Chapter V: Introduction: 9 (4)

Children there will be, Nature sees to that; but what kind of children can be begotten in our slums?

The slums in America are as much a national disgrace as they are a national menace. The gunmen of New York were bred in hovels which even the home-making genius of the Jewish people could not turn into homes, or make fit for the training of children to decent living.

You who go slumming to see the sights, and turn up your sensitive noses at the bad smells, and your eyes to heaven, thanking God that you “are not as other men,” must not forget that the vast majority of our foreign-born workers are compelled to live as they do by economic and social forces, which they cannot control.

You remain ignorant of the brave struggles for the home, and the heroic stand for virtue behind those sooty walls. You know nothing of the fear of God, the desire to obey His law, and the love of their country, which filters in to those receptive souls.

The growth and power of the I. W. W., a revolutionary organization of the most radical type, anti-national, anti-religious, repudiating God and State with horrifying blasphemy, were made possible by the fact that our industrial leaders, our so-called “hard-headed business men,” have the hard spot in their hearts and a very soft spot in their heads.

Of all the blind men I have met, the blindest are those farsighted ones who see wealth in everything, and every common bush aflame with gold, and see nothing else. Blind they are to their own larger good, blind to the nation’s needs, blind to the signs of the times. The social weal of our country is in the hands of the most unsocial....

As I analyze my own relation to the nation of which I am as much a part as if I had been born under its flag, I find that it rests itself upon the feeling of gratitude. Not for the bread I eat, for I had bread enough in my native country; not for the comfort of home, for I had fair comforts before I came; not even for liberty and democracy as abstractions, or even as embodied in the State; for I have found that freedom is within, and democracy a matter of attitude towards one’s fellows.

I am grateful for the chance I have had here to develop unhampered my own self, for a certain largeness of vision which I think I would not have developed anywhere else; for the richness which a broad, unhindered contact with all sorts and conditions of men has brought into my life.

There is something more than gratitude in my heart now. There is a larger sense of the values I received which I have not yet appropriated. There is in my heart a sublime passion for America. Would it have grown into the burning flame it is, if I had always worked in New York’s sweat-shops?

If I had been beaten by New York’s police? If I had reared my family in a tenement, and had to send my children to work when they should have played and studied?

If I had known America only through her yellow journalism, and sensed her spirit only in ward elections? I do not know.

What has kept me from becoming an Anarchist, from being jailed or hanged for leading mobs against their despoilers, God alone knows. His guidance is as unquestioned as it is mysterious. There were disclosed to me, early in my career, in some strange way, the spiritual values latent here. In spite of the gross, granite-like materialism at the top, I discovered the richness of the heritage left by the fathers of this Republic; in spite of the poverty and hardship in which I had to share, I saw here the fine quality of its vision; in spite of the crudeness of its blundering ways, all the love a man may have for a country grew in my heart, and changed only in growing stronger. Yet I am not in the mood to call to account those toilers whose patriotism is less fervent than mine and whose ideals are still held in check by the “stomach line.”

Editors and preachers, teachers and capitalists, with all the loud if not mighty host of us who are yammering about the want of patriotism among the masses, and the weakness of our national spirit; we are the first who must move a notch higher in our love of country and above the “stomach line.” We must make real the spiritual ideals for which this country stands, or at least try to realize them, before we can teach the alien and his children, or even our own, the meaning of liberty and democracy. Before we can ask them to die for our country we shall have to learn to live for it, and the definite task we have before us is not the mere idolatry of our flag, or the making of shard and shell.

To provide an adequate wage for our men, to so arrange our industrial order that there shall not be feverish activity to-day, and idleness, poverty, bread lines and soup kitchens to-morrow. To make working conditions tolerable, to provide against accidents and sickness, unemployment and old age, and to be true to the life about us.

These are national factors, essential to the making of an effective national state in our industrial age. Capital, in common with labor, must learn how to lend itself to the national purpose; for we have come upon a time, or the time has come upon us, when we must learn how to melt all classes, all sections and all races into a final unit. This is the time to touch the hearts and gain the confidence of all the people by a high regard for all, so that together we may turn our faces towards our ultimate goal....

The Commonwealth Steel Company of Granite City, Illinois, one of those remarkable corporations with a soul, whose business is rooted in the ideal of service, found its foreign laborers quartered in what was called “Hungry Hollow.” This company so exemplified the American spirit of fair play that, when the foreign employees were aroused to proper civic pride, they rebaptized “Hungry Hollow” into “Lincoln Place,” because Lincoln’s spirit was manifested towards them.

The Lincoln Progressive Club, as they named their organization, has as its immediate aim the study of the English language, and Americanization.

I wish there might be erected in every industrial center a statue of Abraham Lincoln for masters and men to see and reverence, thus being reminded of their duty towards each other and towards their common country.

