Americanness

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Speaking in America, I cannot well avoid saying something about the prospects of society in the United States. It is a topic where one is apt to touch people’s patriotic feelings. No one will accuse me of having flattered the patriotism of that great country of English people on the other side of the Atlantic, amongst whom I was born. Here, so many miles from home, I begin to reflect with tender contrition, that perhaps I have not,—I will not say flattered the patriotism of my own countrymen enough, but regarded it enough. ”

“ Those circumstances, which most excite and agitate the mind of a nation, likewise mould and shape its future action. What has most deeply interested the American mind? If we trace back the chain of our history to the fearless days of our infancy, we shall find that its absorbing interests have been of a political nature. True, there were some minds among that matchless band of our New England ancestry, who, with the great volume of nature open before them, wrote with a spirit of inspiration, and soared to the high heavens of literature. ”

“ Americanism to-day stands in a sense more accurate than before as the experiment of government of the people, for the people, and by the people, and for the most complete amalgamation of the blood of Christendom which the human race has ever known. We have lately been celebrating our centennial anniversaries. Already the great figures of our early history seem remote. The struggle in which we are engaged is intenser and broader than theirs: It concerns the progress of human society. You, whom I am addressing, find yourself a unit in a vast, heterogeneous population and a complex civilization. ”

“ Out they pour, the little hyphenated Americans, more conscious of their patriotism than perhaps any other large group of children that could be found in our land; unaware that to some of us they carry on their shoulders our hopes of a finer, more democratic America, when the worthy things they bring to us shall be recognized, and the good in their old-world traditions and culture shall be mingled with the best that lies within our new-world ideals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These are the questions that every American should ask. Every man should take pride in this great Nation—America, with a star of glory in her forehead!—and every man should say, "I hope when I lie down in death I shall leave a greater and grander country than when I was born." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That instinct that this is the greatest country on Earth survived not only because, in my mind, the joys of American life and culture -- its vitality, its variety, its freedom -- always outweighed its imperfections, but because I learned that what makes America great has never been its perfection, but the belief that it can be made better. ”

“ A thorough American, who comprehends what America has to do, and means to help on with it, ought to choose to be born in New England, for the vitalized brain, finely-chorded nerves, steely self-control,—then to go West, for more live, muscular passion, succulent manhood, naked-handed grip of his work. ”

“ It seems so easy for America to inspire and express the most expansive and humane spirit; new-born, free, healthful, strong, the land of the laborer, of the democrat, of the philanthropist, of the believer, of the saint, she should speak for the human race. ”

“ Per contra, there is no American race, only a vast and absurd mélange of incongruous elements, cast off from Europe by various political convulsions, and combined by the pressure of events, not into a people, but into a mere population, which can never have a literature or an art of its own.’
‘America is a lawless land, where every one does what he likes and pays no attention to the opinion of his neighbour. ”

“ But you have there the myth of the essential white America. All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. ”

“ 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. ”

“ WHATEVER shortcomings I may have found during my fifty-year period of Americanization; however America may have failed to help my transition from a foreigner into an American, I owe to her the most priceless gift that any nation can offer, and that is opportunity. ”

“ 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 chief characteristic of America is an immense patriotism, and out of that patriotism spring a thousand minor characteristics, which, taken by themselves, may be considered blemishes by the critical foreigner,—such troublesome little characteristics as national pride and thin-skinnedness, national bluster and cocksureness. ”

“ When America calls they will hear and follow. Whatever blood they will shed will be real American blood, because as children, born under the same aspiring genius for freedom under which we were born, as children they became Americans. ”

“ I spoke with great fervor, dwelling upon the idea which has been a “leit motif,” a leading motive, with me during my whole public life in America: the peculiar significance of the position occupied by this Republic in the progress of mankind toward democratic government, and the consequent responsibility of the American people to the civilized world. It may have an improbable and even absurdly presumptuous sound when it is asserted that foreign-born American citizens may be more fervently, more jealously patriotic Americans than many natives are. ”

“ Such Americans are the real foreigners.
Most of those who come to us are predisposed in favor of our institutions. They are generally unacquainted with the true character of those institutions, but they all know that America is the land of freedom and of plenty, and they are favorably inclined toward the ideas and the obligations which are bound up with these blessings. They are open to American influence, and quickly respond to a new and a better environment. ”

“ What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of America than plain and humble people –- unsung, the downtrodden, the dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of one religious tradition but many, coming together to shape their country’s course? ”

“ But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are now met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor, distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by our gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion...
VENERABLE MEN! you have come down to us from a former generation. ”

“ Then that glorious vision which has opened before so many men in their despair, disclosed itself: his eyes turned to America. You should never forget that from the first your country has been the refuge and the hope for the oppressed, the unfortunate, the discouraged of the whole world. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In other words could I call the roll, I would find as many intelligent foreigners who came here, not for selfishness, but for liberty and for America's sake, who would be in accord with me in declaring that America is for the Typical American. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The spirit of the age is irreverent, destructive, faithless. Against this and all despoiling forces we as patriots are called to arms. For what does America stand? What are the truths that have gone into her blood and made her strong and beautiful and dominant? The divineness of human rights, the claims of men superior to the claims of property; popular government—not an oligarchy; popular government—not a dictatorship; the sacredness of the [Pg 975] home, the holiness of the sanctuary, faith in humanity, faith in God. These have made America, and without these there can be no America. ”

“ 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 ”

“ It is natural that the American, conscious that his national character has but just shaped itself out of the void, with all the future before it, should look more to the present and the future than the Englishman. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Now all this knowledge of what the Americans really are is good for us, as tending to strengthen our power of understanding them, and consequently to increase our sympathy with them. Let us trust that they learn something of the same truth from reading fiction written on this side of the Atlantic; the truth that, however different may be national manifestations of the fact, still, below accents, manners, dress, and language, we have
“All of us one human heart.” ”