The daily Alaskan., 1915-11-02
'IAMERICA FIRST"
 SOON ID RING
Wilson's Warning to Aliens to Get Off the Fence Meets
 With Universal Approval.
,AAAAAHNNNNHHAHHANo4eeo--
NIERICA frst.n

N HencefOrth that is the slO-
 "A gan that will ring throughout the width and breadth of this
 country.
 President Wilson originated the ut
 terance in a notable speech before the
 Daughters of the RevolTtiOn at a re-
 cent meeting held in Washington.
 Former President Roosevelt express
 ed the same sentiment in more vigor-
 Ous language on the following night In
 an address before the Knights of Co.,
 lumbus in New York city. The colo
 nel was at liberty to use words with
 more punch" than would be becoming the chief executive of the United States
 As the New York World points out, President Lincoln at the Springfield convention said, "I do not believe this government can endure half slave and half free" It adds that neither can 1t endure half American and half alien. Continuing, the World says editorialIy:
 President Wilson In his address be- fore the Daughters of the Revolution defined the most vital issue that the people of the United States have faced since slavery and secession were thrOt- tIed-"Amerlca first" The issue goes to the very life of the republic All the political differences, all the eco homie differences, all the industrial | differences of the last fifty years were 1 trihing in comparison with the fuuda. mental question of whether the Amer 1 icau people are the American people or whether they are a congeries of | European immigrants who recognize no allegiance of patriotism to the cOun- try of their adoption.
 "EOuse Divided Cannot Stand"
 "LiucoIn's Scriptural warning that a house divided against itself cannot stand is as applicable today as it was in 1858.
 'Nir. Roosevelt did not overstate the case when he said, echoing the senti- ments of President Wilson:
 For an American citizen to vote | aB a German American, an Irish American or an English-American 1 is to be a traitor to American insti- | tutions, and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign | vote are engaged in treason to the American republic.
 President Wilson could not well an- swer these threats, because they have been made against him personally, but ! MT. Roosevelt has answered them for | him, and the sentiment that Mir ROOse- | welt expressed in this quotation from his speech must be the sentiment of every American who is loyal to his country, to his Country's flag and to his country's institutions.
 "The Issue which President Wilson so fellcltOusly stated in the words | America first cannot be evaded, It must be met in the coming session of congress. It may be met in the na- tlOnal campaign of 1916, and on this issue every American voter has right to know how his neighbOr stands.
 "Tha blanc for the situation that COnfrOnts the country does not rest alone upon the hyphenated citizen. It must be shared by men who knew bet ter but who capitalized the foreign vote for sordld partisan advantage.
 Politicians Manipulate Votes.
 "For years managing politicians of both parties have made a business of manipulating this vote and have help cd thereby to maintain its solidarity. r-ery campaign has had its appeal to the German vote, to the Irish vote, to | the Jewish vote, to the Italian vote, to the Scandinavian vote, to the Polish vote and to any other kind of vote that desperate partlsanship could con- solidate and reach. How could true Americanism be expected to take root | in a soil that American politicians de | Iiberately starved of its AmCricanism1
 "In the easy, tolerant humorous way of the American people these appeals to the racial consciousness of the for | eign voter have been treated playfully and jestlngly, but the foreign voter has not regarded them in that spirit. He | has taken them seriously, and he nat urally came to believe that he was i'm portant politically not because he was / an American citizen, but because he was German or Irish or Italian or Polish or Scandinavian or Jew, until we have at last reached a stage at which a president of the United States can be threatened here and in Europe with political extermination for daring to put the interests of the United States above the interests of European monarchies.
 President Wilson Is not alone in his desire to have lineup and let the men who are thinking first of other countries stand on one side-BibIically 1t should be the left-and all those who are for America first, last and all the time on the other side We can not have this lineup too soon, and the result cannot be allowed to remain in doubt. Either an overwhelming ma jority of American citizens, regardless l oF +hnir racIel origin. are for America