Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/221

The Modest Immigrant It is all very lively and interesting, but where does the American come in? What place is reserved for him in the commonwealth which his heroic toil and heroic sacrifices moulded into what Washington proudly called a "respectable nation"? The truth is contemptuously flung at us by Mary Antin, when she says that the descendants of the men who made America are not numerous enough to "swing a presidential election." And if a negligible factor now, what depths of insignificance will be their portion in the future? I heard told with glee—the glee which expresses pure American unconcern—a story of a public school in one of our large eastern cities. A visitor of an investigating turn of mind asked the pupils of various nationalities, Germans, Polacks, Russian Jews, Italians, Armenians and Greeks, to stand up in turn. When the long list was seemingly exhausted, he bethought himself of a nation he had overlooked, and said, "Now 205