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Show "What Americanism Means To Me" Portrayed In Three Winning Essays Last week winners in the American Ameri-can Legion Auxiliary essay contest con-test at the Roosevelt Jr. High School were' announced. The first three essays, judged first, second and third place winners win-ners are being printed in the Roosevelt Standard this .week Linda Schmie'tt won 'first place;. Carnes Burson, second place; and Brent Hutchings, third place. All essays were written on "What Americanism Means to me." By Linda Schmiett "Give me Liberty or give me Death" were the fiery word's of Patrick Henry when he made his famous speech in the Second Virginia Vir-ginia Convention on March 23, 1775. I The voice of Patrick Henry was the bugle call of American Independence. Inde-pendence. Time and time again the blazing words of the backwoods back-woods lawyer had thrown the Virginia Vir-ginia House of Burgesses into an uproar. In this speech, he demanded deman-ded that the Virginia militia be armed and that steps be' taken for actual war. This, in my opinion, is Americanism. Ameri-canism. It means freedon of speech, and other rights such as, freedom of the press, the right to worship God as we see fit, the privilege of owning property, to have personal security, and to demand a trial by jury. Voting is one of our most valuable val-uable privileges. Therefore, all ci-vjc ci-vjc minded people should exercise this privilege so that "individuals most qualified may be elected for office. We should see that men and women elected to office should uphold the' principles of Democracy, and not lean toward communism or socialism. Only in this manner can we keep Communist Com-munist Russia in Russia and not in America. Communism places the right of the state above the right of the individual. This is just opposite from democracy, in which the state' is governed by the people, for the people, and of the people. Only by selecting people who are opposed to Communism, Com-munism, can we expect to keep Russia under p.ontrnl. The primary function of the United Nations is to attempt to prevent the aggression of larger nations upon smaller ones. Under this plan, the members try to settle set-tle disputes in a peaceful way instead of using force. The United States should and does cooperate with this wonderful organization for the protection of all people. In this manner we can better fight Communism, help bring peace to the world, and still remain re-main loyal to our own country. In order to maintain our precious pre-cious heritages, we as American citizens must keep well informed through radio, newspapers, magazines, mag-azines, and listening to our statesmen states-men leaders. We must also maintain main-tain our present high standard of education for all America. In this way, we can help destroy any tendency toward juvenile delin-quincy delin-quincy among our youth and thus tend to curb (attitudes toward communism. I am grateful as an American citizen for the rights and privileges privi-leges extended me through the Constitution of the United States by our inspired forefathers. I sincerely' sin-cerely' trust that I, as an American, Ameri-can, may do my part to uphold my duties to God and my country, and by so doing help preserve these priceless heritages. By Carnes LaRose I am a member of a minority race', the original Americans. I am an Indian. I have the same fights and privileges as any American, Amer-ican, no matter what my ancestry. I attend school with the descendants des-cendants of emigrants and we all have the same' privileges. We are Americans all! People from many foreign countries coun-tries think the Americans are wealthy, with plenty of money. This is not so! The Americans seem rich to other countries because be-cause of better standards of living in America. We produce more than one half of the corn, two fifths of the cotton, and one sixth of the wheat grown in the world although we have' only six percent of the land area of the world. We also have better machines, transportation, and communication communica-tion than any nation on earth. We have been most fortunate in having ancestors who were lovers of freedom, men who fought and died to gain freedom, and men who fought and died to preserve freedom. We have, like' people in a De-I De-I mocracy should have, many rights. I We can go where we wish as I long as we're not trespassing. We can print the truth, speak our minds, assemble, petition the government, gov-ernment, vote, live where we want and do many other things people in many other countries can not do. However, there is a great threat to these rights and this way of life Communism. Communism is like dope, you take a dose' of it to see what it is like and when you become aware of the catastrophe' that has happened, you are in its power. That is how nations become Communistic. Com-munistic. In Communism the government owns everything, even the clothes you wear. In Communist controlled countries coun-tries no man dares to openly crit icize the government for fear of the secret police and what the government would do to him. In a democracy such as we have, the people are the governing govern-ing body. Yet, even in this type of government there lies a danger. INERTIA, or inactivity of the people to vote as Americans should, support our leaders and be good citizen?. This could do great "damage to our nation. We should not think that because be-cause of OUR RACE, COLOR, OR OUR CREED WE CAN'T BE GOOD AMERICANS. We should remember that the' thing that counts is how YOU MEASURE UP TO THE STANDARDS OF A GOOD AMERICAN CITIZEN! By Brent Hutchings Americanism to me begins with the love of the land. It is my country, America. With the land comes all the peoples with every background, from every beginning, emigrants that have come to America with many hopes and ideas, and their sons and their children's sons make up America. Americanism means free enter-prize enter-prize for myself, the right to own, to run my own business without interference from government or other forces. I am a little business man I have my own paper route. Americanism means protection . . . from fear, from want, from hunger, from force, from criminals crim-inals who would destroy those rights that we have inherited. Americanism to me means the small things in life enjoying my home which my parents own, playing with the kids on our street, football in the backyard, basketball on my neighbor's court, baseball on the vacant lot church on Sundays, with the neighbors sharing cars. Americanism to me means school every day, the purpose to become educated to learn of history to help me appreciate my heritage. School teaches me to get along with my classmates, to give and to share, democracy for everyone. Americanism to me means love of sports, scouting. . . the privilege to advance at my own speed, and to be recognized for the work I do. I am an Eagle Scout at thir-1 teen. Last summer I took a trip to New York City with my parents. I saw the vast face of America, and the people who make up America from the Mennonites of Pennsylvania to the emigrants just off the boat in New York City. I saw the headquarters of our country in Washington and saw the documents that mean our country' is strong and independent. I saw those peoples ideas, created from hope and prayer. I have seen how this country has prospered from the peoples' ideas. Americanism means that I am not any better than anyone else, and that equality is for everyone, regardless of their color, religion, creed and race. Americanism means that I can, and must vote when I reach voting vot-ing age. I must vote for the leaders lead-ers that represent me and who make laws of the land we love so dear. Americanism means that I have a responsibility to protect my heritage her-itage from aggressors so that Americans won't lose all the rights and privileges that are' so dear to them. I must serve in the armed forces, and fight if called upon. My responsibility does not end here. In order to have a peaceful world, Americans must accept the challenge to be world leaders. Communism must be stopped world peace maintained. We must belong to a world organization that supports peace. Americanism means to be "one-hundred-per-cent" good citizens. The only advertisement we' can write of our country, the only one that will carry real weight, will be written in our lives. |