 
8 The American Spirit 
 
 complicated to be embraced in any generalization more 
 definitely limited than this. When sweeping statements 
 are made about "the North" and "the South," it is 
 often apparent that the speaker has in mind only Massa- 
 chusetts and tidewater Virginia, making these parts do 
 duty for the whole. . . . 
 
 In Virginia the economic circumstances were very 
 different from those of New England, and the effects 
 were seen in a different kind of local institutions. In 
 New England the system of small holdings facihtated 
 the change from primogeniture ^ to the Kentish custom 
 of gavelkind,^ with which many of the settlers were 
 already famihar, in which the property of an intestate 
 is equally divided among the children. In Virginia, 
 on the other hand, the large estates, cultivated by sei'vile 
 labor, were kept together by the combined customs of 
 primogeniture and entail, which lasted until they were 
 overthrown by Thomas Jefferson in 1776. In this cir- 
 cumstance, more than in anything else, originated the 
 more aristocratic features in the local institutions of 
 Virginia. . . . 
 
 As already hinted, in those rural societies where people 
 generally knew one another, its effects were not so far- 
 reaching as they would be in the more compUcated society 
 of today. Even though Virginia had not the town meet- 
 ing, "it had its famiheu* court-day," which "was a hoUday 
 for all the countryside, especially in the fall and spring. 
 
 1 The legal custom by which property passed to the oldest son, 
 rather than being divided between all the sons. 
 
 2 An old English legal custom by which rented or leased lands 
 were divided equally among the sons or the children of a 
 deceased person. Except in Kent, the custom was later re- 
 placed by the feudgJ custom of primogeniture introduced from 
 France. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 9 
 
 From all directions came in the people on horseback, in 
 wagons, and afoot. On the com-thouse green assembled, 
 in indiscriminate confusion, people of all classes, — the 
 hunter from the backwoods, the owner of a few acres, 
 the grand proprietor, and the grinning, heedless negro. 
 Old debts were settled, and new ones made ; there were 
 auctions, transfers of property, and, if election times were 
 near, stump-speaking." ^ 
 
 For seventy yegu's or more before the Declaration of 
 Independence the matters of general public concern, 
 about which stump speeches were made on Virginia 
 court-days, were very similar to those that were dis- 
 cussed in Massachusetts town meetings when represent- 
 atives were to be chosen for the legislature. Such 
 questions generally related to some real or alleged en- 
 croachment upon popular hberties by the royal governor, 
 who, being appointed and sent from beyond sea, was apt 
 to have ideas and purposes of his own that conflicted 
 with those of the people. This perpetual antagonism to 
 the governor, who represented British imperial inter- 
 ference with American local self-government, was an 
 excellent schooling in political liberty, ahke for Virginia 
 and for Massachusetts. WTien the stress of the Revolu- 
 tion came, these two leading colonies cordially supported 
 each other, and their poUtical characteristics were re- 
 flected in the kind of achievements for which each was 
 especially distinguished. The Virginia system, con- 
 centrating the administration of local affairs in the 
 hands of a few county famihes, was eminently favorable 
 for developing skillful and vigorous leadership. And 
 while in the history of Massachusetts during the Revolu- 
 
 1 Ingle, in "Johns Hopkins University Studies," iii. 90. 
 
10 The American Spirit 
 
 tion we are chiefly impressed with the remarkable degree 
 in which the mass of the people exhibited the kind of 
 political training that nothing in the world except the 
 habit of parHamentary discussion can impart; on the 
 other hand, Virginia at that time gave us — in Washing- 
 ton, Jefferson, Henry, Mason, Madison, and Marshall, to 
 mention no others — such a group of leaders as has seldom 
 been equaled. . . . 
 
 A comparative survey of Old Virginia's neighbors shows 
 how extremely loose and inaccurate is the common habit 
 of alluding to the Old Cavalier society of England as if 
 it were characteristic of the southern states in general. 
 Equally loose and ignorant is the habit of afluding to 
 Puritanism as if it were peculiar to England. In point 
 of fact the Cavalier society was reproduced nowhere save 
 on Chesapeake Bay. On the other hand, the English 
 or Independent phase of Puritanism was by no means 
 confined to the New England colonies. Three fourths 
 of the people of Meu^yland were Puritans ; English Puri- 
 tanism, with the closely kindred French Calvinism, 
 swayed South Carolina; and in our concluding chapter 
 we shall see how the Scotch or Presbyterian phase of 
 Puritanism extended throughout the whole length of the 
 Appalachian region, from Pennsylvania to Georgia, and 
 has exercised in the southwest an influence always great 
 and often predominant. In the South today there is 
 much more Puritanism surviving than in New England. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 11 
 
 THE PURITANS » 
 
 Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) 
 
 The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a 
 peculiar character from the daily contemplation of 
 superior beings and eternal interests. Not content 
 with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling 
 Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to 
 the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing 
 was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too 
 minute. To know Him, to serve Him, to enjoy Him, 
 was with them the great end of existence. They rejected 
 with contempt the ceremonious homage which other 
 sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. In- 
 stead of catching occasional ghmpses of the Deity 
 through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on 
 His intolerable brightness, and to commune with Him 
 face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terres- 
 trial distinctions. The difference between the greatest 
 and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when 
 compared with the boundless interval which separated 
 the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were 
 constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority 
 but His favor ; and, confident of that favor, they despised 
 all the accompHshments and all the dignities of the world. 
 If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers 
 and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. 
 If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, 
 they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps 
 were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, 
 
 1 From the " Essay on Milton," in Works of Lord Macaulay, 
 Vol. V. Published by Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1866. 
 
12 The American Spirit 
 
 legions of ministering angels had charge over them. 
 Their palaces were houses not made with hands ; their 
 diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away. 
 On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, 
 they looked down with contempt: for they esteemed 
 themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and elo- 
 quent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right 
 of an earher creation, and priests by the imposition of a 
 mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being 
 to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance 
 belonged, on whose slightest action the spirits of light 
 and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been 
 destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy 
 a fehcity which should continue when heaven and earth 
 should have passed away. Events which short-sighted 
 politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained 
 on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and 
 flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had 
 proclaimed His will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the 
 harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common 
 deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had 
 been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the 
 blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun 
 had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that 
 the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the 
 sufferings of her expiring God. 
 
 Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the 
 one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the 
 other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated 
 himself in the dust before his Maker ; but he set his foot 
 on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he 
 prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was 
 half^maddened by glorious or terrible iUusions. He heard 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 13 
 
 the lyres of angels, or the tempting whispers of fiends. He 
 caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming 
 from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane,^ he thought 
 himself intrusted with the scepter of the millennial year. 
 Like Fleetwood,^ he cried in the bitterness of his soul that 
 God had hid His face from him. But when he took his 
 seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these 
 tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible 
 trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly 
 but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them 
 but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh 
 at them. But those had Httle reason to laugh who en- 
 countered them in the hall of debate or in the field of 
 battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military 
 aflfairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of 
 purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent 
 with their refigious zeal, but which were in fact the 
 necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on 
 one subject made them tranquil on every other. One 
 overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and 
 hatred, ambition and fear. . Death had lost its terrors and 
 pleasure its charms. They had their smiles EUid their 
 tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the 
 things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, 
 had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and 
 prejudice, and raised, them above the influence of danger 
 and corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue 
 unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They 
 
 1 Sir Harry Vane, a Puritan statesman and patriot, governor of 
 Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1636-1637. Because of disagreement 
 with the colonial religious policy, he returned to England in 1637 
 and later was prominent in the Puritan Commonwealth, at times 
 opposing Cromwell's rule. He was executed at the Restoration. 
 
 2 A statesman and general under the Puritan Commonwealth. 
 
14 The American Spirit 
 
 went through the world Uke Sir Artegal's^ iron man 
 Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppres- 
 sors, mingUng with human beings, but having neither 
 part nor lot in human infirmities; insensible to fatigue, 
 to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, 
 not to be withstood by any barrier. 
 
 THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS ^ 
 Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans (1793-1835) 
 
 The breaking waves dashed high 
 
 On a stern and rockbound coast, 
 And the woods against a stormy sky 
 
 Their giant branches tossed. 
 
 And the heavy night hung dark 
 
 The hills and waters o'er, 
 When a band of exiles moored their bark 
 
 On the wild New England shore. 
 
 Not as the conqueror comes. 
 
 They, the true-hearted, came. 
 Not with the roU of the stirring drums, 
 
 And the trumpet that sings of fame ; 
 
 Not as the flying come. 
 
 In silence and in fear ; 
 They shook the depths of the desert gloom 
 
 With their hymns of lofty cheer. 
 
 ^ The knight errant, Sir Artegal, in Spenser's "Faery Queene," 
 personified justice. He was attended by an iron man called 
 Talus, who carried a flail " with which he thrashed out falsehood 
 and did truth unfold." 
 
 2 From works of Mrs. Hemans, Vol. V. Published by Lea & 
 Blanchard, 1840. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 15 ^ 
 
 Amidst the storm they sang, ; 
 
 And the stars heard and the sea ; . ' 
 And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang 
 
 To the anthem of the free I \ 
 
 The ocean eagle soared ) 
 
 From his nest by the white wave's foam ; a 
 
 And the rocking pines of the forest roared — } 
 
 This was their welcome home 1 ] 
 
 There were men with hoary hair '' 
 
 Amidst that pilgrim band ; — j 
 
 Why had they come to wither there, ^ 
 
 Away from their childhood's land ? i 
 
 There was woman's fearless eye, j 
 
 Lit by her deep love's truth ; i 
 
 There was manhood's brow serenely high, 
 
 And the fiery heart of youth. i 
 
 What sought they thus afar ? — 
 
 Bright jewels of the mine ? ! 
 
 The wealth of seas, the spoils of war ? — ^ 
 
 They sought a faith's pure shrine I 
 
 Ay, call it holy ground. 
 
 The soil where first they trode I ! 
 
 They have left unstained what there they found — j 
 
 Freedom to worship God. i 
 
 1 
 
16 The American Spirit 
 
 THE FIRST LANDING AT PLYMOUTH * 
 William Bradford (1590-1657) 
 
 Being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe 
 to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of 
 heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious 
 ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries 
 thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable 
 earth, their proper element. And no marvel if they were 
 thus joyful, seeing wise Seneca was so affected with sailing 
 a few miles on the cosist of his own Italy ; as he affirmed, 
 that he had rather remain twenty years on his way by 
 land, than pass by sea to any place in a short time ; so 
 tedious and dreadful was the same unto him. 
 
 But here I cannot but stay and make a pause, and 
 stand half ameized at this poor people's present condi- 
 tion; and so I think wiU the reader too, when he well 
 considers the same. Being thus passed the vast ocean, 
 and a sea of troubles before in their preparation (as may 
 be remembered by that which went before), they had now 
 
 1 William Bradford was second governor of Plymouth Colony. He 
 was chosen to this office after the first governor, Carver, had died 
 from the hardships of the first winter. Bradford remained in 
 office for twelve years, or until 1633. His "History of Plymouth 
 Plantation," from which this selection is taken, was written during 
 the latter years of his Ufe, though often erroneously called "Th« 
 Log of the Mayflower." Early Massachusetts historians quoted 
 from the manuscript until as late as 1767. After this time the 
 manuscript disappeared and was taken to England during the 
 period of the Revolutionary War. It was discovered in 1855 in 
 the library of the diocese of London and was first published by the 
 Massachusetts Historical Society in the following year. In 1897 
 the original manuscript was given by the authorities of the Church 
 of England to the commonwealth of Massachusetts, and was pub- 
 lished by that state in the following year. From this edition the 
 excerpt given here is taken. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 17 
 
 no friends to welcome them, nor inns to entertain or re- 
 fresh their weatherbeaten bodies, no houses or much less 
 towns to repair to, to seek for succor. It is recorded in 
 Scripture as a mercy to the apostle and his shipwrecked 
 company, that the barbarians showed them no small 
 kindness in refreshing them, but these savage barbarians, 
 when they met with them (as after will appear) were 
 readier to fill their sides full of eirrows than otherwise. 
 And for the season it was winter, and they that know 
 the winters of the country know them to be sharp and 
 violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous 
 to travel to known places, much more to search £^n un- 
 known coast. Besides, what could they see but a hideous 
 and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men ? 
 and what multitudes there might be of them they knew 
 not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of 
 Pisgah, to view from this wilderness a more goodly coun- 
 try to feed their hopes ; for which way soever they turned 
 their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have 
 little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. 
 For summer being done, all things stand upon them with 
 a weatherbeaten face; and the whole country, full of 
 woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue. 
 If they looked behind them, there was the mighty ocean 
 which they had passed, and was now as a main bar and 
 gulf to separate them from all the civil parts of the world. 
 If it be said they had a ship to succor them, it is true : 
 but what heard they daily from the master of the com- 
 pany ? but that with speed they should look out a place 
 with their shallop, where they would be at some near 
 distance; for the season was such as he would not stir 
 from thence till a safe harbor was discovered by them 
 where they would be, and he might go without danger; 
 
18 The American Spirit 
 
 and that victuals consumed apace, but he must and would 
 keep sufficient for themselves and their return. Yea, it 
 was muttered by some, that if they got not a place in 
 time, they would turn them and their goods ashore and 
 leave them. . . . What could now sustain them but the 
 spirit of God and His grace? May not and ought not 
 the children of these fathers rightly say : Our fathers were 
 Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were 
 ready to perish in this wilderness ; but they cried unto the 
 Lord, and he heard their voice, and looked on their ad- 
 versity, etc. Let them therefore praise the Lord, because 
 he is^ good, and his mercies endure forever. Yea, let 
 them which have been redeemed of the Lord, show how 
 he hath delivered them from the hand of the oppressor. 
 When they weuidered in the desert wilderness out of the 
 way, and found no city to dwell in, both hungry, and 
 thirsty, their soul was overwhelmed in them. Let them 
 confess before the Lord his loving kindness, and his won- 
 derful works before the sons of men. 
 
 NEW ENGLAND CIVILIZATION ^ 
 
 James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) 
 
 The history of New England is written imperishably 
 on the face of a continent, and in characters as beneficent 
 as they are enduring. In the Old World national pride 
 feeds itself with the record of battles and conquests ; — 
 battles which proved nothing and settled nothing; 
 conquests which shifted a boundary on the map, and put 
 
 1 From "New England Two Centuries Ago" in "Literary Essays 
 by James Russell Lowell," Vol. II of Lowell's Prose Works (River- 
 side Edition). Copyright, 1890, by Houghton Mifflin Company, 
 Boston, Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 19 
 
 one ugly head instead of another on the coin which the 
 people paid to the tax gatherer. But wherever the New 
 Englander travels among the sturdy commonwealths 
 which have sprung from the seed of the Mayflower, 
 churches, schools, colleges, tell him where the men of his 
 race have been, or their influence has penetrated ; and an 
 intelligent freedom is the monument of conquests whose 
 results are not to be measured in square miles. Next to 
 the fugitives whom Moses led out of Egypt, the little 
 shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth two cen- 
 turies and a half ago are destined to influence the future 
 of the world. . . . 
 
 Looked at on the outside. New England history is dry 
 and unpicturesque. There is no rustle of silks, no waving 
 of plumes, no cUnk of golden spurs. Our sympathies are 
 not awakened by the changeful destinies, the rise and fall, 
 of great famiUes, whose doom was in their blood. Instead 
 of all this, we have the homespun fates of Cephas and 
 Prudence repeated in an infinite series of peaceable 
 sameness, and finding space enough for record in the 
 family Bible ; we have the noise of ax and hammer and 
 saw, an apotheosis of dogged work, where, reversing the 
 fairy teJe, nothing is left to luck, and if there be any poetry, 
 it is something that cannot be helped, — the waste of 
 the water over the dam. ExtrinsicaUy, it is prosaic and 
 plebeian ; intrinsically, it is poetic and noble ; for it is, 
 perhaps, the most perfect incarnation of an idea the 
 world has ever seen. That idea was not to found a 
 democracy, nor to charter the city of New Jerusalem by 
 an act of the General Court, ^ as gentlemen seem to think 
 whose notions of history and humeoi nature rise like an 
 
 1 The legislative body of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 
 
20 The American Spirit 
 
 exhalation from the good things at a Pilgrim Society 
 dinner. Not in the least. They had no faith in the 
 Divine institution of a system which gives Teague, 
 because he can dig, as much influence as Ralph, because 
 he can think, nor in personal at the expense of general 
 freedom. Their view of human rights was not so limited 
 that it could not take in human relations and duties also. 
 They would have been likely to answer the claim, "I am 
 as good as anybody," by a quiet, "Yes, for some things, 
 but not for others ; as good, doubtless, in your place, where 
 all things are good." What the early settlers of Mas- 
 sachusetts did intend, and what they accomplished, 
 was the founding here of a new England, and a better 
 one, where the political superstitions and abuses of the 
 old should never have leave to take root. So much, we 
 may say, they deliberately intended. No nobles, either 
 lay or cleric, no great landed estates, and no universal 
 ignorances as the seed plot of vice and unreason; but 
 an elective magistracy and clergy, land for all who would 
 till it, and reading and writing, will ye, nill ye, instead. 
 Here at last, it should seem, simple manhood is to have 
 a chance to play his stake against Fortune with honest 
 dice, uncogged by those three hoary sharpers. Preroga- 
 tive, Patricianism, and Priestcraft. . . . 
 
 We have said that the details of New England history 
 were essentially dry and unpoetic. Everything is near, 
 authentic, and petty. There is no mist of distance to 
 soften outUnes, no mirage of tradition to give characters 
 and events an imaginative loom. So much downright 
 work was perhaps never wrought on the earth's surface 
 in the same space of time as during the first forty years 
 after the settlement. . . . There was, indeed, one poetic 
 side to the existence otherwise so narrow and practical; 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 21 
 
 and to have conceived this, however partially, is the one 
 original and American thing in Cooper.^ This diviner 
 glimpse illumines the Uves of our Daniel Boone, the man 
 of civiHzation and old-world ideas confronted with our 
 forest solitudes, — confronted, too, for the first time, with 
 his real self, and so led gradually to disentangle the 
 original substance of his manhood from the artificial results 
 of culture. Here was our new Adam of the wilderness, 
 forced to name anew, not the visible creation of God, but 
 the invisible creation of man, in those forms that lie at the 
 base of social institutions, so insensibly moulding personal 
 character and controlling individual action. Here is the 
 protagonist of our New World epic, a figure as poetic as 
 that of Achilles,^ as ideally representative as that of Don 
 Quixote,^ as romantic in its relation to our homespun and 
 plebeian mythus as Arthur in his to the mailed and plumed 
 cycle of chivalry. . . . 
 
 There have been two great distributing centers of 
 the English race on this continent, Massachusetts and 
 Virginia. Each has impressed the character of its early 
 legislators on the swarms it has sent forth. Their ideals 
 are in some fundamental respects the opposites of each 
 other, and we can only account for it by an antagonism 
 of thought beginning with the early framers of their 
 
 * James Fenimore Cooper, one of the earliest American novelists, 
 author of the various volumes of the Leatherstocking Tales, to 
 which reference is here made. In these tales is depicted in some- 
 what idealistic form the life of the American Indians in their 
 contact with the whites. 
 
 2 The central hero of Homer's Iliad, the worid's greatest epic, 
 and the Greek ideal of bravery and honor, 
 
 2 The hero of a Spanish romance by Cervantes, published in 1605. 
 Quixote represents the ideals of medieval chivalry in such an 
 exaggerated form that the narrative of his exploits did much to 
 undermine the whole system of chivalry. 
 
22 The American Spirit 
 
 respective institutions. New England abolished caste; 
 in Virginia they still talk of "quality folks." But it 
 was in making education not only common to all, but in 
 some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the 
 free republics of America was practically settled. Every 
 man was to be trained, not only to the use of arms, but 
 of his wits also ; and it is these which alone make the 
 others effective weapons for the maintenance of freedom. 
 You may disarm the hands, but not the brains, of a 
 people, and to know what should be defended is the first 
 condition of successful defense. Simple as it seems, it 
 was a great discovery that the key of knowledge could 
 turn both ways, that it could open, as well as lock, the 
 door of power to the many. . . . 
 
 I have Uttle sympathy with declaimers about the 
 Pilgrim Fathers, who look upon them all as men of grand 
 conception and superhuman foresight. An entire ship's 
 company of Columbuses is what the world never saw. 
 It is not wise to form any theory and fit our facts to 
 it, as a man in a hurry is apt to cram his traveHng-bag, 
 with a total disregard of shape or texture. But per- 
 haps it may be found that the facts will only fit com- 
 fortably together on a single plan, namely, that the 
 fathers did have a conception (which those will call grand 
 who regard simplicity as a necessary element of grandeur) 
 of founding here a commonwealth on those two eternal 
 bases of Faith and Work; that they had, indeed, no 
 revolutionary ideas of universal Hberty, but yet, what 
 answered the purpose quite as well, an abiding faith in 
 the brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God ; and 
 that they did not so much propose to make all things new, 
 as to develop the latest possibiUties of English law and 
 English character, by clearing away the fences by which 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 23 
 
 the abuse of the one was gradually discommoning the 
 other from the broad fields of natural right. They were 
 not in advance of their age, as it is called, for no one who 
 is so can ever work profitably in it ; but they were alive 
 to the highest and most earnest thinking of their time. 
 
 THE QUAKER OF THE OLDEN TIME^ 
 John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) 
 
 The Quaker of the olden time ! 
 
 How calm and firm and true. 
 Unspotted by its wrong and crime, 
 
 He walked the dark earth through. 
 The lust of power, the love of gain, 
 
 The thousand lures of sin 
 , Around him, had no power to stain 
 
 The purity within. 
 
 With that deep insight which detects 
 
 All great things in the small, 
 And knows how each man's life affects 
 
 The spiritual life of all. 
 He walked by faith and not by sight, 
 
 By love and not by law ; 
 
 1 One definite contribution to the American spirit was made in 
 practically all the colonies by the Quakers or members of the So- 
 ciety of Friends. In the face of persecution or of social ostracism 
 they stood firm in their opposition to all types of formalism in 
 religion; in their belief in a personal interpretation of faith and 
 worship; in their opposition to the use of force; and in their 
 belief in the brotherhood of man. The poet Whittier was a 
 Quaker. 
 
 From "Songs of Labor in Reform," in Complete Poetiqal Works 
 of John Greenleaf Whittier (Cambridge edition). Copyright, 
 1894, by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. Used by permis- 
 sion of the publishers. 
 
\ 
 
 M The American Spirit ■ 
 
 The presence of the wrong or right ] 
 
 He rather felt than saw. 
 
 He felt that wrong with wrong partakes, 
 
 That nothing stands alone, 
 That whoso gives the motive, makes ' \ 
 
 His brother's sin his own. ! 
 
 And, pausing not for doubtful choice j 
 
 Of evils great or small, ^ 
 
 He hstened to that inward voice . 
 
 Which called away from all. ■ 
 
 Spirit of that early day, i 
 
 So pure and strong and true, '■ 
 Be with us in the narrow way 
 
 Our faithful fathers knew. - 
 
 Give strength the e\il to forsake, 'I 
 
 The cross of Truth to bear, j 
 
 And love and reverent fear to make • 
 
 Our daily Uves a prayer I \ 
 
 GOD MAKES A PATH^ \ 
 
 Roger Williams (1604-1683) : 
 
 God makes a path, provides a guide, 
 
 And feeds in wilderness. 
 His glorious name while breath remains, '. 
 
 that I may confess ! / i 
 
 Lost many a time, I have had no guide, > 
 
 No house, but hollow tree, ] 
 
 In stormy winter night no fire, 1 
 
 No food, no company. \ 
 
 I i 
 
 1 The great contribution which Rhode Island under Williams I 
 
 made to the American spirit was that of rehgious toleration. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 25 
 
 In Him I found a house, a bed, 
 
 A table, company : 
 No cup's so bitter, but's made sweet, 
 
 When God shall sweet'ning be. 
 
 WESTERN IDEALISM 1 
 Frederick Jackson Turner (1861- ) 
 
 If now in the way of recapitulation we try to pick out 
 from the influences that have gone to the making of 
 Western democracy the factors which constitute the net 
 result of this movement, we shall have to mention at least 
 the following : 
 
 Most important of all has been the fact that an area 
 of free land has continually lain on the western border 
 of the settled area of the United States. Whenever 
 social conditions tended to crystallize in the East, when- 
 ever capital tended to press upon labor or political re- 
 straints to impede the freedom of the mass, there was 
 this gate of escape to the free conditions of the frontier. 
 These free lands promoted individualism, economic 
 equality, freedom to rise, democracy. Men would not 
 accept inferior wages and a permanent position of social 
 subordination when this promised land of freedom and 
 
 * This extract is taken from an article published in the Allanlic 
 Monthly foT January, 1903, entitled " Contributions of the West 
 to American Democracy." The author has dealt with the same 
 subject in a book entitled "The Rise of the New West," and in 
 various pamphlets and magazine articles. He was formerly pro- 
 fessor of American History in the University of Wisconsin and 
 now holds that position in Harvard University. 
 Used by permission of the author and of the Atlantic Monthly 
 Company. 
 
26 The American Spirit 
 
 equality was theirs for the taking. Who would rest 
 content under oppressive legislative conditions when 
 with a sHght effort he might reach a land wherein to 
 become a co-worker in the building of free cities and free 
 States on the lines of his own ideal? In a word, then, 
 free lands meant free opportunities. Their existence has 
 differentiated the American democracy from the democ- 
 racies which have preceded it, because ever, as democ- 
 racy in the East took the form of a highly specialized 
 and comphcated industrial society, in the West it kept 
 in touch with primitive conditions, and by action and 
 reaction these two forces have shaped our history. 
 
 In the next place, these free lands and this treasury of 
 industrial resources have existed over such vast spaces 
 that they have demanded of democracy increasing spa- 
 ciousness of design and power of execution. Western 
 democracy is contrasted with the democracy of all other 
 times in the largeness of the tasks to which it has set its 
 hand, and in the vast achievements which it has wrought 
 out in the control of nature and of pohtics. Upon the 
 region of the Middle West alone could be set down all 
 of the great countries of central Europe, — France, 
 Germany, Italy, and Austro-Hungary, — and there would 
 still be a liberal margin. It would be difficult to over- 
 emphasize the importance of this training upon democ- 
 racy. Never before in the history of the world has a 
 democracy existed on so vast an area and handled things 
 in the gross with such success, with such largeness of 
 design and such grasp upon the means of execution. 
 In short, democracy has learned in the West of the United 
 States how to deal with the problem of magnitude. The 
 old historic democracies were but httle States with primi- 
 tive economic conditions. . . . 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 27 
 
 Western democracy has been from the time of its 
 birth idealistic. The very fact of the wilderness appealed 
 to men, as a fair, blank page on which to write a new 
 chapter in the story of man's struggle for a higher type 
 of society. The Western wilds, from the AUeghanies 
 to the Pacific, constitute the richest free gift that was 
 ever spread out before civihzed man. To the peasant 
 and artisan of the Old World, bound by the chains of 
 social class, as old as custom and as inevitable as fate, 
 the West offered an exit into a free life and greater well- 
 being among the bounties of nature, into the midst of 
 resources that demanded manly exertion, and that gave 
 in return the chance for indefinite ascent in the scale 
 of social advance. "To each she offered gifts after his 
 will." Never again can such an opportunity come to 
 the sons of men. It was unique, and the thing is so 
 near us, so much a part of our lives, that we do not even 
 yet comprehend its vast significance. The existence of 
 this land of opportunity has made America the goal of 
 idealists from the days of the Pilgrim Fathers. With 
 all the materialism of the pioneer movement, this ideal- 
 istic conception of the vacant lands as an opportunity 
 for a new order of things is unmistakably present. Kip- 
 ling has given it expression : 
 
 We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town ; 
 We yearned beyond the sky-hne where the strange roads go down. 
 Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need 
 Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead. 
 As the deer breaks — as the steer breaks — from the herd where 
 
 they graze, 
 In the faith of little children we went on our ways. 
 Then the wood failed — then the food failed — then the last water 
 
 dried — 
 In the faith of Uttle children we lay down and died. 
 
28 The American Spirit 
 
 On the sand-drift — on the veldt-side — in the fern-scrub we lay. 
 That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way. 
 Follow after — follow after ! We have watered the root 
 And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit ! 
 Follow after — we are waiting by the trails that we lost 
 For the sound of many footsteps, for the tread of a host. 
 Follow after — follow after — for the harvest is sown ; 
 By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own 1 
 
 The ideaKstic influence is not limited to the dreamers' 
 conception of a new State. It gave to the pioneer farmer 
 and city builder a restless energy, a quick capacity for 
 judgment and action, a belief in liberty, freedom of op- 
 portunity, and a resistance to the domination of class 
 which infused a vitality and power into the individual 
 atoms of this democratic mass. Even as he dwelt among 
 the stumps of his newly cut clearing, the pioneer had the 
 creative vision of a new order of society. In imagina- 
 tion he pushed back his forest boundary to the confines 
 of a mighty Commonwealth ; he willed that log cabins 
 should become the lofty buildings of great cities. He 
 decreed that his children should enter into a heritage of 
 education, comfort, and social welfare, and for this ideal 
 he bore the scars of the wilderness. . . . Let us see to 
 it that the ideals of the pioneer in his log cabin shall en- 
 large into the spiritual life of a democracy where civil 
 power shall dominate and utilize individual achieve- 
 ment for the common good. 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 29 
 
 THE EXODUS FOR OREGON ^ 
 
 Joaquin Miller (1841-1911) 
 
 A tale half told and hardly understood ; 
 
 The talk of bearded men that chanced to meet, 
 
 That leaned on long quaint rifles in the wood, 
 
 That looked in fellow faces, spoke discreet 
 
 And low, as half in doubt and in defeat 
 
 Of hope ; a tale it was of lands of gold 
 
 That lay below the sun. Wild-winged and fleet 
 
 It spread among the swift Missouri's bold 
 
 Unbridled men, and reached to where Ohio roUed. 
 
 Then long chained lines of yoked and patient steers : 
 Then long white trains that pointed to the west. 
 Beyond the savage west ; the hopes and fears 
 Of blunt, untutored men, who hardly guessed 
 Their course ; the brave and silent women, dressed 
 In homely spun attire, the boys in bands, 
 The cheery babes that laughed at all, and blessed 
 The doubting hearts, with laughing, hfted hands I 
 What exodus for far untraversed lands I 
 
 The Plains ! The shouting drivers at the wheel ; 
 The crash of leather whips ; the crush and roll 
 
 Cincinnatus Heine Miller was born in Indiana, and in early boy- 
 hood emigrated with his parents to Oregon. The family was 
 one of those which made the great migration across the Western 
 plains in ox wagons, during the years following the gold discoveries 
 m California in 1849, and the early life of Miller was spent upon 
 the Pacific Coast. Soon after the appearance of a poem dealing 
 with the career of Joaquin Murietta, a young Mexican bandit, the 
 author was nicknamed Joaquin Miller, and most of his later work 
 appeared under this name. 
 
 From Joaquin Miller's Poems (Bear Edition), Vol. II. Copy- 
 right, 1909, by C. H. Miller. PubHshed by Harr Wagner Publish- 
 ing Company, San Francisco. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
30 The American Spirit i 
 
 Of wheels ; the groan of yokes and grinding steel 
 
 And iron chain, and lo ! at last the whole 
 
 Vast line; that reached as if to touch the goal, 
 
 Began to stretch and stream away and wind j 
 
 Toward the West, as if with one control ; j 
 
 Then hope loomed fair, and home lay far behind ; j 
 
 Before, the boundless plain, and fiercest of their kind. j 
 
 1 
 I 
 
 At first the way lay green and fresh as seas, : 
 
 And far away as any reach of wave ; j 
 
 The sunny streams went by in belt of trees ; j 
 
 And here and there the tasseFd tawny brave j 
 
 Swept by on horse, looked back, stretched forth and gave j 
 A yell of warn, and then did wheel and rein 
 Awhile, and point away, dark-browed and grave, 
 Into the far and dim and distant plain 
 With signs and prophecies, and then plunged on again. 
 
 j 
 
 Some hills at last began to lift and break ; j 
 
 Some streams began to fail of wood and tide, ! 
 The somber plain began betime to take 
 
 A hue of weary brown, and wild and wide ] 
 
 It stretched its naked breast on every side. \ 
 
 A babe was heard at last to cry for bread 1 
 
 Amid the deserts ; cattle lowed and died, ! 
 
 And dying men went by with broken tread, ; 
 
 And left a long black serpent hne of wreck and dead. \ 
 
 Strange hungered birds, black-winged and still as death, j 
 
 And crowned of red with hooked beaks, blew low ^ 
 
 And close about, till we could touch their breath — i 
 
 Strange unnamed birds, that seemed to come and go ' 
 
 In circles now, and now direct and slow, \ 
 
 i 
 
The Pioneer Spirit 31 
 
 i 
 
 Continual, yet never touch the earth ; i 
 
 SHm foxes sHd and shuttled to and fro i 
 
 At times across the dusty weary dearth ! 
 
 Of life, looked back, then sank like crickets in a hearth. • 
 
 I 
 
 Then dust arose, a long dim line hke smoke j 
 
 From out of riven earth. The wheels went groaning by, ^ 
 Ten thousand feet in harness and in yoke, 
 They tore the ways of ashen alkali. 
 
 And desert winds blew sudden, swift and dry. j 
 
 The dust ! it sat upon and filled the train 1 j 
 
 It seemed to fret and fill the very sky. j 
 
 Lo ! dust upon the beasts, the tent, the plain, \ 
 
 And dust, alas I on breasts that rose not up again. j 
 
 They sat in desolation and in dust 1 
 
 By dried-up desert streams ; the mother's hands ; 
 
 Hid all her bended face ; the cattle thrust i 
 
 Their tongues and faintly called across the lands. 
 
 The babes, that knew not what this way through sands 
 
 Could mean, did ask if it would end today. ; 
 
 The panting wolves shd by, red-eyed, in bands ; 
 
 To pools beyond. The men looked far away, '\ 
 
 And, silent, saw that all a boundless desert lay. . i 
 
 They rose by night ; they struggled on and on 
 As thin and still as ghosts ; then here and there 
 
 Beside the dusty way before the dawn, . 
 
 Men silent laid them down in their despair j 
 
 And died. But woman ! Woman, frail as fair I \ 
 
 May man have strength to give to you your due ; j 
 
 You faltered not, nor murmured anywhere, ? 
 
 You held your babes, held to your course, an(i you j 
 
 Bore on through burning hell your double burdens through, 1 
 
32 The American Spirit 
 
 Men stood at last, the decimated few, 
 
 Above a land of running streams, and they ? 
 
 They pushed aside the boughs, and peering through 
 
 Beheld afar the cool refreshing bay ; 
 
 Then some did curse, and some bend hands to pray ; 
 
 But some looked back upon the desert, wide 
 
 And desolate with death, then all the day 
 
 They mourned. But one, with nothing left beside 
 
 His dog to love, crept down among the ferns and died. 
 
11. TWO GREAT AMERICANS 
 
 WASHINGTON! 
 Lord George Gordon Byron (1788-1824) 
 
 Where may the wearied eye repose, 
 
 When gazing on the Great ; 
 Where neither guilty glory glows, 
 
 Nor despicable state ? 
 Yes — one — the first — the last — the best — 
 The Cincinnatus of the West, 
 
 Whom envy dared not hate. 
 Bequeathed the name of Washington, 
 To make man blush there was but one I 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON ^ 
 Henry Cabot Lodge (1850- ) 
 
 Washington stands among the greatest men of human 
 history, and those in the same rank with him are very 
 few. Whether measured by what he did, or what he was, 
 or by the effect of his work upon the history of mankind, 
 in every aspect he is entitled to the place he holds among 
 the greatest of his race. 
 
 Few men in all time have such a record of achievement. 
 Still fewer can show, at the end of a career so crowded 
 with high deeds and memorable victories, a Ufe so free 
 
 1 From Works of Lord Byron, published by John Murray, 
 London, 1832. 
 
 2 From "Hero Tales from American History," by Henry Cabot 
 Lodge and Theodore Roosevelt. Copyright, 1895, by The Century 
 Company, New York. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
 33 
 
34 The American Spirit 
 
 from spot, a character so unselfish and so pure, a fame so 
 void of doubtful points demanding either defense or ex- 
 planation. Eulogy of such a life is needless, but it is 
 always important to recall and freshly to remember just 
 what manner of man he was. 
 
 In the first place, he was physically a striking figure. 
 He was very tall, powerfully made, with a strong, hand- 
 some face. He was remarkably muscular and powerful. 
 As a boy, he was a leader in all outdoor sports. No one 
 could fling the bar farther than he, and no one could ride 
 more difficult horses. As a young man, he became a 
 woodsman and hunter. Day after day he could tramp 
 through the wilderness with his gun and his surveyor's 
 chain, and then sleep at night beneath the stars. He 
 feared no exposure or fatigue, and he outdid the hardiest 
 backwoodsman in following a winter trail and swimming 
 icy streams. This habit of vigorous bodily exercise he 
 carried through life. Whenever he was at Mount Vernon 
 he gave a large part of his time to fox hunting, riding 
 after his hounds through the most difficult country. His 
 physical power and endurance counted for much in his 
 success when he commanded his army, and when the 
 heavy anxieties of general and President weighed upon 
 his mind and heart. 
 
 He was an educated but not a learned man. He read 
 well and remembered what he read, but his life was from 
 the beginning a life of action, and the world of men his 
 school. He was not a military genius like Hannibal, or 
 Caesar, or Napoleon, of which the world has had only 
 three or four examples. But he was a great soldier of 
 the type which the English race has produced, Uke Mgu*!- 
 borough and Cromwell, WelKngton, Grant, and Lee. 
 He was patient under defeat, capable of large combina- 
 
Two Great Americans 35 
 
 tions, a stubborn and often reckless fighter, a winner of 
 battles, but much more, a conclusive winner in a long war 
 of varying fortunes. He was, in addition, what very few 
 great soldiers or commanders have ever been, a great 
 constitutional statesman, able to lead a people along the 
 paths of free government without undertaking himself 
 to play the part of the strong man, the usurper, or the 
 savior of society. 
 
 He was a very silent man. Of no man of equal impor- 
 tance in the world's history have we so few sayings of a 
 personal kind. He was ready enough to talk or to write 
 about the pubUc duties which he had in hand, but he sel- 
 dom talked of himself. Yet there can be no greater error 
 than to suppose Washington cold and unfeeling because 
 of his silence and reserve. He was by nature a man of 
 strong desires and stormy passions. Now and again he 
 would break out, even as late as the presidency, into a 
 gust of anger that would sweep everything before it. 
 He was always reckless of personal danger, and had a 
 fierce fighting spirit which nothing could check when 
 once unchained. 
 
 But as a rule these fiery impulses and strong passions 
 were under the control of an iron will, and they never 
 clouded his judgment or warped his keen sense of justice. 
 
 But if he was not of a cold nature, still less was he hard 
 or unfeeling. His pity always went out to the poor, the 
 oppressed, or the unhappy, and he was all that was kind 
 and gentle to those about him. 
 
 We have to look carefully into his life to learn all these 
 tilings, for the world saw only a silent, reserved man, of 
 courteous and serious manner, who seemed to stand 
 alone and apart, and who impressed every one who came 
 near him with a sense of awe and reverence. 
 
36 The American Spirit 
 
 One quality he had which was, perhaps, more char- 
 acteristic of the man and his greatness than any other. 
 This was his great veracity of mind. He was, of course, 
 the soul of truth and honor, but he was even more than 
 that. He never deceived himself. He always looked 
 facts squarely in the face and dealt with them as such, 
 dreaming no dreams, cherishing no delusions, asking no 
 impossibilities, — just to others as to himself, and thus 
 winning alike in war and in peace. 
 
 He gave dignity as well as victory to his country and 
 his cause. He was, in truth, a "character, for after ages 
 to admire." 
 
 WASHINGTON ^ 
 
 James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) 
 
 Soldier and statesman, rarest unison ; 
 
 High-poised example of great duties done 
 
 Simply as breathing, a world's honors worn 
 
 As life's indifferent gifts to all men born ; 
 
 Dumb for himself, unless it were to God, 
 
 But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent, 
 
 Tramping the snow to coral where they trod. 
 
 Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content ; 
 
 Modest, yet firm as Nature's self ; unblamed 
 
 Save by the men his nobler temper shamed ; 
 
 Never seduced through show of present good 
 
 By other than unsetting lights to steer 
 
 New-trimmed in Heaven, nor than his steadfast mood 
 
 ^ From "Under the Old Elm" in Lowell's Poetical Works (River- 
 side Edition), Vol. IV. Copyright, 1890, by James Russell Lowell. 
 Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. Used by per- 
 mission of the publishers. 
 
Two Great Americans 37 
 
 More steadfast, far from rashness as from fear, 
 
 Rigid, but with himself first, grasping still 
 
 In swerveless poise the wave-beat helm of will ; 
 
 Not honored then or now because he wooed 
 
 The popular voice, but that he still withstood ; 
 
 Broad-minded, higher-souled, there is but one 
 
 Who was all this and ours, and all men's — Washington. 
 
 COUNSELS OF WASHINGTON ^ 
 
 George- Washington (1732-1799) 
 
 • 
 
 Interwoven as is the love of hberty with every ligament 
 of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary 
 to fortify or confirm the attachment. — 
 
 The Unity of Government which constitutes you one 
 people, is also now dear to you. — It is justly so ; — for 
 it is a main Pillar in the Edifice of your real independence ; 
 the support of your tranquillity at home ; your peace 
 abroad ; of your safety ; of your prosperity in every shape ; 
 of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize. — But 
 as it is easy to foresee, that, from different causes, and 
 from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many 
 artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction 
 of this truth ; — as this is the point in your political fortress 
 against which the batteries of internal and external enemies 
 
 * From the "Farewell Address" of President Washington, issued 
 through the pubhc press in September, 1796, near the close of his 
 second term. President Washington was not given to frequent 
 public addresses, and his state papers are few. This address is 
 quite the most important of these, and has long exerted a pro- 
 found, influence upon the thoughts of his countrymen. While 
 certain of his views have been rendered somewhat obsolete by the 
 development of political forms of free government and especially 
 by modern means of rapid communication, yet fundamentally his 
 advice is as true today as when written. 
 
38 The American Spirit 
 
 will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly 
 and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that 
 you should properly estimate the immense value of your 
 national Union to your collective and individual happiness ; 
 — that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immov- 
 able attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think 
 and speatk of it as of the Palladium of your political safety 
 and prosperity ; watching for its preservation with jealous 
 anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even 
 a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and 
 indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every 
 attempt to alienate any portion of our Country from the 
 rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together 
 the various parts. 
 
 For this you have every inducement of sympathy and 
 interest. — Citizens by birth or choice of a common 
 country, that country has a right to concentrate your 
 affections. — The name of AMERICAN, which belongs 
 to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the 
 just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation 
 derived from local discriminations. — With slight shades 
 of difference, you have the same Religion, Manners, 
 Habits, and poHtical Principles. — You have in a common 
 cause fought and triumphed together. The Independence 
 and Liberty you possess are the work of joint councils, 
 and joint efforts — of common dangers, sufferings and 
 successes. ... 
 
 While then every part of our Country thus feels an 
 immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts 
 combined in the united mass of means and efforts cannot 
 fail to find greater strength, greater resource, proportion- 
 ably greater security from external danger, a less frequent 
 interruption of their Peace by foreign Nations ; and, 
 
Two Great Americans 39 
 
 what is of inestimable value I they must derive from Union 
 an exemption from those broils and wars between them- 
 selves, which so frequently afflict neighboring countries, 
 not tied together by the same government ; which their 
 own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce; 
 but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and 
 intrigues would stimulate and embitter. — Hence Hke- 
 wise they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown 
 Military estabhshments, which under any form of govern- 
 ment, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be 
 regarded as particularly hostile to Repubhcan Liberty: 
 In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered 
 as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the 
 one ought to endear to you the preservation of the 
 other. . . . 
 
 In contemplating the causes which may disturb our 
 Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any 
 ground should have been furnished for characterizing 
 parties by Geographical discriminations — Northern and 
 Southern — Atlantic and Western ; whence designing 
 men may endeavor to excite a behef, that there is a real 
 difference of local interests and views. One of the ex- 
 pedients of Party to acquire influence, within particular 
 districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of 
 other districts. — You cannot shield yourselves too much 
 against the jealousies and heartburnings which spring 
 from these misrepresentations ; — they tend to render 
 alien to each other those who ought to be bound together 
 by fraternal afl'ection. . . . 
 
 All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all com- 
 binations and associations, under whatever plausible 
 character, with the real design to direct, control, counter- 
 act, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the 
 
40 The American Spirit 
 
 constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental 
 principle, and of fatal tendency. — They serve to organize 
 faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force — 
 to put in the place of the delegated will of the Nation, 
 the will of a party ; — often a small but artful and enter- 
 prising minority of the community ; and, according to 
 the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the 
 public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted 
 and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ 
 of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common 
 councils, and modified by mutual interests. . . . 
 
 I have already intimated to you the danger of Parties 
 in the State, with particular reference to the founding 
 of them on Geographical discriminations. — Let me now 
 take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the 
 most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the 
 Spirit of Party, generally. 
 
 This Spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our 
 nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the 
 human mind. — It exists under different shapes in all 
 Governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed ; 
 but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest 
 rankness, and is truly their worst enemy. — 
 
 The alternate domination of one faction over another, 
 sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissen- 
 sion, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated 
 the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. 
 — But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent 
 despotism. — The disorders and miseries, which result, 
 gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and 
 repose in the absolute power of an Individual : and sooner 
 or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or 
 more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposi- 
 
Two Great Americans 41 
 
 tion to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins 
 of Pubiic Liberty. . . . 
 
 Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political 
 prosperity, ReUgion and Morahty are indispensable 
 supports. — In vain would that man claim the tribute 
 of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great 
 Pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the 
 duties of Men and Citizens. — The mere Politician, 
 equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish 
 them. — A volume could not trace all their connections 
 with private and public felicity. — Let it simply be asked 
 where is the security for property, for reputation, for 
 life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, 
 which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of 
 Justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, 
 that morahty can be maintained without religion. — 
 Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined 
 education on minds of peculiar structure — reason and 
 experience both forbid us to expect, that national morahty 
 can prevail in exclusion of reUgious principle. — 
 
 'Tis substantially true, that virtue or morality is a 
 necessary spring of popular government. — The rule 
 indeed extends with more or less force to every species of 
 Free Government. — Who that is a sincere friend to it 
 can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the 
 foundation of the fabric ? — 
 
 Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, 
 institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In 
 proportion as the structure of a governmelit gives force 
 to pubhc opinion, it is essential that pubhc opinion should 
 be enhghtened. ... 
 
 Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. 
 Cultivate peace and harmony with all. — Rehgion and 
 
42 The American Spirit 
 
 Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good 
 policy does not equally enjoin it ? — It will be worthy of 
 a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great 
 nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too 
 novel example of a People always guided by an exalted 
 justice and benevolence. . . . 
 
 Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are rec- 
 ommended by poUcy, humanity, and interest. But 
 even our commercial policy should hold an equal and 
 impartial hand : — neither seeking nor granting exclusive 
 favors or preferences ; — consulting the natural course of 
 things ; — diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the 
 streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing 
 with Powers so disposed — in order to give trade a stable 
 course, to define the rights of our Merchants, and to 
 enable the Government to support them — conventional 
 rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances 
 and mutual opinion will permit; but temporary, and 
 liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as 
 experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly 
 keeping in view that 'tis folly in one nation to look 
 for disinterested favors from another, — that it must 
 pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it 
 may accept under that character — that by such accept- 
 ance, it may place itself in the condition of having given 
 equivalents for nominal favors and yet of being reproached 
 with ingratitude for not giving more. . . . 
 
 Though, in reviewing the incidents of my Administra- 
 tion, I am unconscious of intentional error — I am never- 
 theless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable 
 that I may have committed many errors. — Whatever 
 they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or 
 mitigate the evils to which they may tend. — I shall also 
 
Two Great Americans 43 
 
 carry with me the hope that my country will never cease to 
 view them with indulgence; and that after forty-five 
 years of my Hfe dedicated to its service, with an upright 
 zeal, the faults of incompetent abiUties will be consigned 
 to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of 
 rest. 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^ 
 James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) 
 
 Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 
 
 Whom late the Nation he had led, 
 
 With ashes on her head. 
 Wept with the passion of an angry grief : 
 Forgive me, if from present things I turn 
 To speak what in my heart will beat and burn, 
 And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn. 
 
 Nature, they say, doth dote, 
 
 And cannot make a man 
 
 Save on some worn-out plan. 
 
 Repeating us by rote : 
 For him her Old- World molds aside she threw, 
 
 And choosing sweet clay from the breast 
 
 Of the unexhausted West, 
 With stuff untainted shaped a hero new. 
 Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 
 
 How beautiful to see 
 Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
 
 * From "Ode Recited at Harvard Commemoration, July 21, 1865," 
 in Lowell's Poetical Works (Riverside Edition), Vol. IV. Copy- 
 right, 1890, by James Russell Lowell. Published by Houghton 
 Mifflin Company, Boston. Used by permission of the pubhshers. 
 
44 The American Spirit I 
 
 Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead ; * j 
 
 One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, ' 
 
 Not lured by any cheat of birth, ; 
 
 But by his clear-grained human worth, ■ 
 
 And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! ! 
 
 They knew that outward grace is dust ; I 
 
 They could not choose but trust i 
 
 In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill < 
 
 And supple-tempered will ; 
 
 That bent hke perfect steel to spring again and thrust. i 
 
 His was no lonely mountain peak of mind, j 
 
 Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars, i 
 
 A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind ; I 
 
 Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined, \ 
 
 Fruitful and friendly for all human kind, ; 
 
 Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars. 
 Nothing of Europe here, 
 
 Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, 
 
 Ere any names of Serf and Peer : j 
 
 Could Nature's equal scheme deface \ 
 
 And thwart her genial will : I 
 
 Here was a type of the true elder race, ^ 
 
 And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 
 
 I praise him not ; it were too late, ^ 
 
 And some innative weakness there must be i 
 
 In him who condescends to victory j 
 
 Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait, '>. 
 
 Safe in himself as in a fate, 1 
 
 So always firmly he : j 
 
 He knew to bide his time I 
 
 And can his fame abide, 1 
 
 Still patient in his simple faith sublime, i 
 
 Till the wise years decide. j 
 
Two Great Americans 45 
 
 Great captains, with their guns and drums, 
 Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
 
 But at last silence comes ; 
 These all are gone, and standing like a tower, 
 Our children shall behold his fame, 
 The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,. 
 New birth of our new soil, the first American. 
 
 SAYINGS OF LINCOLN 1 
 L. Lamprey 
 
 Abraham Lincoln's homely way of discussing state 
 affairs in the common phrases of a pioneer people was 
 not only characteristic of him, but peculiarly American. 
 Never before had a statesman appeared who, confronted 
 with tremendous problems, talked of them in language 
 that no one could fail to understand. His advisers might 
 criticize, but they never made him alter a sentence that 
 fitted his meaning. 
 
 To such a critic he once rephed: "The word says 
 exactly what I want to say. There will never be a time 
 in this country when the people will not know what 
 * sugar-coated' means." 
 
 When he had framed a message of international impor- 
 tance, to be sent to England, he said in submitting it to a 
 
 •^ The most complete embodiment of the American spirit was the 
 great martyred President. This was because he expressed so fully 
 the feelings and ideas of the common man and spoke his language. 
 Anecdotes reveaUng these traits are almost innumerable. The 
 selection given here, which might be extended indefinitely, is a 
 compilation of a number of such anecdotes from a variety of 
 sources. 
 
46 The American Spirit 
 
 Cabinet member for approval: "I know that the Prime 
 Minister will understand this paragraph, but will James 
 who opens the carriage door understand it? That is 
 what I want to make sure of." 
 
 Lincoln had a particular objection to long-winded 
 speeches and wordy reports. He once made the comment, 
 on seeing a very bulky report presented by a committee : 
 *'When I send a man to buy a horse for me, I expect him 
 to tell me the points of the animal — not to count the 
 hairs in his tail ! " 
 
 The mud in Washington streets suggested to him this 
 rule of action in a perplexing crisis: "Put your feet 
 down in the right place, and then stand firm !" 
 
 He had no illusions about the men with whom he. 
 worked. He took them as they were. " Every horse," he 
 said, "has some faults, and so has every man." 
 
 Urged to change a man in office for one who might do 
 better, he gave the country the proverb: "Don't swap 
 horses while crossing a stream." 
 
 No man was quicker at repartee than Lincoln, and none 
 more cautious in speech and action. His instinct was 
 invariably for constructive statesmanship — to make use 
 of a man rather than to offend him. He said of himself : 
 "I always rooted up a thistle and planted a flower where I 
 thought a flower would grow." 
 
 His whimsical answer to Stanton, when urged to severe 
 measures, was: "I do not believe that shooting a man 
 does him any good." There are many stories of the ex- 
 cuses he found for saving the lives of soldiers condemned 
 to death for some infraction of discipline. He once said 
 that if he could contrive to save a man's life it rested him 
 after a hard day. 
 
 His time and strength were seldom wasted in useless 
 
Two Great Americans 47 
 
 contest. "If a man will not turn out for me," he said, 
 *'I turn out for him, and save a collision." 
 
 A wrathful governor called one day at the White House 
 to protest against a levy of troops, but went away smiling 
 serenely. "You must have given him what he wanted," 
 was the comment made- to Lincoln. The President 
 smiled. "Not exactly. I knew a farmer once, in Illinois, 
 who had a big stump in the middle of his best field. It 
 was too large to move away, too hard to be split, and 
 too wet to burn. When he was asked how he managed 
 about that stump, the farmer explained that he just 
 plowed around it. That was what I did with the Gov- 
 ernor — I plowed around him I" 
 
 Lincoln sometimes had his hands full in averting the 
 consequences of other people's blunders. When Secretary 
 Chase expressed regret one night at not having written a 
 certain letter, the President said reassuringly: "Never 
 regret the letters you do not write — it is the letters you 
 do write that give you trouble." Another official wrote a 
 scathing letter of reproof and handed it over to Lincoln 
 to read. Lincoln read it. "That is a fine letter," he 
 said, nodding approval, "very fine — says exactly what 
 ought to be said — just the sort of letter to be put in the 
 files. Now file it away. Don't mail it.'* 
 
 Theories never hampered Lincoln when he had a 
 practical problem to deal with. Of one such difficulty 
 he said: "When you have an elephant on your hands, 
 and he wants to run away, the best plan is to let him go." 
 
 Of an argument more plausible than sound he observed : 
 "Yes: I should think that if people like that kind of 
 thing, it is just the kind of thing they would like." 
 
 No pretense of intellectual, moral, or social superiority 
 ever moved Lincoln. When one of his visitors declared 
 
48 The American Spirit 
 
 that the Lord was on the side of the Union, Lincoln 
 answered: "I am not at all concerned about that. I 
 know that He is always on the si^ of the right. It is 
 my constant anxiety and prayer thaf we shall be on the 
 Lord's side." 
 
 One of his sayings which has passed into a proverb 
 had a cm-ious origin. He dreamed one night that he 
 heard some one say of a crowd that they were common- 
 looking men, and that in his dream he repUed: "The 
 Lord must love common people : He made so many of 
 them." 
 
 A German baron who wished to join the Union army 
 presented a long list of his titled and distinguished 
 ancestors. Lincoln met him with the assurance : "That 
 makes no difference at all. You will be treated with 
 entire fairness!" 
 
 In a speech made to the 166th Ohio Regiment, August 
 22, 1864, after reviewing it at the White House, he said : 
 " I happen temporarily to occupy this White House. I am 
 a Uving witness that any one of your children may look 
 to come here as my father's child has. It is in order that 
 each one of you may have, through this free government 
 which we have enjoyed, an open field and a fair chance for 
 your industry, enterprise, and intelligence, that you may 
 all have equal privileges in the race of hfe, with aU its 
 desirable human aspirations, — it is for this the struggle 
 should be maintained, that we may not lose our birth- 
 right." 
 
 The foundation of Lincoln's pohcy was his abiding 
 faith in the common sense of the people. One of his 
 sayings was: "The people are always much neauer the 
 truth than politicians think." Another shrewd epigram 
 has become famihar : "You can fool some of the people 
 
Two Great Americans 49 
 
 all of the time, and all of the people some of the time ; but 
 you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." 
 
 His behef in equal rights was defined in the statement 
 used in one of his early speeches : "I hold that if the Al- 
 mighty had ever made a set of men who should do all of 
 the eating and none of the work, He would have made 
 them with mouths only and no hands." 
 
 Chary of rhetoric when there was no need of it, Lincoln 
 could, as all the world knows, give terse and powerful 
 expression to great thoughts. As he said in one of his 
 speeches : *' You have seen two men about to fight. One 
 brags of what he means to do. The other fellow says not 
 a word. He is saving his wind for the fight, and he will 
 win — or die a-trying I" 
 
 Every uncompromising statement that he made in the 
 days of the great conflict aroused the fears of politic 
 friends, who urged that he would imperil his own future. 
 One such statement was made in a speech before his 
 election. It consists of the famous paragraph : 
 
 *' A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe 
 that this government cannot endure permanently half 
 slave and half free. I do not expect this house to fall. 
 I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. But I do 
 expect that it will cease to be divided." 
 
 His answer to the critics was : "Friends, if it must be 
 that I go down because of this speech, then let me go down 
 linked to the truth." 
 
 The essence of representative government is in another 
 saying, relic of this era of battling political systems: 
 "No man is good enough to rule another man without 
 that other man's consent." 
 
 After half a century, the practical philosophy of Lin- 
 coln, hammered out in the school of experience, retains 
 
50 The American Spirit 
 
 all of its power over American thought. Brief, direct, 
 clear, its simplicity cannot be overcome by argument. 
 
 LINCOLN'S SYMPATHY! 
 Ida M. Tarbell (1857- ) 
 
 Of all the incidents told of Lincoln's hospital visits, 
 there is nothing more characteristic, better worth pres- 
 ervation, than the one following, preserved by Dr. Jerome 
 Walker of Brooklyn : 
 
 "Just one week before his assassination, President 
 Lincoln visited the Army of the Potomac, at City Point, 
 Virginia, and carefully examined the hospital arrange- 
 ments of the Ninth, Sixth, Fifth, Second, and Sixteenth 
 Corps hospitals and of the Engineer Corps, there stationed. 
 At that time I was an agent of the United States Sanitary 
 Commission attached to the Ninth Corps Hospital. 
 Though a boy of nineteen years, to me was assigned the 
 duty of escorting the President through our department 
 of the hospital system. The reader can imagine the 
 pride with which I fulfilled the duty, and as we went from 
 tent to tent I could not but note his gentleness, his friendly 
 greetings to the sick and wounded, his quiet humor as 
 he drew comparisons between himself and the very tall 
 and very short men with whom he came in contact, 
 and his genuine interest in the welfare of the soldiers. 
 
 "Finally, after visiting the wards occupied by our 
 invaUd and convalescing soldiers, we came to three 
 wards occupied by sick and wounded Southern prisoners. 
 
 1 From " Life of Abraham Lincoln." Copyright, 1900, by The Mac- 
 millan Company, New York. Used by permission of the pub- 
 lishers. 
 
