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'Just at this time we are celebrating the formal ascension of our Emperor upon the sovereign throne first established by the Goddess of the Sun 2,575 years ago, and occupied ever after by her divine descendants unto this day of money and mortals. Last Sunday I went out to Kyoto to see the ceremony. It began with entry of the Emperor into the ancient capital shortly after noon. A hundred thousand people gathered along the street through which the Emperor was to pass, and scrambled for a standing place. I should say "squatting place," for these people squatted on the ground. And they began to squat on a coarse straw mat and under the blue sky as early as two o'clock in the morning indeed, even from the previous night!—with noting to keep them from the dew and the wind of the night. As for me, I was offered a seat inside a house facing the street, which I was obliged to occupy, however, at three o'clock in the morning, no reser

vation of seats being guaranteed. Thus we waited a hundred thousand loyal subjects of the Mikado. We waited and kept on waiting, watching the many slow hours begin and expire.

'Strange is the emotional attitude of the Japanese. This is certainly a happy occasion. The people have draped their houses and decorated their streets with flags, banners, flowers, paper lanterns, electric lights-the whole city blossoms out in profusion of hilarious colors. Yet, they talk quietly and walk about with grave looks upon their faces, because they have deep in their hearts a sense of awe and reverence. Thus we waited, dumb and devout like sinners doing penance.

'At last, the rumbling sounds of guns firing their salutes from the outskirts of the city signaled the arrival of the Imperial train at the railway station. All along the long and crowded way every whisper was hushed; the heavy silence was not at all to be broken except by the approach of the Imperial cortègea pompous and picturesque train of mounted police; soldiers; a crew of them carrying on their shoulders a palanquin; more soldiers; his Majesty's car drawn by six steeds; followed by many more carriages of the Imperial household and the high officers of the Emperor. These moved past a phantom procession of green and yellow, of dazzling gold and brilliant red. The audience held their breath; many dared not lift their admiring eyes toward the spectacle for which they had waited so long and so patiently. When all was over and it was over in a few minutes for each man who could not move from his place

the audience heaved a sigh, rose from the ground, and went their way.

'What do you think of the psychology of the Japanese?'

MARCH, 1916

AMERICANISM

BY AGNES REPPLIER

WHENEVER we stand in need of intricate knowledge, balanced judgment, or delicate analysis, it is our comfortable habit to question our neighbors. They may be no wiser and no better informed than we are; but a collective opinion has its value, or at least its satisfying qualities. For one thing, there is so much of it. For another, it seldom lacks variety. Last year the American Journal of Sociology asked two hundred and fifty 'representative' men and women 'upon what ideals, policies, programmes, or specific purposes should Americans place most stress in the immediate future,' and published the answers that were returned in a Symposium entitled, 'What is Americanism?' The candid reader, following this symposium, received much counsel but little enlightenment. There were some good practical suggestions; but nowhere any cohesion, nowhere any sense of solidarity, nowhere any concern for national honor or authority.

It was perhaps to be expected that Mr. Burghardt Du Bois's conception of true Americanism would be the abolishment of the color line, and that Mr. Eugene Debs would see salvation in the sweeping away of 'privately owned industries, and production

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for individual profit.' These answers might have been foreseen when the questions were asked. But it was disconcerting to find that all, or almost all, of the 'representative' citizens represented one line of civic policy, or civic reform, and refused to look beyond it. The prohibitionist discerned Americanism in prohibition, the equal suffragist in votes for women, the biologist in applied science, the physician in the extirpation of microbes, the philanthropist in playgrounds, the sociologist in eugenism and old-age pensions, and the manufacturer in the revision of taxes. It was refreshing when an author unexpectedly demanded the extinction of inherited capital. Authorship seldom concerns itself with anything so inconceivably remote.

The quality of miscellaneousness is least serviceable when we leave the world of affairs, and seek admission into the world of ideals. There must be an interpretation of Americanism which will express for all of us a patriotism at once practical and emotional, an understanding of our place in the world and of the work we are best fitted to do in it, a sentiment which we can hold — as we hold nothing else in common, and which will be forever remote from personal solicitude and resentment. Those of us whose memories stretch

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back over a half a century recall too plainly a certain uneasiness which for years pervaded American politics and American letters, which made us unduly apprehensive, and, as a consequence, unduly sensitive and arrogant. It found expression in Mr. William Cullen Bryant's well-known poem, 'America,' made familiar to my generation by school readers and manuals of elocution, and impressed by frequent recitations upon our memories.