What a people we could become if the immortal words he spoke were graven upon the pedestal of such a statue, “With malice towards none, with charity towards all,” ... to greet our eyes daily, and to challenge our conduct.

The history of the United States since the Civil War has not yet been written, for it is the story of an epoch just closing. It marks the sudden leaping of a people into wealth, if not into power; the fabulous growth of cities, the end of the pioneer stage, the beginning of an industrial period, and the pressure of economic and social problems towards their solution.

At least twenty millions of people have come full grown into our national life from the steerage, the womb out of which so many of us were born into this newer life. Most of us came to build and not to destroy; we came as helpers and not exploiters; we brought virtues and vices, much good and ill, and that, not because we belonged to this or the other national or racial group, but because we were human.

It is as easy to prove that our coming meant the ill of the nation as that it meant its well-being. To appraise this fully is much too early; it is a task which must be left to our children’s children, who will be as far removed from to-day’s scant sympathies as from its overwhelming prejudices.

The great war has swung us into the current of world events, and it ought to bring us a larger vision of the forces and processes which shape the nations and make their peoples. As yet we are thinking hysterically rather than historically, and the indications are that we may not learn anything, nor yet unlearn, of which we have perhaps the greater need.

Thus far we have become narrower rather than broader, for the feeling towards our alien population is growing daily less generous, and our treatment of it less wise.

Nor am I sure in what wisdom consists; the situation is complex; for we are the Balkan with its national, racial and religious contentions. We are Russia with its Ghetto, its Polish and Finnish problem. We are Austria and Hungary with their linguistic and dynastic difficulties. We are Africa and Asia; we are Jew and Gentile; we are Protestant and Greek, and Roman Catholic. We are everything out of which to shape the one thing, the one nation, the one people.

Yet I am sure that we cannot teach these strangers the history of their adopted country, and make it their own, unless we teach them that our history is theirs as well as ours, and that their traditions are ours, at least as far as they touch humanity generally, and convey to all men the blessings which come from the struggle against oppression and superstition.

In their inherited, national prejudices, in their racial hates, in their tribal quarrels, we wish to have no share, except as we hope to help them forget the old world hates in the new world’s love.

None of us who have caught a vision of what America may mean to the world wish to perpetuate here any one phase of Europe’s civilization or any one national ideal.

Although our institutions are rooted in English history, though we speak England’s language and share her rich heritage of spiritual and cultural wealth, we do not desire to be again a part of England, or nourish here her ideals of an aristocratic society.

In spite of the fact that for nearly three hundred years a large part of our population has been German, and that our richest cultural values have come from Germany, in spite of her marvellous resources in science, commerce and government, we do not care to become German, and I am sure that Americans of German blood or birth would be the first to repudiate it, should Germany’s civilization threaten to fasten itself upon us.

We do not wish to be Russian, in spite of certain values inherent in the Slavic character, nor do we desire to be French.

We do crave to be an American people--and develop here an American civilization; but if we are true to the manifold genius of our varied peoples, we may develop here a civilization, richer and freer than any of these, based upon all of them, truly international and therefore American.

Historians tell us that the history of the United States illumines and illustrates the historic processes of all ages and all people.

To this they add the disconcerting prophecy that we are drifting towards the common goal, and that our doleful future can be readily foretold. We have had our hopeful morning, our swift and brilliant noon, and now the dark and gruesome end threatens us.

I will not believe this till I must.

I will not, dare not lose the hope that we can make this country to endure firmly, to weather the storm, or at least put off the senility of old age to the last inevitable moment.

When, however, the end comes, as perhaps it must, I pray that we may project our hopes and ideals upon the last page of our history, so that it may read thus: This was a state, the first to grow by the conquest of nature, and not of nations. Here was developed a commerce based upon service, and not upon selfishness; a religion centering in humanity and not in a church.

Here was maintained sovereignty without a sovereign, and here the people of all nations grew into one nation, held together by mutual regard, not by the force of law.

Here the State was maintained by the justice, confidence and loyalty of its people, and not by battleships and armaments. When it perished, it was because the people had lost faith in God and in each other.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Copyright, by Fleming H. Revell Co. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

[8] The author was working as a miner at Connellsville, Pennsylvania, when the strike and general riot occurred, during which he was beaten into unconsciousness and hustled off to jail.

GEORGE A. GORDON

The Old South Church, Boston, has had a prominent and patriotic part
in American history since early days. It was a Puritan immigrant
and layman of this church, Samuel Sewall, who was one of the first
to speak out against human slavery in his tract, “The Selling of
Joseph”; and it was in this church that the five patriotic addresses,
published in 1917 under the title, “The Appeal of the Nation,” were
delivered by George Angier Gordon, pastor of the church since 1884.
The Rev. Dr. Gordon, who was born in Scotland in 1853 and received
his common school education there, came to the United States in
1871. In 1881 he obtained the degree A.B. from Harvard. He has since
served his Alma Mater frequently in the capacity of University
preacher, and many Harvard men will recall his inspiring talks in the
college chapel. In the following selection he manifests the poignant
homesickness, the sterling loyalty, and the noble aspiration so
common in the writings of the immigrant.

