The Dayton Citizen

WHY I LIKE AMERICA

(Edith Sampson, Negro leader and member of the United States delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, writing in Negro Digest).

I like America because, despite all its imperfections, it is the land of promise and the proof of progress. A part of something is better than all of nothing. Negroes have a part of the great promise; they are working to win all of it.

I like America because it is changing, changing in the right direction. We have been moving out of slavery into freedom.

We will not be fooled by self-appointed deliverers who are pushing their own people back into slavery. We know the marks of a slave system—dictation from the top and police suppression of fundamental freedoms at the bottom. I like America, then, because we are moving toward wider freedom by using our rights of free association, free speech and free press.

I like America because it is devoted to the principle of freedom for all peoples. By its policies our country has supported the aspirations of dependent peoples for self-government and independence.

The discredited colonial system is repugnant to American traditions and ideals. All Americans have the freedom to hold their country to its ideals and make its leadership in the world work for the end of the old imperialism. We don't intend to abandon people who are on the road to real freedom to the forces of new imperialism.

I like America because its great strength and productive power are used not only to make a more secure and better life for Americans, but to help other countries achieve the same security and economic progress.

In using its strength to aid others, it seeks the welfare of people as they view their own interests.

I like America because its citizens and the people of the world can rely upon its integrity. It not only keeps its word in foreign relations, but it means what the words actually say.

America earnestly strives to live up to the moral and ethical principles to which we as a people subscribe. It does not cynically exploit by false promises or deceptions the yearnings of people for freedom and a better life. In this it differs from the dictatorships of Communism and Fascism.