Modern American Prose Selections

Transcriber's Notes: In the Woodrow Wilson selection, the word 'altrusion' (which is not in the dictionary) was changed to 'altruism' based on consultation with the original text from which the passage was taken for this book.
In the Jacob Riis selection, the phrase It it none too fine yet was replaced with It is none too fine yet after consultation with the original text from which the passage was taken for this book.
Other minor typos were also corrected. Hyphenation was left consistent with how it appears in the book.
NEW YORK HARCOURT, BRACE AND HOWE 1920
THE PLIMPTON PRESS NORWOOD MASS U. S. A.
TO E., C., AND H. STUDENTS AND FRIENDS
As the reader, if he wishes, may discover without undue delay, the little volume of modern prose selections that he has before him is the result of no ambitious or pretentious design. It is not a collection of the best things that have lately been known and thought in the American world; it is not an anthology in which all our best authors are represented by striking or celebrated passages. The editor planned nothing either so precious or so eclectic. His purpose rather was to bring together some twenty examples of typical contemporary prose, in which writers who know whereof they write discuss certain present-day themes in readable fashion. In choosing material he has sought to include nothing merely because of the name of the author, and he has demanded of each selection that it should be of such a character, both in subject and style, as to impress normal and wholesome Americans as well worth reading.
The earlier selections--President Roosevelt's noble eulogy upon Lincoln, Secretary Lane's two addresses on American tradition and heritage, and Governor Coolidge's address at Holy Cross--remind the reader of the high significance of our national past and indicate the promise of a rightly apprehended future. There follow two articles-- Our Future Immigration Policy, by Commissioner Frederic C. Howe, and A New Relationship between Capital and Labor, by Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.--on subjects that press for earnest consideration on the part of all who are intent upon the solution of our problems. Mr. Alvin Johnson's playful yet serious essay on the biggest, kindliest, most honest and honorable tribal head that ever lived completes the group of what may be termed Americanization Papers.