Excerpt from On Becoming an American: Some Meditations of a Newly Naturalized Immigrant
The acrid epigram of Johnson, that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," still lingers at the back of our minds, and induces a certain anticipatory distrust of a person who makes public proclamation of his devotion to the country of his birth or choice. So long as your chief reason for believing a man virtuous is that you have his own word for it, your feelings towards him will be mixed, and appreciation and confidence will assuredly not be the dominant elements in them.
Nevertheless, it would be unfortunate if this obvious consideration should prevail to the extent of preventing anybody from expressing himself, either in speech or writing, on the subject of patriotism and its obligations. The matter has great practical importance. Nowhere is this truer than in America, and never was it more true than at the present hour. Nor must we let the partizan virus of Johnson's dictum infect our feelings to such an extent that they send our judgment packing. Even the adoring Boswell felt it necessary to demur to his idol's assertion, and, in recording it, to explain what Johnson ought to have meant.
We know that it is not patriotism in which the scoundrel takes refuge, any more than it is holiness to which the hypocrite resorts.
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