The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-01-03
OUR FOREFATHERS

unity Oh tne American people IN max
ing war and in forcing peace OF this
the enthusiasm of Europe at this very
time is at once attest and common
tary. Never of old was there an
American Forefathers' Day like that
Of 1913. Probably none now realize
this more than the quondam rulers,
now hermits in Holland, and their
millions of dupes left in the land out
of which they sneaked
Nourished in a hundred creeds and
OF nearly as many ethnic strains, two
million young men sprang up ready
to cross the seas and die, if need be,
for American ideals. Less spectac-
ular but equally real were the gener-
osity and willingness of patriots at
home. To spend billions, or to toll,
even abnormally, in their boys be-
half, was their ambition. Equally
prompt to sacrifice, yes, even to suf-
fer, was the dantier half of the ma
ton. Behind every American SOL
der marched a woman. All preju-
dices, sectional and otherwise, were
thrown into the crucible of sacrifice.
Before the incandescent flame of pa
triotism every obstacle yielded like
a bar of steel sawn asunder by the
acetylene torch.
What was the secret, the meaning
of all this? What the unseen element
possessing potency sufficient to in
form body and infuse a soul out of
materials so diverse as those in the
American compost? AS surely as
ideals are not visible so also is it true
that some alleged philosophers and re-
! puted statesmen are sightless. A
commonplace remark heard for
years in Prussia and apparently so
manifest as to be accepted as axio-
matte was this: Americans have no
nationality, and hardly the instinct of
it." How even when guests in Ber-
lin we had repeatedly listened to this
insult! How fluent were the predic-
tons in the German newspapers just
before the Spanish war that our navy
could not possibly face that of
Spain! Our guns, our ships, and es-
pecially our crews, were defective.
"No possible unity, mo co-ordina-
tion," were the fords of the Prussian
chorus. Our army was "mob."
Yet while the Germans evolved from
their inner consciousness United
States which was as fictitious as the
creatures on medieval maps the can
ny Scot Bryce went in search of real
ity. At first hand and sight, and
only after years of Travelled scrutiny,
he wrote his wonderful book, "The
American Commonwealth" In this
he gave the country of Uncle Sam
the accolade No crusader was ever
more highly honored or more justly
appraised. In a word, he saw under a
well articulated organism an animal
ing spirit. Where Bernstorff might
discern only heterogeneous mass, as
of fungus or polyp, in diversity as of
the dust of the earth, Bryce beheld a
living soul.
This demonstration of national I'M
ity has already surpassed even the
most grandiose dream of our fathers,
whether of 1920 or 1887. They did
well to select the national motto, "E
Pluribus Unum," from the sonorous
Latin of St, Augustine. Yet which of
them "heard the thanks of millions
yet to be-?
The impressive actually Of today
requires the revision even of our own
traditional pride in the single event
of December. 1920; for that shore
bowlder, ice borne ages before from
CANDIDA, was more than the stepping
stone to a colossal national history.
We see now that it was the unsus-
pccted taken prophetic of the union
of the English-spcaliing peoples.
All worthy as are the memorials of
the Pilgrims in tradition, oratory,
literature and an annual festal re-
membrancc, we must widen our hori-
zon. Our intent is not for one mo-
ment to dim the halo of persons or to
lessen the splendor of events at Pro-
vincetown or Plymouth. Yet the YER
diets of critical scholarship compel US
to enlarge our view, enrich our i'm
agination and be ready for grander in
terpretations in poetry and art. Not
only Pilgrim and Puritan in the
East, but Walloon, Fleming and
\ Netherlander, Quager Palatinate and
Scotch-Irish in the central region, the
Catholic in Maryland, English and
Huguenot in the South, deserve very
nearly equal honor. They were God
fearing men, loving independence, de-
termined to be free and equally re-
solved to safeguard liberty by law.
What if most Of them were opposed
to the form and spirit of both the
churches and the states in the semi
fcudal Europe that then was? Has
not history discredited most of the
prelates and much of the royalty Of
their times? What if a certain in
tensity of realism, determination to
penetrate beneath all symbols, dom
mated their minds? They loved not
beauty less but truth the more. Even
if theirs had not been the proverbial
poverty of pioneers they would have
cast aside the ornaments and "the let
ter's unprolfic sheath" in order to
get at reality. For the most part
they wanted worship without royal in
reference and the right to vote their
own taxes. Loving order, govern
ment, religion and liberty, they found
way. Caring more for the sub
stance than the emblems of it, they
were yet able to harmonic the claims
of the single member with those of
society. to unite. for the nobler hui