territory except our own; for no sovereignty except the sovereignty over ourselves. We deem the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest member of the family of nations entitled to as much respect as those of the greatest empire, and we deem the observance of that respect the chief guaranty of the weak against the oppression of the strong. We neither claim nor desire any rights, or privileges, or powers that we do not freely concede to every American republic. We wish to increase our prosperity, to expand our trade, to grow in wealth, in wisdom, and in spirit, but our conception of the true way to accomplish this is not to pull down others and profit by their ruin, but to help all friends to a common prosperity and a common growth, that we may all become greater and stronger together. . . .

Let us help each other to show that for all the races of men the liberty for which we have fought and labored is the twin sister of justice and peace. Let us unite in creating and maintaining and making effective an all-American public opinion, whose power shall influence international conduct and prevent international wrong, and narrow the causes of war, and forever preserve our free lands from the burden of such armaments as are massed behind the frontiers of Europe, and bring us ever nearer to the perfection of ordered liberty. So shall come security and prosperity, production and trade, wealth, learning, the arts, and happiness for us all.

AMERICANISM 1

THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858- )

There are two or three things that Americanism means. In the first place it means that we shall give to our fellow man, to our fellow citizen, the same wide latitude as to his individual beliefs that we demand for ourselves; that, so long as a man does his work as a man should, we shall not inquire, we shall not hold for or against him in civic life, his method of paying homage to his Maker. That is an important lesson for all of us to learn everywhere, but it is doubly important in our great cities, where we have a cosmopolitan population of such various origin, belonging to such different creeds, and where the problem of getting good government depends in its essence upon decent men standing together and insisting that before we take into account the ordinary political questions, we shall, as a prerequisite, have decency and honesty in any party.

Now for another side of Americanism; the side of the work, the strife, of the active performance of duty; one side of Americanism, one side of democracy. Our democracy means that we have no privileged class, no class that is exempt from the duties or deprived of the privileges that are implied in the words "American citizenship." Now, that principle has two sides to it, itself, for all of us would be likely to dwell continually upon one side, that all have equal rights. It is more important that we should dwell on the other side; that is, that we will have our duties, and that the rights cannot be kept unless the duties are performed.

1 Used by permission of the author.

The law of American life - of course it is the law of life everywhere the law of American life, peculiarly, must be the law of work; not the law of idleness; not the law of self-indulgence or pleasure, merely the law of work. That may seem like a trite saying. Most true sayings are trite. It is a disgrace for any American not to do his duty, but it is a double, a triple disgrace for a man of means or a man of education not to do his duty. The only work worth doing is done by those men, those women, who learn not to shrink from difficulties, but to face them and overcome them. So that Americanism means work, means effort, means the constant and unending strife with our conditions, which is not only the law of nature, if the race is to progress, but which is really the law of the highest happiness for ourselves.

You have got to have the same interest in public affairs as in private affairs or you cannot keep this country what this country should be. You have got to have more than that you have got to have courage. I don't care how good a man is; if he is timid, his value is limited. The timid will not amount to very much in the world. I want to see a good man ready to smite with the sword. I want to see him able to hold his own in active life against the force of evil. I want to see him war effectively for righteousness.

Of all the things we don't want to see, the most undesirable is the tendency to divide into two camps; on the one side all the nice, pleasant, refined people of high instincts but no capacity to do work, and on the other hand, men who have not got nice instincts at all, but who are not afraid. When you get that condition, you are preparing immeasurable disaster for the nation. You have got to combine decency and honesty with

courage. But even that is not enough, for I don't care how brave, how honest a man is, if he is a natural-born fool, he cannot be a success. He has got to have the saving grace of common sense. He has got to have the right kind of heart, he has got to be upright and decent, he has got to be brave, and he has got to have common sense. He has got to have intelligence, and if he has these, then he has in him the making of a first-class American citizen.

AMERICA FOR ME!1

HENRY VAN DYKE (1852- )

'Tis fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,

To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings,

But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.

So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of `
stars.

Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air; And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair; And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;

But when it comes to living, there is no place like home.

1 From "Poems of Henry van Dyke." Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. Used by permission of the publishers.

I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles, with flashing fountains

filled;

But oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day

In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!

I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to

lack:

The Past is too much with her, and the people looking

back.

But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free, We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.

Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plow the rolling

sea,

To the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,

Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.