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 THE PROBLEM OF 
 AMERICANIZATION
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 THE PROBLEM 
 
 OF 
 
 AMERICANIZATION 
 
 BY 
 PETER ROBERTS, PH.D. 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1920 
 
 All right* renewed
 
 COPYBIGHT, 1920, 
 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1910. 
 
 Nortoooft 
 
 J. 8. Cashing Co. Berwick <fc Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE word Americanization has become a household 
 term among the native-born a synonym of anxiety, 
 dread, or duty, among the foreign-born one of misgiving, 
 suspicion, or hope. There are more than five million 
 aliens in the United States, ninety-five per cent of whom 
 are kindly disposed to America. The remaining five per 
 cent comprise the radicals, whose souls are lashed by 
 breezes of doctrines, emanating from continental Europe, 
 writhing in the hand of doctrinaires who treat a starv- 
 ing and bankrupt patient. The radicals have a well- 
 organized speaker's bureau, a many-tongued press, and 
 a fervency in attack which cannot be paralleled by any 
 constructive and conserving agency interested in aliens. 
 If Bolshevism and I. W. W.-ism are to be successfully 
 combated, America needs a program of enlightenment, 
 an army of volunteer workers, a wide-awake press, and 
 a zeal for American democracy akin to apostolic fervor. 
 The radicals have long had the right of way in communi- 
 ties made up of foreign-speaking peoples. We should 
 match this with a propaganda of enlightenment as to 
 what the principles of American democracy are, how it 
 operates, and what the prospects are for a successful 
 future.
 
 VI INTRODUCTION 
 
 The purpose of this book is to aid men and women 
 giving all or part time to the work of Americanization. 
 It emphasizes the heritage that is ours, submits a pro- 
 gram and a plan of operation, outlines how men and 
 women may be trained to do the work, and points to 
 the goal which all Americanization workers should keep 
 before them. America suffers with a world that is worn 
 and torn. In these days of reconstruction we need to 
 recall the heroism of men and women of all lands who 
 have suffered to bring about a better to-morrow. Amer- 
 ica's future is full of hope, but it is inseparably involved 
 in the question of whether or not we are willing to weld 
 our five million aliens to the body politic by sympathy, 
 justice, good will, and brotherly kindness. This can be 
 done if we have unfaltering faith that out of all aliens, 
 staunch defenders of this great democracy can be formed. 
 
 The program and organization outlined in the book 
 have been successfully used in many fields. They are 
 the fruits of years of service for and with immigrants. 
 My aim has been to interest the teacher and the general 
 reader in the most important phases of Americanization. 
 The view-point of the book, as well as the choice of de- 
 tails, has been' influenced by my connection with the 
 Y. M. C. A. as director of its Americanization activity. 
 My work for the last fifteen years has brought me in 
 contact with all kinds of immigrants in every state in 
 the Union. Never has the work of Americanization been 
 more promising than now promising, because of the 
 eagerness of the foreign-born to receive what America
 
 INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 has to offer, and because of the willingness of the native- 
 born to give a helping hand to all who honestly try to 
 become Americans. If the leaders of the foreigners and 
 public-spirited Americans in industrial centers where 
 aliens live plan wisely, and cooperate heartily in the 
 work of assimilation, the beneficent result will be better 
 understanding and greater solidarity among the peoples 
 forming cosmopolitan communities a consummation 
 devoutly wished by every true American. 
 
 PETER ROBERTS 
 
 NEW YORK, 
 October, 1920

 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. WHAT is AMERICANIZATION? . 
 
 II. THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR . 
 
 III. THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN . 
 
 IV. THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM . 
 
 V. TEACHING ENGLISH .... 
 
 VI. NATURALIZATION 
 
 VII. LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS . 
 
 VIII. RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES 
 
 IX. ADVISORY COUNCILS .... 
 
 X. ORGANIZATION 
 
 XL. THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 PAGES 
 
 1-26 
 
 27-44 
 
 45-65 
 
 66-88 
 
 89-108 
 
 109-130 
 
 131-151 
 
 152-177 
 
 178-201 
 
 202-221 
 
 222-246
 
 THE 
 PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 
 
 EVERY schoolboy knows what America is; few can 
 state what Americanization means. When America saw 
 the birth of an independent nation, the square miles of 
 land yielded by the British government to the revolution- 
 ists was less than one third the present area of the United 
 States. The ideas which the men of 1776 projected found 
 a favorable material basis in the ceded territory, but 
 before independence was won and before the colonists 
 had ever thought of seceding from the mother country, 
 the principles which the founders of this Republic held 
 were ruling their lives and actions, as well as those of 
 many of their contemporaries in Great Britain and 
 France. It was at the close of the eighteenth century 
 that democratic ideas became strong enough to disrupt 
 European governments resting on tradition and privilege. 
 The commotion, agitation, and strife in Europe did not 
 accomplish much, but in America the case was different. 
 The believers in the natural rights of man in this country 
 were more fortunate than their European compeers. 
 Here was a territory which kings had never trod, where 
 
 1
 
 2 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 traditions had not bound men hand and foot, and where 
 there was no class in the population to be compared with 
 the "fourth estate." 
 
 The colonists, having won independence and having 
 material advantages which could not be enjoyed in the 
 Old World, set to work to institute a form of government 
 designed to give the people the greatest possible freedom 
 in the realization of self-determination. A democratic 
 government was established and has flourished for more 
 than one hundred and forty years. It is the political 
 expression of the ideals of the fathers, and gives us the 
 type of democracy known as American. 
 
 This American form of government can best be studied 
 (l) in the documents which the colonists drafted and 
 placed before the court of the world ; (2) in the history 
 of the country for the past hundred and forty years ; and 
 (3) in the political life of Americans as revealed both in 
 home and foreign affairs. In these three sources the 
 Americanization director must find what Americanism 
 means, and the purpose of this chapter is to give a faint 
 idea of what the spirit of America is as exhibited in these 
 sources. 
 
 1. The Two Fundamental Documents. What were 
 the fundamental ideals which the founders of this govern- 
 ment held? They are best expressed in the Declaration 
 of Independence and in the Constitution of the United 
 States. The first document was an apology to the peoples 
 of the world, specifying in very distinct terms the right 
 the colonists had to independence, and the causes which
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 3 
 
 impelled them to separate from the government of Great 
 Britain. The second is the framework of the government 
 they established and the regulations under which it was 
 to operate. 
 
 In the very first sentence of the Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence the fathers appealed to the "laws of nature" 
 and to "nature's God" as the ground on which they based 
 their right to an independent status among the nations 
 of the earth. "Laws of nature" and "natural rights" 
 were synonymous terms in the minds of these men, and 
 back of nature they believed in a Ruler to whom they 
 appealed. 
 
 The conditions under which they lived in America 
 undoubtedly helped them to a right interpretation of the 
 "laws of nature" as expounding the rights of men. 
 They led the simple life. They were face to face with 
 the elemental forces of nature. They did not have the 
 varied, complex, and intricate life of the twentieth cen- 
 tury. They were farmers, living on their own farms. 
 There were no wealthy men in the sense we to-day speak 
 of wealth ; neither were there any poor. The produce 
 of field and flock gave enough and to spare to man and 
 beast. The families were large and every member was 
 busy ; none found time hanging heavily on his hands. 
 The wage-earner of to-day was the independent husband- 
 man of to-morrow. Wages were low, but opportunities 
 to gain an independent economic existence were many. 
 No one could long call himself master. It was a country 
 where there were no captains of industry, for there were
 
 4 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 no industries. Factories in the modern sense of the 
 word were unknown. Indented servitude was practiced 
 but this was a temporary measure. The woods and the 
 mountains and the streams called unto the man with 
 strong arms and legs and a stout heart, and thousands 
 heard the call, for none had to fear either starvation or 
 bondage. The courageous man in America in colonial 
 days could be as free as the birds and as strong as the 
 roamers of the wilderness. 
 
 The imported immigrants and the prisoners exiled by 
 the home government soon caught the spirit of the field 
 and forest. If endowed with courage, fortitude, and a 
 strong constitution, they soon learned the lesson of the 
 red man to die rather than bend to the yoke of bondage. 
 Boys in their teens caught the spirit and were not afraid 
 to be thrown on their own resources. In field and forest 
 they were inured to danger and courted it. With a gun 
 and a good knife, they sought adventure, and were able 
 to defend themselves in a way dreamed of by few boys of 
 to-day, cooped, as they are, in factories and mills. George 
 Rogers Clark, with his two hundred volunteers marching 
 a hundred miles through the wilderness to strike a blow 
 for liberty, is typical of the spirit of the men raised under 
 conditions such as obtained in colonial days. And it was 
 under these conditions that men, leading the simple life 
 and depending upon their own courage to wrest from na- 
 ture the gifts she bestowed upon her children, spoke of 
 " natural rights " and of the God of nature giving them a 
 title to stand on their own feet and work out their own
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 5 
 
 destiny. Being true to themselves, they could not do 
 anything else. They were the children of nature and took 
 the lessons she taught and put them into practice, throw- 
 ing away the fetters which had long hurt their hands and 
 feet. 
 
 The hundred and forty years intervening between their 
 action and our day have brought to pass many things. 
 Would the men of the twentieth century write a Declara- 
 tion of Independence such as they did ? They were prac- 
 tical men and charged the king with : 
 
 1. Denying the right of self-government. 
 
 2. Obstructing the administration of justice. 
 
 3. Interfering with the police power of the people. 
 
 4. Interfering with the economic life of the people. 
 
 5. Waging war upon the colonists because they dared 
 to protest against tyranny. 
 
 6. Refusing to listen to the appeal of the oppressed. 
 These things they suffered, and they were resolved to 
 
 change them or die in the attempt. They knew that the 
 task was enormous and resolved to risk it. " With a 
 firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we 
 mutually pledged to each other our lives, our fortunes, 
 and our sacred honor." That has the ring of earnest- 
 ness. They believed in governing themselves ; they knew 
 what laws they needed for their good. They could not 
 live under a system that defeated justice ; they would not 
 tolerate a perverted judiciary ; they would not stand the 
 punishment of the innocent and the liberation of the guilty ; 
 they wanted property interests protected and personal
 
 6 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 safety assured ; they insisted that the product of their 
 hands should not be stolen ; they resolved to resist having 
 their homes burned and their property destroyed. These 
 were the things for which the colonists fought and died, 
 and they are things for which men of to-day will fight 
 and die. 
 
 When the fathers established a form of government for 
 themselves, they placed in the Constitution safeguards 
 against the evils they had endured under British rule. 
 The document vested the government in the people ; all 
 officers clothed with power were the servants of the people ; 
 justice was established by a series of courts dispensing 
 equity between man and man; justice depended upon 
 each man being guaranteed the enjoyment of the fruits 
 of his labor ; the nation guaranteed the defense of each 
 of its citizens against foreign foes. Provision was also 
 made that whenever the citizens thought changes should 
 be made in the Constitution, these changes could be 
 made. They guaranteed freedom of worship ; freedom 
 of speech and of th* press ; the right to petition and to 
 keep arms ; the right to resist unreasonable search ; the 
 right to protect life and property ; the right to be tried by 
 a jury of their own peers ; and the right to vote. 
 
 It was the first attempt made by a modern state to put 
 all powers of government hi the hands of the people. It 
 was a venture in self-government. It was committing 
 the ship of state to the hands of common humanity 
 a hazardous experiment. All experience was against 
 it. Most of the statesmen and the seers of the Old World
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 7 
 
 were against it. The philosophers of Europe and the 
 prophets of the world predicted failure, and yet these 
 daring men pushed out to sea and the ship of state is still 
 sailing and has become the admiration of the world. The 
 fathers were bold men and men of faith. They had 
 enough faith in common humanity to put the govern- 
 ment in its hands ; man henceforth was to be the source 
 of government ; all the rights that were to be set up were 
 to be set up in the name of humanity ; it was a demand 
 for freedom in the name of God-given rights, and a proc- 
 lamation to the world that confidence in the brotherhood 
 of man was to be the cornerstone of this new edifice. It 
 has stood the test of seven generations and the principles 
 laid down by the fathers are defended to-day by more 
 voices and votes than were dreamed of by the boldest 
 seers of that age. 
 
 2. A Century and a Half of History. Let us now look 
 at these principles in action during the hundred and forty 
 years of the nation's life. Have they been faithfully 
 applied? Not in every instance, but taking the history 
 
 of the United States as a whole, the nation has a record 
 
 \ 
 
 of which it need not be ashamed. 
 
 The trend of American legislation, both federal and 
 state, has been in favor of the common man. Never in 
 the history of the world have governments divided the 
 land among the people on so large a scale as was done in 
 the United States. For a hundred years men could get 
 farms for the asking. When Congress pressed its claim 
 for territory which the several states owned, the state
 
 8 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 governments relinquished their claims in favor of the 
 federal government, and much of the public domain was 
 distributed among the people. The policy was so liberal 
 that no effort was made to hold the land in order to bestow 
 it on the native-born. Large sections of the country were 
 thrown open to " foreigners/' and many agricultural 
 communities are found in the United States made up of 
 men who speak a tongue other than English. 
 
 The people of the United States practice the spirit of 
 democracy in daily life in an unconscious way. For a 
 hundred years the gates were kept open to immigrants. 
 There is no doubt that many nations abused this com- 
 placent faith in the natural goodness of human nature, 
 and unloaded many undesirables on America. It is no 
 reflection on the statesmen of the country, nor a departure 
 from democratic faith, to raise the barriers and to make im- 
 "possible the entrance of the maimed and the sick, the 
 mentally defective and those suffering from contagious 
 diseases, the polygamists and the paupers, the illiterate 
 and the leper, the believer in no government and the 
 destroyers of all governments. These are guards thrown 
 around the population and are designed to keep out 
 defectives in body and mind. Those who pass educa- 
 tional tests are allowed to enter, no discrimination being 
 made. Congress closed the gate against Asiatics for 
 economic reasons. In no other country founded and 
 ruled by Anglo-Saxons has so liberal a policy been fol- 
 lowed, and so great an optimism been manifested toward 
 those coming from foreign shores to settle in the land.
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 9 
 
 Never have Americans tried to monopolize the country 
 and the resources of the country. The man of talent, 
 whether he is native- or foreign-born, has had a free course 
 and his efforts, when they meet a social need, have been 
 generously rewarded. Let a Carnegie organize an in- 
 dustry to serve the people and he is honored and enriched 
 and no native-born receives greater recognition. Alex- 
 ander Bell is honored and rewarded just as much as Samuel 
 Morse ; Alexander Stewart as much as John Wanamaker ; 
 Oscar Straus as much as John Redfield ; Louis Agassiz 
 as much as George Dana ; N. Ericsson as well as Eli Whit-r 
 ney ; Nicolas Tesla as well as Thomas Edison. In no 
 country has the road been open to talent as in America. 
 No matter where we look, in the industries, the sciences, 
 the arts, finance, statesmanship interspersed among 
 names of men of colonial ancestry are those of foreign 
 birth. In " Who's Who in America," the names of the 
 foreign-born, as well as those of the native-born are 
 found, and no one dreams of barring any because of birth 
 or tongue or creed. 
 
 The democratic spirit is also manifested in the matter 
 of education. America has gone on the principle that 
 " the existence of a republic, unless all its citizens are 
 educated, is an admitted impossibility." Jefferson laid 
 down the principle that " to render even them (the people) 
 safe their minds must be improved to a certain degree." 
 The people believe in the democratic idea of universal 
 compulsory education, and this accounts for the fact that 
 " the average of knowledge is higher, the habit of reading
 
 10 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 and thinking more generally diffused in America than in 
 any other country." Well may it be the boast of the 
 United States that it aims " to elevate the mass of man- 
 kind the laboring class to raise them to self-respect, 
 to make them competent to act a part in the great right 
 and the great duty of self-government." 
 
 The public schools are open to all children and no ques- 
 tion is asked whether their parents are aliens or citizens. 
 The incoming thousands impose demands on communities 
 that swell the taxes and yet the facilities are provided. 
 Communities cheerfully vote millions to build school- 
 houses to accommodate the children of foreign-born. 
 It is indeed putting into practice the words of Washington : 
 " Promote as an object of primary importance, institu- 
 tions for the general diffusion of knowledge ; " and hi no 
 instance has this policy been more beneficial than in its 
 influence upon the children of the foreign-born. Our 
 schools have been most potent in the preservation of 
 democracy. ' Their absolute democracy and their uni- 
 versal use of the English language have made the common 
 schools most successful machines for converting the raw 
 material of immigration into American citizens." 
 
 And not only is this true of the grammar grades, but 
 it is equally true of the high schools, colleges, and univer- 
 sities of the land. The amount of money spent on pupils 
 in the high schools is much larger per capita than the 
 amount spent upon those in the grammar grades, but 
 the money is spent willingly that the child of the poorest 
 family as well as that of the richest in the community
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 11 
 
 / 
 
 may enter these, without money and without price. In 
 these schools are found commercial and industrial courses 
 as well as academic, and in many cities technical schools 
 are built at government expense, where instruction is 
 given to all, regardless of race, in textile manufacture, 
 bleaching, electricity, mining, iron and steel production. 
 The same is true of our colleges, seminaries, and 
 universities. In state institutions the son of the foreign- 
 born may enter and no one asks whether the parents are 
 citizens of America or not, providing they are domiciled 
 in the state. It has been well said that "in no country 
 are the higher kinds of learning more accessible." 
 
 Another sphere in which the principles of democracy 
 are applied is that of the patent office. Under no govern- 
 ment in Christendom have such liberal principles been 
 followed as in America in the granting of patents to me- 
 chanical geniuses of all classes. No matter whether a 
 man is foreign-born or not, whenever he applies for a 
 patent the machinery of the government is put at his serv- 
 ice. The fees are standardized, the service is uniform, 
 and if the poor man can meet the modest fees asked, he can 
 command equal service with the millionaire. No sooner 
 was the federal government formed than the Constitution 
 stated that " Congress shall have power to promote the 
 progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited 
 times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their 
 respective writings and discoveries." In no civilized 
 country have so many patents been issued to the sons of 
 toil as in these United States. The ingenuity of the
 
 12 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Yankee, the acuteness of the American worker, and 
 the quickness of the American machinist have become 
 proverbial. The names of inventors> from Joseph 
 Jenks down to Edison, have been those of men at 
 the bench whose genius was encouraged by democratic 
 stimulus, most of whom rose to affluence and many to 
 fortune. 
 
 I will mention one more American institution which 
 is the fruit of the democratic idea the free public li- 
 brary. It has well been called the " people's university 
 and continuation school of the toilers." It was intro- 
 duced about the middle of the last century, when the 
 state of Massachusetts authorized any city to support a 
 public library from the taxes up to a certain expense, 
 according to the number of taxpayers. Before the cen- 
 tury was closed, most of the states having progressive 
 educational systems had adopted the free public library 
 as a state institution, authorizing gifts from the state 
 treasury to help establish such libraries, and also denning 
 the taxes which local municipalities could appropriate 
 for the support of these institutions. The result is that 
 in hundreds of cities and towns free public libraries are 
 found, and in villages and hamlets the circulating library 
 finds its way, bringing within reach of isolated families 
 in rural communities as well as in small industrial centers 
 the latest fiction, standard works, and technical books 
 which they could not hope to purchase. 
 
 So thoroughly has the institution found favor among 
 the people as a part of their educational equipment, that
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 13 
 
 a public library system is under the control of Congress 
 and in the hands of librarians and public educators, who 
 regard it as an adjunct to our public school and higher 
 educational system. By means of this institution, public 
 school children are able to secure the use of books their 
 parents could not purchase ; school-teachers are able to 
 secure technical works which they could never hope to 
 buy from the meager salaries paid them; every toiler, 
 no matter what his industrial status, can go to the free 
 public library and have access to masters of English prose 
 and poetry, technical works on science and art, the best 
 fiction of the day, which privilege a few generations back 
 was not within the reach of even the leisure classes. 
 
 It is also a fact worth noting that this institution is 
 adjusting its equipments to the need of the community 
 which it serves. In cities such as Buffalo, New York, 
 Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, where 
 a large percentage of the population is foreign-born, the 
 librarians study the composite elements in the population, 
 and secure books in the respective tongues. The libraries 
 play no small part in shaping the thoughts of the foreign- 
 born in the defense and perpetuation of this Republic. 
 When both native- and foreign-born get into the habit 
 of frequenting the free public library in quest of light 
 upon the social, economic, and political questions of the 
 day, we have gone a great way in making safe the fruits 
 of democracy in the land. When the voters of the country, 
 both naturalized and native, demand knowledge and seek 
 wisdom in the free library, we " educate our masters "
 
 14 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 and make certain the perpetuation of freedom and liberty 
 on this continent. 
 
 3. America's Political Life, Home and Foreign. The 
 
 principles laid down in the Declaration of Independence 
 and in the Constitution have shaped the home and foreign 
 policies of the United States. These two documents 
 have been the guiding stars of the country during the 
 hundred and forty years of its history in transactions 
 with foreign nations. 
 
 The wars of the United States, with one exception, 
 have differed from the wars of other strong nations in 
 the fact that they were not waged for aggrandizement, 
 but for human rights and in defense of the oppressed. 
 The home conflict the Civil War was inevitable if 
 the heirs of the Constitution were to remain true to the 
 principles laid down by the fathers of the Republic. No 
 sooner was this document adopted as the law of the land, 
 than William Pinkney raised his voice (1788) in defense 
 of a thoroughgoing application of the principle of freedom. 
 He said : " We may talk of liberty in our public councils 
 and fancy that we feel reverence for her dictates. We 
 may declaim, with all the vehemence of animated rhetoric, 
 against oppression, and flatter ourselves that we detest 
 the ugly monster, but so long as we continue to cherish 
 the poisonous weed of partial slavery among us, the world 
 will doubt our sincerity." 
 
 At the very fountain head of America's institutions, 
 " the false and ignoble distinctions between men " were 
 denounced and the firm faith reposed " in the common
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 15 
 
 mind as the true material for a commonwealth." Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, before he was ever thought of as a prob- 
 able candidate for the Presidency of the Union, saw 
 straight when he declared in a public address : " There 
 is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to 
 all the rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happi- 
 ness." And it was these principles that worked upon the 
 mind and heart of American people for two generations, 
 urging them on with the force of indisputable logic to 
 clean their own house before they could become fit heralds 
 of liberty and freedom to the rest of the world. The 
 one war the Mexican waged by the United States 
 counter to the fundamental principles of the Constitution 
 and counter to the sentiments of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, was denounced most vehemently by the 
 leaders of thought of the day, and no true historian has 
 attempted a justification of the depredation committed 
 against a weaker neighbor. 
 
 Taking then the wars of America as a whole, they are 
 an interpretation of the American spirit and true to the 
 principles of American Democracy. The War of 1812 
 was in defense of human rights ; that of 1898 against 
 Spain was in defense of the oppressed and enslaved ; and 
 that of 1917 was against the last stand, we hope, of Im- 
 perialism versus Democracy. Compare with these the 
 causes of war in the history of nations national antago- 
 nism, racial hatred, pride and arrogance, oppression, and 
 often religious intolerance. When the American fleet
 
 16 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 and the American Army cleaned the Western Hemisphere 
 of Spanish rule, it was in defense of millions who had long 
 suffered conditions which debased manhood and made im- 
 possible the growth of liberty and freedom. 
 
 The World War may well be described as the last des- 
 perate throw of imperialism on the continent in the con- 
 flict between the people and their rulers. This conflict 
 began in the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta of the 
 Middle Ages, and with varied fortunes continued to our 
 day. It was only a question of time when the forces of 
 democracy and those of tyrants would come into collision. 
 They collided and we believe that the way is clear for the 
 peoples of Europe as well as of America to establish gov- 
 ernment of the people, by the people, and for the people. 
 Nothing proves more clearly America's sincerity as the 
 defender of democracy than the part it played in this 
 World War. Barbarous cruelty, ruthless horror, and 
 defiance of all laws of earth and heaven welded seven 
 nations in defense of democracy. When America entered 
 the conflict, the defenders of liberty the world over wel- 
 comed its assistance. It could not have stayed out if 
 twentieth-century Americans were true to the principles 
 of the two documents their fathers had given the world 
 " to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to 
 our posterity." 
 
 America has entered into world politics. The advent 
 of the steamship, the telegraph, the telephone, the wire- 
 less, and aerial navigation have brought the nations of 
 Europe and Asia much closer to America than they were
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 17 
 
 in the days when the founders of the Republic preached 
 the doctrine of non-interference in foreign politics. The 
 World War has left the door of international politics wide 
 open, and the part played by our country in the peace 
 conference is such that, willy-nilly, the United States 
 must take a hand in world politics. The American hu- 
 mane point of view in the treatment of international ques- 
 tions had been advanced by Olney, Hay, and others, but at 
 no previous time was it done on a world stage, as on this 
 occasion ; never before were the nations of the world so 
 impressed by the fact that the United States stands for 
 humanitarian intervention in behalf of the oppressed 
 peoples of the world in international adjustments. 
 
 The humane way is the American way. Our states- 
 men have not always paid strict regard to the principles 
 of law when the heart strings were pulling in a different 
 direction. Authorities on international law have looked 
 askance on the humanitarian intervention of the United 
 States in foreign affairs, but the influence exerted by " the 
 diplomacy of humanity " has been very potent. When 
 Greece was wrestling with the Turkish Empire in a brave 
 struggle to extricate itself from the bondage of generations, 
 the sympathy shown the Greeks and the free expression 
 of public opinion in America in the lightness of their cause 
 were aids much appreciated by the oppressed. 
 
 Another episode which reflects very clearly the demo- 
 cratic sentiments and humane sympathies of the people 
 of the United States was the reception given to Louis 
 Kossuth in this country. This patriot was involved in
 
 18 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 the attempt made at revolution in Hungary in 1848. He 
 and his followers were not able to overthrow the Hapsburg 
 dynasty and they had to flee the country. They reached 
 Turkey, where Kossuth and his company were held cap- 
 tives. The sympathy of the United States was with the 
 captives, and a motion prevailed in Congress requesting 
 the President to put at the service of these men public 
 vessels and bring them to this country. When Kossuth 
 came, the whole nation rejoiced ; he was dined at the 
 White House and was given a public dinner by the 
 House of Representatives. The Austrian representative in 
 Washington protested against these demonstrations in 
 favor of a man virtually an outcast from Austria-Hungary 
 because of the part he played in an attempted revolution 
 against the existing government, and not receiving any 
 satisfaction while Kossuth was making a triumphal tour 
 of the United States, he was recalled by his government 
 as a protest against " the principal promoters " of the 
 Kossuth episode with whom he could no longer continue 
 in official intercourse. 
 
 Crimes of intolerance and barbarity have been com- 
 mitted in foreign lands and nowhere have they more 
 shocked the moral and humane sympathies of civilized men 
 than in America. The diplomatic services of the United 
 States have stood for the principles of righteousness and 
 freedom, justice and humanity, and have never failed 
 to bring this fact to the notice of the countries where the 
 laws of God and man have been set at defiance. When, 
 in the early 'forties of the last century, cruel massacres
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 19 
 
 because of religious creed broke out in the empire of the 
 Turk, President Van Buren informed the American min- 
 ister in Constantinople that he should exert his influence 
 with the Sultan to mitigate these horrors. In 1902, 
 John Hay, Secretary of State, addressed a note to the 
 government of Rumania in an effort to induce it to re- 
 consider measures and laws that would oppress the Jewish 
 subjects of that kingdom. In 1904, Theodore Roosevelt 
 protested to the Russian government when the horrors 
 of the massacre of the Jews in Kishneff were known. 
 These and other instances show how the principles of the 
 Declaration of Independence and the Constitution rule 
 the actions of officials, not only at home, but also abroad. 
 They are protests in the interest of humanity, they are 
 efforts to put a stop to acts which shock the moral sym- 
 pathies of a people that has done more than any other to 
 pave the way for the democratic idea of freedom of speech, 
 of the press, and of religion. 
 
 America has entered into the commerce of the world 
 because of its industrial interests. It has insisted that the 
 waters of the earth should be free to the commerce of the na- 
 tions. With this purpose in view, it has consistently inter- 
 nationalized the Panama Canal and thrown it open to the 
 commerce of the world. It secured the opening of the 
 St. Lawrence to the nations of the world, while its / own 
 rivers and harbors are kept open on that principle. It 
 approached the governments of South America to throw 
 open the La Plata and the Amazon rivers " in accordance 
 with the fixed principles of international law as channels
 
 20 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 opened by nature for the commerce of all nations," and 
 its good offices were rewarded by the governments directly 
 interested. When Russia threw its arms over the north- 
 western coast of America and issued an order that no 
 vessel should come within one hundred miles of the coast, 
 the government of the United States made it very clear 
 to Russia that any attempt on its part to extend its rule 
 on this continent would be contested. Then was estab- 
 lished the famous " Monroe Doctrine and the Golden 
 Rule," that the American continents were no longer to 
 be regarded as territory where any European power could 
 in future establish colonies. The result has been that the 
 Western Hemisphere is free of the form of government 
 that has brought Europe again and again to the verge of 
 ruin. It has been the basis upon which peace has been 
 maintained on the American continents, so that weak 
 republics may grow strong and fear nothing from 
 European or Asiatic imperialism. 
 
 Legislatures, in home affairs, have invariably defended 
 the rights of the people when these are invaded, and never 
 has intrenched wealth or privilege long been able to with- 
 stand the will of the people in America. The United 
 States is young, and yet has acquired much experience. 
 The Constitution was adopted by about three and a 
 half million people ; to-day we are nearly a hundred and 
 ten million. 
 
 The growth in material possessions has been most 
 remarkable ; the nation has passed from the agricultural 
 to the industrial stage. During the nation's brief exist-
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 21 
 
 ence, the steam engine, the steamship, telegraph, tele- 
 phone, wireless, air navigation have been invented. 
 These have brought Europe closer to America than Chi- 
 cago was to New York in the 'fifties of the last century. 
 These new agencies of progress have had a serious effect 
 upon the workings of law and its adaptation to national 
 need. " A new nation seems to have been created which 
 the old formulae (of the Constitution) do not fit or 
 vitally interpret," and the important task attacked by 
 legislatures and the courts in the last fifty years has 
 been' to make this fundamental document meet new con- 
 ditions. When we consider the work done it has been 
 wonderful, and taking it as a whole, the trend has 
 invariably been in defense of popular rights as against 
 the strong man who squeezed the people. 
 
 Another factor in the complicated task is the multiply- 
 ing of laws by state legislatures. They now number forty- 
 eight, each grinding out laws to meet the needs as ex- 
 pressed by the people in the several states. In every 
 state, however, it may be said that the laws reflect the 
 consciousness of the people, and are really an exposition of 
 how they have defended themselves against the evils 
 that were threatening their liberty. Hence, running 
 through the legislatures of the land, both state and federal, 
 is a strong will emanating from the majority to restrain 
 the few who exploit the nation, 
 
 The employer who directed his employees how to vote, 
 does so now at his peril ; the financiers who spanned 
 the continent by the clever device of holding companies,
 
 22 
 
 cannot do so now ; the grip of a group of strong bankers 
 concentrating their power at one point has been broken ; 
 the official active in politics must cease such practices, or 
 quit his job ; the owner of coal lands, oil wells, artesian 
 wells, forests, and mineral wealth cannot do as he pleases, 
 the interest of the public must be consulted ; the owner of 
 a non-navigable stream may lose his rights to it if the 
 waters are necessary for a populous city ; the butcher and 
 the baker, the canner and the dairy farmer, the chemist and 
 the druggist, cannot manage their business as they have 
 a mind to, for the products they put on the market may 
 injure public health ; a man cannot marry whomsoever 
 he pleases, he must conform to state laws ; a man can no 
 longer dispose of his property as he wills, he must yield a 
 part of it to the state as a tribute to the collective interest 
 of the people ; the parent is no longer judge of what 
 education his child is to receive or when he ought to go 
 to work, these are regulated by the state ; women and 
 minors who work are not to determine when they can sell 
 their labor and how many hours they may work, the 
 state lays down laws ; strikes may be regulated by the 
 government or the labor union ; wages cannot be 
 reduced when a grinding taskmaster has a mind to 
 do so ; conditions of employment must be decent ; in- 
 surance must be provided against accidents ; compensation 
 must be paid the dependents of the injured breadwinner ; 
 and the manufacturer who produces shoddy goods must 
 make this known. The people have demanded pro- 
 tection against great combinations of capital, and the law
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 23 
 
 has been so shaped that to-day the state virtually controls 
 many corporations ; hence the railroads cannot charge 
 what the traffic will bear, ships cannot sail as they please, 
 telegraph and telephone companies cannot set the rates 
 according to will, and the books of big firms must be 
 kept open for government inspection. 
 
 These adaptations of the law to meet the needs of the 
 people clearly show the drift. The process goes on con- 
 tinuously ; it is what Marshall meant when he said, 
 " Constitutions are not made, but grow." In the life 
 of the nation, this passing from individualism to col- 
 lectivism has been rapid, and in no country have greater 
 changes been made than here in America. We confess 
 that we suffer from the multiplicity of laws turned out, 
 but amid the confusion we see that the people are resolved 
 to adapt the existing government machinery to meet 
 the need of changing times. They are determined that 
 " the Colossus of business, uniform, concentrated, poised 
 upon a single plan, governed, not by votes but by com- 
 mands, seeking no service but profits," must be pre- 
 vented from exploitation. This harmonizing of conflict- 
 ing interests goes on daily, and by peaceful and patient 
 processes, in which the best brain of the country is 
 involved. 
 
 During the year that America was engaged in the 
 World War, many things were done by the government 
 which clearly pointed to retrogression rather than 
 progress. Suppressive measures were the result of 
 the exigencies of the hour; the extreme exercise of
 
 24 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 police power in some instances can only be explained by 
 hysteria. 
 
 In post-bellum days we are still suffering from over- 
 officiousness of government officials. The arrogance 
 and daring of radical agencies anger and disturb the 
 equanimity of those charged with keeping the peace, 
 and in their anxiety they overstep the boundary of 
 moderation and discretion. These are only aberrations 
 of a temporary character. When the world again comes 
 to order, and the people live in peace, these excesses will 
 disappear. We believe that the governments of both 
 state and nation will respond to the demand of the 
 greater number, and that the rapid advancement made 
 in adapting and interpreting the principles of the Con- 
 stitution in defense of the interest of the majority will 
 continue. Some progressives demand a " new social 
 bond . . . which will serve ... as an impulse, an 
 inspiration, and a leaven." Whatever the " new social 
 bond " has to offer, it must pass through the mind of the' 
 people, must take the path along which progress has been 
 realized in the past, and must come as the dawn, first 
 the glow and then the full light of day. 
 
 In the meantime, let any one conversant with the 
 American spirit know and perceive how it has manifested 
 itself in the law of the land. This is especially the 
 obligation resting upon those interested in American- 
 ization. They must be convinced that the trend at home 
 and abroad is in defense of popular rights. In no other 
 way can they bring the idea clearly before the foreign-
 
 WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION? 25 
 
 born in America and make them see it. If we cannot be 
 thoroughly convinced of this truth, if we cannot affirm 
 without equivocation that the spirit of America has 
 kept open the way of progress to the weak and the op- 
 pressed of the world, then we are not qualified tO'be the 
 heralds of Americanization to the foreign-born. If in 
 home affairs as well as in foreign, the plan of American 
 government has failed to secure the blessings of peace 
 to the majority of the people in the land, then American 
 democracy has been a failure, and we have no message to 
 the aliens in the country. The workings of the American 
 spirit, as I have studied it in the two great documents 
 given us by the revolutionists, as exhibited in the history 
 of the country and the institutions established, a,s shown 
 in the policies which have dominated the action of the 
 several states, and in the federal government, convince 
 me that the experiment in democracy on this continent 
 is not a failure, and this being my firm conviction, not- 
 withstanding the lapses and shortcomings in the story, 
 I can take a message of hope and faith to the millions of 
 foreign-born in the nation. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 STRAIGHT AMERICA : Frances A. Kellor, Chapter XI. 
 AMERICANIZATION : Royal Dixon, Chapter I. 
 AMERICANIZATION : Emory S. Bogardus, Chapters I- VI. 
 THE NEW DEMOCRACY : Walter E. Weyl, Chapter II. 
 THE NEW Civics : Roscoe Lewis Ashley, Chapter XII. 
 THE AMERICAN PLAN OF GOVERNMENT: Charles Bacon, 
 Chapter IV.
 
 26 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION: 
 Hannis Taylor, Chapter XIV. 
 
 A CHAPTER OF DEMOCRACY: Theodore Roosevelt, The Out- 
 look, February 24, 1912. 
 
 WHAT is AMERICA? : E. A. Ross.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 
 
 I ATTENDED a conference with twenty-five men to discuss 
 the question of the choice of an Americanization director 
 for an industrial plant in which fifty per cent of the 
 employees were foreign-born. The men in the confer- 
 ence represented the best brain of that industrial plant, 
 and thought they knew exactly what kind of man this 
 director should be. They selected a gentleman whom 
 they all knew, but who knew nothing of the foreigner 
 or of the work for which he was chosen. The man was 
 proposed by the works' manager as a well-equipped 
 candidate for the position. I asked some questions 
 as to the qualifications of the proposed candidate for 
 the job, and the men confessed that he knew nothing 
 of the foreign-born, had no experience in working with 
 them, had no idea what they needed, and had no program 
 or plan of organization to suggest. He was a good 
 fellow, had a good character, was perfectly safe, was 
 popular among the managerial forces, but he did not 
 know anything about Americanization. I suggested 
 that it would be wise to secure a trained leader for so 
 important a work, when the head draftsman said : 
 "He is a good man, we know him, he is popular, why 
 
 27
 
 28 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 won't he do?" If this same gentleman chose a man as 
 his assistant, he would demand something more than 
 good fellowship, geniality, and character. He would 
 demand skill in the use of tools, training in the art of 
 drafting, capacity in calculation, etc. ; but he did not 
 think special training was necessary for the far more 
 delicate task of shaping the minds and hearts of peoples 
 of twenty different races to American ideals. 
 
 The work of Americanization, which is the molding 
 and shaping of the ideas of foreign-born men as to what 
 America stands for, the training of the foreign-born 
 in the modus operandi of democratic institutions as 
 found in these United States, the informing of these 
 men as to the history of the country and the founders 
 of the Republic, need trained leadership. We spend 
 millions in experiments in scientific farming, in ex- 
 terminating parasites, in unveiling the contents of the 
 crust of the earth, in raising the weight and quality of 
 hogs, cows, sheep, and horses, and trained men do the 
 work. The money is well spent. But when it comes to 
 shaping the ideas and concepts of fifteen million people 
 of foreign birth according to American standards, many 
 believe that it can be done by untrained workers who 
 have more enthusiasm than knowledge, more fervor than 
 intelligence, more oratorical powers than practical wisdom. 
 
 Before this work can be done, the facts of the case must 
 be studied and a practical plan of work offered. Public 
 meetings have a place in Americanization, but they alone 
 will not solve the problem. Americanism needs a band
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 29 
 
 i 
 
 of consecrated men and women to meet the foreign-born 
 in their small halls, institute classes in their club houses 
 or their dance halls, or turn the boarding house into a 
 classroom. Trained leadership is needed for the work, 
 and it can only be secured by mapping out courses which 
 should be taken by those who hope to be Americanization 
 directors. 
 
 The purpose of this chapter is to outline the factors 
 which should influence the policy of the worker among 
 the foreign-born. 
 
 1. The Background of Immigrant Races. The Ameri- 
 canization director should know much about the back- 
 ground of immigrant races in America. There are 
 possibly more than fifty different peoples coming to the 
 United States from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the islands 
 of the seas. They are not all distinct races, but they are 
 distinct groups, having a separate history, unique cus- 
 toms, distinct tongues or dialects, a character they want 
 recognized, a calendar they observe, distinct political 
 forms in which they have been drilled, and special re- 
 ligious exercises in which they have been raised from 
 childhood. And the man or woman who makes an honest 
 effort to find out what agencies have molded the lives 
 of the several peoples in the immigration inflow will be 
 broad in his sympathies, tolerant of varying standards, able 
 to understand men who cling to old country ways and look 
 with distrust on much that the native-born appreciates. 
 
 I do not mean that every worker among the foreign- 
 born, before he begins work, should familiarize himself
 
 30 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 with the fifty different varieties of peoples coming to the 
 United States. The worker will seldom meet in any lo- 
 cality more than twenty varieties, but if he is to do good 
 work among these peoples of twenty different groups, 
 he must know from where they came, what are the 
 economic conditions in the country whence they came, 
 what are the forms of government, what are the prevailing 
 religious forms, what. are some of the customs, what are 
 some of their leading holidays, what they commemorate 
 and who are their leading men heroes, statesmen, 
 poets, and scientists who have contributed to the 
 advancement of their civilization. 
 
