New Britain herald., 1916-06-01
NEITHER GREEKS NOR
 TROJANS."

There was no hint of politics in Colonel RooseveIt's speech at St. Louis yesterday when he delivered straight from the shoulder his idea of Ameri- of the nation should live up to this doctrine. If there had been just the mere semblance of anything smacking of the campaign ahead, with more preference to the Chicago conventions next week the Colonel would be read fly forgiven by all those devoted to the cause of straight-Out American ism, without the taint of anything pertaining to the hyphenates,-Am ica for the Americans. It was such an utterance that no American citi- zen could take as an Offense, whether he was born in Germany, in Ireland, in Italy, in Turkey, in Scandinavian countries, whether he was born in this land, or whether his father or his fathers father came over in the Mayf1ower or in the steerage of some
 
 The Colonel merely pointed out that when men seek liberty on these shores they must, after that, if they are to remain here, become one thing or the other. There can be no division of | loyalty. There can be no such thing as a German-American, an Irish American, an English American, or a French American. Either they are German, or Irish, or English, or French, or they are American. Whether they are of German, or Irish, or English, or French descent does not matter. If they are Ameri- can they are all the way American, or they are nothing. His illustra- tion was happy. When men from this country go abroad and visit the ! land of their fOrefathers or even their own land after becoming citizens here they are not looked upon as people of that land, but as foreigners. They are Americans. If such is the case abroad it must necessarily be so in the united states.
 It was the Emperor of Germany i who put the whole case in nut she'll According to a story printed in the newspapers not long ago the Emperor is quoted as stating to a member of the New York Schuetzen Verein- who was introduced as a Ger maf1-American: What do I hear? A Standardization? I know no such people, I know only Germans and l Americans" Colonel Roosevelt aptly I used this during the course of his St. Louis remarks There can be no such thing as a divided citizenship. | There must be either one or the other and when both try. to assert them | selves thcre is left a vacuum. The | both a German and an American in the end becomes neither German nor an American The same thing holds true with the man who would call himself an Irish American. The day of the hyphcnatc is rapidly drawing to close. Ever since the dawning of the European war the sun has been 1 sinking in the west on all those who would set themselves up in the mid dle of the road, going neither to the left nor right but trying to be part and parcel of both sides. Soon they will be in utter darkness, for only those who are wrapped heart and soul in the great principles of American1sm can stand the searching glare of the | noon-day sun.
 In a few weeks there will be in full swing one of the greatest presidential campaigns ever witnessed in the his tory of this nation. The candidates are now being groomed. They are all Americans, whether they be Dem- ocFats' Republicans, PrOgreSs1Ves Prohlbltionists, or Socialists. An at