Americanism

“ And opposed to this clamor for a literature of Americanism is another call, not loud yet, but rising—a demand for a different literature, mordant, sophisticated, cosmopolitan, which will cut at the sentimentalities in which our idealism has involved us, strike at the moribund liberalism which we still regard as our basis of action, take issue with the moral standards that have been received as irrevocable because they were American. ”

“ In every great crisis in our history, in the Revolution and in the Civil War, and in the lesser crises, like the Spanish war, all factions and races have been forgotten in the common spirit of Americanism. ”

“ Thus we mean to fulfill the great mission of true Americanism—thus we mean to answer the anxious question of down-trodden humanity—“Has man the faculty to be free and to govern himself?” The answer is a triumphant “Aye,” thundering into the ears of the despots of the old world that “a man is a man for all that”; proclaiming to the oppressed that they are held in subjection on false pretences; cheering the hearts of the despondent friends of man with consolation and renewed confidence.
This is true Americanism, clasping mankind to its great heart. ”

“ We are Americans, and that means that we treat Americanism primarily as a matter of spirit and purpose, and in the broadest sense we regard every man as a good American, whatever his creed, whatever his birthplace, if he is true to the ideals of this Republic. ”

“ Much has been said of late about good Americanism. It is right that it should have been said. And it is right that every chance should be seized to repeat the basic truths underlying our prosperity and our national existence itself. ”

“ Of what avail is Americanism, unless it earn for a man the freedom of rival cities, wrap him in a good dream, taking rancor from him, and put him in harmony with all master events gone by? The young Republic has children who come into the-114- field of historic Christendom, to bathe themselves in the dignity and roominess of life, and to walk gladly among the evergreen traditions, which surge like tall June grass about their knees. ”

“ Let no man, then, barely because he was born in America, presume to be imbued with real and true ‘Americanism,’ who either ignores the direct and positive obligations of the Constitution, or ignores this, one of its most striking characteristics. ”

“ What is the recipe for Americanism—that condition of the system and blood, as it were, which even the immigrant without an ideal to his own soul, seems often to acquire to some extent as soon as he breathes the air of Castle Garden? ”

“ Americanism is not determined by race or place of birth, but by loyalty to the constitution of the United States and by willingness to give all that one has, even his life, in the defense of his land. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The third sense in which the word “Americanism” may be employed is with reference to the Americanizing of the newcomers to our shores. We must Americanize them in every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking at the relations between Church and State. ”

“ There are many words in circulation among us which we understand fairly well, which we use ourselves, and which we should, however, find it difficult to define. I think that Americanism is one of these words; and I think also it is well for us to inquire into the exact meaning of this word, which is often most carelessly employed. More than once of late have we heard a public man praised for his “aggressive Americanism,” and occasionally we have seen a man of letters denounced for his “lack of Americanism.” Now what does the word really mean when it is thus used? ”

“ It comes back to what we constantly feel, throughout the country, to what the American scene everywhere depends on for half its appeal or its effect; to the fact that the social conditions, the material, pressing and pervasive, make the particular experiment or demonstration, whatever it may pretend to, practically a new and incalculable thing. This general Americanism is often the one tag of character attaching to the case after every other appears to have abandoned it. ”

“ During the early years of our history as an independent nation, the imitators of foreign and civilized usages, the well-bred people of our country were, as I have indicated, regarded as out of sympathy with the population at large, and there was a certain justification in the charge; for though there was no conscious slur on the part of these students of manners, they were at fault in that they failed to manifest or to take an interest in that energy, originality, and freshness of mental vision which was known as Americanism. ”

“ We should keep steadily before our minds the fact that Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, of character; that it is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent. ”

“ Our proper job was to create a people, to get acquainted with each other and develop a common background. But the almost miraculous success of our lowest common denominator stood in the way of our working out any highest common multiple. Instead of developing a common background, we went on assimilating subscribers to the Declaration, our arbitrary tradition, “Americanism.” We have been so increasingly beset by aliens who had to be assimilated that their Americanization has prevented our own. ”

“ Americanism. A coined word or phrase in the United States which, freely repeated, tickles the popular ear and soon becomes engrafted upon the national vocabulary. Many Americanisms are now as common in England as in the land of their origin. ”

“ The Americanism appears in his puritanical anxiety to give every word, and every letter of every word, its full phonetic value. He extends the principles of the Declaration of Independence to his syllables, and makes them all free and equal, without a trace of accentuation that might render one the tyrant of the rest. ”

