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Theodore Roosevelt explores the definition of American identity and the importance of maintaining a distinct national culture. He emphasizes the necessity of upholding democratic principles, civil liberty, and equality of opportunity for all citizens regardless of their background or creed.

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Americanism

civil preparedness is indispensable. For example, a plan for national defense which does not include the most far-reaching use and co-operation of our railroads must prove largely futile. These railroads are organized in time of peace. But we must have the most carefully thought out organization from the national and centralized standpoint in order to use them in time of war. This means first that those in charge of them from the highest to the lowest must understand their duty in time of war, must be permeated with the spirit of genuine patriotism; and second, that they and we shall understand that efficiency is as essential as patriotism; one is useless without the other.

Again: every citizen should be trained sedulously by every activity at our command to realize his duty to the nation. In France at this moment the workingmen who are not at the front are spending all their energies with the single thought of helping their brethren at the front by what they do in the munition plant, on the railroads, in the factories. It is a shocking, a lamentable thing that many of the trade unions of England have taken a directly opposite view. I am not concerned with whether it be true, as they assert, that their employers are trying to exploit them, or, as these employers assert, that

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