THE FOREIGN-BORN AMERICAN CITIZEN: COST, PRIVILEGE AND DUTIES OF HIS CITIZENSHIP

The Republic of the United States is in fact a nation of immigrants, a nation of aliens. All have made the great migration, all have come hither from other parts of the earth. The only difference among Americans is that some came earlier while others came much later, indeed as it were yesterday, to these shores. The only aboriginal American is the Indian. This historic fact should be forever borne in mind. We came hither first or last, across the ocean, and from the ends of the earth.

There is however a ground of distinction among Americans; they are rightly divided into native citizens and citizens foreign-born. The native citizen has grown into the being of the society that his alien ancestors helped to form. He has in his blood an American inheritance; his instincts have been fed with native food; he is alive to nothing else as he is to the American Republic. We foreign-born Americans acknowledge his distinction, we rejoice in his happiness, we count ourselves fortunate to stand with him in the great communion of free citizens. We ask him, in his turn, to read in the story of our migration the struggle of his ancestors; we remind him of what we left behind, what we brought with us, and at what cost we gained our American citizenship.

In the words that I have chosen as my text[9] we have a foreign-born Roman citizen. Exactly where he was born we do not know; we do know that he was born outside Roman citizenship. He was, therefore, an adopted citizen of the Roman Empire, and to this he refers in the words that I have quoted, “With a great sum obtained I this citizenship.”

There are three implications in these words: the cost of citizenship to this man; the privilege of citizenship to him; his duty as a Roman citizen. These three points will be a convenient guide to us in our discussion of the subject of the morning--“The Foreign-born American Citizen.”

1. First of all, then, there is the cost to this man of citizenship in the Roman Empire. He obtained it with a great sum; to get it made him poor.

There are few among native-born American citizens who understand the sacrifice made by the foreign-born citizens of the heritage of childhood and boyhood in the wonder world of early life. There is the bereavement of the early mystic, unfathomable touch of nature that comes to one only through one’s native land. Never again to see the sun rise and set over the dear old hills, with the hero’s mantle like the bloom of the heather resting upon them, and the shadow of an immemorial race, is truly a great bereavement. Never again to see the green pastures, with the flocks quietly feeding in them, under the shade of the plot of trees here and there mercifully provided by the humanity of previous generations, nor to hear the music of the river that has sung into being and out of being forty generations of human lives; never again to see the fields covered with corn, nor to hear the reaper’s song among the yellow corn; never again to see the light that welcomed you when you were born, that smiled on you when you were baptized, that went with you to school, that watched your play, that constituted the beautiful, the glorious environment of your early days; never again to hear the song of the native birds, the skylark in the morning, the mavis at nightfall, and the wild whistle of the blackbird under the heat of noon from his thorny den,--all this is simply inexpressible bereavement. Nature is inwoven with the soul in its earliest years; its beauty, its wildness, its soul becomes part of the soul of every deep-hearted human being, and never again can nature be seen as she was seen through the wonder of life’s morning.

It is this spell of nature over the young soul that gives its exquisite pathos to Hood’s world-familiar melody:

“I remember, I remember,
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon.
Nor brought too long a day,
But now I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away!

...

“I remember, I remember,
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now ’tis little joy
To know I’m farther off from heav’n
Than when I was a boy.”

There it is, the mystic, divine influence of nature through the atmosphere of the country of one’s birth; every immigrant to this country makes that great surrender.

There is, too, the early humanity. You go down town, you who are native-born American citizens, and every day you meet those whom you have known from birth, your earliest playmates and schoolmates, and those who went to college with you, who entered business with you, who fought side by side with you through the Great War, who loved what you loved in early life, revered what you revered, laughed at what you laughed at and felt as you felt over the glory and the tenderness of existence. You do not know what they have left behind them who never see a face that they knew in childhood, who will never meet again, till time is no more, a schoolmate or an early companion, who will never gather again in the old home with father and mother and brothers and sisters; only the most favored have had a fugitive glance, like looking at a telegraph pole from an express train, of those dear, early faces. There is a whole world of bereavement of early, tender, beautiful humanity on the part of all who come here. And this again you hear in those two verses in “Auld Lang Syne”:--

“We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu’d the gowans fine,
But we’ve wander’d monie a weary foot
Sin’ auld lang syne.

“We twa hae paidl’d in the burn
From morning sun till dine,
But seas between us braid hae roar’d
Sin’ auld lang syne.”

