AN AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY
June 23, 1918
It is announced that on the Fourth of July the celebration is to be by race groups—that is, by Scandinavians, Slavs, Germans, Italians, and so forth. In sport organizations it may be necessary to have such a kind of divided celebration in some places, but I most emphatically protest against such a type of celebration being general, and I doubt whether it is advisable to have it anywhere. On the contrary, I believe that we should make the Fourth of July a genuine Americanization day, and should use it to teach the prime lesson of Americanism, which is that there is no room in the country for the perpetuation of separate race groups or racial divisions; that we must all be Americans and nothing but Americans, and that therefore on the Fourth of July we should all get together simply as Americans and celebrate the day as such without regard to our several racial origins.
At two thirds of the places where I have made speeches on Americanism (and these speeches have at least been free from any pussy-footing on Americanism), I have been introduced by straight Americans who were in whole or in part of German blood. At Milwaukee, for example, I was introduced by August Vogel, who has three sons already in the army and a fourth who will enter this summer. At Martinsville, Indiana, I was introduced by themayor, George F. Schmidt, who has two sons in the army. One of the sons, Wayne Schmidt, was the catcher of the University of Indiana baseball nine. He was in the same regiment with my two sons, Ted and Archie, and like Archie has been severely wounded. Mayor Schmidt writes me:
We are proud of Wayne and hope that his wounds will soon heal and that he may get back to his regiment and continue to serve his country. There is nothing fifty-fifty in this boy’s blood or any of his kin. His greatest ambition is to lead a company up the streets of Berlin.
We are proud of Wayne and hope that his wounds will soon heal and that he may get back to his regiment and continue to serve his country. There is nothing fifty-fifty in this boy’s blood or any of his kin. His greatest ambition is to lead a company up the streets of Berlin.
This speaks the true American!
I also have German blood in my veins. We Vogels and Schmidts and Roosevelts intend to celebrate the Fourth of July with all our fellow Americans, without regard to whether they are of German, English or Irish, French, Scandinavian, Spanish, or Italian blood. Unless they are Americans and nothing else, they are out of place at a Fourth of July celebration, and if they are straight Americans, absolutely loyal to America, and resolutely bent on putting this war through until it is crowned by the peace of complete victory, then we are their brothers, their fellow Americans, and we decline to permit any lines of separation between us and them.