SOUTHERN BRANCH, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LIBRARY, -S * Mrs EL ES, CALIF. NATIONALIZING AMERICA BY EDWARD A. STEINER THE CONFESSION OF A HYPHENATED AMERICAN I2mo, boards net 500. INTRODUCING THE AMERICAN SPIRIT What it Means to & Citizen and How it Ap- pears to an Alien. i2mc, cloth . . n :t $1.00 FROM ALIEN TO CITIZEN The Story of My Life in America. Illustrated, 8vo, cloth net 1.50 THE BROKEN WALL Stories of the Mingling Folk. Illustrated, I2mo, cloth net $1.00 AGAINST THE CURRENT Simple Chapters from a Complex Life. I2mo, cloth net #1.25 THE IMMIGRANT TIDE ITS EBB AND FLOW Illustrated, 8vo, cloth net 1.50 ON THE TRAIL OF THE IMMIGRANT Illustrated, 1 2mo, cloth net 1 1.50 THE MEDIATOR A Tale of the Old World and the New. Illus- trated, I2mo, cloth net $1.25 TOLSTOY, THE MAN AND His MESSAGE A Biographical Interpretation. Revised and enlarged. Illustrated, I2mo, cloth . net 1.50 THE PARABLE OF THE CHERRIES Illustrated, I2mo, boards net .50:. THE CUP OF ELIJAH Idyll Envelope Series. Decorated . . net 250. Nationalizing By EDWARD A. STETNER Author of " Introducing in. American Spirit, 1 ' "The Immigrant Tide" New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Re veil Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1916, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh; ., iqq Ppnces, E THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO TWO NOBLE AMERICAN WOMEN anfc THOUGH DEATH HAS SEPARATED THEM THEY ARE ALWAYS TOGETHER IN THE HEARTS OF THEIR FRIENDS PREFACE THE battle-axe of the Great War has gashed the tree of life of all the nations, and although time may heal the wound, the scar will never be ob- literated ; for the hurt has penetrated to the very pith of our own national life. We have been shaken out of our smug complacency, and our superficialities, be- gotten in times of peaceful ease. Without having had a direct share in the nations' quarrel, or paid the cost of it, we have passed through an epoch almost as sig- nificant as if we had used the munitions we have made, and our sons and brothers had been the slayers or the slain. While these awful years belong to history and can never be forgotten, they are not as yet history. Even if their chapters were clear enough for the reading, we cannot be certain what we should learn, or if learning, we would heed. The straight upward line which marked 7 Preface humanity's progress has sagged and reached so low a level that we have lost faith in hu- manity's ability to learn from the past. Whether or not we are free moral agents, and rational, has also been doubted. We have thought much, but we have felt more ; we have been swayed hither and thither by the fortunes of war, by sympathies and antipathies ; but to arrive at any definite, abiding conclusions has been all but im- possible. The emotional strain upon those who, like myself, were born in one of the countries involved in the war is indescribable, and our confused questioning or questionable attitude is not easily understood. In spite of my daily anxiety for close kindred in the trenches, and of my deep sympathy going out to those who have offered up their sons to the Fatherland, my life is so centered here in the United States that my hopes and fears are only for her. I have spoken about it often, but I had neither the poise nor the courage to write. This summer, at the request of the man- agement of the Chautauqua Institution, I de- Preface 9 livered six lectures during a week given over to the consideration of "Americanization." These lectures were most cordially received, and I have embodied them, with other chap- ters, in this book. They were all written to be spoken, or rather, I wrote as I would wish to speak to an American audience. To that may be due not only certain rhetorical qualities which the reader will de- tect ; but also the ever-present ego, which cannot be easily eliminated from a lecture. The writing of this book has served the purpose of re-testing for me the experiences through which I passed in the process of Americanization ; for I am both an immi- grant and an American, and I am glad of this opportunity to affirm my faith in America. I shall be profoundly grateful if it tends towards helping to establish the security of this nation and the perpetuating of her institutions which in the past have so vitally affected humanity, and which will surely be needed in the coming days. E. A. S. Grinnell, Iowa. CONTENTS I. THE NATION'S PULSE . . 1 1 II. NATIONALISM .... 34 III. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE . .61 IV. LANGUAGE AND THE NATION . . 89 V. THE STOMACH LINE . . .116 VI. HISTORY AND THE NATION . .142 VII. THE SCHOOLS AND THE NATION . 163 VIII. THE CHURCHES AND THE NATION . 189 IX. NATIONALITY AND THE IMMIGRANT . 210 X. A WORD TO THE UNWISE . .229 10 I The Nation's Pulse LIFE in the United States of America once seemed blessedly peaceful to one who, like myself, had lived in the current of national rivalries, in a country where one's allegiance to a dynasty, a par- ticular religious faith, or national group, was constantly challenged. The American Eagle soaring alone over so vast a territory, its supremacy unchallenged for decades, so tamed and domesticated that some one has called it the " American hen," presented a striking contrast to the double eagle embla- zoned upon the banner of the Austro-Hun- garian Monarchy. Each half of that dual eagle was hatched from a different egg, each eaglet lived in a separate nest, and although brought together by the fortunes of the Haps- burg dynasty, they never lived in peace. The internal condition of this dual mon- ii 12 Nationalizing America archy was fitly described some time ago at a high-school commencement, when the president of the board was asked to say a few words, after the graduating class had suffered the usual admonitions, and was eagerly awaiting its release. He quoted Shakespeare and the Bible, he spoke of the Constitution of the United States and of the Declaration of Independence ; and after wrapping the class in the Stars and Stripes, metaphorically speaking, he said in an emo- tional climax, as the tears rolled down his cheeks : " My feet are upon the sacred soil of Missouri, my head touches Heaven, but in- wardly I am full of pain." This inward pain of my native country, which has become chronic, was caused by national, racial and religious differences ; points of conflict which we are now begin- ning to understand. The language struggle is not so plain to us, because we, fortunately, are a people of one speech and have thus far been able to impose it upon all those who have sought asylum among us. The Amer- ican people have thus escaped much internal The Nation's Pulse 1 3 strife, and have more readily assimilated the foreigner ; but we have missed the rich lin- guistic heritage, which was mine, born as I was with four languages. I am free to confess that I never liked the story of the building of the Tower of Babel ; not alone because I had to study four dif- ferent grammars, when I had no talent even for one, but because I felt that it was to blame for all the agonies of a political strug- gle with its dire consequences to millions of men. Moral and industrial progress and the health of a people were deliberately retarded, even sacrificed, and for years legislation was made impossible, because too many lan- guages were spoken in one country, and each group insisted upon the dominance of its own. Mark Twain is said to have seen the man who was supposed to have spoken seven days in Bohemian, to hinder legislation in German. That was somewhat of an exag- geration. Forty-eight hours in succession is the official record and the man died soon after his effort. 14 Nationalizing America I did not escape the turmoil when soon after I went to Germany and later into Rus- sia. The Particularistic struggle was near- ing a close although it was not yet ended. Hanover had not forgotten its unique place in Europe. Bavaria and the other Southern German States did not like the Prussians then, any more than we profess to love them now. Alsace and Lorraine still leaned towards France, from whose bosom they were torn while loving that amorous suitor more than the parent who by force had recovered them. In Eastern Prussia the Panslavistic propa- ganda was making itself felt, and all over the Empire, the Socialists were at the height of their struggle for the Millennium and against Militarism and Monarchy ; while Bismarck had not as yet learned to fight Socialism with social reforms. The Catholic Party was becoming a force to be reckoned with in the Reichstag, gain* ing power in parliamentary skill and influ- ence. All these struggles gave color to Uni- ve r sity life, the color frequently being red ; The Nation's Pulse 1 5 and many of the duels were caused by some- thing more than the overheated blood of youths who had imbibed too freely from their beer mugs. In Russia the Finns and Poles were vainly struggling against a ruthless national policy, and the Nihilists were making the last ef- fort against Autocracy, spreading discontent everywhere, but affecting Russia the least. Out of this disturbed atmosphere, out of this call for shibboleths, I came to the United States. The most striking thing to me when I landed was the absence of uniforms, and the monotonous yet significant uniformity ; I had never seen a state in civilian garb. Rank clearly marked, force definitely accen- tuated, colorful distinctions, soldiers, swords and guns seemed to me then as essential as ozone to the air. It was a relief to see the Chinese who, at that time, still wore their full Oriental regalia and knew not the joys of a haircut ; they at least were different. When I began to look beneath the surface, I found the same monotony or placidity in 1 6 Nationalizing America the national life. The rift made by the Civil War was all but healed. The " bloody shirt " still waved, though faintly, without venom, and soon it disappeared from the political prop- erty room. The flamboyant orator still cast his spell over his audiences, but the applause he reaped for his effort was faint, and his hearers ceased to believe that this was the greatest country in the world and that we could " lick the whole creation." His boast- ings of our wealth were vain in the presence of so much unrelieved poverty and distress, and our bigness became insignificant when we saw little Japan defeating a giant greater than ourselves. I attended political rallies, but beneath the noise and the tumult arti- ficially created, I found them doleful and dull. I listened to a presidential candidate who spoke nearly two hours upon the momentous question of the price of a suit of clothes as affected by the tariff, a subject about which no great enthusiasm can be created. Becoming a Democrat, because of the ap- peal of the name, I soon discovered that Democrats are not necessarily democratic, The Nation's Pulse 17 and Republicans not always aristocrats ; my allegiance wavered, and I have since voted for men upon every ticket including the So- cialist, without endangering my peace, or my place. Never very much excited by political issues which I did not and could not under- stand although I honestly tried, I was as seriously grieved when I missed voting be- cause of absence from home, as when I missed going to prayer-meeting. The Spanish-American war (if it may be called a war) set the banners waving furiously, and the national pulse beating faster, yet never feverishly. The trappings of war, fa- miliar to me, lacked pomp and circumstance. The boys in drab looked decidedly " green," and the army I saw looked more like a mob, or perhaps a lot of boys bent upon a good time. The Germans accused us of having fo- mented the Cuban revolution, as they still accuse us of having a hand in all revolutions on this continent. Going abroad that year I loudly proclaimed our economic disinterested- ness and our high idealism. I never appeared 1 8 Nationalizing America without an American flag pinned conspicu- ously upon my coat, and I outjingoed every native jingo I knew. In an interview with the editor of the Berliner Tageblatt, I tried to convert him to my view of the causes of the trouble. He was as gracious as the editor of a great daily can be, especially in Germany where every one in authority takes on an imperial manner, and he waved aside my protestation by saying : " There are always two causes for every war ; one of which the diplomats know, and the other that which they make the people be- lieve. Your attitude, laudable as it is, proves that you have a powerful press and powerful interests behind it." It is just possible that the historian who is never quite happy till he has discovered the bread and butter cause of history will prove that it was the sugar on top of the bread and butter, and not " Cuba Libre" which caused the Spanish-American war. If that is so, it may also prove that the " Herr Editor" was right and that I, in common with some sixty millions of other people, was deceived. The Nation's Pulse 19 The Old Testament which is as frank a bit of history as we possess, though it may leave the higher critic room for his contentions, leads the Hebrew tribes against the Canaan- ites, because they wanted the land " flowing with milk and honey." The Ten Command- ments are only an incident. The three-thou- sand-year later, modern man fights for the ten commandments or some high ideal, else he could not be made to fight ; and some one else gets the milk and honey. I adored the heroes of that Spanish- Ameri- can conflict. I contributed my mite to the Dewey house presented to the Admiral by a grateful nation. I celebrated Dewey Day twice, I think, and now it has dropped out of my calendar so completely that I do not even remember the date. I joined the chorus of praise to Lieutenant Hobson, and when he kissed the young ladies who came to crown their hero, I saw his halo no less bright ; although an ungrateful Republic has all but forgotten his sublime courage during the war and after it. I felt shame over the squabble among our 2o Nationalizing America admirals as to who was to blame for our naval victory, and remember with pride only one incident; when Admiral Philips rebuked his cheering marines : " Don't cheer, boys, the poor fellows are dying." That seemed to me sublimely American. We annexed Hawaii and Porto Rico and carried the Star Spangled Banner to the edge of Asia. We occupied the Philippine Islands, and are as happy in their possession as the little boy who has captured a pinch- ing bug, and does not quite know whether it is more dangerous to keep it or to let it go. In common with many Americans I was carried out of the political doldrums into which I had drifted, by that picturesque and elemental personality, Theodore Roosevelt. His appeal to me did not have to wait for his much disputed exploits on the heights of Santiago. I had felt him while he was Police Commissioner of the City of New York ; had seen him through the eyes of my dear friend, Jacob Riis, and to see him through his eyes was to see him in magnificent, if not magni- fied, proportions. Let me here confess that The Nation's Pulse 21 I did not lift my voice in his behalf when, in these later troubled days, he offered himself so self-effacingly to the Republican party as a candidate for the presidency. I cannot be- lieve, however, that it was lack of my support which lost him the nomination. The nation has felt the impress of his per- sonality, and the inward look which finally de- generated into mere muckraking was not the least of its results. That the magazines which exploited the shame of our cities suddenly turned instead, to the exploitation of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Castle and the newly awakened national passion for dancing, may be due either to the fact that the public grew tired of it or that it made the advertisers tired. The managing editors alone could tell us, and they have not taken the public into their con- fidence. There is no doubt that as once we exag- gerated our virtues we then exaggerated our faults, but we needed the inward look; and the muckrakers have helped us to it. As a nation we were living quite unconscious of nationality, and that may have been as 22 Nationalizing America wholesome as being unconscious of one's stomach or one's soul. Most of us were struggling honestly for our daily bread, eat- ing it by the sweat of our brow, while the shrewder ones ate it by the sweat of the hire- ling's brow. We drove the desert from the West but what was left of cactus and sage-brush Luther Burbank tried to civilize for the use of man and beast. We dug a ditch across the Isth- mus without involving ourselves in a na- tional scandal ; nature, jealous of our quick achievement, left some things still to be done, and the slides of the Culebra cut will keep us, for a while at least, from the decay which is supposed to follow victory. An inventive Yankee said : " Let there be Fords, and there were Fords ; " and they mul- tiplied, until their number is " as the sands of the sea." We dotted the land with schools and colleges and did a few other things edu- cationally besides developing and refining the game of football. We had grand opera on a superb scale in New York and Chicago, and canned the sur- The Nation's Pulse 23 plus for home consumption, thus developing good taste, or at least driving the fear of classical music from the minds of the people. The movies moved from Los Angeles to Podonk; and if Mary Pickford made us weep, Charlie Chaplin made us roar, unless he made us shudder ; and they both drew princely salaries out of our nickels and dimes. A nation drunk was becoming a nation sober, state after state went dry and the beer-brew- ers in St. Louis and Milwaukee prepared to manufacture " pop " on a large scale. We released many children from the fac- tory, and made parks and playgrounds for them ; pageantry has become a passion ; the theatre is being redeemed from its sordid commercialism, and carried in hygienic band- boxes to the tenements and the rural regions. The I. W. W. threw hammers into our social machinery, reminding us by sabotage of our sins against the toilers, and we have made honest efforts to be just where we have been unjust. Billy Sunday recovered for us the fear of Hell, and has led hundreds of thousands from 24 Nationalizing America the possible cinderpath onto the cooler saw- dust trail. Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rockefeller vie with each other to accomplish the impos- sible feat of dying poor, and it has become a disgrace to be merely rich. Our choicest men have sacrificed them- selves upon the altar of science, and made yellow fever as obsolete as the Ischataurus. Our cities were finding themselves ; and the huge misshapen things, just growing up, like Topsy, took on form and put on beauty. Homes unrivalled for comfort rose amid spacious lawns ; the much maligned sky- scraper was endowed with a beauty all its own ; bankers, remembering that they were driven out of the temple by the Great Teacher, built temples of their own, and Sol- omon would eye enviously Grinnell's new Banks. We were beginning to see the in- iquity of the crowded tenement, and ceased to be comfortable with so much misery around us. The Commission form of government promised relief from graft and incompetency and the town manager displaced the political The Nation's Pulse 25 spoilsman. Women's Clubs and Federations were studying causes and applying remedies, and the stateness of our political life was re- lieved and freshened by the struggle for woman's suffrage. Backward communities located on the stub end of a railroad were brought onto the main road of thought and activity by lecture courses and chautauquas. From the national standpoint, these were certainly not dull and stagnant years, or in- significant ; although we all were uncon- scious of national duties except when the customs-house collector inspected our bag- gage, or the inheritance tax blank with its searching questions reminded us of the far- reaching arm of government. If we were complacent, if we thought in terms of self, or city, or state, the European war shook us out of our complacency, and compelled us to think nationally. Returning globe-trotters thanked God for this haven of refuge and we who were here were grateful for the vast ocean between. The fate of Belgium the devastation of 26 Nationalizing America Poland the Armenian atrocities reminded us of our nearness to suffering humanity ; while the fate of nations being decided by the sword made us look to our own empty scabbard. Sympathies were aroused, and skillfully intensified by the contending na- tions, and for a while it looked as if America were the high tribunal to decide the right or wrong of their contentions. Our emotions were lifted to a high pitch by the sinking of the Lusitania^ and the national sympathies aroused in the hearts of those whose kinsmen were in the trenches, the pride of victory and the sting of defeat, drowned reason ; until division in our feel- ings made us fearful of division in our na- tional life. The stagnation of our industries gave place to fevered activity. Our plow works were turned into gun works and pruning hooks into spears, reversing prophecy. The na- tional conscience was not altogether easy about this wealth which we gained, although we could honestly say that we were doing legitimate business in a legitimate way. The Nation's Pulse 27 Our society ladies knitted scarfs for the soldiers while their husbands were making fortunes out of Europe's misfortunes. Some time ago when I was the guest of the presi- dent of a great corporation, he told me that his firm had made sixty million dollars profit in one year from the manufacture of munitions of war. At the same time his wife excused herself for breaking the Sabbath by knitting, as she was making socks for the poor Belgians. This may be a fair illustra- tion of our national gain and our national gift. If our conscience did not hurt us, our fel- low citizens of German birth kept prodding it, reminding us that if it had not been for us, the war would have ended long ago. Evidently they had no sense of humor, or perhaps they thought that it was not our concern how it ended. Being so far away from the war was after all a handicap, for reading about its terrors and seeing them are entirely different things. The Hungarian gipsy who was drafted into the army and went reluctantly, was told that war is beautiful. He replied : " Yes, war is 28 Nationalizing America beautiful, but from the distance." So little has the war touched us personally that we could see its poetry and its ethical signifi- cance which rose above the trenches. We saw France, once the symbol of friv- olity, assailing and resisting a mighty foe ; while the Marne and Verdun assumed the spiritual values of the Jordan and Calvary. We envied efficient, united Germany, strik- ing unfailingly and unerringly, as with one mighty arm. We applauded our Canadian cousins, who gave so freely their treasure of money and their choicest men. We contrasted dark, sober Paris with gay New York, our blundering, inefficient ways, our reluctant congress, our straggling in- dividualism, our dishevelled Columbia, with trim, alert, effective, efficient Germania. Terrified at first by the horror of war, we became fascinated by it ; once on our knees thanking God for a president who kept us out of war, and then clamoring for one to lead us into it ; hovering alternately between the fear of it and the joy of it, between its The Nation's Pulse 29 terror and its need. We have been asking ourselves if we are capable of great deeds, and of noble sacrifices, now that fifty years of peace have softened us, and weakened our national consciousness. Moreover, we dis- covered that we are not agreed upon the great questions arising out of this war, above all whether we shall have an active share in it on one side or the other. Three distinct divisions were visible. The pro-Ally group under such distinguished leadership as to make it dominant, having behind it practically the whole American press. The pro-German group, composed largely of American citizens of German birth, and the Pacifists with their baptism of ridi- cule, administered according to Baptist formula by a distinguished member of the Dutch Reformed Church. The latter two groups are the direct cause of our national skepticism, and we have been asking ourselves are we a nation or merely a conglomerate of people? Our oldest, safest, and most like-minded citizens of foreign birth differ violently from 30 Nationalizing America the majority, some of them even being ca- pable of treasonable utterances, under the spell of sympathy with the home land. If these things happen in the " green tree " what will happen in " the dry " ? If the Germans, co-workers with us for nearly three hundred years in the making of the nation, turn against us, what will happen in some great crisis, among the Slavs, the Latins and the Jews, many of whom have thus far shared with us only our dinner-pails, and not our ideals ? This questioning mood has become serious, and the " Hyphenated American " seems to us a positive menace to our national secur- ity. We are accusing ourselves because of our laxity in Americanizing the alien, for leaving the process to time and chance, when we should have applied a daily scrubbing in water and lye to rub off national character- istics, and kill the microbe of national sym- pathies. "America First" has become the shibboleth of patriot and partisan, and it has been used indiscriminately for national and party purposes. The Nation's Pulse 31 The Pacifist has given us no less cause for anxiety. He is the symptom of national spinal meningitis. He who is not for war is against the nation. He is the " Molly Coddle," "The College Sissy," akin to the copperhead, the snake in the grass, whose head must be crushed to save the Nation. That we' are a decadent people is not true. A people at work, daily at its work, at the task of feeding and building, and teaching, is not a dying people. The White Way in New York is not the artery of America, nor is Wall Street its conscience. America's main artery runs east and west from the harbor of New York to The Golden Gate at San Francisco. The blood runs fast too fast perchance through the body of a toiling people. There are, of course, country clubs, and vast estates, and lobster palaces ; but the millions the vast millions are at work and have scant leisure for decay. The reveille blown by steam wakens them, the mill and the mine call for their strength and for the daily sacrifice of health and life. From sunrise to sunset, between rows of 32 Nationalizing America corn, the farmer marches his weary miles, and if he is unconscious of great national problems, and is not eager to rush into war, it does not mean that he is not a patriot, or ready when the time comes to make the great sacrifice. Three crops of alfalfa a season keep the West busy, and digging for gold and coal are added tasks which must be performed even in time of war. Wyo- ming and Idaho and California show no signs of decay ; while from the mountains and from beyond them come the sounds of toil. I have watched the development of Amer- ica for the last thirty years from no mean vantage ground ; I have watched the cities and the country East and West, North and South, and I can say with a sense of firm conviction that we are not a decadent people. We are a people still in the mak- ing and our pains are growing pains, not the pains of death or decay. Are we a nation? Do we know what a nation is ? Can we intensify, nationalize this group which we call a nation ? That we have need for self-examination I believe ; The Nation's Pulse 33 that we should smite our breasts in the spirit of true repentance I admit ; that our ideals are not as high as they ought to be is true. We shall have to make a fair appraisement of our assets and our liabilities, and set our house in order. For this high task we need light more than heat, reason more than passion, patri- otism rather than partisanship. We need to ask ourselves whether we are a nation, what kind of nation we are and what kind we ought to be. Let us ask ourselves whether we have the power to make citizens out of aliens and how to use this power wisely and effectively ; what we should compel them to use of our own inheritance, and what we may accept from them as a contribution. I shall try to answer all these questions ; whether I can do it to my reader's satisfac- tion I do not know ; for I am under the double handicap of being a " Hyphenated American " and a Pacifist ; yet even with this handicap I can say always, all the time, and everywhere, America First. II Nationalism ONE may travel widely and yet think always in terms of his nation ; but the emigrant, who leaves his people and makes a home for himself and his chil- dren in another land, has to accept a new na- tional view-point, which necessarily becomes broadened. This is especially true of the emigrant to the United States, where the contact with many varied elements tends to break down national conceits. I am ap- proaching this subject, therefore, from the standpoint of one who through force of cir- cumstances as well as from conviction had to think internationally. The common view, which divides the peo- ple of this earth into the clean and the un- clean, into the chosen, and those who exist merely to accentuate the superiority of one's own people, has to be abandoned, in the 34 Nationalism 35 light of the new experience. The old con- ceit may give place to a new one, but even if, like myself, one becomes an American whole-heartedly and without reserve, the new allegiance is something bigger than that which he forswore. Looking, then, at this subject from the larger vantage point, what is this thing which we call a nation, this unit which has marked all its boundaries in blood, no matter what the color it has