American man

“ It was an American who bade you hitch your wagon to a star, and you have only to reflect in order to recall the spiritual vigor, the righteous force of will, the strength of aspiring mind, the patriotic courage, the tireless soul-struggle of the early generations of choicely educated, simply nurtured Americans. Their thought and conscience, true and star-seeking even in its limitations, laid the foundations of law and order, of civic liberty and private welfare, of national honor and domestic repute. ”

“ There is what I call the American idea. I so name it, because it seems to me to lie at the basis of all our truly original, distinctive, and American institutions. It is itself a complex idea, composed of three subordinate and more simple ideas, namely: The idea that all men have unalienable rights; that in respect thereof, all men are created equal; and that government is to be established and sustained for the purpose of giving every man an opportunity for the enjoyment and development of all these unalienable rights. ”

“ I am sure, sir, that you have felt as I have done when coming to the great and prosperous United States, that the American people is one of which we may well be proud—a great and highly civilised people, with whom we are connected by every tie of blood, and every relation of business—they are a people who bear our civilisation, in many things improved, our language, literature, laws, and religion. ”

“ To stand for truth and honest toil, To till my little patch of soil, And keep in mind the debt I owe To them who died that I might know My country, prosperous and free, And passed this heritage to me. I always must in trouble's hour Be guided by the men in power; For God and country I must live, My best for God and country give; No act of mine that men may scan Must shame the name American. To do my best and play my part, American in mind and heart; To serve the flag and bravely stand To guard the glory of my land ”

“ But the American type of mind is evident in many other fields than that of politics. The stimulating book from which I have just [Pg 49] quoted, attempts in its closing paragraph, after touching upon the more salient features of our national activity, to define the typical American in these words:—
"The typical American is he who, whether rich or poor, whether dwelling in the North, South, East, or West, whether scholar, professional man, merchant, manufacturer, farmer, or skilled worker for wages, lives the life of a good citizen and good neighbor ”

“ Here religion demands but little of him; a small voluntary salary to the minister, and gratitude to God; can he refuse these? The American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions. From involuntary idleness, servile dependence, penury, and useless labour, he has passed to toils of a very different nature, rewarded by ample subsistence.—This is an American. ”

“ Here we might, before we leave the local circumstances of America, survey the contrasts exhibited in their conduct by a world of beings who boast their rationality. We might indulge some moments of reflection and calm contemplation on the infinite variety of combinations in the powers of the human mind as well as the contrarieties that make up the character of man. ”

“ The foundation of American life is the American home. That which distinguishes us from other nations whose political experience and history have been full of strife and discord is the American home, where one wife sits in single uncrowned glory. [Great applause and cheers.] And now, my countrymen, I beg to assure you that every hope you have for safe running on these lines of free government, on these lines of domestic and social order, I have. For every one of you I have the most cordial greeting. ”

“ For my part, the America I wish to see is America increasing and prosperous, raising her head in graceful dignity, with freedom and firmness asserting her rights at your bar, vindicating her liberties, pleading her services, and conscious of her merit. ”

“ I hold this character up as American, for good and sufficient reasons; first, because American institutions are those which encourage its developement and demand its exercise; secondly, because America has produced its model in a greater degree than any other nation that now exists, or that ever has existed. I have said that in this model of American character, man is presented in his excellence as a social character, as a patriot, and as a Christian. ”

“ Born on American soil in common with yourselves, deriving our bodies and our minds from its dust, centuries having passed away since our ancestors were torn from the shores of Africa, we, like yourselves, hold ourselves to be in every sense Americans, and that we may, therefore, venture to speak to you in a tone not lower than that which becomes earnest men and American citizens. ”

“ Several years ago I started out asking all sorts of men ‘What is an American?’ I asked ‘Bohunks’ and ‘Guineas’ at work on street construction, I asked American men in every walk in life—and what do you suppose I got as an average answer? That an American was a man who knew how to get rich quick! ”

“ Ah! young brothers, all honor and gratitude to you! you, manly defenders, Liberty's and Humanity's home guard. We shall not again disparage America, now that we have seen what men it will bear. We see—we thank you for it [Pg 445] —a new era, worth to mankind all the treasure and the lives it has cost; yes, worth to the world the lives of all this generation of American men, if they had been demanded. [Loud applause.] ”

“ That when an American enters beneath that mighty shade, he treads on common and ancestral ground, as sacred to him as it is to us; the symbol of common descent, common development, common speech, common creed, common laws, common literature, common national interests, and I trust, of a common respect and affection, such as the wise can only feel toward the wise, and the strong toward the strong. ”

“ In speaking to you, men of the greatest city of the West, men of the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, men who pre-eminently and distinctly embody all that is most American in the American character, I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph. ”

“ While you are a-wishing, why don't you wish for an American? Americans have mountains and mountains of money, and they don't mind a bit what they do with it. That's the reason I should like to be an American. ”

“ Its purpose, as you know better than any one else, is to tell in simple fashion the story of some Americans who showed that they knew how to live and how to die; who proved their truth by their endeavor; and who joined to the stern and manly qualities which are essential to the well-being of a masterful race the virtues of gentleness, of patriotism, and of lofty adherence to an ideal. ”