Two Great Americans 51 
 
 With a feeling of patriotic duty, I said : ' Mr. President, 
 you won't want to go in there ; they are only rebels' 
 I will never forget how he stopped and gently laid his 
 large hand upon my shoulder and quietly answered, 
 *You mean Confederates.'' And I have meant Con- 
 federates ever since. 
 
 "There was nothing left for me to do after the Pres- 
 ident's remark but to go with him through these three 
 wards ; and I could not see but that he was just as kind, 
 his handshakings just as hearty, his interest just as real 
 for the welfare of the men, as when he was among our 
 own soldiers. 
 
 *'As we returned to headquarters, the President urged 
 upon me the importance of caring for them as faithfully 
 as I should for our own sick and wounded. When I 
 visited next day these three wards, the Southern officers 
 and soldiers were full of praise for 'Abe' Lincoln, as they 
 called him, and when a week afterwards the news came 
 of the assassination, there was no truer sorrow nor greater 
 indignation anywhere than was shown by these same 
 Confederates." 
 
 LINCOLN A TYPICAL AMERICAN ^ 
 
 Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) 
 
 It is not necessary for me even to sketch the biography 
 of Mr. Lincoln. He was born in Kentucky, fifty-six 
 years ago, when Kentucky was a pioneer state. He 
 hved, as boy and man, the hard and needy life of a back- 
 
 1 From "The Life and Death of Abraham Lincoln," a sermon 
 preached April 23, 1865. Printed in pamphlet form by Henry 
 B. Ashmead, Philadelphia, 1865, at the request of members of 
 the congregation. 
 
52 The American Spirit 
 
 woodsman, a farmer, a river boatman, and finally, by 
 his own efforts at self-education, of an active, respected, 
 influential citizen, in the half-organized and manifold 
 interests of a new and energetic community. From 
 his boyhood up he hved in direct and vigorous contact 
 with men and things, not as in older states and easier 
 conditions with words and theories ; and both his moral 
 convictions and intellectual opinions gathered from that 
 contact a supreme degree of that character by which men 
 knew him — that character which is the most distinctive 
 possession of the best American nature — that almost 
 indescribable quahty which we call in general clearness 
 or truth, and which appears in the physical structure as 
 he,alth, in the moral constitution as honesty, in the mental 
 structure as sagacity, and in the region of active hfe 
 as practicalness. This one character, with many sides, 
 all shaped by the same essential force and testifying to 
 the same inner influences, was what was powerful in 
 him and decreed for him the life he was to live and the 
 death he was to die. We must take no smaller view them 
 this of what he was. ... 
 
 It is the great boon of such characters as Mr. Lincoln's, 
 that they reunite what God has joined together and man 
 has put asunder. In him was vindicated the greatness 
 of real goodness and the goodness of real greatness. The 
 twain were one flesh. Not one of all the multitudes who 
 stood and looked up to him for direction with such a 
 loving and implicit trust can tell you today whether the 
 wise judgments that he gave came most from a strong 
 head or a sound heart. If you ask them, they are puzzled. 
 There are men as good as he, but they do bad things. 
 There are men as intelligent as he, but they do foolish 
 things. In him goodness and intelligence combined and 
 
Two Great Americans 53 
 
 made their best result of wisdom. For perfect truth 
 consists not merely in the right constituents of character, 
 but in their right and intimate conjunction. This union 
 of the mental and moral into a life of admirable simplicity' 
 is what we most admire in children ; but in them it is. 
 unsettled and unpractical. But when it is preserved 
 into a manhood, deepened into reliability and maturity, 
 it is that glorified childlikeness, that high and reverend 
 simplicity, which shames and baffles the most accom- 
 plished astuteness, and is chosen by God to fill His pur- 
 poses when He needs a ruler for His people, of faithful 
 and true heart, such as he had, who was our President. 
 
 Another evident quality of such a character as this, will 
 be its freshness or newness, so to speak. Its freshness or 
 readiness — call it what you will — its abihty to take up 
 new duties and do them in a new way will result of neces- 
 sity from its truth and clearness. The simple natures 
 and forces will always be the most phant ones. Water 
 bends and shapes itself to any channel. Air folds and 
 adapts itself to each new figure. They are the simplest 
 and the most infinitely active things in nature. So this 
 nature, in very virtue of its simplicity, must be also 
 free, always fitting itself to each new need. It will 
 always start from the most fundamental and eternal 
 conditions, and work in the straightest, even although 
 they be the newest ways, to the present prescribed pur- 
 pose. In one word, it must be broad and independent 
 and radical. So that freedom and radicalness in the 
 character of Abraham Lincoln were not separate qualities, 
 but the necessary results of his simplicity and childlike- 
 ness and truth. 
 
 Here then we have some conception of the man. Out 
 of this character came the life which we admire and the 
 
54 The American Spirit 
 
 death which we lament today. He was called in that 
 character to that life and death. It was just the nature, 
 as you see, which a new nation such as ours ought to 
 produce. All the conditions of his birth, his youth, his 
 manhood, which made him what he was, were not irregular 
 and exceptional, but were the normal conditions of a new 
 and simple country. His pioneer home in Indiana was a 
 type of the pioneer land in which he Uved. If ever there 
 was a man who was a part of the time and country he 
 lived in, this was he. The same simple respect for 
 labor won in the school of work and incorporated into 
 blood and muscle ; the same unassuming loyalty to the 
 simple virtues of temperance and industry and integrity ; 
 the same sagacious judgment which had learned to be 
 quick-eyed and quick-brained in the constant presence 
 of emergency ; the same direct and clear thought about 
 things, social, political, and religious, that was in him 
 supremely, was in the people he was sent to rule. 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN i 
 Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) 
 
 Lincoln was not a type. He stands alone — no an- 
 cestors, no fellows, and no successors. 
 
 He had the advantage of living in a new country, of 
 social equality, of personal freedom, of seeing in the 
 horizon of his future the perpetual star of hope. 
 
 ^ The oration on Lincoln, of which this selection forms a part, was 
 one of the most famous of Ingersoll's lectures, and was perhaps 
 oftener called for than any other. 
 
 From Works of Robert G. Ingersoll (Dresden Edition). Copy- 
 right, 1901, 1915, by The Dresden Publishing Company, New 
 York. Used by permission of the pubhshers. 
 
Two Great Americans 55 
 
 In a new country, a man must possess at least three 
 virtues — honesty, courage, and generosity. 
 
 In a new country, character is essential; in the old, 
 reputation is sufficient. In the new, they find what a 
 man really is ; in the old, he generally passes for what 
 he resembles. 
 
 Lincoln never finished his education. To the night of 
 his death he was a pupil, a learner, an inquirer, a seeker 
 after knowledge. 
 
 Lincoln was a many-sided man, acquainted with smiles 
 and tears, complex in brain, single in heart. He was 
 never afraid to ask — never too dignified to admit that 
 he did not know. No man had keener wit or kinder 
 humor. 
 
 He had intellect without arrogance, genius without 
 pride, and religion without cant — that is to say, with- 
 out bigotry and without deceit. 
 
 He was an orator — clear, sincere, natural. 
 
 If you wish to know the difference between an orator 
 and an elocutionist — between what is felt and what is 
 said — between what the heart and brain can do to- 
 gether and what the brain can do alone — read Lincoln's 
 wondrous speech at Gettysburg, and then the oration of 
 Edward Everett. The speech of Lincoln will never be 
 forgotten. It will five until languages are dead and lips 
 are dust. 
 
 Wealth could not purchase, power could not awe, this 
 divine, this loving man. 
 
 He knew no fear except the fear of doing wrong. 
 Hating slavery, pitying the master — seeking to conquer, 
 not persons, but prejudices, — he was the embodiment of 
 the self-denial, the courage, the hope, and the nobility 
 of a Nation. 
 
56 The American Spirit 
 
 He spoke, not to inflame, not to upbraid, but to 
 convince. 
 
 He raised his hands, not to strike, but in benediction. 
 
 He longed to pardon. 
 
 He loved to see the pearls of joy on the cheeks of 
 a wife whose husband he had rescued from death. 
 
 Lincoln was the grandest figure of the fiercest civil 
 war. He is the gentlest memory of our world. 
 
 LINCOLN'S BIRTHPLACE! 
 
 WooDROw Wilson (1856- ) 
 
 How eloquent this little house within this shrine is of 
 the vigor of democracy ! There is nowhere in the land 
 any home so remote, so humble, that it may not contain 
 the power of mind and heart and conscience to which 
 nations yield and history submits its processes. Nature 
 pays no tribute to aristocracy, subscribes to no creed of 
 caste, renders fealty to no monarch or master of any name 
 or kind. Genius is no snob. It does not run after titles 
 or seek by preference the high circles of society. It affects 
 humble company as well as great. It pays no special 
 tribute to universities or learned societies or conventional 
 standards of greatness, but serenely chooses its own com- 
 rades, its own haunts, its own cradle even, and its own 
 life of adventure and of training. Here is proof of it. 
 This little hut was the cradle of one of the great sons of 
 men, a man of singular, delightful, vital genius who 
 
 1 From an address delivered on the occasion of the acceptance by 
 the War Department of the gift to the nation of the Lincoln birth- 
 place farm at Hodgenville, Kentucky, September, 4, 1916. In 
 official pamphlet printed by the Government Printing Office, 1916. 
 
Two Great Americans 57 
 
 presently emerged upon the great stage of the nation's 
 history, gaunt, shy, ungainly, but dominant and majestic, 
 a natural ruler of men, himself inevitably the central figure 
 of the great plot. No man can explain this, but every 
 man can see how it demonstrates the vigor of democracy, 
 where every door is open, in every hamlet and country- 
 side, in city and wilderness aUke, for the ruler to emerge 
 when he will and claim his leadership in the free fife. Such 
 are the authentic proofs of the validity and vitality of 
 democracy. 
 
 Here, no less, hides the mystery of democracy. Who 
 shall guess this secret of nature and providence and a free 
 polity? Whatever the vigor and vitality of the stock 
 from which he sprang, its mere vigor and soundness do not 
 explain where this man got his great heart that seemed to 
 comprehend all mankind in its catholic and benignant sym- 
 pathy, the mind that sat enthroned behind those brooding, 
 melancholy eyes, whose vision swept many an horizon 
 which those about him dreamed not of, — that mind that 
 comprehended what it had never seen, and understood 
 the language of affairs with the ready ease of one to the 
 manner born, — or that nature which seemed in its varied 
 richness to be the familiar of men of every way of life. 
 This is the sacred mystery of democracy ; that its richest 
 fruits spring up out of soils which no man has prepared 
 and in circumstances amidst which they are the least 
 expected. This is a place afike of mystery and of 
 reassurance. 
 
58 The American Spirit 
 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN ^ 
 
 Tom Taylor (1817-1880) 
 
 You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier, 
 You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace 
 
 Broad for the self-complacent British sneer 
 
 His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face, 
 
 His gaunt, gnarled hguids, his unkempt, bristhng hair, 
 His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease ; 
 
 His lack of all we prize as debonair, 
 
 Of power or will to shine, of art to please. 
 
 You, whose smart pen backed up the pencil's laugh, 
 Judging each step, as though the way were plain; 
 
 Reckless, so it could point its paragraph 
 Of chief's perplexity, or people's pain. 
 
 Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet 
 The Stars and Stripes he lived to rear anew. 
 
 Between the mourners at his head and feet. 
 Say, scurril jester, is there room for yon ? 
 
 Tom Taylor, an English critic and dramatist, was a frequent con- 
 tributor, during the war of secession, to London Punch, of which 
 he later became editor. He was the author of "Our American 
 Cousin," in which the elder Sothern made his mark as Lord Dun- 
 dreary, the comic Englishman. This was the play on the stage 
 at Ford's Theatre when Lincoln was assassinated. In the early 
 years of the war Taylor had often ridiculed Lincoln in the London 
 weekly, but expressed his change of feeling in this poem, which 
 accompanied a picture by John Tenniel, representing Britannia 
 laying a wreath upon the bier of Lincoln. 
 
 From the original poem in London Punch, May 6, 1865. 
 
Two Great Americans 59 
 
 Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
 
 To lame my pencil, and confute my pen — ] 
 
 To make me own this hind of princes peer, ^ 
 
 This rail-splitter a true-born king of men. 
 
 My shallow judgment I had learnt to rue, ■] 
 
 Noting how to occasion's height he rose, i 
 
 How his quaint wit made home- truth seem more true, j 
 
 How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows. , 
 
 How humble yet how hopeful he could be : ] 
 
 How in good fortune and in ill the same : 
 
 Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, : 
 
 Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. i 
 
 He went about his work — such work as few ] 
 
 Ever had laid on head and heart and hand — . i 
 
 As one who knows, where there's a task to do, | 
 
 Man's honest will must Heaven's good grace command ; ■ 
 
 Who trusts the strength will with the burden grow, i 
 That God makes instruments to work His will, ' ' 
 
 If but that will we can arrive to know, \ 
 
 Not tamper with the weights of good and ill. t 
 
 So he went forth to battle, on the side 
 
 That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's, 
 
 As in his peasant boyhood he had plied 
 
 His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights 
 
 The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil, 
 
 The iron bark, that turns the lumberer's ax ; 
 
 The rapid, that o'erbears the boatman's toil. 
 
 The prairie, hiding the mazed wanderer's tracks, 
 
60 The American Spirit 
 
 The ambushed Indian, and the prowling bear — 
 Such were the needs that helped his youth to train : 
 
 Rough culture — but such trees large fruit may bear 
 If but their stocks be of right girth and grain. 
 
 So he grew up, a destined work to do. 
 
 And lived to do it : four long-suffering years' 
 
 lU-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through. 
 And then he heard the hisses change to cheers, 
 
 The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise, 
 
 And took both with the same unwavering mood : 
 
 Till, as he came on light, from darkling days 
 
 And seemed to touch the goal from where he stood, 
 
 A felon hand, between the goal and him. 
 
 Reached from behind his back, a trigger prest — 
 
 And those perplexed and patient eyes were dim. 
 Those gaimt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest I 
 
 The words of mercy were upon his lips, 
 Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen. 
 
 When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse 
 To thoughts of peace on earth, good-will to men. 
 
 The Old World and the New, from sea to sea, 
 Utter one voice of sympathy and shame ! 
 
 Sore heart, so stopped when it at last beat high, 
 Sad life, cut short just as its triumph came. 
 
 A deed accurst ! Strokes have been struck before 
 By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt 
 
 If more of horror or disgrace they bore ; 
 
 But thy foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out. 
 
Two Great Americans 61 
 
 Vile hand, that brandest murder on a strife, 
 
 Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly striven ; 
 
 And with the martyr's crown crownest a life 
 With much to praise, little to be forgiven I 
 
 O CAPTAIN I MY CAPTAIN I ^ 
 
 Walt Whitman (1819-1892) 
 
 O Captain I my Captain I our fearful trip is done. 
 
 The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought 
 
 is won. 
 The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and 
 
 daring ; 
 
 But heart ! heart I heart I 
 
 the bleeding drops of red. 
 Where on the deck my captain lies. 
 
 Fallen cold and dead. 
 
 Captain I my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 
 Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle 
 
 trills, 
 For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you the 
 
 shores a-crowding, 
 For you they caU, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
 
 turning ; 
 
 Here Captain I dear father I 
 
 This arm beneath your head I 
 It is some dream that on the deck 
 
 You've fallen cold and dead. 
 
 iFrom "Leaves of Grass." Copyright, 1900, by David McKay, 
 Philadelphia. Used by permission of the publisher. 
 
62 The American Spirit 
 
 My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
 My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will. 
 The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed 
 
 and done, 
 From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won ; 
 
 Exult, shores, and ring, bells I 
 
 But I with mournful tread 
 Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
 
 Fallen cold and dead. 
 
 THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS ^ 
 Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 
 
 Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought 
 forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, 
 and dedicated to the proposition that aU men are created 
 equal. 
 
 Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether 
 that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, 
 can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of 
 that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that 
 field as a final resting place for those who here gave their 
 lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting 
 and proper that we should do this. 
 
 But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we can- 
 not consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The 
 brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have 
 consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or de- 
 
 •^From facsimile reproduction of President Lincoln's speech, to 
 be found in Nicolay and Hay's "Abraham Lincoln," Hapgood's 
 "Abraham Lincoln," and other histories and biographies. 
 
Two Great Americans 63 
 
 tract. The world will little note, nor long remember, 
 what we say here, but it can never forget what they did 
 here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here 
 to the unfinished work which they who fought here have 
 thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here 
 dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that 
 from these honored dead we take increased devotion to 
 that cause for which they gave the last full measure of 
 devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead 
 shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under 
 God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that gov- 
 ernment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall 
 not perish from the earth. 
 
III. CHARACTERISTIC IDEALS 
 (1) The Faith of the Fathers 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS OF AMERICA ^ 
 Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) 
 
 Many persons in Europe having directly, or by letters, 
 expressed to the writer of this, who is well acquainted 
 with North America, their desire of transporting and es- 
 tablishing themselves in that country ; but who appear to 
 him to have formed through ignorance, mistaken ideas and 
 expectations of what is to be obtained there ; he thinks 
 it may be useful, and prevent inconvenient, expensive 
 and fruitless removals and voyages of improper persons, 
 if he gives some clearer and truer notions of that part of 
 the world than appear to have hitherto prevailed. . . . 
 
 The truth is, that though there are in that country few 
 people so miserable as the poor of Europe, there are also 
 very few that in Europe would be called rich ; it is rather 
 a general happy mediocrity that prevails. There are few 
 great proprietors of the soil, and few tenants; most 
 people cultivate their own lands, or follow some handi- 
 craft or merchandise ; very few rich enough to live idly 
 upon their rents or incomes or to pay the high prices 
 given in Europe for paintings, statues, architecture, and 
 the other works of art, that are more curious than 
 
 ^ Franklin was undoubtedly the fullest colonial expression of the 
 American spirit, and so impressed Europe as well as his fellow 
 countrymen. 
 
 From "Information to those who would remove to America," 
 in Works of Benjamin FrankUn, Vol. III. Published by Long- 
 man, Hurst, Reese & Orme, London, 1806. 
 
 65 
 
66 The American Spirit 
 
 useful. Hence the natural geniuses, that have arisen in 
 America with such talents, have uniformly quitted that 
 country for Europe, where they can be more suitably re- 
 warded. It is true, that letters and mathematical knowl- 
 edge are in esteem there, but they are at the same time 
 more common than is apprehended ; there being already 
 existing nine colleges or universities, viz., four in New 
 England, and one in each of the provinces of New York, 
 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, all 
 furnished with learned professors ; besides a number 
 of smaller academies. These educate many of their 
 youth in the languages, and those sciences that qualify 
 men for the professions of divinity, law, or physic. 
 Strangers indeed are by no means excluded from exercising 
 those professions ; and the quick increase of inhabitants 
 everywhere gives them a chance of employ, which they 
 have in common with the natives. Of civil offices, or 
 employments, there are few ; no superfluous ones, as in 
 Europe ; and it is a rule established in some of the states, 
 that no office should be so profitable as to make it desir- 
 able. . . . 
 
 These ideas prevailing more or less in all the United 
 States, it cannot be worth any man's while, who has a 
 means of living at home, to expatriate himself, in hopes of 
 obtaining a profitable civil office in America; and as to 
 military offices, they are at an end with the war, the 
 armies being disbanded. Much less is it advisable for a 
 person to go thither who has no other quality to rec- 
 ommend him but his birth. In Europe it has indeed 
 its value ; but it is a commodity that cannot be carried 
 to a worse market than that of America, where people 
 do not inquire concerning a stranger. What is he, but. 
 What can he do ? 
 
Characteristic Ideals 67 
 
 PITT'S LAST SPEECH! 
 
 William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778) 
 
 I love and honor the English troops. I know their 
 virtues and their valor. I know they can achieve anything 
 except impossibihties ; and I know that the conquest of 
 English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I 
 venture to say it, you cannot conquer America. Your 
 armies [in the] last war effected everything that could be 
 effected ; and what was it ? It cost your numerous army, 
 under the command of a most able genergJ, now a noble 
 Lord in this House ^, a long and laborious campaign to 
 expel five thousand Frenchmen from French America.^ 
 My Lords, you cannot conquer America. What is your 
 present situation there? We do not know the worst; 
 but we know that in three campaigns we have done noth- 
 ing and suffered much. ... As to conquest, therefore, 
 my Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every 
 expense and every effort still more extravagantly; pile 
 
 ^ Unfortunately it is too little recognized by Americans that at 
 the time of the American Revolution there was going on in Eng- 
 land as well as in the American colonies a great social movement 
 for political liberalism and freedom. These two, indeed, were but 
 parts of the same great movement. The one in England did not 
 triumph during that period, though it did in the following gen- 
 eration. The English leaders of this movement were friends of 
 America, none more able or respected than Pitt. They as well 
 as the natives of the colonies revealed the dawning political 
 spirit of America. The principles for which these leaders fought 
 on both sides of the Atlantic were diu-ing the nineteenth century 
 applied to all English-speaking colonies. 
 
 From "Lord Chatham's Speech in the British House of Lords. 
 November 20, 1777. Taken verbatim as his Lordship spoke it." 
 Printed 1778. 
 
 ' Lord Amherst. 
 
 ' A reference to the French and Indian wars which terminated in 
 1763. 
 
68 The American Spirit 
 
 and accumulate every assistance you can buy or bor- 
 row ; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German 
 prince^ that sells his subjects to the shambles of a 
 foreign prince ; your efforts are forever vain and im- 
 potent — doubly so from this mercenary aid on which 
 you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, 
 the minds of your enemies, to overrun them with the 
 mercenary sons of rapine and plunder, devoting them and 
 their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty I If 
 I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a 
 foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would 
 lay down my arms — never, never, never I 
 
 WHAT IS PATRIOTISM? 2 
 Fisher Ames (1758-1808) 
 
 What is patriotism? Is it a narrow affection for the 
 spot where a man was born ? Are the very clods where we 
 tread entitled to this ardent preference because they are 
 greener ? No, sir, this is not the character of the virtue, 
 and it soars higher for its object. It is an extended 
 self-love, minghng with all the enjoyments of hfe, and 
 twisting itself with the minutest filaments of the heart. 
 It is thus we obey the laws of society, because they are the 
 laws of virtue. In their authority we see, not the array 
 of force and terror, but the venerable image of our coun- 
 try's honor. Every good citizen makes that honor his 
 
 1 A reference to the Hessian and other mercenary troops hired 
 by King George from the monarchs of petty German states, to 
 help subdue the American colonists. 
 
 2 From a speech delivered in the House of Representatives, 
 April 28, 1796. Printed by John Fenno, Philadelphia, 1796, and 
 by Jno. & J. Russell, Boston, 1796. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 69 
 
 own, and cherishes it not only as precious, but as sacred. 
 He is willing to risk his life in its defense, and is conscious 
 that he gains protection while he gives it. For what 
 rights of a citizen will be deemed inviolable when a state 
 renounces the principles that constitute their security? 
 Or, if his life should not be invaded, what would its enjoy- 
 ments be in a country odious in the -eyes of strangers and 
 dishonored in his own ? Could he look with affection and 
 veneration to such a country as his parent ? The sense of 
 having one would die within him, he would blush for his 
 patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, for it would be 
 a vice. He would be a banished man in his native land. 
 I see no exception to the respect that is paid among 
 nations to the law of good faith. If there are cases in 
 this enlightened period when it is violated, there are none 
 when it is decried. It is the philosophy of politics, the 
 reUgion of governments. It is observed by barbarians — 
 a whiff of tobacco smoke or a string of beads gives not 
 merely binding force, but sanctity, to treaties. Even in 
 Algiers, a truce may be bought for money, but when 
 ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or too just, to disown 
 and annul its obligation. Thus we see neither the ig- 
 norance of savages, nor the principles of an association 
 for piracy and rapine, permit a nation to despise its 
 engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrection from 
 the foot of the gallows, if the victims of justice could live 
 again, collect together and form a society, they would, 
 however loath, soon find themselves obliged to make 
 justice, that justice under which they fell, the funda- 
 mental law of their state. They would perceive it was 
 their interest to make others respect, and they would, 
 therefore, soon pay some respect themselves, to the 
 obUgations of good faith. 
 
70 The American Spirit * 
 
 LIBERTY OR DEATHS 
 Patrick Henry (1736-1799) 
 
 Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the 
 illusions of Hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a 
 painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren, till she 
 transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, 
 engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty ? Are 
 we disposed to be of the number of those, who, having 
 eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which 
 so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my 
 part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing 
 to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to 
 provide for it. 
 
 I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided ; and 
 that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of 
 judging the future but by the past. . . . 
 
 Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to 
 avert the storm which is now coming on. We have 
 petitioned ; we have remonstrated ; we have supplicated ; 
 we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have 
 implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands 
 of the Ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been 
 slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional 
 violence and insult; our supplications have been dis- 
 regarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, 
 from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, 
 
 ^ No selection is more often quoted than this as an expression of 
 the spirit of the American Revolution. 
 
 From Henry's speech dehvered in the Virginia House of Burgesses 
 at Richmond, March 23, 1775. Pubhshed in "Patrick Henry's 
 Life, Correspondence, and Speeches." Collected and edited by 
 WiUiam Henry Wirt. Vol. I. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 71 
 
 may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. 
 There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be 
 free ; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable 
 privileges for which we have been so long contending; 
 if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in 
 which we have been so long engaged, and which we have 
 pledged ourselves never to abandon, until the glorious 
 object of our contest shall be obtained ; we must fight ! I 
 repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal to arms and to 
 the God of Hosts is all that is left us. 
 
 They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope 
 with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be 
 stronger? Will it be the next week or the next year? 
 Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a 
 British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall 
 we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall 
 we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying 
 supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom 
 of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and 
 foot ? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the 
 means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. 
 Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Hberty, 
 and in such a country as that which we possess, are in- 
 vincible by any force which our enemy can send against 
 us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. 
 There is a just God who presides over the destinies of 
 nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles 
 for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone ; it is 
 to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we 
 have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, 
 it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is 
 no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains 
 are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains 
 
72 The American Spirit 
 
 of Boston. The war is inevitable ; and let it come I I 
 repeat, sir, let it come I 
 
 It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen 
 may cry, Peace, peace ; but there is no peace. The 
 W£ir is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from 
 the North will bring to our ears the clash of resound- 
 ing arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why 
 stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish.^ 
 What would they have ? Is life so deEU", or peace so sweet, 
 as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? 
 Forbid it. Almighty God ! I know not what course others 
 may take ; but, as for me, give me Uberty, or give me 
 death I 
 
 GOVERNMENT IN THE INTEREST OF ALL 
 
 Declaration of Independence 
 
 We hold these truths to be self-evident : — that all men 
 are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
 with certain unaUenable rights ; that among these are life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure 
 these rights, governments are instituted among men, de- 
 riving their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
 erned ; that, whenever any form of government becomes 
 destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to- 
 alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new govern- 
 ment, laying its foundation on such principles, and or- 
 ganizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem 
 most likely to effect their safety and happiness. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 73 
 
 FAITH IN OUR GOVERNMENT ^ 
 Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 
 
 If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve 
 this Union, or to change its republican form, let them 
 stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which 
 error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left 
 free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men 
 fear that a republican government cannot be strong; 
 that this government is not strong enough. But would 
 the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, 
 abandon a government which has so far kept us free and 
 firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this govern- 
 ment, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want 
 energy to preserve itself; I trust not. I beheve this, 
 on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I 
 believe it the only one where every man, at the call of 
 the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would 
 meet invasions of the public order as his own personal 
 concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted 
 with the government of himself. Can he, then, be 
 trusted with the government of others? Or have we 
 found angels in the form of kings to govern him ? Let 
 history answer this question. 
 
 Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our 
 own federal and republican principles, our attachment 
 to union and representative government. Kindly 
 separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exter- 
 minating havoc of one-quarter of the globe; too high- 
 
 ^ From "Speech of Thomas JefTerson at his installment, March 4, 
 1801, at the City of Washington." In "Notes on the State of 
 Virginia by Thomas Jefferson" (First Hot-Pressed Edition). Pub- 
 lished by R. T. Rawle, Philadelphia, June, 1801. 
 
74 The American Spirit 
 
 minded to endure the degradations of the others ; possess- 
 ing a chosen country, with room enough for our de- 
 scendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation ; 
 entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our 
 own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, 
 to honor and confidence from our fellow citizens, resulting 
 not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of 
 them ; enhghtened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, 
 and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating 
 honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of 
 man; acknowledging and adoring an overruhng Provi- 
 dence, which by all its dispensations proves that it de- 
 lights in the happiness of man here and his greater happi- 
 ness hereafter — with all these blessings, what more is 
 necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people ? 
 
 THE MONROE DOCTRINE ^ 
 
 James Monroe (1758-1831) 
 
 In the wars of the European powers in matters relating 
 to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it 
 comport with our pohcy so to do. It is only when our 
 rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent 
 injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the 
 movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more 
 immediately connected, and by causes which must be 
 obvious to all enhghtened and impartial observers. The 
 political system of the alhed ^ powers is essentially differ- 
 
 1 From President Monroe's message of December 2, 1823. 
 
 2 The Holy Alliance was formed in 1815 as a result of the Congress 
 of Vienna and was joined then or afterwards by all the monarchical 
 powers of Europe except England. Its aim was to combat tlie 
 
Characteristic Ideals 75 
 
 ent in this respect from that of America. This difference 
 proceeds from that which exists in their respective Govern- 
 ments ; and to the defense of our own, which has been 
 achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and 
 matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citi- 
 zens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled fe- 
 licity, this whole nation is devoted. We owe it, therefore, 
 to candor and to the amicable relations existing between 
 the United States and those powers to declare that we 
 should consider any attempt on their part to extend their 
 system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous 
 to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or 
 dependencies of any European power we have not inter- 
 fered and shall not interfere'. But with the Governments 
 who have declared their independence and maintained 
 it, and whose independence we have on great considera- 
 tion and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not 
 view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, 
 or controlUng in any other manner their destiny, by any 
 European power, in any other light than as the manifesta- 
 tion of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. 
 In the war between those new Governments and Spain 
 we declared our neutrality at the time of their recogni- 
 tion, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to 
 adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judg- 
 ment of the competent authorities of this Government, 
 shall make a corresponding change on the part of the 
 United States indispensable to their security. 
 
 The late events in Spain and Portugal show that Europe 
 
 growing democratic forces in all countries of Europe, and later, 
 when President Monroe's message was issued, to assist the mon- 
 archies of Spain and Portugal to retain control over their American 
 colonies then struggling for their independence. 
 
76 The American Spirit 
 
 is still unsettled. Of this important fact no stronger 
 proof can be adduced than that the allied powers should 
 have thought it proper, on any principle satisfactory to 
 themselves, to have interposed by force in the internal 
 concerns of Spain. To what extent such interposition may 
 be carried, on the same principle, is a question in which 
 all independent powers whose governments differ from 
 theirs are interested, even those most remote, and surely 
 none more so than the United States. Our pohcy in 
 regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage 
 of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of 
 the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not 
 to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers ; 
 to consider the government' de facto as the legitimate 
 government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with 
 it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and 
 manly policy , meeting in all instances the just claims of 
 every power, submitting to injuries from none. But in 
 regard to those continents circumstances are eminently 
 and conspicuously different. It is impossible that the 
 allied powers should extend their political system to any 
 portion of either continent without endangering our peace 
 and happiness ; nor can any one beUeve that our southern 
 brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their 
 own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that 
 we should behold such interposition in any form with 
 indifference. If we look to the comparative strength 
 and resources of Spain and those new Governments, and 
 their distance from each other, it must be obvious that 
 she can never subdue them. It is still the true policy 
 of the United States to leave the parties to themselves, 
 in the hope that other powers will pursue the same 
 course. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 77 
 
 LIBERTY FOR ALL ^ 
 
 William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) 
 
 They tell me, Liberty I that in thy name, 
 
 I may not plead for all the human race ; 
 
 That some are born to bondage and disgrace, 
 
 Some to a heritage of woe and shame, 
 
 And some to power supreme, and glorious fame. 
 
 With my whole soul, I spurn the doctrine base, 
 
 And, as an equal brotherhood, embrace 
 
 All people, and for all fair freedom claim I 
 
 Know this, man ! whatever thy earthly fate — 
 
 God never made a tyrant nor a slave : 
 
 Woe, then, to those who daie to desecrate 
 
 His glorious image ! — for to all He gave 
 
 Eternal rights, which none may violate ; 
 
 And by a mighty hand, th' oppressed He yet shall save. 
 
 1 "Sonnet to Liberty," in "Selections from the Writings and 
 Speeches of William Lloyd Garrison." Published by R. F. Wall- 
 cut, Boston, 1852. . 
 
78 The American Spirit 
 
 (2) Moral Heroism 
 
 GENERAL GRANT'S GREATEST VICTORY » 
 Elbridge S. Brooks (1846-1902) 
 
 General Grant . . . deplored and detested war ; ' but 
 once engaged in it, he fought to ^sin. ^ 
 
 *' Give the enemy no rest ; [strike him, and keep striking 
 him. The war must be ended, and we must end it now." 
 
 That was his theory of war, and he fought straight 
 on, |never halting in his opinion, never wavering in his 
 actions, saying to those who questioned him, "I shall 
 fight it out on this Une if it takes all summer." 
 
 Thereupon the people and the President knew that they 
 had a soldier to rely on, a man with a genius for suc- 
 cessful war, a general who never took one backward step. 
 In just thirteen months after Grant assumed his com- 
 mand as head of the American army the end came, and 
 in the apple orchard at Appomattox the last stand was 
 made, \ the last gun was fired, the white flag fluttered for 
 a truce, and in the Uttle McLean farmhouse the two great 
 opposing generals met in conference, and the Southern 
 army laid down its arms in surrender. 
 
 Then General Grant won a greater victory through 
 kindness. For where he might have been harsh, he was 
 magnanimous. He was not one to exult over a valiant 
 but fallen foeman. 
 
 "They are Americans, and our brothers," he said. He 
 gave them back their horses, so that they could plow their 
 
 1 From "Historic Americans." Copyright, 1899, by Thomas Y. 
 Crowell Company, New York. Used by permission of the pub- 
 lishers. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 79 ^ 
 
 farms for planting; He gave them food and clothes, and i 
 
 sent them all home to their families. *'The war is over," i ' 
 
 he said to North and South alike. "Let us have peace.** > 
 
 \ 
 CUB SAWBONES 1 j 
 
 Sydney Reid (Robert Charles Forneri) (1857- ) 
 
 When we marched away with the starry flag, 
 
 Cub Sawbones carried his surgeon's bag ; j 
 
 But for me — I wanted no "rear" in mine — \ 
 
 I shouldered a gun in the fighting line. < 
 
 So when we had charged up the deadly glade j 
 
 Where the dons were lying in ambuscade, j 
 
 I was there to take what the others got — j 
 
 And the Spaniards gave it, plenty and hot. ; 
 
 i 
 There fell of our crowd in the Mauser hail \ 
 
 A third — yet never a man did quail. 
 
 But — well, we went back — then came again * . ■ 
 
 And settled right down to our work like men. 
 
 In open order and firing at will, - 
 
 We crawled through a very rough skirmish drill — ' 
 From the trees to the rocks, from the rocks to the trees, 
 
 Just as close to the ground as we could freeze. i 
 
 When I noted a tangled thicket sway ' 
 
 In front about twenty-five yards away, { 
 I halted, made ready to loosen a storm — 
 
 Till I caught a whiff of iodoform. j 
 
 ^ From the New York Sun, July 9, 1898. Used by permission of the J 
 
 publishers. 1 
 
80 The American Spirit 
 
 Cub Sawbones, alone with the wounded folk, 
 Was cobbling the limbs that the bullets broke ; 
 He bent to his task with the tenderest care, 
 Though the war-bolts were hissing everywhere. 
 
 I hailed him with our old college yell, — 
 
 He grinned, as he watched a bursting shell. 
 
 *'You have a great nerve to be here," he said, 
 
 *' When you're not a doctor — or wounded — or dead I' 
 
 THE FLEET AT SANTIAGO ^ 
 Henry Cabot Lodge (1850- ) 
 
 Out of the mist of events and the gathering darkness of 
 passing time the great fact and the great deed stand forth 
 for the American people and their children's children, as 
 white and shining as the Santiago channel glaring under 
 the searchlights through the Cuban night. 
 
 They remember, and will always remember, that hot 
 summer morning, and the anxiety, only half whispered, 
 which overspread the land. They see, and will always 
 see, the American ships rolling lazily on the long seas, 
 and the sailors just going to Sunday inspection. Then 
 comes the long, thin trail of smoke drawing nearer the har- 
 bor's mouth. The ships see it, and we can hear the cheers 
 ring out, for the enemy is coming, and the American 
 sailor rejoices mightily to know that the battle is set. 
 There is no need of signals, no need of orders. The patient, 
 long-watching admiral has given direction for every 
 chance that may befall. Every ship is in place ; and they 
 
 iFrom "The War with Spain." Copyright, 1899, by Harper & 
 Brothers, New York. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 81 
 
 close in upon the advancing enemy, fiercely pouring shells 
 from broadside and turret. There is the Gloucester, firing 
 her Uttle shots at the great cruisers, and then driving 
 down to grapple with the torpedo boats. There are the 
 Spanish ships, already mortally hurt, running along the 
 shore, shattered and breaking under the fire of the Indiana, 
 the Iowa, and the Texas; there is the Brooklyn, racing by 
 outside to head the fugitives, and the Oregon, dealing 
 death strokes as she rushes forward, forging to the front 
 and leaving her mark everywhere she goes. It is a cap- 
 tain's fight, and they all fight as if they were one man with 
 one ship. On they go, driving through the water, firing 
 steadily and ever getting closer; and presently the 
 Spanish cruisers, helpless, burning, twisted wrecks of iron, 
 are piled along the shore, and we see the younger officers 
 and men of the victorious ships periling their Uves to save 
 their beaten enemies. We see Wainwright on the Glouces- 
 ter, as eager in rescue as he was swift in fight to avenge the 
 Maine. We hear Phihp cry out: "Don't cheer. The 
 poor devils are dying." We watch Evans as he hands 
 back the sword to the wounded Eulate, and then writes 
 in his report: "I cannot express my admiration for my 
 magnificent crew. So long as the enemy showed his flag, 
 they fought like American seamen ; but when the flag 
 came down, they were as gentle and tender as American 
 women." They aU stand out to us, these gaUant figures, 
 from the silent admiral to the cheering seamen, with an 
 intense human interest, fearless in fight, brave and merci- 
 ful in the hour of victory. 
 
82 The American Spirit 
 
 WHEELER AT SANTIAGO i 
 James Lindsay Gordon 
 
 Into the thick of the fight he went, pallid and sick and 
 
 wan, 
 Borne to the front in an ambulance, a ghostly wisp of a 
 
 man; 
 But the fighting soul of a fighting man, approved in the 
 
 long ago. 
 Went to the front in that ambulance — and the body of 
 
 Fighting Joe ! 
 
 Out from the front they were coming back, smitten of 
 Spanish shells — 
 
 Wounded boys from the Vermont hills and the Alabama 
 deUs. 
 
 "Put them into the ambulance: I'll ride to the front," 
 he said. 
 
 And he climbed to the saddle and rode right on, that Httle 
 old ex-Confed. 
 
 From end to end of the long blue ranks rose up the ring- 
 ing cheers. 
 
 And many a powder-blackened face was furrowed with 
 sudden tears, 
 
 1 General Joseph Wheeler, a graduate of West Point, went into 
 the Confederate Cavalry in 1861, and at the age of twenty-six was 
 a lieutenant general. After the war his native state, Alabama, 
 sent him to Congress, where he served for thirty years. At the 
 outbreak of the war with Spain, in 1898, although sixty-two years 
 of age, he was commissioned with the first contingent of cavalry. 
 Owing to the nature of the country the cavalry went into battle 
 dismounted, and Wheeler, although at the time suffering from a 
 sharp attack of fever, insisted on going with his command if he had 
 to be carried on a cot. 
 
 From the New York Sun, July, 1898. Used by permission of 
 the pubhshers. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 83 
 
 As with flashing eyes and gleaming sword, and hair and 
 
 beard of snow, 
 Into the hell of shot and shell rode little old Fighting Joe I 
 
 Sick with fever and racked with pain, he could not stay 
 away, 
 
 For he heard the song of the yester-year in the deep- 
 mouthed cannon's bay — 
 
 He heard in the calHng song of the guns there was work 
 for him to do, 
 
 Where his country's best blood splashed and flowed 
 'round the old Red, White, and Blue I 
 
 Fevered body and hero heart ! this Union's heart to you 
 Beats out in love and reverence — and to each dear boy 
 
 in blue 
 Who stood or fell 'mid the shot and shell, and cheered in 
 
 the face of the foe. 
 As, wan and white, to the heart of the fight rode little 
 
 old Fighting Joe I 
 
 WHEN WITH THEIR COUNTRY'S ANGER » 
 Richard Watson Gilder (1844-1909) 
 
 When with their country's anger 
 
 They flame into the fight, — 
 On sea. in treacherous forest, 
 
 To strike with main and might, — 
 
 1 This poem by Richard Watson Gilder, well known not only as 
 a poet but as the editor for many years of the Century Magazine^ 
 was written during the period of the war with Spain. 
 From Richard Watson Gilder's Complete Poems. Copyright, 
 1908, by Richard Watson Gilder. Pubhshed by Houghton MiSlin 
 Company, Boston. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
84 The American Spirit \ 
 
 He shows the gentlest mercy j 
 
 Who rains the deadhest blows ; .j 
 
 Then quick war's hell is ended, \ 
 
 And home the hero goes. -l 
 
 What stays the noblest memory ] 
 
 For all his years to keep ? ] 
 
 Not of the foemen slaughtered, -; 
 
 But rescued from the deep ! i 
 
 I 
 
 Rescued with peerless daring I ^ 
 
 O, none shall forget that sight, I 
 
 When the unaimed cannon thundered ; 
 
 In the ghastly after-fight. i 
 
 And, now, in the breast of the hero i 
 
 There blooms a strange, new flower, • 
 
 A blood-red, fragrant blossom I 
 
 Sown in the battle-hour. j 
 
 1 
 
 'Tis not the Love of Comrades, — I 
 
 That flower forever blows, — ] 
 
 But the brave man's Love of CouragCj ] 
 
 The Love of Comrade-Foes. " ^ 
 
 For since the beginning of battles ' ] 
 
 On the land and on the wave, i 
 
 Heroes have answered to heroes, \ 
 
 The brave have honored the brave. J 
 
Characteristic Ideals 85 
 
 (3) The Fight for a Cause 
 
 AMERICAN IDEALS NOT IMPERIALISTIC ^ 
 
 William McKinley (1843-1901) 
 
 That the inhabitants of the Philippines will be benefited 
 by this Republic is my unshaken belief. That they will 
 have a kindher government under our guidance and that 
 they will be aided in every possible way to be a self- 
 respecting and self-governing people is as true as that the 
 American people love hberty and have an abiding faith 
 in their own government and in their own institutions. 
 No imperial designs lurk in the American mind. They 
 are alien to American sentiment, thought, and purpose. 
 Our priceless principles undergo no change under a 
 tropical sun. They go with the flag. They are wrought 
 in every one of its sacred folds and are inextinguishable 
 in its shining stars. 
 
 Why read ye not the changeless truth, 
 The free can conquer but to save? 
 
 If we can benefit these remote peoples, who will object ? 
 If in the years of the future they are estabhshed in govern- 
 ment under law and liberty, who will regret our perils 
 and sacrifices ? Who will not rejoice in our heroism and 
 humanity ? Always perils, and always after them safety ; 
 always darkness and clouds, but always shining through 
 them the light and the sunshine ; always cost and sacrifice, 
 
 ^ A speech made in Boston, February 16, 1899, at a time when our 
 national policy with reference to the Philippine Islands, acquired 
 through war with Spain, was still unsettled. 
 
 From "Souvenir of the Visit of President McKinley and Members 
 of the Cabinet to Boston, February, 1899." Copyright, 1899, by 
 The Home Market Club, Boston. 
 
86 The American Spirit 
 
 but always after them the fruition of Hberty, education, 
 and civiUzation. 
 
 I have no Hght or knowledge not common to my 
 countrymen. I do not prophesy. The present is all- 
 absorbing to me, but I cannot bound my vision by the 
 blood-stained trenches around Manila, where every red 
 drop, whether from the veins of an American soldier or a 
 misguided Filipino, is anguish to my heart ; but by the 
 broad range of future years, when that group of islands, 
 under the impulse of the year just passed, shall have 
 become the gems and glories of those tropical seas; a 
 land of plenty and of increasing possibihties ; a people 
 redeemed from savage indolence and habits, devoted to 
 the arts of peace, in touch with the commerce and trade 
 of all nations, enjoying the blessings of freedom, of civil 
 and religious liberty, of education and of homes, and 
 whose children and children's children shall for ages hence 
 bless the American Republic because it emancipated 
 and redeemed their fatherland and set them in the path- 
 way of the world's best civiUzation. 
 
 THE AMERICAN FLAG NOT THE DOLLAR 
 SIGNi 
 
 Henry Cabot Lodge (1850- ) 
 
 No one has a greater admiration than I for the marvel- 
 ous achievements of the American people in the last cen- 
 tury, for the conquest of this mighty continent, for all 
 
 * From a speech before the Republican State Convention of 
 Massachusetts, March 27, 1896. In "Speeches and Addresses of 
 Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1909." Copyright, 1892, 1909, by 
 Henry Cabot Lodge. Published by Houghton MiffUn Company, 
 Boston. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 87 
 
 the material welfare which has sprung up as if by magic 
 from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Our business enterprise, 
 our business intelligence, our business activity, are among 
 the glories of the repubHc. I have labored ever since 
 I have been in public fife to advance by every means in 
 my power every measure that makes for the business 
 interests of the country. No one values their impor- 
 tance more highly than I. 
 
 But, gentlemen, I have seen it constantly stated, and 
 this is the point I wish to make — that we must not deal 
 with anything but business questions. 
 
 Now, there is a great deal more than that in the life 
 of every great nation. There is patriotism, love of coun- 
 try, pride of race, ^courage, manhness, the things which 
 money cannot make and which money cannot buy. . . . 
 
 You may call it sentiment or passion or what you will, 
 but love of country is one of the great moving causes of 
 national life. When we look at that flag, what is it that 
 makes our hearts throb ? If you see it in a foreign land, after 
 months of separation, what is it that makes your throat 
 choke and your eyes get damp ? Is it because a great many 
 men have made money under it? I beheve that that 
 flag is a great deal more than the sign of a successful na- 
 tional shop, never to be unfurled for fear that the trader 
 on the opposite side of the way may have his feeHngs 
 ruffled ; I think it is a great deal more than that. And 
 when I look at it, I do not see and you do not see there 
 the graven image of the dollar ; you do not read there 
 the motto of the epicure, *'Let us eat and drink, for to- 
 morrow we die." No; you read on that flag the old 
 Latin motto, Per aspera ad astra — Through toil and 
 conflict to the stars. 
 
 You do not see the doUar on it. But when you look, 
 
 N. 
 
88 The American Spirit 
 
 and your heart swells within you as you look, the memories 
 that come are very different. If you see any faces there, 
 they are the faces of Washington and his Continentals 
 behind him, marching from defeat at Long Island to vic- 
 tory at Trenton, to misery at Valley Forge, to final triumph 
 at Yorktown. Look again and we all see the face of 
 Lincoln. The mighty host are there of the men who have 
 lived for their country and given their lives for their 
 country and labored for it, each in his separate way, and 
 beheved in it and loved it. They are all there, from the 
 great chiefs to the boys who fell in Baltimore. That is 
 what I see, that is what you see. That is why we love 
 it, because it means this great country and all the people. 
 It means all the struggles and suiFeyings we have gone 
 through, all our hopes, all our aspirations. It means 
 that we are a great nation and intend to take a nation's 
 part in the family of nations. It means that we are the 
 guardians of this Western Hemisphere and will not have 
 it rashly invaded. It means the one successful experi- 
 ment of representative democracy. It means victorious 
 democracy. That is what it means, and that is what 
 I see there and that is what you see there. And much 
 as I CEire for business and economic questions, I never 
 will admit that they are all or that the duty of a pubUc 
 man ceases with them. There are other questions that 
 must be dealt with also. I never will admit that that 
 beloved flag is to me merely the symbol of a land where 
 I can live in rich content and make money. No : I see 
 it as the American poet saw it : 
 
 And .fixed as yonder orb divine 
 
 That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled, 
 
 Shall thy proud stars resplendent shine 
 The guard and glory of the world. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 89 
 
 OUR PAN-AMERICAN POLICY ^ 
 EuHu Root (1845- ) 
 
 No nation can live unto itself alone and continue to live. 
 Each nation's growth is a part of the development of the 
 race. There may be leaders and there may be laggards, 
 but no nation can long continue very far in advance of the 
 general progress of mankind, and no. nation that is not 
 doomed to extinction can remain very far behind. It is 
 with nations as it is with individual men ; intercourse, 
 association, correction of egotism by the influence of ;« 
 others' judgment, broadening of views by the experience v 
 and thought of equals, acceptance of the moral standards f 
 of a community, the desire for whose good opinion lends ' 
 a sanction to the rules of right conduct, — these are the 
 conditions of growth in civihzation. A people whose ^ 
 minds are not open to the lessons of the world's progress, 
 whose spirits are not stirred by the aspirations and ther* 
 achievements of humanity struggling the world over for i 
 liberty and justice, must be left behind by civilization, in ^ 
 its steady and beneficent advance. ... 
 
 These benefiG^it-~reettlts th^'^jovemment-and^the J" 
 people of the United States of-A«ierica greatly desire: p 
 
 We wish for no victories but those of peace ; for no 
 
 : : ^ 
 
 1 No one is better fitted to speak of our policy toward other Ameri- 
 can republics than Senator Root, who was Secretary of War 
 under President McKinley, 1899-1904 ; Secretary of State under 
 President Roosevelt, 1905-1909 ; Senator from New York, 1905- 
 1915; and in 1915 president of the New York Constitutional 
 Convention. 
 
 From "Latin America and the United States," addresses by 
 Elihu Root, collected and edited by Robert Bacon and John 
 Brown Scott. Copyright, 1917, by Harvard University Press, 
 Cambridge, Mass. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
90 The American Spirit 
 
 territory except our own ; for no sovereignty except the 
 sovereignty over ourselves. We deem the independence 
 and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of 
 the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those 
 of the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of 
 that respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the 
 oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire 
 ^ny rights, or privileges, or powers that we do not freely- 
 -^^icede to every American republic. We wish to in- 
 crease our prosperity, to expand our trade, to grow in 
 wealth, in wisdom, and in spirit, but our conception of 
 
 )the true way to accompUsh this is not to pull down 
 others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to 
 %^ a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may 
 ^ all become greater and stronger together. ... 
 \ Let us help each other to show that for all the races of 
 
 I ^ men the Hberty for which we have fought and labored is 
 i^ the twin sister of justice and peace. Let us unite in creat- 
 ing and maintaining and making effective an all- American 
 pubhc opinion, whose power shall influence international 
 jonducl^sffidr^revent international wrong, and narrow the 
 J 'causes of war, and forever preserve our free lands from the 
 r5 -burden of such armaments as are massed behind the 
 ^ frontiers of Europe, and bring us ever nearer to the perfec- 
 |» ) tion of ordered liberty. So shall come security and pros- 
 is^ perity, production and trade, wealth, learning, the arts, 
 and happiness for us all. 
 
Characteristic Ideals 91 
 
 AMERICANISM i 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt (1858- ) 
 
 There are two or three things that Americanism means. 
 In the first place it means that we shall give to our fellow 
 man, to our fellow citizen, the same wide latitude as to 
 his individual behefs that we demand for ourselves ; that, 
 so long as a man does his work as a man should, we shall 
 not inquire, we shall not hold for or against him in civic 
 hfe, his method of paying homage to his Maker. That 
 is an important lesson for all of us to learn everywhere, 
 but it is doubly important in our great cities, where we 
 have a cosmopoHtan population of such various origin, 
 belonging .to such different creeds, and where the problem 
 of getting good government depends in its essence upon 
 decent men standing together and insisting that before 
 we take into account the ordinary political questions, 
 we shall, as a prerequisite, have decency and honesty 
 in ^y part y. ^ 
 
 Now for another side of Americanism ; the side of the 
 work, the strife, of the active performance of duty ; one 
 side of Americanism, one side of democracy. Our democ- 
 racy means that we have no privileged class, no class that 
 is exempt from the duties or deprived of the privileges 
 that are imphed in the words "American citizenship.'* 
 Now, that principle has two sides to it, itself, for all of us 
 would be hkely to dwell continually upon one side, that all 
 have equal rights. It is more important that we should 
 dwell on the other side ; that is, that we will have our 
 duties, and that the rights cannot be kept unless the duties 
 are performed. 
 
 ^ Used by permission of the author. 
 
92 The American Spirit 
 
 The law of American life — of course it is the law of 
 life everywhere — the law of American life, peculiarly, 
 must be the law of work ; not the law of idleness ; not 
 the law of self-indulgence or pleasure, merely the law of 
 work. That may seem like a trite saying. Most true 
 sayings are trite. It is a disgrace for any American not 
 to do his duty, but it is a double, a triple disgrace for a 
 man of means or a man of education not to do his duty. 
 The only work worth doing is done by those men, those 
 women, who learn not to shrink from difficulties, but to 
 face them and overcome them. So that Americanism means 
 work, means effort, means the constant and unending 
 strife with our conditions, which is not only the law of 
 nature, if the race is to progress, but which is really the 
 law of the highest happiness for ourselves. 
 
 You have got to have the same interest in public affairs 
 as in private affairs or you cannot keep this country what 
 this country should be. You have got to have more 
 than-that — you 4iQve got to have courage. I don't 
 care how good a man is ; if he is timid, his value is limited. 
 The timid will not amount to very much in the world. 
 I want to see a good man ready to smite with the sword. 
 I want to see him able to hold his own in active life against 
 the force of evil. I want to see him war effectively for 
 righteousness. 
 
 Of all the things we don't want to see, the most unde- 
 sirable is the tendency to divide into two camps ; on the 
 one side all the nice, pleasant, refined people of high 
 instincts but no capacity to do work, and on the other 
 hand, men who have not got nice instincts at all, but 
 who are not afraid. When you get that condition, you 
 are preparing immeasurable disaster for the nation. 
 You have got to combine decency and honesty with 
 
Characteristic Ideals 93 
 
 courage. But even that is not enough, for I don't care 
 how brave, how honest a man is, if he is a natural-born 
 fool, he cannot be a success. He has got to have the 
 saving grace of common sense. He has got to have the 
 right kind of heart, he has got to be upright and decent, 
 he has got to be brave, and he has got to have common 
 sense. He has got to have intelligence, and if he has 
 these, then he has in him the making of a first-class Ameri- 
 can citizen. 
 
 AMERICA FOR MEI^ 
 
 Henry van Dyke (1852- ) 
 
 'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down 
 
 Among the famous palaces and cities of renown, 
 
 To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the 
 
 kings, — 
 But now I think Fve had enough of antiquated things. 
 
 So iVs home again, and home again, America for me! 
 My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be. 
 In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars. 
 Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of 
 stars. 
 
 Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air ; 
 And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair ; 
 And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study 
 
 Rome; 
 But when it comes to living, there is no place like home. 
 
 1 From " Poems of Henry van Dyke." Copyright, 1911, by Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York. Used by pernaission of the publishers. 
 
94 The American Spirit 
 
 I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled ; 
 I like the gardens of Versailles, with flashing fountains 
 
 fiUed; 
 But oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for 
 
 a day 
 In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her 
 
 way I 
 
 I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to 
 
 lack: 
 The Past is too much with her, and the people looking 
 
 back. 
 But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free, — 
 We love our land for what she is and what she is to be. 
 
 Oh, ifs home again, and home again, America for me! 
 I want a ship that's westward bound to plow the rolling 
 
 sea. 
 To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean 
 
 bars. 
 Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of 
 
 stars. 
 
IV. DEMOCRACY 
 
 ' DEMOCRACY 1 i 
 
 Harriet Monroe (1860- ) ■ 
 
 For, lo I the living God doth bare His arm. j 
 
 No more He makes His house of clouds and gloom. j 
 
 Lightly the shuttles move within His loom ; ': 
 
 Unveiled^His thunder leaps to meet the storm. | 
 
 From God's right hand man takes the powers that j 
 
 sway j 
 
 A universe of stars ; i 
 He bows them down, he bids them go or stay, 
 
 He tames them for his wars. j 
 He scans the burning paces of the sun, 
 And names the invisible orbs whose courses run 
 
 Through the dim deeps of space. I 
 
 He sees in dew upon a rose impearled ^ 
 
 The swarming legions of a monad world j 
 
 Begin life's upward race. ; 
 
 Voices of hope he hears j 
 
 Long dumb to his despair, 1 
 
 And dreams of golden years ^ 
 
 Meet for a world so fair. | 
 
 For now Democracy dares wake and rise ' 
 
 From the sweet sloth of youth. i 
 By storms made strong, by many dreams made wise, 
 
 He clasps the hand of Truth. 
 
 1 From the Columbian Ode, written by Miss Monroe for the dedica- ' 
 
 tion ceremonies of the World's Columbian Exposition, at which ' 
 
 it was read on the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of ' 
 
 America, October 21, 1892. Used by permission of the author. ' 
 
 95 
 
96 The American Spirit 
 
 Through the armed nations lies his path of peace, 
 
 The open book of knowledge in his hand. 
 Food to the starving, to the oppressed release, 
 And love to all he beeirs from land to leuid. 
 Before his march the barriers fall, 
 The law grows gentle at his call. 
 His glowing breath blows far away 
 The fogs that veil the coming day — 
 That wondrous day 
 When earth shall sing as through the blue she rolls. 
 Laden with joy for all her thronging souls. 
 Then shall want's call to sin resound no more 
 
 Across her teeming fields. And pain shall sleep, 
 Soothed by brave science with her magic lore. 
 
 And war no more shall bid the nations weep. 
 Then the worn chains shall sHp from man's desire, 
 And ever higher and higher 
 His swift foot shall aspire ; 
 Still deeper and more deep ' 
 
 His soul its watch shall keep, 
 Till love shall make the world a holy place, 
 Where knowledge dares unveil God's very face. 
 
 Not yet the angels hear life's last sweet song. 
 
 Music unutterably pure and strong 
 
 From earth shall rise to haunt the peopled skies. 
 
 When the long march of time, 
 Patient in birth and death, in growth and blight. 
 Shall lead man up through happy realms of light 
 
 Unto his goal sublime. 
 
Democracy 97 
 
 THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC i 
 
 George William Curtis (1824-1892) 
 
 There is no fellow citizen of ours, wherever he may be 
 today, whether saihng the remotest seas or wandering 
 among the highest Alps, however far removed, however 
 long separated from his home, who, as his eyes open 
 upon this glorious morning, does not . . . thank God 
 with all his heart that he too is an American. In imag- 
 ination he sees infinitely multiplied the very scene that 
 we behold. From every roof and gable, from every door 
 and window, of all the myriads of happy American homes 
 from the seaboard to the mountains, and from the moun- 
 tains still onward to the sea, the splendor of this summer 
 heaven is reflected in the starry beauty of the American 
 flag. From every steeple and tower in crowded cities 
 and towns, from the viUage belfry and the school-house 
 and meetinghouse on solitary country roads, ring out 
 the joyous peals. From countless thousands of reverent 
 lips ascends the voice of prayer. Everywhere the in- 
 spiring words of the great Declaration that we have heard, 
 the charter of our independence, the scripture of our 
 liberty, is read aloud in eager, in grateful ears. And 
 above aU, and under all, pulsing through all the praise 
 and prayer, from the frozen sea to the tropic gulf, from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific, the great heart of a great people 
 beats in fullness of joy, beats with pious exultation, that 
 here at last, upon our soil, — here, by the wisdom of our 
 
 * From an oration delivered at Northfield, New York, on the one 
 hundredth anniversary of our national independence. In "Ora- 
 tions and Addresses of George William Curtis," Vol. III. Copy- 
 right, 1893, by Harper & Brothers, New York. Used by permis- 
 sion of the publishers. 
 
