AMERICAN PROBLEMS by WILLIAM E.BORAH 1924

AMERICANISM 99
ism of Lincoln, can no longer serve the cause
of the American people, and that we must internationalize
and place the sovereign powers
of this Government to make war and control
our economic forces in an international tribunal.
A few days ago one of the boldest and most
brilliant internationalists of this country—
man, no doubt, who believes in it as firmly as
I believe in nationalism—wrote this paragraph
:
The death of Col, Roosevelt was a shock, I think, to
No man ever lived who had
everybody who loves life.
more fun in 61 years ; and yet his death, with that last
frantic reiteration of Americanism and nothing but Americanism,
fresh from his pen, was like a symbol of the progress
of life. The boyish magnetism is all gone out of
those words. They die in the dawn of revolutionary
internationalism.
I sometimes wonder, Can it be true? Are we,
indeed, yielding our Americanism before the
onrushing tide of revolutionary internationalism?
Did the death of this undaunted advocate
of American nationalism mark an epoch
in the fearful, damnable, downward trend?
Yes, this many-sided man touched life at
every point, and sometimes seemed inconsistent;
but there was one supreme passion which