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State College of Agriculture
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Library

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PRICE LIST

 

BOOK

If issued by a regular publisher, this book
would cost two dollars. But our object is
not profit, but public service. The book,
therefore, either singly or in quantities
willbesoldat... ...... $1.00

MEDAL

The medal is not on sale to the public. It
can be secured only through officers of
Citizenship Clubs. In whatever numbers
orderedit costs .. 2... 1... $1.00

 

Owing to the increased cost of labor and
material, this is the lowest figure at which
the book and medal can be furnished.

 

 
 

THE OBVERSE SIDE OF OUR NATIONAL COAT OF ARMS,
WHICH IS ALSO USED AS THE GREAT SEAT. OF STATE:

 
WHAT AMERICA
MEANS TO ME

A BOOK OF THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR
THE PEOPLE; DESIGNED FOR THEIR USE IN
PREPARING THEMSELVES FOR THE
PRACTICE OF CITIZENSHIP

EDITED BY
HENRY E. JACKSON

This book’s purpose ts to promote
The Citizenship Club Movement

NATIONAL COMMUNITY BOARD
1516 H STREET, NORTHWEST
WASHINGTON, D. C.

1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920
BY HENRY E. JACKSON

 

All rights reserved

 

THE PLIMPTON PRESS - NORWOOD - MASS -U-6*A
TO

THE ONE MILLION YOUNG MEN AND THE ADDITIONAL ONE
MILLION YOUNG WOMEN (ON JUNE 5, 1918, THE NUMBER
WAS 1,071,592 MEN AND 973,928 WOMEN), WHO WILL EACH
YEAR CELEBRATE THEIR TWENTY-FIRST BIRTHDAY AND ENTER
INTO THE DUTIES AND PRIVILEGES OF FULL CITIZENSHIP
THE CITIZENSHIP CLUB MOVEMENT
IS DEDICATED
IN THE EARNEST HOPE THAT IT MAY ASSIST THEM TO
ACQUIRE A MORE INTELLIGENT APPRECIATION OF WHAT IT
MEANS TO BE A MEMBER OF AMERICA
DECLARATIONS OF LOYALTY
LOYALTY TO THE NATION

THE AMERICAN’S CREED

T BELIEVE in the United States of America as a govern-
ment of the people, by the people, for the people, whose
just powers are derived from the consent of the governed ;
a democracy in a republic; a sovereign Nation of many
sovereign States, a perfect Union, one and inseparable;
established upon those principles of freedom, equality,
justice and humanity for which American patriots sacri-
ficed their lives and fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to love
it; to support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to respect
its flag, and to defend it against all enemies.

LOYALTY TO THE COMMUNITY

THE EPHEBIC OATH

WE will never bring disgrace to this our city, by any
act of dishonesty or cowardice, nor ever desert our com-
rades; we will fight for the ideals and sacred things of
the city, both alone and with many; we will revere and
obey the city laws, and do our best to incite a like
respect and reverence in others; we will strive unceas-
ingly to quicken the public’s sense of civic duty; that
thus in all these ways, we may transmit this city, greater,
better, and more beautiful that it was transmitted to us.

LOYALTY TO THE BALLOT BOX

THE FREEMAN’S OATH, 1634.

I po solemnly bind myself that I will give my vote as I
shall judge in mine own conscience may best conduce to
the public weal, so help me God.

vi
THE FOREWORD

Next year in America one million young men
will celebrate their twenty-first birthday. Next
year one million young women will celebrate their
twenty-first birthday. Every year two million young
people will face the responsibility of assuming the
full duties and rights of citizenship.

Is it not a venturesome experiment for a nation
to admit to the difficult privilege of being a citizen
in a democracy such a multitude of recruits with
no special training for their task? Is it not an
astonishing fact that for generations we have fought
so strenuously for the franchise, but have done so
little to prepare ourselves for its exercise?

It sometimes requires a surgical operation to
awaken a nation to a realization of its obvious
needs. Such an operation was performed for us
by the recent World War. It helped us realize
what it means to our national welfare, that among
candidates for citizenship there is so large a number
of resident and unprepared aliens, that the military
draft revealed an appalling number of illiterates
among the native-born, that less than half the
citizens of America have had even a grammar
school education.

The war awakened in us the conviction that some

vu
viii FOREWORD

plan of special training for citizenship is a need of
paramount national importance. Theodore Roose-
velt realized its importance when he said at the Sor-
bonne in Paris: ‘The average citizen must be a
good citizen, if our republics are to succeed. The
stream will not permanently rise higher than the
main source; and the main source of national power
and national greatness is found in the average citi-
zenship of the nation. Therefore, it behooves us to
do our best to see that the standard of the average
citizen is kept high.”

The Citizenship Club movement, which this
book aims to inaugurate, is designed to meet this
need, over which the nation now manifests serious
concern. The movement enters a new and unoccu-
pied field. The method it proposes to use is like-
wise new. It makes the bold adventure of doing
a simple human thing, that is, it attempts to apply
democracy to education. It dares to propose that
young people take part in writing a book for their
own use. It courageously proposes to practice a
principle, which everyone says he believes, that
education is a process of self-activity. We cannot
educate a fellowman; we can only give him a chance
to learn. The movement is not designed to teach
patriotism to anyone, which is just as impossible
as it is to teach love or religion; it aims to give
young men and women an opportunity to learn how
to equip themselves for the practice of citizenship
in a democracy.
FOREWORD ix

This principle of educational procedure is not
new; it is the practice of it which is new. ‘Thirty
years ago Professor Rein of the University of Jena
regarded it as so axiomatic that he stated it in this
picturesque fashion: “The truth which has merely
been learned adheres to us like a false member, a
false tooth or a waxen nose. It has no significance
for the mental life. It is a lifeless fund from which
streams no animating warmth; only tHe truth that
has been obtained by one’s own reflection resembles
the natural member; it alone really belongs to us.”
The course of training for citizenship here suggested
proposes the daring and difficult idea of putting it
into practice.

The author of a certain book on moral education
once handed it to a friend with the request that he
express his honest opinion of it. After looking it
over, his friend remarked, “I do not see why I
should read it — you have stated all sides of the
question worked out to the last detail and dropped
them on my head in the hope that they will pene-
trate to the inside of it. You have left nothing for
me to do. Why should I study it?” This remark
does not mean that the function of an expert is
unnecessary. Nor does it mean that the unrelated
and unorganized contributions of the people will
produce an effective book. It is not a question of
one or the other. Both are essential to a helpful
product. The remark, however, is highly signifi-
cant. It means that, if one’s real creative interest
x FOREWORD

in any enterprise is to be secured or retained, he
must have some part to play in it. This principle
is the distinguishing characteristic of Citizenship
Clubs. They are asked to give as well as to get.

The first volume of our series is itself an illustra-
tion of this method of procedure. The idea of the
Citizenship Club movement came to the writer
during a hot sleepless night in an upper berth on
a Texas train. The plan was matured in consul-
tation with friends in Boston. The manuscript of
the book was finished in San Francisco. On the
open road in all sections of the country I discussed
the plan with public assemblies for the express pur-
pose of consulting the people. Many elements both
of the plan and the book are due to their conscious
and unconscious suggestions. All that the writer
did was to recognize the value of suggestions, when
he met them, and to improve and organize them
with what skill he could. But the book is the joint
product of the people and the author. It is in fact
“our” book.

The Citizenship Club movement proposes a
new, and it is believed a better, method of doing
Americanization work. It also suggests that we
should drop the old term and use instead a term
which says what it means. It is hoped that this
movement will hasten the discovery that American-
ization does not consist in teaching English, that
the dishonest and superficial use of the word has
murdered it, and that the word either should be
FOREWORD xi

redeemed or else replaced by the term “training for
citizenship,” which clearly suggests something defi-
nite, and something needed alike by the native born
and the resident alien. The Citizenship Club move-
ment aims to describe the American way of doing
Americanization work.

This book was originally prepared to be issued
as a Government document, to meet a need which
the Bureau of Education long ago recognized and
hoped it might be able to meet. But it soon became
evident that the Bureau of Education did not have
the facilities necessary to promote the movement.
Nor did it have available funds needed to secure a
first-class artist to cut the die for America’s Coat
of Arms. We are, therefore, compelled to depend
on a non-Governmental agency to furnish the book
and medal, and to handle the large amount of busi-
ness detail involved in dealing with a territory as
large as the United States.

The movement, therefore, will be launched and
promoted by the National Community Board, an
agency organized to promote throughout the Nation
the establishment of Community Centers such as
described in the official bulletin of the U. S. Bureau
of Education. The Board has planned seven de-
partments of work to serve local communities.

Through its department of Citizenship Training,
the Board offers to the nation the Citizenship
Club as a typical Community Center activity. The
Board has selected, as the official organ of the move-
xii FOREWORD

ment, The Open Road Magazine, which will stimu-
late its growth, report its progress, and assist in its
development.

While the Government should be the ideal agency
to conduct an enterprise like this, and while the
Bureau of Education, to the extent of its ability,
will stimulate the organization of Citizenship
Clubs as a part of its regular Community Center *
work, yet it must depend on volunteer agencies to
promote the movement, until the Congress makes
more adequate appropriations for such work. The
Congress no doubt some day will support the work
of Community Organization in a manner befitting its
national importance. It is one of the curious ironies
of experience, that when any great cause grows be-
yond the need of help, it gets more help than it
needs. Blessed is he who has the foresight to sup-
port a good cause in its pioneer period, for he has
the merit of seeing what is not obvious to all. In
the meantime the cause of community organization
is too vital to human welfare to wait upon Congres-
sional action. ‘We, the people,” will do it our-
selves. Perhaps it is better so.

The plan of training for citizenship here proposed
combines theory and practice, about one-fourth
theory and three-fourths practice. Any such course
which aims, as this one does, to stress the principle
of learning by doing, and which attempts to be
honest enough to treat things as they are, should

* See Postscript.
FOREWORD xiij

obviously include preparation for those activities,
to which citizens devote almost their entire time,
and on which the national well-being chiefly
depends.

When stated as a general principle, this seems
to be axiomatically true. What would it mean, if
stated in concrete terms? Among other things,
this: young men and women cannot be said to be
prepared for citizenship, unless they are equipped
for some productive work, which will furnish both
a livelihood and personal development, and also
equipped with the ability not only to own a house
but to build a home. Such activities as work and
marriage will occupy more of their time and thought
than all others put together. Unless they are
equipped for these high tasks, how can they be
good citizens?

When Lincoln was asked, “how long a man’s legs
ought to be”; he answered, “long enough to reach
the ground.” If courses of citizenship training are
to be of real value, they should assist young people
to keep their feet on the ground in touch with the
realities of life. Therefore, while the present vol-
ume treats the more obvious and less complex po-
litical activities, it is planned to add to the series
other volumes, which will treat such subjects as
work and marriage. The usefulness of young men
and women as citizens requires that they be prop-
erly related to their work, on which their personal
happiness depends, and properly related to the in-
xiv FOREWORD

stitution of the family, on which the national wel-
fare depends.

The Citizenship Club movement is inspired
by the conviction that patriotism, like religion,
should be liberated from the fatal blight put upon
it by regarding it as a separate business set up
apart from other activities. It will assist in the
difficult attempt to relate patriotism to the common,
but not commonplace, tasks of the day. More than
a half-century ago Professor Turner of Illinois was
the prophet of a big idea, which helped to establish
a new type of public education in America. He
said: “The most natural and effectual mental disci-
pline possible for any man arises from setting him
to earnest and constant thought about the things he
daily does, sees, and handles and all their connected
relations and interests.” The author of this volume
desires to do all he can to enlarge the application
of this formative principle and apply it to patri-
otism, to the end that training in citizenship may
cease to be a detached and artificial process and be-
come a productive process related to nation-building
activities. To this enterprise the Citizenship Club
movement is dedicated.

HENRY E. JACKSON
June 1, 1920
CONTENTS

PAGE
INTRODUCTORY
DECLARATIONS OF LOYALTY ................... vi
FOREWORD) oiscrnjccnoceaaiie ry emaenetn anne see vii
ILLUSTRATIONS
AMERICA’S COAT OF ARMS.............65 Frontispiece
REVERSE OF COAT OF ARMS........ Facing page 2
CITIZENSHIP CLUB EMBLEM, DETAILED
VIEW sisniiconunne nt intantiewanaeats Facing page 48
THE MEDAL OF HONOR.............. Facing page 62
EMBLEM OF CITIZENSHIP............ Facing page 148
FLAG OF LOVE AND HATE........... Facing page 188
PART I—CITIZENSHIP CLUBS
THE COMING: PEOPLE: sisxcasec aavesuane ois tenn 3
CITIZENSHIP AN ACHIEVEMENT................ 3
IDEALISM AND ACTION ............... ec eee ee ees 4
WRITE YOUR OWN BOOK............... cee ee eee 6
AMERICA’S MISSION..........0. cee e cee eeeeereees 8
INVENTORY OF AMERICA...........-..... 000 ees Ir
PRACTICE OF CITIZENSHIP................2.065- 17
AMERICANIZE YOURSELF.................00ee eee 19
HONEST AMERICANIZATION ............0. 20 seco “22
PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE................-. 25
EVERYBODY’S DOING IT........ 0c. c cece cece eee 27
THE ROAD TO FAILURE........., 0. cece eee eee 29
THE, ROAD: TO! SUCCESS sssigisa svemenerawreved ves 31
UNIVERSAL CITIZEN TRAINING................. 35
THE COMMUNITY CENTER..........cee eee eee 38
FESTIVAL OF CITIZENSHIP................eeeeee 42
A BADGE OF HONOR ..........--cseccceesreeeece 46
xvi CONTENTS

PAGE
AMERICAN PIONEERS ............ 00. e eee e eee eee 50
AN UNFINISHED TASK ..............0.0 cece eae 51
EVERYMAN’S AMERICA. .......... 0... cece eee eee 54
PART IT— PREPARATION OF BOOK
(A) WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS:
1. FOUNDATIONS OF OUR GOVERNMENT ......... 63
2. SOVEREIGNTY OF THE COMMON MAN......... « gf
Se Tah teeR eka tis hee arcieoaeemeaaa ene taal te
Bes isc eaten a bt nits & Pere cath abies Casa eseeaat ea Rees
Sin Miseiieted tated Aeon nea anuunWatcacees
6. Poh xR a See daw manta aae eek w
(B) HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED
a. MAKING THE Mippre Crass Dommnant...... 87
2. Ourn TREATMENT OF THE IMMIGRANT......... 107
Bo Ws tacsee Son den tapdacees capa sta danss RIG eS Pk Sonal de
Be Oe ease do aie a Reeek sivas aae eG OAS oa eve
Garth cnkie ota d RE Sia Ne apa Norra Ore Is ICS ears INS
6: rica Mad oe Os ot ach onan aea wham e a4 ate
(C) HOW CAN I REALIZE THEM
x. In THE Lanp or “Just ABOUT”. ............. 119
a. A New Bit oF PARTICULARS ......-...000005 129
3. WaysmDE KinpNEss TO AN ALIEN Boy....... 143
Poise Scns GE Budhana ARE e Sine ese
5. Tic aad atata hai aMonWnemoemmnaiad sie cecum eae
GPs aise adtsdes agua Seweanpantes ee ba eada oe
PART DI—A PROGRAM OF ACTION
THE CREATIVE’ POWER OF IDEAS............. 149
THE BEST METHOD OF VOTING............... 156
AN EDUCATION FOR EVERY CHILD........... 169
SCHOOLHOUSES AVAILABLE FOR USE........ 173
COMMUNITY CENTERS IN OPERATION........ 178

*.These blank spaces are explained in Part I.
CONTENTS xvii

PART IV— APPENDICES afce
(A) A Fiac oF Love AnD Hate ........ ba ies evs mis 189

(B) SUGGESTIONS FOR ORGANIZING A CLUB. ........-.. 194

(C) SUGGESTIONS FOR CONDUCTING A CLUB............5 199

(D) RecEPTION OF NEW CITIZENS........ 000 esc ee eens 203

(E) List oF Books For READING AND STUDY ........... 205

(F) NATIONAL CHARTERS OF AMERICAN FREEDOM ....... 208

1. Declaration of Independence................. 208

2. Federal Constitution.................. scene 213
Part I

CITIZENSHIP CLUBS
“To you from failing hands we throw
The Torch; be yours to hold it high!”
— Lieut. Col. McCrae
 

THE REVERSE SIDE OF OUR NATIONAL COAT OF ARMS,
FOR WHICH NO USE HAS EVER BEEN FOUND UNTIL NOW.
 

 

What America Means To Me

 

Part I
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS

THE COMING PEOPLE

“You are the Spring of our year,” said Pericles
to the young men of Athens. He was statesman
enough to understand that the future welfare of a
nation at any time depends on the opinions of its
young men and women, who are under twenty-one
years of age. They are the coming people. There-
fore, what? The conclusion is not only obvious, but
glares by its persistent importance. A responsi-
bility so big as this ought never to be under-
taken, without conscious and careful preparation for
meeting it.

CITIZENSHIP, AN ACHIEVEMENT

We have assumed citizenship as a birth-right.
It is not the kind of thing to be assumed; it is
the kind of thing to be achieved. Free manhood
suffrage has been bought at the price of blood
through a long arduous struggle. The experience
of men in the mass must be repeated in that of
individuals, who make up the mass. While all

3
4 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

native residents are citizens by birth, they are not
all citizens by nature. Real citizenship is not a
dower, but an achievement; not an act but a process.

Like freedom, it cannot be a gift from one man
to another. Moses did not free a race of working-
men in Egypt; he gave them a chance to make
themselves free. Lincoln did not free the negro
race in America; he gave them a chance to make
themselves free. Citizenship can be achieved only
by personal effort and retained only by the practice
of it. “What thou hast inherited from the fathers,
labor for in order to possess it,” said the wise Goethe.

The necessity for training through organized
self-help and mutual service is paramount. How
shall it be done? The plan here proposed is that
all the young men and women in each local com-
munity, who are about twenty years of age, under-
take the self-recognized task by organizing them-
selves into a Citizenship Club, and, that one year
previous to their entrance into full citizenship, they
pursue a definite course of citizenship training,
guided in the process by a volunteer leader.

IDEALISM AND ACTION

In order to be effective for its purpose, the pro-
posed course of training should consist of two dis-
tinct activities, not separate but riveted together.
It should embrace both theory and practice, neither
one alone, but both together, not idealism and not
action. but idealism in action.
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 5

Training for citizenship naturally suggests a study
of the ideals for which America stands. It must
also include the practice of citizenship, because the
effective way to learn anything is by doing it. The
charm of war for young men is due to three factors
which have a permanent and universal significance.
First, a young man in war does not shoulder a rifle
and go off alone to fight the enemy, he goes in
companies. It is concerted action with his fellows
which satisfies his gregarious instinct. Second, it
is service in behalf of a cause, either good or sup-
posed to be, which is bigger than his own personal
interest. A big national motive satisfies his instinct
of admiration for unselfish idealism. Third, it fur-
nishes a means of recreation and a way of escape
from the routine of standardized life and from the
monotonous grind of modern industry. It appeals
to an instinctive desire for initiative and self-
expression.

Any plan for enlisting young men and women as
soldiers of the common good must include these
three organizing ideas: the chance to do concerted
work in codperation with others, and the adventur-
ous spirit of sacrificial service for an unselfish cause,
and the irrepressible instinct for self-directed ac-
tivity. An instinct if ungratified will atrophy, and
the plan here suggested is intended to utilize the
adventurous altruism of youth for the con-
‘structive purpose of peace.

It is of capital importance that these three
6 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

instincts be harnessed for the nation’s service in
time of peace, for the barbarous custom of settling
disputes by an appeal to brute force can be de-
stroyed only by substituting for it a more excellent
way. A permanently vital need of any nation is
for a workable plan to utilize constructively these
natural and noble instincts of her youth in behalf
of worthy aspirations.

A door of opportunity for the exercise of these
instincts stands open in every local community and
it is here suggested that a Citizenship Club
undertake in concert, as part of its year’s training,
to render a concrete piece of public service for its
community. The choice of the kinds of service pos-
sible for them to render and how to make the choice
will be considered presently, but first it is necessary
to consider the study of ideals, for it is useless to
try to go anywhere, unless we first determine where
it is we want to go.

WRITE YOUR OWN BOOK

In the study of America’s ideals by a Citizen-
ship Club, a book is obviously needed. What
shall it be? The writer knows of no book suitable
for this purpose. What shall we do? Let us pre-
pare the book ourselves. For any one person to
write such a book would be a difficult, if not an
impossible, task.

It is, therefore, suggested that the people pre-
pare their own book. If they do, it will not only
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 7

be a better book for the purpose, but the most valu-
able part of the training in the proposed course of
study will come from this process of self-expression.
We always succeed best in clarifying a subject to
ourselves, when we attempt to express it to others.
So constructed, it will literally be a book of the
people, by the people and for the people.

At first sight it may seem like a new and surpris-
ing suggestion that the people make their own book.
It will not be as perfect or as scholastic or as ar-
tistic, as if it were prepared by an expert. But it
will be a better book for our purpose because of
the training furnished by the process of preparing
it. The reason why so many educational schemes
have produced so little result is because they are
dogmatic impositions of cut and dried plans. The
plan here suggested consciously seeks to avoid this
error. While it clearly states the goal aimed at, it
provides a large degree of freedom and initiative in
the choice of roads leading to it. It is organized on
the principle that education is a process of self-
activity. In dealing with a liberty-loving people
like Americans, no plan of citizenship training is
acceptable, if it is super-imposed from without. It
must be indigenous to the soil. To forget this fact
is fatal. Our aim, let it be remembered, is not the
writing of a book, but the training of young men
and women for citizenship. The book is a by-
product.

The writer undertakes merely to be the editor,
8 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

and will suggest its name and the plan of its con-
struction. The name he suggests, which best states
its purpose and describes its content is “What
America Means to Me.” Emphasis on the last word
of the title. For our purpose is to stimulate all
young men and women, before they assume the re-
sponsibility of citizenship, to make for themselves
a clear answer to this question. Indeed every
member of America should attempt to write an
article or a book on this subject, or codperate with
others in doing so, because of the profoundly per-
sonal significance of the subject. It is the kind of
question each must answer for himself. The
writer suggests that the book ought to contain three
distinctive parts, which are organically related to
each other.

AMERICA’S MISSION

Part One obviously should be, “What are
America’s Ideals”? It should consist of clear state-
ments concerning our nation’s mission, its purpose,
its ideal aims, what it seeks to achieve for human
welfare. Almost every nation at its birth con-
sciously or unconsciously has adopted some big
formative principle, which shaped its organization,
influenced the nature of its various activities, and
determined the worth of its contribution to progress.
In Palestine it was religion; in Greece it was cul-
ture; in Rome it was law.

In America it was, what? It is essential not only
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 9

that an answer to this question be made, but that
the answer take a great variety of forms, so that
it may be clearly understood by all. Unless present
and future citizens clearly understand America’s
dominant purpose, they cannot codperate effectively
to achieve it and much of their effort will be labor
lost.

Moreover, America’s ideal needs to be re-defined
and re-stated continuously, because it is in the
process of constant change. The ideal with which
the nation started is not its ideal today. One
hundred and twenty-five years ago, it included such
elements as human slavery, the denial of manhood
suffrage, property and religious qualifications for
voting, indentured servants and class privileges.
The nation’s ideal today contains elements, which
will be eliminated as we grow towards better ethical
standards. As soon as a nation’s ideal becomes
fixed it becomes false. Living ethical ideals always
move on as we approach them.

It is, therefore, suggested that Citizenship
Clubs, as part of their year’s training for citizen-
ship, undertake a search for a number of the best,
briefest and clearest statements of America’s ideals,
that the search be made not only among the writings
of the nation’s conspicuous leaders, but also the
writings of its inconspicuous citizens, and that
members of the club be encouraged to write their
own statements; that these be kept on file for the
club’s future use; that a member of the club, when
to WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

he submits such a statement be prepared to discuss
it and to defend it against criticism; that when a
statement is discovered, which the club decides has
special merit, a good typewritten copy of it be sent
to the writer, at the Bureau of Education, Wash-
ington, D. C. From these he will select some to be
issued in occasional bulletins and sent to all Citi-
zenship Clubs for use in their training course.
Thus they will serve each other in the common en-
terprise and use their Government as their agent
in the process.

It is also suggested that discussion in a Citizen-
ship Club be conducted according to the rules
for orderly parliamentary débate. The employ-
ment of the Open Forum principle, as a method of
self-education, will yield a by-product of the highest
personal value to the members and will constitute
an essential part of the training for citizenship in
self-governing communities.

Another by-product of equal importance will be
a better knowledge of American history. In general
it can be said truthfully that among all classes there
is woeful ignorance of our own history. If one
should go to a group of average young men and
women and say: “You are distressingly ignorant
of your nation’s history. Here are six good books.
Please read them,” his effort in most cases would
yield just about no result at all. But if he goes to
the same group of young people with an inspiring
practical objective, such as is here proposed, and
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS II

asks them to do a definite service for their Govern-
ment in its efforts to meet a vital public need, they
will incidentally read a large number of books with-
out conscious effort and with increasing joy. They
now see a present practical reason why they should
read the history. After all, are not these young
people right? Is there any good reason, aside from
curiosity, why they should inform themselves about
the doings of men three or four hundred years ago,
unless what these men did has some significance
for the present business of living? Is not this the
real use of history?

AN INVENTORY OF AMERICA

If a study of the nation’s ideals is to have any
practical value, Part Two of our book ought to be
called: “How Much Are They Practiced?” The
next task of a Club is to prepare an inventory of
America, to make a list of its assets and liabilities,
to determine how many of our ideals we have put
into operation or how many applications of our
dominant ideal we have made, what distinguishing
achievements are there, which we can be proud of
and rejoice over. Side by side with the assets should
be placed a list of our liabilities, those respects in
which we have fallen down, the number of ideals
which we have failed to practice, the applications
of our dominant aim which we have not yet suc-
ceeded in making.

This process requifes that Part Two consist of
12

achievements and one on her failures.

WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

two sets of parallel statements, one on America’s

These state-

ments, for example, will be on such subjects as the
following:

3e

Assets

Making the middle class
the dominant and only
class without an internal
revolution.

Universal opportunity for
free popular education.

The most successful experi-
ment in Federated Repre-

Liabilities
Unjust treatment of im-
migrants.

Failure of Representative
Government to represent
all the people.

Lack of a free press.

Lack of a free pulpit.

sentative Government for a
longer period of time than

has as yet been made 5. Failure to apply democracy

to industry.
4. Entrance into a World
War with the declared pur- 6. Failure to democratize
pose of securing no ma- credit.

terial advantage but solely
to serve the ideals of 7.

democracy.

Failure to employ a just
system of taxation.

It is, of course, obvious that there will be a great
divergence of opinion as to what constitutes the
nation’s assets and liabilities. There will be groups
of men among whom it will be always impossible to
secure agreement on any such “bill of particulars.”
But the suggestion here made is that those items
be selected for treatment, about which there is
manifestly a general agreement among the majority
of citizens. In a country like America it ought not
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 13

to be a difficult task. If it should be discovered
to be impossible to make such a list of the nation’s
assets and liabilities, it is high time that this fact
become known. Such a negative result would be
a decided and positive contribution to the nation’s
welfare.

In determining the items to be included in such
a list our guiding principle should be to give first
place to moral and spiritual assets, and include
material assets only in so far as they have a mean-
ing for our main purpose. It is simple and easy
enough to set down the number of miles of railroad
built, or number of tons of coal mined or the amount
of gold produced. These material facts may or
may not have a helpful significance. It is true that
the adventures of the nation’s pioneers both ex-
hibited and developed heroic and spiritual qualities,
which. constitute an inspiring national tradition.
But the significant question is the use which is made
of the resources they opened up. This is not a
study of mechanical efficiency but of social effi-
ciency. It is a study of America as a society. The
test of any nation, viewed as a society, is the op-
portunity it gives the average man and his ability
to appreciate it. The nation’s assets and liabilities,
therefore, ought to be stated in terms of human
welfare. Bigness is not greatness. Miles of rail-
roads and tons of coal are not measures of civiliza-
tion; men and women are.

A true standard for a study of the nation’s real
14 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

values was well stated by Professor Huxley in his
message to the nation, delivered in our Centennial
Anniversary year, at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore. He said:

“To an Englishman landing on your shores for
the first time, traveling for hundreds of miles
through strings of great and well-ordered cities,
seeing your enormous actual, and almost infinite po-
tential wealth in all commodities, and in the energy
and ability which turns wealth to account, there is
something sublime in the vista of the future. Do
not suppose that I am pandering to what is com-
monly understood by national pride. I cannot say
that I am in the slighest degree impressed by your
bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is
not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation.
The great issue about which hangs a true sub-
limity, and the terror of over-hanging fate, is what
are you going to do with all these things? What
is to be the end to which these are to be the means?”

