Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

As the incidence of a library tax in Great Britain is quite different from yours I may perhaps give you some general idea of what it means by taking the case of my own town, simply because I happen to remember the facts more clearly. Croydon is a town in the outer London ring, with a population of 174,257 people. Its income from the penny rate is a little over £4,000 sterling. It circulates about 555,000 volumes per annum and its fiction percentage is about fifty. Whether that is something to be apologized for or not I am not quite clear, after the president's address of last evening. Then one has to remember that the ratable value of a place like Croydon is a good deal higher than the ratable value of most of the provincial towns. But those figures will give you a general idea of the yield of the penny-in-the-pound rate. A rate of that kind results, you will easily see, in the case of the smaller towns, in a condition of genteel poverty, and in the case of many small towns of absolute hopeless starvation. And this unfortunate position has been accentuated by the tremendous growth of branches in recent years. Of the three b's which constitute a library--building, brains and books,--the ordinary British rate-payer thinks mainly of buildings. The building usually does not cost him anything, because he gets it from Mr. Carnegie, and it is something to look at and something "we've got for our ward, don't you know," books will drop from the sky, and "anyhow you don't require brains to hand books over a counter." Hence, from this you have a town, which will perhaps support, in passable efficiency, one central building and two branches, endeavoring to support one central building perhaps and six branches, and so on. Hence the limited book funds which we have in our libraries and hence on the whole the poorly remunerated library staffs.

And that brings me to a point which it was suggested to me by one of your members I should say something about, and that is the position of women in English public libraries. I am not going to express any opinion on the subject of women in libraries. After all, as George Bernard Shaw says somewhere, opinions are really only serious when you act on them, and my capacity for courage has never been equal to the task of acting upon many of my opinions. But as things are at present, a number of libraries employ women assistants. There are very few places where women are chief librarians; there are a few in the quite small towns. There are very few libraries which have women sub-librarians or deputy-librarians. These are almost invariably men. But the number of women employed in secondary and tertiary positions in English public libraries is considerable and is very definitely increasing. And whether that be a good thing or a bad thing, I am quite clear about this, that it is increasing for the wrong reason. Women are employed in English public libraries not because they are better, but because they are cheaper--with the unfortunate result that the increase of women in the library staffs tends necessarily to lower the already low average of salaries paid.

The Library Association have long recognized of course that the root of all our present difficulties lies in the limitation on the library income, and in order to do away with that they have been promoting for the last three or four years or more a library bill, the main clause of which permits a town to levy a rate, not exceeding two-pence-in-the-pound, that is exactly double the present amount. When we originally drafted the bill we did away with the limitation altogether, but we have now put a limitation in order to placate possible opposition. That bill has been already read once before the present parliament--but the first reading of course is a purely formal matter; it is the second reading which is the crucial one; and owing to the exasperating nature of the orders of the House of Commons any one member has only to rise in his seat and say, "I object," to a private member's bill for that bill to be labeled "contentious business" and for its second reading to be deferred to the Greek kalends, owing of course to the enormous number of private members' bills and to the growing inefficiency of the House of Commons as a legislating machine. It is choked with bills and it can not adequately attend to the thousand-and-one matters which call for its attention. The best chance for the bill would be for the government to grant facilities for it. If they would do that I have not the slightest doubt that the bill would pass because so far as we can see there is little or no serious opposition to it; but we can not get it discussed. The unfortunate fact seems to be that the government will not worry about anything which does not sway votes. Nobody is going to get excited about a library bill. If it is true that there is no particular opposition to it, it is also true that there is no crowd of electors passionately demanding it.

Then we suffer to a considerable extent in Great Britain from the attitude of the superior people to the public library. In America all the superior people are sympathetic with the public library--apparently so anyhow. In England usually they sneer at it. Why, Heaven knows! Only the other day a cabinet minister who was considered to be a friend of ours, whose name before he reached cabinet rank was actually a backer to a bill on similar lines to the present one, in a meeting which he addressed referred to the country as being "drenched" with public libraries. I think his point was the far greater importance of public wash-houses or something of that sort. And, as I say, he used the extremely unpleasant, and peculiarly unappropriate adjective "drenched." Now of course no one objects to a cabinet minister talking nonsense. After all, what else can you talk to a popular audience in politics but nonsense? But this particular variety is pernicious nonsense. The press, of course, with their usual avidity for seizing on anything silly, print that sort of thing ad nauseam and a good deal of real harm is done and difficulty created. I think the minister in question has stated somewhere that he owes a great part of his own education to the public library. Mr. Carnegie has said the same thing. Behold how differently men requite the benefits they have received!

Well, Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen, I have perhaps given you the idea that I take a rather pessimistic view of library conditions at the present moment in Great Britain, but that is not so at all--most emphatically not so. I am absolutely convinced that the future of the public library in Great Britain is as certain as it is with you, and though the next step forward may be delayed, the longer it is delayed the bigger that step will be when it is taken.

The PRESIDENT: Mr. Honorary Secretary and our Guest: I would that the gift of speech had been given me that I might adequately express to you the sense of appreciation that we all feel for your coming, for your gracious words of greeting in behalf of your Association and for the view that you have given us of not only the conditions that obtain in Great Britain but also what the future holds forth for the libraries of your country. In our American assemblages it is customary, when some procedure is taken that no one is particularly interested in, to pass it by; but when something transpires that requires further and more careful thought it is our parliamentary custom to refer this to a committee. In this particular case I am sure that I am meeting the wish of the Association as well as my own personal desire when I refer your splendid message to a committee of the whole, consisting of all the librarians present, all the members who have unavoidably been kept at home and that other, smaller group who come within the classification of Mr. Dewey's "private collections." What you have said to us, sir, has emphasized to us particularly that not only is there in the relationship between your libraries in Great Britain and ours in this country a kinship of interest, brought about through identical language, and a kinship of literature, but also there are common aims and aspirations. Just as the language is subject to local variations, due to the customs of geographical centers, so there are differences in method perhaps. But, after all, we are each, in our own way, attempting to do the same things and to achieve a common purpose. I trust, sir, that you will convey to your associates in Great Britain our gratitude for the kindly expressions which you have brought to us from them, and we venture the hope that we shall be enabled to carry forward the splendid precedent which has been set in your coming.

As you glance at the names of those who are to participate at this session, you will note that this is practically New York Day; the one, sole participant who is credited to another part of the country is after all perhaps merely loaned to Missouri, because he is a graduate of the New York library school. I shall ask the First Vice-President, Mr. Anderson, to preside over the rest of this meeting.

The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: Ladies and gentlemen, I can take that kind of punishment with great composure. The subject for the regular program this morning, as you all know, is work with foreigners and with the colored races. I have the honor to be a neighbor of the first speaker and I may say to you confidentially that she has recently moved a mile or two farther away from me without adequate explanation. The author of "The Promised Land" needs no introduction to this audience. All of you have read with enthusiasm and appreciation the chapter of her book in which she testifies to the value of the service of the Boston public library to her. It gives me very great pleasure to introduce to you MARY ANTIN, who will talk to you on

THE IMMIGRANT IN THE LIBRARY

It is very difficult to be interesting or impressive while telling people things that they already know. I won't try to do that. Any one of you sitting in this audience could tell me a great deal more about the immigrant in the library than I can possibly tell you. What I am going to do is to ask you to have in mind what you know about the immigrant, to call up the figure of the immigrant in your libraries as you have seen him daily, and test by your knowledge what I have to say.

You know better than I do in what numbers the immigrants come to your libraries, how much of their time they spend there, what books they seek there. What I want to ask you is to share your knowledge of these things with as many people as possible; tell your neighbors every time you have a chance what the immigrant does in the library. Every little while we begin anew the discussion of the immigrant--to let him in, or not to let him in--and all sorts of arguments are presented on both sides. Representatives of various organizations--capitalistic, unionistic or what-not--hurry their advocates to Congress to speak for or against, on this side and on that side. I want to ask you to see to it that the knowledge that you have of the immigrant is also widely spread on such occasions. The caricaturist is always ready with his pencil to give us pictures of the immigrant in various amusing poses--more or less true, more or less false; the interesting author of the comic paragraph is always there; the artist of the vaudeville stage, and enthusiasts of one sort and another--enemies or friends of the immigrant--are ready to speak up whenever the question comes up. ~You~ have a fund of knowledge on the subject which is very special, very different. Bring it out on every occasion! When the gentlemen in Congress want to pass a law to hold up the immigrant at the gate because he cannot read fifty lines of our Constitution, say to them, "Hold! Wait and see what the immigrant's boys and girls will read when they are let loose in a public library." Remind them that the ability to read is not in itself a test of intellectuality. You know scores, hundreds of boys and girls of educated, cultured American families who do not take such an interest in your libraries as the boys and girls of these illiterate immigrants. You know what you know. Please tell it so loudly that every one may hear. Talk about the "five-foot shelf of classics"! Is it not true that the boys and girls of the immigrants swallow it whole and make no boast about it? Why, they are saturated with the classics the minute they get a chance. The mere ability to read--what does that amount to? You know what book the immigrant calls for. Every little while I read a short paragraph in the New York papers telling that the East Side branches of the public library have the greatest circulation of the classics. I would like to see those little paragraphs enlarged, printed big and spread where everybody can see them. We need to know these things.

Please let me speak today as an American, and not as an immigrant. I wish I could efface from your memory this once the knowledge of my origin. Don't make allowances for what I say because of what I was. I am not speaking as an immigrant making an appeal for the immigrants. I am speaking to you as an American. My credentials are these: I have been with you nearly twenty years. My father was an Americanized citizen before I got here and I married a native American. Please accept me as an American today. Let me speak as one of yourselves.

We are so ready to classify people by externals--by their habits, their customs, by the way they dress, by their gestures. Why, a better test of a man than the way in which he makes a living is the way in which he spends his leisure; and to that you can testify in the case of the immigrant. To gain our bread and butter we are forced to do this, that, and the other thing. But nobody drives us into the public library if the saloon is across the way. Speak up and tell to which door the immigrant turns in his leisure hours. People of dainty habits are disgusted with the personal habits of the poor foreigners. They have noticed a smell of herring and onions in the East Side of New York. The smell of onions, my friends, can be driven out, but a mean habit of mind is harder to eradicate. Many gentlemen who feast daintily on caviar content themselves with the sensational newspaper or the trashy novel. Are they superior to the hired laborers who feast on boiled potatoes and herring and onions and have a volume of the classics propped up before them while they eat? There are people who object to the uncouth manners of the alien. It would do us good to make a study of the natural history of the personal habits of the immigrants. There is a reason for the shrug of the shoulders, for the gestures that are so easily caricatured. They have a history, way back, that it would do us good to realize.

You workers in the libraries, you see the immigrant in hundreds, you see him off guard; for a man in his hours of relaxation is not posing; you see the alien as he is at least on one side of his nature. Let your neighbors know what you know about the immigrant. Whenever testimony is being taken on the subject, let your voice be as loud as any. Almost every day you will read in your favorite paper letters to the editor, about "the immigrant peril"; how the foreigners lower our standard of life, demoralize our habits, spoil the manners of our children in the public schools. Some of these things are true, to a certain extent. But you, under whose observation the immigrant comes, and the immigrant's children, ought to be ready with an explanation of many of these things, and you ought to be ready to suggest a remedy. You know what kind of homes these immigrant children come from, and that explains a great deal. You sit there and agree with me, I can see by your faces. You nod and you smile and you turn to one another, as much as to say, "That is so." Don't tell it to me! I know it!! Tell it to those who do not know it.

A few days ago I received a delegation of boys and girls from the nearest village high school. They represented the debating clubs of their school. They were preparing a debate on the subject of immigration, and who could help them except I? We talked very earnestly for about an hour at my fireside about this perennial question, and these young people took me at my word and were very much in earnest about what I had to say and in the way in which they received what I had to say. That is all right. As a subject for discussion in the high schools that question may be made immortal, but as a subject for national agitation it ought to be laid at rest. Why is it that certain questions have been settled once and for all and others are always being reopened? Those questions are settled finally which are considered in relation to their underlying principles. Let us not confine ourselves to the superficial aspect of the immigration question.

Every once in a while, when we come to moralize about these immigrants--there are too many of them, they come from the wrong quarters of the globe, and what not--let us ask ourselves, Is that the real thing that concerns us, or is there something at the bottom of this agitation that ought to receive attention first? Are we really afraid that the immigrant is going to take the bread from our mouths? If so, let us stop and think about it. It is the law of nature that the best man shall come out ahead. Are we going to stop the immigrant by temporarily locking the door, while we have possession of the key? It will not be for long. Right to the end it is going to be a struggle between the better and the worse, and the better will get ahead. We need not be afraid that the immigrants will take the bread from our mouths if we see to it that we are equally able or better able than they to earn our bread. It is said they are taking the earth from under our feet. Not if we are strong enough to stand and hold our ground. If they are getting the better of us, it is because they are better than we, or else, if that is not so, then they can not be getting the better of us, and we need not be afraid of them.

We will never settle this question until we are willing to consider it along fundamental lines. Did our forefathers, when they launched the declaration that all men were created free and equal, refer to the few hundreds or few thousands of people who were then in this country? Why, in that case, many of you are here only as guests! Was there any thought in their minds that of all the people in the world, those who happened to get in here before they set to work to compose the Declaration of Independence were the ones who were born free and equal, and with equal opportunities, and all the rest of mankind with limitations? You heartily approve the sentiments expressed in our Constitution and our Declaration of Independence. How then can you limit the application of their principles? When did the day dawn when it was time to shut the gate? When did the hour arrive when we could say that all those of free and equal origin were already here and the rest could stay outside? I don't know at what moment immigrants begin to be immigrants and not pilgrims and voyagers for spiritual freedom.

People were surprised at a phrase I used not long ago, and quoted it right and left, as if I had made a great discovery, when I said that every ship that brings over the immigrants is another Mayflower. Why, I can not think of it in any other terms. Ships are now made to run with steam instead of with sails, and our forefathers did not come in the steerage because the Mayflower wasn't built that way.

You see I am not sticking to my text--a proof of an inexperienced speaker. But I am not a speaker. I am a witness on the witness stand. I have been called from the ranks to testify. Now each of you is in the same position. It would have been an impertinence on my part to get up before a body of scholars without a finished address, if I had any idea that I was going to make an intellectual contribution. I simply answer to my name as a witness, and each of you can do no less: testify to what you know. Now remember I am not asking this for the sake of the immigrant. If this were the proper time and place I would tell you just how, in what order, my interest in the immigrant on the one hand and in America on the other developed. With me it was America first, and it still is so. I was not conscious of the immigrant as a special class of our citizenship until I became conscious of certain American problems. It is with me the immigrant for the sake of America, not America for the sake of the immigrant, and I beg you to believe me. And why do I insist that all the truth you know about the immigrant shall be brought out? I am not speaking--I can not repeat it emphatically enough--because I am an immigrant, not even because I represent that specially large group of immigrants, the Jews. If America should go back on its ancient traditions and close its hospitable doors, the Jews would suffer bitterly. But what is one more disappointment in the history of the Jews? They have known how to lift up their hearts and thank God for disappointments before. They would simply adopt another dream. It is not for them that I speak. Nor is it because I am a great lover of justice. I want to see that justice is done to the stranger, to be sure; let us know all sides of the immigrant that no injustice may be done. But the thing that makes me speak to you more than any other is my love for America, for the ideals that I was taught to cherish in the public school. I took everything in my school books literally; when I read that this is the land of freedom; that the door is open to all worthy men and women, and that all shall have an equal opportunity. I want to hold you to that, to a literal interpretation of those terms.

I went back to Russia two years ago, to Polotzk on the Dvina, the city in the Pale where I was born, and again I felt as I felt in the beginning, when I first came here, after seeing how those people over there regard us. They still take us at our word. When we turn them away at the gate, for this and that petty excuse at the bottom of which is some selfish motive that we do not dare to acknowledge, they are bitterly disappointed. And yet they are not the worst sufferers. It is we who suffer, we as Americans, for in turning them away we abandon our ideals, and lose the consciousness that we are still conserving the ideals of our forefathers. It always seems to me that in our attitude towards the immigrant, more than in any other branch of our national policy, we make manifest our true ideals. In our formal dealings with foreign governments we may make blunders, we may betray weaknesses, but on the whole these matters remain a secret with the foreign ambassador. The people at large do not follow very closely these dignified negotiations about treaties and tariff and what-not; but as we meet these individual men and women at the gate, here we give ourselves away. There, at the gate of entrance, we, the people of America, deal directly with the people of the world. The immigrant with his million eyes is looking at us, and he will tell whether or not we still believe in the things for which we honor our forefathers on all our patriotic anniversaries.

There was a young Jewish girl working in my household as a cook, who had been through very unhappy experiences in this country, experiences which, unfortunately, have been multiplied in the lives of many other girls who come here unprotected. She told me her story once, and I saw that what hurt her more than her own misfortunes, more than the agony she had been through, more than the disgrace she had suffered, was her disappointment in America. She found that in America, in this instance that she knew of in her own life, a man may do a gross wrong and there is no way to get hold of him and punish him. She had times of discouragement when she would talk to me and complain of that thing. Oh, it shook me to find that in the mind of this ignorant, illiterate child of seventeen, we, the American people, had lost something of our prestige. I talked to her--perhaps the need inspired me--and explained to her that our laws, like the laws of civilization at large, are not yet perfect; that law and civilization are things of gradual growth; and showed her that although we are still to blame for many things that here exist, we have done far better than other people in some respects. I made it my business to try to prove to this ignorant Russian girl, my cook, who waited on me every day, that America was still America, despite some mistakes and some failings, and that, on the whole, we have gone further in the quest of justice than other nations. It mattered to me that this one girl should think we were still Americans, and surely it matters to you just as much.

Do not let these millions that come to our gates get the wrong impression of us. Do not let people with selfish interests to serve, who send representatives to Congress, speak louder than you do when this question comes to be discussed. Let the truth out every time. For the sake of our country I am asking it, not for the sake of the unfortunate foreigners. We owe them something, as a people of charitable heart, to be sure, but we owe more to ourselves and to our traditions.

This same girl of whom I speak also afforded an illustration of some of the nobler traits of many of our immigrants that you are aware of, and that you ought to testify to. I mean the reverence for learning that is found among the ignorant, the illiterate, of many of our immigrants. This girl who could not read or write a word in any language until she came to me (when gradually, by means of the cook-book, she made some progress), had a genuine reverence for learning, which is in itself half of the material for making a scholar. I kept her pretty busy in my household, as I usually do keep our maids, and sometimes, when there would be a rush of more work than I could do, I would put her to extra trouble, to bring my luncheon upstairs, perhaps, when I could not stop for meals. "Oh, Miss Antin," she used to say, "it is wonderful that I can wait on somebody who can write books!" A respect for letters such as this is not one of our prominent characteristics as Americans. I ought to have the courage of our foreign visitor, who told the truth about his people. I can do no less. We can not boast of too much reverence for learning. Is it not a great asset these foreigners bring with them, this reverence for learning? The man behind the pushcart can't read fifty lines of the Constitution, but his heart bows in reverence before the man who can, and that is worth more than the ability to read the Constitution and forget it.

There are so many ways of classifying the immigrants--as laborers, as a peril, as a help, according to one's point of view. But I always think of them as a cloud of witnesses in the tribunal of the nations. They go back and forth, in person or through letters; their experience is reported all over the world, and they tell the truth about us. The immigrant is the only visitor, you know, who comes to stay and finds us out. The tourists, the critics, the honorable guests of various honorable institutions, who are taken around in carriages and shown our best front, what do they know about us? The letters home that go out from the East Side, shiploads of letters, some of them written at dictation, sent by persons who cannot write themselves--(I used to write letters for my cook; I have never forgotten some of them)--those are the documents that go all over the world. They are forming their opinion of us in the far corners of the earth. What shall they say of us?

If you see that justice is done in the case of the immigrant, they will have no evil to say of us. Our traditions of liberty, of hospitality to the oppressed, will be realized in the eyes of the world.

Now it does not matter that the immigrants today may not be running away from religious oppression, or may not be victims of political martyrdom. Martyrdom of the worst kind is martyrdom of the spirit, and immigrants who have suffered such martyrdom are still coming to us by the shipload. It is accurate to say, in a certain way, that the immigrants in the beginning came in search of liberty, and today they come in search of bread. That may all be, but with most of our present-day immigrants, if you give them bread and nothing else, they are not satisfied. You know it. And I know what the people said in Polotzk only two years ago. If any of you thought, from reading my story, that I had put down the reminiscences of my early childhood, with the haze of the past over all, that I had idealized everything in my enthusiasm, I can assure you that while my story was in manuscript I went back to Polotzk, to find out if I had told the truth, and I found that I had. I found there my old rabbi, my teacher who taught me my Hebrew letters. I talked with various of the old scholars, who were very old when I got back after seventeen years' absence--these old men who spend their time over the Talmud in the corridors of the synagogues--and I found among them just that attitude toward America which I remembered to have existed when I came away nearly twenty years ago. They look on us today as on the upholders of justice and true liberty. They still believe in us.

Do not let them lose that faith! It is more to us than it is to them that they shall be satisfied in their high longings. That is all I ask of you. You know the immigrant as he is in the library; you have a view of him that most people have not. You send your little paragraphs to the New York papers. They are not printed big enough. Nobody sees them. Speak up and tell what you know about the immigrant, that justice may be done, that we may remain sound-headed and true-hearted in our national life, true to our traditions; and the immigrant will hear with a million ears and see with a million eyes and run with a million feet to the far corners of the earth, to cry that America is still America.

The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: I shall ask you to rise as an expression of thanks and appreciation of Miss Antin's address. (The audience remained standing for a moment.)

The next speaker will discuss the subject of immigrants as contributors to library progress. It gives me very great pleasure to introduce to you Mrs. ADELAIDE B. MALTBY, who is in charge of the Tompkins Square branch, on the lower East Side, of the New York public library.

IMMIGRANTS AS CONTRIBUTORS TO LIBRARY PROGRESS

I should prefer to let Miss Antin's personality and accomplishments bear home to you the point I had hoped to make; and silently let what she has said to us possess our imaginations to the end that our interest and will-to-do will be vigorously stirred. Fortunately, this will happen in spite of my words.

A little girl with a fairy book in her hand gleefully remarked: "I can tell what kind of stories are in the book by the continents." Would that we could so tell the stories of our peoples! Yet the story of immigrants in this country is not unlike that of the "Ugly Duckling;" and Miss Antin is living proof of the swan-like qualities. We, as a nation, have persisted in hatching the odd egg; have been apparently proud of the duckling's ability to swim untaught, like other ducks; and were duly troubled, when because of his unlikeness, he was not acceptable to closer acquaintance with cock and gander in the barn-yard. We have witnessed, with but feeble protest, his struggle to feel at home, his association with wild ducks and all it entailed. It seems as if the winter of his agony is enduring. He's had a stirring within as of something better to come! The question is will we make greater effort to recognize the swan-like qualities and to give freedom for their development? In this direction lies progress.