98 The American Spirit 
 
 fathers and the bravery of our brothers, is founded a 
 republic, vast, fraternal, peaceful, upon the divine corner 
 stone of liberty, justice, and equal rights. 
 
 There have, indeed, been other republics, but they 
 were founded upon other 'principles. There are re- 
 publics in Switzerland today a thousand years old. But 
 Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden^ are pure democracies, 
 not larger than the county in which we hve, and wholly 
 unlike our vast national and representative republic. 
 Athens was a republic, but Marathon and Salamis, 
 battles whose names are melodious in the history of 
 liberty, were won by slaves. Rome was a repubUc, 
 but slavery degraded it to an empire. Venice, Genoa, 
 Florence, were republican cities ; but they were tyrants 
 over subject neighbors, and slaves of aristocrats at home. 
 There were republics in Holland, honorable forever, be- 
 cause from them we received our common schools, the 
 bulwark of American liberty; but they, too, were re- 
 publics of classes, not of the people. It was reserved 
 for our fathers to build a repubHc upon a declaration of 
 the equal rights of men ; to make the government as 
 broad as humanity; to found political institutions upon 
 faith in human nature. "The sacred rights of man- 
 kind," fervently exclaimed Alexander Hamilton, "are 
 not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty 
 records; they are written as with a sunbeam in the 
 whole volume of human nature, by the hand of Divinity 
 itself." That was the sublime faith in which this 
 century began. The world stared and sneered — the 
 difficulties and dangers were colossal. For more than 
 eighty years that Declaration remained only a declara- 
 
 1 Cantons of the Swiss Republic, which correspond to the states 
 of the American Union. 
 
Democracy 99 
 
 tion of faith. But, fellow citizens, fortunate beyond all 
 men, our eyes beheld its increasing fulfillment. The 
 sublime faith of the fathers is more and more the famihar 
 fact of the children. . . . 
 
 But we have learned, by sharp experience, that pros- 
 perity is girt with peril. In this hour of exultation we 
 will not scorn the wise voices of warning and censure, 
 the friendly and patriotic voices of the time. We will 
 not forget that the vital condition of national greatness 
 and prosperity is the moral character of the people. It 
 is not vast territory, a temperate chmate, exhaustless 
 mines, enormous wealth, amazing inventions, imperial 
 enterprises, magnificent pubHc works, a population 
 miraculously multipb'ed ; it is not busy shops, and hum- 
 ming mills, and flaming forges, and commerce that girdles 
 the globe with the glory of a flag, that make a nation 
 truly great. These are but opportunities. They are 
 like the health and strength and talents of a man, which 
 are not his character and manhood, but only the means 
 of their development. . . . 
 
 The country of a century ago was our fathers* small 
 estate. That of today is our noble heritage. FideHty 
 to the spirit and principles of our fathers wiU enable us 
 to deHver it enlarged, beautified, ennobled, to our children 
 of the new century. Unwavering faith in the absolute 
 supremacy of the moral law, the clear perception that 
 well-considered, thoroughly proved, and jealously guarded 
 institutions are the chief security of Hberty, and an un- 
 swerving loyalty to ideas made the men of the Revolu- 
 tion and secured American independence. The same 
 faith and the same loyalty will preserve that independence, 
 and secure progressive liberty forever. And here and 
 now, upon this sacred centennial altar, let us, at least, 
 
100 The American Spirit 
 
 swear that we will try public and private men by pre- 
 cisely the same moral standard ; and that no man who 
 directly or indirectly connives at corruption or coercion, 
 to acquire office or to retain it, or who prostitutes any 
 opportunity or position of public service to his own or 
 another's advantage, shall have our countenance or our 
 vote. The one thing that no man in this country is so 
 poor that he cannot own is his vote ; and he is bound to 
 use it not only honestly, but intelligently. Good govern- 
 ment does not come of itself ; it is the result of the skillful 
 cooperation of good and shrewd men. If they will not 
 combine, bad men will; and if they sleep, the devil 
 will sow tares. And, as we pledge ourselves to our fathers' 
 fidelity, we may well believe that in this hushed hour of 
 no6n their gracious spirits bend over us in benediction. 
 
 PECULIARITY OF AMERICAN LIRERTYi 
 
 Daniel Webster (1782-1852) 
 
 The inheritance which we enjoy today is not only an 
 inheritance of liberty, but of our own peculiar American 
 liberty. Liberty has existed in other times, in other 
 countries, and in other forms. There has been a Grecian 
 liberty, bold and powerful, full of spirit, eloquence, and 
 fire ; a Hberty which produced multitudes of great men, 
 and has transmitted one immortal name, the name of 
 Demosthenes, to posterity. But still it was a liberty 
 of disconnected states, sometimes united, indeed, by 
 temporary leagues and confederacies, but often involved 
 in wars between themselves. The sword of Sparta 
 
 1 From "An Address Delivered at the Laying of the Corner Stone 
 of the Addition to the Capitol, on July 4, 1851," in Works of Daniel 
 Webster, Vol. II. Printed by Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1853. 
 
Democmly JOl 
 
 turned its sharpest edge against Athens, enslaved her 
 and devastated Greece; and, in her turn, Sparta was 
 compelled to bend before the power of Thebes. And let 
 it ever be remembered, especially let the truth sink deep 
 into all American minds, that it was the want of union 
 among her several states which finally gave the mastery of 
 all Greece to Philip of Macedon. 
 
 And there has also been a Roman liberty, a proud, 
 ambitious, domineering spirit, professing free and popu- 
 lar principles in Rome itself; but even in the best days 
 of the republic ready to €arry slavery and chains into her 
 provinces, and through every country over which her 
 eagles could be borne. What was the liberty of Spain, 
 or Gaul, or Germany, or Rritain, in the days of Rome? 
 Did true constitutional liberty then exist ? As the Roman 
 Empire decHned, her provinces, not instructed in the prin- 
 ciples of free, popular government^ one after another de- 
 clined also ; and, when Rome herself fell in the end, all 
 fell together. 
 
 I have sjaid that our inheritance is an inheritance of 
 American liberty. That liberty is characteristic, peculiar, 
 and altogether our own. Nothing like it existed in former 
 times, nor was known in the most enlightened states of 
 antiquity; while with us its principles have become 
 interwoven into the minds of individual men, connected with 
 our daily opinions and our daily habits, until it is, if I may 
 say so, an element of social as well as political life ; and 
 the consequence is, that to whatever region an American 
 citizen carries himself, he takes with him, fully developed 
 in his own understanding and experience, our American 
 principles and opinions; and becomes ready at once, in 
 cooperation with others, to apply them to the formation 
 of new governments. . . . 
 
10^ , : ., . , 'The American Spirit 
 
 FREEDOM 1 
 
 Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) 
 
 Freedom all winged expands, 
 
 Nor perches in a narrow place ; 
 
 Her broad van seeks unplanted lands ; 
 
 She loves a poor and virtuous race. 
 
 Clinging to a colder zone 
 
 Whose dark sky sheds the snowflake down, 
 
 The snowflake is her banner's star, 
 
 Her stripes the boreal streamers are. 
 
 Long she loved the Northmen well ; 
 
 Now the iron age is done, 
 
 She wiU not refuse to dwell 
 
 With the off'spring of the sun ; 
 
 Foundling of the desert far. 
 
 Where palms plume, siroccos blaze, 
 
 He roves unhurt the burning ways 
 
 In climates of the summer star. 
 
 He has avenues to God 
 
 Hid from men of Northern brain. 
 
 Far beholding, without cloud. 
 
 What these with slowest steps attain. 
 
 1 Emerson's fame rests chiefly upon his essays, and upon a few 
 poems of a high order deahng with nature and with the movement 
 against the tyrannies of the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 "Voluntaries," in which this selection is to be found, belongs to 
 the latter group. While this poem was written with specific refer- 
 ence to African slavery, the spirit of it finds in our own times 
 peculiar application to the twentieth-century problem of upHfting 
 backward and oppressed peoples. 
 
 From Emerson's Complete Works, Vol. IX. Copyright, 1883, 
 by Edward W. Emerson. PubUshed by Houghton Mifflin Com- 
 pany, Boston. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
Democracy 103 
 
 If once the generous chief arrive 
 To lead him willing to be led, 
 For freedom he will strike and strive 
 And drain his heart till he be dead. 
 
 In an age of fops and toys, l 
 
 Wanting wisdom, void of right, i 
 
 Who shall nerve heroic boys | 
 To hazard all in Freedom's fight, — 
 
 Break sharply off their jolly games, ; 
 
 Forsake their comrades gay, i 
 And quit proud homos and youthful dames, 
 
 For famine, toil, and fray ? \ 
 
 Yet on the nimble air benign ! 
 
 Speed nimbler messages, 1 
 
 That waft the breath of grace divine \ 
 
 To hearts in sloth and ease. j 
 
 So nigh is grandeur to our dust, j 
 
 So near is God to man, I 
 
 When Duty whispers low. Thou must, ' 
 The youth rephes, / can. 
 
 WHAT CONSTITUTES A STATE P ^ ] 
 
 Sir William Jones (1746-1794) j 
 
 ,1 
 What constitutes a State ? 
 Not high-raised battlement or labored mound. 
 
 Thick wall, or moated gate ; 
 
 Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned ; ! 
 
 1 From "An Ode in Imitation of Alcaeus," in Works of Sir William , 
 
 Jones, Vol. IV. Printed for G. G. and J. Robinson and R. H. ; 
 
 Evans, London, 1799. j 
 
 s 
 
104 The American Spirit 
 
 Not bays and broad-armed ports 
 Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 
 
 Not starred and spangled courts, 
 Where low-brow'd baseness wafts perfume to pride ; 
 
 No : — Men I high-minded men. 
 
 Men who their duties know, 
 But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain. 
 
 Prevent the long-aimed blow, 
 And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain : 
 
 These constitute a State. 
 
 LIBERTY 1 
 
 John Hay (1838-1905) \ 
 
 What man is there so bold that he should say : \ 
 
 "Thus, and thus only, would I have the sea" ? } 
 
 For whether lying calm and beautiful, | 
 
 Clasping the earth in love, and throwing back i 
 
 The smile of heaven from waves of amethyst ; j 
 
 Or whether, freshened by the busy winds, j 
 
 It bears the trade and navies of the world ] 
 
 To ends of use or stern activity ; 3 
 
 Or whether, lashed by tempests, it gives way ; 
 To elemental fury, howls and roars 
 
 At all its rocky barriers, in wild lust I 
 
 ^ An American author and statesman, Mr. Hay was private ! 
 
 secretary to President Lincoln and his chief biographer. In 1897 \ 
 
 he was appointed Ambassador to Great Britain and later was | 
 
 Secretary of State under President McKinley. j 
 
 From Complete Poetical Works of John Hay. Copyright, i 
 
 1916, by Clarence L. Hay. Published by Houghton Mifflin Com- ' 
 
 pany, Boston. Used by permission of the publishers. i 
 
Democracy 105 
 
 Of ruin, drinks the blood of living things 
 
 And strews its wrecks o'er leagues of desolate shore, — 
 
 Always it is the sea, and men bow down 
 
 Before its vast and varied majesty. 
 
 So all in vain will timorous ones essay 
 
 To set the metes and bounds of Liberty. 
 
 For Freedom is its own eternal law ; 
 
 It makes its own conditions, and in storm 
 
 Or calm alike fulfills the unerring Will. 
 
 Let us not then despise it when it lies 
 
 Still as a sleeping lion, while a swarm 
 
 Of gnathke evils hover round its head ; 
 
 Nor doubt it when in mad, disjointed times 
 
 It shakes the torch of terror, and its cry 
 
 Shrills o'er the quaking earth, and in the flame 
 
 Of riot and war we see its awful form 
 
 Rise by the scaffold, where the crimson ax 
 
 Rings down its grooves and knell of shuddering kings. 
 
 For ever in thine eyes, Liberty, 
 
 Shines that high fight whereby the world is saved, 
 
 And though thou slay us, we will trust in thee I 
 
 THE THIRTIETH MAN ^ 
 
 John H. Finley (1863- ) 
 
 It has been estimated that in thickly settled commu- 
 nities one person in about thirty adults is a pubfic servant, 
 that is, goes up and down in some vicarious capacity for 
 
 ^Baccalaureate address, June, 1911, when the author was president 
 of the College of the City of New York. Used by permission of 
 the author. 
 
106 The American Spirit 
 
 the other twenty-nine. The ratio varies somewhat accord- 
 ing to the density or sparseness of the population, but 
 for the present purpose let us assume that one man in 
 thirty is so engaged. This thirtieth man sweeps the 
 streets of the city. He is pontifex of the country roads. 
 He lights the lamps when the natural hghts of heaven go 
 out, and extinguishes the fires of the earth. With one 
 hand he gathers our letters of affection or business, and 
 with the other distributes them in the remotest cabins 
 on the mountains. He weighs the wind, reads the por- 
 tent of the clouds, and gives augur of heat and cold. He 
 makes wells in the dry valleys and fills the pools with 
 water. He tests the milk before the city child may drink 
 it. He tests and labels the food of the stores and shops ; 
 he corrects false balances and short measures, and he 
 keeps watch over forest and stream; he gives warning 
 of rocks and shoals to men at sea, and of plague and poison 
 to those on land. He is warden of fish and bird and wild 
 beast ; he is host to the homeless and shelterless ; he is 
 guardian and nurse to the child who comes friendless into 
 the world, and he is chaplain at the burial of the man who 
 goes friendless out of it. He is assessor and collector of 
 taxes — treasurer and comptroller ; he is the teacher of 
 seventeen miUion children, youths, men, and women. 
 He is public librarian and maker of books, overseer of the 
 poor and superintendent, doctor, nurse, and guard, in 
 hospital, prison, and almshouse ; coroner and keeper of 
 the potter's field. He is mayor, judge, pubhc prosecutor, 
 sheriff. He is a soldier in the army and a sailor in the 
 navy; general, admiral, legislator, justice, member of 
 the Cabinet, governor, and president. 
 
 It has been said that "democracy is always dreaming 
 of a nation of kings" ; kings in the sense of men who are 
 
Democracy 107 
 
 monarchs of themselves at least, clear-visioned, strong- 
 willed, clean- virtued sovereigns. It is of that dreaming, 
 of that longing, that we have been educated. But in 
 another sense the "kings" of democracy are these "thir- 
 tieth men," anointed, appointed, not by some far-seeing 
 prophet Uving apart from the people, but selected of the 
 hurried and often fickle desires of men, in the midst of the 
 struggle for existence. The casting of votes for such 
 kings, in rough boxes in tailor shops or barber shops or 
 like places, does not impress one with the importance 
 and sacredness of the franchise. And yet the timid 
 journey of Samuel to a village in Judaea to anoint the son 
 of Jesse to kingship was not a more significant pilgrimage 
 than is that of a mechanic, merchant, or lawyer who goes 
 into the booth to cast his vote for the thirtieth man in a 
 repubhc. 
 
 Many of you will be called to act as pubhc servants. All 
 of you, by the very fact of your education, will be called 
 to pubhc service. Did any king of ancient or even modern 
 times, for example, have a higher commission than that 
 which one generation gives to a teacher in its pubhc 
 school, coUege, or university, to prepare its children for 
 a better, happier, nobler Uving in the next generation? 
 Can you imagine a king anointed to a hoher service than 
 that to which a nurse is set apart, of pubhc sympathy 
 and true unselfishness? Or a doctor, bacteriologist, or 
 health officer, guarding against the pestilence that walks 
 in darkness? Or the pubhc-spirited citizen with no axes 
 to grind, throwing hght upon the path that leads to better 
 government ? It is to such service that you will be called. 
 You will be in the pubhc service. You will be kings of 
 whom democracy is dreaming. 
 
108 The American Spirit 
 
 LABOR AND DEMOCRACY * 
 
 We have passed the period when any one nation can 
 maintain its freedom irrespectively of other nations. 
 CiviUzation has closely linked nations together by the 
 ties of commerce, and quick communication, common 
 interests, problems, and purposes. The future of free 
 nations will depend upon their joint ability to devise 
 agencies for deahng with their common affairs so that 
 the greatest opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness may be assured to all. 
 
 This matter of world democracy is of vital interest to 
 Labor. Labor is not a sect or a peirty. It represents the 
 invincible desire for greater opportunity of the masses 
 of all nations. Labor is the brawn, sinews, and brains 
 of society. It is the user of tools. Tools under the crea- 
 tive power of muscle and brains shape the materials of 
 civilization. Labor makes possible every great forward 
 movement of the world. But Labor is inseparable from 
 physical and spiritual Hfe and progress. Labor now 
 makes it possible that this titanic struggle for democratic 
 freedom can be made. 
 
 The common people everywhere are hungry for wider 
 opportunities to Uve. They have shown the wilUngness to 
 spend or be spent for an ideal. They are in this war for 
 ideals. . . . President Wilson's statement of war aims 
 has been unreservedly endorsed by British organized labor. 
 It is in absolute hgirmony with, the fundamentals endorsed 
 by the Buffalo convention of the American Federation of 
 Labor. 
 
 ^ From the declaration issued by the American Federation of 
 Labor at its regular meeting in Washington, February 10-17, 1918, 
 and reprinted in the American Federaiionist for March, 1918. Used 
 by permission of Samuel Gompers. 
 
Democracy 109 
 
 We are at war for those ideals. Our first big casualty 
 list has brought to every home the harass and the sacrifices 
 of W8ir. This is only the beginning. A gigantic struggle 
 lies just ahead that will test to the uttermost the endur- 
 ance and the abiUty and the spirit of our people. That 
 struggle will be fought out in the mines, farms, shops, mills, 
 shipyards, as well as on the battlefield. Soldiers and 
 sailors are helpless if the producers do not do their part. 
 Every link in the chain of the mobilization of the fighting 
 force and necessary supplies is indispensable in winning 
 the war against mihtarism and principles of unfreedom. 
 
 The worker who fastens the rivets in building the ship 
 is performing just as necessary war service to our Republic 
 as the sailor who takes the ship across or the gunner in 
 the trenches. 
 
 This is a time when all workers must soberly face the 
 grave importance of their daily work and decide industrial 
 matters with a conscience mindful' of the world relation 
 of each act. 
 
 The problem of production indispensable to preventing 
 unnecessary slaughter of fellow men is squarely up to 
 all workers, — aye, to employees and employers. Pro- 
 duction depends upon materials, tools, management, 
 and the development and maintenance of industrial 
 morale. WiUing cooperation comes not only from doing 
 justice, but from receiving justice. The worker is a 
 human being, whose fife has value and dignity to him. 
 He is wiUing to sacrifice for an ideal, but not for the selfish 
 gain of another. Justice begets peace. Consideration 
 begets cooperation. These conditions are essential to 
 war production. Production is necessary to win the war. 
 
 Upon the government and upon employers falls the 
 preponderance of responsibility to securing greatest 
 
110 The American Spirit 
 
 efficiency from workers. Standard of human welfare 
 and consideration of the human side of production are 
 part of the technique of efficient production. 
 
 Give workers a decent place to Hve, protect them 
 against conditions which take all their wages for bare 
 existence, give them agencies whereby grievances can 
 be adjusted and industrial justice assured, make it 
 plain that their labor counts in the winning a war for 
 greater freedom, not for private profiteering, and 
 workers can be confidently expected to do their part. 
 Workers are loyal. They want to do their share for the 
 Republic eind for winning the war. 
 
 This is Labor's war. It must be won by Labor, and 
 every stage in the fighting and the final victory must 
 be made to count for humanity. That result only can 
 justify the awful sacrifice. 
 
 HOW DEMOCRACY SURPASSES MONARCHY ^ 
 
 Andrew Sloan Draper (1848-1913) 
 
 All Americans are optimists. There may be a few stop- 
 ping with us who are not, — but they are not Americans. 
 The expectations of the nation are boundless. We will 
 fix no upper fimits. Those expectations are not gross; 
 they are genuine and sincere, moral and high-minded. 
 They are the issue of a mighty world movement; the 
 splendid product of the best thinking and the hardest 
 struggling for a thousand years. 
 
 1 Dr. Draper was Commissioner of Education for the state of 
 New York for many years preceding his death. 
 From "The Nation's Educational Purpose," an official pamphlet 
 issued by the National Education Association, 1905. 
 
Democracy 111 
 
 Our critics say that we are boastful. We will not put 
 them to the trouble of proving it ; we admit it. It is a 
 matter of definition, or of terminology. We have self-con- 
 fidence born of knowledge and of accomplishment. We 
 know something of the doctrine of constants. There is 
 logic which is as sure as the sun. The nation believes in 
 the stars which are in the heavens, and it also believes in 
 the stars which* are upon the flag. It knows its history, it 
 understands its constituent elements ; it has definite pur- 
 poses ; it expects to go forward ; it beUeves in itself. 
 
 . . . None wiU deny now that the real growth of the 
 nation must be in soberness, in coherence, in balance, in 
 moderation, in reserve power, in administrative effective- 
 ness. Growth in numbers is inevitable. Growth in 
 moral sense and in respect for law must surpass the 
 growth in numbers in order to cope with it. 
 
 . . . We have no fear of consequences. We rest our 
 future upon the faith that the happiness and the benefi- 
 cent influence of America must rest upon the average of 
 enlightenment, upon the measure of serious and potential 
 work, and upon the attendant level of moral character, 
 attainable by all the men and women who live under our 
 flag. 
 
 The corner-stone principle of our political theory coin- 
 cides absolutely with the fundamental doctrine of our 
 moral law. All men and women are to be intellectually 
 quickened and made industriaUy potential to the very 
 limits of sane and balanced character. • The moral sense 
 of the people is determined by it, and the nation's great- 
 ness is measured by it. Before this fact the prerogative 
 of a monarch or the comfort of a class is of no account. 
 Before it every other consideration must give way. It is 
 right here that democracies that can hold together surpass 
 
112 The American Spirit 
 
 monarchies. It is for this reason that the progressive will 
 of an intelligent people is better than the hereditary and 
 arbitrary power of kings. ... 
 
 THE INFLUENCE OF THE WEST UPON 
 DEMOCRACY i 
 
 Frederick Jackson Turner (18^1- ) 
 
 From the beginning of the settlement of America, the" 
 frontier regions have exercised a steady influence toward 
 democracy. In Virginia, to take an example, it can be 
 traced as early as the period of Bacon's Rebellion, a 
 hundred years before our Declaration of Independence. 
 The small land-holders, seeing that their powers were 
 steadily passing into the hands of the wealthy planters 
 who controlled Church and State and lands, rose in re- 
 volt. A generation later, in the governorship of Alex- 
 ander Spotswood, we find a contest between the frontier 
 settlers and the property-holding classes of the coast. 
 The democracy with which Spotswood had to struggle, 
 and of which he so bitterly complained, was a democracy 
 made up of small landholders, of the newer immigrants, 
 and of indented servants, who at the expiration of their 
 time of servitude passed into the interior to take up 
 lands and engage in pioneer farming. The "War of the 
 Regulation" just on the eve of the AmericEin Revolution 
 shows the steady persistence of this struggle between the 
 classes of the interior and those of the coast. The Declara- 
 
 ^ From an article in the Atlantic Monthly for January, 1903, entitled 
 "'Contributions of the West to American Democracy." (See 
 "Western Idealism," Section I, page 22.) Used by permission of 
 the author and of the Atlantic Monthly Company. 
 
Democracy US 
 
 tion of Grievances which the back counties of the Caro- 
 linas then drew up against the aristocracy that dominated 
 the politics of these colonies exhibits the contest between 
 the democracy of the frontier and the estabHshed classes 
 who apportioned the legislature in such fashion as to 
 secure effective control of government. Indeed, in a 
 period before the outbreak of the American Revolution, 
 one can trace a distinct belt of democratic territory 
 extending from the back country of New England down 
 through western New York, Pennsylvania, and the 
 South. In each colony this region was in conflict with 
 the dominant classes of the coast. It constituted a 
 quasi-revolutionary area before the days of the Revolu- 
 tion, and it formed the basis on which the Democratic 
 Party was afterwards established. It was, therefore, in 
 the West, as it was in the period before the Declaration 
 of Independence, that the struggle for democratic devel- 
 opment first revealed itself, and in that area the essen- 
 tial ideas of American democracy had already appeared. 
 Through the period of the Revolution and of the Con- 
 federation a similar contest can be noted. On the frontier 
 of New England, along the western border of Pennsyl- 
 vania, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and in the communities 
 beyond the Alleghany Mountains, there arose a demand of 
 the frontier settlers for independent statehood based on 
 democratic provisions. There is a strain of fierceness 
 in their energetic petitions demanding self-government 
 under the theory that every people have the right to 
 establish their own political institutions in an area which 
 they have won from the wilderness. These revolutionary 
 principles based on natural rights, for which the sea- 
 board colonies were contending, were taken up with 
 frontier energy in an attempt to apply them to the lands 
 
114 The American Spirit 
 
 of the West. No one can read their petitions denouncing 
 the control exercised by the wealthy landholders of the 
 coast, appealing to the record of their conquest of the 
 wilderness, and demanding the possession of the lands 
 for which they had fought the Indians and which they 
 had reduced by their ax to civihzation, without recogniz- 
 ing in these frontier communities the cradle of a belliger- 
 ent Western democracy. "A fool can sometimes put on 
 bis coat better than a wise man can do it for him," — 
 such is the philosophy of its petitions. . . . 
 
 The last chapter in the development of Western de- 
 mocracy is the one that deals with its conquest over the 
 vast spaces of the new West. At each new stage of 
 Western development the people have had to grapple 
 with larger areas, with vaster combinations. The little 
 colony of Massachusetts veterans that settled at Mari- 
 etta received a land grant as large as the State of Rhode 
 Island. The band of Connecticut pioneers that followed 
 Moses Cleaveland to the Connecticut Reserve occupied 
 a region as large as the parent State. The area which 
 settlers of New England stock occupied on the prairies 
 of northern Illinois surpassed the combined area of Mas- 
 sachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Men who had 
 become accustomed to the narrow valleys and the little 
 towns of the East found themselves out on the bound- 
 less spaces of the West deaUng with units of such magni- 
 tude as dwarfed their former experience. The Great 
 Lakes, the prairies, the Great Plains, the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, the Mississippi and the Missouri, furnished new 
 standards of measurement for the achievement of this 
 industrial democracy. Individualism began to give way 
 to cooperation and to governmental activity. Even in 
 the earlier days of the democratic conquest of the wilder- 
 
Democracy 115 
 
 ness, demands had been made upon the Government 
 for support in internal improvements, but this new 
 West showed a growing tendency to call to its assistance 
 the powerful arm of National authority. In the period 
 since the Civil War, the vast public domain has been 
 donated to the individual farmer, to States for educa- 
 tion, to railroads for the construction of transportation 
 lines. Moreover, with the advent of democracy in the 
 last fifteen years upon the Great Plains, new physical 
 conditions have presented themselves which have ac- 
 celerated the social tendency of Western democracy. 
 The pioneer farmer of the days of Lincoln could place 
 his family on the flatboat, strike into the wilderness, 
 cut out his clearing, and with httle or no capital go 
 on to the achievement of industrial independence. . . . 
 But when the arid lands and the mineral* resources of the 
 Far West were reached, no conquest was possible by 
 the old individual pioneer methods. Here expensive 
 irrigation works must be constructed, cooperative ac- 
 tivity was demanded in utilization of the water supply, 
 capital beyond the reach of the small farmer was required. 
 In a word, the physiographic province itself decreed that 
 the destiny of this new frontier should be social rather 
 than individual. 
 
116 The American Spirit 
 
 DEMOCRACY! 
 
 James Russell Lowell 
 
 There can be no doubt that the spectacle of a great and 
 prosperous Democracy on the other side of the Atlantic 
 must react powerfully on the aspirations and political 
 theories of men in the Old World who do not find things 
 to their mind. . . . People are continually saying that 
 America is in the air, and I am glad to think it is, since 
 this means only that a clearer conception of human 
 claims and human duties is beginning to be prevalent. 
 The discontent with the existing order of things, how- 
 ever, pervaded the atmosphere wherever the conditions 
 were favorable, long before Columbus, seeking the back 
 door of Asia, found himself knocking at the front door 
 of America. I say wherever the conditions were favor- 
 able, for it is certain that the germs of disease do not 
 stick or find a prosperous field for their development and 
 noxious activity unless where the simplest sanitary pre- 
 cautions have been neglected. "For this effect defective 
 comes by cause," as Polonius said long ago. It is only 
 by instigation of the wrongs of men that what are called 
 the Rights of Man become turbulent and dangerous. 
 It is then only that they syllogize unwelcome truths. It 
 
 * Extracts from inaugural address on assuming the presidency of the 
 Birmingham and Midland Institute, Birmingham, England, Octo- 
 ber 6, 1884. Mr. Lowell was then American ambassador to Great 
 Britain. 
 
 From "liiterary and Political Addresses," in Lowell's Poetical 
 Works (Riverside Edition), Vol. I. Copyright, 1890, by James 
 Russell Lowell. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 
 Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
Democracy 117 
 
 is not the insurrections of ignorance that are dangerous, 
 but the revolts of inteUigence : 
 
 The wicked and the weak rebel in vain, 
 Slaves by their own compulsion. 
 
 Had the governing classes in France during the last century 
 paid as much heed to their proper business as to their 
 pleasures or manners, the guillotine need never have 
 severed that spinal marrow of orderly and secular tradi- 
 tion through which in a normally constituted state the 
 brain sympathizes with the extremities and sends will and 
 impulsion thither. It is only when the reasonable and 
 practicable are denied that men demand the unreasonable 
 and impracticable ; only when the possible is made difficult 
 that they fancy the impossible to be easy. Fairy tales 
 are made out of the dreams of the poor. No ; the senti- 
 ment which lies at the root of democracy is nothing new. 
 I am speaking always of a sentiment, a spirit, and not of 
 a form of government ; for this was but the outgrowth of 
 the other and not its cause. This sentiment is merely an 
 expression of the natural wish of people to have a hand, 
 if need be a controlling hand, in the management of their 
 own affairs. What is new is that they are more and more 
 gaining that control, and learning more and more how to 
 be worthy of it. What we used to call the tendency or 
 drift — what we are being taught to call more wisely the 
 evolution of things — has for some time been setting 
 steadily in this direction. There is no good in arguing 
 with the inevitable. The only argument available with 
 an east wind is to put on your overcoat. And in this case, 
 also, the prudent will prepare themselves to encounter what 
 they cannot prevent. Some people advise us to put on 
 the brakes, as if the movement of which we are conscious 
 
118 The American Spirit 
 
 were that of a railway train running down an incline. But 
 a metaphor is no argument, though it be sometimes the 
 gunpowder to drive one home and imbed it in the memory. 
 Our disquiet comes of what nurses and other experienced 
 persons call growing-pains, and need not seriously alarm 
 us. They are what every generation before us — cer- 
 tainly every generation since the invention of printing — 
 has gone through with more or less good fortune. To the 
 door of every generation there comes a knocking, and 
 unless the household, like the Than^e of Cawdor and his 
 wife,^ have been doing some deed without a name, they 
 need not shudder. It turns out at worst to be a poor 
 relation who wishes to come in out of the cold. The 
 porter always grumbles and is slow to open. "Who's 
 there, in the name of Beelzebub .^^ " he mutters. Not a 
 change for the better in our human housekeeping has ever 
 taken place that wise and good men have not opposed it, 
 — have not prophesied with the alderman that the world 
 would wake up to find its throat cut in consequence of it. 
 The world, on the contrary, wakes up, rubs its eyes, yawns, 
 stretches itself, and goes about its business as if nothing 
 had happened. Suppression of the slave trade, abolition 
 of slavery, trade unions, — at all of these excellent people 
 shook their heads despondingly, and murmured " Ichabod.'* 
 But the trade unions are now debating instead of conspir- 
 ing, and we all read their discussions with comfort and 
 hope, sure that they are learning the business of citizenship 
 and the difficulties of practical legislation. . . . 
 
 We hear it said sometimes that this is an age of tran- 
 sition, as if that made matters clearer ; but can any one 
 point us to an age that was not ? If he could, he would 
 
 1 A reference to Macbeth and his wife, of Shakespeare's tragedy, 
 who had murdered their king. 
 
Democracy 119 
 
 show us an age of stagnation. The question for us, as it 
 has been for all before us, is to make the transition gradual 
 and easy, to see that our points are right so that the train 
 may not come to grief. For we should remember that 
 nothing is more natural for people whose education has 
 been neglected than to spell evolution with an initial "r." 
 A great man struggling with the storms of fate has been 
 called a subhme spectacle; but surely a great man 
 wrestling with these new forces that have come into the 
 world, mastering them and controUing them to beneficent 
 ends, would be a yet sublimer. Here is not a danger, and 
 if there were it would be only a better school of manhood, 
 a nobler scope for ambition. I have hinted that what 
 people are afraid of in democracy is less the thing itself 
 than what they conceive to be its necessary adjuncts and 
 consequences. It is supposed to reduce all mankind to a 
 dead level of mediocrity in character and culture, to vul- 
 garize men's conceptions of life, and therefore their code 
 of morals, manners, and conduct — to endanger the rights 
 of property and possession. But I believe that the real 
 gravamen of the charges hes in the habit it has of making 
 itself generally disagreeable by asking the Powers that Be 
 at the most inconvenient moment whether they are the 
 powers that ought to be. If the powers that be are in a 
 condition to give a satisfactory answer to this inevitable 
 question, they need feel in no way discomfited by it. 
 
 Few people take the trouble of trying to find out what 
 democracy really is. Yet this would be a great help, for 
 it is our lawless and uncertain thoughts, it is the indefinite- 
 ness of our impressions^ that fill darkness, whether mental 
 or physical, with specters and hobgobfins. Democracy 
 is nothing more than an experiment in government, more 
 likely to succeed in a new soil, but likely to be tried in all 
 
120 The American Spirit 
 
 soils, which must stand or fall on its own merits as others 
 have done before it. For there is no trick of perpetual 
 motion in politics any more than in mechanics. President 
 Lincoln defined democracy to be "the government of the 
 people by the people for the people." This is a sufficiently 
 compact statement of it as a political £U'rangement. 
 Theodore Parker said that "Democracy meant not 'I'm 
 as good as you are,' but 'You're as good as I am.'" And 
 this is the ethical conception of it, necessary as a comple- 
 ment of the other ; a conception which, could it be made 
 actual and practical, would easily solve all the riddles 
 that the old sphinx of political and social economy who 
 sits by the roadside has been proposing to mankind from 
 the beginning, and which mankind have shown such a 
 singular talent for answering wrongly. In this sense 
 Christ was the first true democrat that ever breathed, as 
 the old dramatist Dekker said he was the first true gentle- 
 man. The characters may be easily doubled, so strong 
 is the likeness between them. . . . 
 
 All free governments, whatever their name, are in reality 
 governments by public opinion, and it is on the quahty of 
 his public opinion that their prosperity depends. It is, 
 therefore, their first duty to purify the element from which 
 they draw the breath of fife. With the growth of democ- 
 racy grows also the fear, if not the danger, that this at- 
 mosphere may be corrupted with poisonous exhalations 
 from lower and more malarious levels, and the question 
 of sanitation becomes more instant and pressing. De- 
 mocracy in its best sense is merely the letting in of light 
 and air. Lord Sherbrooke, with his usual epigramrnatic 
 terseness, bids you educate your future rulers. But would 
 this alone be a sufficient safeguard.^ To educate the in- 
 telligence is to enlarge the horizon of its desires and wants. 
 
Democracy 121 
 
 And it is well that this should be so. But the enterprise 
 must go deeper and prepare the way for satisfying those 
 desires and wants in so far as they are legitimate. What 
 is really ominous of danger to the existing order of things 
 is not democracy (which, properly understood, is a con- 
 servative force), but the Socialism which may find a ful- 
 crum in it. If we cannot equahze conditions and fortunes 
 any more than we can equalize the brains of men — and 
 a very sagacious person has said that "where two men 
 ride on a horse one must ride behind" — we can yet, 
 perhaps, do something to correct those methods and in- 
 fluences that lead to enormous inequalities, and to prevent 
 their growing more enormous. . . . 
 
 I do not beUeve in violent changes, nor do I expect them. 
 Things in possession have a very firm grip. One of the 
 strongest cements of society is the conviction of mankind 
 that the state of things into which they are born is a part 
 of the order of the universe, as natural, let us say, as that 
 the sun should go round the earth. It is a conviction that 
 they will not surrender except on compulsion, and a wise 
 society should look to it that this compulsion be not put 
 upon them. For the individual man there is no radical 
 cure, outside of human nature itself, for the evils to which 
 human nature is heir. The rule will always hold good 
 that you must 
 
 Be your own palace or the world's your jail. 
 
 But for artificial evils, for evils that spring from want of 
 thought, thought must find a remedy somewhere. There 
 has been no period of time in which wealth has been more 
 sensible of its duties than now. It builds hospitals, it 
 establishes missions among the poor, it endows schools. 
 It is one of the advantages of accumulated wealth, and of 
 
122 The American Spirit 
 
 the leisure it renders possible, that people have time to 
 think of the wants and sorrows of their fellows. But all 
 these remedies are partial and palUative merely. It is as 
 if we should apply plasters to a single pustule of the small- 
 pox with a view of driving out the disease. The true way 
 is to discover and to extirpate the germs. As society is 
 now constituted these are in the air it breathes, in the water 
 it drinks, in things that seem, and which it has always 
 believed, to be the most innocent and healthful. The evil 
 element it neglects corrupt these in their springs and pol- 
 lute them in their courses. Let us be of good cheer, how- 
 ever, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear 
 are those which never come. The world has outhved 
 much, and will outlive a great deal more, and men have 
 contrived to be happy in it. It has showli the strength 
 of its constitution in nothing more than in surviving the 
 quack medicines it has tried. In the scales of the destinies 
 brawn wiU never weigh so much as brain. Our healing is 
 not in the storm or in the whirlwind, it is not in monarchies, 
 or aristocracies, or democracies, but will be revealed by 
 the still small voice that speaks to the conscience and 
 the heart, prompting us to a wider and wiser humanity. 
 
i 
 
 I 
 
 V. DEMOCRACY AND LIFE \ 
 
 A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT^ ! 
 
 Robert Burns (1759-1796) : 
 
 1 
 
 Is there for honest poverty 1 
 
 That hings his head, an' a' that ? ^ 
 
 The coward slave, we pass him by, — I 
 
 We dare be poor for a' that I ' 
 
 For a' that, an' a' that, J 
 
 Our toils obscure, an' a' that, j 
 
 The rank is but the guinea's ^ stamp, 
 
 The man's the gowd ^ for a' that. i 
 
 What though on hamely fare we dine, 
 
 Wear hodden gray an' a' that ? ] 
 
 Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine — 1 
 
 A man's a man for a' that. | 
 
 For a' that, an' a' that, \ 
 
 Their tinsel show, an' a' that : ) 
 
 The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, ; 
 
 Is king o' men for a' that. i 
 
 1 The largest element in the population of colonial America, next ^ 
 to that of the Enghsh, was that contributed by the Scotch and ; 
 Scotch-Irish. Driven from home by economic pressure and political ^ 
 oppression, these people were scattered throughout all the colonies ' 
 and took a notable part in the Revolution. The democratic senti- 
 ment to which they were ardently devoted was nowhere better ; 
 expressed than in this the best-known poem of their beloved bard. 1 
 It thus constitutes in a true and peculiar way an expression of the i 
 American spirit. . 
 From "The Edinburgh Book of Scottish Verse," published by 1 
 Meiklejohn and Holden, London, 1910. \ 
 
 « An English gold piece worth about $5.00. 
 
 •Gold. ■ 
 
 123 j 
 
124 The American Spirit 
 
 Ye see yon birkie, ca'd " a lord," 
 
 Wha struts an' stares, an' a' that ? 
 Tho' hundreds worship at his word. 
 He's but a cuif for a' that. 
 For a' that, an' a' that. 
 
 His riband, star,^ an' a' that, 
 The man o' independent mind. 
 He looks an' laughs at a' that. 
 
 A prince can mak' a belted knight, 
 
 A marquis, duke, an' a' that I 
 But an honest man's aboon ^ his might, — 
 Guid faith, he mauna fa' that I 
 For a' that, an' a' that, 
 
 Their dignities an' a' that, 
 The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, 
 Are higher rank than a' that. 
 
 Then let us pray that come it may, 
 
 (As come it will for a' that) 
 That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth, 
 Shall bear the gree,^ an' a' that. 
 For a' that, an' a' that. 
 
 It's comin' yet, for a' that. 
 That man to man, the world o'er, 
 Shall brithers be for a' that. 
 
 * Reference to the badges of the various orders of nobiUty. 
 
 * Above. 
 
 * Win the honor or a prize, a phrase from the language of chivalry. 
 
Democracy and Life 125 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL OF LABORS 
 
 Orville Dewey (1794-1882) 
 
 Ashamed to toil art thou? Ashamed of thy dingy 
 workshop and dusty labor field ; of thy hard hand, scarred 
 with service more honorable than that of war; of thy 
 soiled and weather-stained geirments, on which Mother 
 Nature has stamped, 'midst sun and rain, 'midst fire 
 and steam, her own heraldic honors ? Ashamed of these 
 tokens and titles, and envious of the flaunting robes of 
 imbecile idleness and vanity? It is treason to Nature; 
 it is impiety to Heaven ; it is breaking Heaven's great 
 ordinance. Toil, I repeat — toil, either of the brain, 
 of the heart, or of the hand, is the only true manhood, 
 the only true nobility I 
 
 WORK 2 
 
 Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) 
 
 There Is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, 
 in Work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of his 
 high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually 
 
 1 From "The Arts of Industry," in Works of Orville Dewey, 
 published by Charles S. Francis, 1861. 
 
 * Carlyle was a Scottish essayist and a critic representing the 
 democratic extreme of the Victorian literary group. His rugged 
 character, matched by his rugged style, was quite at variance with 
 the ideals dominant at the time, but both in his criticisms and in 
 his constructive suggestions he was the most forceful preacher of 
 the spirit of democratic realism which, during the period of his 
 literary activities, was most rapidly developing in America. 
 From chapter on "Labor" in "Past and Present." Thomas 
 Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. Published by Chapman and 
 Hall, London, 1843. 
 
126 The American Spirit 
 
 and earnestly works ; in Idleness alone is there perpetual 
 despair. Work, never so mammonish, is in communication 
 with Nature ; the real desire to get Work done will itself 
 lead one more and more to truth, to Nature's appoint- 
 ments and regulations, which are truth. . . . 
 
 It has been written, *'an endless significance lies in 
 Work," a man perfects himself by working. Foul jun- 
 gles are cleared away, fair seedfields rise instead, and 
 stately cities; and withal the man himself first ceases 
 to bo jungle and foul, unwholesome desert thereby. 
 Consider how, even in the meanest sorts of Labor, the 
 whole soul of a man is composed into a kind of real har- 
 mony the instant he sets himself to work ! Doubt, Desire, 
 Sorrow, Remorse, Indignation, Despair itself, all these 
 like hell-dogs lie beleaguering the soul of the poor day- 
 worker as of every man : but he bends himself with free 
 valor against his task, and all these are stilled, all these 
 shrink murmuring far off into their caves. The man is 
 now a man. The blessed glow of Labor in him, is it 
 not as purifying fire, wherein all poison is burnt up, and 
 of sour smoke itself there is made bright, blessed flame ! 
 
 Destiny, on the whole, has no other way of cultivating 
 us. A formless Chaos, once set it revolving, grows round 
 and even rounder ; ranges itself, by mere force of gravity, 
 into strata, spherical courses ; is no longer a Chaos, but 
 a round, compacted World. What would become of 
 the Earth, did she cease to revolve ? In the poor old 
 Earth, so long as she revolves, all inequalities, irregulari- 
 ties, disperse themselves ; all irregularities are incessantly 
 becoming regular. Hast thou looked on the Potter *s 
 wheel, — one of the venerablest objects ; old as the prophet 
 Ezechiel, and far older? Rude lumps of clay, how they 
 spin themselves up, by mere quick whirling, into beau- 
 
Democracy and Life 127 
 
 tiful circular dishes I And fancy the most assiduous 
 Potter, but without his wheel ; reduced to make dishes 
 or rather amorphous botches, by mere kneading and 
 baking ! Even such a potter were Destiny, with a human 
 soul that would rest and lie at ease, that would not work 
 and spin ! Of an idle, unrevolving m£in the kindest 
 Destiny, like the most assiduous Potter without wheel, 
 can bake and knead nothing other than a botch ; let her 
 spend on him what expensive coloring, what gilding and 
 enamehng she will, he is but a botch. Not a dish ; no, 
 a bulging, kneaded, crooked, shambhng, squint-cornered, 
 amorphous botch, — a mere enameled vessel of dishonor 1 
 Let the idle think of this. 
 
 Blessed is he who has found his work ; let him ask no 
 other blessedness. He has a work, a hfe-purpose; he 
 has found it, and will follow it ! How as a free-flowing 
 channel dug and torn by noble force through the sour 
 mud-swamp of one's existence, like an ever deepening 
 river there, it runs and flows; — draining off the sour 
 water graduaUy from the root of the remotest grass 
 blade; making, instead of pestilential swamp, a green, 
 fruitful meadow with its clear-flowing stream. How 
 blessed for the meadow itself, let the stream and its 
 value be great or small ! Labor is life ; from the inmost 
 heart of the Worker rises his God-given force, the sacred 
 celestial Life-essence, breathed into him by Almighty 
 God ; from his inmost heart awakens him to aU nobleness, 
 to all knowledge, "self-knowledge," and much else, so 
 soon as Work fitly begins. 
 
128 The American Spirit 
 
 ARISTOKRATS ^ 
 Josh Billings (Henry W. Shaw) (1818-1885) 
 
 Natur furnishes all the noblemen we hav. Pedigree 
 haz no more to do in making a man aktually grater than 
 he iz, than a pekok's feather in his hat haz in making 
 him aktually taller. 
 
 This iz a hard phakt for some tew learn. 
 
 This mundane earth iz thik with folks who think they 
 are grate, bekauze their ansesstor waz luckey in the sope 
 or tobacco trade ; and altho the sope haz run out some 
 time since, they try tew phool themselves and other 
 folks with the suds. 
 
 Sopesuds iz a prekarious bubble. Thare aint nothing 
 so thin on the ribs az a sopesuds aristokrat. 
 
 Titles aint ov enny more real use or necessity than dog 
 collars are. I hav seen dog collars that kost 3 dollars 
 on dogs that want worth in enny market over 87^ cents. 
 This iz a grate waste ov collar and a grate damage tew 
 the dog. 
 
 Raizing aristokrats iz a dredful poor bizzness; yu 
 don't never git your seed back. One demokrat iz worth 
 more tew the world than 60 thousand manufaktured 
 aristokrats. 
 
 An Amerikan aristokrat iz the most ridiclus thing 
 in the market. They are generally ashamed ov their 
 ansesstors; and, if they hav enny, and Uve long enuff, 
 
 * Mr. Shaw was a popular humorist whose humor consisted partly 
 in the use of phonetic spelling and partly in the wit and common 
 sense of the illiterate man. 
 
 Used by permission of M. A. Donahue & Co., Chicago, Illinois, 
 pubhshers and owners of the complete copyright works of Josh 
 Bilhngs. 
 
Democracy and Life 129 
 
 they generally hav cauze tew be ashamed ov their pos- 
 terity. 
 
 I kno ov several familys in Amerika who are tryng tew 
 Hv on their aristokrasy. The money and brains giv 
 out sum time ago. It iz hard skratching for them. 
 
 Yu kan warm up kold potatos and liv on them, but 
 yu kant warm up aristokratik pride and git even a smell. 
 
 THE HOMES OF THE PEOPLE ^ 
 
 Henry W. Grady (1851-1889) 
 
 A few days later I visited a country home. A modest 
 quiet house sheltered by great trees and set in a circle of 
 field and meadow, gracious with the promise of harvest; 
 barns and cribs well filled and the old smokehouse odor- 
 ous with treasure ; the fragrance of pink and hollyhock 
 mingling with the aroma of garden and orchard, and 
 resonant with the hum of bees and poultry's busy clucking ; 
 inside the house, thrift, comfort, and that cleanHness that 
 is next to godliness — the restful beds, the open fireplace, 
 the books and papers, and the old clock that had held its 
 steadfast pace amid the frolic of weddings, that had wel- 
 comed in steady measure the newborn babes of the family 
 and kept company with the watchers of the sick bed, and 
 had ticked the solemn requiem of the dead ; and the well- 
 worn Bible that, thumbed by fingers long since stiUed, and 
 blurred with tears of eyes long since closed, held the simple 
 
 * An American journalist and orator, for many years editor of the 
 Atlanta Constitution, Mr. Grad> did much to reestablish under- 
 standing and good will between the North and the South. 
 From a speech, "The Farmer and the Cities," in Orations and 
 Speeches of Henry W. Grady. Copyright, 1910, by Edwin Du 
 Bois Shurter. Used by permission of the publisher. 
 
130 The American Spirit 
 
 annals of the family, and the heart and conscience of the 
 home. Outside stood the master, strong and wholesome 
 and upright ; wearing no man's collar ; with no mortgage 
 on his roof, and no Hen on his ripening harvest ; pitching 
 his crops in his own wisdom and selhng them in his own 
 time in his chosen market ; master of his lands and master 
 of himself. Near by stood his aged father, happy in the 
 heart and home of his son. And as they steu-ted to the 
 house, the old man's hands rested on the young man's 
 shoulder, touching it with the knighthood of the fourth 
 commandment, and laying there the unspeakable blessing 
 of an honored and grateful father. As they drew near 
 the door, the old mother appeared ; the sunset falling on 
 her face, softening its wrinkles and its tenderness, hghting 
 up her patient eyes, and the rich music of her heart trem- 
 bling on her lips, as in simple phrase she welcomed her 
 husband and son to their home. Beyond was the good 
 wife, true of touch and tender, happy amid her household 
 cares, clean of heart and conscience, the helpmate and the 
 buckler of her husband. And the children, strong and 
 sturdy, trooping down the lane with the lowing herd, or, 
 weary of simple sport, seeking, as truant birds do, the 
 quiet of the old home nest. And I saw the night descend 
 on that home, falling gently as from the wings of the 
 unseen dove. And the stars swarmed in the bending 
 skies ; the trees thrilled with the cricket's cry ; the rest- 
 less bird called from the neighboring wood; and the 
 father, a simple man of God, gathering the family about 
 him, read from the Bible the old, old story of love and 
 faith, and then went down in prayer, the baby hidden 
 amid the folds of its mother's dress, and closed the record 
 of that simple day by calling down the benediction of 
 God on the family and the home I 
 
Democracy and Life 131 
 
 And as I gazed, the memory of the great Capitol faded 
 from my brain. Forgotten its treasure and its splendor. 
 And I said, "Surely here — here in the homes of the 
 people is lodged the ark of the covenant of my country. 
 Here is its majesty and its strength. Here the beginning 
 of its power and the end of its responsibiHty." The homes 
 of the people ; let us keep them pure and independent, 
 and all will be well with the Republic. Here is the lesson 
 our foes may learn — here is work the humblest and weak- 
 est hands may do. Let us in simple thrift and economy 
 make our homes independent. Let us in frugal industry 
 make them self-sustaining. In sacrifice and denial let us 
 keep them free from debt and obligation. Let us make 
 them homes of refinement in which we shall teach our 
 daughters that modesty and patience and gentleness are 
 the charms of woman. Let us make them temples of hb- 
 erty, and teach our sons that an honest conscience is every 
 man's first poHtical law ; that his sovereignty rests beneath 
 his hat, and that no splendor can rob him and no force 
 justify the surrender of the simplest right of a free and in- 
 dependent citizen. And above all, let us honor God in 
 our avocations — anchor them close in His love. Build 
 His altars above our hearthstones, uphold them in the set 
 and simple faith of our fathers, and crown them with the 
 Bible — that book of books in which all the ways of life 
 are made straight and the mystery of death is made 
 plain. The home is the source of our national Ufe. Back 
 of the national Capitol and above it stands the home. 
 Back of the President and above him stands the citizen. 
 What the home is, this and nothing else will the Capitol 
 be. What the citizen wills, this and nothing else will 
 the President be. 
 
132 The American Spirit ! 
 
 OUR KIND OF A MAN ^ | 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley (1853-1917) ' 
 
 The kind of a man for you and me ! • 
 
 He faces the world unflinchingly, \ 
 
 And smites, as long as the wrong resists, 
 
 With a knuckled faith and force hke fists : i 
 
 He lives the Hfe he is preaching of, | 
 
 And loves where most is the need of love ; \ 
 
 His voice is clear to the deaf man's ears. 
 
 And his face sublime through the blind man's tears ; i 
 
 The Ught shines out where the clouds were dim, - 
 
 And the widow's prayer goes up for him ; 
 
 The latch is clicked at the hovel door, ; 
 
 And the sick man sees the sun once more, 
 
 And out o'er the barren fields he sees \ 
 
 Springing' blossoms and waving trees, i 
 
 Feehng, as only the dying may, ] 
 
 That God's own servant has come that way, 
 
 Smoothing the path as it still winds on j 
 
 Through the golden gate where his loved have gone. 
 
 The kind of a man for me and you ! 
 
 However Httle of worth we do ■ 
 
 He credits full, and abides in trust ] 
 
 That time wiU teach us how more is just. • 
 
 He walks abroad, and he meets all kinds j 
 
 Of querulous and uneasy minds, 
 
 1 This poem is included as picturing a fine type of American and I 
 
 showing also the Indiana poet's characteristic faith in human i 
 
 nature. ! 
 
 From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James j 
 
 Whitcomb Riley. Copyright, 1913. Used by special permission 1 
 
 of the pubUshers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. ■ 
 
Democracy and Life 
 
 And, sympathizing, he shares the pain 
 
 Of the doubts that rack us, heart and brain ; 
 
 And, knowing this, as we grasp his hand, 
 
 We are surely coming to understand I 
 
 He looks on sin with pitying eyes — 
 
 E'en as the Lord, since Paradise, — 
 
 Else, should we read. Though our sins should glow 
 
 As scarlet, they shall be white as snow ? 
 
 And, feehng still, with a grief half glad. 
 
 That the bad are as good as the good are bad. 
 
 He strikes straight out for the Right — and he 
 
 Is the kind of a man for you and me 1 
 
 A MESSAGE TO GARCIA ^ 
 Elbert Hubbard (1859-1915) 
 
 . . . When war broke out between Spain and the United 
 States, it was very necessary to communicate quickly 
 with the leader of the Insurgents. Garcia was some- 
 where in the mountain fastnesses of Cuba — no one 
 knew where. No mail nor telegraph message could reach 
 him. The President must secure his cooperation, and 
 quickly. 
 
 What to do I 
 
 Some one said to the President, *' There is a fellow by 
 the name of Rowan will find Garcia for you, if anybody 
 can." 
 
 Rowan was sent for and given a letter to be delivered 
 to Garcia. 
 
 ^ From booklet entitled "A Message to Garcia," published by 
 The Roycroft Press. Copyright, 1899, by Elbert Hubbard. Used 
 by permission of the publishers. 
 
134 The American Spirit 
 
 How the "fellow by the name of Rowan" took 
 the letter, sealed it up in an oilskin pouch, strapped 
 it over his heart, in four days landed by night off the 
 coast of Cuba from an open boat, disappeared into the 
 jungle, and in three weeks came out on the other side of 
 the Island, having traversed a hostile country on foot, 
 and delivered his letter to Garcia — are things I have no 
 special desire now to tell in detail. 
 
 The point that I wish to make is this : McKinley gave 
 Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took 
 the letter and did not ask, "Where is he at?" 
 
 By the Eternal ! there is a man whose form should be 
 cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every 
 college of the land. It is not book learning young men 
 need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening 
 of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a 
 trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies : do the 
 thing — '*^Carry a message to Garcia." 
 
 General Garcia is dead now, but there are other Garcias. 
 No man who has endeavored to carry out an enter- 
 prise where many hands were needed, but has been well- 
 nigh appalled at times by the imbecility of the average 
 man — the inability or unwillingness to concentrate on 
 a thing and do it. 
 
 Slipshod assistance, foolish inattention, dowdy indif- 
 ference, and half-hearted work seem the rule ; and no 
 man succeeds, unless by hook or crook or threat, he forces 
 or bribes other men to assist him ; or mayhap, God in 
 His goodness performs a miracle, and sends him an 
 Angel of Light for an assistant. 
 
 You, reader, put this matter to a test : You are sitting 
 now in your office — six clerks are within call. Summon 
 any one and make this request: "Please look in the 
 
Democracy and Life 135 
 
 encyclopedia and make a brief memorandum for me 
 concerning the life of Correggio."^ 
 
 Will the clerk quietly say, "Yes, sir," and go do the 
 task? 
 
 On your life he will not. He will look at you out of a 
 fishy eye and ask one or more of the following questions : 
 
 Who was he ? 
 
 Which encyclopedia ? 
 
 Where is the encyclopedia ? 
 
 Was I hired for that ? 
 
 Don't you mean Bismarck ? 
 
 What's the matter with Charlie doing it ? 
 
 Is he dead ? 
 
 Is there any hurry ? 
 
 Shan't I bring you the book and let you look it up 
 yourself? 
 
 What do you want to know for ? 
 
 And I will lay you ten to one that after you have 
 answered the questions, and explained how to find the 
 information, and why you want it, the clerk will go off and 
 get one of the other clerks to help him try to find Garcia — 
 and then come back and tell you there is no such man. 
 Of course I may lose my bet, but according to the Law 
 of Average I will not. 
 
 Now if you are wise, you will not bother to explain to 
 yoiu" "assistant" that Correggio is indexed under the C's, 
 not in the K's, but you will smile sweetly and say, "Never 
 mind," and go look it up yourself. And this incapacity 
 for independent action, this moral stupidity, this infirmity 
 of the will, this unwilhngness to cheerfully catch hold and 
 lift — these are the things that put pure Socialism so far 
 
 * A noted Italian painter of the Lombard school, who hved from 
 1494 to 1534. 
 
136 The American Spirit 
 
 into the future. If men will not act for themselves, 
 what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all ? 
 
 A first mate with knotted club seems necessary ; and 
 the dread of getting "the bounce" Saturday night, holds 
 many a worker to his place. Advertise for a stenographer, 
 and nine out of ten who apply can neither spell nor 
 punctuate — and do not think it necessary to. 
 
 Can such a one write a letter to Garcia ? 
 
 "You see that bookkeeper," said the foreman to me in 
 a large factory. 
 
 "Yes, what about him?" 
 
 "Well, he's a fine accountant, but if Fd send him up- 
 town on an errand, he might accomplish the errand all 
 right, and on the other hand, might stop at four saloons 
 on the way, and when he got to Main Street, would forget 
 what he had been sent for." 
 