painted on his banner? What is this which draws out man's loyalty, more than home or church, or truth itself? This for which he is taught to kill his fellow creatures, this which knows no law of God or man? This something which may still call for human sacrifice, long after humanity has repudiated gods who did likewise ? This religion for it is a religion which punishes betrayal by death, and never forgives ? What is this rigid, unyielding, colossal, monster-like thing which to us who believe in it is something more than divine, but to others whose flags bear other colors, some- 36 Nationalizing America thing devilish to be hated and destroyed? What is a nation ? The simplest definition given is this : " A nation is a population of an ethnic unity occu- pying territory of a geographic unity." But we are practically told by the man who makes this definition, what the farmer said who, for the first time, saw a rhinoceros : " There ain't no such animal ; " for he adds that " The ge- ographic overlaps the ethnic." That is, the land includes different racial elements, or the racial elements reach out beyond the land, which is under the political dominion of that particular people. Austria is a good illustration of the first exception, for it includes many different ethnic elements, and its internal difficulties are due to the attempt to impose the char- acteristics of the dominant people upon the weaker ones. Servia is an illustration of the want of geo- graphic unity. There are Serbs in Macedo- nia, in Hungary, in Croatia, and Montene- gro. The attempt to bring these people into one geographic group has caused constant Nationalism 37 friction with Austria, and was the direct cause which led to the present great war. In a sense, then, geography makes a na- tion. The land and its boundaries which be- come sacred, which must be defended, form the hallowed circle which marks the Father- land from the enemy's land. That which is only pasture, woodland, quarry and mine, is idealized, and takes on the aspect of home and temple, the abode of man's divinities. The Greeks lifted this passion for the land to the highest pitch, and their mountains, blue seas and fairy isles, lent themselves easily to such idealization. The Jew never felt the sensuous appeal of the land ; perhaps because he was made con- scious of the fact that he was only a stranger and sojourner here below, and that his God dwelt in the heavens not made with hands ; or because he found his promised land, not " flowing with milk and honey," but infected by grasshoppers and plagued by drought. Yet the Holy City, Jerusalem, beautiful for situation, gripped him. When he was in that comfortable captivity in Babylon, in 38 Nationalizing America those magnificent cities by the busy water- courses, in that commercial environment, into which he might have fitted so well in these latter days, he longed for Jerusalem. He hung his harp upon the mournful willow- trees, and refused to sing ; for " How can we sing the Lord's songs in a strange land?" The Russians, like the Greeks, have this strong feeling for their land, although it is so vast, so monotonous in its great level stretches, so dismal through the long winters. Yet when the Russian speaks affectionately of " Mother Russia," and prostrates himself upon the ground, he is not thinking of government, of Moscow or Petrograd, but of the wide flat plain, the mighty rivers, the tremendous arch of the Russian sky. He is thinking of the white birches which accentuate the dark woods, which beget his wild gaiety, as well as his somber gloom, and out of which have come his legends, his folk-tales, and his mel- ancholy songs. The land is most interwoven with nation- ality among the Germans, whose singers, poets and statesmen have used it as never Nationalism 3 9 failing material to awaken and strengthen pa- triotism. The Rhine, the busiest river in Europe, is not only a commercial waterway essential to the country's expanding busi- ness ; it is the main artery of its emotional life. How the German's eye glows when he beholds it ; how strong his arm grows at the thought of defending it: " Der Rhein, sie sollen ihn nicht haben, den Deutschen, Deutschen Rhein" It is not a mere river, it is a German river. With this love of the land he has exalted such lowly mountains as the Harz, and has beatified such dreary plains as the Luene- burger Heide. In order to know this Father- land from end to end, every apprentice wan- ders out as a journeyman from place to place, and identifies himself with its cities, its moun- tains and plains ; so that the land becomes his, though he does not own a foot of real estate. What a wonderful sight it is to us restless globe-trotters when we come upon orderly groups of German schoolboys in charge of their teachers, studying German history on mountains and by rivers, eating their frugal 40 Nationalizing America lunches beneath the oak-trees of the forests. Each new sight suggests a new song, an overflowing treasure for which we might well envy them. Important as is the geographic factor, the nation is something more than territory. We speak of the sacredness of the land, yet it may be increased or decreased by conquest, making it after all not so fixed a factor in the life of a nation, which is something more than the "rocks, and rills, the woods and templed hills" of which we sing often but feel so little. The nation is above everything else a people. The colors of the maps are after all the colors of the people, and the people who have long lived ,together in a land are more or less physically related. This physical re- lationship may have been more necessary in the past than it now is for the development of a strong nation ; but even now, " blood is thicker than water," though we are becom- ing conscious of the fact that there is some- thing thicker than blood. The union of the German states was made Nationalism 4 1 possible because of the physical bond and the physical likeness, which tended to become more uniform after the creation of the Empire. There was a German type which became the ideal type, and where it did not exist it was artificially stim- ulated. Even as now many German-Amer- icans, to show their kinship, are cropping their hair close and growing their moustaches a la Kaiser Wilhelm ; while our young men grow them a la Charlie Chaplin, which fact may not, I trust, be altogether indicative of the physical ideals of our young men. Italian unity long delayed, while finally hammered into being by foreign aggression, and melted into one by the passion of Gari- baldi, the holy fervor of Mazzini and the keen statesmanship of Cavour, was made possible by the sense of physical relationship. But immigration, military invasion, and the re- sultant intermarriage have nearly every- where destroyed this ethnic bond. The predominant strain in Germany is Teutonic ; yet Prussia shows a strong Slavic vein, coming from earlier progenitors and 42 Nationalizing America from the present complete assimilation of the Wendic people who, for a long time, main- tained Slavic islands in the midst of this Ger- man stream. In Russia, Finn and Tartar have made their contribution to the dominant race ; the modern Austrian is apt to be a mixture of German, Slav, Magyar and Latin ; while the Semitic strain is not inconsiderable. We in the United States are forming a na- tion out of material as ethnically differenti- ated as is the whole human race. A common language is more essential than ties of blood for the knitting of a people into a nation, and those who have the task of shaping diverse elements into a common unit care little or nothing of what people they were born, as long as they can impose upon them their language. They know that people who use the same terms will shape their lives by the same mould, and that a likeness akin to that begotten by physical relationship will be established. A most striking illustration of this can be seen in Hungary. The dominant race is Nationalism 43 Magyar, a Ugro-Finnish group, more Asiatic than European, speaking an agglutinative language, related in form and structure to Turkish and Finnish. The Magyars are the conquerors of Slav and Latins, whom they have left undisturbed in their respective ter- ritories. There was also an influx of German immigrants, who were professional and tradespeople. They moved into the cites, and their language became current in the busi- ness centers. The city of Buda-Pesth was until forty years ago as German as the city of Vienna ; in fact it spoke its German with the same soft and pleasant accent. Then came the wave of nationalism which swept over Europe influencing the smaller na- tions even more than the powerful ones, and the process of Magyarizingwas begun through the language. First it was dignified by the creation of a literature, and the translation of all available literary and scientific material. The names of German and Slavic cities were changed into something which wiped out their historic connection, and which the in- habitants found difficult to pronounce. The 44 Nationalizing America public schools were brought under the con- trol of the state, and instruction was permit- ted only in the authorized language. Even family names were translated into Magyar, and so the relation with the past broken. It is said that a German Jew who came to visit his relatives in Buda-Pesth began to in- quire after the welfare of his friends. " How is Mr. Weiss?" "Weiss," replied his rela- tive ; " there is no one by that name living in this city." The guest could not believe that all the Weisses had either died or moved away since his last visit, so he gave a close description of the appearance of his friend. " Oh, you mean Feher," his relative replied. All the Weisses had become something else. " And how is my friend Schwartz ? " Again the same difficulty ; for all the Schwartzes had become Fekete, and all the Gruens were Szolnoy. As they walked along, the visitor asked many questions about the new sights. Approaching a colossal statue of St. Peter which stands in front of the Cathedral : " Who is this ? " he asked. " That," was the Nationalism 45 reply, " is St. Peter." " And what was his name before he came to Buda-Pesth ? " the visitor naturally inquired. This translation of names may seem to us very superficial and insignificant ; but how far-reaching it must be may be demonstrated here in the United States, where similar changes are taking place, under social rather than governmental pressure. Crossing the ocean in the steerage and interviewing the returning immigrants, I found an Italian who introduced himself as John L. Sullivan from Boston. When you are told that his name before he became Americanized was Giovanni Salvini, you re- alize something of the inner changes which must have taken place. The government of Hungary made this pressure so strong, and so complete were the changes wrought, that counter-pressure was started and the process resisted. The people of Bohemia are still more aware of the value of language for the preserva- tion of the nation, and they have fought the most bitter struggle of any people in Europe. 46 Nationalizing America The re-baptism of St. Petersburgh into Petrograd, and the publication in Germany of a fairly good sized dictionary of expur- gated foreign words, shows the place language holds in creating deep national feeling. The strongest element, however, and the one in- dispensable to the making of a nation is a common tradition. The Jews have maintained national feeling and an enviable cohesion, in spite of the fact that they have no land they may call their own. There are many nations in which the ethnic unity is broken, or is even non-existent, as in Switzerland, which with Belgium is void of a common language, although they have a common history. A ragged minstrel recalling in his quaver- ing song the exploits of Czar Duchan six hundred years ago, leading the Serbs to vic- tory against the Turks, makes patriots of stupid, half-starved Montenegrins, and is used as material to bring together the scat- tered Serbo-Slavs into a more mighty king- dom. No one but a Scotchman can tell what Nationalism 47 flashes upon his mind when he hears the bagpipes skirling to the tune : " The Camp- bells are coming." It is not land or blood or a common speech which makes the Jew still the Jew after two thousand years, but that incomparable his- tory found between the covers of the Old Testament. At no time is he permitted to forget his suffering in Egypt and his deliver- ance. The ritual of the Jew's religion is an historic pageant, and if he does not witness it at least once a year, he is no more a Jew. Divided groups are bound together by an eventful history, great common risks, quick decisive results ; and the more venturesome the risks, the more lasting the unity gained. That is the reason war seems so essential a factor in the making of a nation. Thus far the physical risks alone have counted, for the masses of men have remained unconscious of other, higher risks and loftier adventures. How slow is the winning of the race, we know, who live in this century on the Campus, where a football victory over the athletic foe counts more for college unity 48 Nationalizing America than the discovery, often at great risk to life, of a new, health-bringing serum. Seventeen young people of my college have recently decided upon a great venture, the spiritual conquest of a continent. They are going to a "far country" as teachers, preachers and physicians. How much they move the life of the college I do not know ; but eleven men going out to beat the Uni- versity eleven set the pulses throbbing and the heart beating faster. When they come back victors, they have made college history, and the bonfires blaze for the eleven as I never saw them blaze for the seventeen. The advocates of war may tell us that they believe it is a disease to which nations are subject ; but they know in their heart of hearts and they say it, although not often as boldly as Treitschke, that war is a necessity. Common danger, and war seems to be the only common danger of which we have be- come conscious, creates common interests, and men forget their private affairs in the common cause. It is therefore necessary to keep alive in the mind of a nation the fear of Nationalism 49 a common danger. Diplomatic " watchful waiting " is not sufficient ; it has to be armed watchful waiting. The sound of fife and drum and the rhythmic beat of marching feet are a greater force in making a nation con- scious of itself than the writing of diplomatic letters, no matter how skillfully worded, or how successful they are in averting war. History made of this stern stuff, of bullet- riddled flags, of cemeteries with monotonous rows of graves, of some name made brilliant by war's adventure, has thus far been neces- sary to the life of this closely knitted unit which we call a nation. Some day we shall realize that there are other risks than those of foreign conquest ; but men are always blindest to nearest dangers, and are most ready to prepare against a foe from without. That "a man's foes are those of his own household " Jesus of Nazareth knew ; but He counts very little as a counsellor of nations. History not only records the past, it de- termines the future ; it not only unites a peo- ple in a great purpose, it also determines its character. A nation consciously or uncon- 50 Nationalizing America sciously declares a certain character good or bad, and a certain ideal right or wrong. We say this is American and it is good, and this is un-American and it is undesirable. It is a question of how people earn or spend their money, how they play and in what spirit they win or lose ; how they approach each other, how easily they get the point of a joke ; how the men treat their women, and all those ceremonials of the common life which we call the proper thing. I have written before of the Jewish shop- keeper in Boston who reproved me when I wanted to be polite. Leaving a street car I carried a woman's bundles which were too large for the " Hub's " narrow sidewalk. To give her more room I walked on the inside, and this Jewish shopkeeper called to me : " Say, you greenhorn, in America the gentle- mens don't walks on the insides of the la- dies." He had caught the national ideal. The most powerful tradition, as I have pointed out in the case of the Jews, is that which expresses itself through religion. Then nationality and religion become one, Nationalism 5 1 which is true not only of the Jews but of many Slavs, notably the Russians and the Poles. Where the Church lends itself to na- tional aspirations it becomes a mighty force for good or evil, and it is for this reason that statesmen support one religion and suppress another. Austria supports the Moslem faith in Bosnia, and frowns upon the Protestant Church in Bohemia. Russia is ruthless towards the Roman Cath- olic Church, but tolerates Protestantism, and makes no objection to Mohammedanism or Buddhism. Out of this religious leaning, which may more or less represent the relig- ious ideals of a nation, arises the State Church ; but even where there is no State Church, religion will have a certain form of expression. The schools, too, take on a special form, and are regarded, at least with us, as more important than the Church in the shaping of a nation's character. The most essential institution to which the nation gives birth is the State, and the great struggle in Europe is partly due to the fact 52 Nationalizing America that the nations whose government is super- imposed desire to have their own political State. The struggle of Ireland, Poland, Bo- hemia, and Albania, the awakened Jewish nationalism, known as Zionism, are good ex- amples. The tenacity of this struggle and the sacrifices men are willing to make for its attainment are the most wonderful phenom- ena of our day. In many of its aspects nationalism deserves the high place it holds and is worth the cost. It has brought dignity to the despised, quickened the mentality of the sluggish, made dialects into languages, created litera- ture, stimulated art. It has acted as a rally- ing ground for hopelessly divided groups, and has lifted politics to the sublimity of re- ligion. I What nationalism may do for a peo- ple when it attains its desires can best be seen in the history of Germany for the last hundred years. Split into some three hun- dred domains, despised by other nations, her soil furrowed by the wheels of French can- non and reddened by the blood of her sons ; Nationalism 5 3 her language despised by her own educated people, French the speech of the court, for- eign literature her pattern, that is Germany's past. Now she is this well moulded colossus cast as if of one piece ; this giant striking as with one arm ; this mind moving as by one volition ; this challenger of the world in the field of science, commerce, art and military skill. Germany has spent a hundred years on this task; and the home, the church, barracks and schools, factories and banks, poets and cobblers, the philosophers and the storekeepers, moved towards this one pur- pose. You may hate Germany, you cannot despise her ; you may fear her but you must admire her. She is par excellence the nation- alized state, the most wonderful achievement in the sphere of politics that the world has ever seen. The danger from Germany is the danger which comes in the wake of every such achievement. It is the danger which came from France a hundred years ago, when she had reached just such a goal. Her aspira- tions like those of all nations had a high pur- 54 Nationalizing America pose ; to serve humanity, to free the unfree people. She was to be Poland's deliverer, the saviour of Russia's downtrodden mil- lions ; but when France reached her goal, she fought for further glory, and conquered only to enslave. Wordsworth voices the dis- appointment of that period when he says : " But now become oppressors in their turn, Frenchmen have changed a war of self-defense For one of conquest, losing sight of all Which they had struggled for ; I read her doom with anger vexed, with disap- pointment sore." This is the base side of nationalism. Be- coming free, it grows strong, being strong, it is arrogant. It uses the bayonet and not the magnet, it forces but does not attract. It is always sublimely selfish, no matter what its profession. The heart of the American nation went out to the Hungarian exile Kossuth, who led the struggle for Hungary's freedom from the rather easy yoke of Austria. He aroused sympathy with his people, sympathy ex- pressed in a tangible form. When, however, Nationalism 55 the Hungarians attained their independence within the Hungarian state, they practiced all the cruelties which nations may use upon weaker nationalities, and Kossuth's son be- came the most relentless persecutor. The history of the Balkan states for the last fifty years is the story of suppressed na- tionalities gaining their independence and then in turn outdoing the Turk, their master, in oppression. Greece, Byron's favorite, helped to free- dom by his passionate love, arises from un- derneath the heel of Turkey, and immedi- ately puts her foot upon Serb and Bulgar in Macedonia, and upon helpless Albania, using the Church as her tool and keeping brigands in her pay. Serbs and Bui gars, arousing the pity of the world by their long and cruel subjection, horrify the nations by cruel butcheries which, until two years ago, were regarded as savage ; but now have gained sanction, through the methods employed in modern warfare, by their civilized critics. England, so long posing as the champion 56 Nationalizing America of smaller nations, aims the guns of her battle-ships on Christian villages in Crete, to keep them subjects of the Turk, aids Russia in despoiling helpless Persia and does not protest against Armenian atrocities, although having influence with the Turks ; after which she goes to war, ostensibly to protect Belgian neutrality. That England has no monopoly of that hypocrisy of which she is so violently ac- cused by Germany is shown in the sublime spectacle of Kaiser Wilhelm in the r61e of the protector of Ireland. The truly appall- ing thing is the immorality of the nations, which culminates in the greatest immorality, war. The American who watches the growth of his nation must have a true vision of the place nations hold in the history of human- ity. Clear-mindedly he must face the fact that as yet they are essential to the progress of humanity, and that the nation may claim the supreme allegiance of its citizens. Nevertheless he must lift his voice in behalf of an ideal, which had its birth among men Nationalism 5 7 and women who looked beyond the tent props of their tribes, yet were loyal to its interests ; who could love their kind, yet not neglect their kindred ; who heard a call from across dividing borders, yet were true pa- triots ; who put humanity first, yet did not put their country last. It is an ideal not easily named or defined, for while it springs primarily from a vision it utters itself as a protest. It is a vision of nations working out their destiny by each contributing to the common weal its own gifts, developed under those peculiar circumstances which climate, race, speech, history and religion have deter- mined. It is not a vision of mixing and levelling, that monotonous civilization with- out contrasts or even without conflicts ; it abhors the cosmopolite, with his roots in shifting sands, a pariah, not a patriot ; but it does see, or strains to see levelled for- tresses, spiked guns and peace among the nations not a dormant, but an active peace, based upon good will. Nations must protest against putting the 58 Nationalizing America existence and growth of institutions above human existence and human needs, against the development of even so fine an ideal as patriotism, when it is turned into mass mur- der, country-wide arson, the despoiling of the living and the mortgaging of the future of the unborn. As the educated man, the enlightened man protested against a religion which de- manded the blood of children and the sacri- fice of virgins to appease its God, so he must now protest against a patriotism whose sub- limest rite consists in the ruthless taking and giving up of life, and in drenching its altars in human blood. As we have dethroned the God who was Baal, so we hope to do away with a state which is Mars. The American, if he is truly educated, knows the slow, upward progress of his race. If he has permitted himself to judge it by the accelerated pace which the discovery of steam and electricity has caused, he has erred in common with his fratres every- where. They thought motion and progress identical ; but we now know that while we Nationalism 59 have leaped forward materially, we have inched along morally ; we can change night into day by the turn of a key, but in political and moral thought we are in the flint-and- tinder period. It is therefore our business to remove our- selves as soon as possible from the contagion of the mob, without however losing touch with our human material. We must study as if we were alone, into the nature of the state, into the obligations of citizenship, and the rela- tionship among the states. These are realms of knowledge which, if not entirely neglected, are never quite freed from an attitude of mind which has made clear conclusions diffi- cult, and action upon them impossible. We have gloried in our theological here- sies, have defied our persecutors and were not afraid of being burned at the stake or fired from our jobs, when we had discovered truth and followed its leading. We have forsaken the church of our fathers when we outgrew it, or when we thought we had outgrown it. We need some such courageous attitude 60 Nationalizing America in relation to the state, and it will need a greater courage than ever was ours when we challenged our creeds to bind us and our churches to hold us. Peace conventions and Hague tribunals are "carts before the horse," unless we have first an attitude of mind, and are ready to act upon our con- clusions. That attitude of mind we must have and make contagious. The nation first, but above the nation is humanity, and above all the nations is the God of the nations. It is no small task this, the making of a nation, and keeping it moral, so that when the citizen repeats the slogan of the day " America First," it may be syn- onymous with the charge received from the lips of one who is " King of kings and Lord of lords " : And " seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." Ill The Land and the People PRIOR to the war the tide of tourist travel from Europe had turned towards the United States. Increasing num- bers of wealthy Germans, Frenchmen, and Italians, not to say Englishmen (who were always coming), were attracted by this land, virgin to tourists' feet. They were growing so noticeable that many of the New York hotels employed specially trained men, of the courier type, so familiar to those of us who could afford such dignified luxuries when we went to Europe. Some of the travellers knew enough not to expect to see Indians wigwamed on Broad- way, so were not disappointed when instead, they found the children of Israel clogging that thoroughfare. Others who expected to find our business architecture offensive to their discriminating eyes, were astonished and sometimes pleased to find our sky- 61 62 Nationalizing America scrapers merely elongated campaniles, Greek temples walking on stilts, and Gothic cathe- drals with thousands of confessionals, used for the accumulation of money and not for absolution from sin. The real surprise, however, awaited those who expected New York to be a patchwork reproduction of Europe, like a glaring crazy- quilt, each patch bearing the autograph of some loving friend or parishioner ; the kind which Ladies' Aid Societies bestow upon their pastor's wife as a token of appreciation and a means of raising the church debt. If the courier knew his business, he took the strangers in the evening over to the East Side, down the Bowery, which place they found in sackcloth and ashes over its dis- solute past, and yearning for a new name ; to Chinatown, daily growing smaller and kept intact for revenue only ; to the Italian quarters where bananas and garlic, spaghetti and apple-pie, the hurdy gurdy and the phonograph are struggling for a place under the American Sun. To the Ghetto without fail; its street The Land and the People 6 3 markets, its constant struggle against pov- erty, its libraries, settlements and public schools ; its synagogues and its many chil- dren. While no doubt they saw the patches, they were amazed to find them fading, blend- ing into each other or taking on strange, new hues ; and as for the autographs they were growing illegible. The sum total of the experience of the tourist in New York, whether he be discern- ing or not, is that he has been in an American city, which, while vast and bewildering, sur- prising and disappointing, is an American city nevertheless. The European who has watched the grad- ual removal of vast masses of people from the Old World, those reluctant, conservative peasants who clung to their dialects and their distinctive garb so tenaciously, expects to find this country a mass of these patches, a hodgepodge of people with no possible points of contact, no common traditions, ideals or language. Realizing the long years necessary to in- 64 Nationalizing America fuse people with the national spirit, even where they have the factors of race and lan- guage in their favor, he certainly does not expect to find a nation. Sir James Bryce thought the American people themselves loath to admit that they are a nation, though he discovered among them a demonstrative patriotism, which had no equal in England. Our patriotism centers around a symbol, rather than a great national ideal. It is but a few years since the Protestant Episcopal Church at its Triennial Convention was revising