The study of America as a society is a new field
of inquiry at once helpful and fascinating. Why
such an inspiring study should have been neglected
so long is somewhat puzzling. For this neglect there
is no justification, but there is a sufficient reason,
into which it is unnecessary here to enter. It is
refreshing to notice that some students of America
are beginning to recognize that at least there is such
a field of study and that it is of paramount im-
portance.
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 15

The editors of “American Ideals,” * after making
a wise selection of our political documents, make
this significant remark about them: “One cannot
but confess that these expressions of the ideals that
have guided us in the past and are animating our
action in the present are somewhat deficient in
clarity of purpose. Emerson said that ‘America is
another word for opportunity,’ and the phrase has
often been repeated — but who inquires, ‘Oppor-
tunity for what?’ There is another sentence of
Emerson’s that is even more deserving of repeti-
tion: ‘It is not free institutions, it is not a republic,
it is not a democracy, that is the end,—no, but
only the means.’ If Emerson is right, what is the
end — what, at bottom, has the American tradition
as its goal?”

The purpose of a Citizenship Club, in the
study of America as a society, is to inquire how
the society is promoting the welfare of its members
with reference to their “life, liberty and pursuit of
happiness,” and to assist each local cross-section
of America to transform itself into a society, whose
chief aim is the welfare of its members.

If a study of the nation’s achievements and fail-
ures is to have any real value, the one indispensable
requirement is that we be entirely candid and honest.
Honesty may be a disturbing policy, but it is the
safe one. Only the stupid or the wilfully blind
would maintain the position that America had made
no failures. Only the enemies of progress would

* By Foerster and Pierson
16 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

insist that these failures ought not to be freely ac-
knowledged. For if America is already perfect,
there is nothing left for the young men and women
to do, when they come into full citizenship. It is
the inspiration of the imperfect which will stimu-
late them to undertake their new task with intelli-
gence and enthusiasm. Honesty and patriotism
demand that we acquire the habit of seeing things as
they are. Not to try to do so is immoral. The
only way to overcome difficulties is first of all to
clearly see them.

There never has been a time more than now, when
it is so essential that all nations make an honest in-
ventory of their assets and liabilities. They are now
forming a Society of Nations. They will want to
have a worthy standing in this Society. When they
apply for membership in it a compulsory inventory
of their qualifications will be made in the World
Court of public opinion. It would be less embar-
rassing if each nation began to make a voluntary
inventory of itself, to indicate its honest desire to
increase its assets and raise its standing among its
fellow member-nations.

It may be safely assumed, therefore, that we are
agreed that the attempt to set forth honestly the
nation’s failures should never be made for the sake
of negative criticism. No one believes in diagnosis
for the sake of diagnosis, any more than, as Ches-
terton says, a man believes in amputating for the
sake of amputating. The purpose of diagnosis is
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 7

to discover what is wrong with the patient for the
sake of removing his trouble. An honest inventory
of any community’s assets and liabilities is the nec-
essary basis for a constructive program of action.

THE PRACTICE OF CITIZENSHIP

A study of America’s ideals and her departures
from them or failure to operate them, will naturally
lead any member of a Citizenship Club to ask:
“How can I help realize them?” This ought to be
the title of Part Three of our book.

It is, therefore, suggested that the members of a
Citizenship Club ought to select as part of
their year’s training, some definite piece of service
for their community’s welfare, which they can
render in concert. The nature of this service must
be determined by the needs of each community.
A detailed programme for all communities, of
course, would be impossible, because they differ so
widely. There will be no difficulty in discovering
what to do, provided there is courage and honesty
enough to look at things as they are. The only
difficulty will be to decide what to undertake first.
The writer is of the opinion that he can go into
any average community and after a study of twenty-
four hours suggest a programme of action to its
citizens, which will occupy them for five years.

There are certain kinds of activities essential to
training for citizenship in all communities alike.
18 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

Young men and women ought to equip themselves
with information on the use of the voting machinery
and how the voting process may be improved; with
information on the structure and operation of their
town, county, state and federal governments; with
information on world politics and the organization
of international relations in which their country is
vitally concerned, and in which they may be called
at any time to play a part even to the laying down
of their lives, as in the recent World War. [If all this
machinery is to be used for worthy purposes, citi-
zens must know how to use it. It is because the
use that is made of it may affect a nation profoundly
either for good or evil, that a knowledge of its use
is so essential. ;

In addition to these general activities in citizen-
ship training it is suggested that a definite task * be
undertaken to meet some particular need of each
community. To furnish interesting material for this
part of our book, Citizenship Clubs are _ re-
quested to send the editor a description of the prac-
tical activities they undertake in order that clubs
may pool their experiences and stimulate each other
in a friendly rivalry to serve the common welfare.
One of the first and obvious services which young
men and women in all communities alike can render
is to agree to meet together for one year of hard
training for citizenship. If the youth of all classes,
who are twenty years old, would meet for this pur-
pose, this act would exhibit our democratic ideal in

* See Part II.
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 19

operation and create a community morale, which
is the key to concerted action in any practical en-
terprise.

AMERICANIZE YOURSELF

Does this proposed plan mean that all the young
men and women of a community, both native-born
and resident alien, shall take the same course of
training together? Certainly. Why not? Are they
not to be citizens of the same country? America’s
only original residents are Indians. All the rest
of us are resident aliens. Immigrants ought to
have a fellow feeling for each other, the earlier for
the later comers. To create and operate such an
attitude is the key to success in any attempt at
Americanization. We study the works of Michael
Angelo in our art clubs and colleges, but to sustain
a neighborly relationship to his fellow countrymen
on the next street is a highly embarrassing process.
We sing the songs of David in our churches, but to
treat with courtesy his fellow countrymen, who
venture into our public assemblies, is an acid test
of our sincerity, which we find it difficult to endure.

Citizenship means no more or less than member-
ship in America. If the older members agree to
receive later comers into membership and then re-
fuse to treat them like members, they are hypo-
crites. They make a complete divorce between
their theory and practice. They are living a lie,
zo WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

which cuts to the quick the feelings of any self-
respecting man. Is it surprising, therefore, that
their patronizing or forceful attempts to do some-
thing for aliens instead of with them should so fre-
quently be futile or resented?

After the above passage was written, the writer
was thrilled to discover that the suggestion made
in it has been put into operation and its value
demonstrated with telling effect. It has been done
in the new educational section of the army camps,
recently inaugurated, and destined to become a real
People’s University of untold value to the nation.
The non-English speaking aliens and the illiterate
Americans are trained in the same class. Within
the short space of six months these boys are able
to write letters, read the newspapers and make an
effective public address. In the process they dis-
covered that racial and national distinctions are su-
perficial, and that the platform of intelligence and
common human need is the big American idea.

So strikingly beautiful are the results achieved,
that four teams of these young men have been se-
lected from Camp Upton and formed into “Ameri-
cans All” squads. They will be sent by the army
on a chautauqua tour during the summer to tell their
story. In order to placard before the eye the
central fact about them, I quote the names of the
“Third Squad.” They comprise six nationalities,
but they are Americans all. Their names are sig-
nificant.
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 21

Sergt. Karl A. Pettersson, Sweden.

Corp. Jerry Little, Kentucky.

Prvt. Graham Allen, North Carolina.
Prvt. Ljobomir Antonijevich, Serbia.
Corp. Nicholas Zorg, Greece.

Sergt. Harry T. Huffman, South Carolina.
Prvt. Rudolph Dziedzinski, Poland.
Prvt. George Seleno, Spain.

Those who have heard the story of these young
men from their own lips, will understand how diffi-
cult it is to hear it with dry eyes. It makes one
feel that America is operating, and so long as this
process continues the country’s future is safe. The
suggestion here made, therefore, is not only a beau-
tiful ideal, but also an actual fact. What has been
done in army camps can be done in other com-
munities in any stage of mental development. If
our boys can fight for democracy in France, can
they not also go to school for democracy in
America?

Our hope lies in American youth. Young people
,are natural democrats and have generous impulses.
For the success of American ideals it is a significant
fact that it is not to the cautious calculating men
of experience, but to the vision-seeing chivalrous
youth, who have not yet exchanged their ideals for
their comforts, that the great moral movements of
history owe their greatest debt. If young men and
women will refuse to permit themselves to be cor-
22 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

rupted by the artificial standards of adults, they can
lead the way to a solution of one of our serious
national problems.

It is in order to keep the suggestion of this ideal
before them, that a tri-band circle is placed on the
cover of this book. It is the proposed symbol of
the Community Center Movement. It is made up
of the national colors, to suggest that work con-
ducted on the community basis is distinctly a na-
tional service, for then America is put into opera-
tion. The colors are arranged in a circle to suggest
that this service can best be rendered when one’s
sympathies and activities are limited only by a non-
exclusive circle, which embraces the entire com-
munity. It is the effective way, by which the
enemies of America may be outwitted, as Edwin
Markham suggests:

“He drew a circle that shut me out,
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout;

But Love and I had the wit to win,
We drew a circle that took him in.”

HONEST AMERICANIZATION

If Americanization work is not to be merely a
patronizing piece of charity work or an act of self-
protection, undertaken through fear and operated
through force, it must be conducted on a new and
different policy than that which has guided most
of it hitherto. The fact is that the term “Ameri-
canization,” now carries such a complexity of con-
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 23

flicting meanings, that it has become a handicap
to the cause it represents. The word has been so
misused that some communities have begun to
abandon its use altogether.

This is well. For aside from the false and harm-
ful methods, which have given the word an un-
worthy content and significance, the term itself
carries with it a suggestion of egotism, which
cripples the aim it seeks to serve. It suggests an
attitude, which many workers in this field have ex-
emplified, an attitude which, if expressed in words,
would lead native Americans to say to resident
aliens, “Look at us, we are perfect, we want you to
be like us. If you do not voluntarily try to make
yourselves be like us, we will compel you to do so.”
To practice this ‘policy is not only dishonest but
futile. Emerson once said to a father, “You are
trying to make your son to be another you. Don’t,
one’s enough.”

If instead of expressing this dogmatic and ego-
tistical attitude, we should say to resident aliens;
“We lay no claim to perfection ourselves. But our
country is dedicated to ideals, embodied in our Dec-
laration of Independence and the Sermon on the
Mount, which we sincerely believe are vitally im-
portant not only to us, but to the welfare of all
mankind. We frankly confess that we have not
yet attained them. We invite you to join us that
we together may strive to understand them and put
them into operation.”
24 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

The affirmative and hearty response to such an
attitude is a foregone conclusion. It is honest and
real Americanization. It is a frank acknowledg-
ment of what is quite obvious to intelligent resident
aliens, that native Americans need Americanization
quite as much as they do. Some of them need it
more. It is vastly easier to teach English to resi-
dent aliens, who want it, than to teach social sym-
pathy to native Americans who do not want it. It
would be a decided gain, if we disregarded the in-
definite and partly-false term ‘Americanization,”
and substituted for it the term, “Training for Citi-
zenship,” which definitely states what the resident
alien and native born both need more or less, and
which in any case is a paramount need of both
classes.

The reason why effective Americanization work
must be done by contagion rather than by teaching
was stated by President Wilson, with his usual clear
insight, when he said:

“My interest in this movement is as much an
interest in ourselves as in those whom we are trying
to Americanize, because if we are genuine Ameri-
cans they cannot avoid the infection; whereas, if we
are not genuine Americans, there will be nothing
to infect them with, and no amount of teaching, no
amount of exposition of the Constitution — which
I find very few persons understand — no amount of
dwelling upon the idea of liberty and of justice will
accomplish the object we have in view, unless we
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 25

ourselves illustrate the idea of justice and of
liberty.”

PUT YOURSELF IN HIS PLACE

It is obvious that Americanization, as soon as it
is stated in terms of citizenship, means vastly more
than teaching English to resident aliens. To teach
them our language is only a detail in the process.
It is an important detail, for a blind man can see
that there must be a means of communication
among citizens of the same country. But it is only
a detail nevertheless. To understand and practice
the ideals of the Declaration of Independence is our
goal. The main highway, which leads to this goal,
was well stated centuries ago, in a by-law of the
Hebrew Republic.

It says: “Love ye, therefore, the resident alien
for ye were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.”
This law does not say; teach them the language of
the land; — this is assumed as obviously necessary.
It says; make love the principle of action, establish
free trade in friendship, sit by their side, put your-
self in their place, extend to them the right hand of
fellowship, make them feel that they belong. This
is a language all can readily understand without any
help from the rules of grammar. For the lack of
a better word we may call this psychological prin-
ciple social sympathy. The meaning of this term
is clearly indicated by John Dewey, when he says;
“The chief constituent of social efficiency is intelli-
26 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

gent sympathy or good will. For sympathy, as a
desirable quality, is something more than mere feel-
ing. It is a cultivated imagination for what men
have in common and a rebellion at whatever un-
necessarily divides them.” It will be nothing short
of a new and vital discovery when we perceive with
Dewey that this quality is the chief constituent of
social efficiency. It is the inescapable necessity for
successful work with resident aliens as with any-
body else. Without it all our efforts will be like
drawing a harrow over frozen ground. This prin-
ciple is so simple and essential that it would not
need to be stated were it not for the fact that we
are constantly stumbling over it without seeing it.
Indeed it is only too probable that it will constitute
the chief stumbling block in the way of Citizenship
Clubs.

Because this is a key principle to their success
and because the obvious is always the last thing to
be discovered, I quote a forceful statement of it
from an American magazine:

“Nor will compulsory ‘education’ in the English
language and in American political and social ideas
have any valuable effect. For loyalty was never
the harvest of compulsion. A man may wear a
prison garb for years without acquiring a taste for
stripes.

“The only way to make a man an American is to
receive him as one. No man can be a loyal member
of a society to which he does not belong. The road
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 27

to membership is through participation. Take the
newcomer on the committee, elect his wife a member
of the mothers’ club, get him to help the agitation
for a local playground. He will learn more in one
week of service as a citizen than in twenty years
of being told about it. Bring on your English
lessons. You will find that he will eat them up and
come back for more.

“Americanization is not merely a matter of lan-
guage or of information upon a form of government.
It is a matter of receiving the spirit of a nation into
the soul. And the human soul cannot be burglar-
ized: we must find the combination. That com-
bination will read something like ‘justice, participa-
tion, mutual respect.’ ”

EVERYBODY’S DOING IT

As soon as we acquire an open mind and a
friendly spirit and when as a consequence we dis-
cover, that all are in need of some sort of special
preparation for citizenship, we will also discover
that we have removed the chief obstacle in the way
of successful work with resident aliens and native
illiterates. They are extremely sensitive about their
handicapped condition. When we segregate them
in classes by themselves, we make them still more
conscious and sensitive. They begin to feel like
defectives and they lose their self-respect. It is,
therefore, not at all surprising that they have here-
28 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

tofore so frequently refused to respond to such
pointed missionary efforts. These charity methods
have been well-intentioned, but mistaken. They
have disregarded the psychology of human nature.

If on the contrary we should say to these back-
ward classes, “‘we are all engaged in the same enter-
prise of training ourselves for citizenship. Every-
body’s doing it. Each one is equipping himself with
the thing he most needs. If you happen not to know
how to read and write our language, that of course
is a necessary preliminary and a means to the end
we all have in common. You ought to acquire it
as quickly as possible so that you can join us in
other and more important kinds of preparation. But
while you are acquiring it, we, like you, are seeking
to acquire something else, which we need just as
you need the language.”

To approach the task of Americanization in this
spirit of genuine appreciation of the other man’s
need, is a guarantee of success in the attempt to
serve him. It recognizes the fact that we are gre-
garious animals. No man likes to be put into a
class by himself. It recognizes the fact that the
differences among us are differences not of kind but
of degree. This is the exact truth of the matter and
honesty is the winning policy in all social enter-
prises.

The central fact which demands frank recognition
is that an unlettered man may be a very able man
and worthy of our highest regard. This sentiment
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 29

never found expression in literature till Gray wrote
his “Elegy written in a Country Church Yard,” but
it needs reiterated emphasis, because it is one of the
great commonplaces, always admired and always
neglected. ‘The chief and the indispensable equip-
ment for successful work with resident aliens and
native illiterates is a knowledge of Gray’s “Elegy,”
and the acceptance of its formative idea as a work-
ing attitude.

THE ROAD TO FAILURE

If Americanization work should be based on the
common needs of all for training in citizenship, it
at once becomes evident that this principle rules
out a method now in general practice and explains
why this method fails in its aim. It means that
no employer as such ought to wonduct any Ameri-
canization work directly with his employees. The
employer who attempts it may have a good motive,
but his judgment is bad. His effort is based on the
principle of Feudalism. It is un-American and is
fore-doomed to failure.

The writer is not forgetful of the fact that there
are a few exceptional employers, who place the
public interest above their private profit and who
are achieving notable results in assisting their em-
ployees to become better citizens. But they are
the exceptions, which prove the rule. ’

In general the principle holds true that an em-
ployer is in no position to undertake any work of
30 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

this kind. The relationship existing between him
and his men disqualifies him for the task. The re-
lationship is frequently one of open warfare. It
may become such at any time. At the best it is
one of armed neutrality. The men are suspicious
of him. They think his aim is to make money out
of them. They interpret his attempt to educate
them as an effort to make them more efficient
workers in order to exploit them the more. So long
as the present organization of modern industry con-
tinues to exist, this attitude of mutual suspicion will
naturally continue. It is a perfectly logical product
of the system in operation.

At any rate such is the fact, and nothing 1s so
convincing as a fact. Large amounts of money
are being spent by factories for “welfare” work and
every kind of device is used to stimulate a response
to their efforts. It is mostly money wasted and
labor Jost. The response is meager and painfully
unsatisfactory. A large eastern city appropriated
a hundred thousand dollars for Americanization
work and planned to open night schools. Those in
charge of the work sent announcements of the plan
through the pay envelopes of the men invited to
attend. The night the schools opened, almost none
of the men attended. It was a dismal failure, and
those in charge of the work wondered why. Their
plan of operation was in open violation of the prin-
ciple here stated. The result was unexpected, but
not at all surprising.
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 31

Many employers are impractical enough to con-
tinue to waste their money and make no attempt to
discover the reason for the failure of their efforts —
a discovery they could easily make by asking the
men. But there are some employers who have
begun to understand and who frankly confess that
this is the kind of work which their position pre-
vents them from conducting with any degree of suc-
cess. They have begun to see and say that it must
be done by some outside independent agency.

To discover this is a decisive step towards prog-
ress. It is quite as important to know how not to
do a thing as to know how to do it, and often it is
the first thing necessary to know. This discovery
recognizes the fact that Americanization means not
the making of an efficient workman but a better
citizen. A good citizen is something other and dif-
ferent and bigger than an efficient worker. A good
citizen will be a good workman, but efficiency in
work must be a by-product, not the chief and ex-
clusive product.. When we have learned to put first
things first, and second things second, and to put
the public above the private interest, we have ceased
to travel the road to failure. If then this work can
be done successfully not through a private but a
public agency, what shall it be?

THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

It seems obvious that the agency which ought to
conduct Americanization work is America.. But
32 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

usually the obvious is the last thing to be dis-
covered. By America we mean the public, the
people as a whole, the community, using any agency
which represents all the people and not a part of
them.

For this reason the best agency through which to
do Americanization work, or rather train for citizen-
ship, is a Community Center, that is, an association
of all the citizens using the schoolhouse as the com-
munity capitol. It is our one democratic institu-
tion. It is non-partisan, non-sectarian, and
non-exclusive. It is owned and supported by all the
people and, therefore, furnishes a place where all
the people can meet on terms of self-respect. It
is the people’s meeting-house, the community’s
home.

It is, therefore, suggested that a Citizenship
Club ought to be conducted as an activity of the
Community Center. The nature of the objective is
such that it logically requires the work to be or-
ganized on a citizenship basis. If a local district
does not have in operation a Community Center, it
ought to proceed to organize one. If it should start
a Citizenship Club, it is probable that the club
would naturally expand into a Community Center.
It needs to be kept clearly in mind that this is a
citizenship enterprise and should be conducted on
a public basis.

When it is understood that Americanization work
ought to be done not through private but public
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 33

agencies, this ought not to mean that an employer
should cease to contribute largely to its support.
Instead of spending money to do the work in his
factory, he should give the money to a public agency
like the Community Center. It would require only
half the amount and produce twice as much result,
if the money should be expended in this way. More-
over, the contribution should be made not as a gift
of charity but as an act of justice, with no strings
attached to it. The employer, when he imports
large numbers of foreign and negro laborers into a
community, imposes on the community a large ad-
ditional expense in the schools, the hospitals and the
courts. Employers ought in fairness to pay their
just share of the expenses for which they are re-
sponsible. If they sincerely desire their workmen
to become better citizens, as well as better work-
men, they will not insist on doing Americanization
work after the manner of feudal lords, which leads
to failure, as history demonstrates it always has
done, but be willing to have it done in the American
way, which is a guarantee of success.

The plan of citizenship training through Citizen-
ship Clubs here suggested is primarily designed
for young men and women who are about twenty
years of age, organized on a community basis, and
using the schoolhouse for their activities. This is
earnestly recommended as the simple, direct and
ideal plan of procedure, calculated to produce the
best results. Nevertheless, there may be in many
34 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

communities smaller groups of young people, al-
ready associated as in a church or other institution,
who could make an effective use of the plan.

Moreover, there are other groups of people to
whom the plan will be of service. High school
students in their Civics and History departments
could use the plan to real advantage. It would
supplement their regular Civics and History courses
and give to them a practical and concrete applica-
tion. It furnishes just what they need for their
home work in these studies.’

Before this book comes from the press, the women
undoubtedly will have acquired the franchise. In
all parts of the country they have an earnest and
commendable desire to fit themselves for their new
duties as citizens. The Citizenship Club plan
of training is commended to them as suited to ac-
complish their purpose. It is equally adaptable to
the needs both of adults and youths.

The degree of development is so various that in
many communities it will be found necessary to
grade Citizenship Clubs. For effective work
young men and women will need to be organized
in clubs according to their stage of development.
But the same plan can be used by all. Its dis-
tinguishing characteristic is that it is at once simple
and profound. The results obtained in any case
will be whatever the members are capable of making
them. The plan is simple enough for the immature
and the mature cannot exhaust it.
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 35

UNIVERSAL CITIZEN TRAINING

A little thought makes it increasingly apparent
that the need of training for citizenship in a country
like ours is universal and that it is an unending
process. Even the young men engaged in military
training need it. Indeed they need it more than
any other class. The essence of the military theory
is obedience to a person. The essence of democratic
theory is obedience to law. The citizen is certain
to be lost in the soldier, therefore, unless he is given
the chance for training in citizenship.

It is most gratifying to know that the plans for
the new volunteer army include not only courses in
special vocational subjects, and courses in general
cultural studies, but also courses in definite train-
ing for citizenship. The aim is to fit these young
men for civilian life, when their period of military
training is completed. To those in charge of devising
these courses of study, the plan here suggested is
earnestly commended. It is hoped that the entire
volunteer army will be organized into graded Citi-
zenship Clubs so that side by side with compulsory
military discipline, the young men may have a de-
gree of freedom for self-development. ‘“The walls
of Sparta are built of Spartans,” sang an old poet.
Likewise the walls of America are built of Ameri-
cans. It may have been possible to make Spartans
by the arbitrary method of running them all into
the same mould. Americans cannot so be made.
36 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

An American is not that kind of a product. The
proposed course of training here suggested is built
on the democratic plan of self-activity by which
young men are given the chance to make Americans
out of themselves, which is the only way Americans
can be made.

Even for the sake of making efficient soldiers,
training in citizenship is indispensable. In a demo-
cratic country like America, no man can be a good
soldier who is not also a good citizen. Military
discipline alone produces an automaton, and an
automaton never is a good soldier. An intelligent
sympathy with American ideals is the chief equip-
ment of an American soldier. A man will fight well
for what he knows and loves. The morale which in-
spired our soldiers in the World War was their love
of liberty. For this reason the technically trained
soldiers of Germany were no match for American
soldiers with half the training. For the same reason
during our Revolutionary War the professional sol-
diers of Europe could not stand up against the
liberty-loving but poorly-trained American farmer
boys. Napoleon was statesman enough to perceive
that, ‘Morale is to force as three is to one.”

When it was proposed in the British Parliament
to send to the American Colonies new supplies of
guns and ammunition, as the thing needed to secure
victory, William Pitt arose and made the illumi-
nating remark: “We must reckon not so much on
the number and quality of our guns as on the senti-
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 37

ment for liberty in the hearts of American Soldiers.”
The spirit in their hearts was the decisive factor in
the fortunes of the war. To acquire an understand-
ing of America’s ideals and a devotion to them is
a spiritual process, not a military exercise, and to
secure the desired result, it must be conducted on
some such democratic plan as that here suggested
for the use of Citizenship Clubs.

The truth of the principle here contended for
was demonstrated in dramatic fashion in the ex-
perience of our soldiers in France. If they wish to
turn their experience to good account in behalf of
the nation’s future welfare, and if the American
Legion would avoid the fatal mistake of living
wholly on the memory of the past, it could achieve
these results in no better way than by making their
organization a School of Citizenship and help to
father the movement of citizenship training for all
young men and women through Citizenship
Clubs. The memory of a great past is the inspira-
tion of a great present. The past achievement of
members of the American Legion puts them in a
position to render conspicuous service in the present
and it has inspired them to do so. If the awakened
desires and generous inspirations with which they
have returned to America are not to atrophy and
die, they must find expression in concrete form.
The task of universal citizen training and real
Americanization for all is suggested as the most
practical and the most fitting way in which their
38 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

aspirations may be harnessed for the Nation’s ser-
vice in meeting its greatest need.

THE COMMUNITY CENTER

While the Citizenship Club idea can be used
effectively by groups of young people in churches
and other private institutions, by the American
Legion, by the volunteer army, by women voters,
and ought to be used in any way which is most
feasible to our complex social order, yet the best
use of it and the one for which it is primarily de-
signed is its use as an activity of the Community
Center. This means its use by all the young men
and women, both native born and resident alien, in
any local community associated together on the
basis of citizenship. There is an organic unity be-
tween a Community Center and training for citizen-
ship. The purpose of the Community Center move-
ment is to equip with the capacity for citizenship
all men and women, especially those who need it
most. This obviously is what Americanization
ought to mean. No Citizenship Club, therefore,
unless it is compelled to, should voluntarily handi-
cap itself by losing the advantage of association
with a Community Center.

This plan of operation ought to be followed
wherever possible. It is the ideal and effective plan.
It exhibits in practice the central principle for which
the movement stands. The most potent way to
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 39

promote an idea is not to preach but to practice it.
The Community Center is the best plan yet devised
for effective training in citizenship and real Ameri-
canization, not only for resident aliens, but for all.
There are two ways to sell goods: describe them in
words, or display them to the eye. Which method
is the more effective goes without saying. If we
want to “sell” the American idea to resident aliens,
the effective way is to exhibit it to them in opera-
tion. Show them a real Community Center, which
is America in miniature.

The process of Americanization is quite simple if
Americans were willing to have it so. It may be
difficult, but it is not complex. The average resi-
dent alien is prepared to go seventy-five per cent
of the way towards the goal. He is prejudiced in
our favor. It is true that some of them come to
America for the sake merely of making money.
Likewise there are some employers who for the sake
of making money out of them imported them like
cattle until the law stopped the process. They still
induce them to come and they import negroes in
carload lots, colonizing them about industrial
plants. Both of these classes — the money-seeking
immigrant and the exploiting employer — belong to-
gether and constitute a moral menace to the nation.
It is a serious danger against which the nation
ought to protect itself by special legislation.

For our present purpose these two classes may
be disregarded, because they present a special prob-
40 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

lem by itself and because it is an impossible task
to Americanize either a resident alien or an em-
ployer, whose god is money. But the average resi-
dent alien, the one with whom we are here
concerned, comes seeking liberty, education, self-
development. This is what lured him to our shores.
Take such a man and show him a Community
Center and he will say: “This is what I was looking
for; this is what I dreamed America was like before
I came; this is democracy in operation; it is brother-
hood at work.” Such a candidate for membership
in America does not need to be preached at or com-
pelled or persuaded. He is eagerly seeking what we
ought to be willing to give him. We do not need
to force him to take what he took all the trouble
to come here for the express purpose of getting.
For this reason resident aliens can render a par-
ticular service in helping Americans to keep them-
selves Americanized. Coming here to escape
oppression in Europe, they are dominated by the
same motive that actuated America’s first settlers.
With this point of view they understand America’s
original ideals and can make them clear to those
Americans who exhibit a tendency to forget them.

President Wilson expressed the resident aliens’
true attitude to America by representing them as
saying: “We are going to America not only to earn
a living, not only to seek the things which it was
more difficult to obtain where we were born, but
to help forward the great enterprises of the human
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 41

spirit— to let men know that everywhere in the
world there are men who will cross strange oceans
and go where a speech is spoken which is alien to
them, if they can but satisfy their quest for what
their spirits crave; knowing that whatever the
speech, there is but one longing and utterance of the
human heart, and that is for liberty and justice.”
Men, who come to America actuated by a motive
like this, create no problem; they present an oppor-
tunity. The fact that we have come to regard it
as a problem is a clear indication that we have
fallen down in the task. As soon as we begin to
think of the problem in terms of opportunity, we
shall be on the road to its solution. If Citizenship
Clubs are organized on the Community Center
principle, associating all the young men and women
on a basis of citizenship alone, it will be a winsome
exhibition of the true spirit of America, and further
our avowed purpose more than anything else that
could be said or done. Real Americanization work
will advance with surprising rapidity as soon as
we ourselves are willing to put America in operation
‘in our own communities.