 Can such a man be entrusted to carry a message to 
 Garcia? . . . 
 
 Of course I know that one so morally deformed is no 
 less to be pitied than a physical cripple ; but in our pity- 
 ing, let us drop a tear, too, for the men who are striving 
 to carry on a great enterprise, whose working hours are 
 not limited by the whistle, and whose hair is fast turning 
 white through the struggle to hold in line dowdy in- 
 difference, slipshod imbecihty, and the heartless ingrati- 
 tude, which, but for their enterprise, would be both hungry 
 and homeless. 
 
 Have I put the matter too strongly ? Possibly I have ; 
 but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to 
 speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds — 
 the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts 
 of others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in 
 it : nothing but bare board and clothes. I have carried a 
 
Democracy and Life 137 
 
 dinner pail and worked for day's wages, and I have also 
 been an employer of labor, and I know there is something 
 to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, 
 in poverty ; rags are no recommendation ; and all em- 
 ployers are not rapacious and high handed any more than 
 all poor men are virtuous. My heart goes out to the 
 man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well 
 as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a 
 letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking 
 any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of 
 chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else 
 but deliver it, never gets "laid off," nor has to go on a 
 strike for higher wages. CiviUzation is one long anxious 
 search for just such individuals. Anything such a man 
 asks shall be granted. He is wanted in every city, town, 
 and village — in every office, shop, store, and factory. 
 The world cries out for such : he is needed, and needed 
 badly — the man who can CARRY A MESSAGE TO 
 GARCIA. 
 
VI. PATRIOTISM 
 
 AMERICA 1 
 
 Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895) 
 
 My country, 'tis of thee, 
 Sweet land of liberty ; 
 
 Of thee I sing ; 
 Land where my fathers died, 
 Land of the pilgrims' pride. 
 From every mountain side 
 
 Let freedom ring. 
 
 My native country, — thee. 
 Land of the noble free, — 
 
 Thy name I love ; 
 I love thy rocks and riUs, 
 Thy woods and templed hills ; 
 My heart with rapture thrills 
 
 Like that above. 
 
 Let music swell the breeze. 
 And ring from all the trees 
 
 Sweet freedom's song ; 
 Let mortal tongues awake, 
 Let all that breathe partake I 
 Let rocks their silence break, — 
 
 The sound prolong. 
 
 * The author was a Baptist minister of Boston, who, in addition to 
 this patriotic hymn often sung as our national anthem, wrote a 
 number of popular hymns and poems. 
 
 From facsimile reproduction of "America" in Dr. Smith's hand- 
 writing in " A History of Newton, Massachusetts," by S. F. Smith, 
 D.D. PubUshed, 1880, by The American Logotype Company, 
 Boston. 
 
 139 
 
140 The American Spirit 
 
 Our fathers' God, — to Thee, 
 Author of liberty, 
 
 To Thee we sing ; 
 Long may our land be bright 
 With freedom's holy light ; 
 Protect us by thy might, 
 
 Great God, our King. 
 
 THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM ^ 
 Archbishop John Ireland (1838- ) 
 
 Be this my theme in praise of America: She is, as 
 none other, the land of human dignity and human liberty. 
 When the fathers of the Republic declared: ""That all 
 men are created equal ; that they are endowed by their 
 Creator with certain unalienable rights ; that among 
 these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," a 
 principle was enunciated which, in its truth, was as old 
 as the race, but in practical realization was almost 
 unknown. 
 
 Slowly and laboriously, amid suffering and revolution, 
 humanity had been reaching out towards a reign of the 
 rights of man. Paganism utterly denied such rights. 
 It allowed nothing to man as man ; man was what wealth, 
 or place, or power made him. Even the wise Aristotle 
 taught that nature intended some men to be slaves and 
 chattels. The sweet rehgion of Christ proclaimed aloud 
 the doctrine of the common fatherhood of God and the 
 universal brotherhood of man. Eighteen hundred years, 
 
 * From "The Church and Modem Society. Lectures and Addresses 
 by John Ireland." Copyright, 1896, by D. H. McBride & Co., 
 Chicago and New York. Used by permission of the author. 
 
Patriotism 141 
 
 however, went by, and the civilized world had not yet 
 put its civil and political institutions in accord with its 
 spiritual faith. During all that time the Christian Church 
 was leavening human society, and patiently awaiting 
 the promised fermentation. This came at last, and it 
 came in America. It came in a fu-st manifestation 
 through the Declaration of Independence ; it came in a 
 second and final manifestation through President Lin- 
 coln's proclamation of emancipation. 
 
 In America all men are civilly and pohtically equal; 
 all have the same rights ; all wield the same arm of defense 
 and of conquest — the suffrage ; and the sole condition 
 of rights and of power is simple manhood. 
 
 Liberty is exemption from all restraint, save that of the 
 laws of justice and order, exemption from submission to 
 other men, except so far as they represent and enforce 
 those laws. The divine gift of liberty is God's recognition 
 of man's greatness and man's dignity. In Hberty lie 
 the sweetness of fife and the power of growth. The 
 loss of liberty is the loss of Hght and sunshine, the loss of 
 life's best portion. Under the spell of heavenly memories, 
 humanity never had ceased to dream of liberty and to 
 aspire to its possession. Now and then, here and there, 
 liberty had for a moment caressed humanity's brow. But 
 not until the Republic of the West was born, not until the 
 star-spangled banner rose towards the skies, was Hberty 
 caught up in humanity's embrace and embodied in a 
 great and abiding nation. 
 
 In America the government takes from the Hberty of 
 the citizen only so much as is necessary for the weal of 
 the nation. In America there are no masters who govern 
 in their own right, for their own interest, or at their own 
 wiU. We have over us no Bourbon saying: ''Vital, 
 
142 The American Spirit 
 
 c*est moi'\'^ no Hohenzollern,^ proclaiming that in his 
 acts as sovereign he is responsible only to his conscience 
 and to God. 
 
 /Ours is the government of the people, by the people, 
 and for the people. Our government is our own organized 
 will. In America rights begin with and go upward from 
 the people. In other countries, even in those which are 
 apparently the most free, rights begin with, and come 
 downward from, the state ; the rights of citizens, the rights 
 of the people, are concessions which have been wrested 
 from the governing powers. In America, whenever the 
 government does not prove its grant, the liberty of the 
 individual citizen remains intact. / 
 
 The God-given mission of the Republic of America is 
 not confined to its own people — it extends to all the 
 peoples of the earth, to whom it is the symbol of human 
 rights and of human liberty, and towards whom its flag 
 flutters hopes of future happiness. 
 
 Is there not for Americans meaning to the word "coun- 
 try"? Is there not for Americans reason to live for 
 country, and, if need be, to die for country? ... In 
 every country, patriotism is a duty : in America, it is 
 a duty thrice sacred. . . . The duty of patriotism is the 
 duty of justice and of gratitude. The country fosters and 
 protects our dearest interests ; it protects our hearths 
 and altars. Without it there is no safety for life and 
 property, no opportunity for development and progress. 
 We are wise of our country's wisdom, rich of its opulence, 
 strong of its fortitude, resplendent of its glory. 
 
 The prisoner Paul rose at once into proud distinction 
 and commanded the respect of Roman soldiers and 
 
 1 "The State, that is I." 
 
 * The family name of the kings of Prussia. 
 
Patriotism 143 
 
 Palestinian Jews when, to the question of the tribune 
 at Jerusalem: "Art thou a Roman?" ... he repUed, 
 "I am." The title of honor, among the peoples of 
 antiquity, was, ''Civis Romanus — a Roman citizen." 
 More significant today, throughout the world, is the title : 
 ^'Civis Americanus — an American citizen." 
 
 THE GLORY OF PATRIOTISM » 
 Cardinal Mercier 
 
 Across the smoke of conflagration, across the steam 
 of blood, have you not ghmpses, do you not perceive 
 signs, of His love for us? Is there a patriot among us 
 who does not know that Belgium has grown great ? Nay, 
 which of us would have the heart to cancel this last page 
 of our national history? Which of us does not exult 
 in the brightness of the glory of this shattered nation? 
 When in her throes she brings forth heroes, our Mother 
 Country gives her own energy to the blood of those sons 
 of hers. Let us acknowledge that we needed a lesson in 
 patriotism. There were Belgians, and many such, who 
 wasted their time and their talents in futile quarrels of 
 class with class, of race with race, of passion with personal 
 passion. 
 
 Yet when, on the second of August, a mighty foreign 
 
 1 Cardinal Mercier, Archbishop of Malines, Belgium, stands out as 
 one of the most heroic and patriotic figures in the world, by virtue 
 of what he has said and done for the people of his country during 
 the period of their oppression by a foreign mihtary power. 
 From "Pastoral Letter of His Eminence Cardinal Mercier, 
 Archbishop of Malines, Primate of Belgium. Christmas, 1914.'* 
 Pubhshed by Burns & Gates, Ltd., London. 
 
144 The American Spirit 
 
 power, confident in its own strength and defiant of the 
 faith of treaties, dared to threaten us in our independence, 
 then did all Belgians, without difference of party, or of 
 condition, or of origin, rise up as one man, close-ranged 
 about their own king, and their own government, and cry 
 to the invader, "Thou shalt not go through !" 
 
 At once, instantly, we were conscious of our own patriot- 
 ism. For down within us all is something deeper than 
 personal interests, tl\an personal kinships, than party 
 feeling, and this is the need and the will to devote our- 
 selves to that more general interest which Rome termed 
 the public thing. Res publica. And this profound will 
 within us is Patriotism. . . . 
 
 Family interests, class interests, party interests, and 
 the material good of the individual take their place, in 
 the scale of values, below the ideal of Patriotism, for that 
 ideal is Right, which is absolute. Furthermore, that 
 ideal is the pubUc recognition of Right in national matters, 
 and of national Honor. Now there is no Absolute except 
 God. God alone, by His sanctity and His sovereignty, 
 dominates all human interests and human wills. And to 
 affirm the absolute necessity of the subordination of all 
 things to Right, to Justice, and to Truth, is impKcitly 
 to affirm God. 
 
 When, therefore, humble soldiers whose heroism we 
 praise answer us with characteristic simplicity, "We only 
 did our duty," or, "We were bound in honor," they ex- 
 press the refigious character of their Patriotism. Which 
 of us does not feel that Patriotism is a sacred thing, and 
 that a violation of national dignity is in a manner a 
 profanation and a sacrilege ? 
 
Patriotism 145 
 
 LOVE OF COUNTRY ^ • 
 
 Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) 
 
 Breathes there the man with soul so dead, 
 Who never to himself hath said, 
 
 "This is my own — my native land I" 
 Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned. 
 As home his footsteps he hath turned, 
 
 From wandering on a foreign strand I 
 If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
 For him no Minstrel raptures swell ; 
 High though his titles, proud his name. 
 Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 
 Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
 The wretch, concentered all in self. 
 Living, shall forfeit fair renown. 
 And, doubly dying, shall go down 
 To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
 Unwept, unhonored, and unsung. 
 
 THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY « 
 
 Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) 
 
 Philip Nolan was as fine a young officer as there was 
 in the *' Legion of the West," as the Western division of 
 our army was then called. When Aaron Burr made his 
 first dashing expedition down to New Orleans in 1805, at 
 Fort Massac, or somewhere above on the river, he met, as 
 
 iFrom "The Lay of the Last Minstrel," Canto VI. Printed by 
 Longman, Hurst & Co., London, 1805. 
 
 *From "The Man without a Country." Copyright, 1888, by 
 Roberts Brothers, Boston. 
 
146 The American Spirit 
 
 the Devil would have it, this gay, dashing, bright young 
 fellow, at some dinner party, I think. Burr marked him, 
 talked to him, walked with him, took him a day or two's 
 voyage in his flatboat, and, in short, fascinated him. 
 For the next year; barrack hfe was very tame to poor 
 Nolan. . . . 
 
 What Burr meant to do I know no more than you, 
 dear reader. It is none of our business just now. Only, 
 when the grand catastrophe came, . . . one and another 
 of the colonels and majors were tried, and to fill out the 
 list, little Nolan, against whom, Heaven knows, there 
 was evidence enough, — that he was sick of the service, 
 had been wiUing to be false to it, and would have obeyed 
 any order to march anywhither with any one who would 
 follow him had the order been signed, "By command of 
 His Exc. A. Burr." . . . Nolan was proved guilty 
 enough, as I say ; yet you and I would never have heard 
 of him, reader, but that, when the president of the court 
 asked him at the close, whether he wished to say anything 
 to show that he had always been faithful to the United 
 States, he cried out, in a fit of frenzy, — 
 
 "Damn the United States! I wish I may never hear 
 of the United States again ! " 
 
 I suppose he did not know how the words shocked old 
 Colonel Morgan, who was holding the court. Half the 
 officers who sat in it had served through the Revolution, 
 and their Kves, not to say their necks, had been risked for 
 the very idea which he so cavaherly cursed in his madness. 
 He on his part had grown up in the West of those days, 
 in the midst of "Spanish plot," "Orleans plot," and all 
 the rest. He had been educated on a plantation where 
 the finest company was a Spanish officer or a French mer- 
 chant from Orleans. ... In a word, to him "United 
 
Patriotism 147 
 
 States" was scarcely a reality. Yet he had been fed by 
 "United States" for all the years since he had been in 
 the army. He had sworn on his faith as a Christian to 
 be true to "United States." It was "United States" 
 which gave him the uniform he wore, and the sword by 
 his side. Nay, my poor Nolan, it was only because 
 "United States" had picked you out first as one of her 
 own confidential men of honor that "A. Burr" cared for 
 you a straw more than for the flatboat men who sailed 
 his ark for him. I do not excuse Nolan ; I only explain 
 to the reader why he damned his country, and wished he 
 might never hear her name again. 
 
 He never did hear her name but once again. From 
 that moment, September 23, 1807, till the day he died, 
 May 11, 1863, he never heard her name again. For that 
 half century and more he was a man without a country. 
 
 Old Morgan, as I said, was terribly shocked. If Nolan 
 had compared George Washington to Benedict Arnold, 
 or had cried, "God save King George!" Morgan would 
 not have felt worse. He called the court into his private 
 room, and returned in fifteen minutes, with a face like 
 a sheet, to say : 
 
 "Prisoner, hear the sentence of the Court I The Court 
 decides, , subject to the approval of the President, that 
 you never hear the name of the United States again." 
 
 Nolan laughed. But nobody else laughed. Old Mor- 
 gan was too solemn, and the whole room was hushed dead 
 as night for a minute. Even Nolan lost his swagger in a 
 moment. . . . 
 
 The plan then adopted was ... to put Nolan on board 
 a government vessel bound on a long cruise, and to direct 
 that he should be only so far confined there as to make it 
 certain that he never saw or heard of the country. . . . 
 
148 The American Spirit 
 
 No mess liked to have him permanently, because his 
 presence cut off all talk of home or of the prospect of 
 return, of politics or letters, of peace or of war, — cut 
 off more than half the talk men like to have at sea. . . . 
 The captain always asked him to dinner on Monday. 
 Every mess in succession took up the invitation in its 
 turn. According to the size of the ship, you had him at 
 your mess more or less often at dinner. His breakfast 
 he ate in his own stateroom, — he always had a state- 
 room, — which was where a sentinel or somebody on the 
 watch could see the door. And whatever else he ate or 
 drank, he ate or drank alone. Sometimes, when the 
 marines or sailors had any special jolKfication, they were 
 permitted to invite "Plain-Buttons," as they called him. 
 Then Nolan was sent with some officer, and the men were 
 forbidden to speak of home while he was there. I believe 
 the theory was that the sight of his punishment did them 
 good. They called him "Plain-Buttons," because, while 
 he always chose to wear a regulation army uniform, he 
 was not permitted to wear the army button, for the reason 
 that it bore either the initials or the insignia of the coun- 
 try he had disowned. . . . 
 
 As he was almost never permitted to go on shore, 
 even though the vessel lay in port for months, his time 
 at the best hung heavy; and everybody was permitted 
 to lend him books, if they were not published in America 
 and made no allusion to it. These were common enough 
 in the old days, when people in the other hemisphere talked 
 of the United States as little as we do of Paraguay. He 
 had.almost all the foreign papers that came into the ship, 
 sooner or later ; only somebody must go over them first, 
 and cut out any advertisement or stray paragraph that 
 alluded to America. This was a little cruel sometimes, 
 
Patriotism 149 
 
 when the back of what was cut out might be as innocent 
 as Hesiod. Right in the midst of one of Napoleon's 
 battles, or one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolan would 
 find a great hole, because on the back of the page of that 
 paper there had been an advertisement of a packet for 
 New York, or a scrap from the President's message. . . . 
 Nolan was permitted to join the circle one afternoon when 
 a lot of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud. 
 People do not do such things so often now ; but when I 
 was young we got rid of a great deal of time so. Well, 
 so it happened that in his turn Nolan took the book and 
 read to the others, and he read very well, as I know. 
 Nobody in the circle knew a line of the poem, only it was 
 all magic and Border chivalry, and was ten thousand 
 years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily through the fifth 
 canto, stopped a minute and drank something, and then 
 began, without a thought of what was coming, — 
 
 "Breathes there the man with soul so dead 
 Who never to himself hath said — " 
 
 It seems impossible to us that anybody ever heard this for 
 the first time ; but all these fellows did then, and poor 
 Nolan himself went on, still unconsciously or mechani- 
 cally : 
 
 "This is my own, my native land 1 ' ' 
 
 Then they all saw something was to pay ; but he expected 
 to get through, I suppose, turned a httle pale, but plunged 
 
 on: 
 
 " Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
 As home his footsteps he hath turned 
 
 From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
 If such there breathe, go, mark him well" — 
 
 By this time the men were aU beside themselves, wish- 
 ing there was any way to make him turn over two pages ; 
 
150 The American Spirit 
 
 but he had not quite presence of mind for that ; he gagged 
 a little, colored crimson, and staggered on : 
 
 "For him no minstrel raptures swell ; 
 High though his titles, proud his name, 
 Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, 
 Despite those titles, power, and pelf. 
 The wretch, concentered aU in self, " — 
 
 and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, but 
 started up, swung the book into the sea, vanished into 
 his stateroom, "And, by Jove," said Philhps, "we did not 
 see him for two months again. And I had to make up 
 some beggarly story to that English surgeon why I did 
 not return his Walter Scott to him." 
 
 That story shows about the time when Nolan's brag- 
 gadocio must have broken down. At first, they said, 
 he took a very high tone, considered his imprisonment 
 a mere farce, affected to enjoy the voyage, and all that ; 
 but Phillips said that after he came out of his stateroom 
 he never was the same man again. He never read aloud 
 again, unless it was the Bible, or Shakespeare, or some- 
 thing else he was sure of. But it was not that merely. 
 He never entered in with the other young men exactly 
 as a companion again. . r . 
 
 I first came to understand anything about " the man 
 without a country" one day when we overhauled a dirty 
 little schooner which had slaves on board. An officer 
 was sent to take charge of her, and after a few minutes, 
 he sent back his boat to ask that some one might be sent 
 him who could speak Portuguese. But none of the officers 
 did ; and just as the captain was sending forward to ask 
 if any of the people could, Nolan stepped out and said 
 he should be glad to interpret, if the captain wished, as he 
 understood the language. The captain thanked him, 
 
Patriotism 151 
 
 fitted out another boat with him, and in this boat it was 
 my luck to go. 
 
 When we got there, it was such a scene as you seldom 
 see, and never want to : Nastiness beyond account, and 
 chaos run loose in the midst of the nastiness. There were 
 not a great many of the negroes ; but by way of making 
 what there were understand that they were free, Vaughan 
 had had their handcuffs and ankle cuffs knocked off, and, 
 for convenience' sake, was putting them upon the rascals 
 of the schooner's crew. The negroes were, most of 
 them, out of the hold, and swarming all around the 
 dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding Vaughan 
 and addressing him in every dialect, and patois of a 
 dialect. . . . 
 
 "Tell them they are free," said Vaughan, "and tell 
 them that these rascals are to be hanged as soon as we 
 can get rope enough." 
 
 Nolan "put that into Spanish," — that is, he explained 
 it in such Portuguese as the Kroomen ^ could understand, 
 and they in turn to such of the negroes as could under- 
 stand them. Then there was such a yell of delight, cUnch- 
 ing of fists, leaping and dancing, kissing of Nolan's feet, 
 and a general . . . spontaneous worship of Vaughan, 
 as the deus ex machina ^ of the occasion. 
 
 "Tell them," said Vaughan, well pleased, "that I will 
 take them all to Cape Palmas." 
 
 This did not answer so well. Cape Palmas was prac- 
 tically as far from the homes of most of them as New 
 Orleans or Rio Janeiro was ; that is, they would be eter- 
 
 1 Native boatmen of West Africa. 
 
 2 "God from the machine," a phrase which comes from ancient 
 theatrical traditions of days when figures of the gods appearing in 
 plays were moved by a machine. 
 
152 The American Spirit 
 
 nally separated from home there. And their interpreters, 
 as we could understand, instantly said, "Ah, non Pal- 
 mas," and began to propose infinite other expedients in 
 most voluble language. Vaughan was rather disappointed 
 at this result of his Uberahty, and asked Nolan eagerly 
 what they said. The drops stood on poor Nolan's white 
 forehead, as he hushed the men down, and said : 
 
 "He says, *Not Palmas.' He says, 'Take us home, 
 take us to our own country, take us to our own house, 
 take us to our own pickaninnies and our own women.' 
 He says he has an old father and mother who will die if 
 they do not see him. And this one says he left his people 
 all sick, and paddled down to Fernando to beg the white 
 doctor to come and help them, and that these devils 
 caught him in the bay just in sight of home, and that he 
 has never seen anybody from home since then. And this 
 one says," choked out Nolan, "that he has not heard a 
 word from his home in six months, while he has been locked 
 up in an infernal barracoon." ^ 
 
 Vaughan always said he grew gray himself, while Nolan 
 struggled through this interpretation. I, who did not 
 understand anything of the passion involved in it, saw 
 that the very elements were melting with fervent heat, 
 and that something was to pay somewhere. Even the 
 negroes themselves stopped howling, as they saw Nolan's 
 agony, and Vaughan's almost equal agony of sympathy. 
 As soon as he could get words, he said : 
 
 "Tell them yes, yes, yes; tell them they shall go to 
 the Mountains of the Moon, if they will. If I sail the 
 schooner through the Great White Desert, they shall go 
 home I" 
 
 And after some fashion Nolan said so. . . . 
 
 1 Slave pen. 
 
Patriotism 153 
 
 As we lay back in the stern sheets and the men gave 
 way, he said to me : 
 
 "Yomigster, let that show you what it is to be with- 
 out a family, without a home, and without a country. 
 And if you are ever tempted to say a word or to do a thing 
 that shall put a bar between you and your family, your 
 home, and your country, pray God in His mercy to take 
 you that instant home to His own heaven. Stick by your 
 family, boy ; forget you have a self, while you do every- 
 thing for them. Think of your home, boy; write and 
 send, and talk about it. Let it be nearer and nearer to 
 your thought, the farther you have to travel from it; 
 and rush back to it, when you ara free, as that poor black 
 slave is doing now. And for your country, boy," and the 
 words rattled in his throat, "and for that flag," and he 
 pointed to the ship, "never dream a dream but of serving 
 her as she bids you, though the service carry you through 
 a thousand hells. No matter what happens to you, no 
 matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look 
 at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God 
 to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these 
 men you have to do with, behind officers, and government, 
 and people even, there is the country herself, your coun- 
 try, and that you belong to her as you belong to your 
 own mother. Stand by her, boy, as you would stand 
 by your mother, if those devils there had got hold of her 
 today I" 
 
154 The American Spirit 
 
 THE MORAL QUALITY IN PATRIOTISM i 
 George William Curtis (1824-1892) 
 
 As you have contemplated the brief glory of our summer, 
 where the clover almost blooms out of snowdrifts and 
 the red apples drop almost with the white blossoms, you 
 have, perhaps, remembered that the flower upon the 
 tree was only the ornament of a moment, a brilliant 
 part of the process by which the fruit was formed, 
 and that the perfect fruit itself was but the seed vessel 
 by which the race of the tree was continued from year to 
 year. 
 
 Then, have you followed the exquisite analogy — that 
 youth is the aromatic flower upon the tree; the grave 
 life of maturer years its sober, soUd fruit ; and the prin- 
 ciples and character deposited by that hfe the seeds by 
 which the glory of this race, also, is perpetuated ? 
 
 The flower in your hand fades while you look at it; 
 the dream that allures you glimmers and is gone. But 
 both flower and dream, Uke youth itself, are buds and 
 prophecies. For where, without the perfumed blooming 
 of the spring orchards all over the hills and among the 
 valleys of New England and New York, would the happy 
 harvests of New York and New England be ? and where, 
 without the dreams of the young men Hghting the future 
 
 * The oration containing this selection was delivered before the 
 graduating class at Union College, Schenectady, July 20, 1857. 
 As journalist, orator, and essayist, George William Curtis was 
 identified with civil service reform and other movements for good 
 government during the greater part of his hfe. 
 From Orations and Addresses of George WiUiam Curtis, 
 Vol. I. Copyright, 1893, by Harper & Brothers, New York. Used 
 by permission of the publishers. 
 
Patriotism 155 
 
 with human possibility, would be the deeds of the old 
 men dignifying the past with human achievement ? 
 
 Gentlemen, how deeply does it become us to trust in 
 the promise of youth and to beheve in its fulfillment — 
 us, who are not only young ourselves, but living with the 
 youth of the youngest nation in history. 
 
 I congratulate you that you are young ; I congratulate 
 you that you are Americans. 
 
 Life is beginning for us ; but the life of every nation, 
 as of every individual, is a battle, and the victory is to 
 those who fight with faith and undespairing devotion. 
 Knowing that nothing is worth fighting for at all unless 
 God reigns, let us beheve at least as much in the goodness 
 of God as we do in the dexterity of the Devil. And, 
 viewing this prodigious spectacle of our country — this 
 hope of humanity — this young America, our America, 
 taking the sun full in the front, and making for the future 
 as boldly and bhthely as the young David for Gohath — 
 let us believe in our own hopes with all our hearts, and 
 out of that faith shall spring the fact that David, and not 
 Goliath, is to win the day. 
 
 Only by the religious resolution of every successive 
 generation of young Americans shall the great ideas out 
 of which America sprang, the cardinal principles of 
 religious and civil liberty, still guide and determine the 
 development of its destiny. 
 
 Today, therefore, we turn to no black-letter lore. 
 Scholars do not need to hear of the value of scholarship. 
 The finest scholarship is but a single grace of the man. 
 How can the man best be developed in America? That 
 is a question to which the Future bends its ear. Let us, 
 then, look at the tie which binds us to that country, and 
 consider the nature, responsibility, and duties of Patriotism. 
 
156 The American Spirit 
 
 It was not his olive-valleys and almond groves which 
 made the Greece of the Greek. It was not for their apple 
 orchards or potato fields that the farmers of New England 
 and New York left their plows in the furrows and marched 
 to Bunker Hill, to Bennington, to Saratoga. The rains 
 fall, the earth yields, fruits ripen, and the world is fair, 
 whether George is King or James is President ; whether 
 armies are marching to shoot and slay, or troops of 
 children laugh in the meadows, picking buttercups and 
 daisies. 
 
 When we speak of Greece, our chief interest is not in 
 a certain number of square miles of ground — so much 
 water, so many trees — it is not geographical or botanical 
 or geological ; but it is in our association with the history 
 of a people and a certain character that we call Greek ; 
 so with the French, the Italian, the German, and the 
 Enghsh. 
 
 Patriotism, or the peculiar relation of an individual 
 to his country, is Uke the family instinct. In the child it 
 is a blind devotion ; in the man an intelligent love. The 
 patriot perceives the claim made upon his country by the 
 circumstances and time of her growth and power, and how 
 God is to be served by using those opportunities of help- 
 ing mankind. Therefore his country's honor is dear to 
 him as his own, and he would as soon lie and steal himself 
 as assist or excuse his country in a crime. 
 
 Right and Wrong, Justice and Crime, exist independ- 
 ently of our country. A public wrong is not a private 
 right for any citizen. The citizen is a man bound to 
 know and to do the right, and the nation is but an aggre- 
 gation of citizens. If a man shout, "My country, by 
 whatever means extended and bounded; my country, 
 right or wrong," he merely utters words such as those 
 
Patriotism 157 
 
 might be of the thief who steals in the street, or of the 
 trader who swears falsely at the customhouse, both of 
 them chuckling, *'My fortune, however acquired.". . . 
 
 Remember that the greatness of our country is not in 
 the greatness of its achievement, but in its promise — 
 a promise that cannot be fulfilled without that sovereign 
 moral sense, without a sensitive national conscience. If 
 it were a question of the mere daily pleasure of hving, the 
 gratification of taste, opportunity of access to the great 
 intellectual and aesthetic results of human genius and 
 whatever embeUishes human fife, no man could hesitate 
 a moment between the fullness of foreign lands in these 
 respects and the conspicuous poverty of our own. What 
 have we done.^ We have subdued and settled a vast 
 domain. We have made every inland river turn a mill, 
 and wherever on the dim rim of the globe there is a harbor, 
 we have Ughted it with an American sail. We have 
 bound the Atlantic to the Mississippi, so that we drift 
 from the prairies upon a cloud of vapor ; and we are 
 stretching one hand across the continent to fulfill the hope 
 of Columbus in a shorter way to Cathay, and with the 
 other we are groping under the sea to clasp there the 
 hand of the old continent, that so the throbbing of the 
 ocean may not toss us farther apart, but be as the beat- 
 ing of one common pulse of the world. 
 
 Yet these are results common to all national enterprise, 
 and difi'erent with us only in degree, not in kind. These 
 are but the tools with which to shape a destiny. Com- 
 mercial prosperity is only a curse if it be not subservient 
 to moral and intellectual progress, and our prosperity will 
 conquer us if we do not conquer our prosperity. ... 
 
 The whole of Patriotism for us seems to consist at the 
 present moment in the maintenance of this pubUc moral 
 
158 The American Spirit 
 
 tone. No voice of self-glorification, no complacent con- 
 gratulation that we are the greatest, wisest, and best 
 of nations, will help our greatness or our goodness in the 
 smallest degree. History and mankind do not take men 
 or nations at their own valuation, and a man no longer 
 secures instant respect and sympathy by announcing him- 
 self an American. Are we satisfied that America should 
 have no other excuse for independent national existence 
 than a superior facility of money making ? Shall it have 
 no national justification to the intellect and the heart ? 
 Does the production of twelve hundred million pounds 
 of cotton fulfill the destiny of this continent in the order 
 of Providence ? Why, if we are unfaithful as a nation, 
 though our population were to double in a year, and the 
 roar and rush of our vast machinery were to silence the 
 music of the spheres, and our wealth were enough to buy 
 all the world, our population could not bully history, nor 
 all our riches bribe the eternal Justice not to write upon 
 us, as with fiery finger the autumn is beginning even now 
 to write upon the woods and fields, *'IchabodI IchabodI 
 the glory is departed I " 
 
 AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL ^ 
 Katharine Lee Bates (1850- ) 
 
 beautiful for spacious skies, 
 
 For amber waves of grain. 
 For purple mountain majesties 
 
 Above the fruited plain ! 
 
 1 From "America the Beautiful and Other Poems." Copyright, 
 1911, by Thomas Y. Crowell Company. Used by permission of 
 the publishers. 
 
Patriotism 159 i 
 
 1 
 
 America! America I i 
 
 God shed His grace on thee i 
 
 And crown thy good with brotherhood ^ 
 
 . From sea to shining sea I i 
 
 ■ ' '' 
 
 beautiful for pilgrim feet [ 
 
 Whose stern, impassioned stress ; 
 
 A thoroughfare for freedom beat 1 
 
 Across the wilderness I \ 
 
 America! America! i 
 
 God mend thine every flaw, ^ 
 Confirm thy soul in self-control, 
 
 Thy liberty in law I { 
 
 beautiful for heroes proved 
 
 In liberating strife, \ 
 
 Who more than self their country loved, * 
 
 And mercy more than life ! I 
 
 America ! America ! ^_ 
 
 May God thy gold refine, ' ] 
 Till all success be nobleness, 
 
 And every gain divine ! ■ 
 
 beautiful for patriot dream 
 
 That sees beyond the years ; 
 
 Thine alabaster cities gleam < 
 
 Undimmed by human te£U"s I I 
 
 America! America! ^ 
 
 God shed His grace on thee ] 
 
 And crown thy good with brotherhood j 
 
 From sea to shining sea I 
 
160 The American Spirit 
 
 MARTIAL VALOR IN TIMES OF PEACES 
 John Grier Hibben, D.D. (1861- ) 
 
 The first recognition of the duty arising from the peace 
 and the Hberty which our repubhc provides, comes with 
 the realization that we are not a mass of many miUions of 
 separate individuals, each with his own particular interests 
 to maintain and preserve, but that we are one people, en- 
 listed in the service of a common cause. This idea of a 
 common cause which is the inspiration of all the heroic 
 deeds of self-sacrifice in the time of war, we must endeavor 
 in some way to make potent in the activities and pursuits 
 of our people in the time of peace. All soldiers are com- 
 rades in arms. Can we not also recognize the bonds of 
 comradeship in the common work of the world, in our 
 common lot and our common destiny as brother men? 
 Is it not possible to feel the thrill of comradeship in our 
 common fight against the forces of ignorance, of evil, of 
 vice, of intemperance, of injustice, of disease and prema- 
 ture death .^ To save his comrade from death when 
 under fire the true soldier will run every risk of personal 
 danger and hold his own fife cheap in his all-absorbing 
 work of rescue. Amidst the perils of peace you too will 
 hear the call for help from many a comrade against whom 
 the tide of circumstance is running hard. . . . 
 
 In peace your duty will not come to you as it does when 
 there is a call to arms with the enemy already crossing 
 your country's frontier. You must go forth to meet it. 
 You must either discover your duty or else create it, and 
 
 1 Dr. Hibben is president of Princeton University. 
 From "The Higher Patriotism." Copyright, 1915, by Charles 
 Scribner's Sons, New York. Used by permission of the pubHshers. 
 
Patriotism 161 
 
 then swear allegiance in your own name to its high behests. 
 Centuries ago the knight errant rode forth on the adven- 
 ture of service, to champion the cause of the weak and 
 the wronged wherever they might be found. For him 
 there was no clear call to any definite undertaking. But, 
 compelled by the knightly spirit, he resolutely set himself 
 to seek the undiscovered duty somewhere beyond the far 
 horizon. There is no place in our modern days for this 
 type of noble adventurer. He has disappeared with the 
 conditions and opportunities of the age in which he flour- 
 ished. But the same spirit may reappear in another 
 form, to meet the needs of another age, again 
 
 To serve as model for the mighty world. 
 And be the fair begimiing of a time.^ 
 
 It may be regarded by some as the expression of a too 
 extravagant optimism if we declare our belief that the 
 world is entering upon a new time in its history, a new 
 order of things, in which the law of justice and the spirit 
 of mercy will universally prevail. The very darkness, 
 however, of the present time creates a persistent belief 
 that there must be some brighter Kght ahead. No robust 
 spirit can be permanently pessimistic. You are called to 
 play a part in the building of a new world. 
 
 THE HIGHER PATRIOTISM 2 
 
 It is interesting to note the various notions of patriotism 
 that have prevailed in the centuries past. If we should 
 go back to the earliest times we would find that the 
 
 ^Tennyson, "Guinevere." 
 
 2 An editorial in The Christian Work for November 18, 1916. Used 
 by permission of the editor. 
 
162 The American Spirit 
 
 essential idea of patriotism consisted, for the most part, 
 in the passion to destroy the rival tAbe. "If we are to 
 live and flourish, they must diej'yrSLncient history was 
 saturated with this idea. Assyria for the sake of her own 
 glory must conquer Syria and all the lesser nations. 
 Babylon in her turn must conquer Assyria. The Medes 
 and Persians in their turn must conquer Babylon. 
 Alexander the Great, for the sake of making his empire 
 glorious, must bring under tribute every tribe and nation 
 under the sun. And Rome in coming to the fullness of her 
 power must exact of all the world complete subjugation, 
 in order that Rome may live. Carthago delenda est. The 
 Caesars who bring back to Rome the most imposing pro- 
 cession of captive nations in their train, these are Romans 
 indeed and worthy to be enrolled among the gods. Nor 
 did the ancient Hebrews show themselves immune to the 
 toxin of this barbarous idea of patriotism. In one of 
 the Old Testament books their sentiment toward rival 
 nations is mercilessly brought to Hght and most ruthlessly 
 ridiculed. Jonah is presented to us as a type of the old- 
 style patriotism, for he, too, can find his country's chiefest 
 glory only in the complete destruction of her rivals. 
 Under the compulsion of the Lord, through the remarkable 
 behavior of a great fish, to Nineveh he finally went and 
 sounded the note of warning, with precisely the result 
 which he feared : Nineveh repented and the Lord spared 
 the city. But so grievous was the disappointment of 
 this narrow-minded patriot of the baser sort that he sat 
 under his little booth and requested for himself that he 
 might die. There was now nothing for him to live for 
 since Nineveh had such/fn excellent chance to be de- 
 stroyed, but missed it iT^atriotism, according to the old- 
 fashioned idea, consisted largely in doing one's utmost 
 
Patriotism 163 
 
 for the undoing and destruction of the rival nation. We 
 can readily see that this type of patriotism has not 
 vanished from the world. The Romans said, "Carthage 
 must be destroyed," but today we hear sentiments ex- 
 pressed which are strangely like those which prevailed 
 in the world over 2000 years ago : 1" There is but one way 
 to rid the world of the 'German menace,'" we are 
 told, "Germany must be destroyed." Certainly the 
 same kind of sentiment prevails in Germany: "There 
 is but one way by which Germany can come to her own, 
 her place in the sun : British supremacy throughout the 
 world must be destroyed ! French ambition toward 
 increasing power and supremacy must be curtailed I" 
 Surely it is the old style of patriotism still prevailing. 
 
 Eventually, however, the world's thought advanced. 
 The old definition of patriotism was revised and slightly 
 improved. It ran something like this: "Patriotism 
 consists in doing one's utmost to bring to power, honor, 
 and glory one's own nation, and, if need he, at the expense 
 of other nations." We observe that the first part of this 
 revised idea is quite worthy, but that the second part is 
 still greatly in need of further revision. "Patriotism 
 consists in doing one's utmost to bring to power, honor, 
 and glory one's own nation." Surely so. It is a worthy 
 aim that one do his utmost to make his country strong, 
 glorious, honorable among the nations of the world. It is 
 a patriotic ideal that makes for good citizenship. "My 
 country's government must be the best government in 
 the world, the cleanest and the most just ; my country's 
 influence must be the strongest and best influence of 
 any country in the world ; my country's name must be 
 the highest and most revered ; my country's flag must 
 be the best loved and the most respected of any flag of 
 
164 The American Spirit 
 
 any nation upon earth." But it is just here, alas! tbat 
 this revised idea of patriotism fails. It fails at an essen- 
 tial point : its motive. For its motive evidently is this : 
 *'My country must be the greatest and the best for the 
 sake of her own power, glory, and honor among the nations 
 of the world, for the sake of her own self-gratification and 
 pride''; which motive, of course, is essentially wrong 
 because it is purely selfish. No man can seek his own 
 glory and live. He shall thereby destroy his own life. 
 So also is the nation subject to the sanction of the same 
 stern law. A nation exists for the same reason that a 
 man exists. No man exists for his own sake. A man 
 exists for the sake of his race, for the sake of lending a 
 hand to help the race upward, for the sake of doing his 
 part in giving civilization a push forward. For precisely 
 the same reason does a nation exist. A nation exists 
 to do its part in lifting civilization to a higher plane ; in 
 contributing permanent values to the Hfe of the civihzed 
 world ; in performing its own mission as an emancipator 
 of the race of mankind, and as the guardian of the sacred 
 rights of humanity. 
 
 Here, then, we reach the new idea of patriotism. 
 Patriotism consists in doing one's utmost to make one's 
 own country strong, glorious, honorable among the nations 
 of the world, in order that it thereby may best benefit all 
 humanity and serve the race. The higher patriotism is so 
 large in its vision and so broad-minded in its spirit that it 
 can really look over and beyond national boundaries, and 
 declare, "My country exists not for the sake of its own 
 greatness and glory, but for the sake of the glory and 
 greatness of all mankind!" This will not make our ^ 
 national patriotism less, but it will greatly ennoble itju^'^"^ 
 *' I will endeavor to make my country great and glorious : 
 
IPatriotism 165 
 
 I will endeavor to make her reach her magnificent ideals 
 of enlightenment, freedom, brotherhood, not simply for 
 her own sake, but in order that thereby she may be able 
 to help lift up the whole world into the reahzation of 
 humanity's magnificent ideals of enlightenment, freedom, 
 brotherhood. The real greatness of my country shall 
 consist not in the achieving of strategic positions and 
 larger territory upon the surface of the earth by means of 
 her force of arms, not in achieving commercial supremacy 
 by virtue of her superiority in merchandise and her 
 tremendous present advantage as the greatest neutral 
 nation of the world, but the real greatness of my country 
 shall consist in that enlightenment which she can give 
 to nations which sit in darkness ; in that freedom which 
 she can give to peoples still in the bondage of superstition, 
 unjust government, and false rehgion; in that spirit of 
 brotherhood which she can succeed in establishing between 
 all the nations of all the world I" Perhaps, after all, 
 our beautiful national hymn is just a bit self-centered 
 after the manner of the old idea patriotism : 
 
 Long may our land be bright 
 With freedom's holy Ught. 
 
 Very well. But why not add the larger prayer ? 
 
 God of all peoples, Thou 
 Lord of humanity, 
 
 To Thee we pray. 
 May our great land, thrice blest. 
 Bring to the world opprest, 
 Truth, light, and liberty. 
 
 Hail ! glad, bright day. 
 
166 The American Spirit ] 
 
 RECESSIONAL i 
 
 RuDYARD Kipling (1865- ) i 
 
 God of our fathers, known of old, i 
 
 Lord of our far-flung battle line — , | 
 
 Beneath whose awful hand we hold i 
 
 Dominion over palm £ind pine — \ 
 
 Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, -i 
 
 Lest we forget — lest we forget ! j 
 
 The tumult and the shouting dies — 
 
 The Captains and the Kings depart — 
 
 Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, : 
 
 An humble and a contrite heart. < 
 
 Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, \ 
 
 Lest we forget — lest we forget I 
 
 Far-called our navies melt away — i 
 On dune and headlamd sinks the fire — 
 
 Lo, all our pomp of yesterday ''■ 
 
 Is one with Nineveh and Tyre ! j 
 
 Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, j 
 
 Lest we forget — lest we forget ! J 
 
 If, drunk with sight of power, we loose ; 
 
 Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe — \ 
 
 Such boasting as the Gentiles use, \ 
 
 Or lesser breeds without the law — 3 
 
 Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, • 
 
 Lest we forget — lest we forget I j 
 
 For heathen heart that puts her trust ? 
 
 In reeking tube and iron shard — . \ 
 
 All valiant dust that builds on dust, i 
 
 And guarding calls not Thee to guard. ^ 
 
 For frantic boast and foolish word, ^ 
 Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord ! Amen. 
 
 i 
 
VII. THE STORY OF THE FLAG 
 
 THE STORY OF OLD GLORY ^ 
 
 Who suggested the combination of stars and stripes 
 which makes Old Glory the most beautiful banner in all 
 the world? Nothing really authentic on the subject is 
 known. Various ideas have been suggested. Some writers 
 claim that they were taken from George Washington's 
 coat of arms. Others claim that the stripes were taken 
 from the thirteen stripes in the banner of the Philadel- 
 phia Troop of Light Horse. 
 
 But we do know that the first flag from which this com- 
 bination of Stars and Stripes appeared, was made by 
 Betsy Ross, who kept an upholstery shop at her little 
 home, No. 239 Arch Street, Philadelphia, a place of great 
 interest to visitors at the present day. That was the 
 birthplace of Old Glory .^ 
 
 The first time that the new flag of the United States 
 was flown in battle was at Fort Stanwix, renamed Schuyler, 
 where Rome, New York, now stands. 
 
 The first salute ever given to Old Glory by a foreign 
 power was when the ship Ranger, commanded by Paul 
 Jones, entered a French harbor in 1778 and received a 
 salute from the harbor forts. 
 
 For a period of seventy years before the War of the Revo- 
 lution took place, the red ensign of Great Britain was the 
 flag generaUy used by the American colonies. This was 
 called the Union flag because in the upper corner was a 
 red cross of St. George representing England and a white 
 cross which represented Scotland. 
 
 1 From anonymous pamphlet in Kbrary of State Normal School, 
 Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 
 
 2 Commonly believed, though not definitely established. 
 
 167 
 
168 The American Spirit 
 
 During the first two years of the Revolutionary War, 
 all kinds of battle flags were carried on land and sea. Some 
 of the designs were serious, many of them were comic. 
 
 One of the most peculiar emblems used on flags of that 
 period was the Rattlesnake. The motto on these Rattle- 
 snake flags was, *' Don't Tread on Me ! " 
 
 Another favorite device was a pine tree, of which several 
 varieties were shown. These were frequently used in the 
 early part of the Revolution. 
 
 The first flag to show thirteen stripes, but having, in 
 place of the stars, the crosses of St. George and St. Andrew, 
 was what was known as the Great Union flag hoisted over 
 the American camp at Cambridge in the year 1776. The 
 design of this flag came very close to being the Star- 
 Spangled Banner. 
 
 It is pecuhar that two trees are closely associated with 
 the history of our flag. First, the Pine Tree, which, as 
 explained was used on some of the earher flags. This 
 device also appeared on silver coins of the Massachusetts 
 colony as early as 1650. 
 
 The second tree, and one far more important, was the 
 Liberty Tree. This was a grand old elm, which stood in 
 a grove on what is now Washington and Essex Streets, 
 Boston. The location of this tree is at present marked 
 by a building on the front of which is a bas-relief of the 
 tree, with the words, "Liberty Tree." 
 
 This old tree was the scene of many patriotic meetings. 
 November 3, 1773, the citizens of Boston gathered under 
 this tree to consider resolutions prohibiting the consignees 
 of the cargoes of tea which were on board ship on their 
 way to Boston, from selhng the tea on American soil, and 
 demanding that it should be promptly returned to London. 
 The resolution by the colonists was ignored, resulting in 
 
The Story of the Flag 169 
 
 the famous *' Boston Tea Party," which took place 
 December 6, 1773, when hundreds of chests of tea were 
 cast into the bay. 
 
 In 1777, by a resolution of the Continental Congress it 
 was provided that the flag of the United States be thirteen 
 horizontal stripes, alternate red and white, and that the 
 union have thirteen stars. In 1794, after two states had 
 been admitted into the Union, Congress chemged this so 
 that the stripes and stars should be fifteen each. 
 
 But as the number of states rapidly increased, it was 
 found necessary to change this law again, and in 1818 a 
 resolution was presented to the House of Representatives 
 providing that the flag be thirteen stripes, that the union 
 have twenty stars, and that on the admission of a new 
 state one star be added. This became a law on April 4, 
 1818, when the biU was signed by President Monroe. 
 
 Since that time, whenever a new state is admitted the 
 stars in the union are shghtly rearranged so as to accommo- 
 date the extra star. The thirteen stripes wiU in all probabil- 
 ity forever remain as they are, thus preserving for aU time 
 to come the remembrance of those thirteen original states 
 upon which this great nation was founded. 
 
 When the stars were added to the thirteen stripes, 
 there was a good deal of dispute as to the arrangement of 
 these stars. 
 
 Captain Samuel C. Reid, commander of the famous 
 privateer. General Armstrong, was invited to suggest a 
 design for the proposed arrangement of stars. He recom- 
 mended that these be formed into one large five-pointed 
 star, symbolizing the national motto, "E Pluribus Unum," 
 and that a steu* be added for each new state. 
 
 It was soon found that such a plan would not be prac- 
 ticable, as it was clear that, as the number of states in- 
 
170 The American Spirit 
 
 creased, the individual stars composing the one large 
 star would be so small as to be almost indistinguishable. 
 
 The plan of arranging the stars in parallel rows was then 
 adopted, and this arrangement has continued ever since. 
 
 The fate of the first flag made under the Act of Congress 
 in 1777 is shrouded in mystery. It is not known whether 
 it was ever raised in defense of American hberty. Some 
 very important events of American history have never 
 been made clear. 
 
 Briefly, the above is the history of the evolution of 
 Old Glory, which is now the emblem of the greatest nation 
 of all the world. It stands for liberty and justice, and 
 wherever it is unfurled the Steu-Spangled Banner is 
 supreme and unconquerable. 
 
 THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNERS 
 
 Francis Scott Key (1780-1843) 
 
 Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early Hght, 
 What so proudly we hailed at the twihght's last gleam- 
 ing? 
 Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous 
 fight, 
 0*er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly stream- 
 ing; 
 And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air. 
 Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. 
 Oh, say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave 
 0*er the land of the free and the home of the brave ? 
 
 1 From "Poems of the Late Francis S. Key, Esq." Published 
 by Robert Carter & Brothers, New York, 1857. 
 
The Story of the Flag 171 
 
 On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep, 
 
 Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, 
 What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, 
 
 As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses? 
 Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, 
 In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream ; 
 'T is the Star Spangled Banner ; oh, long may it wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave 1 
 
 And where are the foes who so vauntingly swore 
 
 That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion 
 A home and a country should leave us no more ? 
 
 Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollu- 
 tion ; 
 No refuge could save the hireling and slave 
 From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave ; 
 And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph doth wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. 
 
 0, thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand 
 
 Between their loved homes and the war's desolation. 
 Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven-rescued 
 land 
 Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a 
 nation ! 
 Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, 
 And this be our motto, "In God is our trust I" 
 And the Star Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave 
 O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave 1 
 
172 The American Spirit 
 
 HOW "THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER" WAS 
 WRITTEN 1 
 
 Henry Watterson (1840- ) 
 
 Nothing in romance, or in poetry, surpasses the won- 
 drous story of this republic. Why Washington, the Vir- 
 ginia planter, and why Franklin, the Pennsylvania 
 printer? Another might have been chosen to lead the 
 Continental armies : a brilliant and distinguished soldier ; 
 but, as we now know, not only a corrupt adventurer, 
 but a traitor, who preceded Arnold, and who, had he been 
 commander of the forces at Valley Forge, would have 
 betrayed his adopted country for the coronet which Wash- 
 ington despised. In many ways was Franklin an experi- 
 ment, and, as his famiUars might have thought, a dan- 
 gerous experiment, to be appointed the representative 
 of the colonies in London and in Paris, for, as they knew, 
 and as we now know, he was a stalwart, self-indulgent 
 man, apparently little given either to prudence or to 
 courtUness. What was it that singled out these two men 
 from all others and designated them to be the chiefs of 
 the military and diplomatic establishments set up by the 
 provincial gentlemen whose Declaration of Independence 
 was not merely to establish a new nation, but to create 
 a new world? It was as clearly the inspiration of the 
 Almighty as, a century later, was the faith of Lincoln 
 
 1 On August 9, 1895, Colonel Henry Watterson delivered the 
 memorial address at the' dedication of the monument erected over 
 the grave of Francis Scott Key at Frederic, Maryland. The 
 selection here given is from the address as published in the Louis- 
 ville Courier-Journal. 
 Used by permission of Colonel Watterson. 
 
The Story of the Flag 173 
 
 in Grant, whom he had never seen and had reason to dis- 
 trust. It was as clearly the inspiration of the Almighty 
 as that, in every turn of fortune, God has stood by the 
 republic ; not less in the strange vicissitudes of the Wars 
 of the Revolution and of 1812, than in those of the war of 
 sections ; in the raising up of Paul Jones and Perry, of 
 Preble and Hull, when, discouraged upon the land, the 
 sea was to send God's people messages of victory, and 
 in the striking down of Albert Sidney Johnston and 
 Stonewall Jackson, when they were sweeping all before 
 them. Inscrutable are the ways of Providence to man. 
 Philosophers may argue as they will, and rationalism 
 may draw its conclusions; but the mysterious power 
 imexplained by either has, from the beginning of time, 
 ruled the destinies of men. 
 
 Back of these forces of Ufe and thought there is yet 
 another force equally inspired of God and equally essen- 
 tial to the exaltation of man, a force without which the 
 world does not move except downward, the force of the 
 imagination which ideaUzes the deeds of men and trans- 
 lates their meaning into words. It may be concluded 
 that Washington at Monmouth and Franklin at Versailles 
 were not thinking a great deal of what the world was 
 likely to say. But there are beings so constituted that 
 they cannot act, they can only think, and there are the 
 Homers who relate in heroic measure, the Shakespeares 
 who sing in strains of heavenly music. Among the pro- 
 geny of these was Francis Scott Key. 
 
 The son of a Revolutionary soldier, he was born August 
 9, 1780, not far away from the spot where we are now 
 assembled, and died in Baltimore January 11, 1843. His 
 life of neeo-ly sixty-three years was an unbroken idyl of 
 tranquil happiness, amid congenial scenes; among kin- 
 
174 The American Spirit 
 
 dred people ; blessed by wedded love and many children, 
 and accompanied by the successful pursuit of the learned 
 profession he had chosen for himself. Goldsmith's sketch 
 of the village preacher may not be inaptly quoted to 
 describe his unambitious and unobtrusive career : 
 
 . Remote from towns he ran his godly race, 
 Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place. 
 
 Yet it was reserved for this constant and modest gentle- 
 man to leave behind him a priceless legacy to his country- 
 men and to identify his name for all time with his coun- 
 try's flag. 
 
 "The Star-Spangled Banner" owed very little to chance. 
 It was the emanation of a patriotic fervor as sincere and 
 natural as it was simple and noble. It sprang from one 
 of those glorious inspirations which, coming to an author 
 unbidden, seizes at once upon the hearts and minds 
 of men. The occasion seemed to have been created for 
 the very purpose. The man and the hour were met, and 
 the song came ; and truly was song never yet born amid 
 such scenes. We explore the pages of folk-lore, we read 
 the story of popular music, in vain, to find the like. Even 
 the authorship of the English national anthem is in dis- 
 pute. . . . Key's song was the very child of battle. It 
 was rocked by cannon in the cradle of the deep. Its swad- 
 dling clothes were the Stars and Stripes which its birth 
 proclaimed. Its coming was heralded by shot and shell, 
 and, from its baptism of fire, a nation of freemen clasped 
 it to its bosom. It was to be thenceforth and forever 
 freedom's Gloria in Excelsis. 
 
 The circumstances which ushered it into the world, 
 hardly less than the words of the poem, are full of patriotic 
 exhilaration. It was during the darkest days of our 
 
The Story of the Flag 175 
 
 second w£ir of independence. An English army had 
 invaded and occupied the seat of the National Govern- 
 ment and had burned the Capitol of the nation. An 
 English squadron was in undisputed possession of the 
 Chesapeake Bay. There being nothing of interest or 
 value left within the vicinity of Washington to detain 
 them, the British were massing their land and naval 
 forces for other conquests, and, as their ships sailed down 
 the Potomac, Dr. William Beanes, a prominent citizen 
 of Maryland, who had been arrested at his home in Upper 
 Marlboro, charged with some offense, real or fancied, 
 was carried off a prisoner. 
 
 It was to secure the liberation of this gentleman, his 
 neighbor and friend, that Francis Scott Key obtained 
 leave of the President to go to the British Admiral under 
 a flag of truce. He was conveyed by the cartel-boat 
 used for the exchange of prisoners and accompanied by 
 the flag officer of the Government. They proceeded 
 down the bay from Baltimore and found the British 
 fleet at the mouth of the Potomac. 
 
 Mr. Key was courteously received by Admiral Coch- 
 rane ; but he was not encouraged as to the success of his 
 mission until letters from the EngUsh officers wounded 
 at Bladensburg and left in the care of the Americans 
 were dehvered to the friends on the fleet to whom they 
 had been written. These bore such testimony to the 
 kindness with which they had been treated that it was 
 finally agreed that Dr. Beanes should be released; but, 
 as an advance upon Baltimore was about to be made, it 
 was required that the party of Americans should remain 
 under guard on board their own vessel until these opera- 
 tions were concluded. Thus it was that, the night of 
 September 14, 1814, Key witnessed the bombardment 
 
176 The American Spirit 
 
 of Fort McHenry, which his song was to render illus- 
 trious. . 
 
 He did not quit the deck the long night through. With 
 his single companion, the flag ofiicer, he watched every 
 shell from the moment it was fired until it fell, "listening 
 with breathless interest to hear if an explosion followed." 
 While the cannonading continued they needed no further 
 assurance that their countrymen had not capitulated. 
 "But," I quote the words of Chief Justice Taney, repeat- 
 ing the account given him by Key immediately after, 
 "it suddenly ceased some time before day; and, as they 
 had no communication with any of the enemy's ships, 
 they did not know whether the fort had surrendered, or 
 the attack upon it had been abandoned. They paced 
 the deck the residue of the night in painful suspense, 
 watching with intense anxiety for the return of day, 
 and looking every few minutes at their watches to see 
 how long they must wait for it ; and, as soon as it dawned 
 and before it was hght enough to see objects at a distance, 
 their glasses were turned to the fort, uncertain whether 
 they should see there the Stars and Stripes or the flag 
 of the enemy." Blessed vigil! that its prayers were not 
 in vain ; glorious vigil ! that it gave us " The Star-Spangled 
 Banner!" 
 
 During the night the conception of the poem began 
 to form itself in Key's mind. With the early glow of 
 the morning, when the long agony of suspense had been 
 turned into the rapture of exultation, his feeling found 
 expression in completed lines of verse, which he wrote 
 upon the back of a letter he happened to have in his 
 possession. He finished the piece on the boat that car- 
 ried him ashore and wrote out a clear copy that same 
 evening at his hotel in Baltimore. Next day he read 
 
The Story of the Flag 177 
 
 this to his friend and kinsman, Judge Nicholson, who 
 was so pleased with it that he carried it to the office of 
 the Baltimore American, where it was put in type by a 
 young apprentice, Samuel Sands by name, and thence 
 issued as a broadside. Within an hour after it was cir- 
 culating all over the city, hailed with delight by the ex- 
 cited people. Pubhshed in the succeeding issue of the 
 American, and elsewhere reprinted, it went straight to 
 the popular heart. It was quickly seized for musical 
 adaptation. First sung in a tavern adjoining the HoUi- 
 day Street Theater in Baltimore, by Charles Durang, 
 an actor, whose brother, Ferdinand Durang, had set it 
 to an old air, its production on the stage of that theater 
 was the occasion* of spontaneous and unbounded enthu- 
 siasm. Wherever it was heard its effect was electrical, 
 and thenceforward it was universally accepted as the 
 national anthem. 
 
 The poem tells its own story, and never a truer, for 
 every word comes direct from a great heroic soul, pow- 
 der-stained and dipped, as it were, in sacred blood. . . . 
 
 The Star-Spangled Banner I Was ever flag so beauti- 
 ful, did ever flag so fill the souls of men ? The love of 
 woman ; the sense of duty ; the thirst for glory ; the heart- 
 throbbing that impels the humblest American to stand 
 by his colors fearless in the defense of his native land and 
 holding it sweet to die for it — the yearning which draws 
 him to it when exiled from it — its free institutions and 
 its blessed memories, all are embodied and symbolized 
 by the broad stripes and bright stars of the nation's 
 emblem, all live again in the lines and tones of Key's 
 anthem. 
 
