From the time he was twelve years old he had wanted to be an American. A queer old man back in the German village--an old man, he recalled strangely now, who had never been in America--told him about it. He told how all men were brothers in America, how the poor and the rich loved each other--indeed, how there were no poor and rich at all, but the same chance for every man who would work. He told about the marvellous resources of that distant America--gold in the earth, which men were free to go and get, hundreds upon hundreds of miles of untouched forests and great rivers--all for men to use, great cities no older than the men who were in them, which men at that present moment were _making_--every man his equal chance. He told of rich land which a man could have for nothing, which would be _his_, if he would but go and work upon it. In the heart of the little German boy there was kindled then a fire which the years had never put out. His cheeks grew red, his eyes bright and very deep as he listened to the story. He went home that night and dreamed of going to America. And through the years of his boyhood, penny by penny, he saved his money for America. It was his dream. It was the passion of his life. More plainly than the events of yesterday, he remembered his first glimpse of those wonderful shores--the lump in his throat, the passionate excitement, the uplift. Leaning over the railing of his boat, staring, searching, penetrating, worshipping, he lifted up his heart and sent out his pledge of allegiance to the new land. How he would love America, work for it, be true to it! He had three dollars and sixty cents in his pocket when he stepped upon American soil. He wondered if any man had ever felt richer. For had he not reached the land where there was an equal chance for every man who would work, where men loved each other as brothers, and where the earth itself was so rich and so gracious in its offerings? The old man crossed one leg over the other--slowly, stiffly. It made him tired and stiff now just to think of the work he had done between that day and this. But there was something which he had always had--that something was _his_ America. That had never wavered, though he soon learned that between it and realities were many things which were wrong and unfortunate. With the whole force and passion of his nature, with all his single mindedness--would some call it simple mindedness?--he threw himself into the fight against those things which were blurring men's vision of his America. No work, no sacrifice was too great, for America had enemies who called themselves friends, men who were striking heavy blows at that equal chance for every man. When he failed, it was because he did not know enough; he must work, he must study, he must think, in order to make more real to other men the America which was in his heart. He must fight for it because it was his.