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.