 Two or three began the song, miUions join the chorus. 
 They are singing it in Porto Rican trenches and on the 
 
178 The American Spirit 
 
 ramparts of Santiago, and its echoes, borne upon the 
 wings of the morning, come rolling back from far-away 
 Manila ; the soldier's message to the soldier ; the hero's 
 shibboleth in battle ; the patriot's solace in death I Even 
 to the lazy sons of peace who lag at home — the pleasm*e- 
 seekers whose merry-making turns the night to day — 
 those stirring strains come as a sudden trumpet call; 
 men and women spring to their feet; whilst above the 
 sounds of revelry, and the cadence of the music, rise wave 
 upon wave of spontaneous enthusiasm, the idler's aimless 
 but heartfelt tribute to his country and his country's 
 flag. 
 
 Since *'The Star-Spangled Banner" was written, 
 nearly a century has come and gone. The drums euid 
 tramplings of more than half its years have passed over 
 the grave of Francis Scott Key. Here at last he rests 
 forever. Here at last his tomb is fitly made. When his 
 eyes closed upon the scenes of this Ufe, their last gaze 
 beheld the ensign of the repubhc "full-high advanced, 
 its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, 
 not a stripe erased or polluted nor a single star obscured." 
 If happily they were spared the spectacle of a severed 
 Union, and "a land rent by civil feud and drenched in fra- 
 ternal blood," it may be that somewhere beyond the stars 
 his gentle spirit now looks down upon a nation awakened 
 from its sleep of death and restored to its greater and its 
 better self, known and honored, as never before through- 
 out the world. 
 
The Story of the Flag 179 
 
 THE AMERICAN FLAG^ 
 
 Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) ? 
 
 When Freedom, from her mountain height, ' 
 
 Unfurled her standard to the air, \ 
 
 She tore the azure robe of night, j 
 
 And set the stars of glory there. , 
 
 She mingled with its gorgeous dyes \ 
 
 The milky baldric of the skies, •' 
 
 And striped its pure celestial white ; 
 
 With streakings of the morning light ; 1 
 
 Then from his mansion in the sun, : 
 
 She called her eagle bearer down, « I 
 
 And gave into his mighty hand \ 
 
 The symbol of her chosen land. j 
 
 Majestic monarch of the cloud, ] 
 Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, i 
 To hear the tempest trumpings loud, ] 
 And see the lightning lances driven, j 
 When strike the warriors of the storm, j 
 And rolls the thunder drum of heaven. | 
 Child of the sun I to thee 'tis given J 
 To guard the banner of the free, i 
 To hover in the sulphur smoke, j 
 To ward away the battle stroke, i 
 And bid its blendings shine afar, \ 
 Like rainbows on the cloud of war, ■ 
 The harbinger of victory ! i 
 i 
 
 iFrom "The Culprit Fay and Other Poems." Published by ^ 
 
 George Dearborn, New York, 1835. ' 
 
180 The American Spirit 
 
 Flag of the brave ! thy folds shall fly, 
 The sign of hope and triumph high, 
 When speaks the signal trumpet tone. 
 And the long Hne comes gleaming on. 
 Ere yet the lifeblood, warm and wet, 
 Has dimmed the ghstening bayonet, 
 Each soldier eye shall brightly turn 
 To where thy sky-born glories burn. 
 And as his springing steps advance, 
 Catch war and vengeance from the glance. 
 And when the cannon-mouthings loud 
 Heave in wild wreaths the battle shroud. 
 And gory sabers rise and fall, 
 Like shoots of flame on midnight's paU : 
 Then shall thy meteor glances glow, 
 And cowering foes shall shrink beneath 
 Each ggJlant arm that strikes below 
 That lovely messenger of death. 
 
 Flag of the seas ! on ocean wave 
 Thy stars shaU ghtter o'er the brave ; 
 When death, careering on the gale. 
 Sweeps darkly round the beUied sail. 
 And frighted waves rush wildly back 
 Before the broadside's reeUng rack. 
 Each dying wanderer of the sea 
 Shall look at once to heaven and thee. 
 And smile to see thy splendors fly 
 In triumph o'er his closing eye. 
 
 Flag of the free heart's hope and home I 
 By angel hands to valor given, 
 Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, 
 And aU thy hues were born in heaven. 
 
The Story of the Flag 181 
 
 Forever float that standard sheet I 
 Where breathes the foe but falls before us, 
 With Freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
 And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us ? 
 
 THE SYMBOL OF OUR NATION ^ 
 Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) 
 
 A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees 
 not the flag but the nation itself. And whatever may 
 be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag, 
 the government, the principles, the truths, the history, 
 that belong to the nation that sets it forth. When the 
 French tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. 
 When the new-found Italian flag is unfurled, we see 
 resurrected Italy. When the united crosses of St. Andrew 
 and St. George, on a fiery ground, set forth the banner 
 of Old England, we see not the cloth merely : there rises 
 up before the mind the idea of that great monarchy 
 which, more than any other on the globe, has advanced 
 its banner for liberty, law, and national prosperity. 
 
 This nation has a banner, too ; and until recently, 
 wherever it has streamed abroad, men saw daybreak burst- 
 ing on their eyes. For until lately the American flag 
 has been the symbol of Liberty, and men rejoiced in it. 
 Not another flag on the globe had such an errand, or 
 
 1 Mr. Beecher was the most distinguished and popular preacher 
 of his generation. During the Civil War he represented the spirit 
 of America to England, and in the years following led the reUgious 
 thought and popular conscience of his own time. 
 From "The National Flag," in " Freedom and War." Published 
 by Ticknor and Field, Boston, 1863. 
 
182 The American Spirit 
 
 went forth upon the sea, carrying everywhere, the world 
 around, such hope to the captive and such glorious tidings. 
 The stars upon it were to the pining nations like the 
 bright morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it 
 were beams of morning light. As at early dawn the 
 stars shine forth even while it grows light, and then 
 as the sun advances that light breaks into banks and 
 streaming lines of color, the glowing red and intense 
 white striving together and ribbing the horizon with bars 
 effulgent, so on the American flag, stars and beams of 
 many-colored light shine out together. And wherever this 
 flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred 
 emblazonry no ramping lion and no fierce eagle ; no 
 embattled castles, or insignia of imperial authority ; they 
 see the symbols of light. It is the Banner of Dawn; 
 it means Liberty. 
 
 Consider the men who devised and set forth this ban- 
 ner; they were men that had taken their Uves in their 
 hands and consecrated aU their worldly possessions — 
 for what? For the doctrines and for the personal fact, 
 of liberty — for the right of all men to liberty. 
 
 If any one, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I 
 say to him, It means just what Concord and Lexing- 
 ton meant; what Bunker Hill meant; it means the 
 whole glorious Bevolutionary War, which was, in short, 
 the rising up of a vahant young people against an old 
 tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that 
 the world had ever known, or has since known, the right 
 of men to their own selves and to their liberties. 
 
 The history of this banner is all on the side of rational 
 liberty. Under it rode Washington and his armies ; before 
 it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the high- 
 lands of West Point; it floated over old Fort Mont- 
 
The Story of the Flag 183 
 
 gomery. When Arnold would have surrendered these 
 valuable fortresses and precious legacies, his night was 
 turned into day, and his treachery was driven away, 
 by the beams of light from this starry banner. It cheered 
 our army, driven out from around New York, and in their 
 painful pilgrimages through New Jersey. This banner 
 streamed in light over the soldiers' heads at Valley Forge 
 and at Morristown. It crossed the waters roUing with 
 ice at Trenton ; and when its stars gleamed in the cold 
 morning with victory, a new day of hope dawned on 
 the despondency of this nation. 
 
 And when at length the long years of war were drawing 
 to a close, underneath the folds of this immortal baimer 
 sat Washington, while Yorktown surrendered its hosts, 
 and our Revolutionary struggle ended with victory. 
 
 How glorious, then, has been its origin! How glori- 
 ous has' been its history I How divine is its meaning I 
 In all the world is there another banner that carries such 
 hope, such grandeur of spirit, such soul-inspiring truth, 
 as our dear old American flag? made by hberty, made 
 for liberty, nourished in its spirit, carried in its service, 
 and never, not once, in all the earth made to stoop to 
 despotism I 
 
 Accept it, then, in all its fullness of meaning. It is not 
 a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the 
 Constitution. It is the government. It is the free people 
 that stand in the government, on the Constitution. For- 
 get not what it means ; and for the sake of its ideas, 
 rather than its mere emblazonry, be true to your country's 
 flag. By your hands hft it ; but let your lifting be no 
 holiday display. It must be advanced " because of thi 
 truth.'' 
 
184 The American Spirit 
 
 A SONG FOR FLAG DAY^ 
 
 Wilbur Dick Nesbit (1871- ) 
 
 Your flag and my flag ! 
 
 And how it flies today 
 In your land and my land 
 And half a world away I 
 Rose-red and blood-red 
 
 The stripes forever gleam ; 
 Snow-white and soul- white — 
 The good forefathers' dream ; 
 Sky-blue and true blue, with stars to gleam aright — 
 The gloried guidon of the day; a shelter through the 
 night. 
 
 Your flag and my flag I 
 
 And oh, how much it holds — 
 Your land and my land — 
 
 Secure within its folds I 
 Your heart and my heart ■ 
 
 Beat quicker at the sight ; 
 Sun-kissed and wind-tossed, 
 Red and blue and white. 
 The one flag — the great flag — the flag for me and 
 
 you — 
 Glorified all else beside — the red and white and blue I 
 
 Your flag and my flag! i 
 
 To every star and stripe \ 
 
 The drums beat as hearts beat i 
 
 And fifers shrilly pipe ! \ 
 
 iFrom "The Trail to Boyland," by Wilbur D. Nesbit. Copy- j 
 
 right, 1904, by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. Used ] 
 
 by special permission of the pubUshers. i 
 
The Story of the Flag 185 
 
 Your flag and my flag — 
 A blessing in the sky ; 
 Your hope and my hope — 
 It never hid a lie ! 
 Home land and far land and half the world around, 
 Old Glory hears our glad salute and ripples to the sound ! 
 
 FLAG ETIQUETTE! 
 Adjutant Geiveral H. P. McCain 
 
 Many inquiries concerning the proper method of dis- 
 playing, hanging, and saluting the United States flag 
 are being received in the War Department, with the 
 evident object of securing some authoritative statement 
 relating to the subject. 
 
 In this connection it should be remarked that while it 
 is within the province of the War Department to prescribe 
 rules and regulations governing the matter in question 
 for observance within the Army, yet it is beyond its 
 province to prescribe any such rules or regulations for 
 the guidance of civilians or to undertake to decide ques- 
 tions concerning the subject that are presented by civilians. 
 
 There is no Federal law now in force pertaining to the 
 manner of displaying, hanging, or saluting the United 
 States flag or prescribing any ceremonies that should 
 be observed in connection therewith. In fact there are 
 but two Federal laws on the statute books that have 
 any bearing upon this subject, one the act of Congress 
 approved February 20, 1905 (33 Stat., L., p. 725), provid- 
 ing that a trademark cannot be registered which consists of 
 
 ^Complete text of "Flag Circular" issued by the War Depart- 
 ment, Adjutant General's Office, April 14, 1917. , 
 
186 The American Spirit 
 
 or comprises, inter alia, "the flag, coat of arms, or other 
 insignia of the United States, or any simulation thereof,'* 
 and the other the act of Congress approved February 8, 
 1917 (Public — No. 305 — 64th Congress), providing cer- 
 tain penalties for the desecration, mutilation, or improper 
 use of the flag within the District of Columbia. Several 
 States of the Union have enacted laws which have more 
 or less bearing upon the general subject, and it seems prob- 
 able that many counties and municipalities have also 
 passed ordinances concerning the matter, to govern action 
 within their own jurisdiction. 
 
 Warning against desecration of the American flag by 
 aliens has been issued by the Department of Justice, 
 which has sent the foUowing notice to Federal attorneys 
 and marshals : 
 
 "Any alien enemy tearing down, mutilating, abusing, 
 or desecrating the United States flag in any way will be 
 regarded as a danger to the public peace or safety within 
 the meaning of regulation 12 of the proclamation of the 
 President issued April 6, 1917, and wiU be subject to 
 summary arrest and punishment." 
 
 It is the practice in the Army, each day in the year, to 
 hoist the flag briskly at sunrise, irrespective of the condi- 
 tion of the weather, and to lower it slowly and cere- 
 moniously at sunset, indicating the commencement and 
 cessation of the activities of the day, and to display it at 
 half staff on Memorial Day (May 30) from sunrise until 
 noon and at full staff from noon until sunset, and also on 
 other days specially designated for that purpose by the 
 proper authority, the flag always being first hoisted to the 
 top of the staff before being lowered to the half staff 
 position. 
 
 There has been some question among civilians con- 
 
The Story of the Flag 187 
 
 cerning the exact location of a flag hung at "half staff." 
 Theoretically, the flag is always hung on a separate staff, 
 much shorter than the staffs usuaUy erected on buildings, 
 and as a consequence a flag hung at half staff would be 
 located much higher on the ordinary flagstaff than under 
 the present practice, but stiU the custom of placing the 
 half-staffed flag in about the center of the flagpole, 
 whatever its length may be, is rather generally observed 
 throughout the country, and this Department sees no 
 real objection to this custom. 
 
 Considerable discussion has arisen throughout the 
 country concerning the proper manner of hanging and 
 displaying the flag for decorative purposes. As already 
 stated, there is no Federal law governing the subject, 
 and individual opinion differs as to the procedure that 
 should or should not be followed. It has been suggested 
 that as far as possible the hanging of the flag should be 
 restricted to suspending it from a flagpole, in the regular 
 way, and not to displaying it otherwise ; that for purposes 
 of decoration only the national colors should be arranged 
 in the form of bunting and not used in the form of the flag ; 
 that if it is nevertheless the desire to use the flag for 
 decorative purposes, it should always be hung flat whether 
 on the inside or the outside of buildings, with the union 
 to the north or east, so that there will be a general 
 uniformity in the position of the union of each flag dis- 
 played; that the flag should rarely be displayed in a 
 horizontal position or laid flat; that under no cir- 
 cumstances should it be hung where it can easily be con- 
 taminated or soiled, or be draped over chairs or benches 
 to be used for seating purposes, and that no object or 
 emblem of any kind should be placed above or upon it. 
 This Department sees no objection to flying the flag at 
 
188 The American Spirit 
 
 night on civilian property, provided it is not so flown 
 for advertising purposes. 
 
 It is becoming the practice throughout the country, 
 among civiUans, to display the national flag on all patriotic 
 occasions, especiaUy on the following days : 
 
 Lincoln's Birthday, February 12 
 Washington's Birthday, February 22 
 Mothers' Day, Second Sunday in May 
 
 Memorial Day, May 30 
 
 Flag Day, June 14 
 
 Independence Day, July 4 
 
 In certain localities other special days are observed in the 
 same manner. 
 
 It seems to be appropriate that where several flags or 
 emblems are displayed on a pole, or otherwise, the United 
 States flag should always be hoisted first and hung or dis- 
 played at the top ; that in any parade the United States 
 flag should always have the place of honor, and that the 
 flag should never be hung or displayed with the union 
 down except as a signal of distress at sea. 
 
 Existing regulations governing the Army provide that 
 when officers and enlisted men pass the national flag, not 
 encased, they will render honors as follows : If in civilian 
 dress and covered, they will uncover, holding the headdress 
 opposite the left shoulder with the right hand ; if un- 
 covered, they will salute with the right-hand salute. A 
 flag unfurled and hung in a room in which officers or en- 
 listed men of the Army are present will be saluted by them 
 the first time they may have occasion to pass it, but not 
 thereafter. The hand salute is as follows : 
 
 "Raise the right hand smartly tiU the tip of the fore- 
 finger touches the lower part of the headdress above the 
 
The Story of the Flag 189 
 
 right eye, thumb and fingers extended and joined, palm to 
 left, forearm inclined to about forty-five degrees, hand 
 and wrist straight; at the same time look toward the 
 person saluted. 
 
 "Drop the arm smartly to the side.** 
 
 No anthem, hymn, or musical air has been recognized 
 by any Federal law as the national anthem, hymn, or air, 
 but Army and Navy regulations provide that the musi- 
 cal composition familiarly known as '* The Star-Spangled 
 Banner" shall be recognized as the national air of the 
 United States of America. It should be stated, however, 
 that these regulations are binding only upon the personnel 
 of the mihtary and naval service. 
 
 Whenever the national air is played at any place where 
 persons belonging to the military or naval service are 
 present, all officers and enlisted men not in formation 
 are required to stand at attention, facing toward the 
 music, excepting when the flag is being lowered at sunset, 
 on which occasion they are required to face toward the 
 flag. If in civihan dress and uncovered, they are required 
 to stand and salute at the first note of the air, retaining 
 the position of salute until the last note of the air is 
 played. If in civilian dress and covered, they are required 
 to stand and uncover at the first note of the air, holding 
 the headdress opposite the left shoulder until the last 
 note is played, excepting in inclement weather, when the 
 headdress may be held slightly raised. The custom of 
 rising and remaining standing and uncovered while "The 
 Star-Spangled Banner" is being played is growing in 
 favor among civilians. 
 
 Old or worn-out flags should not be used either for 
 banners or for any secondary purpose. When a flag is in 
 such a condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for 
 
190 The American Spirit 
 
 display, it should not be cast aside nor used in any way that 
 might be viewed as disrespectful to the national colors, but 
 should be destroyed as a whole, privately, preferably by 
 burning or by some other method lacking in any suggestion 
 of irreverence or disrespect due the emblem representing 
 our country. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that the views set forth 
 in this circular are merely suggestive, and that it is 
 not the intention of the Department to give them out as- 
 authoritative. 
 
 THE MAKERS OF THE FLAG^ 
 Franklin Knight Lane (1864- ) 
 
 This morning, as I passed into the Land Office, The 
 Flag dropped me a most cordial salutation, and from its 
 rippling folds I heard it say: "Good morning, Mr. Flag 
 Maker." 
 
 "I beg your pardon. Old Glory," I said, "aren't you 
 mistaken ? I am not the President of the United States, 
 nor a member of Congress, nor even a general in the army. 
 I am only a Government clerk." 
 
 *'I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker," replied the gay 
 voice, "I know you well. You are the man who worked 
 in the swelter of yesterday straightening out the tangle of 
 that farmer's homestead in Idaho, or perhaps you found 
 the mistake in that Indian contract in Oklahoma, or 
 helped to clear that patent for the hopeful inventor in 
 
 1 Address delivered by Mr. Lane, Secretary of the Interior in President 
 Wilson's Cabinet, before the employees of the Department of the 
 Interior, at Washington, D.C., on Flag Day, 19X4. Used by 
 permission of the author. 
 
The Story of the Flag 191 
 
 New York, or pushed the opening of that new ditch in 
 Colorado, or made that mine in lUinois more safe, or 
 brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No matter ; 
 whichever one of these beneficent individuals you may 
 happen to be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker." 
 
 I was about to pass on, when The Flag stopped me with 
 these words : 
 
 "Yesterday the President spoke a word that made 
 happier the future of ten million peons in Mexico ; but 
 that act looms no larger on the flag than the struggle 
 which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn Club 
 prize this summer. 
 
 "Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open 
 the door of Alaska ; but a mother in Michigan worked 
 from sunrise until far into the night, to give her boy an 
 education. She, too, is making the flag. 
 
 "Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial 
 panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio 
 taught his first letters to a boy who will one day write a 
 song that will give cheer to the millions of our race. We 
 are all making the flag." 
 
 "But," I said impatiently, "these people were only 
 working ! " 
 
 Then came a great shout from The Flag : 
 
 "The work that we do is the making of the flag. 
 
 " I am not the flag ; not at aU. I am but its shadow. 
 
 "I am whatever you make me, nothing more. 
 
 "I am your behef in yourself, your dream of what a 
 People may become. 
 
 "I five a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of 
 heartbreaks and tired muscles. 
 
 "Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do an 
 honest work, fitting the rails together truly. 
 
192 The American Spirit 
 
 "Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from 
 me, and cynically I play the coward. 
 
 *' Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that 
 blasts judgment. 
 
 "But always, I am all that you hope to be, and have 
 the courage to try for. 
 
 "I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling 
 hope. 
 
 "I am the day's work of the weakest man, and Jthe 
 largest dream of the most daring. 
 
 "I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and 
 the statute makers, soldier and dreadnaught, drayman 
 and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk. 
 
 "I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of to- 
 morrow. 
 
 " I am the mystery of the men who do without knowing 
 why. 
 
 " I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose 
 of resolution. 
 
 "I am no more than what you believe me to be and I 
 am all that you beUeve I can be. 
 
 " I am what you make me, nothing more. 
 
 "I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a 
 symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big 
 thing which makes this nation. My stars and my stripes 
 are your dream and your labors. They are bright with 
 cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because 
 you have made them so out of your hearts. For you 
 are the makers of the flag, and it is well that you glory in 
 the making." 
 
The Story of the Flag 193 ! 
 
 THE NAME OF OLD GLORY ^ \ 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley (1853-1917) ' 
 
 I i 
 
 Old Glory I say, who, :; 
 
 By the ships and the crew, ! 
 
 And the long, blended ranks of the gray and the blue, — ' 
 
 Who gave you, Old Glory, the name that you bear J 
 
 With such pride everywhere J 
 
 As you cast yourself free to the rapturous air ^ 
 
 And leap out full-length, as we're wanting you to ? 'i 
 
 Who gave you that name with the ring of the same, \ 
 
 And the honor and fame so becoming to you ? \ 
 
 Your stripes stroked in ripples of white and of red, i 
 With your stars at their glittering best overhead — 
 
 By day or by night j 
 
 Their dehghtfullest light 1 
 
 Laughing down from their Uttle square heaven of blue I ^ 
 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory ? — say, who — ; 
 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory? i 
 
 II 
 
 Old Glory, — speak out I — we are asking about 
 How you happened to " favor " a name, so to say, 
 That sounds so famiUar and careless and gay 
 As we cheer it and shout in our wild, breezy way — 
 
 ^ From the Biographical Edition of the Complete Works of James 
 Whitcomb Riley, Vol. V. Copyright, 1913. Used by special per- 
 mission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis. 
 
 The old banner lifted, and faltering then, \ 
 
 In vague lisps and whispers fell silent again. i 
 
194 The American Spirit 
 
 We — the crowd, every man of us calling you that — 
 We — Tom, Dick, and Harry — each swinging his hat 
 And hurrahing " Old Glory ! " Uke you were our kin. 
 When — Lord ! — we all know we're as common as sin 
 And yet it just seems hke you humor us all, 
 And waft us your thanks, as we hail you and fall 
 Into Hne, with you over us, waving us on 
 Where our glorified, sanctified betters have gone. — 
 And this is the reason we're wanting to know — 
 (And we're wanting it so! — 
 Where our own fathers went we are willing to go.) 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory — Oho I — 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory ? 
 
 The old flag unfurled with a billowy thrill 
 
 For an instant, then wistfully sighed and was still. 
 
 III 
 
 Old Glory, the story we're wanting to hear 
 
 Is what the plain facts of your christening were, — 
 
 For your name — just to hear it, 
 
 Repeat it, and cheer it, 's a tang to the spirit 
 
 As salt as a tear ; — 
 
 And seeing you fly, and the boys marching by. 
 
 There's a shout in the throat and a blur in the eye 
 
 And an aching to five for you always — or die, 
 
 If, dying, we still keep you waving on high. 
 
 And so, by our love 
 
 For you, floating above, 
 
 And the scars of aU wars and the sorrows thereof, 
 
 Who gave you the name of Old Glory, and why 
 
 Are we thrilled at the name of Old Glory ? 
 
The Story of the Flag 195 
 
 Then the old banner leaped like a sail in the blast, 
 And fluttered an audible answer at last. 
 
 IV 
 
 And it spake, with a shake of the voice, and it said : — 
 By the driven snow-white and the Uving blood-red 
 Of my bars, and their heaven of stars overhead — 
 By the symbol conjoined of them all, skyward cast, 
 As I float from the steeple or flap at the mast, 
 Or droop o'er the sod where the long grasses nod, — 
 My name is as old as the glory of God. 
 . . . So I came by the name of Old Glory. 
 
VIII. AMERICANS ALL 
 
 LIBERTY ENLIGHTENING THE WORLD/ 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833-1908) 
 
 Warden at ocean's gate, 
 
 Thy feet on sea and shore, 
 Like one the skies await 
 
 When time shall be no more I 
 What splendors crown thy brow, 
 What bright dread angel Thou, 
 
 DazzHng the waves before 
 Thy station great ? 
 
 " My name is Liberty I 
 
 From out a mighty land 
 I face the ancient sea, 
 
 I lift to God my hand ; 
 By day in Heaven's light, 
 A pillar of fire by night, 
 
 At ocean's gate I stand 
 Nor bend the knee. 
 
 "The dark Earth lay in sleep, 
 Her children crouched forlorn. 
 
 Ere on the western steep 
 I sprang to height, reborn ; 
 
 ^ Stedman, who is remembered both for his poetry and his critical 
 essays on American literature, is often called the Banker-poet. He 
 was a banker in Wall Street for over thirty years. 
 From Poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman. Copyright, 1908, 
 by Laura Stedman. Published by Houghton Mifflin Gompany< 
 Boston. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
 197 
 
198 The American Spirit j 
 
 Then what a joyous shout • i 
 
 The quickened lands gave out, 5 
 
 • And all the choir of morn S 
 
 Sang anthems deep. ' 
 
 "Beneath yon firmament ] 
 
 The New World to the Old J 
 
 My sword and summons sent, \ 
 
 My azure flag unrolled : j 
 
 The Old World's hands renew 1 
 
 Their strength ; the form ye view ' 
 
 Came from a living mold * 
 
 In glory blent. \ 
 
 *'0 ye, whose broken spars \ 
 
 Tell of the storms ye met, \ 
 
 Enter ! fear not the bars | 
 
 Across your pathway set ; j 
 
 Enter at Freedom's porch, j 
 For you I lift my torch. 
 
 For you my coronet 1 
 
 Is rayed with stars. i 
 
 i 
 
 " But ye that hither draw \ 
 
 To desecrate my fee, 1 
 
 Nor yet have held in awe J 
 
 The justice that makes free, — \ 
 
 Avaunt, ye darkhng brood ! [ 
 
 By Right my house hath stood : \ 
 
 My name is Liberty, i 
 
 My throne is Law." ' 
 
 wonderful and bright, \ 
 
 Immortal Freedom, hail I ] 
 
Americans All 199 
 
 Front, in thy fiery might, 
 
 The midnight and the gale ; 
 Undaunted on this base 
 Guard well thy dwelling-place : 
 
 Till the last sun grow pale 
 Let there be Light I 
 
 AMERICA 1 
 
 Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) 
 
 Foreseen in the vision of sages, 
 Foretold when martyrs bled. 
 She was born of the longing of ages, 
 By the truth of the noble dead 
 And the faith of the living fed I 
 No blood in her lightest veins 
 Frets at remembered chains, 
 
 Nor shame of bondage has bowed her head. 
 In her form and features still 
 The unblenching Puritan will, 
 Cavalier honor, Huguenot grace, 
 The Quaker truth and sweetness. 
 And the strength of the danger-girdled race 
 
 Of Holland, blend in a proud completeness. 
 
 From the homes of all, where her being began. 
 She took what she gave to Man ; 
 Justice, that knew no station, 
 
 Behef, as soul decreed, 
 Free air for aspiration, 
 Free force for independent deed I 
 
 ^ From "The National Ode," delivered in Independence Square, 
 Philadelphia, July 4, 1876. From facsimile copy sent by the author 
 to Joseph R. Osgood & Co., Boston, July 5, 1876. 
 
200 The American Spirit 
 
 She takes but to give again, 
 
 As the sea returns the rivers in rain ; 
 
 And gathers the chosen of her seed 
 
 From the hunted of every crown and creed. 
 
 Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine ; 
 
 Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine ; 
 
 Her France pursues some dream divine ; 
 
 Her Norway keeps his mountain pine ; 
 
 Her Italy waits by the western brine ; 
 And, broad-based under all. 
 
 Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood, 
 As rich in fortitude 
 
 As e'er went worldward from the island-wall 
 Fused in her candid light. 
 
 To one strong race all races here unite ; 
 
 Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen 
 
 Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan : 
 *Twas glory, once, to be a Roman : 
 
 She makes it glory, now, to be a man I 
 
 THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN ^ 
 
 Jacob Riis (1849-1914) 
 
 I have told the story of the making of an American. 
 There remains to tell how I found out that he was made 
 and finished at last. It was when I went back to see 
 
 1 Jacob Riis came to this country from Denmark as a young man 
 and made his own way, becoming in course of time widely known 
 as a writer and as a worker for the betterment of social conditions 
 for the poor of New York City. 
 
 From the author's autobiography, published under the title, 
 "The Making of an American." Copyright, 1901, by The Mac- 
 millan Company, New York. Used by permission of the pub- 
 lishers. 
 
Americans All 201 
 
 my mother once more, and, wandering about the country 
 of my childhood's memories, had come to the city of 
 Elsinore. There I fell ill of a fever and lay many weeks 
 in the house of a friend upon the shore of the beautiful 
 Oeresund. One day when the fever had left me, they 
 rolled my bed into a room overlooking the sea. The 
 sunUght danced upon the waves, and the distant moun- 
 tains of Sweden were blue against the horizon. Ships 
 passed under full sail up and down the great waterway 
 of the nations. But the sunshine and the peaceful day 
 bore no message to me. I lay moodily picking at the 
 coverlet, sick and discouraged and sore — I hardly knew 
 why, myself. Until all at once there sailed past, close 
 inshore, a ship flying at the top the flag of freedom, blown 
 out on the breeze till every star in it shone bright and 
 clear. That moment I knew. Gone were illness, dis- 
 couragement, and gloom I Forgotten weakness and suffer- 
 ing, the cautions of doctor and nurse I I sat up in 
 bed and shouted, laughed, and cried by turns, waving 
 my handkerchief to the flag out there. They thought 
 I had lost my head, but I told them. No, thank God, 
 I had found it and my heart, too, at last. I knew then 
 that it was my flag ; that my children's home was mine 
 indeed; that I also had become an American in truth. 
 And I thanked God, and, Uke unto the man sick of the 
 palsy, arose from my bed and went home healed. 
 
202 The American Spirit 
 
 AMERICANS OF FOREIGN BIRTHS 
 WooDROw Wilson (1856- ) 
 
 This is the only country in the world which experiences 
 this constant and repeated rebirth. Other countries de- 
 pend upon the multiphcation of their own native people. 
 This country is constantly drinking strength out of new 
 sources by the voluntary association with it of great bodies 
 of strong men and forward-looking women out of other 
 lands. And so by the gift of the free will of independent 
 people it is being constantly renewed from generation to 
 generation by the same process by which it was originally 
 created. It is as if humanity had determined to see to it 
 that this great Nation, founded for the benefit of human- 
 ity, should not lack for the allegiance of the people of the 
 world. 
 
 You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United 
 States. Of allegiance to whom ? Of allegiance to no one, 
 unless it be God — certainly not of allegiance to those who 
 temporarily represent this great Government. You have 
 taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal, to a great 
 body of principles, to a great hope of the human race. 
 You have said, "We are going to America not only to earn 
 a living, not only to seek the things which it was more 
 difficult to obtain where we were born, but to help forward 
 the great enterprises of the human spirit — to let men 
 know that everywhere in the world there are men who will 
 cross strange oceans and go where a speech is spoken 
 which is aUen to them if they can but satisfy their quest 
 for what their spirits crave ; knowing that whatever the 
 speech there is but one longing and utterance of the humem 
 
 1 From an address delivered before a gathering of recently natu- 
 ralized citizens at Convention Hall, PhUadelphia, May 10, 1915. 
 
Americans All 203 
 
 heart, and that is for hberty and justice." And while 
 you bring all countries with you, you come with a purpose 
 of leaving all other countries behind you — bringing what 
 is best of their spirit, but not looking over your shoulders 
 and seeking to perpetuate what you intended to leave 
 behind in them. I certainly would not be one even to 
 suggest that a man cease to love the home of his birth and 
 the nation of his origin — these things are very sacred 
 and ought not to be put out of our hearts — but it is one 
 t-hing to love the place where you were born and it is an- 
 other thing to dedicate yourself to the place to which you 
 go. You can not dedicate yourself to America unless you 
 become in every respect and with every purpose of your 
 will thorough Americans. You can not become thor- 
 ough * Americans if you think of yourselves in groups, i 
 America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks/ 
 of himself as belonging to a particular national group inj 
 America has not yet become an American, and the man 
 who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no 
 worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes. 
 
 My urgent advice to you would be, not only always to 
 think first of America, but always, also, to think first of 
 humanity. You do not love humanity if you seek to 
 divide humanity into jealous camps. Humanity can be 
 welded together only by love, by sympathy, by justice, 
 not by jealousy and hatred. I am sorry for the man who 
 seeks to make personal capital out of the passions of his 
 fellow-men. He has lost the touch and ideal of America, 
 for America was created to unite mankind by those pas- 
 sions which lift and not by the passions which separate 
 and debase. We came to America, either ourselves or in 
 the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, 
 to make them see finer things than they had seen before, 
 
204 The American Spirit 
 
 to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the 
 things that unite. It was but an historical accident no 
 doubt that this great country was called the "United 
 States"; yet I am very thankful that it has that word 
 "United" in its title, and the man who seeks to divide 
 man from man, group from group, interest from interest 
 in this great Union is striking at its very heart. 
 
 It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in thinking 
 of those of you who have just sworn allegiance to this 
 great Government, that you were drawn across the oceaq 
 by some beckoning finger of hope, by some belief, by some 
 vision of a new kind of justice, by some expectation of a 
 better kind of life. No doubt you have been disappointed 
 in some of us. Some of us are very disappointing. No 
 doubt you have found that justice in the United States 
 goes only with a pure heart and a right purpose as it does 
 everywhere else in the world. No doubt what you found 
 here did not seem touched for you, after all, with the com- 
 plete beauty of the ideal which you had conceived before- 
 hand. But remember this : If we had grown at all poor 
 in the ideal, you had brought some of it with you. A man 
 does not go out to seek the thing that is not in him. A 
 man does not hope for the thing that he does not believe 
 in, and if some of us have forgotten what America beheved 
 in, you, at any rate, imported in your own hearts a renewal 
 of the belief. That is the reason that I, for one, make 
 you welcome. If I have in any degree forgotten what 
 America was intended for, I will thank God if you will 
 remind me. I was born in America. You dreamed 
 dreams of what America was to be, and I hope you brought 
 the dreams with you. No man that does not see visions 
 will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high 
 enterprise. Just because you brought dreams with you 
 
Americans All 205 
 
 America is more likely to realize dreams such as you 
 brought. You are enriching us if you came expecting us 
 to be better than we are. 
 
 See, my friends, what that means. It means that 
 Americans must have a consciousness different from the 
 consciousness of every other nation in the world. I am 
 not saying this with even the shghtest thought of criti- 
 cism of other nations. You know how it is with a family. 
 A family gets centered on itself if it is not careful and is 
 less interested in the neighbors than it is in its own mem- 
 bers. So a nation that is not constantly renewed out of 
 new sources is apt to have the narrowness and prejudice 
 of a family ; whereas, America must have this conscious- 
 ness, that on all sides it touches elbows and touches hearts 
 with all th& nations of mankind. The example of America 
 must be a special example. The example of America 
 must be the example not merely of peace because it will 
 not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and 
 elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There 
 is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There 
 is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not 
 need to convince others by force that it is right. 
 
 You have come into this great Nation voluntarily , 
 seeking something that we have to give, and all that we j 
 have to give is this : We can not exempt you from work. I 
 No man is exempt from work anywhere in the world. 1 
 We can not exempt you from the strife and the heart-/ 
 breaking burden of the struggle of the day — that is com- 
 mon to mankind everywhere ; we can not exempt you from 
 the loads that you must carry. We can only make them 
 light by the spirit in which they are carried. That is the; 
 spirit of hope, it is the spirit of liberty, it is the spirit 
 justice. 
 
 , is the, 
 ►irit ofl 
 
206 The American Spirit 
 
 THE FOREIGNER IN A DEMOCRACY i 
 
 Carl Schurz (1829-1906) 
 
 One of the most interesting experiences of life in those 
 young Western communities with not a few of which I 
 became well acquainted, was the observation of the edu- 
 cational influence exercised by active local self-government. 
 I met there a great many foreign-born persons who in 
 their native countries had been accustomed to look up to 
 the government as a superior power which, in the order of 
 the universe, was ordained to do everything — or nearly 
 everything — for them, and to whose superhuman wisdom 
 and indisputable authority they had to submit. Such 
 people, of course, brought no conception of the working 
 of democratic institutions with them, and there is some- 
 times much speculation on the part of our poHtical 
 philosophers as to how the newcomers can safely be in- 
 trusted here with any rights or privileges permitting them 
 to pEU'ticipate in the functions of the government. In 
 point of fact, there will be very little, if any, serious trouble 
 whenever such people are placed in a situation in which 
 they will actually be obliged to take an active and re- 
 
 * Carl Schurz was a distinguished American soldier, statesman, and 
 liberal political leader. He was born in Germany in 1829. He 
 engaged in the revolutionary movement in 1848, in consequence of 
 which he was forced to flee from his native land, and he. emigrated 
 to the United States in 1852. He became a general in the Civil 
 War, served as ambassador to several European countries, as mem- 
 ber of the Cabinet of President Hayes, as senator, and always as a 
 leader of liberal political and progressive social movements. Schurz 
 represents the best contributions of the immigrant citizen to the 
 country of his free choice. 
 
 From "The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz," Vol. H. Copyright, 
 1907, by the McClure Company. Used by permission of the pub- 
 lishers and of Carl L. Schurz, Esq. 
 
Americans All 207 
 
 sponsible part in the government respecting those affairs 
 which immediately concern them — things in which they 
 are intimately interested. Plant such persons in com- 
 munities which are still in an inchoate formative state, 
 where the management of the public business in the 
 directest possible way, visibly touches the home of every 
 inhabitant, and where everybody feels himself imperatively 
 called upon to give attention to it for the protection or 
 promotion of his own interests, and people ever so little 
 used to that sort of thing will take to democratic self- 
 government as a duck takes to water. They may do so 
 somewhat clumsily at first and make grievous mistakes, 
 but those very mistakes with their disagreeable conse- 
 quences will serve to sharpen the wits of those who desire 
 to learn — which every person of average intelligence, 
 who feels himself responsible for his own interests, desires 
 to do. In other words, practice upon one's own responsi- 
 bility is the best if not the only school of self-government. 
 What is sometimes called the "art of self-government" 
 is not learned by masses of people theoretically, nor even 
 by the mere presentation of other people's experiences by 
 way of instructive example. Practice is the only really 
 effective teacher. Other methods of instruction will 
 rather retard, if not altogether prevent, the development 
 of the self-governing capacity, because they will serve to 
 weaken the sense of responsibility and self-reUance. 
 
 In discussing the merits of self-government we are apt 
 to commit the error of claiming that self-government 
 furnishes the best possible — that is, the wisest and at the 
 same time most economical — kind of government as to 
 the practical administration of public affairs, for it does 
 not. There is no doubt that a despot, if he were supremely 
 wise, absolutely just, benevolent, and unselfish, might 
 
208 The American Spirit 
 
 furnish a community, as far as the practical working of 
 the administrative machinery goes, better government 
 than the majority of the citizens subject to changeable 
 currents of pubKc opinion — in all things except one. 
 But this one thing is of the highest importance. Self- 
 government as an administrator is subject to criticism 
 for many failures. But it is impossible to overestimate 
 self-government as an educator. The foreign observer 
 in America is at once struck by the fact that the average 
 pf intelligence, as the inteUigence manifests itself in the 
 spirit of inquiry, in the interest taken in a great variety 
 of things, and in alertness and judgment, is much higher 
 among the masses here than anywhere else. This is cer- 
 tainly not owing to any superiority of the pubUc school 
 system in this country — or, if such superiority exists, 
 not to that alone — but rather to the fact that here the 
 individual is constantly brought into interested contact 
 with a greater variety of things, and is admitted to active 
 participation in the exercise of functions which in other 
 countries are left to the care of a superior authority. I 
 have frequently been struck by the remarkable expansion 
 of the horizon effected by a few years of American hfe, 
 in the minds of immigrants who had come from somewhat 
 benighted regions, and by the mental enterprise and keen 
 discernment with which they took hold of problems which, 
 in their comparatively torpid condition in their native 
 countries, they had never thought of. It is true that, 
 in our large cities with congested population, self-govern- 
 ment as an educator does not always bring forth the most 
 desirable results, partly owing to the circumstance that 
 government, in its various branches, is there further re- 
 moved from the individual, so that he comes into contact 
 with it and exercises his influence upon it only through 
 
Americans All 209 
 
 variable, and sometimes questionable, intermediary 
 agencies, which frequently exert a very demoraUzing in- 
 fluence. But my observations and experiences in the 
 young West, although no doubt I saw not a few things to 
 be regretted, on the whole greatly strengthened my faith 
 in the democratic principle. It was with a feehng of 
 religious devotion that I took part in Fourth of July cele- 
 brations, the principal feature of which then consisted in 
 the solemn reading of the Declaration of Independence 
 before the assembled multitude ; and the principal charm 
 the anti-slavery cause had for me consisted in its purpose 
 to make the principles proclaimed by that Declaration 
 as true in the universaHty of practical application as they 
 were true in theory. And there was the regdization of the 
 ideal I had brought with me from the luckless struggles 
 for free government in my native land. 
 
 THE LOYALTY OF THE FOREIGN BORN^ 
 M. E. Ravage (1884- ) 
 
 What does America mean to me, to the immigrant 
 generally, with his manifold attachments, his double 
 culture, his composite point of view as an outsider and 
 an insider at one and the same time? 
 
 I am glad the question has at last been raised. For 
 a whole century you have been seeking and listening 
 attentively to the conflicting opinions of foreign travelers 
 and critics on your institutions and character. But there 
 was a foreigner right here who had come to America not 
 
 ^ An extract from an article published under this title in the Century 
 Magazine for June, 1917. Used by permission of the pubhshers 
 and the author. 
 
210 The American Spirit 
 
 as a sight-seer, but as a settler, not as a guest, but as an 
 invader, not to look you over, but to make you over. Did 
 you ever stop to ask him what his views of you were? 
 Did you, indeed, think that he had any? Because the 
 immigrant was inarticulate you concluded, I fear, that 
 he was insensible. He was dumb, and you thought him 
 blind and deaf as well. Yet all the time, while you were 
 ignoring him or making good-humored jokes about him 
 or pitying him a little, he went his way, very much on 
 the alert, registering impressions, making mental notes, 
 and laboriously piecing out a picture of America which, 
 as I shall endeavor to show you, is fundamentally at 
 variance with your own, if not hopelessly antagonistic 
 to it. 
 
 How this picture of America originated in my mind — 
 for I am one of your alien Americans — and what it is 
 like, it will be hard for you to grasp until you have first 
 understood the causes that impelled me to forsake my 
 ancient home and to accept voluntary exile in yours. 
 No one, I assure you, embarks upon the adventure in 
 a light-hearted mood. In one sense it is precisely as my 
 native friend puts it — I was driven into exile. Not from 
 without, pray understand, but from within. My own 
 rebellious spirit was the spur. I revolted against the 
 Old World — against its folly, its insolence, its deg- 
 radation. From birth onward I had been made a 
 victim of every species of discrimination, of poverty, of 
 oppression. I suffered unendurably from the military, 
 the gendarme, the taxgatherer; from ignorance, from 
 bigotry, from snobbishness. As long as I was a child I 
 submitted to it all unquestioningly as to the order of 
 nature. I took hunger as a punishment from Heaven, 
 and religious persecution as a divine testing of my faith. 
 
Americans All 211 
 
 When I asked why my family was deprived of its bread- 
 winner for months at a time, and why he was compelled 
 to drill in maneuvers, and why a strange man with a 
 badge came to our house to ask for money, and took away 
 our table silver and our pillows when it was not forth- 
 coming, my mother told me with tears in her eyes that 
 it was the law, and I asked no more. But as I grew to 
 manhood I began to see these things differently. I began 
 to see that class distinctions were stupid, that oppression 
 was an impertinence, that poverty was an affront to the 
 dignity of human beings. And I came to despise the Old 
 World, with its mischievous egotism called nationality, its 
 narrowness, its distrusts, its prejudices, its willful blind- 
 ness to the clear destiny of the race, its obdurate op- 
 position to the aspirations of the mass of mankind. I 
 wanted violently to lay hands on the whole outworn pile 
 and set it tumbling. But as I could not do that, I 
 emigrated to the New World. ... 
 
 I emigrated because I had gained a new faith. America 
 to me was not a nation. I did not come here in search! 
 of a new nationality. She was not even a country. She( 
 was an ideal. It seemed to me that humanity had started 
 out wrongly in the Old World, had erred and blundered 
 and floundered to its own destruction ; then a hand- 
 ful of choice spirits had risen in arms against the decayed 
 tradition of Europe, determined that humanity should 
 have a new start. And ever since that time the dreamers 
 and the rebels and the heroes of all nations had beaten 
 a fanhke convergence of paths to her gates. She had 
 become the model of revolution and the Mecca of revo- 
 lutionists, from France to China, and from Kosciuszko 
 and the forty-eighters to the modern Russieui hundist. 
 America was not merely the New World: she was the 
 
212 The American Spirit 
 
 new life. What was taking place here was not the es- 
 tablishment of a new nationality, but the very antithesis 
 of all nationality. The American people were an inter- 
 national society of lovers of liberty. They were the hope 
 of mankind. They were, in truth, the chosen people, 
 the elect of all the nations of the earth. 
 
 This startling departure in the affairs of the world had 
 given expression of itself in several notable instances. 
 There could be no mistaking the genuineness of America's 
 mission. The hunted, starving Irish had been welcomed 
 and fed and their battered souls nursed here. The Jew, 
 for centuries misunderstood and mocked and suppressed, 
 and heaped with every indignity, the stepchild of the 
 nations, the target of the bigot, the safety valve of the 
 tyrant and the reactionary — the Jew likewise had been 
 fraternadly received into this all-embracing society, 
 and allowed, for the first time in the history of his long, 
 heroic exile, to live in peace and usefulness. America 
 had engaged in two wars, one for the liberation of the 
 negro from her own backsliding States, the other to free 
 the Cuban from the yoke of the Spaniard. She had 
 even gone the length of meddUng with the private affairs 
 of foreign lands by abrogating the treaty with Russia 
 and by sending a now famous note to Rumania, much to 
 the amusement of the astute diplomats of Europe and 
 the shrugging of their discreet shoulders. America 
 seemed resolved to become the quixotic champion of 
 the under dog, a knight-errant among the nations. To 
 become one of such a society, I felt no price was too 
 high. 
 
 To one arriving in America the first breath of her air 
 was like a confirmation of faith. The reality, indeed, 
 seemed like a wild exaggeration of all my dreams. Beside 
 
Americans All S13 
 
 this, what a poor, dwarfed thing it was that fancy had 
 pictured ! The atmosphere of America was charged 
 with revolution. Here one heard as much of hberty and 
 democracy and the inalienable rights of the people as of 
 Kuliur in Germany or of the empire in England. For 
 the Old World, with its kings and its nobles, its armies and 
 its wars, its prejudices and its intolerance, there was that 
 contemptuous irreverence that the enthusiast of a new, 
 burning faith has for the unconverted. I was in the midst 
 of a world of kindred spirits. I went to an Independence 
 Day meeting, and was amazed at the fiery utterances made 
 there by apparently respectable people in high hats and 
 frock coats ; I listened with a heaving of the heart to 
 the enumeration of my limitless privileges as a sovereign 
 of the republic ; and my teeth chattered at the thought 
 that any moment the pohceman who was hovering in the 
 background might seize the inflammatory orator by the 
 collar and clap him into jail. But I glanced around, and 
 saw that the pohceman was yawning, seemingly bored 
 to extinction. The heresies of Europe had become the 
 commonplaces of America. 
 
 There was no government in America that anybody 
 could see, — none, at any rate, of the obtrusive, interfer- 
 ing, inquisitory kind that had been the bane of my life 
 at home. What there was of it occupied itself in dis 
 tributing cigars and maihng garden seeds and bulletins, a 
 government of helpful servants altogether in harmony 
 with my theories as to what a government should be. 
 That was perhaps the most striking evidence of the radical 
 departure the New World had taken from the ways of 
 Europe. America seemed dedicated to the task of proving 
 to mankind by her own actual practice that a people may 
 manage its common affairs without force or panic and with 
 
214 The American Spirit 
 
 only a minimum of the creaking machinery that elsewhere 
 was thought so indispensable. To be sure, there was a 
 White House in Washington, with a good deal of the 
 paraphernalia and the gold lace of officialism, and there 
 were American representatives abroad dabbhng in diplo- 
 macy, and a shadow of an army was lounging in out-of- 
 the-way barracks ; but all this was no more than a 
 decent concession to the usages of mankind, the youthful 
 inspired giant deferring to the weaknesses of senihty, as a 
 philosopher might submit to the cramping absurdity of 
 a dress suit when addressing a gathering of fashionable 
 old ladies. The spirit of American institutions was new] 
 and different. ... ^ 
 
 I do not know what Americanism is if it is not a preju- 
 dice in favor of the under dog. Have you not observed 
 this tendency in the foreign-born American? Has it 
 ever struck you that your agitators and your radicals 
 and your trouble makers are, for the most part, intelligent 
 "foreigners"? If you have noticed it, have you asked 
 yourself why ? I will tell you why. At least I can give 
 you two broad hints. First, it is because the immigrant 
 is, as I have, I hope, made clear to you, a revolutionist! 
 He at least is a thoroughgoing democrat. He wants 
 American Hfe to be as free as its promise. Rightly orj 
 wrongly, he looks upon himself as the spiritual descendant 
 of the founders of the republic, and in his point of view 
 lie is carrying forward the great American tradition of 
 liberty, justice, and equality from the realm of politics 
 l^to the domain of economy. For this reason you cannot 
 consistently quarrel with him. He is taking you at 
 your word. He is naive enough to believe in your rev- 
 olutionary protestations ; and while you may declare 
 him a simpleton and a nuisance, you cannot, I think, 
 
Americans All 
 
 215 
 
 save your face and be severe with him as a criminal. 
 And, secondly, the immigrant American is almost in- 
 variably of the under-dog class himself. He it is who 
 digs your subways and mines your coal and carts your 
 garbage and builds your roads and your railways. He 
 does the better part of your physical dirty work. 
 Wherefore, no matter where fortune may land him, no I 
 matter to what class he may ultimately belong, spiritually \ 
 he will remain of the hand-to-mouth order with whom he / 
 started. . . . 
 
 But the spirit of America is as vital as ever. The 
 esprit de corps of a people is something distinct from the, 
 sum of all its individual wills. You must add the factor 
 of tradition, a certain intangible quantity that hovers in 
 the air, to balance the equation. I took stock of America's 
 policy in her deahngs with foreign peoples, and told myself 
 exultantly that here, without a doubt, was a definite break 
 with the Machiavellian tactics of Old World diplomacy. 
 Conceive, if you can, of any European chancellery giving 
 as much as a tolerant ear to the just demands of an out- 
 raged state of the insignificance of Colombia. I never 
 tire of contrasting our own behavior with China in the 
 Boxer indemnity case, in the four-power loan incident, 
 and in a multitude of lesser relations, with that of the 
 great powers toward that nation. Our godhke patience 
 with an obstreperous, distraught neighbor like Mexico, 
 our determination in the face of intolerable provocation 
 and temptation to be fair and just and magnanimous 
 toward the weak, is humane to the point of quixotism. 
 No wonder the trained diplomats of other continents 
 laugh at us, and our own fire-eaters gnash their teeth. 
 And it is not hard to imagine the merriment of those world 
 poHticians at our philanthropic adventure in the Philip- 
 
/ 
 
 216 The American Spirit 
 
 pines. "Schoolmastering," I can hear them say, "is 
 not building an empire." But America is happily not 
 intent on "expansion." 
 
 Internally the spirit of America exhibits itself quite as 
 strikingly. I read and reread the President's recent 
 address to the Senate/ and my mind can scarcely credit 
 my eyes. No European in a high government position 
 would ever dream of making any such "wild, visionary" 
 assertions. They would not enter his head. His entire 
 training and antecedents and outlook would make the 
 thing impossible. Even an unofficial person would think 
 twice before making himself liable to be sent to Siberia 
 or at least to Coventry. It is the sort of thing that the 
 initiated scoff at and label idealistic, amateurish, revolu- 
 tionary. But that is one of the distinctive peculiarities 
 of America, that her officials are often revolutionists. 
 The people who in Russia and Rumania, and even in 
 Germany and France, would be the ragged, suspected, 
 underground "enemies of society" are in America at the 
 rudder of affairs. A fantastic dreamer with silly notions 
 about the treatment of criminals is here made the warden 
 of the principal prison in the foremost State of the Union. 
 A quiet, hterary gentleman, a sociologist of the millen- 
 nium, is the commissioner of immigration at the chief port 
 of entry to the United States. A radical publicist, an 
 enemy of exploitation of poor by rich, becomes a judge in 
 the highest court in the land. A rabid preaching re- 
 former, whose ideas of government would land him in a 
 Russian jail, is elected to the mayoralty of a great city. 
 And to cap the chmax of the whole incredible business, 
 the chief executive of the Union is a university doctrinaire, 
 a philosophical student of statecraft, a theorist with a 
 passion for showing up the accepted stupidities of the 
 1 January 22, 1917. 
 
Americans All 217 
 
 traditional notions of internal and international govern- 
 ment for the musty shams they are. 
 
 Now, these are expressions — all too rare, alas ! — of 
 that spirit of American humanity for which I have 
 renounced the heritage of my fathers and accepted exile 
 among you here. To this I am loyal with all the strength, 
 not of unreasoning love, but of conviction. For this I am 
 ready to shed my blood and to do battle against my own 
 brothers, just as your ancestors fought against their 
 mother country. It is my rehgion. my faith in a higher 
 destiny for the race of man ; and woe to him who dares 
 attack it in the vain hope of transplanting to this new soil 
 the seed of European discord and disaster 1 I may be 
 mistaken in my faith ; perhaps the splendid hope of 
 democracy by which I lay such great store is only a foolish 
 dream. All the same, it is the only bond of union between \ 
 you and me. It is the basic principle upon which the 
 great international society of America is built, and as 
 long as it retains its semblance of reahty, you have my 
 whole-heaited support. As soon as you have convinced ,j 
 me that that principle is menaced, you need have no' 
 doubts of my loyalty. 
 
 FROM ALIEN TO CITIZEN ^ 
 
 Edward A. Steiner (1866- ) 
 
 On a certain never-to-be-forgotten day I walked to 
 the county seat, about seven miles away, to get my papers. 
 
 Mr. Steiner is a sociologist and author of distinction who 
 migrated from Bohemia to this country after graduating from the 
 University. He is now professor in Grinnell College, Iowa. 
 
 From "F^rom Alien to Citizen." Copyright, 1914, by Fleming H. 
 Revell Company, New York. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
218 The American Spirit 
 
 What seemed to me should be a sacred rite proved to be 
 an miinspiring performeince. I entered a dingy office 
 where a commonplace man, chewing tobacco, mumbled 
 an oath which I repeated. Then he handed me a docu- 
 ment for which I pgdd two doUeu-s. When I held the 
 long-coveted paper in my hands, the inspiring moment 
 came, but it transpired in my own soul. 
 
 *' Fellow citizen with the saints! Fellow citizen with 
 the saints !" I repeated it many times all to myself. 
 
 I scarcely noticed the straight, monotonous seven miles 
 back. I was travehng a much longer road ; I was review- 
 ing my whole hfe. Far away across the ocean I saw a 
 httle village in the Carpathian Mountains, with its con- 
 glomerate of warring races among which I had hved, a 
 despised "Jew boy." Loving them all, I was hated by all. 
 
 I heard the flogging of the poor Slovak peasants, the 
 agonized cries of Jewish men and women incarcerated 
 in their homes, while these same peasants, inflamed by 
 alcohol but stiU more by prejudice, were breaking windows 
 and burning down houses. 
 
 I saw myself growing into boyhood more and more 
 separated from my playmates, until I lived, a youth 
 without friends, growing into a "man without a country." 
 
 Again I felt the desolation of the voyage on the sea, 
 rehved the sweatshop in New York, the hard labor in 
 miU and mine, tramped across the plains and suffered 
 anew all the agonies of the homeless, hungry days in Chi- 
 cago. Then came the time when faith began to grow 
 and the Christ became real : the reaction from a rigid 
 theology and a distasteful, dogmatic atmosphere. After 
 that, once more a stranger in a strange but holy place, 
 and then a "fellow citizen with the saints!" . "Fellow 
 citizen with the saints I" 
 
Americans All 219 
 
 It is no wonder that strangers like myself love this 
 country, and love it, perhaps, as the native never can. 
 Frequently I have wished for the careless American citi- 
 zen, who holds his franchise cheap, an experience like 
 my own, that he might know the value of a freeman's 
 birthright. It would be a glorious experience, I am sure, 
 to feel that transition from subject to citizen, from scarcely 
 being permitted to say "I," to those collective words: 
 "We, fellow citizens.*' 
 
 CONFESSING THE HYPHEN ^ 
 Edward A. Steiner 
 
 I am in the enviable position, denied most of my kind, 
 in which, before my peers, I can present my cause ; and 
 I plead guilty to the charge of being a hyphenated Ameri- 
 can according to Webster — not according to Roosevelt, 
 I am proud of the fact and happy in it. . . . That 
 I was born in another country, subject of a monarch, I 
 was, for certain well-established reasons, unable to avoid. 
 To my credit be it stated that as soon as I discovered my 
 deplorable condition I sought to make amends in the only 
 way I knew ; the way taken by milUons before and after 
 me — emigrating to a country which was generous enough 
 to admit us all. 
 
 Not only did that country admit us to her shores, she 
 did not bar our way into her " Holy of Holies." Thus 
 we were bound to her so closely that we became "hyphen- 
 ated" before we knew it, wedded to her "for better and 
 
 1 From "Confessions of a Hyphenated American." Copyright, 
 1 1916, by Fleming H. Revell Company, New York. Used by 
 permission of the pubhshers. 
 
J220 The American Spirit 
 
 for worse, for richer and for poorer" ; married to her as 
 swiftly as marriages take place in this country, where 
 everything is frightfully accelerated. 
 
 We were bound to her with a sense of loyalty and devo- 
 tion which the native-born American cannot always feel. 
 What she has done for us is sufficient to bind us to her 
 "till death us do p£U"t." 
 
 Again speaking for myself, I had quite forgotten that 
 I possessed even the innocent hyphen, as interpreted by 
 Webster, not by Roosevelt. There was not a drop of 
 American blood in my veins when I landed in New York 
 scarcely thirty years ago. Yet I can say today without 
 a bit of cant, which I always detest, and which is doubly 
 detestable in these trying days, that if you drained every 
 drop of my blood — and I am wiUing to give the last 
 drop, if needed, if thus my words might be proved — • you 
 would find in my veins American blood only. 
 
