This is a dim and narrow outline of what it means to be an American.
Glory in that fact, therefore. Your very being cannot be too highly
charged with Americanism. And do not be afraid to assert it.
The world forgives the egotist of patriotism. "We Germans fear God,
and nothing else!" thundered Bismarck on closing his greatest speech
before the Reichstag. It was the very frenzy of pride of race and
country. Yet even his enemies applauded. If it was narrow, it was
grandly patriotic. It was more: it appealed to the elemental in their
breasts.
Love of one's own is a universal and deathless passion, common not
only to human beings but also shared by all animate creation. Be an
American, therefore, to the uttermost limit of consciousness and
feeling. Thank God each day that your lot has fallen beneath the Stars
and Stripes. It is a sacred flag. There is only one holier emblem
known to man.
You have American conditions about you every day, and so their value
and advantage become commonplace and unnoted. To any young man
afflicted with the disease of thinking life hard and burdens heavy in
this Republic, I know of no remedy equal to a trip abroad. You will
find things to admire in France; you will applaud things in Germany;
you will see much in other lands that suggests modifications of
American methods.
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