The thirty-third in my on-going series on the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. The other posts in the series may be read here, here , here , here, here , here, here, here, here, here, here, here , here, here, here , here, here, here , here, here, here , here, here , here , here , here , here, here, here , here, here and here. Like most Brits of his generation, Kipling had ambivalent feelings towards the United States. He had married an American and had lived with her in Vermont from 1892 to 1896 when the family moved to England. He found much to admire in the Great Republic and much to criticize. It could be said that Kipling, the quintessential Englishman, adopted an American attitude of both love, and the freedom to speak his mind about what he perceived to be wrong, as to America. In any case there was nothing ambivalent about the poem he published in April of 1917 after the US entered the Great War on the side of The Allies:
THE AMERICAN SPIRIT SPEAKS:
With Whom fulfillment lies
Our purpose and our power belong,
Once more to us the eternal choice
Of good or ill is given.
Shall we recover the road we lost
In the drugged and doubting years.
His Mercy opens us a path
To live with ourselves again.
Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice
For Freedom’s brotherhood.
Whose Strength hath saved us whole,
Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die
And not the living Soul!
God gave all persons free will and a rational soul. God will force no person against his will into heaven.
” America entered into the war as a crusade ” ?? I don’t know the history of this time very well. Was that “crusade” against the Communism then growing.
Also I think the potential threat of Communism in Mexico and their interest in South West USA was part of the impetus.
(La Raza) still thinks that is an open possibility. A wall would be a big set back for them!