Page:The web (1919).djvu/484

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segregated with men of his own origin, and separated from the rest of America, then he isn't doing his part as an American.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any flag of a nation to which we are hostile.


To that doctrine, and to that alone, can the dead at the peace table nod their voiceless assent. By that doctrine only, continually kept alive, continually enforced, can their deaths ever be justified and made glorious indeed. Under that doctrine and for that purpose, we, who have our war to fight out here in America for a generation and more, can continue the battle, knowing that it is for a good cause, and knowing that we shall win.

The old oath of the American Protective League exists no more. The silent army has disbanded. But now it remains the privilege of each of those men, and their sons and brothers, to enlist again in a yet greater army, and to swear a yet greater oath, each for himself, at his own bedside, gravely and solemnly:

THIS is my country. I have no other country. I swear to be loyal to her always, to protect her and to defend her always, and in all ways. In my heart this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me God!


THE END