... the aspiring immigrant ... is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect success in his eyes. He must take h...is family with him as he rises.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
My friend let loose, and sneezed. The air carefully gathered itself together again, after being locally at odds with prevailing cl...imate and momentarily boycotting the trade winds. The germs were assimilated, like immigrant Jews within the overall commercial prosperity of uniform America. My friend, who had recoiled, was now well distributed in equal blocks of masses behind the reformed nose, whose recent adventure was put aside with even temper as but the sowing of wild oats. The nose, to compensate for its rash act, became a model of decorum, and was elevated as a moral precept: seen, but not heard.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, a...nd merely defensive of property. It vindicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous policy, it does not build, nor write, nor cherish the arts, nor foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage science, nor emancipate the slave, nor befriend the poor, or the Indian, or the immigrant.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It seems to me that the most important thing in Texas, as everywhere else, is education for all. I, of course, don't believe in fo...rcing whites and blacks together. But both classes should be fully provided for. I recognize fully the evil of rule by ignorance. I see enough of it under my own eyes. You are not so much worse off in this respect than New York, Chicago, and other cities having a large immigrant population. But the remedy is not, I am sure, to be found in the abandonment of the American principle that all must share in government. The whites of the South must do as we do, forget to drive and learn to lead the ignorant masses around them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
America is the civilization of people engaged in transforming themselves. In the past, the stars of the performance were the pione...er and the immigrant. Today, it is youth and the Black.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Everybody now seems to be talking about democracy. I don't understand this. As I think of it, democracy isn't like a Sunday suit t...o be brought out and worn only for parades. It's the kind of a life a decent man leads, it's something to live for and to die for.... Democracy means that people can say what they want to. All the people. It means that they can vote as they wish. All the people. It means that they can worship God in any way they feel right, and that includes Christians and Jews and voodoo doctors as well. It means that everybody should have a job, if he's willing to work, and an education, and the right to bring up his children without fear of the future. And it means that the old shall be provided for, without shame to themselves or to their families. It means do unto others as you would have others do unto you. It also means the prayers of the pilgrim fathers in the wilderness, and the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights, and the Emancipation Proclamation, and the dreams of an immigrant mother for her children. And that's what I believe in.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Without comprehension, the immigrant would forever remain shut--a stranger in America. Until America can release the heart as well... as train the hand of the immigrant, he would forever remain driven back upon himself, corroded by the very richness of the unused gifts within his soul.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... life cannot be administered by definite rules and regulations; that wisdom to deal with a man's difficulties comes only throug...h some knowledge of his life and habits as a whole ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
With all the efforts made by modern society to nurture and educate the young, how stupid it is to permit the mothers of young chil...dren to spend themselves in the coarser work of the world!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »