ABSTRACT
Spiritual life of Germans has been, a terrible torment to them, and their efforts to find a decent compromise between their childhood patriotism and their mature citizenship has been grotesque when it wasn't pathetic. German-Americanism might be described as a retreat into an earlier piety. The strain of great events resulted in a sort of rush of blood from the head to the heart, from mature interests to childish memories. It may appear as a desire to see the American flag waving over Costa Rica, as a desperate defense of American cooking against the world, or as a readiness to sacrifice love, home, business, and life itself for the "honor" of the nation. But whatever the form it takes, patriotism is the offensive and the defensive reaction to our first experience of the world. It is the desire to have, to hold, to increase, to fortify whatever can be identified with our earliest hates and loves.
