5. The American Tradition
This was the American tradition. This was the language of the new, free world. Life, liberty and happiness; popular sovereignity; equal opportunity. This, to the people of the old countries was the meaning of America. This was the promise of 1776.
When President Wilson went to Europe, speaking the language of liberty that is taught in every American schoolroom, the plain people turned to him with supreme confidence. To them he was the embodiment of the spirit of the West.
Native-born Americans hold the same idea. To them the Declaration of Independence was a final break with the old order of monarchical, imperial Europe. It was the charter of popular rights and human liberties, establishing once for all the principles of self-government and equal opportunity.
The Statue of Liberty, guarding the great port of entrance to America, symbolizes the spirit in which foreigners and natives alike think of her—as the champion of the weak and the oppressed; the guardian of justice; the standard-bearer of freedom.
This spirit of America is treasured to-day in the hearts of millions of her citizens. To the masses of the American people America stands to-day as she always stood. They believe in her freedom; they boast of her liberties; they have faith in her great destiny as the leader of an emancipated world. They respond, as did their ancestors, to the great truths of liberty, equality, and fraternity that inspired the eighteenth century.
The tradition of America is a hope, a faith, a conviction, a burning endeavor, centering in an ideal of liberty and justice for the human race.
Patrick Henry voiced this ideal when, a passionate appeal for freedom being interrupted by cries of "Treason,
