The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-11-17
AMERICA FOR AMERICANS.

America for Americansi 1t has
specious, pleasing sound and to the
shallow-minded it passes for patriot
ism. 1t is intended as an epitomiz-
ing of the Monroe doctrine, that doc
trine so easy of definition, so hard o.
application America for Americans.
England for Englishmen, France for
Frenchmen. Germany for Germans.
this is the modern cry, the cry that
denies the brotherhood of mankind
and would make of men beasts with
all their instincts. And is this the re-
suit of two thousand years Of the
teachings of Christianity? Have the
precepts of the Man who died on CAL
vary lost their power over the minds
of men7
But to return to this talk of Amer
lea for Americans. 1t is heard mostly
in the United States, and those who
are loudest in shouting it would ar
rogate to this government the iordship
over North and South America and I'M
pose upon the people of the various
governments of this western hemi-
sphere our ideas, not because they are
our ideas. but because they are in reali-
ty blessings, though it may be in dis
guise to those upon whom we would
force them After all. isn't blessing
a blessing whethsr people recognize 1t
as such or not?
The people of the United States
look upon themselves as the Ameri-
on. our north or the Mexicans on our
south have the same right to claim
this proud distinction that we have.
IT'S true our country is bigger and
more powerful than theirs, and size
and power with far too many serve
as standard of ethics in place of
right and justice. We should hardly
look with complaisance upon the claim
of these countries, or Of any of the
countries to the far south, to say
what was and what was not Ameri-
can and attempt to make their claim
ego" Yet it is their right as much
as ours. 1t never seems to dawn
upon the minds of these all pervading
patriots that perhaps the ideas that
prevail in these United States are not
accepted by nor congenial to the good
people of the various governments of
the two Americas. Yet such things are
possible. There are people in this
world who refuse to be forced to be
saved. OF course such people do not
realize what they lose. 1t will seem a
strange and reasonable doctrine to
the America for Americans shouters
to be told that the government of the
United States. free and glorious as it
is, was not foreordained of old to say
what other American governments
should do nor that we should play
the part of protector to them whether
they wished it or not This govern
ment is good and great, but it is nei-
Their Immaculate nor omnipotent. That
it may become so we do not doubt,
but it will be in the day when the lion
and the lamb shall lie down together,
when men shall turn their swords
into ploughshares and their spears into
pruning hooks. But this time will not
be in the nineteenth century.
All this talk about America for
Americans of which we hear so much
is mostly pure twaddle and is but the
expression, in fine phrase, of a desire
on the part of those who employ it to
boss and bully everybody in the west
ern world and give Europe the i'm
preston that we can lick all creation,
and if she does not think so, to come
and try it. What is not big boyish-
ness and boorishness in it is bigotry.