Christian 
 Americanization 
 
 ^ T'cish. /or 
 theOiutthes 
 
 Charles A. Brooks 
 
BR 115 .P7 B7 „ 
 
 Irooks, Charles Alvin, 187 
 
 Christian Americanization 
 
Press Illustrating Service © PJioto by A. T. Beals 
 
 Organized Play Aids Americanization 
 1. Park games and contests convey American ideals to Chinese 
 
 and other children of the newcomers. 
 A street party creates the community spirit that draws together 
 
 the new members of Uncle Sam's Family. 
 
DEC 13 1920 
 
 GHRISTIAN^JS£<L?5S2^ 
 AMERICANIZATION 
 
 A TASK FOR THE CHURCHES 
 
 BY y 
 CHARLES ALVIN BROOKS 
 
 SECRETARY, CITY AND FOREIGN-SPEAKING MISSIONS 
 
 OF THE AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME 
 
 MISSION SOCIETY 
 
 Homa Miss)Ovn CH-uvdv Cour3i 
 
 Published Jointly by 
 
 COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR HOME MISSIONS 
 
 AND 
 
 MISSIONARY EDUCATION MOVEMENT OF THE 
 
 UNITED STATES AND CANADA 
 
Copyright, 1919, by 
 
 Council of Women for Home Missions 
 
 and 
 
 Missionary Education Movement 
 
 of the United States and Canada 
 
To THE Memory of 
 
 MY FATHER AND MOTHER 
 
 Who Exemplified the Principles 
 
 This Book Endeavors to Interpret 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Foreword xi 
 
 I The Present Issue 3 
 
 II America's Genius for Assimilation 21 
 
 III The Language Question 43 
 
 IV Arrested Assimilation 69 
 
 V The Path of Progress lOi 
 
 VI The Price of National Unity 133 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Organized Play aids Americanization Frontispiece 
 
 In New York — the City of Many Nations 28 
 
 Neighborhood Mothers' Clubs help foreign-born women 52 
 
 The Y. M. C. A. takes instruction into the factories. . . 76 
 
 Classes and clubs in the churches help the children 
 
 from foreign-speaking homes 106 
 
 Disabled American Soldiers learn English 
 
 in U. S. Hospitals 138 
 
 ix 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 UNIFICATION of effort for a common cause is per- 
 haps the most significant trend of the day. In ac- 
 cordance with this modern spirit, two agencies which 
 have formerly issued home mission text-books have united 
 this year in publishing one book. These agencies are the 
 Council of Women for Home Missions and the Missionary 
 Education Movement, which, as is well known, represents 
 the interests of the Home Missions Council. 
 
 The theme of this book is one which is giving great con- 
 cern to our national government and to all those agencies 
 and people who realize the necessity of quickened effort 
 toward national unity. It is an especially important theme 
 at this time, when America occupies so conspicuous a place 
 in world influence and power, while within her own borders 
 press social problems of largest magnitude. 
 
 One language, one flag is much — but it is not enough for 
 the highest national unity and expression. There must be 
 such an appreciation of and participation in the spirit of 
 America as shall release the largest spiritual values for the 
 betterment of the social order in the United States, create 
 a compelling national conscience capable of making this 
 country fine and strong in self-control, and give it exalted 
 conceptions and standards of human relationships. Only 
 through the contagion of Christian thinking and living can 
 this be accomplished. The church of Christ must assume a 
 dominant place in this effort and address itself definitely 
 with profound earnestness and purpose to this mighty task. 
 It is with these deep convictions concerning the relation of 
 the church to Americanization that Christian Americaniza- 
 tion \ A Task for the Churches is sent forth. 
 
 Publication Committib. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 DOWN at Land's End is an interesting house which 
 bears the legend "This is the last house in Eng- 
 land." On the south side of the house one finds 
 another inscription which reads, "This is the first house in 
 England." 
 
 Much depends upon the point of view. Every intelligent 
 American has "views" on the subject of Americanization 
 and the status of the people whom we class indiscriminately 
 as "foreigners." This book is a plea for the Christian and 
 universal point of view, which the author believes is not only 
 wholly consistent with the truest Americanism, but the only 
 point of view which is truly consistent. 
 
 Migration has been the habit of the race from the dawn 
 of history. It has been one of the most potent factors in 
 the development of the race and in the shaping of the social 
 life and institutions of the peoples among whom the new- 
 comers have settled. The most radical migratory movement 
 in history is American immigration. America has been built 
 up by a process of immigration. Jamestown and Plymouth 
 Rock, as well as Ellis and Angel Islands, are in the long 
 view of history alike landing stages for prospective new 
 Americans. It is of great importance that we shall under- 
 stand that America is not yet finished. She is still in the 
 making. In the light of recent events we need to restudy 
 our history, that we may have a true perspective by which 
 to understand present-day affairs. It has become easy for 
 
 1 
 
us during the past four years to think in international terms. 
 We need not only the international point of view, but what 
 is more fundamental — the universal, that is, the Christian 
 point of view. 
 
 The universal point of view will enable us to understand 
 that America has a missionary destiny. We shall be able 
 to think of all races with which we are dealing as the chil- 
 dren of God and recognize the obligation of the stronger to 
 serve the weaker. It will enable us to see our generation 
 against the background of history and to see all history' in 
 the light of the unfolding purpose of God to establish his 
 kingdom in the world. If we can gain and steadily hold 
 this point of view, we shall not be content to think of the 
 foreigner as many of us have been accustomed to think 
 of him ; but against the background of his past, with its 
 repression and lack of opportunity, we shall see our national 
 task as world service, in the interest of world unity, under 
 the sway of the principles and ideals of the kingdom- of 
 God. Only then shall we make real the poet's vision, when 
 he beheld: 
 " . . . the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the 
 
 thunderstorm ; 
 Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags 
 
 were furl'd. 
 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 
 
CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 A TASK FOR THE CHURCHES 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PRESENT ISSUE 
 
 NOT long ago the editor of Viereck's Weekly, in 
 resentment against an article which had appeared 
 in The Atlantic Monthly, referred to that magazine 
 as "a curious ghost of a forgotten America." 
 
 The Atlantic, a little time before, had modestly called 
 attention to its one hundredth anniversary. It might, there- 
 fore, naturally suggest the ghosts of forgotten things, the 
 fashions and customs which pass with the years. But the 
 valiant defender of the German fatherland evidently meant 
 this innuendo to reflect not so much upon the magazine as 
 upon that America of which The Atlantic has always been 
 so truly an exponent. The taunt presents a startling chal- 
 lenge. We are forced to ask ourselves honestly: Is that 
 America whose spirit and ideals are reflected in a magazine 
 like The Atlantic a. vanished or vanishing America? Has it 
 been or is it being replaced by an America truly represented 
 by Viereck's Weekly? Who are the typical Americans: the 
 essayists and poets, the scholars and statesmen, who repre- 
 sented The Atlantic of the past generation, or men like the 
 editor of Fierce k^s Weekly''? This is what lies under the 
 
 3 
 
4 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 surface of the present issue. This is really the heart of it. 
 This is the spiritual significance of Americanization. 
 
 America's Judgment Day. The war arrested our at- 
 tention and focussed it upon the vital question of national 
 unity. It did not so much create this issue as it disclosed 
 and accentuated it. Now that the war has ended, the issue 
 is unchanged. 
 
 For a number of years clear-sighted and socially minded 
 men and women have discerned the issue and have sought 
 to arrest public attention and arouse the public conscience to 
 its meaning. Before the war the government had been 
 making a fresh study of conditions growing out of immigra- 
 tion. Labor leaders had agitated for restriction, but they 
 were suspected of selfish motives. Social workers and mis- 
 sionary leaders had sought to enlist the interest of their 
 constituencies with some degree of success. But Josiah 
 Strong used to say that the average man cannot see a crisis 
 until it has arrived; and this has been true regarding this 
 issue with which we are concerned. 
 
 Now, at last, the nation is fully awake. It is not so cer- 
 tain, however, that it appreciates the significance of the 
 problem or understands the deep fundamental issue involved 
 or the principles upon which these problems must be solved 
 if they are to be solved right. 
 