O mother of a mighty race,

Yet lovely in thy youthful grace!
The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
Admire and hate thy blooming years;

With words of shame

And taunts of scorn they join thy name.

There are eight verses, and four of them repeat Mr. Bryant's conviction that the nations of Europe united in envying and insulting us. To be hated because we were young, and strong, and good, and beautiful seemed, to my childish heart, a noble fate; and when a closer acquaintance with history dispelled this pleasant illusion, I parted from it with regret. France was our ally in the Revolutionary War. Russia was friendly in the Civil War. England was friendly in the Spanish War. If the repudiation of state debts left a bad taste in the mouths of foreign investors, they might be pardoned for making a wry face. Most of them were subsequently paid; but the phrase 'American revoke' dates from the period of suspense. By the time we celebrated our hundredth birthday with a world's fair, we were on very easy terms with our neighbors. Far from taunting us with shameful words, our 'haughty peers' showed on this memorable occasion unanimous good temper and good will; and Punch's congratulatory verses were among the most pleasant birthday letters we received.

The expansion of national life, fed by the great emotions of the Civil War,

and revealed to the world by the Centennial Exhibition, found expression in education, art, and letters. Then it was that Americanism took a new and disconcerting turn. Pleased with our progress, stunned by finding that we had poets, and painters, and novelists, and magazines, and a history, all of our own, we began to say, and say very loudly, that we had no need of the poets, and painters, and novelists, and magazines, and histories of other lands. Our attitude was not unlike that of George Borrow, who, annoyed by the potency of Italian art, adjured Englishmen to stay at home and contemplate the greatness of England. England, he said, had pictures of her own. She had her own 'minstrel strain.' She had all her sons could ask for. 'England against the world.'

In the same exclusive spirit, American school boards proposed that American school-children should begin the study of history with the colonization of America, ignoring the trivial episodes which preceded this great event. Patriotic protectionists heaped duties on foreign art, and bade us buy American pictures. Enthusiastic editors confided to us that 'the world has never known such storehouses of well-selected mental food as are furnished by our American magazines.' Complacent critics rejoiced that American poets did not sing like Tennyson, 'nor like Keats, nor Shelley, nor Wordsworth'; but that, as became a new race of men, they'reverberated a synthesis of all the poetic minds of the century.' Finally, American novelists assured us that in their hands the art of fiction had grown so fine and rare that we could no longer stand the 'mannerisms' of Dickens, or the 'confidential attitude' of Thackeray. We had scaled the empyrean heights.

There is a brief paragraph in Mr. Thayer's Life and Letters of John

Hay, which vividly recalls this peculiar phase of Americanism. Mr. Hay writes to Mr. Howells in 1882: "The worst thing in our time about American taste is the way it treats James. I believe he would not be read in America at all if it were not for his European vogue. If he lived in Cambridge he could write what he likes, but because he finds London more agreeable, he is the prey of all the patriotisms. Of all vices, I hold patriotism the worst, when it meddles with matters of taste.'

So far had American patriotism encroached upon matters of taste, that by 1892 there was a critical embargo placed upon foreign literature. 'Every nation,' we were told, 'ought to supply its own second-rate books,'-like domestic sheeting and ginghams. An acquaintance with English authors was held to be a misdemeanor. Why quote Mr. Matthew Arnold, when you might quote Mr. Lowell? Why write about Becky Sharp, when you might write about Hester Prynne? Why laugh over Dickens, when you might laugh over Mark Twain? Why eat artichokes, when you might eat corn? American school-boys, we were told, must be guarded from the feudalism of Scott. American speech must be guarded from the 'insularities' of England's English. "That failure in good sense which comes from too warm a self-satisfaction' (Mr. Arnold does sometimes say a thing very well) robbed us for years of mental poise, of adjusted standards, of an unencumbered outlook upon life.

