Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-03-02
I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN

WE WONDER sometimes if there is any
n American who knows what America is.
% many square miles in this State. says
The geography. and so many square miles
IN that so many bushels Of wheat raised
every year, SO many bales Of cotton, so
many tons of coal mined, SO much copper,
20 many millions Of people, so many cities,
such high mountains, such great canyons.
Niagara Falls and even swamps that are
mxgnincent In the vastness OF their pro.
porticns; but these things are no more
America than are bones and flesh the
Individual. Each of us has skin and heart,
nerves and blood, fingers and toes, but
there Is no man so like unto another that
there are not differences which identity
them absolutely. The body is simply a
house. q habitation. but the man is above
the neck, in that miraculous laboratory
which we call the brain, where the reac-
tons Of intelligence are constant. No, her
hills and rivers, her forests and her plains
do not make America. She is an intan.
gible something, soul. purpose brain.
process, "A living, squirming energy, a
hope. passion. an intelligence.
A learned man wrote recently in a maga.
xine to say that In the present crisis Of
humanity the Church had fallen down,
Somebody else rises to remark that we are
: race of mollycoddles, afraid to fight and
not knowing how to do It II we wanted to.
a third observer notes that our makeup
= too composite to permit unity of pur.
pose and that the melting pot will have
- guilt boiling before we can expect ma
tional solidarity. Another particularly
smug commentator relates how the soul
of the East Side in New York has pene.
trated the western plains and thrilled them
with idealism. Yes America Is a chame.
ieon, matching the hue Of the eyes that
ebserve her; as battling as a woman and
~ inexhaustible as the seas. And as i'm.
provident as a spendthrift, some critic
may observe Let us see.
The Germans. all men now know, broke
the italian lines by first breaking the
italian morale. They win never impair
American morale. for lie Washing.
ton has been organizing the martial might
Of the nation the Y. NJ, C. A. and the
Knights of Columbus have been marshal.
ing the spirit Of America Go to any
camp In the country or to any naval sta.
tlon. Go into Y. M. C. A. hut any night
and hear the thunder of patriotic song
ecsning from thousands Of young Ameri-
can throats. Then recollect that hundreds
~ those huts are behind the American
divisions at the 'front.' that hundreds Of
than are being put by Americans behind
the French lines and behind the Italian
lines. Nothing like It before in the his
tory Of the world Quite true, for when
tsfors were the souls and the spirit of
1aop the object Of deliberate organization?
me German could borrow our machine
Gun. but even as he murders with 1t we
lnyent p psychological process that will
overwhelm him. Hundreds Of huts in.
America, hundreds of huts in France hun
dreds Of huts In Italy, hundreds of can,
teens and myriad other activities are the
present work Of this organization--surely
task to tax the capacity Of any nation.
Hut = gentleman who Is most active in
Manning all this work paused to remark
Yesterday that the real task in taking
<srs % the young men of America would
snp after the war. and that campaign
)hat period was already being mapped
1nprovidsnt ana lacking in pre-.
herss Not muohi
IN ! Roman oitizsns was once a
thet made the dttsrsr OF 1t equal
4 hlsg young men viii live to see the
~ thsn n Individual win sHrb himself
he proudes mantle than his American
ppship, Our history has just begun.
= not yst know ~ thing Of which
N = psr< yairsr ana richer grow
&pnittss w ar> thrilled with
Nv kaew not wAas. that makes
~ ~ snariaes ws come to
lpl4 esns y know. what
=. ~ HsqtIns, ws cannot