America First Patriotic Readings   By: Jasper Leonidas McBrien (1867-)

Patriotic Readings

by

JASPER L. McBRIEN, A. M.

Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction of Nebraska and Now School Extension Specialist for the United States Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C.

[Illustration: AMERICA FIRST]

[Illustration]

American Book Company New York Cincinnati Chicago

Copyright, 1916 by Jasper L. McBrien All rights reserved

AMERICA FIRST

W. P. 7

FOREWORD

America First was the central thought in President Wilson's address to the Daughters of the American Revolution on the twenty fifth anniversary of their organization their Silver Jubilee in Washington, D. C., October 11, 1915. The president declared in this address that all citizens should make it plain whether their sympathies for foreign countries come before their love of the United States, or whether they are for America first, last, and all the time. He asserted, also, that our people need all of their patriotism in this confusion of tongues in which we find ourselves over the European war.

The press throughout the country has taken up the thought of the President and, seconded by the efforts of the Bureau of Education, has done loyal work in making "America First" our national slogan. This is all good so far as it goes especially among the adult population, many of whom must be educated, if educated at all, on the run. But the rising generation, both native born and foreign, to get the full meaning of this slogan in its far reaching significance, must have time for study and reflection along patriotic lines. There must be the right material on which the American youth may settle their thoughts for a definite end in patriotism if our country is to have a new birth of freedom and if "this government of the people, by the people, and for the people is not to perish from the earth." The prime and vital service of amalgamating into one homogeneous body the children alike of those who are born here and of those who come here from so many different lands must be rendered this Republic by the school teachers of America.

The purpose of this book is to furnish the teachers and pupils of our country, material with which the idea of true Americanism may be developed until "America First" shall become the slogan of every man, woman, and child in the United States.

CONTENTS

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS

Jasper L. McBrien

INTRODUCTION 13

TABLEAU THE SPIRIT OF SEVENTY SIX 19

CAST OF CHARACTERS 20

THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS A DRAMATIZATION 21

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

WHAT IS PATRIOTISM Jasper L. McBrien 71

AMERICA FOR ME Henry van Dyke 73

AMERICA FIRST Woodrow Wilson 75

THE MEANING OF THE FLAG Woodrow Wilson 83

MAKERS OF THE FLAG Franklin K. Lane 87

THE FLAG OF THE UNION FOREVER Fitzhugh Lee 90

FAREWELL ADDRESS George Washington 94

WASHINGTON John W. Daniel 104

ABRAHAM LINCOLN Henry Watterson 129

SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS Abraham Lincoln 151

ROBERT E. LEE E. Benjamin Andrews 154

OUR REUNITED COUNTRY Clark Howell 163

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY Henry Cabot Lodge 171

A REMINISCENCE OF GETTYSBURG John B. Gordon 175

THE NEW SOUTH Henry W. Grady 181

THE DUTY AND VALUE OF PATRIOTISM Archbishop Ireland 195

OUR COUNTRY William McKinley 202

BEHOLD THE AMERICAN T. DeWitt Talmage 206

THE HOLLANDER AS AN AMERICAN Theodore Roosevelt 212