American Ideals, and Other Essays, Social and Political

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G. P. Putnam's sons, 1897 - 8 pages

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Page 267 - The fight well fought, the life honorably lived, the death bravely met — those count for more in building a high and fine type of temper in a nation than any possible success in the stock market, than any possible prosperity in commerce or manufactures. A rich banker may be a valuable and useful citizen, but not a thousand rich bankers can leave to the country such a heritage as Farragut left, when, lashed in the rigging of the Hartford, he forged past the forts and over the unseen death below,...
Page 173 - New York when our board came into power. The Sunday liquor law was by no means a dead letter in New York City. On the contrary no less than eight thousand arrests for its violation had been made under the Tammany regime the year before we came in. It was very much alive ; but it was only executed against those who either had no political pull, or who refused to pay money. The liquor business does not stand on the same footing with other occupations. It always tends to produce criminality in the population...
Page 9 - There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune, and putting his fortune only to the basest uses — whether these uses be to speculate in stocks and wreck railroads himself, or to allow his son to lead a life of foolish and expensive idleness and gross debauchery, or to purchase some scoundrel of high social position, foreign or native, for his daughter.
Page 354 - Edited, with •introduction and notes, by the late Alexander Johnston, Professor of Jurisprudence in the College of New Jersey. Re-edited, with new material and historical notes, by James A. Woodburn, Professor of American History and Politics in Indiana University. Four volumes, each complete in itself, and sold separately.
Page 263 - Asia, should determine to assert its position in those lands wherein we feel that our influence should be supreme, there is but one way in which we can effectively interfere. Diplomacy is utterly useless where there is no force behind it ; the diplomat is the servant, not the master, of the soldier.
Page 57 - ... not get everything. One especially necessary thing is to know the facts by actual experience, and not to take refuge in mere theorizing. There are always a number of excellent and well-meaning men whom we grow to regard with amused impatience because they waste all their energies on some visionary scheme which, even if it were not visionary, would be useless. When they come to deal with political questions, these men are apt to err from sheer lack of familiarity with the workings of our government....
Page 268 - ... submit to the loss of honor and renown. In closing, let me repeat that we ask for a great navy, we ask for an armament fit for the nation's needs, not primarily to fight, but to avert fighting. Preparedness deters the foe and maintains right by the show of ready might without the use of violence. Peace, like freedom, is not a gift that tarries long in the hands of cowards, or of those too feeble or too short-sighted to deserve it; and we ask to be given the means to ensure that honorable peace...
Page 169 - Until one has had experience with them it is difficult to realize the reckless indifference to truth or decency displayed by papers such as the two that have the largest circulation in New York City. Scandal forms the breath of the nostrils of such papers, and they are quite as ready to create as to describe it. To sustain law and order is humdrum, and does not readily lend itself to flaunting woodcuts ; but if the editor will stoop, and make his subordinates stoop, to raking the gutters of human...
Page 325 - A perfectly stupid race can never rise to a very high plane; the negro, for instance, has been kept down as much by lack of intellectual development as anything else.
Page 248 - A really great people, proud and high-spirited, would face all the disasters of war rather than purchase that base prosperity which is bought at the price of national honor. All the great masterful races have been fighting races, and the minute that a race loses the hard fighting virtues, then, no matter what else it may retain, no matter how skilled in commerce and finance, in science or art, it has lost its proud right to stand as the equal of the best.

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