Woodrow Wilson, in his address before the Daughters of the American Revolution, gave his case away when he said: “I would rather be beaten than ostracized.” To stand out against the Bethlehem, Du Pont, Baldwin, Remington, Winchester metallic cartridges and the rest of the armament ring means political ostracism and death. Wilson knows that; therefore he betrays his original position, goes back on the bombast of “too proud to fight,” and howls as loudly as any other cheap politician for preparedness and national glory, for the silly pledge the Navy League women intend to impose upon every school child: “I pledge myself to do all in my power to further the interests of my country, to uphold its institutions and to maintain the honor of its name and its flag. As I owe everything in life to my country, I consecrate my heart, mind, and body to its service and promise to work for its advancement and security in times of peace and to shrink from no sacrifice or privation in its cause should I be called upon to act in its defense for the freedom, peace, and happiness of our people.” To uphold the institutions of our country—that is it; the institutions which protect and sustain a handful of people in the robbery and plunder of the masses, the institutions which drain the blood of the native as well as of the foreigner and turn it into wealth and power; the institutions which rob the alien of whatever originality he brings with him and in return give him cheap Americanism, whose glory consists in mediocrity and arrogance. The very proclaimers of “America first” have long before this betrayed the fundamental principles of real Americanism, of the kind of Americanism Jefferson had in mind when he said that the best government is that which governs least; the kind of an America David Thoreau worked for when he proclaimed that the best government is the one that doesn’t govern at all; or the other truly great Americans who aimed to make of this country a haven of refuge, who hoped that all the disinherited and oppressed coming to these shores would give character, quality and meaning to the country. That is not the America of the politicians and the munition speculators. Their America has been powerfully portrayed by a young New York sculptor I know; he has made a hard cruel hand with long lean merciless fingers, crushing in over the heart of the foreigner, squeezing out its blood in order to coin dollars.