were against it than had been against the War of 1812. But how many
Americans ever learn these things? Do not most of them, upon leaving
school, leave history also behind them, and become farmers, or merchants,
or plumbers, or firemen, or carpenters, or whatever, and read little but
the morning paper for the rest of their lives?

The blackest page in our history would take a long while to read. Not a
word of it did I ever see in my school textbooks. They were written on
the plan that America could do no wrong. I repeat that, just as we love
our friends in spite of their faults, and all the more intelligently
because we know these faults, so our love of our country would be just as
strong, and far more intelligent, were we honestly and wisely taught in
our early years those acts and policies of hers wherein she fell below
her lofty and humane ideals. Her character and her record on the whole
from the beginning are fine enough to allow the shadows to throw the
sunlight into relief. To have produced at three stages of our growth
three such men as Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, is quite sufficient
justification for our existence



Chapter VII: Tarred with the Same Stick


The blackest page in our history is our treatment of the Indian. To speak
of it is a thankless task--thankless, and necessary.

This land was the Indian's house, not ours. He was here first, nobody
knows how many centuries first. We arrived, and we shoved him, and shoved
him, and shoved him, back, and back, and back. Treaty after treaty we