Talk:American's Creed

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[edit] Nice addition, but ...

... isn't it a bit of a stretch to describe the Creed as a "precursor to the Red Scare"? Sfahey 20:23, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so. It was designed in response to the the Bolshevek Revolution, to encourage "real Americans" to pledge not to, you know, support an overthrow of the government or anything like that. – Quadell ^{(talk) (sleuth)} 21:13, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

• To Quadell: With all due respect, you are quite misinformed, and your statement is not fact, but inaccurate conjecture. Permit me to comment, as the great-grandson of the author of the Creed, and author of the Wikipedia article on William Tyler Page.

Page spent his entire life (starting at age 13 in 1881) in active service to the US House of Representatives. He believed in, passionately loved, and fiercely defended, American patriotic values throughout that time. The Creed was not an exception, it was the rule. There is nothing whatsoever in his papers, or the family history, to support your contention that suddenly, after 36 years of public service to America, he was motivated to write the Creed "in response to the Bolshevik Revolution". He wrote, spoke, and acted patriotically all his life, and his writings are both family and national patriotic treasures.

Moreover, the contest that the Creed was entered in was not about the Bolsheviks -- the contest predated the Bolshevik Revolution. If the contest had happened a few years after the Revolution you might have an argument, but in any case the contest wasn't about fear, it was about making "the briefest possible summary of American political faith... founded upon the fundamental things most distinctive in American history and tradition."

Granted, as a patriotic American, Page surely hated Communism. However, calling the Creed a precursor to the Red Scare of the 1950's is both incorrect and irrelevant, the former because the Creed has nothing whatsoever to do with Communism, and the latter because he died in 1942. Your link between Page's true patriotism, and the paranoid excesses of the McCarthy era, is spurious.

So I must inform you that your contentions are inaccurate and insupportable, and should be removed, as they serve only to weaken the article.

I offer as independent support for the above, the book "The American's Creed and William Tyler Page", by Myrtle Cheney Murdock, Monumental Press, 1958. The second chapter is a history of the writing of Creed, including all the details of the contest (which was conceived in 1916), and was well underway before the Bolsheviks got into gear.

I'll give this comment a little while to percolate, then I'll edit the statements out of the article, noting them as spurious conjecture.

Respectfully submitted --Dayglored 06:11, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

- How did it become popular after the US Civil War if it was not written until 1917? Is that a typo? Should is read that it became popular after WWI.

• American Nationalism is referred to as becoming popular after the Civil War, not the creed.--PvtDeth 19:09, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Official? Really?

The American's Creed doesn't seem to have been actually adopted as any sort of official creed. The account of the contest and the award given to its author were written into the Congressional Record after the fact, but that doesn't seem to give it any sort of official status. Lots of stuff makes it into the Congressional Record without assuming an official character. Benami 11:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

• Yes, really. The complete proceedings in regard to the official acceptance of The American's Creed may be found in the Congressional Record, No. 102, April 13, 1918. You are correct that lots of spurious stuff makes it into the Congressional Record (including birthdays and telephone listings). However, this was indeed Congressional acceptance of Page's work as the official "American's Creed", not just recognition of winning a contest. The Creed is also notable for being used (though such use is not everywhere mandated by law) in official Naturalization ceremonies for new American citizens. --Dayglored 06:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)