书城外语美国公民读本(彩色英文版+中文翻译阅读)
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第67章 谁统治我们(3)

9.Some of our greatest men have been from one of these colonial races,some from another.General Washington was English.General Andrew Jackson,who won the great victory of New Orleans in the war of 1812,and was twice president of the United States,was Scotch.HenryLaurens,of South Carolina,who was president of congress during the revolutionary war,was French.General Schuyler,of the revolutionary army,Martin Van Buren,president of the United States next after Jackson,and Hamilton Fish,one of our ablest secretaries of state,were of Dutch descent.Philip Sheridan,one of the most brilliant soldiers of the civil war,and later general in command of the armies of the United States,was Irish.But every one of these men was a thorough American.

10.European Immigrants.During the century since the Constitution of the United States has been in force there has been a great increase in the coming of Europeans to America.Many millions of immigrants have settled in our cities and on the farms of the great West.Germans and Swedes,Norwegians and Danes,Bohemians,Irish,Italians,they have fairly swarmed across the Atlantic and have left their old homes in Europe to become citizens of our republic.So it is that we see these “foreigners,”as we are apt to call them,everywhere.

11.But they are not really foreigners.Nearly all of them have come here to make their homes because,for one reason or other,they like this country better than the one which they have left.So they become Americans.

12.Naturalization.Our laws provide liberally for such newcomers.When a foreigner has lived here five years he may become a citizen of the United States,with all the rights and privileges of a citizen who has been born here.To be sure,a foreignborn citizen cannot become president of the United States.But,then,not many citizens are likely to be candidates for the presidency.Almost any court of law has the right to admit foreigners to citizenship.The law also provides that one who wishes to become a citizen must go before some court after he has lived here three years and declare his intention.This court gives the applicant a paper which states.the factsthe “first paper,”as it is called.This certificate is presented to the court two years later when the applicant wishes to become a citizen.A certificatethe “second paper”is granted by the second court,showing that the applicant has now become a citizen of the United States.

13.The admission of a foreigner to citizenship in the United Statesis known as naturalization ,and such persons are called naturalizedcitizens.

14.Good Citizens.A native of Europe who makes his home with us comes here,as has been said,because,on the whole,he prefers this country to the one which he has left.But he still loves the country of his birth.He is fond of its language,of its books,of its stories and its people.That is quite right.One who does not love his native country can hardly be expected to love the country of his adoption.All that we have a right to ask is that our adopted fellowcitizens put the United States of America first.They should learn its language,know its method of government,do their part towards seeing that it has good laws,and should obey the laws which are made.People who do these things and who earn an honest living are good Americans,wherever they were born.

15.And seeing that we are nearly all of us Europeans by race,it is very silly to look down on those who are merely more recent comers from our original home.Let us all try to be good American citizens.

16.People Red,Black,Yellow.But whites are not the only people in our country.There are also red people,black people,and yellow people.

17.The Red Men.When the whites first came to this country from Europe they found that the new lands which they had discovered were already inhabited by a strange race of red menthe“Indians”of Columbus (p.38).

18.The Indians have a dusky red skin,high cheekbones,black eyes,and coarse,straight black hair.They were an uncivilized folk when Columbus came.To be sure,there were Indian natives in Mexico and Peru,who lived in cities under a government which ruled a large population.But these semicivilized Mexicans and Peruvians,with their great temples blazing with plates of gold,with their picturewriting and their palaces and their cultivated fields,were very different from the red savages of our country.These were mostly hunters and fishermen,though the women (“squaws”)did raise crops of maize,thus called “Indian corn,”and of beans.Any grain,like wheat,the English called “corn,”as they do to this day;but maize was a new plant to them.The mixture of corn and beans we still use under itsINDIAN WARFARE.

A GROUP OF INDIANS AS THEY ARE TODAY

Indian name“succotash.”The homes of these people were mere temporary huts“wigwams,”we call them.All the Atlantic shape of the Alleghany Mountains was covered with dense forests,in which the red man roamed in search of game.Deer,bears,beavers,and other wild animals were abundant,and the Indians lived on their meat and clothed themselves in their skins.The weapons of these rude hunters were bows and arrows,clubs,hatchets (“tomahawks”),and knives.They had no iron,and their arrowheads,tomahawks,and knives were made with great ingenuity of flint.Their shelter from the weather was a simple hut,a “wigwam,”made of poles covered with bark.They built with birch bark light boats (“canoes”),which boats they were very skilful in paddling.