«;r* 
 
<y 
 
 Bridging the Atlantic 
 
 A Discussion of the Problems and Methods 
 of Americanization 
 
 by 
 
 Professor Sarka B. Hrbkova 
 
 Member of Nebraska State Council of Defense 
 
 and 
 
 Chairman of Woman's Committee, 
 
 Council of National Defense, 
 
 Nebraska Division 
 
 ouncil c 
 
Bridging the Atlantic 
 
 A Discussion of the Problems and Methods 
 of Americanization 
 
 by 
 
 Professor Sarka B. Hrbkova 
 
 Member of Nebraska State Council of Defense 
 
 and 
 
 Chairman of Woman 's Committee, 
 
 Council of National Defense, 
 
 Nebraska Division 
 
 Copyrighted 1919 
 Issued by and printed for State Council of Defense 
 
BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 In response to many calls from various parts of the state for 
 a discussion of the Immigrant problem, the address "Bridginii' 
 The Atlantic" was presented to thirty or more Nebraska audi- 
 ences by Professor Sarka Hrbkova. Later the address was 
 amplified and extended into a series of talks on the various phases 
 of the problem. The gist of these discussions, together with an 
 appendix of recommendations looking to effective Americaniza- 
 tion, is herewith presented. 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS^ OP' AMBltlCAl^i^ATid-N 3 
 
 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 Contrary to what might be expected by this title, this is not 
 to be a learned discourse on an impossible eligineering feat, em- 
 bracing such technical terms as masonry, abutments, cantilever, 
 girders, beams, semi-elliptical aches, piers, etc. 'I couldn't define 
 such terms if I wanted to. Engineering requires a knowledge of 
 pure mathematics. The building of this special kind of bridge 
 over the Atlantic involves only some simple caleulations. For 
 the education of a constructive engineer it is necessary to have 
 a knowledge of optics and drawing. To erect the connecting 
 structure between the European kind of civilization and the 
 American kind — one must have eyes that see clearly, sympathet- 
 ically, and you must draw right, just conclusions and not draw 
 on prejudices. 
 
 It was one day when crossing from aft to fore of the monster 
 ocean-liner on wiiich we sailed back to America that some one 
 facetiously remarked, "Well, one can practically walk dry shod 
 from Europe to America. These long new ships are regular 
 bridges, for by the time you get to the bow from the stern, she 
 has touched the other shore." When I viewed and talked with 
 some of the immigrants in the steerage and later with other 
 passengers w^ho rarely moved out of the luxurious Palm Garden 
 or First Saloon end of the boat, my heart was a little heavy, for 
 it Seemed to me that from third cabin to first was leagues and 
 leagues farther than from France to New York harbor. 
 
 When our boat again hove in sight of the First Lady of our 
 Land, by which I mean the glorious Statue of Liberty on Ellis 
 Island, it was one of the sweetest joys of my life to greet in 
 reverent spirit this symbol of America. And then when I saw 
 down below the thousands of immigrants crowding to the rail 
 to catch their first glimpse of the Land of Promise — while the 
 setting sun tinged goldenly the monster torch in the hand of 
 Bartholdi's colossal figure, the hope came that Ainerica would 
 indeed fulfill all the heart longings of these newcomers who had, 
 to be sure, crossed the ocean,, but still had ahead of them the 
 yawning, unbridged chasm that separates the alien from the 
 native born Americsm. 
 
 There are two kinds of Americans — those who weleome the 
 
4 . '' . c* . c' c* '♦6RiDG5N<j T^HE ATLANTIC 
 
 alien and those who would slam the toll-gates of the bridge in 
 his face. Those who welcome the foreigner, see an opportunity 
 for the highest expression here of what he brings across the 
 bridge of the Atlantic as his contribution to American civiliza- 
 tion. The others will maintain that the foreigner is wholly the 
 gainer and the native American the loser by the invasion of the 
 so-called ** alien". There are certain people in America who 
 always look askance at the newcomer — warily — cautious — lest 
 some dire contagion be contracted. You have to be a foreigner 
 or a descendant of a foreigner to get the benefit of that sort of 
 attitude. It is like the small boy in school who was asked by 
 his teacher, "Why do you scratch your head?" His answer was, 
 ** Because I'm the only one in the room who knows just where it 
 itches." You see, — I know where it itches. 
 
 Nicknajnes for Foreigners 
 
 The attitude of those who would say it was a case of only 
 receive and no give on the part of the immigrant is the attitude 
 I would like to dispel. It is such people who regularly insult the 
 descendants of Michel Angelo, Murillo, Columbus and the thous- 
 and other great Italians by calling them "Dagoes". It is such 
 people who always call a Hebrew or Jew a "Sheeny", forgetting 
 all about the race of Disraeli, Zangwill, and of the greatest Jew 
 of all — Christ. They call a German a "Dutchy", a "Sauer- 
 kraut" or a "Limburger", never regarding the fact that Groethe, 
 Frederick the Great, and Bismarck belonged to the so-called 
 "Limburgers". When they call a Bohemian or Czech a "Bo- 
 hunk", they never think that John Huss, the religious reformer 
 and martyr who preceded Luther by over a century, Komensky 
 or Comenius, the educator, Dvorak and Kubelik, musicians, were 
 Bohemians or Czechs. To such people, all Irishmen are 
 "Paddies", all Japanese, "Japs", all Chinese "Pigtails", and 
 so on, ad nauseam. And yet those very people resent, and 
 rightfully, hearing Americans called "Gringoes" by Mexicans, 
 or "pigs" and "Americansche Schweine" by Germans. 
 
 The application of such sneering or slang terms never did 
 and never will be an indication of the American gentleman or 
 the American lady. 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 5 
 
 Justice 
 
 If we wish fair treatment for ourselves, we must first of all 
 accord it to others. Emerson says, ''If you want friends, be a 
 friend." The burden of this plea today is not th^t you be 
 generous to the foreigner, but that something better and finer 
 than generosity be accorded him — and that is — justice. Justice 
 is greater than generosity. We need to be just to him and just 
 to America. We must concede, but he, too, must be fair and re- 
 turn service for advantages gained in this country. 
 
 And if today there is a nation on earth that possesses and 
 fights for the principles of justice it is the United States. It is 
 this sense of justice that is the real framework of the bridge 
 across the Atlantic and it is sympathy and understanding that 
 form the approaches and props of the spans of that bridge. 
 
 I have unmixed Slavic-Bohemian blood in my veins for at 
 least 400 years back and I suppose, in a way, am as proud of it as 
 you are that you are descended from the early defenders of the 
 American commonwealth when it was not yet a nation. But I 
 am far prouder of the fact that my people chose this country, 
 these glorious United States, as the place in which to bring up 
 their family. For it is here that fair play, a square deal, justice, 
 is afforded to all. 
 
 Proportion of Foreign Born 
 
 Of our population of 110,000,000, one person out of every 
 seven Avas born outside of the United States; one out of every 
 three was foreign born or of foreign parentage. In other words, 
 there are over 13,000,000 persons of foreign birth and over 
 20,000,000 of foreign parentage. Fully one-third of our total 
 population is of foreign born stock. Of the 3*3,000,000 persons of 
 foreign birth or foreign stock in the United States, 31.1% are 
 English or Celtic; 28.5% are Germanic; 13.3% are Latin or 
 Greek; 10.1% are Slavic or Lettic ; 9% are Scandinavian; 7.1% 
 are unclassified; 1% are unknown. 
 
 Germany and its political and military leaders counted on 
 this very heterogenity of our population as a source of strength 
 to themselves and as a fertile field for their disrupting propa- 
 ganda. They figured that the conglomeration which makes up 
 
6 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 America bad no cohesion and would disintegrate when attacked. 
 Von Bernhardi was cock sure that since the Germans, alone, of 
 our inhabitants were well organized, they would continue in 
 allegiance to Germany for, to such as he, it was inconceivable 
 that there* could be any bonds to hold them to America, which, 
 after all, is but an accidental agglomeration of races and people 
 among whom no deliberately planned cult of nationalism had 
 been fostered. 
 
 Character of Population 
 
 How America with its lack of linguistic and racial homo- 
 geneity responded when the test came is the most glorious chap- 
 ter in the history of our marvelous nation of assimilates. In 
 order that the response made might be fully evaluated, requires 
 an understanding by both the American and the Americanized of 
 the immensity of the problem of the unification of the mind and 
 spirit of the population of our land. It is indeed a problem to 
 make Americans of these surging, ebbing, responsive, sullen, 
 singing, cursing, sorrowing, carousing, harmonious, disputatious 
 elements, some coming from lands of liberal thought others from 
 age-old autocracies — all of them with dreams of a more or less 
 realisable Utopia, which the magic word ''America" spells to 
 them. America means to the idealist, the full opportunity to 
 express himself, free institutions, religious and political liberty 
 for self and descendants, whereas to the materialist it signifies 
 the attainment of individual ambitions, economic advantage, 
 escape from the military and tax burdens of the old world. 
 
 The immigrant leaves behind intolerance in religion, auto- 
 cratic rule, heavy burdens of government, a hard and fast class 
 system, sovoro military sorvico. a perpetual struggle with pov- 
 erty. 
 
 But has the foreigner crossed the bridge to America empty- 
 handed? Is there nothing of value that he has brought that wil' 
 help in moulding him into the ideal American — real or hypotheti- 
 cal — whom we hav^ set up on a pedestal and want the foreigner 
 to imitate even if we don't do it ourselves? We are often like 
 the old school-master who said, "Don't do as T do. but do as T 
 tell you to do." 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 7 
 
 Walt Whitman has well said in his poem ''Pioneers, Oh 
 Pioneers" — 
 
 ''AH the past we leave behind, 
 We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, 
 Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor 
 and the march, 
 
 Pioneers, Oh Pioneers!" 
 
 The foreigner gives up forever, in most cases, all his former 
 haunts with all the attendant sacrifice and strikes out into the 
 new, untried world of America. 
 
 Evaluating the Foreigner 
 
 What does the foreigner bring? First of all he brings him- 
 self. "But what is that?" the restrictionists and anti-immigra- 
 tionists among you will say. It is strong, robust, perfectly 
 healthy, perfectly formed bodies for one thing. Our immigra- 
 tion laws keep out all who are physically unfit. 
 
 The case of a twelve-year-old flatfooted boy who was refused 
 admission on account of weak physique, though all the rest 
 of the family came in, is an example of the strict severity with 
 which the physically unfit are excluded. 
 
 Another case was that of an Austrian cavalry officer who 
 was debarred because of bow legs caused by riding horseback. 
 Otherwise he was perfect physically. One wonders what would 
 happen if certain native Americans ever got out of the country 
 and liad to depend on passing immigration restrictions to get 
 back. 
 
 Of the males of militia age, 18 to 44 years, in the United 
 States in 1910 the total was 20,478,684. Nebraska's foreign born 
 population totalled 176,662 of whom 102,330 were males, but 
 not all citizens by any means. 
 
 Ten or twelve years ago Broughton Brandenburg, in a work 
 entitled "Imported Americans", advocated keeping a card in- 
 dex of all foreigners. His plan would have averted many of the 
 difficulties which our government encountered during 1917 and 
 1918. The text noted also suggested the following valuable plan : 
 
 "To the card-index system should be added a regulation 
 compelling all aliens to report, at vp^vuar intervals, their where- 
 
8 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 abouts and pursuits, to federal officials in ^federal judicial dis- 
 tricts, until such time as they become citizens of the country or 
 are ready to depart. A most important feature of this should be 
 the indexing and tabulation of the hundreds of thousands of 
 able-bodied men Avho have had the excellent military training 
 of the armies of Europe, and would, if properly organized, con- 
 stitute a fine reserve force in America of at least 2,000,000 men. ' ' 
 
 Immigrants come at the best and most useful, most produc- 
 tive age. The immigration laws keep out aged, infirm and those 
 likely to become a public charge. In intrinsic or physical worth 
 to the United States, they are a rich addition. An Italian 
 economist figured each able-bodied man at the age of twenty-one 
 has cost the state from $1,500 to $1,800 to raise to maturity. At 
 that rate in one year, say 1907, the United States was. enriched 
 by $2,040,000,000 at the cost of the countries which had brought 
 up these immigrants and without a cent of expense to the United 
 States. The great majority of men of foreign birth had some 
 military training before they came to this country. 
 
 His Industrial Value 
 
 American economists figifre that the new immigrant labor 
 adds a billion dollars in value to the industrial energy of th 
 country annually. This immigrant labor includes thousands of 
 women. The strikes, the stringency in the labor market, the 
 excessive high wages demanded and paid are traceable to the 
 lack or falling off in immigration as well as to the withdrawal 
 into the army of native born. If your domestic help should 
 strike, you Avould have no recourse, for the foreign born are 
 not coming in great numbers now. But after the war, look out 
 for a great influx, particularly of women. The foreign born 
 woman is already affecting the industrial situation in this coun- 
 tr3^ She will be ten times the factor in industrial problems after 
 the war. 
 
 Exploiting Foreign Female Labor 
 
 The sweating system is not tried on the American born 
 woman. It is the foreign woman or girl who must sit late into 
 the night in a miserable, ill-smelling room where the cooking, 
 washing and sleeping is done, and sew for starvation wages on 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 9 
 
 men's and women's suits, shirtwaists, etc., in order that a big 
 Christian ( ?) department stores may advertise sales of suits at 
 $14.98 and shirtwaist bargains at 69e. 
 
 Thomas Hood, writing in England, many years ago, voiced 
 the dirge which so many thousands of our exploited for^gn born 
 workers echo in 
 
 ''THE SONG OF THE SHIRT'' 
 
 With fingers weary and worn, 
 
 With eyelids heavy and red, 
 A woman sat in unwomanly rags. 
 
 Plying her needle and thread, 
 Stitch! stiteh! stitch! 
 
 In poverty, hunger and dirt, 
 And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, 
 
 She sang the ''Song of the Shirt." 
 
 Oh, men, with sisters dear ! 
 
 Oh, men, with mothers and wives ! 
 It is not linen you're wearing out, 
 
 But human creatures' lives! 
 Stitch — stitch — stitch. 
 
 In poverty, hunger and dirt, 
 Sewing at once with a double thread, 
 
 A shroud as well as a shirt. 
 
 In January of 1916 the Illinois Senate Committee reported 
 that immorality among women in cities was chiefly due to pov- 
 erty. The lack of a minimum wage for women and girls and ol! 
 regulated conditions of domestic employment rendering the home 
 in many cases a breeding place for commercialized vice, is what 
 causes so many recruits to the underworld. 
 
 The exploitation of labor, particularly of women and girls, 
 needs to be investigated as well as the fate of those thousands 
 of foreign girls who are annually lost enroute to their destina- 
 tions. Grace Abbott's investigations showed that in one year 
 nearly two thousand immigrant girls who left New York City 
 for points in the West never reached their destinations. 
 
 Prom the standpoint of money value of the immigrants, the 
 government reports show that in 1914, a normal year, there 
 were 1,218,480 immigrants who brought with them over $42,553,- 
 266.00. Of this amount the 9,928 Bohemians who came over 
 
10 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 brought $404,968. The amount of head tax collected in the year 
 ending June, 1914, was $5,092,894. Of this but $2,645,000 was 
 spent on the immigration bureau. There are now or ought to be 
 in the United States immigration fund at least $10,700,000. 
 
 Mental Equipment of Foreigner 
 
 The immigrants bring healthy, clear minds. This does not 
 necessarily mean they are literate, but they are capable of being 
 taught. The immigration laws keep out the mentally deficient 
 most effectively. Illiteracy is a problem of the first generation 
 only. The children of foreign born parents show relatively less 
 illiteracy than the children of native born parents. 
 
 It was an American child in an old community in Kentucky 
 who, when told that her mother was calling her and the other 
 children with her, answ^ered: ''Her ain't a callin' we, us don't 
 belong to she." 
 
 More foreign women than men are illiterate. Nebraska gets 
 few of the illiterate nationalities. The United States Commis- 
 sioner of Immigration reports that the Scandinavians show the 
 fewest people who cannot read or write, the English and Bo- 
 hemians come next in the roll of honor, the Scotch and Irish 
 third, the Germans about sixth. The South Italian shows heaviest 
 illiteracy, about 60 out of every 100 being unable to read or 
 write. 
 
 Moral Delinquency 
 
 Does literacy make for morality? Immigrants as a general 
 thing commit only minor offenses, crimes of ignorance. The high 
 crimes are usually committed by literates, often very well edu- 
 cated. Professor Paul Peirce of the State University of Iowa 
 says: "One must take into account what facilities these immi- 
 grants had for learning. The 3 per cent of literates from Germany 
 are not as promising a proposition as the illiterates of Southern 
 Europe because they have had their opportunities and passed 
 them by, whereas the illiterate immigrant from a country where 
 reading and writing were not easy to obtain may inako himself 
 a far more valuable citizen." 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 11 
 
 Real Culture of Foreign Groups 
 
 On the other hand, millions of immigTants come from lands 
 and nations whose culture is of exceedingly ancient date. The 
 western Slavs are among the earliest nations of Europe to be- 
 come cultured. The first university in central Europe was estab- 
 lished by the Bohemian or Czech people in Prague, Bohemia, 
 in 1348, fully fifty years before the very first German university 
 came into existence. The Polish people had a fine university 
 established in Cracow as early as 1380. 
 
 Komensky or Comenius, the eminent educational reformer, 
 who likeAvise planned and made the first illustrated school text- 
 book in the world, was a Czech. The first regular newspaper in 
 the world was published in Prague in 1515. The first art school 
 in central Europe was established in Prague, Bohemia. The first 
 and therefore the oldest girls' school or seminary in the United 
 States was founded by members of the Bohemian and Moravian 
 Brethren Church, who had fled to this country to escape re- 
 ligious persecution. The excellent schools in Bethlehem, Naza- 
 reth and Lititz, Pennsylvania, were all Moravian institutions. 
 The first map of the New England colonies as they existed in 
 1630 was made by a Czech colonist, Augustine Hermann of Mary- 
 land. 
 
 Some authoritative historians state that a Polak, Jan of 
 Kolna, Mazur, in command of a Danish ship, discovered America, 
 in the region of Labrador, in 1476, preceding the Columbian trip 
 by sixteen years. J. Conway, in his history of higher education 
 in America, states this: "As early as 1659 the Dutch colonists 
 of Manhattan Island hired a Polish school-master for the educa- 
 tion of the youth of the community." 
 
 Political Freedom 
 
 Formerly the foreigner brought ideals of political liberty. 
 Now, it can truly be said that the adherents of governments 
 which are autocratic, paternalistic and imperialistic in tendencies 
 must come to the United States to learn what is true political 
 freedom. But back in 1848, it was the educated liberals of 
 France, Germany, Poland and Bohemia who brought democratic 
 and constitutionalist ideas here. From various periods in our 
 
12 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 history, one can cull such names as that of the Frenchman 
 Lafayette; the Poles, Pulaski and Kosciuszko; the Hungarian, 
 Kossuth; the Bohemian, Karel Jonas (Lieutenant Governor of 
 Wisconsin and founder of the first Bohemian paper in the 
 United States) ; the German, Carl Schurz, none of whom can 
 ever be forgotten by Americans. 
 
 The socialistic Democratic party in Bohemia, as elsewhere, 
 is bringing about suffrage for women. This party elected a 
 woman to the national parliament — ^Bozena Vikova Kuneticka. 
 It was the first instance in central Europe of such progressivism. 
 The Congress of the new Czechoslovak Republic contains eight 
 women members. 
 
 Habits Worth Imitating 
 
 What else do the foreigners bring with them as a contribu- 
 tion to American civilization? They bring habits of thrift and. 
 economy, settled, permanent attached-to-the-soil ideals. Not the 
 shifty here today and gone tomorrow, easy-going way of the 
 average native of small means. Being a tenant in rented quar- 
 ters is not typical of the average foreigner. 
 
 In a government investigation made by Jenks and Lauck. 
 (p. 280), of 17,628 families, the heads of which were employed 
 in the principal divisions of mining and manufacturing enter- 
 prises, it was shown that of 1,187 families, native born of native 
 father, white, 259 (21.8^) owned homes; of 788 families, native 
 born of foreign father, 202 (26.6%) owned homes; of 15,511 
 families, foreign born of native father, 3,306 (21.6%) owned 
 homes. (p. 281.) The Bohemians and Moravians show the 
 largest proportion of home-owning families, of all races, the 
 heads of which were native born of foreign father, or foreign 
 born. 
 
 Another proof of the thrift of foreigners is shown by the 
 l)ost office department. Of $13,000,000 deposited in the postal 
 savings banks of New York City, more than $11,000,000 are 
 owned by foreign born residents, the Russians having by far the 
 largest total on deposit. The foreigners come over with the 
 habit of using the postal savings bank firmly ingrained. The 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION IS 
 
 native American prefers to put his money where it is not so 
 safe, but where it will draw big interest. 
 
 A certain class of native born are much like Rastus Johnson 
 and his family who had received plentifully of charity, even to 
 outfitting the house with a coal burning stove. One hot July 
 afternoon Rastus and his family of nine started out all togged 
 out in their best. One of their benefactors happened to meet 
 them on the road. "Well, Uncle Rastus, where are you going, all 
 dressed up?" "Well, boss, doan' you know the circus am come 
 to town? We done sor the heatin' stove you gave us 'cause 
 winter am fur off, but de circus am here." 
 
 There are people, you know, who move every time the rent 
 comes due. It is a fact that there are thousands in this country 
 who mortgage their farms and dwellings in order that automo- 
 biles may be bought. Rarely does the foreigner risk the loss of 
 a necessity for a luxury or pleasure. 
 
 S. W. Strauss states in "Leslie's": "In the United States 
 66 out of every 100 people that die leave no estate whatever. 
 At the age of 65, 97 out of every 100 in America are partly or 
 wholly dependent upon relatives or the public for their daily 
 bread, clothing and the roof under w^hich they sleep. According 
 to government statistics, 98% of the American people are living 
 from day to day on their wages; a loss of employment would 
 mean pauperism for all but 2%." 
 
 It is not the immigrants who are filling our poor houses. It 
 is often erroneously stated that Europe dumps the inmates of its 
 poor houses into our homes for paupers. This is untrue. The 
 great majority of the foreign born in our poor houses have been 
 in America from ten to twenty years before they were forced into 
 homes of dependency. The Irish, who were most prominently 
 represented of any foreign born people, are notably given to liv- 
 ing in the present, generous in a degree detrimental to them- 
 selves, but fail to provide for the inevitable rainy day. 
 
 Support of Liberty Loans 
 
 A most enlightening commentary on the response of various 
 nationalities in the United States to the Liberty Loan is shown in 
 the report of the Treasury Department on "The Foreign Ele- 
 
14 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 ment in the Third Liberty Loan." This is based on a Report of 
 the Foreigrn Language Division of Federal Reserve Districts. 
 
 The records in the Third Liberty Loan of the various na- 
 tionalities are significant only in so far as they show a relation- 
 ship between the representation of €aeh linguistic group in our 
 population and their proportionate or disproportionate percentage 
 response to the loan. In column 1 is seen the percentage in the 
 foreign population of certain leading groups of our immigrants 
 and in column 2 the actual number of each and in column 3 the 
 amount each group subscribed to the Third Loan. The total 
 amount subscribed by Americans of foreign descent is $741,- 
 437,000. It is estimated that this amount was subscribed by 
 7,061,305 individuals which represented 41%^ of the total 
 number of subscribers. 
 
 Foreign Group 
 
 Percent in Foreign 
 
 Population 
 Scandinavians — 
 
 Swedish 4.5 
 
 Norwegians 3.1 
 
 Danes 1.4 
 
 Latin and Greek — 
 
 Italians 6.7 
 
 Greeks 0,4 
 
 French 4.2 
 
 Portuguese 0.4 
 
 Koumanian 0.2 
 
 Slavic and Lettic^- 
 
 Polish 5.3 
 
 Bohemian (Czechs) 1.7 
 
 Bulgarian 0.1 
 
 Slovenian 0.6 
 
 Russian : 0.3 
 
 Ukrainian-Ruthenian 0.1 
 
 Serbian 0.1 
 
 Croatian 0.3. 
 
 Lithuanian-Lettish 0.7 
 
 Oermanic — 
 
 German 28.5 
 
 Dutch-Frisian 1.0 
 
 Flemish 0.1 
 
 
 Bonds 
 
 Number 
 
 Taken 
 
 1,445,869 
 
 $6,011,600 
 
 1,009,854 
 
 .5,987,550 
 
 446,473 
 
 2,353,950 
 
 2,151,422 
 
 52,247,350 
 
 130,379 
 
 6.638,700 
 
 1,357,169 
 
 2,107,850 
 
 141,268 
 
 1,711,150 
 
 51,124 
 
 272,100 
 
 1,707,040 
 
 37,583,700 
 
 539,392 
 
 31,750,550 
 
 19,320 
 
 2,100 
 
 183,431 
 
 1.569,900 
 
 95,137 
 
 2,599,600 
 
 35,359 
 
 129,500 
 
 26,752 
 
 142,150 
 
 93,036 
 
 153,900 
 
 211,235 
 
 4,374,500 
 
 8,817,271 
 
 87,295,000 
 
 324,930 
 
 80,200 
 
 44.806 
 
 875.000 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 15 
 
 The Americanization of our so-called iforeign elemtent is 
 more nearly accomplished than that of certain groups of the 
 native born. Shortly after the first Liberty Loan drive began, in 
 the home of a certain fashionable woman of Nebraska, this in- 
 cident was related. A Bohemian woman who lived on a farm 
 in a certain western county of the state where ' there had been 
 drouths, had succeeded after four years in saving sixty dollars 
 from her egg and poultry money, to buy herself a much-needed 
 outfit of a dress, coat, hat and shoes. When the Loan wa^ an- 
 nounced urging everyone to support the government against the 
 Central Powers, this poor woman who had known all too well 
 what it meant to live under the hated yoke^ of the Hapsburgs 
 and who realized keenly the need of opposing so cruel and in- 
 triguing a power said in broken English, ' ' Our America she n6ed 
 my sixty dollar more than I need new dress. I buy Liberty 
 Bond and help America fight Austria in my same dress."' When 
 the sacrifice of this woman, who as much as any other woman 
 longed to be well dressed, was related to the group, there was a 
 momentary silence. Not one of those women had even made 
 the shadow of a sacrifice in subscribing for bonds or for war 
 activities. All had given from their abundance or "spare' 'iPuhds 
 and they felt the challenge of the Bohemian farmer woman's 
 sacrifice. All but one. She was the hostess, the daughter of suc- 
 cessive daughters of the early colonial period, America:^ ' bred 
 and born for generations. And this was her comment on the 
 sacrifice made by the farm woman, in giving up her dreamed of 
 gown : " My ! How dowdy that woman must have looked in her 
 old duds." It is true, alas, that Americanization, like charity, 
 must in many cases begin at home. '"' 
 
 There are still a few self-satisfied native flag flaunters .wJio 
 haven't caught the spirit or the meaning of Americanism, but 
 they are loud in their denunciation of the ''ignorant foreigner" 
 who is AVilling to stake his last dollar in backing Uncle S,am.'s 
 cause, for they, the ignorant (?), understand the significance qf 
 that cause far better than milady of Revolutionary ancestry or 
 even the man on the street. 
 
 The immigrant brings with him habits of sticktoativeneSs — 
 indomitable courage, grit. The early foreigners of Nebraska 
 
16 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 stayed here through drouths, grasshopper plagues, scourges of all 
 kinds. They had no relatives ' ' back east " to go to, as did the 
 native Americans. They had to stay and plug it out. 
 
 The immigrant brings habits of cleanliness, as a rule. Cer- 
 tain nationalities, to be sure, have a larger measure of these 
 than do others. All of them, however, have ideas of municipal 
 cleanliness, for in Europe cities do much of the cleaning that is 
 here left for individuals to carry out. T'he dirt and filth and 
 snow banks in most of our city streets and alleys would never be 
 tolerated in the majority of European communities. 
 
 Italian and Polish women have come to Jane Addams in 
 Hull House to ask for municipal wash-houses. They said quite 
 truly that the kitchen of a tiny tenement is no place to wash. 
 Russian women have come to urge the securing of covered 
 markets. Even in the ghettoes of Russia, food is not allowed to 
 be exposed to dust and dirt as it is in almost any city in the 
 United States. 
 
 Feeling for Beauty 
 
 The immigrant brings his wealth of traditional folk lore 
 and his native songs and stories. His vivid and colorful imagina- 
 tion added to the practical character of the American mind can 
 and must produce wonderful returns in the native literature of 
 this country. 
 
 The foreigner unconsciously is influencing our literature and 
 thus helping to bridge the Atlantic. Writers of some of the best 
 American stories, novels, and dramas, have been influenced by 
 the force and value of immigrant types present in this civiliza- 
 tion. Examples of these are: Israel Zangwill's "The Melting 
 Pot"; Jacob Riis, ''How The Other Half Lives", Edward A. 
 Steiner, ''Immigrant Tide", etc.; Willa Sibert Gather, "0! Pio- 
 neers" and "My Antonia". 
 
 It seems to me that the great or typical American novel 
 which literary critics have been writing about for years will 
 have for its theme, the Immigrant, the New American. 
 
 The immigrant's feeling for beauty of the visible or audible 
 sort is an asset we can hardly evaluate in cold hard dollars and 
 cents, — the spirituality, the idealism, the devotion and rever- 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 17 
 
 ence, the love of art and of music of the foreigner are necessary 
 to make less sordid the merely materialistic prosperity of 
 America. These inestimable contributions should not be crushed 
 out in our effort to remake the immigrant, to shape him, over- 
 night, so to speak, in the form of the kind of American who gets 
 spoiled in the making. If, as Rev. Sehauffler said, ''American 
 wages are the honey-pot that draws the bees," we must not 
 stamp out those things in the foreigner which would make him 
 only a beneficiary and in no degree a benefactor of the country 
 which offers him economic profit. 
 
 In remaking the foreigner it is wise to recall Omar 
 Khayyam's warning in Stanza XXXVII of his Rubaiyat: 
 
 For I remember stopping by the way 
 
 To watch a Potter thumping his wet clay 
 
 And with its all obliterated Tongue 
 
 It murmured, ''Gently, brother, gently. Pray." 
 
 It ought to be on the conscience of Americans who have com- 
 mercialized or industrialized the foreign born men and women of 
 art instincts and art aptitudes and abilities. They have marred 
 in the making many and many "luckless pots". 
 
 A certain prolific writer and lecturer of wide renown today, 
 but for a more gentle "Potter" might still have been a coal 
 miner in Illinois, Victor D. Brenner, designer of the Lincoln one- 
 cent coin and now famous sculptor, might still have been digging 
 ditches just as he did for a long time after he arrived from 
 Russia. 
 
 Some American wit has said, "A grape fruit is a lemon that 
 has had a chance." It isn't American to withhold that chance 
 from any growing thing ; why deny it to the foreigner who grows 
 mentally and in worldly development by leaps and bounds from 
 the instant the boat he comes in on sights the shores of "The 
 American Continent ? ' ' 
 
 The foreigner's respect for age and for parental and gov- 
 ernmental authority is another characteristic valuable enough to 
 be imitated without evil results by certain of our American 
 young people. Mary E. McDowell very pertinently says, "The 
 too rapid Americanization of the children of foreign bom parents 
 
18 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 in the United States into pert young people without respect for 
 authority is a dangerous problem/' 
 
 • Religious Freedom. 
 
 The immigrant has brought with him ideals of religious lib- 
 erty. It was ideals of that character which in 1620 actuated the 
 Puritans to leave England, the Huguenots to fly from France, the 
 Bohemian and Moravian Brethren to escape their persecutors 
 and flee to America. These Bohemian and Moravian Brethren 
 organized the first and therefore the oldest girls' seminary in the 
 United States, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and the-y, too, 
 founded the famous old Linden Hall and other classical schools in 
 Nazareth and Lititz, Pennsylvania. 
 
 Later it was the Jews flying from Russia, the Armenians es- 
 caping the bloood- thirsty Turks, who sought refuge here. 
 
 Of Nebraska's foreign element, the majority of the Ger- 
 mans and Scandinavians are Lutherans, whereas the Poles and 
 many of the Czechs and Slovaks are Roman Catholics. There 
 are also Protestants and ''Liberals" among these latter two 
 groups, even some ''free thinkers". But it is eminently unjust 
 to treat the foreigner as if he were a heathen and to regard all 
 work done among immigrants as of a missionary nature. White 
 foreigners come from Christian and even ultra-religious countries. 
 The Czechs produced the marytr John Huss, who was the fore- 
 runner of Luther by over 110 years. Before Huss, they gave us 
 the world Peter Cheleicky, from whom Count Leo Tolstoy claims 
 to have gotten his ideas for simplicity in religious beliefs, also 
 liis principles of non-resistance. The Czechs were the first nation 
 of Europe to dare to place on their throne a Protestant Kiii<>'. 
 (ieorge of Podebrad. 
 
 Mistakes of Missionaries 
 
 All too frequently missionaries, colporteurs with good 
 enough intentions doubtless, but minus tact and knowledge o;- 
 the people they are attempting to serve, invade the homes of 
 foreigners with centuries of religious belief behind them and t;jlk 
 ''religion" to them or distribute tracts among them. In nine 
 eases out of ten. it isn't tracts or talk of any sort that is ^leede'l. 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 19 
 
 but a job for the father, pure milk for the baby and decen^riiving 
 quarters for the whole family. The assumption of the *' charity 
 worker" or ''friendly visitor" of some religious denomination, 
 that the immigrant family is Godless, is rightfully resented as 
 presumption by the struggling, but defenseless recipients of 
 such tactless "calls". Altogether too many so-called social 
 workers assume that poverty implies lack of religion. I have 
 seen situations in which the immigrant victims of tract and ser- 
 monette distributors required a lot of Christian forbearance to 
 refrain from an instant eviction of the '^ missionary" offenders. 
 On the other hand, the "friendly visitor" who is trained intelli- 
 gently and blessed with good sense as well as sympathy can and 
 does give inestimable help to the cause of religion as well as 
 Americanization. 
 
 The American church has not, until recently, lost its in- 
 difference to the immigrants, whereas, on the other hand, the 
 churches conducted in foreign tongues have assiduously culti- 
 vated him. It has been little wonder that some communities in 
 the United States remained German to the core when each gen- 
 eration was trained, more or less exclusively in that tongue, in 
 youth in the parochial schools, in maturity hearing only services 
 in that language and seldom or never coming in contact with 
 English-speaking people of the same or allied religious faith. 
 This condition existed in Nebraska, Minnesota and other states 
 prior to the effective Americanization campaign of their respec- 
 tive Councils of Defense. The churches conducted in foreign 
 tongues must be appealed to to aid the native church in building 
 the bridge from Europe to America, over which our coming citi- 
 zens must cross. There need be no loss spiritually to the devout 
 who have worshipped in other tongues. God hears the English 
 prayer fully as well as that breathed in German or any other 
 tongue. Religions must not be used in America as a cloak for 
 propaganda conducted in a tongue alien to the interests of 
 American democrac}^ Also, it is not rare that a minister trained 
 in some other language fosters it to the exclusion of English to 
 make his own position secure with his congregation. Certain 
 sects are maintaining foreign speaking preachers who misrepre- 
 sent their own people, claiming they are in need of missionary 
 
20 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 work done in a non-English tongue when their congregation 
 could as well be reached in English. 
 
 Julian Warne severely criticizes the foreigners in the an- 
 thracite coal regions of Pennsylvania for holding celebrations 
 and funerals on Sunday. It would truly be convenient to order 
 one 's death so as not to interfere with Sunday School. To harass 
 the feelings of the non- working people by witnessing a miner's 
 funeral appears to be regarded as almost a crime. 
 
 One recalls the incident of an undertaker who called at the 
 home of a man in whose family some one was always dying, A 
 little girl met the undertaker at the door and said, "If you want 
 to know when the funeral is, don't bother any further. Pa al- 
 ways buries us at two o'clock." 
 
 Children of Foreigners Most Potential Contribution 
 
 The foreigners bring their children — raw material to be 
 sure, but with what splendid possibilities — to be developed into 
 the best we desire to have. These children must not be taught 
 to look down upon their parents and the country from which 
 they came. The most successful settlement workers ure those 
 who preserve and do honor to the beautiful customs and tradi- 
 tions of the various nationalities represented in the district. 
 
 It makes little difference whether Johnnie is of Scandi- 
 navian, Czech, Polish, German or other parentage, the ideal of his 
 people is to give him the best future possible, just as it is the 
 ideal of purely American parents for their own offspring. 
 
 The average American woman may have had a great many 
 more advantages than her foreign born sister, but she cannot 
 .uet away from the fact that they are both of much the same 
 clay after all and have practically the same interests. Kip]in<i' 
 wrote with understanding when he said: 
 
 ''For the Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady 
 Are sisters under their skins." 
 
 Schools Most Potent Agency 
 
 Provide schools for their children with sympathetic, under- 
 standing teachers — not the sort so full of overweaning, smug 
 American spread-eagle self-esteem that they cannot see any good 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 21 
 
 in any other nation but this. Herbert A. Miller, in "The School 
 and the Immigrant", says: ''The success of the teacher in 
 dealing with foreign children depends in no small measure on 
 her personal relations with them. In order that the most effec- 
 tive work may be done, it is essential that the teacher should 
 know something of the history and the characteristics of the 
 different national groups." 
 
 At the same time the necessity of teaching English — thor- 
 oughly and sedulously — in every public and private school must 
 be insisted on. Some of the states have no laws giving the State 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction jurisdiction over the cur- 
 riculum of private institutions of learning and he is thus handi- 
 capped in efforts to carry out an Americanization program among 
 the most susceptible of our population — the youth of the land. 
 This condition is notably true in Nebraska and certain other 
 middle west states in which ensuing legislatures hope to remedy 
 this defect. The standardization of English requirements in our 
 schools, private, parochial as well as public, and the empowering 
 of public officers to enforce this program must be insisted on by 
 those who have sincerely at heart the Americanization of the 
 second and third generation of immigrants' descendants. Such 
 a program would not preclude the attainment of the modern 
 languages by students, but it would make sure that all have 
 had an equal opportunity to learn the language of our country 
 and through this powerful medium have access to all that the 
 English language offers of instruction in Americanization. This 
 program would make impossible such conditions as those ob- 
 taining in Minnesota where 190 private schools were conducted 
 wholly in German and the situation in Nebraska where in some 
 schools the American national hymn had never been sung or the 
 American flag never had been seen, but, on the contrary. 
 ''Deutschland uber alles" had been the favorite tune. 
 
 Newspapers 
 
 The purging of foreign language publications of all anti- 
 American propaganda and the inauguration of a program en- 
 couraging assimilation would make the newspapers and maga- 
 zines issued in some other language than English valuable agen- 
 
22 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 cies in bringing about the American nationalization of tlie alien 
 population. High class foreign publications whose American loy- 
 alty is undoubted could well be used together with the best of 
 American magazines and papers in libraries, reading rooms, set- 
 tlement houses, industrial workers' welfare quarters, and labor 
 union stations. 
 
 Living Quarters 
 
 Provide clean dwellings to be rented out to the foreigner. 
 Nothing Americanizes and gives a sense of self-respect to any 
 individual, alien or otherwise, as to have clean clothes and to 
 occupy clean, respectable quarters in a decently kept part of the 
 city. How can we expect Mexicans, Italians, Greeks, living in 
 discarded freight cars along a railroad line where they never 
 come in touch with the American housewife 's standards of clean- 
 liness, to live up to that standard? Jack London asks fairly 
 enough, ''Can you feed or house a man worse than a dog is 
 fed and housed and expect him to react like a man?" In 50% 
 of the eases, it is not the foreigner who is to blame for the exist- 
 ence of the filthy hovels in which lie is compelled to live. Very 
 often these vicious dens are owned by hypocritical church mem- 
 bers who exact a rental high enough to entitle the inmates of 
 the house to a really decent abode. But — it's for foreigners — 
 so no attempt is made by said "honorable citizen" to improve 
 or make liveable the quarters of the immigrant. For my own 
 collection I have taken dozens of kodak views of miners' huts 
 in Pennsylvania, cheap tenements in New York, New Jersey, 
 Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha and other places nearer home, 
 owned by suave gentlemen who subscribe to foreign missions, 
 but who absolutely refuse to spend a dollar to mend a leak in 
 the roof or put a coat of paint on a bleak, rickety tenement in 
 which so-called "Greenhorn" foreigners live. 
 
 Decent Wages 
 
 Give a living wage to foreigners for work well done. Don't 
 *iive them something for nothing any more than you would to a 
 native American, "Justice is greater than generosity." It is 
 not necessary to do any sentimental gushing or gooing over 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 23 
 
 them. As a rule, they he a sensible earnest lot and cannot un- 
 derstand or else they resent mawkish sentimentality. Friendly 
 sympathetic interest is welcome. They can all understand that, 
 old and young, rich or poor. I recall my first day in an Ameri- 
 can public school. I did not understand a word the teacher said, 
 but when she came to me and smiled at me and patted my 
 cheek and put her hand softly around me, I understood fully 
 and completely. I then and there resolved to do anything on 
 earth for her. Everyone understands the language of friendli- 
 ness and sympathy ; we need no dictionaries or interpreters for 
 those two qualities. 
 
 Just a littie kindly interest is a wonderful cement for society 
 —especially when the foreign born and the native born are to be 
 welded together. 
 
 There are annually from 15,000 to 30,000 suicides in the 
 United States — large numbers of them foreigners. Many, to be 
 sure, are ill mentally or physically when they destroy their 
 own lives, but many could have been saved, had just a little bit 
 of sympathy been extended to them when the fit of despondency 
 was on. We all get the so-called ''blue devils" at times, but if 
 there are friends and relatives about, how soon the clouds are 
 dispelled. Yet a lonely, discouraged foreigner in a strange land 
 is usually left to shift for himself. 
 
 Night Schools 
 
 Provide night schools with competent, sensible, practical iji- 
 struction. Not the sort where mature men and women of foreign 
 nationality, eager to learn a little useful English, drudge through 
 such senseless drivel as this which was reported in an Eastern 
 night school: ''I am a little yellow birdie. I can sing. I can 
 fly. Shall I twitter to you?" In another school this brilliant 
 gem was drilled into the foreigners: "I see the moon, the moon 
 sees me: God bless the moon, God bless me." 
 
 Teach English all the time, good, practical, every-day Eng- 
 lish, but please don't imagine even a foreigner has any use in 
 his vocabulary for yellow twittering birdies and moonies that 
 God blesses. 
 
24 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 In another night school the students were memorizing para- 
 graphs of the ancient history of Egypt, when not one knew even 
 the name of the bordering states and only two could name the 
 state in which they were attending school. Two knew the 
 name of the president, none had even heard there was a gov- 
 ernor. Provide citizenship classes for the benefit of aliens de- 
 sirous of securing naturalization papers. These are the most im- 
 portant classes of all and should be conducted at all times, not 
 merely just before an election. Employers are everywhere find- 
 ing it possible and feasible to establish English classes for for- 
 eigners whose lack of knowledge of the language makes ex- 
 pensive accidents frequent in industrial plants. Such employers 
 could go one step farther and see to it that the basis for a sound 
 understanding of the privileges and responsibilities of sound citi- 
 zenship be taught. Then there would never be such a meager 
 conception of what citizenship involves as was displayed in the 
 case of a certain Irishman who applied in Illinois for his first 
 papers. The judge asked him : 
 
 ''Have you read the Declaration of Independence?" 
 
 "No, Sorr," answered Pat. 
 
 ''Have you read the Constitution of the United States?" 
 
 "No, Sorr," again was the answer. 
 
 "Well, then, what have you read?" queried the judge. 
 
 "I have red hairs on me neck, Sorr," calmly replied Pat. 
 
 A few elementary lessons in citizenship would not hurt Pat 
 and thousands more like him who apply for "papers", and the 
 sacred privilege of suffrage. 
 
 The foreign born women also must be helped in this respect. 
 Most of our foreign born women belong to some organization, in 
 most cases an association with insurance features, and are good 
 at "getting up" movements. If some attempt is made to come 
 in touch with them, they will respond. Of course, one must not 
 approach them with the air, "Now I'm going to do you an im- 
 mense favor. I'm above you, but I'm going to overlook it this 
 time and condescend to your level." I always recall a passage 
 from Henry David Thoreau, the American philosopher, who once 
 wrote that if he knew someone were coming to do him a favor 
 he would run to the very end of the world to avoid being made 
 the victim of such a consciously good deed. 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 25 
 
 The lack of success attained in reaching the foreigners is 
 accounted for by just that attitude. A fashionable woman who, 
 because she had time and an automobile, had been appointed on 
 an Americanization committee by the mayor, said in my pres- 
 ence : ' ' Well, dear me, this morning, I must go down again to see 
 those people I'm Americanizing. They're just too stupid to ap- 
 preciate what I'm doing for them." 
 
 ''Groing down to those people" is the whole secret of the 
 numerous failures of untrained *'Americanizers(?) " 
 
 The women of Czech blood of the United States have several 
 important benevolent insurance organizations, among them be- 
 ing the Jednota Ceskych Dam, with 27,000 members ; the S. P. J., 
 with 30,000, etc. The Polish, Slovak, Croatian and German 
 women have similar organizations. Most of the Scandinavian or- 
 ganizations are affiliated with churches. From active member- 
 ship in the Czech federations I know that the American National 
 Hymn is the opening song in the lodge meetings. And the mem- 
 bers always show homage by arising. 
 
 One can secure the co-operation of these organizations for 
 public undertakings for it has been done again and again. At 
 the Community Christmas tree program in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 
 hundreds of women joined the native born club women in sew- 
 ing sacks of candy, nuts and oranges and helped as well in can- 
 vassing the merchants for the supplies. At the semi-centennial 
 celebration, in planning for school gardens, in hospital donations, 
 in charity organization work, they assisted. Not all of them, to 
 be sure, but a sufficient number to insure an increase of interest 
 next time on the part of others. 
 
 In Cleveland, Ohio, the largest Red Cross chapter is made up 
 of Czech women who have turned over immense quantities of 
 supplies and entered heartily into every community undertaking 
 having for its purpose the preservation of American unified 
 spirit against the disrupting propaganda of Teutonism. 
 
 Another way of bridging the Atlantic is through community 
 singing, which is an excellent means of reaching and holding the 
 foreigner in united interest. Singing with your neighbor, hold- 
 ing a song book with a perfect stranger who is singing the same 
 song you are — these are the means of establishing a closer un- 
 derstanding and a deeper sympathy in matters of far more 
 
26 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 moment than the mere physical act of singing America, The Star 
 Spangled Banner, Auld Lang Syne, Swanee River, Old Kentucky 
 Home. 
 
 Mediums of sympathetic co-operation with foreign born 
 women are offered at county fairs, baby week exhibits, clean-up 
 days. Women whose sons, brothers and husbands went to war 
 fraternized in preparing needs for soldiers at the front or in 
 camps, in the civilian relief departments of welfare and war or- 
 .o:anization, in learning how to conserve and can foods, in organ- 
 izing War Savings Clubs, Parent Day Programs at schools and 
 neighborhood houses. Clubs could extend invitations to foreign 
 women to their open meetings and could remember in other ways 
 their sisters with fewer advantages. There are too many inci- 
 dents like that of the woman whose baby died and to whom a 
 teacher in a local school brought flowers— the gift of the school 
 children. The woman at first clung to the flowers which were 
 to ornament the coffin of her dear one. Then she thrust all but 
 one flower back and said, ''Take the roses to Mrs. Kozminsky 
 across the alley; her baby ain't dead yet." 
 
 The mingling of men of foreign stock with those of native 
 blood has been accomplished in a thoroughly democratic way in 
 the ranks of our army of four million men. No single agency in 
 the last half century has done as much as the United States Army 
 to bring men of distinctively American ideals in close touch 
 with those of foreign birth or blood. That all the patriots in 
 the American Army who fell for the cause of justice were not of 
 native ancestry is proven by the names in the casualty lists which 
 show M startingly large percentage of men of foreign stock. It 
 will he a tremendously interesting study to note that certain 
 fjToups of foreigners gave heavily of men who enlisted long be- 
 fore the draft law became effective. 
 
 The working together of these tens of thousands of men in a 
 I'ommon cause against a common enemy has served better than 
 any other one medium in unifying the spirit of America. The 
 preliminaries to a genuine and effective Americanization have 
 been accomplished. Our soldiers have "bridged the Atlantic" not 
 only in fact, but in the theoretic and symbolic sense. Our sol- 
 diers returning will understand much better of how the other 
 half lives and what they have to offer to our citizenship. They 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 27 
 
 are going to be kinder, but firmer ; more sympathetic, but less 
 lax; gentler, but more just, in their administration of all that 
 pertains to the foreigner within our gates. 
 
 Among the citizenry at home the wholesale support of the 
 campaigns for the aid of the soldiers in the camps has shown 
 that unity is the underlying aim of America, for in such "drives'' 
 as the Red Cross, the United War Work Fund and others, the 
 breaking down of man-made barriers of society and religion 
 has been notable particularly in the sweeping away of prejudice 
 between Jew and Gentile, Catholic and Protestant, Sectarianism 
 and Sectionalism in general. When Patrick Henry said, ''I am 
 not a Virginian, but an American," he prepared the way for the 
 millions who were to come later to assert as effectively, "I am 
 not a national of this or that European country, but I am an 
 American." 
 
 The tower of Babel loses its menace of the many-tohgued 
 millions in the universal spirit of those who blend of their own 
 i'cee will in the likeness of the ideal American. 
 
 To seek and acknowledge the good that other nations have 
 achieved as well as to be proud of our own attainments is the 
 aim of the true American. To shut one's eyes to the attainments 
 of people in other lands is worse than provmeialism, it is an 
 affliction. 
 
 It may be true that one nation's accomplishments in some 
 field excel those of another, yet to know what that other has 
 also contributed to the sum total of the world's culture is to 
 know the whole truth. ''Above all nations is humanity." say the 
 Cosmopolites, and ''Above one nation's truth is Truth, pure and 
 simple." John Huss over five hundred years ago wrote, "Hear 
 the truth, learn the truth, love the truth, speak the truth, keep 
 the truth, guard the truth until death." What we need is not. 
 as a Japanese student remarked, "English truth, French truth. 
 German truth, but Truth." 
 
 President Wilson said in his Flag Day address at Washing- 
 ton, June 14, 1916: "When the world finally learns that 
 America is indivisible, then the world will learn how truly and 
 profoundly great and powerful America is." This indivisibility 
 can come only as a result of the acceptance of the integral truth 
 of the nations which have given to us of their children. 
 
28 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 Becoming an American is not the mere adoption of American 
 citizenship, but the actual and complete adjustment of the immi- 
 grant to the American economic, social and moral standards and 
 methods. Americanization has been accomplished only when 
 the immigrant feels and thinks like an American and as a result 
 acts like an American. Being an American is a state of mind, a 
 matter of the ideals one holds and lives up to. 
 
 The Americans will always welcome to these shores those 
 foreigners whose purpose it is to keep the oath of aJlegiance 
 which they pledge to this country of their adoption. This gov- 
 ernment will receive with open arms those who intend to think 
 and feel and act like Americans. Thinking and acting together 
 on the essential principles which represent democracy, indivisi- 
 biliity in loyalty to the flag — living and letting live, giving *'a 
 square deal ' ', that should be the final test for the real American 
 and in this way we can truly bridge the Atlantic. 
 
 Can we not mould into the American ideal the art and un- 
 boastf ul pluck of the French ; the sense of beauty of the Italian ; 
 the idealism and devotion, despite every sorrow of the Slav, be 
 he Russian, Czech, Pole or Serb ; the steadfastness of the Scandi- 
 navian; the liberal democracy of the English; yes, even the 
 merely material efficiency of the German? Will not the trans- 
 fused metal made up of all these splendid constituents become 
 the purest gold? Shall not the perfect Alchemist make of these 
 human ingredients the most gifted and most useful of his crea- 
 tures? The American spirit of live and let live shall absorb and 
 harmonize all elements — and the alien of yesterday will be the 
 American of tomorrow. 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 29 
 
 Recommendations 
 
 The use of the English language as a common means of 
 communication. 
 