 Generous Hospitality. In one hundred years we have 
 admitted more than thirty millions of people to our shores. 
 In more recent years some restrictions have been enforced by 
 which patently undesirable elements might be debarred from 
 entrance. But speaking in general terms, our doors have 
 been very wide open, especially on the eastern frontier. 
 
THE PRESENT ISSUE 5 
 
 Now the wisdom or unwisdom of this hospitality, so free- 
 ly accorded to all the people of the world who had the means 
 to come, is being put to the supreme test. The war revealed 
 the extent to which America has succeeded or failed in as- 
 similating these alien elements and moulding them to her 
 standard. There were many evidences, which had long ago 
 convinced those who had eyes to see, that many of these new- 
 comers were untouched by the wholesome American in- 
 fluences and were still as foreign as the day they landed. 
 But how completely out of touch they were, the nation was 
 not able to comprehend until a crisis was precipitated by 
 the war. 
 
 There is another side to this. There is much gratifying 
 and heartening evidence that leaves us not without hope. 
 But we must focus our attention upon the weak spots in 
 our national life which have been brought to light by the 
 war. 
 
 Foolish Optimism. The war has shown us the folly of 
 easy-going complacency. We had taken many things for 
 granted. We had assumed cheerfully that just to breathe 
 the air of America or to tread the soil of America was 
 guaranteed to work a miracle, to effect an instantaneous 
 change whereby a man or woman, reared under wholly dif- 
 ferent conditions, was certain to become an American. It 
 was supposed to be an automatic process. Was not America 
 a "melting pot"? We were assured that, while we went 
 gaily about our business of making money and having a good 
 time, the *'melting pot" could be relied upon. We quoted 
 glibly instances of splendid transformations of men who had 
 arrived abscure immigrants and later had become leading 
 
6 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Americans. It was assumed that these were typical cases, 
 and so we lived on in a fool's paradise. The war has cured 
 us of absurd optimism. 
 
 Indifference. But something worse than absurd op- 
 timism has been disclosed. The war has shown us our 
 criminal indifference. For as a nation we have been largely 
 indifferent. Much of our optimism was a salve to our con- 
 science for our wicked neglect. As long as this thing did 
 not touch us too closely, we could remain comfortably un- 
 disturbed. If we employed immigrants, we did not concern 
 ourselves with what happened, so long as there was an 
 ample supply of cheap labor to be had w^hen it was needed. 
 We had no anxiety. What unemployment involved, how 
 the imimigrant lived, what his presence signified to the life 
 of the community, and the grave peril of our neglect; all 
 these things did not cause us much concern. 
 
 Now many of those who were most indifferent have been 
 transformed into the bitterest enemies, blindly and indis- 
 criminately opposed to everything that smacks of foreign 
 antecedents. At least we are done w^Ith indifference.. 
 
 Practical Democracy. The practical value of our 
 democratic ideals has been put to a severe, if not to the 
 supreme, test. When in 1776 we proclaimed our faith in 
 democracy, we were a small and comparatively homogeneous 
 people, largely rural and of high average intelligence com- 
 pared with Europe. Now we represent an incredible num- 
 ber of racial stocks, a heterogeneous, polyglot, industrial 
 people, with a startling increase in illiteracy in many of those 
 states which had most to do with promulgating the 
 Declaration. It is not strange that some of us have mis- 
 
THE PRESENT ISSUE 7 
 
 givings and some of us heartburnings, when we take a sober 
 and impartial survey of the practical workings of our demo- 
 cratic system. But here, too, if we have vision and faith, 
 the war has not left us without hope. 
 
 Loyalty Tested. Most important to the popular mind 
 is the test which the war furnished for gauging the loyalty 
 of the adopted sons of America. 
 
 The degree of assimilation which was apparent, the use 
 of the English language, the participation in the life of the 
 community in normal times; these things were no guarantee 
 of heart loyalty to America. The declaration of intention 
 to become citizens, which had involved an oath to the effect 
 that the candidates for citizenship were "attached to the 
 principles of the constitution of the United States," was no 
 longer presumptive evidence of undivided allegiance. Citi- 
 zenship, which had involved an oath that the citizen would 
 "support and defend the constitution and laws of the United 
 States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, 
 and bear true faith and allegiance to the same,'* was no 
 longer accepted as conclusive proof of loyalty. The supreme 
 test had come, and what had seemed a remote contingency 
 when the oath was sworn became, for hundreds of thous- 
 ands, an agonizing dilemma. 
 
 Without doubt, this test has appealed tremendously %o the 
 popular imagination, and much injustice has been done to 
 many true Americans who were under the necessity of 
 proving their loyalty because some others had failed to 
 keep "true faith and allegiance." It is reassuring to our 
 faith that for every man who failed to meet this supreme 
 test thousands met it without wavering. 
 
g CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 A Test of Sincerity. Further, the war has furnished 
 a test of the sincerity of the older Americans. We have 
 experienced an awakened interest in these matters which is 
 truly gratifying. How genuine is our confidence in our 
 institutions? How deep is our interest in this foreign 
 humanity? How much will we sacrifice? What price are 
 we willing to pay to save America from failure to meet her 
 opportunity? We have honestly to ask ourselves: Does our 
 new-born interest in the people of foreign birth arise from 
 love or fear? Is it enlightened self-interest or a new vision 
 of their worth? Is it repentance for past neglect or a new 
 expediency? Is it because we need the immigrant in our 
 business or because we have discovered that perhaps he may 
 enrich the spiritual life of America and help us to realize our 
 ideals? These are searching questions which we may not 
 like to face but which we cannot escape. Sentimentality can- 
 not meet this test. Nothing but genuineness and sincerity 
 will avail. 
 
 Important Definitions. Americanization is the achieve- 
 ment of national unity for world service upon the plane of 
 our highest ideals. It is an unwavering and united progress 
 toward the goal of those ideals which we confess we have 
 not yet attained, but for which we are still striving. 
 
 We need to see clearly that there are both national and 
 local aspects, both ideal and practical bearings of this issue. 
 In its larger aspects, Americanization means the extension 
 of our ideals, of the American spirit, and of our language 
 to every quarter and every community, until there shall re- 
 main no foreign colonies untouched by the full currents of 
 our American life or out of harmony with the rest of Amer- 
 
THE PRESENT ISSUE 9 
 
 ica. In its local and more intimate aspect, in which it comes 
 home to every one of us, Americanization is the extension 
 and deepening of the community spirit until we shall, as 
 a democracy, be able literally and spiritually to speak the 
 same language and to cooperate for ideal ends. 
 
 Americanization means the attainment of a common meet- 
 ing-place and the mutual recognition of the worth of all 
 men and women of good-will who make up the community, 
 regardless of their antecedents. On the part of peoples of 
 foreign antecedents, it means the appreciation of what Amer- 
 ica stands for and a full and hearty acceptance of that 
 standard. On the part of Americans of older stock, it means 
 a recognition of the worth of these newer comers and an 
 appreciation of their ability to enrich our American life. 
 On the part of the new Americans, it means the unreserved 
 acceptance of the duties, as well as the rights, of American 
 citizenship and the responsibilities of an absolute and un- 
 divided allegiance to America. On the part of older Amer- 
 icans, it means a sincere and unselfish undertaking to em- 
 body, to interpret, and to practise the ideals and spirit of 
 American democracy in all our relationships with the people 
 we shall have ceased to think of as foreigners. 
 
 Confusing the Issue. Americanization is not a war 
 issue. If the war had not occurred, the same necessity which 
 we have had revealed so vividly to us would have existed. 
 It has not passed with the passing of the war. The danger 
 is that we shall let the whole matter drop now that the war 
 is over. The war has made it both easier and more difficult 
 to achieve our ideal ; easier because it has revealed our weak- 
 nesses, more difficult because of the bitterness engendered. 
 
10 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Bitterness has not helped the most difficult situations, and of 
 this we are to be more and more conscious as the tension 
 relaxes. 
 
