"If a new map of Europe follows the war, its permanence will depend upon
whether or not the changes are such as will permit nationalities to
organize as nations.
"The world should have learned through the lessons of the past that it
is impossible permanently and peacefully to submerge large bodies of
aliens if they are treated as aliens. That is the opposite of the mixing
process which is so successfully building a nation out of varied
nationalities in the United States.
"The old Romans understood this. They permitted their outlying vassal
nations to speak any language they chose and to worship whatever god
they chose, so long as they recognized the sovereignty of Rome. When a
conquering nation goes beyond that, and begins to suppress religions,
languages, and customs, it begins at that very moment to sow the seeds
of insurrection and revolution.
"My old teacher and colleague, Prof. Burgess, once defined a nation as
an ethnographic unit inhabiting a geographic unit. That is an
illuminating definition. If a nation is not an ethnographic unit, it
tries to become one by oppressing or amalgamating the weaker portions of
its people.
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