Uncle Sam

“ Security! Charge on my land, indeed! And I can run away, but my land must stop behind! What security did I ask of them? 'Tis enough a'most to make a rogue of me.”
“Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam,” I exclaimed, as I came and sat close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to smile.
“Why, what was little missy thinking of?” he asked. “How solid she looks! Why, I never see the like!”
“Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam. You ought to have seen it fifty times, with every body who loves you. And who can help loving you, Uncle Sam?” ”

“ Uncle Sam and the popular interest in his thousands of portraits are standing proofs of the common sense and good temper of the American people. We like in Uncle Sam what we like in our personal Uncle Ezra, or Uncle Peyton, his genuine, affectionate, thoughtful and protecting affection for us. ”

“ He became passionately devoted to Uncle Sam; he appeared to derive unlimited comfort and inspiration from the fact that a benevolent old gentleman in a tall gray hat, a star-spangled vest, striped trousers and a goatee was his friend and protector. Though Ug's notions of what a ward is were slightly fogbound, he was very proud of the fact that he was a ward of Uncle Sam. He rather looked down on the white farmers whose land adjoined the reservation; they were mere citizens; he was a ward. No longer, when larger Indians kicked him, did he plan to massacre them as they slept. ”

“ It is sadly curious to observe how slight a taste of office suffices to infect a poor fellow with this singular disease. Uncle Sam’s gold—meaning no disrespect to the worthy old gentleman—has, in this respect, a quality of enchantment like that of the Devil’s wages. Whoever touches it should look well to himself, or he may find the bargain to go hard against him, involving, if not his soul, yet many of its better attributes; its sturdy force, its courage and constancy, its truth, its self-reliance, and all that gives the emphasis to manly character. ”

“ I would rather say that Uncle Sam is dead and that another is masquerading in his place—a counterfeit Uncle Sam who has so far deceived the people into believing that he is the real one. It is that person whom I charge with being a slaver. ”

“ Ug felt as if he had been tomahawked. He took himself, his dismay and his café-au-lait face to the teacher.
“What is Uncle Sam’s last name?” he asked.
The teacher didn’t know. Ug had caught him in an unguarded moment; the admission had slipped out; the teacher flushed, flustered.
“What is Uncle Sam’s street and number?” asked Ug. His small eyes now held suspicion.
The teacher didn’t know.
“Ug,” he said in his most kindly manner, “you’re a grown man now. I think, perhaps, I ought to tell you. Uncle Sam isn’t a man; that is to say, he isn’t like you or me. He’s a sort of—well, a sort of spirit.” ”

“ All of us know that Uncle Sam means well by the hundred million members of his family, but few have any adequate appreciation of the many varied forms in which Uncle Sam lends a helping hand. His service is apparent everywhere in city, town, village and farm—and in the great desert wastes and mountain heights. ”

“ I am with you, and while the stars of Uncle Sam, and the stripes of his country, triumph and float in the breeze, whar, whar is the craven, low-lived, chicken-bred, toad-hoppin’, red-mouthed mother’s son of ye who will not raise the beacon-light of triumph, smouse the citadel of the aggressor, and press onward to liberty and glory? ”

“ Inexhaustible are his activities, and of endless variety the moments of thought and of action in which the soul of the nation has been thus caught and fixed. Uncle Sam, farmer, householder, and landed proprietor, has domestic responsibilities upon a scale never known before. ”

“ For this idea Uncle Sam, no doubt the most liberal of men, would perhaps condemn me. But still I was not of the grand New World, whose pedigrees are arithmetic (at least with many of its items, though the true Uncle Sam was the last for that) ; neither could I come up to the largeness of universal brotherhood. That was not to be expected of a female; and few things make a man more angry than for his wife to aspire to it. ”

“ But dear Uncle Sam refused every cent of the profit of all this excitable work. It was wholly against his wish that any thing so artificial should be done at all, and his sense of religion condemned it. He said, in his very first letter to me, that even a heathen must acknowledge this champion nugget as the grandest work of the Lord yet discovered in America—a country more full of all works of the Lord than the rest of the world put together. And to keep it in a cellar, without any air or sun, grated harshly upon his ideas of right. ”