 Americanization is not the concern of any particular race. 
 We have been at war with the Central Powers, but it is 
 not merely some of the subjects of the Central Powers who 
 have failed to measure up to the demands of the situation. 
 Americanization is concerned with foreignism, of whatever 
 racial stock or quarter. Let us not lose sight of this dis- 
 tinction, for it is important. 
 
 It is not merely a matter of language or easy familiarity 
 with American customs. We shall consider the important 
 matter of language in a separate chapter. What we need to 
 rid ourselves of is the misconception that the use of a for- 
 eign language Is presumptive evidence of an un-American 
 spirit, or that the easy or natural use of English is a guaran- 
 tee of the inner dominion and sway of the American spirit. 
 Americanization is not a demand for the repudiation of any- 
 thing in one's ancestral heritage that is not inconsistent with 
 or alien to the spirit of America. This, too, Is contrary to 
 the general Impression. 
 
 Americanization does not involve hatred or contempt of 
 other nations, though there is a wide-spread misapprehension 
 that it does. Many have misinterpreted the slogan, "Amer- 
 ica First," as the United States version of "Deutschland 
 uber AUes." Nationalism Is not antagonistic to nor Incon- 
 sistent with the truest Internationalism. Many of the truest 
 patriots are the missionaries of the finest world fraternity. 
 Mazzini, the Italian statesman and patriot, has given this 
 beautiful expression to the truth: "Every people has Its 
 
THE PRESENT ISSUE 11 
 
 special mission which will cooperate toward the fulfilment 
 of the general mission of humanity. That mission con- 
 stitutes its nationality. Nationality is sacred.*' No man 
 who truly loves his own country will despise or hate 
 the country of his fellow man. A man's love of his 
 own wife or children is the basis of his regard for the 
 families of others. 
 
 Americanization is not the equivalent of nativism. Race 
 pride readily degenerates into race prejudice. National 
 pride may easily pass into that ignoble and wholly unworthy 
 thing which we know as nativism ; that is, a selfish exclusion 
 from consideration and participation in our privileges of all 
 people except those who by accident of birth were born in 
 our country or in our state or in our locality. Nativism is 
 a primitive instinct, unworthy of modern civilization. The 
 Chinese used to call all others "foreign devils"; it was na- 
 tivism which inspired the Boxer uprisings. The Greeks 
 considered all others "barbarians." The savage regards a 
 stranger as an enemy. In some sections of America this 
 instinct persists. In one period of our history, nativism was 
 made a political issue, and the American, or Know 
 Nothing, Party elected some members of Congress on a 
 platform which contained sentiments against "foreigners" 
 which now have become freshly current. 
 
 Of all people in the world Americans should be freest 
 from this selfish spirit. Yet it is well known that some of 
 the most intolerant "nativists*' were either themselves im- 
 migrants or are the sons of those who sought America as 
 political or economic refugees. We have been told of a 
 Boston man, proud of his ancestry, who was entertaining 
 
12 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 a young Indian, a university graduate, a cultured Christian 
 gentleman. The Boston man was unable to make the im- 
 pression he desired and finally said rather impatiently, "You 
 do not seem to appreciate the significance of the fact that 
 my ancestors came over here in the Mayflower.'' The 
 young man replied, vrith a twinkle in his eye, we imagine, 
 "I must remind you that my ancestors were on the recep- 
 tion committee." 
 
 It is of the utmost importance that we understand at the 
 outset of our study that Americanization is not concerned 
 with people of foreign antecedents alone. It holds a signifi- 
 cant challenge for people of American ancestry. In fact, 
 many of the best informed students of these matters are 
 convinced that the crux of the whole matter is with the 
 older Americans rather than with those who have sought 
 opportunity and a new life here in America. Frances Kel- 
 lor has stated this view of Americanization most clearly: 
 "It seems to me that our real enemy is not an aggressive 
 f oreignism, but a passive, complacent Americanism . . . What 
 we really need to fear is not that we shall be invaded by 
 civilizations and ideals we cannot assimilate but that we 
 shall fail to develop and perpetuate and extend to all Amer- 
 icans the civilization and the ideals we firmly believe to be 
 American."^ 
 
 Americanization, a Process. It is difficult for the 
 average man to appreciate the fact that such a radical trans- 
 formation as that involved in our conception of American- 
 ization is a gradual and progressive achievement. There are 
 men who understood and heartily appreciated the ideals and 
 practical administration of affairs in America before ever 
 
 1 Kellor, Straight dmerica, p. 85. 
 
THE PRESENT ISSUE 13 
 
 they arrived, but these are proportionately very few. Others, 
 whose knowledge of the world outside their native village 
 was most meager, have idealized America and have been 
 shocked and disappointed by the realities that any well-in- 
 formed person would have expected to find. But there are 
 many, and of these we must take serious note, who have 
 been grievously and justly shocked by what America has 
 proved to be and by conditions which true Americans would 
 resent and repudiate if they only knew them. The dis- 
 illusionment has been tragic. It is difficult for most Amer- 
 icans to understand this embittered attitude. Many of us 
 heartily resent it and are in turn embittered toward the 
 foreigner. Americanization, to many of the immigrant 
 people, means the most superficial imitation of what they 
 falsely deem to be genuine Americanism. We need at the 
 beginning of our study to put out of our minds the possibi- 
 lity of any quick and magic transformation as meeting the 
 requirements of Americanization. 
 
 What most of us lack is imagination. At the beginning 
 of his administration as commissioner of immigration at 
 Ellis Island, Frederick C. Howe said that his ideal was to in- 
 troduce imagination into the management of affairs at 
 that main port of entry. It is not only there that It is 
 needed, but everywhere, when we are dealing with these 
 matters. Americanization is not a mechanical process. One 
 does not automatically become an American by becoming 
 naturalized, learning the language, wearing American- 
 made clothes, or imitating American fashions and customs. 
 We must fix once for all in our minds the fact that Amer- 
 icanization is a spiritual process, and that spiritual processes 
 
14 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 are only spiritually discerned and are often slow, Indirect, 
 and unconclous. When we Insist upon that standard, it is 
 to be feared that some people who proudly boast of a long 
 American ancestry have never truly apprehended or em* 
 bodied the American spirit. 
 
 National Unity. National unity Is a relative matter 
 and a progressive achievement. It will never be true, so 
 long as human nature is what it is, that we shall all think 
 exactly alike about matters social, religious, political, or 
 about many others which are included in the spiritual life of 
 the nation. 
 
 Probably the greatest relative unity that we have ever 
 achieved has been In regard to America's participation in the 
 war. Still, there have been very marked differences of 
 opinion. There have been varying degrees of militancy and 
 pacifism and some disloyalty. Yet for all practical purposes 
 we have been a united nation. We were not united when 
 the war began. One of the strong arguments used by the 
 supporters of President Wilson In his campaign for a second 
 term was that he had kept us out of the war. Yet when 
 the hour of our entrance into the war struck, it found us 
 fairly united. With the second year and the presence of our 
 army in France, with the clearer appreciation of the 
 Issues which were at the heart of the struggle, we became 
 more and more fully united. We shall not be agreed about 
 the peace terms or policies of reconstruction. But one thing 
 is attested by our national experience; that time and educa- 
 tion work miracles of unity in a democracy, with free speech 
 and a free press guaranteed. 
 
