America First was the central thought in President Wilson’s address
to the Daughters of the American Revolution on the twenty-fifth
anniversary of their organization—their Silver Jubilee—in
Washington, D. C., October 11, 1915. The president declared in this
address that all citizens should make it plain whether their
sympathies for foreign countries come before their love of the United
States, or whether they are for America first, last, and all the time. He
asserted, also, that our people need all of their patriotism in this
confusion of tongues in which we find ourselves over the European
war.
The press throughout the country has taken up the thought of the
President and, seconded by the efforts of the Bureau of Education,
has done loyal work in making “America First” our national slogan.
This is all good so far as it goes—especially among the adult
population, many of whom must be educated, if educated at all, on
the run. But the rising generation, both native-born and foreign, to
get the full meaning of this slogan in its far-reaching significance,
must have time for study and reflection along patriotic lines. There
must be the right material on which the American youth may settle
their thoughts for a definite end in patriotism if our country is to
have a new birth of freedom and if “this government of the people,
by the people, and for the people is not to perish from the earth.”
The prime and vital service of amalgamating into one homogeneous
body the children alike of those who are born here and of those who
come here from so many different lands must be rendered this
Republic by the school teachers of America.
The purpose of this book is to furnish the teachers and pupils of our
country, material with which the idea of true Americanism may be
developed until “America First” shall become the slogan of every
man, woman, and child in the United States.
