The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1915-10-28
AMERICA FIRST"
Woodrow Wilson.

Il do not believe this government
can endure permanently half slave
and half free" said Lincoln in his
Springfield convention speech of June
I16, 1858. Nor can it endure half
American and half alien. President
Wilson, in his address before the
Daughters of the Revolution, lately,
defined the most vital issue that the
people of the United States have
faced since slavery and secession
were Embellishments First" This
issue goes to the very life of the Re-
public. All the political differences,
all the economic differences, all the
Industrial differences of the last fifty
years were trihing in comparison
with the fundamental question of
whether the American people are the
American people or whether they are
congeries of European immigrants
who recognize no allegiance of patri-
otism to the country of their adop-
ton. Lncoln's Scriptural warning
chat "a house divided against itself
cannot stand" is as applicable today
as it was in 1858. Hephenated Amer
icanism is not treason within the mar
row legal definition of the Constitu-
ion, but it is moral treason, and it
is form of moral treason that, if it
is tolerated, must inevitably bring
about the disintegration of the nation.
IN a speech in Washington lately ex'
President Roosevelt said: For an
American citizen to vote as Ger
man American, an Irish-American or
IN English-American is to be trail
tor to American institutions; and
hose hyphenated Americans who ter
rorize American politicians by their
;hreats of the foreign vote are en-
gagged in treason to the American
Republic" The issue which Presi-
lent Wilson so felicitously stated in
he words, America First" cannot
De eVaded. 1t must be met in the
coming session of Congress. 1t may
De met in the national campaign of
1916, and ON this issue every Ameri-
IAN voter has a right to know how
MS neighbor stands. The blame for
AhoA
country does not rest alone upon the
nyphenated citizen. 1t must be shar-
I'd by men who knew better but who
capitalized the foreign vote for sor-
lid partisan advantage. Every cam
laign has had it's appeal to the Ger
nan vote, to the Irish vote, to the
Jewish vote, to the Italian vote, to
he Scandinavian vote, to the Polish
vote and to any other kind of vote
hat desperate partisanship could
consolidate and reach. How could
true Americanism be expected to
take root in a soil that American pol
iticians deliberately starved of it's
Americanism? In the easy, tolerant
humorous way of the American peo-
pie, these appeals to the racial con
seriousness of the foreign voter have
been treated playfully and jestingly
)ut the foreign voter has not regard
| I'd them in that spirit. He has taken
hem seriously, and he naturally
came to believe that he was import
| ant politically not because he was
IN American citizen but because he
| was German or Irish or Italian OIL
Polish or Scandinavian or Jew, I'M
| Ill we have at last reached a stage
| at which President of the United
States can be threatened, here ant
in Europe, with political eXtermina
tfon for daring to put the interests
of the United States above the inter
ests of European monarchies. Presi
dent Wilson is not alone in his de
sire to "have a lineup and let tn
men who are thinking first of othei
countries stand on one side-Bibli
cally it should be the left-and al
those who are for America first, las
and all the time on the other side.
We cannot have this lineup too soon
The result cannot be allowed to re
main in doubt. Either an overwhel
ming majority of American citizens
regardless of their racial origin, ar
for America first, last and all tn
time" or the Republic is failur
and all the blood that was shed i
the Revolutionary War and in tn
Civil War was shed in vain.