“ Now that its foundations are laid, deep but bare, there are those as always who would forget the humble builders, toiling wan mornings and blazing noons, and picture America as the last reasoned blossom of mighty ancestors; of those great and glorious world builders and rulers who know and see and do all things forever and ever, amen! How singular and blind! For the glory of the world is the possibilities of the commonplace and America is America even because it shows, as never before, the power of the common, ordinary, unlovely man. ”

“ Nothing will have been more interesting, surely, than so public a wiping-over of the æsthetic slate, with all the involved collective compunctions and repudiations, the general exhibition of a colossal conscience, a conscience proportionate to the size and wealth of the country. To such grand gestures does the American scene lend itself! ”

“ But an American,—one who has made a tolerable use of his opportunities,—cares, comparatively, little about such things, and is advantageously nearer to the primitive and the ultimate condition of man in these respects. ”

“ Pollok declaimed against the attempt to lay hold of the earth with one hand and heaven with the other. But that is the peculiar feat for which the American is born,—to bring together seeing and doing, principle and practice, eternity and to-day. The American is given, they say, to extremes. ”

“ The wisdom and justice of the American governments, and the virtue of the inhabitants, may, if they are not deficient in the improvement of their own advantages, render the United States of America an enviable example to all the world of peace, liberty, righteousness, and truth. ”

“ You have to give the world the assurance that the people of the great American Republic are an honest and an enlightened people; that their integrity and intelligence may be trusted alike, and that mankind may count upon them in the forward march of civilization. ”

“ Americans in their millions. They come in all sizes, shapes and colors—blue-collar workers, blacks, Hispanics, shopkeepers, scholars, service people, housewives, and professional men and women. They are the backbone of America, and we can't move America without moving their hearts and minds as well.
Fellow Americans, our duty is before us tonight. Let us go forward, determined to serve selflessly a vision of man with God, government for people, and humanity at peace. ”

“ From the era which dates the national existence of the American people, dates also a mighty step in the march of human knowledge. And it is consistent with that principle in our conformation which leads us to rejoice in the good which befalls our species, and to sorrow for the evil, that our hearts should expand on this day; ”

“ One has merely to think a moment in order to realize what a really numerous and significant body [313] among us is endeavoring to promote the cause of American civilization by aspiring or decent behavior. Our clergymen, our lawyers, our doctors, our architects, our merchants, our teachers, some of our editors, our bankers, our scientists, our scholars, and our philanthropists, at once stand out as a generally sane and earnest force of citizens. ”

“ In America, which is the most advanced country industrially, and to a lesser extent in other countries which are approximating to the American condition, it is necessary for the average citizen, if he wishes to make a living, to avoid incurring the hostility of certain big men. And these big men have an outlook—religious, moral, and political—with which they expect their employees to agree, at least outwardly. ”

“ But having dispelled the hallucination that we are uniformly irreproachable, I would remind you that, in order to be a good American, it is even more necessary for you to appreciate the fine traits of your countrymen than to be keenly alive to their shortcomings. There are two ways of looking at any community, as there are two ways of looking at life. ”

“ We are only here because this country welcomed our forebears, and taught them that being American is about more than what we look like or where we come from. ”

“ But even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science had liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example had kindled feelings of right in the people. ”

“ Nothing escapes his sharp eyes, and almost in the briefest conceivable time, he is an American ready to make his way by every known means, good and bad. To the child everything American is good and right. ”

“ To analyze the secret springs that have effected the progressive changes in society; to trace the origin of the various modes of government, the consequent improvements in science, in morality, or the national tincture that marks the manners of the people under despotic or more liberal forms, is a bold and adventurous work.
The study of the human character opens at once a beautiful and a deformed picture of the soul. ”

“ We will proceed then on the understanding that, whatever its past, the present civilization of the United States reveals the every-day human being in his or her infinite variety, and that the true American must grasp this fact in order to fulfil his destiny. If our nation is to be a lamp to the civilized world, it will be because we prove with time that poor human nature, by virtue of the leaven called Americanism, has reached a higher plane of intelligent virtue and happiness than the world has hitherto attained. ”

“ Every man among us is more fit to meet the duties and responsibilities of citizenship because of the perils over which, in the past, the nation has triumphed; because of the blood and sweat and tears, the labor and the anguish, through which, in the days that have gone, our forefathers moved on to triumph. ”

“ But into the best that the foreign-born can retain, America can graft such a wealth of inspiration, so high a national idealism, so great an opportunity for the highest endeavor, as to make him the fortunate man of the earth to-day. ”

“ The equality of men is, to this moment, its corner-stone ... that which develops itself as the sympathy of class, becomes in America the general sentiment of society.... We present an imposing front to the world ”

“ I'm an American. We've translated democracy and brotherhood and equality into enterprise and opportunity and success—and that's getting Americanised. ”

“ The moral and social aspiration proper to American life is, of course, the aspiration vaguely described by the word democratic; and the actual achievement of the American nation points towards an adequate and fruitful definition of the democratic ideal. ”