38 True Americanism 



themselves on their standing in the world of art 

 and letters, or, perchance, on what they would style 

 their social leadership in the community. It is al- 

 ways better to be an original than an imitation, 

 even when the imitation is something better than 

 the original; but what shall we say of the fool who 

 is content to be an imitation of something worse? 

 Even if the weaklings who seek to be other than 

 Americans were right in deeming other nations to 

 be better than their own, "the fact yet remains that 

 to be a first-class American is fifty-fold better than 

 to be a second-class imitation of a Frenchman or 

 Englishman. As a matter of fact, however, those 

 of our countrymen who do believe in American in- 

 feriority are always individuals who, however cul- 

 tivated, have some organic weakness in their moral 

 or mental makeup; and the great mass of our peo- 

 ple, who are robustly patriotic, and who have sound, 

 healthy minds, are justified in regarding these feeble 

 renegades with a half-impatient and half-amused 

 scorn. 



We believe in waging relentless war on rank- 

 growing evils of all kinds, and it makes no differ- 

 ence to us if they happen to be of purely native 

 growth. We grasp at any good, no matter whence 

 it comes. We do not accept the evil attendant upon 

 another system of government as an adequate ex- 

 cuse for that attendant upon our own ; the fact that 

 the courtier is a scamp does not render the dema- 

 gogue any the less a scoundrel. But it remains true 

 that, in spite of all our faults and shortcomings, no 



