Much else is there that it were well they should ponder, and I am coming to it presently; but first, one suggestion. Most of us, if we dig back only fifty or sixty or seventy years, can disinter various relatives over whose doings we should prefer to glide1 lightly and in silence.
Do you mean to say that you have none? Nobody stained with any shade of dishonor? No grandfather, great-grandfather, great-great-etc. grandfather or grandmother who ever made a scandal, broke a heart, or betrayed a trust? Every man Jack2 and woman Jill of the lot right back to Adam and Eve wholly good, honorable, and courageous3? How fortunate to be sprung exclusively from the loins of centuries of angels--and to know all about them! Consider the hoard4 of virtue5 to which you have fallen heir!
But you know very well that this is not so; that every one of us has every kind of person for an ancestor; that all sorts of virtue and vice6, of heroism7 and disgrace, are mingled8 in our blood; that inevitably9 amidst the huge herd10 of our grandsires black sheep as well as white are to be found.
As it is with men, so it is with nations. Do you imagine that any nation has a spotless history? Do you think that you can peer into our past, turn over the back pages of our record, and never come upon a single blot11? Indeed you cannot. And it is better--a great deal better--that you should be aware of these blots12. Such knowledge may enlighten you, may make you a better American. What we need is to be critics of ourselves, and this is exactly what we have been taught not to be.
We are quite good enough to look straight at ourselves. Owing to one thing and another we are cleaner, honester, humaner, and whiter than any people on the continent of Europe. If any nation on the continent of Europe has ever behaved with the generosity14 and magnanimity that we have shown to Cuba, I have yet to learn of it. They jeered15 at us about Cuba, did the Europeans of the continent. Their papers stuck their tongues in their cheeks. Of course our fine sentiments were all sham16, they said. Of course we intended to swallow Cuba, and never had intended anything else. And when General Leonard Wood came away from Cuba, having made Havana healthy, having brought order out of chaos17 on the island, and we left Cuba independent, Europe jeered on. That dear old Europe!
Again, in 1909, it was not any European nation that returned to China their share of the indemnity18 exacted in consequence of the Boxer19 troubles; we alone returned our share to China--sixteen millions. It was we who prevented levying20 a punitive21 indemnity on China. Read the whole story; there is much more. We played the gentleman, Europe played the bully22. But Europe calls us "dollar chasers." That dear old Europe! Again, if any conquering General on the continent of Europe ever behaved as Grant did to Lee at Appomattox, his name has escaped me.
Again, and lastly--though I am not attempting to tell you here the whole tale of our decencies: Whose hands came away cleanest from that Peace Conference in Paris lately? What did we ask for ourselves? Everything we asked, save some repairs of damage, was for other people. Oh, yes! we are quite good enough to keep quiet about these things. No need whatever to brag23. Bragging24, moreover, inclines the listener to suspect you're not so remarkable25 as you sound.
But all this virtue doesn't in the least alter the fact that we're like everybody else in having some dirty pages in our History. These pages it is a foolish mistake to conceal26. I suppose that the school histories of every nation are partly bad. I imagine that most of them implant27 the germ of international hatred28 in the boys and girls who have to study them. Nations do not like each other, never have liked each other; and it may very well be that school textbooks help this inclination29 to dislike. Certainly we know what contempt and hatred for other nations the Germans have been sedulously30 taught in their schools, and how utterly31 they believed their teaching. How much better and wiser for the whole world if all the boys and girls in all the schools everywhere were henceforth to be started in life with a just and true notion of all flags and the peoples over whom they fly! The League of Nations might not then rest upon the quicksand of distrust and antagonism32 which it rests upon today. But it is our own school histories that are my present concern, and I repeat my opinion--or rather my conviction--that the way in which they have concealed33 the truth from us is worse than silly, it is harmful. I am not going to take up the whole list of their misrepresentations, I will put but one or two questions to you.
When you finished school, what idea had you about the War of 1812? I will tell you what mine was. I thought we had gone to war because England was stopping American ships and taking American sailors out of them for her own service. I could refer to Perry's victory on Lake Erie and Jackson's smashing of the British at New Orleans; the name of the frigate34 Constitution sent thrills through me. And we had pounded old John Bull and sent him to the right about a second time! Such was my glorious idea, and there it stopped. Did you know much more than that about it when your schooling35 was done? Did you know that our reasons for declaring war against Great Britain in 1812 were not so strong as they had been three and four years earlier? That during those years England had moderated her arrogance36, was ready to moderate further, had placated37 us for her brutal38 performance concerning the Chesapeake, wanted peace; while we, who had been nearly unanimous for war, and with a fuller purse in 1808, were now, by our own congressional fuddling and messing, without any adequate army, and so divided in counsel that only one northern state was wholly in favor of war? Did you know that our General Hull39 began by invading Canada from Detroit and surrendered his whole army without firing a shot? That the British overran Michigan and parts of Ohio, and western New York, while we retreated disgracefully? That though we shone in victories of single combat on the sea and showed the English that we too knew how to sail and fight on the waves as hardily40 as Britannia (we won eleven out of thirteen of the frigate and sloop41 actions), nevertheless she caught us or blocked us up, and rioted unchecked along our coasts? You probably did know that the British burned Washington, and you accordingly hated them for this barbarous vandalism--but did you know that we had burned Toronto a year earlier?
