I am an American

Contents

I. MY COUNTRY 1

II. WHAT IS A GOVERNMENT? 6

III. HOW A MONARCHY BEGINS 9

II

THE Stars and Stripes fly over the White House in Washington because the President of the United States lives there, and the President is the head of our Government. The Stars and Stripes fly over the Post-Office in this town, too, because the Post-OfFice belongs to the Government.

What is "government"? Let us see.

Ten families move away into a new place, where there are no buildings, no laws, no police. In the ten families there are thirty children.

WHAT IS A GOVERNMENT? 7

As soon as the families have made houses to live in, the fathers and mothers will say, "Our children must be educated, they must have teachers."

But each family cannot get a teacher for its own children. That would take ten teachers, and would cost too much. The fathers and mothers all join together and get one teacher for the thirty children. They choose a committee of three fathers and mothers. This committee finds a good teacher, starts a school, and tells the families how much each will have to pay.

Very soon the fathers say, "We must have a good road so the children can get to the school in winter, and so we can take our goods to each other."

No one family can make a road alone, so again they join together and choose a committee. This committee finds the best place for a road and gets it built and tells each family how much it has to pay.

After a while one of the fathers does not pay his bills promptly. One of the mothers lets her children stay away from school. Somebody drives a heavy team into the gutter and spoils the road. Every one is bothered by these things.

So once more the families join together, to get some rules made to live by, rules that will give all the families the most comfort. They choose another committee for this. They read the laws to the families, and the families say, "We will obey the laws. Any one who does not obey these laws shall be punished."

Then they choose a committee to see that the laws are kept.

Now the ten families have made a government. All these committees and laws are a government, a republican form of government.

A republic, a country governed by its citizens, is just like this ten families, only bigger. Its government is chosen by the people, to take care of the things that belong to all together. The government is the manager of the people's business.

Ill

WE have just seen a republican government when it is small and new. Now let us look at a monarchy, when it is small and new.

One family moves away into a new place where there are no buildings or laws or police. The father is very strong and the two sons are very strong. They build a house and live by hunting and fishing.

Soon a second family comes and makes a home not far away. The father is not a very strong man, and he has no sons. He has brought a cow with him.

The first family goes in the night and steals the cow. When the man tries to get it back, he finds that three men with guns are against him. He can do nothing.

But across the mountains are other families, wild and fierce. They come and try to take the crops of both families. The three strong men say to the weaker one, "Fight with us, and we will drive the wild men away." So he fights with them and they drive the others off.

After this the weak man does not dare do anything against the three strong men, because he needs their help against the wild men. The strong men need his help, too, but they see that he needs them more than they need him, so they say, "You shall be our man. You shall work for us and fight for us, and in turn we will protect you from the enemy."

A few other families move into the wilderness, and they come to the first family and say, "You are powerful; help us against the wild men." But the three strong men care only for themselves. They make the others obey them and fight as they command. . The father of the first family puts his oldest son in

HOW A MONARCHY BEGINS 11

charge of the army. His other son manages the crops and the workers. «

The three make a law that every man must take turns standing guard over their house. They make a law that every one must bring one third of his crop to them. They make many other laws. All the others obey these laws because they are afraid.

Now the strong family has made a government. It is the beginning of a monarchy, just as the ten families were the beginning of a republic. It is the management of the people's business, but not for the people. It is for the strong family and its friends.

The great kingdoms of the world began like this. They have changed very much since, and in all of them the people have gained some power, but they are all founded on the same principle, the principle that Might makes Right.

In a monarchy the people are governed by a ruling class. In a republic the people are governed by themselves. We call a monarchy an "autocracy;" we call a republic a "democracy." The republic is a free country, the monarchy is not a free country.

IV

I AM an American. I am a citizen of the American Republic, first and greatest in the world. My country is a Union of Free States, under one central government which is chosen by the people and in which all have equal rights.

The central government is called the Federal Government. It meets at Washington, the Capital of the United States. Washington is named for George Washington, the first President.

