It knows that some things are better here than anywhere else in the world, that some things are no better, and that some things are not so good in America as they are in Europe. For example, probably the institutions of the nation fit the needs of the population with less friction here in the United States than in any other country in the world. But probably, also, there is no other one of the great nations of the world in which the government of the large cities is so wasteful and so negligent.
True Americanism recognizes the fact that America is the heir of the ages, and that it is for us to profit as best we can by the experience of Europe, not copying servilely what has been successful in the old world, but modifying what we borrow in accord with our own needs and our own conditions. It knows, and it has no hesitation in declaring, that we must always be the judges ourselves as to whether or not we shall follow the example of Europe. Many times we have refused to walk in the path of European precedent, preferring very properly to blaze out a track for ourselves. More often than not this independence was wise, but now and again it was unwise.
Finally, one more quality of true Americanism must be pointed out. It is not sectional. It does not dislike an idea, a man, or a political party because that idea, that man, or that party comes from a certain part of the country. It permits a man to have a healthy pride in being a son of Virginia, a citizen of New York, a native of Massachusetts, but only on condition that he has a pride still stronger that he is an American, a citizen of the United States. True Americanism is never sectional. It knows no north and no south, no east and no west. And as it has no sectional likes and dislikes, so it has no international likes and dislikes. It never puts itself in the attitude of the Englishman who said, “I’ve no prejudices, thank Heaven, but I do hate a Frenchman!” It frowns upon all appeals to the former allegiance of naturalized citizens of this country; and it thinks that it ought to be enough for any man to be an American without the aid of the hyphen which makes him a British-American, an Irish-American, or a German-American.
True Americanism, to conclude, feels that a land which bred Washington and Franklin in the last century, and Emerson and Lincoln in this century, and which opens its schools wide to give every boy the chance to model himself on these great men, is a land deserving of Lowell’s praise as “a good country to live in, a good country to live for, and a good country to die for.”
(1896)
Transcriber’s Notes
In a few cases, obvious errors in punctuation have been corrected.
[Page 107]: “‘Tess of the Durbervilles’” changed to “‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’”