 Organization 
 
 Organize Commission consisting of Mayor, School Superin- 
 tendent, Chamber of Commerce, heads of all industrial establish- 
 ments employing foreign born labor, all heads of social service 
 agencies, representatives of all foreign groups, representatives of 
 Labor Bureau, United States Bureau of Naturalization. This 
 commission should appoint sub-eommittees, each of which would 
 be responsible for some one division of the work. 
 
 1. Night Schools 
 
 Establish night schools in the centrally located public 
 schools. 
 
 (a) Secure capable teachers, sympathetic, resourceful, ener- 
 getic, strong social spirit. Have same teacher in 
 charge of day classes and visiting of foreign women. 
 
 (b) What to teach: 
 
 (1) Teach English, speaking, reading, writing. 
 
 (2) Teach History, local, state, American, world, cur- 
 rent events. 
 
 (3) Teach civics, meaning, privileges and responsibili- 
 ties of citizenship. 
 
 (a) Local organizations, health, fire and public 
 departments. 
 
 (b) State organizations. 
 (e) Federal organizations. 
 
 (4) Teach Geography. 
 
 (5) Teach Arithmetic, Book-keeping. 
 
 (6) Teach Stenography, Typewriting. 
 
 (c) Aim to secure socialization of High School. 
 
 (d) Success measured by regularity of attendance. 
 
 (e) Time: Advanced classes, two times weekly; beginning 
 classes, three times weekly. 
 
 2. Afternoon Classes for Immigrant Women 
 
 (a) Personal visits of real help to homes of foreigners. 
 
30 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 (b) Two hour sessions, one for speaking, reading and 
 writing English; one for sewing, cooking, sanitation,, 
 demonstration, stereopticon views. 
 
 3. Industrial Establishments 
 
 (1) Noon sessions. 
 
 (a) Preferably after lunch and before work is re- 
 sumed, five minutes community singing. 
 
 (b) Five minute talk on some phase of city life. 
 
 (1) Sanitation, city, home. 
 
 (2) Avoidance of fire and accidents. 
 
 (3) First Aid. 
 
 (4) Home for orphans, aged, etc. 
 
 (5) Use of public library. 
 
 (6) Significance of impending elections. 
 (e) Talk on some phase of industry. 
 
 Illustrations. 
 Employment agencies. 
 
 (2) Healthful recreation. 
 
 (a) Games, sports. 
 
 (b) Dances, properly directed. 
 
 (c) Singing clubs. 
 
 (3) Economic. 
 
 fa) A decent wage for men and women. 
 
 (b) No discrimination against foreigner in wage for 
 work equal to that of native born laborer. 
 
 (c) Safety appliances in factories and mills. 
 
 4. Public Libraries 
 
 Special attendants to show to the foreign born uses of library, 
 book shelf system, newspaper and magazine racks. Books and 
 magazines in foreign tongue on American subjects. Throw out 
 anti-American papers and articles. Make the place attractive 
 and not a scene of awesome fear. Special art and book exhibits 
 of different national groups. 
 
 ■). Trade Unions 
 
 Urge foreign born members to attend citizenship and night 
 school classes, to take out naturalization papers. Distribute 
 information and helpful pamphlets on significance of American 
 institutions. 
 
PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF AMERICANIZATION 31 
 
 6. Churches 
 
 Invite foreign born to affiliate, but not in spirit of mission- 
 aries. Make them feel at home. There will then be fewer at 
 the public houses which do make them feel at home. 
 
 7. Lodges, Organizations 
 
 Special programs studying customs and histories of our 
 allies and other governments. Sympathetic acknowledgement of 
 achievements of each group. 
 
 8. Child Welfare, Better Baby Tests and Contests, Mothers' 
 and School Patrons' Clubs 
 
 Secure as leaders women of all foreign groups represented 
 in community. Also talks by physicians or specialists, if pos- 
 sible in the language of the foreigner, otherwise in simple, clear 
 English. 
 
 9. Canning and Sewing Classes 
 
 If conducted by trained demonstration agents who have 
 Idiowledge of foreign tongue, these short schools can be doubly 
 useful as agencies of Americanization. Secure attendance of all 
 the women of foreign stock. 
 
 10. Social Welfare Committees. Municipal Commissions 
 
 (a) Inspect and report on housing conditions among for- 
 eign born. Municipal authorities can secure attention of land- 
 lords to sanitation and decent condition of tenants' dwellings. 
 
 (b) Laws against exploitation of foreigners on trains, 
 steamboats, by emplo^^ment agencies, savings associations, private 
 banks, assessment insurance societies, steamship companies, cor- 
 porations, securing contract labor. Correction of maldistribution 
 or overcrowding of foreigners in certain districts. 
 
 (c) Municipal savings clubs, building and loan associations, 
 supervised savings banks and insurance societies, encourage- 
 ment of Postal Savings Bank. 
 
 11. Recreation Agencies 
 
 American sports are fine Americanizers. One well enjoj^ed 
 game of baseball beats twenty sermons on citizenship in mak- 
 ing a man grow into full-fledged happy Americanism. Give the 
 foreign born some fun. A Slavic priest, in speaking of the min- 
 ing element, said, "Our people do not live in America, but under 
 
32 BRIDGING THE ATLANTIC 
 
 America." Let's give them a taste and knowledge of this 
 great typical American game of baseball. Let them enjoy foot- 
 ball, basketball, field sports, track, swimming pools. The theater 
 and movies, with specially selected reels on American history, in- 
 dustries, traditions and ideals may be interspersed profitably be- 
 tween purely entertainment features. 
 12. Speakers, Lecturers 
 
 In native tongue, clear and attractive discussions on public 
 questions, American history and institutions, duties and priv- 
 ileges of citizens, need of team work, and dangers of demagogues 
 and of class-hatreds. 
 
 Statistics of Foreign Bom in Nebraska 
 
 Nebraska 's foreign born population in 1910 was 176,662 in a 
 total population of 1,192,214. Of the foreign born 57,302 were 
 born in Germany; 24,362 in Austria, 23,219 in Sweden; 13,674 
 in Denmark ; 13,020 in Russia (these being chiefly Germans) ; 
 8,124 in Ireland; 8,009 in England; 7,335 in Canada (675 French 
 Canadians); 3,799 in Italy; 3,459 in Greece; all other countries, 
 14,359. 
 
 Only twelve states in the Union have more Germans than 
 Nebraska, which therefore is thirteenth in the matter of German 
 population. It is eleventh in Scandinavian population; twen- 
 tieth in Irish population; thirteenth in number of natives of Aus- 
 tria-Hungary; nineteenth in natives of Russia and Finland; 
 twenty-second in number of natives of England, Scotland and 
 Wales. There were 5,166 individuals of Polish origin in Ne- 
 braska, over two-thirds of whom came from Austria and Ger- 
 many. 
 
 68.1 per cent of Nebraska's foreign population was from 
 northwest Europe and 26.6 per cent from southern and eastern 
 Europe. 
 
 Omaha had in 1910 in its total population of 124,096 a total 
 of 27,179 foreign born, chiefly from Germany, Sweden, Austria- 
 Hungary and Russia. South Omaha, which since 1910 has been 
 annexed to Omaha, had a population of 26,259, of whom 8,021 
 were foreign born, with Austria in a small lead, although every 
 foreign country is fairly represented. Lincoln, in a total pop- 
 ulation of 43,973, had 7,218 foreign born, most of whom are 
 from Germanv or the German settlements of Russia. 
 
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