Two Greeks attracted attention in Lincoln Park a few days ago because they were carrying on a debate on cosmopolitanism. Both these compatriots of ours are highly educated, and their English was not only fluent but correct. Why they selected Lincoln Park for their debate is not clear, nor why they held the debate in English. They are both widely known in the Greek community, and both are respected and esteemed. For this reason we refrain from publishing their names, but nevertheless the Star, as guardian of the Greeks and of the reputation of Greeks in this country, will give to these two wise and enlightened Greeks a piece of its mind.

Our sauntering reporter, who has an eye for all Greek activities, was passing through Lincoln Park when he noticed a group of more than a hundred people surrounding the two intellectuals. Curiosity and an eye to 2business - you know what reporters are - drew him closer. Before he recognized the two well-known Greeks, he thought that they might be a couple of radicals or a pair of inmates escaped from Kankakee, for common sense told him that people with brains do not hold serious intellectual debates in places of amusement and recreation. But when he had elbowed his way through the crowd and had reached the inner-circle, he became aware that a profound discussion was in progress, and he recognized the debaters. The reporter therefore put away all irreverent thought and with pencil and paper jotted down the arguments of the two cosmopolitans.

Undoubtedly their philosophy, in the light of man's evolution, is true and correct, and the Star really admires the sound and clever reasoning of the two exponents of man's future development, but we regret to say that the two Greeks lack practicality, discrimination, and the ability to appreciate the slowness of the evolution of mankind under the cosmic law.

3

We are not against ideas and theories which are adopted as tentative hypotheses in inquiries regarding man's liberation from ignorance, fanaticism, dogmatism, and misconception of his infinite destiny, but we are strongly against the procedure of some idealists who try to realize the utmost possible in the evolution of the human race at the present stage of mankind's gradual metamorphosis.

There is not the slightest doubt in the minds of enlightened people that man will eventually become cosmopolitan, that is to say, a citizen of the world; but before he reaches that stage in his evolution, he must go through all the preliminary stages.

The world of yesterday and of today is not a homogeneous world; it is composed of many small worlds, and until it becomes one, it is necessary for these many worlds to continue to exist. These many worlds which form our cosmos on this planet are the many nations and their respective peoples. All are included under the name mankind. Greeks, barbarians, semi-civilized, civilized, and anthropomorphic savages are all embraced under this appellation. Theists and atheists, Christians and infidels, 4learned and illiterate, wise men and fools, saints and assassins, progressives and reactionaries, builders and destroyers, just and unjust, compose our cosmos.

Where and with what class of people would our two wise Greeks and those of their kind like to live?

Naturally persons so far advanced intellectually would not choose to associate with murderers, destroyers, reactionaries, or unjust people, but because of their wisdom they would prefer to live in some part of the world where liberty, justice, and enlightenment prevail, and where they could use to advantage their superior mental equipment.

Living in that particular section of the cosmos and under the protection of its powerful flag, could they rightfully claim that they were cosmopolitans? By no means! If they did, they would show that they lacked practicality, discrimination, and comprehension of what cosmopolitan really means.

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The child, who is the potential man, cannot claim manhood in its present stage of development. It is absurd and illogical. We cannot wish an apple into ripeness without letting it go through its prescribed stages of development. And the advocates of cosmopolitanism (many of them sincere but deficient in sound common sense), whether they know it or not, are dangerous factors in the evolution of the human intellect.

The time is not yet ripe, so uneven has been the development of the various branches of the human race, to give up our borders and our boundaries, which are the protecting barriers of our paticular world, or to leave them unguarded. Human actions are governed by the movements of the mind. If the minds of our neighbors are not sufficiently well developed to appreciate what has been accomplished and built up by slow degrees in the history of human progress, it is the duty of all wise people to protect the treasures of civilization at the risk of their lives. That protective resistance has formed nations and races and of necessity has divided the world into various types of humanity, into peoples in various stages of intellectual development.

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Where would our intellectually advanced cosmopolitans like to live? In the wilderness of South Africa or in a state where insurrection, anarchy, and vandalism prevail?

Come, Messrs. Cosmopolitan, come to your senses and see the destructive folly of what you advocate! You cannot tell a savage what is right or wrong, what is just or unjust, or make him understand and appreciate the achievements of civilization! No indeed! For he belongs to a lower stage of evolution.

Would cosmopolitans living here in our great America take up arms to fight invasion by a barbarian state or by a nation of which the people and the government are not up to our standard of civilization? Being cosmopolitans and devoid of patriotism, they would not do so, according to their own admission.

Patriotism, the fundamental strength of a nation, does not blend with cosmopolitanism. And in our present stage of intellectual development patriotism is sacred and divine and the corner-stone of the slowly-rising edifice of our evolution.

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Patriotism is like the shell of the egg which for a time protects and nourishes a potential entity. When that entity is fully developed, it no longer needs the protective wall and rejects it. It is true, spiritually and physiologically, that man possesses unlimited and undreamed-of potentialities, but in his present stage he needs that protective wall of patriotism, and he will continue to require it until his cosmic conception and understanding shall elevate him far beyond his actual state.

Cosmopolitans, pacifists, and other paranoiacs, who are known by various names but are birds of the same feather, have not yet learned that there is no short cut in the operation of cosmic laws, even as the wise Greek justly remarked that there is no royal road to geometry.

Such opinions are very dangerous. They tend to poison the minds of our youth, who are the bulwark of our nation, and they threaten our existence as civilized and enlightened people. They lead to the disintegration of the nation and invite retrogression.

8

You, O foolish pseudo-cosmopolitans, are descendants of a glorious past of which the splendor has never yet been equalled, and you now live in the greatest Republic of the world, where tolerance, justice, liberty, progressiveness, and equality are more highly developed them anywhere else on this planet. Why do you darken the glory of your native land and pollute the pure air of this glorious Republic with your unwise and impracticable theories and ideas of cosmopolitanism?

You were taught by your native country, the mother of all that is good and beautiful in the world today, that the law of the land must be respected and obeyed. If the law needs amendment, we must work in accordance with the law to accomplish that end. We must under no consideration work against the law, for working against the law will result in anarchy and chaos, and everything good will be destroyed by mob-violence.

Why should you, O fellow-Greeks, imbued with the changeless and widespread teachings of your native Greece, endeavor to contaminate the purity and the holiness of our adopted country with your destructive fallacies?

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The fact that you held your private debate in English demonstrates that your object was to spread your preposterous, absurd, and unlawful propaganda. Fie upon you! And how pitifully inadequate are your education and your culture!

Now let us not, fellow-Greeks, sons of the divinely-gifted race, abuse the hospitality, the tolerance, the freedom, and the justice accorded to us by this great, glorious, and humanitarian country!

Be your real selves. Do not try to be your future and potential selves, and cease to disseminate your unwise propaganda.

As members of the Chicago Greek community and as citizens of this free and progressive country, you are requested to refrain from holding debates of this kind, especially in public places. And bear in mind that if your propensities are not checked, and you persist in battering your foolish heads against a stone wall, it may be advisable to take measures to deprive you of the opportunity to make a prosperous living under the protection of this country and you may be requested as enemies of our social and civic laws to go forth and find aland which will satisfy your fanciful desires.

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Then and there, wherever in the world it may be, you will be free to diffuse your foolish and injurious cosmopolitanism in its raw state.

Greece will certainly not receive with open arms people deported from America for working either directly or indirectly against this country's fundamental laws. We have said enough. You are sufficiently well educated to apprehend so broad a hint.