The eager joy with which resident aliens respond
to the American spirit, when they see it in opera-
tion, may be illustrated by a little incident experi-
enced by Judge Wendell Phillips Stafford. He went
to see the statue of Lincoln by Gutzon Borglum, at
Newark, New Jersey. He saw that our great typical
American so exhibited the nation’s ideals that even
42 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

the children of aliens understand and respond. The
charming incident was so suggestive of a great fact
that he described it for us in his poem, —“One of
our Presidents”:

He sits there on the low, rude, backless bench,
With his tall hat beside him and one arm

Flung thus across his knee. The other hand

Rests flat, palm-downward by him on the seat.
So Aesop may have sat; so Lincoln did.

For all the sadness in the sunken eyes,

For all the kinship in the uncrowned brow,

The great form leans so friendly, father-like,

It is a call to children. I have watched

Eight at a time swarming upon him there,

All clinging to him—riding upon his knees,
Cuddling between his arms, clasping his neck,
Perched on his shoulders, even on his head;

And one small play-stained hand I saw reached up
And laid most softly on the kind bronze lips

As if it claimed them. These were children — yes—
Of foreigners, we call them, but not so

They call themselves; for when we asked of one,
A restless dark-eyed girl, who this man was,

She answered straight, “One of our Presidents.”

Let all the winds of hell blow in our sails,
I thought, thank God, thank God, the ship rides true!

FESTIVAL OF CITIZENSHIP

On the completion of the year’s course of training
it is proposed that a public meeting be arranged on
the anniversary of the Nation’s birthday — July
the Fourth. It is the Citizenship Club’s Com-
mencement Day, when those who have worthily
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 43

completed the course of study and who are twenty-
one years old, shall be formally received into full
membership in America and given the right hand
of fellowship into its rights and duties.

Among the candidates for this public honor, those
shall be deemed worthy to receive it, who shall have
attained a certain degree of excellence during the
year of training. This will be determined by the
guide or leader of the club. This, of course, im-
plies that some will need to repeat the year of study,
and some may need to repeat this process more than
once. It will be found that young people have a
keen sense of justice and do not want to receive
an honor which they have not earned.

It is unnecessary and unfitting to suggest any pro-
gram for this ceremony. American people have
ideas of their own. These programs will assume a
great variety of forms according to a community’s
needs and tastes. A few items will naturally sug-
gest themselves as suitable everywhere. For ex-
ample, an address by some man or woman on the
subject “What America Means to Me,” so that
young people may see what America means to
adults. Such speakers should be selected by the
Citizenship Club itself. It is suggested also
that those, who are received into citizenship, ought
to repeat in concert a Declaration of Loyalty, such
as “The American’s Creed,” or “The Ephebic
Oath,” used by the young men of Athens on a
similar occasion, both of which will be found in the
44 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

introductory pages. Both of these could be used to
advantage, because one refers primarily to the na-
tion, the other to the local community. The “Free-
man’s Oath” ought likewise to be used to express
loyalty to the ballot box. In this connection a poem
like Whittier’s “Poor Man on Election Day,”
could be used with telling effect to accentuate the
priceless value of free manhood suffrage as the in-
strument through which to achieve orderly reform.

The chief purpose of this public ceremony is to
confer citizenship as a degree upon those who have
taken a course of training for it.* A Citizenship
Club is a real People’s University. The dominant
motive for its creation is the challenging idea ex-
pressed by Jefferson that “if the people expect to
be free and independent and at the same time ig-
norant and illiterate, they are expecting something
that never has been or ever can be.” Its purpose
is to enlarge the average man’s opportunities and
his capacity to appreciate them; to make it possible
for all citizens, both native and foreign born, when
speaking of the United States, to say “my country”
and to mean what they say; to say it not only with
honesty, but with such a degree of enthusiasm as
to be willing to put the interests of “my country”
above the interests of “myself.” It is altogether
fitting, therefore, that a university of the people,
such as a Citizenship Club aims to be, should

* A suggested address for this ceremony will be found in
Appendix D.
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 45

confer citizenship as a degree upon those who in
this school shall have made themselves fit to receive
it.

In a country like America, to conduct a course of
training leading to the degree of citizenship, is not
only appropriate but a paramount necessity. The
poet Byron said the glory of America lies in the
fact that “America is unkinged, unchurched and un-
soldiered.” Here every man is king over himself;
every man is a policeman in plain clothes. Democ-
racy is the rule of brother citizens over themselves.
It is obvious that the success or failure of our ex-
periment in democracy depends primarily on the
intelligence and character of the average man. It
is also obvious that citizenship in America is not
only a big responsibilty, but a high honor.

When, therefore, a young man or woman arrives
at twenty-one and enters into full citizenship, it is
an event which we ought not to permit silently to
pass by unrecognized, as we now do. It is an event,
the importance of which should be made conspicu-
ous and celebrated by a public ceremony which shall
be a real festival of citizenship. It is highly sug-
gestive that when Paris and London recently desired
to honor President Wilson, they conferred on him
the title “Citizen of Paris,” ‘Citizen of London.”
They could think of no more distinguished honor to
bestow on the head of this great Republic. In
order to placard this significant fact before the eye
and make it still more impressive, the very hand-
46 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

some gold emblem, presented to our President by
the City of London, is reproduced in this book by the
President’s special and cordial permission.

America’s welfare depends most of all on the de-
gree to which we are able to make citizenship to be
and to be recognized as the highest of human
honors. To help achieve this end is the purpose of
the proposed commencement ceremony of Citizen-
ship Clubs. The act of conferring citizenship as a
degree on the newly naturalized and the newly en-
franchised alike, will stimulate those receiving it to
value it at its true worth. It will mean also a re-
valuation of citizenship for many adults, to whom
it has become a commonplace possession. It is
hoped that in every community this annual festival
will become its biggest social event and most in-
spiring public ceremony.

A BADGE OF HONOR

In order to accentuate the meaning of citizenship
and the importance of preparing for it, it is sug-
gested that when the degree of citizenship is con-
ferred, each one receiving it should be presented
with a medal in recognition of their achievement.
When one has completed a course of study, or done
a piece of public work, or served for a period in a
war, it is quite in accordance with human nature for
him to want a token of recognition to keep as a
memorial. He does not render the service for the
sake of the token, but he enjoys having it.
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 47

What would be a good token appropriate for this
purpose? It is gratifying to discover that we have
one ready made to our hand, as if it had been de-
signed today for the use of Citizenship Clubs.
It is the Coat of Arms of the United States, which
is likewise the Coat of Arms of every American
family. Almost immediately after the Declaration
of Independence was passed, that is, on the after-
noon of July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress ap-
pointed a committee to prepare a design for it. But
from that day to this the reverse side has never
been used. No die for it has ever been cut by the
Government. While both sides are significant for
our purpose, it is the unused and forgotten reverse
side which has pointed application to Citizenship
Clubs.

In the United States the Coat of Arms is also
used as the Nation’s Seal in its official business by
order of the President. The Secretary of State is
its custodian and it is affixed only to documents
which bear: the President’s signature. At the time
the Great Seal was adopted, June 20, 1782, two
sides were provided for by the creating act. The
reason for the two sides was the fact that it was
then the common custom among nations to use a
pendent seal of wax with an impression on either
side of it. But in attaching such a seal to a treaty,
the wax would inevitably break, if it were unpro-
tected, so it is enclosed in a metal box usually of
gold or silver, highly ornamented, and this is at-
48 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

tached to the treaty with ribbons. This makes a
cumbersome document. Our practical Yankee in-
stinct for efficiency led us to abandon its use. With
the exception of a brief period of thirteen years,
the Government has used, both for treaties and all
other State documents, only one side of the Seal,
affixing it directly to the paper itself.

Because only the obverse side of the Seal has
been employed in sealing documents, as well as for
other reasons, the reverse side has never been en-
graved by the Government. It has a singular his-
tory. It was prescribed as part of the Seal by the
original Act of 1782, but went unnoticed. When
the Act of 1789 continued the Seal as prescribed by
the Continental Congress, the reverse side was not
designed or cut, and when the Act of 1884 made
an appropriation “to obtain dies of the obverse and
reverse” of the Seal, the Department of State did
not cut the reverse side, but left this part of the
law unexecuted, as the original law had been for a
hundred years.

Because a thing has not been used for more than
a hundred years is no reason why it should not be
utilized, whenever an appropriate use for it has been
discovered. It is hoped and believed that a most
fitting use for the reverse of the seal is now dis-
covered in connection with the Citizenship Club
Movement. When the Continental Congress made
the obverse of the Great Seal to be the national Coat
of Arms, it was the intention that it should be
‘jepoul & se asn ‘Tepo v st asn
S]t lof JoUUdIG “(] 10}91A Aq pausisap SH JOY JoUUIIG, “( 10} A Aq paustsop
SULLY JO ]8OD S,LIWIWY JO APIS as1aAdy SULLY JO ]VOD S,LINOWY JO Apts as19Aq4Q

 
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 49

commonly used by the people just as the flag is. It
is no doubt true that the reverse side of the Seal
may not be as capable of artistic and effective treat-
ment. But the design of both sides is symbolic and
heraldic and the emblems have a suggestive mean-
ing for America’s ideals, but the emblems of the
reverse side have a particularly fitting significance
for Citizenship Clubs.

To carry out the purpose of the founders of the
Republic in the use of the Seal which they designed,
will do honor to their memory. It is use which
consecrates a gift. In order that our National Coat
of Arms may be made available for use by Citizen-
ship Clubs, the well-known metalist, Victor D.
Brenner, maker of the die for the Lincoln cent, has
been instructed to make dies for both sides of the
Coat of Arms. From them a medal in bronze will
be struck by the United States Mint at Philadelphia.
In order to safeguard its meaning, it will not be put
on public sale, but be furnished at the cost of pro-
duction and distribution, to members of Citizen-
ship Clubs only. It is suggested that a Citizen-
ship Club can each year elect to honorary mem-
bership from its own neighborhood one man and
woman, or more, who have rendered conspicuous
service in behalf of the practice of citizenship and
the promotion of community ideals, and that the
Club at its Fourth of July Commencement may
bestow on them the Honor Medal in public recog-
nition of their service. This act will help to accen-
50 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

tuate the meaning of the medal and exhibit the
ideals for which it stands. The act of the founders
of the Republic in designing a Coat of Arms for the
new nation, with no precedent to follow, indicates
a unique fact about America, which has special sig-
nificance in the study of the Nation’s ideals in
preparation for citizenship.

AMERICAN PIONEERS

The fact that on the afternoon of July 4th, 1776,
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jef-
ferson were appointed a Committee to design a Na-
tional Coat of Arms is a typical fact and illustrates
a truth about America’s origins and ideals, which
distinguishes them from those of any European na-
tion. That is to say, the building of America is
a recent event. Its history from the beginning lies
open to view. The origins of other nations lie
hidden in the mists of a dim and distant past
clouded by mythical traditions. Ours lie wholly in
the field of modern history, with all the facts ex-
posed to view and with clearly defined ideals per-
sonified in a breed of heroic men and women.

Professor Charles A. McMurry is quite justified
by the facts, when he says: “No other country has
had such a pioneer history, such a race of men as
the early Friends, the Virginians, the Puritans, the
French, the Scotch-Irish, pushing westward to sub-
due and civilize a continent. . . . In all its stages,
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 51

it has been a period of hardships and danger, calling
out the most adventurous spirits and putting men
of large physical and moral calibre under the ne-
cessity of exhibiting in bold relief their individual
traits. Such men were La Salle, Boone, Penn, Clark
and Lincoln. . . . Our first American History be-
longs to the heroic age. It was the blossoming time
for deeds of individual heroism. . . . The best na-
tions of Europe were sifted by persecution in order
to find seed fit for the planting of these colonies
from which the United States derive their tradi-
tions.”

Our pioneer period furnishes an abundance of
rich material for understanding our national ideals.
In any course of training for citizenship this ma-
terial should be given large and thoughtful consider-
ation. No material is better suited for the purpose.
American pioneers left us a rich legacy. It is an
inspiring national tradition.

AN UNFINISHED TASK

Our pioneer nation blazed a trail and opened a
new road to freedom. Our unfinished task is to
keep this road open. The nature of the task —
bequeathed to each succeeding generation of Ameri-
can young men and women is suggested by the
National Coat of Arms. Therefore its use by Citi-
zenship Clubs is designed not to be merely a token
of recognition, but to serve a high spiritual purpose.
52 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

For this reason the emblems on the Coat of Arms
should be understood and their significance noted.

They are all suggestive of the nation’s ideals. It
will be observed that the escutcheon is borne on the
breast of an American eagle without any other sup-
porters. This denotes that the only support which
the nation needs is the character and intelligence
of her own citizens. It symbolizes the belief that
only by education for mental and moral power can
a democracy hope to endure. The scroll in the
eagle’s beak with the motto, “E Pluribus Unum,”
and the bundle of: thirteen arrows in its left talon,
symbolize the neglected but indispensable principle
in a democracy, that strength comes through con-
certed action. The idea was suggested to Jefferson
by one of Aesop’s fables. A father called his family
of discordant sons about him, and taking a bundle
of rods bound compactly together bade each one
try to break it, which none could accomplish. He
then gave each one a single rod from the bundle,
which was of course easily broken.

On the reverse of the Seal, in the zenith, is an eye,
in a triangle. It is an adaptation of an ancient
symbol of the overseeing God: Over it is the motto,
“Annuit Coeptis” adapted from a statement of Vir-
gil. Both symbol and motto express the conviction
that God has favored the Nation’s undertakings,
that the hand of God is in American history, that
America’s experiment in democracy and the King-
dom of God are one and the same. The date of
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 53

the Declaration of Independence in connection with
the motto, “Novus Ordo Seculorum,” expresses the
conviction of the Nation’s founders, that a new
order of things had been inaugurated for the pro-
motion of human welfare.

The central symbol is a pyramid to signify per-
manence. It is unfinished. It contains the chal-
lenge of an unfinished task. This is the most
significant symbol for Citizenship Clubs. It
contains the challenge to all young men and women
of America to finish the task the nation’s pioneers
began, to carry on the progress of nation building
not by the addition of more land but by the creation
of a better social order.

This challenge to “carry on” the unfinished busi-
ness of our original pioneers is an irresistible call
and is forever repeating itself in the burning words
of new pioneers on behalf of the same cause. The
most telling recent expression of it was made by
John McRae’s “In Flanders Fields”:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
54 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

Take up our quarrel with the foe!

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high!

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Citizenship Clubs could not have a more in-
spiring motto than that symbolized on America’s
Coat of Arms and expressed by John McRae:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high!
This motto has been engraved on the Medal of
Honor. Where shall the work of finishing this un-
finished task be carried on? It is no doubt easier to
die in Flanders Fields than to live in one’s local
community for the same ideals, but the call to
members of Citizenship Clubs is a call to the harder
task.

EVERYMAN’S AMERICA

Everyman’s America is his local community. If
America does not operate there it cannot be said to
operate anywhere. The history of America is just
the history of her villages written large. Where
will you practice your citizenship? Can you all
come to Washington or to your State Capitol?
There are more patriots in these places now than
is good for the Nation. If all should leave the
ranks, there would be no nation left. It is neither
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 55

possible aor desirable for average citizens to prac-
tice citizenship, except in local communities. The
most effective way to influence public policies is
through the people back home, for ours is a govern-
ment by public opinion. It is critically important
to see clearly that to put America into operation in
local communities is the unfinished business of the
nation.

“Such is the patriot’s boast, where’er we roam
His first best country ever is at home.”

A Citizenship Club should take its cue not
from Tennyson’s pessimistic poem, “Locksley Hall,”
in which the young man fooled himself into thinking
he would be all right if he could only get far enough
away from where he was then. It should take its
cue from his optimistic “Locksley Hall Sixty Years
after,” in which the same young man made the revo-
lutionary discovery that his own home soil is where
the great work of the world is done. Of course, to
put American ideals into operation is difficult and
dangerous business. That’s why it’s worth while.
Otherwise it would contain no challenge for red-
blooded men and women. Youth is not discouraged
but inspired by difficulties. The buoyant attitude
of courage with which Citizenship Clubs will
undertake their task is expressed in Charles Fer-
guson’s refreshing words: “The spirit of the Age
is saying to its children, Have faith. Make your-
self at home. This is your own house. The laws
56 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

were made for you, gravitation and the chemical
affinities, not you for them. No one can put you
out of the house. Stand up, the ceiling is high.”

With such a spirit all things are possible; without
it nothing is possible. This creative spirit will con-
struct its own working program. The need and
stage of development in local communities are so
various that it is obviously impossible to make any
detailed program of practical activities and such
an attempt would violate the democratic plan of
self-activity, on which Citizenship Clubs are
constructed. But there are two clear organizing
principles to guide any club in making its own pro-
gram without difficulty. One applies to the indi-
vidual citizen, the other to the Nation.

From the standpoint of making citizens for the
Republic our organizing principle is to select those
minimum qualities essential for citizenship in a
democracy — such qualities, for example, as the
following:

The capacity for self-support.

The power to think for oneself.

The habit of mental hospitality.
Knowledge of the laws of the social order.
Information concerning health and sex.
An ethical view of money.

The spirit and method of co-operation.

OY a Ce

~
°

If all the young men and women of any community
do not have the chance to acquire these qualifica-
CITIZENSHIP CLUBS 57

tions for citizenship, let the Citizenship Club
set itself the high task of giving them that chance,
and furnish them the studies and activities which
will cultivate these qualities.

The other guiding principle applies to the nation,
that is, to the community as such, and may be stated
thus. Let us suppose that an unexpected visitor in
an aeroplane from somewhere, no matter where, was
flying over North America. He had intended to
make a non-stop flight, but he develops engine
trouble. He is compelled to make a landing. He
lands by accident in your community, not knowing
where he is. He asks you where he is. You answer
that he is in America.

“America,” he exclaims in a tone of expectant
joy. “I have heard much of America,” he says.
“This is an unlooked for pleasure. Since circum-
stances have made me a visitor, I shall use this
chance to gather some information. And since this
will be my only stop in your country, I shall be
compelled to assume that your community is typi-
cal of America, that this is a cross-section of your
nation, America in miniature. It is necessary for
me to base my impression of America on what I
see here. Please show me what institutions and
activities there are in your community, which will
give me a correct idea of American ideals.”

Would such a visit and such questions embarrass
you or not? Would they make you feel pride or
shame on account of your community? What in-
58 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

stitutions or customs have you which you would
show him and which you think would exhibit
America to him? Have you any which you would
be willing to have America judged by? Be definite
and honest. Name them, one, two, three. If there
are no institutions or customs which would give
such a visitor a fairly accurate idea of what America
is, if your community is not now a typical cross-
section of America, then it has a definite clear-cut
task to occupy its thought and challenge the sin-
cerity of its patriotism for the next twenty-five
years. Certainly one of the first leading questions
which such a visitor would naturally ask is this:
“In a free county like yours, where the average
man and now the average woman decides on public
policies and elects public officials, you undoubtedly
have, for the sake of your self-preservation, but I
want to know for sure whether there is an organized
activity to train coming citizens for the intelligent
discharge of this high duty?” If you must confess
that your community makes no attempt to meet
this obvious and critical need in a country like ours,
if such an activity glares by its absence, well, then,
you need no one to point out your civic duty; your
program is ready made to your hand. This is your
first big task. Arise, let us proceed to meet it, and
to organize a Citizenship Club.
PREPARATION OF A BOOK
(A.) WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS?

1. Foundations of our Government.
— THomMAS JEFFERSON

2. Sovereionty af the Camman Man
“It is only too probable that no plan w
adopted. If to please the people we offer
disapprove, however can we afterwards defen
us raise a standard to which the wise and hor
event is in the hand of God.”

— Ga
FOUNDATIONS OF OUR
GOVERNMENT
POS. a

II.

-_
.

III.

I

es
=

SO MI ARRAYS H

OUTLINE OF CONTENTS

Tue Common Goop
Rights of the minority
Necessity of affection
Political tolerance
Safety in reason

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT

Its weakness

Its strength

(a) Obedience to law

(b) America’s advantage
Why Government is needed.

EssENCE oF Goop GovERNMENT
Exact justice

International friendship
Ballot-box safe-guarded
Majority rule

Civil authority first

Public economy

Agriculture basic

Informed public opinion
Freedom of opinion and person
Impartial jury trial

Test oF ADMINISTRATION
62
“dq THSNAZILIO AO MSVL AHL YOU ONINIVUL TVIOTdS AO ASUNOD S Uvaa TInd

ANO 40 NOILATANOD TNASSaTDONS WITHL 4O NOILINSODTY NI santo
dIHSNAZILIO JO SUAANAW WOT AINO GANDISIA MONOH JO TVGEN FHL

 
FOUNDATIONS OF OUR GOVERNMENT *

By THoMAS JEFFERSON

Durinc the contest of opinion through which we
have passed, the animation of discussion and of
exertions has sometimes worn an aspect which
might impose on strangers unused to think freely
and to speak and write what they think; but this
being now decided by the voice of the nation, an-
nounced according to the rules of the Constitution,
all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will
of the law, and unite in common efforts for the
common good, All, too, will bear in mind this
sacred principle, that though the will of the ma-
jority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be
rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority pos-
sess their equal rights, which equal law must pro-
tect, and to violate which would be oppression. Let
us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and
one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that
harmony and affection without which liberty and
even life itself are but dreary things. And let us
reflect that, having banished from our land that re-
ligious intolerance under which mankind so long

* From the First Inaugural Address, 1801.
63
64 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we
countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as
wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody perse-
cutions. During the throes and convulsions of the
ancient world, during the agonizing spasms of in-
furiated man seeking through blood and slaughter
his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the
agitation of the billows should reach even this dis-
tant and peaceful shore; that this should be more
felt and feared by some and less by others, and
should divide opinions as to measures of safety.
But every difference of opinion is not a difference
of principle. We have called by different names
brethren of the same principle. We are all Repub-
licans, we are all Federalists. If there be any
among us who would wish to dissolve this Union
or to change its republican form, let them stand
undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which
error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is
left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some
honest men fear that a republican government can-
not be strong, that this Government is not strong
enough; but would the honest patriot, in full tide
of successful experiment, abandon a government
which has so far kept us free and firm, on the
theoretic and visionary fear that this Government,
the world’s best hope, may by possibility want
energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe
this, on the contrary, the strongest Government on
. earth. I believe it the only one where every man,
WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS 65

at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of
the law, and would meet invasions of the public
order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it
is said that man cannot be trusted with the govern-
ment of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the
government of others? Or have we found angels
in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history
answer this question.

Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue
our own Federal and Republican principles, our
attachment to union and representative government.
Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from
the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe;
too high-minded to endure the degradations of the
others; possessing a chosen country, with room
enough for our descendants to the thousandth and
thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of
our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to
the acquisitions of our own history, to honor and
confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not
from birth, but from our actions and their sense of
them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed,
indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of
them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, grati-
tude, and the love of man; acknowledging and ador-
ing an overruling Providence, which by all its
dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness
of man here and his greater happiness hereafter —
with all these blessings, what more is necessary to
make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one
66 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal
Government, which shall restrain men from injuring
ane another, shall leave them otherwise free to
regulate their own pursuits of industry and improve-
ment, and shall not take from the mouth of labor
the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good
government, and this is necessary to close the circle
of our felicities.

About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of
duties which comprehend everything dear and valu-
able to you, it is proper that you should understand
what I deem the essential principle of our Govern-
ment, and consequently those which ought to shape
its Administration. I will compress them within
the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the
general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal
and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or
persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce,
and honest friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none; the support of the State gov-
ernments in all their rights, as the most competent
administrations for our domestic concerns and the
surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies;
the preservation of the Central Government in its
whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of
our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care
of the right of election by the people—a mild and
safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the
sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are
unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions
WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS 67

of the majority, the vital principle of republics,
from which is no appeal but to force, the vital prin-
ciple and immediate parent of despotism; a well-
disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and
for the first moments of war, till regulars may re-
lieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the
military authority; economy in the public expense,
that labor may be lightly burdened; the honest pay-
ment of our debts and sacred preservation of the
public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of
commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of infor-
mation and the arraignment of all abuses at the
bar of public reason; freedom of religion; freedom
of the press, and freedom of person under the pro-
tection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries
impartially selected. These principles form the
bright constellation which has gone before us and
guided our steps through an age of revolution and
reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood
of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment.
They should be the creed of our political faith, the
text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which
to try the services of those we trust; and should
we wander from them in moments of error or alarm,
let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the
road which alone leads to peace, liberty and safety.
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE COMMON MAN
II.

IIT.

IV.

OUTLINE OF CONTENTS

THe New AMERICAN IDEAL

National standards
Value of a man

Tue GERMAN IDEAL
Efficiency

(a). Titles for occupations
(b). Theory and practice
(c). Discipline of duty

THE ENcLisH IDEAL
Noblesse oblige

(a). Individual freedom
(b). How to rate a man

Aristocracy of merit
(a). Open down and up
(b). Conspicuous service

Tue AMERICAN IDEAL

A man’s a man for a’ that

(a). The common man

(b). Spiritual possibilities

(c.) Air of expectancy

(d). A possible great man

(e). Inspired by the future.
70
SOVEREIGNTY OF THE COMMON MAN *

By FrEeLix ADLER

Tue American nation is really a new and dis-
tinctive nation, and not merely a branch of Anglo-
Saxondom. But new and distinctive in what re-
spect? Surely in the presence and operation
amongst us of a new ideal of life, differing from
that of other peoples—a new American ideal,
which may be contrasted, for instance, with the
German and English ideals. Let me enlarge upon
this contrast, in order to bring out the difference.

By the ruling ideal I mean especially that which
has to do with the standard by which the place of
a man in the social scale is determined; the grounds
on which he rises or descends in social esteem, and
more or less in his own esteem.

There are, of course, certain general standards
of evaluation which prevail the world over which
here may be taken for granted. In every society
men of wealth, rightly or wrongly, enjoy greater
social prestige than poor men. The world over, per-
sonal charm, affability, courteous manners, etc.,
count. But these are universal credentials. What

* From his book: The World Crisis and Its Meaning. D. Ap-
pleton and Company, New York.

91
72 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

we are here concerned with are the peculiar national
standards. As the different nations have different
standards for ‘measuring things, such as the pint
and the liter, the meter and the yard, so different
peoples have different measures for determining the
value of a man. And these national standards let
in light on the deeper tendencies that move in a
nation’s life.

The German ideal, roundly speaking, is that of
efficiency. The social value of a man is determined
by his occupation, his task, and the measure of his
proficiency in it. There are lower and higher tasks.
There is the occupation of the laborer, the artisan,
the merchant, the university professor, the king.
In Germany a man counts according to the dignity
of his task and his ability in the performance of
it.

The system of titles prevailing in any country, or
the absence of any, is a most interesting index of
national psychology. In England there are very
high-sounding titles, but observe that they stop
short just above the middle class. In France there
is a shadow remaining of the titular system in the
decorations of the Legion of Honor. In the United
States there are no titles—a point on which we
shall dwell later. But in Germany the titles run
vertically from the top almost to the lowest stratum.
Above the indiscriminate proletariat almost every-
one has a title. Why is this? For the reason that
a man’s title refers to his occupation, to the work

2
WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS 73

he does; and the occupation determines how he is
rated, the degree to which he counts. The titles of
nobility were originally derived from the military
occupation. The physician, when he has attained
a certain eminence in his profession, is entitled
Medicinalrath. The merchant is decorated with the
title of Kommercienrath. Then there is the Finanz-
rath, the Justizrath. But it is important to remark
that further down the same method is still in use.
The builder is called Herr Baumeister, the engineer
Herr Ingenieur. Even the janitor expects to be ad-
dressed as Herr Hausmeister. The title is that
which entitles a man, or indicates the degree to
which a man is entitled, to social consideration. And
the fact that the title is elaborately spread out on
the address of letters, is engraved even on the tomb-
stone after a man is dead — the title which desig-
nates the occupation — is evidence of the intimate
connection upon which I am laying stress, in analyz-
ing the psychology of the German ideal, between
the task and personal value.

The matter of efficiency needs to be further de-
fined by two determining factors. The German
people, as everyone acknowledges, are a highly in-
tellectual people. Their peculiar kind of efficiency
is the fruit of the invariable combination of theory
and practice on which they lay such stress, the
intellectual penetration of every task. They do not
rely as much as others do on knack, ingenuity, or
rule of thumb. They investigate with minute pa-
74 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

tience the scientific conditions that underlie every
practical problem. They base work on science.
They endeavor to think out beforehand every step
of the process. It is for this reason, for example,
that they have taken the lead in the chemical in-
dustry. It is said that in one of the great chemical
works on the Rhine several hundred chemists are
constantly employed in the laboratories conducted
by the firm. It is the same in minor occupations.
Germany is covered with a network of vocational
schools for tailors, carpenters, bricklayers, plumbers
and barbers, all having for their object to train
those who are employed in these occupations in such
scientific principles as may be of use to them in the
performance of their daily work.

