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for it such as some of us no longer felt, for we were as if satiated and satisfied and were indulging ourselves after a fashion that did not belong to the ascetic devotion of the early devotees of those great principles. Strangers came to remind us of what we had promised ourselves and through ourselves had promised mankind. All men came to us and said, "Where is the bread of life with which you promised to feed us, and have you partaken of it yourselves?" For my part, I believe that the constant renewal of this people out of foreign stocks has been a constant source of reminder to this people of what the inducement was that was offered to men who would come and be of our number.

I would not be afraid upon the test of “America first” to take a census of all the foreign-born citizens of the United States, for I know that the vast majority of them came here because they believed in America; and their belief in America has made them better citizens than some people who were born in America. They can say that they have bought this privilege with a great price. They have left their homes, they have left their kindred, they have broken all the nearest and dearest ties of human life in order to come to a new land, take a new rootage, begin a new life, and so by self-sacrifice express their confidence in a new principle; whereas, it cost us none of these things. We were born into this privilege; we were rocked and cradled in it; we did nothing to create it; and it is, therefore, the greater duty on our part to do a great deal to enhance it and preserve it. I am not deceived as to the balance of opinion among the foreign-born citizens of the United States, but I am in a hurry for an opportunity to have a line-up and let the men who are thinking first of other countries stand on one side and all those that are

for America first, last, and all the time on the other side..

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I would not feel any exhilaration in belonging to America if I did not feel that she was something more than a rich and powerful nation. I should not feel proud to be in some respects and for a little while her spokesman if I did not believe that there was something else than physical force behind her. I believe that the glory of America is that she is a great spiritual conception and that in the spirit of her institutions dwells not only her distinction but her power. The one thing that the world cannot permanently resist is the moral force of great and triumphant convictions.

AMERICA FIRST1

THEODORE ROOSEVELT (1858- )

The mighty tide of immigration to our shores has brought in its train much of good and much of evil; and whether the good or the evil shall predominate depends mainly on whether these newcomers do or do not throw themselves heartily into our national life, cease to be European, and become American like the rest of us. More than a third of the people of the Northern states are of foreign birth or parentage. An immense number of them have become completely Americanized, and these stand on exactly the same plane as the descendants of any Puritan, Cavalier, or Knickerbocker among us, and do their full and honorable share of the nation's work. But

1 From "American Ideals and Other Essays." Copyright, 1897, by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Used by permission of the publishers and the author.

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where immigrants, or the sons of immigrants, do not heartily and in good faith throw in their lot with us, but cling to the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and the habits of thought of the Old World which they have left, they thereby harm both themselves and us. If they remain alien elements, unassimilated, and with interests separate from ours, they are mere obstructions to the current of our national life, and, moreover, can get no good from it themselves. In fact, though we ourselves also suffer from their perversity, it is they who really suffer most. It is an immense benefit to the European immigrant to change him into an American citizen. To bear the name of American is to bear the most honorable of titles; and whoever does not so believe has no business to bear the name at all, and if he comes from Europe, the sooner he goes back there the better. Besides, the man who does not become Americanized nevertheless fails to remain a European, and becomes nothing at all. The immigrant cannot possibly remain what he was, or continue to be a member of the Old World society. If he tries to retain his old language, in a few generations it becomes a barbarous jargon; if he tries to retain his old customs and ways of life, in a few generations he becomes an uncouth boor. He has cut himself off from the Old World, and cannot retain his connection with it; and if he wishes ever to amount to anything, he must throw himself heart and soul, and without reservation, into the new life to which he has come.

...

The immigrant of today can learn much from the experience of the immigrants of the past, who came to America prior to the Revolutionary War. We were then already, what we are now, a people of mixed blood. Many of our most illustrious Revolutionary names were

borne by men of Huguenot blood - Jay, Sevier, Marion, Laurens. But the Huguenots were, on the whole, the best immigrants we have ever received; sooner than any other, and more completely, they became American in speech, conviction, and thought. The Hollanders took longer than the Huguenots to become completely assimilated; nevertheless, they in the end became so, immensely to their own advantage. One of the leading Revolutionary generals, Schuyler, and one of the Presidents of the United States, Van Buren, were of Dutch blood; but they rose to their positions, the highest in the land, because they had become Americans and had ceased being Hollanders. If they had remained members of an alien body, cut off by their speech and customs and belief from the rest of the American community, Schuyler would have lived his life as a boorish provincial squire, and Van Buren would have ended his days as a small tavern-keeper.

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(Written in prison in Segedin)

The old men die beholding only ruin,
Their eyes behold no hope, no truth in life.
The young men fall away, at once or slowly,
Even the strong give up the ceaseless strife;
Only a handful still keep up the fight,

Only a few lights burn amid the night.

66

1 From 'Our Slavic Fellow Citizens," by Emily Greene Balch. Published by New York Charities Commission, 1910. Used by permission of the translator, Professor Balch.

Suddenly rises proudly from the ocean
A giant woman with majestic face;
Shining the drapery of her snowy garments,

Her eyes like flames upon the altar place;
Her godlike breast like marble fair to see.
"You poor forsaken children, come to me.

"O come; I know you bring but humble packets, That from your fatherland no gems you bring,

That murderous wrath has chased you from your dwellings,

From the ancestral soil to which you cling;

No gifts I offer, but this one reward-
Time for free work, for human rights regard.'

And they, disgraced here in their native country,
Lift up proud heads since o'er the seas they came,
And there he speaks aloud who here was silent,
And glories there in what he here thought shame.
Columbia to him self-knowledge gives,
Surprised he finds that only now he lives.

Hail to our brothers whom their stepdame cruel
Drove from their simple huts, their native sod.
Columbia, thou hast smitten off the fetters,

Lifting them up to manhood, heaven, and God.
O land of Christopher, may Christ repay
What for my brothers poor thou dost today.

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