Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1917 — BAIL, ROW OR GO ASHORE [ARTICLE]

BAIL, ROW OR GO ASHORE

At the last census the United States contained 2,250,000 million white males, 21 years of age or ov- r. who were not citizens and had not declared an intention of becoming citizens. Many of them are - of the central powers. But many others are subjects of the allied powers; and a recent act of congress authorizes the enlistment and recruiting of them for military service under their own flags. The enlistment and recruiting ought to proceed briskly. This is a poor time for a man without , a country. " The naan who chooses to live in ■the United States because he finds it offers him attractions- and opportunities superior to those in his own country, and who yet rejects its-offer of citizenship, is always in rather the dubious position of the passenger who insists upon keeping his seat in the boat, hut de- ; ciia.es either to hail or row. If he did not find superior opportunities here he would not he here; yet he refuses to aeknowledge any. ligation to the community that made the opportunities. . Sometimes —according to our unfortunate experience—the man. who grabs American opportunities with one hand and. waves off American: citizenship with the other finds it necessary to . justify himself by wholesale and chronic disparagement of the country he prefers to his own so far as living in it is concerned. He does not like his own country well enough to live in [ it, and he does not like this ? oicmry well euqugh to express any OblizatioEs” toward; it or approval ofjt. Apparently nothing short. of heaven will satisfy- him to such a i- it—•• that he can really' accept it. This is a' poor time for such playing heads-I-win-tails-you-1 os e with citizenship. Some pretty big issues are astir in the-world today. Let a man .choose a flag.—-Satur-day Evening Post,