America First: Patriotic Readings

by Unknown

The press throughout the country has taken up the thought of the President and, seconded by the efforts of the Bureau of Education, has done loyal work in making "America First" our national slogan. This is all good so far as it goes—especially among the adult population, many of whom must be educated, if educated at all, on the run. But the rising generation, both native-born and foreign, to get the full meaning of this slogan in its far-reaching significance, must have time for study and reflection along patriotic lines. There must be the right material on which the American youth may settle their thoughts for a definite end in patriotism if our country is to have a new birth of freedom and if "this government of the people, by the people, and for the people is not to perish from the earth." The prime and vital service of amalgamating into one homogeneous body the children alike of those who are born here and of those who come here from so many different lands must be rendered this Republic by the school teachers of America.

The purpose of this book is to furnish the teachers and pupils of our country, material with which the idea of true Americanism may be developed until "America First" shall become the slogan of every man, woman, and child in the United States.

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CONTENTS

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS
Jasper L. McBrien
Introduction		[13]
Tableau—The Spirit of Seventy-Six		[19]
Cast of Characters		[20]
The Continental Congress—A Dramatization		[21]
AMERICAN PATRIOTISM
What is Patriotism	Jasper L. McBrien	[71]
America for Me	Henry van Dyke	[73]
America First	Woodrow Wilson	[75]
The Meaning of the Flag	Woodrow Wilson	[83]
Makers of the Flag	Franklin K. Lane	[87]
The Flag of the Union Forever	Fitzhugh Lee	[90]
Farewell Address	George Washington	[94]
Washington	John W. Daniel	[104]
Abraham Lincoln	Henry Watterson	[129]
Second Inaugural Address	Abraham Lincoln	[151]
Robert E. Lee	E. Benjamin Andrews	[154]
Our Reunited Country	Clark Howell	[163]
The Blue and the Gray	Henry Cabot Lodge	[171]
A Reminiscence of Gettysburg	John B. Gordon	[175]
The New South	Henry W. Grady	[181]
The Duty and Value of Patriotism	Archbishop Ireland	[195]
Our Country	William McKinley	[202]
Behold the American	T. DeWitt Talmage	[206]
The Hollander as an American	Theodore Roosevelt	[212]
The Adopted Citizen	Ulysses S. Grant	[217]
Our Navy	Hampton L. Carson	[220]
The Patriotism of Peace	William J. Bryan	[232]
A Plea for Universal Peace	George W. Norris	[238]
Gettysburg Address	Abraham Lincoln	[255]
Neutrality Proclamation	Woodrow Wilson	[ 256]
POETRY OF PATRIOTISM
Concord Hymn	Ralph Waldo Emerson	[261]
Warren's Address	John Pierpont	[262]
Patriotism	Sir Walter Scott	[263]
The Star-Spangled Banner	Francis Scott Key	[263]
My Country	Samuel F. Smith	[265]
The American Flag	Joseph Rodman Drake	[266]
Song of Marion's Men	William Cullen Bryant	[267]
The Old Continentals	Guy Humphreys McMaster	[269]
The Sword of Bunker Hill	Wm. Ross Wallace	[271]
Liberty Tree	Thomas Paine	[272]
The Rising in 1776	Thomas Buchanan Read	[274]
America	Bayard Taylor	[278]
The Blue and the Gray	Francis M. Finch	[279]
Abraham Lincoln	James Russell Lowell	[281]
The Flag Goes By	Henry Holcomb Bennett	[284]
The Ship of State	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	[285]
The Name of Old Glory	James Whitcomb Riley	[286]

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgments for permission to use copyrighted and other valuable material in this volume are hereby tendered to authors and publishers as follows: