On his 75th birthday, the City of New York asked its famous native son William Dean Howells for a statement to be read out loud at every public school in the city.
"What could they have been expecting?" asks a New Yorker writer in the June 13 &20 issue.
Howells said simply (notes the New Yorker writer), with the memory of the Spanish-American War and the lies that led to it,
"While I would wish you to love America most because it is your home, I would have you love the whole world and think of all the people in it as your countrymen....
"When our country is wrong she is worse than other countries when they are wrong, for she has more light than other countries, and we somehow ought to make her feel that we are sorry and ashamed for her."
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