its liturgy. The proposal made and accepted was to insert a short prayer for the whole people, and the words suggested were : " O Lord, bless our nation." Upon more careful consideration, however, and after much discussion, the convention adopted, instead, the words : " O Lord, bless these United States." Mr. Maurice Low quotes that incident as a proof of our own lack of confidence in the fact that we are a nation ; that is a people, " which a proper history has made one and distinct from all others." The Land and the People 65 That skepticism which had grown less in these latter years has been revived by the great war, an event which is compelling us to re-appraise all our political and spiritual possessions. There can be but little doubt that we are a great political unit, more uni- form, more united than any of the European states prior to the war. It is a fact which is startling to the European, but seemingly of no great import to us who are now in this questioning mood. The German Empire has rifts in it which are historical, religious, even linguistic ; and some of them an unsuccessful war may widen to dangerous proportions. Its large and carefully organized Social Democratic party, while disrupted by the war, may prove dangerous to the accepted national policy if not to the monarchy itself. The Centrist Party is a political force united and guided by the Roman Catholic Church, and what its attitude might be towards a government avowedly Protestant and lead- ing it to defeat, is an open question. The Poles may prove a sharper thorn in 66 Nationalizing America the flesh than they have always been, and Alsace-Lorraine will remain a bone of con- tention unless the war permanently settles its status, which is doubtful. Austria-Hungary was so precarious a polit- ical unit that its dissolution was expected in the event of the death of Francis Joseph. In France, monarchy is slumbering, and a great national crisis may bring swift changes in a country where forms of government have already changed frequently. England faces Irish revolt as well as In- dian discontent, and her faithful colonies will doubtless ask for a larger share in determin- ing the empire's foreign policy. In Italy and Spain kings are none too se- cure in the possession of their thrones. There is no such political rift in the United States, although the original colonies were rooted in foreign soil ; their people came with different traditions, language and religion ; their states were carved out of territories at least climatically and economically unlike, and maintained their own capitals and gov- ernors. The Land and the People 67 In spite of all this, there is no fear that we shall change our form of government or that we shall be anything else, even a hundred or more years from now, than the United States of America. We are so united politically that we have faced presidential elections with platforms so essentially alike, with party slogans so much the same, that candidates were puzzled to find issues upon which to divide us. In these days when we are questioning the efficacy of democracy, it is well to remember that as a political institution the United States is as remarkable as it is secure, and it is not likely that this could have been achieved by an autocracy, no matter how benevolent or efficient. To reach such results under a democracy presupposes a strong, moulding, compelling, national spirit, which, though we have not defined it, has been oper- ative. It is a wonderful thing to have retained this national spirit in spite of a civil war waged through long and bitter years, and to intensify it in spite of the presence of millions 68 Nationalizing America of black men, who were brought from the worst savagery of the dark continent, and are in some sections so numerically superior as to have easily made the return to barbarism possible for both white and black. To be able to retain language, customs, habits and ideals practically unchanged, al- though there has been annually an influx of a million people who came with foreign speech and alien ways, seems almost a miracle, leav- ing their Americanization out of the question. I grant readily that we have not assimilated many of the immigrants who have come to us in the last twenty-five years, and that some of them may never be assimilated. It is equally true, however, that they have no- where weakened or lowered our ideals, cor- rupted our manners, impaired our national consciousness, or have they assimilated a single American, no matter how great their numbers. We may still have German- Americans, and Italian-Americans ; but I have never met an American-German, an American-Frenchman, nor an American-Italian ; unless it be those The Land and the People 69 of our countrymen who expatriated them- selves and were living abroad, maintaining their connection with the homeland through their bankers only. If we admit that we have not influenced the immigrant it is a poor compliment to a civilization which we have been willing to carry to the ends of the earth, and which we have been proud to call a Christian Civilization. We have without doubt some of the ele- ments necessary to the making of a nation. We are in possession of the land over which we have sole sovereignty. Our own- ership is unchallenged, and so secure are we in it that we are exercising gratuitous vigi- lance over the whole continent through the Monroe doctrine. It is not even a slip of pa- per, but more than once have we been ready to back it by the sword. Neither the vastness nor the beauty of the land has as yet stirred our imagination. Neither the Hudson, a matchless stream, nor the Mississippi has moved us much towards the making of lyrics ; not to speak of the willful Missouri, or the Skunk and the Rao 70 Nationalizing America coon Rivers, one of which nearly each state in the Union boasts, and whose names suggest malodor but not melody. We have been so occupied in tilling the land and toiling over it, in buying and selling it, that we have developed only one idealist : the real estate agent. He has slightly overdone the thing, and his notes are not singable. Some time ago I was present at a teachers' convention in a western state. The Daugh- ters of the American Revolution, a society which has taken over the guardianship of our patriotism, presented a state flag, a brand new flag, the meaning of its colors conceived in the fervid atmosphere of that historic society. They stood for coal, oil, metals ; for grain and alfalfa, the symbols of barter and trade. No one in the great as- sembly rose to greet that new-born flag ; for patriotism is not easily stirred by wealth, especially when, as was true in this case, most of it belonged to one well or ill known trust. I do not know a country in Europe which can boast of such varied and inspiring seen- The Land and the People 71 ery as the state of New York ; but until now the Hudson and Lake George, Lake Mo- honk, Niagara, the Catskills and the Adi- rondacks await the voice which will sing them into national appreciation. It may take more legends and more battle-fields to stir that latent imagination ; but why should it be necessary to await them? The mag- nificent adventure of Christopher Colum- bus, the winning of the land, as if it were the lifting of a continent out of the ocean ; the sudden disclosure of a new world to the Old World, weary, plague stricken and poverty ridden, give material for our imagination such as the people of no other continent ever had. This land was kept hidden, until in the fullness of time it was revealed, virgin, clean from the sins and the curse of Sodom and Gomorrah. It yielded infinitely more than it promised of corn and wine, of silver and gold ; and all the fabled wealth of the Indies is like ragged beggary before the yet un- garnered treasure of America. Hither, God-led pilgrims came with Bible, 72 Nationalizing America cassock and cross. They pushed aside the wilderness and looked upon the face of great waters ; they lighted their " ghostly camp- fires " by the shores, and round the altars thus reared they knelt, asking the divine guidance upon their stern errand. " Aye, call it holy ground, the soil on which they trod." Nor were they the last of those who made the land ours, and sacred by the spirit in which they won it for us. Pennsylvania suggests a state where they " dig coal, and steel for a living," as some facetious man remarked. It does not sug- gest, as it should, the land of William Penn, his greatness and that of the people he gath- ered around him ; their quiet and noble ways, their toil, and their faith. It became the haven of the oppressed, and there none asked how they worshipped God. Those of us who enjoy religious liberty but know not its value or the source from which it springs, need to be reminded that Pennsylvania has yielded us more than anthracite and coke, more than the Steel Trust, and Standard The Land and the People 73 Oil. We need to remember that upon its soil stands Independence Hall, and that there, eager listeners heard the glad tones of the bell which announced the birthday of a new nation conceived in Liberty. Flowing through Fairmount Park in Phil- adelphia is a thin stream with the musical name Wissahickon. Swifter now than its waters, and as ceaseless, is the procession of automobiles, moving over a splendid boule- vard, which follows the shores where are man- sions, finer than many of those which shelter royalty. Here more zealously than the un- initiated know, they guard traditions ; their pride is a family pride, and is after all only a question of the number of ancestors they can boast. The ancestral names are kept as a social asset to be handed down to their children with their dowry. That this shore has national value, enough stimulus to make of Philadelphia something that the name suggests, and not what it now is, many of them do not know. Upon these shores, less than three hun- dred years ago settled a goodly number 74 Nationalizing America of Germans whose Mayflower was appropri- ately named the Concord. Upon their es- cutcheon they carved for themselves the words which suggested their industry : " Linum, Vinum et Textrinum" They planted not only flax and grape, and spun linen ; they manufactured paper and printed as their first book the great Book, the Bible, out of which they had drawn the ideals for their new commonwealth. But that which makes them still more remarkable is that in 1688 they took action against the keep- ing and selling of slaves ; although more than one hundred and fifty years elapsed and a great civil war was waged before their early protest became effective among a Christian people. Yes, this too is " holy ground," this state of Pennsylvania. In spite of the poisoning of its forest trees, the pollution of its marvel- lous streams, the scarring and marring of the fair earth and the bright sky obscured by thick smoke ; in spite of the ruthless exploi- tation of men and the children of men, in spite of the political corruption which has The Land and the People 75 grown around hallowed spots it is " holy ground " still. Holy because there are buried the heroes of our industrial struggle ; men, mangled in the mills, scalded by steam and burned by the furnaces, blown to pieces by frightful explosions. There is scarcely a spot along those highways strewn by steel rails, lighted by lurid plants shining against the murky sky above, and reflected in the murkier rivers beneath, which is not thus hallowed by these noble sacrifices of which an ungrateful people has as yet remained unconscious. Some day, and some day soon, we shall place beside the heroic figure of the Teutonic plowman, which we are putting upon monu- mental pedestals, another figure that of the Celt, the Slav, the Latin ; the miners, and the melters of metals, co-founders of a great commonwealth, the enrichers of a nation. All round the edges of this far-reaching land, in Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, California, Missouri, and Michigan ; all through the heart of our beloved country, in Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and Kansas, we must j6 Nationalizing America discover for ourselves the Holy Ground and if we do not find it and find it soon, the future will have just reason to indict us for coarse materialism. I never see those heart-breaking forests or what once were forests in Wisconsin and Michigan, those melancholy tangles of rot- ting timber and confusing undergrowth, with- out reverently lifting my hat to the brave men and women, who are now clearing what the lumber magnates have left them, and are building human habitations amid that wreck- age of forests. Some time ago as I travelled through the sandhills of western Nebraska in a luxuri- ously cushioned automobile, we passed a dugout at sunset. The farmer was still coaxing the sand to nourish the corn he had entrusted to it, that it might bring forth a hundred-fold. His wife stood in the door- way attracted by the noise of our car, which had disturbed the silence about her. We stopped and chatted with her, and looked into the one room in which she was rearing an American family in cleanliness, where The Land and the People 77 water was the scarcest commodity ; in God- liness with no one but God to watch her con- duct ; intelligently, for there were books and magazines ; and with hope and faith, al- though the drought had parched the harvest over and over again. What a story of fortitude and endurance ; how sacred this land between the great rivers, won from reluctant nature with a courage surpassing that of the soldier. Some day we shall know how to love this land, gained for us by the " Man with the Hoe," and how to sing in some virile verse of his struggle with the wilderness, the cactus and sage-brush ; with rattlers and twisters, with drought and flood, with the dark deep in mine and quarry, with burning heat and biting cold. Some day we shall write a new Epic to cele- brate the winning of the land without unneces- sary bloodshed ; yet not without great sacri- fice. While we have no sentiment connected with the land, with its worth and its beauty, it is none the less sacred to us, and should a foreign power desecrate it by the touch of its 78 Nationalizing America soldiers' feet, no American would rest until the land was again free, and no sacrifice would be regarded too great to make in so glorious a cause. We are deficient in the second element which is usually regarded necessary to make a nation ; we are not of one blood. One of the most startling things which belongs to the daily experiences of my profession, yet is a constant surprise, is the meeting in some small compass of a village or town, the large variety of peoples gathered from all the cor- ners of the earth. From the lecture platform I have the opportunity of looking into the faces of hundreds of thousands of people, and ethnically it means looking into the face of the whole world. In delivering a commencement address in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, I said that there were eight races or nationalities repre- sented in the class, which numbered forty members. When I finished, the dean of women smiled at me and said : " This is one time when you are mistaken." It might have been a mistake to guess so many ; for The Land and the People 79 that college is under the auspices of a de- nomination whose membership is made up largely from among English speaking peo- ples. However, as the members of the class ascended the rostrum to receive their diplomas, the dean counted fourteen distinct races, ranging through Asia, Africa, and Southern and Northern Europe. The president of the State Normal School at Mankato, Minnesota, told me that recently the superintendent of a school came to select a teacher, and of six candidates who applied for the position, each one represented a dif- ferent nationality. In Chicago in the primary room of one of the public schools I found twenty-four na- tionalities among some forty children. On one occasion a group of ten, representing seven different strains, came to me to avow their Americanism, after I had spoken upon that subject. At a gathering where Colonel Roosevelt played the host, this subject came under dis- cussion, and he, who embodies our Amer- ican ideals of the more active if not violent 80 Nationalizing America type, confessed to five or six blood strains, all of them leading back to fighting an- cestors, which may explain but does not excuse An American scholar, well known in the field of archaeology, told me of his descent from eight sources. He boasted of Polish, Italian, French, Danish, Swiss, Spanish, and Jewish blood. The eighth part he said was American, pure American. It was Pennsyl- vania Dutch. Being in contact as I constantly am with schools and colleges, it is a delight to see the children of the younger groups of immigrants coming up out of steerage and mine, into the upper ranges of our life. At Harvard and Yale, at the University of Pennsylvania, and at Columbia, I have found liberal sprinklings of Lithuanians, Poles, Slovaks, Italians, and Jews ; the last named being there in such large numbers as to develop the usual race antagonism. In spite of the rising doubt in our minds as to whether we can weld into a nation such divergent material, in spite of the fearful and The Land and the People 8 1 wonderful mixture which many of us repre- sent, in spite of the survival of racial sym- pathies, and love for the homeland, we are being made into a common likeness, even physically. Some of us may err in believing that the process is taking place as swiftly as we think, and we may be too optimistic as to the result ; others may be too pessimistic, and point to the thousands of years which were necessary to make one people out of the overlapping layers of those who wandered to the British Isles or conquered them. It is well to have our enthusiasm checked ; but it is equally necessary to consider the entirely different conditions under which the making of America is taking place. It is not by conquering armies which are coming, the stronger mastering the weaker ; it is not the concerted action of vast masses impelled by a common impulse, and all moving to one place. It is the slow infiltra- tion of races which, whether stronger or weaker, come among virile people, who think themselves superior, and behave accordingly. 82 Nationalizing America Their physical type is the determining type, shaped as much by climate, food and the conditions under which they work, as by heredity. That the men of the colonies, the founders of the nation, could separate themselves from the motherland without feeling great remorse or homesickness, was made possible by the fact that the colonists were no longer Englishmen although they spoke the English tongue and were nourished by English tra- ditions. A new race was born here, revitalized by the ozone-laden air, reshaped by the new environment, reinforced by the new experi- ences. Another race met English soldiers upon Concord field ; not Englishmen fight- ing Englishmen, but Americans, a new and distinct people, with new and vital ideas about society, religion, and the state; ideas vital enough to make of them a new nation. In time they have grown as different from their cousins across the sea as the caricatures of Uncle Sam and John Bull suggest. In spite of German, French and Irish admix- The Land and the People 8 3 tures, in spite of the newer strains destined to come into the racial stream, we are in no danger of looking like Kaiser Wilhelm or Napoleon, or even Moses, however he may have looked. Nor are we likely to resemble Uncle Sam ; for he was begotten in more strenuous days ; he was cradled in the wilder- ness ; he was rocked to sleep by the jolting of the prairie schooner and was fed upon hominy and pork with liberal portions of beans. His sinuous frame came from swing- ing the scythe and the axe, and he ate apple pie for breakfast, which may have given him that dyspeptic appearance. What we shall look like racially, begot- ten in crowded tenements, or in luxuriant palaces ; travelling in automobiles, or trun- dling wheelbarrows ; swinging golf clubs or the pickaxe for ten long hours, we may not be able to tell. Some say that we shall be a mongrel people, hideous to look upon, losing all our strong, racial inheritances. It is possible that we shall develop a nation made up of two or three races, in which the superior, older stock shall be the aristocrats, 84 Nationalizing America and the weaker white aliens shall degenerate into a low type of peasantry ; with the cruder colored element remaining upon a still lower plane. That has happened in some countries ; but even where it has happened it has not weakened the national ideal. Some such thing has taken place in Poland, and while as a nation it proved itself weak, the cause of its weakness was not the possible racial difference but the growing class difference ; it was the exploited peasant, unable to see national glory when his stomach was empty, unwilling to fight for national unity when he had been cut off from his economic and social reward. Through him came this weakness, and the blame is not his alone. Nations never learn from history, and I am not sure that we shall see the " handwriting on the wall " until it is too late. Frankly I do not know what we shall look like in the future, nor do I think it matters much. I am concerned, desperately con- cerned, as to what we shall be like. I do not know what will happen as a re- The Land and the People 8 5 suit of the infusion of these varied strains of blood into our national body ; I do not know what will happen when Slav and Latin and Jew shall have mingled their blood with that of our children. I read with keen interest all that has been written ; I am watching the present and know something of the past. The only thing I can say dogmatically is, that I do not know, and may I add just as dogmatically, nobody knows. I do not believe that the future of a nation is written in the land it occupies or in the language it speaks, or in the tradition it in- herits ; its future lies written in its will. Have we a national will, a determination to make this country something more than a land of big cities, of big and bigger sky- scrapers, of big and bigger and biggest booms ? What is this nation to be ? Do we know, and if we know, are we doing anything to make that national will articulate and ef- fective ? What are the patriotic women of America 86 Nationalizing America doing besides preserving the past and keep- ing afloat a symbol ? What are they doing for the women who are to be the mothers of the next generation, who are being drained of their vitality in the shops, and robbed of their virtue by the very men who exploit their physical power ? What are the patriotic men of America doing for our youth upon the city streets, what are they permitting their eyes to see and their young ears to hear, in the roar of our traffic and in the selfish atmosphere of our merchandising ? The past is after all secure ; the battles of Lexington and Concord have been fought, the debt we owe to our ancestors will not be forgotten. Their names are safely enshrined upon the pages of history. What are the business men doing to make that will effective? Is it well that they should work for the to-day only ? Is it enough to keep busy in their marts and build treasure houses in which to store their gains ? Is it enough to have amassed wealth for their children ? The Land and the People 87 The to-day is not endangered ; for they have buttressed it with granite and ribbed it with steel. What about the to-morrow ? Are these merchants the builders of an en- during nation, or only the builders of Baby- lon? What have the ministers done to bring the will of the nation in accord with the will of God ? How loudly have they proclaimed that will, how firmly have they held to their faith in the Kingdom to be, how valiantly have they fought men's unbelief in men ? The past is assured, the Bible is the Book of Books, the Gospel is the good news, till it becomes better news, by being practiced as well as preached. "A great nation's will, makes a nation's destiny," says H. G. Wells. " What are we doing," he asks, "to make this destiny of which we feel ourselves a part?" What shall we be? That which we want America to be, and determine it to be. I am watching this process of a nation's being made here in this fair land. I watch it with a love which admits of no cheap op- 88 Nationalizing America timism, but which also repudiates a cheaper pessimism based upon prejudice and igno- rance. I have put my will behind my wish, a wish which centers its hopes upon no mere fancy or impossible Utopia ; a wish which I have found in the heart of all good men every- where, and a will which I am trying to bring into harmony with the will of God. I do not know about the future. I do not know what we shall look like. This I can say : No matter what we shall look like in the time to come if in our day we are wise, and are guided by that wisdom ; if we are just, and see that justice is done ; if we are loyal to the past, and open to that guidance which has led us through the past we shall be, no matter what the shape of our noses, or the color of our eyes we shall all be Americans. And may God grant that to be an American may, in the future, mean some- thing better and more significant than what we now understand it to mean. IV language and the Nation WHOEVER has travelled through our foreign quarters, whether in the crowded cities or in agricul- tural colonies, quickly discovers that nothing merely external distinguishes them from other sections of the city and country. The tenement house architecture of New York, patterned after the beehive, has re- mained the same, even if Jewish or Italian immigrants have taken the place of native builders and exploiters. The replica of a Chinese joss-house was erected in San Fran- cisco after the earthquake or, as the Cali- fornians would say : " After the fire ; " but that was done to satisfy the curious rather than as a protest against the indigenous. Chop Suey restaurants have carried this bit of Oriental staging as a background to their staple dish which, according to the 89 90 Nationalizing America testimony of the Chinese themselves, is merely a new kind of hash, originated and brought to its perfection in the United States. Even in the country, in agricultural col- onies, we have neither German nor Scandi- navian dwellings or homes, and the Poles who are building on the deserted New Eng- land farms, accept the prevailing architecture without the slightest modifications. A closer social touch will disclose a tena- cious clinging to the national foods; for sacred traditions are most persistently pre- served in the kitchen. The nostrils, the palate and the stomach are more capable than the eye, of historic and national appeal. In fact the stomach has the longest memory, and those who in the past were concerned with the preservation of national and relig- ious traditions, invariably turned their atten- tion to the bill of fare as the most enduring page of history. The Passover meal of the Jews is a history written in courses rather than in chapters, and every Jewish lad while he digests it, ponders over it, sometimes painfully. The Language and the Nation 9 1 Kosher restaurant is more effective in pre- serving what is left of Judaism than the Synagogue. So, every exiled American, no matter how far he has wandered, recalls his native coun- try on Thanksgiving Day, by eating turkey and cranberry sauce. But strange to say, after a time, in these United States, even that appeal of the past fails ; and the American frying pan unfortu- nately displaces the European pot ; the more palatable white bread supersedes the sub- stantial loaf of rye and the more healthful kuchen or kolatchi is displaced by the pie, which crowns every American table and im- pairs the national digestion. Some time ago while visiting the Russian- German colony in Colorado, I was invited to dinner by the Herr Pastor and his German wife. My digestion had been almost ruined by a week's stay in one of those American hotels, where they murder food before they serve it ; so I joyfully anticipated a revival of my national appetite, if not my national feel- ing. But alas ! for my hopes. The dinner, 92 Nationalizing America while excellent, was purely American. It consisted of fried chicken, asparagus on toast, tomato salad and, horror of horrors ! my pet aversion, mince pie. The Herr Pastor confessed that he is never so happy as when, after dinner, he can put his feet higher than his head and smoke his cigar which he forthwith proceeded to do. In the ghettos and Little Italy or in the persistent Bohemias, one finds a more last- ing remnant of nationality in the queer let- terings over the shops, and in the unfamiliar sounds which strike one's ear. Among some of the groups here, where the struggle for the nation went hand in hand with the struggle for the maintenance of lan- guage, it is spoken with a purity and sense of defiance unknown in the homeland. In fact some of the European dialects became languages here, and created for themselves a literature. We are almost incapable of appreciating these phenomena, and are more or less im- patient with them ; because English has no national background. It is, first of all, a Language and the Nation 9 3 composite language, easily appropriating words from other tongues. Also, it long ago overstepped national boundaries by the scattering of English-speaking peoples and by the development of an independent Eng- lish-speaking nation upon this continent. Even with the ocean between us and the mother country, we have not developed a divergent language, although, of course, our speech "bewrayeth" us. Yet we have no different language, the German papers to the contrary notwithstanding. They insist that, since the war, we have begun to speak some- thing which is called American. Some of us who have travelled abroad had difficulty in making our way by merely twisting our English, or shrieking it as if every one were deaf. We remember what a sense of security came to us, what a breath of the homeland was wafted upon us, when we heard some one speaking in our own tongue, complaining perhaps about the stuffy air in the compartment. We also know what a difference it made if the Eng- lish we heard was spoken as it should be 94 Nationalizing America nasally rather than from the top of one's head, where the English of England is pro- duced. The immigrant has come to a country which is inhospitable to all foreign languages and which always, though not officially, de- mands that he drop everything external which marks him apart. It is a country in which everything takes on so quickly the native color and tone, even morals and re- ligion, that language becomes a sort of precious relic of the past, a kind of sheet anchor against the submerging storm. All the sentiments which gather around the home and the church are embodied here, and when they are expressed in a different language they seem to change their very nature, or fail in making their full appeal. Brand Whitlock, whose autobiography should be read by every American, tells this story of the last days of " Golden Rule Jones," the mayor of Toledo, and Mr. Whit- lock's predecessor in the office. Mr. Jones so firmly believed in the Christian religion that he tried to govern a city by it. He Language and the Nation 95 took revolvers and clubs from policemen, treated harlots and other sinners as Jesus treated them two thousand years ago, and as he believed they ought to be treated to- day. His last hour came, the last hour of a life saddened by the thought that the enemies of Christ were still they of his " own house- hold " ; for some of the strongest opponents of "Golden Rule Jones " were Christians and Christian ministers. Like his Master he was " reviled yet reviled not again." He had " fought the good fight " and was finishing " his course " as he began it, in the Christ spirit, and he read out of the New Testament that matchless chapter, written by another struggler for the Kingdom. He read that ringing, triumphant chapter from the book of Revelation ; that book which records the vision of one who hoped against hope that the city New Jerusalem would come down out of Heaven among men, and be set up upon the ruins of the harlot city Babylon. " Behold I come quickly," he read ; " hold fast that which thou hast, that no one take 96 Nationalizing America thy crown. He that overcometh ..." and as he closed the book, he said wearily to his wife, " Say it to me in Welsh." She said it to him in Welsh, "He that over- cometh," and brighter than the vision of the New Jerusalem there flashed upon him, through the power of his mother tongue, the rugged hills of Wales, his boyhood spent in the mines and his long struggle towards the Christian ideal. During a stay in Colorado, I was attracted by the Russian-Germans who came to us out of their Russian habitat, where they have lived over one hundred years, and remained unchanged by their environment. If one wishes to know how the Germans spoke and acted, and what they believed in the eighteenth century, he must visit these workers in the beetfields of Kansas, Ne- braska, and Colorado. He must go very soon though ; for in twenty years in Amer- ica, they have changed more radically than they would have changed had they remained in Russia for two hundred years more. Strange to say, a large number of them Language and the Nation 97 has been attracted to the Congregational Church, which ministers to them in Ger- man. The church I visited was built recently at a cost of $18,000, and is a typically modern American building, with Sunday-school rooms, a kitchen, and all the other modern equipment which seems so essential to the development of Protestant piety in America. The only American thing absent was a mort- gage. This church maintains seven services every Sunday, four of them being prayer meetings, and all are so crowded as to suggest a Roman Catholic, rather than a Protestant service. These people possess a very vital piety, perhaps not untainted by cant ; yet it is sincere on the whole, and the church is the center of the community's interest. I have watched this colony for the last ten years. Its material growth is astonish- ing and its Americanization in most things is alarmingly rapid. These people are learning English, al- though during their long exile in Russia 98 Nationalizing America they learned but few words of Russian. In the church they still treasure the mother tongue ; but in business and in the schools it is nearly gone. It will die out of the church too ; but when that time comes, I fear there will be no seven services every Sunday and no crowds listening to the preaching. The influence of a language upon the thought, the habits and the ideals of people is unquestionable. The immigrant's use of the mother tongue in this country is fast decreasing even where it is most tenaciously treasured. Very soon after his arrival here, English words creep in, and after a year or two they appear in every sentence. Finally even the form of the sentence is changed and curious are the results. In Pennsylvania, where the German sur- vived for nearly three hundred years, in the dialect called Pennsylvania Dutch, it is a most unique mixture of English and South- ern German which has been left upon the tongues of the people. Almost any American, with a little help from the dictionary, ca Language and the Nation 99 read the popular Pennsylvania Dutch poem, " Das alt Schulhaus an der Krick." " Und steh' ein Schulhaus an der Krick, Juscht nachst an Dady's Haus," is almost English. Most interesting are these colloquial Ger- man-Americanisms : " Die Cow ist iiber die fence gejumpt," " Wir werden moven," and " Der landlord hatt die rent geraist." Whether it is Bohemian or Chinese, Italian or Greek, it is always corrupted by English, and the persistent Yiddish of the Ghetto is becoming daily more complicated by its ad- mixture. If, then, language has this power of carry- ing ideals or changing them, it is undeniably true that in a comparatively short time we affect the immigrant groups. Measured by this same standard, the immigrants have not in the least affected us ; for I do not know one single word which has drifted into our English language from these foreign colonies. True, we have "lager beer" from Mil- waukee or St. Louis ; we have enriched our culinary wealth and fragrance by the addi- ioo Nationalizing America tion of sauerkraut, "wienies" and Frank- furters; but except as they affected our easily disturbed digestion, these have not directly affected our mental processes. Not one word has obtruded itself permanently into our intellectual and emotional life. In Philadelphia they called my attention to the fact that they speak of the "dumb Dutch " ; but the word dumb meaning stupid, is not found in any dictionary, and has not moved far or fast. This same statement of mine was chal- lenged some time ago, by one who cited the bit of current slang : " Ish-ka-bible" which came to us from the Yiddish. Long before it dis- appeared, however, it was translated into " I should worry ; " so although born in Yiddish, it attained its majority in English, and for its death, be praises. Some future lexicographer may have a task left him ; that of tracing the new words incorporated into our English by immigrant groups ; but I doubt that he will be kept very busy. Our Canadian cousins, more English than Language and the Nation i o i we, have not been able to assimilate the French Canadians they found. French, in speech and habits of thought, has remained to this day the source of serious political, religious and social friction. Canada has not succeeded much better with the later Slavic groups, which, follow- ing the example set them by the French, have demanded separate schools, in which instruction should be in their mother tongue. In the United States we have thus far been spared any political cleavage through differ- ent languages, and while the proportion of non-English speaking people is large, the use of their mother tongue daily grows smaller, languishes in the second generation and disappears entirely in the third. As a result of the great war, there will probably be on one side a reawakening of the national feeling and a desire among our immigrants to perpetuate their native speech. On our side there may be a feeling of resentment against the survival of their language and an attempt to force upon them our speech. IO2 Nationalizing America The moribund press of the older immi- grant groups has been suddenly revived, and there is a renewed vitality among such weak- ened institutions as churches, parochial schools and theaters. While the broken, linguistic bond with the Fatherland is being strengthened, societies are being formed on the American side to force upon foreigners the English speech, and by a change of tongue, create in them a change of heart. Both movements ought to be checked, for each of them may prove disastrous to our national unity. We may, or may not, regard language as essential to the life of a nation ; there are examples for both contentions ; one thing is sure. A cleavage in the language now would mean to us a cleavage of the nation in its most vulnerable if not in its most essential part. That, no matter what our origin, no real American can desire ; for it is not a question whether we are to be part German or part English. We might survive with the national spirit cut in two ; but should our German born citizens be success- Language and the Nation 103 ful in making German co-equal with English in our public schools, the Bohemians, who hate the very sound of the German language, will demand a similar chance for the Czesch tongue, and they know how to fight for what they want. The Hungarian, who equally dislikes the Czesch, will try to make a place for Mag- yar as the class-room language, and with Scandinavian, Finnish, Yiddish, and other languages clamoring for the same privilege, we may at once say good-bye to the unity of the United States. It will be pertinent to translate here the words of the Roman Catholic Archbishop Zardetti, formerly of the diocese of St. Cloud, Minnesota. In his book, "Westlich," he says : " Nevertheless, the German cannot exclude himself from the others, and ignore the English language ; nor carry about the idea that he can found here a little Germany, Luxemburg or Switzerland. " He should, if he wants to realize his mis- sion, treasure the German language, and cultivate it, be proud of his German charac- 104 Nationalizing America ter, of his traditions, and of the memories of the Fatherland. But he must theoretically and practically acknowledge the English language as the language of America. He must acknowledge that he, with his national characteristics, is only a co-worker in this great melting and cultural process, and that he is no more in the old Fatherland, but in the land of the stars and stripes." This was written prior to the war by a German Archbishop of Swiss birth ; and if it does not prove which way the wind is blow- ing, it certainly proves the direction in which it ought to be blowing. On the other hand we, with our newly awakened sense of the value of language to the making of a nation, need at this critical time just as forceful an injunction. The immigrant realizes that he needs to know English. There is no place for him here except at the very bottom, unless he does know it. Without it he cannot com- mand better wages ; he cannot assert him- self in securing either a job or justice. If he has any ambition to get into social relation- Language and the Nation 105 ship with his fellows, he must know the lan- guage of the people. We need adult schools wherever the immi- grants congregate ; we need them as a matter of security for our institutions. Nevertheless it is folly to believe that this can be accom- plished in the mood in which we are now ready to begin. At present we are in the same attitude towards the immigrant as were the emissaries of Emperor Ferdinand of Austria towards the Protestants of Salz- burg, when, driving them into a lake, they immersed them and said : " Be baptized or be drowned and damned." The reciprocal feeling of the survivors may be imagined, and it exists in much of its bitterness to this day. The acceptance of this country's language by the immigrant is essential; but it is a mistake to force it upon him. If we do, be- fore we know it, we shall duplicate the lan- guage trouble of Austria-Hungary, which has rendered the making of a nation under the Hapsburghs all but impossible. Moreover we must remember that while language is essential to our national strength, if not to 106 Nationalizing America our unity, it is still more essential to keep national feeling and national ideals upon a high level. To learn English in the saloon and brothel, to acquire it with vulgarity and a strong leaning towards profanity, is not necessarily a saving process, and may register no gain for the nation. To try to teach English to the immigrant under the compulsion of law would also be an irreparable mistake, and would inevitably create a dangerous reaction ; while to teach, or try to teach it in our present unsympa- thetic mood and with our leaning towards England, would arouse the suspicion that we are trying to make Englishmen out of them. To make the teaching of English effective, we must first of all treasure it as our native speech, we must realize its cul- tural and spiritual value, and speak it with a sense of national dignity. We must fight against its vulgarization by our children, or by those whom they hear in the theater, the concert hall, and the schoolroom. No teacher ought to be employed in our Language and the Nation 1 07 schools who does not speak English con- tagiously well. In the curriculum of our colleges the study of the drama, which in this country is so marked, is meaningless to us as a nation unless it brings a revival of English speech. The Greek drama must shame us not only by the simplicity of its plot and the high level of its thought, but by the dignity of its language. The Shakespearean tercentenary ought to turn our attention, not so much to play act- ing or play making, but to the refining of our speech ; and should shame us because of the poverty of our vocabulary. Wherever I hear college men and women speak what they call English, I find myself in need of a new dictionary. I overheard the daughter of a minister convey to her classmate a bit of home news in the following sentences : " My father has just been called to a peach of a church and say, we have the niftiest parsonage ; it's a cracker-jack." No doubt she was a " peach " of a college girl. io8 Nationalizing America After delivering a college commencement address, I heard one of the men just gradu- ated, inquire of a classmate : " Say, kid, have you seen my lid? Gosh, I must wiggle. The mater is waiting for me. Her and the old man are probably rubbering around for me now." I am frequently in the unenviable position of having to be introduced to audiences. This is done in the majority of cases by col- lege men, and their inability to speak a straight, dignified English sentence is ap- palling. At a high-school commencement, the clergyman who was to offer prayer was introduced by the superintendent in the fol- lowing sentence, which certainly does not lack words. " Reverend So and So is now to invoke the divine invocation in prayer to Almighty God for His blessing." The college athletic field which has yielded us so little of national value, but which might have been used to stimulate the imagination and the beauty sense of the nation, has given us nothing but slang and savage sounds. Issuing from the throats of our boys they are Language and the Nation \ 09 tolerable ; but shrieked by the girls they act disastrously upon their vocal chords, and are calculated neither to improve the native voice nor to enrich our speech. This may be the right time to insist that English be used by our concert and opera singers. In the period of our artistic infancy we were compelled to take what we could get ; but now, would it be too much to ask that the Italians and Germans learn to sing in English, rather than that we should com- pel our native singers to learn foreign tongues and to disguise their names into something which smacks of the Old World ? To be sure we might not understand Caruso's English ; but do we understand his Italian ? It is also true that we might not understand our American singers if they sang in English ; for most of them are afflicted as was the colored brakeman of whom I asked the name of the station he had just announced. " 'Scuse me, boss," he said ; " I's got an epidemic in my speech." In relation to the non-English speaking peoples among us, we must realize that Ian- no Nationalizing America guage, like the gift without the giver, is bare. That is, if we are to convey with the lan- guage anything of the national spirit at its best, we must give it through personal contact. Suppose that we are living in a town of 60,000 inhabitants, and that there are two for- eigners to every native (a very large and un- usual proportion), and that each one of us proposes to touch the lives of two of these for- eigners for one or two hours each week, and try to teach them English. Some such plan has often been followed for the raising of funds or the saving of souls ; now suppose we try it for the saving of the nation, if we think the nation is in danger. In a year we can accomplish more than the town or the city or the state could, by the passing of laws or the appropriation of large sums of money, and will have taught more than mere lan- guage. In my " trailing of the immigrant," I have found that when he returned to the homeland the difference in his view-point was made, not so much by his having learned English or not, as from whom he learned it. I am Language and the Nation 1 1 1 never so ashamed of America as when I hear the immigrant speak our language, embel- lished by all the coarse slang and vile oaths which it is capable of containing. We are under the mistaken idea that the public schools have accomplished what they have, through that which we are pleased to call the excellence of our system, or merely because English is the language of instruc- tion. What has been done for Mary Antin and hundreds and thousands of her brothers and sisters, has been done through the genius of our public school teachers, as indi- viduals, who had a personal interest in the boys and girls born into the nation through the steerage. In this power of personal con- tact, in this vital human interest, many of our teachers excel. Some years ago when I crossed the ocean, homeward bound, the second cabin was crowded by American public school teachers, who are the best travellers I know ; eager and intelligent, they absorb quickly and treasure greedily what they have learned. As we neared the home port, there came 112 Nationalizing America across the water a gentler breeze, and the green, angry sea felt the soothing touch of the inflowing rivers. The moon was full and the heavens were covered by myriads of the starry host. I stole my way to the upper deck to have the sky and the sea to myself ; but when I reached it I saw standing at the prow of the boat a woman who, under the mystic light, seemed to float out upon the very sea. I thought some passenger was contemplat- ing suicide, and stole softly to where she stood, my footsteps muffled by the lapping water. As I came close I heard her crying out into the teeth of the wind created by the fast moving ship: "The sea! The sea! The wonderful sea ! " When her voice died away, she became conscious of my presence, and dropping her outstretched arms, she shamefacedly con- fessed to her excess of emotion, which needed an outlet. "You know," she said, "I have been abroad for three months ; in Venice, Gra- nada, Paris and Vienna. A week from to- Language and the Nation 113 day I shall be in Columbus, Ohio, in a stuffy schoolroom, teaching dirty little foreign brats to say c-a-t, cat, c-a-t, cat." I understood her very well and appreciated how she felt at being discovered while giving vent to her emotions. I said, " Let's do it together." So we called it out, into the swirling spray : "The sea 1 The sea 1 The wonderful sea 1 " After we had thus relieved our feelings, I told her of the greatness of her task in Columbus, what share she might have in the making of this nation, what a high, patriotic, human task was hers in giving the children of strangers a new tongue, of bind- ing them to a new people, and baptizing them into a new spirit. I visited her school in Columbus, Ohio, and I saw her teaching her "dirty, little foreign brats " to say : " c-a-t, cat." I saw the hungry eyes of little children lifted ador- ingly to her face, and I am sure that there in Columbus she has experienced loftier emo- tions than those she felt when she called out across the deep, " The sea 1 The sea 1 The wonderful sea 1 " H4 Nationalizing America This very summer I met a teacher in the city of Denver, who was instructing an adult class in English. It was composed of Jews, Greeks, Italians, Armenians, and Spaniards. This devoted woman is more than a teacher ; she is a sister to all of them, and to no sister in the flesh have they ever confessed so freely their failings, their hopes and their fears. " My life," she said, " has been enriched by more than I ever thought it could con- tain. I have had glimpses into the heart of nations, and I understand people as I never understood them before." That is the testi- mony which comes to me from every place where an honest attempt is made to touch the life of these foreigners, and where teach- ing the language was merely a way of ap- proach, a means of carrying to them bigger values. Each year there come to me a number of foreign born boys and girls, eager for a college education. They come from the mine and the shop, some of them from deep poverty. Invariably I find that the aspiration towards higher ideals came from a public Language and the Nation 115 school teacher, who had given herself with the language. A brilliant French woman told me some time ago that we shall never be a nation be- cause we have no distinct national language. She said this mournfully, and with a dra- matic shrug of the shoulders, so characteristic of her people. I am not ready to accept her verdict ; but I do believe that we need to realize the value of language in the making of the nation. We must treasure it as the vehicle of our national, spiritual and cultural inheritance, and we must speak it as if we recognized that fact. We must teach it to the alien in our midst, and thus share with him the legacy of the past, that he may be prepared for the part he is to play in the making of the nation. V The Stomach Line THERE ought to be some safe and sane middle ground between the optimism of the past, an optimism which rested national security entirely upon material affluence, and the prevailing pes- simism, which gathers its gloom from the sudden introspection necessitated by the war spirit which has enveloped us. It is high time that we should discount a good deal of what nature has done for us so lavishly, in giving us the material basis out of which to shape a powerful people, and take account of the forces which are created by the people themselves, forces which work for unity and security. It is however dangerous to drop into the skeptical mood which carries its own unfa- vorable answer to every question, and depre- cates everything which we have achieved in 116 The Stomach Line 117 making a nation. It was in this frame of mind that the editorial of one of our metro- politan papers was written, and it gave me the subject for this chapter. "Are we a Nation above the Stomach Line?" the editor asks. Of course his an- swer is in the negative. This country is merely a barnyard into which the immigrants have come, and they are the pigs struggling about the trough, each to get, not only his share of corn, but as much of his neighbor's as he can. There is no loyalty for the hand which feeds us and builds the sty that shel- ters us. The figure is a poor one as one can readily see ; for the simile, to be complete, should have read something like this : " There is no loy- alty for the hand which feeds us, which builds our sty " and which after we are fed, slaughters us. Pigs have never developed a sense of loyalty or gratitude ; for pigs have ultimately been turned into pork, and pork has remained a stranger to the higher emo- tions, no matter what it may do for those of us who eat it. 1 1 8 Nationalizing America If the editor had used the figure of the kennel, his pessimism might have been tem- pered by the thought that dogs have been turned from treacherous wolves into guard- ians of the home, and that now they are sym- bols of fidelity. Whether we like it or not, the noble virtue of patriotism rests upon economic well-being. Men begin to love their country when they find in it food and shelter, they fight for it when their pastures are threatened, and their harvests endangered, or they leave it and forget it when bread can be more easily se- cured elsewhere. It is certainly no reflection upon the an- cestors of those of us who belong to the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, to question whether all the men who fought, fought for an abstraction, an ideal. Maurice Low, in his "The American People," writes: " Dazzled by the glamour of history and vic- tory, we are apt to invest a whole people with the qualities and virtues of their chosen leaders. " Among the men who gave force to the The Stomach Line 119 movement which ended in the overthrow of English power in America, were men morally and intellectually great ; noble and unselfish men, who cherished an ideal and from it never swerved ; and there were also men who were great neither in intellect nor in moral stamina, who were governed by selfish motives, who were opportunists and not idealists." In the " Spoon River Anthology," those post mortem autobiographies of some of our Mid-western village folk, Mr. Masters makes one of his characters, as he contemplates the monument erected by his fellow villagers, say: " I was the first fruits of Missionary Ridge. When I felt the bullet enter my heart, I wished I had stayed at home and gone to jail For stealing hogs of Curt Trenary, Instead of running away and joining the army. Rather a thousand times the county jail, Than to lie under this marble figure with wings, and this granite pedestal, Bearing the words ' Pro Patria.' What do they mean anyway? " It may be no mere coincidence to find that the newly awakened patriotism, of which the editors of Eastern papers were the first spon- I2O Nationalizing America sors, stretches along the line where greatest profit may be reaped from war, or where greatest damage to property may occur in case of an invasion. According to the Presi- dent of the United States the furor of pa- triotism to which we have been lashed by the Mexican situation, has financial interests back of it. Their money was sent to Mexico to be in- vested, thus escaping taxation in the United States and reaping huge profits. As long as this investment was undisturbed, these finan- cial interests would have repudiated any at- tempt on the part of the United States to claim guardianship over Mexico ; but as soon as these property interests were threatened, capital became patriotic, and demanded that the country send its sons to protect its mines, even if they perish on the alkali deserts of Northern Mexico. My point is, that the " stomach line " is after all a very vital one in the development of patriotism ; therefore to the making of a nation, and that it too frequently determines its destiny. It is true that the millions of The Stomach Line 121 men and women who came to us in the last half century gave up their old world home, separated themselves from their kinsmen, and faced a long, wearisome ocean voyage ; not alone because they loved our institutions or knew aught about them, but primarily because here they could get more bread and butter in return for their brain and brawn. It is equally true that their choice of this country as the permanent home for them- selves and their children was governed largely by their finding it a better place in which to live. We have properly idealized the past, and have taken under the shelter of the Pilgrim spirit all who came, up to a certain period ; even though they were brought out of Eng- land's debtor's prisons, or were dumped by the ship-load, gathered from Ireland's poor- houses and asylums. It was at any time a comparatively small number of people that sought in this country a sanctuary for their ideals, or came because of the ideals they expected to find ; free land and not freedom was the magnet which drew 122 Nationalizing America the majority, and those who sought the first were not necessarily better material out of which to shape a free nation than those who sought the latter. The lure of America was its wealth, and not until later did the Goddess of Liberty light her beacon for them. The sacredness of religious history is not demeaned when one discovers how close to its root are the lower senses and appetites ; and the proverb : " The way to a man's heart is through his stomach " need not lower the ideal of the love of a man for a woman. It may even be true that the divorce mills would have less grist to grind if the grist were better prepared in the kitchen. It is also true that a fine patriotism is developed when the common man belongs to a state which looks to his well-being. If I quote Germany ad nauseum, it is be- cause I can cite no other nation which to the same degree has the unquestioned, whole- souled devotion of all her people. That devotion is due to the fact that for the last forty years the German state has made it its business to look after the well-being of the The Stomach Line 123 individual. It has checked his exploitation, guarded his personal safety, and protected the health of children yet unborn, by with- drawing pregnant women from factory labor, providing for their comfort, and later, enabling the young mother to give her whole time to the new-born child. No case of illness has gone unattended and no accident remained a handicap to be carried by the worker alone. Sickness and death, those sure and expensive attendants of the poor, were at least palliated by the state, as far as lay in its power. No Utopia was created and discontent was not entirely eliminated. The state cannot inure itself against human nature ; but in this present holocaust, when the state comman- deers the wealth, the comfort, the health, the very life of its people, they are saying with perfect faith : "The state has given, the state has taken away ; blessed be the name of the state." No man acquainted with the Whitechapel district of London, the slums of Manchester, or the gloom of Glasgow, needs to be en- 1 24 Nationalizing America lightened upon the question why Englishmen were so reluctant to rally to their banners. Not until Zeppelins flew over London, and coast cities were bombarded and the in- vasion of England was a possibility ; not until food grew dear, and life itself was threatened, were Englishmen ready to fight for England. Patriotism begins at the " stomach line " ; fortunately it does not stop there, but it does begin there. I do not mean to say that wealth or per- sonal well-being is essential to the creation of patriotic ideals or to their maintenance, or to the stability of a compact nation. Upon ; the stony soil of Montenegro, where harvests are gathered by the mere handfuls, and some seasons are not gathered at all ; where poverty is so common that an abundance of black bread is the measure of wealth, a noble patriotism has been de- veloped, which has no superior anywhere. The Montenegrins besides their common de- scent, their common danger and their com- mon poverty, have a ruler who takes a per- The Stomach Line 125 sonal interest in his half million subjects. Their feeling of hunger is relieved by the thought that their Czar knows about it, that he is not to blame for it, and that he will share it, if necessary. If the sense of belonging to the nation has remained weak among the people of our alien population, it is because we have per- mitted them to remain alien to us and be- cause we have had little concern for their welfare. Patriotism cannot easily be bred in our satellite cities, begotten in greed, mere reser- voirs of human power, to be used, and abused as we do not and dare not now abuse what we call our natural resources. Mr. Charles Schwab and other magnates of the Steel Trust, who work men twelve hours a day, at a task which leaves them despoiled of strength and ready for the scrap pile at the end of a few years, are not patriot mak- ers, although they are makers of guns and moulders of shrapnel. The clothing manu- facturers of New York City who are starving tens of thousands of people into a humiliat- 126 Nationalizing America ing submission, are not patriots ; and if our patriotism were of a finer sort, we would dare to call them traitors. My host in New England confessed that he did not pay a living wage to his em- ployees. He said he could not manufacture woolen stuffs, and pay more. This may or may not be true ; but if it is true, it is a sin against the state, yes, against God Himself, to spin yarn from hunger and dye cloth in human blood. If we cannot weave woolen cloth, and at the same time pay a living wage, then let those weave it who can. The well-being of the state demands the well- being of its workers more than the wealth of stockholders. It is easy for us to cry : " America First " and mean it, we who have never felt hunger gripping us, who have never felt that greater pain, the hunger of our children ; we who do not have to seek shelter in stuffy tenements and sleep in airless rooms after toiling ten hard hours in an equally stuffy, airless fac- tory. Imagine coming in with me to the United The Stomach Line 127 States in the steerage, say on that German ship which brought a load of twelve hundred immigrants, some eight years ago ; a trip very significant to me, for I tried to test a theory which I held. I believed that if the immigrants had a chance to become ac- quainted with American ideals on board of ship, when they are idle and most open to in- fluences, it might help them to make a right start. We begin when the immigrant has been embittered by exploitation, his mind poisoned and his attitude towards the country and its institutions biased, and then it is too late. On this particular trip I acted as an official might act who has been designated for such a task as I had in mind. Nearly every hour of every one of the ten days we spent together I told them what America means to the world, what it might mean to them. I told them that it is a coun- try whose government is based upon the fundamental idea of human worth and dig- nity. I impressed upon them that they are to be factors in that government, and that 128 Nationalizing America upon their behavior one towards the other, depends our common well-being ; and what I said was not unintelligible to the people to whom I spoke. I remember many individuals in that group and the members of one family in particular stand out. They had come from the Caucasus, and had passed through horrible persecutions be- cause of their religious ideas. From Russia they fled into Turkey, where they had to wit- ness the horrible butcheries of the Armenians. Unable to stand it any longer they decided upon the long, hard journey to the United States. They fairly hung upon my words. The land I described was the land they were seeking ; here were the ideals for which they had suffered, and they were not alone in those anticipations. At last we came under the lea of the sand- dunes of Long Island, and witnessed the slow disclosure of that marvel of cities, with its heaven assaulting roofs and spires. The ship lay at anchor and the quarantine offi- cers came on board. The immigrants had The Stomach Line 129 been driven down like cattle, and one by one were to pass before the officers. Their hats were knocked from their heads by the impatient guardian of the health of the state ; they were pulled and pushed in a fashion by which our ineffective hurry always expresses itself. The spectacle was so brutal that I could not stand it. I jumped into the line and made a protest which was ineffective, for I was threatened with arrest for interfer- ing with an officer ; while the brutal and brutalizing process went on as before. At Ellis Island the procedure was more humane, and it is but just to say that the Commissioners of Immigration in the last twelve years have been men above reproach, to whom the task appealed as a big oppor- tunity for service. At no time has there been a more intelligent head of that institu- tion than it has in Mr. Frederic Howe, who represents the flower of our American citi- zenship, which one wishes might be more common than it is. My family from the Caucasus went to West Virginia, to the coalfields, and were 130 Nationalizing America sheltered in a stockade, which was more prison than home. There was barbed wire around their camp, and armed guards to give them further protection. There was a strike, and they did not know it. They were clubbed by the strikers because they worked, and then struck with the butt of guns when they refused to work. That was the beginning of their life in America. Later I had a letter from the head of the family. I never answered it, for he called me a liar, and that hurt tremendously, because he was right. If I ever meet that man and find that he is not shouting "America First," whose fault will it be? If I find him in the welter of the I. W. W. who will be to blame ? To the forlorn and forbidding, alkali- burned southern edge of Colorado, came Greeks and Hungarians to dig coal. They were isolated from everything good and kept in touch with everything bad. Now, after a long strike for decent working condi- tions, they have been finally beaten into sub- mission by a militia whose conduct was on The Stomach Line 131 the level of Russia's Cossacks. If they do not sing as lustily as we, " My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty " whose fault is it? And what of the children whose bodies are being bleached like lepers' in our cotton mills, or whose young frames as they bend over the breakers are shaken by tumbling coal, from which their nimble fingers pick the slate ? What of the youths whose lungs are eaten by coal dust in the mines, or by the lint which flies from the loom ? If they are reluctant or unable to fight for their country, who will be responsible ? We talk much about the American home which is even yet the basis of national well- being, although many of its functions are abrogated. The home still determines the good or ill of the child, and through him the good or ill of the nation. Yet we permit mil- lions of people to work, with no chance to make a real home. Children there will be, nature sees to that ; but what kind of children can be begotten in our slums ? 132 Nationalizing America The slums in America are as much a national disgrace as they are a national menace. The gunmen of New York were bred in hovels which even the home-making genius of the Jewish people could not turn into homes, or make fit for the training of children to decent living. You who go slumming to see the sights, and turn up your sensitive noses at bad smells, and your eyes to Heaven, thanking God that you " are not as other men," must not forget that the vast majority of our foreign born workers are compelled to live as they do by economic and social forces, which they cannot control. You remain ignorant of the brave struggles for the home, and the heroic stand for virtue behind those sooty walls. You know nothing of the fear of God, the desire to obey His law, and the love of their country, which filters in to those receptive souls. The growth and power of the I. W. W., a revolutionary organization of the most radical type, anti-national, anti-religious, repudiating God and state with horrifying The Stomach Line 133 blasphemy, were made possible by the fact that our industrial leaders, our so-called " hard-headed business men " have the hard spot in their hearts and a very soft spot in their heads. Of all the blind men I have met, the blind- est are those far-sighted ones who see- wealth in everything, and every common bush aflame with gold, and see nothing else. Blind they are to their own larger good, blind to the nation's needs, blind to the signs of the times. The social weal of our country is in the hands of the most unsocial. I know of no man who loved, yea, who still loves America more than Arthuro Gio- vanetti, the poet and prophet of the In- dustrial Workers of the World. He en- tered into the spirit of our language so completely that his soul sings in it. He so absorbed our higher ideals that he pre- pared to become a minister of the Pres- byterian Church, and he did preach the Gospel. We might have made of him a spiritual leader among our Italian population, and he 134 Nationalizing America would have led hundreds of thousands to a firm allegiance to our country and our God. Instead he is now a rebel against every- thing we hold sacred. Why ? Look into the books of the American Woolen Company. Go to Salem's jail, where he was confined on the charge of murder. Go to Ludlow and ask the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. Inquire of the clothing manufacturers in New York ; go to Pittsburgh, and ask the Steel Trust. Go into our courts of justice and watch the procedure, and you will get your an- swer. There is a man living in Detroit, Mich- igan, who has been called a fool by most people, and classed with copperheads by Colonel Roosevelt. The product of his fac- tory has gone on its own merits and by its own power to every part of this country and to many parts of the world. His patri- otism has been impugned in ringing edi- The Stomach Line 135 torials, and the funny man of every joke column has held him up to public ridicule. This man has voluntarily given his men double the accepted wage of the labor market, and not satisfied by that, he trains them to sobriety, and good citizenship. To make 20,000 people contented and efficient, to teach them the English lan- guage and their duties to the state, seems to me at least as great a contribution to the national weal, as Mr. Vincent Astor's gift of a hydroplane to a New York regiment. The patriotism of our many manufacturers who chide us for our lack of it is not on the " stomach line " it is lower than that it is on the pocketbook line, and as soon as they have lifted themselves above that, they will lift with them the millions of men they em- ploy. They cannot get the "state sense," as Mr. H. G. Wells calls it, until they get the sense of the human until they get the sense of the diviye in the human. I had a lengthy and intimate interview with a man who is co-partner in a great 136 Nationalizing America manufacturing business. He has undertaken to look after the labor side of the problem, while his brother looks after the money side. He told me that in a certain department he has gradually reduced the hours of labor from twelve to six. That is, he really in- stituted a six hour day, and it has proved perfectly satisfactory to the money side of the house. When I congratulated him upon his humanitarianism he confessed that his action had nothing to do with that fine virtue. It had nothing to do with saving the time or the strength of the toiler. The men's hours were lessened to save certain machines. The machines in question were very ex- pensive and soon wore out. To pay for themselves they had to be attended unre- mittingly and to do this effectively he dis- covered that no man could do it longer than six hours. He is getting human sense and the state sense ; but it is coming to him through the pocketbook sense, or, if you please, from the " stomach line." The prohibition wave which is sweeping The Stomach Line 137 the country would not have been effective without the stand taken by great industrial firms. While we praise them for it, we must not forget that when the women of the W. C. T. U. pleaded for their aid, on behalf of drunkards' wives and drunkards' children, reciting to them the awful woes which follow in the wake of intemperance, they either smiled benignantly at them or indignantly showed them the door. When German scholars took the pains to investigate the subject with their accustomed thoroughness, and discovered that the work- ing man drunk was less effective than the working man sober, and when laws were passed making industry bear part of the ills of accidents, temperance was encouraged and saloons were .swept from places where they seemed hopelessly entrenched. As I analyze my own relation to the nation of which I am as much a part as if I had been born under its flag, I find that it rests itself upon the feeling of gratitude. Not for the bread I eat, for I had bread enough in my native country ; not for the comfort of home, 138 Nationalizing America for I had fair comforts before I came ; not even for liberty and democracy as abstrac- tions, or even as embodied in the state ; for 1 have found that freedom is within, and de- mocracy a matter of attitude towards one's fellows. I am grateful for the chance I have had here to develop unhampered my own self, for a certain largeness of vision which I think I would not have developed anywhere else ; for the richness which a broad unhindered contact with all sorts and conditions of men has brought into my life. There is something more than gratitude in my heart now. There is a larger sense of the values I received which I have not yet appropriated. There is in my heart a sub- lime passion for America. Would it have grown into the burning flame it is, if I had always worked in New York's sweat-shops ? If I had been beaten by New York's police and been dragged through heartless courts ? If I had reared my family in a tenement, and had to send my children to work when they should have played and studied ? The Stomach Line 139 If I had known America only through her yellow journalism, and sensed her spirit only in ward elections ? I do not know. What has kept me from becoming an Anarchist, from being jailed or hanged for leading mobs against their despoilers, God alone knows. His guidance is as unques- tioned as it is mysterious. There were dis- closed to me, early in my career, in some strange way, the spiritual values latent here. In spite of the gross, granite-like materi- alism at the top, I discovered the richness of the heritage left by the fathers of this repub- lic ; in spite of the poverty and hardship in which I had to share, I saw here the fine quality of its vision ; in spite of the crudeness of its blundering ways, all the love a man may have for a country grew in my heart, and changed only in growing stronger. Yet I am not in the mood to call to account those toilers whose patriotism is less fervent than mine and whose ideals are still held in check by the " stomach line." Editors and preachers, teachers and capi- talists, with all the loud if not mighty host of 140 Nationalizing America us who are yammering about the want of patriotism among the masses, and the weak- ness of our national spirit ; we are the first who must move a notch higher in our love of country and above the " stomach line." We must make real the spiritual ideals for which this country stands, or at least try to realize them, before we can teach the alien and his children, or even our own, the meaning of liberty, and democracy. Before we can ask them to die for our country we shall have to learn to live for it, and the definite task we have before us is not the mere idolatry of our flag, or the making of shard and shell. To provide an adequate wage for our men, to so arrange our industrial order that there shall not be feverish activity to-day, and idleness, poverty, breadlines and soup kitch- ens to-morrow. To make working condi- tions tolerable, to provide against accidents and sickness, unemployment and old age, and to be true to the life about us. These are national factors, essential to the making of an effective national state in our industrial age. Capital, in common with The Stomach Line 141 labor, must learn how to lend itself to the national purpose ; for we have come upon a time, or the time has come upon us, when we must learn how to melt all classes, all sec- tions and all races into a final unit. This is the time to touch the hearts and gain the confidence of all the people by a high regard for all ; so that together we may turn our faces towards our ultimate goal. VI History and the Nation MANY of us who have looked into the face of America are wondering how it will appear, what it will be like in the future. We are listening to the confusing sounds which strike our ears, and are anxious to know which shall predominate ; we are still more perplexed when we look beneath the surface, and see and hear that which escapes the superficial observer. We are anxious because those who come to us bring not only racial inheritance and the lan- guage which their mothers taught them; they bring tradition-laden memories, stand- ards of living and conduct, hopes and ideals. Upon our ability to blend their historic in- heritance with ours, depends our success or failure in the task of unifying, solidifying and enriching our national life, rather than in eliminating altogether what they bring; 142 History and the Nation 143 a process which is not quite wholesome and which may be safely left to time. American history is, after all, a chapter in the history of the whole human race, and you cannot dig into America's immediate past without striking roots branching in all direc- tions. Neither can you think of her future without finding her profoundly affecting the people of the world. We are sovereign over this land of ours, we are being shaped into something which will have physical kinship or likeness ; but have we a common history, that powerful element in the welding of a nation, and in- dispensable to it? Our splendid isolation, which in the past has done so much to keep us from entangling alliances, and has kept us from becoming the inheritor of Europe's political ills, has also made it possible for us to develop our own history and to teach it as if it were another Genesis. If we did not, like the Jews, monopolize the creative week, it was due to the fact that we carried with us into the wilderness the sacred history which records it. We did manage to 144 Nationalizing America endow the Creator with Puritan character- istics, and the prophets, apostles and disciples became our compatriots, who, our children believe, all came over in the May/lower. If we do not insist that they joined a particular church, it is due to the keen denominational rivalry which exists among us. Naturally, we do not quarrel about Judas ; we have left him to the Jews, and he is the only one among the twelve whose Semitic features we have not altered. If we brought him over at all, he had to travel in the steerage. So keen were some of our immediate an- cestors to make this historic connection with the sacred past, that certain ones sought and found the written records, conveniently en- graved for them on copper plates. They printed a brand new American Bible, founded a brand new American religion, and built a New Jerusalem on the shores of the Salt Lake. Immediately above it, even if not lo- cated in the United States, there is no doubt an American Heaven full of American angels. We accepted nothing from the aborigines, although we took everything from them. History and the Nation 145 How completely they have dropped from our historic consciousness I realized recently, when a woman, who had spent the winter in Arizona, told me of her sojourn there. She said that while the climate was wonderful she did not like the people ; there were too many foreigners. Being fairly well ac- quainted with the location of the immigrant populations and knowing that as yet they have not reached Arizona in such uncom- fortable numbers, I asked her for further information. " Oh," she said, " there are so many Indians there." Of our British past we are now being re- minded more and more emphatically ; what we owe to Spain, France, Holland and Swe- den we are beginning to learn ; the contri- bution of the German people we shall not be permitted to forget, and what the latter-day immigrant has thus far given and what he may give, must of course be appraised in the future. It was after all a good thing that Amer- ican history so soon became the history of one people, that the colonies so quickly for- 146 Nationalizing America got their historic background, and that the states carved out of these vast territories came in one by one, or two by two, as the animals went into the ark. The historic del- uge followed, all but blotting out the past. On the extreme edges of what was once the domain of France, the French speech still lingers; of Spain and Spanish, less is left. From ocean to ocean and from the lakes to the gulf it is all America, with its history written upon a new page. It is really not difficult for the immigrant to accept this new history as his own ; it is easy because it is so new, and because its beginning is marked by a great discovery rather than by a great conquest. The story of the discovery of America is known to every European child which goes to school. It belongs to its earliest impressions and frequently antedates the fairy tale. The Italian child has some historic claim upon that great event, unless we thoroughly be- lieve that Columbus was born in Columbus, Ohio, and that no Italian came to these shores till long after we were discovered. History and the Nation 147 The winning of the land from the British, and the establishment of a republic, were events which made their impression every- where and found an echo in the hearts of all those who felt themselves oppressed, and yearned for freedom. While we may say that freedom was established here as a political principle, it is an idle conceit in which we indulge our selves, if we believe that there was no yearn- ing for it and no understanding of it else- where. The share which German, French and Polish generals had in the Revolutionary War was not inconsiderable, and of common soldiers who were not of native or of English blood there was so large a number as to make it impossible to maintain the idea that none but Anglo-Saxons can love freedom. That passion is, after all, a very common, human quality, and there is a response to those who struggle for it, which is limited only by the endeavor of rulers to suppress it, because of political or dynastic interests. We are fortunate in having written upon 148 Nationalizing America that first page of our history the name of George Washington, who is no stranger to freedom -loving people anywhere. His monument is found in many foreign capitals, and he may be, so far as I know, the only foreign ruler thus honored. The Hungarian child, before it is old enough to have read the historic page, has seen his monument in Budapest, close to those of Kossuth, of Deak and Petoefy, his own national heroes. Even if he comes into the consciousness of the immigrant long after he has left the school of his native country, or even if he has never gone to school, the character of Washington makes its immediate appeal unlike any whom he knows ; of royal nature, though not of royal blood, he accepted no recompense for serving his country. Making service itself the only reward he asked, he left a place of eminence, so that republican prin- ciples might be firmly established in this land. The period between the War of the Revolution and the Civil War is the history of the migration of a people ; it marks the winning of the West, and the making of History and the Nation 149 great commonwealths upon those far-stretch- ing prairies, and in that task, too, the immi- grant had an honorable part. The border struggle was never under the leadership of one man or one people, and while the Scotch- Irish predominated, the Germans, Scandi- navians, Poles and Bohemians made up a fair share of that ever moving frontier line. The racial strains which went into the making of the frontiersman are hard to trace, for it is an elemental personality which emerged out of that early melting pot. Coarse but strong, keen and inquisitive, powerful and materialistic, restless and in- dividualistic, buoyant and exuberant, shrewd as Jacob, and hardy as Esau. The immigrant readily enters into the highly accentuated record of the pioneer's conflict with the Indians ; even though his particular race had no share in the winning of the West. Long before I read Cooper's Indian tales I played Indian in a village among the Carpathians, and scalped the luckless palefaces whom I had captured. The names of Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill 150 Nationalizing America have been carried through the capitals of Europe, and from towns and villages many a lad's eyes were turned westward, yearning to have a share in fighting the Indians. The year 1848 marks an epoch in the history of the European peoples, and the immigrants who at that time came to the United States, driven by their despots, re- paid this country richly for the asylum they found. They made valuable contributions to our culture and our politics, refining our social life and purifying our ideals of liberty and democracy. It is a year which serves to accentuate the common passion for liberty, and the common traits which mark all noble men, of whatever race they be. The Civil War, in spite of the fact that it was an internecine conflict, found a universal echo. It seemed of little concern to the people of Europe whether the union was preserved or not, and England's commer- cial policy dictated her sympathy with the south ; but upon the question of slavery there was no division. History and the Nation 151 Just as the escape of the children of Israel out of Egypt has become sacred history, the story of the black man's gain of free- dom has entered the universal conscious- ness ; for it marks the death of slavery, and in that all human beings have cause to rejoice. It is not difficult to arouse enthusiasm for the soldier heroes who died in that conflict. Many of them were men of all the racial strains which had drifted into the United States. The outstanding figures of U. S. Grant, of Sherman and Sheridan make their heart-stirring and picturesque appeal ; while Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee are gradually becoming sympathetic figures to all American people, native and foreign born. There is, however, no person in American history, if in any history, who like Abraham Lincoln, instantly captures the imagination of every normal human being. I doubt that the saints and martyrs upon the church's calendar, or many sacred names in Holy Writ, are so vitally compelling as 152 Nationalizing America the name of this man, born in a log cabin, reared amidst poverty and ignorance, who made his way from the backwoods to the White House and into the immortality of history. The sadly solemn face portrayed upon our commonest coin, the penny, received its smile from the skilled fingers of an im- migrant sculptor, who modelled it, " so that he may smile upon every immigrant's child his first welcome." That was the stroke of a genius who understood Lincoln, and knew the common people's appreciation of the great martyr president. Some time ago I was the speaker before a Woman's Club in an Eastern city. At the close of my address a member of the club took advantage of the question period which followed, and under the guise of asking a question made a lengthy speech, accusing the immigrant of creating all the ills under which society suffers. Above all else she accused him of inability to enter sympa- thetically into the historic inheritance of the American people. History and the Nation 153 When she finished, another lady rose and introduced herself as the principal of a public school in which the children are largely foreign born or of foreign parent- age. She had seen many of them grow with the city's life, and she vouched for it that none of the direful consequences, which her fellow club member predicted, had resulted. On the contrary, she continued, some of the best and most loyal citizens were those who were born abroad or whose parents were born there. To emphasize their ability to appreciate their new historic inheritance, she told the following story : " The last bell had rung and I was about to begin my work, when, as I was closing the door, I saw in the hall, squeezed into a corner, a boy about seven years of age. I brought him into the room, and from his appearance and the odors which emanated from him I felt sure that he was just from the steerage. " He did not know a word of English, and trembled from fright and hunger. The next morning I found him in the hall again, lack- 154 Nationalizing America ing courage to come in. Gradually I gained his confidence, and he became one of my brightest pupils, even developing a fondness for soap and water." (I think she exagger- ated when she said that ; for to make a seven year old boy fond of soap and water is little short of a miracle.) " After the Christmas vacation the boy slipped back into his slovenly ways, and came to school both tardy and dirty. Re- monstrating with him, I could get no satis- factory answer ; so I went to see his parents. They assured me that their son went to school earlier than usual, and complained that he even took no time to say his prayers ; " one of the sad signs of his Amer- icanization. She did not believe them, for knowing that the father was poor and needed the spare time of his children, she thought he might not scruple to interfere with school hours. The boy's irregularity and tardiness con- tinued, until on the morning of the twelfth day of February he did not appear until the History and the Nation 155 entire school was together in the assembly room for patriotic exercises. In the midst of the program the little boy entered, walked up to the principal and carefully deposited a package upon the desk. She opened it and found a plaster bust of Abraham Lincoln. The secret was out. The child had gone to the city dump before and after school, and had collected saleable refuse, from the pro- ceeds of which he bought this "Statute of Abraham Lincoln " as his tribute to the mar- tyred president's birthday. This veneration of Abraham Lincoln is not an isolated in- stance. At another time, speaking before a group of librarians I urged the purchase of foreign books for public libraries ; for I believe that no harm can result if the immigrant learns to value his own literary heritage, or if he finds that we value it enough to give a place in our libraries to books relating to it. At the close of my address, two of the librarians came to me and told me that while my theory was correct, it did not work. The children of the immigrant will not read any- 156 Nationalizing America thing about the men whose names end in ski ; but that they cannot get enough biog- raphies of Abraham Lincoln. The Commonwealth Steel Company of Granite City, Illinois, one of those remark- able corporations with a soul, whose business is rooted in the ideal of service, found its for- eign laborers quartered in what was called " Hungry Hollow." This company so ex- emplified the American spirit of fair play that when the foreign employees were aroused to proper civic pride, they rebap- tized " Hungry Hollow " into " Lincoln Place," because Lincoln's spirit was mani- fested towards them. The Lincoln Progressive Club, as they named their organization, has as its imme- diate aim the study of the English language, and Americanization. I wish there might be erected in every in- dustrial center a statue of Abraham Lincoln for masters and men to see and reverence ; thus being reminded of their duty towards each other and towards their common country. History and the Nation 157 What a people we could become if the im- mortal words he spoke were graven upon the pedestal of such a statue : " With malice towards none, with charity towards all " . . . to greet our eyes daily, and to chal- lenge our conduct. The history of the United States since the Civil War has not yet been written, for it is the story of an epoch just closing. It marks the sudden leaping of a people into wealth if not into power ; the fabulous growth of cities, the end of the pioneer stage, the beginning of an industrial period, and the pressure of economic and social problems towards their solution. At least twenty millions of people have come full grown into our national life from the steerage, the womb out of which so many of us were born into this newer life. Most of us came to build and not to destroy ; we came as helpers and not exploiters ; we brought virtues and vices, much good and ill, and that, not because we belonged to this or the other national or racial group, but be- cause we were human. 158 Nationalizing America It is as easy to prove that our coming meant the ill of the nation as that it meant its well-being. To appraise this fully is much too early ; it is a task which must be left to our children's children, who will be as far re- moved from to-day's scant sympathies, as from its overwhelming prejudices. The great war has swung us into the cur- rent of world events, and it ought to bring us a larger vision of the forces and processes which shape the nations and make their peoples. As yet we are thinking hysterically rather than historically and the indications are that we may not learn anything, nor yet unlearn, of which we have perhaps the greater need. Thus far we have become narrower rather than broader, for the feeling towards our alien population is growing daily less gen- erous, and our treatment of it less wise. Nor am I sure in what wisdom consists ; the situation is complex ; for we are the Balkan with its national, racial and religious contentions. We are Russia with its Ghetto, its Polish and Finnish problem. We are History and the Nation 159 Austria and Hungary with their linguistic and dynastic difficulties. We are Africa and Asia ; we are Jew and Gentile ; we are Prot- estant and Greek and Roman Catholic. We are everything out of which to shape the one thing, the one nation, the one people. Yet I am sure that we cannot teach these strangers the history of their adopted coun- try, and make it their own, unless we teach them that our history is theirs as well as ours, and that their traditions are ours, at least as far as they touch humanity generally, and convey to all men the blessings which come from the struggle against oppression and superstition. In their inherited, national prejudices, in their racial hates, in their tribal quarrels, we wish to have no share, except as we hope to help them forget the old world hates in the new world's love. None of us who have caught a vision of what America may mean to the world wish to perpetuate here any one phase of Europe's civilization or any one national ideal. Although our institutions are rooted in 160 Nationalizing America English history, though we speak England's language and share her rich heritage of spir- itual and cultural wealth, we do not desire to be again a part of England, or nourish here her ideals of an aristocratic society. In spite of the fact that for nearly three hundred years a large part of our population has been German, and that our richest cul- tural values have come from Germany, in spite of her marvellous resources in science, commerce and government, we do not care to become German, and I am sure that Amer- icans of German blood or birth would be the first to repudiate it, should Germany's civili- zation threaten to fasten itself upon us. We do not wish to be Russian, in spite of certain values inherent in the Slavic char- acter, nor do we desire to be French. We do crave to be an American people and develop here an American civilization ; but if we are true to the manifold genius of our varied peoples, we may develop here a civilization, richer and freer than any one of these, based upon all of them, truly interna- tional and therefore American. History and the Nation 1 6 1 Historians tell us that the history of the United States illumines and illustrates the historic processes of all ages and all people. To this they add the disconcerting proph- ecy that we are drifting towards the common goal, and that our doleful future can be readily foretold. We have had our hopeful morning, our swift and brilliant noon, and now the dark and gruesome end threatens us. I will not believe this till I must. I will not, dare not lose the hope that we can make this country to endure firmly, to weather the storm, or at least put off the senility of old age to the last inevitable moment. When, however, the end comes, as per- haps it must, I pray that we may project our hopes and ideals upon the last page of our history, so that it may read thus : This was a state, the first to grow by the conquest of nature, and not of nations. Here was de- veloped a commerce based upon service, and not upon selfishness ; a religion centering in humanity and not in a church. Here was maintained sovereignty without 1 62 Nationalizing America a sovereign, and here the people of all na- tions grew into one nation, held together by mutual regard, not by the force of law. Here the State was maintained by the jus- tice, confidence and loyalty of its people, and not by battle-ships and armaments. When it perished it was because the people had lost faith in God and in each other. VII The Schools and the Nation TO me one of the painful results of the introspective mood into which we have fallen nationally, has been that I found in myself certain un-Americanized spots. This was a very painful discovery ; for I believed myself an American through and through, and felt rebellious whenever the native suggested that I was an alien by birth, and therefore incapable of complete appreciation of his country and devotion to it. It hurt me to find that my appetite balked at mince pie when I thought I had nationalized it so completely as even to suffer from dyspepsia. I also discovered myself incapable of en- tering into the national mood by watching with pleasure a game of baseball, and though it may be treason, I must confess that I do not at this moment know what 163 164 Nationalizing America team has a chance at the pennant, or, to my greater shame be it spoken, do I know the difference between a short-stop and a long- stop. One day my children may be kept from joining some patriotic society because their father never attended a National League game, and for their sakes I regret this handicap. My son however is making amends for my deficiencies. I find that he has read Ty Cobb's " Busting 'Em" at least a dozen times although he has not gone through his " Caesar" once. He is properly ashamed, too, of a father who, when the daily paper arrives, invariably turns to the war news (tucked away these days in a scant column or two) rather than to the sporting news, commanding two full pages, though Rome burn, and the price of paper go up a hundred per cent. Not only am I gastronomically and athlet- ically still somewhat of an alien; I find myself even more a stranger to American methods and ideals of education, and that in spite of the fact that for some years I have had a modest The Schools and the Nation 165 share in the teaching of college youth, and a somewhat larger place as a lecturer before teachers' assemblies. It is impossible for me to think of education as something less than a matter of national concern, under national control, and my un-Americanized spot rebels at the thought that a school board, made up entirely of laymen and frequently of un- educated men, should decide the educational weal and woe of a given number of children just because those children happen to live for the time being in a certain township. Three years ago at a teachers' convention held about a hundred miles from the city of St. Louis, the rural school superintendents discussed the following situation. The school board of a number of districts was made up of men who, educationally, were still in the middle ages. To them the earth was flat, and the stars and planets were lights placed in the heavens for their own particular convenience. They were greatly disconcerted to hear that certain books called geographies taught the heretical doctrine that the earth is 1 66 Nationalizing America round, and a planet like others, its sole dis- tinction being that, as far as we know, it alone is inhabited. After due deliberation the superintend- ents came to the wise conclusion that in order to avoid a conflict or to keep their places, geography was to be taught without a text-book, and as if Copernicus and Galileo had not lived, or as if their discoveries had remained unattested. To me this seems preposterous and nation- ally disastrous, in spite of the fact that the flatness or the roundness of the earth has no direct bearing upon national well-being. While this school board attacked the validity of geography, another with equal authority denies the English spelling book a place in the already meager curriculum, and thou- sands of children are growing up without knowledge of the accepted language of the country. Recently I went on a tour of inspection through the rural schools of one of the wealthiest sections of the United States. The county superintendent, a man of un- The Schools and the Nation 167 usual educational attainments, was my guide. In this county there are seventy-two inde- pendent school districts, many of them com- posed entirely of people of foreign birth. There is no educational plan, no uniformity as to text-books, curriculum, the length of the school year, or the salary paid the teachers. In one of the foreign colonies, where there are seven schools, the English spelling book is McGuffey's oldest edition, used presumably because it is the cheapest. The German books are still older, compiled in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and were one of the schoolmasters of Frederick the Great to come down from his heavenly abode, where let us hope he is, he would be thoroughly at home. None of the children under ten speaks a word of English, the older ones speak it with difficulty, and the teacher explained to them that " where and were, though they are pronounced alike, are spelled differently." The ideal of the school is to prepare its pupils to become obedient members of the colony, and to provide them with no knowl- 1 68 Nationalizing America edge which might lift the veil of ignorance and superstition from their brains. Of their responsibility to the nation they learn little or nothing, and they are growing up as strangers in the midst of this American commonwealth, which gave their parents asylum from persecution, and the richest land in the state for a little more than the asking. Outside these colonies the educational ideals are not much better, and the school equipment is upon the same niggardly scale. The minimum salary is thirty-three dollars, and rises to the munificent sum of fifty-five, on the whole a little less than the average wages paid a hired man. The superin- tendent has no control over the public schools, except that he may refuse teaching certificates to those who are totally unfit. His office being elective, he has to be careful how he exercises even this prerogative. Neither the county nor the state and of course not the nation can speak with any authoritative voice about what shall be taught these children, who will always re- The Schools and the Nation 169 main more or less strangers to the national life. Indeed I have discovered that not only is there no full authority to say who shall teach ; no one seems to know just what shall be taught to bring about the development of wholesome, national ideals in these potential citizens. Some time ago I watched a group of high school students who were spending their precious hours in charge of a teacher not much older than themselves. They paid no more attention to what she said than if she had not existed, and were a positive menace to the few who were students by natural in- clination. There was one particularly inattentive boy who drove the poor child of a teacher nearly into hysterics. He was then in his third year in the high school, had never made more than a passing grade, and how he managed to get that the teacher did not know. I spoke to the principal about him, and he admitted that the boy ought not to be in that school ; but he said : " He is better off 170 Nationalizing America here than on the streets. We shall keep him to make a good citizen out of him." What the principal meant by a good citizen he himself did not know ; how he could make a good citizen out of a boy who was neither obedient nor reverent, and would not be held to his task, he could not tell. The fact is that it is an empty phrase which covers " a multitude of sins." I find myself equally in discord with Amer- ican educational ideals when I hear the dis- cussion of specialists, of whom we have easily produced a surplus, and whose chief en- deavor seems to be to instruct teachers how to teach so that the child does not know that he is being taught. In fact the whole tendency in American schools seems to be to turn work into play, and play into work. There must be no rigor, no pressure, no con- scious effort in the teaching of mathematics ; the child must be taught unawares. Algebra must descend upon its head as dew drops upon the flowers, and history and geography must be wafted about him to be breathed in, like perfume. The Schools and the Nation 171 Work, real, hard effort and discipline for the body are required only in athletics, where a boy must learn to obey without question, and put forth conscious energy to gain certain results. I am confused and pained when I listen to these specialists, each one with his pet hobby, if not his pet text-book. At a teachers' convention I saw about five hundred teachers listening for two hours to a demonstration upon the Victrola, showing how to teach children musical appreciation without their knowing anything about music. It was a pleasant way for the teachers to spend two hours, but they had been taught nothing of value, and could teach nothing of value as a result. Less pleasant and perhaps less profitable was the lecture which followed, upon how to keep the child unconscious of the fact that he is being taught mathematics. I have even heard a lecture upon manual training without work, and the study of chemistry by absorption. Doubtless much that is fruitful comes from 172 Nationalizing America this constant experimentation with the na- tion's children ; but in many cases, the ex- periments hide ignorance rather than reveal a desire for knowledge. Our children are the happiest in the world ; yet a clear-sighted mother characterized as " organized frivolity " the curriculum of the school to which she sent her daughter. Is it not high time for us to realize that while we should make our children happy, we must teach them that the highest joy con- sists in doing their work well, and in a de- portment which gives other people a chance at happiness ? We have followed the Great Teacher's example and have " put the child in the midst " ; but we have gone much farther. We have given it the whole stage and have entirely crowded out parents, so- ciety, the state and the nation. Is it not essential that the child should learn to obey the teacher rather than that the teacher must adjust himself to the whims of each child ? If we could develop the sense of obedience and reverence in the class-room, we should not have to worry over the ques- The Schools and the Nation 173 tion of military training, a doubtful expedi- ent, which even the most militaristic nations have repudiated. It is true that much can be taught by play, but life is not play, and living right is a severe task. Much can be accomplished by persuasion, but the law is imperious, the nation commands, and op- portunity does not stop to cajole. Back of the indulgent, ineffective school is its replica, the almost anarchic, American home, the undisciplined parents, over in- dulgent and without authority, to guard the health or the morals of its children. The state cannot reform the home, but it can reform the schools in which the parents of to-morrow are being trained. The school must receive power from somewhere to check social excesses and the resultant phys- ical degeneration of our youth ; to call in the boys and girls from the side lines, where eleven overtrained boys are making a Ro- man holiday for them, and furnishing exer- cise for their lungs only. From somewhere, and God alone knows from where, the colleges will have to get 174 Nationalizing America enough sense to lead in this reform, for their custom and spirit percolate down through the high schools, where the worst of our college life is imitated and frequently intensified. Colleges which continue to live and to teach as if nothing had happened in August of nineteen hundred and fourteen, which shift the whole of their responsibility to the nation, upon a military officer, are in con- tempt of the spirit of our time. Most probably the trouble with our public schools is not only in the independent school district, wasteful in money and barren of good results. It is not in the experimental period through which we have been passing, or rather in which we are living ; for there are no indications that we shall ever pass out of it. It is not even in the anarchic, Amer- ican home, nor in the colleges which have led in their emphasis upon electives, and the dominance of vicarious athletics. For the inadequacy of our public schools, the responsibility rests largely in the vast army of teachers unfitted for their task. I have a profound feeling of pity for the The Schools and the Nation 175 boys and girls of America when I watch their teachers, who crowd our summer schools, eager to snatch as much learning as possible in the scant six weeks, and im- mersed in a bewildering number of classes, getting much new enthusiasm and more new theories, but a meager increase of their stock of knowledge. In fact I see among them a large number unfit to teach, and the school authorities know that they are not now and never will be effective teachers. They must not be dis- charged, for either they are cheap (which fact is still considered a recommendation in my own state, with its automobile to every ten inhabitants) or if they are not cheap they have a " pull," and both cheapness and a " pull " avail much in training the children of a nation which has just voted a paltry three hundred million dollars for its naval program. How thoroughly un-Americanized I am, and how incapable of understanding the situation, is illustrated in the following in- cident. I was asked to deliver a series of lectures before a state teachers' association. 176 Nationalizing America On the last day, the managers of a certain political party requested that the evening session be given over to the aspirant for a high political office, who was to be in the city. This the convention refused to do, but offered to give up the hall at nine o'clock, after the regular program, which included my lecture. To this they agreed, but before my lecture was half over the doors of the hall were forced open, and a surging mob poured in, crowded the aisles, and occupied every available inch of the already crowded plat- form. Then they began calling for the famous politician. I was ready to capitu- late and sat down, but the teachers insisted that I continue, and called just as loudly for me. In the midst of the clamor I arose and addressed myself to " My fellow citizens " ; for although I had never addressed a polit- ical assembly before, I knew how to begin. This did not quiet the tumult, but when I began to talk of the grandeur of their state, and told them of their " cattle upon a thou- The Schools and the Nation 1 77 sand hills " (although they have nothing but a few sand-hills upon which the cattle would starve) the mob grew attentive, and after a few more approved compliments, I told them something which they all knew, but did not expect to hear. I told them that when this particular political party, under whose auspices we were assembled, came into power, it im- mediately proceeded to corrupt and wreck the schools of the state. Presidents and professors in the university and various colleges were discharged, although many of them had done difficult, pioneer educational work, and some of them had risen to na- tional appreciation in their departments. Their sole offense was that they belonged to another political party. I told this to them frankly, if not brutally ; fearlessly certainly, and impressed upon them the fact that they had no right to talk about good citizenship when they had corrupted the very institution which is fundamental in its creation and maintenance. At nine o'clock, at the agreed time, I 178 Nationalizing America finished, and the meeting was turned over to the politicians. My friends told me after- wards that they were afraid I would be mobbed, but nothing of the kind happened and I was permitted to go unmolested to my hotel. There a man asked to meet me and we went to my room. He was rather rough looking, suggesting the cowboy type, and I imagined that I saw his hip pocket bulging menacingly. He offered me tobacco in two forms, which somewhat reassured me, and after putting his feet upon the table he said : " Say, you've got a lot of gall to talk the way you did." I braced myself for what was still to come, and he continued : " But you were dead right. I am teaching psychology in one of the colleges and I don't know a thing about it ; but I am a good Democrat." I have never met a similar situation, and I doubt that in its bald, brutal form it could be repeated ; but this unholy alliance between political parties and the public schools, from the State University down, still exists. In not a few cities in the United States it The Schools and the Nation 179 is the first task of the school superintendent to construct a machine, control one or be- come a part of one ; and many a president of a State University has lost his position be- cause he was a scholar and a gentleman, and not just a politician. The school system of many an American city has been all but wrecked by a change of political party. Ap- proved teachers have been thrown out of employment, and a new curriculum and dif- ferent text-books have been introduced to satisfy some one's whim, or for some one's political profit. Probably my inability to enter sympathet- ically or understandingly into the educational chaos of the United States, springs from the fact that I was trained in schools which were part of a national program, were regarded as fundamental in the development of certain national ideals, and whose product for better or for worse was stamped with the national spirit. I am not sure that this is possible with the schools of this country ; but if we wish to develop some common, national ideals ; if 180 Nationalizing America we wish to make the nation as a whole capable of taking its place in the competitive struggle of the nations sure to grow stronger rather than weaker, we must first of all and above all learn to think of the public schools as a national institution, and under some form of national authority. In all the current discussion of prepared- ness the schools were drawn in only from the standpoint of military training, an encum- brance from which the most militaristic nations have left their schools free, realizing that there is something much more funda- mental which the public schools must achieve. The one or two or three hours which can at best be spared for military drill, which in modern warfare is growing to be of less and less significance, cannot offset the defects of a system which must adjust itself to the whims of a child, the fortunes of political parties, the narrow vision of school boards, and the racial or religious convictions of its patrons. Incapable as I have confessed myself of The Schools and the Nation 1 8 1 understanding our confused educational ideals, or of properly appraising our meth- ods, my suggestions may have little or no value ; nevertheless I offer them for considera- tion. It seems to me, first of all, that we need to gather up the results, if results there are, and come to some kind of conclusion as to what a public school education is. We should be able to say authoritatively what our children ought to know when they have finished the public schools, and we should be able to say that, regardless of what the entrance require- ments for the colleges may be. The men who have contributed to this re- sult should be given opportunity for further experiment. It is high time to spoil the business of the charlatan, and stop spoiling the educational career of our children. Secondly, we need to develop a national educational program, so that every child shall have an opportunity to get this mini- mum of education. The present wasteful and ineffective, inde- pendent school district, this nursery of the 1 82 Nationalizing America political boss, must go. Its virtues, if it has any, are far outweighed by its faults. The parochial school, if it persists, must, in its secular teaching, come under the supervision of the state. If the making of good Ameri- can citizens is the goal of our educational system, and if this means that we are to train our children so that they will appreciate their national inheritance, what are we to teach them? If they are to know the meaning of liberty, and understand the spirit of democracy, and if they are to learn to cooperate with others in the development of our national institutions, who is to teach them ? Can we safely leave that to churches with their own national background, to societies which wish to maintain their own racial and linguistic inheritance? Thirdly, we need to foster the physical well-being of the child, which now as never before belongs not to itself, not to its parents, but to the nation A nation, whether it goes to war or not, needs to be concerned about the physical The Schools and the Nation 183 well-being of its children, and that means something more than building sanitary schoolhouses, and taking precaution against infectious diseases. We are prodigal with wealth and with the making of laws ; but we are niggardly with effort. To make our boys and girls virile, strong enough to stand the strain of our modern life, to become wholesome parents of the next generation, takes effort, more than money ; it takes a high and serious pur- pose and not new taxes which are so easily voted. If it is a fact that seventy per cent, of those who recently offered themselves for military service were pronounced physically unfit (and no doubt if the percentage is correct, it does not tell the whole truth) it means a national menace. I am not sure that we are degenerating physically, but it is true that too many of our boys slink along rather than walk, that they carry their hands in their pockets, and are stoop-shouldered. Too many of them have their health ruined by cigarettes and by 184 Nationalizing America social excesses in which their parents often encourage them, and many, far too many, leave the schoolroom too early, and have to engage in labor which impairs their health. We need to cultivate some form of phys- ical training which shall become the national norm, and be adapted to the national needs. This should develop not only the wholesome physical sense of the individual but also his sense of cooperation, not with a team, or a class or a school ; but with the nation as a whole. The boy scout movement, and that of the camp-fire girls, are a step in the right direction. Fourth : As a whole people, we must learn to believe that while bodily fitness is neces- sary for the national well-being, we must also know that the nation which is to main- tain its place, or assume leadership of other people, will do so, not by its physical power alone, if at all ; but by the power of ideals capable of realization ; which means that it will lead or rule by the power of a well- trained, humanized intellect. It is only a superficial and biased observer The Schools and the Nation 185 who will say that the remarkable display of national efficiency by Germany in the face of tremendous odds is due to a certain form of government, to coercion by an autocracy. It is due to the submission of the German people to highly trained specialists in all de- partments of life and activity. From the Kaiser in command of the whole army to the corporal in command of a dozen men, they are the product of a system, which trains men for positions and definite results. Nothing is so pathetic, because so self- revealing, as the aversion of the average American child to study. Not only is it not a disgrace to fail in effort and achievement ; it is no special honor to succeed. This is a profound pity ; for while the nation may need fighters some time, it will need thinkers all the time. During the Russo-Japanese War I was travelling in the Volga region. A Russian soldier whom I knew came hobbling along on one leg, begging for a little tea money. I gave it to him on the promise that he would tell me about the war. 1 86 Nationalizing America " It was this way, Barin," he said. " Our officers told us that we were big Russian giants, and that these little, yellow Japanese monkeys would run when they saw us coming. " They did run, Barin, but they ran after us. You know the Japanese fought with their heads and we fought with our fists ; they hitched their donkeys to their wagons, and we made officers of ours." In the long run, wars are lost or won in the schoolroom, and we must teach our children to think seriously, achieve thor- oughly, and hate mediocrity. We must make them understand that to merely " get by " is as cowardly as to sneak away from a conflict. Lastly, and that seems to me the most important thing, we need to bend every effort to secure for the nation's children effective instructors. Teaching must be saved from its dilettantism, and made a profession. Training schools must be held to a high standard, minimum salary laws extended, and pension systems created. The Schools and the Nation 187 This is an ambitious and difficult program, but not unattainable ; because the teachers themselves are interested in all these prob- lems and are most eager for these reforms. As a whole, I have found the teachers of America open minded, honest, unselfish, eager and idealistic ; splendid material with which to construct a national educational program. They have lacked the power to project their needs and ideals upon the na- tion's attention. If we could preserve the idealism of our public school teachers, and couple with it effective teaching power, we would be most adequately prepared edu- cationally. Perhaps salvation will have to come from the teachers themselves, just as the reforms of the church have come through her priest- hood and her ministry. Before the public will listen to them, they will have to be desperately in earnest ; they must learn to despise the mere place hunter, the political henchman, the Judases of their Apostolate. I know the temper of the American people, and I feel sure that there will be an instant 1 88 Nationalizing America response to the prophetic voices among them. We are living at a time when there is a growing impatience with the confusion in our educational life, and we are beginning to understand that we cannot develop high national ideals when the source of those ideals, the nursery of our high thought, is either incompetent or corrupt, or both. VIII The Churches and the Nation IT is idle but interesting to speculate what would have been the future of the Chris- tian religion, if Constantine had not adored as God, the Nazarene whom another Caesar had crucified in one of Rome's re- bellious provinces. Would it have survived if it had insisted upon its international char- acter, and refused to give its sons to further the empire's schemes of conquest ? Could it have lived with its dream of the Kingdom of God, and faced martyrdom without final extinction ? Would Caesar's power have pre- vailed against the Christ's? I am inclined to believe that it was so rooted in the need of the human soul, and so satisfied the higher demands of the race, that it could not have been crushed completely. It would have lived, whether smouldering among the oppressed, slumbering in the 189 190 Nationalizing America hearts of dreamers, struggling to be born again in stables and tenements, revealed in drear midnights to weary shepherds or sweat-shop workers. It would have been sought for, at last, by those who always come last ; by wise men, in those periods which we call the " fullness of time," and then preached by a lowly and foolish apos- tolate. Persecutions would have been unceasing ; but faiths thrive best when they must strug- gle to live, and the genius for martyrdom is one of the distinguishing marks of the race. In the Roman Catholic Church, much of the international character of Christianity has survived, both in its spirit and organi- zation. If this sense of universality is more Roman than Christian, it only shares with all other institutions and individuals the de- sire for conquest and dominion, rather than for service and sacrifice. It shows the power of those active, primitive passions, and the desire for pomp and glory, over the passive virtues of Christianity, as well as their in- sistence upon simplicity and humility. The Churches and the Nation 191 For many centuries the Church was the guardian and not the servant of the state. She had the keeping of the crown, and kings wore it by her suffrance. At the zenith of her power she could humble the monarch of the Holy Roman Empire by bidding him come to her barefoot, like a beggar, thus proving her theory of the supremacy of church over state. If this Church State which she created had been a Christian State, it would have been well with the world ; but the ideal was never realized. It proved a long contention between two forces in which the state was finally the victor. The union between Church and state which had existed since the time of Constantine, with now the one or the other as master, was strongly opposed by Martin Luther. "It is in my heart that these two regiments of the world and of the spirit, the Church and the state, shall be kept separate." Not only did he fail to realize his ideal ; he put the administration of the Church under the care of the temporal ruler Just as the state was dominated by the Church 192 Nationalizing America and so nearly lost all its civil power, the Church in turn, through the state, was threatened by the loss of its spiritual authority. Both in the Church State and in the State Church, nationality triumphed over Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church has at all times been an invaluable aid to civil author- ity by the obedience she enforces, and the reverence she teaches. The value she places upon ceremonies and symbols has created a fine atmosphere in which to develop the virtue of patriotism. The fear often expressed in so many countries, and which has never been justi- fied, is that national loyalty would be weakened because an Italian is head of the Church, all the members of which owe him unquestioning obedience in matters of faith, and because he claims political sover- eignty over the Papal state. The Pope may anathematize modernists and refuse to shrive those who have re- nounced their faith in the dogmas he de- crees ; but he has no power over those war The Churches and the Nation 193 lords who disturb the peace of the world and repudiate the teachings of Jesus. The present war, although it began in Austria, whose monarch is the most loyal spiritual subject of the Church, could not be averted by the Pope, one of the most high- minded men who ever sat upon the fisher- man's throne. He cannot mitigate its cruel- ties, or keep Austrian bombs from destroying the historic churches of France and Northern Italy. The Protestant state of Prussia claims the unhesitating allegiance of its Roman Cath- olic subjects, and Roman Catholic soldiers invaded and devastated the Roman Catholic cities of Belgium ; neither priests, nor nuns, nor yet churches being spared death or destruc- tion when military necessity demanded either. French priests, deprived of their living by an anti-clerical government, are marching with the troops, carrying guns, and ready to forgive their enemies after they have killed them. Jesuits have joined the German col- ors, and Austria's Servian priests are inciting their parishioners to fight against those of 194 Nationalizing America their race whose dream of a larger Serb-em- bracing kingdom has precipitated the war. The fact is that everywhere nationality has triumphed over religion and race, the polit- ical bond being the strongest to hold to- gether portions of mankind. Men every- where are ready to die for their king and country, as once they knew how to die for God and their kin. The patriotism gendered in those countries in which the Protestant Church has authority is not different, except perhaps that, lacking the international bond, it leans more strongly upon the state. From the very nature of the case, where schismatic churches are tolerated they en- courage independence, which may lead to revolt against the tyrant, and they are sup- pressed wherever autocratic government pre- vails. Only one body of Protestant Chris- tians has faced national displeasure by openly declaring its opposition to war and has borne its testimony against it, regarding the law of God as more binding than the law of the country. The Friends suffer under one seri- ous handicap which prevents their protest The Churches and the Nation 195 from being effective ; their number is too small. However, they have spiritual kins- men in nearly all the warring countries. There are large numbers in Hungary who call themselves Nazarenes, who have suffered death rather than bear arms against their fellows, though they were ready to mitigate the horrors of war by serving with the am- bulances or in hospitals. In Russia the Duckoborzy and kindred sectarians have been sent into exile for their faith, and how many of them have suffered most cruel death, in prisons and in Cossack raids, will never be known. Their protest, too, has been ineffective, at least in their own time, just as has always been the case when men believe the words of Jesus binding only upon belief and not upon conduct. Their great kinsman Tolstoy is dead ; that true be- liever in the words of Jesus. He who lifted his voice against a pagan civilization which called itself Christian, and against a Church, the servile servant of a state which com- mitted sacrilege by calling itself Holy Russia, is no more, and he left no successor. 196 Nationalizing America It is certainly pathetic to find that in Prot- estant England the one far-reaching voice raised against the horrors of war and its cruel reprisals is that of the cynic, Bernard Shaw. He would have his country give the Christi- anity of Jesus a trial, while the bishops of Eng- land frame new prayers to fan the battle flame. The Jew, Maximilian Harden, endangers his liberty and his economic position by speaking well of the English, and counselling peace; while German congregations, be- tween singing " Fairest Lord Jesus " and " Deutschland uber Alles" are exhorted to fight against the English, the enemies of God as well as of the Kaiser, and are taught that the interests of the Kingdom of God and the Fatherland are identical. Even those churches furthest from the throne, which as schismatics were under sus- picion, if not under royal displeasure, and whose international feeling was fostered be- cause of their connection with similar bodies in the United States and in England, even they have succumbed to this wave of hate. Their simple evangelical faith, and their The Churches and the Nation 1 97 primitive Christian practices have not saved them from the contagion of battle fever. Christians face Christians in the trenches, and in destroying one another have called to their aid " Moslems, Buddhists, Shintoists, Cossacks, Turks, Japanese, Singalese, Sou- danese, Senegalese, Morrocans, Egyptians, Sikhs and Sepoys, barbarians from the poles and those from the equator, souls and bodies of all colors." Those whom they could not or would not unite with them in peace have joined them in war. If the churches have rallied to their re- spective nations in time of war, and have aided and abetted one another in keeping alive its fury, it is also undeniably true that everywhere, in every country, the spirit of their faith has survived, even in the midst of battle, and love has triumphed over hate in spite of the war lords and their decrees. Prisoners of war have felt, though often secretly, the pressure of the sympathetic hand, and while war has gone unchecked, its Mara has grown less bitter, and Elim's fountains have never ceased to flow. 198 Nationalizing America In this the Protestant churches of the United States have had a notable share, in the work of the Y. M. C. A., in the gifts of individual churches to the war-stricken re- gions, and in the collective efforts of the Federation of Churches. The Roman Catholic Church has never failed at such a crisis in its work of mercy, and the Christian ideals of self-denial and self-sacrifice have again been maintained by her Brotherhoods and Sisterhoods of Mercy. Nations therefore have nothing to fear from Christian churches in their Imperialistic schemes or their wars for revenge ; " but they will stir the bonfire and each one bring its faggot " and urge their adherents to give that which is Caesar's unto Caesar, and give him also that which is God's. The time may come when the Church will, with Cardinal Woolsey, smite her breast and say : " Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served the King, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies." It is on the constructive side of nation making in which the Church has played an The Churches and the Nation 199 important part in the past, and in which it now needs to take a larger share and re- sponsibility. This is notably true in our own country in which the human material is so varied ; in which so much human energy is consumed in materialistic gain ; in which the process is so ruthless, and the contact between men made more difficult every day by the growing social and racial differences. What part the Roman Catholic churches are playing in this essential unifying process is difficult for an outsider to tell. Its unity ought to give it power to bridge these chasms, but I doubt that the growing amity between Irish and German Catholics is due to their common love of the Pope, rather than to their common hate of England. If anybody hates the " Dagoes " more than the Irish do, I have not discovered it, and it would be interesting to see what would hap- pen South or North, if a large number of Ne- groes were converted to the Roman Catholic faith and were to crowd the churches. That Church has this advantage ; it con- fesses the sense of equality only before the aoo Nationalizing America altar. Outside this holy circle it recognizes all the differences of caste and class, and does not pretend to create a social contact of the unlike. Neither is it easy to say what share this Church has in the Americanization of the immigrant. There is no doubt that a large number of its foreign priests are trying to retard the process ; but every once in a while one's conclusions upon this subject are rudely shaken by the discovery of clergy in harmony with all our ideals upon that subject, and eager to cooperate in their realization. We have no adequate knowledge as to the effect of the parochial schools upon the de- velopment of common national ideals, and to offset current prejudices, it would be wisdom on the part of their authorities to say that the schools are open to the inspection of the state, and that they are eager to do their part to bring about the desired results, through some common, national, educational program. The very fact that our children are edu- cated under different systems must add to The Churches and the Nation 201 the growing antagonism between Protestants and Catholics, and is in itself a menace to national unity. The antipathy between these two religious bodies is growing greater every day, and in some quarters is taking on menacing proportions. Neither of these bodies has a monopoly in the narrowness of view, the bitterness of spirit, and the truly un-Christian methods employed. In Protestant circles as well as among social workers who have no religious prejudices or religious beliefs, one finds the view expressed that the Roman Catholic Church is eager to control civic affairs and that it uses political parties as well as state and government officials to further its own ends. To offset these fears, one must remember that the Roman Catholic mayor of the city of New York has faced the issues more squarely than any of his Protestant pred- ecessors, and that he has regarded the well-being of the wards of the city of greater consequence than the favor of the clergy. That he has suffered from the religious press of his Church, that its dignitaries have joined 202 Nationalizing America in the chorus of condemnation, and that no one person prominent in Roman Catholic cir- cles has come to his defense, must be put upon the debit side of the ledger, and will not tend to dissipate the fears of that large number of American citizens which regards the Catholic Church as a menace to free institutions. It is fair to say that state officers who were Roman Catholics have not differed from those who were Protestants, in either their efficiency or their lack of it, in their devotion to the well-being of the state, or what is so frequently the case, in their partiality to their party, or in the distribution and the collection of the spoils of office. What all the citizens of the United States may fear and fight is the Roman Catholic Church State, as well as the Protestant State Church. Either would be a menace both to the state and to the Church. What share the Protestant churches have had in the development of our national life is equally difficult to appraise here, for there is as much danger of magnifying as of mini- mizing it. The Churches and the Nation 203 Within a few years, the tercentenary of the coming of the Pilgrims will be celebrated by their descendants, and by the people of the United States who have become heirs of the gifts they brought in the Mayflower. These gifts were not only religious ; they were social and political. They and the Puritans, who came after them and with whom they blended, "created Democracy," that is, "they made theoretical democracy practical." No doubt as the history of these three hundred years is reviewed, we shall be re- minded again and again of the harshness and gloom of their theology, of the burning of witches and hanging of Quakers. The reading of it strikes terror to the heart even of one who, like myself, can account for these things, although he cannot justify them. The evil they have done in the name of goodness has not passed away, neither can the good they did be forgotten, and they do stand forth as agents of destiny in the shaping of the nation. " In all history," says a writer, himself not 204 Nationalizing America a Puritan, or the descendant of one, " there is nothing so extraordinary as the effect of that religious persecution which led to the estab- lishment of Massachusetts, and laid the foun- dation of the great American Republic." Says another: "Puritanism in America, when it ceased to be merely a religious sym- bol, was still a social force, and is to-day. There would, I am confident, have been an America, even if the Puritans had not been driven out of England, and found shelter when and how they did ; but it would not have been the America we now know." An America, materialistic, but not to the core ; incurably idealistic, religious in its per- petual self-criticism, sordid, but struggling against it ; and never more than to-day, when it is almost engulfed in wealth and in danger of dying of fatty degeneration of the pocket- book. Intolerant still, but striving to be tol- erant ; narrow, but yearning for breadth of sympathy ; nationalistic but travailing in pain to give birth to something greater than itself. This America they have made what it is, The Churches and the Nation 205 and of all the institutions they founded and which their spirit fructified, the colleges and universities are their most enduring me- morials. In common with all other com- munions in which the Christ is the regnant personality, they have wrought at this task of making the nation Christian. The devoted home missionary and the intrepid circuit rider have kept the pioneer from being brutalized by his environment, or discouraged in his lonely effort. They have brought law and order into the social chaos, and have hastened the passing of the frontier. If the churches they founded have not brought the Kingdom of God nearer, it is due to the fact that they have not been able to withstand the pressure of the materialistic spirit, that they have not escaped " the world, the flesh, and the devil," that trinity of ene- mies so easily overcome in creed, so hard to combat in conduct. In those Protestant churches where the government is democratic, where the serv- ices lack the elements of mystery, and are social in their nature and effect, church-mem- ao6 Nationalizing America bership demands social contact. In many cases the Church has escaped from this pre- dicament by gathering in only the socially desirable, and the consequence has been that it has become merely a society club. These churches have exhibited a great de- sire for the assimilation and Americanization of the immigrant, but most of them have lacked that primitive power of Christianity to overcome national and racial prejudices, or at least the ability to diminish the friction caused by contact with the unlike. Even the most saintly Christians have diffi- culties in this direction ; for a whiff of garlic might create a panic in the average congre- gation and put to flight a legion of paying members. It has been much easier to save the heathen abroad than at home. An African in Zulu- land is not a " Nigger," neither is a China- man at home a " Chink," nor an Italian in Italy a " Dago," neither are the Jews in Je- rusalem " Sheenies." They become these through contact. The halo of the unconverted, shines more The Churches and the Nation 207 brightly ten thousand miles away, than that of the saint, if he is a lowly foreigner and sits in the same pew with us. The barrier, as we know, is largely social, and will disappear when the immigrant has become prosperous, and is able to take his religion in the same luxurious fashion as the native-born takes his. It is interesting to observe that in notable instances it has been impossible to educate foreigners and native-born together for the Christian ministry. The common bond of Christian love and a great purpose are not strong enough to overcome social and cul- tural differences. It is fortunate that de- nominational rivalries have fallen to a mini- mum. It cannot be said, however, that the churches have thus far been able to forget their differences sufficiently to merge their effort in so great a purpose as to bring to the stranger within their gates a common ap- peal, and make a common effort in shaping his earthly or heavenly destiny. In many instances the Americanization of the immigrant has been merely a good talk- ing point to swell home missionary contribu- 208 Nationalizing America tions, and just enough effort has been made in that direction to justify the appeal. There is no doubt that the power to attain this end lies with the churches. To a large degree they are American, their history runs paral- lel with the history of this country, their be- liefs and practices reflect the American ideal, and Christianity, if it is anything, is an in- fluence which makes for unity and democ- racy. Upon those churches whose historic background is in the Old World, which have transplanted here the language and customs of their respective countries, rests a heavy responsibility. It is not easy to retain their differences without an appeal to their members to be loyal to those things which are precious to them, and without which these churches often have no existence. Especially in our troubled times, there will be an accentuation of the national and spiritual values of their respect- ive countries, and a new hold will be gained upon those who had merged both their gifts and their needs in the institutions of the new world. The churches may gain temporarily, The Churches and the Nation 209 but the cause of the nation will suffer in the end. The Church, which exalts the Czar, the Kaiser, the King or the Pope and depreciates the Republic, will not only be untrue to its spiritual mission ; it will have no share in furthering the stability of a government which has proved itself best adapted to the free ex- ercise of religious convictions. Nowhere else has the Church had such a free field to prove its worth, nowhere else has it been so unhampered by irksome restric- tions, and nowhere else has it so well deserved the cooperation and aid of religious people. It is not a perfect state, it does not yet ap- proach that government which may be called Christian, but if any government may be made Christian, it is one which the people may make what they desire it to be, and which in the end, no matter what its limitations, re- flects what the people are. We shall be a Christian Nation as soon as the churches are Christian, and at no time in the history of the world was there as much need for both as there now is. IX Nationality and the Immigrant IT is one of the minor disasters of the war that those of us who tried to save the world by talking to it had to revise our opinions and reconstruct our speeches. Our written material is so dead that no editor is needed to kill our copy, and we are half ashamed of what has found its way into print. That which saves our vanity from being in- curably wounded is that but few authors read their own books. Upon no subject is it so necessary for us to "right about face" as upon that of immigra- tion ; although with it as with all war-riddled problems, we do not know just which way to turn. According to most writers the immigration problem began when the great movement of population from Northern Europe ceased. They deplored the passing of the homoge- 2IO Nationality and the Immigrant 211 neous Teuton, and looked with dread upon the incoming Slav, Latin, and all those other lesser peoples born south of the line they drew through Europe, which divided the bad immigrant from the good one. Prior to the war, a certain distinguished American, who may well glory in the revival of nationalism which he launched, with a fervor of spirit and incisiveness of language unrivalled even by Billy Sunday, declared himself in his characteristic, dogmatic way upon this subject. According to him we could assimilate, or had assimilated all those kindred peoples who climbed with us the same limb of the ethnic tree ; but we could never do anything with those who lagged in their ascent. They were separated from us on a certain date which marked a geological period. Coming into our country too greatly handicapped by ethnic differences, no climb- ing could enable them ever to sit comfortably with us upon the heights which we have reached. This same, strident voice was up- lifted during a critical period in our national life, to warn us against the " Hyphenated 212 Nationalizing America American " who, like a snake, warmed him- self in our bosom, then turned to sting us. Un-Americanized, unassimilated, he is, in spite of our consanguinity, a foe to our na- tional interests. After all, then, it is not race or language, not even a common Teutonic background, which may be more or less than these, but the strength or weakness of the national feel- ing the immigrant brings with him, which would make him for us or against us, when our own interests are at stake. It may be true (and I dare not be dogmatic on this point) that the earlier immigrant groups became Americanized, because at that time national feeling scarcely existed, or was feeble. Perhaps because of our hav- ing been at peace with Europe, what they brought with them or acquired after their coming, was never severely tested. After all it was easy for French and Ger- man and Dutch to fight with us against England, which if not their foe was not their friend. The Civil War was no actual test of their loyalty to this nation, because it did Nationality and the Immigrant 213 not involve their own. Indeed I doubt that the matter of fighting for a good or bad cause is necessarily an indication of loyalty to that cause. Men have always loved to fight, and have been found on one side and then on the other, without much questioning as to who or what was right. Nor was the Americanization of the earlier immigrant as speedy or complete as we believed ; for there are vast numbers of the older type, more alien to us than the newer, less homogeneous stranger, in whom we expect a change of heart during the meager five years which we allow for the process of nationalization. In fact every immigrant who has come here since the year 1848, and the date is not an arbitrary one, is still " hyphenated," and the strength of the hyphen to pull in either direction depends upon four factors. First, upon how much he consciously shared in the national struggle of his own people before he came. Second, to what degree he has been ex- posed to the same national propaganda after reaching this country. 