I left school knowing none of this--it wasn't in my school book, and I learned it in mature years with amazement42. I then learned also that England, while she was fighting with us, had her hands full fighting Bonaparte, that her war with us was a sideshow, and that this was uncommonly43 lucky for us--as lucky quite as those ships from France under Admiral de Grasse, without whose help Washington could never have caught Cornwallis and compelled his surrender at Yorktown, October 19, 1781. Did you know that there were more French soldiers and sailors than Americans at Yorktown? Is it well to keep these things from the young? I have not done with the War of 1812. There is a political aspect of it that I shall later touch upon--something that my school books never mentioned.
My next question is, what did you know about the Mexican War of 1846-1847, when you came out of school? The names of our victories, I presume, and of Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott; and possibly the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, whereby Mexico ceded44 to us the whole of Texas, New Mexico, and Upper California, and we paid her fifteen millions. No doubt you know that Santa Anna, the Mexican General, had a wooden leg. Well, there is more to know than that, and I found it out much later. I found out that General Grant, who had fought with credit as a lieutenant45 in the Mexican War, briefly46 summarized it as "iniquitous47." I gradually, through my reading as a man, learned the truth about the Mexican War which had not been taught me as a boy--that in that war we bullied48 a weaker power, that we made her our victim, that the whole discreditable business had the extension of slavery at the bottom of it, and that more Americans were against it than had been against the War of 1812. But how many Americans ever learn these things? Do not most of them, upon leaving school, leave history also behind them, and become farmers, or merchants, or plumbers49, or firemen, or carpenters, or whatever, and read little but the morning paper for the rest of their lives?
The blackest page in our history would take a long while to read. Not a word of it did I ever see in my school textbooks. They were written on the plan that America could do no wrong. I repeat that, just as we love our friends in spite of their faults, and all the more intelligently because we know these faults, so our love of our country would be just as strong, and far more intelligent, were we honestly and wisely taught in our early years those acts and policies of hers wherein she fell below her lofty and humane13 ideals. Her character and her record on the whole from the beginning are fine enough to allow the shadows to throw the sunlight into relief. To have produced at three stages of our growth three such men as Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt, is quite sufficient justification for our existence
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glide
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| n./v.溜，滑行；(时间)消逝 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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hoard
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| n./v.窖藏，贮存，囤积 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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vice
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| n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的 | |
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heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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blot
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| vt.弄脏（用吸墨纸）吸干；n.污点，污渍 | |
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blots
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| 污渍( blot的名词复数 )； 墨水渍； 错事； 污点 | |
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humane
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| adj.人道的，富有同情心的 | |
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generosity
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| n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为 | |
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jeered
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| v.嘲笑( jeer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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sham
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| n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的) | |
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chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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indemnity
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| n.赔偿，赔款，补偿金 | |
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boxer
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| n.制箱者，拳击手 | |
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levying
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| 征（兵）( levy的现在分词 )； 索取； 发动（战争）； 征税 | |
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punitive
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| adj.惩罚的，刑罚的 | |
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bully
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| n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮 | |
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brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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bragging
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| v.自夸，吹嘘( brag的现在分词 )；大话 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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conceal
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
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implant
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| vt.注入，植入，灌输 | |
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hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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sedulously
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| ad.孜孜不倦地 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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antagonism
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| n.对抗，敌对，对立 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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frigate
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| n.护航舰，大型驱逐舰 | |
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schooling
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| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
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arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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placated
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| v.安抚，抚慰，使平静( placate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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hardily
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| 耐劳地，大胆地，蛮勇地 | |
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sloop
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| n.单桅帆船 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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uncommonly
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| adv. 稀罕(极，非常) | |
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ceded
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| v.让给，割让，放弃( cede的过去式 ) | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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iniquitous
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| adj.不公正的；邪恶的；高得出奇的 | |
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bullied
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| adj.被欺负了v.恐吓，威逼( bully的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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plumbers
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| n.管子工，水暖工( plumber的名词复数 )；[美][口]（防止泄密的）堵漏人员 | |
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