 When facing a matter like Americanization, we need the 
 
THE PRESENT ISSUE 15 
 
 perspective of our history from earliest colonial days. We 
 are not inclined to allow sufficient time for the development 
 and maturity of great movements. The colonies passed 
 through many trying and stormy experiences before July 
 4, 1776, when they were able to promulgate the Declara- 
 tion cf Independence. English, Dutch, French, Spanish, 
 Swedish, German, Portuguese, all had to learn to act to- 
 gether. Protestants and Catholics, Jews and Quakers had 
 to find a common basis of cooperation. New England, New 
 York, Virginia, and the Carolinas had to recognize a com- 
 mon destiny. It was only through a long series of conflicts 
 that a degree of unity at last em.erged. When the initial 
 victory v^^as won, we know v/hat contentious debates en- 
 sued until one after another the states ratified the constitu- 
 tion. What sectional jealousies, suspicions, and distrust 
 were engendered we cannot forget. Then came the most 
 tragic stage in our progress toward national unity, culminat- 
 ing in a resort to arms, in order to decide the issue between 
 state and federal sovereignty. A generation elapsed before 
 that decision received the degree of spiritual ratification 
 which has twice enabled us to stand firmly united in a great 
 conflict. If we can keep this historical lesson in mind, it 
 will enable us to rely v/ith assurance upon democratic pro- 
 cesses and to strive patiently for the fruition of our hopes. 
 We shall try to make clear that this progress toward 
 national unity calls for patient and wise education and de- 
 mands its full price of unselfish devotion to our country and 
 full faith in our fellow men and in the democracy we profess. 
 It is absolutely essential that we believe in the efficiency of 
 spiritual processes and that we be willing to trust them. 
 
16 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Resort to fiat or force will only retard the process. These 
 are the resources of smaller minds and weaker faith. 
 
 Some Fundamental Principles to be Kept in Mind. 
 America is a sacred trust which has been bequeathed to U9 
 by those who have gone before and which we in turn are 
 to pass on to those who come after us. A nation is more 
 than land area. It is a spiritual entity. It exists in the 
 hearts of the people. We have seen heroic Belgians and 
 Serbians dispossessed of their national territory but un- 
 beaten in their spirits, and wherever they may have been 
 driven, they have carried their nation with them. The 
 Czecho-Slovaks have had no independence for three hundred 
 years, but they never allowed the firesof the national spirit to be ex- 
 tinguished and at last have come into their Promised Land. 
 
 A national ideal is a progressive and expanding ideal. 
 Our institutions and conceptions have undergone, with the 
 passing generations, that expansion and progress which are 
 characteristic of a spiritual ideal. It is this which makes 
 democracy what it is and insures growth. But the chief 
 point to be remembered is that this trust we enjoy to-day 
 represents sacrifice and endurance, heroic and unselfish. In 
 the book of Judges we read that after the death of Joshua 
 "all that generation were gathered unto their fathers; and 
 there arose another generation after them, that knew not 
 Jehovah, nor yet the works which he had wrought for 
 Israel." Americanization is the endeavor to conserve our 
 national trust and administer it for those who come after 
 us in the spirit of the founders and in the light of our best 
 traditions. Our children must live in a nation which we 
 are now making for them. 
 
THE PRESENT ISSUE 17 
 
 Our Right to Our Ideals. We in America have the 
 right, which we readily accord to every other nation, to 
 enjoy the type of government and the social institutions 
 which suit our taste. They may not be the best in the world, 
 but if we like them, it is our privilege to enjoy them. The 
 European Sabbath, the free use of liquor, the treatment ac- 
 corded to women by the Slav and Oriental, and many other 
 customs which could be mentioned may be, in the judg- 
 ment of some who desire to live in America, vastly preferable 
 to our conception of these matters. 
 
 This opens up many questions of great importance as to 
 how much modification in our standards we should make to 
 suit the tastes of newcomers. We lay down this fact as a 
 fundamental principle: America has a right to her own 
 civilization and her own culture and an equal right to re- 
 ject the culture which any may endeavor to thrust upon her. 
 There is much that we can learn from other nations. We 
 have already derived much from them, and we cannot close 
 our minds to new light; but it is essential that we shall be 
 permitted to determine what is consistent with our ideals. 
 
 A Unique Situation. America has not been the only 
 country with a ^'foreign problem." Until the break-up of 
 Austria and Russia, continual unrest characterized the na- 
 tional life of those countries. Canada has a "foreign prob- 
 lem": the French population, enjoying rights guaranteed by 
 treaty, is an unassimilated mass in the body politic of 
 Canada; French is the commercial, social, and ecclesiastical 
 language of several hundreds of thousands of the citizens of 
 Quebec and Eastern Ontario. 
 
 But there is a fundamental distinction and contrast be- 
 
18 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 tweeii the foreigner in America and the Bohemian, Slovak, 
 Rumanian, and Italian in Austria-Hungary. The latter have 
 been living in their ancestral homes under the dominion of 
 conquerors. The immigrant in AmxCrica is a voluntary- 
 guest of America, to be accorded the rights guaranteed by 
 treaty with the country of his origin until he becomes a 
 citizen. When he becomes a citizen, as he may of his ovv^n 
 free choice, he voluntarily renounces allegiance to the former 
 sovereignty under which he lived and takes a voluntary 
 oath to "uphold the constitution and defend America against 
 all enemies, foreign and domestic," and to maintain "true 
 faith and allegiance" to the country of his adoption. This 
 status of the new American, by virtue of its voluntary nature, 
 cannot be ignored and must not be lost sight of. 
 
 The Foundation of Democracy. Democracy is not 
 simply a form of government. It is the spirit of society 
 and extends fo all the relationships of national life. "The 
 true foundations of democracy," Professor John R. Com- 
 mons well says, "are in the character of the people." In an 
 address in New York City a few years ago Governor Whit- 
 man declared: "It is not the government that makes the 
 people free. It is the people who make the government free. 
 It is not the government that makes the people good, but the 
 people who make the government good."^ 
 
 We have been warned in a startling way by Russia's ex- 
 perience that, in order to make democracy safe for the world, 
 there must be preparation for democratic responsibilities. 
 Education and training are necessaiy. The thirteen colonies 
 did not decide upon a republican form of government in an 
 academic way. Professor Roland G. Usher points out 
 
 1 Commons, Races and Immigrants in America, p. 6. 
 
THE PRESENT ISSUE 19 
 
 that it was only after long practise in managing the local 
 colonial affairs that it became evident that democracy 
 was expedient. No one came to America to establish a 
 democracy.^ In admitting newcomers to the privileges and 
 duties of citizenship — in fact, in admitting any one to these 
 responsibilities and rights — the fundamental importance of 
 training, intelligence, restraint, integrity, experience, all that 
 goes to make up character must be taken into consideration. 
 
 United, We Stand, We have witnessed the collapse of 
 Austria and the break-up of Russia. In those countries there 
 was no spiritual unity. What semblance of unity existed 
 was due to the iron control of autocracy. The inevitable 
 has happened, although it was long over-due. In a demo- 
 cracy the truth of Jesus' words concerning 'a. house divided 
 against itself is perfectly self-evident. As Professor Com- 
 mons says, "To be great, a nation need not be of one blood ; 
 it must be of one mind ... If we think together, we can act 
 together.''^ Democracy involves acting together, and the 
 essential prerequisite for united action is united thought. 
 To quote President Wilson's Fourth Liberty Loan speech, 
 we must be able to * 'speak the same language, literally and 
 spiritually." 
 
 Is it possible, with the various racial stocks, the many 
 different heritages, the multiplicity of handicaps that are 
 Involved, is it possible for America to achieve national unity? 
 Is it possible for us to overcome class consciousness and the 
 survivals of race consciousness, to overthrow the inevitable 
 barriers and bridge the separating chasms which exist, and 
 to emerge one people, Indivisible, with liberty and justice en- 
 joyed by all? The answer is involved in the answer to an- 
 
 1 Usher, The Rise of the American People, Chap. V. 
 
 2 Commons, Races and Immigrants in America, p. 20. 
 
20 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 other question. Is it possible for America to realize the 
 promise of the past, to be true to her trust and attain to the 
 goal of her ideals, while at the same time she is called upon 
 to educate and assimilate millions of men and women of 
 foreign birth and their children. There are some of us who 
 believe that this task may be her salvation, if she can meet it 
 in the right spirit. If America has moral and social vitality, 
 spiritual vision, and unselfish devotion to humanity, she will 
 rise to the opportunity which is afforded her and so realize 
 the manifest destiny which is her share in God's world plan. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 
 
 COLUMBUS is popularly credited with having dis- 
 covered America. As a matter of fact, everybody 
 must make that discovery for himself. It is per- 
 fectly possible for people to live out their little lives and 
 never really discover America. The Indians lived here for 
 generations before the white man came, but they never dis- 
 covered America's resources. One may travel the length and 
 breadth of the country and never understand the genius and 
 spirit of America. As we said in the preceding chapter, a 
 nation exists in the consciousness of the people. Some of 
 the keenest appreciations of America have been uttered by 
 people who were not born here. A classic authority on our 
 political institutions was written by an Englishman.^ 
 
 As a nation, we have experienced a spiritual awakening, 
 a revival of "Americanism." A new self-consciousness has 
 come to us as a by-product of the war. In the past we 
 have habitually taken things for granted. We have been 
 conscious of wealth and power. We have been fed up on 
 more or less flamboyant statements of our greatness. While 
 in a vague way we have been conscious of our ideals, but 
 few of us would be able to defend our faith against a critic 
 of America. We would die rather than intentionally sur- 
 1 James Bryce, The American Commonwealth. 
 
 21 
 
22 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 render our ideals; the danger is, we may betray our country 
 unwittingly or sell our birthright for a mess of pottage, 
 without realizing that we have made the bad bargain. 
 
 There is much carping criticism of America by radical 
 elements which is irritating to us and arouses bitter resent- 
 ment. In the long run, however, this criticism will do us 
 good. We cannot content ourselves with vague generalities; 
 we must each set forth on a voyage of discovery and find 
 America for ourselves. Love is not blind. If we love our 
 country, we will not shut our eyes to her failures but will 
 be the more sensitive to imperfections just because we love 
 her. In this chapter we shall endeavor to point out some of 
 the qualities which constitute America's genius for dealing 
 with new elements which have been received into her 
 national life. It is earnestly hoped that this brief study 
 will provoke further and more serious consideration of the 
 larger subject of America's genius and spirit, and the part 
 she has to play in the reconstruction of the world on demo- 
 cratic principles. 
 
 An Unique Undertaking. The most daring adven- 
 ture which any nation has ever undertaken is the admission 
 into its national life and to a participation in the responsi- 
 bilities and rights of citizenship, of millions of people, speak- 
 ing foreign languages, having been trained in different social 
 customs, and having lived under different political institu- 
 tions. 
 
 Other nations have' had to deal with racial elements for- 
 eign to the dominant race. Other nations have large num- 
 bers of foreign residents and refugees who have played a 
 rather conspicuous part in their literary or artistic life. But 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 23 
 
 no other nation in modern history has had an experience 
 comparable to that of the United States. The fact that she 
 has so largely escaped the bitterness engendered in other 
 nations, that she has not been obliged to resort to com- 
 promises, adjustments, or accommodations, as others have 
 been obliged to do, in order to preserve even a semblance of 
 peace, calls for explanation. 
 
 Not Subjugation. In the preceding chapter v^^e have 
 pointed out the unique status of the immigrant in America. 
 He is not a subject living under conditions imposed through 
 conquest by an enemy who has beaten him in battle. That 
 has been for centuries the status of millions of people in 
 Europe, and many of them have come to America to escape 
 intolerable conditions consequent to subjugation. They have 
 suffered so much that we must take great pains and be very 
 patient in making clear their present status here and the 
 radical difference between the moral aims of Americaniza- 
 tion and their past unhappy experience. 
 
 The status of the Slovaks of Hungary will serve as an 
 illustration of what assimilation by the process of subjuga- 
 tion means. The Magyars came from western Asia, a 
 strong, brave, and capable people, and after a fierce struggle 
 settled in the fertile plains of Hungary. They subdued the 
 Slovaks who for long years had lived in the north under 
 the shadow of the Carpathians. The Tatra region is the 
 beloved land of the Slovaks, whose temperament is radically 
 different from that of the proud and stern Magyar. The 
 experience of the repressive measures by which the minority 
 element, the Magyars, have imposed their language and their 
 will upon these simpler people would turn an American into 
 
24 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 a savage and implacable foe. When we are discussing Amer- 
 icanization, in dealing with representatives from Hungary, 
 we have to overcome a fear that Americanization is the 
 equivalent in the United States of Magyarization in 
 Hungary. That process in Germany, as it has concerned 
 the Poles, French, and Danes, has been the same story with 
 local variations. We shall have occasion to refer to some 
 of these repressive measures more specifically. Let us make 
 it clear and unmistakable that assimilation, which is our 
 ideal in Americanization, is not subjugation. 
 
 Not Incorporation. There are two interesting illustra- 
 tions of incorporation of a foreign body into a national 
 body politic. Swedes differing in blood and language from 
 the Finns, have lived for many years in the western part of 
 Finland. This is their ancestral home, but it has long been 
 cut off from Sweden by conquest. They have enjoyed 
 great freedom and have retained their own language and 
 customs practically undisturbed. They have only in oc- 
 casional instances attempted to learn the Finnish language. 
 
 The French in Canada we have alluded to. Protected by 
 treaties which the Canadian Government has always respect- 
 ed, there live hundreds of thousands of French people, most- 
 ly Romanists, who have been incorporated into the body 
 of the Dominion. Though they are represented in Parlia- 
 ment and enjoy all the rights of other citizens of Canada, 
 they have persistently resisted assimilation. The distur- 
 bances connected with conscription during the war disclosed 
 that, although there were glorious exceptions, the French 
 Canadians as a people, are an incorporated but still unas- 
 similated body. 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 25 
 
 Better Than Adjustment. Adjustment is a term 
 which has been proposed as a substitute or compromise to 
 soften the alleged arbitrariness of the idea of assimilation. 
 
 One of the most interesting illustrations of political ad- 
 justment is Switzerland. That sturdy nation is composed 
 of three racial units: French, German, and Italian. The 
 distribution, numerically and geographically, of these races is 
 such as to assure respect for each other's rights and tradi- 
 tions. Switzerland is a federation of French-speaking, Ger- 
 man-speakmg, and Italian-speaking cantons, based, very 
 largely, upon the principles of our own governmental sys- 
 tem. A phase of this which has much historical importance 
 is the religious adjustment involved. Catholic and Pro- 
 testant cantons have learned to cooperate. While the Cath- 
 olics and the Protestants are not all in separate cantons, in 
 earlier days the predominance of each in separate cantons 
 created problems of adjustment which have since been set- 
 tled on a satisfactory working basis. 
 
 But however much we admire the achievement of Switzer- 
 land we would not wish to entertain that conception of ad- 
 justment as America's ideal. Adjustment is all that may 
 fairly be expected of an alien resident. An agent of a foreign 
 commercial house would adjust himself to the situation which 
 he found in the country of his residence. He would quickly 
 adjust himself to business methods, social habits, and if 
 possible, to the language. This would simply be good busi- 
 ness. He would be free to join a club of his fellow country- 
 men and enjoy all the advantages of association of his home 
 folk. He would be free to attend public worship conducted 
 in his mother tongue, if he could find a church of his 
 
26 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 choice. These privileges are conceded in most parts of the 
 world. 
 
 But citizenship is a more vital matter, especially in Amer- 
 ica. It calls for a different attitude of mind. It is not 
 simply a matter of privileges and protection conferred and 
 enjoyed. It involves the whole life of the nation as a 
 partner and partaker. The ideal which America has cherish- 
 ed from the beginning is an assimilation of new elements, 
 which would result eventually in complete spiritual identity 
 both with America at large and Vv^ith the local community. 
 Keeping in mind the long view of the matter, every student 
 of American history must be impressed with the fact that, 
 notwithstanding some exceptions, this ideal has been largely 
 realized. No one desires a dead level of monotonous re- 
 petition, whereby every American shall be an exact replica 
 of every other American. What we should cherish resolute- 
 ly and strive for unwaveringly is that complete, sj^mpathetic 
 identification on the part of all with the life and spirit of 
 America socially and politically, so that we shall be spiritual- 
 ly one nation, one people. 
 
