34 True Americanism 



tions of the earth which holds in its hands the fate 

 of the coming years. We enjoy exceptional advan- 

 tages, 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 suc- 

 ceed ; but we must not foolishly blink the dangers by 

 which we are threatened, for that is the way to fail. 

 On the contrary, we must soberly set to work to find 

 out all we can about the existence and extent of every 

 evil, must acknowledge it to be such, and must then 

 attack it with unyielding resolution. There are 

 many such evils, and each must be fought after a 

 separate fashion; yet there is one quality which we 

 must bring to the solution of every problem, that 

 is, an intense and fervid Americanism. We shall 

 never be successful over the dangers that confront 

 us ; we shall never achieve true greatness, nor reach 

 the lofty ideal which the founders and preservers of 

 our mighty Federal Republic have set before us, un- 

 less we are Americans in heart and soul, in spirit and 

 purpose, keenly alive to the responsibility implied in 

 the very name of American, and proud beyond meas- 

 ure of the glorious privilege of bearing it. 



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 an- 

 tithesis of what is unwholesome and undesirable. 

 In the first place we wish to be broadly American 

 and national, as opposed to being local or sectional. 

 We do not wish, in politics, in literature, or in art, 

 to develop that unwholesome parochial spirit, that 



