Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 November 1908 — SELF-SATISFIED YANKEES [ARTICLE]

SELF-SATISFIED YANKEES

Briton Declares We Think ,We Have A Monopoly of Freedom. A carping Hnton by tne name of Whibley seems to be quite stirred up over the quality of the American brand of liberty and of patriotism. “Liberty” says he in the course of a few somewhat heated and overcapitalized remarks, in Blackwoou s magazine, "is a thing which no one in Ariierica can escape. The old inhabitant smiles with satisfaction as he murmurs the familiar word. At every turn it is clubbed into the unsuspecting visitor. “If an aspirant to the citizenship of the republic declined to be free he would doubtless be thrown into a dungeon, fettered and manacled, until he consented to accept the precious boon. “You cannot pick up a newspaper without being reminded that liberty is the exclusive possession of the United States. The worfl, if not the quality, is the commonplace of American history. It looks out upon you —the word again, not the quality every hoarding. It Is uttered in every discourse, but the truth is that American liberty is the mere creature of rhetoric.

"America’s view of patriotism is distinguished by the same Ingenious exaggeration as her view of liberty. She has as little doubt of her grandeur as of her freedom. She is. in brief, God’s own country and in her esteem Columbus was no mere earthly explorer; he was the authentic discoverer of the promised land. “Neither argument nor experience will ever shake the American's confidence tn his noble destiny. On all other questions uncertainty is possible. It is not possible to discuss America's supremacy. In arms as in arts the United States is unrivalled. It alone has been permitted to combine material with moral progress. It alone has solved the intricate problems of life and politics.

“It has the biggest houses, the best Government, and the purest law that the world has ever known. Perfect freedom is its exclusive privilege, as ‘kvFmnnr- qnd elevated railways are its exclusive possessions. Its ur vcrs.uti aui pasAMJxford. Cambridge, Paris and Leipzig m learning as its churches surpass the churches of the Old World in the proper understanding of theology. In brief, to use Its own phrase Americans ’lt,’ the sole home of the good and great.’* A lot of men who have abounding ,'aith in themselves never get energy jnqugh to muster up the work that ought to go with it. a >j, ■■ ■ ’■« ? The man who watches the clock most is usually the man who complains loudest about the size of his pay envelope.