True Americanism 39 



other land offers such glorious possibilities to the 

 man able to take advantage of them as does ours; 

 it remains true that no one of our people can do 

 any work really worth doing unless he does it pri- 

 marily as an American. It is because certain classes 

 of our people still retain their spirit of colonial de- 

 pendence on, and exaggerated deference to, Eu- 

 ropean opinion, that they fail to accomplish what 

 they ought to. It is precisely along the lines where 

 we have worked most independently that we have 

 accomplished the greatest results; and it is in those 

 professions where there has been no servility to, 

 but merely a wise profiting by, foreign experience, 

 that we have produced our greatest men. Our 

 soldiers and statesmen and orators; our explor- 

 ers, our wilderness-winners, and commonwealth- 

 builders; the men who have made our laws and 

 seen that they were executed; and the other men 

 whose energy and ingenuity have created our mar- 

 velous material prosperity, all these have been men 

 who have drawn wisdom from the experience of 

 every age and nation, but who have nevertheless 

 thought, and worked, and conquered, and lived, 

 and died, purely as Americans; and on the whole 

 they have done better work than has been done 

 in any other country during the short period of 

 our national life. 



On the other hand, it is in those professions 

 where our people have striven hardest to mold 

 themselves in conventional European forms that 

 they have succeeded least; and this holds true to 



