Anti-Americanism

“ Anti-Americanism; Roman Catholicism; Deism, and modern Sag Nichtism! All this tide of fanaticism and error, originating North of Mason and Dixon's Line, went for Pierce in the last Presidential contest: they are with that party now, against the American party; and it is bad company in which to find a Protestant minister! Yet, miserable Protestants hesitate not to commend these enemies of the natural rights of man, and of the Christian religion, as being just as good Christians as their neighbors!
"Oh! judgment, thou hast fled to brutish beasts;
And men have not their reason!" ”

“ Can men taking their stand on this Platform be the enemies of civil and religious liberties? Can either civil or religious liberties rest secure on any other grounds? And must not those "Bogus" Democrats and Anti-Americans, therefore, who wage war against this citadel of American birthrights, act as enemies to the [Pg 11] Federal Constitution, enemies to the Union, to the mental independence of American citizens—enemies to the Protestant religion, and enemies, consequently, "to civil and religious liberty?"
PLATFORM OF THE AMERICAN PARTY. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In short, the man who, whether from mere dull fatuity or from an active interest in misgovernment, tries to appeal to American prejudice against things foreign, so as to induce Americans to oppose any measure for good, should be looked on by his fellow-countrymen with the heartiest contempt. So much for the men who appeal to the spirit of Americanism to sustain us in wrong-doing. ”

“ For the apologists for foreign aggressors, and equally those selfish and partisan groups at home who wrap themselves in a false mantle of Americanism to promote their own economic, financial or political advantage, are now trying European tricks upon us, seeking to muddy the stream of our national thinking, weakening us in the face of danger, by trying to set our own people to fighting among themselves. ”

“ But there is a type of Americanism which is utterly free from the taint of militarism and jingoism, but that yet is even more dangerous to anybody at home or abroad who flaunts the spirit of America and defies its power. ”

“ Outrageous though it is to use a noble idea as the cloak for evil, it is still worse to assail the noble idea itself because it can thus be used. The men who do iniquity in the name of patriotism, of reform, of Americanism, are merely one small division of the class that has always existed and will always exist,—the class of hypocrites and demagogues, the class that is always prompt to steal the watchwords of righteousness and use them in the interests of evil-doing. ”

“ These lads of ours are the last in the world to preach that fool kind of Americanism. For they—or at least those of them who crossed the seas and fought for liberty and peace on the other side—have seen in the case of Germany what that kind of nationalism comes to, and they are against it. ”

“ The painful certainty that we should never be free from the babbling of treason, any more than England is free from it now, makes Americanism (the Americanism which means civic loyalty founded on civic intelligence) shine like a far-off star on a very dim horizon. ”

“ As regards the German-Americans who assail me in this contest because they are really mere transported Germans, hostile to this country and to human rights, I feel, not sorrow, but stern disapproval. I am not interested in their attitude toward me, but I am greatly interested in their attitude toward this nation. I am standing for the larger Americanism, for true Americanism; and as regards my attitude in this matter I do not ask as a favour, but challenge as a right, the support of all good American citizens, no matter where born and no matter of what creed or national origin. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is a militant group, formed to combat all the forces that are attacking Americanism.” He brought his fist down on the desk with a bang. “States’ rights may or may not be of particular importance. National prohibition may or may not meet favor with all true Americans, but there can be no question about the supremacy of the white race, the rights guaranteed us by the American Constitution, separation of church and state, the sanctity of the home.” ”

“ It is because we have not Americanism in our hearts and souls, because we have not been through the process of Americanization, because we have become slaves to prosperity and faithless to our ideals that we have failed Europe at a critical time. Americanism has become a phrase, a trademark, a passport. Unless somehow and somewhere we can restore belief and zeal and faith in our destiny we face the disunion of this Republic into races and creeds, into sectionalism and localism, into class warfare between capital and labor, into selfish individualism rather than nationalism. ”

“ We cannot forever depend upon the missionary for the Americanization of aliens. Shall we close the doors as the only way to preserve Americanism? Will this be a confession of our utter failure to deal in a statesmanlike way with either the international or national situation which confronts us?
It seems to me that our real enemy is not an aggressive foreignism, but a passive, complacent Americanism or nativism. ”

“ America is incapable of hating an entire people, but we do hate, we are fighting and we shall fight with every ounce of our might, the spirit which has power over the people of Germany, and which, if it were to prevail—as, under God, it never will—would destroy liberty, justice and plighted faith. It was not the people of Great Britain which America fought in the War of the Revolution, but the spirit and the ruling caste which then held sway over them. America fought then for an ideal and for liberty and independence, and sacrificed blood and treasure and suffered and endured and won. ”

“ They poison American patriotic feeling until it becomes, not a leaven, but a kind of national gelatine. They enshrine this American democratic ideal in a temple of canting words which serves merely as a cover for a religion of personal profit. American moral and intellectual emancipation can be achieved only by a victory over the ideas, the conditions, and the standards which make Americanism tantamount to collective irresponsibility and to the moral and intellectual subordination of the individual to a commonplace popular average. ”

“ Thus conservation of that race which has given us the true spirit of Americanism is not a matter either of racial pride or of racial prejudice; it is a matter of love of country, of a true sentiment which is based upon knowledge and the lessons of history rather than upon the sentimentalism which is fostered by ignorance. If I were asked: What is the greatest danger which threatens the American republic to-day? ”