MY GOVERNMENT 13

Each State has its own capital city with a capital building called a State House, where the State Government meets. Each city in a State has a City Hall where the City Government meets. And every little town in the State has a Town Hall where the Town Government meets.

The City Government is the manager of the business of that city, the things that belong to all the people together. The head of the management is called a Mayor.

The bigger, harder things, that belong to all the cities and towns together, are managed by the State Government. The head of the State Government is called a Governor.

The very biggest, hardest things, that belong to all the people everywhere, are managed by the Federal Government. And the head of the Federal Government, as we know, is the President.

From the smallest town to the great city of Washington, all this management of the people's business is chosen by the citizens. It is a government by "popular representation."

The Union of Free States under a Federal Government, with popular representation, was all thought out for us by the wise men who made the first plan of our Government. This was called the Constitution of the United States, and it has made our country the happiest and safest country in the world. Washington and thirty other men made it, and it has been made better since by other wise men. A constitution is a plan of government.

Our Constitution is a great treasure, a precious inheritance of Liberty. It has been studied and followed by free nations all over the world.

As a loyal American I will obey the laws of my City, my State, and my country. I will do my best to keep these laws fair and equal. I will obey and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

THE Stars and Stripes fly over the City Hall in my city. The City Government, with the Mayor as its head, meets there to manage the city business. The Mayor is chosen by the citizens every few years, and the Aldermen — that is, the biggest committee — are chosen every few years. There are twelve Aldermen.

There is a great deal of city business, and many committees manage it.

The schoolhouses have to be kept in order and new ones built. Teachers have to be chosen, books have to be bought, janitors have to be hired. Coal has to be bought, and many other things. Most of all, the studies of the children have to be kept useful, and enough like those of other towns so that it will do no harm when a family moves from one town to another.

The streets have to be mended and new ones made. The water pipes have to be cared for and the water kept pure.

The fire department has to be chosen and engines bought.

The playgrounds and the town parks have to be kept in order.

There must be a judge, and a court, and police, and a jail, to protect all the town from law-breaking.

All this costs much money. It is all paid for with the citizens' money, your fathers' and mothers' money.

All government is paid for with the people's money, whether the government is a republic or a monarchy. It has to be so, for there is no other money. So we see how fair it is that government should be by popular representation.

It is very important for the citizens to choose a good government to spend their money. A foolish

MY CITY 17

Mayor can waste your father's money and a dishonest committee can use the town's money for itself. When money is wasted in bad streets that have to be mended too often, or for poor books that do not educate the children, your father and mother do not get what they paid for.

The citizens can choose a good government for themselves, if they will. When there is a poor government, in a republic, it is the citizens' fault. A poor monarchy is not the citizens' fault, but a poor republic is.

A citizen of a republic should be ashamed to find fault with his government. If he thinks it is bad, he should join with other men who think as he does, and choose men he believes are honest and able.

As American children let us make up our minds that when we grow up we will take part in all our town business. And we will learn all we can now to make us wise and clever then.

We must remember that the little Town Government is the beginning of the great system of government that ends at Washington. Only by a wise beginning can we have a perfect system.

VI

ALL the choosing of men and committees is done by voting, by the "ballot." We hear a great deal about the "ballot box," and the "power of the vote." The vote is the most powerful thing in a republic, because the votes choose the men who govern us.

The kind of voting we do in the United States is very simple. On voting days we have all seen our fathers and mothers going to the different voting

HOW WE VOTE 19

places to cast their ballot. Some of the places are schools, but some are funny little buildings, like a portable garage, set up in the street.

When your father goes in to the voting place he finds a kind of little gate by a desk. A man sits at the desk and a police officer stands by the gate. One or two other men also stand there.

The man at the desk, who is called the "election clerk," marks your father's name and address in his book. Then your father takes a ballot from one of the men and goes through the gate into the room. Along the wall are booths like a telephone booth. He goes into one of these, and there he unfolds his ballot, where no one can see him.

