Norwich bulletin., 1916-04-29

very strikingfy and amusingly brought to my notice at a banquet hall in yon- der room. You had already been af- ficted with a long array of speakers, including myself. At last one of the great mogulS was introduced He was a genial, royal good fellow, but rather long-winded- As the hour was very late, I was obliged to leave to withdrew, the speaker said, Good night, Brother Ricketts, if you are down this way in the morning just drop in and you will find me still at it." Perhaps, MT. Commander, I have been here long enough for you and your post to know that I shall not talk you or your post either into Yam tic cemetery or what is worse, into Brewster's Neck.
 As no topic was given me I have de- cided to say a few things on the sub- ject of the True American Spirit. In attempting to deal with this thought assume at the outset that everybody realizes that such a spirit exists. This is necessary to any clear exposition of the matter. It was the American spirit that brought the scattered col onies together to resist as one body what they regarded as the tyranny of | Great Britain. And after they had succeeded on both land and sea, it was the same spirit that joined the | several states together in. political
 
 | States of America.
 Every nation that has one whit of | Individuality must create for itself a spirit that is distinctively and exclu- sively it's own. It cannot fit into the | thoughts and feelings of other peo- pies whether they are more or less 1 enlightened than we; in other words, it cannot express the political feelings | of other nations to the extent that l they can call 1t theirs. For this req son the American spirit cannot be the English, or French, or German or ! Russian, or in fact the spirit of any | other country. Now this by no means 1 implies that the American spirit op- poses that of other nations; or that I our American spirit comes up to the l standard of cold reason more nearly than that of other peoples. The | American spirit, then, is the mysteri- l ous common bond that uniteS us into a nation that is contributed to by eli | mate, geography, natural productions manufactured articles, education, po- litical and moral development, and the goal to be reached by free politica institutions.
 For one have great sympathy fol the so-called hyphenated Americans They come to us from other countries steeped in spirit that is in many cases un-American and in all case: non-American. They naturally low, luS lHdI gave them ever though they find there conditions to- hard for permanent residence It il not strange that for awhile ther
 should be confusion in their minds The American ideal is not that of tn
 other nations from which they came
 Let all immigrants to this countr,
 grow into the American spirit, as
 think the better class wants to. I
 there are those who refuse to. groI up in the American spirit, we ough
 to insist that they go back to tha
 spirit with which they are more i
 harmony, After two generations tn
 hyphen ought to disappear. In tim there ought to be no British Ameri
 cans. French Americans, German
 Americans but American pure and simple as far as citizenshi is concerned. There is no place in tn United States where any foreign peo pie ought to be colonized for the pur
 pose of perpetuating their own Ian guage, manners, customs and politica life. I wish it might be felt all owe
 the broad earth that the America
 spirit will not, on any account, toleI h ate the attempt to make our soil tn Y breeding place of plots against an
 nation with whom we are at peace! \ believe that the stand ought to r
 taken by the government at Washing
 ton so firmly that no man, and no st of men, for one moment would thin