American

“ 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 ”

“ What has been done in the United States of America, has been done, not by the power of money; it has been done, not under the influence of selfish motives; it has been done under the influence of noble ideals, of great minds, and of great hearts directing and guiding and leading the mighty affairs of a great people. And here are representatives, not all, but many, of the foremost representatives of that American spirit which has accomplished everything which you have seen in your journey here. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ A name, which is great without resorting to the borrowed light of titles and honors, is greater than any possible suffix or affix which could be appended to it.
In conclusion, American manners are but an instance or result of the two predominant American characteristics to which I have already referred, and which reappear in so many other things American. A love of independence and of equality, early inculcated, and a keen abhorrence of waste of time, engendered by the conditions and circumstances of a new country, serve to explain practically all the manners and mannerisms of Americans. ”

“ It was so easy for me to grasp the significance of certain general aspects of American life that I felt I was fully competent to state how the American people lived, what their racial, political, and religious tendencies were, what their idioms of speech meant, and to interpret their amorous, martial, dolorous, and joyous moods with perfect accuracy and ease. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.] ”

“ A deep, abiding faith in the serious purposes of humanity has ever been obvious to us Americans as a national possession, however foreigners may deny it to us, but the American nature is at the same time, as I have suggested, essentially practical, level-headed, and inquiring, and is ever ready with a shrewd jest to dispute the sway of traditions founded on cant or outworn ideas. ”

“ To see his country powerful and respected among the nations of the earth, and to secure to it all those advantages to which its character and position entitle it, is the natural desire of every American. ”

“ 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; ”

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

“ To the European immigrant—that is, to the aliens who have been converted into Americans by the advantages of American life—the Promise of America has consisted largely in the opportunity which it offered of economic independence and prosperity. ”

“ Opposite them stands what may be called the American intelligence, ministering as best it can to the wants of young America, and helping to fashion the great desideratum,—a homogeneous nation for the new world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The individual free to aspire and work, the community its own police officer and guardian.
We are here as American citizens, having, first, duties to our families, then to our neighborhood—to the institutions and business with which we are connected—but above all, and through and by all these duties, to our country and to God, by whose beneficial guidance our Government was founded, by whose favor and protection it has been preserved. ”

“ It was better than that, for it positively added the last touch of colour to my framed and suspended picture. Here, strikingly then, was an American case, and presumably one of the best; one of the best, that is, for some study of the wondrous problem, admiration and amazement of the nations, who yearn over it from far off: the way in which sane Society and pestilent City, in the United States, successfully cohabit, each keeping it up with so little of fear or flutter from the other. ”

“ When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The patriotic American, mindful of the honor of his country, asks himself with anxious interest how the spectacle of the passage of our National Government from the control of one party to that of another will strike these keen observers, and how their experiences, communicated to the world, will affect the standing of this Republic in the opinion of civilized mankind. ”

“ I hope to God that whatever tongue they speak, they are and will ever be American, and nothing but American. And so they must be, if they will be free—if they desire for their adopted home greatness and perpetuity. ”

“ By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry ‘All right!’ an American cries ‘Go ahead!’ which is somewhat expressive of the national character of the two countries. ”

“ After one has seen the wonders of America and the possibilities of its soil, its institutions and its people, he can go abroad with the assurance that he will return, more widely informed, it is true, but more intensely American than before. ”

“ When the European sees in the individual American, or in a dozen individual Americans, certain peculiarities, inelegancies, and sometimes even impertinences—call them what you will,—he is too prone to think that these are the essentials of the American character. The essentials of the American character are the essentials of the English character—with elbow-room. ”

“ There isn't a single human ambition, or religious trend, or drift of thought, or peculiarity of education, or code of principles, or breed of folly, or style of conversation, or preference for a particular subject for discussion, or form of legs or trunk or head or face or expression or complexion, or gait, or dress, or manners, or disposition, or any other human detail, inside or outside, that can rationally be generalized as “American.” ”

“ one might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left. ”

“ These institutions speak so of American life as a success that they affected me at moments as crying aloud to be commemorated—since it is on American life only that they are founded, and since they 323render it, to my mind, the good office of making it keep all its graces and of having caused it to shed, by the same stroke, the elements that are contrary to these. ”

“ The preceding observations lead naturally to a few observations upon American character in a national point of view; for in treating of so exceedingly varied a community, combining as it does nearly every nation of the Old World, it would be beyond the limits of a work like this to enter into details on so complicated a subject. ”

“ The American economic, political, and social organization has given to its citizens the benefits of material prosperity, political liberty, and a wholesome natural equality; and this achievement is a gain, not only to Americans, but to the world and to civilization. ”

“ But with all their usually enormous and often brilliant faults—that amaze, even if they do not stagger humanity—the Americans are a nation of Cæsars. In every field of activity they have scored many triumphs. ”

“ As a result, the American people at the beginning of our national life had certain qualities both of physical and intellectual character,—hardihood, enterprise, daring, independence, love of freedom, perseverance, etc.,—which set them apart from any of their contemporaries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When the Promise of American life is conceived as a national ideal, whose fulfillment is a matter of artful and laborious work, the effect thereof is substantially to identify the national purpose with the social problem. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They were representative Americans, the cream of America in ability, training, character, patriotism and devotion to democratic ideals, and to see them at their work, to come into touch with their enthusiasm, their eagerness to render service, their teeming ideas, their resourcefulness, their efficiency, energy and determination and to witness the effective running and vast achievements of the huge organizations they were inspiring and directing was to watch the steady, sure beating of the very heart of the nation. ”

“ Hang the walls of the school-room with pictures of great Americans. Let incidents from their lives be used as illustrations of moral lessons. Explain the principles and form of our government. Dwell upon the extent of its domain and its vast resources. Define simply the privileges conferred, and the duties imposed, upon the citizens of our government. Four things should be taught them: the three Rs and American history. What is needed among all our citizens, is a great lifting up where a broad view of our great land can be had. ”

“ The American people, in spite of its original defects, in spite of the numerous voids which a hasty growth and a superficial education have left in its ideas, feelings, and customs, is still a great and powerful people. ”

“ The reaction, if there be one, is moral and spiritual, rather than political. The American people have been densely absorbed in the material development of our wonderful country. The task has been a huge one. ”