“This war has shown us that taking out naturalization papers, or even being born here, doesn’t necessarily make an American. We’ve found out that the melting pot doesn’t always melt. To be an American you must have a certain philosophy of government, and only a thoughtful person can have a philosophy at all. If you are going to be a true American, you’ve got to think things out! You’ve got to come to an understanding of the big ideals on which the men who founded this country built. “Every American who does that develops a paradox. He finds first that he has a sense of freedom and equality, and then he arrives at a feeling of responsibility. That latter feeling has been very evident among thinking Americans since the beginning of the European war, and it is particularly evident now. “It’s up to American women, then, to think out what it means to be Americans before they attempt to teach their children--or some one else’s children--what it means. I wish that we might have an American litany--a national creed that mothers and teachers could give to our children! I wish that every American child might be brought to understand the state of mind of the men who wrote and signed our Declaration of Independence--a state of mind compounded of utter bravery, the spirit of self-sacrifice, and a devotion to cause and country that made them literally offer up their ‘lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.’ “Now do you see why I said the abstract thing women have a chance to do is the hard thing? But if it is the more difficult, I believe it is also the more important. “As for the concrete thing, that is already being done to a certain extent. Women have begun offering their services to the government through their various organizations, but they ought to do it more completely. If we are to have universal service for men, we ought to have a variety of universal service for women--at least a mobilization of the resources of all the women in the country. I believe that women here in America will get the vote out of this war as women are getting it in England, but American women will have to show, as English women have done, that they are worthy of the vote. “And there is one thing American women must not forget--that the most important thing they can mobilize is their sex. When the men of a country give their bodies to the sword, the women must give theirs to the future--to the generation to come. Now, more than in peace times, women owe it to their country to bear children, and bear them intelligently. And when they have borne them, it is their sacred duty to bring them up Americans in a full understanding of the ideals on which our fathers built the nation.”