The second factor that determines the German
conception of work, and of efficiency in work, is
discipline — not the discipline of an external force
imposed upon the worker, but a call to which he
is expected to respond of his own accord. The task
lays certain obligations upon him who would per-
form it well. To rise to these obligations is disci-
pline. Laboriousness, punctuality, patient endur-
ance of fatigue, persistence, suppression of the play
instinct, the overcoming of inertia and of the ten-
dency to wander off in thought during the hours of
work — these are among his ever-present conscious
duties. The idea of the obligation laid upon the
worker by his task is the essence, as I understand
it, of that great though perhaps narrow conception
WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS 75

of Pficht und Schuldigkeit, which plays so promi-
nent a role in German literature and in German life.
Pficht und Schuldigkeit signified primarily the duty
and the debt which lie upon the worker to perform
life’s specific tasks, whatever they may be. The
king in his cabinet acknowledges this obligation, the
common laborer is expected to subject himself to
it. No wonder that Kant, the German philosopher
par excellence, expressed in the language of his
philosophical system, in the sublime apostrophe con-
tained in his Ethics, that supreme conception of
duty as an absolute peremptory fact not to be
shirked, which fits so fully the feeling of obligation
as it is inherent in the German people.

It should be added, however, that the Germans
are also disposed toward mystic religion. Some of
the chief mystics — Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Jacob
Boehme — were Germans. A recent French critic
points out that the starting point of Protestantism
was a mystical experience of Luther’s. Goethe’s
poetry is deeply charged with pantheistic feeling;
Wagner’s music is expressive of cosmic mysticism.
Now mysticism seeks to submerge the self in the
all, to obliterate the sense of particularity. It there-
fore lies in the direction exactly opposite to the
tendency toward specialization and particularization
which has been dwelt upon as the main feature of
German life. Mysticism may be characterized as
the holiday occupation of the German soul seeking
to get free of the bonds by which it is habitually
76 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

tethered, to escape into wide open universal spaces
and to extricate itself from the local enchainment of
the task. It is a recoil against the habitual ten-
dency. In the case of every people there are such
reactions, which should be included in complete ac-
count.

The national ideal of the English may be de-
scribed as that of xoblesse oblige. We are again,
of course, attempting but a kind of shorthand
sketch, a picture in the Impressionist manner. Eng-
land is the dean of political liberty among the
nations. She was the earliest to establish parlia-
mentary government, and her own political institu-
tions, and those of the self-governing colonies
— that is, of the ten or twelve million whites out-
side of England — have come to be more and more
the expression of liberal ideas. This is, of course,
not true of the three hundred and fifty millions of
the races subject to Britain, who are not accorded
self-government, but are ruled on the principles of
benevolent despotism. But in the United Kingdom
itself political liberalism is firmly rooted. The suf-
frage has been again and again extended, until it
is now almost as inclusive as in the United States.
Nowhere in the world are the personal rights of the
individual better protected. The Englishman is far
more jealous of any infringement of his liberties
than the American.

Nevertheless, the question to what extent the
individual shall possess rights and shall be rep-
WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS 77

resented in the Parliament that enacts the laws to
which he is subject, is one question; and the ques-
tion on what grounds he shall count among his
fellows is another. There are marked inequalities
of consequence and consideration in England, and
here we get closer to the national ideal. How does
England rate a man?
Once more, the system of titles, differing in Eng-
land from that which is in vogue in Germany, gives
us aclue. There are dukes, marquises, earls; there
is plain Sir Thomas or Sir John, the baronet. And
there is a constant creation of new peers and
baronets. Even Mr. Bryce, the great student and
eulogist of democratic commonwealths, is finally
transfigured into Lord Bryce. John Morley be-
comes Lord Morley. ie
The French, on the famous night of the fourth
of August, abolished their aristocracy at one stroke,
a number of nobles themselves sacrificing their
titles on the altar of country. But the English, with
all their progress in democratic institutions, have
never abolished their nobility. Who, in sensing the
national ideal, can overlook the meaning of this out-
standing fact, its tribute to the ideal of the
noblesse? Here is a noblesse in the traditional
sense, an ancient hereditary aristocracy as the
nucleus, and around it, in far greater numbers, crys-
tallized as about a core, a modern zoblesse of dis-
tinction in statesmanship or statecraft, in war, in.
commerce, also in literature, science and art —
78 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

Lord Kelvin, Lord Tennyson, Lord Leighton — and
this noblesse is looked up to as the culmination of
English society, permeating all the people down-
ward with its influence, and still possessing con-
siderable power in the political sphere.

It is as though the English were to say: “In the
constitution of every human society there must be
an irrational element; pure rationality is not
feasible in human affairs, it exists only in the
dreams of visionaries. Now grant us as our irra-
tional element a small number of persons counted
as of the highest rank from the mere accident of
birth, without regard to their merit, and let us use
this irrational element as a magnet in order to
gather around it a real aristocracy of distinction in
all the walks of life.’ The English nobility has
been distinguished from that of the continent by the
free passage it has kept open downward among the
people and upward from the people; downward be-
cause the title, whatever it be, is vested only in a
single heir; the younger sons of peers being thrust
down among the commoners; and upward because
the ranks of the nobility are open, or at least associ-
ation with the nobility is open, to men of power
from whatever class. John Burns, the leader of the
London dock strike, became a cabinet minister, and
if he had stayed long enough might have ended by
becoming Lord Burns.

The English idea, therefore, would seem to rep-
resent, subject to the inhibitions of political lib-
WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS 79

eralism, the social predominance and, to a large
extent, the political influence of the masterful men,
of men who have gained the ascendant, each in his
own class, of those who in the competitive struggle
have risen to the top. The wealthy brewer may be
among the number, the successful merchant, Ram-
say MacDonald, perhaps, the powerful laborite.
England is in this sense governed from the top,
governed from above downward, however controlled
by the mass.

The reason why titles do not extend in England
as they do in Germany all the way through, but
stop at the middle class, is now apparent. In Ger-
many efficiency is the standard by which personal
consideration is measured, and any man may be
efficient in the performance of his task. In Eng-
land, mastery, ascendancy is the test, and all those
who have distinctly gained the ascendancy are
decorated with titles and congregated at the top.
But those who are below are not therefore despised.
Their personal rights are safe. Their rights as
electors are undisputed, their right to control and
check every action of their leaders; but in point of
social consequence, of value as individuals apart
from rights, they are the ones who, if they have not
failed in the struggle, at least have not conspicu-
ously succeeded.

The temper of this democratized English nobility
—I refer to the more recent developments, and not
to ancient times — is on the whole generous. The
80 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

art of government is treated as a fine art. Men
of large landed property or of independent wealth
set the pace, and infuse their spirit into the ruling
class. The watchword is, not government by the
people, but government for the people, and in Eng-
land and the colonies, subject to the control of the
people, government in a large, disinterested fashion.

In turning now to the national ideal of America,
we discover that this defines the value of a man to
consist, not in what he has achieved, nor in his
ability to rise above others, but simply in his quality
as a human being. America tends to appraise per-
sonality, not by what has appeared on the surface
of a man’s life, not by the apparent, but by the
unapparent, not by the actualization, but by the
spiritual possibilities, and in respect to the area of
possibilities all human beings are alike.

The American ideal is that of the uncommon
quality latent in the common man. Necessarily it
is an ethical ideal, a spiritual ideal; otherwise it
would be nonsense. For, taking men as they are,
they are assuredly not equal. The differences be-
tween them, on the contrary, are glaring. The
common man is not uncommonly fine spiritually,
but rather, seen from the outside, “uncommonly”
common. It is therefore an ethical instinct that
has turned the people toward this ethical conception.

It is true that in Germany and in England, side
by side with the efficiency and the mastery ideals,
there has always existed this same spiritual or re-
WHAT ARE AMERICA’S IDEALS = 81

ligious ideal; side by side with the stratification and
entitulation of men, the labeling of them as lower
and higher, as empirically better or worse, there has
always been the recognition that men are equal —
equal, that is to say, in church, but not outside,
equal in the hereafter but not in this life. If we
would fathom the real depth and inner significance
of the democratic ideal as it slumbers or dreams in
the heart of America, rather than as yet explicit,
we must say that it is an ideal which seeks to over-
come this very dualism, seeks to take the spiritual
conception of human equality out of the church and
put it into the market place, to take it from far-
off celestial realms for realization upon this earth.
For men are not equal in the empirical sense; they
are equal only in the spiritual sense, equal only in
the sense that the margin of achievement of which
any person is capable, be it wide or narrow, is in-
finitesimal compared with his infinite spiritual pos-
sibilities.

It is because of this subconscious ethical motive
that there is this generous air of expectation in
America, that we are always wondering what will
happen next, or who will happen next. Will an-
other Emerson come along? Will another Lincoln
come along? We do not know. But this we know,
that the greatest lusters of our past already tend
to fade in our memory, not because we are irrev-
erent, but because nothing that the past has accom-
plished can content us; because we are looking for
82 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

greatness beyond greatness, truth beyond truth ever
yet spoken. The Germans have a legend that in
their hour of need an ancient emperor will arise out
of the tomb where he slumbers to stretch his pro-
tecting hand over the Fatherland. We, Americans,
too, have the belief that if ever such an hour comes
for us there will arise spirits clothed in human flesh
amongst us sufficient for our need, but spirits that
will come, as it were, out of the future to meet our
advancing host and lead it, not ghosts out of the
storied past. For America differs from all other
nations in that it derives its inspiration from the
future. Every other people has some culture, some
civilization, handed down from the past, of which
it is the custodian, and which it seeks further to
develop. The American people have no such single
tradition. They are dedicated, not to the preserva-
tion of what has been, but to the creation of what
never has been. They are the prophets of the fu-
ture, not the priests of the past.
(B.) HOW MUCH ARE THEY
PRACTICED?

1. Making the Middle Class Dominant.
— Henry WARD BEECHER

2. Our Treatment of the Immigrant.
—- Epwarp A. STEINER
“T loved my country, so as only they,

Who love a mother fit to die for, may;

I loved her old renown, her stainless fame,
What better proof than that I loathed her shame.”

— James Russett Lov
MAKING THE MIDDLE CLASS
DOMINANT
WO NY py

II.

itt.

IV.

bn S op x

OUTLINE OF CONTENTS

DEVELOPMENT THROUGH EDUCATION

In Egypt

In Greece

In the Middle Ages

(a). Ignorant men unsafe

EDUCATION BECOMING GENERAL

Results in Russia
Method of trial and error
The law of growth

ALERTNESS IN AMERICA

Effect of climate
Passion for money
Stimulation of politics

Our Great EXPERIMENT

Solution in common schools
The individual, not society
Weakness of legislators

SELF-GovERNMENT, THE BEST

Right to make mistakes
Learning by doing

86
AN ASSET

MAKING THE MIDDLE CLASS
DOMINANT *

|
By Henry Warp BEECHER

THE earliest attempt to develop men, on purpose,
was in Egypt, so far as we know. The Egyptian
school has all the marks in it of antiquity and of
primitive development, for it was limited in the
numbers admitted and limited in the topics taught.
Only the royal family could go to the schools of
Egypt. That included, of course, the priesthood;
and putting aside some slight mathematical teach-
ing, it is probable that mysteries and superstitions
were the whole subjects taught, and that mainly to
teach men how to be hierarchs or rulers of some
sort. When we cross over the sea to Greece, at a
period much later, though how much we know not,
we find that schools had developed, and that the
idea of making more of men than natural law makes
of them, or the casual influences of human society
— the attempt directly to train intelligence and to
produce knowledge — was farther advanced; for
anybody could go to a Greek school that had the
means to pay — anybody but slaves and women:

* From an address delivered in Exeter Hall, London, 1886.
87
88 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

they trained very near together in antiquity, and
they are not quite far enough apart yet. And yet
I am bound to correct myself when I say that
women were not privileged; they were. It is prob-
able that in no period of human history has more
pains been taken with the education of women than
was taken in Greece. In all their accomplishments,
in learning, in music, in the dance, in poetry, in
literature, in history, in philosophy, even in states-
manship, women were very highly educated, pro-
vided they were to live the lives of courtesans. The
fact is simply astounding that in the age of Pericles
intelligence and accomplishments were associated
with impudicity, and were the signs of it, and that
ignorance and modesty were associated ideas. If
a woman would have the credit of purity and up-
rightness in social relations she must be the drudge
of the household, and if any woman radiant in per-
sonal beauty and accomplished, fitted for conver-
sation with statesmen and philosophers, appeared,
it was taken for granted that she was ac-
cessible. .

We hardly can trace the unfolding of human in-
telligence after it plunged into that twilight or dark-
ness of the Middle Ages. Then we begin to find
intelligence developed through mechanical guilds,
and in various ways of commerce; but schools, such
aS we now understood schools to be, are very im-
perfectly traced out in the Middle Ages. But when
that new impulse came to the moral nature, and
HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED 89

the intellectual and philosophical nature, to art, to
literature, to learning—-when the Reformation
came, whose scope was not ecclesiastical alone by
any means —it was a resurrection of the human
intelligence throughout its whole vast domain —
schools began to appear to be, as John Milton says,
“Raked embers out of the ashes of the past,”
and they began to glow again. And from that time
on, the progress of the efforts to develop, by
actual teaching, human intelligence grows broader,
brighter, and. more effectual down to our present
day; and to-day in the principal nations of Europe
education is compulsory, the education not of fa-
vored classes, not of the children of the wealthy, not
of those that have inherited genius, but the children
of the common people. It is held that it is unsafe
for a State to raise ignorant men. Ignorant men
are like bombs, which are a great deal better to be
shot into an enemy’s camp than to be kept at home,
for where an ignorant man goes off he scatters deso-
lation; and it is not safe to have ignorant men, for
an ignorant man is an animal, and the stronger his
passions and the feebler his conscience and intellect,
the more dangerous he is. Therefore, for the sake
of the commonwealth, our legislators wisely,
whether they be republican institutions or mon-
archical institutions or aristocratical institutions,
have at last joined hands on one thing — that it is
best to educate the people’s children, from the
highest to the lowest everywhere.
90 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

And what, in connection with various other gen-
eral causes, has been the result of this unfolding of
intelligence among the common people? It has not
yet gone down to the bottom; there is a strata of
undeveloped intelligence among the nations of Eu-
rope certainly; I am not speaking now of the
residuum that falls down from the top like the
slime of the ocean, but of those who are reasonable
and honest and virtuous and useful. It may be said
that, as the sun touches the tops of the mountains
first and works its way downward through the valley
later and later in the day, so there is very much
to be done in Europe yet to bear knowledge and
intelligence, which is better than knowledge, to the
lowest classes of the common people. All those
hheavings, all those threatened revolutions, all those
civil and commercial developments that are like the
waves of the sea, are springing from the fact that
God in His providence has thrown light and in-
telligence upon the great under-mass of society;
and the under-parts of society, less fortunate in
every respect than those that are advanced, are
seeking room to develop themselves; they are seek-
ing to go up, and no road has been found along
which they can travel as yet. I do not believe in
Nihilism in Russia. If I had been born and brought
up there, and had felt the heel on my neck, I would
have been a Nihilist. I am poor stuff to make an
obedient slave out of! Nevertheless, they are like
blind men trying to find their way into the open air,
HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED 1

and if they stumble or go into wrong departments,
are they to be derided and cursed? Because they
are seeking to construct a government after they
shall have destroyed government and made a wil-
derness, are they, because they are doing the best
they know how — are they, therefore, to be cursed?
or pitied, better directed, emancipated? When they
come to America to teach us how to make common-
wealths, we think they are out of place, decidedly.
Well, that is our trait. We thank Europe for a
great deal — for literature, ancient and modern; we
thank Europe for teachers in art, in color, in form,
in sound; we are grateful for all these things; but
when the Socialists of Germany, and the Com-
munists of France, and the Nihilists of Russia come
to teach us how to reorganize human society, they
have come to the wrong place. Their ignorance is
not our enlightenment. [Applause.]

The main cause of all this, the cause of causes,
lies in the swelling of the intelligence of the great,
hitherto neglected, and ignorant masses of Europe.
They are seeking elevation, they are seeking a larger
life, and as men grow in intelligence life must grow
too. When a man is an animal he does not want
much except straw and fodder; but when a man
begins to be a rational and intelligent creature, he
wants a good deal more than the belly asks; for
reason wants something, taste needs something,
conscience needs something; every faculty brought
into ascendancy and power is a new hunger, and
92. WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

must be supplied. No man is so cheap as the brutal,
ignorant man; no man can rise up from the lower
stations of life and not need more for his support
from the fact that he is civilized and Christianized,
and although he may not have it individually, the
community must supply it for him. He must have
resources of knowledge, he must have means of
refinement, he must have limitations of taste or he
feels himself slipping backward; and as I look upon
the phenomena of society in Europe it is the phe-
nomena of God calling to the great masses of a
growingly enlightened people, “Come up,” and they
are saying, ““Which way? By what road? How?”
And they must needs pass through the experiment
of ignorance, tentative ignorance, and failure in a
thousand things. They must pass through these
preliminary stages, for as it was necessary when
they came out of the bondage of Egypt that the
children of Israel should go through the wilderness
for forty years, so all people have to go forty years
and more through the wilderness of mistake,
through the wilderness of trials and attempts that
fail; and it may be said, indeed, that the pyramid
of permanent society is built up on blocks of
blunders, and it is mistakes that have pointed out
the true way to mankind. Now what has taken
place among the common people? Once they
thought about their own cottage and their own little
steading; they have gradually learned to think
about the whole neighborhood. Once they were
HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED 93

able to look after their own limited affairs; they
recognize the community of men, and are beginning
to think about the affairs of other men—as the
Apostle said: “Look ye every man on his own
things, but also every man on the things of others.”
They are having a society interest among them-
selves. Once they had limited thoughts and bits
of knowledge — intelligence; they are competent to
think, to choose discriminatingly; they are com-
petent to organize themselves; they are learning
that self-denial by which men can work in masses
of men; they are beginning to have a light in life
transcendentally higher than the old contentment
of the bestial state of miserable labor in miserable
Europe. [Applause.] Such are the results, briefly
stated, to which God in His providence has brought
the masses of the common people, and the promise
of the future is brighter even than the fulfilment of
the past. What the issues will be and what the
final fruits will be God knows and man does not
know!

Now, if you cross the sea to our own land, my
own land, the land of my fathers, we shall find that
there are influences tending to give power to the
brain, alertness, quickness; to give to it also a wider
scope and range than it has in the average of the
laboring classes in Europe. Here and there are
communities, which if transplanted on the other
shore, will scarcely know that they were not born
and brought up there; but this is not true of the
94 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

great mass of the common people of all Europe.
Our climate is stimulating. Ship-masters tell me
that they cannot drink in New York as they do in
Liverpool. Heaven help Liverpool! There is more
oxygen in our air. It has some importance in this,
that anything that gives acuteness, vivacity, spring,
to the substance of the brain prepares it for educa-
tion and larger intelligence. A dull, watery, sluggish
brain may do for a conservative; but God never
made them to be the father of progress. They are
very useful as brakes on the wheel down hill; but
they never would draw anything up hill in the world.
And yet, in the fanatic influence that tends to give
vitality and quickness, force and continuity to the
human brain, lies the foundation for the higher style
of manhood; and although it is not to be considered
as a primary and chief cause of smartness, if you
will allow that word, yet it is one among others.
And then, when’ the child is born on the other side,
he is born into an atmosphere of expectation. He
is not out of the cradle before he learns that he
has got to earn his living; he is hereditarily inspired
with the idea of money. Sometimes, when I see
babies in the cradle apparently pawing the air, I
think that they are making change in their own
minds of future bargains. But this has great force
as an educating element in early childhood: “You
will be poor if you do not exert yourself’; and at
every future state it lies with each man what his
condition in society is to be.
HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED 95

This becomes a very powerful developer of the
cerebral mass, and from it comes intelligence and
power of intellect. And then, up side of that, when
he goes into life the whole style of society tends
toward intense cerebral excitability. For instance,
as to business, I find in London that you may go
down at nine o’clock and there is nobody in his
office; at ten o’clock the clerks are there; at eleven
o’clock some persons do begin to appear. By that
time the Yankees have got half through the day.
And it is in excess; it is carried to a fault; for men
there are ridden by two demons. They desire ex-
cessive property —I do not know that they are
much distinguished from their ancestors — they
desire more than enough for the uses of the family,
and when a man wants more money than he can use
he wants too much. But they have the ambition
of property, which is accursed, or should be. Prop-
erty may be used in large masses to develop prop-
erty, and codrdinated estates may do work that
single estates cannot do; I am not, therefore, speak-
ing of vast enterprises like railroads and factories.
But the individual man thinks in the beginning, “If
I could only make myself worth a hundred thousand
dollars, I should be willing to retire from business.”
Not a bit of it. A hundred thousand dollars is only
an index of five hundred thousand; and when he
has come to five hundred thousand he is like Moses
—and very unlike him — standing on the top of
the mountain and looking over the promised land,
96 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

and he says to himself, “A million! a million!” and
a million draws another million, until at last he has
more than he can use, more than is useful to him,
and he won’t give it away — not till after his death.
That is cheap benevolence. [Applause.] Well,
this is the first element of mistake among large
classes of commercial life in America.

The second is, they want it suddenly. They are
not willing to say, “For forty years I will lay gradu-
ally the foundations, and build the golden stones
one above another.” No; they want grass lands.
They want to win by gambling, for that is gambling
when a man wants money without having given a
fair equivalent for it. And so they press nature to
her utmost limits till the very diseases of our land
are changing; men are dropping dead with heart
disease; men are dropping dead — it is paralysis;
men are dropping dead— it is Bright’s disease.
Ah! it is the violence done to the brain by excessive
industry, through excessive hours, and through ex-
cessive ambition, which is but another name for
excessive avarice.

But outside of that there is still another excite-
ment, and that is politics. Now, you in this insular
and cool climate are never excited in politics at all;
but we are in our sunshiny land. Especially are
we so once in four years, when the great quadrennial
election comes off, and when the most useless thing
on God’s earth is built on God’s earth — namely, a
political platform, which men never use and never
HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED 97

stand on after it is once built. Then the candidates
are put forth, and every newspaper editor, and
every public-spirited citizen and elector goes before
the people and declares to them that the further ex-
istence of the Government depends on the election
of both parties. [Laughter.] Now, nations have
a wondrous way of continuing to live after they are
doomed to death, and we contrive to get along from
four years to four years. Nevertheless the excite-
ment is prodigious. Men say these wild excitements
are not wholesome I say they are. The best speeches
of the community scattered through the land, dis-
cussing finance, taxes, education, are the education
of the common people, and they learn more in a
year of universal debate than they would in twenty
years of reading and thinking without such
help. . .

Well, what has been the result of all these in-
fluences which have been superadded to those uni-
versal stimuli to which all the civilized world outside
of our land has been subject? What has been the
result on our side? We have 60,000,000 men,
women, and children in America; we have common
schools for every living soul that is born on that
continent — except Chinese. Now, in the States
where, twenty-five years ago, it was a penitentiary
offence to teach a slave how to read, we are sending
out a thousand educated colored teachers to teach
schools, to practice law and medicine through the
colored population of the South; the Government
98 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

is enlisted in their behalf, and the States are proud
of their colored schools that a little time ago would
have burnt a man who dared to advocate the educa-
tion of the slave. We are the harbor to which all
the sails of the world crowd with immigrants, and we
bless God for it. Their letters go back thicker than
leaves in autumn, to those that are left behind; and
we have a vast population from Spain, from Portu-
gal, from Italy, from Hungary, from Austria, from
Germany, from Russia; we have a vast population
from all the Scandinavian lands, from Scotland,
from England, and occasionally from Ireland. Let
them come; if you don’t want them, we do. It takes
a little time, you know, to get them used to things;
but whenever the children of foreign immigrants, of
whom we have 8,000,000 born and bred in our land;
whenever these children have gone through our
common-schools, they are just as good Americans
as if they had not had foreign parents. The
common-schools are the stomachs of the Republic,
and when a man goes in there he comes out, after
all, American.

Well, now we are playing the experiment before
the world on a tremendous scale, and the world does
not quite believe in it. I do. They say: “With
regard to your success in government of the people,
by the people, for the people, in the language of
the Liturgy, you are dependent upon extraneous
conditions; it is not philosophically to be inferred
from the principles of your government; you have
HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED 99

got so much land, wait till the struggle for existence
takes place, as in the denser populations of Europe,
and then you will find that self-government will be
but flimsy to hold men’s passions in check, and then,
by and by, you will go from anarchy to a centralized
and strong government.” I do not blame them for
thinking so. If I had been brought up as they have
been, perhaps I should think so; but they do not
understand it; they do not understand the facts
which actually are in existence, and are funda-
mental. For we are not attempting to build Society;
we are by Society attempting to build the individual.
We hold that the State is strong in the proportion
in which every individual in that State is free, large,
independent. You have a finer educated upper class
than we; you have nobler and deeper scholars in
greater numbers than we have; you have institu-
tions compared with which ours are puny; you are
educating the top, we are educating Society from the
bottom to the top; we are not attempting to lift
favored classes higher; we are not attempting to
give to those that already have; we are attempting
to put our hands under the foundations of human
life, and lift everybody up. That is a slower work;
but when it is done and its fruits are ripe you will
never doubt again which is the wisest and best
policy.

I do not supose that if you were to go and look
upon the experiment of self-government in America
you would have a very high opinion of it. I have
1o0 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

not either if I just look on the surface of things.
Why, men will say: “It stands to reason that 60,-
000,000 ignorant of law, ignorant of constitutional
history, ignorant of jurisprudence, of finance, and
taxes and tariffs and forms of currency — 60,-
000,000 people that never studied these things —
are not fit to rule. Your diplomacy is as
complicated as ours, and it is the most complicated
on earth, for all things grow in complexity as they
develop toward a higher condition. What fitness is
there in these people? Well, it is not democracy
merely; it is a representative democracy. Our
people do not vote in mass for anything; they pick
out captains of thought, they pick out the men that
do know, and they send them to the Legislature to
think for them, and then the people afterward
ratify or disallow them.

But when you come to the Legislature I am
bound to confess that the thing does not look very
much more cheering on the outside. Do they really
select the best men? Yes; in times of danger they
do very generally, but in ordinary time “kissing goes
by favor.” What is that dandy in the Legislature
for? His father was an eminent judge, and they
thought it would be a compliment to the old gentle-
man to send his son up to the Legislature, not be-
cause he knows anything, but because his father
does. It won’t do to make too close an inquisition
as to why people are in legislatures. What is that
weasel-faced lawyer doing there? Well, there may
HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED ior

be ten or twenty gentlemen who wanted legislation
that would favor their particular property interest
instead of the commonwealth, and they wanted
somebody to wriggle a bill through the Legislature;
and so he sits for the commonwealth. That great
blustrous man squeezing on the front seats; what
is he there for? He? He could shake hands with
more mothers, kiss more pretty girls and more
babies, and tell more funny stories in an hour than
any other man in a month, and so they send him
up to make laws. [Laughter.] When they get
there it would do your heart good just to go and
look at them. You know what the duty of a regular
Republican-Democratic legislator is. It is to get
back again next winter. His second duty is what?
His second duty is to put himself under that ex-
traordinary providence that takes care of legislators’
salaries. The old miracle of the prophet and the
meal and the oil is outdone immeasurably in our
days, for they go there poor one year, and go home
rich; in four years they become money-lenders, all
by a trust in that gracious providence that takes
care of legislators’ salaries. Their next duty after
that is to serve the party that sent them up, and
then, if there is anything left of them, it belongs to
the commonwealth. Some one has said very wisely,
that if a man travelling wishes to relish his dinner
he had better not go into the kitchen to see where
it is cooked; if any man wishes to respect and obey
the law, he had better not go to the Legislature to
102 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

see where that is cooked. This, I presume, is en-
tirely an American point of view. [Applause.]
Well, there are a great many more faults in self-
government, but time will not permit me to enumer-
ate them all, and yet I say that self-government is
the best government that ever existed on the face
of the earth. How should that be with all these
damaging facts? “By their fruits ye shall know
them.” What a government is, is to be determined
by the kind of people it raises, and I will defy the
whole world in time past, and in time present, to
show so vast a proportion of citizens so well off, so
contented, so remunerated by their toil. The
average of happiness under our self-government is
greater than it ever has been, or can be, found
under any sky, or in any period of human history.
And the philosophical reason is not far to find; it
belongs to that category in which a worse thing is
sometimes a great deal better than a better thing.
William has been to school for over a year, and his
teacher says to him one day: “Now, William, I am
afraid your father will think that I'am not doing
well by you; you must write a composition — you
must send your father a good composition to show
what you are doing.” Well, William never did
write a composition, and he does not know how.
“Oh, write about something that you know about —
write about your father’s farm, and so, being goaded
to his task, William says: “‘A cow is a useful ani-
mal. A cow has four legs and two horns. A cow
HOW MUCH ARE THEY PRACTICED 103

gives good milk. I love good milk.— William
Bradshaw.” ‘The master looks over his shoulder,
and says: “Pooh! your father will think you are a
cow. Here, give me that composition, I'll fix it.”
So he takes it home and fixes it. Here it reads:
“When the sun casts off the dusky garments of the
night, and appearing o’er the orient hills, sips the
dew-drops pendent from every leaf, the milkmaid
goes afield chanting her matin song,” and so on,
and so on. [Applause.] Now I say that, rhetori-
cally, the master’s composition was unspeakably
better than William’s; but as a part of William’s
education, his poor scrawly lines are unspeakably
better than the one that has been “fixed” for him.
No man ever yet learned by having somebody else
learn for him. A man learns arithmetic by blunder
in and blunder out, but at last he gets it. A man
learns to write through scrawling; a man learns to
swim by going into the water, and a man learns to
vote by voting. Now we are not attempting to make
a government; we are attempting to teach 60,-
000,000 of men how to conduct a government by
self-control, by knowledge, by intelligence, by fair
opportunity to practise. It is better that we should
have 60,000,000 of men learning through their own
mistakes how to govern themselves, than it is to
have an arbitrary government with the whole of the
rest of the people ignorant. . . .

Men are alarmed, they want peace. Well, you
can find it in the graveyard, and that is the only
104 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

place. [Laughter.] Among living men you can
find no peace. Growth means disturbance; peace
means death in any such sense as that of non-inves-
tigation, not changing, and if men say: “If you give
up the old landmark you do not know where you
will land.” I know where you will land if you do
not. Do you believe in God? Do you believe that
He has a providence over human affairs? I do.
And I believe that that hand that has steered this
vagrant world through all the dark seas and storms
of the past has hold of the helm yet, and through all
seeming confusions He will steer the nations and the
people to the golden harbor of the millennium safe.
Trust Him, love Him, and rejoice. [Applause.]
OUR TREATMENT OF
THE IMMIGRANT
II.

Peps

Il.

ern Ss

OUTLINE OF CONTENTS

HELP FOR THE NEw CoMER

A School on Ship Board
Great expectations

DIsILLUSIONED

At Quarantine

At coal mines in West Virginia
At coal mines in Colorado

At the Cotton mills

(a). “He called me a liar.”

WHo Is TO BLAME

Industrial expansion
Complexity of our task

Otp Wortp Lost In THE NEW
The Nation’s old age

Our History’s last page

A faithful failure

106
A LIABILITY
OUR TREATMENT OF THE IMMIGRANT *

By Epwarp A. STEINER

ImaGINE coming in with me to the United States
in the steerage, say, on that German ship which
brought a load of twelve hundred immigrants, some
eight years ago; a trip very significant to me, for
I tried to test a theory which I held. I believed
that if immigrants had a chance to become ac-
quainted with American ideals on board of ship,
when they are idle and most open to influences, it
might help them to make a right start.

We begin when the immigrant has been embit-
tered by exploitation, his mind poisoned and his
attitude towards the country and its institutions
biased, and then it is too late. On this particular
trip I acted as an official might act who has been
designated for such a task as I had in mind.

Nearly every hour of every one of the ten days
we spent together I told them what America means
to the world, what it might mean to them. I told
them that it is a country whose government is based
upon the fundamental idea of human worth and dig-

* From his book: Nationalizing America. Fleming H. Revell
Company, New York.

107
108 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

nity. I impressed upon them that they are to be
factors in that government, and that upon their be-
havior one towards the other depends our common
well-being; and what I said was not unintelligible
to the people to whom I spoke.

I remember many individuals in that group, and
the members of one family in particular stand out.

They had come from the Caucasus, and had
passed through horrible persecutions because of
their religious ideas. From Russia they fled into
Turkey, where they had to witness the horrible
butcheries of the Armenians.

Unable to stand it any longer they decided upon
the long, hard journey to the United States. They
fairly hung upon my words. The land I described
was the land they were seeking; here were the ideals
for which they had suffered, and they were not
alone in those anticipations.

At last we came under the lea of the sand dunes
of Long Island, and witnessed the slow disclosure
of that marvel of cities, with its heaven assaulting
roofs and spires. The ship lay at anchor and the
quarantine officers came on board. The immigrants
had been driven down like cattle, and one by one
were to pass before the officers.

Their hats were knocked from their heads by the
impatient guardian of the health of the State; they
were pulled and pushed in a fashion by which our
ineffective hurry always expresses itself. The spec-
tacle was so brutal that I could not stand it. I

-
TREATMENT OF THE IMMIGRANT tog

jumped into the line and made a protest which was
ineffective, for I was threatened with arrest for in-
terfering with an officer; while the brutal and bru-
talizing process went on as before.

At Ellis Island the procedure was more humane,
and it is but just to say that the Commissioners of
Immigration in the last twelve years have been men
above reproach, to whom the task appealed as a big
opportunity for service. At no time has there been
a more intelligent head of that institution than it
has in Mr. Frederic Howe, who represents the flower
of our American citizenship, which one wishes might
be more common than it is.

My family from the Caucasus went to West Vir-
ginia, to the coal fields, and were sheltered in a
stockade, which was more prison than home. There
was barbed wire around their camp, and armed
guards to give them further protection. There was
a strike, and they did not know it. They were
clubbed by strikers because they worked, and then
struck with the butt of guns when they refused to
work,

That was the beginning of their life in America.
Later I had a letter from the head of the family.
I never answered it, for he called me a liar, and
that hurt tremendously, because he was right. If
I ever meet that man and find that he is not shout-
ing “America First,” whose fault will it be? If I
find him in the welter of the I. W. W. who will be
to blame?
110 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

To the forlorn and forbidding, alkali-burned
southern edge of Colorado, came Greeks and Hun-
garians to dig coal. They were isolated from every-
thing good and kept in touch with everything bad.
Now, after a long strike for decent working condi-
tions, they had been finally beaten into submission
by a militia whose conduct was on the level of
Russia’s Cossacks. If they do not sing as lustily
as we, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of lib-
erty,” whose fault is it?

And what of the children whose bodies are being
bleached like lepers’ in our cotton mills, or whose
young frames as they bend over the breakers are
shaken by tumbling coal, from which their nimble
fingers pick the slate? What of the youths whose
lungs are eaten by coal dust in the mines or by the
lint which flies from the loom? If they are reluc-
tant or unable to fight for their country, who will
be responsible?

We talk much about the American home, which
is even yet the basis of national well-being, although
many of its functions are abrogated. The home still
determines the good or ill of the child, and through
him the good or ill of the nation. Yet we permit
millions of people to work, with no chance to make
a real home.

Children there will be, nature sees to that; but
what kind of children can be begotten in our
slums? . . .

The history of the United States since the Civil
TREATMENT OF THE IMMIGRANT irr

War has not yet been written, for it is the story of
an epoch just closing. It marks the sudden leaping
of a people into wealth if not into power; the fabu-
lous growth of cities, the end of the pioneer stage,
the beginning of an industrial period, and the pres-
sure of economic and social problems towards their
solution.

At least twenty millions of people have come full
grown into our national life from the steerage, the
womb out of which so many of us were born into
this newer life. Most of us came to build and not
to destroy; we came as helpers and not exploiters;
we brought virtues and vices, much good and ill,
and that, not because we belonged to this or the
other national or racial group, but because we were
human.

It is as easy to prove that our coming meant the
ill of the nation as that it meant its well-being. To
appraise this fully is much too early; it is a task
which must be left to our children’s children, who
will be as far removed from today’s scant sym-
pathies as from its overwhelming prejudices.

The great war has swung us into the current of
world events, and it ought to bring us a larger vision
of the forces and processes which shape the nations
and make their peoples. As yet we are thinking
hysterically rather than historically, and the indi-
cations are that we may not learn anything, nor yet
unlearn, of which we have perhaps the greater need.

Thus far we have become narrower rather than
112 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

broader, for the feeling towards our alien popula-
tion is growing daily less generous, and our treat-
ment of it less wise.

Nor am I sure in what wisdom consists; the situ-
ation is complex; for we are the Balkan with its
national, racial, and religious contentions. We are
Russia with its ghetto, its Polish and Finnish prob-
lems. We are Austria and Hungary with their
linguistic and dynastic difficulties. We are Africa
and Asia; we are Jew and Gentile; we are Protes-
tant and Greek and Roman Catholic. We are
everything out of which to shape the one thing, the
one nation, the one people.

Yet I am sure that we cannot teach these
strangers the history of their adopted country, and
make it their own, unless we teach them that our
history is theirs as well as ours, and that their
traditions are ours, at least as far as they touch
humanity generally, and convey to all men the bless-
ings which come from the struggle against oppres-
sion and superstition.

In their inherited national prejudices, in their
racial hates, in their tribal quarrels, we wish to have
no share, except as we hope to help them forget the
old world hates in the new world’s love.

None of us who have caught a vision of what
America may mean to the world wish to perpetuate
here any one phase of Europe’s civilization or any
one national ideal.

Although our institutions are rooted in English
TREATMENT OF THE IMMIGRANT 113

history, though we speak England’s language and
share her rich heritage of spiritual and cultural
wealth, we do not desire to be again a part of Eng-
land, or nourish here her ideals of an aristocratic
society.

In spite of the fact that for nearly three hun-
dred years a large part of our population has been
German, and that our richest cultural values have
come from Germany, in spite of her marvelous re-
sources in science, commerce, and government, we
do not care to become German, and I am sure that
Americans of German blood or birth would be the
first to repudiate it, should Germany’s civilization
threaten to fasten itself upon us.

We do not wish to be Russian, in spite of certain
values inherent in the Slavic character, nor do we
desire to be French.

We do crave to be an American people, and de-
velop here an American civilization; but if we are
true to the manifold genius of our varied peoples,
we may develop here a civilization, richer and freer
than any one of these, based upon all of them, truly
international and therefore American.

Historians tell us that the history of the United
States illumines and illustrates the historic processes
of all ages and all people.

To this they add the disconcerting prophecy that
we are drifting towards the common goal, and that
our doleful future can be readily foretold. We have
had our hopeful morning, our swift and brilliant
114 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

noon, and now the dark and grewsome end threatens
us.
I will not believe this till I must.

I will not, dare not lose the hope that we can
make this country to endure firmly, to weather the
storm, or at least put off the sensibility of old age
to the last inevitable moment.

When, however, the end comes, as perhaps it
must, I pray that we may project our hopes and
ideals upon the last page of our history, so that it
might read thus: This was a State, the first to
grow by the conquest of nature, and not of nations.
Here was develped a commerce based upon service,
and not upon selfishness; a religion centering in hu-
manity and not in a church.

Here was maintained sovereignty without a
sovereign, and here the people of all nations grew
into one nation, held together by mutual regard, not
by the force of law.

Here the State was maintained by the justice,
confidence, and loyalty of its people, and not by
battleships and armaments. When it perished it
was because the people had lost faith in God and
in each other.
(C.) HOW CAN I HELP REALIZE THEM?

1. In the Land of “Just About.”
— CHARLES WAGNER

2. A New Bill of Particulars.
— Wooprow WIiLson

3- Wayside Kindness to an Alien Boy.
— RICHARD SPILLANE
“A state can be no better than the citizens of which it is
composed. Our labor now, is not to mould states but make

citizens.” —Joun Mortrey
IN THE LAND OF “JUST ABOUT”
II.

Ii.

SRA Oy ioe ee Re

Kt
9

OUTLINE OF CONTENTS

A Tour or INSPECTION

Learning to observe
Need of humor

Tue Lanp oF “Just ABouT”

Has no frontiers
Has no real wars
Its army half-equipped

Its Crvtc ACTIVITIES

Children only half educated
Houses not quite plumb

Victims only half-killed
Merchants’ scales almost accurate
Eggs are nearly fresh

Lawsuits never quite finished
Women almost beautiful

Rooms not quite dirty

Stockings have some holes

Drinks neither cold nor hot

How To BE A Goop CITIZEN

Do some honest work
Be positive, not negative.

118
IN THE LAND OF “JUST ABOUT” *

By CHarLES WAGNER

Ir every one does not like traveling because of the
annoyances that go with it, there are nevertheless
few people who do not enjoy accounts of travels.
Children especially love to listen to stories of the
adventures that happen to explorers in far-away
and mysterious lands. Now I have just made a long
trip through a territory inhabited by queer people,
and I shall tell you what I saw.

I had often heard of the land of Just About. Con-
cluding that the best way to get an idea of its in-
habitants and their ways was to go to their country,
I packed my grip, took some money, a stout stick,
my watch, and a box of good-humor lozenges.
These lozenges are an excellent thing to take when
you are traveling, in case unpleasant circumstances
should occur. If you leave them behind, you run
the risk of having a dull time.

Crossing the country where two and two make
four, where perpendicular lines stand erect on their
horizontals, where noon is the middle of the day,
where yes is yes and no is no, I arrived finally at
a frontier.

* From A travers le prisme du temps, 1912.
119
120 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

To tell the truth, it was not a really, truly fron-
tier. Indeed, nobody has ever found it possible to
settle the boundary of the country of Just About.
No one knows precisely where it begins or where
it ends. This, too, is unfortunate, for the citizens
of the land of Just About, not having very definite
frontiers, are perpetually quarreling with their
neighbors. They live with them on a footing which
one cannot call a belligerent footing because they
rarely have real wars, and for a very good reason.
Their army only just about exists. Their military
chiefs are generals, if you insist. But, after all,
they are only sorts of generals who know just about
how to command, and to counterbalance this are just
about ignorant of strategy, geography, and every-
thing that pertains to the art of war. They learned
this art, after a fashion, in the schools. But every-
thing in their schools being only half or three-
quarters taught, the young officers who graduate
from them are jokes. The soldiers they command
are soldiers of the same type. Evidently they are
what might be called soldiers, but they are just
about drilled; their swords just about cut; their
rifles shoot quasi-straight; and their powder is
neither quite dry nor quite wet. Accordingly, when
they have pointed their cannon and taken aim, so
so, it cannot be said that the weapon always goes
off, or that it always misses, that it hits or that it
does not hit. All that is approximate. The only
thing that one can fairly and squarely declare is
HOW CAN I REALIZE THEM iar

that every time this kind of an army has encoun-
tered the enemy it has met defeat. Those instances
I have in mind now were only semi-serious.

In the land of Just About the children just about
obey their parents. When they sit down at table,
they have clean hands, by courtesy. They eat their
soup, but they never eat it all; there is always a
residue. They go to school and get there on time,
or somewhere near it. Their bags are half-open,
half-shut; their exercises are begun but not fin-
ished. When they write, they mind only three
quarters of their P’s and Q’s. Most of their pages
are clean, but not all of them. They know their
lessons, but not entirely. When the teacher talks,
they open one eye, and lend one ear. The other
ear and the other eye are vaguely busy with various
objects. When the inspector visits the school, he
writes down the following comment: “Pupils al-
most good, or else they are almost bad. I could
not very well pass on them.” Upon leaving, he
gives the teacher compliments which are all criti-
cisms, if you take them that way, but the person
who would say so is very subtle.

The joiners of the land of Just About make
parquetry, doors, and windows, like all joiners.
Only, when you watch them work you notice that
they saw and plane just about straight. Ata pinch
you might say it was planing, for their edges are
never true. The doors have slits in them, and the
windows are neither open nor closed. The panes
122 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

blink on account of their uncertain angles, the par-
quet floors wave up and down, and the tables dance.

Their coopers make barrels, tubs, tuns, and
troughs, but everything leaks. When you gaze into
a looking-glass in the land of Just About, you are
not absolutely sure whose face you see. Perhaps
it is you, but it might also be your brother or your
cousin. The portraits painted by the artists over
there all have a vague resemblance to the originals.

The masons in the land of Just About have, like
our masons, the plumb-line and the square, but no
angle is a right angle, and no wall is perpendicular.
Are they oblique? It could not be claimed so with-
out exaggeration. And so the houses, the churches,
and the markets are relatively substantial. Yes, the
roof of a theater in a city of Just About did fall in
lately. Still it must be admitted that only a part
of it fell, and that the victims were only half-killed.
The surgeons who answered the hurry call almost
cured the patients and just about properly reset a
certain number of fractured limbs.

The merchants in this weird country use scales,
weights, and measures that are passably accurate.
However, if you weigh your purchases when you get
home, you are always just a little short. If they
make change, you are sure to find some good coins,
but rarely are they all good. At the grocer’s the
groceries are of medium quality. It would be do-
ing these good people an injustice to say that they
sell inferior products; but on the other hand it
HOW CAN I REALIZE THEM 123

would be wrong to call them high class. The shops
have eggs that are nearly fresh. The meat, the
fish, and the poultry are fresh, too, but of a ques-
tionable freshness. And this little adjective, which
does not say enough and which says too much, is
applicable to the honesty of these tradesmen as
well as to the cleanliness of their shops.

If something out of the ordinary happens, any-
thing like an accident, a fight, or an assassination,
the police arrive neither soon enough nor too late.
They take the evidence and make their report.
It is very much like a horse when he is walking on
three legs. At the courthouse witnesses are called.
They are not very sure of what they have seen and
heard; but they take good care not to say they
have not seen or heard anything. Do they tell the
truth? They certainly do; but they keep back a
part of it. Once the speeches of counsel are fin-
ished, the judges pass a sentence in which they
lump things. Consequently most of the time when
there is a lawsuit on hand, they never finish it.
They do not succeed in proving the facts or in
declaring who is right and who is wrong.

I made a point of noticing the women of the coun-
try. But if you were to ask me whether they are
beautiful or ugly, I should be very much perplexed.
If you said they were ugly, you would be slander-
ing them; if you said they were beautiful, you would
be flattering them shamefully. If you want to find
out from me whether these women are graceful,
124 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

active, good housekeepers, intelligent, and virtuous,
I really should be at a loss to answer. They do
everything the way they sweep and knit. How do
they sweep and knit? This way: they sweep in the
middle of the room, but not in the corners. When
they knit, they drop stitches. As a result the little
out-of-the-way corners of their houses are dirty,
and their stockings have holes.

What kind of food did I find on my trip? Neither
good nor bad. Did I have cool things to drink?
I cannot truthfully say so. Were the drinks tepid,
then? No, I have no right to assert it positively,
or to complain in consequence, for their water, their
wine, and their beer are neither warm nor cold.

And they themselves are neither warm nor cold.
From the government and executive officials down
to the families and private individuals in the land
of Just About, nothing is frank or up and down or
squarely asserted.

What ought to be thought of such a country?
Nothing bad, nothing good. But that in itself is
not good. It is bad, very bad indeed. What is a
half-knowledge, a half-skill, a half-truth, a half-
honesty? It is sometimes worse than the absence
of knowledge, skill, or honesty. Give me the out-
and-out rascals, liars who have the courage of their
lies. These are preferable. At least one knows
what to expect. Let us be wholly what we are.
Let us do wholly what we have to do. Do not let
us ever be satisfied with the “just about.” At any
HOW CAN I REALIZE THEM 125

rate nothing is so irritating as the “just about.” I
learned something of it over there. I left just in
time. So much indecision and fickleness and equiv-
ocation drove me beside myself, and you could
fairly see my good-humor lozenges melt.
A NEW BILL OF PARTICULARS
II.

II.

IV.

ON H SG WN

OUTLINE OF CONTENTS

A Great NATIONAL TRADITION

Its bearing on today

Patriotism in action

THE MEANING OF OUR DECLARATION

Our Independence now a fact
What use shall we make of it?
(a) “Dollar Diplomacy”
(b) The rights of man

Our PRINCIPLES APPLIED TO MExIco
Her fight for freedom

Our flag a symbol of hope

AMERICA’S GUIDING PRINCIPLE

Public honesty
National honor above profit
Patriots don’t sell their souls

Tue Grim Days oF 1776.

America started something
The moral basis of liberty
The flag of human rights.

128
A NEW BILL OF PARTICULARS *
By Wooprow WILSON

WE are assembled to celebrate the one hundred
and thirty-eighth anniversary of the birth of the
United States. I suppose that we can more vividly
realize the circumstances of that birth standing on
this historic spot than it would be possible to realize
them anywhere else. The Declaration of Indepen-
dence was written in Philadelphia; it was adopted
in this historic building by which we stand. I have
just had the privilege of sitting in the chair of the
great man who presided over the deliberations of
those who gave the Declaration to the world. My:
hand rests at this moment upon the table upon
which the Declaration was signed. We can feel that
we are almost in the visible and tangible presence
of a great historic transaction.

. . The Declaration of Independence . .
is not a Fourth of July oration. The Declaration
of Independence was a document preliminary to

war. . . . It consists of a series of definite speci-
fications concerning actual public business of the
day . . . the business of that first revolution by

which the Nation was set up, the business of 1776.

* Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, July 4, 1914.
129
130 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

Its general statements, its general declarations can
not mean anything to us unless we append to it a
similar specific body of particulars as to what we
consider the essential business of our own day.

Liberty does not consist, my fellow citizens, in
mere general declarations of the rights of man. It
consists in the translation of those declarations into
definite action . . . into the terms of our own
conditions and of our own lives.

The task to which we have constantly to re-
address ourselves is the task of proving that we are
worthy of the men who drew this great Declara-
tion and know what they would have done in our
circumstances. Patriotism consists in some very
practical things — practical in that they belong to
the life of every day. The way to be patriotic in
America is not only to love America but to love
the duty that lies nearest to our hand and know
that in performing it we are serving our coun-
try. . . . The members of House and Senate who
stay in hot Washington to maintain a quorum of
the Houses and transact the all-important business
of the Nation are doing an act of patriotism. I
honor them for it, and I am glad to stay there
and stick by them until the work is done.

It is patriotic, also, to learn what the facts of our
national life are and to face them with candor.

. . I find some people insisting that everything
is going wrong and others insisting that everything
is going right, and when I know from a wide ob-
A NEW BILL OF PARTICULARS 131

servation of the general circumstances of the coun-
try taken as a whole that things are going extremely
well, I wonder what those who are crying out that
things are wrong are trying to do. . . . And why
do they cry that everything is wrong and yet do
nothing to set it right. If they love America and
anything is wrong amongst us, it is their business
to put their hand with ours to the task of setting it
right.

. . ‘It was universally admitted . . . that
the banking system of this country needs reorgani-
zation. We set the best minds that we could find
to the task of discovering the best method of re-
organization. But we met with hardly anything but
criticism from the bankers of the country .
(and) resistance from the majority of those at least
who spoke at all concerning the matter. And yet
so soon as the act was passed there was a universal
chorus of applause, and the very men who had op-
posed the measure joined in that applause. . .

It is not patriotic to concert measures against one
another; it is patriotic to concert measures for one
another.

In one sense the Declaration of Independence has
lost its significance . . . as a declaration of na-:
tional independence. Nobody outside of America
believed when it was uttered that we could make
good our independence; now nobody anywhere
would dare to doubt that we are independent and
can maintain our independence. As a declaration
132 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

of independence, therefore, it is a mere historic
document. Our independence is a fact so stupen-
dous that it can be measured only by the size and
energy and variety and wealth and power of one of
the greatest nations in the world. But it is one
thing to be independent, and it is another thing to
know what to do with your independence. It is
one thing to come to your majority and another
thing to know what you are going to do with your
life and your energies; and one of the most serious
questions for sober-minded men to address them-
selves to in the United States is this: What are we
going to do with the influence and power of this
great Nation? Are we going to play the old rdle
of using that power for our aggrandizement and ma-
terial benefit only? You know what that may
mean. It may upon occasion mean that we shall
use it to make the people of other nations suffer
in the way in which we said it was intolerable to
suffer when we uttered our Declaration of Indepen-
dence.

The Department of State at Washington is con-
stantly called upon to back up the commercial en-
terprises and the industrial enterprises of the United
States in foreign countries, and it at one time went
so far in that direction that all its diplomacy came
to be designated as “dollar diplomacy.” It was
called upon to support every man who wanted to
earn anything anywhere if he was an American.
But there ought to be a limit to that. There is
A NEW BILL OF PARTICULARS 133

no man who is more interested than I am in carry-
ing the enterprise of American business men to
every quarter of the globe. I was interested in it
long before I was suspected of being a politician.
I have been preaching it year after year as a great
thing that lay in the future for the United States,
to show her wit and skill and enterprise and in-
fluence in every country in the world. But observe
the limit to all that which is laid upon us perhaps
more than upon any other nation in the world. We
set this Nation up, at any rate we professed to set
it up, to vindicate the rights of men. We did not
name any differences between one race and another.
We did not set up any barriers against any partic-
ular people. We opened our gates to all the world
and said, “Let all men who wish to be free come
to us and they will be welcome.” We said, “This
independence of ours is not a selfish thing for our
own exclusive private use. It is for everybody to
whom we can find the means of extending it.” We
can not with that oath taken in our youth, we can
not with that great ideal set before us when we
were a young people and numbered only a scant
three million, take upon ourselves, now that we are
one hundred million strong, any other conception
of duty than we then entertained. If American en-
terprise in foreign countries, particularly in those
foreign countries which are not strong enough to
resist us, takes the shape of imposing upon and
exploiting the mass of the people of that country,
134 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

it is to be checked and not encouraged. I am will-
ing to get anything for an American that money and
enterprise can obtain except the suppression of the
rights of other men. I will not help any man buy
power which he ought not to exercise over his fellow
beings.

You know, my fellow countrymen, what a big
question there is in Mexico. Eighty-five per cent
of the Mexican people have never been allowed to
have any genuine participation in their own Gov-
ernment, or to exercise any substantial rights with
regard to the very land they live upon. All the
rights that men most desire have been exercised by
the other fifteen per cent. Do you suppose that
that circumstance is not sometimes in my thought?
I know that the American people have a heart that
will beat just as strong for those millions in Mexico
as it will beat, or has beaten, for any other millions
elsewhere in the world, and that when once they
conceive what is at stake in Mexico they will know
what ought to be done in Mexico. I hear a great
deal said about the loss of property in Mexico, and
the loss of lives of foreigners, and I deplore these
things with all my heart. Undoubtedly, upon the
conclusion of the present disturbed conditions in
Mexico those who have been unjustly deprived of
their property, or in any wise unjustly put upon,
ought to be compensated. Men’s individual rights
have no doubt been invaded, and the invasion of
those rights has been attended by many deplorable
A NEW BILL OF PARTICULARS 135

circumstances which ought sometime, in the proper
way, to be accounted for. But back of it all is
the struggle of a people to come into its own, and
while we look upon the incidents in the foreground
let us not forget the great tragic reality in the back-
ground which towers above the whole picture.

A patriotic American is a man who is not nig-
gardly and selfish in the things that he enjoys that
make for human liberty and the rights of man.
He wants to share them with the whole world, and
he is never so proud of the great flag under which
he lives as when it comes to mean to other people,
as well as to himself, a symbol of hope and liberty.
I would be ashamed of this flag if it did anything
outside America that we would not permit it to do
inside of America.

The world is becoming more complicated every
day, my fellow citizens. No man ought to be foolish
enough to think that he understands it all. And,
therefore, I am glad that there are some simple
things in the world. One of the simple things is
principle. Honesty is a perfectly simple thing. It
is hard for me to believe that in most circumstances
when a man has a choice of ways he does not know
which is the right way and which is the wrong way.
No man who has chosen the wrong way ought even
to come into Independence Square; it is holy ground
which he ought not to tread upon. He ought not to
come where immortal voices have uttered the great
sentences of such a document as this Declaration
136 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

of Independence upon which rests the liberty of a
whole nation.

And so I say that it is patriotic sometimes to
prefer the honor of the country to its material in-
terest. Would you rather be deemed by all the
nations of the world incapable of keeping your
treaty obligations in order that you might have free
tolls for American ships? The treaty under which
we gave up the right may have been a mistaken
treaty, but there was no mistake about its meaning.

When I have made a promise as a man I try to
keep it, and I know of no other rule permissible
to a nation. The most distinguished nation in the
world is the nation that can and will keep its
promises even to its own hurt. And I want to
say . . . that I do not think anybody was hurt.
I cannot be enthusiastic for subsidies to a monopoly,
but let those who are enthusiastic for subsidies ask
themselves whether they prefer subsidies to un-
sullied honor.

The most patriotic man, ladies and gentlemen, is
sometimes the man who goes in the direction that
he thinks right even when he sees half the world
against him. It is the dictate of patriotism to
sacrifice yourself if you think that that is the path
of honor and of duty. Do not blame others if they
do not agree with you. Do not die with bitterness
in your heart because you did not convince the rest
of the world, but die happy because you believe that
you tried to serve your country by not selling your
A NEW BILL OF PARTICULARS 137

soul. Those were grim days, the days of 1776.
Those gentlemen did not attach their names to the
Declaration of Independence on this table expecting
a holiday on the next day, and that Fourth of July
was not itself a holiday. They attached their sig-
natures to that significant document, knowing that
if they failed, it was certain that every one of them
would hang for the failure. They were committing
treason in the interest of the liberty of 3,000,000
people in America. All the rest of the world was
against them and smiled with cynical incredulity at
the audacious undertaking. Do you think that if
they could see this great Nation now they would
regret anything that they then did to draw the gaze
of a hostile world upon them? Every idea must be
started by somebody, and it is a lonely thing to
start anything. Yet if it is in you, you must start
it if you have a man’s blood in you and if you love
the country that you profess to be working for.

I am sometimes very much interested when I
see gentlemen supposing that popularity is the way
to success in America. The way to success in this
great country, with its fair judgments, is to show
that you are not afraid of anybody except God and
His final verdict. If I did not believe that, I would
not believe in democracy. If I did not believe that,
I would not believe that people can govern them-
selves. If I did not believe that the moral judgment

would be the last judgment, the final judgment, in
the minds of men as well as the tribunal of God, I
138 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

could not believe in popular government. But I
do believe these things and, therefore, I earnestly
believe in the democracy not only of America but of
every awakened people that wishes and intends to
govern and control its own affairs.

It is very inspiring, my friends, to come to this
that may be called the original fountain of inde-
pendence and liberty in America, and here drink
draughts of patriotic feeling which seem to renew
the very blood in one’s veins. Down in Washington
sometimes when the days are hot and the business
presses intolerably and there are so many things to
do that it does not seem possible to do anything
in the way it ought to be done, it is always possible
to lift one’s thought above the task of the moment
and, as it were, to realize that great thing of which
we are all parts, the great body of American feeling
and American principle. No man could do the
work that has to be done in Washington if he al-
lowed himself to be separated from that body of
principle. He must make himself feel that he is
a part of the people of the United States, that he
is trying to think not only for them, but with them,
and then he can not feel lonely. He not only can
not feel lonely but he can not feel afraid of any-
thing.

My dream is that as the years go on and the world
knows more and more of America it will also drink
at these fountains of youth and renewal; that it also
will turn to America for those moral inspirations
A NEW BILL OF PARTICULARS 139

which lie at the basis of all freedom; that the world
will never fear America unless it feels that it is
engaged in some enterprise which is inconsistent
with the rights of humanity; and that America will
come into the full light of the day when all shall
know that she puts human rights above all other
rights and that her flag is the flag not only of
America but of humanity.

What other great people has devoted itself to
this exalted ideal? To what other nation in the
world can all eyes look for an instant sympathy
that thrills the whole body politic when men any-
where are fighting for their rights? I do not know
that there will ever be a declaration of independence
and of grievances for mankind, but I believe that
if any such document is ever drawn it will be drawn
in the spirit of the American Declaration of Inde-
pendence, and that America has lifted high the light
which will shine unto all generations and guide the
feet of mankind to the goal of justice and liberty
and peace.
WAYSIDE KINDNESS TO AN
ALIEN BOY
AN ILLUSTRATION

The two preceding articles state guiding prin-
ciples of great value to the practice of America’s
ideals. First, that to do one’s work well, whatever
kind it may be, is a national service; Second, that
it is necessary to make a new concrete bill of par-
ticulars, if the ideals of our Declaration are to have
any meaning for the nation today. In succeeding
volumes of this Series Part III will consist of brief
descriptions of the ways in which individuals and
communities have put America’s ideals into prac-
tice. The following story is suggested as one of the
types needed for the purpose.
WAYSIDE KINDNESS TO AN ALIEN BOY
By RicHarpD SPILLANE

AFTER an address by a newspaper man on “The
State of the Union” at the Meridian Club on Tues-
day night, there was a general discussion. The
newspaper man had declared much of our troubles
of today in the labor field and otherwise came from
our mistreatment or misunderstanding of the im-
migrant. He said it might not be pleasant to ac-
knowledge it but it was true that we looked down
upon the immigrant and permitted him to grope his
way or be the prey of those who had no sympathy
for him.

In our derision we classed newcomers as “kikes”
or “wops” and such, and did not appreciate how,
by our attitude, we bred ill-feeling and a sense of
injustice which grew and grew with every new in-
dignity and wrong, and which found expression
sometimes in strikes or other outbreaks which were
little more than blind efforts to vent upon the em-
ployer, the most vulnerable person they could reach,
punishment for all the ill-feeling that had been in-
creasing year by year.

One of those present told a story of what kind-
ness and human sympathy had done in the case of
an immigrant child.

143
144 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

He said he had been walking in Broad Street one
day and saw a crowd. When he approached the
gathering he found two boys fighting. One was
much smaller than the other, and when the big boy
struck the little fellow a heavy blow the gentleman
forced his way through the fringe of men and got
between the boys.

The men ordered him to let them fight it out.
The gentleman told them they were cowards to
permit a big, strong boy to beat up a little one.
Meanwhile, the little fellow begged to be permitted
to continue the battle. “I have to fight him,” he
said. But the gentleman pulled the boy out of the
crowd despite the child’s pleas and tears. A little
later the lad told the gentleman his story.

He was the sole support of his mother and he
sold chewing gum on Broad Street. The big boy
had invaded his territory and would not permit him
to sell to his customers, so, although the big fellow
had beaten him repeatedly, he was fighting in the
desperate hope that he might win back the right
to earn a living.

The gentleman took the child to a restaurant,
bought something for him to eat, got the name and
address of the boy’s mother and that night took the
child to his home. The gentleman determined to
be a Big Brother to the boy and the gentleman’s
wife determined to be a Big Sister to the child’s
mother.

The boy had much to learn. His table manners
KINDNESS TO AN ALIEN BOY 145

were not above reproach. Some of his ideas were
wrong, but he always had a friend in the gentleman
and always a welcome in the gentleman’s home.

Today that boy is a $2500-a-year man in Phila-
delphia and has his mother installed in an excellent
home. What might his lot have been but for that
gentleman’s interference in the fight in Broad
Street? The gentleman said that in the fourteen
years since he first saw that child he had not spent
more than $10 on him, but he had given to him
something far, far better — friendship.

That immigrant boy has been made a fine, up-
standing American citizen by one man’s act.

Good citizens are the bulwarks of the nation.
Every man and every woman can assist in their
making through acts of kindness, justice and human

sympathy.
Part III
A PROGRAM OF ACTION

. The Creative Power of Ideas

. The Best Method of Voting

. An Education for Every Child

. Schoolhouses Available for Use

. Community Centers in Operation
“No men can act with effect who do not act in concert; no
men can act in concert who do not act with confidence; no
men can act with confidence, who are not bound together by
common epinions, common affections and common interests.”

— Epmwnp BurKE
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A PROGRAM OF ACTION

1. Tue CREATIVE POWER oF IDEAS

“An unacted thought is a sin,” said Mazzini. The
great Italian patriot regarded a thought as only half
an act. The other half is the deed corresponding
to it. Mazzini is right. In every field of endeavor
the two indispensable factors are a clear conception
of a worthy purpose and the invention of a method
for its progressive realization. These constitute the
two parts of one whole, like the two sides of a shield.

By riveting these two elements together in our
thought, we will value each at its true worth and
avoid the tendency towards extremes. A common
blunder made by “practical” Americans is to over-
emphasize the value of deeds by underrating the
value of ideals. “We don’t know where we're going,
but we’re on the way,” is a current phrase express-
ing this misleading and harmful tendency. Unless
we know where we're going, there is little prospect
of success in getting there. Without a worthy pur-
pose, the greater the activity the more is the damage
done; at the most, we will have motion but no
progress, like a swinging door. A nation is to be
judged not so much by what it does, as by what

149
150 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

it admires, what it aims at, what its ideais are. If
its aim is worthwhile, its approximations to it will
have value. If not, its achievements will be less
than worthless, whatever they are.

As Citizenship Clubs undertake to plan a
program of action, it is, therefore, essential for them
to see clearly that a year spent in the study of
America’s ideals, as here suggested, is of primary
importance. Indeed, it is the better half of their
preparation for citizenship, because it creatively de-
termines the quality of all their other activities. In
their thought they should regard the process of clari-
fying their ideals as at least on the same level with
an external deed. The process is itself a deed of
the first order.

It is true that the weekly meeting of the club is
a talk-meeting, that is, a parliament. But all great
achievements began in talk. The men who have
most profoundly affected human activity and the
course of history, men like Confucius, Jesus and
Lincoln, were all great talkers. Among many more
of a like nature, there are three American speeches,
which were themselves deeds as great as any battles,
and greater. They were made by Samuel Adams
in Faneuil Hall, Boston, by Patrick Henry to the
General Convention of Virginia, and by Abraham
Lincoln on the battle-field of Gettysburg. Their
dynamic words were trumpet calls to high achieve-
ment and indispensable to it.

In his Gettysburg speech Lincoln’s modesty led
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 151

him to make one big obvious mistake. He said that
no words he uttered there would long be remem-
bered, whereas the fact is that his words seem
destined to outlive the memory of the battle. His
memorable words are being cast in bronze and hung
in innumerable schoolhouses throughout the coun-
try. Indeed, it is not improbable that the time may
come when it will be necessary to subjoin a foot-
note to his speech in order to inform the people
concerning the name of the battlefield on which it
was uttered. The value of acquiring clear ideals
through study and discussion is here stressed lest
Citizenship Clubs be led astray or become dis-
couraged by someone’s remark that they spend so
much time not in doing something but only in talk-
ing about it. They ought to be ready with a quick
answer to such superficial criticism by saying that
the profoundest need in America at the present time
is for bold and clear thinking. To think clearly
is hard work; try it and see.

It is hoped, however, that there will be no need
for criticism or defense, because the question as to
the relative importance of words and deeds, of the
contemplative and active life, is not debatable. It
ought not to be discussed at all. It is not a ques-
tion of “either —or,” but of “both—and.” We
must have both. If they are like the two sides of
the same shield, it should be obvious that we can’t
have a shield with one side only.
152. WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

“Tt takes a soul
To move a body; it takes a high-souled man
To move the masses even to a cleaner stye;
It takes the ideal to blow an inch inside
The dust of the actual.”

The work undertaken by Citizenship Clubs
to assist in preparing for themselves a book on or-
ganized national ideals is a task with challenge in
it, a deed with the merit of real achievement in it.
It is their first practical activity, but it is not
enough. It isa means to an end. The function of
ideals is to effect a change in things. An ideal is
a picture of things as they ought to be. It, there-
fore, condemns things as they are. But it would
not condemn them unless it believed them capable
of improvement. We never condemn that in which
we do not believe. If a man is not capable of some-
thing better, he could not be condemned for what
he is. The characteristic of an ideal, therefore, is
that it at once makes a point of contact with things
as they are, and furnishes inspiration for their im-
provement. Its feet are on the ground and its head
is in the air, which is where both head and feet
should be.

To indicate how inter-related are ideals and ac-
tions, two activities are suggested at this point for
Citizenship Clubs. It would be hard to de-
termine whether to classify them under a study of
ideals or a program of action. They belong to both.

(a) The first refers to our Federal Constitution.
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 153

It is reproduced in the Appendix, not only that it
may be available for ready reference, but also for
a special purpose. In the process of acquiring a
truer understanding of its provisions, it is suggested
that a comparative study be made of the constitu-
tions of other nations, those adopted previous to
ours and those adopted since. In such a study par-
ticular attention should be paid to the historical cir-
cumstances out of which each constitution grew.
This approach will illuminate many perplexing
questions. For example, why our Constitution
makes no mention of so vital a subject in a democ-
racy as education, and why other constitutions,
made since then, do stress this subject. The his-
torical and comparative study is the wise and in-
telligent method of determining what improvements,
if any, our Constitution needs.

(6) The second refers to our Declaration of In-
dependence. In placing it in the Appendix, only
its principles are printed. The bill of particulars is
omitted, because they have no meaning for the
nation’s needs today. This is done to suggest that
Citizenship Clubs prepare a new bill of par-
ticulars, as a concrete illustration of the Declara-
tion’s principles. It will be the best method for
securing an understanding of them. I am not aware
that any new bill of particulars for present human
needs has ever been prepared. But obviously there
could be no better exercise in preparation for citi-
zenship. The Declaration contains the charter prin-
154 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

ciples of the nation’s freedom. It was not intended
to be kept in a mummy case among the nation’s
relics, but in the market place among the nation’s
living men. Except to idle curiosity, it becomes
useless as an object of study unless it is capable of
continuous application. An ideal must be forever
transforming itself into a deed or it will die. The
natural desire of every citizen is to regard his coun-
try with the passion of religious devotion. Nothing
dampens his devotion so readily as the betrayal of
his nation’s ideals; nothing stimulates it so certainly
as the practice of them.

The two exercises here suggested are not only
fascinating studies, but they are studies which
merge into action. They furnish the process by
which members of Citizenship Clubs may dis-
cover and formulate their own program of action.
Tt will equip them, when they come into full citizen-
ship, to help their country to be true to itself and
improve upon its already noble record of achieve-
ment.

After Citizenship Clubs acquire a great ideal,
it does not mean that their task is finished; it means
that their task is properly revealed. It is not
enough to know what to do. Our next unescapable
question is how to do it. Every “what” implies a
“how.” The acid test of America is the degree to
which her ideals are put into effective operation in
local communities. Therefore, the course of train-
ing for citizenship here suggested consists of two
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 155

activities, the process of acquiring right ideals, and
also the practical application of them.

In suggesting a program of action for Citi-
zenship Clubs, it is the writer’s deep conviction
that their initiative should be stimulated and not
suppressed. The cardinal idea of this training
course is that it is a process of self-activity. We
adults could no doubt make better plans for them
than they could make for themselves, but then they
would not be theirs, and their interest would not
be enlisted. A superabundance of plans have been
devised in Washington and New York for the people
of the nation, but for the most part they have rolled
off the people like water off a duck’s back. The
people’s capacity for surviving these plans is aston-
ishing. Such plans have suffered shipwreck because
they were operated for the people instead of with
them. Not autocracy, but democracy is the effi-
cient principle.

Nevertheless, young people do need guidance and
suggestion, because the task of operating America’s
ideals is complex. To know what needs to be done
is not so difficult. The difficult thing is how to do
it. “If,” said the shrewd Portia, “to do were as
easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had
been churches and poor men’s cottages princes’
palaces.” For this reason it will be safe and helpful
to suggest definite kinds of activities to the clubs,
and yet leave a large margin of freedom for their
own initiative. Young people have initiative, all
156 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

they need is a chance to exercise it. Frequently
they have been compelled to leave old backward-
looking communities to search for this chance in
newer places. Citizenship Clubs challenge them
to use their initiative in their home communities.
A great variety of services will suggest themselves
to meet the needs peculiar to each community. No
detailed program could be made to meet this type
of need for all.

While allowing a large scope of freedom to meet
the special needs of particular communities, there
are many activities needed in all communities alike.
One has already been described in detail. It is the
study course in citizenship, and ought to be counted
first on the list. In addition to this, the writer will
suggest three special activities which he would urge
every club in the country to undertake. They are
simple, definite, and big. He will then suggest a
general program of action permanently valuable and
needed alike in every section of America, whether
it be city, village, or countryside.

2. THE Best METHOD oF VoTING

The first item on the program of action suggested
for a Citizenship Club is the task of putting
the ballot-box in the schoolhouse. Clubs should
design and make, or get designed and made, a
ballot-box and voting machinery, which shall be
both beautiful and suitable for the purpose, and
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 157

then have it permanently installed in the school-
house, so that it may occupy in the community’s
thought a place befitting its importance. This is
a task, simple and definite and also vastly signifi-
cant.

The ballot-box is our nation’s distinguishing
symbol of citizenship. It is a sacred emblem. The
symbol of the Hebrew Republic was a small box
made of acacia wood and covered with gold. It
contained the Republic’s constitution and was given
an honored place in the Temple at the nation’s
capital. It was called the Ark of the Covenant.
The corresponding emblem in America is the ballot-
box, and is every whit as sacred. When we con-
sider that it stands for the enfranchisement of the
average man and that back of this achievement lie
centuries of struggle and bloodshed, and when we
consider that it is our orderly method of securing
needed improvement in social, political, and indus-
trial conditions affecting human well-being, it is
clear that it acquires a sacred character.

Even a little thought about its use and meaning
makes it obvious that the ballot-box should have
a worthy physical setting. It is evident that we
have not yet given the subject a little thought. In
the last presidential election President Wilson voted
at Princeton in a fire-house and Candidate Hughes
voted at New York in a laundry. The writer last
summer visited a town, whose polling-place was a
jail, and another town in which the election was
158 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

conducted in an undertaker’s shop, where the voting
was probably on dead issues. A laundry, a barber-
shop, any kind of an old place has hitherto been
regarded as a fit enough place for the discharge of
the highest act of citizenship.

This is wrong, as wrong as it can well be. It is
wrong, even when considered on its lowest basis.
It is economically wasteful. When we already own
schoolhouses conveniently located in every com-
munity, why waste public funds in renting other
buildings? This is a sufficient reason for using the
schoolhouse as a polling place, but not the highest,
for money is the least important factor in the pub-
lic welfare. I said just now that the voting instru-
ment should be kept permanenily in the school-
house, not erected for one day’s use alone. This
suggests an additional reason for placing it in the
schoolhouse. It could then be used as an extra-
curriculum study, to teach children how to use it.
No boy or girl ought ever to leave even a grammar-
grade school without knowing how to use our voting
machinery.

These are sufficient reasons, but the chief reason
for giving the ballot-box an honored place is to
accentuate its importance as the method of reason
instead of force, used by democracies in achieving
improvements in human conditions. From the
standpoint of its ideal and human uses, the one
most fitting of all places for the ballot-box is the
Temple of American democracy — the free public
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 159

schoolhouse — the capitol building of each local
community. It is hoped that Citizenship Clubs
will undertake this simple and significant reform
with a determination that will balk at no obstacle
in the way of its achievement.

In this connection Citizenship Clubs should
aim to inform themselves concerning every element
in the voting process. I mean not only the best
mechanical methods of voting and counting the
votes. I refer to the best methods of making the
vote count for justice and the common welfare,
methods like Preferential Voting and Proportional
Representation. In a democracy due regard for
minorities has paramount value. For the sake of
the general welfare Proportional Representation is
a reform second to almost none in practical im-
portance.

It is obviously useless to consider these advanced
and needed reforms until citizens first learn to prize
the privilege and duty of voting. If Citizenship
Clubs will erect the voting machinery with archi-
tectural dignity, and place it in the schoolhouse —
preferably in the foyer — permanently in the view
of all, it will be a constant reminder of the central
importance of the act of voting. The large number
of citizens, who have this privilege, but who fail to
exercise it, is nothing short of amazing. It is worse
than that. The citizen, in a country like ours, who
habitually fails to vote is a slacker, an unpatriotic
egotist. He has abrogated his manhood. He has
160 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

voluntarily made himself a man without a country
and does not merit its protection. He has no right
to complain of the tax rate, or any public policy in
operation. But he is usually the first to criticize.
The proper answer to his criticism is to disfranchise
him.

The apparently severe language here used may
seem to some an unwarranted condemnation. Do
the facts justify it? If failure to use the franchise
is so general, is it not a cause of serious public con-
cern? Itis. The facts are such as to challenge all
thoughtful citizens. In order to support this chal-
lenge with ascertained facts, the writer addressed
a questionnaire to every city with as much as
100,000 population, and to one typical rural county
in each State.

The questionnaire contained the following three
questions:

1. How many citizens of your city were entitled to
register and vote, and how many failed to do
so in the last presidential election?

2. How many were entitled to register and vote,
and how many on an average failed to do so
in your last three municipal elections?

3. According to your records what type, or types,
of citizens chiefly failed to vote?

The tabulated results are as follows:
I61

A PROGRAM OF ACTION

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A PROGRAM OF ACTION 163

Most cities and counties have a record only of
those voters who register. They have no way of
knowing the number of their citizens who are en-
titled to register and vote. But 8 cities and 1
county furnished this information. It is stated in
the table on the opposite page and is highly sig-
nificant:

Voters WHo Do Nor Vore.— Rurar

 

 

 

Counties Registered Voted Per Cent

San Joaquin, Calif....... 26,000 20,000 76
Marshall, Iowa ......... 6,800 6,400 94
Berkshire, Mass......... 23,259 18,789 80
Clearfield, Pa........... 19,351 13,299 638
Lincoln, S.. Dye cicc exeay 3,507 1,626 45
Limestone, Texas ....... 7,203 2,527 34
Braxton, W. Va....s000- 6,300 4,183 66

Average percentage of regis-

tered voters who voted ina

national election.......... 66

 

 

 

It will be observed that it takes a presidential
election to bring out as large a vote in country dis-
tricts, as a local election does in the cities. Is it
lack of interest or lack of good roads? It will
also be observed that a national election always
polls a heavier vote than a local election. Is this
due to a lack of interest in the commonplace ques-
tions of the home soil or do far-off hills look green?
But the challenging fact is that so large a proportion
of legal voters do not vote at all.
1644 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

This brief survey of only 8 cities and one county
reveals the shocking fact that only 38 per cent of
those entitled to vote exercise the privilege. From
this survey it is a safe and conservative conclusion
to draw that probably not more than 50 per cent
of the citizens exercise the duty and privilege of the
franchise. What is the explanation of this astonish-
ing fact?

PERCENTAGE

Of registered urban voters who vote in national

elections’. ccccacinnicce ey eset Fes eA OES eRe Ae 78 per cent
Of registered rural voters who vote in national

electionsy s:Qaiieeide toeeete enone an dca aes 66 per cent
Of registered urban voters who vote in local elec-

TONS > sicnseeeerecidsdieinn isd alals Sistas chard creer ceeee Alowes 65 per cent
Of those entitled to register and vote, who do so.. 38 per cent

This condition of things is doubly disturbing
when we consider the additional fact that it appears
to be steadily growing worse. The registrar of San
Francisco, Mr. J. H. Zemansky, has compiled for
the Rotary Club of his city, a complete record of
the electors who registered and voted in every elec-
tion during the last forty years. The percentage of
registered electors who voted

From 1878 to 1888 was 78 per cent
From 1890 to 1899 was 65 per cent

From 1900 to 1909 was 53 per cent
From 1910 to 1919 was 52 per cent

This marked decline of interest on the part of
electors in the duty of voting from 78% to 52%
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 165

is a challenging revelation. For the really signifi-
cant fact about a nation is not chiefly its present
position, but the direction in which it is moving. It
is altogether fitting that the Rotary Club requested
its Civic Committee to make an investigation of
this downward tendency.

In answer to the third question in the question-
naire, as to the type of citizens who usually fail to
vote, the answers were various and inconclusive.
But a few answers were so pointed in the same di-
rection as to be highly suggestive, to say the least.
They are as follows:

“Business and professional men failed to vote.”

“In the opinion of our registrars of voters, the American
born are the more careless in this respect.”

“There are fully as many absentees from the voting booth
on the part of native Americans as of any other class.”

“Personally I believe the so-called ‘better element’ vote about
50 per cent of the men.”

“Some of our so-called American wards show a decided lack
of interest in going to the polls.”

“I believe it to be an uncontrovertible statement that the
women voters as a body give very much more attention and
more intelligent consideration to men and measures than do the
male voters.”

“T should say that the so-called good citizen, including the mer-
chant, the business man and the professional man, is most
negligent in this respect. At three o’clock in the afternoon of
a recent election day, a poll of 15 men was taken in a business
men’s club, only three of whom had voted.”

“I would judge that in most cases the man who does not
vote is the one who could vote intelligently if he were not too
busy to go to the polls.”
166 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

The causes for this decided neglect of public duty
are no doubt many and complex. Is it due in part
to the psychological tendency that after we achieve
a right we lose interest in it; that interest is sus-
tained while striving for a goal, but suspended wher
it is reached? Is it due in part to the fact that
some men are so absorbed in their own selfish busi-
ness interests that they neglect the public interest;
that with them private profit is paramount to public
service? Is it because some feel that they have no
ballot-box, that in the two major parties the nomi-
nations are made by partisan machines, and that
the ballot box does not afford them a chance to
express their political convictions? Is it because
some feel that the ballot-box has ceased to be an
effective instrument, that political democracy has
failed to create a satisfactory social order and that
they are spending their efforts in the attempt to pro-
duce an industrial democracy as the effective way
of securing a better social order?

These are profoundly interesting inquiries.
Whatever the causes for the neglect of the ballot-
box, it is essential to the nation’s welfare that they
should be ascertained and removed. Our greatest
national need is to visualize the public interest and
make it paramount. The ballot box is one of our
sacred and visible symbols of the public interest,
and the democratic method of securing orderly re-
forms. Citizenship Clubs should address them-
selves to the task of stimulating its wider use.
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 167

They should at least keep a continuously correct
card-catalogue of all citizens in their districts en-
titled to register and vote. They would thus per-
form a neglected public duty and it would likewise
be the beginning of many reforms in our defective
census system. Such a record would in itself help
stimulate the thoughtless, the tired and the selfish
citizen to perform his duty as a voter.

It is only fair to say that such neglect is partly
due to his thoughtlessness. The voter who fails to
vote would no doubt be shocked to be told that he
is a traitor to himself if not to his country. He
simply does not realize the meaning of his selfish-
ness. To give the ballot-box an honored place in
the community’s most useful public building will
help decidedly to give this type of citizen a social
conscience and a sense of obligation to his com-
munity and his country.

The reason why the ballot-box does not now oc-
cupy a more honored physical place in the com-
munity is because it does not occupy an honored
enough place in our thought. Therefore, in attempt-
ing the reform here suggested, it will be necessary
for Citizenship Clubs to create a sentiment con-
cerning the significance of the ballot-box for
America’s experiment in democracy. The physical
act of placing it in the schoolhouse will in turn
stimulate the same sentiment and keep it alive. We
must actually come to feel about it as Whittier has
expressed it in his poem, “The Poor Man On Elec-
168 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

tion Day.” We have perhaps regarded this as a
beautiful sentiment to be indulged in secret. It
will no doubt be harder for the man who is not
poor to feel this way. But it is essential that all
of us make this our common and unashamed emo-
tion, whenever we touch the ballot-box. A sort of
sacred awe is the appropriate feeling. Here are two
verses of the poem. If they do not express your
attitude as a citizen of America, then you need to
examine your conscience and mourn for America as
a land of broken promise.

The proudest now is but my peer,
The highest not more high;
Today, of all the weary year,
A king of men am I.
Today alike are great and small,
The nameless and the known;
My palace is the people’s hall,
The ballot box my throne!

While there’s a grief to seek redress,
Or balance to adjust,

Where weighs our living manhood less
Than Mammon’s vilest dust, —

While there’s a right to need my vote,
A wrong to sweep away,

Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
A man’s a man today!
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 169

3. AN EpucaTION For Every CuHILp

The next item on the proposed program of action
is that a Citizenship Club should set itself the
definite task of making it possible for every child
in its community to secure at least a grammar school
education. This project is simple, although it may
be difficult. It is a neglected task, but it is criti-
cally important to the nation’s welfare.

If clubs are to be stimulated to undertake this
task, it is necessary that they make a simple and
profound discovery. They must see that children
constitute the nation’s biggest asset. An unusual
census was recently taken in England and the na-
tion’s wealth was estimated not in terms of its
imports and exports or bank deposits, but in terms
of its children. It is high time that every nation
should be stabbed broad awake to the realization
of this basic fact.

A child is the stuff out of which men and women
are made, and how is it possible to have men and
women intelligent enough to be citizens in a democ-
racy, unless they have at least a common school
education as a start towards this goal? ‘The child
is father of the man,” and if Citizenship Clubs
will make it possible for these fathers of men and
mothers of women, that is, children, to secure a
minimum equipment for citizenship, their service
to the nation will be such that its value cannot be
estimated. The neglect of it will issue in results
170 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

which will be obvious enough, as Jefferson pointed
out — “If the people,” said he, “expect to be free
and independent and at the same time ignorant and
illiterate they are expecting something that never
has been or ever can be.”

But why stress a thing which is so obviously true,
which everybody would admit? Why, because it
isn’t true, that is, we don’t believe it, we only hold
it as a theory. It is worth much that we have
gotten far enough to hold it as theoretically true.
But we are here considering a program of action.
We pass a compulsory attendance bill in one of our
State Legislatures, have it nicely printed and tied
with a blue ribbon. Then we think our task is
done and proceed to indulge in a moral holiday.
The tragic fact is that over fifty per cent of the
girls and boys of America do not finish the grammar
grades of school. Will you please muster up
courage enough to stand before that fact until the
challenge in it tears off the theoretic rags of our
patriotism and reveals the naked poverty and hypoc-
racy of our practice? Any community that does
not care for its own children, at least to the extent
of giving them a fair start in the race of life, is
stupid and morally defective. It is a danger-spot
in the nation.

In a certain section of one of our rich and con-
tented Eastern cities, a section which boasts that
it gave birth to one of our most inspiring national
‘traditions, over 91 per cent of the girls and boys are
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 171

eliminated from school before they finish the
grammar grades. This is an un-American and sui-
cidal national policy and forebodes serious evil to
the Republic’s future. The test of insanity in some
asylums is to take a patient to a trough into which
an open spigot is running water, give the patient
a vessel and ask him to bail the water out of the
trough. If he does not have commonsense enough
to turn off the spigot before attempting to empty
the trough, they adjudge him insane, and justly so.
It is a species of social insanity or at the least
stupid inefficiency for America as a society to work
at the unending task of handling the corrupting
stream of influences among adult citizens, without
attempting to turn off the supply of defective and
unprepared children, out of whom citizens are made.
“The walls of Sparta are built of Spartans.” Like-
wise the walls of America are built of Americans
and the quality of our national building depends on
the nature of the material used in its construction.

When the principal of the school, in the district
here referred to, discovered the reasons why the
children were eliminated from school, and had at-
tempted to remedy the condition by a simple con-
structive program of action, she was called before
the school board and required to explain and defend
her unusual audacity. She was in serious danger
of losing her position. This means that only the
few exceptional teachers, who are willing to lay
down their professional lives in behalf of America,
172, WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

are free to do what they clearly see needs to be
done. It means that the task must be done by an
independent agency, like the Community Associa-
tion of citizens or a department of the Community
Association like a Citizenship Club. For reasons
already suggested a Citizenship Club is an ideal
agency to attempt a task like this.

If, therefore, a Citizenship Club would not
spend its time talking about a national system of
education, or the lack of it, although it needs to be
talked about until it is given a central and com-
manding position in the Federal Government, such
as it has in all other leading civilized nations, —
nevertheless, for the purpose of a program of im-
mediate action, if such a club tackled the task here
suggested in its home soil, it would render a national
service. It should first find out how many children
in its own neighborhood are not finishing the
grammar grades. It should then seek to remove
the obstacles which prevent them from doing so,
or provide the means to enable them to do so. It
should adopt as its slogan, “A grammar school edu-
cation, the minimum for every girl and boy in
America.”

Here is a task, practical, important, and patri-
otic. If the members of Citizenship Clubs
courageously attempted to remove the causes which
now rob children of this minimum preparation for
citizenship, whether these causes be the kind of
studies now pursued in school, or the home con-
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 173

ditions of the children, or the economic conditions
of the community, they would become missionaries
for America, and render a national service just as
real and far more permanently valuable, than if
they were to enlist in the army at a time of national
danger. It is a project big enough and vital enough
to enlist the loyal and active support of every lover
of American ideals.

4. SCHOOLHOUSES AVAILABLE FOR USE

The next specific item on the program of action
here suggested for Citizenship Clubs is to make
the schoolhouse available for use by men and
women in the process of equipping themselves for
citizenship. It may be that in many places the
schoolhouse will not be granted for the use of your
club. Very well, then, one of your big tasks is
ready-made to your hand. It is just the kind of
challenge you are looking for; accept it at once.
Go on a crusade to secure the use of the school-
house, and in winning it for your own use, you
will win it for all other typical community activities
as well.

In a few states there is a state law making it
mandatory on School Boards to open schoolhouses
for the use of citizens, when they demand it. In
a few other states the law is permissive, leaving it
to the judgment of School Boards whether citizens
shall or shall not use the schoolhouse. But for the
174 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

most part, schoolhouses are not now available for
use by citizens. Even in states which have passed
a law on the subject, the law is one thing, the prac-
tice is another, and a very different thing. The
great majority of School Boards throughout the
nation are still suffering from the strange illusion
that the schoolhouses belong to them rather than to
the people. One of the big tasks of present and
pressing importance is that citizens should recap-
ture their own property and use it for their needs.
Inasmuch as citizens in any district have supplied
the money for the erection and support of the in-
stitution, they have in their own hands the means
of its control. All they need to do is to discover
that it belongs to them, and then claim the use of
what is their own.

In the process of making the schoolhouses avail-
able for the use of youths and adults in the practice
of citizenship, there is one distinction which should
be kept clearly in mind. It is this: the Community
Center Movement is not a school function, nor a
government function, but a citizens’ function.
There are two pieces of machinery which the people
use for special and defined purposes: — the town
government and the school system. The Com-
munity Center should of course maintain most
cordial and co-operative relations to these two
pieces of machinery, but it should not be directed
by either of them. The school officials were given
the special task of providing for the education of
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 175

children. It is big enough to occupy them. Even
if they were not sufficiently occupied, they are
handicapped in their equipment for community
work. In their work for children, they have a nat-
ural tendency to be autocrats. They have acquired
the habit. They must naturally be over the chil-
dren, but they should not be over the adults. For
them autocratically to issue orders to adults as to
what they may or may not do, is a thing which adult
American citizens cannot endure. It is vital to our
political institutions that we should resist the
present dangerous and growing tendency on the
part of the Government to schoolmaster the people.
It is not the business of the Government to support
the people but of the people to support the Govern-
ment. The School System and the Town Govern-
ment are creatures, not creators. The people are
their masters and should determine their policies.

Moreover, school officials are not free to act. A
North Carolina judge is the author of the statement
that “no man with seven children can be a hero.”
With children to support he cannot risk the loss of
his position by advocating a new and pioneer en-
terprise like the community center. For this reason,
if school officials attempt to control the Community
Center Movement, it will no doubt dwindle down
into a program for conducting picnics and other nice
and harmless activities, which do not even touch the
fringe of the great political and educational needs
of America today. School teachers can best achieve
176 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

their freedom by stimulating organized action on
the part of the citizens. Organized pressure by the
people from the outside is the method by which all
effective reforms in institutions have always been
achieved. School teachers, who already believe in
the Community Center Movement will thus be
liberated and can then render effective service. If
Citizenship Clubs will assist to open up the
schoolhouses for the use of citizens, they will render
a signal service to the Community Center Move-
ment in its pioneer and formative period.

In attempting to open up an established institu-
tion to new and unaccustomed uses there is a
further distinction which is highly important to
make. In suggesting a change in governmental
machinery or new uses for it, be not deceived by
those who are afraid of the people and who think
any proposed change is disloyalty to the govern-
ment. Governmental machinery was made for the
use of the people, not the people for its use. The
Community Center Movement makes a clear dis-
tinction between the state and the nation. It regards
the state as a piece of machinery. Its aim
is to organize the nation, to put America into opera-
tion, so that citizens may retain their rightful con-
trol over governmental machinery, utilizing and
changing it as may best serve the common welfare.

It is not loyalty to the government, that makes
a good American citizen, but loyalty to the nation.
Loyalty to the government is what the Czar of
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 177

Russia and the Kaiser of Germany demanded, but
the American theory requires loyalty to the people.
This distinction is vitally important to American
ideals. It has been so effectively stated by Mark
Twain, that I quote his statement of it:

“You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one’s
country, not to its institutions or its office-holders.
The country is the real thing, the eternal thing; it
is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be
loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its
mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become
ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the
body from winter, disease and death. To be loyal
to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for
rags — that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure ani-
mal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by
monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Con-
necticut, whose Constitution declares ‘that all po-
litical power is inherent in the people, and all free
governments are founded on their authority and
instituted for their benefit; and that they have at
all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to
alter their form of government in such a manner as
they may think expedient.’

“Under that gospel, the citizen who thinks he
sees that the commonwealth’s political clothes are
worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agi-
tate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That
he may be the only one who thinks he sees this
decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate
178 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

anyway, and it is the duty of the others to vote
him down, if they do not see the matter as he does.”

5. ComMUNITY CENTERS IN OPERATION

The four concrete tasks here suggested are fun-
damental pieces of work in every American com-
munity. They obviously need to be done. The
nature of these tasks is such that they cannot be
done once and let alone, but require continuous
effort for their repeated achievement. They must
be labored for in order to be retained. A post will
not remain white by letting it alone; it must be
repeatedly painted. The four tasks here suggested
are tasks of sufficient difficulty to challenge the
courage and satisfy the ambition of any Citizenship
Club. I name these four tasks as typical of the
kind of thing that Citizenship Clubs ought to do,
worthy enough to command their loyalty and big
enough to retain their devoted interest.

If I were asked to prepare a complete detailed
program of activities for Citizenship Clubs from
the standpoint of America as a society; ac-
tivities best suited to furnish training for citizen-
ship and most effective for the continued practice
of citizenship after it is acquired, I would unhesi-
tatingly say that such a program is clearly set forth
in the numerous and vital activities of a Community
Center.

The Community Center Movement not only em-
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 179

bodies the ideals to which America was dedicated
at her birth, but it also presents a definite plan of
action in behalf of social politics. Its aim is to
achieve freemen’s citizenship, to develop small
communities into little democracies with school-
houses for their capitols, to secure liberty and
justice for all, to lift artificial burdens from all
shoulders, to apply ethical standards to politics and
economics, to help America become a society, so
that all citizens, both native and foreign born, when
speaking of America, may say “my country,” and
say it so honestly as to be willing to put the in-
terests of “my country” above the interests of
“myself”; in brief, its aim is to put America into
operation in every local community through the
practice of citizenship.

To achieve this aim it employs a large number of
vital practical activities. To describe them would
require a whole book by itself. Inasmuch as the
author has already written such a book there is no
need to repeat it here, but merely to refer Citi-
zenship Clubs to it. It is called “A Community
Center, What It is and How to Organize It.” * If
these clubs are looking for a definite program of
action, suited to their purpose, they will find it
here. It is sufficient to occupy them not only dur-
ing their year of training for citizenship, but during
their entire life, as they attempt to put into practice
the ideals of citizenship, which they have learned

* Published by The Macmillan Co., New York
180 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

to love. It is a program adaptable to city, village,
and countryside alike. It is a program worthy to
command the major loyalty of all young men and
women, who honestly desire to play their part as
citizens of America.

Their part now is a highly inspiring one, for it
is upon them, rather than upon adults, that America
must depend to put her ideals into effective opera-
tion in local communities. They are open-minded
to new ideas; they are congenital democrats; and
they have a natural affinity for the ideals of the
Declaration of Independence. This is the biggest
task challenging the young men and women of
America in the new day now dawning. It is the
widest open door of opportunity, through which
they may enter into the heritage of their fathers.
America opened a new road to freedom, their task
is to keep the road open. “To you from failing
hands we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.”

In the long and painful period of reconstruction,
upon which we are now entering, the call which
comes to young men and women has urgency in it.
The road to freedom which America opened is in
serious danger of being closed. It is quite possible
that the cause, for which we helped win a victory
in Europe, may suffer defeat at home. A bitter and
dangerous class warfare is now in progress. By
wholesale men are being arrested on suspicion. The
right of trial by jury is being denied. Free speech
and assembly are suppressed. Everywhere racial
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 181

antagonism and economic jealousies are dominant.
As a student and lover of America I have a growing
conviction that the time has come to revive and
resound the warning raised a half-century ago by
our typical American, “A house divided against
itself cannot stand.”

That America is now divided against herself is
obvious. The nation is suffering from an acute
attack of hysteria. It suffered from the same kind
of an attack a little more than a hundred years ago
and survived it. It will no doubt survive this one.
But this one is more serious. The basis of the first
one was a political cause; the basis of this one is an
economic cause. The men, who make the remark
so frequently heard, that in America there are no
classes, either do not know, or are unwilling to rec-
ognize, the facts. More probably they are honestly
trying to deceive themselves, because they are em-
barrassed by the facts. They are describing things
as they ought to be, not as they are. It is worse
than idle to keep on repeating this remark when it
is contradicted by facts obvious to all who have
eyes to see. It is not possible to purify the water
in a well, by painting the pump. Wise men are not
content to treat symptoms only, they remove
causes; they go to the bottom of the well.

Unless we desire merely to indulge in the pleasant
pastime of painting the pump, we will face the
facts and recognize that in very few places in
America do we have anything else but classes.
182 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

Everywhere men and women are divided into groups
according to their personal taste or occupation. Re-
cently I went to a western city to give one lecture.
On account of the social and industrial unrest which
might at any time become violent, I was requested
to remain to give the community message to as
many as possible. To help meet this need I gave
sixteen addresses. I had to speak to groups of
people like the Chamber of Commerce, Lawyers’
Club, Women’s Club, Farmers’ Convention,
Teachers’ Institute, and fraternal orders like the
Masons and the Elks and other groups with
similar labels, separating the people into special
classes. But nowhere did I have the opportunity to
speak to the citizens of the city. The lawyers,
teachers, merchants, women, farmers were all or-
ganized, but the citizens were not organized. I
asked those in charge of my lectures: ‘““Have*you
no Citizens?” They answered: “No, only every
four years.” This condition is typical of the whole
country.

In order that I might speak to citizens, a series
of three lectures was arranged in public meetings to
which all kinds and classes of people came, not,
however, as classes but as citizens. These three
meetings were worth all the others combined and
more. It was when we met thus as citizens, bankers,
teachers, lawyers and I. W. W. workingmen all in
the same room, and in the meetings used honest
discussion and showed a friendly spirit; it was then
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 183

that something of real consequence happened and
constructive results were achieved of incalculable
value to the whole city. If our house is not to
fall it must cease to be divided, as Lincoln said. If
it is to cease to be divided, it is obvious that a
means must be found to bring all men as citizens
into common counsel to secure mutual understand-
ing and concerted action. Such a means is fur-
nished by the Community Center Movement with
its two pole stars for guidance — honest discussion
and intelligent sympathy. We are already twenty-
five years too late in starting it. The task will be
harder than if we had used forethought, but no
time should now be lost in using the instrument to
apply American principles to our common needs.
There is no nobler piece of public service, which
Citizenship Clubs could render, than to make
this their desired goal and program of action.

This no doubt at first sight will seem to them
to be an ambitious program. But are they not
equipping themselves for citizenship? How better
can they realize their purpose than by promoting
the organization which makes the practice of citi-
zenship possible? Let it be remembered that Citi-
zenship Clubs, because of their very nature, will
unconsciously render a large service to the Com-
munity Center Movement. If they seek to become
departments of Community Centers, they will
stimulate their organization. They are in fact com-
munity centers in miniature and will thus portray
184 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

the community principle in operation. The four
specific tasks here suggested are typical community
activities, and the club which accepts them as its
program, will be the best of training schools for a
Community Center.

Even if a Citizenship Club does not attempt
to promote a Community Center, but confines itself
to one or two activities like those here suggested, it
will be wise to use the Community Center ideal as
a guiding principle. It is an enormous advantage
to set up a clear standard by which all their ac-
tivities are to be judged. If young men and women,
as candidates for citizenship, are to be rescued from
distraction and their energies are not to be scattered,
their feet should be planted upon a path, a purpose
road. If in their period of preparation they do
not go far along this road, no matter. When
Socrates was asked, “How do you get to Mount
Olympus?” he answered, “By doing all your walk-
ing in that direction.” If Citizenship Clubs
succeed in planting the feet of their members on a
true purpose road and in stimulating them to begin
walking on it towards America’s goal, their achieve-
ment will be of the highest order. Better a fair
start on a main highway which leads to a flying
goal, than the completion of a journey over a by-
path, which leads nowhere.

As the author sends forth this little book to in-
augurate a movement for better citizenship, he can-
A PROGRAM OF ACTION 185

not refrain from congratulating Young America on
the open door of opportunity set before them to
mold the new era now in travail to be born. He is
impressed by the fact that the triumph or defeat of
the new era will be determined in the open minds
of young men and women, who are now coming to
their majority.

Youth demands an epic life and it has an un-
precedented chance to have its demand met today
in America. The author would remind these, who
undertake the task proposed by the Citizenship
Club Movement, that they are attempting an enter-
prise second to none in value to the Nation. They
are aiming to meet America’s greatest present and
permanent need. What is that? Is it not to visu-
alize the public interest and make it paramount?
To enlist in this cause with the passion of religious
devotion is the trumpet call, which the new era
makes to America’s youth.

The Citizenship Club Movement appeals to
young men and women to approach their task with
the same spiritual exaltation they felt during the
war. Out of the war was born a phrase which may
serve to stimulate this ideal. It is the phrase
“carry on.” In the white light of the heroic
struggle, which gave birth to the phrase, it has ac-
quired a wealth of figurative meaning beyond its
first literal application. It stands for a sort of
spiritual splendor — heroic devotion to community
welfare. The author suggests that this phrase be
tor their country, and whose patriotism in pea
equals their patriotism in war.
APPENDICES

(A). A Fiac oF Love AND HATE
(B). SuGcESTIONS FOR ORGANIZING A CLUB
(C). SuGcEsTIONS FoR CoNDUCTING A CLUB
(D). Reception or NEw Citizens
(E). List oF Books FoR READING AND STUDY
(F). Nationa CHARTERS OF AMERICAN FREEDOM
1. Declaration of Independence
2. Federal Constitution
“Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, th
country has a right to concentrate your affections.”

— GEorRGE WASHINGTON.
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APPENDIX A
A FLAG OF LOVE AND HATE

Giapys ELLARIONOFF was the maker of the flag
of love and hate. As she cross-stitched the stars
and stripes on a piece of linen, designed for a pillow
cover, strands of affection were woven with the
silken threads. That it was almost ‘converted into
a flag of hate, was no fault of hers, but the fault of
someone who misrepresented America and mas-
queraded as a patriot.

She knew no word of English, when at six years
old she arrived in America. She skipped three
grades and now at fourteen is a sophomore in a
high school in Seattle. It would be difficult to
distinguish her in any group of modest, attractive,
American high school girls, excepting that mentally
she is well above the average.

She felt a keen sense of gratitude to the American
Public School and was happy with her school com-
rades. Her parents, who are ambitious and superior
people, loved America for the opportunity of self-
development they enjoyed. They saved and sacri-
ficed in order to subscribe for Liberty bonds of the
first four issues. The part America played in the

189
190 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

“war for justice and democracy” aroused the en-
thusiasm of Gladys to such a pitch that it needed
an outlet. The form in which it expressed itself was
the making of the flag, coupled with the motto,
“America, I love you.” This sentiment is the true
expression of the honest feeling of the entire family
for the country, which had served them well, and
which they in turn would gladly serve.

Now, one year later, the family’s trunks are
packed to return to Russia. They want to go.
They are unhappy here. In packing her trunk
Gladys took up the flag, but could not put it in.
She said, “I cannot take it to Russia; I hate it.”
What she had lovingly spent her labor upon was
now a symbol of torture. Her little sister suggested
that she rip out the motto, because it no longer told
the truth, and take the flag alone. She wept bitter
tears when she started to act on this suggestion,
but her mother counseled delay in the hope that a
better way out might appear.

Why this reversal of feeling for America?
Gladys had been cut to the quick by the taunts of
her schoolmates that her father bore upon his name
the stigma of a criminal. He was among the 350
aliens who had been “rounded up” like cattle in
the night by an official raid on the suspicion that
they were dangerous. Dangerous to whom? Only
27 out of the 350 could be kept on any pretext of
a charge. But to be arrested on suspicion, detained
over night in jail when no charge of wrong doing
A FLAG OF LOVE AND HATE 191

‘was brought or could be brought against him, out-
raged the father’s sense of justice.

As a result the father lost his position. He is an
honest, peaceful, intelligent man. He was a soil
chemist for his Government in Russia. After
coming here he became a safe and door maker. He
attended night school and is now an expert ma-
chinist. The man put in his place knew little or
nothing about his work, and yet America needs
men and is preaching the need of more production.
But he is a Russian; that is enough. He cannot get
a position. It is true he had not become a natural-
ized citizen. Before coming to America he tried
and failed to get a permit from his government to
become a United States citizen. The penalty for
doing so without such a permit was twenty-five
years in dreaded Siberia, if he should return to his
native land. While not technically a citizen, he was
an American at heart. But these facts had no
weight in securing him fair treatment.

It is not quite fair to say that this family hates
America. They had worshipped America’s ideals
and had come with high hopes. This is what they
found. I heard from them no word of bitterness,
only expressions of sorrow that they had found a
land of broken promise. All they ask is their pass-
port so that the family may return together. If
they go, it will be Russia’s gain and America’s loss.
If, under the circumstances, Seattle permits them
to go, it will put a stain upon America’s honor.
192 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

Who is responsible for treating such a man in
such a fashion? ‘To what extent it is a national
policy, or to what extent it is due to “the never-end-
ing audacity of elected persons,” it is unnecessary
here to discuss. Whoever is responsible for it, it
is unjust, inhuman, and un-American. All citizens
who know and love America’s ideals ought to make
their protest so emphatic as to prevent its repeti-
tion. By such a policy we deliberately create a
hate for America in the hearts of those who want to
love her. This is not the American way; it is the
stupid violation of the American way. In fairness
it should be remembered that this outbreak of un-
reasoning prejudice misrepresents the heart of
America. It is due to an acute attack of organized
hysteria from which the nation has permitted itself
to be inoculated. It will pass. We will recover.

When a casual remark in my lecture at Seattle on
community ideals encouraged a woman to tell me
this story, I suggested that I had a use in America
for this little flag, which Gladys could not take to
Russia. Through a group of noble women, who
verified the facts and are humiliated by them, I
met the family, an attractive wholesome intelligent
family, a real asset to any community. After the
smoke screen of fear surrounding them was removed
by an explanation of my purpose, they insisted that
I accept the flag as a gift from Gladys. In pho-
tographing the flag the family is so arranged as to
suggest the tragedy of their story. They look in
A FLAG OF LOVE AND HATE 193

serious concern upon it as the symbol of their
broken hopes, or in meditation as upon a fallen idol.

This story embodies an extreme, though unfor-
tunately not an exceptional, manifestation of a
temporary and passing wave of fear on the part of
America. But I use it to make pointed an idea
essential to the success of the Citizenship Club
movement. It makes vivid the fact that, unless we
first of all Americanize ourselves, our insincere at-
tempt to help resident aliens will be labor lost. It
makes manifest the fact that the sons and daughters
of resident aliens on the average are worthy to be
associated in a training course for citizenship with
native-born sons and daughters, if we take the
American ideals of character and intelligence as our
standards. It exhibits the fact that before con-
sidering methods of organizing and conducting
Citizenship Clubs, the thing to be put and kept
in the foreground is a right attitude of mind.
Methods of procedure are details. The creative
and guiding principle is an attitude of intelligent
sympathy, a spirit of democratic comradeship.
Without such an attitude all our effort will be like
pulling a harrow over frozen ground. After an
address on community centers I once made in the
Kentucky mountains, a young man went straight
to the heart of the matter in his quaint remark,
“We have had love and sympathy in too small
skimption.” Citizenship Clubs invite their mem-
bers to join in the adventure of being human.
APPENDIX B

SUGGESTIONS FOR ORGANIZING
A CLUB

1. WHEN a new movement needs to be started,
it is a common habit for many people to let some-
one else do it. If everyone says, “Let George do
it,” it will not be done. Don’t wait, start it your-
self. Any individual, or group of individuals or
institution may start a Citizenship Club. Call
even a few young people together to talk it over.
Their choice of a permanent leader may be you or
it may not. You elect yourself to be temporary
chairman to prime the pump and start the move-
men in operation.

2. If a club is to be conducted it needs a con-
ductor. Who shall its guide or leader be? Any man
or woman who has the ability and willingness to per-
form the task. The guide does not need to be a
professional advisor. Any one, with or without
technical training, who can produce the desired re-
sult, is the right person for the work.

3. How shall the guide be selected? While any
school teacher or town official or any citizen or or-
ganization may take the initiative in starting a
Citizenship Club, the guide of the club should

194
ORGANIZING A CLUB 195

be selected by the members of the Club itself.
Young people have a keen and correct knowledge
of adults and their judgment may be safely trusted.

4. The club ought to be organized with its own
officers and committees appointed to take charge of
the various activities. Don’t be afraid to give the
young people large responsibility. They can take
it and this is a part of the training. The leader
ought to work not for them but witk them.

5. It will be necessary to consult many books in
order to secure the information needed on various
elements in the equipment sought. This means that
no one book will be used as a textbook, that whole
sections in certain books will be passed by. This
is the best way to treat some books. Remember,
that the purpose is not to study subjects, but to
train citizens. This is a highly important distinc-
tion.

6. The big guiding principle to remember is the
necessity of establishing a point of contact in teach-
ing. Discover the state of mind and stage of de-
velopment of the people to be taught. Take your
stand with them and lead them from where they
are up to where you think they ought to be. If
we want to get anywhere, we have to start from
where we are.

7. There is one common blunder, which ought to
be carefully avoided. Don’t underrate the capacity
of young people. Give them a big and difficult
task. They like it and are equal to it. One of the
196 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

most effective and popular statements of the es-
sential difference between the opposing sides in the
World War was made by a school girl of Paris.
The best section of a book on “The League of Na-
tions,” which the writer recently edited was con-
tributed by a high school boy of Washington. Those
with experience realize that average young people
are more capable of considering big problems and
reading difficult books and thinking big thoughts
than are average adults.

8. As one item in the year’s training, it would
be well for members of the Club to stage a play,
such as one of the three dramas of democracy men-
tioned in the list of references. This will not only
be a pleasurable recreation, but help to make vivid
America’s ideals. For the same two reasons it
would be well to relieve the stress of work by having
some one occasionally read one of McMurry’s
stories of our pioneers.

g. It will be difficult for the teacher to determine
which members of the Club are qualified to receive
the degree of citizenship at the public meeting.
This is due to the method of training. It is not
arranged to suit the process of giving examination
marks, but to make young people better equipped
for life. Of course, the regularity of attendance,
interest in the studies, contribution of thought at
the weekly meetings are factors to be considered.
But it is suggested that the fair and the simplest
way to reach a correct conclusion is to have each
ORGANIZING A CLUB 197

member, towards the end of the year, write an essay
on “What America Means to Me,” and to let this
essay have most weight in determining the result.
If the leader needs help, an outside Committee
could be utilized in examining the papers.

10. When the number of those eligible to receive
the medal of honor is determined, the leader is
asked to make the statement and the list of names,
and to have the statement countersigned by two
public officials in the community, one representing
the public schools, and one the town government.
This statement should be sent with the order for
the medals. The individual members may pay for
the medals, or it might be well for the Club to start
a fund, so that they could all be paid for by the
Club as a whole. Such a fund could be secured by
charging an admission fee for the dramatic per-
formance, or in many other ways which will suggest
themselves. A fund may be needed also to pay
the traveling expenses of commencement speakers,
for an effort should be made to secure the best
speakers available.

11. It is probable that in some communities it
will not be suitable to begin the course of study in
September: in order to finish it before July. It
may be more convenient to begin it in mid-winter.
To meet this need it is suggested that two dates be
designated for the commencement exercises, — Feb-
ruary 12th and July 4th. Both dates are appropri-
ate for the purpose. This would enable any Club
198 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

to begin its course of 30 weeks study either in
September or in January.

12. If you think the members of your club are
not equal to the method of study here suggested, or
if you prefer the text-book method, you may select
one from the seven named in the Appendix. They
represent several different types of treatment and
are adapted to capacities ranging from the first
grammar grades to the last year of high school and
beyond.

13. Whatever method of study you decide to
pursue you will need the club organization to create
the consciousness of the need of training for citizen-
ship and to maintain the morale for making it effec-
tive, as well as to conduct other activities which are
also a part of the training.

14. It would be wise to use the method here
suggested as far as possible, because it is designed
to develop the capacity for bold and clear thinking.
This is a necessary equipment for citizenship in a
free country; without it, citizens will be lost when
they come to vote on public policies. There will be
no text books to guide them. Moreover, it will be
found that normal young people twenty years old
do not care for predigested food.

15. The suggestions here offered are for the most
part general. Each Club should work out its own
detailed plans of procedure, even if some one else
could do it better. It is essential to the purpose of
the Club that its members cultivate the spirit of
CONDUCTING A CLUB 199

self-reliance and acquire the habit of self-directed
activity. This is what citizenship in a democracy
means, and those in training for it can best acquire
this habit by the practice of it.

16. Those who desire to start clubs and those
selected to be the guides or leaders of clubs are
urged to make a careful study of Franklin’s Auto-
biography and McMurry’s brief type study called,
“Benjamin Franklin and Social Service.” He fur-
nishes a fine example of what a citizen can do for
his community. He should be studied as a model
for all community secretaries.

APPENDIX C

SUGGESTIONS FOR CONDUCTING
A CLUB

1. THE important thing for you, the members of
the Club, to remember is that you are conducting
it. Your leader is not doing it for you, but is
the guide to assist you to do it for yourselves.

2. Think of America as a society and yourselves
as present or prospective members of it, soon to
assume the duties of full membership. You are
going to study the nature of this society, what it
does for the welfare of its members and how you
can help it to do more.
200 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

3. This may be one of the most profitable as well
as most pleasurable years of your life. Therefore
make a conscious attempt to compel it to yield you
the richest returns. Begin by attending every meet-
ing. Every link in the chain is important.

4. Spend the first or the first two evenings in
reading and discussing the article on a Citizen-
ship Club, in order to understand clearly its pur-
pose and spirit, and its general plan of operation.

5. By this time you will be somewhat acquainted
with each other and with the nature of the Club.
You are then ready to organize, elect your officers,
appoint committees and make the rules of your
own procedure.

6. Please note that any attempt to thrust on you
a cut and dried plan has been purposely omitted.
If you mean to be an American, it is necessary for
you to develop personal initiative and if you al-
ready have the American spirit you will want to
do something for yourself.

7. You will need to map out the work of the
year, to determine about how much time will be
given to each of the three parts of the subject to
be studied, whether you want to give one of the
patriotic plays, what definite piece of public service
the Club wishes to undertake. Such committees as
those on the drama, the public service and the com-
mencement should be appointed early in the year.

8. In order to prevent waste of time it will be
necessary to make a few rules to regulate the meet-
CONDUCTING A CLUB 201

ings, how much it will be given to study and
how much to play, how much time to the presenta-
tion and reading of documents and how much to
the discussion of them, how often and how long
each member may speak on the same subject. Be
careful not to limit your own freedom by too many
rules. Remember the Senate.

g. You will no doubt agree that the open forum
principle is the best of all educational methods in
treating any subject. It will sharpen your wits,
compel you to be accurate, help you to respect the
other fellow, cultivate the spirit of tolerance, enable
you to differ in opinion without differing in feeling,
and give you the chance to discover that it is pos-
sible for you to be mistaken.

10. Each member should be urged to keep a good
note book to be used in the meetings and outside.
Keep a record of your own thoughts on the subject,
of the good things said in the discussion, references
to books, chapters of books, bulletins, magazine
articles, where to find information on various phases
of the subject. It is wise to gather up the results of
your work and not allow them to escape. In years
to come you will probably turn often to this note
book for valuable material.