The ballot is a slip of paper with names printed on it. The names are those to be voted on for office. Your father marks the names he wants to choose, he folds the ballot so that the names do not show, and comes back to the clerk. He hands the folded ballot to one of the election officers and the officer drops it into the ballot box. The clerk marks your father's name in his book. This is called recording his vote.

Now your father has done his part as a citizen to choose the representatives that make a Republican Government.

This way of voting was first planned out and used in Australia, and is called the "Australian Ballot." It is also sometimes called the "direct, secret vote." It is planned so that no one can meddle with a man's vote.

After the voting is done, the ballots are counted by a committee. The names of the men which are on the most ballots are elected. Those men have been chosen for the Government.

We can see, in a republic, that the men who govern are the men that the most people want. It is what we call a majority rule. " Majority " only means the greater number.

The country gets what the greater number wants. If there are two men trying to be Mayor, and one of them is a man who believes in concrete roads, while the other wants cheaper roads, the majority of the people decide whether they will have concrete roads or not. If the majority of people want cheap roads they will vote for the second man, and he will be elected. If the majority want concrete roads they will vote for the first, and he will be elected. The majority rules.

It is fair that the greatest number should decide, and it gives us a good kind of government. But since

HOW WE VOTE 21

the majority rule, the Government cannot be anybetter than the majority of the people are. So we can see it is most important that the majority of the people shall be sensible and honest.

The kind of men we have in our neighborhood decides the kind of representative we send to the Government. If we have educated men, clean and sensible and honest, we shall choose a good representative. If we have ignorant men, who drink and live foolish lives, they will choose a dishonest man, and he will do poor work. This is worth remembering.

America has public schools for all the children, so they may grow up to be clean, sensible, and honest; then the majority will be good citizens, not bad: good rulers, not bad. The American public school is the sound beginning of happiness, success, and service. It gives us all a chance to learn the things that make us rich and wise and good. Let us be loyal and diligent in it.

VII

THE American flag is red, white, and blue. It is easy to see from far off, as all flags must be. It is a beautiful flag.

The citizens of every country love their own flag and think it is beautiful because it means home to them.

English people love their flag, and French people love theirs. Their soldiers have fought under it, and they themselves have lived under its protection.

MY FLAG 23

I must always respect the flags of other countries,

and remember that they are dear to their citizens,

i

just as the Stars and Stripes are dear to me.

I love the Red, White, and Blue, the flag of America, because it is my own flag, the flag of my own country, where I live, and where I shall some day be a governing citizen.

I love and reverence this flag, because good men and brave have fought under it for my country; good and brave men are fighting under it to-day.

But most of all, I love and reverence the American flag because it has always stood for right and freedom. It has never led an unjust cause, or waved above a stolen land.

It was born in freedom and honor, it has led many battles for freedom and honor, and it flies above a country which is fighting to-day for the freedom and honor of the world.

The flags of many countries have been taken out to war so that their rulers might take a piece of some other country, or might make a weaker country pay them money.

The flag of America has never been stained by such a war.

With God's help, I, as a citizen of America, will keep it as clean as now. So far as I can help, it shall never be raised over a war for gain or cruelty, but only to protect the freedom and honor of men. I will guard it, I will fight for it, I will love it, for it has earned my love and loyalty.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

VIII

THE American flag was born in freedom and honor in the War of the American Revolution. That was a hard and bitter time. The people who gave us this country had to pay a big price for that freedom and honor.

These people were colonists, that is settlers and the descendants of settlers. They had a new land to take care of, with fierce Indians on every side. They had rough work to do and much trouble to bear. But they were a strong people and made the best of what they could not help. Winter and loneliness and hard work they took cheerfully.

But something came into their lives that no true man or woman takes cheerfully. That was tyranny. The colonists were governed in England. The English Government of that time, with King George III at its head, was selfish and unwise. It began to treat the American colonists not as free men, but as slaves. It tried to get all it could in taxes and service from them, but it gave them no rights in return.