“ The joke went round merrily among the men, some of whom going afterwards to the frontiers, and there partaking of the very provisions they had assisted to pack and mark, still adhered to calling it Uncle Sam; and as every thing else of the army appointments bore also the letters U. S., Uncle Sam became a ready name, first for all that appertained to the United States, and, finally, for the United States itself—a cognomen which is as likely to be perpetuated, as that of John Bull for old England" (Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, II, 335) . ”

“ I never saw so perfect a resemblance to a cartoon in the flesh as “Uncle Sam.” His face was cadaverous, alert and pleasant-looking. The poise of his head told of imagined greatness, as one who felt that he had helped to create the universe as well as being a representative of the land of the almighty dollar. His chin resembled that of an aged billy-goat. Whenever he yawned or spat vindictively and yelled, “Waal, I guess,” his long, pointed beard inclined towards the roof. Another represented three races: Japan, the South Sea and Yankeeland. This mixture had made an argumentative strain. ”

“ John Bull had christened this son of his by the name of Jonathan; but by and by, when he became a man grown, being a good hearty fellow, about half horse half alligator, [81] his friends and neighbours gave him the nickname of Uncle Sam; a sure sign that they liked him, for I never knew a respectable nickname given to a scurvy fellow in my life. Be this as it may, his family and all his neighbours at last came to call him nothing else but Uncle Sam; and all his beef, pork, and flour, in fact everything that belonged to him, was marked with a huge U. S., six inches long. ”

“ HELPING UNCLE SAM WIN THE WAR When Uncle Sam, in the stirring days of 1917, was drawn into the vortex of the Great War he mobilized his industrial and financial strength just as truly as he mobilized the flower of his young manhood and called upon it to spare no effort or sacrifice to ensure that his standard should be carried, as it always had been in the past, to victory. ”

“ I never saw a finer thing,” shouted Uncle Sam, like a school-boy. “I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog wollops the whole of us. I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on your nugget, to keep it all snug till Firm should come round; and if the boy had never come round, there the gold might have waited the will of the Almighty. It is a big spot, anyhow.” ”

“ His appearance was grave, but not morose, as if he were always examining things and people without condemning them. It was evident that he expected to take the upper hand in general, to play the first fiddle, to hold the top saw, to “be helped to all the stuffing of the pumpkin,” as dear Uncle Sam was fond of saying. Of moderate stature, almost of middle age, and dressed nicely, without any gewgaws, which look so common upon a gentleman's front, he was likely to please more people than he displeased at first on-sight. ”

“ During five decades since, there has been work to do in United States of America and worthy men to do it. Uncle Sam has no commendable physical qualification if you concede him not two most perceptive normal optics together with an eye in the back of his head. In nepotism an unbeliever, with scant indulgence for clannishness and caste, this allegorical personage suffered all applicants to joust with his stalwart native sons and demonstrate their fitness to maintain the dignity of labor—the basic agency in creating his country’s present commercial pre-eminence. ”

“ So he took up the business of patriotism, and fastened himself upon Uncle Sam, who was a liberal, good-hearted old fellow, that kept open house to all comers, and received Pat with kindness and hospitality, because he was poor and an exile. ”

“ That it will come, indeed must come, is self-evident. The artist sees things too clearly as they are not to see also what they will be. He therefore skips the ignoble interlude of prevarication, quibble, and intrigue, and gives us Uncle Sam happy at last in his recovered simplicity. So we see him here, enjoying himself, as only a white man can, in a whole-hearted spurning of lies, cruelty, and murder. ”

“ In a minute the room was filled with the laughter of the Young folks as Uncle Sam dashed right and left trying to catch them in his long arms.
"The little Pilgrims though they had a good time on Thanksgiving Day. But their parents would no let them make much noise. Dear me! If children are not allowed to make a noise, they can't be happy." Uncle Sam was talking to himself as he walked home after the party. ”

