Page:Harris Dickson--The unpopular history of the United States.djvu/22

 of Congress read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it.

Listen, my son, listen to a plain talk, straight from the shoulder.

We Americans love bunk. I know what I am talking about. We do love bunk. We just nationally eat it up—a stuff that’s not too bright or good for Yankee nature’s daily food. Of all the bunk that we are fed upon, none is grabbed more greedily than the 4th of July oration about our fighting citizenship, and a rush to arms. We are the fighting citizenship; we are the patriotic rushers. We are the original patentees, progenitors, and extemporaneous guardians of freedom! We are IT!

Nothing tickles our American vanity so much as being patted on the back for natural born warriors who can lick the world just for pastime. The perspiring 4th of July orator pumps us full of heroic hot air, which pleasingly distends our hides with manhood, and we elect the orator to Congress. He goes to Congress on that platform, and sticks by