 Race consciousness is in the blood, and no injection 
 of Americanism will be able to get it out of the system. 
 It is wholly independent of the size of the country from 
 which men come, or of the ''number of men forming the 
 people ; indeed, it is often strongest in people who have no 
 country which they can call their own. The Jew and 
 the Pole have long been without a country, but in no 
 people is race consciousness more pronounced. The Irish 
 had little self-determination, and yet no immigrant 
 people in the United States has clung more tenaciously 
 to race consciousness. Nationalism is one of the strongest 
 ties in the human soul. When men cry, " Down with 
 the foreign press in America," and demand federal 
 legislation to make it a crime to publish a foreign news- 
 paper in the country, they strike at one of the strongest 
 passions in the human soul; it is as foolish to forbid 
 talking in a foreign tongue as to forbid the issuing of a
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 31 
 
 foreign newspaper, for both are rooted in race con- 
 sciousness, and no legislation of this character will be 
 effective in a democracy. Let the Americanization 
 worker remember this fact of race consciousness, and 
 use it for the promotion of the Americanization program. 
 The director who qualifies aright will study the story 
 of the peoples among whom he works, know something 
 about their heroes and poets, their national joys and 
 sorrows, and appreciate what is beautiful in their art 
 and songs. The Polish maid who hears the national 
 Polish hymn played and sung in the home where she earns 
 her daily bread, will put more heart into her work and 
 more good will in her service. The Greek who knows 
 that you admire Pericles and Lysander, Epaminondas 
 and Themistocles, will think more of you and show you 
 greater favor. v The Russian who knows that you appre- 
 ciate Russian music and the poems of Pushkin, some of 
 the songs of Glinka and the writings of Gorki, will open 
 his heart and his mind and become as clay in the hand 
 of the potter. The Lithuanian is dignified and conserva- 
 tive, but talk to him about the antiquity of his people, 
 that his people were in Europe long before the Slav, tell 
 him that his tongue is akin to the Sanskrit, and that 
 the music of his nation is as rich as it is sweet : you will 
 get a hearing, you will never find a stancher friend. 
 Every race has its epochs and its sacred days, its festivities 
 and its holidays, its commemorations and celebrations, 
 and the Americanization director who knows the meaning 
 of these days and seasons will multiply his points of
 
 32 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 contact. These advantages the worker will gain by 
 honest study of the history of the peoples among whom 
 he works. 
 
 2. The Difference between Peoples. The Ameri- 
 canization worker will know the difference between 
 immigrant races and the difference between groups of 
 the same people. The Italian differs very much from 
 the Finn, and accordingly in the work of Americanization 
 the lines of approach must differ. Any attempt to form 
 a class in English or civics by combining peoples as far 
 removed as the Greek and the White Russian is doomed 
 to failure. Take the Italians, those coming from 
 Turin differ from Sicilians, and an effort to combine both 
 in an organization for Americanization will not succeed. 
 
 Foreign-born men of the same nationality are divided 
 into groups according to the place from which they come. 
 Greeks from parts of the Turkish Empire have very little 
 in common with Greeks from Athens. Poles from Ger- 
 many have little in common with those of their race 
 coming from Russia they are creatures of environments 
 wholly different and come from civilizations having very 
 different standards. Some Portuguese are among the poor- 
 est and most ignorant of immigrant groups ; it would be 
 very unwise to use the same program of Americanization 
 with these as with a group of Swedes or Norwegians. 
 The Germans from Germany are a well-trained and 
 literate people, but the descendants of those Germans 
 who settled in Russia in the time of Peter the Great, 
 who cling to the language and the religion of their fathers,
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 33 
 
 and who because of persecution have come to the United 
 States, are a very different people. They were born and 
 raised in Russia, but were not a part of it, and .neither 
 are they a part of modern Germany, although they con- 
 verse and worship .in German. 
 
 European nations have for centuries fought with each 
 other and notwithstanding the efforts made by the Peace 
 Conference to reconcile these people, the memory of 
 ancient conflicts will not die out, and the director ought 
 to know something of the relation between them. The 
 Slovaks were subjected and oppressed by the Magyars 
 of Hungary for generations they will not forget it. 
 Ask an educated Slovak what he thinks of the Magyars, 
 and he will express himself in terms which are the result 
 of persecution, intolerance, oppression, and imprison- 
 ment. These jealousies, prejudices, and conflicts have 
 their roots in centuries of antagonism and rivalry and will 
 not be forgotten in America, and the Americanization 
 worker will avoid many mistakes if he knows the family 
 quarrels of European countries. Half the fights and quar- 
 rels in drinking dens, at weddings, and at dances are 
 due to antipathies and hatreds having their roots in the 
 Old World. 
 
 There is little fellowship and cooperation between Serb 
 and Croat, although they are the same people, speaking 
 the same language, and descending from the same stock. 
 The Ukrainians are divided into factions in the United 
 States, due partly to politics and partly to religion. The 
 people of the Balkans have their jealousies and antipathies,
 
 34 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 and Americanization work among them has often failed 
 and the workers have wondered why. They did not 
 know the antagonism engendered in .the Old World. 
 You cannot mix oil and water, and no more will people 
 who have been enemies from time immemorial join 
 in one common program of uplift for the community. 
 Our task is to raise them above the prejudices and mis- 
 understandings having their roots in the Old World ; 
 this is possible if the director is patient and wise. The 
 farther removed these people are from Old World ways, 
 and the more they adapt themselves to American ways, 
 the easier it is to unite them in one common brotherhood. 
 
 3. A Definite Program. The Americanization worker 
 should have a definite program. As before suggested, 
 this must be modified according to the group served ; 
 nevertheless, he should have clearly before him a well- 
 defined program of service with the foreign-born. 
 
 The English-speaking immigrant differs very greatly 
 from the Syrian or Armenian, and yet both need the serv- 
 ice contemplated in Americanization work. The pro- 
 gram, however, must be considerably modified before it 
 answers the needs of Scandinavians as compared with the 
 peoples from the Balkan states. The Swedes and Nor- 
 wegians are versed in the principles of democracy ; they 
 understand very readily what we mean when we talk of 
 American ideals ; they have little difficulty in understand- 
 ing our political machinery ; but this is not the case 
 with the peoples from southeastern Europe. The first 
 principles of American democracy must be explained
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 35 
 
 to these. It takes some time for the brightest among 
 them to understand that the government in the United 
 States is in the hands of the people, and that all public 
 officials are the servants of the people. When the teacher 
 has put the facts clearly before these people, and believes 
 they understand, their questions again and again show 
 the workings of their minds in the old channels they 
 look for autocratic power of lord or sovereign. 
 
 In many New England towns we find many different 
 peoples living side by side Swedes, Russians, Poles, 
 Portuguese, and French Canadians. These people, rep- 
 resenting very different states of civilization, form the 
 major part of the population in many cities. Each group 
 needs Americanization, but it requires good judgment and 
 discernment to prepare material to do the work. This 
 is the reason why the promoter should know something of 
 the background of the immigrants, and especially the form 
 of government under which they lived. Every naturali- 
 zation class affords an opportunity to study comparative 
 government, if the teacher knows the nature of the 
 government of the land whence the men came. The 
 peoples of southeastern Europe are most teachable and 
 receptive ; they do not profess to know all that is worth 
 knowing about democracy, and they are most anxious 
 to join a class to learn how the people in America govern 
 themselves. This is not the case with many immigrants 
 coming from northwestern Europe. 
 
 The Educational Bureau and the Bureau of Naturaliza- 
 tion in Washington have shown commendable zeal in
 
 36 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 encouraging aliens to become citizens ; when, however, 
 they send the same literature to the Canadian declaring 
 his intention to become an American citizen as they send 
 to the Rumanian, they inevitably anger the man from 
 Canada. We are told, by men who ought to know, 
 that there is more real democracy in Canada and Great 
 Britain than in America. This may be true. Never- 
 theless, the British subject who comes to America has 
 much to learn about the way the people rule in the United 
 States. Americanization work is needed among the tens 
 of thousands of British subjects in the United States, 
 but, unfortunately, they are among the most reluctant 
 of immigrants to identify themselves with America. 
 One of the most successful classes organized for the 
 study of American government was a group of fifty 
 Englishmen, taught by a capable lawyer of British stock. 
 The group met once a week, and during the winter 
 carried on a study in comparative government America 
 and Great Britain. Discussions were often very lively, 
 but the interest was kept up and the men thoroughly 
 enjoyed the course. It was a kind of round table dis- 
 cussion and afforded an outlet to pride of race. 
 
 The principles of American government must be taught 
 to a group of Portuguese or Russians in a very elementary 
 way. One of the most difficult groups to interest in 
 Americanization is the Mexican. This is due partly to 
 friction, misunderstanding, unadjusted wrongs between 
 neighboring peoples, and partly to ancestral pride. 
 In the southwest we have communities in which the
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 37 
 
 Mexican population is the dominant element, and these 
 men believe that the Spanish language is more beautiful, 
 more dignified, and richer than the English ; they are 
 also taught that Americans shamefully exploited the 
 Mexicans. Men in this state of mind are difficult of 
 approach. One of the first steps is to establish confidence 
 between Americans and Mexicans. Before successful 
 work can be done, a special program must be prepared 
 for Mexicans in the southwest, and placed in the hands 
 of men who know these people and have faith in them. 
 
 Many persons ; marking this insistence on adapting 
 the program of Americanization to the previous culture 
 of the various peoples, ask in despair, " How can we adapt 
 programs to meet the needs of fifty different peoples? " 
 The answer is : It is not necessary to modify the program 
 for every group, but it is necessary to study the group 
 in order to render good service. I have just passed a 
 bakery. How varied are the kinds of bread the baker 
 sells ! Different kinds of loaves, different kinds of buns, 
 different kinds of designs, but all bread. I asked the 
 baker : '' Why do you go to the trouble of preparing 
 these different varieties of bread? Is not every variety 
 made of the same wheat ; are they not all baked in the 
 same oven ; are they not all prepared by the same hands?" 
 He answered : " Yes, but I must do this to meet the 
 tastes of my customers. Some ask for French rolls, 
 others want Vienna bread, others soft rolls, some hard 
 rolls, etc. All come from the same wheat, but I must 
 study the tastes of different palates, for the one great
 
 38 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 purpose of doing business." That is exactly the way 
 with Americanization. The principles of American De- 
 mocracy are clearly laid down in the Constitution ; they 
 have been applied, expounded, and confirmed in the 
 experience of the nation and in international relations, 
 but they must be adapted in different ways to meet the 
 varying needs and capacities of immigrant peoples. 
 
 4. Genuine Faith in American Democracy. The 
 Americanization worker should be a genuine believer 
 in American democracy. There are other democracies, 
 and each differs from the other in form and content ; 
 but the worker in Americanization must know the Ameri- 
 can brand and live up to the faith that is in him. 
 Cleisthenes established a democracy in Athens, and it 
 meant a few thousand electors and tens of thousands of 
 slaves. It is possible to have a democratic form of govern- 
 ment, and so to circumscribe the power of the electorate 
 that from twenty-five to fifty per cent of the potential vote 
 of the country is disfranchised. 
 
 Democracy in a country that is bound by tradition, 
 that has a hereditary tenureship in land, that has a titled 
 aristocracy intrenched by centuries of custom and usage, 
 is very different from the democracy we cherish in this 
 country. In Russia they have a custom of throwing 
 a richly embroidered pall over the rough coffin in which 
 the body of a poor peasant is incased, for there is a belief 
 prevalent among the peasants that every Russian at 
 death becomes a priest and a king. The faith of America 
 is that every citizen, while he lives, is a priest and a king,
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 39 
 
 regardless of social status or wealth. Faith in the common 
 man is the crowning glory of America. This faith has 
 its roots not only in racial consciousness, but in humanity. 
 When America kept open its gates to men of character 
 and health from all the nations of the earth, it was true 
 to the principles laid down by the men who wrote the 
 Declaration of Independence. " Humanity is humanity " 
 must be a cardinal principle in the faith of every American- 
 ization worker. 
 
 6. Faith in Immigrants. The Americanization worker 
 must have real faith in the foreign-born. He must 
 believe that these men who come from foreign countries 
 have in them the stuff of which self-governing citizens are 
 made. The impoverished White Russian, the illiterate 
 Portuguese, the stolid Ukrainian, the ignorant Turk, 
 may appear very unlikely material for the coming 
 generations of Americans, and yet this material must be 
 incorporated into the fabric of democracy, else the aspira- 
 tions of man for the abolition of all imperialism will be 
 defeated. 
 
 It is the glory of America to have taken most unlikely 
 groups of immigrants and fashioned them into sons and 
 daughters of this Republic. Human nature bound by 
 tradition and crushed by tyranny, want, and lack of 
 opportunity, gives no indication of its potencies when 
 transplanted to a richer soil and put under conditions 
 of freedom and opportunity. Favorable environment 
 makes all the difference in the world in the growth of 
 plants. A herd of cattle fed on the arid acreage of
 
 40 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Arizona will never be anything but scrawny and ill kept ; 
 transfer it to the rich pasture land of Iowa, and each 
 head will grow sleek and fat. 
 
 Southeastern Europe, whence we receive the major 
 part of our immigrants, has been consumed by war, 
 stultified by custom, fed on by cunning parasites whose 
 chief aim was to keep the people ignorant of their rights 
 and true to the ways their fathers trod. The people 
 never had economic freedom, opportunity did not knock 
 at their door, for landlordism and bureaucracy had 
 banished it from the land. They were born to a certain 
 social status, and were expected to stay in it during life. 
 Their lives were spent in penury and stupidity. It was 
 the lot assigned them by divine arrangement, and to 
 break away from it or to complain of its hardship and 
 limitations was to tempt Providence. What likely 
 manhood and womanhood could grow under such con- 
 ditions ? The surprise is that they had will power enough 
 to make up their minds to migrate to a land where they 
 could make better use of their God-given powers. Thou- 
 sands of them have made something of themselves 
 besides clodhoppers ; they are rising to the stature of men 
 and women of a self-governing nation ; they are copying 
 the American type ; they hold it with reverence and glad- 
 ness before their children ; and what they need more than 
 anything else are men and women who have faith in them 
 faith firm and strong that even from this unlikely ma- 
 terial America can raise sons and daughters to democracy. 
 
 The Americanization worker must have this faith, else
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 41 
 
 he cannot do the work to which he is called. And not only 
 must he himself have this faith, but he must also impart 
 it to others who have forgotten the rock whence they were 
 hewn. Men of native birth and of native parentage have 
 departed from the faith of their fathers and aligned 
 themselves with the philosophy of India, which teaches 
 the caste system ; they believe in divine right and despise 
 common clay ; they look with contempt upon the " for- 
 eigners " as hewers of wood and carriers of water. Ninety 
 per cent of the immigrants belong to this lowly class, and 
 upon these they look with disdain. The ten per cent of 
 immigrants who are highly skilled workers or professional 
 men are more inclined toward aristocracy than democracy. 
 Much snobbishness is found among imported aristocrats 
 as well as among the non-American Americans. Their 
 faith may best be illustrated by the comment of a German 
 of Prussian ancestry, who kept in shelter in New York 
 when his friends were conducting the " successful retreat " 
 to Berlin. This man was cultured and intelligent, and 
 felt that the power once wielded by autocracy in Ger- 
 many was hopelessly lost ; when the establishment of a 
 democracy was hinted at, his comment was : " What 
 can the common herd do ; they are like so many cows ; 
 the brutes know as much about government as they do." 
 This un-American state of mind is found in Americans. 
 The foreign-born have suffered because of it, and although 
 it has materially diminished in force and venom in the 
 last five years, it is still too common. The Ameri- 
 canization worker will take account of this and plan to
 
 42 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 bring the message of Americanization to native-born 
 persons who need it. 
 
 The Americanization worker must also keep in mind 
 the antipathy of the English-speaking worker, of both 
 native and foreign birth, to the foreign-speaking. The 
 worker of British, Irish, or Canadian stock has as deep- 
 rooted prejudice against the foreign-speaking as the 
 native-born. The roots of this antagonism are buried 
 in economic conflict, and in varying standards of living. 
 The English-speaking worker believes that this man dis- 
 turbs the labor market, undercuts him, makes it impossible 
 for labor to present a united front to capital, is satisfied 
 to work under conditions that are wholly unsatisfactory 
 to " white men/' and is a constant menace to the American 
 standard of living. It is for these reasons that the 
 Englishrspeaking worker is unsympathetic toward and 
 suspicious of the " foreigner." He is afraid that the 
 foreigners will lower wages and pull down working con- 
 ditions. Who does not sympathize with the native-born 
 wage-earner in this conflict ? Man cannot live on bread 
 alone ; but when men of varying standards of living 
 compete with one another, invariably the man with the 
 lower standard wins. 
 
 There is much to justify this state of mind in the Eng- 
 lish-speaking worker. If, however, the program of the 
 Americanization director is to succeed, the sympathy of 
 the English-speaking worker must be enlisted. This 
 can best be done by emphasizing the fact of the inter- 
 national character of labor. The native-born worker
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 43 
 
 knows that, willy-nilly, he must compete with foreign- 
 speaking wage-earners. The whole world is bound by 
 steel and copper into one x common brotherhood, and if 
 American wage-earners will not fraternize with the 
 foreign-speaking wage-earners in America, they will have 
 to compete with the product of their labor in American 
 markets as well as in the markets of the world. The 
 products of the shops of Japan, of the furnaces of China, 
 of the manufacturing concerns of the Continent, find their 
 way to the markets of America. 
 
 The manufacturers of America are demanding a merchant 
 marine, and their prime argument is that we are an indus- 
 trial nation and must send our goods to the markets of the 
 world. That means that the products of American labor 
 will compete with the products of wage-earners in every 
 industrial country in the world. These facts emphasize 
 the inevitable interdependence of labor the world over. 
 The native-born worker recognizes this, and especially 
 has it been emphasized in the years of the World War. 
 The workers of the world are destined to be brought into 
 closer union, and the common interests of all must be con- 
 sidered. In view of this, is it not a step in the right direction 
 for wage-earners in the United States to show friendly feel- 
 ing and sympathy toward the fifty varieties of workers 
 in the United States ? The amelioration of the condition 
 of the workers of the world is largely in the hands of 
 American wage-earners, and the only foundation it can 
 safely rest on is cosmopolitan cooperation and sympathy. 
 
 The Americanization worker can help to bring about
 
 44 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 that better day by directing the thoughts of the English- 
 speaking wage-earners along these lines. Sympathy 
 with and friendly feeling for the foreign-born will bless 
 him who gives and him who receives. To all those 
 workers in America who believe in religious ideals, the 
 higher claims of spiritual values in men of all races and 
 creeds will suffice. A large percentage of workers in 
 America worship at altars where men of fifty varieties 
 are found kneeling. If their faith is genuine, their 
 penetration to its meaning thorough, and the significance 
 of a common Father understood, they will not find any 
 difficulty in fraternizing with these men. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 HUMAN NATURE IN POLITICS : Graham Wallas, Part II, Chapter 
 
 IV. 
 RACE FACTORS IN DEMOCRACY : Philip A. Means, Chapter 
 
 VIL 
 
 RUSSIA IN UPHEAVAL : E. A. Ross, Chapter VI. 
 ITALIAN CHARACTERS : Countess Martinengo-Cesaresco. 
 ITALIANS OP TO-DAY : Richard Bagot. 
 THE SLAVS OF THE WAR ZONE : W. F. Bailey. 
 RACE QUESTIONS AND PREJUDICES : Josiah Royce. 
 THE NEW FAR EAST : Thomas F. Millard. 
 THE HISTORY OF THE LITHUANIAN NATION: Kunigas An- 
 
 tanas Jusaitis. 
 
 THE SLOVAKS IN AMERICA : Thomas Capek. 
 WHO ARE THE SLAVS? : Paul R. Radosavljevich.
 
 CHAPTER m 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 
 
 BEGINNERS invariably ask : What shall we do first 
 in Americanization work ? Where shall we begin ? What 
 are the first steps ? This chapter is an attempt to answer 
 these questions. 
 
 Scores of men engaged in Americanization work have 
 made their way to the hearts of foreign-born men because 
 of their native goodness and sympathetic nature. They 
 were pioneers in the work, had no experience to guide 
 them, but they made good because of their strong common 
 sense and their unfeigned sympathy for humanity. No 
 matter how much teaching and training a man has, if he 
 does not possess a large amount of horse sense, a genuine 
 love of humanity, he will never be able to find the path 
 which leads to the hearts of the fifty varieties of immi- 
 grants in the United States. 
 
 All men are not alike ; we differ in customs and habits, 
 and the Americanization worker will soon find this out. 
 He must, however, be prepared to help all classes of foreign- 
 born men in a community. He will see housing conditions 
 which are a disgrace to twentieth-century standards ; he 
 will meet men who either do not know how or do not care 
 to observe sanitary rules in eating; and some who take 
 
 45
 
 46 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 pride in dirt and coarseness rather than in cleanliness 
 and refinement. The earnest worker cannot afford to be 
 fastidious, he must be inured to the objectionable environ- 
 ment or the distasteful habit for the sake of the man whom 
 he serves. A passion for humanity dominates his life, 
 and he is willing to endure all things, if only he may bring 
 men and women to American standards. Taking for 
 granted, then, good judgment and love of humanity 
 God-given qualities which no education can instill the 
 following points will help the director qualified by nature 
 to do Americanization work : 
 
 1. Know the Field. Know the nations living in the 
 city where you serve ; find out from what part of the world 
 they came; see where they live and where they work. 
 Do this wisely and judiciously, and don't spend too 
 long at it. You should begin constructive work as soon 
 as possible. 
 
 It is not necessary for a man to spend a month to find 
 out all the facts about his foreign-born neighbors before 
 he begins work. If he attacks the question in a large 
 city, it is not necessary for him to know all the foreign- 
 born population of that city before beginning work. It 
 is better for him to divide the city into sections and to 
 study one section at a time ; when he knows enough about 
 the foreign-born living in that part of the city, he should 
 begin work let him start something. When the work 
 is well started and faithful volunteer helpers are put in 
 charge of it, he can then attack another section and do the 
 same. Every big city is an aggregation of small centers,
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 47 
 
 and the magnitude of the problem loses its terror when 
 attacked piecemeal. 
 
 In grouping the foreign-born it is well to divide them 
 into the two main divisions : the northwestern and the 
 southeastern Europeans. There are groups which can- 
 not be squeezed into either of these, such as the Asiatics, 
 the Indians, the Africans, and the Malays. These groups 
 are, however, in the minority and will, in the industrial 
 centers of the country, except on the coast, form the minor 
 part of the task confronting the Americanization worker. 
 The peoples of South America, of Mexico, and of Canada, 
 with rare exceptions, will fall into the one or the other of 
 the two main divisions. The reason why this division is 
 advocated is the difference between the peoples who come 
 from these two sections of Europe. It is a difference in 
 civilization due to the cultural environment and industrial 
 development of the several sections of the Continent. 
 The Turk and the Scandinavian differ in culture, in 
 industrial training, in political ideas, in standards of 
 living, in social customs, in religious usages, and in 
 ethical concepts. All this has much to do with the 
 Americanization program. 
 
 The best source of information as to the number and 
 the character of the foreign-born will be the census. The 
 director should not pass by the federal census because it 
 is a few years old. It has its value until the new one 
 appears. The information is generally found in the 
 volume on population under the caption of place of 
 birth. Some states take a census every fifth year of each
 
 48 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 decade, thus supplementing that of the federal govern- 
 ment. These two sources will give the approximate 
 foreign-born population of cities of twenty-five thousand 
 population and over. The number will not be accurate, 
 for no census, however carefully taken, is accurate the day 
 after it is taken. It is a guide which the worker cannot 
 do without, and it is the best available. Other supple- 
 mentary information is needed. This may be secured 
 by investigation. 
 
 If a foreign newspaper is printed in town, the editor 
 knows fairly accurately the number of his countrymen 
 in the city. The postmaster often knows much about 
 the foreign-born people in town ; the mail carrier whose 
 route is in that section of the city where the foreign colony 
 is knows more. The leaders of the respective nationalities 
 should be interviewed. The priest or pastor of the foreign 
 church will know how many families he has in that parish. 
 Storekeepers in the neighborhood will know the people. 
 The political satellite in charge of that ward will be able 
 to tell what is the foreign vote. All these sources of in- 
 formation will help. Of course, the several estimates will 
 not tally, and the worker must compare the figures with 
 those of the census and make his own deductions. But 
 better than exact figures are the contacts he has made. 
 
 2. Know Where the Foreign-born Work. Outside 
 the influence of family, work and working conditions have 
 most to do in shaping the thought and life of the immi- 
 grants. Many foreigners work shifts of ten and twelve 
 hours, and sometimes fourteen hours. They follow the
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 49 
 
 instruction of an English-speaking workman or English- 
 speaking boss. They are under command and no body 
 of men is better disciplined to obedience and hard work. 
 This very dependence of the foreign-born on the English- 
 speaking workmen or management disposes them to take 
 their ideas of America from the conduct of or the treat- 
 ment received from these men. Every foreign-born man 
 coming to America has a high ideal of this country ; if 
 these ideals are abandoned, it is due to their being torn 
 to shreds by unjust and sometimes cruel treatment. 
 
 No one can shape the f oreign-born's ideas of America as 
 can the English-speaking foreman and fellow workman. 
 The tone and the conduct of the foreman can destroy the 
 foreigner's love for America or make him long to be identi- 
 fied with the country. It is often a fact that the first 
 English words learned by the foreign-born are curse words. 
 When they begin to talk English, every other word is an 
 oath of some sort. When they wish to express themselves 
 strongly, it is in a flow of profanity more gross and vulgar 
 than any used by the men from whom they learned to 
 swear. Of course, they do not know the meaning of the 
 words they use and imagine they are doing a clever thing 
 when using them, for the American laughs at them. They 
 were not accustomed to such profanity in the Old World ; 
 they believe that they are being Americanized by copying 
 the profanity of foul-tongued fellow workers. 
 
 It is also well known that unscrupulous foremen im- 
 pose upon the foreign-born by not paying them the stand- 
 ard wage. These bosses take advantage of the ignorance
 
 50 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 of the alien and pride themselves on the supposed fact 
 that he does not know better. In many instances this 
 is the case, but the men do not remain long in their igno- 
 rance ; when they find out that they have been the victims 
 of a hard and unscrupulous taskmaster, the impression 
 will not be easily obliterated. Bodily scars received in 
 the mines go with the man -to the grave, and many scars 
 inflicted on the mind of the foreign-born by coarse and 
 conscienceless men in positions of responsibility are not 
 removed as long as the men live. Foremen and the 
 English-speaking workmen guilty of inflicting wounds of 
 this nature ought to be the objects of as zealous treatment 
 as the foreign-born ; indeed, of the two groups under con- 
 sideration, the English-speaking is farther removed from 
 American democratic ideals than the foreign-born, and 
 need more careful attention, for they hinder the progress 
 of Americanization in the industry. 
 
 The Americanization worker familiar with working con- 
 ditions among foreigners will find them doing the chores 
 in the industries, that is, the unskilled work. It cannot 
 be otherwise, for the vast majority have no mechanical 
 skill. They work in dirt and dust, in heat and steam, in 
 vapor and water, and the question of Americanization is 
 often involved in the question of conditions of employ- 
 ment. Men who work long hours under conditions that 
 are enervating to the strongest men, will not attend eve- 
 ning classes. Men who work eight hours can be organ- 
 ized for educational work. 
 
 What the Americanization worker should know is the
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 51 
 
 conditions under which the foreigners whom he serves 
 work, in order that he may know what to expect. Men 
 who work around vats in a sugar refinery for twelve hours 
 out of every twenty-four will not sit in class for another 
 two hours to learn English, no matter how much they need 
 the instruction. Men who work around blast furnaces 
 or who are employed around coke ovens for twelve hours 
 a day may not work very hard, but they will not come to 
 classes to study. The director will do well to visit the 
 industries employing aliens, see what work they do, what 
 are the working conditions, and what are the hours the 
 men work ; this knowledge will help him in Americaniza- 
 tion work, for then he will know what to expect from the 
 men whom he hopes to teach. 
 
 The worker who knows what work men and women do 
 will be able to adapt the material used in the classroom 
 to meet their need. The foreign-born is very practical. 
 He wants what is useful. The same principle dominates 
 his quest after education. He wants that which he can 
 use in his daily life. The teacher in charge of American- 
 ization work, who knows the work life of the foreign-born, 
 can prepare material to supplement the written lesson 
 which will interest the student. Many teachers fall down 
 right here. They know little or nothing of the work or 
 the working conditions of the immigrant coming to night 
 school. Schoolbooks often used to teach foreigners the 
 English language contain nothing that deals with the 
 work life of the men. They are not tradesmen, they 
 are not skilled workers, they are men engaged in coarse
 
 52 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 work of great variety, and no one book contains material 
 that is of interest to the many types of unskilled workers. 
 
 The promoter should study the work life of foreign- 
 born men and women in the city and discover material 
 which he knows the men need, put it in proper form, and 
 in the normal course given the teachers and workers, bring 
 it to their attention and tell them how best to use it. If the 
 students are men employed in the copper mines of Calumet, 
 they need to learn mining terms, the names of tools used, 
 the process of mining, and working regulations. These 
 are very different from the terms used, the tools handled, 
 and the methods of work in mining coal. When we studied 
 the terms used in the bituminous coal fields of Pennsylvania 
 as compared with those used in the anthracite fields in the 
 same state, we found that two sets of lessons were neces- 
 sary. All illiterates are anxious to write their names, the 
 addresses of their houses, the names of the firms for which 
 they work, the towns in which they live, and the words 
 United States America. These are local matters and 
 must be attended to by the director. 
 
 The men in classes will be glad to see the Americaniza- 
 tion director at their places of work. As stated in an earlier 
 part of this chapter, he should not delay the actual work 
 of helping men until he has completed a thorough investi- 
 gation. Let him begin work as soon as possible, and while 
 projecting constructive work keep up his investigation. 
 He will possibly know many foreigners before he knows 
 anything about their working conditions. When he visits 
 the industries, he will know many men and meet them at
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 53 
 
 their work; they will be glad to see him. This should 
 be the ambition of every Americanization promoter; he 
 should be known in the industry as well as in the class- 
 room. It is only by bringing these two institutions to- 
 gether work and school that the Americanization 
 director can be of practical benefit to the foreign-born. 
 When the leader in Americanism in a city is as well known 
 in the shop as in the school, in the factory as in the forum, 
 in the mill as in the community meeting, then will the 
 best work be done for the foreign-born men and boys. 
 
 3. Know the Foreign Colony. The Americanization 
 worker should know the section of the city in which the 
 foreign-born live. He should be acquainted with their 
 housing conditions, and know what possibilities their 
 particular section offers to house the activities of the 
 proposed program. 
 
 To learn how the foreign-born are housed is important, 
 for then the worker can find much material for suggestion 
 in the classroom. Immigrants live in neither the best 
 houses nor in the best localities in town. Towns wholly 
 made up of immigrants are often unsightly and nasty. 
 This is the case in many mining camps and communities. 
 Manville in New Jersey, Barberton in Ohio, Chicopee 
 in Massachusetts, etc., have not much to recommend 
 them. In cities of industrial importance such as Detroit, 
 Fall River, and Passaic, the foreign-born live in those 
 parts of the city which are the oldest. These sections were 
 once inhabited by the English-speaking people who have 
 moved to better dwellings and a more desirable neighbor-
 
 54 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 hood. It is not unusual to find many families of 
 immigrants living in a house built for one family. Life 
 under such conditions is not what it ought to be, and in 
 many instances decency and proper standards cannot be 
 observed. The Americanization worker should be ac- 
 quainted with conditions, and a lecture given to the foreign 
 group upon the danger of congestion in tenement houses 
 will help them. 
 
 Many foreigners live in housjes which should not stand 
 in a civilized community. Town authorities, if moved by 
 humane considerations, would condemn them as unfit 
 for human occupation. Public conscience is awakening 
 on this question, but it is far from being really awake yet. 
 It is a mistake to imagine that the foreigners do not feel 
 the contempt in which they are held when consigned to 
 live in dwellings not fit to shelter beasts of burden. When 
 I interviewed a priest and asked him about the housing 
 of his parishioners, he said : " Come with me and I will 
 show you." He took me to places that would be purga- 
 tory enough for the sins of a lifetime to have to live in 
 them they were dirty, rickety, dingy, dark, and crowded 
 apartments, and the tenants paid four dollars a week per 
 room rent. 
 
 The director asks : What shall I do ? Rush to print ? 
 No. Bring these things to the attention of the proper 
 people. A public-spirited director did this, and the result 
 is new houses, commodious, sanitary, reasonable in rent, 
 erected for the foreign-born. In another instance, a 
 worker studied the housing conditions of the section of
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 55 
 
 town occupied by the foreign-born, got the facts well in 
 hand, and rushed to print. The immediate result was 
 malodorous publicity regarding community conditions and 
 censure of the manufacturers. All the town was angry, the 
 director had to leave, the tempest lasted a few days, and 
 to-day the wretched housing condition of the foreign- 
 speaking is exactly what it was years ago. I do not pre- 
 tend to say what is the duty of the Americanization 
 director when face to face with housing conditions among 
 foreigners that are unsanitary, inhuman, un-Christian, 
 but the point I wish to make is that he ought to know how 
 the foreign-born live, in order to bring to their attention 
 the housing standard which is considered the minimum 
 under which men in the twentieth century should live. 
 The worker should also learn what possibilities the for- 
 eign colony affords for housing the activities he projects. 
 He needs rooms for classes in English .and natural- 
 ization ;\he needs a place to give a lecture, hold an enter- 
 tainment, etc. These can best be given in the neighbor- 
 hood where the foreign-born live, and in places frequented 
 by them. Some towns planning work for aliens have 
 tried to concentrate it in one place the high school 
 for instance. The high school, if centrally located, is far 
 removed from where the foreign-born live, and these men 
 and women will not walk a mile to classes in English. 
 Classes should be opened in the neighborhood of the homes 
 where they live, in the public school in the foreign colony 
 or in the lodge hall. If the neighborhood is searched 
 diligently, many useful places will be found.
 
 56 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 The places I have found available have been varied : 
 the hall in the rear of the drinking place ; the cooperative 
 hall ; the lodge room ; the rear of a. store ; the dining 
 room of a boarding house; an empty house; a vacant 
 store ; a barber shop after working hours ; a shoe-shining 
 parlor after working hours ; the parochial school ; the 
 church hall ; the public school ; the recreational center. 
 Of course, the group brought together is small; the 
 number in a class should not be more than ten or fifteen ; 
 the dressing room of a public hall has often afforded 
 room enough for a class. 
 
 I have always found foreign-born men most willing to 
 cooperate. Refreshment and restaurant keepers have 
 willingly put the hall or a room at the service of the pro- 
 moter. Priests cooperate by giving the use of church 
 halls and parochial schoolrooms. Men who have empty 
 stores are willing to rent them at reasonable rentals, and 
 in some instances have given the use of a room or two free 
 of charge, with the understanding that they will be vacated 
 when the landlord secures a tenant. When the work is 
 put on a patriotic basis, few indeed are the men who are 
 not willing to aid. 
 
 The use of the public school is commended. The one 
 great trouble is the equipment ; it is designed for the use 
 of children, and when used by adults it is neither comfort- 
 able nor conducive to study. The classrooms for the 
 higher grades are tolerable for certain groups, but when 
 Slavs and Magyars are put in rooms used by fourth and 
 fifth grade pupils, conditions are not favorable to study.
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 57 
 
 In some schools, in sections inhabited by immigrants, the 
 school population is so large that the children can be taught 
 only in the first five grades ; they must be taken elsewhere 
 for the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade work. In these 
 schools, men studying English must sit at desks made for 
 children of ten or eleven years. This means physical 
 discomfort, and the men will not study under such con- 
 ditions, although they would gladly learn our language. 
 We also find in many places a prejudice in the mind of 
 foreigners against assembling for instruction in buildings 
 devoted to the instruction of children. 
 
 The Americanization director by careful study of the 
 community will find many available places to carry on his 
 work. If the foreign-born is to be Americanized, he must 
 be given a place that is convenient and fairly well equipped 
 to meet the needs of men. 
 
 4. Know the Club Life of Immigrants. The Ameri- 
 canization worker should study the club life of the foreign- 
 born. The variety of clubs is great. Most nationalities 
 have organizations that are national in their scope. 
 This is the case with the Poles, Italians, Lithuanians, 
 Slovenes, Greeks ; etc. These societies are headed by 
 men of patriotic sentiment, who sympathize with the 
 program of Americanization. In the Polish National 
 Alliance no one can be a national officer who is not a citi- 
 zen of the United States ; the same is true of branch offi- 
 cers ; and delegates to national conventions must be citi- 
 zens. The order also urges all its members to become 
 citizens, and the national leaders in convention and other-
 
 58 
 
 wise put before the members the advantages to be derived 
 from citizenship. The Slovak National Society has in 
 its constitution a clause urging all its members to learn 
 English and become citizens of the United States. Italian 
 leaders, in the national society, the United Sons of Italy, 
 advocate the same, and some branches are actively pro- 
 moting citizen clubs. 
 
 In many instances the men at the head of branch or- 
 ganizations are anxious to get outside aid, and when a 
 practical program is submitted, they welcome it most 
 cordially. Few indeed are the instances where this is 
 not the state of mind of the leaders. I remember a branch 
 of the Hungarian Society which gave a hearty welcome to 
 the program when presented ; the men agreed to give me 
 a hearing the following Sunday when the members came 
 together. On Sunday I could not get into the lodge. A 
 lawyer a politician blocked my entrance to the meet- 
 ing. It is possible for sinister leaders to defeat the work 
 of Americanization through fear of losing their influence 
 when enlightened agencies enter. Taken as a whole, the 
 leaders of branches of national organizations are favorably 
 disposed to a sane program of Americanization ; the na- 
 tional leaders are invariably so. 
 
 There are many other kinds of societies among the 
 foreign-born. Most of them are benevolent associations, 
 having, besides the weekly benefits paid, an insurance 
 feature. Besides these benefit societies, there are the 
 Falcons among the Poles, the Sokols among the Czechs, 
 and the Turnverein among the Germans. These societies
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 59 
 
 are composed of young men who meet for athletics as well 
 as for social functions. They are invariably sympathetic 
 with the Americanization program, and welcome the help 
 the Americanization promoter can give. Some nationali- 
 ties have clubs for self-improvement and culture. These 
 are found among the Poles, Lithuanians, Slovaks, Finns, 
 Bohemians, Jews, Russians, and others. 
 
 Within recent years many foreign-born men have or- 
 ganized clubs. They are found chiefly among the Slavs 
 and Finns. I have gone into these clubs and found wel- 
 come. The leaders are alert and intelligent. They know 
 that they and their people are handicapped as long as 
 they do not have command of the language of the United 
 States, and they are very eager to secure outside help to 
 learn it. They are also anxious to learn all they can about 
 the American form of government, and are keen on ques- 
 tions of history. The Americanization director should 
 not keep away from these clubs. The better way is to 
 visit them, install classes, give lectures, and conduct dis- 
 cussions, for the greater the light the less dangerous the 
 program of radicalism. If the free atmosphere of Amer- 
 icanism penetrates these clubs, largely made up of radi- 
 cals, the dangerous forms of radicalism will disappear. 
 
 Some foreign-born peoples have political clubs which 
 are ephemeral in character. Most of them are organized 
 before election for the purpose of marshaling the foreign 
 vote; soon after the polling is over the club disbands. 
 In some cities I have found political clubs of a permanent 
 character; all the members are citizens and the leaders
 
 60 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 carry on an active campaign to increase the membership 
 of the club from among their countrymen. Many of the 
 leaders are political aspirants and know that the larger 
 the club the greater their influence in the community. 
 In order to keep in touch with the men on the way to be- 
 come citizens, they open the door of the club to men who 
 have made their declarations of intention to become citi- 
 zens. 
 
 The approach to these clubs is through the officers. 
 The promoter will find out who these men are, put his 
 program before them, state exactly what he is willing to 
 do, and if possible arrange a date on which he can put his 
 program before the members. When he puts the pro- 
 gram before the members, let him emphasize the impor- 
 tance of learning English, the advantages of becoming 
 a citizen of the United States, and the economic oppor- 
 tunities America offers to them and to their children. 
 A demonstration of how English is taught, a lecture on 
 the country from which the men have come, a few songs, 
 etc., are also conducive to winning the men to the adop- 
 tion of the program. In many instances, when the priest 
 or pastor is favorable to the program, the men may be 
 called together by him ; if he urges the men to organize 
 for Americanization, the work will have a good start. 
 
