A Message to America
You have the grit and the guts, I know;You are ready to answer blow for blowYou are virile, combative, stubborn, hard,But your honor ends with your own back-yard;Each man intent on his private goal,You have no feeling for the whole;What singly none would tolerateYou let unpunished hit the state,Unmindful that each man must shareThe stain he lets his country wear,And (what no traveller ignores)That her good name is often yours.
You are proud in the pride that feels its might;From your imaginary heightMen of another race or hueAre men of a lesser breed to you:The neighbor at your southern gateYou treat with the scorn that has bred his hate.To lend a spice to your disrespectYou call him the “greaser”. But reflect!The greaser has spat on you more than once;He has handed you multiple affronts;He has robbed you, banished you, burned and killed;He has gone untrounced for the blood he spilled;He has jeering used for his bootblack’s ragThe stars and stripes of the gringo’s flag;And you, in the depths of your easy-chair—What did you do, what did you care?Did you find the season too cold and dampTo change the counter for the camp?Were you frightened by fevers in Mexico?I can’t imagine, but this I know—You are impassioned vastly moreBy the news of the daily baseball scoreThan to hear that a dozen countrymenHave perished somewhere in Darien,That greasers have taken their innocent livesAnd robbed their holdings and raped their wives.
Not by rough tongues and ready fistsCan you hope to jilt in the modern lists.The armies of a littler folkShall pass you under the victor’s yoke,Sobeit a nation that trains her sonsTo ride their horses and point their guns—Sobeit a people that comprehendsThe limit where private pleasure endsAnd where their public dues begin,A people made strong by disciplineWho are willing to give—what you’ve no mind to—And understand—what you are blind to—The things that the individualMust sacrifice for the good of all.
You have a leader who knows—the manMost fit to be called American,A prophet that once in generationsIs given to point to erring nationsBrighter ideals toward which to pressAnd lead them out of the wilderness.Will you turn your back on him once again?Will you give the tiller once more to menWho have made your country the laughing-stockFor the older peoples to scorn and mock,Who would make you servile, despised, and weak,A country that turns the other cheek,Who care not how bravely your flag may float,Who answer an insult with a note,Whose way is the easy way in all,And, seeing that polished arms appalTheir marrow of milk-fed pacifist,Would tell you menace does not exist?Are these, in the world’s great parliament,The men you would choose to representYour honor, your manhood, and your pride,And the virtues your fathers dignified?Oh, bury them deeper than the seaIn universal obloquy;Forget the ground where they lie, or writeFor epitaph: “Too proud to fight.”
I have been too long from my country’s shoresTo reckon what state of mind is yours,But as for myself I know right wellI would go through fire and shot and shellAnd face new perils and make my bedIn new privations, if ROOSEVELT led;But I have given my heart and handTo serve, in serving another land,Ideals kept bright that with you are dim;Here men can thrill to their country’s hymn,For the passion that wells in the MarseillaiseIs the same that fires the French these days,And, when the flag that they love goes by,With swelling bosom and moistened eyeThey can look, for they know that it floats there stillBy the might of their hands and the strength of their will,And through perils countless and trials unknownIts honor each man has made his own.They wanted the war no more than you,But they saw how the certain menace grew,And they gave two years of their youth or threeThe more to insure their libertyWhen the wrath of rifles and pennoned spearsShould roll like a flood on their wrecked frontiers.They wanted the war no more than you,But when the dreadful summons blewAnd the time to settle the quarrel cameThey sprang to their guns, each man was game;And mark if they fight not to the lastFor their hearths, their altars, and their past:Yea, fight till their veins have been bled dryFor love of the country that WILL not die.
O friends, in your fortunate present ease(Yet faced by the self-same facts as these),If you would see how a race can soarThat has no love, but no fear, of war,How each can turn from his private roleThat all may act as a perfect whole,How men can live up to the place they claimAnd a nation, jealous of its good name,Be true to its proud inheritance,Oh, look over here and learn from FRANCE!