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trivialities, patriotism with matters of taste. Love for one's country is not a shallow sentiment, based upon self-esteem. It is a profound and primitive passion. It may lie dormant in our souls when all goes well. It may be thwarted and frustrated by the exigencies of party government. It may be dissevered from pride or pleasure. But it is part of ourselves, wholly beyond analysis, fed upon hope and fear, joy and sorrow, glory and shame. If, after the fashion of the world, we drowsed in our day of security, we have been rude ly and permanently awakened. The shadow of mighty events has fallen across our path. We have witnessed a great national crime. We have beheld the utmost heights of heroism. And when we asked of what concern to us were this crime and this heroism, the answer came unexpectedly, and with blinding force. The sea was strewn with our dead, our honor was undermined by conspiracies, our factories were fired, our cargoes dynamited. We were a neutral nation at peace with the world. The attack made upon our industries and upon our good name was secret, malignant, and pitiless. It was organized warfare, without the courage and candor of war.

The unavowed enemy who strikes in the dark is hard to reach, but he is outside the pale of charity. There was something in the cold fury of Mr. Wilson's words, when, in his message to Congress, he denounced the traitors 'who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the very arteries of our national life,' which turned that unexpansive state-paper into a human document, and drove it straight to the human hearts of an injured and insulted people. Under the menace of disloyalty, Americanism has taken new form and substance; and the President's message, like the potter's wheel, is moulding this force into lines of strength and

resistance. We have seen all we want to see of 'frightfulness' in Europe, all we want to see of injustice, supported by violence. We are not prepared to welcome any scheme of terrorization in the interests of a foreign power, or any interference of a foreign power with our legitimate fields of industry. Such schemes and such interference constitute an inconceivable affront to the nation. Their stern and open disavowal is the shibboleth by which our elections may be purged of treachery, and our well-being confided to good citizenship.

Of all the countries in the world, we and we only have any need to create artificially the patriotism which is the birthright of other nations. Into the hearts of six millions of foreign-born

men

less than half of them naturalized we must infuse that quality of devotion which will make them place the good of the state above their personal good, and the safety of the state above their personal safety. It is like pumping oxygen into six million pairs of lungs for which the common air is not sufficiently stimulating. We must also keep a watchful eye upon these men's wives, — when they are so blessed, and concentrate our supreme energy on uncounted millions of children, whose first step toward patriotism is the acquirement of a common tongue.

We are trying fitfully, but in good faith, to work this civic miracle. Americanization Day is but one expression of the nation-wide endeavor. When Cleveland invited all her citizens who had been naturalized within a twelvemonth to assemble and receive a public welcome, to sit on a platform and be made much of, to listen to national songs and patriotic speeches, and to take home, every man, a flag and a seal of the city, she set a good example which will be widely followed. The

celebrations at Riverside, California, and New York City's Pageant of the Nations had in view the same admirable end. Sentiment is not a substitute for duty and discipline; but it has its uses and its field of efficacy. Such ceremonies perseveringly repeated for twenty years might work a change in the immigrant population of to-day, were we secure from the fresh millions that threaten us to-morrow. That the Fourth of July should be often selected for these rites is perhaps inevitable; it is a time when patriotism assumes a vivid and popular aspect; but Heaven forbid that we should rechristen Independence Day, Americanization Day! However ready we may be to welcome our new citizens, however confident we may be of their value to the Republic, we are not yet prepared to give them the place of honor hitherto held by the signers of the Declaration of Independence. The name which perpetuates the memory of that deed is a sacred name, and should be preserved no less sacredly than the national life which was then committed to our keeping.

It is no insult to the immigrant to say that he constitutes one of the perils of Americanism. How can it be otherwise? Assume that he is a law-abiding citizen, that he knows nothing of the conspiracies which have imperiled our safety, that he does not propose to use his vote in the interests of a foreign power, and that the field of hyphenated politics has no existence for him. For all these boons we are sufficiently grateful. But how far does he understand the responsibilities he assumes with the franchise? how far does he realize that he has become part of the machinery of the state? and how far can we depend upon him in our hour of need? He knows, or at least he has been told, that he may not return home to fight for his own country, if he seeks Amer

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