American Legation

“ Little over five months had passed, since the occurrence of the great event in the history of the American Nation mentioned in the preceding Chapter, before the Freed Negro, now bearing arms in defense of the Union and of his own Freedom, demonstrated at the first attack on Port Hudson the wisdom of emancipating and arming the Slave, as a War measure. He seemed thoroughly to appreciate and enter into the spirit of the words; "who would be Free, himself must strike the blow." ”

“ Standing in the shadow of the awful calamity and deep distress of the civil war, and grateful to God for peace and victory over the rebellion, the American people, who upheld the Union, rose to the sublime heights of doing justice to the former slaves, who had grown and multiplied with the country from the early settlement at Jamestown. ”

“ It seems strange that there should be Americans who still hold firmly to the old-fashioned view of what I can only call instantaneous conversion, of the desirability and possibility of the immigrant shedding his whole ancestral inheritance and flinging himself into the melting-pot of transatlantic life to emerge into a clean white American soul of the brand approved by the Pilgrim Fathers. ”

“ As soon as he learned that the American colonies, shaking off the despotism of England, were ready to maintain their independence by an appeal to arms, he crossed the ocean and offered them his services, declaring that he was ambitious of no other honour than that of acting as a volunteer in a good cause, and that he would accept neither rank nor pay before he had given proofs of his valour. This noble disinterestedness, and the services he rendered the American army, merited him the friendship of Washington, and the confidence of congress, who elevated him to the rank of major-general. ”

“ All through these pages the reader has found references to this question of reëmployment; to anti-Bolshevism; the protection of the uniform; the non-partisan and non-political nature of the Legion; unselfishness; disability pay for the reserve forces; war risk insurance; allotments and back pay; the care of disabled service men; one hundred per cent. Americanism, and the deportation of those aliens who "bit the hand that fed them." The story has dealt almost entirely with these questions because primarily and fundamentally they are The American Legion. ”

“ Thousands and thousands of young aliens came up and raised up their right hand and pledged fidelity to the American Constitution, and to fight for the supremacy of the American flag, but, there was a certain small element, a certain small percentage that refused to take the oath of allegiance and they appealed to the Constitution and their rights under the law and they were exempted from military service. And I say to you, gentlemen of this convention, any alien that will appeal to the law in order to avoid military duty has no right to the opportunity of peace in America. ”

“ Whereas, in the great world war for democracy the rank and file of the best of our American manhood have suffered and sacrificed itself in order to uphold the principles upon which this country was founded, and for which they were willing to give up their life's blood ”

“ I saw men forego the discussion of subjects in which they believed with all their hearts and with all their minds solely for the purpose of doing nothing that would tend to disrupt the Caucus or give the impression throughout the United States that the men who had stuck together so closely in times of daring and danger could not still stick and face, as a band of brothers in the American Legion, any perils or pitfalls which peace might hold for this country. ”

“ Whereas we, the American Legion assembled are of the opinion that these would-be Americans who turned in their first papers to avoid service are in our opinion neither fish, flesh, nor fowl and if allowed to remain in this country would contaminate the 100% true American soldiers and sailors who will return to again engage in the gainful pursuits of life. ”

“ Whole coffles of them, chained and manacled, are driven through our Capital on their way to auction. Foreigners, particularly those who come here with enthusiastic ideas of American freedom, are amazed and disgusted at the sight. [G] A troop of slaves once passed through Washington on the fourth of July, while drums were beating, and standards flying. One of the captive negroes raised his hand, loaded with irons, and waving it toward the starry flag, sung with a smile of bitter irony, "Hail Columbia! happy land!"
[G] See the second volume of Stuart's "Three years in North America." ”

“ By the caucus of delegates of the American Legion in Convention assembled, in the City of Saint Louis, Missouri, that we endorse the efforts heretofore made for the reclamation of lands, and we respectfully urge upon the Congress of the United States the adoption at an early date of broad and comprehensive legislation for economic reclamation of all lands susceptible of reclamation and production. ”

“ In contrast with the Grand Army, the American Legion will embrace all sections of our land. Similarly it will be the private soldier's organization. Military honors will not count. Absolute Americanism is to be its dominating principle. With the dwindling ranks of the Grand Army there is need of such an organization. The Grand Army has long been a staunch bulwark of patriotism but time is doing its work. Others must soon take up where the veterans of the Civil War left off. Those of the new organization who saw service overseas possess a new vision of what America means. ”

“ Our men of the army, navy, and marine corps got a schooling in the practical Americanism which our military establishment naturally teaches. Those who were aliens by birth and those native sons with inadequate educational advantages learned a great deal by association with men of better types and by travel. These men can and will stem the insidious guile of the wolf, and, to aid them in so doing, the Legion has an active speakers' bureau under Captain Osborn teaching Americanism in every section of the country. ”

“ The people of the United States have conquered and now hold possession of approximately three million square miles of continental territory that has been won by armed force from Great Britain, Mexico, Spain, and the American Indians. (The entire area of Europe is only 3,800,000 square miles.)
2. The people of the United States have conquered and now hold under their sway subject people who have enjoyed no opportunity for self-determination. A whole race—the African Negroes—was captured in its native land, transported to America and there sold into slavery. ”

