The courage, the reaching-up, the steadfastness that is in them is in the hearts of the people.
If the President does not know us yet in America, does not know McAdoo as a representative American, we will thunder on the doors of the White House until he does.
My impression is he would be out in the yard by the gate asking us to come in.
We are America. We are expressing our joy in the world, our faith in God, and our love of the sun and the wind in the hearts of our people.
In America the free air breathes about us, and daily the great sun climbs our hillsides, swings daily past our work. There are ninety million men with this sun and this wind woven into their bodies, into their souls. They stand with us.
The skyscrapers stand with us.
All singing stands with us.
Ah, I have waked in the dawn and in the sun and the wind have I seen them!
That sun and that wind, I say before God, are America! They are the American temperament.
I will have laws for free men, laws with the sun and the wind in them!
I have waked in the dawn and my heart has been glad with the iron and poetry in the skyscrapers.
I will have laws for men and for American men, laws with iron and poetry in them!
The way for a government to get the poetry in is to say “Yes” to somebody.
The way for a government to get the iron in is not by saying “No.” It is not American in a government to keep saying “No.” The best way for our government in America to say “No” to a man, is to let him stand by and watch us saying “Yes” to some one else.
Then he will ask why.
Then he will stand face to face with America.
I have absolutely no idea what Mr. Lee is trying to accomplish with this essay. That’s the disadvantage of reading only a page at a time (and not always in order).
This book was on the best-seller list for non-fiction for 1913. I’m not sure why (see ¶ above) but it was apparently quite quotable — as were many other works by Lee, some of which had patriotic and Christian themes.
Actual biographical information on Lee is scant on the web — you may have to buy the book.