214 Nationalizing America Third, what were his religious convictions, economic status, and the social environment in which, as a consequence, he was placed. Fourth, and this is frequently a decisive point, whether he was naturally endowed with the qualities which stamp a man an American, no matter where he was born. I have met Englishmen, Germans, Italians, Montenegrins, Jews and Russians who were foreordained to come to America, and were always Americans in spirit. We shall never have laws that will enable us to select the immigrant who has this inter- national feeling, which so quickly makes him an American ; nor shall we be able, or ought we be willing, to reject those who are patri- ots in the narrowest and deepest sense. We might do much to improve the eco- nomic status of the alien, to enable him to live so that we can tolerate him in our neigh- borhoods, and not crowd him into the Ghettos and dreadful Eastsides. However, with the present social order, no immediate remedy is in sight ; so he must struggle, and sink or swim. Nationality and the Immigrant 215 The matter of foreign, national propa- ganda, which we have not only tolerated but have involuntarily encouraged by neglecting to make the immigrant conscious of common community and national interests, is a matter of serious concern. It has its good and its bad side. It has benefited the alien by saving him from utter isolation, and lifted him above that purely materialistic existence, to which we condemned him in our industrial centers. It stimulated him as no other force has, not even his religion, to attain physical and mental self-respect. In many cases it has taught him how to read and write, has aided him in the acqui- sition of further knowledge, and has trained him in his duties as a member of society. I have watched these men coming into their lodges after they had put off the grime of a week. They were almost unrecogniz- able, so changed were they by their national regalia. Their bent bodies straightened, pre- siding at their important posts as if sitting on a throne, they felt themselves men, and not the 216 Nationalizing America trundlers of wheelbarrows, feeders of devour- ing machines, factory hands called merely by a number, which they were during the week. They were men of importance to their group, honored as officials or treated as brother members. I must confess, however, to a feeling of resentment when I saw them drilling with arms ; but even that fostered national and social values which we were never wise enough to use, or which, wrapped in our racial and social pride, we could not or would not create. The bad side of this propaganda is ob- vious. It keeps alive racial and national antipathies, and makes difficult that unity for which we must strive. It keeps the newcomer a stranger to our own national interests, and demands of him such loyalty and devotion to his nation or group as to completely enwrap him. In time of national danger the solidarity thus created has been used and is used for a purpose inimical to our national interests. Such propaganda would not be tolerated by a state bent upon developing a supreme Nationality and the Immigrant 217 national fealty, which it considers possible only through unity of thought and action ; yet it is difficult to say how we shall control these things, because freedom of assembly is one of the guaranteed rights of the constitu- tion. Then, too, Americans will be loath to decree that Russians who are living here shall not have the right to work for a Free Russia ; or that the Bohemians shall not from here further their struggle against the Hapsburghs, or that the Armenians should be kept from making known to us the na- tional martyrdom which they have suffered from the Turks. For a long time, then, this nationalistic propaganda will remain a part of our na- tional mission, and its handicaps will be the price we pay for the maintenance of our first and highest national ideal free- dom. Any society which uses the liberty thus granted to the disadvantage of this country, which develops in its membership hatred towards our people or institutions, is committing an offense which must be called treason, for want of a stronger word. 218 Nationalizing America On the whole, it is possible to utilize the work these foreign, national societies have done, and it can best be accomplished if they are recognized as an integral, rather than a foreign part of us ; as a substructure upon which a wise state may develop its larger and more unified ideals. It may be doubted that these societies have any value whatever to the nation, and it may seem that they are an actual menace. Yet they exist, and they exist legally. While their effect upon our new citizenship has not been analyzed or even questioned, I am in- clined to believe that under present condi- tions among the un-Americanized immi- grants, and with our attitude towards them, they perform a valuable function for their members. They may at least be an object lesson to certain classes of our people. First, to that numerous class of Americans which is individualistic to the point of self- ishness ; which has never recognized its debt to its community or nation ; which just hap- pened to be American, because born here, and which thinks of citizenship merely in Nationality and the Immigrant 219 terms of partisan politics and privileges, but not of duties. To such Americans it would be a wholesome lesson to know that these Hungarians (in whom they suspect no higher aspiration than to get drunk on Sunday) cling tenaciously to one another, and seek each others' good ; that they read their na- tional newspaper, free from the drivel of society news, and void of the excitement of hold-ups and pennant races ; that though far away, with new interests claiming them, they are still loyal to their native country and people. What a revelation it would be to our best citizens, with their empty clamor for "pre- paredness," to find a group of Albanians from a tribal-torn, ravished, desolate, almost obliterated country, planning for its restora- tion and independence. Out of their two dollars a day wage, they are contributing to a national fund. It certainly would be an invaluable lesson in patriotism to see Italians, who have at- tained prosperity such as they dreamed of but never hoped to achieve, crowding into 22O Nationalizing America their national hall, eager to fight for their country which now calls for their lives, although in the past it never gave them bread enough. What a lesson in loyalty to native country was written over numerous stores on Bleeker Street in New York, during the Balkan War : " I have gone home to fight for my country. I will be back after the war," signed by a Greek or Bulgarian, whose sense of duty to his country was stronger than his desire for profit, or his love of life. That large class of Americans which looks with contempt upon other peoples, and thinks that none have such high political aspira- tions as theirs, might be humbled in their conceit to find Slovaks and Finns, Bohe- mians, Lithuanians and Poles, trying to realize for their people the elusive ideals of liberty, unity and democracy ; while we are in the throes of achieving preparedness, prosperity and protection. These foreign nationalistic societies might also demonstrate to our ardent Americans Nationality and the Immigrant 221 the emptiness of national pretensions. They show the fratricidal struggle waged and transplanted in its ugliest forms onto this continent, and how minor differences have been magnified, kept alive and multiplied by those who profit by war, and prosper by keeping related peoples apart. Removed to this new world, separated from the glamour of courts and the trappings of war, these aliens ought to be able to see through the historic lies which have trailed along the upward path of mankind, holding it back and confusing the vision of our prophetic minds. Here, too, they might bring before the court of common sense their claims of contending culture, and see how little there is in their pretensions. They would find how well we can use all of them, and how easily society would adjust itself, should one or the other perish from the face of the earth. Perhaps of all the uses to which they might be put, this would be the best : if we could show all these different, national groups how harmoniously they are living 222 Nationalizing America together here working in the same facto- ries, and their children attending the same schools. Many of them worship in the same churches and are governed by the same laws. We should help them to realize that here they maintain liberty without limiting others in its exercise, and secure unity in all things without uniformity in everything. Those of us who have caught a vision of such possibilities must be the teachers, and there is an inexhaustible field for our en- deavor. It is not easy to say at just what point this fusion of ideals can take place, just where and when we can use the engendered na- tionalism and make it our own, and whose ideals are most compatible with ours. This may be said : they are all akin to us funda- mentally ; they are all alien to us in their substructure. We have a deep, vital interest in all these national groups which struggle for independ- ence, and which claim a right to maintain their national existence. In the more ramified problems of language Nationality and the Immigrant 223 and religion, or the controlling influence of one small group over the other, we have no interest, or perhaps it would be better to say, we can have no clear discernment. We can, and I am sure I do, sympathize with the Slovaks in their struggle against the Hungarian government, which tries to im- pose an Asiatic tongue upon them and blot out the faint memories of their own historic past. Yet when one knows the geographic position of Hungary and the nearness of that great Slavic power Russia, the attitude of Hungary looks like an act of national self- preservation, and may be justifiable. By our sympathies we encouraged the Hungarians in their struggle against Ger- manic Austria. We are at one with them in upholding their independence, and share their pride in their more liberal government. We cannot understand their excessive chauvinism which balks at German as the language of command in a common army, and which pursues emigrants across the sea, to retain its hold upon them in order to reach what seem to us trifling ends. 224 Nationalizing America We cannot grasp the involved problem of the Ruthenians or Ukranians, as they prefer to be called, divided between Russia, Austria, and Hungary, we can sympathize with them in their struggle. The Polish problem which resembles theirs, although of larger propor- tions, leaves us in the same predicament. The condition of the Jews in Russia, a country which demands of them all the duties of the citizen, but grants them none of his rights, seems to us intolerable, and we have tried to aid them by carrying their persecu- tions before Congress and terminating our treaty with a friendly power. We also find it difficult to comprehend the social and economic problems of Russia in connection with the Jewish question. The Irish situation, which has been so identified with our own latter history as to become almost a domestic one, is of the same kind, and presents similar difficulties for full understanding. All these national groups must remember that there is one question which is supreme, and that is the relation of the United States Nationality and the Immigrant 225 to the rest of the world. I do not say that they are not to protest against great national wrongs, no matter which nation commits them ; that they are not to aid wherever they can in righting them ; but they cannot use any collective power they have in thwarting the interests of this country without violation of the hospitality they enjoy. The Irish and German societies, which have used their influence to hinder the signing of the treaty of peace between the United States and England, are examples of what I mean, and I am almost sure that the Jewish socie- ties, which were active in having the treaties between Russia and the United States abro- gated, were in the same class. Far greater is the offense of those bodies which use their power to interfere with our national elections ; for it involves the use of the ballot to [further the interests of another government, regardless of what the conse- quences may be to this, their adopted country. In these perplexing times, " America First " is a safe and not a selfish slogan, though it 226 Nationalizing America may involve our approval of policies not in harmony with the needs of our own particu- lar, native group. We cannot be citizens of two countries. Loyalty cannot be divided, and an attitude of that kind may become as immoral as that of the man who maintains two households. " A house divided against itself cannot stand " ; nor can we be faithful to Kaiser or Czar, when we have voluntarily forsworn that allegiance. It is no light task this, of developing and maintaining national ideals in the midst of so many currents and cross-currents, and the immigrant who has accepted the asylum of- fered by this country must learn not to inter- fere with our national interests. He owes that to this country as its guest, and when he has become its citizen, no such admoni- tion ought to be needed. If he does need it, he merely proves that neither he, nor we, who are his teachers by example, know just what American citizenship implies. To many an American, citizenship is merely a chance to vote, and this greatest of Nationality and the Immigrant 227 all privileges, the easiest of all duties, he per- forms with less solicitude than when shaving himself every morning, or looking well after the creases in his trousers. Even if he does not give or sell his vote to further the cause of some foreign government, his action in many cases is not less treasonable, and fre- quently brings more direful consequences, than would such a terrible betrayal. The one text from which every minister and priest ought to preach, and which we all ought to hear and heed, is that which reads : " Judge not that ye be not judged," and " Why beholdest thou the mote which is in thy brother's eye and considerest not the beam which is in thine own eye ? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye ; and behold a beam is in thine own eye ? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye ; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." If I were the preacher, I would say that the mote is the uncertain, divided, confused deal of citizenship among our foreign-born 228 Nationalizing America citizens. The beam is the low ideal of citi- zenship among ourselves ; and if I were a good preacher, and my soul were on fire from the theme, a revival of citizenship would follow which would sweep into full allegiance all " Hyphenated Americans," and all those narrow, materialistic natives, who haven't even a hyphen to redeem their poor shrivelled souls. It should inspire them with the love of country and the high conception of duty which we need infinitely more just now than the framing of new laws, or the making of big guns or armor-plate. A Word to the Unwise DURING a recent epidemic of railroad accidents on a system which is sub- ject to frequent visits from this mal- ady, it was found that the passengers in the last coaches were invariably those who suf- fered the most serious injuries. A friend of a friend of mine proposed that a law be passed prohibiting rear coaches. (Is it neces- sary to say that this friend of a friend of mine was a lady?) This story suggests a word to authors upon the disasters likely to happen to their books in the last chapter, the one of all others which critics usually scan, and read- ers who wish to be well informed, read. The Authors' League might petition Congress to pass a law prohibiting concluding chapters, and thus spare the public the necessity of reading them, insure writers against colli- sion with critics, and save the critics much 229 230 Nationalizing America distasteful labor. Incidentally we are re- minded of the passion of the American peo- ple for making laws, and the wisdom with which many of them are framed. When the " homicidal fury " let loose in the Balkan, finally involved the whole of Europe, and our press reflected the varying strength and weakness of nations, we heard many voices urging us to avoid the plight of poor " bleeding Belgium " and gain the strength of Germany and France. Invariably they suggested laws, and it would be interesting to have a collection of those which finally found their way to Congress, and which were to be remedies for our spineless na- tionalism, transforming us from a defenseless conglomerate into a nation which the world would fear, and at the same time respect. Dozens of laws have been advocated as hyphen preventives or eradicators, and by the provision of some, immigrants must de- clare their intention of becoming citizens upon admission to this country, under pen- alty of being deported if the process is not completed in five years. A Word to the Unwise 23 1 They are to be educated, Americanized and assimilated by statutes, and that, regard- less of our treaty provisions with other na- tions, the curious habit of human nature to resist or evade compulsion, and the well- known fact that although we beat the world in the making of laws, we are the champion "slackers" in their enforcement, and that our respect for them and for their makers can sink no lower. I do not presume to say that no further laws are needed ; but I do know that they cannot make us strong where we are weak, or unite us in those things wherein we are divided. The French national spirit was not created by statute or paragraphs, and is as native to the country as its style, the flavor of its cheeses, or the bouquet of its wines. Germany as we know it to-day was made by its geographic position and its history, but most of all by its great men. Take Luther, Frederick the Great, Bismarck, Will- iam the Second and half a dozen men less known to most people, out of it, and leave all their laws with a thousand new " Streng 232 Nationalizing America Verbotens" and there would be no German Empire, much less its present strength and spirit. I have noticed that the people gathered here in the United States are curiously like all other people, in that they are dependent upon their leaders for guidance and growth. The craving for a Messiah is inborn, and happy are those nations whose mothers travail in holy agony to give Him birth. Fortunate indeed are we in our Washing- ton and Lincoln ; the one the Father of our Country, whom, like children, we have al- most outgrown ; and the other, our great elder brother upon whom for a long time we all must lean. Should I attempt to put a third name among these, our immortals, there would be serious objections ; for in a democracy no one attains that happy state until he is dead. The one man whom I might mention is very much alive, and so frequently jeopard- izes his possible place among them that it would scarcely be safe now to suggest putting him there. A Word to the Unwise 233 Time will make us forget his great faults, and bring his virtues into a stronger light. In the meantime he might be the country's greatest son, whom we need more than the mother-in-law which his attitude and lan- guage at times suggest. I trust that in saying this I am not commit- ting the great national sin which I am about to condemn : the sin of all democracies, that of stoning the prophets and then building them memorials. I am merely expressing my greatly modified appreciation of the services rendered the country by Theodore Roosevelt, who is not unworthy of a place beside our great immortals. The lack of leaders in our national life may be due as much to the sectionalism and narrow partisanship, which still exist among us, as to our treatment of them when they do appear, and, above all else, to our lack of the national passion which can beget them. Indeed, the American people are living so much in the past and for the present that they care little or nothing about the future, 234 Nationalizing America or whether they leave descendants or not. As for consecrating their children from the mother's womb to the martyrdom of leader- ship, that is practically an unknown rite. Even the now old-fashioned hope of every American boy to be the President some day had in it a prophetic power, and it is a pity that it is no more. Perhaps the passing of this desire can be accounted for by the scant honor paid to our civil servants, the cruel and not always searching criticism they have to face, the suspicion by which they are surrounded, and the abuse heaped upon them, all of which fall most heavily upon the President of these United States. Criticism is necessary and often well deserved ; but we forget that we have in this national household millions of strangers, who have been bred to feel rever- ence for those who represent the govern- ment ; and our disrespect and bitter, par- tisan quarrels create a bad atmosphere in which to make them good citizens. Somewhere I have quoted the foreigner whom I interviewed as to his reasons for A Word to the Unwise 235 bringing his children to America. This was his reply : " I taka my children, send them school. Little school, then big school, then send them college, and when they get through they can say : ' To mit the President.' " This story admits of two possible interpre- tations. First, the increase of self-respect on the part of the immigrant, and second, the alarming growth of disrespect for those in authority, and its possible consequences. While great men are those born of the Spirit, it is true that we may and must consciously train for the duties of citizen- ship. In this connection I am far less con- cerned with the immigrant than I am with the native born and their children. I am not greatly alarmed by the percent- age tables of naturalized and unnaturalized citizens, nor have I been thrown into a panic by the discovery of the Hyphen. The im- migrant and his children will be what we make of them ; the destiny of America is in our hands and not in theirs. I cannot join in the chorus of condemna- 236 Nationalizing America tion of America and Americans in their treatment of the immigrant. On the whole they have fared better here, and if they have not, their children have. If they have not always had a " square deal," if they have suffered injustice, it was not in our will, but in our way, and the result of our bad organization rather than of our bad temper. There are discriminatory laws against the immigrant, some unjust, most of them stupid, or both. His sufferings are largely due to our social order and to the unchecked commercialism which dominates us. "We eat them up alive," a certain manufacturer said to me ; and cannibals do not always make exceptions in favor of the home-grown article. We are all sufferers together, and together we shall have to work out our na- tional salvation. To do this, we must learn how to live with one another, how to share what we have and what we bring. I have frequently been charged with ideal- izing the immigrant, and been chided for having written books which have had the disastrous effect of creating a sentimental A Word to the Unwise 237 interest in him. I plead guilty to the charge of seeing in him first of all the human being, and not the possible competitor ; a brother, not a stranger ; the like and not the unlike. I cannot be charged with having failed to point out his racial defects, for I have too frequently been attacked for my prejudices against this or the other group ; even against that from which I sprang. It can- not be said, however, that I do not know the immigrant, or that I speak from a mere superficial knowledge. I also plead guilty to having idealized my America. There are two Americas. One in which we are living, and the other that which we hope to make it. "Of the one we are the guests, of the other we are the builders." Builders must be idealists, men who are not only dissatisfied with the present, but have great plans and hopes for the future. Frankly, I am not satisfied by what we are, though I know the value of what we have, and I am passionately eager for a greater, stronger, finer America. 238 Nationalizing America I repudiate any attempt to make of us merely another world power, another armed camp, another huge, man-eating, national monster, whether of the German, French or English type; whether our imperialism is to spread culture or cotton, to gather war trophies or revenues. We can, we must create a new type of citizenship. For that we have the historic inheritance, we have the native genius, and we have this contribution of all the race strains of the world. How this is to be brought about I do not know. If I should say I know, it would be due to the fact that I do not realize the magnitude of the task, or how slow and torturous is the upward path of nations. I can say, however, what I have done, and what I am willing to do, to make myself worthy of America, and help make her able and worthy to fulfill her world mission. I love America above every other country. I am thrilled by her very name. She is more to me than native land, though I cannot for- get that. But here I was really born into A Word to the Unwise 239 that which is not merely existence, but into that which is life, and that for which men have given their lives. My love for her springs from the larger life she has given me. I cherish her history as the record of those who have lived and suffered and died for great ideals, and I am ready to die for those same ideals, if by dying for them I can make their realization sure. I speak her language with pride because it is the language of this country, and because it is a channel through which her spiritual and cultural gifts are be- stowed upon me. In my thought and action I have united myself with men of all colors and creeds, who are citizens of this republic, and I see nothing in their differences which can keep me from cooperating with them in every endeavor which is for the common weal. I accept without complaint all the limita- tions of social contact which my own race or faith may bring me ; but no man can shut me out from performing my duties to the nation. Great and consuming as is my love for my country, it can never make me hate 240 Nationalizing America the people of any other country ; nor am I willing to sacrifice them to prove my willing- ness to sacrifice myself. I am an American, and because I am an American I wish to cooperate with the people of every other country for the good of hu- manity. I do not regard the boundaries of my affections fixed, and I aspire to grow in that quality in which alone infinite growth is possible : in affection for mankind. I de- sire to work for my country's material well- being, for her supreme place among the na- tions of the world, and I hope to fit myself to further her every laudable ambition in that direction by doing well my daily task as part of my patriotic duty. America, my country : in her intercourse with other nations may she always be right. My country, right or wrong ; but when she is wrong I am as ready to die that she may not commit the wrong, as I am ready to live and work that she may be right. Printed in tht United States of America RECM University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. OCT1 4 = ":C04 Form UC SOUTHERN HEGIONA A 001158133 7