“ These lads of ours are the last in the world to preach that fool kind of Americanism. For they—or at least those of them who crossed the seas and fought for liberty and peace on the other side—have seen in the case of Germany what that kind of nationalism comes to, and they are against it. ”

“ He suggested that as the legitimate commerce of the United States exceeded that of Great Britain and France, on the coast south of the equator, and the American flag had been used to cover the most extensive slave-trade, it would seem that the presence of one or two men-of-war, and the appointment of a consul, or some public functionary at that place, were desirable. ”

“ It has too many unpleasant associations as those men who slept in them in France will testify. A billet meant some place where you lay down and slept as long as certain little animals would let you, and the American Legion isn't going to do that. ”

“ After the Battle of Lexington swift messengers rode in all directions over the land telling the tidings that the struggle for American independence was begun. The news set the people aflame with excitement. Men dropped whatever they had in hand to join the little army under George Washington, who was elected general of the American soldiers. The colonists now believed that nothing but liberty would save them. Men like Patrick Henry of Virginia said, “Give me liberty or give me [Pg 218] death!” ”

“ That the American Legion in its National Caucus assembled does hereby declare itself as supporting in every proper way, the efforts of the ex-service men to secure reëmployment, and recommends that simple patriotism requires that ex-soldiers, sailors, or marines be given preference whenever additional men are to be employed in any private or public enterprise ”

“ The hardiest and dominating portion of the American colonists represented that severance in its extremest form, and had dropped out of the order of the ideas, which they carried across the water, all those elements of political Anglicism, which give to aristocracy in this country a position only second in strength to that of freedom. ”

“ Similarly, the early history of the North American Colonies is dominated by the sharp contrast of the adventurers, who wanted to set up plantations with the labour of indentured servants, and live as feudal lords, and the specifically middle-class outlook of the Puritans. ”

“ The American in whose veins flows the blood of half a dozen European races, whose grandparents may have been born in four states, his parents in two states; whose wife may have been born in a state other than his own and whose four children may be married to men and women of four nationalities, is not worrying greatly regarding the exact composition of the 'American race.' Individually he has on hand a rather complete stock of the ingredients and is satisfied with the idea that he is doing his best to help establish a representative order of humanity. ”

“ That they have great political influence in a high national sense is true, but they have never misused it nor ever viewed their mission in a narrow spirit. They preserve the touch of the elbow throughout life, but only as thorough Americans, devoted first, last, and always to our common country. ”

“ High dignitaries in both church and state in Old England, and puritans in New England, had participated in the profits of a trade, by which the ignorant and barbarous natives of Africa were brought from that country, and sold into slavery in the American Colonies. The generation in the Southern States which defended their country in the late war, found amongst them, in a civilized and christianized condition, 4,000,000 of the descendants of those degraded Africans. ”

“ Brutal treatment of conscientious objectors is neither civilized nor necessary, but a differentiation is created by such residents themselves, and there should be corresponding differentiation in rights and protection. This is one of the subjects that the returned soldiers have at heart.
Post Intelligencer, Seattle, Washington, May 21, 1919.—... The American Legion will be a political force in the nation as it has a perfect right to be. No organization of its character is to be held together by the cohesive power of reminiscence. ”

“ It will be one of the Legion's greatest powers. It was and is due to the fact that these new Americans are not cursed with fixed ideas. They have seen too much, lived through too much in their comparatively short lives to be narrow-minded. ”

“ I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. ”

“ From infancy I had been accustomed to hear pro and con discussions of slavery and the American Civil War. Although the British government finally decided not to recognise the Confederacy, public opinion in England was sharply divided on the questions both of slavery and of secession. ”

“ We offer it to you—a Union based upon universal liberty, impartial justice and equal rights, upon sacred pledges faithfully fulfilled, upon the faith of the Nation nobly vindicated; a Union without a slave and without a tyrant; a Union of truly democratic States; a Union capable of ripening to full maturity all that is great and hopeful in the mind and heart of the American people; a Union on every square foot of which free thought may shine out in free utterance; a Union between the most promising elements of progress, between the most loyal impulses in every section of this vast Republic ”

“ It is an American tradition that a standing army is a standing menace to liberty; in Jefferson's presidency the army was reduced to 3,000 men. It is American tradition that we keep out of the affairs of other nations. It is American practice that we meddle with the affairs of everybody else from the West to the East Indies, from Russia to Japan; and to do it we have a standing army of 83,251 men. ”

“ Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development. ”

“ The law of 1790 providing that no one could become a citizen of the United States except free Whites was the law until the aftermath of the Civil War added the word "black" or "of African descent" to those who could be naturalized. This last provision should be repealed and the blacks with the South American and Central American Indians put on the same footing as the Orientals. ”

“ The city and province were given up to anarchy; the coloured people, elated with victory, proclaimed the slaughter of all whites, except the English, French, and American residents. ”