Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1906-05-16
SEE AMERICA FIRST.
MOTTO OF A LEAGUE THAT Is
FORMING IN THE WEST.
Patriotic Americans Who Advocate
Visiting Home Scenes Before
Seeking Those Of For
eign Lands.

ChicagO.-The movement started out
west to persuade fasteners to visit the
natural wonders of their own coun-
try, instead of going to Europe to
spend their vacations, is gaining
strength, according to reports received
from beyond the Mississippi See
Europe if you will, but see America
first" has been adopted as the motto
of the 'See America First" league,
which advances the doctrine that citi-
zens of the United States should visit
the Thousand Islands, Niagara, the
Rockies, the Yosemite, the Yellowstone
and other beauty spots in the United
States before they go abroad to do the
Rhine, the Alps and the Scottish
lakes.
The league declares that it's pur-
pose Is purely patriotic. One of the
arguments it advances is the desir-
ability of retaining in this country
the large amount of money spent each
year by Americans in European travel.
Last year such expenditures are said
to have amounted to $200,0O0,O0O.
The financial objection to vacations
in Europe is, however, represented
as Incidental. 1t is a mistake, say
the organizers of the league, to permit
children to get the idea that all the
beauty spots are on the farther side
of the Atlantic; that their native coun-
try has eminence only in commercial
and political lines. The children should
be taught, they argue, that Nature was
as generous in supplying America with
fine scenery as in equipping any other
country, with the mental capacity to
cope with foreigners in the affairs of
the world
Nor is this lesson to be taught to
the children alone. That some people
in the east believe that the Allie
ghenieS stand near the barrier mark
ing the western limit of civilization
and that beyond Chicago the cowboy
and the Indian vie with each other
in imperiling the life of the occasional
traveller, is mighty thorn in the flesh
of the westerner. The argument is
advanced that Americans generally
will be broader and better when they
have cultivated better acquaintance
with one another; when the Kansas
man forms the habit of paying visits
to New York, and when the New
Highlander sees Colorado occasionally
The league does not contemplate
community or special advertising. That
it's purpose is not mercenary is shown
by the character of the men who are
taking an active interest in the work
that is proposed. The executive COM
mittee is composed of DR.. Nathan G..
Schaeffer, president of the National
Educational association; DIR. David
Starr Jordan, president of the Univer-
sity OF California; David r. Francis,
who was president of the ST. Louis
worlds fair; Irving Howbert, of Colo
RADIO; Robert l.. Mccormick, of Wash
ington, and Fisher Harris, of Salt Lake
City.
The first conference held in Salt
Lake City, in January, was attended
by delegates from 10 states Those who
were present are now organizing SUBJ
ordinate leagues in their home states.
The men behind the movement
have no idea that it will be possible
to keep people from going to Europe
If they want to, nor do they pro-
pose to catch the intending tourist by
the throat and drag him to the west.
but they do propose to put the thought
which lies at the base of the move
ment before the American people that
they will grow to consider it public,
patriotic, and, indeed, selfish duty to
see first all they can of their native
land before searching out the attrac-
tons OF foreign countries.