When the colonists sent letters to explain what was wrong, the Government paid no attention. The laws grew more unfair and the taxes grew heavier, and yet the Americans had no part in making the laws or spending the taxes.

Wise Englishmen in England went to the Government and said, "Englishmen will not bear such treatment, these colonists are Englishmen; beware!" But the Government of King George III went from bad to worse.

Among the colonists were many able men, used to thinking for themselves. They said, "We will not obey the laws unless we have a part in making the laws. We will not pay taxes unless we have a part in

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 27

deciding the taxes. Taxation without representation is tyranny."

Those words are important; they are a "principle of free government."

The colonists believed this principle so firmly that they got ready to fight against England, to make her give them representation. But soon they saw that they would be risking their lives in war to get only a little bit of freedom. So they decided to fight for real freedom. They decided to make America a free country, not a colony at all.

The wisest men of the country got together and made a Declaration of Independence. It was written by Thomas Jefferson, and was adopted by Congress July 4, 1776. When it was read out to the people, the great bell in the steeple of the Philadelphia City Hall rang loud and long. Ever since we have called this the Liberty Bell.

The Declaration of Independence is famous all over the world to-day. We must all read it and be able to tell about it. We cannot join the Girl Scouts or the Boy Scouts until we can tell all about it.

The Declaration of Independence said that America should be a free country, making its own laws and governing itself. It should have all the rights of a free country, and if any country interfered it would fight for those rights. It should be called the United States of America.

In every country there were men and women who wanted to be free, but who were helpless against their strong governments. Even to speak of freedom often sent them to prison or death.

When they heard of the American Declaration of Independence, it was like a new star in a dark sky, a new music in a silent land. The sound of the Liberty Bell rang round the world.

Let us thank God, as these men thanked him, for the American Declaration of Independence. Let us as children learn to say the brave, solemn words with which it begins, and believe them with all our hearts.

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."

s

IX

ENGLAND sent an army to get back her colonies. And the colonists fought. Eight long years the war went on. The English Government sent more than fifty thousand soldiers to fight the Americans. That was a large army for those days, i But more than half the soldiers were not Englishmen. Englishmen did not want to fight against the English colonists, whose cause was so just. So George III hired twenty thousand German troops from their masters, and these Germans crossed the ocean under English leaders.

We may be sure these poor German soldiers did not want to fight against us. They had to go where they were sent. They belonged to their German masters, for in Germany the government was like what we read of in Lesson II.

But the Germans were trained soldiers, and they were told many false stories about Americans, to make them willing to fight. They made a hard army to beat.

The war was fought all up and down our American coast, in battles North and battles South, by land and sea. We have wonderful stories about it in the histories we shall read in a few years.

The English soldiers fought well from a sense of duty. But that was a weak feeling compared with what the Americans were fighting for. To the Americans their liberty was as dear as the air they breathed and the homes they loved. Every American soldier fought for liberty with all his heart.

A righteous cause makes a mighty army, and in the American Revolution a great cause made a mighty army out of a small and untrained one.

Next to the power of a great cause the war was

THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION 31

won by brains. The English had more men than the Americans, more ships, and more money. But the Americans had some of the ablest generals any country has ever had, and the American soldiers fought with their hearts and heads as well as with guns.

As we all know, the American Commander-in- Chief was George Washington. With him were other men of the same splendid kind from North and South. Philip Schuyler was there, and John Stark, Anthony Wayne, and Henry Lee, who used to be called "Light Horse Harry." Our teachers will tell us where to find exciting stories about these men, and Washington's other leaders.

George Washington and these able commanders knew very well the big English army could beat the little American army if they stood up face to face and shot at each other. But they were not so silly as to do that. No, they kept leading the English into traps, in parts of the country only the Americans knew about. They fooled the English generals, and fought when they were in a good position. When they were in a bad position they got away while the English slept.

