imperturbably. "There's love of human
beings. There's love of work. There's love of country. They make up a
man's life. I had the first two and I thought that they were enough. But
lately, I've discovered differently and I think a good many people in
this country are finding out the same thing. I never gave the matter any
thought until the Werner episode. Then I began to examine this thing
called patriotism and I found that it was the very wellspring of a man's
usefulness as a citizen. Without it family pride is a travesty. Without
it, the impulse to build up sane and humane and lasting governments is
lacking. Without it, a man may be ever so learned, ever so rich, yet he
lacks any real place in community life. Patriotism is to a man's
community life what religion is to his moral life.

"Now I intend to lead a full, normal man's life. I want to love a
country, and I couldn't see, when I got down to brass tacks, why that
country should be Germany. This is the land that bred me and fed me.
Actually I'm a physical part of the soil of America. What do I care how
cultured Germany may or may not be? Here in America are the hills and
valleys, the rivers and mountains that I know and care for. Here is the
kind of government I like. Here is the place of my profession. I
wouldn't marry a German fraeulein for anything. A slangy, athletic,
bossy, saucy, well-educated American girl for mine! All the people that
I love are here in America. You folks and all the relatives are here.
Roger is here, Charley is here and up there on an American mountainside
lies little Felicia. Papa, I am an American, not a German."

Again there was full silence in the room. Then Dean Erskine cleared his
throat. "Ernest, I want to thank you very much. I, too, am an American."

Papa Wolf blew his nose and walked slowly out of the house. There was no
one in the room who had not been moved deeply by the something poignant
in Ernest's face, even though his voice was so sedulously casual. Before
any one else had opportunity to speak however, Papa Wolf was back.

"I don't believe a word about Werner," he said to Ernest. "But I am
surprised, Ernest, after your upbringing that you should have deceived
Roger as you did."

"But are you an American, Papa?" persisted Ernest.

"You numb-skull!" shouted his father. "I have been an American longer
than you have hairs to your head. It's my land, even if I am sentimental
about Germany."

Once more he marched out th