The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-11-23
ENGLISH TO PROMOTE SOLIDARITY

of if all WAS the nnion of the states of tn - Netherlands that the settlement of New Tor was begun by Belgians and French Hugut nots and that the Pilgrim and Purita
 passed through Holland on their way fro1 England to America. '- If blood made thought; if our view upoi life and its problems is to be traced exclH sively to the race from which we sprana} then we might have reason for the belief tha, although we are an English-speaking peopled we are -.ot English and do not have an Angld1 Saxon civilization. But 1 for one am no convinced that the blood which flows in m9| veins controls my thoughts and conduct On the contrary, am quite satisfied that tn life l lead, the persons with whom associate the problems that I consider, the argumenti that hear, the hopes that are within me, ard the dominating factors in my life. Therefore the demand for the use of the English Ian guage is not to be regarded by me and by those who believe as 1 believe as desire to return this country to Great Britain. The purpose of the demand is clear; it is to grant free rein among our people in their discus sion of the problems that confront them. Our language should have the same meaning td all. Every one in America ought to be able to understand what any one else says.
 The claim that ours is an Anglo Saxon! civilization is not claim that we can tracel our blood to either Anglo or Saxon. It is, rather claim to an Anglo-Saxon mind, which, grants that the individual is to have free. play in the use of the faculties God has givenl him that autocracy and monarchy are slow ly fading from the vision of mankind, andl that consultation among citizens ultimately shall determine the common will. Such al mind it was which clashed with John att Runnymeade, which gave to the world Hamp- den, Shakespeare, Milton which toppled al Charles off his throne; which separated from the mother country this vast dominion now poprlarly termed America" It was the Anglo-Saxon mind which taught the British empire that local self-government for her colonies afforded the only means of keeping the empire intact. It was also the mind which persuaded the empire against any attempt, conscious or intentional, at woundins the feelings and sensibiltics of Jew or Greek, Catholic or Protestant. It is the mind that obeys the law while it remains the law; it is patient and long suffering, yet if authority, drunk with power, fails to listen to justice. it is mind which does not hesitate to stamp out wrong, peaceably if it can forcibly if it must.
 Hence, our claim to Anglo-Saxon civiliza- tion embodying peace and concord among those who speak the English tongue must not be misconstrued as purpose desire to look down upon any race on earth. Rather, let it be understood as our view that speaking the same language, living under the same laws, heirs to the same glorious promises, we are to talk to each other face to face in one com mon language. In that way we can stand for a system of government which broadens down from precedent to precedent. Cosmopolitan as we are in blood, we are nevertheless Eng
 fish in our idea. that the organized control of the people affords greater freedom and peace than any other form of government.