 I regarded myself as so thoroughly an American that 
 I forgot the very names of the ships on which I chroni- 
 cally migrated and remembered only one of them, which 
 it seemed had brought me here — the Mayflower. When- 
 ever I returned to the land of my birth it was like going 
 to a foreign country. When I stood before the Emperor's 
 palace in the city of Vienna, with no great patriotic emo- 
 tions stirring in my breast, I could hear the questioning 
 voice of the poet ringing accusingly in my ears ; 
 
 Breathes there the man with soul so dead 
 Who never to himself hath said 
 "This is my own, my native land" ? 
 
 and I had to admit that I was the miserable wretch whose 
 existence he doubted. 
 
 When my face was turned westward, and the odors 
 of the steerage filled my nostrils, then indeed I knew that 
 
Americans A II 221 
 
 I was going home, and the Alpine horn from the moun- 
 tains, snow-crowned and glorious, had no such welcoming 
 sound as the fog horn from the low dunes at Sandy Hook. 
 
 How often I have stood among thousands of my kind 
 on the great ships, out of which millions of us were born, 
 full-grown, into this new l£uid. Men and women were 
 there, going back to their native land from which they 
 thought themselves as yet unweaned. Many of them, 
 more successful than I, were returning with small for- 
 tunes which they intended to spend in the towns and 
 villages where they were born and where they expected 
 to die. They soon discovered, however, that they were 
 pilgrims and sojourners in the land of their birth and again 
 they were seeking another country, " even an Heavenly" ; 
 or, to use the language of the street, they wanted to get 
 back to "God's Country." 
 
 I have been a chronic immigrant, following so frequently 
 the trail worn by millions of weary feet across this con- 
 tinent that it has become a sort of "White Way" for me, 
 straighter than that on Broadway, and not so dangerous. 
 I have visited every foreign colony between Angel Gate 
 on thp Pacific and Hell Gate on the Atlantic ; and while 
 I have found the mother tongue surviving in mutilated 
 form among the older generation, and discovered that the 
 most loyal part of our anatomy, the stomach, still craves 
 for the leeks and garhcs of the homeland, I have also found 
 the Spirit of America brooding over these ahens, wooing 
 them and winning them, while but very few do not finally 
 yield it full allegiance. 
 
 I have guided many distinguished foreign guests who 
 came here to study the strange ways of this country which 
 they had called the Dollar Land. If they were discern- 
 ing, and some of them were, they discovered that this 
 
222 The American Spirit 
 
 country is held together by a finer metal than gold and by 
 a nobler symbol than the eagle of our coinage. 
 
 They found that although there have come here in the 
 last twenty years some thirteen millions of aliens, broken 
 bits, torn patches of all nationahties and races, we are 
 being knitted to one another as a nation. At no time 
 in our history has the sense of nationality been stronger, 
 and never before were we more truly the United States 
 of America than now. 
 
 These students of our national life were amazed and 
 confounded as they observed the change in the expres- 
 sion, bearing, and deportment of the peoples whom they 
 knew in the Old World as sullen, rebellious, suspicious, 
 and incapable of cohesion. 
 
 AMERICA ALONE 1 
 Rudolph Rlankenburg (1843-1918) 
 
 I came from foreign shores to find a home here, and 
 I know what it is to love another land; but I want to 
 urge upon you that you must love America first of all. 
 With the high privilege of citizenship in this great country 
 go responsibiHties. You must dedicate yourselves from 
 this day to America alone. 
 
 In forswearing allegiance to the potentate of the land 
 from which you came, you must give yourself utterly 
 to the United States. Let your motto be "America 
 first, last, and all the time." No matter what may hap- 
 pen in the world at large, no matter what befalls the 
 
 1 From a speech made by Mayor Blankenburg, a distinguished re- 
 form mayor of Philadelphia, welcoming President Wilson to Phila- 
 delphia, May 10, 1915. 
 
Americans All 223 
 
 country you love that you left behind, our first allegiance 
 is to the country of our adoption. 
 
 The motto which I accepted long ago as my own is, 
 *' Do right and fear not." Don't let any one for a moment 
 divert you from the thought that you are an American 
 forever and nobody's slave. Never let anybody for self- 
 ish reasons dictate what you shall do. Let no one, when 
 age shall have come upon you as it has upon me, point 
 to you as one who has been an enemy to his country, who 
 has broken his oath of allegiance I 
 
 A FAR JOURNEY! 
 
 Abraham Mitrie Rihbany 
 
 It was no easy task for me on the morning of that 
 7th of October, 1881, to believe my senses when I first 
 experienced that weU-nigh overwhelming feeling that I 
 was really in the great city of New York. As our httle 
 party proceeded on across Battery Park up toward Wash- 
 ington Street, I felt the need of new faculties to fit my new 
 environment. A host of questions besieged my mind. 
 Was I really in New York? Was I still my old self, or 
 had some subtle unconscious transformation already taken 
 place in me? Could I utter my political and religious 
 convictions freely, unafraid of either soldier or priest? 
 What were the opportunities of the great New World 
 into which I had just entered? What was awaiting me 
 
 ^ Mr. Rihbany is a Congregationalist minister of Boston, who 
 came from Syria to this country as an immigrant, in 1881. 
 From "A Far Journey." Copyright, 1914, by Abraham Mitrie 
 Rihbany. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 
 Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
224 The American Spirit 
 
 in America, whose life, as I had been told, was so vast, 
 so complex, and so enlightened? Whatever the future 
 had "of wonder or surprise," it seemed that merely being 
 in the United States was enough of a blessing to call forth 
 my profoundest gratitude. 
 
 Nor did I have to wait very long for tangible evidence 
 to convince me that America was the land of liberty and 
 opportunity. On that very evening my eyes beheld a 
 scene so strange and so dehghtful that I could hardly 
 beUeve it was real. Sitting in the restaurant early in 
 the evening, we heard, approaching from the direction of 
 "uptown," band music and the heavy tread of a march- 
 ing multitude which filled the street from curb to curb. 
 Some one, looking out of the window, shouted, "It is 
 the laborers ! They are on their way to Battery Peirk 
 to hold a meeting and demand their rights." That was 
 all that was needed for me to dash out with a few others 
 and follow the procession to the near-by park. I had heard 
 in a very fragmentary way of the "united laborers" in 
 Europe and America, but, while in Syria, and as a Turkish 
 subject, it was almost beyond me to conceive of working- 
 men in collective moral and poUtical action. The pro- 
 cession was dotted with illuminated banners inscribed 
 with mottoes which I could not read, and the gathering 
 must have been that of some "trade union." Reaching 
 the park the crowd halted, and a huge mass of eager men 
 and a few women faced the impassioned speakers. What 
 those speakers said was beyond my understanding. I 
 was a stranger to the country, the English language, and 
 the political and social activities of free men. From some 
 fellow Syrians who understood English I learned that 
 those workingmen were protesting against certain issues 
 which I cannot now recall. I was intensely interested 
 
Americans All 225 
 
 in the conduct of the few policemen present. They walked 
 about leisurely around that human mass, toyed with their 
 clubs, and seemed utterly indifferent to all that was 
 going on. The orderly conduct of the meeting and the 
 rational way of protesting against wrongs, real or imag- 
 inary, was to me poetry set to music. How I wished I 
 could return to Syria just for a few hours and tell my 
 oppressed countrymen what I had seen in America ; just 
 to tell them of the freedom and inteUigence of the Ameri- 
 can laborer, and of his right and ability to convert parks 
 and street corners into lecturing platforms. . . . 
 
 I was told while in Syria that in America money could 
 be picked up everywhere. That was not true. But 
 I found that infinitely better things than money — 
 knowledge, freedom, self-reliance, order, cleanliness, 
 sovereign human rights, self-government, and all that 
 these great accompHshments imply — can be picked up 
 everywhere in America by whosoever earnestly seeks 
 them. And those among Americans who are exerting 
 the largest influence toward the solution of the "immigra- 
 tion problem" are, in my opinion, not those who are 
 writing books on "good citizenship," but those who 
 stand before the foreigner as the embodiment of these 
 great ideals. 
 
 The occasions on which I was made to feel that I was 
 a foreigner — an ahen — were so rare that they are not 
 worth mentioning. My purpose in life, and the large, 
 warm heart of America which opens wide to every person 
 who aspires to be a good and useful citizen, made me for- 
 get that there was an "immigration problem" within 
 the borders of this great Commonwealth. ... 
 
 It was in that httle town [Elmore, Ohio] also that I 
 first heard "America" sung. The fine "Land where my 
 
226 The American Spirit 
 
 fathers died" stuck in my throat. I envied every per- 
 son in that audience who could sing it truthfully. For 
 years afterward, whenever I tried to sing those words, 
 I seemed to myself to be an intruder. At last a new light 
 broke upon my understanding. At last I was led to 
 realize that the fathers of my new and higher self did 
 live and die in America. I was born in Syria as a child, 
 but I was born in America as a man. All those who 
 fought for the freedom I enjoy, for the civic ideals I cher- 
 ish, for the simple but lofty virtues of the typical American 
 home which I love, were my fathers ! Therefore, I could 
 sing the words "Land where my fathers died" with as 
 much truth and justice as the words "Land of the pil- 
 grims' pride." . . . 
 
 My soul was fired with admiration for the devotion, 
 heroism, and endurance of the American volunteer soldier, 
 of both the North and the South. And oh, the story of 
 Abraham Lincoln! How it opened every vein of sym- 
 pathy in my nature and awakened in me deep, almost 
 religious reverence for the memory of that "rich and vari- 
 ous man." As I read and re-read the records of his 
 journey from a log cabin to the White House, Lincoln 
 seemed to me to be the noblest human example this side 
 the Crucifixion, and the supreme vindication of democracy. 
 
 And now to say that my enthusiasm for the martyr 
 President has been sobered down and reheved of its high 
 coloring does by no means indicate a reversal of my youth- 
 ful estimate of his worth. No, Abraham Lincoln remains 
 to me as one of the great world-builders and saviors of 
 humanity. But my present opinion is that, if humanity 
 is not to be pronounced a failure, no one individual can 
 be so good above all other individuals, nor of sufficiently 
 inclusive greatness, as to be called the noblest human 
 
Americans All 227 
 
 example and the supreme vindication of democracy. I 
 find the vindication of democracy not only in the career 
 of Lincoln, but also in the million men who left their 
 occupations and responded to his call to arms to defend 
 a national ideal ; I find it in the fortitude and sacrificing 
 love of the countless American mothers, wives, and sis- 
 ters, who bade their men go forth and give their fullest 
 measure of devotion to the homes and altars of their 
 country. I find the supreme vindication of democracy 
 in this nation's survival of the shocks of the greatest civil 
 war in history ; in that great historic triumph of reason 
 over the passions in a reunited North and South; in 
 America's miUions of happy homes ; in its multitudes of 
 schools and Hbraries, which are "free to all," and in the- 
 fact that its power of cohesion is neither that of standing 
 armies, nor yet of superimposed laws, but the inteUigence 
 of its citizens and mutual good will among them. I find 
 the vindication of democracy in the marvelous assimila- 
 tive powers of America through which hosts of gdiens are 
 enfranchised in peace and freedom, intellectually, poHt- 
 ically, and socially; in the fact that one may travel 
 through the whole vast territory called the United States, 
 the home of a hundred miUion souls, without encounter- 
 ing a customhouse, a "frontier guard," or a constabulary 
 squad; in the American citizen's love for fair play and 
 his deep conviction that right only makes right. . . . No 
 king, I beheve, ever felt more exalted with his crown 
 and scepter than I did whenever I said "My country." 
 Just think of me, the child of ages of oppression, now hav- 
 ing a great country to serve, to defend, nay, to save from 
 impending ruin! It was undefiled glory to address "my 
 fellow citizens," even to carry a torch — a lighted one — 
 and join the procession under the Stars and Stripes. . . . 
 
1) 
 
 228 The American Spirit 
 
 Now, do you wish to know what riches I have gathered 
 in the New World? I will tell you. These are my 
 riches, which neither moth nor rust can corrupt. I have 
 traveled from the primitive social life of a Syrian village 
 to a great city which embodies the noblest traditions of 
 the most enlightened country in the world. I have come 
 from the bondage of Turkish rule to the priceless heritage 
 of American citizenship. Though one of the least of 
 her loyal citizens, I am rich in the sense that I am help- 
 ing in my small way to solve America's great problems 
 and to realize her wondrous possibilities. In this great 
 country I have been taught to believe in and to labor for 
 an enlightened and cooperative individualism, universal 
 peace, free churches, £ind free schools. 
 
 AMERICA'S CAUSE AND THE FOREIGN-BORN 
 CITIZEN 1 
 
 Otto H. Kahn (1867- ) 
 
 The duty of loyal allegiance and faithful service to his 
 country, even unto death, rests, of course, upon eveiry 
 American. But, if it be possible to speak of a comparative 
 degree concerning what is the highest as it is the most 
 elementary attribute of citizenship, that duty may almost 
 be said to rest with an even more solemn and compelling 
 obhgation upon Americans of foreign origin than upon 
 native Americans. 
 
 For we Americans of foreign antecedents are here not 
 by the accidental right of birth, but by our own free choice 
 for better or for worse. 
 
 1 From an address by Mr. Kahn, a prominent banker and philanthro- 
 pist of German birth, before the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Cham- 
 ber of Commerce, September 26, 1917. Published in " Right Above 
 Race." Copyright, 1918, by The Century Company, New York. 
 Used by permission of the author. 
 
Americans All 229 
 
 We are your fellow citizens because you accepted our 
 oath of allegiance as given in good faith, and because you 
 have opened to us in generous trust the portals of American 
 opportunity and freedom, and have admitted us to mem- 
 bership in the family of Americans, giving us equal rights 
 in the great inheritance which has been created by the 
 blood and the toil of your ancestors, asking nothing from 
 us in return but decent citizenship and adherence to those 
 ideals and principles which are symboUzed by the glorious^ 
 flag of America. 
 
 Woe to the foreign-born American who betrays the 
 splendid trust which you have reposed in him I 
 
 Woe to him who considers his American citizenship merely 
 as a convenient garment to be worn in fair weather but to 
 be exchanged for another one in time of storm and stress I 
 
 Woe to the German-American, so called, who, in this 
 sacred war for a cause as high as any for which ever people 
 took up arms, does not feel a solemn urge, does not show 
 an eager determination, to be in the very forefront of the 
 struggle ; does not prove a patriotic jealousy, in thought, 
 in action, and in speech, to rival and to outdo his native- 
 born fellow citizen in devotion and in willing sacrifice for 
 the country of his choice and adoption and sworn alle- 
 giance, and of their common affection and pride. 
 
 As Washington led Americans of British blood to fight 
 against Great Britain, as Lincoln cedled upon Americans 
 of the North to fight their very brothers of the South, so 
 Americans of German descent are now summoned to join 
 in our country's righteous struggle against a people of 
 their own blood, which, under the evil spell of a dreadful 
 obsession, and, Heaven knows ! through no fault of ours, 
 has made itself the enemy of this peace-loving Nation, as 
 it is the enemy of peace and right and freedom through- 
 out the world. 
 
230 The American Spirit 
 
 THE FREEDOM OF THE LAND 
 
 L. Lamprey 
 
 Long, long ago our people made our Land for us, 
 Braving all the perils of the earth and sky and sea, 
 
 Fearing not the wilderness, 
 
 Toiling in their loneliness. 
 All in love and loyalty to make their children free. 
 
 Long years ago our people made our Law for us, 
 
 Braving Kings and Emperors, they labored for their own, 
 
 Men of every faith and name. 
 
 Out of every land they came, 
 Winning, us our liberty to reap where they had sown. 
 
 Far, fair away our people make our Name for us. 
 Braving all the terrors of the battle's fierce array. 
 
 For the peace of land and sea. 
 
 For the birthright of the free, 
 All for truth and loyalty they spend their lives today. 
 
 God guard our Land — the land our people gave to us. 
 Grant us faith unfaltering for the days that are to be, 
 
 So to keep in steadfastness, 
 
 Honor, truth, and kindliness. 
 The glory of America, the birthright of the free I 
 
 AMERICA FIRST 1 
 
 WooDRow Wilson (1856- ) 
 
 The singular fascination of American history is that 
 it has been a process of constant re-creation, of making 
 
 ^ Address delivered before the Daughters of the American Revolution, 
 Washington, D.C., October 11, 1915. From official pamphlet 
 printed by the Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1915. 
 
7 
 
 Americans All 231 
 
 over again in each generation the thing which was con- 
 ceived at first. You know how peculiarly necessary that 
 has been in our case, because America has not grown by 
 the mere multiplication of the original stock. It is easy 
 to preserve tradition with continuity of blood ; it is easy 
 in a single family to remember the origins of the race and 
 the purposes of its organization ; but it is not so easy 
 when that race is constantly being renewed and aug- 
 mented from other sources, from stocks that did not carry) 
 or originate the same principles. 
 
 So from generation to generation strangers have had 
 to be indoctrinated with the principles of the American 
 family, and the wonder and the beauty of it all has been 
 that the infection has been so generously easy. For the 
 principles of liberty are united with the principles of hope. 
 Every individual, as well as every Nation, wishes to realize 
 the best thing that is in him, the best thing that can be 
 conceived out of the materials of which his spirit is con- 
 structed. It has happened in a way that fascinates the 
 imagination that we have not only been augmented by 
 additions from outside, but that we have been greatly 
 stimulated by those additions. Living in the easy pros- 
 perity of a free people, knowing that the sun had always 
 been free to shine upon us and prosper our undertakings, 
 we did not reahze how hard the task of liberty is and how 
 rare the privilege of liberty is ; but men were drawn out / \ 
 of every chmate and out of every race because of an ir- V 
 resistible attraction of their spirits to the American ideal. 
 They thought of America as Hfting, hke that great statue 
 in the harbor of New York, a torch to Ught the pathway 
 of men to the things that they desire, and men of all sorts 
 and conditions struggled toward that hght and came to 
 our shores with an eager desire to regJize it, and a hunger 
 
232 The American Spirit 
 
 for it such as some of us no longer felt, for we were as if 
 satiated and satisfied and were indulging ourselves after 
 a fashion that did not belong to the ascetic devotion of the 
 early devotees of those great principles. Strangers came 
 to remind us of what we had promised ourselves and 
 through ourselves had promised mankind. All men 
 came to us and said, " Where is the bread of life with which 
 you promised to feed us, and have you partaken of it your- 
 selves?" For my part, I beHeve that the constant re- 
 newal of this people out of foreign stocks has been a con- 
 stant source of reminder to this people of what the induce- 
 ment was that was offered to men who would come and 
 be of our number. . . . 
 
 I would not be afraid upon the test of "America first" 
 to take a census of all the foreign-born citizens of the 
 United States, for I know that the vast majority of them 
 came here because they believed in America ; and their 
 behef in America has made them better citizens than some 
 people who were born in America. They can say that 
 they have bought this privilege with a great price. They 
 have left their homes, they have left their kindred, they 
 have broken all the nearest and deeuest ties of human life 
 in order to come to a new land, take a new rootage, begin 
 a new life, and so byself-sacrifice express their confidence 
 in a new principle ; whereas, it cost us none of these things. 
 We were born into this privilege ; we were rocked and 
 cradled in it ; we did nothing to create it ; and it is, there- 
 fore, the greater duty on our part to do a great deal to 
 enhance it and preserve it. I am not deceived as to the 
 balance of opinion among the foreign-born citizens of the 
 United States, but I am in a hurry for an opportunity to 
 have a fine-up and let the men who are thinking first of 
 other countries stand on one side and all those that are 
 
Americans All 233 
 
 for America first, last, and all the time on the other 
 side. ... 
 
 I would not feel any exhilaration in belonging to 
 America if I did not feel that she was something more 
 than a rich and powerful nation. I should not feel proud 
 to be in some respects and for a Httle while her spokesman 
 if I did not beUeve that there was something else than 
 physical force behind her. I believe that the glory ofl 
 America is that she is a great spiritual conception and\ 
 that in the spirit of her institutions dwells not only her/ 
 distinction but her power. The one thing that the worlA 
 cannot permanently resist is the moral force of great and 
 triumphant convictions. « 
 
 AMERICA FIRST 1 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt (1858- ) 
 
 The mighty tide of immigration to our shores has 
 brought in its train much of good and much of evil ; and 
 whether the good or the evil shall predominate depends 
 mainly on whether these newcomers do or do not throw 
 themselves heartily into our national Ufe, cease to be 
 European, and become American like the rest of us. 
 More than a third of the people of the Northern states are 
 of foreign birth or parentage. An immense number of 
 them have become completely Americanized, and these 
 stand on exactly the same plane as the descendants of any 
 Puritan, CavaUer, or Knickerbocker among us, and do 
 their full and honorable share of the nation's work. But 
 
 *From "American Ideals and Other Essays." Copyright, 1897, 
 by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Used by permission of 
 the publishers and the author. 
 
234 The American Spirit 
 
 where immigrants, or the sons of immigrants, do not heart- 
 ily and in good faith throw in their lot with us, but cling 
 to the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and the habits 
 of thought of the Old World which they have left, they 
 thereby harm both themselves and us. If they remain 
 alien elements, unassimilated, and with interests separate 
 from ours, they are mere obstructions to the current of our 
 national hfe, and, moreover, can get no good from it 
 themselves. In fact, though we ourselves also suffer 
 from their perversity, it is they who really suffer most. 
 It is an immense benefit to the European immigrant to 
 change him into an American citizen. To bear the name 
 of American is to bear the most honorable of titles ; and 
 whoever does not so beheve has no business to bear the 
 name at all, and if he comes from Europe, the sooner he 
 goes bsick there the better. Besides, the man who does 
 not become Americanized nevertheless fails to remain a 
 European, and becomes nothing at all. The immigrant 
 cannot possibly remain what he was, or continue to be a 
 member of the Old World society. If he tries to retain 
 his old language, in a few generations it becomes a bar- 
 barous jargon ; if he tries to retain his old customs and 
 ways of hfe, in a few generations he becomes an uncouth 
 boor. He has cut himself off from the Old World, and 
 cannot retain his connection with it ; and if he wishes ever 
 to amount to anything, he must throw himself heart and 
 soul, and without reservation, into the new life to which he 
 has come. . . . 
 
 The immigrant of today can learn much from the 
 experience of the immigrants of the past, who came to 
 America prior to the Revolutionary War. We were then 
 already, what we are now, a people of mixed blood. 
 Many of our most illustrious Revolutionary names were 
 
Americans All 235 
 
 borne by men of Huguenot blood — Jay, Sevier, Marion, 
 Laurens. But the Huguenots were, on the whole, the 
 best immigrants we have ever received ; sooner than any 
 other, and more completely, they became American 
 in speech, conviction, and thought. The Hollanders 
 took longer than the Huguenots to, become completely 
 assimilated ; nevertheless, they in the end became so, im- 
 mensely to their own advantage. One of the leading 
 Revolutionary generals, Schuyler, and one of the Presi- 
 dents of the United States, Van Buren, were of Dutch 
 blood ; but they rose to their positions, the highest in the 
 land, because they had become Americans and had 
 ceased being Hollanders. If they had remained members 
 of an alien body, cut off by their speech and customs and 
 belief from the rest of the American community, Schuyler 
 would have hved his life as a boorish provincial squire, 
 and Van Buren would have ended his days as a small 
 tavern-keeper. 
 
 ODE TO COLUMBIA 1 
 
 HURBAN VaJANSKY 
 (Written in prison in Segedin) 
 
 The old men die beholding only ruin, 
 
 Their eyes behold no hope, no truth in Hfe. 
 
 The young men fall away, at once or slowly. 
 Even the strong give up the ceaseless strife ; 
 
 Only a handful still keep up the fight. 
 
 Only a few hghts burn amid the night. 
 
 ^From "Our Slavic Fellow Citizens," by Emily Greene Balch. 
 Published by New York Charities Commission, 1910. Used by 
 permission of the translator, Professor Balch. 
 
236 The American Spirit 
 
 Suddenly rises proudly from the ocean 
 
 A giant woman with majestic face ; 
 Shining the drapery of her snowy garments, 
 
 Her eyes like flames upon the altar place ; 
 Her godlike breast Uke marble fair to see. 
 *'You poor forsaken children, come to me. 
 
 *'0 come ; I know you bring but humble packets, 
 That from your fatherland no gems you bring, 
 
 That murderous wrath has chased you from your dwell- 
 ings. 
 From the ancestral soil to which you cling ; 
 
 No gifts I offer, but this one reward — 
 
 Time for free work, for human rights regard." 
 
 And they, disgraced here in their native country. 
 Lift up proud heads since o'er the seas they came, 
 
 And there he speaks aloud who here was silent, 
 And glories there in what he here thought shame. 
 
 Columbia to him self-knowledge gives. 
 
 Surprised he finds that only now he hves. 
 
 Hail to our brothers whom their stepdame cruel 
 Drove from their simple huts, their native sod. 
 
 Columbia, thou hast smitten ofl^ the fetters. 
 Lifting them up to manhood, heaven, and God. 
 
 land of Christopher, may Christ repay 
 
 What for my brothers poor thou dost today. 
 
Americans All 237 I 
 
 i 
 
 3 
 
 ONE COUNTRY! \ 
 
 Frank L. Stanton (1857- ) ^ 
 
 After all, 
 One country, brethren ! We must rise or fall 
 
 With the Supreme Republic. W^e must be i 
 
 The m£ikers of her immortality ; 
 
 Her freedom, fame, ; 
 
 Her glory or her shame — 
 Liegemen to God and fathers of the free ! i 
 
 After all— i 
 
 Hark! from the heights the clear, strong, clarion call l 
 
 And the command imperious : "Stand forth, i 
 
 Sons of the South and brothers of the North I \ 
 
 Stand forth and be ^ 
 
 As one on soil and sea — ■ 
 
 Your country's honor more than empire's worth I " ^ 
 
 After all, ; 
 
 'Tis Freedom wears the loveliest coronal ; 
 
 Her brow is to the morning : in the sod 
 
 She breathes the breath of patriots ; every clod ^ 
 
 Answers her call J 
 
 And rises Uke a wall I 
 
 Against the foes of liberty and God ! ■] 
 
 * From "Comes One with a Song," by Frank L. Stanton. Copy- ■ 
 
 right, 1898. Used by special permission of the publishers, The \ 
 
 Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapohs. 
 
 .{ 
 
 J 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 
IX. THE PRESENT CRISIS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The great European war began on August 1, 1914. 
 The United States remained neutral in this conflict for 
 almost three years. At first the cause of the war and the 
 aims and purposes of the contestants were somewhat 
 befogged by contradictory statements. The pohcy of 
 the German Imperial Government, however, has from 
 month to month and from year to year thrown increasing 
 light upon the fundamental issues. 
 
 Only a self-centered autocracy could have invaded a 
 small, inoffensive country Uke Belgium, ignoring any 
 question of justice or humanity, for the reason, since 
 avowed, that it was supposed to be easier to take this 
 road to the conquest of France than to face the French 
 forts on the frontier. Only a conscienceless autocracy 
 could have conceived the dehberate policy of robbing this 
 Belgium of millions of money and treasure, and after 
 removing her food suppUes and the tools and machinery 
 of her commerce and manufacture, condescending to per- 
 mit other nations to feed the people made destitute by their 
 conquerors. Only a desperate autocracy would have 
 resorted to the infamy of reviving piracy, attacking by 
 submarine warfare the unarmed and helpless merchant- 
 men and passenger boats of neutral and friendly powers, 
 instead of issuing with its navy to meet the warships of its 
 enemy in equal battle. Only a thoroughly unscrupulous 
 autocracy could have coolly and cynically sent forth into 
 the neutral countries of the world an army of spies, 
 plotters, and incendiary criminals, while continuing to 
 profess friendship. 
 
 239 
 
240 The American Spirit 
 
 The issue has been made plain. The people of the 
 United States know that the struggle is henceforth, as 
 from the first it has shown itself to be, a grapple between 
 autocracy and the rising spirit of democracy for the domi- 
 nation of the world. Germany deired her fate when she 
 flung out the battle cry: "World Power. or Downfall!'* 
 France rephed with the immortal words of Verdun : "You 
 shall not pass!" 
 
 The merciless submarine poHcy of the German Empire 
 was again and again challenged by our government. At 
 the beginning of 1917 Germany made this warfare more 
 ruthless than ever. War with the United States was 
 inevitable. On April 2, President Wilson asked Congress 
 for authority to wage war against the Imperial German 
 Government, on the ground that that government was 
 aheady waging war upon this country. Congress was not 
 slow to respond. War was declared. 
 
 In the greatest moral crisis which the world has ever 
 seen, we are finally ranged openly on the side of those who 
 champion the cause of right and chivalry against brutal 
 and cynical will to power. Long before the expHcit 
 declaration of war, Americans had poured into France to 
 become soldiers of the Foreign Legion, privates of Cana- 
 dian regiments, aviators, drivers of Red Cross ambulances, 
 hospital surgeons and nurses, organizers of war relief work 
 in every form. Now we are enlisted as a people, with 
 faith that the victory of democracy must be decisive. 
 Nations must continue in the right to rule themselves; 
 nations as yet incapable of self-government must not be 
 bound in the chains of greedy despotism. This is a war 
 to make the world free, to make it, in the wise and potent 
 phrase of Woodrow Wilson, spokesman of our nation, 
 a world safe for democracy. 
 
The Present Crisis' . 241 
 
 THE PRESENT CRISIS ^ 
 James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) 
 
 Once to every man and nation comes the moment to 
 
 decide, 
 In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or 
 
 evil side ; 
 Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the 
 
 bloom or blight. 
 Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon 
 
 the right. 
 And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and 
 
 that Hght. 
 
 Hast thou chosen, my people, on whose party thou 
 
 shalt stand, 
 Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust 
 
 against our land ? 
 Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 'tis Truth alone is 
 
 strong, 
 And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her 
 
 throng 
 Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all 
 
 wrong. 
 
 Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments 
 
 see, 
 That like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through 
 
 ObHvion's sea : 
 
 From "The Present Crisis," in Lowell's Poetical Works 
 (Riverside Edition), Vol. I. Copyright, 1890, by James Russell 
 liOwell. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Roston. Used 
 by permission of the publishers. 
 
242 The American Spirit 
 
 Not an ear in court or market for the low, foreboding cry 
 Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose 
 
 feet earth's chaff must fly ; 
 Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment 
 
 hath passed by. 
 
 Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but 
 
 record 
 One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems 
 
 and the Word ; 
 Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 
 
 throne, — 
 Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim 
 
 unknown, 
 Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above 
 
 his own. 
 
 We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is 
 great, 
 
 Slow of faith, how weak an arm may turn the iron helm 
 of fate. 
 
 But the soul is still oracular ; amid the market's din. 
 
 List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave 
 within, — ; 
 
 *'They enslave their children's children who make com- 
 promise with sin." 
 
 Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant 
 
 brood, 
 Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched 
 
 the earth with blood. 
 Famished in his self-made desert, bhnded by our purer 
 
 day, 
 
The Present Crisis 243 
 
 Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey ; — 
 Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless chil- 
 dren play ? 
 
 Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her 
 
 wretched crust, 
 Ere her cause bring fame and profit and 'tis prosperous 
 
 to be just ; 
 Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands 
 
 aside. 
 Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified. 
 And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had 
 
 denied. 
 
 Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes — they were souls* 
 
 that stood alone. 
 While the men they agonized for hurled the contumehoup 
 
 stone. 
 Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam 
 
 incUne 
 To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith 
 
 divine. 
 By one man's plain truth to manhood, and to God's 
 
 supreme design. 
 
 'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves 
 
 Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves, 
 
 Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light a 
 
 crime ; — 
 Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men 
 
 behind their time ? 
 Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make 
 
 Plymouth Rock subUme ? 
 
S44 The American Spirit 
 
 They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts, 
 Unconvinced by ax or gibbet that all virtue was the 
 
 Past's ; 
 But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that 
 
 hath made us free, 
 Hoarding it in moldy parchments, while our tender spirits 
 
 flee 
 The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them 
 
 across the sea. 
 
 They have rights who dare maintain them ; we £ire traitors 
 to our sires, 
 
 Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar- 
 fires ; 
 
 Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our 
 haste to slay. 
 
 From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral 
 lamps away 
 
 To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of 
 today ? 
 
 New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient 
 good uncouth ; 
 
 They must upward still, and onward, who would keep 
 abreast of Truth ; 
 
 Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must 
 Pilgrims be, 
 
 Launch our Mayflower, and 'steer boldly through the des- 
 perate winter sea. 
 
 Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood- 
 rusted key. 
 
The Present Crisis 245 
 
 THE PRUSSIAN MENACE TO AMERICAN 
 FREEDOM 1 
 
 Elihu Root (1845- ) 
 
 By entering this war in April, the United States availed 
 itself of the very last opportunity to defend itself against 
 subjection to German power before it was too late to defend 
 itself successfully. 
 
 For many years we have pursued our peaceful course 
 of internal development protected in a v£u*iety of ways. 
 We were protected by the law of nations to which all 
 civiUzed governments have professed their allegiance. 
 So long as we committed no injustice ourselves we could 
 not be attacked without a violation of that law. 
 
 We were protected by a series of treaties under which 
 all the principal nations of the earth agreed to respect 
 our rights and to maintain friendship with us. We were 
 protected by an extensive system of arbitration created 
 by or consequent upon the peace conferences at The 
 Hague, and under which all controversies arising under 
 the law and under treaties were to be settled peaceably 
 by arbitration and not by force. 
 
 We were protected by the broad expanse of ocean 
 separating us from all great military powers, and by the 
 bold assertion of the Monroe Doctrine '^ that if any of those 
 
 1 Mr. Root was Secretary of State under President Rocsevelt. 
 In this and many other offices of trust Mr. Root, through his broad 
 statesmanship and keen intellectual powers, has been an instrument 
 in estabUshing the American spirit. 
 
 From an address delivered at Chicago, Illinois, September 14, 
 1917. In pamphlet, " Plain Issues of the War," issued by the Com- 
 mittee on Public Information, Washington, D.C. 
 
 * See page 74 for the foreign policy formulated imder President 
 
246 The American Spirit 
 
 powers undertook to overpass the ocean and establish 
 itself upon these western continents that would be re- 
 garded as dangerous to the peace and safety of the United 
 States, and would call upon her to act in her defense. 
 
 We were protected by the fact that the policy and the 
 fleet of Great Britain were well known to support the 
 Monroe Doctrine. We were protected by the dehcate 
 balance of power in Europe which made it seem not worth 
 while for any power to engage in a conflict here at the risk 
 of suffering from its rivals there. 
 
 All these protections were swept away by the war which 
 began in Europe in 1914. The war was begun by the 
 concerted action of Germany and Austria — the invasion 
 of Serbia on the east by Austria and the invasion of 
 Luxembourg and Belgium on the west by Germany. Both 
 invasions were in violation of the law of nations, and in 
 violation of the faith of treaties. 
 
 Everybody knew that Russia was bound in good faith 
 to come to the relief of Serbia, that France was bound 
 by treaty to come to the aid of Russia, that England was 
 bound by treaty to come to the aid of Belgium, so that 
 the invasion of these two smaU states was the beginning 
 of a general European war. 
 
 These acts, which have drenched the world with blood, 
 were defended and justified in the bold avowal of the 
 German government that the interests of the Germgin 
 state were superior to the obhgations of law and the faith 
 of treaties, that no law or treaty was binding upon Ger- 
 many which it was for the interest of Germany to violate. 
 
 AU pretense of obedience to the law of nations and of 
 
 Monroe in 1823, which announced that the United States would 
 view as a hostile action any attempt of European powers to acquire 
 territory on the American continents. 
 
The Present Crisis 247 
 
 respect for solemn promises was thrown off ; and, in lieu 
 of that system of lawful and moral restraint upon power 
 which Christian civilization has been building up for a 
 century was reinstated the cynical philosophy of Frederick 
 the Great, the greatest of the Hohenzollerns, who declared : 
 
 "Statesmanship can be reduced to three principles: 
 First, to maintain your power, and, according to circum- 
 stances, to extend it. Second, to form an alliance only for 
 your own advantage. Third, to command fear and re- 
 spect, even in the most disastrous times. 
 
 "Do not be ashamed of making interested alliances 
 from which you yourself can derive the whole advantage. 
 Do not make the fooUsh mistake of not breaking them 
 when you believe your interests require it. 
 
 "Above all, uphold the following maxim: To despoil 
 your neighbors is to deprive them of the means of injuring 
 you. 
 
 "When he is about to conclude a treaty with some 
 foreign power, if a sovereign remembers he is a Christian, 
 he is lost." 
 
 From 1914 until the present, in a war waged by Ger- 
 many with a revolting barbarity unequaled since the con- 
 quests of Genghis Khan,^ Germany has violated every rule 
 agreed upon by civiHzed nations in modern times to miti- 
 gate the barbarities of wai or to protect the rights of non- 
 combatants and neutrals. She had no grievance against 
 Belgium except that Belgium stood upon her admitted 
 rights and refused to break the faith of her treaties by 
 consenting that the neutrality of her territory should be 
 
 1 The great Mongolian chieftain of the twelfth and thirteenth 
 centuries, who conquered China and central Asia and has left his 
 name in history as one of the most barbarous, cruel, and ruthless 
 of conquerors. 
 
248 The American Spirit 
 
 violated to give Germany an avenue for the attack upon 
 France. 
 
 She has taken possession of the territory of Belgium 
 and subjected her people to the hard yoke of a brutal sol- 
 diery. She has extorted vast sums from her peaceful 
 cities. She has burned her towns and battered down her 
 noble churches. She has stripped the Belgian factories 
 of their machinery and deprived them of the raw materigJ 
 of manufacture. 
 
 She has carried iaway her workmen by tens of thousands 
 into slavery, and her women into worse than slavery. 
 She has slain peaceful noncombatants by the hundred, 
 undeterred by the helplessness of age, of infancy, or of 
 womanhood. She has done the same in northern France, 
 in Poland, in Serbia, in Roumania. 
 
 In all of these countries women have been outraged by 
 the thousand, by tens of thousands, and who ever heard 
 of a German soldier being punished for rape, or robbery, 
 or murder? These revolting outrages upon humanity 
 and law are not the casual incidents of W£ir, but are the 
 results of a settled policy of frightfulness answering to the 
 maxim of the Great Frederick to "command respect 
 through fear." 
 
 Why were these things done by Germany ? The answer 
 rests upon the accumulated evidence of German acts and 
 German words so conclusive that no pretense can cover it, 
 no sophistry can disguise it. The answer is that this war 
 was begun and these crimes against humanity were done 
 because Germany was pursuing the hereditary poHcy of 
 the Hohenzollerns and following the instincts of the arro- 
 gant military caste which rules Prussia, to grasp the over- 
 lordship of the civiHzed world and estabhsh an empire in 
 which she should play the role of ancient Rome. 
 
The Present Crisis 249 
 
 They were done because Prussian militarism still pursues 
 the policy of power through conquest, of aggrandizement 
 through force and fear, which in little more than two 
 centuries has brought the puny mark of Brandenburg — 
 with its million and a half of people — to the control of a 
 vast empire — the greatest armed force of the modern 
 world. 
 
 It now appears beyond the possibihty of doubt that 
 this war was made by Germany pursuing a long and settled 
 purpose. For many years she has been preparing to do 
 exactly what she has done with a thoroughness, a perfec- 
 tion of plans, and a vastness of provision in men, muni- 
 tions, and supphes never before equaled or approached in 
 human history. 
 
 She brought the war on when she chose, because she 
 chose, in the belief that she could conquer the earth, 
 nation by nation. 
 
 All nations are egotistical, all peoples think most highly 
 of their own qualities, and regard other peoples as inferior ; 
 but the egotism of the ruling class of Prussia is beyond all 
 example and it is active and aggressive. They believe 
 that Germany is entitled to rule the world by virtue of her 
 superiority in all these qualities which they include under 
 the term "kultur," and by reason of her power to compel 
 submission by the sword. 
 
 That behef does not evaporate in theory. It is trans- 
 lated into action, and this war is the action which results. 
 This belief of national superiority and the right to assert 
 it everywhere is a tradition from the Great Frederick. 
 Tt has been instilled into the minds of the German people 
 through all the universities and schools. It has been 
 preached from her pulpits and taught by her philosophers 
 and historians. It has been maintained by her govern- 
 
250 The American Spirit 
 
 ment and it will never cease to furnish the motive for the 
 people of Prussia so long as German power enables the 
 military autocracy of Prussia to act upon it with success. 
 
 Plainly, if the power of the German government is to 
 continue, America can no longer look for protection to the 
 law of nations or the faith of treaties or the instincts of 
 humanity or the restraints of modern civilization. 
 
 Plainly, also, if we had stayed out of the war and Ger- 
 many had won there would no longer have been a balance 
 of power in Europe or a British fleet to support the Monroe 
 Doctrine and protect America. 
 
 Does any one indulge in the foohsh assumption that 
 Germany would not then have extended her lust for power 
 by conquest to the American continent? Let him con- 
 sider what it is for which the nations of Europe have been 
 chiefly contending for. centuries past. 
 
 It has been for colonies. It has been to bring the 
 unoccupied or weakly held spaces of the earth under their 
 flags and their poHtical control, in order to increase their 
 trade and their power. 
 
 Spain, Holland, Portugal, England, France, have all 
 had their turn, and have covered the earth with their 
 possessions. For thirty years Germany, the last comer, 
 has been pressing forward with feverish activity the ac- 
 quisition of stations for her power on every coast and 
 every sea, restive and resentful because she has been 
 obliged to take what others have left. 
 
 Europe, Asia, and Africa have been taken up. The 
 Americas alone remain. Here in the vast and unde- 
 fended spaces of the new world, fraught with potential' 
 wealth incalculable, Germany could "find a place in the 
 sun," to use her emperor's phrase ; Germany could find 
 her "liberty of national evolution," to use his phrase ageiin. 
 
The Present Crisis 251 
 
 Every traditional policy, every instinct of predatory 
 Prussia, would urge her into this new field of aggrandize- 
 ment. 
 
 What would prevent? The Monroe Doctrine? Yes. 
 But what is the Monroe Doctrine as against a nation 
 which respects only force unless it can be maintained by 
 force? We already know how the German government 
 feels about the Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 Bismarck declared it to be a piece of colossal impudence ; 
 and, when President Roosevelt interfered to assert the 
 doctrine for the protection of Venezuela, the present Kaiser 
 declared that if he then had had a larger navy he would 
 have taken America by the scruff of the neck. 
 
 If we had stayed out of the war, and Germany had won, 
 we should have had to defend the Monroe Doctrine by 
 force or ab£indon it ; and if we abandoned it there would 
 have been a German naval base in the Caribbean com- 
 manding the Panama Canal, depriving us of that strategic 
 line which unites our eastern and western coasts, and 
 depriving us of the protection the expanse of ocean once 
 gave, and an America unable or unwiUing to protect her- 
 self against the estabhshment of a German naval base in 
 the Caribbean would He at the mercy of Germany, and 
 subject to Germany's orders. 
 
 America's independence would be gone unless she was 
 ready to fight for it, and her security would thenceforth 
 be not a security of freedom, but only a security purchased 
 by submission. 
 
 But if America had stayed out of the war and Germany 
 had won, could we have defended the Monroe Doctrine? 
 Could we have maintained our independence? For an 
 answer to that question consider what we have been doing 
 since the 2d of April last, when war was declared. 
 
25£ The American Spirit 
 
 Congress has been in continuous session, passing with 
 unprecedented rapidity laws containing grants of power 
 and of money unexampled in our history. The executive 
 establishment has been straining every nerve to prepare 
 for war. The ablest and strongest leaders of industrial 
 activity have been called from all peirts of the country 
 to aid the government. 
 
 The people of the country have generously responded 
 with noble loyalty and enthusiasm to the call for the sur- 
 render of money and of customary rights, and the supply 
 of men to the service of the country. 
 
 Nearly half a year has passed, and still we are not ready 
 to fight. I am not blaming the government. It was 
 inevitable. Preparation for modern war cannot be made 
 briefly or speedily. It requires time — long periods of 
 time; and the more peaceful and unprepared for war a 
 democracy is the longer is the time required. 
 
 It would have required just as long for America to pre- 
 pare for war if wq had stayed out of this war and Germany 
 had won and we had undertaken to defend the Monroe 
 Doctrine or to defend our coasts when we had lost the 
 protection of the Monroe Doctrine. Month after month 
 would have passed with no adequate army ready to fight, 
 just as these recent months have passed. 
 
 But what would Germany have been doing in the mean- 
 time ? How long would it have been before our attempts 
 at preparation would have been stopped by German 
 arms? A country that is forced to defend itself against 
 the aggression of a military autocracy always prepared for 
 war must herself be prepared for war beforehand or she 
 never will have the opportunity to prepare. 
 
 The history, the character, the avowed principles of 
 action, the manifest and undisguised purposes of the Ger- 
 
The Present Crisis 253 
 
 man autocracy made it clear and certain that if America 
 stayed out of the great war, and Germany won, America 
 would forthwith be required to defend herself and would 
 be unable to defend herself against the same lust for con- 
 quest, the same will to dominate the world, which has made 
 Europe a bloody shambles. 
 
 When Germany did actually apply her principles of 
 action to us, and by the invasion of Belgium she violated 
 the solemn covenant she has made with us to observe the 
 law of neutrality estabUshed for the protection of peaceful 
 states, when she had arrogantly demanded that American 
 commerce should surrender its lawful right of passage 
 upon the high seas under penalty of destruction, when 
 she had sunk American ships and sent to their death hun- 
 dreds of American citizens, peaceful men, women, and 
 children, when the Gulflight and the Falaba and the Persia 
 and the Arabic and the Sussex and the Lusitania had been 
 torpedoed without warning in contempt of law and of 
 humanity, when the German embassy at Washington had 
 been found to be the headquarters of a vast conspiracy of 
 corruption within our country inciting sedition and con- 
 cealing infernal machines in the cargoes of our ships and 
 blowing up our factories with the workmen laboring in 
 them, and when the government of Germany had been 
 discovered attempting to incite Mexico and Japan to 
 form a league with her to attack us and to bring about a 
 dismemberment of our territory, then the question pre- 
 sented to the American people was not what shall be done 
 regarding each of these specific aggressions taken by itself, 
 but what shall be done by America to defend her commerce, 
 her territory, her citizens, her independence, her liberty, 
 her life as a nation against the continuance of assaults 
 already begun by that mighty and conscienceless power 
 
254 ' The American Spirit 
 
 which had swept aside every restraint and every principle 
 of Christian civilization and was seeking to force upon a 
 subjugated world the deirk and cruel rule of a barbarous 
 past. 
 
 The question was how shall peaceful and unprepared 
 and liberty loving America save herself from subjection 
 to the military power of Germany. There was but one 
 possible answer. There was but one chance for rescue 
 and that was to act at once while the other democracies 
 of the world were still maintaining their hberty against 
 the oppressor, to prepare at once while the armies and the 
 navies of England and France and Italy and Russia and 
 Roumania were holding down Germany so that she could 
 not attack us while our preparation was but half accom- 
 plished, to strike while there were alUes loving freedom 
 like ourselves to strike with us, to do our share to prevent 
 the German Kaiser from acquiring that domination over 
 the world which would have left us without friends to aid 
 us, without preparation, and without the possibihty of 
 successful defense. 
 
 The instinct of the American democracy which led it 
 to act when it did arose from a long delayed and reluctant 
 consciousness still vague and half expressed, that this is 
 no ordinary war which the world is waging. It is no con- 
 test for petty poHcies and profits. It is a mighty and all- 
 embracing struggle between two conflicting principles of 
 human right and human duty. 
 
 It is a conflict between the divine right of kings to 
 govern mankind through armies and nobles and the right 
 of the peoples of the earth to toil and endure and aspire 
 to govern themselves by law in the freedom of individual 
 manhood. 
 
 It is the climax of the supreme struggle between au- 
 
The Present Crisis ^55 
 
 tocracy and democracy. No nation can stand aside and 
 be free from its effects. The two systems cannot endm^e 
 together in the same world. 
 
 If autocracy triumphs, mihtary power lustful of do- 
 minion, supreme in strength, intolerant of human rights, 
 holding itself superior to law, to morals, to faith, to com- 
 passion, will crush out the free democracies of the world. 
 If autocracy is defeated and nations are compelled to 
 recognize the rules of law and of morals, then and then 
 only will democracy be safe. 
 
 To this great conflict for human rights and human 
 liberty America has committed herself. There can be no 
 backward step. There must be either humiliating and 
 degrading submission or terrible defeat or glorious victory. 
 It was no human will that brought us to this pass. It was 
 not the President. It was not Congress. It was not the 
 press. It was not any political party. It was not any 
 section or part of our people. 
 
 It was that in the providence of God the mighty forces 
 that determine the destinies of mankind beyond the con- 
 trol of human purpose have brought to us the time, the 
 occasion, the necessity, that this peaceful people so long 
 enjoying the blessings of Uberty and justice for which their 
 fathers fought and sacrificed shall again gird themselves 
 for conflict, and with all the forces of manhood nurtured 
 and strengthened by Uberty offer again the sacrifice of 
 possessions and of Ufe itself, that this nation may still be 
 free, that the mission of American democracy shall not 
 have failed, that the world shall be free. 
 
256 TTie American Spirit 
 
 WITH FIRMNESS IN THE RIGHTS 
 Theodore Roosevelt (1858- ) 
 
 Abraham Lincoln, with his far-seeing vision and his 
 shrewd, homely common sense, set forth the doctrine 
 which is right both as regards individuals and as regards 
 nations, when he said: "Stand with anybody that 
 stands right. Stand with him while he is right and part 
 with him when he goes wrong. To desert such ground be- 
 cause of any company is to be less than a man, less than 
 an American." As things actually are at this moment, 
 it is Germany which has offended against civihzation and 
 humanity — some of the offenses, of a very grave kind, 
 being at our own expense. It is the Allies who are dedi- 
 cated to the cause and are fighting for the principles set 
 forth as fundamental in the speech of Abraham Lincoln 
 at Gettysburg. It is they who have highly resolved that 
 their dead shall not have died in vain, and that govern- 
 ment of the people, by the people, and for the people 
 shall not perish from the face of the earth. 
 
 . . . Said Lincoln, *' The issue before us is distinct, simple, 
 and inflexible. It is an issue which csui only be tried by 
 war and settled by victory. The war will cease on the 
 part of this government whenever it shall have ceased on 
 the part of those who began it. . . . We accepted war 
 rather than let the nation perish. With mahce towards 
 none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as 
 God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish 
 
 iFrom "Fear God and Take Your Own Part," written in 1914. 
 Copyright, 1915 and 1916, by Metropolitan Magazine Company, 
 New York. Used by permission of the author. 
 
The Present Crisis 257 
 
 the wort we are in, and to do all which may achieve a 
 just and lasting peace among all nations." 
 
 Surely, with the barest change of a few words, all that 
 Lincoln said appUes now to the war the Allies are waging 
 on behalf of orderly liberty and self-government for the 
 peoples of mankind. They have accepted war rather 
 than let the free nations of Europe perish. They must 
 strive on to finish the work they are in, and to achieve a 
 just and lasting peace which shall redress wrong and 
 secure the Uberties of the nations which have been 
 assailed. . . . 
 
 Let ours be true Americanism, the greater Americanism, 
 and let us tolerate no other. Let us prepare ourselves 
 for justice and efficiency within our own border during 
 peace, for justice in international relations, and for effi- 
 ciency in war. Only thus shall we have the peace worth 
 having. 
 
 Let this nation fear God and take its own part. Let 
 it scorn to do wrong to great or small. Let it exercise 
 patience and charity toward all other peoples, and yet at 
 whatever cost unflinchingly stand for the right when the 
 right is menaced by the might which backs wrong. Let it 
 furthermore remember that the only way in which suc- 
 cessfully to oppose wrong which is backed by might is to 
 put over against it right which is backed by might. . . . 
 Until, as a nation, we learn to put honor and duty above 
 safety, and to encounter any hazard with stern joy rather 
 than fail in our obhgations to ourselves and to others, it 
 is mere folly to talk of entering into leagues for world 
 peace or into any other movements of like cheu'acter. 
 The only kind of peace worth having is the peace of 
 righteousness and justice. 
 
258 The American Spirit 
 
 THE PRUSSIAN MENACE ^ 
 
 We are face to face with a world crisis. We are in a 
 world struggle which will determine for the immediate 
 future whether principles of democratic freedom or 
 principles of force shall dominate. The decision will 
 determine not only the destiny of nations, but of every 
 community and of every individual. No life will be 
 untouched. 
 
 Either the principles of free democracy or of Prussian 
 miUtaristic autocracy will prevail. There can be no 
 compromises. So there can be no neutrahty among 
 nations or individuals ; we must stand up and be counted 
 with one cause or the other. For Labor there is but one 
 choice. 
 
 The hope of Labor lies in opportunity for freedom. 
 The workers of America will not permit themselves to 
 be deceived or to deceive themselves into thinking that 
 the fate of the war will not vitally change our own lives. 
 A victory for Germany would mean a Pan-German em- 
 pire dominating Europe and exercising a world balance 
 of power which Germany will seek to extend by force 
 into world control. 
 
 Prussian rule means supervision, checks, unfreedom 
 in every relation of life. 
 
 Prussianism has its roots in the old ideals under which 
 men sought to rule by suppressing the minds and wills 
 of their fellows ; it blights the new ideal of government 
 without force of chains — political or industrial — pro- 
 tected by perfect freedom for all. 
 
 ^ From Declaration of the American Federation of Labor, issued at 
 Washington, D.C., February 17, 1918. Used by permission of 
 Samuel Gompers. 
 
The Present Crisis 259 
 
 THE POISON GROWTH OF PRUSSIANISM ^ 
 Otto H. Kahn (1867- ) 
 
 There are some of you, probably, who will still find it 
 hard to believe that the Germany you knew can be guilty 
 of the crimes which have made it an outlaw amongst the 
 nations. But do you know modern Germany? Unless 
 you have been there within the last twenty-five years, 
 not once or twice, but at regular intervals; unless you 
 have looked below the glittering surface of the marvelous 
 material progress and achievement and seen how the soul 
 of Germany was being eaten away by the virulent poison 
 of Prussianism ; unless you have watched and followed 
 the appalling transformation of German mentality and 
 moraUty under the nefarious and puissant influence of 
 the priesthood of power- worship, you do not know the 
 Germany of this day and generation. 
 
 It is not the Germany of old, the land of our affectionate 
 remembrance. It is not the Germany which men now 
 of middle age or over knew in their youth. It is not the 
 Germany of the first Emperor WiUiam, a modest and 
 God-fearing gentleman. It is not the Germany, even, of 
 Bismarck, man of blood and iron though he was, who had 
 builded a structure which, whilst not founded on hberty, 
 yet was capable and gave promise of going down into 
 history as one of the greatest examples of enlightened and 
 even beneficent autocracy ; who, in the contemplative and 
 mellowed wisdom of his old age, often warned the nation 
 against the very spirit which, alas, came to have sway over 
 it, and against the very war which that spirit unchained. 
 
 1 From an address delivered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, January 13, 
 1918. Published in " Right Above Race." Copyright, 1918, by The 
 Century Company, New York. Used by permission of the author, 
 an American banker of German birth. 
 
260 The American Spirit 
 
 The Germany which brought upon the world the im- 
 measurable disaster of this war, and at whose monstrous 
 deeds and doctrines the civilized nations of the earth 
 stand aghast, started into definite being less than thirty 
 years ago. I can almost lay my finger upon the date 
 and circumstances of its ill-omened advent. 
 
 Less than thirty years ago, a "new course" was flam- 
 boyantly proclaimed by those in authority, and the term 
 "new course" became the order of the day. With it and 
 from it there came a truly marvelous quickening of the 
 energies and creative abilities of the nation, a period of 
 material achievement and of social progress, in short, a 
 national forward movement almost unequaled in history. 
 The world looked on in admiration, perhaps not entirely 
 free from a tinge of envy. Germany was conquering the 
 earth by peaceful penetration ; and no one stood in its way. 
 It had free access to all the seas and all the lands. 
 
 But with that "new course" and from it there also 
 came a new god, a false and evil god. He exacted as 
 sacrifices for his altars the time-honored ideals of the 
 fathers, and other high and noble things. And his com- 
 mands were obeyed. 
 
 There came upon the German people a whole train of 
 new and baneful influences and impulses, formidably 
 stimulating as a powerful drug. There came, amongst 
 other evils, materialism and covetousness and irreligion ; 
 overweening arrogance and impatient contempt for the 
 rights of the weak, a mania for world dominion, and a 
 veritable lunacy of power worship. There came also a 
 fixed and irrational distrust of the intentions of other 
 nations, for the evil which had crept into their own souls 
 made them see evil in others, and that distrust was nur- 
 tured carefully and deliberately by those in authority. 
 
The Present Crisis 261 
 
 And, finally, there came "The Day" in which the "new 
 course," fatally and inevitably, was bound to culminate. 
 There came the old temptation, as old as humanity itself. 
 The Tempter took the Prussian and Prussianized rulers 
 up a high mountain and showed them all the riches and 
 power of the world. Showed them the great countries 
 and capitals of the earth teeming with peaceful labor — 
 Brussels, Paris, London, aye, and New York, and told 
 them: "Look at these. Use your power ruthlessly and 
 they are yours." And those rulers did not say: "Get 
 thee behind me, Satan"; but they said: "Lead on, 
 Satan, and we shall follow thee." And follow him they 
 did, and brought upon the green earth the red ruin of hell. 
 
 And with rejoicing they greeted " The Day." It was to 
 bring them, as one German in an important position here 
 expressed it to me, in August, 1914, "a merry war and vic- 
 tory before the year is out." 
 
 THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY ^ 
 
 WooDROW Wilson 
 
 I have called the Congress into extraordinary session 
 because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy 
 
 1 This and the following selections from President Wilson's war 
 speeches are given in extended form, since they represent not only 
 the spirit of the American people but also the highest purposes 
 of the Allied peoples in the present world Jitruggle. As recognized 
 by all, and as stated in the Preface to this volume, the present 
 war — the greatest, the most cruel, the most destructive, and the 
 most vitally significant the civilized world has ever known — is 
 the ultimate test of the American spirit. By common consent 
 President Wilson has become the spokesman of the world's democ- 
 racy. This war, under his leadership, has become the crucial test 
 of strength, between the spirit and purpose developed through the 
 entire history of America as here portrayed, of freedom, liberty, 
 democracy, and fraternity, and on the other side the spirit of force 
 
262 The American Spirit 
 
 to be made, and made immediately, which it was neither 
 right nor constitutionally permissible that I should assume 
 the responsibility of making. 
 
 On the 3d of February last I officially laid before you 
 the extraordinary announcement of the Imperial German 
 Government that on and after the first day of February 
 it was its purpose to put aside all restraints of law or of 
 humanity and use its submarines to sink every vessel that 
 sought to approach either the ports of Great Britain and 
 Ireland or the western coasts of Europe or any of the ports 
 controlled by the enemies of Germany within the Medi- 
 terranean. That had seemed to be the object of the Ger- 
 man submarine warfare earher in the war, but since April 
 of last year the Imperial Government had somewhat 
 restrained the commanders of its undersea craft in con- 
 formity with its promise then given to us that passenger- 
 boats should not be sunk, and that due warning would be 
 given to all other vessels which its submarines might seek 
 to destroy where no resistance was offered or escape at- 
 tempted, and care taken that their crews were given at 
 least a feiir chance to save their hves in their open boats. 
 The precautions taken were meager and haphazard 
 enough, as was proved in distressing instance after instance 
 in the progress of the cruel and unmanly business, but a 
 certain degree of restraint was observed. The new poUcy 
 has swept every restriction aside. Vessels of every 
 
 and tyranny as represented by the military autocracy of the Ger- 
 man government. Upon this test depends *the future happiness 
 of all peoples and the progress of civilization. These selections 
 embody President Wilson's great leadership in making "the world 
 safe for democracy." 
 