 In dealing with the men be as definite as possible. 
 Settle upon the night on which to meet. Let it be the 
 leader's duty to bring the men together. Keep in touch 
 with the leaders until the group is secured and active. 
 Keep the leaders " sweet " by putting responsibility on
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 61 
 
 them and magnifying them. More will be said on this sub- 
 ject in the chapter on conducting classes. My point now 
 is that the leaders of clubs are the men through whom we 
 must make our approach to the clubs and societies of the 
 foreign-born. 
 
 5. Guard against Prejudice, Curiosity, and Sensa- 
 tionalism. The Americanization worker should throw 
 away prejudice and idle curiosity. Few men live who are 
 free from prejudice. It is in the blood. We must guard 
 against it. 
 
 In no civilized country is race prejudice as strong as 
 in America, and the reason for this is that in no other 
 civilized country is there such a mixture of races. I 
 visited the Hull Department of the New York Shipbuild- 
 ing Company and found there men of forty-two different 
 nationalities. In no other shipyard outside the United 
 States is such a cosmopolitan group found. This is the case 
 in every industrial center in America located north of the 
 Ohio River. Our immigrants have come from every conti- 
 nent and from every clime. In no other country do ex- 
 tremes of civilization meet as in America. Beside the 
 skilled Swede stands the White Russian from the banks of 
 the Upper Dneiper ; assisting an English skilled worker I 
 have seen a Turk, who was as stolid and stupid as any im- 
 migrant who ever crossed the seas. The Englishman never 
 had such a helper before he came to America ; in England 
 he was helped by a man whom he could direct ; in America, 
 within a year, he may have twenty men of twenty different 
 tongues. He does not welcome this, and it is very natural
 
 62 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 that he should look with disdain upon this variety of 
 help. 
 
 About ten million foreign-born persons are found in the 
 industries of America, most of whom talk a language the 
 native worker does not understand. They live under 
 conditions very different from those found among the 
 native-born workers, and their customs and habits are 
 very different from those of Americans. Because of their 
 low standard of living the foreign-born workers can, if 
 they will, cut down the wage and put up with working 
 conditions against which English-speaking workers will 
 protest. The dread of competing with this foreigner is a 
 real factor in American industries. Hence the deep feeling 
 of resentment found in the rank and file of American 
 workers against the foreigner, which intensifies and per- 
 petuates race prejudice in the land. 
 
 The Americanization director will guard against race 
 prejudice. It is found everywhere and to keep clean of 
 this deeply rooted feeling is difficult indeed. He will 
 meet hundreds of men who curse the foreigners. Good 
 men will say it is a waste of effort to try to do anything 
 for them ; they consider them as so many cattle, to be 
 worked hard and left alone. This opinion is not as strong 
 as it was a decade ago, and yet it takes courage either to 
 oppose it or to attempt to correct it. The worker will 
 have to lay his plans deep and well, and his first business 
 is to see that his own heart is swept clean and kept clean 
 of race prejudice. 
 
 Another equally important duty is to avoid idle curi-
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 63 
 
 osity and sensationalism in investigation. The quest for 
 novelty is hard to suppress. When the director for the 
 first time comes in close contact with the foreign-born 
 and their ways, he is tempted to rush into print or expose 
 on the platform the customs and habits which are novel to 
 him. To do this would be folly. When a certain tyro 
 sociologist in a town in New Jersey, in order to arouse the 
 sympathy of contributors, reproduced domestic condi- 
 tions and family practices which he discovered among the 
 foreign-born, he precipitated a row which made short 
 work of the exhibit. 
 
 The Americanization worker will do his best work when 
 he looks sympathetically upon the foreign-born living 
 under new conditions in a new world. Many of these 
 men grew up in agricultural communities; they never 
 saw industrial establishments until they came to America. 
 They know not what it means to work in dirt and dust 
 and finish the day as black as the commodity they handle. 
 They do not know what injury may result to their system 
 by the handling of certain commodities, or the inhaling 
 of certain gases. They will learn this at a high cost. 
 Then, too, living in one room in an agricultural community 
 is very different from living in one room in a tenement dis- 
 trict. Their old habits cling to them ; they do not feel 
 well, and they forget their discomfort in dissipation. All 
 this the sympathetic worker will see ; he can be of great 
 service to the men by suggesting methods of relief, but he 
 must do this in a sympathetic way. Let no one think 
 that the foreign-born does not read the thought and dis-
 
 64 ( THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 cern the motives of the Americanization worker. If he 
 is sympathetic and sincere, he will make friends every 
 day ; if he is curious and hopes to see visions, he will soon 
 be looking for a new field. 
 
 The standard of living in America is higher than in any 
 other part of the world. Many foreign-born men from 
 southeastern Europe come from the poorest sections of 
 Europe. If they are frugal and penurious, they are so 
 by habit, and the habit was contracted under dire neces- 
 sity. Let the director sympathize with men who save 
 and lead the simple life. The variety of standards in 
 eating, housing, and dressing in America among the Eng- 
 lish-speaking is very great. So it is among all nations ; 
 but take the record of immigrants coming to the United 
 States, and few indeed are rejected for malnutrition. 
 
 The point I wish to emphasize here is that the worker, 
 who will find in his work standards of living among the 
 immigrants far removed from those obtaining among the 
 Americans, must not conclude that the men who practice 
 these are barbaric and need civilizing. A white table- 
 cloth, china dishes, silverware, separate dishes for a variety 
 of articles are desirable ; but I have eaten as good a meal 
 as was ever cooked, which was well balanced from the 
 viewpoint of the need of the human body, at a table with- 
 out linen, served in earthenware vessels, eaten with steel 
 knives and forks. Let us stand for a high standard of 
 living, but it will be a mistake to think for a moment that 
 this is to be attained by expensive tableware, costly linen, 
 and gastronomic productions that tempt the palate and
 
 THE APPROACH TO THE FOREIGN-BORN 65 
 
 ruin digestion. For the workers of America a standard 
 must be advocated that is reasonable, simple, wholesome, 
 and within reach of unskilled or semi-skilled wage-earners ; 
 and when this is done, the simple life of the foreign-born 
 will not be a thing to be laughed at or published abroad as 
 a specimen of barbaric custom. The worker will bear 
 this in mind forego idle curiosity, and sympathize 
 with the man who has to raise a large family on less than 
 a thousand 1 dollars a year. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 GREEKS IN AMERICA : Thomas Burgess. 
 
 THE PROMISED LAND : Mary Antin. 
 
 THE JEWS : Maurice Fishberg. 
 
 THE JAPANESE CONQUEST OF AMERICAN OPINION : Montaville 
 
 Flowers. 
 
 APPEAL TO NATIONS : George A. Gordon. 
 LEADERSHIP OF THE NEW AMERICA : Archibald McClure. 
 THE SOCIAL SURVEY : Carol Aronovici. 
 SOCIAL AND RELIGIOUS LIFE OF ITALIANS IN AMERICA : Enrico 
 
 C. Sartorio. 
 NEWER IDEALS OF PEACE: Jane Addams. 
 
 1 The minimum annual income for a family of five is put to-day at fifteen 
 hundred dollars.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 
 
 WHAT are the essentials of Americanization? Many 
 are the programs published, many are the demands made 
 on the foreign-born, many are the varieties of opinions 
 on the subject. Thousands of ah 1 ens have been nat- 
 uralized by professional politicians who needed their votes, 
 thousands have become citizens to please their friends, 
 many take out their naturalization papers for protection 
 of one sort or another, some find the door of citizenship 
 the entrance to an easy livelihood, while some use natural- 
 ization as a tool to strike the land that gave them birth. 
 Not until within the last few years has there been a 
 conscious effort by state and federal agencies to prepare 
 the foreign-born for the duties and obligations of citizen- 
 ship. 
 
 We are not yet out of the woods in this task of preparing 
 aliens to take their places in the family. Leaders differ 
 so widely in their ideas that the men and women who are 
 disposed to help the foreign-born are confused as to what 
 they ought to do in classroom or hall. Some have so 
 broad a program that though they are busy day in and day 
 out, they get nowhere; others are so narrow that they 
 forget the varied interests and relations of the foreign- 
 
 66
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 67 
 
 bom. If one group of leaders had their way, the alien 
 would do little else during the five years of probation 
 than attend school, lectures, demonstrations, readings, 
 etc., in order to come to the stature of the true American ; 
 others believe that sending the alien a printed folder 
 containing questions the judge is likely to ask, together 
 with answers stated in the fewest possible words, is all 
 that is needed. The right course lies somewhere between 
 these two extremes. The teacher must take into con- 
 sideration the character of the pupils he teaches, the time 
 at their disposal, and the standard set by the Bureau of 
 Naturalization and the local court. 
 
 Ideal citizenship has .not yet been realized by any 
 state. How many of the rank and file of industrial 
 workers of native-born parents in America are qualified 
 to exercise intelligently the rights of citizenship ? In the 
 home they play their part well, obey the laws of the 
 state, and discharge their duty in an economic sense, but 
 their knowledge of the form of American government is 
 not large ; they take little interest in the town in which 
 they live ; they go to the polls because the men interested in 
 getting out the vote call on them and it is respectable to 
 vote a certain way. When a small group of Canadians in 
 New York City studied the form of American government, 
 the members of the group had lots of fun putting ques- 
 tions to their native-born fellow workers which they 
 could not answer. Many standards imposed by twen- 
 tieth-century civilization cannot be said to be American 
 any more than they are Canadian or Australian, America,
 
 68 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 however, expects every alien in the United States to put 
 himself in line with American democracy, which differs 
 from other types of democratic rule in the world, and this 
 demand cannot be met by externalities, no matter how 
 well they may conform with twentieth-century standards. 
 
 American democracy is not to be measured by the way 
 a house is furnished, the kind of table the family sets, 
 the quality of the clothes worn by parents and children, 
 or the way they talk. If these standards were applied 
 to the mountaineers of West Virginia, Virginia, and 
 Kentucky, there is cause to fear that their democracy 
 would not stand very high. It is, however, a well-known 
 fact that these mountaineers stood in the van of fighting 
 men in the days of the World War, and gave as good 
 an account^ of themselves as any company of soldiers 
 from the north or west. The workers of America as well 
 as those of Canada and Australia raise their voices 
 against the low standard of living practiced by immi- 
 grants from backward countries. This is justifiable, 
 for in it are involved questions bearing directly upon the 
 present and future of American wage-earners. But the 
 point I wish to emphasize is that externalities, though 
 desirable, are not an essential part of the program of 
 Americanism. 
 
 The essentials of Americanization fall under five heads, 
 which we shall discuss in this chapter. 
 
 1. Teaching English. The alien who does not know 
 the English language will never understand America. 
 Of course, many men who know the language in every
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 69 
 
 particular are as far from the spirit of America as im- 
 perialism is from democracy, but speaking generally of 
 the immigrants coming from foreign-speaking countries 
 to America, we affirm that they will never understand the 
 spirit of this country unless they understand the language 
 of the court and the press, the pulpit and the forum. 
 They may learn much about American history, they may 
 be versed in the form of American government, but they 
 will never understand Americans unless they can con- 
 verse in English, read the American newspaper and maga- 
 zine, and freely mingle in American society. The spirit 
 of America is in the atmosphere where her sons work, 
 where they play, where they discuss the questions of the 
 hour, where they settle the differences that arise in the 
 social, industrial, and political arena, and the man who 
 remains outside this atmosphere because of the barrier 
 of language will remain a stranger in a strange land. 
 
 When we emphasize the importance of learning English, 
 it does not mean that the foreign-speaking in America 
 should forget their mother tongue, it does not mean that 
 they cannot read books in their native language, but it 
 does mean that it is to their interest to speak, read, and 
 write English, and that this is essential before they can 
 understand America and enter into the life of the country. 
 
 We do not propose in this connection to discuss this 
 question from its varied sides. We may state, however, 
 that it is important for the aliens of foreign speech to 
 learn English in order to increase their earnings and to be 
 able to travel freely from place to place in America. It is
 
 70 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 equally important in order that they may gain the 
 economic advantages in trade and commerce. But our 
 prime object just now is to emphasize the fact that an 
 alien will never understand America if he does not 
 understand the language in which the country makes its 
 laws, carries on its business, and publishes its news. I 
 have known thousands of workers in America, who do not 
 know English, who earn good wages and who do good 
 work ; possibly they could not do that job better or get 
 higher wages if they knew our tongue ; there are in the 
 country thousands of foreign-born men who lead model 
 lives as husbands and fathers who do not speak our 
 language ; these would not be better husbands or more 
 provident fathers if they spoke English fluently ; but if 
 they expect to become intelligent American citizens and 
 take part in the social and political life of America, they 
 must come out of their exclusiveness and be able to talk, 
 read, and write the language of the country. 
 
 When I met a foreign-born man who had lived in 
 America for twenty-five years who could not speak the 
 language of the country, I felt instinctively that I spoke 
 to a man who did not think much of the United States. 
 Any one coming to America as a young man, living here 
 for a quarter of a century, and making no effort to 
 learn the language of the country, need not proclaim 
 from the housetop his contempt for the country and its 
 institutions. Such a man has no love for America and 
 her government. There may be, in some instances, ex- 
 tenuating circumstances. A man living in a construction
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 71 
 
 camp or on an isolated farm, or in a secluded mining 
 town may have no opportunity to learn English ; but 
 even under these conditions, if the foreign-born gave due 
 thought to his relation to the country which gives him 
 protection, economic opportunity, a civilized society, and 
 freedom, he would make an honest effort to learn the 
 language of the country. 
 
 Many foreign-born men, in press and on platform, have 
 blamed the United States for their ignorance of the 
 English language, of the history of America, and of the 
 American plan of government. Many Russians now in 
 Russia have made this charge. They say : " When we 
 were in America, no one took interest enough in us to 
 teach us English ; to tell us the story of America ; or 
 instruct us in the form of the American government." 
 This may or may not be true. No national plan has been 
 formed and successfully carried out to teach foreign-born 
 men the English language, American history, and the 
 workings of American democracy. Much has been done 
 in a sporadic way by men and women interested in the 
 foreign-born. The efforts were largely individualistic, 
 lacking standardization, momentum, coordination, or 
 financial backing. 
 
 The war changed all this. Several organizations arose 
 overnight in war days, issued a nation-wide program, 
 with the motto: " Americanize all aliens." Men and 
 women by hundreds went to and fro over this land shouting 
 that the foreign-born were a menace, that measures should 
 be taken to Americanize them, by moral suasion if possible,
 
 72 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 by compulsion if necessary. Unable to get the prompt 
 result they wished, the missionaries brought pressure to 
 bear on the industries employing the foreign-born, to do 
 something for Americanization. In some states laws 
 were proposed to compel not only minors of foreign birth, 
 but also adults ignorant of the English language, to attend 
 evening schools. I do not pretend to pass on the merit of 
 these measures, but one thing I do know, that no economic 
 pressure and no legislative enactment will be effective 
 unless the native-born of native parentage will show a 
 disposition to welcome the foreign-born to the family by 
 kindly sympathy and just treatment. 
 
 If the work of teaching English is properly promoted by 
 men and women who know the foreign-born and sym- 
 pathize with them, there need not be a foreign-speaking 
 man or woman in the United States who will not be asked 
 by some one in the spirit of genuine helpfulness : " Why 
 don't you learn English?" If this is done, and a practical 
 method used by which the foreign-speaking can learn the 
 English language, few indeed are the men under fifty years 
 of age who will not avail themselves of the opportunity 
 to learn. 
 
 If, however, there are any who will not learn the lan- 
 guage of the country, who are so indifferent to American 
 history and institutions as to ignore them, then the 
 United States is not the best place for them. Greater 
 homogeneity is desired among the peoples of America, and 
 will never be attained until we have one medium of 
 communication. When all native-born men and women
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 73 
 
 believe this and work for it, the pressure of public 
 opinion will bring it to pass, and legislative enactment 
 either in Washington or in the several states will not be 
 necessary. 
 
 2. Naturalization. It is the duty of every immigrant 
 in the United States, who has made up his mind to make 
 this country his home, to take out his naturalization 
 papers. He should have ample time to decide this 
 question time to see the nature of the country, to 
 determine whether or not he can make a living in it, to 
 study its political and social life, and to learn what 
 America can offer him and his children. Should he 
 determine to cast his lot with us, then every opportunity 
 should be offered him to secure the rights of citizenship ; 
 if, at the close of the period of probation, he decides not 
 to take out his naturalization papers, then he should 
 return to the land of which he is a citizen. 
 
 As regards naturalization, there are three classes of 
 aliens : first, those who are anxious to become American 
 citizens and welcome help to secure their papers, these 
 form the vast majority ; second, those who are indifferent, 
 who have not given the matter due thought and are un- 
 decided, these form a large group and can be helped 
 to settle the question one way or another according to 
 the conviction of the man who addresses them; third, 
 those who are resolved not to become citizens of the 
 United States because they are so enamored of the 
 government of their native land that they cannot think 
 of changing their allegiance, these form a small per-
 
 74 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 centage and are generally so set in their opinion that it is 
 useless to attempt to change it. 
 
 Can you make an American out of a Slav or an Italian ? 
 is a question often asked. Yes, it can be done. A 
 prominent Slav once said : " You'll never make anything 
 of me but a Serb. I am that by nationality and will 
 always feel like a Serb." True, it would be absurd to 
 assume that he could be transformed into an American 
 in the sense in which he spoke as a Serb. The place of 
 one's birth is settled once for all. One's blood is fixed 
 by nature, the national heritage and racial bent cannot 
 be changed, the traditions and institutions that shape 
 one's life in the plastic period of youth are not of one's 
 choosing all this is beyond control. When we speak 
 of Americanization, it is silly to imagine that we can 
 change the physique or the racial characteristics of men, 
 be they physical or mental or spiritual. And yet we 
 believe that a Serb or an Italian, a Finn or a Greek, 
 can become an American. 
 
 The best analogy is that of one who is a son and a hus- 
 band. Sonship is fixed ; one cannot have more than one 
 mother any more than a man can have more than one 
 birthplace. When, however, the son marries, he enters 
 into new relations which may be said to cut into the filial 
 obligations which up to that hour dominated his life. 
 This is expressed in sacred writ as " leaving father and 
 mother and cleaving to his wife . ' ' The contract he makes in 
 this new relationship is binding, and in the event of conflict 
 of interests, he knows that his first allegiance is to his wife.
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 75 
 
 That is exactly what we mean by the new allegiance 
 to one's adopted country when an alien becomes an Amer- 
 ican. A man cannot forget the land of his birth or blot 
 out of memory the love for the fields and the brooks, 
 the trees and the birds, the songs and the poetry, the 
 heroes and the epochs of his native land. When, however, 
 the alien gives up the allegiance he owes to the sovereign 
 power of the land of his birth and takes the oath of alle- 
 giance to these United States, he should forsake the 
 one and cleave to the other. The man who has sworn 
 allegiance to the United States, when divided between the 
 love of the old and the new, because of conflicting interests, 
 should not for a moment doubt where his duty lies. The 
 country of his adoption should have the first claim upon 
 his love, his resources, and his life. This should be the 
 meaning of naturalization to every alien who comes into 
 the American family. 
 
 The late war showed clearly that this is not the way 
 naturalization in the United States was regarded by 
 thousands of men whose intellectual grasp was of the 
 first order. The naturalized citizens who violated the 
 neutrality of the United States and later, when America 
 entered the war, were pro-entente in their sympathies, 
 were not ignorant of what they were doing. They knew 
 perfectly well what course they were pursuing, what their 
 acts meant in point of law, and what awaited them if 
 arrested and tried ; but in the face of this, they deliberately 
 attempted treason against the country of their adoption. 
 During the World War, eminent men in allied countries
 
 76 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 affirmed that persons from enemy countries had, some 
 years before, secured citizenship in their country for the 
 sole purpose of carrying on propaganda in favor of their 
 native land, and in order to keep their government in- 
 formed as to national sentiment, economic status, and 
 defense in the country where they resided. 
 
 There is reason to believe that many aliens have been 
 made citizens of the United States in such a flimsy way 
 that they never realized the meaning of the oath they took 
 and never thought of its consequences in case difficulties 
 arose between America and the country of their birth. 
 One reason for this is that many men, interested in secur- 
 ing votes, put party interest above patriotism. Their 
 one purpose in securing naturalization papers for aliens 
 was to lead them to the polls as sheep are led to the 
 shambles. Since 1906, a conscious effort has been made, 
 by men knowing the abuses practiced, to raise the standard 
 and lend greater dignity to the process of giving aliens 
 a part in the sovereign power of the nation. 
 
 In many instances, the effort has succeeded. In most 
 cases, however, it has resulted in making it more difficult 
 for the alien to secure naturalization, in opening to petty 
 attorneys a new source of income, and in emphasizing 
 knowledge to the exclusion of all other considerations. 
 There is reason to believe also that in some instances the 
 standard of citizenship is no higher to-day than in the 
 days when aliens were made citizens by the wholesale. 
 The practice is not so gross as when thousands of aliens 
 were made voters overnight, but in cases where politics
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 77 
 
 control the courthouse, from the janitor to the judge, the 
 effort at exaltation of standards and greater dignity of 
 process is defeated by partisan zeal. 
 
 Under these conditions, exalted ideas as to respon- 
 sibility, of duties to discharge, of ideals to be maintained, 
 of sanctity of the election, and of the preservation of 
 democratic institutions are lost to sight. Thousands of 
 foreign-born citizens have the power of the ballot who 
 have not given an hour's thought to the relation of their 
 rights to the future of democracy. They have not 
 imagination enough to comprehend such a relation, and 
 not until the disinterested, public-spirited, and better 
 educated part of the electorate take a larger interest in 
 the naturalization of the foreign-born will the attempt 
 at installing ceremonies which impress the mind of the 
 alien with the dignity, worth, and meaning of the rights 
 of citizenship conferred on him, be of value. 
 
 The excess tax imposed on all alien wage-earners by 
 the law of 1918 drove thousands of foreign-born men to 
 make their declaration of intention to become citizens of 
 the United States. We have reason to believe that many 
 of these people did this to evade the excess taxation. 
 Most aliens did not understand the operation of the law, 
 and many of the men who handled the matter did not sym- 
 pathize enough with the foreign-born to explain it. Foot- 
 loose young men among the foreign-born move fre- 
 quently. This was especially the case during the war 
 and there was no way of finding out what their annual 
 income was. The tax collector guessed at it and simply
 
 78 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 demanded so much money, which the alien had to pay. 
 No one can tell the amount of misunderstanding, irri- 
 tation, and exasperation, caused by this excess taxation on 
 aliens, and it has been one of the greatest allies of the 
 radicals, who cause so much trouble in the land. 
 A greater effort should be made to explain the law, how 
 similar laws were in operation in other countries, and to 
 show that it was only fair for the aliens to bear part of 
 the burden imposed upon the country because of war. 
 
 One of the objectives which the Americanization worker 
 should have in mind is that no opportunity should 
 pass without an effort being made to show the inseparable 
 relation between the health of the city, the kind of educa- 
 tion offered in its schools, the character of public officials, 
 and the conscientious use of the ballot. The sale of a vote 
 means the loss of all that is worth living for in civilized 
 life. The ceremony in the court, culminating in the 
 process of naturalization, should be most impressive. 
 The most sacred usages in the lives of most foreign- 
 born peoples are those of the church. The oath taken 
 at the altar is sacred, and the sanctity of this oath depends 
 largely upon its antiquity and the drapery thrown 
 around it. In the Old World, government in the alien's 
 mind is a sacred institution ; around it is an air of exalted 
 dignity and authority and it commands respect. In 
 America this reverence for antiquity and custom is 
 lacking. The church finds it difficult to maintain that 
 reverence and sanctity pertaining to sacred rites which 
 were wont to be observed in the Old World. The church
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 79 
 
 does this, however, far more successfully than do demo- 
 cratic institutions. 
 
 When an official of high standing passes around the 
 cigars, chews the " cud," wears soiled garments, often 
 greasy and threadbare, frequents low places and violates 
 the prohibition law such conduct is fatal to defer- 
 ence to public officials, dignity of court procedure, 
 reverence for political authority, and' regard for demo- 
 cratic institutions. All this has a bearing upon loyalty 
 and patriotism, and not until our public officials, our 
 court proceedings, and the ceremony of naturalization 
 are surrounded with greater solemnity and dignity, will 
 the rank and file of foreign-born men seeking naturalization 
 have a due appreciation of the rights of citizenship con- 
 ferred upon them. If the foreign-born do not comprehend 
 the meaning of the oath they take, the fault is more ours 
 than theirs. 
 
 3. Lectures and Entertainments. Lectures are de- 
 signed to give information to the foreign-born con- 
 cerning the institutions of the country, the form of our 
 government, and the aim of this Republic ; entertain- 
 ments are means by which the foreign-born may find self- 
 expression and conserve what is best in the culture of his 
 race. 
 
 The lectures should attempt three things : 
 
 (a) To educate the foreign-born in the necessity of 
 physical readjustment and adaptation in a new country. 
 Work in America is very different from work in Europe. 
 The pace is different, the tools are different, the con-
 
 80 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 ditions of work are different, the management is different, 
 and the ways of life are different. The majority of those 
 emigrating from southeastern Europe come from agri- 
 cultural communities ; life and work on the farm in 
 Rumania or in Galicia have nothing in common with life 
 and work in a coal mine, in a steel plant, or in a factory. 
 .Thousands of immigrants lose their health because they 
 believe that they can live exactly as they were wont to 
 do in the Old World while working in the industries of 
 America. They break down and will continue to break 
 down unless they eat more, wash oftener, dissipate less, and 
 sleep in more sanitary quarters. This knowledge can be 
 given by lectures, well illustrated by slides or motion 
 pictures. The wonder is that alien men are able to stand 
 what they do when we consider the food they eat, the 
 work they perform, and the conditions under which they 
 live. 
 
 Six Russians, living in a cellar which during the rainy 
 season was flooded, had to walk to their dirty beds on 
 planks. They prepared their own food, which was com- 
 prised largely of canned goods, and the inevitable void that 
 nature felt was supplied with drink. They worked in 
 the yard of a steel plant, handling pig iron. They were 
 stolid and faithful and earned good wages, but under these 
 conditions it was only a question of time when the 
 strongest would break down. In the discussion of turn- 
 over among foreigners, this point of maladjustment 
 between living conditions and work done is not given 
 the attention it should have.
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 81 
 
 (6) To give the foreign-born a clear understanding of 
 certain laws of the country, the ordinances of the city, 
 and the customs and habits common in the United States. 
 Higher civilization means a multiplicity of laws and 
 ordinances bearing upon the daily life of men in thickly 
 settled communities. These are wholly foreign to aliens 
 from backward countries. A family from the province 
 of Grodno, settling in the city of New York or Chicago, 
 will be face to face with municipal ordinances never dreamt 
 of in an European agricultural community. Take the 
 laws regarding fire and fire escapes ; or regarding offal 
 and garbage ; or regarding food selling and preserva- 
 tion ; the foreigner knows nothing of them and cannot 
 understand why they should be enforced. They are 
 regulations having behind them hundreds of years of 
 civilization, they were put on the statute books of munic- 
 ipalities after long experiences accompanied by loss* of 
 life, or property, and untold suffering. But the simple- 
 minded immigrant from an agricultural community in 
 mid-Russia does not know this and will not understand 
 it. He must first of all pass through a process of thinking 
 that takes time ; he must be given the facts in a language 
 which he can understand ; he must be shown how the 
 carelessness of one may mean the suffering and death 
 of many. When these facts are brought to his attention, 
 he will see the reason for city ordinances, and why they 
 should be enforced. 
 
 The same is true of most state laws which regulate 
 life. Such statutes as that of Pennsylvania that a
 
 82 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 foreign-born alien cannot keep a dog, or that of Michigan 
 that an alien cannot be employed in a barber shop or 
 open up a shop of his own, or that aliens in some states 
 are practically prohibited from holding land, are not com- 
 monly known to the native-born, much less to the foreign- 
 born. Labor laws bear specially upon the interests of the 
 foreign-born wage-earner, so do the regulations regarding 
 wages, child labor, night work, etc. ; but it is safe to say 
 that no effort is made to give the necessary information 
 to immigrants save through the courthouse and the police 
 officer. The same is true of the laws pertaining to 
 compulsory school attendance, the necessity of securing 
 working papers, the regulations about contagious diseases, 
 and the group of laws regulating Sabbath observances, 
 the sale of cigarettes, and the carrying of concealed 
 weapons. These are not known to the immigrant. 
 
 (c) To give the foreign-born a clear understanding of 
 the form of American government, the leading events in 
 American history, the men and women who made sacrifices 
 in laying the foundations of this Republic, the great 
 objective of American democratic ideals. 
 
 The American spirit is the product of the Constitution, 
 the historic development of the country, the activity of 
 legislative bodies and of the courts, the deeds and words of 
 Americans who have stood on the watch towers of Amer- 
 ican democracy, and the conscience of the nation, which 
 is not reflected by any one man or group of men, but 
 which is a positive influence in shaping the lives of all in 
 this Republic. The foreign-born will not come to under-
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 83 
 
 stand the American spirit if he does not get acquainted 
 with the forces that have produced it, as far as these 
 can be brought within the range of his comprehension. 
 For this purpose, a carefully prepared series of lectures 
 should be available, having this educational propaganda 
 especially in view. 
 
 Every American believes that this is " God's country" ; 
 that it is the greatest country under the sun; and that 
 no country has a more promising future. But this is 
 not the opinion of the foreign-born, and it will not be 
 his opinion until a conscious effort is made to show him 
 what America has to offer in the matter of self-govern- 
 ment, in the solution of the question of democracy, in 
 the application of the principles of democracy to the life 
 of a nation, and in the type of men and women produced 
 by democratic institutions. We believe that this can 
 be done. The story of the foundation and the develop- 
 ment, the institutions and their applications, the trials 
 and the triumphs of these United States is full of interest 
 to foreign-born as well as to those born under the " Stars 
 and Stripes." Before the foreign-born can give full- 
 hearted allegiance to America, before he can intelligently 
 support its program, and before he can look with hope to 
 the future, he must catch the spirit that runs through 
 the hundred and forty years of America's life as a nation. 
 
 Entertainments are planned to give the foreign-born 
 self-expression. When immigrants come to America 
 they do not divest their minds and hearts of the good 
 things they have learned in the land of their birth. They
 
 84 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 can throw off their old garments, but they cannot throw 
 off the garment of the soul, and it is neither good for them, 
 nor for us, to throw away the many beautiful things 
 they bring with them from the Old World. The story of 
 their people, the memory of birds and fields and flowers, 
 the songs they learned in childhood, the poetry of their 
 race, the story of their heroes and the epochs of conflict 
 and sacrifice and suffering, their folklore and folk dances, 
 the consecrated musical instruments, their sweet melodies, 
 their art, their science, their national festivals and days 
 sacred to their saints all these and much more they 
 bring to America. No genuine American asks the 
 foreign-born to forget these ; most Americans wish to 
 conserve what is noble and excellent in the culture of all 
 immigrant peoples, and the entertainments for foreign- 
 born peoples are planned with this in mind. 
 
 Americanization has been defined as the combination 
 of what is best in the Old and the New World. The idea 
 is a good one. The man who has a receptive mind is the 
 best neighbor; the same is true of a nation. The 
 Puritan concept of civilization made possible the United 
 States, and much of what we enjoy to-day, much of what 
 we consider worth while in American institutions, owes 
 its origin to that source ; but it would be foolish and 
 narrow to imagine that the Puritan type of civilization 
 is the summum bonum of life. We have drifted far away 
 from the standards laid down by Cotton Mather, John 
 Eliot, and Jonathan Edwards. This drift from Puritan 
 standards is not wholly due to the spirit of the times ;
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 85 
 
 some of it is due to the type of civilization of south- 
 eastern Europeans, which makes life richer and more 
 tolerant. The gay, careless, and shallow life of semi- 
 civilized peoples is inconceivable in the United States, 
 but it is equally true that the intense, rushing, driving, 
 exciting life of America is not ideal. Men are hankering 
 for and will find a way of life that strikes a via media 
 between the cold, stern morality of Puritanism and the 
 red and spicy laxity of Bohemianism. 
 
 4. Recreational Activities. This part of the program 
 has to do with the children of the foreign-born. It is a 
 well-known fact that the hard work of the nation in the 
 North is done by the foreign-born, just as the chores in 
 the Southland are performed by the negroes. This 
 strenuous work makes it inadvisable to plan a program 
 of recreational activity for adults among the foreign-born. 
 It is also a fact that our national games will never be 
 taken up by the men emigrating from Europe to America. 
 Men in their twenties do not take up new games. Group 
 activities may be planned, but these must be of the sim- 
 plest kind. What will be more to the purpose is that 
 the Americanization worker should find out what games 
 the foreign-born have learned and can play, and intro- 
 duce these in the play life of the people. Adult foreigners, 
 however, bent on making a living, will not take much 
 interest in American games, but their sons will and it is 
 they who need direction. 
 
 In every community where the foreign-born are found, 
 the boys need two things direction that they may
 
 86 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 rightly understand America, and leadership that they may 
 justly appreciate the rights of parents to obedience and 
 reverence. 
 
 Thousands of parents cannot understand why their 
 children do not behave in America as they did in the Old 
 World ; when the child falls into the clutches of the law, 
 the parents pay the fine, but do not understand. When 
 a probation officer visits the home, he is not welcomed ; 
 when the officer searches for a juvenile criminal, the 
 parents say America is not a good place to raise a family, 
 no matter what its economic advantages may be. The 
 boys of foreign-born parents are just boys, and all they 
 need is leadership by men who are sympathetic with the 
 boys and their parents, and who see clearly the relation 
 of this work to Americanization. It has often been said 
 that the parents can best be reached through the child ; 
 this is undoubtedly true of the foreigners as well as of the 
 native-born, and the work suggested in this connection 
 is the way to save the parents by saving the boys. If the 
 hearts of the boys are turned to the parents, the gulf 
 separating parents and children will be bridged, and 
 many hearts spared the aches which to-day trouble the 
 homes of foreign-born parents. 
 
 5. Advisory Councils. This means the organization 
 of a few men who are willing to give free advice to the 
 foreign-born who gets into trouble and who does not 
 know how to extricate himself. It is a well-known fact 
 that the majority of cases in courts in districts in which 
 foreign-born people form from twenty to thirty per
 
 THE AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM 87 
 
 cent of the population are those connected with the immi- 
 grant population. Many shyster lawyers prey upon this 
 part of the community and are ever stirring up strife or 
 fanning a petty feud into a lawsuit. In addition to 
 difficulties which result in litigation, there is much de- 
 frauding. Impositions are practiced which could not be 
 practiced on the English-speaking peoples. The foreign- 
 born does not know what to do, but the spider can afford 
 to wait for the blood of his victim. What the immigrant 
 needs is an advisor one who will tell him what his rights 
 are and how he can meet the cunning of the fellow who 
 will sit up night after night laying nets to catch the 
 unwary. 
 
 As to the civil duties involved some foreigners are 
 in difficulties about their naturalization papers ; others 
 have purchased a piece of property and the seller has 
 not dealt squarely with them ; some want a young bride 
 from the old country, and they do not know how to pro- 
 ceed to get her ; others have friends who have come from 
 the Old World and who cannot land, and they know not 
 what to do. All kinds of difficulties arise, and what the 
 foreign-born need above all else is a friend who will advise 
 them in time of need. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 IMMIGRATION AND THE FUTURE AMERICAN RACE : Albert 
 Allemann, Popular Scientific Monthly, Vol. LXXV, pp. 
 585-596. 
 
 THE SCHOOL AND THE IMMIGRANT: Herbert A. Miller, Cleve- 
 land Educational Survey.
 
 88 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 FOREIGN-BORN NEIGHBORS: George W. Tupper. 
 
 POLITICAL PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN DEVELOPMENT: Albert 
 
 Shaw, Chapters II and III, pp. 30-86. 
 AMERICAN IDEALS: Clayton S. Cooper, pp. 229-252. 
 THE EDUCATION OF THE NEW CANADIANS : J. T. M. Anderson. 
 ON BECOMING AN AMERICAN : Horace J. Bridges, pp. 135-150.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 
 
 ALL men of foreign speech living and working in the 
 United States should make an effort to learn the 
 language of the country. Many captains of industries 
 will not employ men who cannot speak the English 
 language, while others insist upon their employees 
 learning it or quitting their jobs. 
 
 To be compelled to learn a language is un-American. 
 Many foreign-speaking peoples were compelled to learn a 
 language other than their mother's tongue. They did 
 not like it and called it Prussianism. Thousands of adult 
 foreigners in America learn English of their free will ; 
 if compulsion is used, they will resent the effort and look 
 upon America as they did upon some European govern- 
 ments. It is advisable to compel foreign-speaking minors 
 to learn our language, but a law to compel adults can 
 never be enforced. 
 
 Compulsion is not necessary. Between eighty and 
 ninety per cent of foreign-speaking persons will join a 
 class in English, providing they are approached by some 
 one having genuine sympathy for and confidence in the for- 
 eigner. The other ten per cent will have valid reasons 
 for not learning and their wishes should be respected. 
 
 89
 
 90 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 When an effort is made in an industry or in the com- 
 munity to enlist the foreign-speaking in classes, certain 
 fundamental principles should be observed. Attention 
 should be given to the difficulties of the foreigners, the 
 organization of classes, the material of the lessons, and 
 the teachers. 
 
 1. The Foreigner's Difficulties. The Americanization 
 teacher should, as far as possible, understand the diffi- 
 culties under which the foreign-born try to learn the 
 English language. One, of the greatest hindrances is 
 the prejudice against the foreigner. Men generally 
 speak of the immigrants as unclean, poverty-stricken, 
 ignorant, and superstitious. The men, women, and 
 children of foreign birth feel this and resent it. Op- 
 probrious epithets are hurled at them ; they are os- 
 tracized ; the community in which they live is generally 
 a section forsaken by the Americans and neglected by 
 the municipality. The foreigners must live in these 
 undesirable sections of our cities, and because of the 
 dirt and the congestion, the self-respecting American 
 looks with disdain upon them. The teacher should guard 
 against this sentiment and make the foreign-speaking 
 pupils feel that, notwithstanding the prejudice they 
 encounter, they can become good American citizens. 
 
 The opinion is also too prevalent that the foreigners 
 are diseased, criminal, and vicious. There is no basis in 
 fact for this indictment, and most people who so charge 
 the foreign-born care little for facts. I have met some 
 persons of foreign birth who were so hurt by this suspi-
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 91 
 
 cion that they would neither learn our language nor as- 
 sociate with Americans. As far as statistics go, the 
 foreign-born adult is less criminal than the native-born, 
 and the money he saves rapidly remedies his impoverished 
 condition. The foreigner knows he is despised and re- 
 jected by Americans, and when he comes to school he is 
 liable to be alert for signs of this contempt. It is the 
 privilege of the teacher to dispel this suspicion and prove 
 that true Americanism does not take the accidental and 
 temporary as the criterion of human value. 
 
 The men and women who come to school are wage- 
 earners. They work hard and come to school tired. 
 If they are sluggish and slow to respond, let the teacher 
 remember that the pace in American industries is tax- 
 ing on the nerves and muscles of workers. Hard work 
 seriously interferes with the process of Americaniza- 
 tion ; men and women who work from ten to twelve hours 
 a day cannot be expected to attend English classes regu- 
 larly for three or four evenings a week. 
 
 Many foreigners come to school in unique garments 
 women come with shawls or kerchiefs over their 
 heads, and their garments are not of American make ; 
 men come in their sheepskin coats, flannel shirts, boots 
 and caps ; some come with hair disheveled, dirty linen, 
 faces and hands unwashed ; these are unpleasant things, 
 and yet for the great work of Americanization, the teacher 
 will not be prejudiced against the pupils. We are all 
 creatures of environment, and it takes time to pass out 
 of the old into the new. Nothing, however, is more
 
 92 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 gratifying to the teacher than to observe the gradual 
 change in dress and personal appearance under his 
 leadership. I have seen a group of Russians and of Mexi- 
 cans so transformed in three months that one would not 
 recognize them as the same people, if one had not been a 
 witness of the transformation. 
 
 A large percentage of some nationalities are illiterate. 
 When classes are organized for these people, the illiterates 
 lag behind the literates. This discourages the laggards 
 and it will task the ingenuity of the teacher to keep up 
 the interest of these men. This has been done in two 
 ways : first, by the aid of volunteer assistants men 
 or women interested in the foreign-born who are will- 
 ing to sit down with the illiterate and give him special 
 help in reading and writing ; second, by putting the 
 backward pupil under the care of one of the brightest, 
 who gives him help in reading and writing. The men- 
 tality of the laggard has much to do with the result. 
 I recall a group of Turks who were illiterate and inca- 
 pable ; the class was conducted in a factory, and the man- 
 agement decided that it was hopeless work. The Turks 
 were dismissed and the effort made with more promising 
 subjects. 
 
 The foreigners have considerable trouble with the 
 sounding of certain letters in English ; this is especially 
 the case with the letters th, v, w, ng, wh, c, r, as well 
 as the sound of some vowels. These difficulties can be 
 overcome only by the teacher's careful enunciation, by 
 special drill in the placing of vocal organs, and by cheer-
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 93 
 
 fulness and perseverance. In this work judgment and 
 common sense must be exercised. Pupils who have 
 great difficulty in correct enunciation should not be wor- 
 ried ; if they do not succeed in one lesson, let the matter 
 rest and take it up again in the next. Always be cheer- 
 ful, encourage the pupil, and your efforts will be crowned 
 with success. 
 
 The art of correct spelling in English is most difficult 
 to the foreign-born. This is largely due to the fact 
 that they nearly all spell phonetically in their own tongue, 
 but in English the same principle will not apply. Spelling 
 English words has to do with the eye, and it is only as 
 the correct form of the word is so retained by this organ 
 that the wrong form will be detected, that the pupil 
 will acquire the art of spelling. The teacher will know 
 rules to aid in this work, such as those for the plural of 
 nouns, the formation of the comparison of adjectives, 
 the formation of adverbs, the regular formation of the 
 past tense of verbs, the prefixes and affixes of words. 
 Other devices may be resorted to, such as grouping words 
 in families, separating the words, calling attention to the 
 effect of silent vowels on the preceding vowel, using 
 colored chalk for emphasis, etc. All these are only 
 aids, however, and the foreigner who learns to spell cor- 
 rectly in English must keep a dictionary near him and 
 never pass a word when in doubt as to the correct spell- 
 ing. Constant watchfulness and long practice is the 
 price to be paid for the mastery of correct spelling in 
 English.
 
 94 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 2. Organizing Classes. The fifteen million foreign- 
 born people in the United States represent more than 
 fifty nationalities. They differ much in appearance, in 
 previous culture, in mental capacity, in temperament, 
 and in the proximity of their mother tongue to Eng- 
 lish or its remoteness from it. A Swede learns English 
 readily ; a Chinese has untold difficulties ; the majority 
 of Portuguese are illiterate ; all Finns can read and write ; 
 the Italian is mercurial, the Lithuanian phlegmatic ; 
 the Syrian is mentally alert ; the White Russian is stolid. 
 These differences in the language, mentality, and tem- 
 perament must be studied before successful schools can 
 be organized. 
 
 In organizing classes, the teacher must take account 
 of race psychology. Every immigrant belongs to some 
 race, and he bears its peculiar stamp, both in mind and in 
 body. Race heritage cannot be cast away at will. 
 Americanization work has made little progress among 
 some peoples in the United States, because we have for- 
 gotten to take account of these formative forces in their 
 mental make-up, and arrange our program accordingly. 
 
 Men who have accumulated an intellectual possession 
 under social systems and political institutions wholly 
 different from those in the United States cannot be put 
 in the same class. When I was on the Pacific coast, 
 I witnessed an effort to organize a class made up of 
 Japanese and Russians. It was not possible, and the 
 teacher never would have courted failure if he had 
 considered the racial heritage of each. It would be an
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 95 
 
 advantage from an educational point of view if all im- 
 migrants could throw off mental peculiarities just as they 
 lay aside the peculiar costumes of their country. We 
 deal, however, with mature minds, which are as furnished 
 rooms, and the occupant often fails to realize why he 
 cannot with propriety join a class made up of men 
 wholly different in mental equipment, tastes, and 
 customs. 
 
 I believe that men and women should be organized 
 into different classes ; the male and the. female are dif- 
 ferent creations ; their life work is different ; their in- 
 terests in life are different. The foreign-born males are 
 employed in the mines, in mills, in factories, in metal 
 works, in rubber works, in chemical plants. If the men 
 are to be helped in their work, they must be taught lessons 
 bearing directly on the work they do. The foreign- 
 speaking female is interested in the home, in domestic 
 service, in textile trades, in needle trades ; a few are 
 found in machine shops, yards, etc., but they are ex- 
 ceptions. In order to help the foreign-speaking woman, 
 the lessons must deal with subjects within the range of 
 her experience ; if this is done, the men will not be in- 
 terested, and vice versa. 
 
 Classes also should be small ; not more than fifteen 
 if the teacher can help it. If the number rises to twenty, 
 better work can be done if the class is divided according 
 to grade. The prime reason for small classes is the need 
 of giving the men individual attention. The differ- 
 ence between man and man in the class is at best so great
 
 96 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 that each must receive personal attention, if good work 
 is to be done. In an industry employing ten thousand 
 men, it is not unusual to find every country in Europe, 
 as well as many countries in South America, Asia, and 
 the islands of the sea, represented among the employees. 
 These men differ greatly in capacity and previous train- 
 ing, and when organized into classes, both teacher and 
 pupils will do their best work when they come together 
 in small groups, carefully classified and graded. 
 
 Attention should be given to the physical condition 
 of the men attending evening classes. A tired body 
 means a slow mind. The harder kinds of physical work 
 unfit men for mental work. Railroad workers go to 
 sleep over their lessons. Foreigners who meet in rooms 
 that are either too cold or too hot are torpid because of 
 atmospheric conditions. The teacher can do much in 
 making the pupils physically comfortable in the class- 
 room, but he is helpless as regards the drain on their 
 energy in the industries. If foreigners attending school 
 work so hard during the day that all their strength is 
 consumed, they will be poor students providing we 
 are able to induce them to join a class at all. 
 
 The classroom should also be adorned with pictures 
 and maps that will impress the pupils with the spirit of 
 America. A good map is necessary, and on the walls 
 should be the pictures of men and women famous in the 
 founding and making of this Republic. The school 
 should be more than simply a place where English is 
 taught it should be a dynamic force driving every foreign-
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 97 
 
 born person frequenting it with irresistible power into 
 the alluring paths of American democracy. 
 
 3. The Material to Be Taught. There are many 
 books on the market to teach the foreigner the English 
 language. All of them have merit, none of them is 
 perfect. There are, however, certain principles to fol- 
 low, no matter what system or book the teacher uses. 
 
 The closer the material of the lesson is tied to the 
 interest of the pupil, the better the result. In the city 
 of Detroit, two thousand children, ignorant of the Eng- 
 lish language, enter the public schools each year. To 
 teach these children our language so that they may enter 
 the grammar grades cannot be done by books, but by 
 play. Put a Polish child of four years among a group of 
 American children, and he has no difficulty in learn- 
 ing the English language. The adult man and woman 
 have their interests in life, and when the lessons bear 
 directly on these interests, the pupils are alert and eager 
 to learn. 
 
 The prime need of every foreign-speaking man is 
 ability to converse in simple, everyday English, about 
 the common affajrs of life. Hence, lessons to help this 
 man and woman to understand the simple sounds of our 
 tongue and to make these sounds, are of first importance. 
 The needs of the foreigners are just the same as our 
 own they want food, shelter, clothing, work, social 
 intercourse, and an understanding of their new environ- 
 ment. Around the foreign-speaking person is a world which 
 is closed to him because of the barrier of language ; our
 
 98 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 work is to help him to enter this larger world. He can 
 do so only as he masters the language of the street and 
 the mart, of the press and the home, of the mine and the 
 mill. Hence, in the classroom, the emphasis for the 
 first three months of English instruction should be on 
 training the ear and the vocal organs, so that the for- 
 eigner may converse in simple, everyday English. Read- 
 ing and writing should not be neglected, but during this 
 period they should take the secondary place. 
 
 The teacher should know thoroughly and well one 
 scientific method of teaching language. Let him choose 
 any master he pleases Gouin, Berlitz, Ollendorf, Rob- 
 ertson, Rosenthal but let him understand his prin- 
 ciples, know how to apply them, and be able to teach 
 in a masterful manner. It is well for the teacher to be 
 conversant with all methods of language teaching, but 
 he should master that which appeals to him and use it 
 in his work. Master one method, be a slave to none. 
 Never lean so hard upon a guide that you lose the use 
 of your own feet and hands. Let the Master Mind be 
 to you what the engines in the steamer are to the cap- 
 tain they drive the ship, but the captain has his hand 
 on the helm to direct the vessel. Keep the gateways 
 of your mental apparatus open, and when you digress, 
 do so with discretion. 
 
 There are certain things men and women wish to do. 
 One of the first things a wise mother teaches her child 
 is the address of the home, and I have not found a child 
 anywhere who did not jump with joy when he first wrote
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 99 
 
 his name. The foreigner wants to write his name in 
 English, and if he is taught to write correctly the ad- 
 dress of the house in which he lives, he feels happy. A 
 Russian in the General Electric plant in Schenectady 
 learned to write his name in English, and so proud was 
 he of his accomplishment that the following day he wrote 
 it in every place he could in the shop in which he worked. 
 In the Standard Oil plant in Bayonne, scores of foreigners 
 had never seen their names spelled correctly until a sym- 
 pathetic teacher took pains to do so, and earned the grati- 
 tude of the men he taught. Many industrial concerns 
 wish the men to sign the pay envelope receipt, and when 
 the men can write their signature, it gratifies both men 
 and company. 
 
 The teacher should study the social and industrial 
 forces acting on the lives of his pupils. The work they 
 perform, their quest for the necessities and comforts of 
 life, the society they frequent, and the church in which 
 they worship, affect their lives as well as that of the 
 whole community. These forces, shaping the lives of 
 men, must be studied. We all want to be understood 
 and the only way the instructors of foreigners may hope 
 to understand their pupils is by studying the various 
 factors contributing to their lives. The school and the 
 industries should be brought closer together ; the teacher 
 and the employer should cooperate. When the United 
 States Steel Corporation brought a man familiar with 
 the processes in the plant and a pedagogue together 
 in order to prepare lessons for its foreigners, it followed
 
 100 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 the path which must be trod by all who expect to give 
 immigrants successful instruction in practical English. 
 
 For pupils who have acquired a knowledge of English 
 equal to that of the child in the sixth grammar grade, a 
 book containing lessons on government, customs and 
 habits in America, epochs in American history, etc., 
 should be used. Every pupil in school who is learning 
 our language should have his face set toward naturaliza- 
 tion, and the more he can learn about the country, the 
 plan of American government, the institutions of the 
 country, and the ways of the American people, the better 
 for him and for us. The shaping of men's and women's 
 minds to the task of playing their part conscientiously 
 and well in this Republic is a task that challenges the best 
 that is in the Americanization worker. 
 
 4. The Teacher. The high calling of teaching foreign- 
 ers the English language should appeal to the best in the 
 men and women forming the army of patriotic educators 
 in America. It is the first step in molding the thought 
 of thousands of aliens whose hearts are kindly disposed 
 toward our country ; and who in turn transmit their im- 
 pressions and ideas to their children. These two groups 
 the immigrants and their descendants make up more 
 than one third of the white population of the nation, and 
 the man and woman guiding and directing these "Ameri- 
 cans in the Making" have an opportunity to influence not 
 only the men learning English in the class, but also their 
 descendants unto the third and fourth generation. It 
 has been said that the America of to-day is largely the
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 101 
 
 product of the thirty-four million immigrants who have 
 landed in the last hundred years ; may we not add that 
 the America of to-morrow will largely be determined by 
 the work of assimilation now carried on by the teachers 
 of the foreign-born and their children? 
 
 The first step in assimilating ninety per cent of those 
 landed in America in the last quarter of a century must 
 take place in the classroom. The other ten per cent 
 know English, which is not always an advantage in the 
 process of assimilation. Ninety out of every hundred 
 must learn our language, which is very difficult. It is, 
 however, a necessary achievement before they may 
 understand America and enjoy its abounding life. To 
 thousands of men, the gate is narrow. Those who know 
 how hard it is for Slavs, Latins, and Turanians to acquire 
 our tongue, feel that a method of teaching should be 
 arranged which conserves the energy of both teacher and 
 pupil. It is therefore advisable that the teacher should 
 carefully choose a scientific and tested system before he 
 begins to teach English. Some believe that they can 
 depend on their own initiative. This the average in- 
 structor can do for a month or two, but he who can 
 depend on it for a year or more is a genius. A method 
 that taxes the ingenuity of the teacher continuously 
 will not work, for it is too severe a drain upon his energy. 
 
 The gulf separating a refined, cultured, and sensitive 
 teacher from some of the most ignorant, illiterate, and 
 unpolished immigrants is often believed to be impassable. 
 Many a kindly disposed school superintendent has failed
 
 102 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 to bridge it. Ought this work to be intrusted to teachers 
 who will have difficulty in descending to the level of the 
 ignorant foreigner, or to persons of little or no culture, 
 who are better able to help the illiterate aliens in their 
 first lessons in English, and guide them in their initial 
 efforts to conform to American habits and customs? 
 The teaching of English to aliens demands the best 
 qualified teachers, and the richer their minds in knowl- 
 edge and culture, the better for the foreigner and the 
 country. The quality of their work, however, will 
 depend as much on warmth of heart as on intellect. The 
 instructor who cannot sympathize with the illiterate 
 foreigner, though he be a master in the art of teaching, 
 would better be assigned to other work. 
 
 Teachers who know most are often not the best to 
 instruct a class of foreigners. Even a man who is peda- 
 gogically untrained, who does not understand scientific 
 principles as to the use of what he knows, is sometimes 
 surprisingly successful in helping illiterate aliens. His 
 success is due to his dominance over their feelings. 
 Bonds of affection are forged between pupils and teacher 
 which cannot be broken without disrupting the organ- 
 ization. The man knows not the art of teaching, but 
 he is a master in winning the hearts of men. 
 
 The work of Americanization needs these two types 
 the trained educator and the untrained leader of men. 
 In every community both kinds are found and should be 
 enlisted. The teaching of foreigners should be in the 
 hands of patriotic and trained teachers, who sympathize
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 103 
 
 with all aliens who want to learn English, but these 
 cultured men will find their work strengthened when they 
 call to their aid less cultured men who know how to win 
 and hold foreign-born adults. 
 
 The Americanization worker should be willing to 
 sacrifice something for these men. He should be will- 
 ing to give more than he receives. He should be the 
 true missionary of American democracy and represent 
 all that is worth while in America. The work is not to 
 be measured by the number of kilograms of energy he 
 loses, but by the molding of men and women into good 
 American citizens. Some of the best men I have seen 
 in the work were not paid a cent. Rain or snow, frost 
 or blizzard could not keep them away from their classes, 
 and no more could the elements keep away the pupils; 
 both pupils and teacher had risen above the level of 
 commercial ties and moved in an atmosphere of mutual 
 love and respect. We need the spirit of self-sacrifice in 
 the work, and men nd women who possess it other 
 things being equal are the ones to be enlisted. The 
 foreign-speaking person wants English, but he wants 
 much more a friend, 'a counselor, a guide. 
 
 The pupils come to school voluntarily. This is to the 
 advantage of the teacher. He deals with men who are 
 conscious of a need, whose minds are active, who are 
 anxious to drink in what he has to impart. Every one 
 present is eager to receive direction and stimulation. 
 The teacher is in the position of a gardener who plants 
 flowers in fertile soil if he does his work well, the plants
 
 104 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 will grow and blossom. Earnest men arejiot discouraged 
 by difficulties. They learn in spite of physical hindrances, 
 unfavorable conditions, little or no equipment they 
 are resolved to learn, and they succeed. Is there a teacher 
 anywhere, with pedagogical instinct, who will not be 
 inspired by a group of adults, assembled in a hall, 
 waiting for him to inoculate them with language and 
 ideas that they may become fit candidates for citizenship 
 in the United States? Men who are eager to drink will 
 quench their thirst with gladness. Happy are the hours 
 they spend in school, for each lesson enlarges their 
 participation in the life of America. 
 
 The pupils should come to class twice a week, and if 
 they insist on more evenings than that, never make it 
 more than three. The evenings should be evenly divided 
 in the week. If it is two nights a week, they should be 
 Monday and Thursday, or Tuesday and Friday, or Wednes- 
 day and Saturday. If the men demand three nights, 
 then they should be alternate evenings. The reason for 
 this is that the pupils need time to digest their lessons. 
 When they are taught four nights in succession, they get 
 more than they can digest, and the result is congestion and 
 confusion. There is no reason why the foreign-born could 
 not assemble for instruction in Americanization on Sunday. 
 This is the day on which they have most leisure, and it is 
 the day on which the foreign-born single man dissipates. 
 Give them a pleasant place to go to learn our language 
 and become acquainted with the men who made America, 
 and it will be a benediction to them and to us.
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 105 
 
 It is not necessary for the teacher to know the language 
 of the group he teaches. Indeed, better progress will 
 be made if the teacher knows nothing of the tongue 
 of the men he teaches ; let him depend wholly on the 
 direct method. The reason for this is that men taught 
 by the direct method will be under pressure to under- 
 stand the teacher when he speaks, and they will do their 
 best to make themselves understood. If the teacher in 
 charge of a class can talk to the men in their mother 
 tongue, the atmosphere of the class will not be English ; 
 the men will contract the habit of thinking in their 
 mother tongue and translating into English, and the 
 idioms of their own language will inevitably creep into 
 the English they learn. In addition to this, the group 
 of foreign-speaking men who secure the services of a 
 native-born teacher will, as a rule, acquire better pro- 
 nunciation and enunciation than they can from a man 
 who has a foreign accent. 
 
 The wise teacher will prepare his lesson. Teachers 
 may think that they know enough English without prep- 
 aration to teach a group of foreigners. If the question 
 of teaching were a matter of talking, their judgment 
 would be right. But talk without a definite aim is not 
 to be thought of in this connection. The conscientious 
 teacher will appear before his class fully prepared to 
 give the men very definite instruction. If he knows 
 his lesson, he will teach in a clear and convincing manner, 
 and the instruction will be tempered according to the 
 capacity and needs of the pupils. If he digresses from the
 
 106 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 mapped-out path, he will do so with judgment. Defi- 
 niteness is the secret of success in teaching. Before 
 each lesson the teacher should know exactly the goal 
 he wants to reach ; if he reaches it, he will have the satis- 
 faction of work well done; if he does not, he should 
 search and find out what is the cause of failure. Give 
 time to the preparation of the lesson, and you will save 
 time for yourself and your pupils in the classroom. The 
 man who knows his work will never be confounded, no 
 matter whp visits the classroom ; he has confidence 
 which comes from mastery ; he moves steadily to the 
 goal and carries his class with him. 
 
 The Americanization teacher must exercise patience 
 and never be weary of well doing. It goes without 
 saying that the teacher must talk plainly, but no matter 
 how plainly he talks the pupils will not master the words 
 and sentences unless he repeats and repeats. How often 
 does the mother repeat a word she wants the child to say. 
 There is no arithmetic table for works of love. Of 
 course, judgment must be exercised in this as in all else ; 
 the teacher cannot repeat and repeat until the dullest 
 member of the class is perfect in pronunciation. He 
 must find a path somewhere between the brightest pupil 
 and the dullest, and, leaning on the side of sympathy 
 with those who find the work most difficult, he will win 
 and hold the brightest. 
 
 The teacher should be a gentleman or a lady at all 
 times. The class will talk as the teacher talks and pro- 
 nounce words as he does. They will not stop at this,
 
 TEACHING ENGLISH 107 
 
 they will copy his dress, act as he does, and watch him 
 when he least suspects it. He is the personification of 
 America to them, and they will love America as they 
 love him. They will be educated far more by his 
 example than by precept. Many men who are illiter- 
 ate have keen insight. They read the mind of the 
 teacher, they feel the sincerity of his patriotism, they 
 estimate his appreciation of American institutions ; they 
 come to know what his views are of American political 
 life ; they sense his valuation of great men, their achieve- 
 ments and their contribution to the nation; they dis- 
 cover what is the glow on the horizon of his outlook into 
 the future of these United States, and they reflect his 
 point of view in feeling, thought, and action. It is this 
 which makes the teacher so potential a force in molding 
 the minds of these coming citizens. He is the motor 
 center on which depends, in a large degree, the direction 
 taken by these souls as related to America. In his 
 hands are the reins which guide and control men who 
 long since saw in a vision the promised land and are 
 now longing to enter it. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 THE ART OP TEACHING AND STUDYING LANGUAGES: Fran- 
 Qois Gouin. 
 
 THE CULTURE OF THE INTELLECT: John Stuart Blackie, 
 Chapter I. 
 
 IDEALISM IN EDUCATION : Herman H. Home, Chapter V. 
 
 EDUCATION OF ADULT IMMIGRANTS: National Education As- 
 sociation, 1915, pp. 439-445.
 
 108 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 ENGLISH FOR COMING AMERICANS : Peter Roberts. 
 
 IMMIGRANT EDUCATION : Annual Report (1916), Commis- 
 sioner of Education. 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF SECONDARY EDUCATION: Alexander Inglis, 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 SCHOOLS OF TOMORROW : John Dewey, Chapter XL 
 
 ENGLISH SOUNDS FOR FOREIGN TONGUES : Sarah Tracey 
 Barrows.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 NATURALIZATION 
 
 MANY more immigrants have come to the United States 
 in the last two decades than the total number of aliens 
 made citizens in the same period. The rights of citi- 
 zenship are conferred on the foreign-born by the United 
 States. The average number admitted per year to citi- 
 zenship in pre-war days was about 100,000 ; the aver- 
 age number of potential voters entering the country 
 annually was more than five times that figure. During 
 the five years from 1914 to 1919, the inflow of aliens fell 
 off from normal about seventy-five per cent ; the net in- 
 crease to the population during this period is less than 
 five hundred thousand 431,884, or approximately 
 86,400 per annum. The tide is again rising. About 
 600,000 will arrive in 1920. If the present rate of 
 increase continues, within a year we will reach pre-war 
 numbers more than a million a year. 
 
 One of the effects of the war was a stimulation of in- 
 terest in the naturalization of aliens. As a result, in 
 1919 about a million men declared their intention to be- ' 
 come citizens and nearly one fourth of that number were 
 made citizens. Notwithstanding this commendable 
 activity, the field of service for naturalization is still 
 
 109
 
 110 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 immense. More than three and a half million male 
 adults in the country are still unnaturalized. If we add 
 to this number the wives of aliens potential voters 
 the total would be between five and six millions. 
 
 There has appeared, in the last few years, commend- 
 able activity on the part of government officials in pro- 
 moting the teaching and the preparation of coming 
 Americans for citizenship. The government has been 
 reluctant to make adequate appropriation to meet the 
 increased work involved in the increased number of 
 applicants ; this, however, will be remedied, so that the 
 congestion now obtaining in courts in first-class cities 
 will be removed. In the present chapter, I will discuss 
 government regulations for coming citizens, and the 
 preparation of foreigners for citizenship. 
 
 1. Government Regulations. The laws governing 
 the naturalization of aliens are made by the federal 
 government ; the conferring of the right of citizenship 
 is in the hands of judges of courts of record. Natural- 
 ization is a privilege ; it is a process of adoption of an 
 alien as one of its own citizens by the national govern- 
 ment of the United States. It is not a right the alien 
 can demand ; it is not a privilege to be secured without 
 strict observance of prescribed regulations. The exe- 
 cution of the legal requirements is vested in the Bureau 
 of Naturalization, which is a branch of the Federal De- 
 partment of Labor. The process of naturalization of 
 aliens is carried on in courts established in the several 
 states. They must be courts of record, and may be county
 
 NATURALIZATION 111 
 
 or district courts and federal courts. The former num- 
 ber about 2300, the latter about 219. 
 
 Some judges say that an alien has no constitutional 
 right in America. This is not correct. The alien may 
 be looked upon as a guest, whose rights grow out of 
 treaties, which are interpreted by the Federal Admin- 
 istrative Department. He has a right to the equal 
 protection of the laws as to immunity from deprivation 
 of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. 
 The opportunity to become a citizen must be petitioned 
 for by the alien, and before he can acquire it, he must 
 possess certain personal qualifications and must conform 
 to positive rules. Immigrants of Aryan and African 
 stock, if they come up to the standard set by the gov- 
 ernment, may be naturalized ; those of Asiatic blood 
 Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Hindus, etc. cannot be 
 naturalized. The law governing the entrance of all 
 nations into America is the same, excepting the Chinese 
 laborer, who is excluded by law. 
 
 When aliens apply for naturalization, the law is that 
 all free white peoples and those of African blood may be 
 naturalized. Hence, those groups from among the 
 Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Malays, Hindus, etc., who 
 are allowed to come into the country cannot become citi- 
 zens. The free white or colored (African) man, if he 
 qualifies, may apply for adoption and be allowed to join 
 the family. Of course, the children of Asiatics, Malays, 
 and Hindus, born in America or its dependencies and living 
 under the jurisdiction of the United States, whose parents
 
 112 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 look upon America as their home, are citizens. If these, 
 however, when of age, decline to live under the juris- 
 diction of the United States, then they take the citi- 
 zenship of their parents. Thousands of young men, 
 descendants of Asiatics, in the coast states and in the 
 Philippine Islands, are to-day citizens of America. 
 The same holds true of native-born sons of aliens of other 
 nations. Of course, if the son of the foreign-born does 
 not wish citizenship in the United States, he must leave 
 the country and take up citizenship in the land whence 
 his father came. In some instances, the government 
 of the country from which the father came will not recog- 
 nize the right of the son to become a subject of America ; 
 if a boy born of Italian parents visits the land of his 
 fathers, he will be looked upon as an Italian subject. 1 
 This introduces the question of dual citizenship, which 
 raises perplexing situations when those who regard them- 
 selves citizens of the United States go abroad. 
 
 The Constitution charges Congress to establish " a 
 uniform rule of naturalization." This it has done and, 
 as far as America is concerned, the naturalized alien is 
 adopted by uniform procedure in every part of the land. 
 The rights of naturalized citizens, however, are deter- 
 mined by international law. If the matter is covered 
 
 1 Membership in a nation originally was wholly dependent on ties of 
 blood or adoption. It had nothing to do with territorial limitations. 
 The doctrine that place of birth determines nationality is, comparatively 
 speaking, of recent date. It only came into existence in the middle of 
 the seventeenth century, at the Peace of Westphalia, and has its origin 
 in the religious freedom guaranteed certain German states.
 
 NATURALIZATION 113 
 
 by international treaty, the rights of adopted sons are 
 clear ; if it is not, then the United States must recognize 
 the validity of the laws of other countries. Hence, 
 we cannot complain if Turkey or Greece or Russia 
 denies the right of its subjects to change their allegiance 
 without the consent of the home government. Uniform- 
 ity in the question of the rights of naturalized citizens 
 can be obtained only when the governments of all 
 civilized countries come together and agree as to the 
 status of naturalized citizens as well as that of sons born 
 to citizens residing abroad. 
 
 During the recent war many young men, sons of for- 
 eign-born, considered themselves American citizens, but 
 found that if they went abroad to the land of their fathers, 
 that government would not regard them as such. Even 
 in the case of immigrants who have become citizens of 
 the United States by naturalization, some European 
 governments will not recognize the validity of the process 
 unless the applicant secures the consent of the home 
 government to the change. An alien from such a coun- 
 try who takes out his naturalization papers without the 
 consent of the government in the fatherland is liable 
 to arrest and imprisonment if he visits his former home. 
 When Germany entered the late war, it had a treaty 
 with the United States recognizing the right of a Ger- 
 man-born alien to become a citizen of America ; the 
 Reichstag, however, abrogated the treaty and made every 
 German of military age born in the United States sub- 
 ject to military service. When an American-born son
 
 114 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 of a Frenchman, who had migrated to America and who 
 had not taken out his naturalization papers, asked the 
 government of the United States whether or not the 
 French government would acknowledge him as an Ameri- 
 can subject if he went to France, the reply was that he 
 had better not try it. 
 
 A United States citizen living in China, who has a 
 son born in that Republic, will never think of his boy 
 as a Chinese citizen ; neither will the government of the 
 United States think of him as a subject of China ; the 
 same is true if a son is born to an American citizen in 
 South America ; citizenship in these instances follows 
 the tie of blood ; but when a male child is born in America 
 of parents who are aliens, the American way is to count 
 the child a citizen of this country ; in other words, we 
 follow the rule that citizenship is determined by the place 
 in which a child may be born, and not according to the 
 blood of the parents. 
 
 An international treaty between two countries in many 
 instances regulates the status of the naturalized. In 
 the absence of such a treaty, the laws regulating the ques- 
 tion of citizenship in the country where the child is born 
 are followed. Among the leading nations of Christendom, 
 citizenship generally follows the tie of blood, especially 
 while the child is a minor; but should the child when 
 he becomes of age express a preference for the country 
 in which he was born, he may be considered a citizen of 
 that country, especially if he has not resided in any 
 other.
 
 NATURALIZATION 115 
 
 The question has often been asked, what is the status 
 of the man who has taken out his first paper ? He is not 
 a citizen of the United States, and he has virtually re- 
 nounced his allegiance to the government of his father- 
 land. Is he a man without a country? By an Act of 
 Congress, passed March 2, 1907, the Secretary of State 
 is authorized to issue a passport to aliens who have 
 declared their intention to become citizens of the United 
 States and who have resided in the country for three 
 continuous years. This passport will give the declarent 
 the protection of the American government in any for- 
 eign country in which he may go, save in the country 
 of his birth and from which he migrated to America. 
 The passport, however, will not be good for more than 
 six months from the date issued. 
 
 If, after the foreign-born is fully naturalized, he re- 
 sides for two successive years in the country from which 
 he came, it will be presumed that he has ceased to be an 
 American citizen. He can, however, present reasons 
 to a diplomatic or consular officer of the United States 
 why the presumption should not become a fact, which 
 reasons will be presented to the Department of State 
 and a decision will be rendered concerning the rules and 
 regulations under which his American citizenship may 
 be made valid. If the naturalized citizen lives in 
 any other foreign country than the land from which he 
 came to America, his citizenship will be presumed to 
 cease after five years' absence from the United States, 
 unless substantial and satisfactory evidence can be pre-
 
 116 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 sented to a diplomatic or consular officer of the United 
 States why it should be considered valid. It is also a 
 law that no American citizen can expatriate himself 
 when America is at war. 
 
 Whenever a man is naturalized, his wife and minor 
 children also become citizens of the United States. If 
 an Italian woman marries an American, she becomes 
 a citizen of the United States ; if, on the other hand, 
 an American woman marries a Canadian, she becomes 
 a Canadian citizen. Should a subject of a foreign gov- 
 ernment die, whose wife was a former subject of the 
 United States, she is free to choose her citizenship. For- 
 eign-born single women can apply for citizenship by fol- 
 lowing the lines laid down by the federal government. 
 The wife of a foreign-born husband cannot apply for citi- 
 zenship. If the husband applies for first papers and 
 dies before the process of naturalization matures, the 
 widow and her minor children may be naturalized with- 
 out making a declaration of intention. 
 
 The nineteenth amendment to the Constitution giving 
 women the right of the franchise is passed. Woman 
 suffrage is now the law of the land. By it the wives of 
 naturalized foreign-speaking men have the right to vote. 
 Many of these women, if they tried to pass the naturaliza- 
 tion examination given aliens in a court of record, would 
 never pass, and the question is justly asked, ought they 
 to be allowed to vote? In states where woman suffrage 
 has been in vogue, some judges demand that the wives 
 of aliens appear before them when the husband applies
 
 NATURALIZATION 117 
 
 for his final papers; if the wife does not qualify, citi- 
 zenship is denied the husband, though he may be per- 
 sonally qualified to enter. 
 
 The government of the United States prescribes the 
 process of naturalization. The immigrant can take out 
 his first paper the day he lands in America, but before he 
 can take out his second paper, he must have been a resident 
 of the United States for five consecutive years. If an 
 alien has been in the country five or more years and has 
 neglected to take out his first paper, when he does this 
 he must wait for two years before he can petition for 
 his second paper. If after he has taken out his first 
 paper he neglects to petition for his second within seven 
 years of the date of issuing the first, he must again make a 
 declaration of intention and wait two more years before 
 he can apply for his second. If the alien has moved 
 from state to state during the five years, he must reside 
 for one year continuously in the state where he expects 
 to get his second paper before he can make his petition, 
 and he can establish the fact of his residence for the other 
 years by the depositions of witnesses. The clerk of the 
 court will furnish blank forms for the depositions neces- 
 sary to establish the fact of his five years' continuous 
 residence in the country. 
 
 When the alien petitions for his second paper, he must 
 take with him his first paper and two witnesses, citizens 
 of the United States, who have known him for more 
 than one year as a resident of the state ; if they can tes- 
 tify to knowing him for five continuous years, so much
 
 118 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 the better. If the witnesses are naturalized citizens, 
 they should take with them their naturalization papers, 
 unless they are well known in the courthouse. After 
 the applicant has made his petition for his second paper, 
 he must wait at least ninety days before he can get a hear- 
 ing. It may be that he will have to wait for more than 
 ninety days. I have known men who have been obliged 
 to wait for two years. When the alien is called before the 
 court, he must bring with him the same two witnesses 
 whom he had when he petitioned for his second paper. 
 If one of them dies, he must get a special permit from 
 the court to substitute another. If during the time he 
 waits to be called into the court for the final examina- 
 tion, he moves to another juridical district, he must 
 make a new petition in the district in which he now re- 
 sides and forfeit the four dollars he paid in the district 
 from which he moved in the same state. The reason 
 for this is that the court will not transfer its original 
 records. When one considers the frequent migration 
 of the foreign-born, we see how difficult it is for him to 
 secure his naturalization papers. 
 
 No one who does not believe in organized government, 
 or who tries to overthrow the present government, or 
 who is a polygamist, or a criminal, or who does not be- 
 lieve in the principles of the American Constitution, 
 or who has a bad moral character, or who does not know 
 how to speak, read, and write the English language, can 
 be made a citizen of the United States. These facts 
 must be proved affirmatively by the applicant for natural-
 
 NATURALIZATION 119 
 
 ization. He must also renounce his former allegiance, 
 and take an oath of allegiance to the United States. 
 
 No court can issue final papers within thirty days of 
 any general election. This may or may not affect the 
 issuing of the first papers, according to the way the clerk 
 of the federal court interprets the law. In most local 
 courts the thirty-day regulation preceding elections is 
 observed in the issuance of the first as well as the second 
 paper. The reason for this regulation seems to be that 
 the granting of citizenship papers immediately before 
 election may lead to abuses similar to those common be- 
 fore the power was limited to courts of record. If this 
 is the spirit of the law, it is far-fetched to apply it to the 
 granting of first papers. 
 
 If the applicant for naturalization carried any heredi- 
 tary title, or if he is a member of any order of nobility 
 in the state or kingdom from which he came, he must 
 renounce the title or the order of nobility, and the re- 
 nunciation must be recorded, before he can be natural- 
 ized. If the applicant wishes to change his name at the 
 time he takes out his naturalization paper, he may do so 
 by notifying the court to this effect. The court will 
 then authorize the change and the certificates of nat- 
 uralization will be issued accordingly. 
 
 The United States government makes special provision 
 for the naturalization of soldiers and sailors. Thou- 
 sands of aliens who joined the United States Army in 
 the last war were taught English and the essentials of 
 citizenship, and were made, without cost to themselves,
 
 120 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 American citizens. The law governing this matter is 
 that any alien, twenty-one years of age or over, who can 
 prove one year's residence, and who has received an 
 honorable discharge from the service, may petition for 
 naturalization without having made a previous declara- 
 tion of intention. The discharge from the service will 
 generally be considered as proof of good moral char- 
 acter. Many aliens, subjects of neutral countries, claimed 
 exemption from military duty at the time of the draft. 
 These find the door of citizenship closed against them. 
 Congress passed a law in 1918 stating that any alien 
 of military age who had taken out his first paper and 
 who gave it up and claimed exemption from the draft, 
 shall forever thereafter be debarred from securing citi- 
 zenship in the United States. The clerk of court, in 
 order to carry out this provision of the law, asks every 
 alien of military age to show his draft card, which de- 
 termines his status as to possible naturalization. 
 
 Any alien who has served in the United States Navy 
 or Marine Corps for not less than four years, or who has 
 completed four years in the Revenue Cutter Service, 
 or the naval auxiliary service, and who has received an 
 honorable discharge or an ordinary discharge with 
 recommendation for reenlistment, may, on application, 
 be admitted to citizenship without any previous declara- 
 tion of intention and without proof of residence on shore ; 
 the court will take the discharge as proof of good moral 
 character and may naturalize him immediately. Any 
 alien seaman, after he has declared his intention to be-
 
 NATURALIZATION 121 
 
 come a citizen of the United States, may petition for 
 naturalization upon production of his certificate of 
 discharge and good conduct during that service, without 
 further proof of residence. 
 
 The penalty for procuring naturalization papers con- 
 trary to the laws of the government of the United States 
 is a fine of not more than five thousand dollars or im- 
 prisonment of not more than five years, or both, and the 
 court will declare such papers void. Any man encour- 
 aging or assisting an alien, who is not entitled to natural- 
 ization, to apply for or to secure naturalization, or who 
 gives false testimony in the case of any applicant, is 
 liable to a like fine or imprisonment or both. No per- 
 son, however, may be tried or punished unless informa- 
 tion is filed and the indictment found, within the five 
 years immediately following the commission of such crime. 
 
 All clerks of court, having jurisdiction in naturaliza- 
 tion matters and exercising the same, must account to 
 the Bureau of Naturalization for all certificates of nat- 
 uralization issued to them. If a certificate is marred 
 in any way so that it cannot be used, it cannot be destroyed 
 but must be returned to the Bureau. If a clerk of the 
 court cannot account for certificates issued to him, he 
 is liable to a fine of fifty dollars for every certificate lost, 
 which may be collected in an action of debt. The clerk 
 of court must send to the Bureau copies of each certifi- 
 cate of declaration and of all petitions for second papers, 
 within thirty days after the application has been received. 
 
 Any person who has dwelt in the United States for five
 
 122 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 continuous years, previous to January 1, 1914, and who, 
 if examined, is found qualified to become a citizen of the 
 United States and has exercised the rights of citizenship 
 wrongfully because of misinformation not intentionally 
 practiced by him, may apply for regular naturalization 
 papers without filing a declaration of intention, providing 
 he can prove to the satisfaction of a court having jurisdic- 
 tion in naturalization that the facts are as stated by him. 
 
 2. Preparing Candidates. What should the alien 
 know before he is taken in as a member of the family? 
 We have, as stated above, about two thousand three 
 hundred local courts and about two hundred nineteen 
 federal courts in which aliens may be naturalized. 
 The judges in these courts determine the requirements 
 of candidates, and the questions they ask are the best 
 criteria of what the foreign-born ought to know before 
 he may be admitted to the rights of citizenship. The 
 judges of the several courts do not ask the same ques- 
 tions ; the individuality of the respective judges has much 
 to do with what the alien ought to know. 
 
 Some judges have very high standards, others sym- 
 pathize so much with the foreign-born that they vir- 
 tually invite the men into the family, knowing that 
 their knowledge of the American form of government is 
 most meager. In many cities where large numbers of 
 aliens are naturalized, booklets have been published by 
 court officials, private concerns, philanthropic societies, 
 and other organizations, based largely on the questions 
 asked by the judge or judges, which serve as guides to
 
 NATURALIZATION 123 
 
 those knocking at the door of citizenship. More ambi- 
 tious outlines of courses are issued in booklet form by 
 municipalities, the states, and the federal government as 
 guides to teachers who aid aliens to prepare for citizenship. 
 
 The deputy examiners of the Naturalization Bureau 
 examine the petitioner for second papers when he makes 
 his application and give him advice according to the 
 knowledge displayed. The deputies in some instances 
 do the bulk of the examining on the day the men appear 
 in court, and the judge is advised as to the knowledge 
 displayed by each candidate as he appears before him. 
 If the candidate is fairly well versed in the form of Ameri- 
 can government, his examination by the judge is brief ; 
 if his knowledge is meager, the judge is more strict. 
 
 The teacher of a group of aliens preparing for Ameri- 
 can citizenship ought to have a very clear idea of what 
 he is to teach the class. The character of the instruc- 
 tion given will be largely determined by the character of 
 the men to be taught. The teacher who takes any book 
 on civics or the courses suggested by city officials and 
 government agents must adapt these according to the 
 character of the men preparing for citizenship. Most 
 of the candidates have little aptitude for study, for they 
 never have studied in their lives ; besides this, they work 
 hard and can come together for instruction only in the 
 evening, after a hard day's work. We have many wage- 
 earners who work eight hours a day ; these men may 
 come to class without serious handicaps. It is very 
 different with men working twelve hours a day.
 
 124 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 In teaching it makes a vast difference whether or not 
 men have had any previous culture, and whether or not 
 they have studied matters of government in the homeland 
 before they came to America. A class of Scandinavians 
 is very different from a class of Ukrainians or Russians. 
 The one is literate and versed in democratic institutions ; 
 the other may be illiterate, never having studied, and 
 having little or no political knowledge of any government. 
 The teacher must also adapt his instruction to men who 
 know the English language. No alien unable to read 
 simple sentences and answer questions in English should 
 be in a class for naturalization. He should be put in a 
 class to learn English. 
 
 Many bi-lingual books are published as guides to aliens 
 preparing for naturalization. Some of these books are 
 printed in three or four languages. It is a mistake for 
 the alien to depend on these aids. The man who uses 
 a bi-lingual book invariably thinks in his mother tongue. 
 He may commit all the book to memory, and, in private, 
 if given the necessary time, will answer the questions 
 asked him in English. When he appears in court, how- 
 ever, he becomes excited and forgets all his English. 
 The best way is for a small group of aliens to meet under 
 the leadership of a competent instructor and discuss in 
 English the form of American government. In this 
 way, the student is trained to understand the question 
 in English, and also drilled to answer in the same tongue ; 
 when he appears in the court room, he will not be con- 
 fused.
 
 NATURALIZATION 125 
 
 The prime interest of the alien wishing citizenship is 
 to pass the naturalization examination. His training 
 must be intensive in the ninety days between the peti- 
 tion and examination, and some critics say: "The 
 course is too narrow ; the instruction ought to be so 
 broad that every duty developing upon citizens should 
 be included." I agree with this ideal, but it cannot be 
 realized save in a few cases. No group of wage-earners 
 are so migratory as the foreign-born, and especially is 
 this the case during the first five years following their 
 entrance into the country. Their first job is generally 
 a hard one with a low wage. They will look around and 
 find another continuously moving, changing work 
 again and again, until they find economic conditions 
 which satisfy them. When a slump comes, the foreigner 
 is the first to be discharged, while in seasonal occupa- 
 tions, such as canning, work on ore docks, in the beet 
 fields, on railroad construction work, etc., the foreign- 
 born makes up the labor force. Add to this the fact 
 that wage-earners in lumber camps and construction 
 work, in metal and coal mines, are predominantly the 
 immigrant group. Another fact is that between thirty 
 and thirty-five per cent of the immigrants return to 
 Europe. The majority of immigrants coming to America 
 have not made up their minds to make this country 
 their home. If things do not go well, they will return. 
 The first year or two are years of economic experiment. 
 They are not eager to attend school during this period, 
 for their faces are set toward the Old World.
 
 126 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 The vast majority of men in civic classes are those 
 who have petitioned for their second papers and are 
 anxious to pass the court examination. They have 
 ninety days in which to prepare and all they can do is 
 to learn the names of a few men and the outline of the 
 American form of government. Some of the best men 
 I have ever known, as far as economic worth, parental 
 virtues, law-abiding qualities, and moral character were 
 concerned, had all they could do to gain in three months 
 a clear idea of the form of American government. The 
 worth of a citizen is not to be estimated in the amount of 
 book knowledge he carries, any more than the value of 
 metal is determined by its luster. We do not in the 
 least disparage knowledge from books, but if our citi- 
 zenry is to be determined by that standard, then the 
 backbone of the country the producing masses 
 will not rank high. If, however, we take the qualities 
 which contribute to the strength of society and the life 
 of a nation family virtues, steady workmanship, ob- 
 servance of law, community spirit then the wage- 
 earners possess these as much as the groups more highly 
 favored in culture. This is true of the foreign-born 
 wage-earners from whom the naturalized aliens come. 
 The intrinsic qualities they possess, making for good citi- 
 zenship, ought to. count when they apply for citizenship 
 in America. 
 
 The way " Coming Americans " are taught in civic 
 classes varies greatly. Some groups, if they are made up 
 of Scandinavians, Britishers, Hollanders, or Germans, meet
 
 NATURALIZATION 127 
 
 once a week for twelve weeks, and acquire a good under- 
 standing of the plan of American government in city, 
 county, state, and nation. A group of Russians, or 
 Italians, or Syrians, though they meet three times a week 
 during the twelve weeks, will not acquire so clear a 
 knowledge of the workings of American democracy. 
 One of the most successful training agencies in a large 
 city is a course of twelve lectures given large groups. 
 The lectures, at the rate of one a week, take just three 
 months. Candidates for naturalization may come into 
 the course at any time and take the twelve lectures. 
 Each lecture is illustrated by slides bearing upon the topic 
 treated. The talk is given by a man who knows the 
 workings of the phase of government dealt with the 
 mayor for the city, a judge for the court, a commissioner 
 for the county, a tax collector for taxes, a councilman for 
 the councils, a representative for the state, a congress- 
 man for Congress, etc. The lecture generally lasts about 
 half an hour. The students at the close of each lecture 
 are divided into groups of ten or fifteen to whom teachers 
 are assigned. The teachers lead their respective classes 
 into rooms where the topic of the lecture is discussed in 
 question and answer form. If the pupils understand, 
 they readily answer the questions the teach'v asks them. 
 If he is satisfied with their knowledge, they are not asked 
 to meet again that week. If, however, they do not 
 answer the questions intelligently, and show a lack of 
 understanding, they are asked to meet another evening 
 for further drill.
 
 128 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 This plan works well. If fifty or more persons are 
 taking a course, some will graduate and leave and their 
 places will be taken by new applicants. If, however, the 
 class is composed of ten or fifteen, the lecture form is not 
 used, but the men are brought together for twelve sessions. 
 The instruction given is in the nature of a seminar the 
 men are encouraged to ask questions and the pupils are 
 drilled in correct answers. The lecture method is never 
 used in class. It would be a serious mistake to try it. 
 The one great purpose of the class is to see that the men 
 possess the knowledge generally required in the examina- 
 tion, and also that they are able to express themselves 
 when a question on government is asked. 
 
 No book in civics will give the local facts pertaining 
 to government in every city and state in the union. The 
 form of city government varies, the governors of states 
 change, and so do the members of Congress and the Presi- 
 dent of the United States. These facts the candidates 
 must know, and the best way to impart them is for the 
 teacher to prepare in sheet form the facts pertaining to 
 the city and state officials, the municipal officers, con- 
 gressmen, president, etc. This can be done in some 
 fifty or seventy-five questions, printed in a form which 
 the pupil can easily carry in his pocket. In addition to 
 this each student should purchase a book that will give 
 him a more thorough knowledge of the x form of Ameri- 
 can government. 
 
 In addition to the instruction given the pupils in school, 
 we have found that it is very good practice to bring the
 
 NATURALIZATION 129 
 
 clerk of the court or the Naturalization Bureau's deputy 
 to talk to the class some evening. It gives the aliens an 
 acquaintance with an official who represents the govern- 
 ment ; they find that he is human and the fear they have 
 of government agents is partly removed. For the same 
 reason, it is good practice to take the men to the court- 
 house and to the room in which they will be examined, 
 so that the place where the test will be applied will not be 
 wholly strange to them. 
 
 A group of men having petitioned for naturalization 
 papers need very definite help ; they will soon graduate, 
 however, and others must be brought into their place if 
 the work is to continue. For this purpose, we find that 
 the successful candidates are the best advertisers. Many 
 foreign-born men in a foreign-speaking community know 
 nothing of the advantages of becoming an American 
 citizen. To overcome this ignorance, lectures should 
 be prepared to bring before these people the importance 
 of the step and the advantages that will accrue to them 
 and to their children. Of these lectures we will speak 
 in the following chapter. 
 
 American products from factory and shop are con- 
 stantly brought to the attention of the foreign-born. 
 If the same persistency and ingenuity were exercised 
 in bringing before these people the greatest of all Ameri- 
 can products American democracy the work of 
 Americanization would progress faster. We are safe in 
 saying that tens of thousands of foreign-born people 
 have come to America, have lived here for a decade,
 
 130 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 have returned to their native land, and all they know of 
 the country is the filthy quarter in which they lived, 
 the unsanitary shop in which they worked, and the vul- 
 gar and profane drinking den in which they found socia- 
 bility. If we have a form, of government of which we are 
 proud, let us tell the foreign-born all he ought to know 
 about it ; let us put before him. that type of democracy 
 which, more than any other, is the hope of humanity ! 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP: Charles A. Beard and Mary Ritter 
 
 Beard. 
 
 ETHICS OF CITIZENSHIP : John McCunn. 
 NATURALIZATION LAWS: Naturalization Bureau, Washington, 
 
 D. C. 
 
 STRAIGHT AMERICA : Frances A. Kellor, Chapter IV. 
 THE SPIRIT OF DEMOCRACY : Charles F. Dole. 
 THE OLD WORLD IN THE NEW : E. A. Ross, Chapter XI. 
 AMERICANIZATION : Royal Dixon, pp. 113-125.
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 
 
 PICTURES are a universal language; they carry a 
 message to all men, no matter what their tongue or color. 
 A decade or so ago the motion picture was hardly 
 known as a means of amusement and education ; to-day 
 men predict that it is to be the university of the future 
 for the culture of the masses. 
 
 Taking foreign-speaking communities as a whole, it is 
 safe to say that the quality and character of the pictures 
 exhibited in them is poor. The buildings frequented by 
 foreigners are generally poorly ventilated, dirty, and shabby 
 in appearance. The advertisement at the entrance of 
 the theater is more highly colored and more blood-curdling 
 than in places frequented by the native-born. The for- 
 eigners need to learn the American way of doing things. 
 In motion pictures, as in all else, they take what America 
 gives. They have no way of expressing their wish, they 
 have no way of registering their protest. They have faith 
 in America. Their children shape their idea of what 
 America is and what it expects of them from the moving 
 pictures exhibited in their district. Very often the scenes 
 shown are not even true to American life. They create 
 
 131
 
 132 
 
 false impressions and misunderstandings and are a 
 hindrance to Americanization. A group of public-spirited 
 men in Washington is engaged in preparing a series of 
 reels that will give the foreign-born a true idea of Ameri- 
 can life, institutions, customs, and habits ; the workings 
 of the American government, and the protection given 
 human liberty under the Constitution. This is work 
 well done and worthy of the backing of every American- 
 ization worker in the land. 
 
 In this chapter we discuss material for lectures and en- 
 tertainments, how to carry on these activities, and the 
 equipment necessary. 
 
 1. Material Needed. One of the first needs is to correct 
 the foreign-born's false notions of what America is. Many 
 in the Old World believe that money is plentiful in 
 America, that a great deal of money is made in the indus- 
 tries, that life is gay and full, and that fortunes are easily 
 accumulated. There is some truth in this. The "prince 
 and the pauper" do change places here. To begin the 
 year a pauper and end it a millionaire is not a dream. 
 An immigrant who began life at three dollars a week and 
 died a multi-millionaire is not a novelty. The error is that 
 immigrants believe that luck and not hard work is at the 
 root of these achievements in America. Whoever rises to 
 affluence nearly always does so by hard work. When 
 immigrants enter the industries and earn high wages they 
 must work hard. The American way is to give good pay 
 to men who earn it. Dreams of riches falling full and free 
 into the laps of men in America are all foolish, and the
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 133 
 
 sooner the immigrant is made to realize this the better. 
 As the country develops industrially and the population 
 increases, there are more of us to run after the plums ; 
 much fine fruit hangs on the industrial tree, and it is 
 picked every day by men who work hard and long and 
 risk much in running after it. The immigrant who 
 enters the race must take his chance. The plums are 
 for him as well as for the native-born. 
 
 Another erroneous idea is that moneyed men in America 
 are untrustworthy, and that the financial institutions of 
 this country are not as sound as those in the homeland. 
 Many immigrants believe that there are more money 
 sharks to the square foot in America than to the square 
 mile in Europe. This accounts for the practice of the 
 foreign-born of hiding money in bedticks, trunks, and 
 such places. This "suspicion should be attacked by the 
 presentation of facts which immigrants cannot learn by 
 themselves. The leaders among the foreign-born can do 
 much to help in this matter. The foreign-born should be 
 told of the development of the country, its resources, its 
 wealth, the extent of its trade, the sweep of its com- 
 merce, the laws protecting the wage-earners, the deposi- 
 tor, and the investor, and that the trade and commerce 
 of a nation cannot be built save on confidence in the 
 well-established financial institutions of the country. 
 Much of this work can be done in cooperation with the 
 men who handle the foreign departments of well-estab- 
 lished banks. 
 
 Many foreign-born men have erroneous ideas about
 
 134 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 liberty and freedom in America. They come from coun- 
 tries where censorship and espionage are common, where 
 custom has a far greater sway over the life of the individ- 
 ual than in America, and where fixed standards are far 
 more uniform than in this country. What wonder is 
 it that they are bewildered and confused in the New 
 World where standards and customs of many races of 
 people clash. When an Italian sees girls giggling and 
 flirting with men on the street, unaccompanied by an 
 escort, he is shocked ; when the pious Scot sees women 
 lighting their cigarettes after luncheon in a first-class 
 hotel and smoking like veterans, he wonders whether or 
 not women are still attractive ; when the thrifty German 
 sees a dinner of seven or eight courses going on and learns 
 what it costs per plate, he wonders how the guests can 
 stand it and where the money comes from ; extravagant 
 dresses, lavish expenditure on amusements, luxuries, and 
 non-essentials in the New World would be shocking waste 
 in European communities ; bounteous eating which tests 
 one's stomach as well as one's morals, a shameful 'number 
 of divorces, and variation in religious worship among those 
 who belong to the same church and profess the same creed, 
 these things shock the foreigner and he asks : " Are 
 all standards to be thrown overboard in America? " All 
 this tends to break down morals and confuse liberty with 
 license. The foreigner must learn that a people capable 
 of self-government is not under tutelage, and that the 
 freedom given to all men is the best safeguard against 
 radicalism and terrorism.
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 135 
 
 Many foreign-born persons believe that they are not given 
 the same chances as the native-born. Some believe that 
 a foreign name is a hindrance to success, that the race to 
 which one belongs counts in the struggle for subsistence. 
 I have not found it so, and I think that the illustrious 
 names of foreign-born men who have succeeded in America 
 contradict this belief. America is the land where love 
 of fair play is dominant. The man who has an idea to 
 sell, who has genius to invent, who can introduce any- 
 thing of practical worth in the nation, finds immediate 
 recognition and a commensurate reward. The best way 
 to correct this error is to call attention to the thousands 
 of foreign-born men in positions of responsibility in com- 
 munity, state, and nation, who are honored and loved 
 because of their worth to society, and whose success is 
 due to the service which they render to society. In 
 America, talent and capacity find their level more directly 
 than in any other country, and Americans are willing to 
 pay for service rendered, no matter where a man may 
 have been born. 
 
 But not only do the foreign-born need to divest them- 
 selves of erroneous ideas, they must also be informed 
 for what America stands. Every foreigner should know 
 something about American history. This does not mean 
 that he should take a course in American history, but it 
 does mean that the epoch-making events which shaped 
 the destiny of this continent and influenced the historic 
 currents of the world should be known to him. As com- 
 pared with European nations, the United States is a young
 
 136 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 nation, but the progress of its democracy has been more 
 influenced by events which have transpired in America in 
 the last two centuries than by those of any country in the 
 Old World. American democracy has changed the ideas 
 of a great many other countries. The American Revo- 
 lution was the first successful attempt made in the history 
 of the world to overthrow kings and to establish a real 
 democracy, unhindered by heritages of past ages or the 
 stratification of societies. The working out of the Con- 
 stitution and the self-imposed limitations proved the 
 capacity of the colonists to overthrow one form of gov- 
 ernment in order to assume another. 
 
 The wars of the United States, as before stated, have in 
 most cases been fought in defense of the weak and for the 
 liberation of the oppressed. This record of conflicts during 
 the past century stands in striking contrast with that of 
 some European nations. It takes a new turn in the story 
 of human conflict, and we believe the turn is in the right 
 direction in the way of righteousness and good will. 
 The story of American diplomacy is one of straightforward 
 dealing and truth telling, and not of prevarication, word 
 fencing, and truth concealing. It has been used to pro- 
 tect the weak and stay the hand of tyranny, to deliver 
 captives and open prison cells, to defend the oppressed 
 and bring mercy and justice into the councils of nations. 
 These facts of American history reflect the spirit of the 
 United States, and should be imprinted on the minds of 
 the foreign-born. 
 
 Another service the lecture can render the foreign-born
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 137 
 
 is to give him an intelligent idea of the geography of 
 America. Few foreigners have a correct idea of the area 
 of the United States, its varied climatic conditions, its 
 agricultural products and the untouched treasures in 
 mountain and plain. Men living in congested areas 
 in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, in Connecticut or 
 New Jersey, in New York or Pennsylvania have no 
 idea of the extent of country to the west and south of 
 them. Their idea of America is what they see in the 
 paved streets and crowded houses in industrial centers. 
 A small .percentage of foreigners has taken up abandoned 
 farms, the fields have flourished and abundant crops are 
 annually harvested. Let their brethren in urban centers 
 learn something about the untilled acreage of the United 
 States, about the density of population, about the appre- 
 ciation of land, and what prospects await them in 
 rural life. The future of America depends as much 
 upon its agricultural development as upon its industries. 
 The lecture is the best way to present American stand- 
 ards to foreign-born. The foreign-born have many virtues 
 - they are thrifty and saving ; they cling to the simple 
 life ; the foreign-born wife is the breadmaker as well as its 
 distributer. When we consider, however, the character 
 of the home and its furnishings, the care of children, 
 sleeping quarters, the comforts and conveniences the 
 family ought to enjoy, the foreign-born are far removed 
 from American standards. The chief hindrance to better 
 things is the penury of the foreigner. 
 
 Many foreign-speaking families live in America as if
 
 138 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 it were merely their boarding place. They do not take 
 root in the land, they simply buy bare necessities and no 
 comforts, their faces are turned continually toward the 
 homeland. Let us give these people an insight into the 
 home of the American workingmen, with its comforts 
 and conveniences, its furnishings and draperies, and its 
 pride in the maintenance of standards which mean family 
 respect, decency, and solidarity. It means a wiser ex- 
 penditure of money for the good of the family and civili- 
 zation. The most damaging poverty of the foreigner's 
 home is that of ideals and culture which feed the heart 
 and mind of the growing family. 
 
 The lecture should also be used to teach the foreign-born 
 what are the regulations regarding fire, regarding garbage, 
 regarding contagious diseases, what the police regulations 
 are ; he should be informed concerning compulsory attend- 
 ance laws, the procuring of working papers, license laws, 
 probation regulations, laws concerning taxes, loans, and 
 all such matters. These are the things which touch the 
 daily life of the foreign-born living in congested commu- 
 nities, and they will take to picture instruction better than 
 to the club of the policeman or the fine of the police court. 
 
 It would, however, be a serious mistake to believe that 
 the foreign-born are to be only recipients of American 
 ideas and standards; they should receive, but they also 
 have something to give. In a former chapter we spoke 
 of the background of immigrant races coming to North 
 America. Each has its culture, its history, its heroes, 
 its songs, its poetry, to give to America, and it will
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 139 
 
 please them if we ask them to sing us their songs and tell 
 us of their heroes. Civilization is the composite produc- 
 tion of countless generations, and America has the oppor- 
 tunity to rise to the highest type of civilization only if 
 the best things in ourselves and in the many peoples 
 coming to our shores are conserved. 
 
 The Liberty Loan campaigns rendered us one especially 
 good service they introduced to the people of our large 
 cities their foreign-born neighbors in native costume. In 
 many communities a night was given to each nationality, 
 when representatives appeared in native costume, singing 
 their native songs and dancing their folk dances, to the 
 amusement and edification of all who witnessed the per- 
 formance. This, I believe, was of greater value to the 
 nation than the sum invested by the foreign-born in bonds. 
 If all the costumes in cities like Chicago or Philadelphia, 
 Pittsburgh or Buffalo were arranged by an artist and 
 made to pass in review before the American people, it 
 would be one of the best lessons ever given in human 
 character. The dresses of the respective peoples very 
 often reflect their mental calibre and artistic taste. 
 
 The foreigners also know the secrets of the culinary 
 art. Simon Lubin has said that the acme of American 
 culinary achievement is " ham and eggs," and the presence 
 of foreign-born cooks in rich American homes and in first- 
 class hotels implies that there is truth in Lubin's remark. 
 A descendant of one of the families who came over on the 
 Mayflower told me recently that there are only three 
 things indigenous to America potatoes, strawberries,
 
 140 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 and tobacco. A great many of, the really good foods 
 have come by importation, and if the peoples of a large 
 American city were to arrange an exhibit of tHe kinds 
 of food consumed by the races dwelling in it, and how to 
 prepare them for use, our diet would be richer and better. 
 
 When we turn from externalities to the riches of the 
 mind, song and poetry, music and drama, philosophy 
 and ethics, we enter a field that has in it inestimable 
 riches. Dvorak, when he lived in America, found music 
 worth while in negro melodies. Suppose a musician of 
 equal capacity were to study the songs which the immi- 
 grants of many nationalities bring to America, would he 
 not make a contribution to the American musical world 
 that would be worth having ? The songs that have stood 
 the test of time are the ones which stir the soul. The nurs- 
 eries of the world are the best conservatories, for heart 
 songs are there, woven into the very mental fiber of the 
 races. This is the case not only with Anglo-Saxon songs, 
 but with those of every land. Every people coming to 
 America has its immortal songs, which are sung only in 
 the foreign-speaking colony. Bring them out to the light 
 and the storehouse of American music will be richer and 
 sweeter. 
 
 The same is true of poetry. We have, through trans- 
 lators, heard the music of the bards of Russia, of Bohemia, 
 of Poland, of Italy, which reveals the yearnings of the 
 souls of men as deep and as strong as we find in our 
 Anglo-Saxon poems. The human heart in its sorrow and 
 joy is pretty much the same, no matter in what clime or
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 141 
 
 tongue it finds expression. Every nation has its poetry 
 and poets which it cherishes. The Ruthenians love their 
 Shevchanko as the Scots love their Bobbie Burns ; Push- 
 kin among the Russians is as well known as Tennyson 
 among the English ; Miskievitch among the Poles is as 
 well known as Longfellow among Americans ; Dante 
 among the Italians is as popular as Goethe among the 
 Germans ; while the Greeks read more of Homer than do 
 Englishmen of Chaucer. If the ideals of the seers of these 
 several peoples were interpreted to America, we should 
 all be better and nobler. 
 
 The literature of the several peoples has much that is 
 worth while. Democracy in America is the realization 
 of European dreams. The beginning of democratic gov- 
 ernment has its roots in Europe. Athens, Rome, the free 
 cities of Italy and of France, were efforts at democratic 
 expression. The merciless Turks practiced despotism 
 in the Balkans for five hundred years, but the democratic 
 spirit of the Slavs was kept alive in the fastnesses of the 
 mountains, and group after group in the nineteenth cen- 
 tury fought its way to self-determination. The story of 
 United Italy is full of heroic sentiment and pristine valor. 
 The chivalry of the House of Savoy, the statesmanship of 
 Cavour, the eloquence of Mazzini, and the heroism of 
 Garibaldi, will stir the American heart as well as that of 
 the Italian. What a story can the Poles tell of their 
 struggle for constitutional government, and of suffering 
 when the supreme crime of the eighteenth century was 
 committed. For more than a hundred years has this brave
 
 142 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 \ 
 people pleaded with humanity for a restoration of their 
 
 land, and at last their prayer is answered by the aid of 
 America. And what shall we say of the Lithuanians, the 
 Letts, the Esthonians, the Finns, the Slovaks, Czechs, 
 Syrians, Armenians, each counting men and women 
 who bled and died for freedom. They were oppressed by 
 the strong arm of militarism, the will of kings made them 
 serfs, submission to authority was the order of the day for 
 centuries, and the only way of escape for brave souls was 
 emigration. Let America listen to the story of these 
 peoples against tyranny, and it will make us all more 
 appreciative of the liberty and freedom guaranteed to all 
 under the Constitution. 
 
 This can be done by entertainments, and the best in- 
 terpreters of the struggles and sufferings of each people 
 for freedom are the men and women of the several races 
 now a part of our population. The Americanization 
 worker has a rich field to draw upon in the background of 
 the foreign-born, and no better use can be made of the 
 material than to suggest that the sons of brave men give 
 to American democracy the loyalty and sacrifice their 
 fathers gave to the cause of freedom in the Old World. 
 
 2. Method of Presentation. Lectures and entertain- 
 ments like that indicated in the previous pages should 
 be promoted. The talks should be illustrated as far as 
 possible, and the more direct and simple the subject 
 matter the better. The best way to address the for- 
 eign-born is to secure a set of slides to illustrate the talk, 
 then explain the pictures in a conversational way in the
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 143 
 
 simplest English possible. If this is done slowly and clearly 
 the foreign-speaking man who knows a little English will 
 be able to understand. 
 
 When motion pictures are used, an effort should be made 
 to leave a deep and clear impression on the mind of the 
 spectators. For this purpose, our subject should be care- 
 fully chosen and everything in the meeting contribute to 
 making a deep impression on the foreign-born. When 
 reels or slides are exhibited to people who know little or no 
 English, the worker should secure an interpreter who will 
 clearly and deliberately translate the explanatory words. 
 Care should be taken to secure a capable man who will, 
 before appearing in the hall, go over the sentences to be 
 translated, in order that he may do his part well. 
 
 Lectures may be given both in and out of doors. This 
 depends upon the season of the year. Whenever weather 
 permits and an audience may be secured, it is better to 
 give the lecture out of doors. 
 
 Motion picture lectures in halls must comply with state 
 laws. The Society of Motion Picture Engineers has 
 adopted the safety standard and four distributing com- 
 panies are now making films of this standard. Most 
 states demand a fireproof booth for the machine. A 
 worker using the safety-standard size has not a very wide 
 range of subjects to draw upon. If he uses the theater- 
 standard size, he must get an asbestos booth ; otherwise, 
 he must limit his work to stereopticon slides. Good work 
 can be done with slides, especially when the lecturer deals 
 with agricultural scenes in the Old and the New World,
 
 144 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 exhibits of industrial development, biographical sketches, 
 types of housing and improvement, gardening and farm- 
 ing, and many other subjects, all of which would be of 
 great interest. 
 
 The place where the lecture or entertainment is given 
 has much to do with its success. If the right approach 
 is made to the leaders, the Americanization director will 
 be able to secure the use of the foreigners' hall or their 
 rented quarters to introduce his program. This was the 
 way the work was started among the Lithuanians of 
 Newark. The director secured the cooperation of the 
 leaders and had the use of the Lithuanian hall for a 
 public meeting. On the evening appointed, he took his 
 lantern and fifty slides and gave an illustrated lecture. 
 Some of the slides were scenes of country life in Lithuania ; 
 others showed types of work done in America; a few 
 showed the naturalized citizen in full possession of his 
 sovereign rights. The hall was well filled. Eight hun- 
 dred people were assembled, men, women, and chil- 
 dren. At the close of the lecture, the women and children 
 went home ; the men stayed to discuss the question of 
 being Americanized. The president of the club addressed 
 the members, stated what the director was willing to do, 
 and asked them what was their wish. They voted to 
 organize for Americanization work. A committee was 
 appointed to make the necessary arrangements with 
 the director. That winter more than a hundred men 
 regularly attended English classes, and sixty of them 
 secured either their first or second papers.
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 145 
 
 It is always advisable for the Americanization director 
 to use the organization already in existence among the 
 foreign-speaking. If it has no hall which answers his 
 purpose, he may secure one in the public school most 
 convenient to the foreigners. Philanthropic agencies, 
 such as the Y. M. C. A., Y. W. C. A., K of C., Y. M. H. A., 
 and all like societies, have halls furnished with motion 
 picture equipment, which may be used for Americaniza- 
 tion work. As the work becomes well established, the 
 men and women will come for a cosmopolitan meeting in 
 a central building where all nations can meet on a com- 
 mon footing and each contribute its part to the evening's 
 entertainment. A special effort should be made to do 
 this once or twice a year. 
 
 Managers of motion picture theaters are kindly disposed 
 to Americanization work and will give place to a good 
 Americanization film if the promoter approaches them. 
 
 The outdoor lectures in the summer are given on the 
 streets, in the parks, in vacant lots, and sometimes on 
 the roofs of buildings. When a lecture is planned in the 
 street, the permission must be secured of the mayor of 
 the city, who details a policeman or two to handle the 
 boys and close the street to traffic. When an empty lot 
 is used, the consent of the owner is necessary. When 
 parks are used, the promoter cooperates with the man or 
 woman in charge of park activities. In some instances a 
 lantern has been operated from the window of a house and 
 a screen hung on the upper story of the house across the 
 street. Lectures have been given in the summer with
 
 146 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 good effect on the roof of a building. Of course, some 
 attraction must go with the motion picture when exhibited 
 in the open air, such as a cornetist or soloist or chimes. 
 One of the most successful programs of outdoor lectures 
 has been projected by the Chicago Y. M. C. A., which, 
 during the summer of 1919, reached no fewer than half 
 a million foreign-speaking people. In the city of New 
 York, the block party plan is used for this purpose. In 
 St. Louis the parks have been very successfully used for 
 the promotion of Americanization and the foreign-born 
 have responded to the message in an astonishing manner. 
 In every audience of foreign-born men more than one 
 people is represented, and the question of interpreters 
 comes up. If four or five races are present, should we 
 use four or five interpreters? My experience is against 
 this. In one instance three groups Polish, Italian, and 
 Russniaks were each assigned a section of the hall and 
 three interpreters secured. During the lecture the three 
 men interpreted simultaneously; the experiment was a 
 decided failure. I have tried one interpreter with varied 
 success. A friend of mine used two lanterns one inter- 
 preting in foreign tongues, and the other showing the 
 pictures; this was not a success, for to look on two 
 screens was annoying and unsatisfactory. Unless I have 
 a good interpreter, I prefer to give the lecture in simple 
 English, talking slowly and clearly, and it is astonishing 
 how much the foreigners will understand. The children 
 are generally present in these exhibitions, and they are 
 good interpreters of the story given to their elders.
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 147 
 
 The Americanization worker should always enlist the 
 cooperation of the foreign-born. Their leaders should be 
 on his committee. If he plans a Polish night, let a Polish 
 committee take charge of the program. The same should 
 be done with every other nationality, and when a cosmo- 
 politan meeting is planned, let all the racial committees 
 come together and plan the event and carry it out. We 
 should never forget the motto, " Work with the foreign- 
 born and not for them." 
 
 It is also silly to insist that all be done in the English 
 language. War-time hysteria has past, and the absurd 
 legislation passed in Iowa that no one should speak in the 
 presence of four other persons in any language save English 
 would better be forgotten. The foreigners will always use 
 their mother tongue in personal intercourse, in culture, in 
 worship, and in public gatherings. Let them use their own 
 language in song and drama, but be sure that the leaders 
 of these meetings are loyal Americans. Under trusted 
 leadership there is no danger of these gatherings fall- 
 ing into the hands of radicals; our one great objective 
 should be to open up the spiritual and cultural heritage of 
 the respective races, increase their interest in poetry, 
 music, art, and literature, and link these interests to the 
 best that is in American democracy. This will be the 
 safest cure for radicalism, for in this is the expulsive 
 power of character-forming activities. 
 
 The Americanization worker should use to the full the 
 national holidays of foreign-born peoples. He should 
 keep on his desk a list of the holidays of the races among
 
 148 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION , 
 
 whom he works, and plan entertainments for these times. 
 He should also use our own national holidays on which to 
 bring all nations together to celebrate the occasion. The 
 true spirit of American democracy can only be expressed 
 when all races come together, when all racial antagonisms, 
 all race prejudices, are laid aside, and all nationalities join 
 in one enthusiastic celebration of an American event which 
 is symbolic of the privilege and blessings they all are in- 
 vited to enjoy. The dominant note in such gatherings 
 should be the cooperation of all in making a better America. 
 A divided people will never realize the acme of twentieth- 
 century civilization. A city divided against itself 
 a little Poland here, a little Italy there, a little Greece 
 in the other corner will ever be handicapped by two 
 codes of ethics and varying standards in family and civic 
 life. It is the case of the Jew and the Samaritan over 
 again, and progress is hindered. Use national holidays to 
 bring to all these peoples the consciousness of community 
 interests. Make them feel that their one aim should be 
 to make the city a good place in which to raise boys and 
 girls, and make them look upon America as their home 
 rather than as a place in which to sojourn temporarily. 
 
 3. Expense Involved. The Americanization worker 
 should have a motion picture machine and a lantern. 
 Some machines have attachments for both- slides and 
 reels, but the worker will save time and energy if he has 
 two equipments. 
 
 The best motion picture machine is the standard theater 
 size. Most Americanization promoters project their work
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 149 
 
 in foreign-speaking communities, and for this work, if one 
 uses the inflammable film, one needs a portable ma- 
 chine and an asbestos booth. This apparatus weighs any- 
 where from one hundred fifty to three hundred pounds 
 a cumbersome load to transport from place to place. 
 Many men are using the safety-standard type machine, 
 weighing from twenty to thirty pounds. This machine, 
 with four films of a thousand feet each, will weigh less than 
 sixty pounds and may be carried from place to place, and 
 the Board of Fire Underwriters approves its use in any 
 hall without a booth. The library for the safety-standard 
 machine is not extensive, but four companies are busy 
 daily adding to the supply. A good portable machine 
 costs between two and three hundred dollars. 
 
 The Americanism Committee of the Motion Picture In- 
 dustry, at the head of which is ex-Secretary of the Interior, 
 Franklin K. Lane, is putting out films on Americaniza- 
 tion, which are distributed through the motion picture 
 theaters, the public schools, and philanthropic organiza- 
 tions. The Committee is producing films treating of 
 epochs in American history, illustrating American cus- 
 toms, the lives of great Americans, the plan of American 
 government, the rights of men under the Constitution. 
 This effort will supply a great need . Before this Committee 
 was organized, the number of films adapted to the work of 
 Americanization was small, some produced by private 
 concerns and designed for other purposes than American- 
 ization. Some of the films of the educational department 
 of film-producing concerns served this purpose well.
 
 150 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 The Americanization worker should consult the local 
 theater man about films ; this man knows what is in the 
 market and can give him useful information. He should 
 consult the catalogues of film exchanges in the district 
 in which he works. Besides these, he should keep in 
 touch with industries, universities, volunteer societies, and 
 all organizations which handle films for distribution. In 
 this way much material may be secured at little cost. He 
 should, however, guard against making a show " cheap " 
 by running poor reels. Money wisely spent on commer- 
 cial films for the promotion of Americanization pays. 
 
 The best light for the lamp is electricity. If the current 
 is in the hall, all the operator needs is to connect with the 
 current. If the current is wanting, he must operate on 
 storage batteries. Before operating in a hall, he should 
 always consult the local authorities as to municipal or- 
 dinances concerning the use of motion picture machines ; 
 he should also find out what the electric current in the 
 hall is, and in every case follow the direction of the en- 
 gineer of the local electric company. 
 
 The success of a lecture depends largely on the skill of 
 the operator. State laws generally demand licensed oper- 
 ators. If the lecture is given in the open, a man of or- 
 dinary mechanical skill can run the machine. If the 
 operator is paid and reels hired, the average cost per 
 night of a good show will amount to twenty-five dollars. 
 This does not include hall rent. 
 
 All foreigners do not live in populous cities ; there are, 
 hundreds of small industrial towns and mining centers
 
 LECTURES AND ENTERTAINMENTS 151 
 
 where they settle. The message of Americanization should 
 be brought to these, and the stereopticon lantern offers 
 decided advantages over the motion picture machine. 
 A good lantern may be had for less than fifty dollars, 
 and a rented set of from fifty to eighty slides will cost 
 between five and six dollars. The Americanization worker 
 will be greatly welcomed in these small towns where little 
 or no information is given on American democracy save 
 that brought in by the teacher in the little red school- 
 house. 
 
 In the projection of entertainments, the only expense 
 involved is the hall rent. Costumes, music, scenery, 
 decoration, a band, and other appliances are taken care of 
 by the committee of foreign-born men. In one of these 
 entertainments the expense amounted to three hundred 
 dollars, which was taken care of by the committee. 
 When the foreign-born is given a chance to display his 
 culture, he gives freely of his time and money, and he is 
 always anxious to bind his effort to the spirit of America. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 RACE FACTORS IN DEMOCRACY: Philip A. Means, Chapter 
 VII. 
 
 ITALY : W. Deecke, Chapter XV. 
 
 THE RUSSIAN ADVANCE : Albert B. Beveridge, Chapter XXV. 
 
 WHAT HAVE THE GREEKS DONE FOR MODERN CIVILIZATION? 
 John P. Mahaffy. 
 
 PLAY IN EDUCATION : Joseph Lee. 
 
 COMMUNITY DRAMA AND PAGEANTRY : Beegle and Craw- 
 ford.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 
 
 " WHAT recreational work can we do for the foreign- 
 born? " is a question many ask. It depends wholly on 
 the group for which we work. The young men who come 
 from the British Isles, or from Canada, may be organized 
 into teams to play football or cricket ; young men of 
 Polish birth will organize a Falcon Society, hire a hall, 
 and carry on physical exercise; a group of Italians will 
 level a piece of ground, get a few wooden balls and play 
 boccie. Every nationality coming to the United States 
 has -its games, and the Americanization worker will do 
 well to study these and see the best ways in which he 
 may induce the men to play. It is a fact, however, that 
 foreign-born adults in America do not play much. I 
 have seen Italians in their forties and fifties playing boccie ; 
 Slavs of the same age playing at ball ; Magyars in middle 
 life interested in the national game, timboli ; but these 
 are exceptions ; whenever this is done, the community 
 is small and made up largely of these peoples, so that 
 the national spirit has free play. 
 
 Among many of the Slavic groups Poles, Czechs, 
 Slovaks the Falcon Society is common. The Germans 
 
 152
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 153 
 
 have their Turnverein. Scandinavians have physical 
 culture societies. The Russians have some societies 
 for physical exercise modeled after the Falcon Societies. 
 The Finns have many halls in which social gatherings 
 and some physical culture are carried on. The Balkan 
 peoples the Serbs, the Rumanians, the Bulgars are 
 among the newer immigrants and are not yet organized 
 for physical culture. The Greeks are very fond of ath- 
 letic exercises, but few are the clubs which exist for this 
 purpose; they generally patronize gymnasiums in the 
 cities in which they live. 
 
 The foreign-born physical culture organizations manage 
 their affairs well, having a definite local program, and they 
 are generally connected with the parent organization in 
 the Old World. This is especially the case with the Scan- 
 dinavians, the Polish Falcons, the German Turnverein, 
 and the British groups. They play the games and prac- 
 tice the exercises suggested by their fellow countrymen 
 in the Old World, and when anniversary meets take 
 place it is not unusual for groups from the United 
 States to cross the seas and take part in them. These 
 organizations are well able to take care of their own 
 affairs ; the only point I wish to emphasize is that this 
 field offers the finest opportunity for the promotion of 
 the Americanization program. The native-born, who 
 are organized into athletic associations, affiliate with 
 these foreign-born organizations and bring to pass a more 
 thorough American spirit in the groups than is done in 
 any other line of approach. The foreign-speaking young
 
 154 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 men, belonging to athletic associations, are brought into 
 friendly relationship with the members of the American 
 Athletic Association, and the contact and rivalry benefit 
 both parties. 
 
 The group, however, in every foreign-speaking com- 
 munity that needs special attention is composed of the 
 sons of the foreign-born. Little or no attention is given 
 to the sons of foreigners. Some Boy Scout chapters 
 are found among the sons of the foreign-born, but these 
 are as oases in the desert. Some Italian clubs for boys are 
 found in cities where that nationality is numerically 
 strong. Settlements organize clubs for the sons and 
 daughters of the foreign-born. The vast majority of boys 
 and girls of foreign parentage, however, are without 
 leadership of the right kind to help them to adjust their 
 life to America. 
 
 In this chapter we discuss the question of recreational 
 activity for the sons of foreign-born men. The girls need 
 help also, but the boy problem according to my judgment 
 is the more serious. 
 
 1. The Need. " The destruction of the poor is their 
 poverty." This is the case with the sons of the foreign- 
 born. Immigrants have large families, and the wages 
 earned are barely enough to provide them with house, food, 
 and clothing. Parents are not able to give anything to the 
 boy living in a city where the stores are bulging with goods, 
 where the moving picture theaters with thrilling placards 
 and shining lights invite him, and where soda fountains and 
 candy shops appeal to his appetite. His home is cramped,
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 155 
 
 his clothing scant, and the standard by which the parents 
 were raised in the poverty and penury of the Old World 
 is the one by which they raise their children in the New. 
 The boy sees the children of the native-born better 
 dressed, better housed, and having more of the luxuries 
 of life to enjoy. Under these conditions, it is hard for 
 him to walk straight. He wants some pleasures, he would 
 enjoy some of the sweets of the shop and the bakery, 
 he wants to go to the pictures, to the soda fountain, to the 
 baseball park, but they are out of his reach. Under the 
 strain, many of them obtain money in a way they should 
 not. 
 
 All sons of the many types of foreigners are not the 
 same. They vary as their fathers vary. Thomas Chew, 
 who is in charge of the Boys' Club in Fall River, describes 
 the sons of French Canadians as follows : " The French 
 Canadians are behind our American-born boys. I am 
 pretty sure that they comprise almost every illiterate 
 boy in Fall River. They are behind the other boys in 
 playing games. They need educating in play and in 
 trustworthiness. They lack the honor sense. I don't 
 see how I could put them on their honor, as we do other 
 boys they would hardly know what I meant. They 
 do well under the care of an Americanized boy. Probably 
 they will become better citizens in another generation or 
 two." Compare that with the characteristics of the 
 Jewish boy as portrayed by G. W. Morgan, of the Edu- 
 cational Alliance : " One of the most striking traits of the 
 Jewish character is its intensity . . . the Jew is developed
 
 156 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 mentally at the expense of the complementary sides of 
 his nature. It is said of the Irishman that if he cannot 
 easily pick a quarrel, he begins to step on his neighbor's 
 toes as he spits on his own hands and prepares for a 
 clinch. ... If a Jewish boy cannot agree with his com- 
 panion on some subject, he begins a volley of pointed 
 querying to establish by what chain of reasoning his 
 companion can possibly agree with him ... the strength 
 of his passions is his distinguishing trait. His nerves 
 are tuned to a high pitch and readily responsive to the 
 sympathetic touch. His plans once formed, he will plod 
 for years as days, cope with difficulties if surmountable, 
 and if otherwise, bide his time until conditions change. 
 ... The Jew is an extremist." 
 
 The Italian boy is emotional, and yet possesses native 
 shrewdness ; he is far from being a Puritan, and still he 
 loves justice, he believes in democracy, he is courteous 
 in manner and speech, he knows how to drive a bargain 
 and can be generous ; he knows human nature and 
 dreads to be considered a coward. The Slavic boy differs 
 much from this. He is slower than the Jew and Italian, 
 but has greater perseverance than the latter. He is a 
 dreamer, but keeps his feet squarely on the ground. He is 
 genial and good-natured, but he also will fight and can be 
 brutal when in anger. He will endure wrong rather than 
 make a fuss, but if once this boy takes a stand, he is 
 hard to move. 
 
 Of course, the idiosyncrasies of the race are modified 
 in the sons. Rev. E. C. Sartorio, speaking of the Italians
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 157 
 
 of the second generation, says : " The Italian youth of the 
 second generation oftentimes loses the simplicity, the 
 temperance, the love of family, and the spirit of economy 
 of his father without acquiring the generosity, the sober- 
 ness of habits, the truthfulness, the sense of justice and the 
 respect for the law of the true American." It is often 
 observed that the sons of Slavs lose many of the virtues 
 of their fathers, who are " simple, religious, humble and 
 quiet, industrious, and very skillful in domestic manu- 
 factures, and happiest when plowing, sowing, and reap- 
 ing." The second generation of Slavs are not as willing 
 as their fathers to lead the simple life, to do the hard work 
 in coal mines and in steel and iron plants ; neither are 
 they as industrious. Some one has said that this de- 
 parture from the simple life of the fathers is degeneracy, 
 a falling down to modern barbarism. 
 
 This is inevitable, and possibly the public school and 
 American institutions account for it. Standards in 
 public education and social intercourse in America 
 differ much from those in Europe. The child of the immi- 
 grant stands between these two standards. Under the 
 idea of equality and liberty, he breaks away from the 
 standards in the home and from the control of the parents, 
 and drifts. The parents cannot control him, the teachers 
 in the grammar schools, although fine young women, 
 do not appeal to the growing lad, and being in the land of 
 opportunity he makes use of it in ways that are degener- 
 ating to him and a menace to society. 
 
 The vast majority of the newer immigrants live in
 
 158 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 cities. As a rule they are poorly housed. They live 
 in homes abandoned by former generations of immi- 
 grants ; rents are high, accommodations poor, and play- 
 grounds scarce. If the family has three rooms, it is 
 doing well. In the three rooms live five or more children 
 and the parents. The children must play in the street, 
 and home to many of them means little more than a 
 place where they sleep and eat. The boy comes to 
 puberty with very imperfect ideas of American standards. 
 He drifts farther and farther from the influence of home, 
 and does not come under wholesome American leadership. 
 Under these conditions, it is not surprising that the boy 
 will not follow the simple life of his parents ; will get into 
 difficulties ; and will raise his hand against the society 
 which he does not understand. 
 
 Nine tenths of the foreigners were raised in the open 
 country where " God's face could be seen and His ways 
 known to the humblest peasant." The sons in America 
 are raised in the streets and there is no " Angelus," 
 no evening star, no tree or flower, no stream with soft 
 music, and no field where they may wrestle and roll and 
 gather bouquets. The hard streets, the harder curb- 
 stone, and the still harder x laws behind the policeman's 
 stick these meet the sons of immigrants. If they 
 could only get the same environment as their parents 
 had, they would have a better chance to retain the 
 simple virtues which adorn their fathers' lives. 
 
 An effort is made here and there to remedy the defect 
 by parks. It is a good thing as far as it goes. Some of
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 159 
 
 our cities have succeeded far better than others. I know 
 a park three acres in area, on which face three churches, 
 and in a radius of half a mile live twenty thousand immi- 
 grants. The park has trees, flowers, velvety grass, plants, 
 shrubs, swings, sand piles, and other equipment. The 
 mothers and the babies find it a godsend, but it is a 
 torment to the boy. He wants to play, he has his ball, 
 and the park has no diamond. The boys must play on 
 the street. " Keep off the grass " is not to his liking, 
 but the beauty spot so pleasing to mothers and babies 
 cannot be preserved in any other way. Within a mile 
 of that three-acre oasis are a thousand boys between the 
 ages of twelve and eighteen ; the gang is formed there with 
 no one to lead it and direct the goodness of the boys' 
 hearts aright in play and sport. 
 
 I have visited many settlements, and invariably the 
 boys reached are of foreign-born parents. Settlements 
 are generally located in populous industrial centers where 
 the greatest congestion is found. They are centers of 
 light in the sea of humanity in cities where many boys 
 and girls are lost. The men and women in charge are 
 doing their best, but how inadequate is the effort when one 
 considers the thousands of boys and girls unreached. 
 Those reached are brought face to face with higher stand- 
 ards and acquire tastes for better things. This contact 
 must influence the home from which the boy comes 
 as well as the boys who do not frequent the settle- 
 ment. If every boy and girl reached by settlements 
 becomes a power for good, if he or she stands for higher
 
 160 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 standards, for better and nobler things, the work is well 
 done. 
 
 Some boys when they come to the age of sixteen break 
 away from these institutions to which the " kids and the 
 girls go." The lad who hankers for something more 
 strenuous, more appealing to his awakening nature, 
 something that will call out the man who will soon stand 
 on the threshold of life that boy stands in greatest 
 need of direction and guidance. 
 
 Much is said about using the schools as social centers. 
 Cannot these be made to meet the need of the boys and 
 girls of foreign-born parents ? The immigrants, as before 
 stated, live in the most congested part of the city. Since 
 the families are large, the school accommodation is gener- 
 ally inadequate, the rooms are crowded, and every avail- 
 able room from cellar to garret is in use. Modern school 
 buildings, with playground, gymnasium, and swimming 
 pool, are not usually found in sections where the foreigners 
 live. Where school buildings are used as social centers, 
 they do not meet the need of the boys of foreign-born 
 parents. Wherever the experiment has been honestly 
 tried it has met the need of only three or four per cent of 
 the boys; the mass is not reached and will not be 
 reached by any kind of educational propaganda. 
 
 The boy of the foreign-born is the working boy. Under 
 economic stress, the growing boy and girl must go to work 
 as soon as possible, to supplement the family budget. 
 State and federal laws raise the age limit at which 
 youths can begin work. In most states the age limit is
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 161 
 
 fourteen, but social workers want sixteen, and, if they have 
 their way, the boy of sixteen who has not finished grammar 
 grades will stay in school till he is eighteen. 1 I do not dis- 
 cuss the advisability or inadvisability of this effort ; but 
 this type of legislation affects no group in the country as 
 it does the immigrant. They send their children to 
 parochial schools and when they leave these at the age of 
 confirmation, they are one or two years behind the children 
 in the public school. If the children then go to public 
 schools, they are put in grades where the " kids " are and 
 they break away if they can. The parents need their 
 help at the present minimum age at which they can 
 begin work, fourteen ; if, however, the law is amended 
 to read that no child under sixteen or seventeen years 
 of age can obtain his working papers unless he has grad- 
 uated from the elementary school, a majority of these 
 foreign children, who ordinarily graduate later than the 
 native-born, will be kept out of industry until an un- 
 fortunately late age. 
 
 When these boys begin to work they need strong 
 leadership far more than when they were in school. A 
 lad who works has money of his own, he feels the path of 
 life under his feet and wants to tread it, he cannot long 
 be kept under old-country regime, the narrow life of his 
 parents will not suit him ; on all sides a new world calls 
 him and around is the larger and more abundant life 
 
 1 In the city of New York, in 1919, of 18,749 children, fourteen years 
 of age, given working certificates, 13,694 or 73% had not finished the 
 eighth grade, and of 11,709 children fifteen years of age beginning work, 
 7734 or 34% had not completed the eighth grade work.
 
 162 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 into which he longs to launch he needs a leader. To 
 give this boy the right leadership, to direct his craving 
 for the larger lif e of America that is a challenge to the 
 best manhood of America. 
 
 We need also to bring the son of the foreigner and the 
 son of the native-born into closer union and better under- 
 standing. Professor Pupin says that his colleagues in 
 college considered him an American, not because he took 
 the first prize in Greek and in mathematics, but because 
 he could fight. That is the way Italian boys along the 
 Hudson prove their Americanism. 
 
 Racial pride and antipathy are found in working boys. 
 Boys are called " Dago," or " Hunkie," although native- 
 born, because their fathers are foreigners. This hinders 
 community interest in American life. Some good men 
 believe that the foreign-born and his son are good for 
 nothing save to do the chores of the nation. This is 
 not the American spirit. I am glad to testify that most 
 foremen and superintendents I have found are anxious to 
 give the boy of foreign parentage a square deal. The son 
 of the foreign-born needs the same opportunities in 
 education, play, and work as are given to the sons of the 
 native-born. He does not ask anything more, he deserves 
 nothing less. All he wants is a clear field and a fair 
 chance. His father knew little of America and was 
 satisfied with few things. His son raised in our schools 
 knows America, its opportunities, its riches, and its 
 possibilities. He cannot be put under the yoke while 
 others enjoy the privileges of American civilization.
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 163 
 
 2. Possible Service. The home is the most influential 
 of all forces in shaping the lives of men, and the boys who 
 have good homes ought to be encouraged to make them 
 the place where their chief interests center. Homes will 
 hold boys only when they are attractive as well as dis- 
 ciplinary, loving as well as educative, joyous as well as 
 cooperative. This demands an adequate material basis, 
 and unfortunately this is wanting in the homes of thou- 
 sands of foreign-born men in the United States. If a home 
 is made up of two rooms, it is hypocritical to expect a boy 
 one of five or six children to spend his evenings in it. 
 The mother cannot find room for the boy, and will not 
 be able to keep him off the streets. 
 
 Mr. John Ihlder, Secretary of the Philadelphia Housing 
 Association, asked in an Americanization Conference in 
 Washington, D.C., " Can we Americanize the spirits of 
 our foreign-born without Americanizing their environ- 
 ment?" and his answer was an unequivocal "No." 
 Any one familiar with the cramped quarters where 
 foreigners live, the dirty streets, the congestion, sym- 
 pathizes with Mr. Ihlder's views, v and what is bad for 
 the adult is tenfold worse for his son of native birth. 
 The boys need better and larger homes to conform with 
 twentieth-century standards. 
 
 Better housing, however, is not the only thing needed 
 to aid boys to adjust themselves to the relations of 
 life. The parents themselves need to face their respon- 
 sibility to their sons. The trend of modern social legis- 
 lation is to relieve the parents of obligations which were
 
 164 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 a pleasure to loving fathers and mothers in former years. 
 They are not required to sacrifice to secure the books the 
 boy needs in school they are provided ; they need not 
 feel anxious whether the boy is at school or not the 
 truant officer attends to that ; the public recreational 
 inspector arranges for his play life and the church sees 
 to his religious life ; and now municipalities are still 
 further asked to make appropriations for meals in the 
 schools, physical examinations, dental clinics, clothing 
 and shoes, and places where the children may be safely 
 kept while the parents go to the moving pictures. The 
 responsibility for the physical, educational, and religious 
 training of the boy is shifted from the home to outside 
 agencies. These may be in the hands of good men and 
 women, specially trained to discharge these several 
 functions, but they will never be discharged as they 
 would be by loving and caretaking parents. The subtle 
 tendency to shirk our, responsibility, so apparent in 
 civic life, has crept to an alarming degree into the home, 
 and parents turn over to others the duties which devolve 
 upon them by the laws of nature and of God, and which 
 can never be as well discharged by other agencies. 
 
 The public school is doing splendid work in the edu- 
 cation of the sons of foreign-born parents. Many school 
 buildings in our cities are imposing structures, influencing 
 for good the mind of the child. The elementary curric- 
 ulum is also well calculated to prepare them for the 
 duties of life. The care taken of the children and the love 
 bestowed upon them by their teachers are potent forces in
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 165 
 
 shaping the lives of the boys. If the sons of foreign-born 
 parents are kept in school till they are sixteen years of age, 
 the one regrettable feature is that the teachers are not 
 always strong, manly men who would appeal to the 
 growing boy. The boys of foreign-born homes, especially 
 during the last few years of their school life, should be 
 taught by persons other than young girls. 
 
 With the raising of the legal age at which boys may be 
 employed there should also go a better adaptation of 
 school courses to the needs of these lads. The education 
 given children up to the sixth grade is well planned to 
 give them the rudiments necessary for the work of life, 
 but subsequent courses are not so adapted. When the 
 boy is twelve years old, he wants to use his hands, and 
 especially is this the case if he has little else open to 
 him but a life of manual toil. In towns like Lawrence, 
 where the boys will have to go to the mill to earn a living ; 
 or like Uniontown, Pennsylvania, where they will have to 
 go into the mines ; or like Farrell, Pennsylvania, where they 
 will go into the steel mill ; or like Akron, where they 
 will go into the rubber factory, there should be some 
 arrangement by which the boys of thirteen could get 
 training in these industries, in processes, in the nature of 
 material, in the handling of tools, in rules that govern 
 the trade, to fit them to earn their living. Ninety per 
 cent of the boys must earn their bread and butter as soon 
 as possible, and " bread and butter education " should 
 be given if it aids them to earn their living in a better 
 and happier way.
 
 166 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Almost all the sons of foreigners come from homes where 
 the struggle for subsistence is a continuous one. The 
 problem of providing three meals a day, of keeping the 
 family clothed, of paying the rent, the gas bill, the coal 
 bill, is a serious one, and the standards of idealists have 
 little place in this matter-of-fact home. To have the 
 boy study algebra, the classics, drawing, rhetoric, ad- 
 vanced English, may be acquiesced in by parents, but 
 it does not receive the indorsement of their practical 
 judgment. If the boy spent half his time in the factory 
 school, where, under sympathetic, wise, and experienced 
 teachers, he would learn how to handle tools, grow fa- 
 miliar with processes, know something about machines, 
 what a bodkin means, how to tie the thread, and be trained 
 in some craft, he would be a better worker, earn more, 
 and drift less. Such a program would appeal to parents, 
 who would heartily cooperate with both teacher and 
 industrial supervisor. 
 
 The -boy coming to the age of adolescence also needs 
 the discipline of work. To keep the overgrown son of 
 the stolid Slav in school till he is sixteen or seventeen 
 is not good for the boy or the parents. The studies 
 pursued in our school to-day will not hold the boy, and the 
 parents protest against them. They want something 
 practical and the boy longs to join the army of his peers 
 who earn their bread by work ; to get up with the workers, 
 tramp the streets to work in the early morning, stand at 
 the machine till the bell rings, to quit and draw his 
 pay. He needs the boss, the regular task, the penalty
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 167 
 
 of failure, the reward of success. He needs the compe- 
 tition of other boys, the rivalry that calls out laudable 
 effort and the stimulus which comes from work well 
 done. There is nothing that will take the place of this 
 discipline of work in the life of boys in the adolescent 
 period, and to deprive them of it without the substi- 
 tution of some means equally good for the future of 
 the boy as a wage-earner, is not wise nor of social 
 advantage. 
 
 Parallel with the raising of the age at which boys can 
 begin work should go a plan of industrial education for 
 boys destined to manual labor. This would be welcomed 
 by the sons of foreigners. Every community where indus- 
 tries flourish should perfect a plan by which boys of four- 
 teen should spend half their time in work and half in school 
 until they are sixteen, when they should become members 
 of the industrial army of that town. A mechanical arts 
 department connected with the public school is in most 
 instances more of an apology than anything else. The 
 equipment is meager, the things done by the boys are 
 more play than work, the master's knowledge is generally 
 that of one trade, and the work done is not taken seriously. 
 It is too artificial, too far removed from the real task of 
 life. Put the boy in a real factory, where things are made 
 for the market, where men and women are in dead 
 earnest making a living, where the foreman knows his 
 job, and his worth is estimated in terms of production. 
 That is the field for the boy, and the manufacturers' 
 association in every industrial community would be dis-
 
 168 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 charging a community obligation by making its plant 
 a school as well as an economic asset to society. 
 
 The play life of boys also needs leadership. Play is 
 to the boy what color is to the flower. A boy who does 
 not play is unnatural. It is his first real contact with 
 life, and he learns for the first time something of the 
 rules of the game of life. The boys of the age of adoles- 
 cence want play that means physical endurance, such 
 as boxing, wrestling, running, hurling. Slight-of-hand 
 work and the tricks of magicians are their delight. 
 Leaders able to direct their play life along these lines 
 can do anything they will with the boys. The ambition 
 of every healthy boy is to excel in manly strength. 
 Physical exercise is indulged in for this purpose, and 
 boys having this ambition are never more hurt than 
 when told that they cannot develop a fine muscle. How 
 to supply the right leadership to the boy of foreign 
 parentage coming to adolescence is one of the most 
 pressing problems in Americanization. 
 
 I have mentioned earlier in this chapter the Sokols of the 
 Czechs, the Falcons of the Poles, the Turnverein of the 
 Germans, societies for the physical culture of adults. 
 They do not touch the boys of the foreign-speaking. Most 
 of the halls in which physical exercises are carried on are 
 not fit places for growing boys to frequent. Some parish 
 halls are used for this purpose, but as a rule they are 
 poorly equipped. Some philanthropic organizations are 
 found, in Fall River, Troy, Buffalo, and other places, 
 which are doing good work among the boys of foreign
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 169 
 
 * 
 parentage. Looking over the field of the boys of foreign 
 
 parentage in the country as a whole, we are safe in say- 
 ing that the provision to take care of the play life of these 
 lads is woefully wanting. No class of boys in the country 
 has greater need, no class is left more to its own resources. 
 When a delegation from the government of Italy came to 
 the United States to study the conditions of Italians in 
 America, they stated that the sons of Italian immigrants 
 raised in New York City did not come up to the physical 
 standard of their parents. This criticism will hold 
 true of the sons of foreigners generally. They live under 
 different conditions from those found in agricultural com- 
 munities in which their fathers were raised. It is the same 
 problem as that of the descendants of men who come from 
 the farm to the city; their children do not possess the 
 same vigor or grow to the same stature as their fathers. 
 
 The sons of foreigners will not work on the farm any 
 more than their fathers did. Many farming sections are 
 populated by Scandinavians, Germans, and Bohemians. 
 Some farms are held by Finns, Italians, Poles, Magyars, 
 and Jews ; but the number of these several peoples found 
 in agricultural communities is as a drop in the bucket 
 when compared with the millions in industrial com- 
 munities. The problem of the sons of foreign parentage 
 is a city problem, and the equipment necessary to do 
 efficient work costs money. 
 
 3. Urban Advantages. The question of the physical 
 development of the sons of foreign-born parentage can 
 be settled only by carefully applied scientific measure-
 
 170 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 ments. These should be given by competent men and on 
 a scale large enough to give data that will suffice to 
 base facts upon. If the physical organism of the son of the 
 immigrant is deteriorating in our cities, society ought to 
 know it, for nothing is more important for the future of 
 an industrial community. There are, however, certain 
 advantages in urban life which should be made available 
 to the sons of foreign-born parents. 
 
 One of the greatest of these is the intellectual oppor- 
 tunity which never comes to the sons of men in rural com- 
 munities. The city dwellers have better educational 
 facilities, libraries from which to draw books, and other 
 means of culture, such as lectures, music, and art. It 
 has been stated that no man ever achieved fame who did 
 not enjoy the advantages of urban life when his intellect 
 was in the making. It is the city, with its varied life, 
 with its jostling and hurrying, with its chances and its 
 changes, its celebrities and its varied talent, its rich 
 reward's and its appreciation of talent, that calls out the 
 best in the lives of men. Urban life has its physical dis- 
 advantages but it also has advantages of cultural and 
 moral value. 
 
 I have not known one person whose special function was 
 to bring to the attention of sons of foreigners the advan- 
 tages that are at their door. Why could not the Ameri- 
 canization Community Committee do this? Take the 
 city of Philadelphia; how many of the sons of Italians, 
 in the Italian colony, know anything about the art gal- 
 leries in the city ? An effort to bring this art by lecture,
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 171 
 
 illustrated by stereopticon slide, before the Italian youths 
 would quicken their artistic talent. How many of the 
 sons of Slavs in Philadelphia know anything of the horti- 
 cultural interests in the city ? They are sons of farmers, 
 their tastes for horticultural products is in the blood, and 
 with proper culture we might well look among the lads 
 in this group for many who would contribute to the agri- 
 cultural interests of the country. 
 
 Much has been done in popularizing the library, but for 
 the sons of foreign-born parents little is done to guide 
 them hi the proper use of books, that they may use them to 
 aid either in the conflict of life or in enriching its values. 
 The educational advantages of our cities are boundless. 
 There are hundreds of men who would gladly help the 
 sons of foreigners to make better use of their time and 
 their talent ; there are thousands of sons of foreign- 
 born parents in a city like Pittsburgh who would be glad 
 of such help that they might become of greater use to 
 society and to themselves. The need is to bring these 
 two personalities together the one who is willing to 
 give, the other who is willing to receive. 
 
 Any one visiting Cooper Institute and talking a few 
 minutes with the director learns that the waiting list of 
 students in every department is very large. Boys from 
 foreign-speaking homes come knocking at the door of this 
 institution and cannot enter, for there is no room. They 
 are thirsting for knowledge, and opportunity is wanting. 
 In thirty cities of the first class, north of the Ohio River, 
 the sons of foreign-born parents are from twenty to
 
 172 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 twenty-five per cent of the school population and they are 
 the least educated. They begin work early and, lacking 
 economic opportunity, they remain in the lower ranks of 
 labor all their days. Better educational advantages 
 would have enabled some of them to rise to positions of 
 responsibility. It is the privilege of the American- 
 ization director to open the door of opportunity to these 
 boys. 
 
 One way in which he may do this is to address societies 
 of boys in foreign-speaking churches. In a Greek Ortho- 
 dox Church in the east, two hundred and fifty boys were 
 found between the ages of ten and sixteen ; the priest wel- 
 comed an agency that enlarged the lives of these boys and 
 led them into the more abundant life. There are scores 
 of priests who do not know what to do to extend oppor- 
 tunities to boys, and a wise presentation of what ad- 
 vantages lie near them is welcomed. The members of a 
 club organized by one of the educators of New York City 
 to visit historical places in and around the metropolis were 
 astonished to find so much material of interest on Man- 
 hattan Island. If a man who knows art should offer to 
 conduct a group of Italian boys of fourteen or sixteen 
 years through the several art exhibits in Philadelphia, 
 would not the priests in Italian parishes gladly cooperate ? 
 If the Slavic boys could visit the botanical gardens, or 
 museums of natural history, or an industrial exhibit, it 
 would mean a rebirth to some of them. The more often 
 such parties are organized the better. We do not begin 
 to develop the cultural opportunities of cities. Society
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 173 
 
 can well afford to bestow on boys of native ability the 
 best of culture no matter who their parents may be. 
 
 The city offers much material in men and equipment 
 that can be used in doing work of a practical character 
 for the sons of foreign-born men. I have a friend in a 
 first-class city who is giving all his time to the sons of 
 immigrants. In a statement he sent me recently, he gives 
 instances of how other organizations serve the boys under 
 his leadership. He has a Glee Club made up largely of 
 Russian and Italian boys. They sing well, and the 
 director is proud of the lads. Through a friend, he 
 brought the singing ability of his Club to the attention 
 of the president of the Rotary Club, who sent an in- 
 vitation to the boys to sing at one of the regular meetings 
 of the Rotarians. Thirty boys came and sang before the 
 body and captivated every member. The leader of the 
 boys writes : " After the meeting several members 
 came to me and wanted to know what they could do for 
 these- boys, and it is up to me to point them the way." 
 Another group of fifteen boys, made up mostly of Mexi- 
 cans, entertained the business men of the City Club. 
 They sang, wrestled, danced, tumbled, and boxed. The 
 only performer other than the boys was the accompanist 
 and a player on the saxophone. The boys acquitted 
 themselves splendidly, and many of the men at the close 
 of the hour had a higher appreciation of the foreigners' 
 sons. 
 
 The sequel of this effort of the boys to entertain " real " 
 Americans is significant. Some members of the Rotary
 
 174 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Club furnished the trucks necessary to take the boys of 
 the Glee Club and their friends for an outing to a moun- 
 tain twenty-five miles from the city. The boys and their 
 leaders numbered seventy-six. They had a glorious 
 time. They played, cooked their own food, listened to 
 stories of great men, erected a pole and unfurled the 
 Stars and Stripes on the highest peak of the mountain. 
 The boys still speak of the trip, and ask when they can 
 go again. The men who were entertained by the Mexican 
 boys invited the lads to a bountiful " spread." The 
 donors had real fun in the event, and the boys did justice 
 to the ample supply of good things prepared for them. 
 
 In another city where there are many foreigners, six 
 clubs have been organized for boys of as many nation- 
 alities. The men in charge of this work arrange, now and 
 again, a joint meeting of all the clubs, and all the boys 
 sing and play and have a social time together. In each 
 meeting some prominent man is invited to address the 
 boys, and they never fail to listen to one who has some- 
 thing worth while to say. In the summer time friendly 
 games are played between the members of these clubs, 
 and the contact of group with group under proper leader- 
 ship is refining and stimulating. The best team of the 
 boys of foreign-born parentage challenged the " Mo- 
 hawks," made up of sons of native-born parents. In the 
 contest the challengers won. The " real " American boys 
 in that town have considerable respect for the sons of the 
 immigrants. 
 
 I believe that it is not best to organize clubs of boys
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 175 
 
 wholly made up of sons of foreigners. We have, however, 
 in large cities to face the facts. .In the Italian quarter 
 in Philadelphia, where there are more than a hundred 
 thousand Italians, the worker must, in that section of the 
 city, organize boys' clubs wholly made up of Italians. 
 The same is true of the Polish section of Chicago, and the 
 Greek section of Lowell. In such instances, the director 
 is helpless. If any organization is perfected for boys in 
 a foreign quarter of a populous city, it must be done for 
 one nationality. The objective, however, in this, as in 
 all Americanization work, should be to weld the various 
 nations into one. The director can only hope to do this 
 with boys organized in foreign sections of large industrial 
 centers, by bringing together the foreign- and native-born 
 youth in friendly games. When this is judiciously done, 
 the result invariably is satisfactory. 
 
 The purpose of this chapter has been to state how it is 
 possible to conserve the physical power of the growing 
 manhood in the homes of foreign-born. I feel, however, 
 that the recreational program would come short of the 
 best results for the sons of foreigners if it did not conserve 
 moral as well as physical and mental values. Lowes 
 Dickinson said : " The Greeks are the only people who 
 have conceived athletics spiritually." I believe in vo- 
 cational guidance, in baths, in gymnasiums, in socials, 
 and hikes; but the sons of foreigners will not come to 
 their own if these are considered an end in themselves. 
 In a section of the metropolis of this nation, made up 
 wholly of foreign-born families, the public school, the
 
 176 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 library, the Boy Scout master, and the Y. M. C. A. have 
 joined hands to bring together the boys of twenty differ- 
 ent peoples, once a week, for singing and a sound lecture 
 on character-building. Between four and five hundred 
 boys assembled. Good music is furnished, the speakers 
 are drawn from all classes and creeds, and the boys enjoy 
 coming. This effort in behalf of the young manhood of 
 this section of the city has gone on for more than a decade, 
 and is as popular to-day as the day on which it was in- 
 stituted. Each of the four organizations conducting the 
 work chooses its leading young men to sit on the com- 
 mittee of management. The tickets for the meetings 
 are distributed through the several organizations by 
 their own members ; the young men feel they are doing 
 it themselves, and it is a success. 
 
 No one can tell what amount of good results from these 
 efforts, but the consensus of opinion of those who have 
 observed them is that they contribute much to the moral 
 fiber of the growing youth of the community. They 
 bring to the attention of the boys standards of conduct, 
 the ethics of business, and the social obligations binding 
 all men. The sons of foreigners are undoubtedly more 
 neglected and more tried than the sons of native-born, 
 and an effort of this kind is undoubtedly worth while. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 THE BOY PROBLEM: William Byron Forbush. 
 
 A SCHOOLMASTER OF THE GREAT CITY : Angelo Patri. 
 
 THE WAGE-EARNING BOY: C. C. Robinson.
 
 RECREATION ACTIVITIES 177 
 
 VOCATIONAL EDUCATION: David Snedden. 
 
 MEMORANDUM ON THE INDUSTRIAL SITUATION AFTER THE 
 
 WAR, Garton Foundation, Section 97 (1917). 
 LABOR AND ADMINISTRATION: John R. Commons, Chapter 
 
 XX. 
 
 CITIZENS IN INDUSTRY: Charles R. Henderson, Chapter VI. 
 EDUCATION FOR CITIZENSHIP : George Kerschensteiner. 
 EDUCATION IN RELIGION AND MORALS : George A. Coe. 
 BOY LIFE AND SELF-GOVERNMENT: George Walter Fiske. 
 EDUCATION PROBLEMS: G. Stanley Hall, Chapters IV, VII 
 
 and IX. 
 CHARACTER BUILDING CLUBS FOR BOYS : Sydney H. Baker.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 
 
 THE purpose of this chapter is to advocate the organ- 
 ization of boards of counselors to advise the foreign- 
 born in all cases of difficulty. It may be said that a 
 board of this kind would be of great value to the native- 
 born wage-earner. I don't doubt it for a moment. My 
 special purpose now is to make a plea for the foreign- 
 born wage-earner; the man who comes to America ig- 
 norant of the English language, and from a country 
 wholly different in civil government, economic life, and 
 social custom. This man needs help, which should be 
 given to him free of charge. 
 
 It is surprising how many people are ready to exploit 
 their fellow men. An instance which came to my atten- 
 tion lately well illustrates how widely scattered this 
 spirit is, and how men clothed with a little authority use 
 their power to their own profit. A company of Albanians 
 wishing to go back to Albania asked a leader of their 
 own nationality to carry on the preliminary arrangements. 
 They needed passports, and the leader said it would cost 
 each man six dollars and seventy-five cents for fees and in- 
 cidentals. The leader did not know how to get the pass- 
 
 178
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 179 
 
 ports, so he applied to the Y. M. C. A. secretary, who 
 secured them at an expense of three dollars per man. 
 The leader, when asked to return to each man the 
 other three dollars and seventy-five cents, refused to do 
 so. The representative of the federal government in 
 that district had to sign each passport, and asked each 
 man to pay him five dollars for doing so. The question 
 was taken up with Washington, and the men were told 
 that the agent had no right to charge a cent. Four of the 
 men, impatient at the delay incident to the routine of 
 government agency, went to a deputy counselor and asked 
 his aid. He served them, expedited the process by a 
 few days, and charged each man fifty dollars for the serv- 
 ice. This, unfortunately, is the way many foreign- 
 born men are treated. In every foreign-speaking colony 
 there are those who thrive on the ignorance and weaknesses 
 of the wage-earners. These cunning men render service 
 to their countrymen, but their charges are exorbitant. 
 Against these practices the Americanization worker should 
 wage war ; the wrong done the foreign-born, though not 
 known to him at the time, will later be found out and 
 it has a tremendous influence in shaping his thoughts of 
 America. 
 
 The organization of a Board of Advisors, willing to sit 
 and give free advice, will have two effects : it will drive 
 many of the parasites out of business, and will also give 
 the wage-earner of foreign birth greater confidence. 
 If this immigrant brother knows that his American friends 
 are willing to help him and see that he secures an honest
 
 180 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 deal, he will not submit to exploitation. This service will 
 shape aright the opinions of immigrants and will break 
 down the wall of partition between the foreign- and the 
 native-born. 
 
 1. The Difficulties of a New Environment. Americans, 
 traveling in foreign countries, having only their mother 
 tongue at their command, know the difficulties en- 
 countered by the immigrants coming to America. Our 
 people traveling in Europe are alert ; when in difficulty 
 they can command the services of capable interpreters. 
 That is not the case with the immigrants in the United 
 States. They have no money and often no friends ; they 
 are shy and timid ; they left a backward country and are 
 bewildered by the wonders they see in a progressive one ; 
 they handle tools which do more work in an hour than 
 their fathers would do in a month. Under these conditions 
 who can discern the thoughts of these men ? Let the men 
 on the Advisory Council put themselves in their place and 
 they will do their work better. 
 
 Everything in America is very different from the home- 
 land. An immigrant taken from Ellis Island to the subway 
 is bewildered and terrified ; men and women rushing to and 
 fro underground, transported by some unseen and un- 
 known power, is a thing he never thought possible. 
 When he looks for work, he again sees men rushing 
 to and fro at a breakneck speed and working at a pace 
 never thought possible in the Old World. At home he 
 worked leisurely, sociability and industry were wedded 
 together; he sang at his work there; in America there
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 181 
 
 is no song and no sociability is possible. He buys clothes 
 and food and finds that he must pay for these three times 
 as much as he paid for food and clothing in Europe. 
 He pays as much in rent for one room in America as he 
 would for a farm in the homeland. 
 
 Who can tell what thoughts come and go in this man's 
 mind? You may talk to him of the American standard 
 of living, but he will not understand ; all he knows is 
 that he pays so much for food, clothes, and shelter, and 
 he computes it in Old World money and he cannot 
 understand it. He goes to church and is expected to 
 pay every time he enters the building. This is a 
 new thing he never paid anything in the homeland, 
 and he cannot understand why he should do so here, 
 and a lecture to him on the separation of church and 
 state will not help. He finds a difference in the enjoy- 
 ments of life. He goes to a dance and finds himself in 
 an atmosphere wholly different from anything he ever 
 experienced before. Men and women are more free, 
 they do not pay attention to the courtesies common in 
 the Old World, there is an air of recklessness in the con- 
 duct of all, money is liberally spent. In some countries in 
 Europe these habits also prevail and racial custom is 
 forgotten. In mining camps and mill towns liquor is 
 still procurable in spite of the fact that the law of the land 
 forbids its sale. Men under the influence of drink often 
 become boastful, quarrelsome, and even brutal. The 
 foreigner cannot understand all this, but nine times out 
 of ten he will begin to talk as they talk, knowing not
 
 182 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 that he copies profanity and vulgarity such as were never 
 known in the quiet home from which he came. 
 
 At work, he finds men curt, harsh, hurried, and in- 
 considerate. He worked for wages before he came to 
 America, but the relation of employer and employee on 
 the farm was very different from the relation between the 
 immigrant and the American boss. He will in time get 
 accustomed to it, but never will he understand why the 
 bluster, the continual drive, and the cursing are necessary. 
 iWhen work is a little slack, he is thrown out without ex- 
 planation, or he goes to work as usual and finds the gate 
 closed. Greater consideration was given the wage-earner 
 " at home " ; he was not cut off from his work like this. 
 When he takes out his pay, he finds that certain deductions 
 are made ; so much for the doctor, so much for insurance, 
 and perhaps so much for the church. He asks what 
 these are ; it may be that his friends will be able to inform 
 him, and perchance none of them knows. He was never 
 told of them, he was never consulted, he may have been 
 handed a sheet which explained these deductions in 
 English, but that might as well have been put into the 
 hand of a baby. How many Americans think of these 
 things ? 
 
 This foreigner walks the street surprises never 
 cease. He sees wealth displayed in windows such as he 
 never saw before, and wonders what kind of people use 
 these articles. Among his companions he finds a state 
 of mind very different from anything he met in the 
 Old World different towards authority, personal rela-
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 183 
 
 tions, and womanhood. Some talk as if there were no 
 law in the land ; that the courtesies of man to man cannot 
 be exercised in America ; that the relation of the sexes 
 is most free. The common sense of well-balanced men 
 will cure the foreigner of these silly notions, but hundreds 
 of men are led astray and only brought to their senses by 
 the stern hand of the law. A young Italian on the thresh- 
 old of manhood is now in a reformatory because of this 
 very reason. He worked in a shop where his fellow workers 
 said that the girls in America were all free ; all he had 
 to do was to show some money and the girl was his. 
 He followed the teaching literally, insulted two respect- 
 able young women, and is to-day learning what law is, and 
 how America honors its womanhood. When a group of 
 foreign-speaking men moved into a " dry " state, they 
 knew nothing of the laws regulating the sale and the 
 keeping of intoxicants in the home. They had some 
 " wet " goods with them, and no sooner were they settled 
 in the state than a constable raided the place, and the 
 town's treasury was richer by more than a hundred 
 dollars. If we meditate on these things, we shall find 
 some way to help our foreign-born brother. 
 
 2. Men Who Can Counsel. The number of men on 
 the board is not as important as the quality. They 
 should be men of character and judgment, sympathetic 
 with the foreign-born, and willing to listen to his story 
 and to serve him in every possible way. In every foreign- 
 speaking community the chief of the police or the sergeant 
 in charge of the district, the justice of the peace and the
 
 184 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 constable, know more about the difficulties and trials of 
 the immigrants than any one else. The Americanization 
 promoter should consult these men about the short- 
 comings, the crimes, the exploitation of the foreign- 
 speaking. It is the consensus of opinion among these 
 men that the crimes and failings of the foreigners are due 
 to their ignorance more than to criminal tendencies. If 
 men who know the crimes committed by the foreign-born 
 are found, they are the best persons to serve on the 
 board. The difficulty is, however, to find the right man, 
 free from political attachments, and so well thought of 
 among the foreigners that they will come to him as to a 
 friend. 
 
 The foreigner fears the police authority and govern- 
 ment officials in general. It is the heritage they bring 
 with them from the Old World, and is due to the mailed 
 fist of authority exercised upon the people for hundreds 
 of years. This fear is in the blood and they find it difficult 
 to overcome. In America they have the same fear of the 
 man in official garb, and when he visits their home or calls 
 upon them at the works, they tremble with excitement. 
 For this reason, it is advisable not to ask the chief of 
 police to serve on the board. It is very important, how- 
 ever, to appoint a man versed in the working of a munic- 
 ipality, one who knows the foreigner and the mistakes 
 he makes in civic relations. Such a man would be 
 helpful not only in counseling the foreigner, but also in 
 giving valuable suggestions for lectures bearing upon 
 civic duties ; if he would not deliver a talk on this subject
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 185 
 
 himself he would at least be able to direct the worker to 
 the right person. " Prevention is better than cure," and 
 such a lecture would aid the foreign-born to avoid many 
 pitfalls in the intricate life of a modern city. 
 
