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| This Page Americanism, Diversity, Inclusion, and Immigration Rudyard Kipling's The Mother-Lodge, and "My brothers, black and brown" Theodore Roosevelt on True Americanism Fellow citizens, not "allies" Immigration yes, invasive species, no. "This is Cid. Be like Cid." Contact |
This web site's purpose is to
explore the viability of running for the 8th Congressional District in
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donations are currently being solicited or accepted. Americanism, Diversity, Inclusion, and Immigration
THERE was Rundle, Station Master, An' Beazeley of the Rail, An' 'Ackman, Commissariat, An' Donkin' o' the Jail; An' Blake, Conductor-Sergeant, Our Master twice was 'e, With im that kept the Europe-shop, Old Framjee Edu1jee. Outside - " Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam! Inside - 'Brother," an' it doesn't do no 'arm. We met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square, An' I was junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there! We'd Bola Nath, Accountant, An' Saul the Aden Jew, An' Din Mohammed, draughtsman Of the Survey Office too; There was Babu Chuckerbutty, An' Amir Singh the Sikh, An' Castro from the fittin'-sheds, The Roman Catholick! We 'adn't good regalia, An' our Lodge was old an' bare, But we knew the Ancient Landmarks, An' we kep' 'em to a hair; An' lookin' on it backwards It often strikes me thus, There ain't such things as infidels, Excep', per'aps, it's us. For monthly, after Labour, We'd all sit down and smoke (We dursn't give no banquets, Lest a Brother's caste were broke), An' man on man got talkin' Religion an' the rest, An' every man comparin' Of the God 'e knew the best. So man on man got talkin', An' not a Brother stirred Till mornin' waked the parrots An' that dam' brain-fever-bird. We'd say 'twas 'ighly curious, An' we'd all ride 'ome to bed, With Mo'ammed, God, an' Shiva Changin' pickets in our 'ead. Full oft on Guv'ment service This rovin' foot 'ath pressed, An' bore fraternal greetin's To the Lodges east an' west, Accordin' as commanded. From Kohat to Singapore, But I wish that I might see them In my Mother-Lodge once more! I wish that I might see them, My Brethren black an' brown, With the trichies smellin' pleasant An' the hog-darn passin' down; An' the old khansamah snorin' On the bottle-khana floor, Like a Master in good standing With my Mother-Lodge once more. Outside - Sergeant! Sir! Salute! Salaam!' Inside- Brother," an' it doesn't do no 'arm. We met upon the Level an' we parted on the Square, An' I was Junior Deacon in my Mother-Lodge out there! Excerpts of Theodore Roosevelt's essay on True Americanism Roosevelt addresses the dangers of Balkanization, which is exactly why Yugoslavia, the great Southern Slavic nation born in the aftermath of the First World War, broke apart into its components. Its people never thought of themselves as Yugoslavians, but instead held that they were Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, Montenegrans, and so on. Depicting Americans as "people of color," "Hispanics," "whites," and so on is just more of the same. We do not wish, in politics, in
literature, or in art, to develop that unwholesome parochial spirit,
that over-exaltation of the little community at the expense of the
great nation, which produces what has been described as the patriotism
of the village, the patriotism of the belfry. Politically, the
indulgence of this spirit was the chief cause of the calamities which
befell the ancient republics of Greece, the medieval republics of
Italy, and the petty States of Germany as it was in the last century.
It is this spirit of provincial patriotism, this inability to take a
view of broad adhesion to the whole nation that has been the chief
among the causes that have produced such anarchy in the South American
States, and which have resulted in presenting to us not one great
Spanish-American federal nation stretching from the Rio Grande to Cape
Horn, but a squabbling multitude of revolution-ridden States, not one
of which stands even in the second rank as a power. However,
politically this question of American nationality has been settled once
for all. We are no longer in danger of repeating in our history the
shameful and contemptible disasters that have befallen the Spanish
possessions on this continent since they threw off the yoke of Spain.
America is great, and anybody who says otherwise does not belong here. This includes Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) who said "America was never that great" and is therefore, as defined by Roosevelt, has "some organic weakness in their moral or mental make-up..." This is not to say that great cannot be made even better, and our nation has been in a process of continual self-improvement for almost 250 years, but it is still head and shoulders above all other nations. It is not only necessary to
Americanize the immigrants of foreign birth who settle among us, but it is even more
necessary for those among us who are by birth and descent already
Americans not to throw away our birthright, and, with incredible and
contemptible folly, wander back to bow down before the alien gods whom
our forefathers forsook. It is hard to believe that there is any
necessity to warn Americans that, when they seek to model themselves on
the lines of other civilizations, they make themselves the butts of all
right-thinking men; and yet the necessity certainly exists to give this
warning to many of our citizens who pride themselves on their standing
in the world of art and letters, or, perchance, on what they would
style their social leadership in the community. It is always better to
be an original than an imitation, even when the imitation is of
something better than the original; but what shall we say of the fool
who is content to be an imitation of something worse? Even if the
weaklings who seek to be other than Americans were right in deeming
other nations to be better than their own, the fact yet remains
that to be a first-class American is fifty-fold better than to be a
second-class imitation of a Frenchman or Englishman. As ’a matter of
fact, however, those of our countrymen who do believe in American
inferiority are always individuals who, however cultivated, have some
organic weakness in their moral or mental make-up; and the great
mass of our people, who are robustly patriotic, and who have sound,
healthy minds, are justified in regarding these feeble renegades with a
half-impatient and half-amused scorn.
