Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 245, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1920 — Americanism [ARTICLE]

Americanism

By LEONARD WOOD

I wu born an 'American;; I will live an American;-. I will die an American. —Daniel Webster! Speech July 17, 1860. HERE is as intensive a pronouncement of Americanism as ever was made. It is a tingling thing. Webster made this speech when he was well advanced in life. He had lived long enough to know how good athing it is to bq born an American, hbw good a thing it is to live an American, and how good a thing it is to die an American. He had tested the life and found it good. If the men of all countries felt toward their own lands as Webster felt toward America there’ would be no emigration to the United States unless it were forced by the overpopulation of the other countries of the world. The .setting of the tide of emigration westward proved that men of other lands looked on the blessing of life In this country as the great statesmanorator looked upon it The immigrant was denied the privilege of American birth, but he was not to be denied the right of American living and ultimately the right es American dying. One of the hardest things for men to understand today is why there should be so strong a need for the Americanization of' the imtnigrant Thepresurnption always has been that the man who wants to come to this country should know enough about its institutions, its opportunities and Its duties to make at least one kind of Americanization unnecessary. The people of this country, however, are confronted with the forbidding fact that a considerable number of our immigrants need to be taught only the customs of America but the spirit of things among us,. those things which alone can make real Americanism possible. The conclusion is Inevitable that a few foreigners come to this country, not for the purpose of helping to keep America what it Is, but to unmake our institutions. Immigrants of this type find here some native bdrn Americans who sympathize with their destructive intentions and give them covert, and not always Covert, aid in their attempts tv undermine the American edifice.

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