 From address delivered before Congress, April 2, 1917. In 
 pamphlet, "How the War Came to America," issued by Committee 
 on Public Information, Washington, D.C. 
 
The Present Crisis 263 
 
 kind, whatever their flag, their character, their cargo, 
 their destination, their errand, have been ruthlessly sent 
 to the bottom without warning, and without thought of 
 help or mercy for those on board, the vessels of friendly 
 neutrals along with those of belligerents. Even hos- 
 pital ships and ships carrying relief to the sorely be- 
 reaved and stricken people of Belgium, though the latter 
 were provided with safe conduct through the proscribed 
 areas by the German Government itself and were dis- 
 tinguished by unmistakable marks of identity, have been 
 sunk with the same reckless lack of compassion or of 
 principle. 
 
 I was for a little while unable to believe that such things 
 would, in fact, be done by any government that had 
 hitherto subscribed to the humane practices of civilized 
 nations. International law had its origin in the attempt 
 to set up some law which would be respected and observed 
 upon the seas, where no nation had right of dominion, 
 and where lay the free highways of the world. By painful 
 stage after stage has that law been built up with meager 
 enough results, indeed, after all was accomplished that 
 could be accompUshed, but always with a clear view at 
 least of what the heart and conscience of mankind de- 
 manded. This minimum of right the German Government 
 has swept aside under the plea of retaliation and necessity, 
 and because it had no weapons which it could use at sea 
 except these, which it is impossible to employ as it is em- 
 ploying them without throwing to the winds all scruples 
 of humanity or of respect for the understandings that 
 were supposed to underUe the intercourse of the world. 
 I am not now thinking of the loss of property involved, 
 immense and serious as that is, but only of the wanton 
 and wholesale destruction of the lives of noncombatants, 
 
264 The American Spirit 
 
 men, women, and children engaged in pursuits which have 
 always, even in the darkest periods of modern history, 
 been deemed innocent and legitimate. Property can be 
 paid for; the lives of peaceful and innocent people can- 
 not be. The present German warfare against commerce 
 is a warfare against mankind. 
 
 It is a war against all nations. American ships have 
 been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has 
 stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and 
 people of other neutral and friendly nations have been 
 sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. 
 There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to 
 all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it 
 will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be 
 made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness 
 of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a 
 nation. We must put excited feehng away. Our motive 
 will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the 
 physical might of the nation, but only the vindication 
 of right, of human right, of which we are only a single 
 champion. 
 
 When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February 
 last I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral 
 rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful 
 interference, our right to keep our people safe against 
 unlawful violence. But our neutrality, it now appears, 
 is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect out- 
 laws when used as the German submarines have been 
 used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to de- 
 fend ships against their attacks as the law of nations 
 has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves 
 against privateers or cruisers, visible craft giving chase 
 upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such 
 
The Present Crisis 265 
 
 circumstances, grim necessity, indeed, to endeavor to 
 destroy them before they have shown their own in- 
 tention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt 
 with at all. • The German Government denies the right 
 of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea 
 which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights 
 which no modern publicist has ever before questioned 
 their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that 
 the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant- 
 ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and sub- 
 ject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed 
 neutrahty is ineffectual enough at best; in such cir- 
 cumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is 
 worse than ineffectual : it is likely only to produce what 
 it was meant to prevent ; it is practically certain to draw 
 us into the war without either the rights or the effective- 
 ness of belligerents. There is one choice we cannot make, 
 we are incapable of making : we will not choose the path 
 of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our 
 nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The 
 wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no 
 common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human 
 Ufe. 
 
 With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical 
 character of the step I am taking and of the grave re- 
 sponsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedi- 
 ence to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that 
 the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial 
 German Government to be in fact nothing less than war 
 against the Government and people of the United States ; 
 that it formally accept the status of beUigerent which has 
 thus been thrust upon it ; and that it take immediate steps 
 not only to put the country in a more thorough state of 
 
266 The American Spirit 
 
 defense, but also to exert all its power and employ all its 
 resources to bring the Government of the German Empire 
 to terms and end the war. 
 
 What this will involve is clear. It will involve the ut- 
 most practicable cooperation in counsel and action with 
 the governments now at war with Germany, and as inci- 
 dent to that the extension to those governments of the 
 most liberal financial credits in order that our resources 
 may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve 
 the organization and mobiUzation of all the material re- 
 sources of the country to supply the materials of war 
 and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most 
 abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way 
 possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of 
 the navy in all respects, but particularly in supplying it with 
 the best means of deaUng with the enemy's submarines. 
 It will involve the immediate addition to the armed 
 forces of the United States already provided for by law 
 in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my 
 opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liabihty 
 to service, and also the authorization of subsequent addi- 
 tional increments of equal force so soon as they may be 
 needed and can be handled in training. It will involve 
 also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the 
 Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can 
 equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well- 
 conceived taxation. 
 
 I say sustained so far as may be equitable by taxation 
 because it seems to me that it would be most unwise to 
 base the credits which will now be necessary entirely on 
 money borrowed. It is our duty, I most respectfully 
 urge, to protect our people so far as we may against the 
 very serious hardships and evils which would be Hkely to 
 
The Present Crisis 267 
 
 arise out of the inflation which would be produced by vast 
 loans. 
 
 In carrying out the measures by which these things are 
 to be accomplished we should keep constantly in mind 
 the wisdom of interfering as Uttle as possible in our own 
 preparation and in the equipment of our own military 
 forces with the duty, — for it will be a very practical duty 
 — of supplying the nations already at war with Germany 
 with the materials which they can obtain only from us 
 or by our assistance. They are in the field and we should 
 help them in every way to be effective there. 
 
 I shall take the Uberty of suggesting, through the several 
 executive departments of the Government, for the con- 
 sideration of your committees measures for the accom- 
 plishment of the several objects I have mentioned. I 
 hope that it will be your pleasure to deal with them as 
 having been framed after very careful thought by the 
 branch of the Government upon which the responsibility 
 of conducting the war and safeguarding the nation will 
 most directly fall. 
 
 While we do these things, these deeply momentous 
 things, let us be very clear and make very clear to all the 
 world what our motives and our objects are. My own 
 thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal 
 course by the unhappy events of the last two months, 
 and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has 
 been altered or clouded by them. I have exactly the 
 same things in mind now that I had in mind when I ad- 
 dressed the Senate on the 22d of January last ; the same 
 that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on 
 the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. 
 Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles 
 of peace and justice in the life of the world as against 
 
268 The American Spirit 
 
 selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the 
 really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a 
 concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth insure 
 the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no 
 longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world 
 is involved and the freedom of its peoples and the menace 
 to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of auto- 
 cratic governments backed by organized force which is 
 controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their 
 people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such 
 circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in 
 which it will be insisted that the same standards of 
 conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be 
 observed among nations and their governments that 
 are observed among the individual citizens of civilized 
 states. 
 
 We have no quarrel with the German people. We have 
 no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friend- 
 ship. It was not upon their impulse that their Govern- 
 ment acted in entering this war. It was not with their 
 previous knowledge or approval. 
 
 It was a war determined upon as wars used to be deter- 
 mined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were 
 nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked 
 and waged in the interest of dynasties or of Uttle groups 
 of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow 
 men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not 
 fill their neighbor states with spies or set the course of 
 intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs 
 which will give them an opportunity to strike and make 
 conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out 
 only under cover and where no one has the right to 
 ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception 
 
The Present Crisis 269 
 
 or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to 
 generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only 
 within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded 
 confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are 
 happily impossible where public opinion commands and 
 insists upon full information concerning all the nation's 
 affairs. 
 
 A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained 
 except by a partnership of democratic nations. No 
 autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith 
 within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league 
 of honor, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat 
 its vitals away ; the plottings of inner circles who could 
 plan what they would and render account to no one would 
 be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples 
 can hold their purpose and their honor steady to a common 
 end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow 
 interest of their own. 
 
 Does not every American feel that assurance has been 
 added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the 
 wonderful and heartening things that have been happening 
 within the last few weeks in Russia .^ ^ 
 
 Russia was known by those who know it best to have 
 been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital 
 habits of her thoughts, in all the intimate relationships of 
 
 ^ This address was delivered after the overthrow of the autocracy 
 represented by the Russian Czar and the establishment of a Russian 
 republic, but before that republic was destroyed by the extreme 
 factions of communistic and anarchistic beliefs which have been 
 at least temporarily in control and have destroyed the Russian 
 republic. In its place they have set up a number of disconnected 
 and ineffective local governments, and have offered little opposi- 
 tion to the designs of complete domination forced upon them by 
 the German monarchy in the peace conferences at Brest-Litovsk 
 early in 1918. 
 
270 The American Spirit 
 
 her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual 
 attitude towards life. 
 
 The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political 
 structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the 
 reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, 
 character, or purpose ; and now it has been shaken off and 
 the great, generous Russian people have been added, in 
 all their native majesty and might, to the forces that are 
 fighting for freedom in the world, for justice and for peace. 
 Here is a fit partner for a League of Honor. 
 
 One of the things that have served to convince us that 
 the Prussian autocracy was not and could never be our 
 friend is that from the very outset of the present war it 
 has filled our unsuspecting communities and even our 
 offices of government with spies and set criminal intrigues 
 everywhere afoot against our national unity of counsel, 
 our peace within and without, our industries and our 
 commerce. Indeed, it is now evident that its spies were 
 here even before the war began ; and it is unhappily, 
 not a matter of conjecture, but a fact proved in our courts 
 of justice, that the intrigues which have more than once 
 come perilously near to disturbing the peace and dis- 
 locating the industries of the country have been carried on 
 at the instigation, with the support, and even under 
 the personal direction, of official agents of the Imperial 
 Government accredited to the Government of the United 
 States. Even in checking these things and trying to extir- 
 pate them we have sought to put the most generous inter- 
 pretation possible upon them because we knew that their 
 source lay, not in any hostile feeling or purpose of the 
 German people towards us (who were, no doubt, as ignorant 
 of them as we ourselves were), but only in the selfish de- 
 signs of a government that did what it pleased and told 
 
The Present Crisis 271 
 
 its people nothing. But they have played their part in 
 serving to convince us at last that that government en- 
 tertains no real friendship for us and means to act against 
 our peace and security at its convenience. That it means 
 to stir up enemies against us at our very doors the inter- 
 cepted note to the German Minister at Mexico City is 
 eloquent evidence. 
 
 We are accepting this challenge of hostile purpose 
 because we know that in such a government, following 
 such methods, we can never have a friend ; and that in 
 the presence of its organized power, always lying in wait 
 to accomplish we know not what purpose, there can be 
 no assured security for the democratic governments of the 
 world. We are now about to accept the gage of battle with 
 this natural foe to Hberty, and shall, if necessary, spend the 
 whole force of the nation to check and nullify its pre- 
 tensions and its power. We are glad, now that we see the 
 facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight 
 thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the libera- 
 tion of its peoples, the German peoples included : for the 
 rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men 
 everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. 
 The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace 
 must be planted upon the tested foundations of political 
 hberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no 
 conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for our- 
 selves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall 
 freely make. We are but one of the champions of the 
 rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those 
 rights have been made as secure as the faith and the 
 freedom of nations can make them. 
 
 Just because we fight without rancor and without 
 selfish objects, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we 
 
272 The American Spirit 
 
 shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel 
 confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without 
 passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the 
 principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting 
 for. 
 
 I have said nothing of the governments alfied with the 
 Imperial Government of Germany because they have 
 not made war upon us or challenged us to defend our right 
 and our honor. The Austro-Hungarian Government has 
 indeed avowed its unqualified endorsement and acceptance 
 of the reckless and lawless submarine warfare adopted 
 now without disguise by the Imperial German Govern- 
 ment, and it has therefore not been possible for this 
 Government to receive Count Tarnowski, the Ambassador 
 recently accredited to this Government by the Imperial 
 and Royal Government of Austria-Hungary ; but that 
 Government has not actually engaged in warfare against 
 citizens of the United States on the seas, and I take the 
 liberty, for the present at least, of postponing a discussion 
 of our relations with the authorities at Vienna. We enter 
 this war only where we are clearly forced into it because 
 there are no other means of defending our rights. 
 
 It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as 
 belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because 
 we act without animus, not in enmity towards a people or 
 with the desire to bring £uiy injury or disadvantage upon 
 them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible 
 government which has thrown aside all considerations 
 of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We 
 are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the Ger- 
 man people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early 
 reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advan- 
 tage between us, — however hard it may be for them, for 
 
The Present Crisis 273 
 
 the time being, to believe that this is spoken from om* 
 hearts. We have borne with their present government 
 through all these bitter months because of that friend- 
 ship, — exercising a patience and forbearance which would 
 otherwise have been impossible. We shall, happily, still 
 have an opportunity to prove that friendship in our 
 daily attitude and actions towards the miUions of men 
 and women of German birth and native sympathy who 
 Uve amongst us and share our life, and we shall be proud 
 to prove it towards all who are, in fact, loyal to their 
 neighbors and to the Government in the hour of test. 
 They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as 
 if they had never known any other fealty or allegiance. 
 They will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and 
 restraining the few who may be of a different mind and 
 purpose. If there should be disloyalty it will be dealt 
 with with a firm hand of stern repression ; but, if it lifts 
 its head at all, it will lift it only here and there and with- 
 out countenance except from a lawless and mahgnant few. 
 It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the 
 Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing 
 you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial 
 and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this 
 great, peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and 
 disastrous of all w£u*s, civilization itself seeming to be in 
 the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, 
 and we shall fight for the things which we have always 
 carried nearest our hearts, — for democracy, for the right 
 of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their 
 own governments, for the rights and liberties of small 
 nations, for a universal dominion of right by such a concert 
 of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations 
 and make the world itself at last free. To such a task 
 
274 The American Spirit 
 
 we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything 
 that we are and everything that we have, with the pride 
 of those who know that the day has come when America 
 is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the 
 principles that gave her birth and happiness and the 
 peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can 
 do no other. 
 
 BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910) 
 
 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ; 
 He is tramphng out the vintage where the grapes of 
 
 wrath are stored I 
 He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift 
 
 sword; 
 
 His truth is marching on. 
 
 I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling 
 
 camps ; 
 They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and 
 
 damps ; 
 I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring 
 
 lamps ; 
 
 His day is marching on. 
 
 I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel : 
 *'As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace 
 
 shall deal ; 
 Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his 
 
 heel — 
 
 Since God is marching on." 
 
The Present Crisis 275 
 
 He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call 
 
 retreat ; 
 He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment 
 
 seat ; 
 Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him I be jubilant, my 
 
 feet I 
 
 Our God is marching on. 
 
 In the beauty of the hhes Christ was born across the sea, 
 With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me ; 
 As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men 
 free. 
 
 While God is marching on. 
 
 FLAG DAY ADDRESS ^ 
 
 WooDRow Wilson 
 
 We meet to celebrate Flag Day because this flag which 
 we honor and under which we serve is the emblem of our 
 unity, our power, our thought and purpose as a nation. 
 It has no other chgu-acter than that which we give it from 
 generation to generation. The choices are ours. It 
 floats in majestic silence above the hosts that execute 
 those choices, whether in peace or in war. And yet, 
 though silent, it speaks to us, — speaks to us of the past, 
 of the men and women who went before us and of the 
 records they wrote upon it. We celebrate the day of its 
 birth ; and from its birth until now it has witnessed a great 
 history, has floated on high the symbol of great events, 
 of a great plan of fife worked out by a great people. We 
 
 * Address delivered at Washington, D.C., on Flag Day, June 14, 
 1917. In pamphlet issued by the Committee on Pubhc Informa- 
 tion, Washington, D.C., September 15, 1917. 
 
276 The American Spirit 
 
 are about to carry it into battle, to lift it where it will 
 draw the fire of our enemies. We are about to bid thou- 
 sands, hundreds of thousands, it may be millions, of our 
 men, the young, the strong, the capable men of the Nation, 
 to go forth and die beneath it on fields of blood far away, 
 — for what ? For some unaccustomed thing ? For 
 something for which it has never sought the fire before? 
 American armies were never before sent across the seas. 
 Why are they sent now? For some new purpose, for 
 which this great flag has never been carried before or for 
 some old, familiar, heroic purpose for which it has seen 
 men, its own men, die on every battlefield upon which 
 Americans have borne arms since the Revolution ? 
 
 These are questions which must be answered. We are 
 Americans. We in our turn serve America, and can serve 
 her with no private purpose. We must use her flag as 
 she has always used it. We are accountable at the bar 
 of history and must plead in utter frankness what purpose 
 it is we seek to serve. 
 
 It is plain enough how we were forced into the war. 
 The extraordinary insults and aggressions of the Imperial 
 German Government left us no self-respecting choice but 
 to take up arms in defense of our rights as a free people 
 and of our honor as a sovereign Government. The mih- 
 tEuy masters of Germany denied us the right to be neu- 
 tral. They fiUed our unsuspecting communities with 
 vicious spies and conspirators and sought to corrupt the 
 opinion of our people in their own behalf. When they 
 found that they could not do that, their agents diligently 
 spread sedition amongst us and sought to draw our own 
 citizens from their aUegiance ; and some of those agents 
 were men connected with the official Embassy of the 
 German Government itself here in our own Capital. 
 
The Present Crisis £77 
 
 They sought by violence to destroy our industries and 
 arrest our commerce. They tried to incite Mexico to 
 take up arms against us and to draw Japan into a 
 hostile alliance with her; and that, not by indirection, 
 but by direct suggestion from the Foreign Office in Ber- 
 lin. They impudently denied us the use of the high seas 
 and repeatedly executed their threat that they would 
 send to their death any of our people who ventured to 
 approach the coasts of Europe. 
 
 And many of our own people were corrupted. Men 
 began to look upon their own neighbors with suspicion 
 and to wonder in their hot resentment and surprise 
 whether there was any community in which hostile in- 
 trigue did not lurk. What great nation in such circum- 
 stances would not have taken up arms? Much as we 
 had desired peace, it was denied us, and not of our own 
 choice. This flag under which we serve would have been 
 dishonored had we withheld our hand. 
 
 But that is only part of the story. We know now as 
 clearly as we knew before we were ourselves engaged that 
 we are not the enemies of the German people and that 
 they are not our enemies. They did not originate or de- 
 sire this hideous war or wish that we should be drawn into 
 it; and we are vaguely conscious that we are fighting 
 their cause, as they will some day see it, as well as our own. 
 
 They are themselves in the grip of the same sinister 
 power that has now at last stretched its ugly talons out 
 and drawn blood from us. 
 
 The whole world is at war because the whole world is 
 in the grip of that power and is trying out the great 
 battle which shall determine whether it is to be brought 
 under its mastery or fling itself free. 
 
 The war was begun by the military masters of Germany, 
 
278 The American Spirit 
 
 who proved to be also the masters of Austria-Hungary. 
 These men have never regarded nations as peoples, men, 
 women, and children of like blood and frame as them- 
 selves, for whom governments existed and in whom gov- 
 ernments had their life. They have regarded them 
 merely as serviceable organizations which they could by 
 force or intrigue bend or corrupt to their own purpose. 
 They have regarded the smaller states, in particular, and 
 the peoples who could be overwhelmed by force, as their nat- 
 ural tools and instruments of domination. Their purpose 
 has long been avowed. The statesmen of other nations, to 
 whom that purpose was incredible, paid Httle attention ; 
 regarded what German professors expounded in their 
 classrooms and German writers set forth to the world as 
 the goal of German policy as rather the dream of minds 
 detached from practical affairs, as preposterous private 
 conceptions of German destiny, than as the actual plans 
 of responsible rulers. But the rulers of Germany them- 
 selves knew all the while what concrete plans, what well 
 advanced intrigues lay back of what the professors and 
 the writers were saying, and were glad to go forward un- 
 molested, fiUing the thrones of Balkan states with German 
 princes, putting German officers at the service of Turkey to 
 drill her armies and make interest with her government, 
 developing plans of sedition and rebellion in India and 
 Egypt, setting their fires in Persia. 
 
 The demands made by Austria upon Serbia were a 
 mere single step in a plan which compassed Europe and 
 Asia, from Berlin to Bagdad. They hoped those de- 
 mands might not arouse Europe, but they meant to press 
 them whether they did or not, for they thought them- 
 selves ready for the final issue of arms. 
 
 Their plan was to throw a broad belt of German mill- 
 
The Present Crisis 279 
 
 tary power and political control across the very center of 
 Europe and beyond the Mediterranean into the heart of 
 Asia ; and Austria-Hungary was to be as much their tool 
 and pawn as Serbia or Bulgaria or Turkey or the ponderous 
 states of the East. Austria-Hungary, indeed, was to 
 become part of the Central German Empire, absorbed 
 and dominated by the same forces and influences that had 
 originally cemented the German states themselves. The 
 dream had its heart at Berlin. It could have had a heart 
 nowhere else ! 
 
 It rejected the idea of solidarity of race entirely. The 
 choice of peoples played no part in it at all. It con- 
 templated binding together racial and political units 
 which could be kept together only by force — Czechs, 
 Magyars, Croats, Serbs, Roumanians, Turks, Armenians, 
 — the proud states of Bohemia and Hungary, the stout 
 little commonwealths of the Balkans, the indomitable 
 Turks, the subtle peoples of the East. 
 
 These peoples did not wish to be united. They 
 ardently desired to direct their own afi'airs, would be 
 satisfied only by undisputed independence. They could 
 be kept quiet only by the presence or the constant threat 
 of armed men. They would Uve under a common 
 power only by sheer compulsion and await the day of 
 revolution. 
 
 But the German mihtary statesmen had reckoned with 
 all that and were ready to deal with it in their own way. 
 
 And they have actually carried the greater part of that 
 amazing plan into execution ! Look how things stand. 
 Austria is at their mercy. It has acted, not upon its own 
 initiative or upon the choice of its own people, but at 
 Berlin's dictation ever since the war began. Its people 
 now desire peace, but cannot have it until leave is granted 
 
280 The American Spirit 
 
 from Berlin. The so-called Central Powers are in fact 
 but a single Power. Serbia is at its mercy, should its hands 
 be but for a moment freed. Bulgaria has consented to 
 its will, and Roumania is overrun. The Turkish armies, 
 which Germans trained, are serving Germany, certainly 
 not themselves, and the guns of German warships lying 
 in the harbor at Constantinople remind Turkish states- 
 men every day that they have no choice but to take their 
 orders from Berlin. From Hamburg to the Persian Gulf 
 the net is spread. 
 
 Is it not easy to understand the eagerness for peace 
 that has been manifested from BerUn ever since the snare 
 was set and sprung? Peace, peace, peace has been the 
 talk of her Foreign Office for now a year and more ; not 
 peace upon her own initiative, but upon the initiative of 
 the nations over which she now deems herself to hold the 
 advantage. A Uttle of the talk has been pubHc, but 
 most of it has been private. Through all sorts of channels 
 it has come to me, and in all sorts of guises, but never with 
 the terms disclosed which the German Government would 
 be willing to accept. 
 
 That government has other valuable pawns in its hands 
 besides those I have mentioned. It still holds a valuable 
 part of France, though with slowly relaxing grasp, and 
 practically the whole of Belgium. Its armies press close 
 upon Russia and overrun Poland at their will. It cannot 
 go further ; it dare not go back. It wishes to close its 
 bargain before it is too late and it has left little to offer 
 for the pound of flesh it will demand. 
 
 The military masters under whom Germany is bleeding 
 see very clearly to what point Fate has brought them. 
 If they fall back or are forced back an inch, their power 
 both abroad and at home will fall to pieces like a house of 
 
The Present Crisis 281 
 
 cards. It is their power at home they are thinking about 
 now more than their power abroad. It is that power 
 which is trembling under their very feef ; and deep fear 
 has entered their hearts. They have but one chance to 
 perpetuate their miUtary power or even their controUing 
 poHtical influence. If they can secure peace now with the 
 immense advantages still in their hands which they have 
 up to this point apparently gained, they will have justified 
 themselves before the German people; they will have 
 gained by force what they promised to gain by it : an 
 immense expansion of German power, an immense en- 
 largement of German industrial and commercial oppor- 
 tunities. Their prestige will be secure, and with their 
 prestige their poHtical power. If they fail, their people 
 will thrust them aside ; a government accountable to the 
 people themselves will be set up in Germany as it has been 
 in England, in the United States, in France, and in all the 
 great countries of the modern time except Germany. If 
 they succeed, they are safe and Germany and the world 
 are undone ; if they fail, Germany is saved and the world 
 will be at peace. If they succeed, America will fall within 
 the menace. We and all the rest of the world must re- 
 main armed, as they will remain, and must make ready 
 for the next step in their aggression ; if they fail, the world 
 may unite for peace and Germany may be of the union. 
 
 Do you not now understand the new intrigue, the in- 
 trigue for peace, and why the masters of Germany do not 
 hesitate to use any agency that promises to effect their pur- 
 pose, the deceit of the nations ? Their present particular 
 aim is to deceive all those who throughout the world stand 
 for the rights of peoples and the self-government of na- 
 tions ; for they see what immense strength the forces of 
 justice and of liber ahsm are gathering out of this war. 
 
282 The American Spirit 
 
 They are employing liberals in their enterprise. They 
 are using men, in Germany and without, as their spokes- 
 men whom they have hitherto despised and oppressed, 
 using them for their own destruction — Sociahsts, the 
 leaders of labor, the thinkers they have hitherto sought 
 to silence. Let them once succeed and these men, now 
 their tools, will be ground to powder beneath the weight 
 of the great military empire they will have set up ; the 
 revolutionists in Russia will be cut off from all succor or 
 cooperation in western Europe and a counter revolution 
 fostered and supported; Germany herself will lose her 
 chance of freedom ; and all Europe will arm for the next, 
 the final struggle. 
 
 The sinister intrigue is being no less actively conducted 
 in this country than in Russia and in every country in 
 Europe to which the agents and dupes of the Imperial 
 German Government can get access. That government 
 has many spokesmen here, in places high and low. They 
 have learned discretion. They keep within the law. It 
 is opinion they utter now, not sedition. They proclaim 
 the hberal purposes of their masters ; declare this a foreign 
 war which can touch America with no danger to either 
 her lands or her institutions ; set England at the center 
 of the stage and talk of her ambition to assert economic 
 dominion throughout the world ; appeal to oiu* ancient 
 tradition of isolation in the poUtics of the nations ; and 
 seek to undermine the Government with false professions 
 of loyalty to its principles. 
 
 But they will make no headway. The false betray 
 themselves always in every accent. It is only friends 
 and partisans of the German Government whom we have 
 already identified who utter these thinly disguised dis- 
 loyalties. The facts are patent to all the world, and no- 
 
The Present Crisis 283 
 
 where are they more plainly seen than in the United 
 -States, where we are accustomed to deal with facts and 
 not with sophistries ; and the great fact that stands out 
 above all the rest is that this is a people's war, a war for 
 freedom and justice and self-government amongst all the 
 nations of the world, a war to make the world safe for 
 the peoples who Uve upon it and have made it their own, 
 the German people themselves included ; .and that with 
 us rests the choice to break through all these hypocrisies 
 and patent cheats and masks of brute force and help set 
 the world free, or else stand aside and let it be dominated 
 a long age through by sheer weight of arms and the 
 arbitrary choices of self-constituted masters, by the na- 
 tion which can maintain the biggest armies and the 
 most irresistible armaments — a power to which the 
 world has afforded no parallel and in the face of which 
 political freedom must wither and perish. 
 
 For us there is but one choice. We have made it. 
 Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand 
 in our way in this day of high resolution when every prin- 
 ciple we hold dearest is to be vindicated and made secure 
 for the salvation of the nations. We are ready to plead 
 at the bar of history, and our flag shall wear a new luster. 
 Once more we shall make good with our lives and fortunes 
 the great faith to which we were born, and a new glory 
 shall shine in the face of our people. 
 
284 The American Spirit ' 
 
 ARMAGEDDON! ' 
 
 Sir Edwin Arnold (1832-1904) • 
 
 Marching down to Armageddon — 
 
 Brothers, stout and strong ! 
 
 Let us cheer the way we tread on : 
 
 With a soldier's song ! 
 Faint we by the weary road, 
 
 Or fall we in the rout, : 
 
 Dirge or Psean, Death or Triumph — i 
 
 Let the song ring out I \ 
 
 We are they who scorn the scorners — i 
 
 Love the lovers — hate i 
 
 None within the world's four corners — 
 
 All must share one fate ; ' 
 
 We are they whose common banner * 
 
 Bears no badge or sign, , 
 
 Save the Light which dyes it white — * 
 
 The Hope that makes it shine. | 
 
 i 
 
 We are they whose bugle rings, ^ 
 
 That all the wars may cease ; I 
 
 We are they will pay the Kings | 
 
 Their cruel price for Peace ; \ 
 
 , j 
 
 ^ It has been recognized since the beginning of the Great War that \ 
 
 for a score of years before its beginning Europe was an armed I 
 
 camp which might at any time break forth into a world conflict, ; 
 
 and that the most far-seeing and peace-loving European statesmen \ 
 
 fully understood the gravity of the situation. Little was openly j 
 
 said for fear of provoking resentments, but the possible imminence j 
 
 of " Armageddon " was hinted at now and then. The view that i 
 
 should it come it must be the last great war is expressed by Sir i 
 
 Edwin Arnold, poet and Orientalist, in this poem. j 
 
 From Edwin Arnold's Poetical Works, Vol. II. Copyright, ' 
 
 1880, 1889, by Roberts Brothers, Boston. j 
 
The Present Crisis 285 
 
 I 
 
 We are they whose steadfast watchword : 
 
 Is what Christ did teach — j 
 
 *' Each man for his brother first — \ 
 
 And Heaven, then, for each.'* .; 
 
 We are they who will not falter — .} 
 
 Many swords or few — . ] 
 
 Till we make this earth the altar \ 
 
 Of a worship new ; j 
 
 We are they who will not take ,. 
 
 From palace, priest, or code, i 
 
 A meaner law than "Brotherhood'* — i 
 
 A lower Lord than God. I 
 
 Marching down to Armageddon — i 
 
 Brothers, stout and strong I j 
 Ask not why the way we tread on . i 
 
 Is so rough and long 1 \ 
 
 God wiU teU us when our spirits I 
 
 Grow to grasp His plan I 
 Let us do our part today — 
 
 And help Him, helping Man I ■ 
 
 Shall we even curse the madness, : 
 
 Which for " ends of State ** ' 
 
 Dooms us to the long, long madness ] 
 
 Of this human hate ? 1 
 
 Let us slay in perfect pity j 
 
 Those that must not live ; ; 
 
 Vanquish and forgive our foes — > 
 
 Or fall — and still forgive I ] 
 
 We are those whose unpaid legions, 
 
 In free ranks arrayed, • 
 
The American Spirit 
 
 Massacred in many regions — 
 Never once were stayed : 
 
 We are they whose torn battahons, 
 Trained to bleed, not fly, 
 
 Make our agonies a triumph, — 
 
 , Conquer, while we die ! 
 
 Therefore, down to Armageddon — 
 
 Brothers, bold and strong — 
 Cheer the glorious way we tread on 
 
 With this soldier's song ! 
 Let the armies of the old Flags 
 
 March in silent dread : 
 Death and Life are one to us. 
 
 Who fight for Quick and Dead I 
 
 THE MEANING OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY i 
 
 WooDROw Wilson 
 
 The war was started by Germany. Her authorities 
 deny that they started it, but I am wilhng to let the 
 statement I have just made await the verdict of history. 
 And the thing that needs to be explained is why Germany 
 started the war.^ Remember what the position of Ger- 
 many in the world was — as enviable a position as any 
 
 ^ From an address delivered before the American Federation of 
 Labor at Buffalo, New York, November 12, 1917. In pamphlet 
 entitled "War, Labor, and Peace," issued by Committee on Public 
 Information, Washington, D.C. 
 
 •The recent disclosures (April, 1918) of Prince Lichnowsky, the 
 . Imperial German ambassador to Great Britain until the outbreak 
 of the war (1914), gives official German evidence to the fact that 
 Germany desired the war and precipitated it and that Great Britain 
 did all that was possible to avoid it. 
 
The Present Crisis 287 
 
 'nation has ever occupied. The whole world stood at 
 admiration of her wonderful intellectual and material 
 achievements. All the intellectual men of the world went 
 to school to her. As a university man I have been sur- 
 rounded by men trained in Germany, men who had 
 resorted to Germany because nowhere else could they get 
 such thorough and searching training, particularly in the 
 principles of science and the principles that underlie 
 modern material achievements. Her men of science had 
 made her industries perhaps the most competent industries 
 of the world, and the label, *'Made in Germany," was a 
 guarantee of good workmanship and of sound material. 
 She had access to all the markets of the world, and 
 every other man who traded in those markets feared 
 Germany because of her effective and almost irresistible 
 competition. She had a " place in the sun." Why was 
 she not satisfied ? What more did she want ? There was 
 nothing in the world of peace that she did not already 
 have and have in abundance. We boast of the extraor- 
 dinary pace of American advancement. We show with 
 pride the statistics of the increase of our industries 
 and of the population of our cities. Well, those statistics 
 did not match the recent statistics of Germany. Her. 
 old cities took on youth, grew faster than any American 
 cities ever grew. Her old industries opened their eyes 
 and saw a new world and went out for its conquest. And 
 yet the authorities of Germany were not satisfied. You 
 have one part of the answer to the question why 
 she was not satisfied in her methods of competition. 
 There is no important industry in Germany upon which 
 the government has not laid its hands to direct it, and 
 when necessity arose, control it ; and you have only to 
 ask any man whom you meet, who is familiar with the 
 
288 The American Spirit 
 
 conditions that prevailed before the war in the matter of* 
 national competition, to find out the methods of com- 
 petition which the German manufactm*ers and exporters 
 used under the patronage and support of the Government 
 of Germany. You will find that they were the same sorts 
 of competition that we have tried to prevent by law within 
 our own borders. If they could not sell their goods cheaper 
 than we could sell ours at a profit to themselves, they 
 could get a subsidy from the Government which made it 
 possible to sell them cheaper anyhow, and the conditions 
 of competition were thus controlled in large measure by 
 the German Government itself. 
 
 But that did not satisfy the German Government. All 
 the while there was lying behind its thought, in its 
 dreams of the future, a pohtical control which would 
 enable it in the long run to dominate the labor and the 
 industry of the world. They were not content with suc- 
 cess by superior achievement; they wanted success by 
 authority. I suppose few of you have thought much 
 about the Berhn-to-Bagdad railway.^ The Berlin-Bagdad 
 redlway was constructed in order to run the threat of force 
 down the flank of the industrial undertakings of half a 
 dozen other countries ; so that when German competition 
 came in it would not be resisted too far, because there was 
 
 ^ This reference is to the hnes of railway being built from Con- 
 stantinople through A.sia Minor and Bagdad in Mesopotamia to 
 the Persian Gulf. This road is completed through three fourths of 
 the distance, and its use as a military menace by Germany was one of 
 the indirect causes of the war. The road connects with the line 
 long in operation from BerUn to Constantinople. While it would 
 be of great economic advantage to the regions of the Turkish Em- 
 pire through which it would pass, as well as to its German owners, 
 its significance is largely political. Through it the German Empire 
 strove to weaken the influence of Great Britain and France in their 
 dependencies in the near East. Thus it became a distinct military 
 threat to the British government in India and in Egypt, and to the 
 control of the Suez Canal. 
 
The Present Crisis 289 
 
 always the possibility of getting German armies into the 
 heart of that country quicker than any other armies could 
 be got there. 
 
 Look at the map of Europe now I Germany, in thrust- 
 ing upon us again and again the discussion of peace, talks 
 about what ? Talks about Belgium ; talks about northern 
 France ; talks about Alsace-Lorraine. Well, those are 
 deeply interesting subjects to us and to them, but they 
 are not talking about the heart of the matter. Take the 
 map and look at it. Germany has absolute control of 
 Austria-Hungary, practical control of the Balkan states, 
 control of Turkey, control of Asia Minor. I saw a 
 map in which the whole thing was printed in appropriate 
 black the other day and the black stretched all the way 
 from Hamburg to Bagdad — the bulk of German power 
 inserted into the heart of the world. 
 
 If she can keep that, she has kept all that her dreams 
 contemplated when the war began. If she can keep that, 
 her power can disturb the world as long as she keeps it, 
 always provided, — for I feel bound to put this proviso in, 
 always provided the present influences that control the 
 German Government continue to control it. I believe 
 that the spirit of freedom can get into the hearts of 
 German^ and find as fiiie a welcome there as it can find 
 in any other hearts. But the spirit of freedom does 
 not suit the plans of the Pan-Germans.^ Power can- 
 not be used with concentrated force against free peoples if 
 it is used by free people. 
 
 * The term applied to the German poUtical party or section of 
 the people which was largely responsible for the war. This party 
 aimed to extend the political power of Germany over the regions 
 traversed by the Berlin-Bagdad Railway as well as through small 
 neighboring nationalities, as with Belgium. In fact, the views of 
 many of this group do not stop short of world domination. 
 
290 The American Spirit 
 
 You know how many intimations come to us from one 
 of the Central Powers that it is more anxious for peace 
 than the Chief Central Power ; and you know that it means 
 that the people in that Central Power know that if the war 
 ends as it stands, they will in effect themselves be vassals 
 of Germany, notwithstanding that their populations are 
 compounded of all the peoples of that part of the world, 
 and notwithstanding the fact that they do not wish in 
 their pride and proper spirit of nationality to be so 
 absorbed and dominated. Germany is determined that 
 the political power of the world shall belong to her. There 
 have been such ambitions before. They have been in 
 pEirt reaUzed, but never before have those ambitions 
 been based upon so exact and precise and scientific a 
 plan of domination. 
 
 May I not say that it is amazing to me that any group 
 of persons should be so ill-informed as to suppose, as 
 some groups in Russia apparently suppose, that any re- 
 forms planned in the interest of the people can live in the 
 presence of a Germany powerful enough to undermine or 
 overthrow them by intrigue or force ? Any body of free 
 men that compounds with the present German Government 
 is compounding for its own destruction. But that is not 
 the whole of the story. Any man in America,- or any- 
 where else, that supposes that the free industry and enter- 
 prise of the world can continue if the Pan-German plan is 
 achieved and German power fastened upon the world is 
 as fatuous ac the dreamers in Russia. What I am opposed 
 to is not the feeling of the pacifists, but their stupidity. 
 My heart is with them, but my mind has a contempt for 
 them. I want peace, but I know how to get it, and they 
 do not. 
 
 You will notice that I sent a friend of mine, Colonel 
 
The Present Crisis 291 
 
 House, to Europe, who is as great a lover of peace as any 
 man in the world, but I did not send him on a peace mis- 
 sion yet. I sent him to take part in a conference as to how 
 the war was to be won, and he knows, as I know, that 
 that is the way to get peace, if you want it for more than 
 a few minutes. 
 
 All of this is a preface to the conference that I have referred 
 to with regard to what we are going to do. If we are true 
 friends of freedom of our own or anybody else's, we 
 will see that the power of this country and the productivity 
 of this country is raised to its absolute maximum and that 
 absolutely nobody is allowed to stand in the way of it. 
 When I say that nobody is allowed to stand in the way, 
 I do not mean that they shall be prevented by the power 
 of the Government, but by the power of the Americai: 
 spirit. Our duty, if we are to do this great thing and show 
 America to be what we beheve her to be, — the greatest 
 hope and energy of the world, is to stand together night 
 and day until the job is finished. 
 
 While we are fighting for freedom we must see, among 
 other things, that labor is free, and that means a number 
 of interesting things. It means not only that we must do 
 what we have declared our purpose to do, see that the 
 conditions of labor are not rendered more onerous by the 
 war, but also that we shall see to it that the instru- 
 mentalities by which the conditions of labor are improved 
 are not blocked or checked. That we must do. That 
 has been the matter about which I have taken pleasure 
 in conferring from time to time with your president, Mr. 
 Gompers ; and, if I may be permitted to do so, I want 
 to express my admiration of his patriotic courage, his 
 large vision, and his statesmanlike sense of what is to be 
 done. I hke to lay my mind alongside of a mind that 
 
292 The American Spirit 
 
 knows how to pull in harness. The horses that kick over 
 the traces will have to be put in corral. . . . 
 
 Therefore, my counsel to you is this : Let us show 
 ourselves Americans by showing that we do not want to 
 go off in separate camps or groups by ourselves, but that 
 we want to cooperate with all other classes and all other 
 groups in a common enterprise which is to release the 
 spirits of the world from bondage. I would be willing to 
 set that up as the final test of an American. That is the 
 meaning of democracy. 
 
 AMERICA'S PURPOSE IN THE WAR^ 
 WooDROw Wilson 
 
 I shall not go back to debate the causes of the war. 
 The intolerable wrongs done and planned against us by 
 the sinister masters of Germany have long since become 
 too grossly obvious and odious to every true American to 
 need to be rehearsed. Rut I shall ask you to consider 
 again and with very grave scrutiny our objectives and the 
 measures by which we mean to attain them ; for the pur- 
 pose of discussion here in this place is action and our action 
 must move straight toward definite ends. Our object ic, 
 of course, to win the war ; and we shall not slacken or sufi'er 
 ourselves to be diverted until it is won. Rut it is v.^orth 
 while asking and answering the question, When shall we 
 consider the war won ? 
 
 From one point of view it is not necessary to broach this 
 fundamenteJ matter. I do not doubt that the American 
 
 1 From the President's second war message, delivered before Con- 
 gress, December 4, 1917. In pamphlet, "War, Labor, and Peace," 
 issued by Conmiittee on Public Information, Washington, D.G. 
 
The Present Crisis 293 
 
 people know what the war is about and what sort of an 
 outcome they will regard as a realization of their purpose 
 in it. As a Nation we are united in spirit and intention. 
 I pay little heed to those who tell me otherwise. I hear 
 the voices of dissent — who does not ? I hear the criti- 
 cism and the clamor of the noisily thoughtless and trouble- 
 some. I also see men here and there fling themselves in 
 impotent disloyalty against the calm, indomitable power 
 of the Nation. I hear men debate peace who understand 
 neither its nature nor the way in which we may attain it, 
 with uplifted eyes and unbroken spirits. But I know that 
 none of these speaks for the Nation. They do not touch 
 the heart of anything. They may safely be left to strut 
 their uneasy hour and be forgotten. 
 
 But from another point of view I believe that it is 
 necessary to say plainly what we here at the seat of action 
 consider the war to be for and what part we mean to play 
 in the settlement of its searching issues. We are the 
 spokesmen of the American people and they have a right 
 to know whether their purpose is ours. They desire peace 
 by the overcoming of evil, by the defeat once for all 
 of the sinister forces that interrupt peace and render it 
 impossible, and they wish to know how closely our thought 
 runs with theirs and what action we propose. They are 
 impatient with those who desire peace by any sort of com- 
 promise — deeply and indignantly impatient — but they 
 will be equally impatient with us if we do not make it 
 plain to them what our objectives are and what we are 
 planning for in seeking to make conquest of peace by 
 arms. 
 
 I believe that I speak for them when I say two things : 
 First, that this intolerable thing of which the masters of 
 Germany have shown us the ugly face, this menace of 
 
294 The Arjierican Spirit 
 
 combined intrigue and force, which we now see so clearly 
 as the German power, a thing without conscience or honor 
 or capacity for covenanted peace, must be crushed, and 
 if it be not utterly brought to an end, at least shut out 
 from the friendly intercourse of the nations ; and, second, 
 that when this thing and its power are indeed defeated 
 and the time comes that we can discuss peace — when the 
 German people have spokesmen whose word we can be- 
 lieve, and when those spokesmen are ready in the name 
 of their people to accept the common judgment of the na- 
 tions as to what shall henceforth be the bases of law and 
 of covenant for the Hfe of the world — we shall be willing 
 and glad to pay the full price for peace and pay it un- 
 grudgingly. We know what that price will be. It will 
 be full, impartial justice — justice done at every point 
 and to every nation that the final settlement must affect, 
 our enemies as well as our friends. 
 
 You catch, with me, the voices of humanity that are in 
 the air. They grow daily more audible, more articulate, 
 more persuasive, and they come from the hearts of men 
 everywhere. They insist that the war shall not end in 
 vindictive action of any kind ; that no nation or people 
 shall be robbed or punished because the irresponsible 
 rulers of a single country have themselves done deep and 
 abominable wrong. It is this thought that has been ex- 
 pressed in the formula, "No annexations, no contributions, 
 no punitive indemnities. ' ' Just because this crude formula 
 expresses the instinctive judgment as to the right of plain 
 men everywhere it has been made dihgent use of by the 
 masters of German intrigue to lead the people of Russia 
 astray, — and the people of every other country their 
 agents could reach, — in order that a premature peace 
 might be brought about before autocracy has been 
 
The Present Crisis 295 
 
 taught its final and convincing lesson and the people of 
 the world put in control of their own destinies. 
 
 But the fact that a wrong use has been made of a just 
 idea is no reason why a right use should not be made of it. 
 It ought to be brought under the patronage of its real 
 friends. Let it be said again that autocracy must first 
 be shown the utter futifity of its claims to power or leader- 
 ship in the modern world. It is impossible to apply any 
 standard of justice so long as such forces are unchecked 
 and undefeated as the present masters of Germany com- 
 mand. Not until that has been done can Right be set up 
 as arbiter and peacemaker among the nations. But when 
 that has been done — as, God willing, it assuredly will be 
 — we shall at last be free to do an unprecedented thing, 
 and this is the time to avow our purpose to do it. We 
 shall be free to base peace on generosity and justice, to the 
 exclusion of all selfish claims to advantage even on the 
 part of the victors. 
 
 Let there be no misunderstanding. Our present £md 
 immediate task is to win the war, and nothing shall turn 
 us aside from it until it is accompHshed. Every power 
 and resource we possess, whether of men, of money, or ma- 
 terials, is being devoted and will continue to be devoted, 
 to that purpose until it is achieved. Those who desire 
 to bring peace about before that purpose is achieved, I 
 counsel to carry their advice elsewhere. We wiU not 
 entertain it. We shall regard the war as won only when 
 the German people say to us, through properly accredited 
 representatives, that they are ready to agree to a settle- 
 ment based upon justice and the reparation of the wrongs 
 their rulers have done. They have done a wrong to Bel- 
 gium which must be repaired. They have established a 
 power over other lands and peoples than their own — 
 
296 The American Spirit 
 
 over the great empire of Austria-Hungary, over hitherto 
 free Balkan states, over Turkey, and within Asia — which 
 must be rehnquished. 
 
 Germany's success by skill, by industry, by knowledge, 
 by enterprise we did not grudge or oppose, but admired 
 rather. She had built up for herself a real empire of trade 
 and influence, secured by the peace of the world. We 
 were content to abide the rivalries of manufacture, science, 
 and commerce that were involved for us in her success 
 and stand or fall as we had or did not have the brains and 
 the initiative to surpass her. But at the moment when 
 she had conspicuously won her triumphs of peace she 
 threw them away to estabUsh in their stead what the 
 world will no longer permit to be established, military 
 and political domination by arms, by which to oust 
 where she could not excel the rivals she most feared and 
 hated. The peace we make must remedy that wrong. It 
 must deliver the once fair lands and happy peoples of 
 Belgium and northern France from the Prussian conquest 
 and the Prussian menace, but it must also deUver the 
 peoples of Austria-Hungary, the peoples of the Balkans, 
 and the peoples of Turkey, aUke in Europe and in Asia, 
 from the impudent and ahen domination of the Prussian 
 mihteiry and commercial autocracy. 
 
 We owe it, however, to ourselves to say that we do not 
 wish in any way to impair or to rearrange the Austro- 
 Hungarian Empire. It is no afi'air of ours what they do 
 with their own life, either industrially or politically. We 
 do not purpose nor desire to dictate to them in any way. 
 We only desire to see that their affairs are left in their 
 own hands, in all matters, great or small. We shall hope 
 to secure for the peoples of the Balkan peninsula and for 
 the peoples of the Turkish Empire the right and oppor- 
 
The Present Crisis 297 
 
 tunity to make their own lives safe, their own fortunes 
 secure against oppression or injustice and from the dicta- 
 tion of foreign courts or parties. 
 
 And our attitude and purpose with regard to Germany 
 herself are of a like kind. We intend no wrong against 
 the German Empire, no interference with her internal 
 affairs. We should deem either the one or the other 
 absolutely unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to the prin- 
 ciples we have professed to live by and to hold most 
 sacred throughout our life as a nation. 
 
 The people of Germany are being told by the men whom 
 they now permit to deceive them axid to act as their mas- 
 ters that they are fighting for the very fife and existence 
 of their Empire, a war of desperate self-defense against 
 deliberate aggression. Nothing could be more grossly 
 or wantonly false, and we must seek by the utmost open- 
 ness and candor as to our real aims to convince them of its 
 falseness. We are, in fact, fighting for their emancipation 
 from fear, along with our own, — from the fear as well as 
 from the fact of unjust attack by neighbors or rivals or 
 schemers after world empire. No one is threatening the 
 existence or the independence or the peaceful enterprise 
 of the German Empire. 
 
 The worst that can happen to the detriment of the 
 German people is this, that if they should still, after the 
 war is over, continue to be obliged to five under ambitious 
 and intriguing masters interested to disturb the peace of 
 the world, — men or classes of men whom the other 
 peoples of the world could not trust, — it might be im- 
 possible to admit them to the partnership of nations 
 which must henceforth guEu-antee the world's peace. 
 That partnership must be a partnership of peoples, not a 
 mere partnership of governments. It might be impossi- 
 
298 The American Spirit 
 
 ble, also, in such untowEird circumstances, to admit 
 Germany to the free economic intercourse which must 
 inevitably spring out of the other paa-tnerships of a real 
 peace. But there would be no aggression in that ; and 
 such a situation, inevitable because of distrust, would in 
 the very nature of things sooner or later cure itself, by 
 processes which would assuredly set in. 
 
 The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, committed in this 
 war will have to be righted. That of course. But they 
 cannot and must not be righted by the commission of 
 similar wrongs against Germany and her allies. The 
 world will not permit the commission of similar wrongs as 
 a means of reparation and settlement. Statesmen must 
 by this time have learned that the opinion of the world 
 is everywhere wide-awake and fully comprehends the 
 issues involved. No representative of any self-governed 
 nation will dare disregard it by attempting any such 
 covenants of selfishness and compromise as were entered 
 into at the Congress of Vienna.^ The thought of the 
 plain people here and everywhere throughout the world, 
 the people who enjoy no privilege and have very simple 
 and unsophisticated standards of right and wrong, is the 
 air all governments must henceforth breathe if they would 
 live. It is in the full disclosing hght of that thought that 
 all policies must be conceived and executed in this mid- 
 day hour of the world's life. 
 
 German rulers have been able to upset the peace of the 
 world only because the German people were not suffered, 
 
 ^ The Peace Conference held in 1815 and 1816 to determine the 
 terms of peace after the downfall of Napoleon. It was controlled 
 by reactionary political powers which deprived most European 
 peoples of such freedom as they had won in the early Revolutionary 
 period, and was particularly harsh and cynical in its treatment of 
 small nations. 
 
The Present Crisis 299 
 
 under their tutelage, to share the comradeship of the other 
 peoples of the world either in thought or in purpose. 
 They were allowed to have no opinion of their own which 
 might be set up as a rule of conduct for those who exer- 
 cised authority over them. But the congress that con- 
 cludes this war will feel the full strength of the tides that 
 run now in the hearts and consciences of free men every- 
 where. Its conclusions will run with those tides. 
 
 All these things have been true from the very beginning 
 of this stupendous war ; and I cannot help thinking that 
 if they had been made plain at the very outset the sym- 
 pathy and enthusiasm of the Russian people might have 
 been once for all enlisted on the side of the Allies, suspicion 
 and distrust swept away, and a real and lasting union of 
 purpose effected. Had they beUeved these things at the 
 very moment of their revolution and had they been con- 
 firmed in that belief since, the sad reverses which have 
 recently marked the progress of their affairs toward an 
 ordered and stable government of free men might have 
 been avoided. The Russian people have been poisoned 
 by the very same falsehoods that have kept the German 
 people in the dark, and the poison has been administered 
 by the very same hands. The only possible antidote is 
 the truth. It cannot be uttered too plainly or too often. 
 
 From every point of view, therefore, it has seemed to be 
 my duty to speak these declarations of purpose, to add 
 these specific interpretations to what I took the liberty 
 of saying to the Senate in January. Our entrance into 
 the war has not altered our attitude toward the settlement 
 that must come when it is over. When I said in Jguiuary 
 that the nations of the world were entitled not only to free 
 pathways upon the sea, but also to assured and unmolested 
 access to those pathways, I was thinking, and I am think- 
 
300 The American Spirit 
 
 ing now, not of the smaller and weaker nations alone, 
 which need our countenance and support, but also of the 
 great and powerful nations, and of our present enemies as 
 well as our present associates in the war. I was thinking, 
 and am thinking now, of Austria herself, among the rest, 
 as well as of Serbia and of Poland. Justice and equality of 
 rights can be had only at a great price. We are seeking 
 permanent, not temporary, foundations for the peace of 
 the world, and must seek them candidly and fearlessly. 
 As always, the right will prove to be the expedient. 
 
 What shall we do, then, to push this great war of freedom 
 and justice to its righteous conclusion? We must clear 
 away with a thorough hand all impediments to success, 
 and we must make every adjustment of law that will 
 faciUtate the full and free use of our whole capacity and 
 force as a fighting unit. 
 
 One very embarrassing obstacle that stands in our way 
 is that we are at war with Germany, but not with her allies. 
 I therefore very earnestly recommend that the Congress 
 immediately declare the United States in a state of war 
 with Austria-Hungary. Does it seem strange to you that 
 this should be the conclusion of the argument I have just 
 addressed to you ? It is not. It is in fact the inevitable 
 logic of what I have said. Austria-Hungary is for the 
 time being not her own mistress, but simply the vassal of 
 the German Government. We must face the facts as they 
 are and act upon them without sentiment in this stern 
 business. The Government of Austria-Hungary is not 
 acting upon its own initiative or in response to the wishes 
 and feelings of its own peoples, but as the instrument of 
 another nation. We must meet its force with our own 
 and regard the Central Powers as but one. The war can 
 be successfully conducted in no other way. The same 
 
The Present Crisis 301 
 
 logic would lead also to a declaration of war against Tur- 
 key and Bulgaria. They also are the tools of Germany. 
 But they are mere tools and do not yet stand in the direct 
 path of our necessary action. We shall go wherever the 
 necessities of this war carry us, but it seems to me that 
 we should go only where immediate and practical- con- 
 siderations lead us and not heed any others. 
 
 The financial and mihtary measures which must be 
 adopted will suggest themselves as the war and its under- 
 takings develop, but I will take the liberty of proposing 
 to you certain other acts of legislation which seem to me 
 to be needed for the support of the war and for the release 
 of our whole force and energy. . . . 
 
 We can do this with all the greater zeal and enthusiasm 
 because we know that for us this is a war of high principle, 
 debased by no selfish ambition of conquest or spohation ; 
 because we know, and all the world knows, that we have 
 been forced into it to save the very institutions we five 
 under from corruption and destruction. The purposes 
 of the Central Powers strike straight at the very heart of 
 everything we believe in ; their methods of warfare out- 
 rage every principle of humanity and of knightly honor ; 
 their intrigue has corrupted the very thought and spirit 
 of many of our people ; their sinister and secret diplomacy 
 has sought to take our very territory away from us and 
 disrupt the union of the States. Our safety would be at 
 an end, our honor forever sullied and brought into con- 
 tempt, were we to permit their triumph. They are striking 
 at the very existence of democracy and liberty. 
 
 It is because it is for us a war of high, disinterested pur- 
 pose, in which all the free peoples of the world are banded 
 together for the vindication of right, a war for the preser- 
 vation of our Nation and of all that it has held dear of 
 
302 The American Spirit 
 
 principle and of purpose, that we feel ourselves doubly 
 constrained to propose for its outcome only that which is 
 righteous and of irreproachable intention, for our foes as 
 well as for our friends. 
 
 The cause being just and holy, the settlement must be 
 of like motive and quality. For this we can fight, but for 
 nothing less noble or less worthy of our traditions. For 
 this cause we entered the war, and for this cause we will 
 battle until the last gun is fired. 
 
 I have spoken plainly because this seems to me the time 
 when it is most necessary to speak plainly, in order that 
 all the world may know that even in the heat and ardor 
 of the struggle and when our whole thought is of carrying 
 the war through to its end we have not forgotten any ideal 
 or principle for which the name of America has been held 
 in honor among the nations and for which it has been our 
 glory to contend in the great generations that went before 
 us. A supreme moment of history has come. The eyes 
 of the people have been opened and they see. The hand 
 of God is laid upon the nations. He will show them 
 favor, I devoutly believe, only if they rise to the clear 
 heights of His own justice and mercy. 
 
 WHEN THE GREAT GRAY SHIPS COME IN ^ 
 Guy Wetmore Carryl (1873-1904) 
 
 To eastward ringing, to westward winging, o'er mapless 
 
 miles of sea. 
 On winds and tides the gospel rides that the furthermost 
 
 isles are free ; 
 
 1 This poem refers to the entrance of the warships into New York 
 harbor August 20, 1898, when peace with Spain was declared. 
 
The Present Crisis 303 
 
 And the furthermost isles make answer, harbor and height 
 
 and hill, 
 Breaker and beach cry each to each, '"Tis the Mother 
 
 who calls! BestiUI" 
 Mother ! new-found beloved, and strong to hold from harm, 
 Stretching to these across the seas the shield of her 
 
 sovereign arm. 
 Who summoned the guns of her sailor sons, who bade 
 
 her navies roam. 
 Who calls again to the leagues of main, and who calls 
 
 them this time home I 
 
 And the great gray ships are silent, and the weary 
 
 watchers rest ; 
 The black cloud dies in the August skies, and deep in the 
 
 golden west 
 Invisible hands are limning a glory of crimson bars, 
 And far above is the wonder of a myriad wakened stars I 
 Peace! As the tidings silence the strenuous cannonade. 
 Peace at last! is the bugle blast the length of the long 
 
 blockade ; 
 And eyes of vigil weary are lit with the glad release. 
 From ship to ship and from lip to lip, it is "Peace! 
 
 Thank God for peace !" 
 
 Ah, in the sweet hereafter Columbia still shall show 
 The sons of these who swept the seas how she bade them 
 rise and go ; 
 
 At the outbreak of this war the white warships were painted gray 
 for the first time in their existence, all of them having been built 
 during the years of peace. 
 
 From "The Garden of Years." Copyright, 1914, by G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, New York. Used by permission of the publishers 
 and of the editor, Henry D. Sleeper. 
 
304 The American Spirit 
 
 How, when the stirring summons smote on her children's 
 
 ear, 
 South and North at the call stood forth, and the whole 
 
 land answered, " Here ! " 
 For the soul of the soldier's story and the heart of the 
 
 sailor's song 
 Are all of those who meet their foes as right should meet 
 
 with wrong. 
 Who fight their guns till the foeman runs, and then, on 
 
 the decks they trod. 
 Brave faces raise, and give the praise to the grace of their 
 
 country's God ! 
 