As contributors, I shall not single out great personalities from among our foreigners. They will belong to history. Nor do I mean only the well educated groups. They are generally accorded recognition. But I do name the masses who earn just consideration slowly.

First of all, immigrants have kept us alive in every generation. Shall we say on the "qui vive" in some localities? All agree that living is no minor art, so to stimulate life is a contribution. Frank Warne in his book, the "Immigrant Invasion," tells how the distribution of immigrants previous to our civil war practically determined the outcome of that struggle, by giving to the North balance of power in Congress because of larger population, which was made up of able-bodied men who replaced Federal soldiers and kept shops and farms going to furnish supplies to the army. It is interesting to note that Mr. Warne ascribes the trend of immigration to the north and west very largely to what was read in the old countries about life in different parts of America, mentioning "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as the one product of literature most influencing distribution.

Cold statistics tell us that New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Illinois and California have the greatest number of foreign born. With this as a basic fact we naturally suppose that in these states, at least, public libraries will be found catering to and helping to Americanize and to educate these citizens-to-be; because, if for no other reason, we proudly call ourselves the "university of the people." If the truth were told through questionnaire, or otherwise, about twenty-five out of one hundred libraries throughout New York state are sufficiently alive to the problem to supply books to attract and interest foreigners. Yet for twenty years, at least, the task of assimilating the almost overwhelming influx of immigrants has been acute in the states named and in many localities elsewhere. A gentleman working for the education of foreigners in American ways has said that he thought libraries seemed most indifferent to their opportunities. While another, a foreigner, devoting himself and two fortunes to bettering conditions for immigrants, thinks that public libraries, when they do work sympathetically--I mean that in the broadest sense--with the foreign born are the only organizations which accomplish with real altruism the implanting of American ideals and the developing of better citizens. This, he believes, is done when we appreciate and build on the natural endowment of the individual or race.

Since the national government has been facing this stupendous problem, commissions and organizations galore, official and philanthropic, have sprung into existence as aids. So many are there in New York City alone, a possible list would bewilder one! Yet in how many reports of such work when educational assets of communities are being cited, is there mention made of libraries as a force in educating the immigrant? Through libraries, however, more than through most educational agencies may self-expression and development of natural gifts be realized by individuals of all ages and nationalities. Where does the trouble lie? Have we been open-minded or eager enough to discover the excellent contributions foreigners bring to the end that we respond to live issues, thus building progressively?

Old habits can be changed to new compunctions. There is no standardized method of discovering or of spiritualizing men, of holding intercourse with aliens or of receiving what they bring; but we can develop sympathy and understanding, by knowing the people as individuals, their countries, literatures, languages, arts, great national characters--in a word, their histories, even to economic conditions. Thereby do we come to an understanding of reasons for immigration of the present day and of aspirations for life here. Thus equipped mentally for further sympathetic appreciation, first hand observation of conditions will help; or if that is not possible, an imaginative putting ourselves in the immigrants' places from the time they leave their old world homes with all their worldly goods in their hands and, in spite of homesickness and fears, with courage and hope in their hearts--with them as they exist in their steerage quarters and with them when they pass through the portals and mazes of Ellis Island, in the main uncomprehendingly but always trustfully. I can not attempt here to draw the detailed picture; but if you cannot see it for yourself, Mr. Edward Steiner gives it graphically and faithfully in his "On the Trail of the Immigrant." At last, the Federal government accessions the immigrant. He is passed on, properly numbered, to be shelf-listed by states, cities and towns, coming finally to libraries and other institutions to be cataloged. It remains to us then to decide for our own work whether there shall be one entry under the word "alien" or whether his various assets shall be made available by analytical entries.

Somewhat of all this we must know to appreciate what the immigrant can contribute to life here, and to library progress, if we are wise enough to call it forth or make opportunity for its expression. It is vain to hope for the assimilation of the alien as a result of conscious benevolent effort. We too often forget that each of the hundreds of thousands is a human being! With a sense of the finest they can bring with them, we should have an increasing knowledge of how they live here, what they think and how these elements can be influenced by books and personal contact. The pressure of a congested neighborhood goads to thoughtful search for remedies.

No one will go far along these paths without realizing how avid libraries must be to reap the benefits of such diverse gifts, rather than to suffer from the dregs. We must correlate books and people as never before to attain progress.

"If we once admit the human, dynamic character of progress, then it is easy to understand why the crowded city quarters become focal points of that progress." As an earnest of what is being done in many libraries elsewhere, may I tell of our work in New York, of that only because I know it best. What has been done in one place and more, can be done in another through interest, desire and adaptation.

The necessity of having the library near the people for whom its use is intended is, of course, recognized. This is more especially true when the people are foreigners. The New York public library has forty-one branches and all that are located in districts where foreigners live have, beside English books, collections of books in languages native to the residents. By so doing we believe that we convince of our friendship those adults who do not and even those who may never read English. This is a fundamental necessity, opening up various possibilities for imparting American ideas and ideals. The less English the grown people read the more they need knowledge of true American ideas to help keep them in touch with their children, who rapidly take on ways and manners strange to their parents, many of whom are uncomprehending, reticent and often sad. We go still further. We have assistants of the nationalities represented in the neighborhood, whose special duty it is to make known to their peoples the library privileges, also to know their people individually as far as possible and, of course, the books. Right here may I say that a foreign born assistant imbued with respect for her own countrymen and with true American ideals can in her enthusiasm do more to make real citizens than many Americans. This cannot be accomplished if, as happens with so many young foreigners, their own people as we see them in this country, are held in contempt. It were pity to scorn the strong qualities they possess, these "Greenies," as they call themselves. They live daily too close to the vital facts of existence to develop self-consciousness or artificialities to any great extent. We talk of simplicity. They have it. Courage, singleness of purpose, happiness in modest circumstances and astonishing capacity for work are elements of everyday life unconsciously developed. Their wealth of imagination, fostered by their own folk-lore and early traditions, could not be more wonderfully illustrated than it has been just recently in New York. The majority of us think of New York and other large cities as vast factories with the machine-like and vicious qualities of human nature uppermost, so it is most refreshing to contemplate "Old Home Week in Greenwich Village" and the "Henry Street Pageant."

"Old Home Week" successfully recalled Greenwich Village history in a dramatic way to its residents--American, Irish and Italian--and aroused a new sense of fellowship in sharing the district's activities.

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Henry Street Settlement, a pictorial representation of the history of the neighborhood from the days of the Indians to the present time was given by its residents--men, women and children--before an assemblage of spectators from all parts of the city and representative of all its activities--civic and social. The last living picture, or episode, was of all the nationalities that have lived in the last fifty years in Henry Street, once the center of Manhattan's fashionable life. The Irish, the Scotch, the Germans, the Italians and the Russians appeared. They sang the songs and danced the dances that contribute so much poetry to the life of the city, while onlookers marveled at the temperamental qualities which made it possible for foreigners to reproduce with unconscious realism historical scenes of a city and a country not their own!

Such neighborhood pageants as this and the celebration in Greenwich Village, exert a wholesome and a permanent influence in our municipal life. In both these events the libraries of the neighborhoods took part. The library aimed to show that folk-songs and folk-dances are kept alive by folk-stories. The contrast between old New York and the present time was shown by the use of historical scenes--lantern slides--and a story; in the one case reminiscent of early Dutch settlers and in the other a poetic interpreting of the spirit of service in municipal life. Those planning the pageant felt that this was a direct help in making atmosphere or in inducing an interpretive mood in participants. Festival occasions like these bind together by national ties the people and institutions of a neighborhood and are rich with possibilities for the library. To a delightful degree they broaden our understanding of the folk-spirit.

So it seems natural to have stories in the library told by foreigners in their native tongues. From time to time we have groups of Bohemians, Germans, Hungarians, Italians listening to old world traditions and tales. Knowing the original and the translation enhances the value of the story in English for narrator and listeners. Through these story hours we are reminding the foreigner of his unique contribution to life here, and are showing our respect for his best. For a simple example, our picture books and book illustration in general do not express life as vividly or realistically as Russian, Bohemian or Swedish artists do. Having some of these in our juvenile collections has been a distinct contribution to establishing sympathetic relations with foreigners.

Yes, it is true that the Italian laborer loves Dante and Italian classics. It is relatively true of other nationalities. If we take for granted that we should know and libraries should have, French and German standard writers--and this largely because their literature is older, more translated or their languages better known--may we not also take for granted that literary history is still in the making? Should we not bestir ourselves to know latter-day masterpieces, if such there be, and the older literature which has helped mould or inspire writers of them, in Swedish, Finnish, Bohemian, Polish, Hungarian or any other language spoken by the people surrounding us? Perhaps the need of realizing what these literary contributions may mean can be emphasized by the fact that in one week, June 2 to June 9, 1913, thirty thousand souls, nearly five thousand daily, passed the man at the Eastern gateway. Eighty per cent or thereabouts are going beyond New York City these days.

Is the Hungarian's enjoyment of Jokai or their patriot poets for Hungarians alone? One can better appreciate how to sustain effort and enthusiasm in a person or a group of this nationality if one knows that much of their best poetry came almost from the cannon's mouth on the field of battle; and if one has seen the glistening eyes and heard the voices of kerchief-capped girls and boys in trousers to shoe tops as they sang in ringing tones "Esküszünk!" and then heard their national song in English for the first time. At home they may not celebrate their Independence Day, March 15; but when they are invited to, here, in the library, they do it with much genuine feeling and true sentiment, which I believe leads them to appreciate and adopt as their own our Independence Day. Through such as they, perhaps, patriotic sentiment and feeling may once more be evident in our Fourth of July celebrations.

If we try to think of a library without the contributions of writers of other nationalities, we must face almost empty shelves in some classes of knowledge. This makes us realize more clearly that immigrants have rich possessions by right of inheritance while these are ours only by adoption. Some of the newcomers to our shores may have lost their heritage temporarily; but they will warmly cherish as a friend the library that restores to them this valuable possession and for us that friendship is preeminently a contribution.

There are other special ways in which the library seems happily successful in forming such friendships. With adults it comes through our co-operation with neighborhood associations, or organizations working for the benefit of foreigners, such as the Y. M. C. A. and Y. W. C. A. who conduct in our lecture rooms classes to teach English to foreigners. In these instances it is our pleasure to supplement with books the copies treated. The book work is, perhaps, most marked in connection with the English classes where we have opportunity to watch progress and needs of the individual more carefully from the time when an eager pupil may ask, as one did, for a book called a "Woman's Tongue" wanting Arnold's "Mother Tongue" to his reading of Hale's "Man without a country," perhaps, or Andrews' "The perfect tribute." There are also many semi-social, semi-educational clubs, or associations, which hold their meetings in the libraries. The Slavia is a Bohemian club, which has as its only meeting place the Bohemian department of one of our branches. Its members have done much to help form a splendid Bohemian library. Several Hungarian associations work in co-operation with three branches, where are collections of Hungarian books. A large Polish society gives its educational lectures twice a month in one branch and its advice in the selection of books; but perhaps the "German Association for Culture" best illustrates my point. They state: "We are working for culture, and we aim to give the Germans in America and the Americans a better understanding of our contemporary German literature and art. We are bending our efforts more particularly for our members who as artists, poets, writers, etc., are producing valuable works. And we want to help as much as possible those talented artists, poets, etc., who are not yet known." Their distinction is that they succeed! Even in the et ceteras!

As concrete instances of other possible contributions by foreigners to library progress, I want to tell of the discussion of one City History Club chapter and the action of a settlement organization. The membership in both is composed of foreign-born young men from sixteen to twenty years of age, and both groups interest themselves in present day civic welfare. The Settlement Club wrote to the mayor, comptroller, library trustees and several daily papers a dignified plea for increase in library appropriation and in salaries. The year's closing meeting of a certain City History Club was a discussion of the city budget, the club members representing New York's mayor, aldermen and comptroller. The main contention of the majority was that cutting the appropriation of the public library meant seriously handicapping one of the city's most efficient servants and they ended with a warm appreciation of service rendered by library assistants and a vigorous plea for better salaries. This was later reproduced for an audience of representative citizens by the City History Club as a token typical of their work. Both these happenings came as complete surprises to librarians. It seems as if in their eagerness to "get on" young foreigners, especially, seek and use every possible public means for advancement. They soon appreciate what good service means and how to get it. They make us feel toward what ends they are tending and suggest definitely our part in the building for civic betterment.

To sum up, immigrants do bring very rich contributions in arts and literature. They bring many capabilities, that of acquiring intellectual cultivation being not the least among them. I am not blind to the seriousness of the problems they create, having worked among them about ten years; but the conviction strengthens that knowing and understanding their racial and social inheritance and first hand contact with groups of individuals stimulate to broader thought and living. It is not an argument! It is a suggestive statement! Immigrants can contribute to library progress.

The FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT: We will now have a paper from Mr. CHARLES E. RUSH, the librarian of the St. Joseph public library, on

THE MAN IN THE YARDS

This great country of ours has become within the last century a huge "melting pot" for all the nations of the world. Foreign and English speaking tongues from the four corners of the earth have sought our shores as a haven of relief and opportunity. No other nation has experienced a like growth and none other has ever gained the changing cosmopolitan characteristics which have come to us from such widely differing component parts. Those of us who call ourselves Americans owe our life, liberty and happiness to the conditions which brought about this great growth and upon us devolves the great burden of relieving many of the unfortunate conditions which naturally result from the continued and increasing wave of humanity still seeking better things in our so-called land of freedom and equality.