 A man versed also in the industries and in the laws 
 regulating compensation for injuries would be of great 
 service on the Advisory Council. Employers of labor 
 know these regulations, and sometimes they take advan- 
 tage of the foreigner's ignorance. I have found most 
 employers of labor just and honorable ; they sympathize 
 with the foreign-born and would not think of taking 
 advantage of him. All employers, however, are not so. 
 Some treat the foreign-speaking as they would not dare 
 to treat their English-speaking employees. They have no 
 conscientious scruples if they can safely defraud foreigners 
 and their dependents of their due. The English-speaking 
 generally know their rights, but it is safe to say that thou- 
 sands of foreign-speaking men do not. This is due partly 
 to their ignorance of English and partly to the frequent 
 migration of foreign-born workers. If a Russian learns 
 what the Industrial Compensation act is in Pennsylvania 
 and moves to Michigan, he may imagine that the laws are 
 the same in both states and fail to secure protection because 
 of varying provisions. The member of the Council con- 
 versant with the provisions of the Industrial Compensation 
 acts, as well as with other labor regulations involving the 
 interests of the wage-earners, will be of great value to 
 foreigners. A friend working on such a Council wrote 
 me : " After six months' work, we secured the Greek three
 
 186 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 hundred dollars." That Greek will always remember 
 the service rendered him and be disposed to think of 
 America as the land of the square deal. 
 
 Many foreign-born peoples are also victims of petty 
 officers who regard " foreigners " as legitimate prey. 
 They spread their net, make a raid, catch many persons, 
 and exploit them. . They never do this to the English- 
 speaking members of the community, but the " for- 
 eigner, " he has no rights that should be recognized. 
 Many laws of the state and ordinances of the city, if 
 literally enforced, would make the major part of the 
 dwellers very uncomfortable and policemen unpopular. 
 Fortunately, the officers are not on every corner watching 
 for victims, that is, of the English-speaking kind. This, 
 however, is too often the way in the case of the foreigner. 
 Petty officers with little to do sometimes pounce on a group 
 of foreign-speaking young men having a good time and 
 injuring no one. We all believe in law and order, but 
 when the " foreigner " is singled out as an easy mark for 
 the enforcement of an obsolete law that impertinent 
 officers may have some excuse for their existence, it is 
 bad practice from both the government and the com- 
 munity viewpoint. These victims of official greed de- 
 serve the protection of the Advisory Council. 
 
 There is also a disposition on the part of many com- 
 munities to lay all crime and disorder at the door of the 
 " foreigners." They are guilty of crimes and mis- 
 demeanors just the same as other people, but it is a 
 mistake to think that the foreign-born adult is more
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 187 
 
 criminal than his native-born neighbor. This opinion, 
 though not based on fact, works mischief to the foreign- 
 born. A petty officer will club a foreigner, throw him 
 into prison, let him " rot " there, and when brought to 
 court the man is dismissed for lack of evidence. No 
 one sympathizes with the victim he is a foreigner and 
 the public conscience puts his suffering down to vicarious 
 sacrifice for sins of foreigners who have escaped punish- 
 ment. This is largely the reason why foreign-speaking 
 groups combine to defeat the course of justice ; they 
 believe that the government is against them, and they 
 retaliate by hiding the criminal. The one remedy is to 
 dispense impartial justice to the foreigner, to see that 
 in the courthouse he is justly treated, to see that capable 
 and conscientious interpreters are employed, to protect 
 him against unnecessary incarceration, and to see that 
 trial is given him without excessive charges. If this is 
 done, the foreigners will respect the law, will aid the 
 course of justice, and will regard the land of their adop- 
 tion as the country of just treatment of immigrants. 
 This is work the Advisory Council should be prepared to 
 perform. 
 
 A great many foreigners get into trouble among them- 
 selves ; sometimes their quarrels are fanned by men who 
 look for something to do. A man is thrown into prison, 
 his friends are approached, or his money in the bank is 
 taken, and the promise made, "We put you on the street." 
 The man's money is soon gone, but the prison door is not 
 opened. When the last cent is squeezed out of him, as
 
 188 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 / 
 
 well as out of his friends and relatives, then something 
 may be done. The victim knows nothing of the process 
 of justice. The grand jury may ignore the case and the 
 prisoner is free. The sinister lawyer takes the man out, 
 claims credit for his release, and if he cannot obtain cash, 
 he enters a claim against his wages. These unprincipled 
 men who torment their victims, and, by cunning and un- 
 righteous practices, squeeze out of them and their friends 
 the last penny, are the ones the Advisory Council should 
 go after and drive out of business. Against these villains 
 we should wage righteous warfare, and let the foreigners 
 know that they have American friends to defend the weak 
 and champion the cause of the man who does not know. 
 
 During war days thousands of foreign-born men found 
 friends who answered questions and filled in draft papers 
 given them by the government. The memories of kind 
 words and deeds by sympathetic men still live in the 
 hearts of these men. They were services the foreigners 
 appreciated and were grateful for, since they of all men 
 called to serve the country were most helpless. This was 
 special service rendered on a special occasion, but it 
 would surprise most of us if we knew how often foreigners 
 in times of peace want help to fill in papers, or to comply 
 with certain forms perplexing to them. Many make 
 mistakes when acquiring property which might have been 
 avoided if a friend who knew had advised them. The 
 scandal of land sales to the foreign-born is well known ; 
 so are also the bogus stocks sold to these people. No 
 section of the community is subjected to more villainous
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 189 
 
 schemes promising much and performing little or nothing. 
 Cunning men are after the foreigner's hard-earned cash, 
 and they succeed in obtaining much of it. The government 
 gives him protection, but the veil of a foreign tongue 
 makes it more difficult to catch the schemer. A council 
 such as we have in mind will do much to safeguard the 
 innocent and the gullible from such schemes. The 
 foreign-born wants a friend sympathetic, judicious, 
 and versed in the matter in hand and the suspicion 
 of the foreigner will soon disappear, and the heart of 
 America that is, the best spirit of the land will win 
 them into more sympathetic understanding of our country. 
 3. Safeguards. An Advisory Council such as we have 
 suggested will not be able to do good work unless the 
 members cooperate with representatives from among 
 the foreign-speaking peoples. Indeed, the members of 
 the Council may not be able to talk to the men who 
 come to them for counsel, and reliable interpreters must 
 be called upon to aid. This means cooperation with the 
 foreign-speaking. Among the several peoples of foreign 
 speech in every community there aie public-spirited and 
 reliable men interested in their fellow countrymen, who 
 are anxious to see justice done them ; these men will 
 gladly cooperate with the board, and some of them 
 ought to be members of it. In every industrial plant 
 employers seek out such men ; it will be the duty of the 
 Americanization workers to find persons of this kind and 
 put them on the Advisory Council or obtain their coopera- 
 tion when necessary.
 
 190 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Care should be taken to make it perfectly clear to the 
 priests of the several peoples that the purpose of the 
 Council is not in any way to interfere with or disturb 
 his relation to the people of his parish. Priests do much 
 of the work we have outlined ; they are not only the 
 spiritual advisors of the people, but serve their parishioners 
 in a great many other ways. No attempt should be made 
 to interfere with the relationship between priest and people. 
 The fact, however, that so many foreign-born men are 
 cheated and imposed upon is proof that all immigrants 
 do not have priests to go to, or they fail to get the relief 
 they need. Many priests in foreign-speaking parishes 
 are influential enough to command attention when they 
 champion the cause of the oppressed, but in thousands 
 of cases, for various reasons, they are not able to do this. 
 Many men in difficulties have no one in whom to confide, 
 and their sufferings will be great unless some sympathetic 
 friend champions their cause. There are foreign-speaking 
 settlements in the United States numbering thousands 
 which have neither church nor priest. In some parishes 
 the number of communicants is so large that the spiritual 
 leaders have no time for anything save ministering in 
 spiritual affairs. Broad-minded business men know the 
 world and the business of life, and their council is wel- 
 comed in every city where foreigners live. If the pur- 
 pose and functions of the Council are defined, it will 
 be welcomed by most priests. 
 
 The Advisory Council can best serve the foreign- 
 speaking by being a part of the Community American-
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 191 
 
 ization Committee. It should be closely linked with 
 the work done in classes, lectures, and entertainments. 
 The teachers and lecturers, coming into personal contact 
 with the men, will soon gain the confidence of the foreign- 
 born. They will learn of men in difficulty, of those 
 anxious to transact some business, to buy a piece of prop- 
 erty, to build a house, and of men with other needs. The 
 workers may learn indirectly of foreigners in trouble, or 
 injured, or intimidated whatever the case may.be, they 
 may suggest to the men themselves or to their friends that 
 the Council will help them, or they may ask one of its 
 members to look into the case. The Americanization 
 worker will make it a part of his duty to make known 
 in classes and meetings the purpose of the Council and 
 to show that its services are free to any one who cares to 
 use it. Teachers when they are well known become the 
 friends and counselors of the foreigners. There are many 
 questions asked by the foreigners which the teachers cannot 
 answer and which they turn over to the Council. In a 
 city where a thousand foreign-speaking people are in 
 classes either learning English or civics, if the right 
 relation exists between teachers and pupils, many singular 
 and perplexing cases arise which demand the services of 
 the wisest and most skillful advisors. 
 
 The service of the Board of Advisors should also be 
 advertised in the social gatherings of foreign-speaking 
 persons. In the classroom, we meet the men by the hun- 
 dred ; in the social gatherings and entertainments we meet 
 them by the thousand. In first-class cities, in one summer,
 
 192 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 half a million persons attended outdoor lectures. The func- 
 tions of the Council should be explained in these lectures ; 
 concrete cases of helpfulness stated ; and it would do no 
 harm to expose the various schemes laid to secure the 
 people's money. Of course, the parasites will disparage 
 this service ; they will ridicule the work, and will discredit 
 the members, for the success of the Council means that 
 their hope of gain is gone. With the good will of the 
 leaders, however, the men will turn their faces to the 
 place where they may find justice and truth, and the 
 Council will become a power for righteousness in a com- 
 munity of foreign-born men. 
 
 The Advisory Council can also help the foreign-born 
 in the courts. They do not always obtain justice be- 
 cause judges cannot communicate with them directly 
 they must depend on interpreters, and many of these are 
 inefficient and untrustworthy. The difficulty of securing 
 interpreters in a town like Jersey City, where foreigners 
 use more than thirty different languages or dialects, is 
 great. A man may, in ordinary conversation, be able 
 to understand six or seven Slavic dialects, but be a poor 
 interpreter in most of these. On investigation it has 
 again and again been discovered that the court interpreter 
 was incapable. It may be difficult to secure capable and 
 accurate interpreters, but an honest effort should be made 
 to do so. The Advisory Council may assist the court in 
 this. No conscientious judge is indifferent to the course of 
 justice. It is his pleasure to get the facts in every case 
 and see that justice is done the person under charge.
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 193 
 
 This is often defeated by the custom of hiring a Slav to 
 interpret for all Slavs. A Serb is a Slav, and so is a 
 Pole. If the court interpreter is a Pole, and the criminal 
 is a Serb, the ability of the Pole, though he be an honest 
 man, to interpret aright is open to grave suspicion. We 
 have many peoples from the Balkans, and it is not unusual 
 to meet a man who can converse in Greek, Bulgarian, 
 Turkish, and Rumanian. He can serve as an interpreter 
 in an industrial plant and get along very well ; but when 
 it comes to a court of justice, he may be wholly unfit to 
 act in this capacity. Let the Council aid in procuring 
 intelligent, capable, and conscientious interpreters. 
 
 When public-spirited men interest themselves in the 
 foreign-born and see that they get a square deal in court, 
 the general attitude of court officials will change, and the 
 prejudice against the foreign-born, so general among the 
 English-speaking, will be abated. The judge in a court 
 may be sympathetic with the foreign-born, but if the 
 jury and the attorneys are prejudiced, if the witnesses 
 and the police are biased, the man before the court will 
 seldom get a fair trial. The advisors can do much to 
 counteract this prejudice by personal as well as by 
 public service. To combat race prejudice and promote 
 race appreciation is as necessary as to assimilate the 
 foreign-born. The Council can do much to give their 
 foreign-born neighbors a standing in the community and 
 the court, and justice will not be done immigrants until 
 they are treated by the same ethical code as the English- 
 speaking people.
 
 194 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 4. The Council in Action. In cities having half a 
 million or more population, one Advisory Council for the 
 whole city is not practicable. A city that has a hundred 
 thousand population, twenty thousand of whom are 
 foreign-born, will furnish cases enough to keep the Council 
 active, providing the Americanization work is well or- 
 ganized. In cities of half a million or more, there should 
 be as many Advisory Councils as there are units of 
 Americanization work. If the " North End " has its 
 Board of Trade, and the " South Side " has its Chamber 
 of Commerce, so also should each foreign section have its 
 Americanization Committee whose duty it is to attend to 
 the assimilation of the foreigners in that part of the city. 
 
 In Pittsburgh, the South Side has its thousands of 
 Serbs, Poles, Ukrainians, and other nationalities, and 
 should have its South Side Americanization Committee 
 and its sub-committee on counseling. In the Soho 
 District an equal number of foreign-born Slovenes, 
 Russians, and other peoples are found, who have needs 
 just as great as those of the South Side ; these can only 
 be met by a distinct organization for this part of the city. 
 The hill district and Allegheny have their foreign prob- 
 lems, which must be met by distinct organizations, if 
 the work of Americanization is to prove effective. But 
 in addition to the sectional organizations, there should 
 be a Central Americanization Committee on which 
 representatives of each local committee are found. 
 
 This plan of organization must be installed in first-class 
 cities before the work of Americanization can adequately
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 195 
 
 meet the need of its cosmopolitan population. In this 
 connection, I have specially in mind Advisory Councils, 
 and the point I wish to emphasize is that one general 
 committee will not be able to do the work in a large city ; 
 sub-councils must be organized, having representatives 
 on the Central Advisory Council, so that the remotest 
 unit in the general plan may be stimulated and directed 
 just as the central political committee stimulates and 
 directs the ward committee. 
 
 When a common organization in defense of the foreigner 
 covers the need of a city, it is surprising how the weakest 
 member derives strength from the whole. In a New 
 England city, a member of an Advisory Council late 
 one evening was walking along the principal street when" 
 he saw a foreigner abused by a petty official. The 
 immigrant went on his way, entered a store, and soon 
 came out again. He stood on the sidewalk and looked up 
 and down the street. The officer again came up to him, 
 struck him with his club, and took him to the police 
 station, where he spent the night. The American who 
 witnessed this was angered and wondered whether or 
 not he was in the United States. The following morning 
 he appeared in court where the man was charged with 
 resisting arrest and malicious mischief. The case was 
 closed in a few minutes. The judge took the word of 
 the policeman and did not think it worth while to examine 
 the foreigner. The American could hardly believe that 
 the case was closed until the clerk told him so. The 
 foreigner disappeared taken to prison to serve his
 
 196 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 sentence. The native-born asked that the case be 
 re-opened, stating that he was a witness and demanded 
 to be heard. He was only laughed at. He immediately 
 took the matter up with the most influential members 
 of the Advisory Council, and that afternoon the case 
 was re-opened ; the man gave his testimony, and the 
 foreigner was discharged. The service cost the man 
 a day's work, but he had the satisfaction of serving the 
 cause of justice, and made a lifelong friend of the foreigner. 
 
 There are many foreign-born discharged soldiers whom 
 the Advisory Councils can help. In every town some of 
 them believe that they were not justly treated by the 
 government. They have grievances and they cannot 
 understand why their cases are not attended to and why 
 they should suffer. No one has explained to them the 
 stupendous task Uncle Sam undertook when he promised 
 the half million boys of foreign parentage in the army, 
 insurance, naturalization, and a guarantee that every 
 man would be discharged in as good physical condition 
 as when he entered the army. Human limitations come 
 in and the most perfect machine is imperfectly operated. 
 If the Advisory Councils in every foreign colony in the 
 land apply themselves to the cases of disappointed ex- 
 soldiers of foreign birth, they will render a splendid 
 service to the men and to the country. 
 
 Nick was a Greek boy and in France had served faith- 
 fully in the army of the United States. He was one of the 
 many gassed and had suffered much. After some months' 
 treatment, he was discharged from the army as cured.
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 197 
 
 Within a month the old trouble returned and, anxious 
 to get well, he went to a Greek doctor. He was treated 
 just as long as his money lasted, which was not long 
 the doctor charging ten dollars a day for treatment. 
 Without money and having nowhere to go, the young man 
 came to a good Dutch friend and told him his trouble. 
 The Americanization director said : " You must go to 
 the hospital." He tried to get him into one and failed. 
 He, however, had a friend, Dr. Sullivan, to whose attention 
 he brought the case, and within an hour Nick was in 
 a hospital. The Americanization worker then brought 
 the case before some members of the Advisory Council, 
 one of whom was a Greek attorney. This gentleman told 
 the other members that he would handle the case. He 
 went to the Greek doctor and told him : " You treated 
 Nick, the soldier boy. I give you twenty-four hours to 
 return every dollar you took from him, or get out of town." 
 He returned the money. Other members of the Council 
 got in touch with Washington and Nick's name was 
 re-entered on the Army pay-roll. Nick is well, and his 
 heart is thoroughly American. 
 
 It would be a splendid thing to have a women's Advisory 
 Council, for women of foreign birth get into trouble just 
 as men do, though not so often. There are many un- 
 desirable practices in foreign-speaking homes which can 
 only be amended by the kind and judicious counsel of 
 women. The splendid work done by the women em- 
 ployed in Americanization work in the International 
 Institute of the Y. M. C. A. is worthy of study and
 
 198 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 commendation. These women go from house to house 
 wherever there is need, and bring help to many mothers 
 who are ill and weary because of the heavy load they 
 carry. During the epidemic of influenza, these workers 
 as well as volunteer women workers did exceptional work 
 in bringing relief to many smitten families. 
 
 In a city in the middle west, a foreign-speaking mother 
 died, leaving four little children to the care of the father, 
 the eldest of whom was only twelve years of age. The 
 father could do nothing save put that little girl in charge 
 of the home and the three younger children. We can 
 well imagine what kind of home it became in a short 
 while. The father was very worried and he knew not 
 what to do. An Americanization worker by chance 
 learned the facts, brought it to the attention of the wife 
 of one of the Advisory Council, who went to the house, 
 and within twenty-four hours the little ones were inmates 
 of the St. Joseph Home, and the father had the first good 
 night's rest in many weeks. 
 
 One of the evils in the foreign-speaking home is the visit 
 of the mid-wife. This institution, imported to America 
 by the foreign-born mother from the Old World, accounts 
 for many deaths among the children born of foreign 
 mothers. It cannot be cured by law ; it can be removed 
 if an active Advisory Council of intelligent and sym- 
 pathetic women undertake the task. One of the saddest 
 cases I have ever known was of a mother brought nigh unto 
 death by one of these ignorant and brutal practitioners. 
 She was only saved by the prompt action of an American-
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 199 
 
 ization worker intimate with the family, who without 
 the consent of any member summoned a doctor and 
 saved a mother's life, for she knew that the well-being 
 of six children depended on her being near them. 
 
 Foreign-born husbands and wives do not always agree, 
 although divorce is rarely found among these people. 
 I remember an Americanization director who had on 
 hand a case of threatened divorce. The husband begged 
 his help to keep his wife and mother in that home. He 
 set to work and with the help of the wisest member of the 
 Council he had the satisfaction of seeing the storm cloud 
 hanging over that house pass away. He still speaks of 
 this case with satisfaction, and well he may. 
 
 The hearts of many native-born parents are rent 
 because of wayward children, but we are safe in saying 
 that more hearts of foreign-born parents are rent by this 
 cause. The Advisory Council could render splendid 
 service by advising parents who do not know how to deal 
 with boys growing in the free atmosphere of America. 
 I know an Italian boy to whom has come the vision of 
 what American institutions can do for him, but his father 
 says he is dreaming and must go to work. The parent 
 wants Pietro to help him to maintain the family. The 
 son wants education, and has made up his mind to enter 
 college. An Americanization secretary went to the 
 father, but could not persuade him to give the young 
 man the freedom he desired. In the summer, the son 
 ran away from home, and in the fall returned with two 
 hundred dollars he had gone to a summer resort and
 
 200 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 sold ice cream cones. One of the Advisory Council 
 secured the father's consent to let the son go to school. 
 He is on his way to college and will improve the oppor- 
 tunities America offers to every boy, be he foreign- or 
 native-born. 
 
 I do not know of any agency that will bind hands and 
 hearts across the seas as the members of Advisory Coun- 
 cils, if they are found in every city where Americanization 
 work ought to be done. Every foreign-born person 
 helped in difficulty becomes an interpreter of the best 
 that is in the American heart. He and those tied to 
 him by kinship or friendship promulgate good will and 
 sympathy between his people and America. Even in 
 many cases where the foreigners to whom kindness has 
 been shown ultimately return to their original homes 
 cases which, therefore, must be viewed as mere philan- 
 thropy rather than as Americanization the ultimate 
 benefits to our own country are undeniable. The United 
 States enters more and more into relations with the 
 nations of the world, and the more good-will is established 
 between us and the peoples of foreign lands, the better 
 for both parties concerned. If the members of Advisory 
 Councils keep this in mind, the stream of immigrants 
 returning to Europe and other countries will have among 
 them many who will speak kindly of America because 
 of the services rendered them or their friends by the men 
 and women who are members of Advisory Councils. All 
 workers of Americanization should have the world view- 
 point, and think in terms of international relationships.
 
 ADVISORY COUNCILS 201 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 THE SERVIAN PEOPLE : Prince Lazarovich Hrebelianovich, 
 
 Vol. I, Part I. 
 
 ESSAYS IN SOCIAL JUSTICE : T. N. Carver, Chapter XVI. 
 THE FIELD OF SOCIAL SERVICE : Philip Davies, Part I, Chapters 
 
 I and II. 
 
 AMERICANIZATION : Carol Aronovici. 
 JUSTICE TO THE POOR : Reginald Heber Smith. 
 OUT OF THE SHADOW : Rose Cohen. 
 AN AMERICAN IN THE MAKING : M. E. Ravage. 
 THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN : Jacob Riis. 
 FROM ALIEN TO CITIZEN : Edward A. Steiner.
 
 ORGANIZATION 
 
 THE program outlined in the preceding pages must 
 have a plan of organization before it is effective ; the 
 purpose of this chapter is to describe plans that work. 
 
 In every community, public, business, and philanthropic 
 organizations are discussing the question of American- 
 ization ; patriotic men and women who are members of 
 these organizations are anxious to do something, but the 
 lack of coordination, definiteness, and good planning 
 defeat their aspirations. If the performances of patriots 
 in Americanization were equal to the enthusiasm dis- 
 played in public gatherings, the problem would soon be 
 solved. We are in danger of losing much of the ardor and 
 zeal of good men and women in city and town, where the 
 need is imperative, for the lack of organization to marshal 
 the available forces and to put them to work. 
 
 I know towns that have discussed this work for the last 
 five years. Words and something to eat are the extent of 
 their achievement. Many other towns have spent their 
 efforts on a Fourth of July celebration, or a pageant, or 
 the distribution of some literature. These types of 
 activity are commendable, but not comprehensive enough. 
 Before the work of Americanization is done, some one 
 
 202
 
 ORGANIZATION 203 
 
 must be specially assigned to the task of promotion, a 
 definite plan of action must be outlined, the forces of the 
 community must cooperate, and both paid and volunteer 
 workers must join hands to do intensive work as well as 
 hold public meetings. 
 
 1. Employed and Volunteer Workers. In a previous 
 chapter we stated what an Americanization worker or 
 promoter should know in order to do this work. He must 
 be a trained man, but, in addition to all that he knows or 
 may learn about the immigrants and their ways, he must 
 possess a broad sympathy for humanity. He must have 
 boundless faith and must believe firmly that out of the un- 
 likely raw material pouring into this country from abroad 
 we can raise sons and daughters of American democracy. 
 
 The need of trained workers in this field has become so 
 great that many of the leading universities have estab- 
 lished courses of study specially designed to train men and 
 women for the work of Americanization. Courses in 
 summer schools are offered to public school teachers, 
 social workers, and welfare agents, so that they may do 
 better work for men, women, and children of foreign par- 
 entage. In addition to this academic training, I would 
 send every candidate for the position of Americanization 
 worker for three weeks or a month to a city where good 
 work is being done by a successful promoter, that he might 
 study his methods and under his supervision actually do 
 work with foreigners. We need schools in universities, but 
 we are in greater need of laboratories where men and women 
 may see actual things done in Americanization work.
 
 204 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Governmental employees, promoters employed by 
 business and philanthropic organizations, and volunteer 
 workers are needed. It is unfortunate that Congress 
 has not seen fit to appropriate money to have an American- 
 ization director on the staff of the Educational Bureau. 
 Such a director could promote a program in every state 
 in the Union where foreign-speaking peoples are living in 
 large numbers. Dr. H. H. Wheaton, supported by private 
 funds, did this work for a season, and his labors were 
 appreciated by all educators familiar with the problem of 
 Americanization. 
 
 ^ In addition to the national director, there ought to 
 be an Americanization director placed on the staff of the 
 educational department in at least sixteen of the states 
 of the Union In New York State, W. C. Smith is doing 
 this work. He has divided the state into several regions 
 and has placed an assistant in charge of each, and from 
 the state viewpoint a splendid piece of work in American- 
 ization is done in the Empire State. Massachusetts, 
 Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and California have also 
 Americanization directors doing good work. Other states 
 have made possible financial support for schools teaching 
 English and civics to foreigners. Money is needed, but 
 men even more. The states face to face with this problem 
 need a state Americanization director to stimulate public 
 schools, settlement houses, chambers of commerce, and 
 philanthropic organizations. 
 
 Also, cities having ten thousand or more foreign-born 
 people should employ an Americanization director to
 
 ORGANIZATION 205 
 
 function with the public schools, boards of health, police 
 departments, juvenile courts, the wardens of the county 
 jails, the hospitals, and any other organizations that might 
 prove helpful. This director should so plan his work 
 that all the agencies in the city interested in Amer- 
 icanization should be brought together to cooperate, 
 so that the most retiring alien could not escape their 
 activity. 
 
 With a force of directors of this kind national, 
 state, municipal the governments of nation, state, and 
 city would make possible a comprehensive work in 
 Americanization. These men, having their conferences 
 for discussion and standardization of programs, would 
 lead the forces of the country in the solution of one of its 
 most perplexing and vexatious problems. 
 
 In addition to these governmental employees, business 
 and philanthropic organizations should have their Amer- 
 icanization workers. In large cities, chambers of com- 
 merce, manufacturers' associations, and city clubs could 
 do no better service than to underwrite the budget of a 
 man or woman to do Americanization work. In a city 
 like Detroit, Cleveland, or Buffalo, such a worker could 
 do splendid work among the foreigners along employ- 
 ment and domestic lines. Philanthropic agencies, such 
 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association, the Knights of 
 Columbus, the Young Women's Christian Association, 
 the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Men's 
 Christian Union, and churches of all creeds, could also 
 put men and women in the field to do Americanization
 
 206 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 work. In cities like Bayonne, Akron, or Los Angeles there 
 is ample work for all the men and women that secular and 
 religious interests may put to work. Anyone familiar 
 with the needs of Jersey City, Pittsburgh, or Chicago 
 knows perfectly well that it is impossible to put too 
 many men and women of the right kind to work to solve 
 the Americanization problem. 
 
 Governmental and private Americanization workers 
 need also the help of volunteer workers. The number 
 of persons to a class in English and civics, as before 
 stated, should not be more than fifteen. Boards of 
 directors generally insist on the class numbering from 
 thirty to forty. If the teacher in charge of thirty for- 
 eigners is to do good work, she must have an assistant, 
 and the only way this can be done is by enlisting volun- 
 teer workers. In every city members of women's clubs, 
 men's clubs, literary societies, church brotherhoods, 
 ladies' aid societies, sororities, and in fact those of al- 
 most any society, are willing to aid if they are appealed 
 to and shown how they can best assist with the work. 
 
 In order to use this volunteer force, the paid Amer- 
 icanization director or directors should organize a, normal 
 class for the training and guiding of volunteer workers. 
 This normal class, made up entirely of teachers and 
 volunteer workers, should meet at least every other week. 
 When volunteers are sought, it should be clearly stated 
 what is expected of them. If they are to teach for two 
 nights a week, let it be clearly understood that the 
 work will continue for three or four months and not inter-
 
 ORGANIZATION 207 
 
 minably. If they aid a group of ninety-day men or 
 women preparing for the naturalization examination, 
 tell them you do not expect them to teach longer than 
 that. Volunteer workers are more willing to serve if 
 they are put to a definite task for a limited time, than if 
 the work has no limit. They also prefer one job, the 
 one best suited to their taste, better than having to 
 perform half a dozen different tasks. Hence, in securing 
 volunteer workers, it is well to put the whole scope of 
 the field before them, then give each a card with the 
 several lines of activity classified and ask each to mark 
 the work in which he would like to assist. 
 
 2. Americanization Work in an Industry. Most of the 
 foreign-speaking peoples of America are employed in the 
 industries. They work from eight to twelve hours a day, 
 and their boss, more than any other individual, is the 
 personification of America to them. Their leisure hours 
 are spent in the foreign-speaking colony ; their associates 
 are men of their own race ; their economic, social and 
 religious needs are met by organizations manned by 
 men of their own nationality; the only window open to 
 them by which they can look into the American world 
 is in the plant, and at that window stands the boss. 
 Many foreign-speaking women employed in factories are 
 in the same position exactly ; they are, however, some- 
 what better off than the foreign-born women in the home, 
 who see little of what is really American from one year's 
 end to the other. 
 
 Because of the importance of the industries in the
 
 208 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 life of the foreigner, the work of Americanization will 
 never be done until the managerial forces and the English- 
 speaking workers in plants employing foreigners will give 
 their approval to the program and be willing to back up 
 the work in a very concrete way. If the foreigners in an 
 industrial plant are cursed, bulldozed, imposed upon, 
 driven, unjustly treated, and discriminated against, the 
 work of Americanization cannot be promoted there. If 
 the general manager and the foreman pooh-pooh the 
 work of Americanization and make fun of John's 
 effort to learn English, the work will never nourish. 
 From the general manager down to the English-speaking 
 water boy there should prevail a genuine spirit of sym- 
 pathy with the foreign-born in his effort to become an 
 American, and every one, for the sake of our Democracy 
 and of humanity, should be willing to help him. 
 
 In order to create this spirit in an industrial plant, the 
 Americanization program should be presented to all the 
 men and a plan of organization proposed to make possible 
 the Americanization of every alien in the works. 
 
 The first step is to approach the general superintendent, 
 put the program clearly before him, and ask for his 
 indorsement. If he gives his approval, then ask for the 
 privilege of presenting the program to the foremen. 
 Lay the plans before these men and tell them how it 
 will help them in handling the foreigners and in bringing 
 the personnel of the plant in line with national policy. 
 If they approve of the work, let them appoint two of their 
 best men, who are well known to the foreign-born em-
 
 ORGANIZATION 
 
 209 
 
 ployees, to sit on the Americanization plant committee. 
 Next, ask the privilege of addressing the workers of the 
 plant. Tell them what you propose to do, what the 
 
 CHART ON AMERICANIZATION WORK IN INDUSTRIES 
 
 AMERICANIZATION DIRECTOR 
 
 PRESENTATION 
 )F AMERICANIZATION PROGRAM" 
 
 
 To 
 
 
 To 
 
 General 
 
 To 
 
 Foremen 
 
 Manager 
 
 Workers 
 
 AMERICANIZATION PLANT COMMITTEE 
 
 Native Born and Foreign Born 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 
 Com. 
 
 
 Com. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Com. 
 
 
 Com. 
 
 
 
 on 
 
 
 on 
 
 on 
 
 
 on 
 
 
 
 
 Friendly 
 Advice 
 
 Lectures & 
 Entertain- 
 
 Naturali- 
 zation 
 
 English 
 Classes 
 
 on 
 Teachers 
 
 Place of 
 Meeting 
 
 on 
 Publicity 
 
 New 
 
 Employees 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 work means to the plant, to the community, and to the 
 nation. Dwell on the spirit of fair play, of justice, of 
 sympathy all of which are involved in the success of 
 American democracy and ask for their cooperation to 
 make that plant one hundred per cent American. If
 
 210 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 they indorse the program, ask two of the men to sit on 
 the Americanization plant committee. 
 
 The second step is to call the four members of the com- 
 mittee together. Put before them the importance of work- 
 ing with and not for the foreigner, and ask them who are the 
 four best men among the foreign-speaking workers to sit 
 with them as members of the committee. The men should 
 represent the several nationalities in the plant, they should 
 be able to speak English, and they should be American 
 citizens. When they are chosen, bring the committee to- 
 gether, and if possible persuade the manager to sit with you. 
 
 The third step is to have the committee find out what 
 Americanization work is needed in the plant. We want 
 to know those who wish to learn to speak, read, and 
 write the English language ; who have their first papers ; 
 who wish their first papers ; and who are ready and willing 
 to take out their second papers. The employment cards 
 in the office will possibly give you the names of men who 
 have no knowledge of English and who are aliens. You 
 need, however, a card about 3" X 4" as follows: 
 
 Do you speak English ? Do you write English ? 
 
 Do you read English ? Do you want to learn English ? 
 
 Are you an American Citizen? Have you your First Paper? 
 
 Do you want your Second Do you want to become an 
 
 Paper? American Citizen? 
 
 Name : Department 
 
 Address : Chairman of Committee
 
 ORGANIZATION 211 
 
 1 These cards are taken by the members of the committee 
 and distributed among their fellow workers in the depart- 
 ments where the foreigners are found. When collected, 
 they are turned over to the Americanization director. 
 From these data, he will know exactly what work is to be 
 done. Let him present the facts to the committee and 
 take up the question of how best to do the work needed. 
 
 The fourth step is the actual organization of work. 
 This means classes in English and detailed work on 
 naturalization. The questions to be solved are: where 
 will the classes meet, who will teach, what lessons will 
 be used, how shall we organize by department or 
 nationality. If the plant works twenty-four hours 
 three shifts of eight hours each the men will meet for 
 class work either before or after working hours. If the 
 men work ten or twelve hours a day, they must meet for 
 instruction in the evening. Employers who furnish a 
 room for their employees to learn English will also see that 
 it is properly furnished for the work blackboard, tables, 
 seats, paper and pencils, and all other necessary articles. 
 If the teaching is done in the plant, a sub-committee 
 should be appointed to decide on the place or places 
 most convenient for the men, in which the classes can be 
 held. Some employers not only give the room for the 
 work, but furnish teachers to teach the men on company 
 time ; others conduct the work on a fifty-fifty basis the 
 men giving half an hour and the company giving the 
 same. 
 
 The question of teachers is important. In some towns,
 
 212 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 the public school supplies men and women to do the work 
 in the plants or any other place in the city. This imme- 
 diately gives the industry a corps of teachers trained to do 
 the work. If they are employed, the system of lessons 
 used in the public school for this work will be used in the 
 industry. In most cities, the public school is willing to 
 do the work in the school buildings, and asks the em- 
 ployers to make this known to all men and women needing 
 instruction. Many have made strenuous efforts to do this, 
 but the response has been disappointing. A large percent- 
 age of foreigners will not go to the public schools the 
 school must be taken to them. 
 
 If an industrial plant has a large number of foreigners, 
 it will be necessary to enlist volunteer teachers from 
 among the men in the plant. This has been done success- 
 fully in many places. One of the best examples is the 
 General Electric plant in Schenectady. Here under the 
 leadership of an Americanization director, Mr. A. L. 
 Hahn, a splendid corps of teachers from among the em- 
 ployees have been trained to teach. If the work is done 
 in the plant, it is very important that the director 
 should come in personal contact with the foreign-speaking 
 by personally calling on them in the place where they 
 work. An accurate record of the attendance should be 
 kept and a regular system of follow-up work installed. 
 We do not believe in compulsion, but moral suasion and 
 sympathy go a great way in this work. 
 
 Naturalization should be followed up with as much zeal 
 as English class work. The director should in conjunction
 
 ORGANIZATION 213 
 
 x 
 
 with the manager choose a room or rooms, according to 
 the size of the plant, to which all men wishing their first 
 papers should come. He should have on hand an adequate 
 supply of blank forms for the declaration of intention, 
 and go over them carefully with one or two office men who 
 are his assistants in this part of the work. He should 
 then make arrangements with the leaders in the several 
 departments to send to the room, at an appointed hour, 
 four men. He and his assistants should fill in the blank 
 forms accurately. The process should be repeated until 
 twelve or sixteen men are ready for the court clerk. Then 
 he should secure from the clerk of the court a stated 
 hour when the men may make ,their declaration of in- 
 tention to become citizens of the United States. The 
 company can show its good will by supplying an auto 
 truck to take the men to and from the courthouse, and 
 allowing them to do this during their working hours. The 
 director or some other responsible party should accompany 
 the men to the courthouse, and care should be taken to 
 reach every man desiring help. 
 
 The men who have their first papers should be inter- 
 viewed, their papers examined, and if they may apply for 
 their second, the director will advise them how to proceed 
 and what to do. When a group of men have petitioned 
 for their second papers, they should be organized into a 
 class to study for the naturalization examination. The 
 teacher here may be one supplied from the public school, 
 or a member of the legal department of the plant, or one 
 trained by the director to do the work.
 
 214 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 In many industries the foreigners live so far from 
 the plant that it is not feasible for them to take lessons 
 there. In some instances the men work in one state 
 and live in another. In these cases it is more diffi- 
 cult to help the foreign-speaking in English and natural- 
 ization. If the men work for long hours, the help given 
 them must be given in the community. For these and 
 other reasons it is necessary to organize a community 
 Americanization committee if the men and women are to 
 be served in an adequate way. 
 
 3. Community Americanization Committee. The pub- 
 lic school in every community is the agency of public in- 
 struction, and it should be alive to every educational 
 need of the population supporting it. The interest shown 
 by educators in the educational need of the immigrant is of 
 comparatively recent date, and is not to-day commen- 
 surate with the demand. State authorities are awaken- 
 ing, but many municipalities are not conscious of their 
 duty in this respect. 
 
 In my peregrinations from city to city few are found in 
 which public-spirited men are not alert on the question 
 of assimilating the foreigners. In many cities, organ- 
 izations of various kinds are interested to such an extent 
 that they have appointed a committee to study the need 
 of the town and suggest some way in which the members 
 collectively or individually can help in the work. All such 
 bodies should come together, formulate definite plans of 
 action, and cooperate in the solution of this great problem. 
 The hindrance to the realization of this plan in many
 
 ORGANIZATION 
 
 215 
 
 cases is that there is no one organization strong enough 
 to take the lead and bring the others into line. 
 
 The work will never be done by a dozen different societies 
 standing apart and trying to function independently of 
 
 CHART ON COMMUNITY AMERICANIZATION WORK 
 MUNICIPAL AND PRIVATE ORGANIZATIONS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Community 
 
 Y. M. C. A, 
 
 Foreign 
 
 Speaking 
 Societies, 
 
 Public 
 
 Library 
 
 Public 
 Schools 
 
 Chamber 
 of 
 Commerce 
 
 Rotarlans 
 and 
 
 Kiwanis 
 
 Service 
 Sons & 
 Oauohters 
 of Amer. 
 
 Y. W. C. A. 
 Y. M. H. A. 
 K. of C. 
 
 Clubs 
 
 
 
 
 
 Revolution 
 
 Y. M. C. U. 
 
 AMERICANIZATION COMMUNITY COMMITTEE 
 
 Native Born 
 
 Foreign Born 
 
 ACTING SUB-COMMITTEES 
 
 
 
 
 Com. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Com. 
 
 
 
 on 
 
 Com. 
 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 on 
 
 Com. 
 
 Com. 
 
 Lecture! 
 
 on 
 
 Com. 
 
 on 
 
 on 
 
 on 
 
 on 
 
 on 
 
 on 
 
 Court 
 
 on 
 
 on 
 
 | 
 
 Nitunli- 
 
 on 
 
 Advisory 
 
 Employ- 
 
 Women 
 
 Home 
 
 Public- 
 
 Volunteer 
 
 Proceed- 
 
 Hospital 
 
 Library 
 
 Entertain- 
 
 zetlon 
 
 Englleh 
 
 Council 
 
 ment 
 
 Worken 
 
 Vlsltstlon 
 
 ity 
 
 Workers 
 
 ing! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ments 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 each other. The better way is to bring representatives 
 of all organizations together, form a community Amer- 
 icanization committee, establish regular meeting nights, 
 and see that a complete report of work done by the 
 several agencies is given at every meeting. There is no 
 reason why any organization should feel that its services
 
 216 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 are not needed. In most cities the field is so extensive 
 and the laborers so few that the workers are depressed 
 and disheartened by the tremendous need and the petty 
 accomplishments. 
 
