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Show Americanism By LEONARD WOOD ' 4 I was born an American I I will liv an American) I will dim an American. Daniel Wabitart ' Speech July 17, 1850. HERE Is as Intensive a pronouncement pronounce-ment of Americanism as evet was made. It Is a tingling thing. Webster made this speech when h was well advanced In life. He had lived long enough to know how good a thing It Is to be born an American; bow goid a thing It Is to live an American, Amer-ican, and how good a thing It Is to die an American. He had tested the life and found It good. If the men of all countries felt toward to-ward their own lands as Webster felt toward America there would be no emigration" to the United States unless It were forced by the overpopulation of the other countries of the world. The setting of the tide of emigration westwnrd proved that men of other lands looked on the blessing of life in this country as the great statesman-orator statesman-orator looked upon it. The immigrant was denied the privilege of American birth, but he was not to be denied the right of American living and ultimately ultimate-ly the right of American dying. One of the hardest things for men to understand today Is why there should be so strong a need for the Americanization of the Immigrant The presumption always has been that the man who wants to come to this country should know enough about Its Institutions, Its opportunities and its duties to make at least one kind of Americanization unnecessary. The people of this country, however, are confronted with the forbidding fact that. a considerable number of our Immigrants Im-migrants need to be taught not only the customs of America but the spirit of things among us, those things which alone enn make real Americanism American-ism possible. The conclusion Is Inevitable that a ' few foreigners come to this country, not for the purpose of helping to keep America what It Is. hut to unmake our Institutions. Immigrants of this type find here some native born Americans who sympathize with their destructive destruc-tive Intentions and give them covert, and not always covert, aid In their attempts to undermine the American wiiflce-. |