pledge of fortune and of life, nobility of character through nobility of
action: this is Americanism.

"Woe for us if we forget, we that hold by these."

Herein are the teachings of this day--touching the heights of man's
glory and the depths of man's duty. Here lies the path to national
preservation, and there is no other. Education, the progress of science,
commercial prosperity, yes, and peace, all these and their accompanying
blessings are worthy and commendable objects of attainment. But these
are not the end, whether these come or no; the end lies in
action--action in accord with the eternal principles of the Declaration
of Independence; the words of the Continental Congress, but the deeds of
the Army of the Revolution.

This is the meaning of America. And it is all our own. Doctrinaires and
visionaries may shudder at it. The privilege of birth may jeer at it.
The practical politician may scoff at it. But the people of the Nation
respond to it, and march away to Mexico to the rescue of a colored
trooper as they marched of old to the rescue of an emperor. The
assertion of human rights is naught but a call to human sacrifice. This
is yet the spirit of the American people. Only so long as this flame
burns shall we endure and the light of liberty be shed over the nations
of the earth. May the increase of the years increase for America only
the devotion to this spirit, only the intensity of this flame, and the
eternal truth of Lowell's lines:

"What were our lives without thee?
What all our lives to save thee?
We reck not what we gave thee;