America First: Patriotic Readings (Illustrated)

America First was the central thought in President Wilson’s addressto the Daughters of the American Revolution on the twenty-fifthanniversary of their organization—their Silver Jubilee—inWashington, D. C., October 11, 1915. The president declared in thisaddress that all citizens should make it plain whether theirsympathies for foreign countries come before their love of the UnitedStates, or whether they are for America first, last, and all the time. Heasserted, also, that our people need all of their patriotism in thisconfusion of tongues in which we find ourselves over the Europeanwar.The press throughout the country has taken up the thought of thePresident and, seconded by the efforts of the Bureau of Education,has done loyal work in making “America First” our national slogan.This is all good so far as it goes—especially among the adultpopulation, many of whom must be educated, if educated at all, onthe run. But the rising generation, both native-born and foreign, toget the full meaning of this slogan in its far-reaching significance,must have time for study and reflection along patriotic lines. Theremust be the right material on which the American youth may settletheir thoughts for a definite end in patriotism if our country is tohave a new birth of freedom and if “this government of the people,by the people, and for the people is not to perish from the earth.”The prime and vital service of amalgamating into one homogeneousbody the children alike of those who are born here and of those whocome here from so many different lands must be rendered thisRepublic by the school teachers of America.The purpose of this book is to furnish the teachers and pupils of ourcountry, material with which the idea of true Americanism may bedeveloped until “America First” shall become the slogan of everyman, woman, and child in the United States.