d-looking women out of other lands. And so by
the gift of the free will of independent people it is being constantly
renewed from generation to generation by the same process by which it
was originally created. It is as if humanity had determined to see to it
that this great Nation, founded for the benefit of humanity, should not
lack for the allegiance of the people of the world.

You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of
allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be God--certainly
not of allegiance to those who temporarily represent this great
Government. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal, to a
great body of principles, to a great hope of the human race. You have
said, "We are going to America not only to earn a living, not only to
seek the things which it was more difficult to obtain where we were
born, but to help forward the great enterprises of the human spirit--to
let men know that everywhere in the world there are men who will cross
strange oceans and go where a speech is spoken which is alien to them if
they can but satisfy their quest for what their spirits crave; knowing
that whatever the speech there is but one longing and utterance of the
human heart, and that is for liberty and justice." And while you bring
all countries with you, you come with a purpose of leaving all other
countries behind you--bringing what is best of their spirit, but not
looking over your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate what you intended
to leave behind in them. I certainly would not be one even to suggest
that a man cease to love the home of his birth and the nation of his
origin--these things are very sacred and ought not to be put out of our
hearts--but it is one thing to love the place where you were born and it
is another thing to dedicate yourself to the place to which you go. You
cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every respect
and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You cannot
become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups. America
does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as belonging to
a particular national group in America has not yet become an American,
and the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is no
worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.

My urgent advice to you would be, not only always to think first of
America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. You do