 When the community Americanization committee is 
 organized, composed of prominent citizens, both native- 
 and foreign-born, representatives of the public schools and 
 of business, religious, and philanthropic organizations, 
 one of its first duties is to appoint acting committees on 
 education in English, on naturalization, on lectures and 
 entertainments, on publicity, on securing volunteer 
 workers, on employment, on finance, on the home and the 
 women workers, on the hospitals, and on other needs of 
 the foreign-born. Whatever activity is proposed, what- 
 ever avenue of approach is open, whatever need the 
 foreign-born themselves uncover, a special group of men 
 and women should be put in charge of that work and held 
 responsible for its performance. 
 
 One of the most important functions of the committee 
 will be to estimate the sum needed to run night schools 
 for Americanization, and then to see that the Board of 
 Directors of public schools appropriates this amount. 
 Unfortunately, many cities have no night school for 
 foreigners ; others, when money is scarce for municipal 
 purposes, cut the appropriation for evening schools for im- 
 migrants. The Americanization committee should be the 
 strongest ally of the superintendent of instruction in safe- 
 guarding the funds necessary for this most important work. 
 
 The committee also should link the municipal edu-
 
 ORGANIZATION 217 
 
 cational agency with the industries of the town. Advertise- 
 ments of the public school classes should be distributed 
 in the plants ; if an Americanization director is employed, 
 he should have free access to the industries. If the 
 public school sends its teachers, the Plant Americaniza- 
 tion committee should cooperate in lining up the men 
 and in urging them to attend regularly. There should 
 also be the closest cooperation between the public 
 school and the industries in giving instruction to 
 minors of foreign speech. These, according to many 
 state laws, must attend school for a stated number of 
 nights each year. The young people should receive the in- 
 struction best fitted for them as members of the com- 
 munity and industrial workers. If, also, the teacher and the 
 foreman cooperate, many boys and girls will prove so apt in 
 their studies that they should be directed and encouraged 
 to pursue these further in higher institutions of learning. 
 In every city conspicuous instances of this fact are cited. 
 Having given free scope and every opportunity for the 
 public school to function in the community and the 
 industries, the community Americanization committee 
 should not relax its effort to reach every section of the 
 city where the foreign-born are found. As we have already 
 said, many foreigners are so shy, so timid, so diffident, that 
 they will not go to a school building for instruction. To 
 serve these we need men and women having the missionary 
 spirit to carry the message of Americanization to them. 
 This is especially needed in parts of the country where 
 small isolated communities are found within ten miles of
 
 218 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 flourishing cities. Greensburg, Pennsylvania, is an ex- 
 ample. In the city you can generally organize a strong 
 Americanization committee, but in the small mining towns 
 around it, where the need of Americanization is far greater, 
 it will be difficult to secure an effective committee. 
 The work can be done only by missionaries of American- 
 ization going to these mining camps with their spirit and 
 their program to tell the people for what America stands, 
 and to give them examples of the best type of Americans. 
 
 Hence, it is important that the men on the American- 
 ization committee should study the need of its city 
 and the towns dependent upon it in an economic sense. 
 If this is done and a force of volunteer workers organized, 
 there will not be a boarding house, a lodge room, a foreign 
 society, a club, a factory, a mill, or a shop within ten miles 
 of that city without the message of Americanization 
 having been carried to it. If the work is done in the city 
 itself, not a restaurant, a hotel, a shoe-shining shop, a 
 candy store, a tailor establishment, should be passed by. 
 Some one sympathetic with the foreign-born should find 
 out who in each of these places needs lessons in English ; 
 who wants help with his naturalization papers ; who needs 
 counsel in difficulty ; who needs direction in perplexity ; 
 and every foreign-born man and woman should know where 
 he may find a true American friend when he needs help. 
 
 To facilitate the work of naturalization, a place or 
 places should be set apart in which the work may be done. 
 If the city is large and the foreign-born live in many 
 sections, a room in the public school in each section
 
 ORGANIZATION 219 
 
 should be set apart. The foreigners will know what 
 evenings the rooms are open and at what hours ; workers 
 will be on hand to serve the applicants; a plentiful 
 supply of blank forms for first and second papers will be 
 secured ; and, as far as possible, the number of men 
 applying in any one night will be so regulated that no one 
 will have long to wait and none be turned away unserved. 
 When there are ten or fifteen declarants for first papers 
 ready to go to court, the director or a member of the 
 committee should accompany the men to the courthouse. 
 The same should be true when aliens petition for their 
 second papers. 
 
 The sub-committee in charge of lectures and entertain- 
 ments should see that these are run synchronously with 
 classes in English and Civics, in the sections of the city 
 where the classes are organized. Saturday and Sunday 
 are good days on which to run these social and educational 
 gatherings. They should not interfere with the class work. 
 It is our experience that nothing reacts more favorably 
 upon the attendance in classes than a good social, a 
 show, or an entertainment to which the members of the 
 classes and their friends are invited. Admission to these 
 functions should be by ticket, and the tickets should be 
 distributed to the members of the classes two or three 
 to each, and no one should be admitted without a ticket. 
 The function also, as far as possible, should be in the hands 
 of a committee of the best men and women in the classes, 
 working under the supervision of the sub-committee in 
 charge of this branch of the work.
 
 220 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 It is not necessary to describe further the functions of 
 the sub-committee on recreation for the sons and daughters 
 of foreigners, the duties of the committee serving women 
 workers and the homes, of the men in charge of the advi- 
 sory council, of those who look after the foreigners who 
 are in hospitals or sick at home, and many other services 
 that have to be performed by all those connected with the 
 work. All and each one serving in the true American spirit 
 will find work to do, and they will ask no reward, for the 
 gratitude and appreciation of the served will give them 
 more real joy than gold and silver. When these workers 
 come together each month to tell the story of their various 
 activities to the committee of the whole, every member 
 native- or foreign-born will feel glad that he has a 
 hand in interpreting America to his alien brother and 
 sister, and that he aids in the shaping of the ideals and 
 concepts of " Coming Americans." 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 COMMUNITY AMERICANIZATION: F. C. Butler, Bulletin No. 
 76, Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C., 
 Chapter V. 
 
 A COMMUNITY CENTER: Henry E. Jackson. 
 
 SOCIAL ASPECTS OF EDUCATION : Irving King. 
 
 AMONG INDUSTRIAL WORKERS : Section G., Y. M. C. A. In- 
 dustrial Department. 
 
 THE WORKS MANAGER OF TO-DAY: Sydney Webb, Chapters 
 XI-XII. 
 
 WHAT Is AMERICA : Edward Alsworth Ross, Chapter IX. 
 
 EXPERIMENTS IN INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION : Edward Cadberry.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 EVERY workman has an ideal toward which he strives ; 
 the Americanization worker ought also to have one. In our 
 work with many types of foreign-born men in America, 
 what is our goal, what is the great objective? If we 
 had the power to form every immigrant coming to America 
 into an ideal citizen, what kind of man would he be? 
 What are the qualities of good citizenship in the United 
 States, and in what does it differ from good citizenship 
 in Canada or France? The Greeks used to talk of the 
 " good citizen " at the time they killed their greatest 
 citizen, whom the world to-day honors Socrates. 
 The idea of goodness in the days of Charlemagne would 
 not pass muster to-day, any more than the Knights of 
 King Arthur would fit in a modern army. Professor 
 Ferrero tells us that the cold virtues of the stern Puritan 
 need the soothing moderation of the genial Latin before 
 they are workable in modern times. Whether or not 
 the good citizen is to be produced by a compromise be- 
 tween the Teuton and the Latin, I am not ready to 
 answer ; but one thing is very clear, that however much 
 we may regret the departure of the solidity of puri- 
 
 221
 
 222 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 tanic conduct, it is hopeless to expect the foreign-born 
 to shape their life after the model of colonial days. A 
 Puritan, walking along Broadway in New York City, 
 would be as much out of place in the twentieth century 
 as one of the aborigines of Tasmania. The good citizen 
 of this twentieth century is the model we need, for he 
 alone will pass muster, and the type must be American. 
 
 Good citizenship is made up of many parts. As the 
 body comprises many members each of which must be 
 healthy and functioning aright before a perfect organism 
 is realized, so the citizen, having many duties, must 
 discharge each aright, before good citizenship is realized 
 in the state. Every citizen has duties to the home as 
 husband and father, duties to the community as a mem- 
 ber, duties to the industries as a producer. These 
 several spheres have a vital relation to good citizen- 
 ship. The vast majority of foreign-born adults provide 
 for their families most amply, they work regularly and 
 capably as wage-earners, but they are not considered 
 an essential part of the political life of the community 
 as long as they have no political power. There are about 
 five million aliens in the country who are not a part of 
 America, for they have no voice in the government. 
 
 When aliens become citizens of the United States, 
 let us believe that they are good husbands, considerate 
 neighbors, and good workmen. Without these char- 
 acteristics the foreign-born will not make good Ameri- 
 can citizens. When, however, aliens come into the 
 family of Americans they enter into new relationships,
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 223 
 
 they assume new duties, their relationship to every other 
 member of this democracy is changed. What does this 
 changed relationship involve, what does it mean to us and 
 to them ? If the five million aliens were to enter into the 
 body politic before the next general election, it would 
 mean a great deal to the nation whether or not these 
 millions were conscious of the new responsibilities rest- 
 ing upon them. The naturalized citizen cannot dis- 
 charge his obligations unless he qualifies in knowledge, 
 intelligence, and character. And of these three virtues 
 the greatest is character. 
 
 My purpose in this chapter is to give the Americaniza- 
 tion worker an idea of the virtues each alien should pos- 
 sess before he can be classified as a " good citizen." 
 
 I. The alien should know what the family possesses 
 and do his best to increase its holdings. 
 
 As the soul must have a body, so must citizenship have 
 a country a material basis for the display of patriot- 
 ism. The country affords an arena on which the virtues 
 of citizenship may be cultivated and nurtured. The 
 quality and intensity of men's patriotism are not meas- 
 ured by the area of the country to which they belong. 
 The highest type of patriotism has been displayed in 
 countries that are small in quantity and barren in quality. 
 America is highly favored in extent of territory and rich- 
 ness of resources. The density of population in America 
 is only about one tenth that of Switzerland, one thir- 
 teenth that of England, and one twentieth that of Bel- 
 gium. Hence, the margin of subsistence here is wide,
 
 224 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 and if sanity obtains in industrial and agricultural re- 
 lations, there is reason to believe that the means of sub- 
 sistence in coming years in these United States will be 
 ample for all. This point should be made clear to the 
 foreign-speaking, for it has a great deal to do with 
 patriotism. 
 
 Much has been said of late both in the press and on the 
 platform about Americanism. We are told that it is a 
 spiritual possession, and finds its deepest expression in 
 loyalty to certain tenets laid down by the fathers. This 
 is true, but not the whole truth. We need a material 
 basis. Every immigrant coming to America asks, what 
 is the promise of life in America? Immigrants have 
 come from the Old to the New World expecting more of 
 the good things of life than they were able to get across 
 the seas. There is no reason why they should be dis- 
 appointed. They cannot expect to find the land in 
 America fruitful without plowing, sowing, cultivating, 
 and harvesting. They will not earn money in mine 
 and mill, factory and shop, unless they work. Food, 
 clothing, and shelter for man and animal depend upon the 
 amount we put into the earth ; the quantity of consump- 
 tive goods at our command depends on the work we put 
 on raw material. 
 
 There is no more dangerous fallacy brought by immi- 
 grants to America than the expectation of making high 
 wages without sacrifice, hard toil, and persistent effort. 
 When they in time find out their error, they are dis- 
 appointed, disgruntled, and rebellious. They become
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 225 
 
 fertile soil to socialistic and anarchistic propaganda, 
 and it is the road along which radicalism of the reddest 
 type comes into America. The Americanization director 
 can correct many of these ideas by appealing to the 
 common sense of the foreign-speaking. Never have 
 men been able to live without work, and hard work at 
 that. America does not differ in this respect from 
 Europe. What we affirm, and what the immigrant has 
 a just right to expect, is that the reward offered to honest 
 toil in America is more ample than that in Europe. This 
 country is not a paradise, and yet millions of immigrants 
 have found in it ample means of subsistence; hundreds 
 of thousands of them have risen from poverty to the well- 
 to-do class, and thousands of them have become wealthy. 
 The price paid was honest toil. If these people had 
 stayed in Europe, their status would perhaps have been 
 that of their fathers and grandfathers before them 
 grinding toil, bare subsistence, and the dread of want. 
 
 Much agitation is also carried on among the foreign- 
 bom concerning the present industrial order. Agitators 
 emphasize the capitalistic regime and the wage system ; 
 they criticize the method of production and the dis- 
 tribution of wealth ; they talk about industrial democ- 
 racy and the nationalization of minerals and raw ma- 
 terial ; many advise sabotage and the universal strike 
 methods which tend to destroy the very foundations of 
 our social and economic structure, advocated by men who 
 never saved anything in their lives, but who believe 
 themselves capable of running the business of this nation,
 
 226 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 which amounts, in manufacturing products alone, to more 
 than $25,000,000,000. We have passed through a mili- 
 tary experience that cost the nation about that sum. To 
 do this work, the government called to its aid the biggest 
 business men of the nation. America is the richest 
 nation on the earth, and yet the scandalous waste, un- 
 veiled by commissions, is burdensome and humiliating. 
 But the work was successfully and well done. Suppose the 
 soap-box orators had been in control men who know 
 nothing about production and transportation, who know 
 not the A B C of commerce and finance, who disregard 
 the economics of business and industry and flaunt upon 
 an innocent audience theories conned in the brains of 
 dreamers who speak of industrial and social reconstruc- 
 tion what would have been the fate of the boys 
 over there, and the condition of the world to-day? In- 
 experience during the war cost us much. Many radical 
 schemes were tried in industries and the results were 
 disappointing. These experiences are our safeguards 
 against radicalism in times of peace. 
 
 This foolish and dangerous talk takes root in the minds 
 of men who do not think. If we show the workmen 
 the silliness of the propaganda, their common sense 
 will see that " nothing comes from nothing." The 
 goods we have can be produced only by work, and we 
 cannot change the social and industrial order just as 
 easily as a man can change his clothes. Good citizenship 
 means each one in his sphere keeping busy, doing honest 
 work, and contributing to the sum total of wealth for the
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 227 
 
 support of the nation. Abuses exist; reforms must be 
 effected. A greater share of self-determination should 
 be given wage-earners, but let us not tear down the 
 house while we need only some improvements to put 
 it in order. 
 
 The foreign-born is thrifty. The Italians in New 
 York City are said to have accumulated property to the 
 sum of $100,000,000 ; the Poles of Buffalo to the sum of 
 $40,000,000; the Greeks of Manchester, $15,000,000; 
 and the Slovaks in the Pittsburgh district, $15,000,000. 
 In every foreign-speaking community this saving goes 
 on; it is the way in which the capital of the nation in- 
 creases. We all should encourage and commend foreigners 
 for this virtue. The salvation of this and other nations 
 must come by saving and not by spending. Right 
 economic concepts need to be instilled in the minds of 
 the producing classes, both wage-earners and manu- 
 facturers. To throw the industrial world into confusion 
 by false and pernicious theories will bring calamity to all. 
 
 Nature and man have made possible the present well- 
 being of the United States. If man cease to work, how- 
 ever, nature will soon fail us, and the outcome will be 
 barbarism. Kindergarten principles of economics need to 
 be emphasized, and the common sense of the people will 
 see the point and follow the lead. The world in its 
 progress has depended on brain and not on the rule of 
 majorities. No battle was ever won by an army at 
 the head of which was a debating club ; and no more 
 will the conflict with nature bring us the necessities of
 
 228 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 life and comfort if we move at the behest of a debating 
 group. Sound economic teaching; willingness to work, 
 whether it be in the field or at the forge, on the ship or 
 in the shop ; precedence to talent and leadership to ability ; 
 the desire to save and lay in store ; obedience to authority 
 and sound financiering these are the requisites for 
 good citizenship in the native- as well as the foreign- 
 born. Every Americanization worker who leads the 
 foreign-speaking to an appreciation of these qualities 
 serves both the men he reaches and the nation. A fool 
 may throw a brick at a well-regulated timepiece and 
 smash it, but it will take a well-trained hand to repair 
 the damage. False economic teaching may lead the 
 wage-earners to do foolish things and to throw the in- 
 dustries into confusion, but the industries must ulti- 
 mately be brought to order by the brains of the nation. 
 
 II. Besides sound economic teaching, the foreign- 
 born needs to know the family history, what kind of 
 men laid down the foundation, what were their ideas 
 of the purpose of the Republic, what have been the trials 
 of the builders of the state, and how the family conducts 
 its affairs to-day. The more familiar the foreign-born 
 voter is with the family tree, its traditions, its purposes, 
 and its future, the better qualified will he be to discharge 
 the obligations of good citizenship. 
 
 Ignorance is a menace to democracy. The leading 
 nations of Europe, now in the van in the onward march 
 of democracy, have reduced their illiteracy to less than 
 two per cent. The last record we have of illiteracy in
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 229 
 
 America is more than five times as great. The two main 
 contributing factors are the negroes and the foreign- 
 born. Illiteracy among some of the immigrant groups 
 in pre-war days ran up to 70 per cent. The peoples who 
 come from southeastern Europe gave an average of 35 
 per cent. The enforcement of the literacy test law is 
 reducing the number of illiterate immigrants coming to 
 this country, and we expect to see a higher type of im- 
 migrant entering. If literacy, however, is the state in 
 which millions of foreigners in the country now are it 
 behooves us to help them to read and write our tongue. 
 Those who come from non-English-speaking countries 
 to America must learn the English language. A man who 
 is literate in his mother tongue will make more rapid 
 progress in learning English than the illiterate. This 
 first step in Americanization should be impressed on 
 every alien coming to America as the expressed will of 
 the nation. Many states have passed laws compelling 
 minors who cannot read, write, and speak English to 
 attend school a certain number of nights during the year. 
 Some states have attempted to pass laws compelling 
 adults to do the same. Public sentiment is against 
 this. Men in their fifties, having no knowledge of 
 English, will rarely acquire it. They may be good 
 workmen, genial neighbors, and provident parents, 
 but the chances are that the rights of citizenship will 
 never be theirs. What shall we do for these people? 
 Leave them in their ignorance? No, an effort should 
 be made to bring them by word and picture the spirit of
 
 230 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 America. These men are generally heads of families, 
 and will spend the remaining years of their lives in 
 our country. They will have children who have absorbed 
 the American spirit and whose ambition is to become 
 real Americans. Let us show the seniors what this 
 spirit of the land is ; they will understand their children 
 better and they will rejoice in the greater richness that 
 has come into the lives of their offspring though they 
 themselves will never participate in it. 
 
 The great field of Americanization, however, is the 
 hundreds of thousands of alien men and women between 
 twenty and forty-five who are ignorant of our tongue 
 and dead to the traditions of democracy. To teach these 
 people the English language is a difficult but not an in- 
 surmountable task. To give them a clear idea of the 
 spirit of America will clarify much that is now obscure 
 and vague in their minds. Volunteer and religious 
 organizations have helped thousands of foreign-speak- 
 ing men and women to a knowledge of our tongue and 
 an understanding of America. Both federal and state 
 governments are interested in the work and are pro- 
 moting comprehensive programs for the education and 
 naturalization of aliens. We hope that Congress, the 
 states and municipalities will make reasonable appro- 
 priations for the education of aliens. Much more, how- 
 ever, must be done before this problem is solved. 
 
 Money is needed, but it is not the only requisite. If 
 the federal government appropriated all the millions 
 asked for, if the states and municipalities were to add
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 231 
 
 many millions more, the problem would not be solved 
 unless the people of the several municipalities showed 
 a friendly attitude to the, foreign-born and a willingness 
 to welcome them into the family. 
 
 The same attitude must characterize government 
 officials. Examples are not lacking of government 
 agents hindering rather than aiding Americanization. 
 Politics and work for aliens are not bedfellows. When 
 neither official good will nor public sympathy supports 
 the effort of educating foreigners, all plans to enlighten 
 them fail. When I asked a club of foreigners what 
 we could do to help them, their answer was : " Help 
 us in this place to be treated as human beings." These 
 men knew enough of democracy to feel the discrimina- 
 tion made in work and in social spheres. The great 
 desideratum in Americanization work is men. The right 
 kind of men and women is more needed than gold ; 
 right public sentiment is more needed than silver; and 
 the light of democracy will shine into the hearts of 
 aliens only when it radiates from our own. We need 
 men and women representing government activities who 
 are devoted and capable, discreet and wise, and drawn 
 to the work more by the love of humanity than the hon- 
 orarium received. We must subject officialism, race 
 prejudice, superior learning, to the love of man as man. 
 Every immigrant is a potential American, if he has the 
 right kind of environment and a sympathetic leader. 
 
 Every industry employing foreign-speaking peoples 
 can do much in this work of enlightenment. Every
 
 232 
 
 plant employing a hundred or more aliens may with 
 little trouble find out the status of the foreign-born 
 workers. An Americanization committee, carefully 
 chosen from among the most sympathetic workers, should 
 see that every alien workman is personally interviewed 
 as to his knowledge of English and his desire for citizen- 
 ship. Every community having foreign-speaking neigh- 
 bors should also be aroused to its obligation. The 
 organization of community Americanization committees 
 is a movement in the right direction. Every alien in the 
 city not approached in the works should be interviewed 
 by a wise and sympathetic citizen who will make all 
 necessary inquiries as to English and naturalization. 
 On every committee, whether in the industry or in the 
 community, foreign-born citizens able to talk English 
 should be found. We should work with and not for the 
 foreigner, as I have already stated. When the native- and 
 foreign-born men of the community sit in joint confer- 
 ence to plan the best means to bring the message of Ameri- 
 canization to the foreign-born, the work will be wisely done. 
 The effort in the industries and that in the community 
 should be coordinated. Duplication of effort is waste of 
 money and energy. Chairmen of Americanization com- 
 mittees in the several plants should be ex-officio members 
 of the community Americanization committee. This 
 would assure uniformity of methods, interchange of ideas, 
 cooperation between the industry and the community, 
 and the service of the best men to promote a program 
 of interpreting America, its institutions, and its men.
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 233 
 
 Many foreigners live in communities of less than five 
 thousand population. These include towns near mines, 
 quarries, cement plants, and chemical works. If these 
 are added to agricultural communities made up largely 
 of foreign-born families the total amounts to thousands. 
 These smaller communities, as I stated before, need en- 
 lightenment. The work of Americanization will not 
 be complete if these are left in illiteracy. The program 
 projected in these small centers will be the same as that 
 promoted in large cities, but the method of approach 
 will be different. Most of these small communities are 
 near large cities, and the service rendered should radiate 
 from these points. In mining regions, such as the coal 
 fields of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, 
 the copper and iron mines of Michigan and Minnesota, 
 the lead mines of Missouri, in lumber camps in Maine 
 or on the Pacific Coast, as well as in settled agricultural 
 counties having large numbers of foreign-speaking men 
 like those in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, 
 Minnesota, and California, Americanization work can 
 best be done by grouping the camps or settlements into 
 zones and putting an Americanization director in each 
 zone, whose headquarters are in the city where the 
 business interests converge and in which volunteer workers 
 may be found. This plan will reach the foreigners in 
 isolated communities and teach them for what America 
 stands. 
 
 The state of Pennsylvania has under way a compre- 
 hensive plan to reach every isolated community of this
 
 234 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 nature. Its aim is to coordinate government agencies, 
 philanthropic societies, and business interests in one 
 strong drive to enlighten the two million odd foreign- 
 born in the state. This is the rational way to do the 
 work. It is a campaign of enlightenment in the funda- 
 mentals of democracy, and it will help not only the 
 foreign-born, but the native as well. When race prejudice 
 as well as illiteracy, narrowness as well as ignorance, class 
 consciousness as well as class indifference are banished, 
 the foreigners will be happier. If every state having 
 immigrants follows a sane plan of Americanization, 
 there will be no foreign-born group unchallenged as to its 
 loyalty to the Union, and no community having foreign- 
 born neighbors left ignorant of its obligation and re- 
 sponsibility to America. 
 
 One of the questions asked by an attendant in an 
 Americanization conference was : " Suppose we get all 
 men to take out their papers, will the work of Ameri- 
 canization be done? " The answer was "No." Thou- 
 sands of aliens have been made citizens in the flimsiest 
 way. They have little or no idea of the American plan of 
 government, and no clear idea of the objective of this 
 democracy. To make aliens citizens by the thousands 
 and then forget them is to leave the foreign-speaking 
 community fallow for the professional politician. It is no 
 exaggeration to say that hundreds of thousands of foreign- 
 born voters go to the polls having no idea of their respon- 
 sibility in a democracy. Who will carry the necessary 
 information to these people that they may better discharge
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 235 
 
 their civic duties ? Government officials cannot do this, 
 the Americanization worker can. 
 
 In some communities government agents promoting 
 Americanization work are regarded with suspicion be- 
 cause of political affiliations. In half a dozen cities I 
 found men in political offices dead set against the work 
 in Americanization because the promoters represented 
 the opposite political party. In a few places, the mayor 
 and his henchmen capitalized the Americanization work 
 done in their city. Politics, when once they enter into 
 the work of Americanization, doom it to failure. It is 
 difficult enough to keep out the taint of politics when 
 governmental activity is limited to English and natural- 
 ization ; if it is extended to instructing the foreign-born 
 voter how to vote, what elections mean, how electors 
 should do their duty, how democracy is interpreted by the 
 leading parties, what should be the qualifications of office 
 seekers, then though an angel from heaven did the in- 
 structing, he would not be able to keep out political bias. 
 Lectures of this nature must be given entirely by volunteer 
 and philanthropic organizations. 
 
 The ideal citizen, be he foreign- or native-born, puts 
 patriotism above partisanship, principles above per- 
 sonalities, country above creed. No community will 
 come to its own in a political sense if ethical consider- 
 ations are cast to the wind. We are making citizens 
 of the foreign-born now faster than ever before in the 
 history of the country, and unfortunately little is done to 
 quicken the consciences of these men. It is best that the
 
 236 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 foreign-born voter should align himself with one of the 
 great parties ; all we ask for is that he do so knowing 
 what democracy means, how it is to be preserved, and 
 what are the ideals of this American experiment. The 
 men fit to do this are not time servers, political charlatans, 
 itinerant spell-binders, crawling office seekers. If adopted 
 citizens are to' be enlightened, the work must be done 
 by clean, straightforward, honest patriots, free from 
 political bias and above political partisanship. 
 
 Many speak of America as " God's country." Would 
 it not be worth while to make Americanization work fit 
 that title? This confluence of the nations of the earth, 
 on a land prepared by the Puritans for self-government, 
 means something in the ultimate solution of the problem 
 of race amelioration and human development. Never 
 before in the history of the world has there been such 
 a mixing of the blood of races as in America. The spread 
 of Grecian culture was nothing like it ; the dominancy 
 of the Roman Republic had something similar in it ; the 
 commingling of nations in Europe when each fought for 
 standing room is most like this, and yet it differs in the 
 fact that there it was done by the sword, and here by 
 good will. Kelt and Teuton, Slav and Latin, Chaldaic 
 and Mongol, have come of their own accord, each contrib- 
 uting his part to participate in making a democracy. 
 
 President Wilson has said : " We are the predestined 
 mediators of mankind." " America is the hope of the 
 world, and if she does not justify this hope, the result will 
 be unthinkable." We need ideal citizenry for this, and it
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 237 
 
 can be attained only by raising the standard of citizenship 
 in both native- and foreign-born electors. The tide of 
 events points clearly to the leadership of America in the 
 great task of establishing the " Republic of Man." The 
 world looks to the United States for this leadership, and 
 it can be given only by men being true to the prophets and 
 priests of this democratic ideal, who have stood for 
 justice to the weak at home and the right of self-deter- 
 mination abroad. Our task is to make the peoples in 
 America catch the vision of ideal democracy, and resolve 
 to make it the best among the popular governments of the 
 world. The 15,000,000 foreign-born in these United 
 States should be shown how they can help in bringing to 
 pass the coming day when the people shall rule in right- 
 eousness and truth. In this process of enlightenment 
 the Americanization leader cannot find a nobler calling, 
 a more sacred duty, or a more exalted mission. He will 
 serve not only the foreign-born, not only the future of these 
 United States, but also the interest of humanity struggling 
 to realize a better world in which dwell justice and peace. 
 III. Moral Requisites. America will never be " the 
 predestined mediator of mankind " if moral qualities are 
 wanting. We are all proud of the history of the country. 
 We know that the story is not perfect ; there are many 
 shortcomings among both fathers and children. And 
 yet we risk the statement that no other nation in the world 
 can point to as consistent an effort to promote justice 
 and truth, peace and good will, in home and foreign 
 affairs, as these United States in the last hundred years.
 
 238 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 The purpose of the founders of the nation as ex- 
 pressed in the preamble of the Constitution "to 
 establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide 
 for the common defense, promote the general welfare, 
 and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our 
 posterity," has been the guiding star of the nation. The 
 unprejudiced reader of American history will see how it 
 has been realized in a remarkable degree. The American 
 government and American diplomacy have on the whole 
 steered true to the ideal laid down by the fathers. If the 
 Americanization promoter brings this fact to the foreign- 
 born's attention, if he emphasizes the character of the 
 men who stood at the helm of the ship of state and steered 
 true to the course mapped out by the founders he will 
 render a valuable service to the nation. 
 
 The World War has shown us how one of the most 
 enlightened nations of the earth, under autocratic leader- 
 ship, can shake the foundations of civilization. It may 
 be done again, if the leading nations of the earth do not 
 find a way to settle international problems by arbitration. 
 America's place and the part it will play in this question 
 must depend upon the way it keeps its own house in order. 
 " Eternal vigilance " must be exercised against the foes 
 of democracy who hide in the folds of the Stars and Stripes. 
 There are those who strike at the foundations of govern- 
 ment while professing to be patriots, who use every op- 
 portunity to make the nation serve them rather than the 
 reverse. Against these men, all patriots, native- and 
 foreign-born, must wage war. This can be done only by
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 239 
 
 the exercise of moral qualities. The virtues of duty and 
 obedience, service and honor, truth and uprightness, are 
 the only defenses known to ward off corruption, intrigue, 
 and class warfare. 
 
 We have many shortcomings. One of the grossest 
 is the corruption of our cities. It may not be so great 
 as the press would have us believe, but it exists and 
 causes every patriot to blush. Again and again have 
 municipal officials been found guilty of malfeasance in 
 office, and yet they escape the punishment due male- 
 factors. In some instances, such men are brazen enough 
 to come again with besmirched records in quest of office, 
 and behind them stands the political machine, whose 
 manipulators defy public sentiment, disregard the de- 
 mands of decency and honesty, and clothe their " pals " 
 in the robes of office when they ought to be in striped 
 garments. It is downright moral turpitude, and is due 
 to the fact that the machine puts party success above 
 public morality, loyalty to criminals above the law, 
 and hoodwinks electors by swearing that black is white. 
 In this as in other things " the truth shall make us free." 
 A criminal is a criminal and should have no favors if 
 political institutions are to be honored in the land. Cor- 
 rupt practices, if persisted in, will humiliate any nation. 
 The honor of the Union, a due sense of decency and 
 honesty, should stand for impartial justice to all. The 
 political thief is just as black as the commercial one, 
 and both need the stern hand of the law to bring 
 them to justice. When the foreign-born read of this
 
 240 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 leniency to political prisoners their respect for law is 
 gone. 
 
 Another evil from which we suffer much is mob rule. 
 In these post-bellum days, the spirit of lawlessness is 
 abroad, property is destroyed, the police force is set at 
 defiance, and lives are sacrificed. The recent experiences 
 through which the country has passed in the steel strike in 
 Gary, Youngstown, Johnstown, and other centers ; the 
 industrial conflicts on the Pacific Coast as well as in the 
 mining regions of West Virginia and Pennsylvania, are 
 most disquieting. Men have never gained anything by 
 mob law. The real progress of society must come through 
 adjustment of relations between parties whose interests 
 conflict. If the courts cannot give relief, the legislatures 
 can pass laws required to remedy existing evils. That 
 is the way society has advanced. It is the Anglo-Saxon 
 way, and its fruits are peace and prosperity. 
 
 The one thing needed above all else in Americaniza- 
 tion work is service. The old motto, " I serve," is a 
 good one to place in every patriot's head. The spirit 
 of service injected into the young manhood and woman- 
 hood of every community will win the foreign-born to 
 America. We are all proud of its manifestation in the 
 World War. When I visited the cantonments of the coun- 
 try, I saw men who were managers and part owners of 
 industrial plants sleeping in bunks, working fourteen hours 
 a day, often in rain and mud, and eating in mess houses 
 that were most crude, for they wished to do something 
 for their country. Tens of thousands of college boys
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 241 
 
 from every part of the country left stately halls of learn- 
 ing, homes full of comfort and happiness, and volun- 
 tarily lived the hard life of a soldier, because they heard 
 their country's call and wished to serve. It was splen- 
 did in every way. It proved the heart of America 
 when the testing came, and the lesson will not be 
 forgotten by the men of this generation. Never did 
 the fires of patriotism burn brighter than the morn- 
 ing on which the call came for men to serve in order 
 that the heritage of democracy might not be lost to the 
 sons of men. The service rendered by the millions of 
 American boys is the best proof that the manhood of the 
 nation is going to see this democracy preserved and 
 perpetuated. In this splendid display of patriotism we 
 should riot lose sight of the part played by the foreign- 
 born. Thousands of these young men were subjects of 
 foreign powers and could have claimed exemption, 
 they waived their rights, stayed in the army, and fought 
 for democracy under the Stars and Stripes. If this 
 spirit of service is capitalized to make democracy safe at 
 home, many of the evils from which we suffer will dis- 
 appear. 
 
 What could it not accomplish if rallied around the polls 
 on election day ! The ballot box has been called the 
 " ark of the covenant of democracy." The name is 
 appropriate. Unhallowed hands are laid upon it and we 
 need brave lads to strike them off. Corrupting para- 
 sites are packing the ballot box with chaff, swearing it 
 to be whole wheat gathered from the fields of democracy.
 
 242 THE PROBLEM OP AMERICANIZATION 
 
 We need young men, defenders of democracy, to guard 
 the ark and see that nothing except whole wheat is put 
 into it. Some naturalized men sell their acquired right 
 for a mess of pottage ; we need keen eyes and sharp 
 blades to discern and smite these corrupters and divest 
 them of the robe they dishonor. Other naturalized citi- 
 zens care not what becomes of the " ark of the cove- 
 nant," pay no attention to the character of the men serving 
 at the polls, and never investigate the quality of men 
 who seek public office. These men enjoy all the rights 
 and privileges of citizenship, and assume none of its 
 obligations. 
 
 In some cities the returning soldiers are organized for 
 service in the towns in which they live. " Over there " 
 they served their country and the world, here they are 
 asked to serve their town. The men fought with men 
 of many tongues in the World War, and democracy was 
 saved. What a splendid thing it would be if they made 
 friends of the foreign-speaking of their town, informed 
 them what the power of the ballot is, and showed them how 
 the present and future condition of the town depends 
 upon the purity of the vote. Millions of men were will- 
 ing to die for democracy ; if one million is willing to live 
 for it, we need have no fear of the foreign-born. A 
 million men and women, resolved to live for democracy, 
 and to see that the foreigners get accurate knowledge of 
 how to use their sovereign power aright, would be the best 
 interpretation of the American spirit. If this effort be 
 made by service men, the foreign-born will help to keep
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 243 
 
 the vote pure, the legislative chamber clean, and the 
 officials honest and conscientious. 
 
 The foreign-born will not rise to the status of the 
 ideal citizen if the courts of the land are not above sus- 
 picion. We are proud of the records of eminent jurists who 
 have given tone, character, and dignity to these courts. 
 Few cases, in the hundred and forty years of our history, 
 are found beclouded with suspicion or besmirched by 
 partisanship. The character of the higher courts has 
 been on the whole above reproach. The. quality of 
 men to-day dispensing justice in the nation is equal to 
 that of any period. Popular clamor, however, invades 
 this department of public service and seeks control. 
 Montesquieu said : " The people, not able to tolerate 
 the authority which it has created, wishes to do everything 
 itself, to deliberate for the Senate, to act for the magistrate, 
 and to usurp the functions of the judge." This seems to be 
 the trend to-day in the United States. The mob clamors 
 for power, and the courts do not escape their criticism nor 
 the judges their censure. Every patriot must oppose this 
 tendency if the judges of the land are to be kept above 
 party strife and economic anxiety. The foreign-born 
 understand the seriousness of this question and their help 
 should be sought in preserving the dignity and purity of 
 the courts of the land. 
 
 The American nation will be just as good as its citi- 
 zens make it. We, the citizens of to-day, can make or 
 break this democracy. The past is well worth our ad- 
 miration, and we all should be anxious to maintain the
 
 244 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 standards of the past and on them build the ideal democ- 
 racy of the future. The ideals of the fathers are far from 
 facts in this twentieth century. To-day we are wrestling 
 with imperfections and shortcomings. We are slow in 
 adapting ourselves to new conditions. The disturbing 
 factors in society rise as so many hydra heads disturb- 
 ing the peace of all and threatening to overthrow the 
 industrial and social order. We cannot pray for the 
 strong man Hercules to come and give us relief, 
 for that is Nietzscheism. We have the remedy in our own 
 hands ; if we cannot adapt ourselves there is only one 
 outcome barbarism. Old solutions will not answer. 
 New problems rise of which the fathers never dreamed, 
 and they demand new solutions. It means new adapta- 
 tion. If the problem of Americanization is to be solved, 
 it must be at some sacrifice and expense. It is worth 
 the effort, for in it are involved fundamental principles 
 of democracy. 
 
 Never before in the history of the nation has race 
 prejudice been more virulent and aggressive than just 
 now ; never have the rights of the foreign-born been 
 more bitterly attacked in and out of the industries ; 
 never have the inconsistencies between democratic faith 
 and practice been more pronounced. The foreign-born 
 feel it and thousands of them have felt sore at heart 
 because of the wrongs to which they are subjected. We 
 rejoice in the fruits of peace, but peace brought greater 
 hardship to thousands of foreigners. Few of these com- 
 plaints have reached the ears of American patriots, for
 
 THE GOAL IN AMERICANIZATION 245 
 
 the foreigners have no medium of expression which can 
 be heard in state or national legislatures. While nurs- 
 ing their wrongs, the radicals have come to fan their 
 anger. Foreigners easily misunderstand and misinter- 
 pret America, and these false notions are carried to the 
 ends of the earth. America is not understood in any 
 land. Foreigners say it is the land of contradictions. 
 Redemption must come through the service rendered by 
 Americanization committees and directors. These men 
 above all else are charged with the duty of rightly show- 
 ing the foreign-born the soul of America, which is the soul 
 of democracy. America stands for " peace on earth, 
 good will among men." If this is taught sedulously in 
 industries and in municipalities, in trade and commerce, 
 in social and political life, the foreign-born will under- 
 stand and appreciate our institutions. 
 
 From all the countries of Europe have come to us a 
 mighty host, who this day are scattered far and wide in 
 the Republic. These men have served well in American 
 industries, they have built homes and churches, they 
 have their press and their literature, and have tasted 
 the joys of a well-regulated government and the bless- 
 ings of freedom. Some of them have come from lands 
 red with the blood of their fathers who, while resisting 
 tyranny and despotism, paid a price the world has never 
 been able to compute. They have in their blood a dread 
 of tyranny and a trembling in the presence of authority. 
 They know the value of peace and good will, for they long 
 lived under conditions directly the opposite. Many of
 
 246 THE PROBLEM OF AMERICANIZATION 
 
 these men are in positions of trust and honor in com- 
 merce, finance, and industry ; many of them occupy 
 seats of learning in colleges and universities ; and the 
 one thing America asks of them is that they, with the 
 native-born, work for the better and nobler nation of to- 
 morrow. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 SOCIAL CONTROL : E. A. Ross. 
 
 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE CONSTITUTION : F. J. Goodnow. 
 
 ANCIENT ROME AND MODERN AMERICA : G. Ferrero, Chapters 
 
 IV and V. 
 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE: Thorstein Veblen, 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 LATTER DAY PROBLEMS : J. L. Laughlin, Chapter V. 
 THE INFLUENCE OF WEALTH IN IMPERIAL ROME : W. S. Davis, 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 AMERICANISM, WHAT is IT? David Jayne Hill, Chapters IV, 
 
 VI, and VII. 
 THE RELIGION WORTH WHILE : Thos. N. Carver. 
 
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