the Filipinos, asked no war indemnity from their vanquished enemy, but paid him liberally for his property. Meanwhile they offered land freely to any farmer who would live upon and cultivate it, opened to foreign immigrants on equal terms the door of industrial opportunity, shared with them political equality, and provided by universal taxation for universal education.
The cynic who can see in this history only a theme for his egotistical satire is no true American, whatever his parentage, wherever his birthplace. He who looks with pride upon this history which his fathers have written by their heroic deeds, who accepts with gratitude the inheritance which they have bequeathed to them, and who highly resolves to preserve this inheritance unimpaired and to pass it on to his descendants enlarged and enriched is a true American, be his birthplace or his parentage what it may.
AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!