Prejudice
and Balkanization are Un-American. Here, however, I disagree
with Roosevelt about holidays like Saint Patrick's Day. Holidays,
festivals, fine arts, and performing arts from other countries enrich
the culture of our entire nation and can be enjoyed by all citizens
regardless of their ethnic origins. I still eat Irish soda bread when
it's available before March 15 and I wish there was a non-meat
alternative to
corned beef so I could enjoy corned beef and cabbage as well. Our
country is all the better for recipes brought to us by Asian, Middle
Eastern, Italian, Asian Indian, and other immigrants. Japanese,
Chinese, and African fine arts have no European parallels and all the
cultures in question are better off for sharing. Loyalty to the United
States must, however, come before all else. The third sense in which the word
“Americanism” may be employed is with reference to the Americanizing of
the newcomers to our shores. We must Americanize them in every way, in
speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking
at the relations between Church and State. We welcome the German or the
Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or
Irishman who remains such. We do not wish German-Americans and
Irish-Americans who figure as such in our social and political life; we
want only Americans, and, provided they are such, we do not care
whether they are of native or of Irish or of German ancestry. We have no room in any
healthy American community for a German-American vote or an
Irish-American vote, and it is contemptible demagogy to put planks into
any party platform with the purpose of catching such a vote. We have no
room for any people who do not act and vote simply as Americans, and as
nothing else. Moreover, we have as little use for people who carry
religious prejudices into our politics as for those who carry
prejudices of caste or nationality. We stand unalterably in
favor of the public-school system in its entirety. We believe that
English, and no other language, is that in which all the school
exercises should be conducted. We are against any division of
the school fund, and against any appropriation of public money for
sectarian purposes. We are against any recognition whatever by the
State in any shape or form of State-aided parochial schools. But we are
equally opposed to any discrimination against or for a man because of
his creed. We
demand that all citizens, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile,
shall have fair treatment in every way; that all alike shall have their
rights guaranteed them. The very reasons that make us
unqualified in our opposition to State-aided sectarian schools make us
equally bent that, in the management of our public schools, the
adherents of each creed shall be given exact and equal justice, wholly
without regard to their religious affiliations; that trustees,
superintendents, teachers, scholars, all alike shall be treated without
any reference whatsoever to the creed they profess. We maintain that it is
an outrage, in voting for a man for any position, whether State or
national, to take into account his religious faith, provided only he is
a good American. When a secret society does what in some places the
American Protective Association seems to have done, and tries to
proscribe Catholics both politically and socially, the members of such
society show that they themselves are as utterly un-American, as alien
to our school of political thought, as the worst immigrants who land on
our shores. Their conduct is equally base and contemptible; they
are the worst foes of our public-school system, because they strengthen
the hands of its ultra-montane enemies; they should receive the hearty
condemnation of all Americans who are truly patriotic.
The mighty tide of immigration to our shores has brought in its train much of good and much of evil; and whether the good or the evil shall predominate depends mainly on whether these newcomers do or do not throw themselves heartily into our national life, cease to be Europeans, and become Americans like the rest of us. More than a third of the people of the Northern States are of foreign birth or parentage. An immense number of them have become completely Americanized, and these stand on exactly the same plane as the descendants of any Puritan, Cavalier, or Knickerbocker among us, and do their full and honorable share of the nation’s work. But where immigrants, or the sons of immigrants, do not heartily and in good faith throw in their lot with us, but cling to the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and the habits of thought of the Old World which they have left, they thereby harm both themselves and us. If they remain alien elements, unassimilated, and with interests separate from ours, they are mere obstructions to the current of our national life, and, moreover, can get no good from it themselves. In fact, though we ourselves also suffer from their perversity, it is they who really suffer most. It is an immense benefit to the European immigrant to change him into an American citizen. To bear the name of American is to bear the most honorable titles; and whoever does not so believe has no business to bear the name at all, and, if he comes from Europe, the sooner he goes back there the better. Besides, the man who does not become Americanized nevertheless fails to remain a European, and becomes nothing at all. The immigrant cannot possibly remain what he was, or continue to be a member of the Old-World society. If he tries to retain his old language, in a few generations it becomes a barbarous jargon; if he tries to retain his old customs and ways of life, in a few generations he becomes an uncouth boor. He has cut himself off from the Old World, and cannot retain his connection with it; and if he wishes ever to amount to anything he must throw himself heart and soul, and without reservation, into the new life to which he has come. It is urgently necessary to check and regulate our immigration, by much more drastic laws than now exist; and this should be done both to keep out laborers who tend to depress the labor market, and to keep out races which do not assimilate readily with our own, and unworthy individuals of all races–not only criminals, idiots, and paupers, but anarchists of the Most and O’Donovan Rossa type. From his own standpoint, it is beyond all question the wise thing for the immigrant to become thoroughly Americanized. Moreover, from our