 We cannot attain this ideal so long as there exist "for- 
 eign" settlements: colonies and areas which are distinguish- 
 ed by a single predominant racial stock; an imported civil- 
 ization, transplanted, and not indigenous to America; a 
 survival of old world traditions and habits and points of 
 view; a "bloc" that politicians shall be able to reckon as 
 the "Irish vote" or the "German vote" or the "Swedish 
 vote" or the "Jewish vote." This survival of racial self- 
 consciousness which resists all American influences is but 
 the reproduction on American soil of those other concep- 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 27 
 
 tlons of racial relationships which historically have meant 
 discord and prevented the highest and most perfect national 
 unity in other lands. 
 
 A New Race. We are familiar with several racial 
 blends. Very few races are of pure or unmixed stock. Per- 
 haps the first illustration which occurs to us of this blending 
 of different racial families into a new race is that of the 
 Anglo-Saxons — a blending which is of more than ordinary 
 interest to us. 
 
 England and the English, as v/e think of them, were a 
 transplantation. England first existed in what is now 
 Schleswig in the center of the Danish peninsula. The 
 Anglo-Saxons were a race constituted out of the Jutes in 
 the north, the English in the center, and the Saxons in the 
 south. All these races were of Teutonic stock, speaking the 
 Anglo-Saxon language and living under the same social and 
 political institutions. There were no kings in their conti- 
 nental home, and justice and public affairs were settled 
 somewhat after the order of the New England town meet- 
 ing, but usually In the open air under the "moot tree." The 
 British Isles had been peopled by Britons, PIcts, and Scots. 
 After the withdrawal of the Romans to defend Italy against 
 the attack of the Northern hordes, the PIcts, Scots, and 
 Anglo-Saxons had harried the sea and menaced the Britons. 
 The Britons by generous bribes succeeded In breaking up 
 the league which bound their enemies and united the Anglo- 
 Saxons to themselves as allies. Ebbfield, on the Isle of 
 Thanet off the coast of Kent, was their ''Plymouth Rock" 
 of 449 A. D. There the Anglo-Saxons landed, to become, 
 after two and a half centuries of bitter and relentless con- 
 
28 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 flict, the possessors of the land. Their customs and Institu- 
 tions supplanted those of the Romans and Britons, and the 
 Britons, as a race, disappeared. 
 
 An interesting contrast occurs to us, which cannot be with- 
 out significance. This adventure upon a career of conquest 
 resulted in the creation of kings, a class of ''nobility," and a 
 class of slaves among a once democratic people. Soon after 
 the beginning of the conquest there appeared an Anglo-Saxon 
 king in Kent, another in Wessex, and also one in Sussex. 
 After a lapse of more than a thousand years, immigrants 
 from that island, descendants of these ancient conquerors, 
 still further blended by the infusion of Norman blood, 
 established upon this continent a nation without a king and 
 ■without a class of titled nobility. Here they were to restore 
 that democratic principle which their forefathers had for- 
 saken by becoming a military people. The Anglo-Saxons 
 established themselves In Britain by conquest. The race 
 which we know as American has established Itself here 
 through colonization, industry, thrift, and peaceful infiltra- 
 tion. 
 
 That Americans are a new race is accepted practically by 
 all students of American social and political life and institu- 
 tions. Speaking of the 'nation as a whole, Americans are 
 not, therefore, Anglo-Saxons, although we constantly refer 
 to ourselves In that way in popular speech, and the Anglo- 
 Saxon Influence has been the most determinative in our na- 
 tional history. A humorous Instance of this popular use of 
 the term comes to us out of the war. A Negro soldier in 
 the United States army was execrating the cruelty of the 
 enemy and brought his passionate outburst to a close by ex- 
 
Photo by A. T. Beals 
 
 ^ Brown Brothers 
 
 In New York — the City of Many Nations 
 
 1. The ends of the earth come together in the ice-depot line. 
 
 2. The daily noon-hour throng of foreign-speaking garment 
 
 workers on lower Fifth Avenue. 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 29 
 
 claiming, "Just wait until us Angry Saxyums get over there ; 
 we'll fix 'em!" As a government we are the United States 
 of America. As a nation we are the American people. One 
 thing is clear, and that Is the chief point under consideration : 
 Americans are a new creation. It is essential that we keep 
 this fact clearly In mind when we are considering the type or 
 form to which newcomers are assimilated. We are not 
 asking that Latins and Slavs who come to America shall 
 become Anglo-Saxons, but Americans. As America is not 
 a Western England, so Americans are not Western English- 
 men, but a new race. 
 
 Creating Type. We have had a number of fascinating 
 biographies which have set forth vividly the experience by 
 which individuals have become Americans. We have need 
 of a popular and readable national biography which will tell 
 the more fascinating story of the making of the American, 
 the creation of the new race. 
 
 The new race is an amalgam of several distinct racial 
 stocks blended together under the dominating influence of 
 the English descendants of those early Anglo-Saxons. There 
 were at least fourteen — some say eighteen — different lan- 
 guages spoken on Manhattan Island as early as 1664. By 
 the time the Declaration of Independence was promulgated 
 there were established along the Atlantic seaboard and east 
 of the Appalachian settlements of English, Scotch, Irish, 
 Dutch, French, Swedes, Moravians, Germans, Spanish, and 
 Portuguese. The significant fact for us to note Is that the 
 population of the thirteen colonies, numbering less than 
 4,000,000, was overwhelmingly "Teutonic in blood and 
 Protestant In religion."^ 
 
 1 Commons, Races and Immigrant in America. 
 
30 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Dr. Laldlaw, secretary of the Federation of Churches of 
 New York City and celebrated statistician, is authority for 
 this illuminating racial analysis of that early population: 
 "We are... a nation derived from the 3,172,444 whites 
 and 757,181 Negroes enumerated in the census of 1790. 
 The white population of the nation in 1790 was made up 
 of 2,906,414, or 91.6%, from the nations comprising the 
 Entente Allies of to-day [191 8.] Of this percentage .6% 
 were French, and the remaining 91% English, Scotch, 
 and Irish. The present Germany contributed only 176,407 
 or 5.6%, and of the present neutrals the Dutch contributed 
 78,959 or 2.5%, and all other whites .3%." 
 
 Whether it was because the English were superior in num- 
 bers or in native force is not known, but it is a fact that they 
 dominated that early racial blend and in time the Saxons 
 and Jutes disappeared and the English became a distinct tj^pe 
 with a distinct language. It was not by mere accident that 
 the English succeeded in colonizing the new world where 
 others failed, and at last became the dominant element in the 
 colonies. The Spanish left their imprint on Central and 
 South America, but they made only slight impression on the 
 colonies of North America. It would lead us too far afield 
 from our present study to follow the interesting inquiry as 
 to the reasons for this difference, but it is an important field 
 of study for Americans who are interested in the subject. 
 By the time of the Revolution, the English recognized 
 that in the colonies there had arisen a distinct type that was 
 different from the English of the British Isles. The selec- 
 tion of the best among early settlers, the underlying purpose 
 in settlement, the climate and geography of the country, the 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 31 
 
 experiences and exigencies of pioneer life have all been 
 credited with determining the type. This, too, is a fascinat- 
 ing stud}^ for those who are interested in tracing the in- 
 fluences which are still operating in American life. 
 
 True to Type. That we are a hybrid people has often 
 been said of us by others in a disparaging tone, and some- 
 times our own people have spoken regretfully in the same 
 strain. This is a matter of opinion and cannot be settled 
 arbitrarily. But we need to recognize the fact that the type 
 w^hich was created, and was still embryonic in 1776, has 
 been maintained for nearly one hundred and fifty years. 
 
 The nation has grown from 4,000,000 to more than 
 100,000,000. The national area has increased from the nar- 
 row strip along the Atlantic Coast across vast states to the 
 Pacific and from the Gulf to the Great Lakes. We re- 
 cognize sectional characteristics, and we believe that these 
 are advantageous and keep us more sanely balanced. The 
 contributions that the Dutch, French, Scotch, Irish, Scandi- 
 navians, and Germans have made are gratefully acknow- 
 ledged, and we recognize that still other stocks have' left their 
 impress on American life. 
 
