And the fact that so frequently he puts over it a thick veneer of materialism does not affect its quality.

The truest approach, the only approach in fact, to the American character is, as Viscount Bryce has so well said, through its idealism.
It is this quality which gives the truest inspiration to the foreign-born in his endeavor to serve the people of his adopted country.

He is mentally sluggish, indeed, who does not discover that America will make good with him if he makes good with her.
But he must play fair.

It is essentially the straight game that the true American plays, and he insists that you shall play it too.
Evidence there is, of course, to the contrary in American life, experiences that seem to give ground for the belief that the man succeeds who is not scrupulous in playing his cards.

But never is this true in the long run.