standpoint, we have a right to demand it. We freely extend the hand of welcome and of good-fellowship to every man, no matter what his creed or birthplace, who comes here honestly intent on becoming a good United States citizen like the rest of us; but we have a right, and it is our duty, to demand that he shall indeed become so and shall not confuse the issues with which we are struggling by introducing among us Old-World quarrels and prejudices. There are certain ideas which he must give up. For instance, he must learn that American life is incompatible with the existence of any form of anarchy, or of any secret society having murder for its aim, whether at home or abroad; and he must learn that we exact full religious toleration and the complete separation of Church and State. Moreover, he must not bring in his Old-World religious race and national antipathies, but must merge them into love for our common country, and must take pride in the things which we can all take pride in. He must revere only our flag; not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second. He must learn to celebrate Washington’s birthday rather than that of the Queen or Kaiser, and the Fourth of July instead of St. Patrick’s Day. Our political and social questions must be settled on their own merits, and not complicated by quarrels between England and Ireland, or France and Germany, with which we have nothing to do: it is an outrage to fight an American political campaign with reference to questions of European politics. Above all, the immigrant must learn to talk and think and be United States. The immigrant of to-day can learn much from the experience of the immigrants of the past, who came to America prior to the Revolutionary War. We were then already, what we are now, a people of mixed blood. Many of our most illustrious Revolutionary names were borne by men of Huguenot blood–Jay, Sevier, Marion, Laurens. But the Huguenots were, on the whole, the best immigrants we have ever received; sooner than any other, and more completely, they became American in speech, conviction, and thought. The Hollanders took longer than the Huguenots to become completely assimilated; nevertheless they in the end became so, immensely to their own advantage. One of the leading Revolutionary generals, Schuyler, and one of the Presidents of the United States, Van Buren, were of Dutch blood; but they rose to their positions, the highest in the land, because they had become Americans and had ceased being Hollanders. If they had remained members of an alien body, cut off by their speech and customs and belief from the rest of the American community, Schuyler would have lived his life as a boorish, provincial squire, and Van Buren would have ended his days a small tavern-keeper. So it is with the Germans of Pennsylvania. Those of them who became Americanized have furnished to our history a multitude of honorable names from the days of the Muhlenbergs onward; but those who did not become Americanized form to the present day an unimportant body, of no significance in American existence. So it is with the Irish, who gave to Revolutionary annals such names as Carroll and Sullivan, and to the Civil War men like Sheridan–men who were Americans and nothing else: while the Irish who remain such, and busy themselves solely with alien politics, can have only an unhealthy influence upon American life, and can never rise as do their compatriots who become straightout Americans. Thus it has ever been with all people who have come hither, of whatever stock or blood. The same thing is true of the churches. A church which remains foreign, in language or spirit, is doomed. But I wish to be distinctly understood on one point. Americanism is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose, not of creed or birthplace. The politician who bids for the Irish or German vote, or the Irishman or German who votes as an Irishman or German, is despicable, for all citizens of this commonwealth should vote solely as Americans; but he is not a whit less despicable than the voter who votes against a good American, merely because that American happens to have been born in Ireland or Germany. Know-nothingism, in any form, is as utterly un-American as foreignism. It is a base outrage to oppose a man because of his religion or birthplace, and all good citizens will hold any such effort in abhorrence. A Scandinavian, a German, or an Irishman who has really become an American has the right to stand on exactly the same footing as any native-born citizen in the land, and is just as much entitled to the friendship and support, social and political, of his neighbors. Among the men with whom I have been thrown in close personal contact socially, and who have been among my stanchest friends and allies politically, are not a few Americans who happen to have been born on the other side of the water, in Germany, Ireland, Scandinavia; and there could be no better men in the ranks of our native-born citizens. The above material is exactly why, if Rashida Tlaib wants to
talk about "our Palestinian people," she should move to Gaza as
currently infested by the terrorist organization Hamas, because we do
not have Palestinian people here; we have Americans, some of whom are
of Middle Eastern origin. We are not "allies," we are fellow Americans The "woke" political Left is telling Caucasians how to be better "allies" of their African-American counterparts. The "woke" Left puts Balkanizing and "othering" rhetoric into an attractive package by saying "We're on your side, we're your allies" while white supremacists do not bother to conceal the same material's divisive, "othering," and Balkanizing nature. What the white nationalists sell is bitter poison, which means you know you should spit it out the instant you taste it. The "woke" political Left sugar-coats the same poison to get you to swallow it and then look at your African-American neighbor, or your Caucasian neighbor if you are African-American, as if he or she is something other than an American just like you. This is certainly not the Left's intention but it is the bottom line effect, so let's make some things clear:
There is no place in this country for divisive and Balkanizing
language like "allyship." We are Americans, and
we play all or none. Immigration
Yes, Invasive Species No This
is (El) Cid. Be like Cid.
Bill "at" levinson4nepa.com PRIVACY NOTICE: This
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