“ And does it not seem to be the regular and systematic plan of our Government to provoke the retaliation of the Americans, and to show our disregard of their privilege of neutrality and rights of independence; and that we insult them only because we despise them, and despise them only because we do not apprehend their resentment. ”

“ Beneath the impotent protests which certain British newspapers are prone to make every now and again against the "American language" as a whole, and against the stray Americanism which has happened last to invade England, there is a tacit assumption that we Americans are outer barbarians, mere strangers, wickedly tampering with something which belongs to the British exclusively. ”

“ The main struggle which awaits Americanism is not with reaction, but with radicalism. Our age is one of restless and unintelligent iconoclasm, and abounds with shrewd sophists who use the name "Americanism" to cover attacks on that institution itself. Such familiar terms and phrases as "democracy," "liberty," or "freedom of speech" are being distorted to cover the wildest forms of anarchy, whilst our old representative institutions are being attacked as "un-American" by foreign immigrants who are incapable both of understanding them or of devising anything better. ”

“ In the face of this approaching disaster it behooves men and women not yet overcome by the war madness to raise their protest, to call the attention of the people to the crime and outrage which are about to be perpetrated upon them.
America is essentially the melting pot. No national unit composing it is in a position to boast of superior race purity, particular historic mission, or higher culture. Yet the jingoes and war speculators are filling the air with the sentimental slogan of hypocritical nationalism, “America for Americans,” “America first, last, and all the time.” ”

“ In both cases, I have always found myself 4 fighting beside, and fighting against, men of every creed. The one sure way to have secured the defeat of every good principle worth fighting for would have been to have permitted the fight to be changed into one along sectarian lines and inspired by the spirit of sectarian bitterness, either for the purpose of putting into public life or of keeping out of public life the believers in any given creed. Such conduct represents an assault upon Americanism. The man guilty of it is not a good American. ”

“ The fact that this is an appeal to the people of Europe against the people of the United States will arouse fresh antagonism to the Negro in some quarters, but, on the whole, it will do good. For shame’s sake, if not for that of justice, it may arouse us to do our duty. The opinion of the civilized world must have some effect on the most calloused American official conscience. ”

“ Of course, nobody can forecast the final result, but the Mexicans, the Hondurans, the Guatemalans, and the others have begun to feel it, and that's why the anti-American sentiment is constantly growing. ”

“ Their Americanization consists of lip-service; the real spirit, the only factor which counts in the successful teaching of any doctrine, is absolutely missing. We certainly cannot teach anything approaching a true Americanism until we ourselves feel and believe and practise in our own lives what we are teaching to others. No law, no lip-service, no effort, however well-intentioned, will amount to anything worth while in inculcating the true American spirit in our foreign-born citizens until we are sure that the American spirit is understood by ourselves and is warp and woof of our own being. ”

“ Under the menace of disloyalty, Americanism has taken new form and substance; and our just resentment, like the potter’s wheel, has moulded this force into lines of strength and resistance. We have seen all we want to see of “frightfulness” in Europe, all we want to see of injustice, supported by violence. We are not prepared to welcome any scheme of terrorization in the interests of a foreign power, or any interference of a foreign power with our legitimate fields of industry. Such schemes and such interference constitute an inconceivable affront to the nation. ”

“ 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 stoutest and truest Americans are the very men who have the least sympathy with the people who invoke the spirit of Americanism to aid what is vicious-in our government, or to throw obstacles in the way of those who strive to reform it. It is contemptible to oppose a movement for good because that movement has already succeeded somewhere else, or to champion an existing abuse because our people have always been wedded to it. To appeal to national prejudice against a given reform movement is in every way unworthy
and silly. ”

“ He made one attempt at holding to his acquired Americanism. The Americanism which was slowly receding before the stifled waves of Oriental foreboding, like a weak, protesting thing that fears a hidden strength. ”

“ Those who have Americanism especially in charge have repudiated the doctrine that ‘governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,’ because it stood in the way of what they wanted to do. They denounce those who cling to the doctrine as un-American. Then we see what Americanism and patriotism are. They are the duty laid upon us all to applaud, follow, and obey whatever a ruling clique of newspapers and politicians chooses to say or wants to do. ”

“ Yet, the most startling and unambiguous revelation was the extent of anti-American groundswell everywhere: among America's NATO allies, in developing countries, Muslim nations and even in eastern Europe where Americans, only a decade ago were perceived as much-adulated liberators. "People around the world embrace things American and, at the same time, decry U.S. influence on their societies. ”

“ We ought to use every honest exertion to turn out of power those weak and wicked men whose wild and visionary theories have been tested and found wanting. Above all, we ought to drive from our shores foreign influence, and cherish American feeling. Foreign influence has been in every age the curse of republics—its jaundiced eye sees every thing in false colors—the thick atmosphere of prejudice by which it is ever surrounded, excluding from its sight the light of reason. ”

“ There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags, but welcomed by under our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life; who have sought to bring the authority and good name of our Government into contempt, to destroy our industries wherever they thought it effective for their vindictive purposes to strike at them, and to debase our politics to the uses of foreign intrigue. ”