(Dr. Frank Crane, a Methodist minister and newspaper columnist who died in 1928, compiled his weekly columns into a ten-volume series of small books a century ago. We have found his thoughts still valuable in today’s world and have decided to start each week with one of them. The timelessness and timeliness of his thoughts seems appropriate this week.)

What is a real American?

He is a Patriot, not a Partisan.

He votes.

He pays his taxes honestly.

He keeps informed on public opinion.

He is clean of Race Prejudice, and wants the Black man or the Yellow man to have equal privilege and opportunity with himself.

He hates militarism but is ready to serve in army or navy when his country is at war.

His heat beats a little faster when he sees the Stars and Stripes.

He is made up of three spiritual ingredients: Washington, Franklin, Lincoln.

He respects women, any woman.

He looks you straight in the eye, and says plainly what he thinks.

He honors those who work and has a wholesome contempt for idlers

He speaks slowly and means more than he says.

He is tolerant of anything except intolerance.

He does not care what your religious belief is, so long as you are decent.

He has a humor of his own but laughs with his eyes more than with his mouth.

He is a good loser.

Once in four years he goes on a political debauch, yielding himself up to the most primitive and narrow party spirit; but when it is over he is once more an American, forgets his late passions, and is for the man who was elected, no matter which party was successful.

He is an essential democrat; that is, his creed is not, “I am as good as anybody,” but is “Anybody is as good as I.”

He likes to make money but likes to see everybody around him making money. He does not enjoy riches in the midst of poverty.

He wants a family of his own, a business of his own, a home of his own, and an opinion of his own.

He is not a stock, or a race, or a breed; it is a Spirit. His parents may be French, Italians, Czechs, Polish, or German; but he has caught another Spirit: he has been born again, he is an American.

He is a reformer, not a revolutionist.

He hates class.

When laws do not suit him he does not break them, he changes them.

His is the newest nation; his is the youth of humanity.

He is loyal—to his family, to his friend, and to his country.

But his loyalty does not imply lying and spying, cruelty and inhumanity.

He wants nothing for his own country he would not be willing for other countries to have for themselves.

He does not want the United States to rule the world, but to be the Big Brother to the world.