Not only, however, does the Negro give promise by reason of his economic worth; not only does he deserve the fullest rights of citizenship on the basis of his work as a soldier; he brings nothing less than a great spiritual contribution to civilization in America.  His is a race of enthusiasm, imagination, and spiritual fervor; and after all the doubt and fear through which it has passed there still rests with it an abiding faith in God.  Around us everywhere are commercialism, politics, graft—­sordidness, selfishness, cynicism.  We need hope and love, a new birth of idealism, a new faith in the unseen.  Already the work of some members of the race has pointed the way to great things in the realm of conscious art; but above even art soars the great world of the spirit.  This it is that America most sadly needs; this it is that her most fiercely persecuted children bring to her.

Obviously now if the Negro, if any race, is to make to America the contribution of which it is capable, it must be free; and this raises the whole question of relation to the rest of the body politic.  One of the interesting phenomena of society in America is that the more foreign elements enter into the “melting pot” and advance in culture, the more do they cling to their racial identity.  Incorporation into American life, instead of making the Greek or the Pole or the Irishman forget his native country, makes him all the more jealous of its traditions.  The more a center of any one of these nationalities develops, the more wealthy and cultured its members become, the more do we find them proud of the source from which they sprang.  The Irishman is now so much an American that he controls whole wards in our large cities, and sometimes the cities themselves.  All the same he clings more tenaciously than ever to the celebration of March 17.  When an isolated Greek came years ago, poor and friendless, nobody thought very much about him, and he effaced himself as much as possible, taking advantage, however, of any opportunity that offered for self-improvement or economic advance.  When thousands came and the newcomers could take inspiration from those of their brothers who had preceded them and achieved success, nationality asserted itself.  Larger groups now talked about Venizelos and a greater Greece; their chests expanded at the thought of Marathon and Plato; and companies paraded amid applause as they went to fight in the Balkans.  In every case, with increasing intelligence and wealth, race pride asserted itself.  At the same time no one would think of denying to the Greek or the Irishman or the Italian his full rights as an American citizen.