"
Hyphens Are Going.
"If human beings are given the chance they will make the most of
themselves, and, by living happily--which means by living at peace--they
will avoid conflict. The hyphen tends to disappear from American
terminology. The German-American, the Italio-American, the
Irish-American all become Americans.
"So, by and large, our institutions have proved their capacity to
amalgamate and to set free every type of human being which thus far has
come under our flag. There is in this a lesson which may well be taken
seriously to heart by the leaders of opinion in Europe when this war
ends.
"The second thing which we may press, with propriety, upon the attention
of the people of Europe after peace comes to them is the fact that we
are not only the great exponents but the great example of the success of
the principle of federation in its application to unity of political
life regardless of local, economic, and racial differences.
"If our fathers had attempted to organize this country upon the basis of
a single, closely unified State, it would have gone to smash almost at
the outset, wrecked by clashing economic and personal interests.
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