The truest
approach, the only approach in fact, to the American character is, as
Viscount Bryce has so well said, through its idealism.
It is this quality which gives the truest inspiration to the
foreign-born in his endeavor to serve the people of his adopted
country. He is mentally sluggish, indeed, who does not discover that
America will make good with him if he makes good with her.
But he must play fair. It is essentially the straight game that the
true American plays, and he insists that you shall play it too.
Evidence there is, of course, to the contrary in American life,
experiences that seem to give ground for the belief that the man
succeeds who is not scrupulous in playing his cards. But never is this
true in the long run. Sooner or later--sometimes, unfortunately, later
than sooner--the public discovers the trickery. In no other country in
the world is the moral conception so clear and true as in America, and
no people will give a larger and more permanent reward to the man whose
effort for that public has its roots in honor and truth.
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