 Yes, it is good to battle, and good to be strong and 
 
 free, 
 To carry the hearts of a people to the uttermost ends of 
 
 sea, 
 To see the day steal up the bay where the enemy lies in 
 
 wait. 
 To run your ship to the harbor's lip and sink her across 
 
 the strait : — 
 But better the golden evening, when the ships round 
 
 heads for home. 
 And the long gray miles slip swiftly past in a swirl of 
 
 seething foam, — 
 And the people wait at the haven's gate to greet the men 
 
 who win ! 
 Thank God for peace I Thank God for peace ! when the 
 
 great gray ships come in I 
 
X. ONWARD 
 
 A WORLD PEACE 1 
 WooDROw Wilson 
 
 It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of 
 peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open, and 
 that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret 
 understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and 
 aggrandizement is gone by ; so is also the day of secret 
 covenants entered into in the interest of particular gov- 
 ernments, and Ukely at some unlooked-for moment to 
 upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now 
 clear to the view of every pubhc man whose thoughts do 
 not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which 
 makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are 
 consistent with justice and the peace of the world to 
 avow now or at any other time the objects it has in view. 
 
 We entered this war because violations of right had 
 occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life 
 of our own people impossible unless they were corrected 
 and the world secured once for all against their recurrence. 
 What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing pecuUar 
 to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to 
 live in ; and particularly that it be made safe for every 
 peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to Uve 
 its own Ufe, determine its own institutions, be assured 
 of justice and fair deahng by the other peoples of the 
 world as against force and selfish aggression. All the 
 peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, 
 
 ^ From address delivered before Congress, January 8, 1918. In 
 pamphlet, "War, Labor, and Peace," issued by Committee on 
 PubUc Information, Washington, D.C. 
 
 305 
 
306 The American Spirit 
 
 and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice 
 be done to others it will not be done to us. The program 
 of the world's peace, therefore, is our program, and that 
 program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this : 
 
 I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after 
 which there shall be no private international understand- 
 ings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always 
 frankly and in the public view. 
 
 II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, 
 outside territorial waters, ahke in peace and in war, except 
 as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by inter- 
 national action for the enforcement of international 
 covenants. 
 
 III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic 
 barriers and the estabhshment of an equahty of trade 
 conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace 
 and associating themselves for its maintenance. 
 
 IV. Adequate guaranties given and taken that national 
 armaments wiU be reduced to the lowest point consistent 
 with domestic safety. 
 
 V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial 
 adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict ob- 
 servance of the principle that in determining all such ques- 
 tions of sovereignty the interest of the populations con- 
 cerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims 
 of the government whose title is to be determined. 
 
 VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such 
 a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure 
 the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the 
 world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembar- 
 rassed opportunity for the independent determination of 
 her own political development and national policy and 
 assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free 
 
Onward 307 
 
 nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, 
 more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that 
 she may need and may herself desire. The treatment 
 accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to 
 come will be the acid test of their good will, of their com- 
 prehension of her needs as distinguished from their own 
 interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. 
 
 VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be 
 evacuated and restored without any attempt to limit the 
 sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other 
 free nations. No other single act will serve as this will 
 serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws 
 which they have themselves set and determined for the 
 government of their relations with one another. Without 
 this heafing act the whole structure and validity of inter- 
 national law is forever impaired. 
 
 VIII. All French territory should be freed and the in- 
 vaded portions restored ; and the wrong done to France 
 by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, 
 which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty 
 years, should be righted, in order that peace may once 
 more be made secure in the interest of all. 
 
 IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should 
 be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality. 
 
 X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place 
 among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, 
 should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous 
 development. 
 
 XL Roumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be 
 evacuated ; occupied territories restored ; Serbia accorded 
 free and secure access to the sea ; and the relations of the 
 several Balkan states to one another determined by 
 friendly counsel along historically established lines of 
 
308 The American Spirit 
 
 allegiance and nationality; and international guaranties 
 of the political and economic independence and territorial 
 integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered 
 into. 
 
 XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman 
 Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the 
 other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule 
 should be assured an undoubted security of life and an 
 absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous de- 
 velopment, and the Dardanelles should be permanently 
 opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all 
 nations under international "guaranties. 
 
 XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected 
 which should include the territories inhabited by indis- 
 putably Polish populations, which should be assured a 
 free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and 
 economic independence and territorial integrity should be 
 guaranteed by international covenant. 
 
 XIV. A general association of nations must be formed 
 under specific covenants for the purpose of affording 
 mutual guaranties of political independence and terri- 
 torial integrity to great and small States aUke. 
 
 In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and 
 assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners 
 of all the Governments and peoples associated together 
 against the imperialists. We cannot be separated in in- 
 terest or divided in purpose. .We stand together until 
 the end. 
 
 For such arrangements and covenants we are willing 
 to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved ; 
 but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire 
 a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by 
 removing the chief provocations to war, which this pro- 
 
Onward 309 
 
 gram does remove. We have no jealousy of German 
 greatness and there is nothing in this program that im- 
 pairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction 
 of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her 
 record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish 
 to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influ- 
 ence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with 
 arms or with hostile arrangements of trade, if she is will- 
 ing to associate herself with us and the other peace-loving 
 nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and 
 fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of 
 equality among the peoples of the world — the new world 
 in which we now five — instead of a place of mastery. 
 
 Neither do we presume to suggest to her any alteration 
 or modification of her institutions. But it is necessary, 
 we must frankly say, and necessary as a preliminary to 
 any intelfigent deafings with her on our part, that we 
 should know whom her spokesmen speak for when they 
 speak to us, whether for the Reichstag majority or for 
 the mifitary party and the men whose creed is imperial 
 domination. 
 
 We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete to 
 admit of any further doubt or question. An evident 
 principle runs through the whole program I have out- 
 lined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples and 
 nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of 
 liberty and safety with one another, whether they be 
 strong or weak. Unless this principle be made its foun- 
 dation, no part of the structure of international justice 
 can stand. The people of the United States could act 
 upon no other principle ; and to the vindication of this 
 principle they are ready to devote their lives, their honor, 
 and everything that they possess. The moral cfimax of 
 
310 The American Spirit 
 
 this, the culminating and final war for human Uberty, 
 has come, and they are ready to put their own strength, 
 their own highest purpose, their own integrity, and de- 
 votion to the test. 
 
 FREEDOM AGAINST THE WILL TO POWER i 
 William E. Borah (1865- ) 
 
 And when we reflect further on some of the issues which 
 are involved in the war, we are again led to understand 
 how conclusively this is a contest between the two sys- 
 tems of government, two civilizations. We ought to get 
 away, if we can, from the idea that it is a conflict over 
 national lines in Europe ; that it is a question of the redis- 
 tribution of territory in Europe ; that it is a question of 
 securing compensation for injuries which have been done 
 us; and understand that, whatever the cause was in 
 the beginning, we have now arrived at a point where it 
 is distinctly a conflict between two systems of govern- 
 ment, between peoples and nations, and that one or the 
 other will have to go down. 
 
 In other words, Mr. President, whatever may have 
 been our opinion in the beginning of the war, both sides 
 realize now that this is not only a war between great na- 
 tions, involving the interests of aU their citizens, but that 
 it is distinctly a war between systems of government, 
 and it is so recognized. 
 
 Mr. President, the German historian. Professor Meyer, 
 in a book written since the beginning of the war, in which 
 
 ^ From a speech made in the United States Senate, March 18, 1918, 
 by Mr. Borah as Senator from Idaho. 
 
Onward 311 
 
 he sums up the issues involved, or rather the issue, be- 
 cause it all resolves itself into one, uses this language : 
 
 "The truth of the whole matter undoubtedly is that 
 the time has arrived when two distinct forms of State 
 organization must face each other in a life-and-death 
 struggle." 
 
 That is undoubtedly the understanding and behef of 
 those who are responsible for this war. It is coming to 
 be the understanding and beUef of those who have had 
 the war forced upon them. We have finally put aside 
 the tragedy at the Bosnian capital and the wrongs inflicted 
 upon Belgium as the moving causes of the war. They 
 •were but the prologue to the imperial theme. We now 
 see and understand clearly and unmistakably the cause 
 at all times lying back of these things. Upon the one 
 hand is Magna Charta,^ the Bill of Rights,^ the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, the Constitution of the United 
 States, and the principles of human Uberty which they 
 embody and preserve. Upon the other hand is that 
 pecuhar form of State organization which, in the language 
 of the Emperor, rests alone upon the strength of the 
 army and whose highest creed finds expression in the 
 words of one of its greatest advocates, that war is a part 
 of the eternal order instituted by God. We go back to 
 Runnymede, where fearless men wrenched from the 
 hands of power habeas corpus and the trial by jury. 
 
 1 The great charter won by the Barons of England from King 
 John at Runnymede, June 15, 1215. It is the legal basis of Eng- 
 lish liberty and thus of American also, securing a legal procedure 
 for all acts of government against its citizens. 
 
 2 An Act of Parliament in 1689, confirming and re-defining the 
 rights guaranteed in the Magna Charta. The first six amendments 
 to the American Constitution are often called "The American Bill 
 of Rights." 
 
S12 The American Spirit 
 
 They point us to Breslau ^ and Mollwitz,^ where Frederick 
 the Great, in violation of his plighted word, inaugurated 
 the rule of fraud and force and laid the foundation for 
 that mighty structure whose central and dominating prin- 
 ciple is that of power. 
 
 It is that power with which we are at war today. Shall 
 men, shall the people, be governed by some remorseless 
 and soulless entity softly called the "State," or shall 
 the instrumentalities of government yield alone and at 
 all times to the wants and necessities, the hopes and as- 
 pirations, of the masses ? That is now the issue. Noth- 
 ing should longer conceal it. It is but another and more 
 stupendous phase of the old struggle, a struggle as ancient, 
 and as inevitable as the thirst for power and the love of 
 liberty, a struggle in which men have fought and sacri- 
 ficed all the way from Marathon to Verdun. 
 
 It seems strange now, and it will seem more extraor- 
 dinary to those who come after us, that we did not recog- 
 nize from the beginning that this was the issue. But, 
 obscured by the debris of European life, confused with 
 the dynastic quarrels and racigJ bitterness of the Old 
 World, it was difficult to discern, and still more difficult 
 to reahze, that the very life of our institutions was at 
 stake, that the scheme of the enemy, amazing and astound- 
 ing, was not alone to control territory and dominate 
 commerce, but to change the drift of human progress and 
 to readjust the standards of the world's civilization. 
 Perhaps, too, our love of peace, our traditional friendship 
 for all nations, lulled suspicion and discouraged inquiry. 
 Be that as it may, there can be no doubt now. 
 
 1 A treaty between Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary, and Fred- 
 erick the Great, king of Prussia, signed in 1742. 
 
 * The battle preceding the treaty of peace. 
 
Onward 313 
 
 Whatever the cause, however perverse the fates which 
 bring us to this crisis, we are called upon not to settle 
 questions of territory or establish new spheres of national 
 activity, but to defend the institutions under which we 
 live. Who doubts should we fail that the whole theory 
 and system of government for which we have labored and 
 struggled, our whole conception of civilization, would be 
 discredited utterly? Who but believes that, should we 
 lose, militarism would be the searching test of all Govern- 
 ments and that the world would be an armed camp harried 
 ^^nd tortured and decimated by endless wars ? 
 
 But what we have determined in this crisis, as I under- 
 stand it, is that we will keep the road of democracy open. 
 No one shall close it. If any nation shall hereafter rise 
 to the sublime requirement of self-government and choose 
 to go that way, it shall have the right to do so. Above 
 all things we h avejdetermined, cost what it may in treasure 
 and blood, tbatjlhis experiment here upon this Western 
 Continent shall justify the faith of its builders, thatthere 
 shall remain here in all the integrity of its powers, neither 
 wrenched nor marred by the passions of war from within 
 nor humbled nor dishonored by military power from 
 without, the Repub lic, of the fathers; that since the 
 challenge has been thrown down that this is a war unto 
 death between two opposing theories of government, we 
 aiQ determined that whatever else happens as a result 
 of this war this form of organization, this theory of State, 
 this last great hope, this fruition of one hundred and 
 thirty years of struggle and toil, "shall not perish from the 
 earth." 
 
314 The American Spirit 
 
 OUR RESPONSIBILITIES! 
 Theodore Roosevelt (1858- ) 
 
 Much has been given to us, and much will rightfully be 
 expected from us. We have duties to others and duties 
 to ourselves ; and we can shirk neither. We have become 
 a great Nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into re- 
 lations with the other nations of the earth ; and we must 
 behave as beseems a people with such responsibihties. 
 Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude 
 must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must 
 show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are 
 earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting 
 toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition 
 of all their rights. But justice and generosity in a nation, 
 as in an individual, count most when shown not by the 
 weak but by the strong. While ever careful to refrain 
 from wronging others, we must be no less insistent that 
 we are not wronged ourselves. We wish peace ; but we 
 wish the peace of justice, the peace of righteousness. We 
 wish it because we think it is right and not because we are 
 afraid. No weak nation that acts manfully and justly 
 should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power 
 should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent 
 aggression. 
 
 Our relations with the other Powers of the world are 
 important; but still more important are our relations 
 among ourselves. Such growth in wealth, in population, 
 
 * No statesman has furnished a more virile example of the American 
 spirit to our own generation than ex-President Roosevelt. 
 From inaugural address, March 4, 1905, in The Works of 
 Theodore Roosevelt. Executive Edition of His Presidential 
 Addresses and State Papers, Vol. III. Published by P. F. Collier. 
 
Onward 315 
 
 and in power as this Nation has seen during the century 
 and a quarter of its national hfe is inevitably accompanied 
 by a like growth in the problems which are ever before 
 every nation that rises to greatness. Power invariably 
 means both responsibility and danger. Our forefathers 
 faced certain perils which we have outgrown. We now 
 face other perils, the very existence of which it was im- 
 possible that they should foresee. Modern hfe is both 
 complex and intense, and the tremendous changes wrought 
 by the extraordinary industrial development of the last 
 half century are felt in every fiber of our social and political 
 being. 
 
 Never before have men tried so vast and formidable 
 an experiment as that of administering the affairs of a 
 continent under the forms of a democratic republic. The 
 conditions which have told for our marvelous material 
 well-being, which have developed to a very high degree 
 our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, have 
 also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the 
 accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers. Upon 
 the success of our experiment much depends ; not only as 
 regards our own welfare, but as regards the welfare of 
 mankind. If we fail, the cause of free self-government 
 throughout the world will rock to its foundations ; and 
 therefore our responsibility is heavy, to ourselves, to 
 the world as it is today, and to the generations yet 
 unborn. 
 
 There is no good reason why we should fear the future, 
 but there is every reason why we should face it seriously, 
 neither hiding from ourselves the gravity of the problems 
 before us nor fearing to approach these problems with the 
 unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright. 
 
S16 The American Spirit 
 
 THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO RULE i 
 Theodore Roosevelt 
 
 Friends, our task as Americans is to strive for social 
 and industrial justice, achieved through the genuine rule 
 of the people. This is our end, our purpose. 
 
 The methods for achieving the end aie merely expedi- 
 ents, to be finally accepted or rejected according as actual 
 experience shows that they work well or ill. But in our 
 hearts we must have this lofty purpose, and we must 
 strive for it in all earnestness and sincerity, or our work 
 will come to nothing. 
 
 In order to succeed, we need leaders of inspired ideal- 
 ism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream 
 greatly and strive to make their dreams come true ; who 
 can kindle the people with the fire from their own burn- 
 ing souls. The leader for the time being, whoever he 
 may be, is but an instrument, to be used until broken and 
 then to be cast aside ; and if he is worth his salt, he will 
 care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when 
 he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory 
 may be won. In the long fight for righteousness the 
 watchword for all of us is, spend and be spent. It is 
 of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds ; 
 but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of man- 
 kind. 
 
 We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of 
 the world, the fate of the coming years ; and shame and 
 disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve 
 
 * From a speech made by Mr. Roosevelt at Carnegie Hall in 
 New York, March 20, 1912, Issued in pamphlet form over Mr. 
 Roosevelt's signature by the National Progressive party. 
 
Onward 317 
 
 is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of 
 men. If on this new continent we merely build another 
 country of great but unjustly divided material prosperity, 
 we shall have done nothing ; and we shall do as little if 
 we merely set the greed of envy against the greed of arro- 
 gance, and thereby destroy the material well-being of all 
 of us. To turn this Government either into government 
 by a plutocracy or government by a mob, would be to 
 repeat on a larger scale the lamentable failures of the 
 world that is dead. 
 
 We stand against all tyranny, by the few or by the 
 many. We stand for the rule of the many in the interest 
 of all of us, for the rule of the many in a spirit of courage, 
 of common sense, of high purpose ; above all, in a spirit 
 of kindly justice toweu'd every man and every woman. 
 We not merely admit, but insist, that there must be self- 
 control on the part of the people, that they must keenly 
 perceive their own duties as well as the rights of others ; 
 but we also insist that the people can do nothing unless 
 they not merely have, but exercise to the full, their own 
 rights. 
 
 The worth of our great experiment depends upon its 
 being in good faith an experiment — the first that has 
 ever been tried — in true democracy on the scale of a 
 continent, on a scale as vast as that of the mightiest 
 empires of the Old World. Surely this is a noble ideal, 
 an ideal for which it is worth while to strive, an ideal 
 for which at need it is worth while to sacrifice much; 
 for our ideal is the rule of all the people in a spirit of 
 friendhest brotherhood toward each and every one of 
 the people. 
 
818 The American Spirit 
 
 LOOK UP, LOOK FORTH, AND ONI^ 
 Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) 
 
 Look up, look forth, and on ! 
 
 There's light in the dawning sky : 
 The clouds are parting, the night is gone : 
 
 Prepare for the work of the day I 
 
 Fallow thy pastures he. 
 
 And far thy shepherds stray, 
 And the fields of thy vast domain 
 
 Awaiting for purer seed 
 
 Of knowledge, desire, and deed. 
 For keener sunshine and mellower rain I 
 
 But keep thy garments pure : 
 Pluck them back, with the old disdain, 
 
 From touch of the hands that stain I 
 
 So shall thy strength endure. 
 Transmute into good the gold of Gain, 
 Compel to beauty thy ruder powers, 
 
 Till the bounty of coming hours 
 
 Shall plant, on thy fields apart, 
 With the oak of Toil, the rose of Art I 
 
 Be watchful, and keep us so : 
 
 Be strong, and fear no foe : 
 
 Be just, and the world shall know ! 
 With the same love love us, as we give ; 
 
 And the day shall never come, 
 
 ^ The author was an American journalist and man of letters, 
 writer of many volumes, chiefly accounts of travel. He gave to 
 the American people their first intimate and popular view of many 
 foreign lands. 
 
 From *'The National Ode," delivered in Independence Square, 
 Philadelphia, July 4, 1876. From facsimile copy sent by the 
 author to Joseph R. Osgood & Co., Boston, July 5, 1876. 
 
Onward 319 ; 
 
 i 
 
 That finds us weak or dumb j 
 
 To join and smite and cry ! 
 
 In the great task, for thee to die, ■ 
 
 And the greater task, for thee to live I j 
 
 THE SHIP OF STATE 1 ! 
 
 I 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) 
 
 Thou, too, sail on, Ship of State I ^ 
 
 Sail on, Union, strong and great ! i 
 
 Humanity, with all its fears, ' 
 
 With all the hopes of future years, ^ 
 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! j 
 
 We know what Master laid thy keel, j 
 
 What Workman wrought thy ribs of steel, i 
 
 Who made each mast and sail and rope, ] 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat. 
 
 In what a forge and what a heat : 
 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope I i 
 
 Fear not each sudden sound and shock, ^ 
 
 'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; J 
 
 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, } 
 
 And not a rent made by the gale I ' 
 
 In spite of rock and tempest's roar, ; 
 
 In spite of false lights on the shore, '■ 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea I 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, ^ 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, ; 
 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, i 
 
 Are all with thee, — are all with thee I \ 
 
 1 From "The Building of the Ship," in Longfellow's Poetical 'j 
 
 Works, Vol. I.- Copyright, 1886, by Houghton Mifflin Company, 
 Boston. Used by permission of the publishers. ; 
 
 -i 
 ] 
 
320 The American Spirit 
 
 A BASIS FOR WORLD DEMOCRACY ^ 
 David Starr Jordan (1851- ) 
 
 Through the ages, says Barbusse, "the people are 
 nothing ; they should be everything." ^ This epigram of 
 the French soldier may well be a watchword of democracy. 
 The modern world, to accept the current paraphrase 
 from Lincoln, "cannot endure half-slave, half-free," 
 that is, half of it under government "of the people, by 
 the people, for the people," half of it subject to irrespon- 
 sible ohgarchies, parasitic on the people through the 
 "divine right of kings." Wherever arbitrary power 
 exists, it will be used in arbitrary ways. The only 
 antidote to its abuses is to be found in government by 
 the people. This is no instantaneous remedy, to be 
 applied once for all. It is a process of growth. The 
 people must feel their way, learning from their own 
 mistakes, building their loftier ideals on the wreckage 
 of past hopes. 
 
 It matters little what the shortcomings of democracy 
 are. The essential thing is progress in enhghtenment 
 and justice ; the way leads through freedom. No people 
 ever had a government better than it deserved. It is 
 a quaUty of democracy always to deserve something 
 better. A perfect government would be superfluous. 
 As Goethe once observed, "The best government is that 
 which renders itself- unnecessary." The besetting sin 
 
 1 Dr. Jordan, a noted scientist and publicist, was first president 
 and the builder of Leland Stanford Junior University. 
 From "Democracy and World Relations." Copyright, 1918, 
 by World Book Company, Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York. 
 
 *"Le5 peuples, c'est rien; et ca devrait elre tout; une phrase histo- 
 rique vieille de plus d'un siecle." 
 
Onward 321 
 
 of most governments which endeavor to be good is that 
 they attempt too many things the people should do for 
 themselves. The highest duty of government is to keep 
 the road unobstructed so that each man can make his 
 own way for himself. . . . 
 
 In democracy the freedom of the individual is vital, 
 — equally so its necessary limitation, non-interference 
 with the liberty of others. The same principle should 
 obtain in financial and commercial relations as well. The 
 freedom for which our fathers contended was freedom 
 of the soul, not unrestrained hcense to control or oppress, 
 whether through accumulated wealth or wide-ranging 
 combination. By some means, labor must become as 
 free as the wealth it produces, and human life must be 
 as highly cherished as property. 
 
 It is certain that the war will bring many changes 
 inside and outside the various nations. Universal revo- 
 lution is ahead of us — and maybe universal collapse. 
 Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that the inevitable up- 
 heavals, bidding fair to stir society to its depths, shall 
 be bloodless, and yet sweep away precisely those institu- 
 tions which most impede social advance. 
 
 Democracy may not necessarily build up great states, 
 but permanent greatness can rest on no other founda- 
 tion than democracy, fn the future the people must 
 indeed be everything. That nation is great which to its 
 rank and file " means opportunity " and which, further, 
 breeds men capable of seizing the opportunities that arise. 
 
 As the war goes on, we glimpse the dawn of a larger 
 freedom. "War to end war" now looks forward to the 
 achievement of a "clean peace" on the basis of a "new 
 morahty" among nations, a settlement in which no 
 selfish interests, national or personal, shall prevail and 
 
322 The American Spirit 
 
 no advantage accrue through military decision. Such 
 an ending will find few precedents in history.^ It is 
 the part of democracy to create precedent. . . . 
 
 If this stoutly remains our aim, we shall open the door 
 to a new world-outlook as inspiring as that disclosed by 
 the Renaissance, by our own Revolution, or by the Eman- 
 cipation Proclamation. Deeds, not words, must decide. 
 Yet we are leading the way from obstructive nationalism 
 with its oppressions and rivalries forward to the open 
 fields of a broad humanity. From the first impulse to 
 go to the rescue of Belgium, on to the last grapple with a 
 dynastic state, the purpose of democracy everywhere 
 has been unflinching and must be continuous. . . . 
 
 The new morality inheres in the four imperatives 
 proclaimed by President Wilson on February 11, 1918. 
 He insists 
 
 1. that Each part of the final settlement must be based upon 
 
 the essential justice of that particular cause, and upon 
 such adjustments as are most likely to bring peace that 
 will be permanent; 
 
 2. that Peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about 
 
 from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere 
 chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now 
 forever discredited, of the balance of power ; but 
 
 3. that Every territorial settlement involved in this war must 
 
 be made in the interest and for the benefit of the popu- 
 lations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjust- 
 ment or compromise of claims amongst rival states ; and 
 
 4. that All well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded 
 
 the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them with- 
 out introducing new or perpetuating old elements of 
 discord and antagonism that would be hkely in time to 
 break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world. 
 
 1 The Treaty of Ghent, closing the War of 1812, may be a case in 
 point. 
 
Onward 323 
 
 On a basis such as this, international order must rest ; 
 modern civihzation will be content with nothing less. 
 The acceptance of these principles would mark the end 
 of the medieval era in world-politics. It would square 
 international relations with the advances already achieved 
 by science, ethics, and religion within the social order. 
 
 THE NEW INDEPENDENCE DAY i 
 
 WooDROw Wilson 
 
 . . . This, then, is our conception of the great struggle 
 in which we are engaged. The plot is written plain 
 upon every scene and every act of the supreme tragedy. 
 On the one hand stand the peoples of the world — not 
 only the peoples actually engaged, but many others, 
 also, who suffer under mastery but cannot act; peoples 
 of many races and in every part of the world — the people 
 of stricken Russia still, among the rest, though they are 
 for the moment unorganized and helpless. Opposed to 
 them, masters of many armies, stand an isolated, friend- 
 less group of Governments, who speak no common pur- 
 pose, but only selfish ambitions of their own, by which 
 none can profit but themselves, and whose peoples are 
 fuel in their hands ; Governments which fear their people, 
 and yet are for the time being sovereign lords, making 
 every choice for them and disposing of their lives and 
 fortunes as they will, as well as of the fives and fortunes 
 of every people who fall under their power — Govern- 
 ments clothed with the strange trappings and the primi- 
 tive authority of an age that is altogether afien and hos- 
 
 1 From address delivered at Mount Vernon, July 4, 1918, as pub- 
 lished in the New York Times, July 5, 1918. 
 
324 The American Spirit 
 
 tile to our own. The Past and the Present are in deadly 
 grapple, and the peoples of the world are being done to 
 death between them. 
 
 There can be but one issue. The settlement must be 
 final. There can be no compromise. No halfway decision 
 would be tolerable. No halfway decision is conceivable. 
 These are the ends for which the associated peoples of 
 the world are fighting and which must be conceded them 
 before there can be peace : 
 
 I. The destruction of every arbitrary power anywhere 
 that can separately, secretly, and of its single choice dis- 
 turb the peace of the world ; or, if it cannot be presently 
 destroyed, at the least its reduction to virtual impotence. 
 
 II. The settlement of every question, whether of terri- 
 tory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of 
 political relationship, upon the basis of the free accept- 
 ance of that settlement by the people immediately con- 
 cerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest 
 or advantage of any other nation or people which may 
 desire a different settlement for the sake of its own ex- 
 terior influence or mastery. 
 
 III. The consent of all nations to be governed in their 
 conduct toward each other by the same principles of 
 honor and of respect for the common law of. civilized 
 society that govern the individual citizens of all modern 
 States in their relations with one another; to the end 
 that all promises and covenants may be sacredly observed, 
 no private plots or conspiracies hatched, no selfish in- 
 juries wrought with impunity, and a mutual trust estab- 
 lished upon the handsome foundation of a mutual respect 
 for right. 
 
 IV. The establishment of .an organization of peace 
 which shall make it certain that the combined power of 
 
Onward 325 
 
 free nations will check every invasion of right and serve 
 to make peace and justice the more secure by affording 
 a definite tribunal of opinion to which all must submit 
 and by which every international readjustment that 
 cannot be amicably agreed upon by the peoples directly 
 concerned shall be sanctioned. 
 
 These great objects can be put into a single sentence. 
 What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent 
 of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion 
 of mankind. 
 
 These great ends cannot be achieved by debating and 
 seeking to reconcile and accommodate what statesmen 
 may wish with their projects for balances of power, and 
 of national opportunity. They can be realized only by 
 the determination of what the thinking peoples of the 
 world desire, with their longing hope for justice and 
 for social freedom and opportunity. 
 
 I can fancy that the air of this place carries the accents 
 of such principles with a peculiar kindness. Here were 
 started forces which the great nation against which they 
 were primarily directed at first regarded as a revolt against 
 its rightful authority, but which it has long since seen to 
 have been a step in the hberation of its own people as 
 well as of the people of the United States ; and I stand 
 here now to speak — speak proudly and with confident 
 hope — of the spread of this revolt, this liberation, to 
 the great stage of the world itself! The blinded rulers 
 of Prussia have roused forces they knew little of — forces 
 which, once roused, can never be crushed to earth again ; 
 for they have at their heart an inspiration and a purpose 
 which are deathless and of the very stuff of triumph I 
 
326 The American Spirit 
 
 CARRY ONP 
 Robert W. Service (1876- ) 
 
 It's easy to fight when everything's right, 
 
 And you're mad with the thrill and the glory ; 
 
 It's easy to cheer when victory's near, 
 
 And wallow in fields that are gory. 
 
 It's a different song when everything's wrong. 
 
 When you're feeling infernally mortal ; 
 
 When it's ten against one, and hope there is none, 
 
 Buck up, little soldier, and chortle : 
 
 Carry on ! Carry on ! 
 There isn't much punch in your blow, 
 You're glaring and staring and hitting out blind ; 
 You're muddy and bloody, but never you mind. 
 Carry on ! Carry on ! 
 You haven't the ghost of a show. 
 It's looking like death, but while you've a breath, 
 Carry on, my son ! Carry on 1 
 
 And so in the strife of the battle of life 
 It's easy to fight when you're winning ; 
 It's easy to slave, and starve and be brave. 
 When the dawn of success is beginning. 
 But the man who can meet despair and defeat 
 With a cheer, there's a man of God's choosing ; 
 The man who can fight to Heaven's own height 
 Is the man who can fight when he's losing. 
 
 ^ No other poem more forcefully expresses the spirit of the present 
 war. 
 
 From "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man." Copyright, 1916, by Rarse 
 and Hopkins, New York. Used by permission of the publishers. 
 
Onward 327 
 
 Carry on ! Carry on ! ^ ^ 
 
 Things never were looming so black. 
 
 But show that you haven't a cowardly streak, | 
 
 And though you're unlucky you never are weak. i 
 
 Carry on ! Carry on ! ] 
 
 Brace up for another attack. ■ 
 
 It's looking like hell, but — you never can tell : ^ 
 
 Carry on, old man ! Carry on ! ' ; 
 
 There are some who drift out in the deserts of doubt, 
 
 And some who in brutishness wallow ; i 
 
 There are others, I know, who in piety go .j 
 
 Because of a Heaven to follow. ': 
 
 But to labor with zest, and to give of your best, 
 
 For the sweetness and joy of the giving ; ] 
 
 To help folks along with a hand and a song ; ' 
 
 Why, there's the real sunshine of living. ■ 
 
 Carry on ! Carry on I \ 
 
 Fight the good fight and true ; ^ 
 
 Believe in your mission, greet Ufe with a cheer ; 
 
 There's big work to do, and that's why you are here?. J 
 
 Carry on ! Carry on I j 
 
 Let the world be the better for you ; ] 
 
 And at last when you die, let this be your cry : 
 
 Carry on, my soul! Carry on! i 
 
INDEX TO SUBJECTS 
 
 Alien. See Immigrant citizen 
 
 America, as a vindication of de- 
 mocracy, 227, 314-315, 320-323 ; 
 inheritance of, 229-230 
 
 America first, 222-223, 228-229, 
 230-235 
 
 American citizenship. See Citi- 
 zenship 
 
 American Federation of Labor. 
 See Labor, American Federation 
 of 
 
 American independence, at stake in 
 present war, 251-255, 256-257 
 
 Americanism, 257 ; Theodore 
 Roosevelt on, 91-93 ; its distinc- 
 tiveness, 93-94, 97-100; pecu- 
 liarities of liberty, 100-101 ; char- 
 acteristics of, 209-217 ; responsi- 
 bilities of, 314-315 
 
 Americans, origin of, 7-10 ; making 
 of, 200-201 ; of foreign birth, 
 202-205, 225-226. See Immi- 
 grant 
 
 America's purpose in the world war. 
 See World war, America in 
 
 Anglo-Saxon civilization, 7 
 
 Aristocracy. See Privilege 
 
 Austro-Hungary, 272, 279-290, 
 296—297 307 
 
 Autocracy! 239-240, 254-255, 247- 
 249, 270. See Germany 
 
 Belgium, sacrifice of, in present war, 
 
 247-249, 253, 263 
 Bible, influence of, on American 
 
 history, 12-14, 19 
 Boone, Daniel, 21 
 Boxer indemnity, 215 
 Bravery, personal, a trait of the 
 
 American Spirit, 1, 6-7, 82-83, 
 
 160-161 
 Breadth of view, a characteristic of 
 
 the American Spirit, 26, 28-31 
 Brotherhood of man, a fundamental 
 
 belief, 22, 123-124, 140, 161-165, 
 
 199-200, 203-204, 284-286 
 Bulgaria, 301 
 
 Cavaliers. 8-10, 233 
 
 Citizenship, 91-93, 105-107 ; price 
 
 of, 207-210, 217-219, 230-233 
 Class distinctions. See Privilege, 
 
 special 
 
 Colonization policy, 250-251 
 Columbus, Christopher, 1-3 
 Commerical greed not an American 
 
 trait, 86-88, 158, 221-222 
 Common man, belief in, a trait of 
 the American Spirit, 20-22, 26- 
 27, 45-49, 65-66, 72-77, 91-93, 
 102-103, 119-120, 123-124, 129- 
 131, 132-133, 214-215 
 Cooper, James Fenimore, 21 
 Courage. See Bravery, personal 
 Crisis, the present, 239-240, 241- 
 244, 245-304 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 9, 
 97, 98 
 
 Democracy, foundations of country 
 laid in, 20-22, 25, 28, 43-45, 48- 
 49, 56-57, 91-93, 95-96, 142 ; the 
 goal of history, 93-94 ; and labor, 
 108-110, 125; world, 108-110, 
 320-323; characteristics of, 116- 
 122; and life, 123-137; educa- 
 tional influence of, 206-209; 
 America a vindication of, 227 ; 
 the world safe for, 255, 258, 261- 
 274, 279-283, 289-292, 294-296, 
 313-317, 320-323 ; and efiiciency, 
 see Efficiency 
 
 Diplomacy, Old World vs. New 
 World. 215 
 
 Duty, sense of, essential to Ameri- 
 can Spirit, 1D2-103, 104, 105- 
 107, 242-244, 314-315 
 
 Education, belief in, a trait of the 
 American Spirit, 41, 66 ; essential 
 to America, 66, 111, 206-209, 
 225 
 
 Efficiency and democracy, 206-209 
 
 England, 7 ; protection of, in 
 present war, 246 
 
 English race and the founding of 
 America, 6, 7-10, 67-68 
 
 Equality, 72, 98. See Common 
 man and Democracy 
 
 Faith in ideals. See Idealism 
 Foreign-born citizens. See Immi- 
 grant citizens 
 Foreigner in a democracy, 206-209 ; 
 loyalty of, 209-217 ; problem of, 
 233-234 
 
 329 
 
330 
 
 Index to Subjects 
 
 Foreign relations of our govern- 
 ment, 41-43, 74-76 
 
 Freedom, 2-3, 67, 70-72, 77, 102- 
 103, 229-230, 236-237, 243-244, 
 321 
 
 Frontier, influence of, on American 
 Spirit, 25-28, 112-115 
 
 Future, faith in, 2-3, 242-243 
 
 Generosity toward enemies a trait 
 of the American Spirit, 59-60, 
 62-63, 80-81, 83-84 
 
 German-Americans, 222-223, 228 
 
 Germany, and the present war, 
 239-240, 245-255, 256-257, 262- 
 274, 286-292 ; barbarity of, 247- 
 249, 262, 298 ; long preparedness 
 for war, 249, 288-292; nnilita- 
 rism in control of, 250, 277-278 ; 
 menace of, 258, 276-279 ; present 
 Germany not the old, 259-261 ; 
 the people of, 268, 277, 289-290, 
 295-297; tyranny of, 280-283; 
 progress of, before the war, 287- 
 292 
 
 "God's Country," 221 
 
 Government, faith in our, 37-38, 
 73-74, 100-101, 310-311 
 
 Grant, Ulysses S., 78-79 
 
 Hamilton, Alexander, 98 
 Hardships of life and its influence 
 
 on the national character, 6-7, 
 
 7-9, 16-18, 18-20, 28, 31, 56-57, 
 
 58-60 
 Heroism, moral, 78, 79-80 
 Home, the American, 129-131 
 Honor, national, 68-69 
 Humanity. See Brotherhood of 
 
 man 
 Humility, national, 166 
 Humor, a trait of American Spirit, 
 
 45-51 
 Hyphenated citizens, 219-222. See 
 
 Immigrant citizens 
 
 Idealism, a characteristic of Ameri- 
 can Spirit, 1-2, 3-5, 11-14, 22, 
 23, 24, 26, 44-^5, 59, 62-63, 216- 
 217 
 Idleness and idle class. See Work 
 Immigrant citizens, contributions 
 of, to America, 199-200, 230-233, 
 235-236 ; citizens by free choice, 
 202-205, 228-229, 230-232 ; loy- 
 alty of, 209-217, 220, 222-223, 
 
 228-229, 272-274; early expe. 
 
 rience of, 209-210, 223-228; 
 
 naturalization of, 217-219 
 Imperialism, foreign to American 
 
 ideals, 85-86, 89-90 
 Individuality, a trait of American 
 
 Spirit, 2-3, 9-10, 33, 53, 114 
 Industrial efficiency, essential to 
 
 America, 107-110, 111 
 Internationalism, 211-214, 217 
 International law, violation of, by 
 
 Germany, 246-247, 262-265 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas, 8 
 Justice, 204, 257, 274-275, 294- 
 295,316-317; belief in, 11-14 
 
 Labor, American Federation of, 
 108-110, 258 
 
 Labor and capital, influence of 
 frontier on, 25 ; just relations 
 essential, 108-110; and democ- 
 racy, 108-110, 125, 258, 314-317 
 
 Liberty, 70-72, 77, 181-183, 214- 
 215, 224 ; belief in, a character- 
 istic of the American Spirit, 3-4, 
 18-21, 28, 100-101, 104, 105, 141, 
 155, 255, 258 ; limits of, 104-105, 
 141-142 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 256 ; charac- 
 teristics of, 43^5, 51-56, 58-61 ; 
 humor of, 45-50; sympathy of, 
 50-51 ; a typical American, 51- 
 54 ; a national idol, 226 
 
 Living, standards of. See Stand- 
 ards of living 
 
 Magnanimity, a trait of the Ameri- 
 can Spirit, 57-60, 62-63, 80-81, 
 83-84 
 
 Massachusetts, 9 
 
 Mayflower, the, 14, 16, 19, 243 
 
 Memorial Day, 186 
 
 Mercy. See Generosity and Mag- 
 nanimity 
 
 Militarism, 210, 250, 268-269, 276- 
 283, 284-286, 289-292, 293-294 
 
 Monarchy and democracy com- 
 pared, 110-112 
 
 Monroe Doctrine, 74-76, 245, 251- 
 252 
 
 Moral character of people, basis of 
 democracy, 99-100, 111, 154- 
 157, 232-233 
 
 Moral courage, 160-161 
 
 Moral ideals. See Ideals 
 
Index to Subjects 
 
 331 
 
 Nations, unity of, 108, lGl-165; 
 smaller, 306-307 
 
 Native land, 145-153, 219-222, 
 225-226 
 
 Naturalization, 200-201, 202-205, 
 209-211 
 
 Nature, bounties of, given to 
 America, 3-5 
 
 New England, 9-10, 18-22; con- 
 tributions of, to civilization, 18- 
 22 
 
 New World, 2-3. 211, 228 
 
 North and South, 7 
 
 Officials, public, duties of, 105-107, 
 
 190-192 
 Old World, 200-213, 235-236, 242, 
 
 317 
 Opportunity, America the land of, 
 
 3-4, 27 ; a characteristic of 
 
 American life, 108-110 
 Oppression, opposition to, 12-14 
 Optimism of Americans, 110 
 
 Panama Canal. 251 
 
 Pan-America, 89-90 
 
 Pan-Germanism, 289-290 
 
 Partisanship, dangers of, 37-39 
 
 Patriotism, 139-1G6 ; necessary for 
 democracy of our government, 
 37^0 ; what it is, 68-69 ; faith 
 in our government, 73-74 ; duty 
 of, 140-143 ; value of, 140-143 ; 
 glory of, 143-144 ; love of coun- 
 try, 145 ; moral quality of, 154- 
 157, 161-165; the higher, 161- 
 165 
 
 Peace, belief in, a trait of the Ameri- 
 can Spirit. 78, 80-81 ; terms of, 
 294-296, 298-302, 305-310, 322- 
 323; return of, 302-304; basis 
 of a worid, 305-310 
 
 Persistence, an American trait, 133- 
 137, 323-324 
 
 Philippine Islands, 85-86 
 
 Pilgrims, landing of, 14-15, 16 ; 
 early traits of, 17-18 ; character 
 of, 22 
 
 Pioneer life, trials of, 16-18, 28-31, 
 43-44 
 
 Pioneer spirit, 1-31 ; of discovery, 
 1-5 ; of colonization, 6, 16-22 ; of 
 the frontier, 25-31 
 
 Plains, influence of, on American 
 Spirit, 25-30, 44, 114-115 
 
 Poland, 300-308 
 
 Popular government, essential to 
 America, 100-101 
 
 Practical judgment, a trait of Amer- 
 ican Spirit, 12-14, 47, 65 
 
 Present crisis. See Crisis 
 
 Privilege, special, foreign to the 
 American Spirit, 91-93, 12^129, 
 210-211 
 
 Providence, belief in, 12-13 
 
 Prussia. See Germany 
 
 Prussianism, 247-249, 258, 259, 270 
 
 Public affairs, interest in, 92 
 
 Public opinion, 90 
 
 Public servants. See Officials, 
 public 
 
 Puritanism, 9-10, 11-14 
 
 Quakers, 23, 199 
 
 Radical political thought and de- 
 mocracy, 117-119 
 
 Red Cross, 79-80 
 
 Religious faith, a characteristic of 
 the American Spirit, 1-2, 3-5, 6, 
 11-14, 22, 23, 24, 120, 130, 132- 
 133, 166, 274-275 
 
 Religious freedom, 15, 155 
 
 Revolution, American, 9 ; and de- 
 mocracy, 117-120, 211, 269 
 
 Russia, Democratic revolution in, 
 269-270, 282-283, 299, 306 
 
 Sectionalism, dangers of, 38-41 
 Self-government, 9 ; the safeguard 
 
 of liberty, 206-209 
 Sincerity, a phase of the American 
 
 Spirit, 44, 45 
 Socialism, 120-122. 
 South, contribution of the, 6-7; 
 
 and North, see North and South 
 Spanish America, Pan-American 
 
 policy, 80-81 ; Monroe Doctrine, 
 
 8.5-86 
 Spanish- American War, 79-80, 81, 
 
 82, 133-137, 212 
 Standards of living, high, essential 
 
 to America, 109-110 
 Submarine warfare, 262-263 
 
 Turkey, 301, 308 
 
 Vienna, Congress of, 298 
 Virginians, 3-5, 8-10, 21-22, 112 
 Voluntary citizenship, 202-205 
 
332 
 
 Index to Subjects 
 
 War, declaration of, 265-266 
 
 "Washington, George, 10 ; greatest 
 of national leaders, 33 ; character 
 of, 33-37 ; soldier and statesman, 
 36-37 ; counsels of, 37-43 
 
 West, influence of, on American 
 Spirit, 25-28, 28-29, 112-115 
 
 Wheeler, Joseph, 82-83 
 
 Women, influence of, on American 
 Spirit, 15, 28-31 
 
 Work, belief in, a characteristic of 
 American Spirit, 22, 92, 125-127, 
 128-129, 235-236, 318 
 World power or downfall, 239 
 World war, 239-240; causes of, 
 245-255, 262-274, 276-283, 286- 
 290, 310-317; preparation for, 
 249; America in the, 265-274, 
 274-283, 290-292, 292-302, SOS- 
 SI 0. See Crisis, present 
 
INDEX TO AUTHORS, TITLES, AND 
 THE FIRST LINES OF POEMS 
 
 Authors' names are given in capitals and small capitals, titles of extracts 
 in plain capitals and small letters, and first lines of poems in italics. 
 
 After all, one country, brethren, 237 
 
 Alien to Citizen, From, 217 
 
 America (S. F. Smith), 139 
 
 America (Bayard Taylor), 199 
 
 America, Characteristics of, 65 
 
 America Alone, 222 
 
 America First (Theodore Roose- 
 velt), 233 
 
 America First (Woodrow Wilson), 
 230 
 
 America for Me ! 93 
 
 America the Beautiful, 158 
 
 American Democracy, The Mean- 
 ing of, 286 
 
 American Flag, The, 179 
 
 American Flag Not the Dollar Sign, 
 The, 86 
 
 American Ideals Not Imperialistic, 
 85 
 
 American Liberty, Peculiarity of, 
 100 
 
 American Republic, The, 97 
 
 Americanism, 91 
 
 Americans of Foreign Birth, 202 
 
 America's Cause and the Foreign- 
 born Citizen, 228 
 
 America's Purpose in the War, 292 
 
 Ames, Fisher: What is Patriot- 
 ism? 68 
 
 Aristokrats, 128 
 
 Armageddon, 284 
 
 Arnold, Sir Edwin : Armageddon, 
 284 
 
 A tale half told and hardly under- 
 stood, 29 
 
 Basis for World Democracy, A, 320 
 Bates, Katharine Lee : America 
 
 the Beautiful, 158 
 Battle Hymn of the Republic, 274 
 Beecher, Henry Ward : The 
 
 Symbol of Our Nation, 181 
 Behind him lay the gray Azores, 1 
 Billings, Josh : Aristokrats, 128 
 Blankenburg, Rudolph : Amer- 
 ica Alone, 222 
 Borah, W, E. : Freedom against 
 the Will to Power, 310 
 
 Breathes there the man with soul so 
 
 dead, 145 
 Brooks, Elbridge : General 
 
 Grant's Greatest Victory, 78 
 Brooks, Phillips: Lincoln a 
 
 Typical American, 51 
 Burns, Robert : A Man's a Man 
 
 for A' That, 123 
 Byron, Lord George Gordon: 
 
 Washington, 33 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas : Work, 125 
 Carryl, Guy Wetmore : When 
 
 the Great Gray Ships Come 
 
 In, 302 
 Carry On ! 326 
 
 Character of Washington, The, 33 
 Characteristics of America, 65 
 Columbus (E. E. Hale), 2 
 Columbus (Joaquin Miller), 1 
 Counsels of Washington, 37 
 Cub Sawbones, 79 
 Curtis, George William : The 
 
 American Republic, 97 
 The Moral Quality in Patriotism, 
 
 154 
 
 Declaration of Independence, 72 
 Democracy (J. R. Lowell), 116 
 Democracy (Harriet Monroe), 95 
 Democracy, A Basis for World, 320 
 Democracy, Influence of the West 
 
 upon, 112 
 Democracy, Labor and, 108 
 Democracy, The Foreigner in a, 206 
 Democracy, The Meaning of Ameri- 
 can, 286 
 Democracy, The World Safe for, 
 
 261 
 Democratic Ideal of Labor, The, 125 
 Dewey, Orville : The Democratic 
 
 Ideal of Labor, 125 
 Drake, J. R. : The American Flag, 
 
 179 
 Draper, A. S. : How Democracy 
 
 Surpasses Monarchy, 110 
 Drayton, Michael : To the Vir- 
 ginian Voyage, 3 
 
 333 
 
334 
 
 Authors, Titles, and First Lines 
 
 Duty and Value of Patriotism, The, 
 140 
 
 Emerson, R. W. : Freedom, 102 
 Exodus for Oregon, The, 29 
 
 Faith in Our Government, 73 
 
 Far Journey, A, 223 
 
 FiNLEY, John H. : The Thirtieth 
 
 Man, 105 
 First Landing at Plymouth, The, 16 
 FiSKE, John: The North and the 
 
 South One in Their Origin, 7 
 Flag, The Makers of the, 190 
 Flag Day, A Song for, 184 
 Flag Day Address, 275 
 Flag Etiquette, 185 
 Fleet at Santiago, The, 80 
 For, lo ! the living God doth bare His 
 
 arm, 95 
 Foreign Born, The Loyalty of the, 
 
 209 
 Foreign-born Citizen, America's 
 
 Cause and the, 228 
 Foreigner in a Democracy, The, 206 
 Foreseen in the vision of sages, 199 
 Founding of Jamestown, The, 6 
 Franklin, Benjamin : Charac- 
 teristics of America, 65 
 Freedom, 102 
 Freedom against the Will to Power, 
 
 310 
 Freedom all winged expands, 102 
 Freedom of the Land, The, 230 
 From Alien to Citizen, 217 
 
 Garrison, W. L. : Liberty for All, 
 77 
 
 Gettysburg Address, The, 62 
 
 Gilder, R. W. : When with Their 
 Country's Anger, 83 
 
 Give me white paper! 2 
 
 Glory of Patriotism, The, 143 
 
 God Makes a Path, 24 
 
 God of our fathers, known of old, 166 
 
 Gordon, J. L. : Wheeler at San- 
 tiago, 82 
 
 Government in the Interest of All, 
 72 
 
 Grady, Henry W. : The Homes of 
 the People, 129 
 
 Grant's Greatest Victory, 78 
 
 Hale, E. E. : Columbus, 2 
 
 The Man without a Country, 145 
 Hay, John: Liberty, 104 
 
 Hemans, Felicia D. B. : The 
 Landing of the Pilgrims, 14 
 
 Henry, Patrick : Liberty or 
 Death, 70 
 
 HiBBEN, John Grier : Martial 
 Valor in Times of Peace, 160 
 
 Higher Patriotism, The, 161 
 
 Homes of the People, The, 129 
 
 How Democracy Surpasses Mon- 
 archy, 110 
 
 How "The Star-Spangled Banner" 
 Was Written, 172 
 
 Howe, Julia Ward : Battle Hymn 
 of the Republic, 274 
 
 Hubbard, Elbert : A Message to 
 Garcia, 133 
 
 Independence Day, The New, 323 
 
 Influence of the West upon De- 
 mocracy, The, 112 
 
 Ingersoll, R, G. : Abraham Lin- 
 coln, 54 
 
 Into the thick of the fight he went, 
 pallid and sick arid wan, 82 
 
 Ireland, Archbishop John: Duty 
 and Value of Patriotism, 140 
 
 7s there for honest poverty, 123 
 
 It's easy to fight when everything's 
 right, 323 
 
 Jefferson, Thomas : Faith in Our 
 Government, 73 
 
 Jones, Sir William: What Con- 
 stitutes a State? 103 
 
 Jordan, David Starr : A Basis for 
 World Democracy, 320 
 
 Kahn, Otto H. : America's Cause 
 and the Foreign-born Citizen, 
 228 
 The Poison Growth of Prussian- 
 ism, 259 
 
 Key, Francis Scott: The Star- 
 Spangled Banner, 170 
 
 Kipling, Rudyard : Recessional 
 166 
 
 Labor, The Democratic Ideal of, 125 
 Labor and Democracy, 108 
 Lamprey, L. : Sayings of Lincoln, 
 
 45 
 The Freedom of the Land, 230 
 Landing of the Pilgrims, The, 14 
 Lane, Franklin K. : The Makers 
 
 of the Flag, 190 
 Liberty, 104 
 
Authors, Titles, and First Lines 
 
 335 
 
 Liberty Enlightening the World, 197 
 
 Liberty for All, 77 
 
 Liberty or Death, 70 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham : The Gettysr 
 
 burg Address, 62 
 Lincoln, Abraham (Ingersoll), 54 
 Lincoln, Abraham (Lowell), 43 
 Lincoln, Abraham (Taylor), 58 
 Lincoln, Sayings of, 45 
 Lincoln a Typical American, 51 
 Lincoln's Birthplace, 56 
 Lincoln's Sympathy, 50 
 Lodge, Henry Cabot : The Char- 
 acter of Washington, 33 
 The Fleet at Santiago, 80 
 The American Flag Not the 
 Dollar Sign, 86 
 Long, long ago our people made our 
 
 Land for us, 230 
 Longfellow, H. W. : The Ship of 
 
 State, 319 
 Look Up, Look Forth, and On ! 318 
 Love of Country, 145 
 Lowell, J. R. : Abraham Lincoln, 
 43 
 Democracy, 116 
 New England Civilization, 18 
 The Present Crisis, 241 
 Washington, 36 
 Loyalty of the Foreign Born, The, 
 209 
 
 Macaulay, T. B, : The Puritans, 11 
 McCain, H. P. : Flag Etiquette, 185 
 McKiNLEY, William : American 
 
 Ideals Not Imperialistic, 85 
 Makers of the Flag, The, 190 
 Making of an American, The, 200 
 Man's a Man for A' That, A, 123 
 Man without a Country, The, 145 
 Marching down to Armageddon, 284 
 Martial Valor in Times of Peace, 160 
 Meaning of American Democracy, 
 
 The, 286 
 Mercier, Cardinal: The Glory 
 
 of Patriotism, 143 
 Message to Garcia, A, 133 
 Miller, Joaquin: Columbus, 1 
 
 The Exodus for Oregon, 29 
 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the 
 
 coming of the Lord, 274 
 Monroe, Harriet : Democracy, 95 
 Monroe Doctrine, The, 74 
 Moral Quality in Patriotism, The, 
 
 154 
 My country, 'tis of thee, 139 
 
 Name of Old Glory, The, 193 
 Nesbit, W. D. : A Song for Flag 
 
 Day, 184 
 New England Civilization, 18 
 New Independence Day, The, 323 
 North and the South One in Their 
 
 Origin, The, 7 
 
 O beautiful for spacious skies, 158 
 O Captain ! My Captain ! 61 
 Ode to Columbia, 235 
 Oh, say, can you see, 170 
 Old Glory! say who, 193 
 Old Glory, The Name of, 193 
 Old Glory, The Story of, 167 
 Once to every man and nation, 241 
 One Country, 237 
 Our Kind of a Man, 132 
 Our Pan-American Policy, 89 
 Our Responsibilities, 314 
 
 Page, Thomas Nelson: The 
 
 Founding of Jamestown, 6 
 PanrAmerican Policy, Our, 89 
 Patriotism, Duty and Value of, 140 
 Patriotism, The Glory of, 143 
 Patriotism, The Higher, 161 
 Patriotism, The Moral Quality in, 
 
 154 
 Patriotism, What Is, 68 
 Peculiarity of American Liberty, 
 
 100 
 Pitt, William : Last Speech, 67 
 Poison Growth of Prussianism, 259 
 Present Crisis, The, 241 
 Prussianism, The Poison Growth 
 
 of, 259 
 Prussian Menace, The, 258 
 Prussian Menace to American 
 
 Freedom, The, 245 
 Puritans, The, 11 
 
 Quaker of the Olden Time, The, 23 
 
 Ravage, M. E. : The Loyalty of the 
 
 Foreign Born, 209 
 Recessional, 166 
 
 Reid, Sydney : Cub Sawbones, 79 
 Right of the People to Rule, 316 
 RiHBANY, A. M. : A Far Journey, 
 
 223 
 Riis, Jacob : The Making of an 
 
 American, 200 
 Riley, James Whitcomb : Our 
 
 Kind of a Man, 132 
 The Name of Old Glory, 193 
 
336 
 
 Authors, Titles, and First Lines 
 
 Roosevelt, Theodore : America 
 First, 233 
 Americanism, 91 
 Our Responsibilities, 314 
 Right of the People to Rule, 316 
 With Firmness in the Right, 256 
 Root, Elihu : Our Pan-American 
 Policy, 89 
 The Prussian Menace to Ameri- 
 can Freedom, 245 
 
 Santiago, The Fleet at, 80 
 Santiago, Wheeler at, 82 
 Sayings of Lincoln, 45 
 ScHURZ, Carl : The Foreigner in a 
 
 Democracy, 206 
 Scott, Sir Walter : Love of 
 
 Country, 145 
 Service, R. W. : Carry On ! 326 
 Ship of State, The, 319 
 Smith, S. F. : America, 139 
 Stanton, F. L. : One Country, 237 
 Star-Spangled Banner, The, 170 
 Stedman, E. C. : Liberty Enlight- 
 ening the World, 197 
 Steiner, E. a. : Confessing the 
 Hyphen, 219 
 From Alien to Citizen, 217 
 Story of Old Glory, The, 167 
 Such was he, our Martyr-Chief, 43 
 Symbol of Our Nation, The, 181 
 
 Tare ell, Ida M. : Lincoln's Sym- 
 pathy, 50 
 
 Taylor, Bayard : America, 199 
 Look Up, Look Forth, and On! 
 318 
 
 Taylor, Tom : Abraham Lincoln, 
 58 
 
 The breaking waves dashed high, 14 
 
 The kind of a man for you and me ! 
 132 
 
 They tell me. Liberty ! 77 
 
 Thirtieth Man, The, 105 
 
 Thou, too, sail on, 319 
 
 'Tis fine to see the Old World, 93 
 
 To eastward ringing, to westward 
 winging, 302 
 
 Turner, F. J. : The Influence of 
 the West upon Democracy, J. 12 
 Western Idealism, 25 
 
 Vajansky, Hurban: Ode to Co- 
 lumbia, 235 
 
 Van Dyke, Henry : America for 
 Me! 93 
 
 Virginian Voyage, To the, 3 
 
 Warden at ocean's gate, 197 
 Washington, George: Counsels, 
 
 37 
 Washington (Lord Byron), 33 
 Washington (J. R. Lowell), 36 
 Watterson, Henry: How "The 
 
 Star-Spangled Banner" Was 
 
 Written, 172 
 Webster, Daniel: Peculiarity of 
 
 American Liberty, 100 
 West, Influence of, upon Democ- 
 racy, 112 
 Western Idealism, 25 
 What Constitutes a State? 103 
 What Is Patriotism ? 68 
 What man is there so bold, 104 
 Wheeler at Santiago, 82 
 When Freedom, from her mountain 
 
 height, 179 
 When the Great Gray Ships Come 
 
 In, 302 
 When we marched away, 79 
 When with Their Country's Anger, 
 
 83 
 Where may the wearied eye repose, 
 
 33 
 Whitman, Walt : O Captain ! My 
 
 Captain! 61 
 Whittifr, J, G. : The Quaker of 
 
 the Olden Time, 23 
 Williams, Roger : God Makes a 
 
 Path, 24 
 Wilson, Woodrow: A World 
 
 Peace, 305 
 America First, 230 
 Americans of Foreign Birth, 202 
 America's Purpose in the War, 
 
 292 
 Flag Day Address, 275 
 The Meaning of American De- 
 mocracy, 286 
 The New Independence Day, 
 
 323 
 The World Safe for Democracy, 
 
 261 
 With Firmness in the Right, 256 
 Work, 125 
 World Peace, A, 302 
 World Safe for Democracy, The, 261 
 
 You brave heroic minds, 3 
 You lay a wreath on murdered Lin- 
 coln's bier, 58 
 Your flag and my flag! 184 
 
'■ TFOT?" 
 
 280ec 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 ^gc>l BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
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