More than once the English thought the war was over, and that Washington was beaten, only to wake up next morning and find themselves in a new trap. They called Washington a fox. Indeed, he had all the cleverness of a fox, with the courage of a lion.

Little by little he wore the English generals out. He beat them in one place after another, until at last he beat them for good.

But the Americans came near losing, more than once. It was not because they had a small army and little money. It was because of treason !

A false friend, an Englishman who pretended to be a friend of Liberty, was made an American general, and he planned to betray the American army to the enemy. His name was Charles Lee. He failed.

Worse than a false friend, one of the American leaders, a truly fine soldier who had fought bravely, turned traitor through anger and jealousy. His name was Benedict Arnold. He too failed. But both nearly succeeded.

There is no enemy so deadly as a false friend, and no danger so great as treason. Treason means turning against your own country in secret, and plotting with the enemy so that they may win. A man who plans treason betrays his country as Judas betrayed Jesus.

THE WAR OF THE REVOLUTION 33

Washington had to struggle against treason. And in the war of 1917 our President and our generals had to struggle against it. Many false friends and some base traitors were working in America during that war.

As American children let us pray that our country may forever be delivered from treason as she was in the Revolutionary War. Let us pray that no American shall yield to the temptation of enemy gold, or enemy flattery, and so leave his name blackened for all the centuries to come, as Benedict Arnold's was blackened.

X

THE Stars and Stripes, the flag born in freedom and honor, were raised for the first time over the Capitol of the new country in 1789. They flew for the first President of the United States of America, George Washington.

George Washington was the General of the little American army that won the war, as we know. And when the war was over the people knew they could find no other man so fitted to lead them in their new

OUR FIRST PRESIDENT 35

life as Americans. So General Washington became President Washington, and he was as fine a President as he had been General. He was so wise and noble a President that he is called "the Father of his Country."

Some of the best stories in American history are the stories of George Washington as a boy. We all read them. There is a good story about his riding a colt, and there are fine stories about his fighting the Indians.

Even as a boy George Washington was the soul of honor; he said what was true, and kept his word. No one could frighten him into a trick or a lie.

He was brought up on a large plantation, and was taught to manage his workmen, and to master himself. He had a good education, both in books and in living. His mother was a fine wise gentlewoman, and their home was very beautiful.

All the good things American mothers and fathers wish for their children were his; a healthy outdoor life, study and play, money enough, home love, and high ideals. When the time came that his country needed him he had this true wealth to give: health, wisdom, ability, and character. And he put them all at his country's service.

George Washington was able to solve the hard problems of the War of the Revolution. He was also able to solve the problems of a new kind of government. That was very hard, for the men in the government were all new at governing, and all had their own ideas. Rut the President was very, very wise; he always saw what must be done. And he was firm as a rock; he was a tower of strength.

All the world says that George Washington was one of the ablest generals in history, and one of the great statesmen of the world.

America is very fortunate that her first President was a truly great man. Some countries have for their first hero only a fighter. Rut George Washington was a great general, a great statesman, and a very good and modest man besides. He was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."

As American children we may be proud that our country was fathered, not by a robber or a tyrant, but by a true Christian, a great American gentleman.

BUILDERS OF THE NATION

XI

THE Stars and Stripes could never have floated over a free country if America had had only one great man. George Washington was not the only brave and able man who served us well. There were so many splendid Americans that not even when we read history can we know them all. But we shall read interesting stories of many of them.

Each one gave his own gift to Freedom. The wise gave wisdom in planning. Those who had the gift of speech, like Patrick Henry, fired the courage of the others. Those who had military genius led the armies, and those whose best gift was obedience made the mighty army to be led. Washington was helped in winning the war by some of the best commanders in history. It is thrilling to read how they took the English by surprise, over and over again, and made the best of their small numbers by using the land right.

Some of these commanders were as young as our brothers who went every day in 1918 from the American camps to France. American boys must all read the stories of George Rogers Clark and of Paul Jones, who were hardly more than boys, but who fought wonderfully.