What So Proudly We Hail:  The American Soul in Story, Speech, and Song -- edited by Hudson Institute senior fellow Amy A. Kass, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research’s Leon R. Kass, and Diana Schaub of Loyola College in Maryland -- addresses issues of national identity, the American character, the virtues and aspirations of civic life, and the problem of making a national one out of the multicultural many.  The chapter devoted to the last subject contains a moving speech by Theodore Roosevelt, which powerfully argues that all new immigrants must be assimilated into the idea and practice of "True Americanism."

The 2011 Bradley Symposium, "True Americanism: What It Is and Why It Matters," revisited Roosevelt's speech and the issues it raises.  What, if anything, defines "True Americanism" today?  Why and for what purposes does it matter?

The symposium featured a panel discussion among prominent political figures and scholars, led by the Amy and Leon Kass.

The panelists included Bradley Prize recipients Robert P. George of Princeton University (to the right), columnist Charles Krauthammer, and Harvey Mansfield of Harvard University. The others on the panel were Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee (above), Frank Hanna of Hanna Capital, Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal, Wilfred McClay of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Paul Singer of Elliott Associates, and Juan Williams of Fox News.

The event was covered by C-SPAN and is viewable online, as is a full, edited transcript.