 Dr. Laidlaw has carried his analysis over to our day, and 
 he has an important contribution to make at this point: 
 ''The United States had, in 1880, from the 10,189,429 
 immigrants of the years 1 820-1 850, 7,794,000 native-born 
 whites of native parents, who included at least 2,927,000 
 of foreign grand-parentage. Our United States of July i, 
 191 7, was made up of 17.7% of post-Revolutionary grand- 
 parentage, from allied countries 10,856,430, from Ger- 
 many and other Central Powers 8,125,378, from neutral 
 
32 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 countries 2,599,512; or a total of 21,581,329 — that is, 
 20.8% native whites of foreign parentage. On the date of 
 the selective draft census computation, there were 14.1% 
 foreign-born whites. These studies are summed up in an 
 interesting table of our population, July I, I9i7> which is 
 worth studying: 
 
 Descendants of whites enumerated 1790 38,828,000 
 
 Descendants of immigrants, 1820-1880 17,687,952 
 
 Native whites of foreign parentage 21,581,329 
 
 Foreign-born whites 14,662,261 
 
 Total whites 92,759,542 
 
 Indians, Negroes, Asiatics, etc. 10,875,758 
 
 The character and trend of our American life and institu- 
 tions were naturally determined by the men and women who 
 braved the hardships of pioneer life and who, obedient to 
 their heavenly vision, brought forth upon this virgin conti- 
 nent a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men 
 are created with equal rights to life, liberty, and the pur- 
 suit of happiness and with a fair fighting chance to realize 
 them. 
 
 Better Than a "Melting Pot." America is not a 
 
 ''melting pot." It is something far more human and 
 vital, more divine and spiritual than that. What we 
 need to keep steadily in mind is that the process of 
 Americanization is not the reduction of all to a common 
 denominator but the elevation of all to the highest possible 
 plane; to consider that each race reacts upon the other to 
 the enrichment of all; and to endeavor to realize that the 
 various racial stocks, thus contributing, lose their separate 
 and distinct identity in the building of a new entity, a new 
 race, which shall be a demonstration, in this day of grace, of 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 33 
 
 the blood brotherhood of all men and the spiritual oneness 
 of the sons of God. 
 
 The Secret. Such an achievement as this, which we 
 have thus far realized approximately and still maintain as 
 our ideal, is not an accident. It is not national conceit to 
 say that it could only happen under conditions such as those 
 which have obtained in America. And as this is the last 
 "new world," it is inconceivable that it can ever occur again. 
 Let us try to discover some, at least, of the factors which 
 have contributed to this success. 
 
 Romantic America. America has been for millions 
 a land of romance. That doubtless sounds strange to 
 many of us who are unromantic and who love to call 
 ourselves "practical and hard-headed." It is more than 
 distance which has lent this enchantment. To be sure, 
 there has followed all too often the bitter disenchantment, 
 but to those who have persistently followed the gleam, 
 the reality has proved at last to be more enchanting than 
 the dream. 
 
 In the first chapter of Professor Usher's valuable book. 
 The Rise of the American People, is a beautiful passage: 
 "Homer placed the Elysian Fields, the abode of supreme 
 happiness, in the West, the land of the setting sun. Out to 
 those unknown regions where Phoebus Apollo stabled his 
 steeds at evening, went Odysseus to talk with his father's 
 spirit; out into the West, Virgil led Aeneas to see the dead 
 heroes, riding and leaping in the green meadows under per- 
 petual sunshine. The grim sagas of the Norsemen tell us 
 how the dead chieftain was laid upon a couch on board his 
 long ship; how the great sail was hoisted and how 
 
34 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 the raven standard flapped sinister wings against the 
 mast ; how the flaring torches flung a beam of light to guide 
 the ship on its last long journey out into the West. Some 
 proph"etic impulse led the bards to make the West symbolic 
 of the hopes and ideals of the Aryan race. . .The dull eyes of 
 struggling European peasants have for three centuries seen 
 in the United States the Elyslan Fields. . .Only from Amer- 
 ica came back word that Elysium had been found, a land 
 truly flowing with milk and honey. The United States 
 holds the unique and superb position of embodying for mil- 
 lions of men and women the racial vision of an abode of the 
 Blessed in the West." 
 
 The Youth of America. We have been able to stand 
 the strain of im.migration because we are 5^oung. We have 
 the vitality of youth, and with it the daring, the initiative, 
 and the spirit of adventure. There are, of course, conserva- 
 tive elements in America, but Americans as a people are not 
 conservative. The life of America is still fluid. Our in- 
 stitutions and our society are still virile and resilient. For- 
 eign visitors usually remark upon our lack of dignity, our 
 exuberant hilarity, our rather rough humor. We are "rav/;" 
 we have no "past" to speak of. These are qualities which 
 are characteristic of youth, but one thing of which we are 
 glad and for which we do not apologize is our age. 
 
 How young we are, most of us do not realize. In Seattle 
 there is a monument marking the last frontier conflict with 
 the Indians, and it bears a date of sixty years ago. It was 
 only three years ago that Chicago University, one of the 
 richest universities In the world, celebrated Its twenty-fifth 
 anniversary. The year before. Brown University was ob- 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 35 
 
 serving Its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary and of course 
 vras worthy of the respect due to such antiquity. Harvard 
 must have looked upon Brown's pretensions to age with some 
 degree of amusement, for Harvard has attained a ripe old 
 age of nearly three hundred years. 
 
 When we visit Europe, we begin to realize our own 
 youth. University College, the oldest of Oxford's colleges, 
 was more than two hundred years old when Columbus, try- 
 ing to find a passage to India, stumbled upon America. If 
 we visit the University in Cracow, we find in the quadrangle 
 of the ancient library a statue to Copernicus, the famous 
 student of that school who gave us our modern astronomical 
 system. An American, looking about this beautiful Gothic 
 quadrangle and seeking to reckon Its age. Is rather awed 
 when he discovers that the charter of the old University 
 was granted nearly a thousand years ago. Under such cir- 
 cumstances we begin to appreciate that it is because of her 
 Immaturity that America can stand the strain of Immigra- 
 tion on such a scale and of such a character as we are con- 
 sidering. America Is not finished. She Is only just getting 
 started, and the newcomers are fellow pilgrims In a quest 
 upon which she has set forth with the spirit of undaunted 
 youth. 
 
 America has plenty of elbow room. There Is space for all 
 who are fitted and willing to take their part in her life. If 
 we compare the map of Europe with the map of the United 
 States, we find that the two are practically equal In extent. 
 According to the census of 1910, America had a population 
 of 100,000,000. Europe at the same time had a population 
 of 300,000,000. Montana is one of our largest states, 
 
36 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 though not the largest. The fastest train which traverses 
 it requires more than twenty-four hours to cross the state. 
 Hungary, which is larger than Austria, is considerably 
 smaller than Montana. Yet the population of Montana is 
 less than 500,000, while the population of Hungary was, 
 before the war, 21,000,000, and Austria at the same time 
 had a population of 29,000,000. 
 
 America's unmeasured natural resources have been brought 
 to the attention of the world by the necessities of the war, 
 as never before ; and now it is estimated that for the return- 
 ing soldiers still more millions of acres of uncultivated land 
 will be brought under cultivation. America has room enough 
 for many more millions who might help to develop her re- 
 sources; but there is not room for a single man or woman 
 who is not heart and soul one with America, loyal to her 
 ideals and undivided in allegiance to her highest welfare. 
 
 A Land of Opportunity. America has been and still 
 is the land of opportunity. Her name has become synony- 
 mous with a new chance and a better chance at the best which 
 life has to offer. The doors of opportunity have been open 
 to the most energetic newcomers. 
 
 In Cleveland one day, I saw a group of newly arrived 
 immigrants crossing the Public Square. They were strange 
 in appearance and aroused the usual amused comment. Walk- 
 ing just ahead of me, two men, whom I would have thought 
 to be prosperous business men of the city, called attention 
 to the group and chaffed each other. One remarked, "That 
 is the way you looked when you landed ten years ago." 
 
