The American Spirit in the Writings of Americans of Foreign Birth — John Shaqi
The American Spirit in the Writings of Americans of Foreign Birth
General
The American Spirit in the Writings of Americans of Foreign Birth
American literature; Americanization; Noncitizens -- United States
This afternoon the newspaper that came to my desk contained a cable
despatch which gave me a glow at the heart such as I have not felt for
a while. Just three lines; but they told that a nation’s conscience
was struggling victoriously through hate and foul play and treason:
Captain Dreyfus was to get a fair trial. Justice was to be done at
last to a once despised Jew whose wrongs had held the civilized world
upon the rack; and the world was made happy. Say now it does not
move! It does, where there are men to move it,--I said it before: men
who believe in the right and are willing to fight for it. When the
children of poverty and want came to Mulberry Street for justice, and
I knew they came because Roosevelt had been there, I saw in that what
the resolute, courageous, unyielding determination of one man to see
right done in his own time could accomplish. I have watched him since
in the Navy Department, in camp, as Governor, in the White House, and
more and more I have made out his message as being to the young men
of our day, himself the youngest of our Presidents. I know it is so,
for when I speak to the young about him, I see their eyes kindle, and
their handshake tells me that they want to be like him, and are going
to try. And then I feel that I, too, have done something worth doing
for my people. For, whether for good or for evil, we all leave our mark
upon our day, and his is that of a clean, strong man who fights for the
right _and wins_.
Now, then, a word to these young men who, all over our broad land, are
striving up toward the standard he sets, for he is their hero by right,
as he is mine. Do not be afraid to own it. The struggle to which you
are born, and in which you are bound to take a hand if you would be men
in more than name, is the struggle between the ideal and the husk; for
life without ideals is like the world without the hope of heaven, an
empty, meaningless husk. It is your business to read its meaning into
it by making the ideals real. The material things of life are good in
their day, but they pass away; the moral remain to bear witness that
the high hopes of youth are not mere phantasms. Theodore Roosevelt
_lives his ideals_; therefore you can trust them. Here they are in
working shape: “Face the facts as you find them; strive steadily for
the best.” “Be never content with less than the possible best, and
never throw away the possible best because it is not the ideal best.”
Maxims, those, for the young man who wants to make the most of himself
and his time. Happily for the world, the young man who does not is
rare.
JACOB VAN DER ZEE
“The Hollanders of Iowa,” by Jacob Van der Zee, was published at Iowa
City in 1912 by the State Historical Society of Iowa. The following
facts regarding the author and his book are given in the introduction
of the editor, Mr. Benjamin F. Shambaugh:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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