I certainly would not be one even to
suggest that a man cease to love the home of his birth and the nation of
his origin--these things are very sacred and ought not to be put out of
our hearts--but it is one thing to love the place where you were born
and it is another thing to dedicate yourself to the place to which you
go. You cannot dedicate yourself to America unless you become in every
respect and with every purpose of your will thorough Americans. You
cannot become thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups.
American does not consist of groups. A man who thinks himself as
belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become
an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your
nationality is no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.
My urgent advice to you would be not only always to think first of
America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. You do not love
humanity if you seek to divide humanity into jealous camps. Humanity can
be welded together only by love, by sympathy, by justice, not by
jealousy and hatred. I am sorry for the man who seeks to make personal
capital out of the passions of his fellow-men.
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