People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 May 1894 — Americanism. [ARTICLE]

Americanism.

In the Forum for April, Thsodore Roosevel tells in ringing words “What Americanism means.” His article reads in part as follows: “Our nation is that among all the nations of the earth which holds in its hands the fate of the coming years. "We enjoy exceptional advantages and are menaced by exceptional dangers; and all signs indicate that we shall either fail greatly or succeed greatly. I firmly believe that we shall succeed; but we must not foolishly blink at the dangers by which we are threatened, for that is the way to fail.

“There are two or three sides to the question of Americanism, and two or three senses in which the word ‘Americanism’ can be used to express the antithesis of what is wholesome and desirable. In the first place, we wish to be broadly American and national, as opposed to being local or sectional. There is a second side to this question of a broad Americanism, however. The patriotism of the village or the belfry is bad, but the lack of all patriotism is even worse. One may fall verv far short of treason and yet be an undesirable citizen in the community. The man who becomes Europeanized, w T ho loses his power of doing good on this side of the water, and who loses his love for his native land, is not a traitor: but he is a silly and undesiiable citizen. He is as emphatically a noxious element in our body politic as is the man who comes here from abroad and remains a foreigner. The third sense in which the word ‘Americanism’ may be employed is with reference to the Americanizing of the new-com-ers to our shores. We must Americanize them in every way —in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their w T ay of looking at the relations between church and state. We welcome the German or the Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or the Irishman who remains such. We have no room for any people who do not act and vote simply as Americans, and as nothing else. Moreover, we have as little use for the people who carry religious prejudices into our politics as for those who carry prejudices of caste or nationality. “We stand unalterably in favor of the public-school system in its entirety. We believe that the English, and no other language, is that in which all school exercises should be conducted. We are against any division of the school fund, and against any appropriation of public money for sectarian purposes. We are against any recognition whatever by the state in any shape or form of state-aided parochial schools. But we are equally opposed to any discrimination against or for a man because of his creed.” <