“ It means a full day’s work in the regular task at which each man earns a living, to which is added the overhead charge of Americanism and nationalism. I am convinced that no other service or method will make America again unashamed.
We may fairly conclude that the real matter with America is that as a nation it has not achieved within itself a permanent national consciousness. ”

“ It is eminently fitting to make an address on Americanism before this society. We of the United States need above all things to remember that, while we are by blood and culture kin to each of the nations of Europe, we are also separate from each of them. We are a new and distinct nationality. We are developing our own distinctive culture and civilization, and the worth of this civilization will largely depend upon our determination to keep it distinctively our own. ”

“ It is all American in the best and result, yet all of it lacks the soul of nationality.
In simple truth, there was no thought of nationality in the revolution for America's independence. The colonists were resisting a wrong, and freedom was their solace. Once it was achieved, nationality was the only agency suited to its preservation. Americanism really began when robed in nationality. The American Republic began the blazed trail of representative, popular government. Representative democracy was proclaimed the safe agency of highest human freedom. ”

“ There are two or three sides to the question of Americanism, and two or three senses in which the word " Americanism" can be used to express the antithesis of what is unwholesome and undesirable. In the first place we wish to be broadly American and national, as opposed to being local or sectional. ”

“ It is interesting to watch various types of minds approach the problems of Americanization in committee discussion. Here are a few simple solutions that the writer has heard from time to time:
Teach the foreigner to stick to the job and produce. We need to teach the foreigner that Americanism means patriotic production for the relief of the world's present peace-time plight, just as it meant patriotic production for the necessities of war-time. A great drive for industrial patriotism is the supreme need. ”

“ You can meditate all day on the reasons for pride in your Americanism, and each reason you think of will suggest others. The examples I have given are only hints. Be proud of your Americanism, therefore—earnestly, aggressively, fervently proud of your Americanism. ”

“ I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship, or the sale of goods through pretending that they sell, or power through making believe you are powerful, or through a packed jury or caucus, bribery and “repeating” votes, or wealth by fraud. ”

“ With all our rich heritages, Americanism will develop best through a mutual giving and taking of contributions from both newer and older Americans in the interest of the commonweal. This study has followed such an understanding of Americanization. ”

“ It is questionable whether they are entitled to be termed Americanisms except in the most liberal interpretation of that phase, because they are not everywhere current and are not readily intelligible, not “understanded of the people.” ”

“ Still it remains equally true that we have an enormous foreign population whose ideas and standards are those which they brought with them. Proud as these men and women may be of their new nationality, and eager as they may be to aid in the promotion of good citizenship, their very existence here in large numbers has altered the conditions of the problem of Americanism. The problem involved is no longer that of the winning of a new land by a free, spirited people under a republican form of government, but the larger equation of the evolution of the human race. ”

“ The civilization—the nationality—the institutions, civil and religious—and the mission of the United States, are all eminently American. Mental light and personal independence, constitutional union, national supremacy, submission to law and rules of order, homogeneous population, and instinctive patriotism, are all vital elements of American liberty, nationality, and upward and onward progress. ”

“ But these narrow-minded, narrow-hearted, unvisionary people forget that if our America is a free, a democratic, a holy place, one hundred years from now, the American Stock will still be rooted true in the old ideals. And it is by ideals that countries live and are judged.
To Americanize a person means to find out how much, or how little, he knows and cares about freedom and democracy and holiness, and then to help that much or little grow. ”

“ The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing else are hyphenated Americans; ”

“ Once more, what is it to be an American? Putting aside all the outer shows of dress and manners, social customs and physical peculiarities, is it not to believe in America and in the American people? Is it not to have an abiding and moving faith in the future and in the destiny of America?—something above and beyond the patriotism and love which every man whose soul is not dead within him feels for the land of his birth? ”

“ It is this strong impulse that my Americanization has made the driving power of my life. And I ask no greater privilege than to be allowed to live to see my potential America become actual: the America that I like to think of as the America of Abraham Lincoln and of Theodore Roosevelt—not faultless, but less faulty. It is a part in trying to shape that America, and an opportunity to work in that America when it comes, that I ask in return for what I owe to her. A greater privilege no man could have. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the attachment of many to their old allies, to whom they felt themselves obliged, of many others to the British nation, its modes of government and its commerce, occasioned such a stigma to mark them for a tie.
America should indeed forever have maintained a character of her own, that should have set her on high ground, whence she might have looked on from the pinnacle of independence and peace, and only have pitied the squabbles, the confusion, and the miseries of the European world. ”