11. The two documents in each of the three parts
of this book are put there merely to prime the
pump, to stimulate you to search for similar or
better ones. But until your own pump gets into
working order these six documents may be used as
202 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

a basis for study and discussion. They are quite
sufficient to occupy you for an entire year, if you
decide to use them. They will suggest and lead you
out into all kinds of riches. If your Club does any
concerted piece of public service, be sure to have
several members write accounts of it and send the
yest one to the editor of this series of Citizenship
club books.

12. Don’t get scared or discouraged if the six
Jocuments in this book seem at first sight a little
lifficult. Don’t surrender to them; make them sur-
render to you. If they strain your mental muscles,
they are doing what they were intended to do. In
athletic exercises the real benefit comes when you
reach the point of distress. It is so mentally. One
of the best of all methods for developing your
ibility to understand a document is to prepare a
series of questions designed to exhibit its meaning.
You have made real progress in any subject, when
you are able to ask an intelligent question about it.
[f this year’s study enables you to acquire the
ibility and habit of reading documents like these
ntelligently, it will be the best investment of a
year’s time you ever made. A chief equipment for
citizenship in a country like ours is the ability to
‘ead the nation’s documents accurately and form an
ntelligent opinion. Don’t lower the level of the
sind of documents you read. Raise yourself up to
che level of the best. The best is none too good
‘or an American.
RECEPTION OF NEW CITIZENS 203

13. It is suggested that all clubs make a careful
study of Franklin’s “Junto,” a weekly club he
founded in 1727 and which he says “was the best
school of philosophy, morality and politics that then
existed in the province.” It had a profound influ-
ence on his personal development and was the in-
strument for putting into operation many useful
projects in behalf of the community. Franklin’s
“Junto” will be most suggestive to Citizenship
Clubs concerning the subjects to be studied and
the method of treating them. It will be most help-
ful in suggesting the spirit that should guide the
meetings. He says, “our debates were to be con-
ducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth
without fondness for dispute or desire of victory.”
Franklin’s club will also serve to stimulate young
men and women to see what a profoundly important
service Citizenship Clubs can render to them and
to the nation.

APPENDIX D
RECEPTION OF NEW CITIZENS

THE ceremony of induction into full citizenship
may and should be made inspiring and impressive.
An impression worthy of its importance will be pro-
duced, if it is conducted by some man or woman
who is an old and honored citizen of the community,
204 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

specially selected for this part of the program. If
the degree of citizenship and medal of honor come
from the failing hands of age to the strong hands
of youth, the significance of the act will be made
more apparent by the pointed contrast. The follow-
ing is suggested as the type of address fitted for
use in the ceremony:

CONFERRING THE DEGREE

To you, who are twenty-one, who are about to
live a responsible public life, to assume the duties
of citizenship, to acquire the rights of franchise, we,
who are about to surrender them, extend a glad
welcome, into the fellowship of mutual and continu-
ous service.

We receive you into the active membership of the
nation; we entrust into your keeping the rich heri-
tage received by us from our predecessors; we
present to you the challenge of an unfinished task;
we confer upon you the degree of citizen.

In your preparation for this conspicuous honor,
you have begun to realize something of its true
meaning. In the high hope and courage of this
hour, we express the confident expectation that you
will pass it on to your successors, unstained and
undishonored. Whether or not our country shall
become a land of broken promise depends in large
part upon the measure of your devotion to her ex-
periment in democracy.
BOOKS FOR READING 205

As you plant your feet today on the long and
difficult path into an untried future, we equip you
with the spiritual weapon of orderly progress, the
distinguished mark of free men and women, the
emblem of the individual’s enfranchisement, the
right to vote. We offer you this and our love to-
gether. We shall accompany you in thought with
sympathetic concern, as we retire from the places
you advance to occupy. ‘‘To you from failing hands
we throw the torch; be yours to hold it high.”

APPENDIX E

LIST OF BOOKS FOR READING
AND STUDY

In accordance with the Citizenship Club idea,
the references are purposely brief and incomplete.
A few types of books are suggested to indicate the
kind of book which may be used with profit. They
can be multiplied to any extent according to the
need and pleasure of each club, which ought to
collect a few books for its own little working
library.

IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS

The Declaration of Independence.
The Constitution of the United States.
206 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

The Great Tradition. — Greenlaw-Hanford.

American Ideals. — Foerster-Pierson.

Readings in American Government. — Charles A.
Beard.

THE NATION’S HISTORY

History of the United States. — George Bancroft.
History of the United States. — John Fiske.

AS OTHERS SEE US

The American Commonwealth. James Bryce.
Democracy in America.— De Tocqueveille.
The Re-making of a Mind. — Henry de Man.

AMERICAN PIONEERS

Pioneers on Land and Sea. — Charles A. McMurry.

Pioneers of the Mississippi Valley.— Charles A.
McMurry.

Pioneers of the Rocky Mountains. — Charles A.
McMurry.

A KNOWLEDGE OF GOVERNMENT

The American Government. — Frederic J. Haskin.

Your Vote and How to Use It.— Mrs. Raymond
Brown.

Use your Government. — Alissa Franc.

Proportional Representation. — John H. Humph-
reys.
BOOKS FOR READING 207

ublic Opinion and Popular Government. — A.
Lawrence Lowell.
‘ital Issues. — Charles N. Haskins.

DRAMAS OF DEMOCRACY

chiller’s “William Tell.” — Charles A. McMurry.
merica First. — Jasper L. McBrien.
isther Wake. — Adolph Vermont.

BIOGRAPHIES OF GREAT AMERICANS
n the Days of Jefferson. — Hezekiah Butterworth.
utobiography. — Benjamin Franklin.
.braham Lincoln. — Brand Whitlock.

SOCIAL CONDITIONS

‘he Real Business of Living. — James H. Tufts.
‘hanging America. — Edward A. Ross.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION

‘he Social Center. — Edward J. Ward.
. Community Center.— Henry E. Jackson.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Merican Political Ideals. — John Fiske.
olitical Ideals. — Bertrand Russell.

‘he State. — Franz Oppenheimer.
ay-Day. — C. Hanford Henderson.

he World Crisis. — Felix Adler.
208 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

The Old Freedom. — Francis Neilson.
Our America. — Waldo Frank.

TEXT-BOOKS IN CIVICS

Preparing for Citizenship. — William B. Guitteau.

American Citizenship. -— Charles A. Beard.

American Social Problems. — Burch-Patterson.

The Community and the Citizen— Arthur W.
Dunn.

Elements of Economics. — Burch-Nearing.

Americanization and Citizenship.— Hanson H.
Webster.

A Course in Citizenship. — Cabot-Andrews.

APPENDIX F

NATIONAL CHARTERS OF AMERICAN
FREEDOM

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

THE OPINIONS OF MANKIND

When, in the course of human events, it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bands which have connected them with another, and
to assume, among the powers of the earth, the
separate and equal station to which the laws of
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 209

nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that
they should declare the causes which impel them
to the separation.

THREE SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all
men are created equal; that they are endowed, by
their creator, with certain inalienable rights; that
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. That to secure these rights, govern-
ments are instituted among men, deriving their just
powers from the consent of the governed; that
whenever any form of government becomes destruc-
tive of these ends, it is the right of the people to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new govern-
ment, laying its foundation on such principles, and
organizing its powers in such form as to them shall
seem most likely to affect their safety and happi-
ness.

WHY PROGRESS IS SLOW

Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments
long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly, all experience
hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right them-
selves by abolishing the forms to which they are
accustomed.
210 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

THE RIGHT OF REVOLUTION

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a de-
sign to reduce them under absolute despotism, it
is their right, it is their duty to throw off such gov-
ernment, and to provide new guards for their future
security. Such has been the patient sufferance of
these colonies; and such is now the necessity which
constrains them to alter their former systems of
government.

A BILL OF PARTICULARS

(Note: The Bill of Particulars is omitted, be-
cause it narrates conditions which long ago ceased
to exist. It has value only as a memorandum of
the past. But the principles of the Declaration,
which gave birth to the Nation, have imperishable
value. The only way to preserve their significance
is to practice them. It is the duty and privilege of
each generation to substitute a new Bill of Particu-
lars, applying these principles to the social, political,
and economic conditions of its own day.

It is, therefore, suggested that Citizenship
Clubs undertake the task of drafting a new -substi-
tute Bill of Particulars, which shall suggest im-
provements in the political machinery of the nation;
point out obstacles in the way of the development
and freedom of the individual; and keep alive the
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE air

process of keeping ourselves free from conditions
when they become intolerable.

As a practical activity in the course of training
for citizenship, none could be more helpful than the
attempts to apply America’s original ideals to our
present needs. It is difficult for a nation to achieve
its independence; it is far more difficult for it to
keep itself independent. If members of Citi-
zenship Clubs are to learn what it means to be a
citizen today, the first essential for them to under-
stand is that the ideals, bequeathed by the founders
of the Republic, must be labored for, if they are to
be retained. They only opened a road to freedom,
our more difficult task is to keep it open.)

THE TIES OF BROTHERHOOD

In every stage of these oppressions we have pe-
titioned for redress in the most humble terms; our
repeated petitions have been answered only by re-
peated injury. A prince whose character is thus
marked by every act which may define a tyrant is
unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our
British brethren. We have warned them, from
time to time, of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We
have reminded them of the circumstances of our
emigration and settlement here. We have appealed
to their native justice and magnanimity, and we
212 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

have conjured them by the ties of our common kin-
dred to disavow these usurpations, which would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspon-
dence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of
justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, ac-
quiesce in the necessity which denounces our separa-
tion, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind,
enemies in war, in peace friends.

RESPONSIBILITY FOR FREEDOM

We, therefore, the representatives of the United
States of America, in General Congress assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for
the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and
by the authority of the good people of these col-
onies, solemnly publish and declare that these
United States Colonies are, and of right ought to
be, free and independent States; that they are ab-
solved from all allegiance to the British crown, and
that all political connection between them and the
State of Great Britain is and ought to be, totally
dissolved; and that, as free and independent States,
they have full power to levy war, conclude peace,
contract alliance, establish commerce, and to do all
other acts and things which independent States may
of right do. And for the support of this declaration,
with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
CONSTITUTION OF THE
UNITED STATES

PREAMBLE.

We the people of the United States, in order to form
a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote
the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.

THE LEGISLATIVE DEPARTMENT.
ArtIcteE I,

Section 1.

1. All legislative powers herein granted, shall be
vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall
consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2.

1. The House of Representatives shall be composed
of members chosen every second year by the people of
the several States; and the electors in each State shall
have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most
numerous branch of the State Legislature.

2. No person shall be a Representative who shall not
have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been
seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall

213
214. WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which
he shall be chosen.

3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be appor-
tioned among the several States which may be included
within this Union, according to their respective numbers,
which shall be determined by adding to the whole
number of free persons, including those bound to service
for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed,
three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumera-
tion shall be made within three years after the first meet-
ing of the Congress of the United States, and within
every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as
they shall by law direct. The number of representatives
shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each
State shall have at least one representative; and until
such enumeration shall be made, the State of New
Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three; Massachu-
setts, eight; Rhode Island and Providence Plantations,
one; Connecticut, five; New York, six; New Jersey,
four; Pennsylvania, eight; Delaware, one; Maryland,
six; Virginia, ten; North Carolina, five; South Carolina,
five; and Georgia, three.

4. When vacancies happen in the representation from
any State, the executive authority thereof shall issue
writs of election to fill such vacancies.

5. The House of Representatives shall choose their
Speaker and other officers, and shall have the sole power
of impeachment.

Section 3.

1. The Senate of the Unitea States shall be composed
of two Senators from each State, chosen by the legisla-
ture thereof for six years; and each Senator shall have
one vote. \

(See Amendment XVII.)
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 215

2. Immediately after they shall be assembled in con-
sequence of the first election, they shall be divided as
equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the
Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expira-
tion of the second year, of the second class at the expira-
tion of the fourth year, and of the third class at the ex-
piration of the sixth year, so that one third may be
chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen, by
resignation or otherwise, during the recess of the legis-
lature of any State, the executive thereof may make tem-
porary appointments until the next meeting of the legis-
lature, which shall then fill such vacancies. :

3. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have
attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years
a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when
elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall
be chosen.

4. The Vice-President of the United States shall be
President of the Senate, but shall have no vote unless
they be equally divided.

5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and
also a President pro tempore in the absence of the Vice-
President, or when he shall exercise the office of Presi-
dent of the United States.

6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all
impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they
shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of
the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside;
and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence
of two-thirds of the members present.

7. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not ex-
tend further than to removal from office, and disqualifi-
cation to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or
profit under the United States; but the party convicted
shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment,
trial judgment, and punishment, according to law
216 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

Section 4.

1. The times, places, and manner of holding elec-
tions for Senators and Representatives shall be pre-
scribed in each State by the legislature thereof; but the
Congress may at any time, by law, make or alter such
regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.

2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in
every year; and such meeting shall be on the first Mon-
day in December, unless they shall by law appoint a
different day.

Section 5.

1. Each house shall be the judge of the elections, re-
turns, and qualifications of its own members, and a ma-
jority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business;
but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and
may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent
members, in such manner and under such penalties as
each house may provide.

2. Each house may determine the rules of its pro-
ceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior,
and with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.

3. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings,
and from time to time publish the same, excepting such
parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the
yeas and nays of the members of either house on any
question shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present,
be entered on the journal.

4. Neither house, during the session of Congress,
shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more
than three days, nor to any other place than that in
which the two houses shall be sitting.

Section 6.

1. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a
compensation for their services, to be ascertained by
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 217

law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States.
They shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, and
breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during
their attendance at the session of their respective houses,
and in going to and returning from the same; and for
any speech or debate in either house they shall not be
questioned in any other place.

2. No Senator or Representative shall, during the
time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil
office under the authority of the United States, which
shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall
have been increased, during such time; and no person
holding any office under the United States shall be a
member of either house during his continuance in office.

Section 7.

1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the
House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose
or concur with amendments, as on other bills.

2. Every bill which shall have passed the House of
Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become
a law, be presented to the President of the United States;
if he approve, he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return
it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall
have originated; who shall enter the objections at large
on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after
such reconsideration, two-thirds of that house shall agree
to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the ob-
jections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise
be reconsidered; and if approved by two-thirds of that
house, it shall become a law. But in all such cases the
votes of both houses shall be determined by yeas and
nays, and the names of the persons voting for and
against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each
house respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by
218 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after
it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a
Jaw in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the
Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in
which case it shall not be a law.

3. Every order, resolution, or vote, to which the
concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives
may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment),
shall be presented to the President of the United States;
and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved
by him; or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed
by two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representa-
tives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed
in the case of a Dill.

Section 8.

1. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect
taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and
provide for the common defense and general welfare of
the United States; but all duties, imposts, and excises
shall be uniform throughout the United States.

2. To borrow money on the credit of the United
States:

3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and
among the several States, and with the Indian tribes:

4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and
uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout
the United States:

5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of
foreign coin, and to fix the standard of weights and
measures:

6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting
the securities and current coin of the United States:

7. To establish post-offices and post-roads:

8. To promote the progress of science and useful
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 219

arts, by securing for limited times, to authors and in-
ventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings
and discoveries:

9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme
Court:

10. To define and punish piracies and felonies com-
mitted on the high seas, and offences against the law of
nations:

11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and re-
prisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and
water:

12. To raise and support armies; but no appropria-
tion of money to that use shall be for a longer term than
two years:

13. To provide and maintain a navy:

14. To make rules for the government and regulation
of the land and naval forces:

15. To provide for calling forth the militia to exe-
cute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and
repel invasions:

16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disci-
plining the militia, and for governing such parts of them
as may be employed in the service of the United States;
reserving to the States respectively the appointment of
the officers and the authority of training the militia ac-
cording to the discipline prescribed by Congress.

17. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases what-
soever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles
square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the
acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government
of the United States; and to exercise like authority over
all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of
the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of
forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful
buildings: — and

18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and
220 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers,
and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the
government of the United States, or in any department
or office thereof.

Section 9.

1. The immigration or importation of such persons
as any of the States now existing shall think proper to
admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to
the year one thousand eight hundred and eight; but a
tax or duty may be imposed on such importation not
exceeding ten dollars for each person.

2. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall
not be suspended, unless when, in cases of rebellion or
invasion, the public safety may require it.

3. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be
passed.

4. No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid,
unless in proportion to the census or enumeration here-
inbefore directed to be taken.

s. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported
from any State. No preference shall be given by any
regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one
State over those of another; nor shall vessels bound to or
from one State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties
in another.

6. No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but
in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a
regular statement and account of the receipts and ex-
penditures of all public money shall be published from
time to time. ;

7. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United
States; and no person holding any office of profit or
trust under them, shall, without the consent of Congress,
accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any
kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 221

Section 10.

1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or
confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin
money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and
silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill
of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obli-
gation of contracts; or grant any title of nobility.

2. No State shall, without the consent of Congress,
lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except
what may be absolutely necessary for executing its in-
spection laws; and the net produce of all duties and im-
posts laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be
for the use of the treasury of the United States, and all
such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of
Congress.

3. No State shall, without the consent of Congress,
lay any duty on tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in
time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with
another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war,
unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as
will not admit of delay.

ArticLte II.
THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT.

Section 1.

1. The executive power shall be vested in a President
of the United States of America. He shall hold his office
during the term of four years; and, together with the
Vice-President, chosen for the same term, be elected as
follows:

2. Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the
legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal
222 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to
which the State may be entitled in Congress; but no
Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of
trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed
an elector.

3. The electors shall meet in their respective States,
and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least
shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with them-
selves. And they shall make a list of all the persons
voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list
they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the
seat of the government of the United States, directed to
the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate
shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Rep-
resentatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall
then be counted. The person having the greatest number
of votes shall be President, if such number be a majority
of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there
be more than one who have such a majority, and have an
equal number of votes, then the House of Representa-
tives shall immediately choose, by ballot, one of them
for President; and if no person have a majority, then,
from the five highest on the list, the said House shall, in
like manner, choose a President. But in choosing the
President, the votes shall be taken by States, the rep-
resentation from each State having one vote; a quorum
for this purpose shall consist of a member or members
from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the
States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case after
the choice of the President, the person having the
greatest number of votes of the electors shall be Vice-
President. But if there should remain two or more who
have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them, by
ballot, the Vice-President.

4. The Congress may determine the time of choosing
the electors, and the day on which they shall give their
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 223

votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United
States.

5. No person except a natural born citizen, or a
citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption
of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of
President: neither shall any person be eligible to that
office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-
five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the
United States.

6. In case of the removal of the President from
office, or of his death, resignation, or inability to dis-
charge the powers and duties of the said office, the same
shall devolve on the Vice-President; and the Congress
may, by law, provide for the case of removal, death,
resignation, or inability, both of the President and Vice-
President, declaring what officer shall then act as Presi-
dent; and such officer shall act accordingly, until the
disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

7. The President shall, at stated times, receive for
his services a compensation, which shall neither be in-
creased nor diminished during the period for which he
shall have been elected; and he shall not receive within
that period any other emolument from the United States,
or any of them.

8. Before he enters on the execution of his office,
he shall take the following oath or affirmation:

“T do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully
execute the office of President of the United States; and
will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and de-
fend the Constitution of the United States.”

Section 2.

1. The President shall be Commander-in-chief of the
army and navy of the United States, and of the militia
of the several States, when called into the actual service
224 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

of the United States. He may require the opinion, in
writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive
departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of
their respective offices; and he shall have power to grant
reprieves and pardons for offences against the United
States, except in cases of impeachment.

2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-
thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nomi-
nate, and, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, shall appoint ambassadors and other public min-
isters and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all
other officers of the United States whose appointments
are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be
established by law. But the Congress may, by law, vest
the appointment of such inferior officers as they think
proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or
in the heads of departments.

3. The President shall have power to fill up all va-
cancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate,
by granting commissions, which expire at the end of their
next session.

Section 3.

1. He shall, from time to time, give to Congress in-
formation of the state of the Union, and recommend to
their consideration such measures as he shall judge nec-
essary and expedient. He may, on extraordinary occa-
sions, convene both houses, or either of them; and in
case of disagreement between them, with respect to the
time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time
as he shall think proper. He shall receive ambassadors
and other public ministers. He shall take care that the
laws be faithfully executed; and shall commission all
officers of the United States.
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 225

Section 4.

1. The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers
of the United States, shall be removed from office on
impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or
other high crimes and misdemeanors.

ArticLE III.
THE JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT.

Section 1.

1. The judicial power of the United States shall be
vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts
as Congress may, from time to time, ordain and establish.
The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall
hold their offices during good behavior; and shall, at
stated times, receive for their services a compensation,
which shall not be diminished during their continuance
in office.

Section 2.

1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases in law
and equity arising under this Constitution, the laws of
the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be
made, under their authority; to all cases affecting am-
bassadors, other public ministers, and consuls; to all
cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to con-
troversies to which the United States shall be a party;
to controversies between two or more States; between a
State and citizens of another State; between citizens of
different States; between citizens of the same State
claiming lands under grants of different States; and be-
tween a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states,
citizens or subjects.
226 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public
ministers, and consuls, and those in which a State shall
be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original juris-
diction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the
Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as
to law and fact, with such exceptions and under such
regulations as Congress shall make.

3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeach-
ment, shall be by jury, and such trial shall be held in
the State where the said crimes shall have been com-
mitted; but when not committed within any State, the
trial shall be at such place or places as Congress may by
law have directed.

Section 3.

1. Treason against the United States shall consist
only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their
enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall
be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two
witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open
court.

2. Congress shall have power to declare the punish-
ment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work
corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life
of the person attainted.

ArTICLE IV.
MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS.

Section 1.

1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State
to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of
every other State; and Congress may, by general laws,
prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and
proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.
na

CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 227

Section 2.

1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all
the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several
States.

2. A person charged in any State with treason,
felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and
be found in another State, shall, on demand of the ex-
ecutive authority of the State from which he fled, be
delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdic-
tion of the crime.

3. No person held to service or labor in one State,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in
consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis-
charged from such service or labor; but shall be de-
livered up on claim of the party to whom such service
or labor may be due.

Section 3.

-1. New States may be admitted by Congress into
this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected
within the jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State
be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts
of States, without the consent of the legislatures of the
States concerned, as well as of Congress.

2. Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make
all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory
or other property belonging to the United States; and
nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to
prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any
particular State.

Section 4.

1. The United States shall guarantee to every State
in this Union a republican form of government, and shall
228 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

protect each of them against invasion; and, on applica-
tion of the legislature or of the executive (when the legis-
lature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.

ARTICLE V.

1. The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses
shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to
this Constitution; or, on the application of the legisla-
tures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a con-
vention for proposing amendments, which, in either case,
shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as parts of
this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of
three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in
three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of
ratification may be proposed by Congress; provided that
no amendment which may be made prior to the year one
thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner
affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of
the first article; and that no State, without its consent,
shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the State.

ARTICLE VI.

1. All debts contracted, and engagements entered
into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be
as valid against the United States under this Constitu-
tion as under the Confederation.

2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United
States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all
treaties made, or which shall be made, under the author-
ity of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the
land; and the judges in every State shall be bound there-
by, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to
the contrary notwithstanding.

3. The Senators and Representatives before men-
tioned, and the members of the several State legislatures,
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 229

and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United
States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath
or affirmation to support the Constitution; but no reli-
gious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any
office or public trust under the United States.

ArtTicLe VII.

1. The ratification of the conventions of nine States
shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Consti-
tution beween the States so ratifying the same.

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the
States present, the seventeenth day of September, in
the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the United
States of America the twelfth. In witness whereof we
have hereunto subscribed our names.

GrorGE WASHINGTON,
President, and Deputy from Virginia.

AMENDMENTS TO THE CONSTITUTION OF
THE UNITED STATES

ArtTIcLE I.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or
the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances.

ArticuE II.

A well-regulated militia being necessary to the se-
curity of a free State, the right of the people to keep
and bear arms shall not be infringed
230 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

Articue III.

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any
house without the consent of the owner; nor in time of
war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

ARTICLE IV.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall
issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or
affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be
searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

ARTICLE V.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or
otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or
indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in
the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual
service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any
person be subject for the same offence to be put twice
in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in
any criminal case to be witness against himself; nor be
deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process
of law; nor shall private property be taken for public
use without just compensation.

ARTICLE VI.

In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy
the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial
jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall
have been committed, which district shall have been pre-
viously ascertained by law; and to be informed of the
nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted
with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory proc-
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 231

ess for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the
assistance of counsel for his defence.

ARTICLE VII.

In suits at common law, where the value in contro-
versy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by
jury shall be preserved; and no fact tried by a jury shall
be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United
States, than according to the rules of the common law.

ArtTIcLeE VIII.

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines
imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

ArticLteE IX,

The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others re-
tained by the people.

ARTICLE X.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are re-
served to the States respectively, or to the people.

Articte XI.

The judicial power of the United States shall not be
construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, com-
menced or prosecuted against one of the United States
by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of
any foreign state.

ARTICLE XII.

‘1. The electors shall meet in their respective States,
and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one
232, WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same
State with themselves. They shall name in their ballots
the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots
the person voted for as Vice-President; and they shall
make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President,
and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of
the number of votes for each; which lists they shall sign
and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the gov-
ernment of the United States, directed to the President
of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the
presence of the Senate and House of Representatives,
open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be
counted. The person having the greatest number of
votes for President shall be the President, if such number
be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed;
and if no person have such majority, then from the per-
sons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three,
on the list of those voted for as President, the House of
Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the
President. But, in choosing the President, the votes
shall be taken by States, the representation from each
State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall
consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the
States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary
to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall
not choose a President, whenever the right of choice shall
devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next
following, then the Vice-President shall act as President,
as in the case of the death or other constitutional dis-
ability of the President.

2. The person having the greatest number of votes
as Vice-President shall be the Vice-President, if such
number be a majority of the whole number of electors
appointed; and if no person have a majority, then from
the two highest numbers on the list the Senate shall
choose the Vice-President. A quorum for the purpose
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 233

shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Sena-
tors, and a majority of the whole number shall be nec-
essary to a choice.

3. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the
office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-Presi-
dent of the United States.

ARTICLE XIII.

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,
except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party
shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this
Article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE XIV.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the
United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are
citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein
they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law
which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citi-
zens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property, without due
process of law; nor deny to any person within its juris-
diction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned
among the several States according to their respective
numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each
State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right
to vote at any election for the choice of electors for
President or Vice-President of the United States, Repre-
sentatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers
of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is
denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State,
234 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United
States, or in any way abridged, except for participation
in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation
therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the
number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole
number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such
State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Repre-
sentative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-
President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the
United States, or under any State, who, having previ-
ously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an
officer of the United States, or as a member of any State
legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any
State to support the Constitution of the United States,
shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against
the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.
But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each
house, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the
United States, authorized by law, including debts in-
curred for payment of pensions and bounties for ser-
vices in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not
be questioned. But neither the United States nor any
State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred
in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United
States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any
slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be
held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce,
by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this Article.

ARTICLE XV.

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States
to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United
CONSTITUTION OF UNITED STATES 235

States or by any State on account of race, color, or pre-
vious condition of servitude.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce
this Article by appropriate legislation.

ARTICLE XVI.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes
on incomes from whatever source derived, without ap-
portionment among the several states, and without re-
gard to any census or enumeration.

ARTICLE XVII.

Amendment to the first paragraph of section 3, ar-
ticle I, of the Constitution of the United States, and in
lieu of so much of paragraph two of the same section
as relates to the filling of vacancies, as follows: “The
Senate of the United States shall be composed of two
senators from each State, elected by the people thereof,
for six years; and each senator shall have one vote. The
electors in each State shall have the qualifications requi-
site for electors of the most numerous branch of the
State legislature. When vacancies happen in the repre-
sentation of any State in the Senate, the executive au-
thority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill
such vacancy; Provided, that the legislature of any State
may empower the executive thereof to make temporary
appointments until the people fill the vacancies by elec-
tion, as the legislature may direct. This amendment
shall not be so construed to affect the election or term
of any senator chosen before it becomes valid as part of
the constitution.”

ArticLe XVIII.

Section 1. After one year from the ratification of
this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of
236 WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO ME

intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into,
or the exportation thereof from the United States and
all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for bev-
erage purposes is hereby probibited.

Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall
have concurrent power to enforce this article by ap-
propriate legislation.

ARTICLE XIX.

The right of citizens of the United States shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any state
on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
POSTSCRIPT

Arter this book went to the press the Community
Center Division of the Bureau of Education was discon-
tinued by order of the new Secretary of the Interior.
History repeats itself frequently in Washington. This is
only one among many other enterprises, which have
been established with patient self-sacrificing labor, and
then abandoned for lack of intelligent appreciation or
financial support.

The Bureau of Education is thus denied the chance
to honor itself by assisting to promote the Citizenship
Club movement, as it had hoped to do. But the enter-
prise will not suffer loss. The National Community
Board, which had already planned to conduct the major
part of it, will volunteer to take over also the Bureau’s
abandoned task and do the work of both. It feels obli-
gated not only to do its own part, but also that of its
fallen comrade.

Tue AvuTHOR.

July 15, 1920
 

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