ice,
nearly always concluding that "true Americanism" is nothing more or less
than a national application of their respective individual doctrines.

Slightly less superficial observers hit upon the abstract principle of
"Liberty" as the keynote of Americanism, interpreting this justly
esteemed principle as anything from Bolshevism to the right to drink
2.75 per cent. beer. "Opportunity" is another favourite byword, and one
which is certainly not without real significance. The synonymousness of
"America" and "opportunity" has been inculcated into many a young head
of the present generation by Emerson via Montgomery's "Leading Facts of
American History." But it is worthy of note that nearly all would-be
definers of "Americanism" fail through their prejudiced unwillingness to
trace the quality to its European source. They cannot bring themselves
to see that abiogenesis is as rare in the realm of ideas as it is in the
kingdom of organic life; and consequently waste their efforts in trying
to treat America as if it were an isolated phenomenon without ancestry.

"Americanism" is expanded Anglo-Saxonism. It is the spirit of England,
transplanted to a soil of vast extent and diversity, and nourished for a
time under pioneer conditions calculated to increase its democratic
aspects without impairing its fundamental virtues. It is the spirit of
truth, honour, justice, morality, moderation, individualism,
conservative liberty, magnanimity, toleration, enterprise,
industriousness, and progress--which is England--plus the element of
equality and opportunity caused by pioneer settlement. It is the
expression of the world's highest race under the most favourable social,
political, and geographical conditions. Those who endeavour to belittle
the importance of our British ancestry, are invited to consider the
other nations of this continent. All these are equally "American" in
every particular, differing only in race-stock and heritage; yet of them
all, none save British Canada will even bear comparison with us. We are
great because we are a part of the great Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere; a
section detached only after a century and a half of heavy colonisation
and English rule, which gave to our land the ineradicable stamp of
British civilisation.

Most dangerous and fallacious of the several misconceptions of
Americanism is that of the so-called "melting-pot" of races and
traditions. It is true that this country has received a vast inf