There is due other surrender: there is the suffering of adjustment in a new country. The first year I spent in Boston, from July, 1871, to considerably more than July, 1872, I conceived my condition to be as near that of the spirits in hell as anything I could well imagine! To be in a city where nobody knew you, where you knew nobody, where so many wanted to take advantage of the “greenhorn,” to laugh at him if he ever grew for a moment a bit sentimental, was not exactly heaven. Many and many a time I went down to the wharf to see the ships with their white sails, written all over with invisible tidings from the far, sunny islands left behind, and if I had not been restrained by shame and pride I should have gone home. That is the experience of Scandinavian, English, Scotch, Irish, Teuton, Slav, Armenian, Syrian, and Latin; the great bereavement of nature and of early humanity is deepened by the sorrow of readjustment in a foreign land. “With a great sum obtained we this citizenship”; few understand it, few indeed. Foreign-born American citizenship is preceded by a vast sacrifice, and you never can understand that sort of citizenship till you take account of this really profound experience.

2. The next thing in the experience of the chief captain was his privilege as a Roman citizen. His station and bearing and power told of that privilege. He was a military tribune in the legion stationed in Jerusalem; he had risen to important command and power impossible for him, inaccessible to him if he had not obtained citizenship.

America has been called the land of opportunity. Look at this fact in three directions only, since time will not allow more. The common workman may become, by intelligence, by diligence and by fidelity, the master workman. Cast your eyes over the land to-day and assemble the master workmen, and you will find that the vast majority of them have risen from the position of ordinary workmen to the chief places in their trade and calling. Such a chance for ascension in a broad way for all competent men, in the Old World, is a simple impossibility. The chance does not exist there. Men rise there by talent and by luck, by talent and by favoritism. But here in a broad and magnificent manner they rise by talent and industry, fidelity and force; here as nowhere else, they have a chance to work out what is in them.

Consider this in the things of the intellect. The Old World calls us an uneducated race. It is true that we have not many great scholars; the reason is that we are engaged with immediate pressing problems; we apply intelligence to living issues which in other lands is applied to the Genitive and the Accusative and the Dative cases of the Latin and Greek languages. When we look backward and consider the provision made for the intellect of the nation during the last fifty years, we claim that there is no parallel to it in any country on which the sun shines. More money has gone to found colleges and schools and universities for men and for women, open to all talent from ocean to ocean and from the Canadian border to the Gulf, than was ever dedicated to education in the same length of time in the history of mankind. Not only is there provision for the regulars, but also for the irregulars; all sorts of evening schools flourish in our cities where the first teachers of the community are available for talented and aspiring youth of slender means. Men are practicing medicine and law; they are in the ministry and in other professions, usually called learned, who never saw the inside of a college or a university, who have obtained an education in what is called an irregular way, from and by the very men who are teaching in these regular academic institutions.

Let me remind you of the abundant hospitality, the wonderful generosity of the American people toward aspiring youth. Talent which would be ignored in Great Britain, promise which would be sneered at in every continental country in Europe, is here discovered and encouraged to develop into power. This is a phenomenon of which we must never lose sight, the chance here in the United States for a man to be intellectually all that it is possible for him to be. The best teachers may often be seen here wielding the educational power of history and the arts to train the youth to whom college is an impossibility, for service requiring educated powers, in his day and generation.

There is to be noted the opportunity in the way of character and moral influence that comes to citizens of the United States. What does that mean? The chance to change and improve the law of the land, the chance for a man to change and improve the government of the United States, the chance to modify, in the line of humanity, the social feeling of the United States. And freedom is here the condition of all; every man who complains that things are not what they should be has a chance by his vote to remedy the abuse and to take another step toward the ideal.

Here again there is something new, measuring it against the whole people. We are dupes and fools when we allow ourselves to be ruled by groups in this country; we are free men, with the power in our hands. If we have moral ideals of our own, and moral character, we can so use them as to lift the character of the land in which we live.

3. Finally, there was the duty of the tribune as a Roman citizen. Paul was about to be bound and tortured, without trial, when he appealed to the chief captain, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?” This startled the man. “Tell me, art thou a Roman? Good heavens, this will never do! I am pledged to do my duty! Get off those shackles and set the man free and guard his life!” There was the man’s sense of his duty.

What is the duty of foreign-born American citizens? First to learn the English language and to prefer it to all other tongues on the face of the earth. That tongue comes in the splendor of a June day; it breaks over life like a June sunrise, with an atmosphere, tone, beauty, and power which for Americans must ever be unapproachable. Let no American citizen hug his foreign tongue, go into the closet with it and shut out the light of the great English language which carries all our ideals as Americans! The very vessel of the Lord it is, in which American freedom is carried,--the language of Shakespeare and Milton, the incomparable free man; the language of Bacon and Burke and Washington and Hamilton and Webster and Lincoln. This tongue consecrates the immigrant who would be a citizen; he never can be a citizen of the United States without that, never. This is the tongue that carries in a unique translation the literature of Israel; the Bible is the maker of free peoples.

Next, we foreign-born American citizens must read the story of the Revolution into our blood. What is the significance of the Revolution for the foreign-born American citizen? These men were Englishmen or the sons of Englishmen; they loved the British Isles better than any portion of the earth’s surface, except their own Colonies; they loved them with an inexpressible love. Yet when it came to question of principle they stood out and said, “We must be free; the Colonies, or the United States, first!” You recall Daniel Webster’s splendid eloquence here:--

“On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjection, Rome in the height of her glory is not to be compared,--a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.”

Against that power to which they were as nothing, against that lovely land of their origin they stood out when it was a question of their own independence and their own manhood.

That applies to every foreign-born American citizen to-day,--Saxon, Celt, Scandinavian, Teuton, Slav, Latin, Syrian, bond and free. Learn the lesson of the Revolution. This country will have no hands upon it, from any origin, anywhere outside of itself. Learn the lesson of the Civil War; the nation that set to work to keep its integrity as a political whole, to keep its integrity as a human whole, to fight, as it had done a foreign dominion, an evil genius inside its own border. There again is a vast lesson to all of us who are foreign-born. Once again we should store in memory and ponder in clearest conscience and intelligence the great ideas, the great political ideas of America as they are exhibited in Washington, in Hamilton the Nationalist and in Jefferson the State Rights’ patriot; and again in Webster and Calhoun, in Lincoln and the Confederate, and as they issued at last in a true conception of State freedom in a sisterhood of States that constitutes a great nation. These things should be part of the common store of knowledge of the adopted citizen. They are the great forces that have moved this country from its earliest beginning, and that have lifted it into power and renown.

America must be first; cherish your love for the old country, your tenderness,--a man does not need to hate his mother because he loves his wife, but it is his duty to stand by his wife even against his mother. What kind of a country should we have if every citizen, when trouble comes, should prefer in loyalty the land of his birth! What a confused mob of a country we should have! Duty overrides origin, tradition, sentiment. Here and here alone is our supreme and inviolable obligation.

I often think that this great country of ours is ultimately to be the deepest-hearted and the brightest-minded nation of the world. Hither come, with sore hearts, burdened humanity and quickened intelligence, the elect from all nations. You look at them when they land, and you laugh. If you had been in Quebec when I landed, perhaps you would not have wanted me as your minister! The elect from all nations, parts of a splendid orchestra,--violin, flute, cornet, drum, trumpet, and a score of other instruments, all pouring forth their genius to make the great, swelling, soul-stirring symphony of this mighty nation. Thus from Scandinavia, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Armenia, Greece; from England, Ireland, and Scotland they come,--all are here with great souls to make a new and greater America. Out of this composite land, this Pentecostal nation,--sometimes it seems to me minus the Holy Ghost,--this nation gathered from every people under the heaven, rags and tatters and dirt and all, I believe the Eternal Spirit will evolve and establish the most gifted, the most far-shining and the mightiest people in the world. God grant that our dream may come true!

FOOTNOTE:

[9] _And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this citizenship._--Acts xxii. 28.

SERAPHIM G. CANOUTAS

An American Greek who has traveled extensively throughout the
United States, and has mingled freely with his people and therefore
understands their aspirations and needs, is Seraphim G. Canoutas,
member of the Boston Bar and author of the “Greek-American Guide” and
the “Adviser for Greeks in America.”

The following plain recital of Mr. Canoutas’s struggle and
achievement is worthy of presentation here, because it shows that
what the immigrant seeks for in America he may find, and that back
of real success and contentment lies the will to serve. He says in a
letter to the editor:--

“I arrived in this country fifteen years ago, and my hardships during
the first five to seven years cannot be briefly told. Still, I am
glad that I have suffered so much. I was born in a little village
of Greece, in 1873 or 1874; I do not know the exact date of my
birth. There were no records kept in those days, and my parents were
illiterate. There was no school in the little village; no church
either. I went to school to another village at a distance of about
three miles. I do not know how I managed to go to what they call
Gymnasium in Greece, and finally to the University at Athens--a
very uncommon thing for a poor peasant’s son. I graduated from
the University of Athens, Law Department, in 1898, and in 1899 I
received my license to practise law. But a poor young man in those
days had no chance whatever to get any clients in Greece, except
by selling his conscience and his principles to some politician. I
left Greece immediately after my admission to the bar and settled
in Constantinople, Turkey, where I started to practise law before
the Consular Court of Greece. (Each nation maintains separate courts
for its citizens or subjects in Turkey.) I practised law there for
over five years and was doing very well. But I wanted to see other
countries; there was something there which I did not like. I went to
France, Italy, Austria, and at last I decided to come to America.
When I arrived in America, I found myself wholly discouraged. Nobody
could give me advice what to do. There were very few educated Greeks,
fifteen years ago, in this country, and they did not know how to help
others; they rather discouraged me. I knew not a word of English;
but, knowing French, I managed to learn some English in a few months.
Two years after my arrival I started to write a book for the new
immigrants under the title of ‘Greek-American Guide,’ giving them
as much information about the country as I knew. But books do not
pay. Although everybody appreciated the usefulness of my book, the
purchasers were very few.

“In 1909 to 1910 I made a trip all over the United States and
Canada to gather information about my countrymen from personal
experience. Finally I met a good American who told me how I could
study law in this country and be admitted to the bar. In 1912 I was
admitted to the bar in Boston, and have practised law since; but I
like social work better than law. I have continued to lecture to
Greeks throughout this State and in New England; and I feel a great
satisfaction that I have been able to do some good for my countrymen,
as well as for my adopted country, which offers the greatest
opportunities to everybody, although it takes a long time for a
foreigner to find out.”

In 1918 Mr. Canoutas published his “Hellenism in America,” dedicating
the book “to the Greeks in America in general, but those serving
under the glorious American flag in particular ... in perpetual
remembrance of their devotion to our beloved country and their
heroic sacrifices for the cause of democracy.” From this volume the
following sensible advice on Americanization is quoted.

AMERICANIZATION: ITS PRINCIPLES AND MEANING

It was a wrong practice, in my opinion, and against the principles of true democracy, for certain Americans to induce foreigners to become American citizens quickly if they wished “to make more money and to get better jobs.” Because love of mere money and better jobs, above all other things, leads to materialism, plutocracy, bureaucracy and aristocracy, and not to true democracy.

Candidates for admission to citizenship of a democratic country should be taught to understand and appreciate the superiority and the beauty of its democratic principles instead of being promised “better jobs and more money.”[10]

When a man or woman is inspired by those high and noble ideas and principles stated in the Declaration of Independence, and repeated by such unselfish and magnanimous heads of a Republic as Lincoln and Wilson, and feels them and applies them, we can say that person has been influenced by Americanism or is Americanized. But unfortunately a tendency prevails lately to confuse the word “Americanization” with the word “naturalization.” There is nothing more erroneous than to consider every naturalized person as Americanized, or to accept as a general proposition that a person not naturalized cannot be Americanized. Naturalization is simply a matter of form, while Americanization refers to a person’s heart and soul and mind. A naturalized American citizen who has not been inspired by the lofty principles which Americanism stands for, but who has been induced to acquire American citizenship for some material profit, bears the same relation to the State as a hypocrite bears to the Church. For this reason I have always been astonished to hear Americans, even among the best statesmen and educators, encouraging wholesale naturalization before they become sure of the Americanization of the applicants. What has the State or the nation to gain from the man who is induced by the petty politician to become a citizen because it pays? What has the State to profit by me, for instance, for being an American citizen if I am not Americanized? On the contrary, it is dangerous, because in a serious crisis, like the present one, I may use my citizenship as a shield in defence of my un-American conduct. Common sense therefore requires that the foreigner should not be given that powerful weapon before we are sure that he will use it in defending his fellow-citizens and American institutions, and not in destroying them.

Prudence requires us to educate the foreigner and thoroughly Americanize him, if he appreciates Americanism, before admitting him to citizenship. But this education and Americanization cannot be carried out successfully by words or preaching alone. We must show to the foreigners by our example, by acts and deeds, that we ourselves stand for Americanism and apply the American ideals in our daily life, in our every-day contact with foreigners.

If Americans look down with contempt upon the immigrant, because he is poor, uneducated, or cursed with certain faults which he acquired while living in a poor or ill-governed country, they cannot make him believe that America stands for democracy, justice and general brotherhood....

When Americans, in their struggle to instruct the foreigners, have acquired for their own part a better knowledge of the characteristics of each race, when they rightly attribute the faults of foreigners to the painful conditions under which they lived in their own country, when they patiently bring to light the better qualities of those whom they aspire to educate, then that unity so desirable, so necessary for this great nation, will be perfected. Then there will be no more “foreigners,” but all races will be one people, offering their best efforts to the land in which they have equal obligations and equal rights.

FOOTNOTE:

[10] This and the two following paragraphs are part of an address given at an Americanization meeting held in Attleboro, Massachusetts, in 1917.

STEFANO MIELE

That one should come to America for the sole purpose of making money,
as the author of the following selection frankly states he did,
may seem an unworthy motive; but, after all, it is not essentially
different from the impulse that causes the country-bred American
boy to seek the larger cities for what he thinks will be greater
financial opportunities. Motives, in the final analysis, must be
judged in large part by their issues and results.

This young Italian, ambitious to become a lawyer and finding it
impossible in Italy to get employment with an opportunity to study,
decided to try his luck in America, where he was willing to “shovel
coal,” “wash dishes,” or “do anything to get up.” In a little more
than five years after landing at Ellis Island he was admitted to the
New York bar.

The following selection is reprinted from his article, “America as a
Place to Make Money,” published in the issue of _The World’s Work_
for December, 1920.

SOME OBSTACLES TO AMERICANIZATION

I was about twenty years old when I first thought of going to America. But it is not so easy to leave one’s native land: it was not until three years later that I said good-by to my father and mother and our neighbors. I did not think for a moment that it was for the last time--I was only going to America to make money and then return to Baiano and the old folks.

My father gave me a little money so that I could buy a second-class ticket. But I was young; I was starting on my first big adventure; and--in Naples my money went, this way, that way--I came in the steerage. It was no great hardship. My fellow-passengers were Italians, most of them laborers, men used to hard work. They were very happy--laughing, singing, playing--full of dreams, ambitions.

Then came Ellis Island!

Every one crowded--discomfort--lice--dirt--harshness--the officers shouting “Come here,” “Go there,” as though they were driving animals. And then the uncertain period of detention--sometimes a week, sometimes two, three, or even four weeks--it is as though a man were in prison. Ellis Island does not give the immigrant a good first lesson in Americanization.

America wants the immigrant as a worker; but does it make any effort to direct him, to distribute him to the places where workers are needed? No; it leaves the immigrant to go here, there, any place. If the immigrant were a horse instead of a human being, America would be more careful of him; if it loses a horse, it feels it loses something; if it loses an immigrant, it feels it loses nothing. At any rate, that is the way it seems to the immigrant; and it strengthens his natural disposition to settle among people of his own race.

A man needs to be a fighter to come to America without friends. I was more fortunate than many: I had a brother in America. He worked in a private bank. He met me when I landed and took me to his home in Brooklyn. I looked for a job for about a month. I tried to get work on the Italian newspapers; I tried to get work in a law office. Finally a friend took me to a Jewish law office, and I was employed--I was to get 25 per cent. of the fees from any clients that I brought in. I stayed there two months and got $5. Three months after I arrived in New York I was given the kind of a place that I had looked for in vain in my native land--one that would enable me to support myself and study my chosen profession. I was given a place on an Italian religious newspaper. I worked from eight in the morning to six in the evening, and attended the night course of the New York Law School.

It was about August when I landed in America, and already there was election talk. (It was the year McClellan ran for Mayor.) I met some of the Italian-American politicians. It is said that I have a gift for oratory. The politicians asked what would be my price to talk in the Italian sections of the city. I said that I did not want anything. I made speeches for McClellan, and I have made speeches in every campaign since.

That was one of the first things that struck me in America--that every one working in politics was working for his own pocket. Another thing that also amazed me was that most of the men elected to an office, in which they are supposed to deliberate and legislate, were in reality only figureheads taking orders from some one else. They had no independence, no individuality. Another discovery was that the Italians with most political influence were men of low morality, of low type. Then I discovered the reason: the politicians needed repeaters and guerillas, and that was why “the boss had to be seen” through a saloon- or dive-keeper.

A thing that seemed very strange was the way the American newspapers magnified crime in Italian districts, how they made sensational stories out of what were really little happenings, how they gave the Italians as a people a character for criminality and violence. No less strange was the way the Italian newspapers answered the American press. They were both building up a barrier of prejudice. If I were to judge America through the American newspapers, I would not have become an American citizen; or if I could know America only through the Italian-American newspapers, I would say that the Americans are our enemies.

It must be frankly admitted, however, that there is a change in the second generation, a change that is too frequently not for the better. As I have said, the majority of Italian immigrants come from the rural districts of Italy, and, because there is no policy of distribution, most of them settle in the big cities. They are not prepared to meet the situation presented in a big industrial centre. They think to apply the same principle in bringing up children that had been applied in the little village or on the farm in Italy. They let the children run loose. And in the streets of the crowded tenement districts the children see graft, pocketpicking, street-walking, easy money here, easy money there; they see the chance to make money without working. The remedy is to be found in distributing the newly arrived immigrants.

Most of what I have said has been of the faults of America. I have spoken of them because they are things that hold back Americanization.

America has been good to me. I have prospered here as I could not have prospered in Italy. I came to make money and return; I have made money and stayed. A little more than five years after I had landed at Ellis Island I was admitted to the New York bar. I have already had greater success than I dreamed, when I left Italy, that I should have. And I look forward to still greater success. For me, America has proved itself, and promises to continue to prove itself, the land of opportunity, but I have not forgotten Italy--it is foolish to tell any Italian to forget Italy. I say Italy; but for me, as for the others, Italy is the little village where I was raised--the little hills, the little church, the little garden, the little celebrations. I am forty years old, but Christmas and Easter never come around but what I want to return to Baiano. In my mind I become a little child again. But I know enough to realize that I see all those scenes from a distance and with the eye of childhood.

But even if I wanted to return to Italy, my children would not let me. America is their country. My father is dead. I have brought my mother here. When an Italian brings his parents to America, he is here to stay.

America is a wonderful nation. But we make a mistake if we assume that the Anglo-Saxon is the perfect human being. He has splendid qualities, but he also has faults. The same thing is true of the Latins. The Anglo-Saxon is pre-eminently a business man, an executive, an organizer, energetic, dogged. But in the Anglo-Saxon’s civilization the Latin finds a lack of the things that go to make life worth living. I remember the returned Italians, the “Americans,” that I used to see at Baiano: they had made money in America and were prosperous and independent, but they had also lost something--a certain light-heartedness, a joy in the little things--the old jests no longer made them laugh. The Latin has the artistic, the emotional temperament, a gift for making little things put sunshine into life, a gift for the social graces. If the Latin could get the qualities that the Anglo-Saxon has, and give to the Anglo-Saxon those that he lacks,--if all the nationalities that make up America could participate in this give-and-take process,--then we would have a real Americanization.

JOHN KULAMER

John Kulamer was born on May 3, 1876, at Spisske Podhradie, Spisska
Zupa, Czecho-Slovak Republic, and came to this country in 1891,
alone. In June, 1909, he was admitted to the bar in Allegheny County,
Pennsylvania.

In an article, entitled “Americanization: the Other Side of the
Case,” contributed to the _Atlantic Monthly_, March, 1920, he says:
“Although born in far-off Czecho-Slovakia, under the shadow of the
snow-capped Tatra, I can without boasting say that I yield to no one
in my loyalty to the Stars and Stripes; and if I differ in my views
as to the methods to be used in Americanizing those who, like me,
were born in other countries, I do it out of love for my adopted
country, and because I am anxious to see these efforts crowned with
success.”

Mr. Kulamer has favored us with the following essay, in which he
further presents his ideas on this subject.

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT AND AMERICANIZATION

No matter how uncouth in appearance the immigrant when he sets foot on American soil, the criminal fleeing from the hands of justice excepted, there burns in his soul an intense love for the country of his nativity, inherited from generations of his ancestors; the more primitive his heart, the simpler and stronger is this love. He may have come to this country only to earn sufficient money to relieve his wants at home or to enlarge his means of living, or he may have come here as to a land of promise of whose great opportunities and larger freedom he has heard, still his heart remains in the land of his birth where the ashes of his forefathers are resting and to which the memories of his happiest childhood days are clinging. Leaving his home-nest, forsaking friends and family and turning his face to a strange land to mix with people whose customs and language he knows not, is a thrilling and tragic adventure to every immigrant. And it is well that his soul is so constituted, because he has the capacity to become a true patriot. Your cosmopolite is of different stuff; he is callous and incapable of those noble sentiments which urge the patriot to sacrifice even his life for his country, either of birth or adoption. A man who pays no homage to any land is incapable of harboring those feelings of brotherly love and kinship on which the solidarity of a nation rests. If Americanizers wish to wean the immigrant from the old to the new, they must have genuine respect for his feelings and not wound them; he must be wooed, he cannot be forced.

What is the object of this Americanization which is so much talked about and on which so much energy and money is spent? Is it simply to wipe out the difference between the customs and habits of the older and newer settlers; or is it to amalgamate the various human elements into one homogeneous mass, into one nation? If it is the former, it is wasted energy; time will accomplish it. If it is the latter, then the aliens must be considered as human beings whose souls are made of the same material as those of the Pilgrim Fathers. Nations do not appear on the earth spontaneously; they are the result of historical growth, lasting for centuries. Many factors exert their influences upon a nation in the formative stage. Stop immigration, if you can get along without it, and in another generation the inhabitants of this country will be such Americans as America will have made them. If they should not turn out to be true Americans, it will be America’s fault. Even now the children of alien parents speak the same language, dress the same way, dance the same dances, sing the same songs, have the same good qualities and the same faults as the children whose ancestors came here sooner. If you want to convert the old folks into Americans, then it is necessary to handle the situation with tact. Love is a tender plant; it does not take root easily, and the least inclement weather will blast it; but it is very sturdy when full grown, nothing less than a thunderbolt will shatter it. Furthermore, it is of a spiritual essence, and money cannot buy it.