Los Angeles herald., 1910-10-16
OCTOBER 10, 1910.
THE AMERICAN PRINCESS

expressed, written and printed regard
ing the American. The sagacious wit
ness of his actions knows that they are
false:
THE American has an energy and
creative longing of irresistible intens
ity, both entirely directed to the at
tainment of base material objects. He
has not his peer as a creator of values
i'm our age, but they are only technical
material values. His life is externally
brilliant, intense, of powerful dynamic
force, but inwardly poor, empty and
barren. He lacks an ideal to ennoble
his work and render it subjectively
compensatory Independent of its ma
terial success or failure.
Now, as a matter of fact, the Amer
lean in the midst of the ardent pursuit
of the dollar is filled with an almost
sentimental longing for a higher eX-
istence. America is toiling with pas
sonate earnestness and titanic eXer-
ton to develop her own civilization.
The American has always recognized
as his first task the transformation of
the primeval forest and the prairie into
civilized communities, but he has al
ways remained conscious that the mag
niticent work of civilization which he
was conjuring from the virgin soil was
intended to serve more sublime pur-
pose than mere economic oneS-llberty,
justice, the universal progress of man
kind 1t was like a vow uttered in
the declaration of human rights, in the
first constitution, in the presidential
proclamation of Washington, and to
this, up to the present days, the aver
age American has held fast, at least
theoretically; the American of the finer
sort practically.
Apart from this almost mystical
tinge in the American work of civili-
de-
mands attention. The keen American
money-maker is not selfish. He is not
a frozen individualist. He has an ac>
tive public spirit. Amid his reckless
assertiveness he demands acquisition
of riches. He also thinks constantly
of the community. His successes af-
ford him full satisfaction only when he
can make his narrower and wider CIR
Gle in the community share them, and
he knows the feeling of having filled
his place in the world like a man only
when he has added to his city, ms
state or the Union something useful or
beautiful, which VIII increase the mag
nificence and effectiveness of public in
stitutions and make the lives of his
fellow citizens more worthy, happy ana
intellectual.
This is the psychology of the Ameri-
can man. If we should wish to apply 1t
to the American woman 1t would leave
us entirely in the lurch. OF course l
am not speaking OF the average Amer
lean woman of the middle and lower
classes, the wife of the workman, the
farmer, the ordinary citizen, who has
always been his brave co-worker, the
quiet heroine, without whose patience
in endurance, boldness in enterprise,
tenacity in labor, pioneer virtues in
prosperity and misfortune, he would
never have attained what he has ac-
complished. Here l allude to the wo-
man of the aristocratic classes, the
leading" American who, with the
silent or expressed agreement of her
people, represents to the world the
most brilliant aspect of Americanism.
She is the finest and most magnificent
flower of American civilization, which
must submit to be studied and judged
in her Well, of the civilization en-
bodied in this great lady America has
no reason to be proud.-Cleveland Plain
Dealer.