The American Spirit in the Writings of Americans of Foreign Birth

by Unknown

I suppose most of us when we were twenty knew of a short cut to the millennium, and were impatient, resentful and rather contemptuous of those whose fossilized prejudices or selfishness, as we regarded them, prevented that short cut from becoming the high road of humanity.

Now that we are older, though we know that our eyes will not behold the millennium, we should still like the nearest possible approach to it; but we have learned that no short cut leads there, and that anybody who claims to have found one is either an impostor or self-deceived.

Among those wandering signposts to Utopia we find and recognize certain recurrent types:—

There are those who, in the fervor of their world-improving mission, discover and proclaim certain cure-alls for the ills of humanity, which they fondly and honestly believe to be new and unfailing remedies, but which, as a matter of fact, are hoary with age, having been tried on this old globe of ours at one time or another, in one of its parts or another, long ago,—tried and found wanting and discarded after sad disillusionment.

There are the spokesmen of sophomorism rampant, strutting about in the cloak of superior knowledge, mischievously and noisily, to the disturbance of quiet and orderly mental processes and sane progress.

There are the sentimental, unseasoned, intolerant and cocksure “advanced thinkers,” claiming leave to set the world by the ears, and with their strident and ceaseless voices to drown the views of those who are too busy to indulge in much talking.

There are the self-seeking demagogues and various related types, and finally there are the preachers and devotees of liberty run amuck, who in fanatical obsession would place a visionary and narrow class interest and a sloppy internationalism above patriotism, and with whom class hatred and envy have become a ruling passion. They are perniciously, ceaselessly and vociferously active, though constituting but a small minority of the people, and though every election and other test has proved, fortunately, that they are not representative of labor, either organized or unorganized.

Among these agitators and disturbers who dare clamorously to assail the majestic and beneficent structure of American traditions, doctrines and institutions there are some, far too many, indeed—I say it with deep regret, being myself of foreign birth—who are of foreign parentage or descent. With many hundreds of thousands they or their parents came to our free shores from lands of oppression and persecution. The great republic generously gave them asylum and opened wide to them the portals of her freedom and her opportunities.

The great bulk of these newcomers have become loyal and enthusiastic Americans. Most of them have proved themselves useful and valuable elements in our many-rooted population. Some of them have accomplished eminent achievements in science, industry and the arts. Certain of the qualities and talents which they contribute to the common stock are of great worth and promise.

When the great test of the war came, the overwhelming majority of them rang wholly and finely true. The casualty lists are eloquent testimony to the patriotic devotion of “the children of the crucible,” doubly eloquent because many of them fought against their own kith and kin.