“ And here he was a “sub” in Uncle Sam’s stalwart infantry with 11 three classmates serving under him in the ranks and half a dozen more, either as junior officers or enlisted men, in the camps of the volunteers. He was a handsome boy, a healthy, hearty boy, and, as boys go, rather a good boy—a boy in whom his mother would have found, had she not long since been lifted above the cares of this world, much of comfort and more to condone, but a boy, nevertheless, who had given his old dragoon of a dad many an anxious hour. ”

“ He was sharp enough very soon to find out this; and then he did a thing which was most unfair, as I found out long afterward. He bought an American jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me, and these he committed to heart, and brought them out as his own productions. If I had only known it, I must have been exceedingly sorry for him. But Uncle Sam used to laugh and rub his hands, perhaps for old acquaintance' sake; and when Uncle Sam laughed, there was nobody near who could help laughing with him. And so I began to think Firm the most witty and pleasant of men, though I tried to look away. ”

“ Cutter's face, 'You didn't tell me what place he came from.'
'Where is it, Uncle Sam? jist tell me, and I'll make him hear, I'll warrant.'
'Why, Sally, I don't know where he's come from. No doubt Heaven has sent him from somewhere or another, and I don't much care, I am so glad to see any thing in a decent shape come to do a little good among us: he may have dropped right down, for all I know.'
'Do, la, Uncle Sam, how you talk; you're enough to frighten a body. ”

“ But your folks have got to brace up and do their part; Uncle Sam will neighbor with you if you give him a chance. He’s real good-hearted, though bein’ so easy and good-natered, he is deceived lots of times and influenced and led around by them that want to make money out of him, such as the trusts and the liquor power. But he stands ready to neighbor with you, and don’t turn your back on him, Si Ann. Don’t do anything to get him huffy, for though he hain’t quick to git mad, he’s got a temper when it’s rousted up. ”

“ The average American is eager and anxious to know, so he can do something, and do it well.
Our Uncle Sam, being a plain-spoken and practical person, admits that he generally makes a muss of soldiering, and has set his head to find out why. Uncle Sam has been lying awake at nights ruminating over the salty facts. Having learned better, he does better. He is doing much better now, and means to get ahead of the best before he plows this furrow to the end. Uncle Sam can accomplish whatever he tries, and, believe me, he is trying. ”

“ He gives assistance to the Negro farmer, instruction to the Negro woman and children in home economics and in school and home gardening.
HELPING IN THE HOME. Uncle Sam pursues investigations and gives advice concerning the practical problems of the home. He is ever inspecting foods, drugs, meats and the quality of milk and water. He will permit no foul or tainted food or drink to reach the mouth of the mother or children. He carries on an employment bureau of service, giving information and advice. In the lives of children Uncle Sam’s helping hand is ever to be found. ”

“ But Uncle Sam will be on hand, he'll wade right in with a birch gad or a spellin' book, jest which he thinks they need most at the time, and settle the differences all right, and I believe it will be a star in his crown in time to come: turning the savages and cannibals that inhabit part of these new possessions into good American citizens. ”

“ He was certain he would make a fit [pg 040] soldier for Uncle Sam, and how, how he wanted to be Uncle Sam's soldier!
He was getting desperate. Every man he knew in the twenties and many a one under and over, was in uniform; bitterly he envied the proud peace in their eyes when he met them. He could not bear to explain things once more as he had explained today to Tom Arnold and "Beef" Johnson, and "Seraph" Olcott, home on leave before sailing for France. ”

“ It is interesting to recall that before the Civil War (p. 118) our national type frequently took the form of a Southerner—regularly in the pages of Punch. To-day, in England and in America, there is but one type of Uncle Sam, and we would not tolerate a change. It may be that in the gaunt, loose-knit frame, the strong and rugged features we recognize a kinship to that sterling and essentially American type of man which found its best exponent in Lincoln, and that this is the reason why Uncle Sam has become the most universally accepted and the best beloved of all our conventional types. ”