vital sign of
America woven into the very souls of the men who belonged to her by a
spiritual birthright.

For what is true Americanism, and where does it reside? Not on the
tongue, nor in the clothes, nor among the transient social forms,
refined or rude, which mottle the surface of human life. The log cabin
has no monopoly of it, nor is it an immovable fixture of the stately
pillared mansion. Its home is not on the frontier nor in the populous
city, not among the trees of the wild forest nor the cultured groves of
Academe. Its dwelling is in the heart. It speaks a score of dialects but
one language, follows a hundred paths to the same goal, performs a
thousand kinds of service in loyalty to the same ideal which is its
life. True Americanism is this:

To believe that the inalienable rights of man to life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness are given by God.

To believe that any form of power that tramples on these rights is
unjust.

To believe that taxation without representation is tyranny, that
government must rest upon the consent of the governed, and that the
people should choose their own rulers.

To believe that freedom must be safeguarded by law and order, and that
the end of freedom is fair play for all.

To believe not in a forced equality of conditions and estates, but in a
true equalization of burdens, privileges, and opportunities.

To believe that the selfish interests of persons, classes, and sections
must be subordinated to the welfare of the commonwealth.

To believe that union is as much a human necessity as liberty is a
divine gift.

To believe, not that all people are good, but that the way to make them
better is to trust the whole people.

To believe that a free state should offer an asylum to the oppressed,
and an example of virtue, sobriety, and fair dealing to all nations.

To believe that for the existence and perpetuity of such a state a man
should be willing to give his whole service, in property, in labor, and
in life.

That is Americanism; an ideal embodying itself in a people; a creed
heated white hot in the furnace of conviction and hammered into shape on
the anvil of life; a vision commanding men to follow it whithersoever it
may lead them. And it was the subordination of the personal self to that
ideal, that creed, that vision, which gave eminence and glory to
Washington and the men who stood with him.

This is the truth that emerges, crystalline and luminous, from t