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Author : Lothrop Stoddard Theodore
Title : Re-Forging America The story of our nationhood
Year : 1927

Link download : Lothrop_Stoddard_Theodore_-_Re-Forging_America.zip

To us Americans of to-day there bas been vouchsafed what is at once a high duty and a high privilege. For we are able to share in the greatest enterprise since Independence-the re-forging of America. Clear and strong athwart the tumult of our present discords sounds the call to national unity. Firm and stanch is the national will to become again what we once were-a truly like-minded people. This book essays the story of American nationhood. It tells how, on the deep foundations of the long colonial past, there arose a splendid young nation. It goes on to tell how the bright promise of our early days was darkened by the disaster of the Civil War and by the blight of alien factors. Lastly, this book tells how, after more than half a century of deepening confusion which threatened to destroy our ideals, our culture, our very nationhood itself, we awoke to the peril and are to-day engaged in the inspiring task of fulfilling the early promise of American life. The problems of national reconstruction are many. The closing of the gates to mass-immigration is merely a first step. Alien elements in our population must be assimilated. Political and cultural dissensions should be harmonized. Above all, our great negro problem must be realistically and constructively dealt with. The dilemma of color, at once the most chronic and the most acute of American issues, has long been regarded with despairmg pessumsm. In these pages we have suggested at least a tentative solution which we have termed Bi-Racialism: The Key to Social Peace. The task before us is thus long and arduous. But the heart of the American people is sound, its courage is high, and its eyes are opened to the challenge of the times. With knowledge and vision, we may have faith that we shall overcome our present diffi.culties and shaH continue to tread the upward path toward a greater and better America. Brookline, Massachusetts, March 3, 1927. LOTHROP STODDARD. ...