AN AMERICAN

INTRODUCTION


There are many characteristics that are essential to true Americanism;
among these, none is more prominent than an inborn desire, not only to
obtain personal liberty, but, also, to see justice done to others.

We, as Americans, say, with loving pride, that we are citizens of that
_one fair land whose single boast has always been that it was free_.

Oppression of the weak and ignorant, by those who are wiser and stronger
than they, has, always, aroused in us pronounced, and, often, openly
expressed, indignation. More than once, have we, as a nation, arrayed
ourselves upon the side of the down-trodden and pitiful, and, in every
such instance, we have greatly increased and enhanced the well-being of
those whose cause we have espoused.

We have never gone out of our way to look for trouble, being more
inclined to attend to our own affairs than to oversee those of our
neighbors, and, yet, when, repeatedly, gross acts of injustice and
cruelty have been forced under our observation, we have, at times, been
aroused to a state of what we have honestly believed to be righteous
indignation, and, in these circumstances, we have conducted ourselves
in accordance with our ability and the fervor of our convictions.

Prior to the evening of February fifteenth, eighteen hundred and
ninety-eight, our relations with the government of Spain were amicable;
while we, as a people, sympathized, to some extent, with the uprisings
of native Cubans, yet, those who were at the head of our national
affairs did not, in any instance, uphold or palliate the unlawful acts
of the insurrectionists; but, during the hours of darkness of that
never-to-be-forgotten night, a dastardly and totally inexcusable deed,
in spite of the recent renewal of our friendly intercourse with the
Spanish government, made of that nation a foe to be contended against
with all the might that was in us.

While our only object, in the beginning of the Spanish-American war, was
to teach the Spaniard the lesson he had so richly deserved to learn, at
the same time, as the results of autocratic misrule were brought, more
and more closely, under our direct observation, we took much honest
pride in the reflection that we were not only resenting, as became free
and enlightened men and women, an injury to our own well-beloved
country, but that we were, at the same time, giving to a people, whose
necks were raw and bleeding from the yoke of a tyrannical exercise of
absolute power, an opportunity to throw off that yoke, and become, in
due time, a self-governed and a self-respecting and an independent
nation.

Our short and fiery encounter with Spain demonstrated, as many years of
unbroken peace and prosperity had not done and never could do, the
invincibility of American arms, and the unexampled superiority of
American daring, devotion, inventive genius and self-adjusting prowess;
it was supposed that we had a very inadequate naval equipment, and that
our standing army was very small, besides being poorly trained; in spite
of this widely spread supposition, our troops won many brilliant
victories upon the sea as well as on the land.

The same spirit that saved the day for freedom and the right at Bunker
Hill and Bennington animated the descendants of those gallant and
intrepid warriors, who, soon after the heroic birth of our Republic,
defended the cause they deemed to be a sacred one with all that they
held dear, when they, too, went to meet the carefully trained and richly
caparisoned phalanxes of those who bowed their heads and bent their
suppliant knees unto an earthly king.

An American volunteer is as nearly unconquerable as any merely human
being can ever really be; his whole being is entirely devoted to the
principle for the vindication of which he is about to enter into bodily
combat; he is not hampered or bound down by anything that does not meet
with the approval of his own conscience; physically, mentally, and
morally, he is the equal of any enemy against whom he may be pitted;
above him there floats a flag that has never been defeated, behind him
are glorious deeds of valor that are well worthy of emulation, and
before him are the hopes and aspirations of those who, with their feet
firmly planted upon solid ground, practical, energetic and capable, yet,
always, move among their fellows, seeing visions, dreaming dreams.