 When I visited Cracow, I fell into conversation with the 
 porter on the way to my hotel. Upon learning from what 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 37 
 
 American city I came, he asked me if I happened to know 
 a certain man there who, he said, had emigrated to America 
 from Cracow\ I happened to know him as the president of the 
 Chamber of Commerce. In turn, I asked the porter if he 
 knew this gentleman's brother-in-law and found that he, 
 too, had gone as an emigrant from the city of Cracow to my 
 city. Now he is one of the city's leading and most respected 
 business men. He chanced to be a neighbor of mine, and 
 our daughters were chums. I doubt if the friends of either 
 of these men ever thought of them as anything but native- 
 born Americans. 
 
 But the boys and girls and the "common people'* who do 
 not become famous or get into public life, the thousands and 
 hundreds of thousands who here have found themselves as 
 well as opportunity; these are the real witnesses to America. 
 In contrast to the "caste system" of Europe, w^hich makes 
 it difficult for any one to choose his trade or rise above the 
 class in which he was born, America's opportunity has 
 ever loomed large and beckoned to the ambitious. 
 
 A Land of Liberty. Neither America's youth, the 
 spacious areas represented by her states, nor the opportunity 
 that she offers to the ambitious sufficiently explains the genius 
 which America possesses for assimilating the peoples of other 
 lands. Nothing vrhich we have cited is comparable to the 
 position she holds as a land of liberty. The foundations of 
 the nation were laid in the fundamental conviction that the 
 divine right of human freedom vvas supreme above any claim 
 of kings or a privileged class; that men were endowed with 
 inalienable rights, political, social, and religious; that before 
 the law all men were equal. 
 
38 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 When these revolutionary doctrines were proclaimed in 
 1776, they stirred the profoundest aspirations in the minds 
 and hearts of men all over the vrorld. America's experi- 
 ment has been a demonstration of the soundness of these 
 doctrines not for herself alone but for the world. It is not too 
 much to say that every step which humanity has taken to- 
 ward human freedom and political democracy since that day 
 has been made easier because of America's pioneering ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Political, social, and religious refugees have sought here 
 an asylum from persecution and have either remained until 
 a happier day should permit them to return or have helped 
 to build here the nation which should become an example 
 to the world, a sign and symbol for aspiring souls everywhere. 
 We know the story well, that tale which never ceases to 
 thrill us when it is told, how on this frontier of the world 
 men have found what elsewhere had been denied them. 
 
 A personal experience of somewhat more than ordinary 
 interest has led me to feel that the average native-born Amer- 
 ican of colonial stock has a wholly inadequate conception of 
 this treasure of liberty. I was once the guest of a friend in 
 the city of Briinn, the capital of Moravia. He asked me if 
 I would be willing to lecture on Religious Liberty In Amer- 
 ica and assured me that, if I would consent to do so, he 
 would secure a large audience for me. I had never spoken 
 on that subject. I would as readily have thought of lectur- 
 ing on The Air in America or The Grass In America as on 
 Religious Liberty In America. But with a desire to be 
 accommodating and agreeable, I consented. 
 
 My host was a wise man and knew I needed a tonic; so 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 39 
 
 he took me for an inspection of the old Speilberg, the most 
 famous, or infamous, prison of Austria. It is a massive pile 
 which crowns the heights above the city. The stone can- 
 non-balls which the Swedes used when they sought to capture 
 the citadel in other days may still be seen embedded in the 
 walls. I was conducted through the various cells which have 
 historic interest. In on^, a nobleman had committed suicide ; 
 in another, a refined noblewoman had gone insane; from an- 
 other, one had escaped and sought refuge with the Turks. 
 A series of chambers still contained the implements of tor- 
 ture of the Spanish Inquisition and the Hussite Wars. But 
 it was in the dungeon that the refinement of cruelty was 
 perpetrated. The sewer which passed through these cells 
 was arched about two and a half feet above the floor. At 
 intervals of some four or five feet were openings like 
 manholes. My guides explained that it was the custom to 
 place the victims in these man-holes and so wall them in 
 that, while having freedom above the waist, they could not 
 otherwise move; there they were left, either to starve or to 
 be eaten by the swarms of rats that infested the sev/er. From 
 this dungeon they led me to the office of the prison and asked 
 me to register. My imagination was on fire, and I realized 
 as never before what America had meant to the Bohemians 
 and to other subject races in Austria. I wrote with much 
 feeling, as I registered, ''Charles A. Brooks — America, 
 thank God!" 
 
 That night I spoke to the radical and progressive intel- 
 lectuals of that city. I had expected a group of church peo- 
 ple and did not know until afterward to whom I was speak- 
 ing. As the ^meeting was about to open, an officer of the 
 
40 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 government, in full uniform and with his sword dangling 
 at his heels, appeared to censor the proceedings. I was to 
 speak on one of the most dangerous themes which could be 
 considered. Religious liberty is the acid test of all liberty. 
 I am conscious that it was a very unworthy exposition of 
 a great theme. Many times have I longed to have another 
 chance. I do not know that I did any good or made any 
 contribution to the cause of freedom, but this I do know; I 
 am a better American for that experience and a better man, 
 with larger sympathy and appreciation of the struggles and 
 aspirations of men and women who have not had the price- 
 less privilege that we in America enjoy and who have sought 
 here the liberty elsewhere denied them. It is what America 
 has meant to thousands as a land of liberty that has con- 
 stituted her highest glory, for the greatness of a nation is 
 not in her area, her material wealth, or her population, but 
 in her ideals. We have come far short of our ideals, but we 
 cling to them and will not relinquish the determination to 
 achieve one day all that we have dreamed. 
 
 Because of their restricted lives, their repressed aspira- 
 tions toward liberty, people from all the world have sought 
 America. The Pilgrims, Quakers, Irish, Germans, French 
 Huguenots, Moravian and Bohemian Brethren, Catholics, 
 jews, Italians, Hungarians, Russians; all have found Amer- 
 ica a haven of refuge. We have been determined to build 
 here a nation that all the broken souls of men may seek with 
 the certainty that here they may find not only refuge but 
 brotherhood. We must see to it that each American shall 
 have the honor of this land so much at heart that he will 
 not tolerate any stain upon it, even though it be but a poor 
 
AMERICA'S GENIUS FOR ASSIMILATION 41 
 
 immigrant who is wronged ; that each shall be an embodi- 
 ment and exponent of this spirit. Only so shall we be able 
 to make good our proud and w^orthy boast that this is indeed 
 a land of liberty. 
 
 On a recent Fourth of July in Madison Square two boj^s 
 spoke for America. One was of the lineage of colonial 
 Americans; the other was of the lineage of recent immi- 
 grants. They told this story of America's genius: 
 
 First Boy, "I am an American ! My father belongs to the 
 Sons of the Revolution, my mother to the Colonial Dames. 
 One of my ancestors pitched tea overboard in Boston Harbor. 
 Another stood his ground with Warren. Another hungered 
 with Washington at Valley Forge. My forefathers were 
 Americans in the making. They spoke in America's council 
 halls; they died on her battle-fields; they commanded her 
 ships; they cleared her forests. The staunch hearts of my 
 ancestors beat fast as each new star was added to our flag. 
 Keen eyes saw her greater glory, the sweep of her fields, 
 the man-hives in her billion-wired cities. Every drop of 
 blood in me holds a heritage of patriotism. I am proud of 
 my past. I am an American!" 
 
 Second Boy. "I am an American! My father was an 
 atom of dust. My mother was a straw in the wind, to his 
 serene majesty. One of my ancestors died in the mines 
 of Siberia; another was crippled for life by twenty blov/s 
 of the knout ; another was killed defending his home during 
 one of the massacres. The history of my ancestors is one 
 trail of blood to the palace gate of the great White Czar. 
 But then the dream came — the dream of America! In the 
 light of the Liberty torch the atom of dust became a man. 
 
42 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 the straw in the wind became a woman for the first time. 
 'See!' said my father, pointing to a flag that was fluttering 
 near by. 'That flag of stars and stripes is yours. It is the 
 emblem of the Promised Land. It means, my son, the hope 
 of humanity. Live for it, die for it, if need be.' Under 
 the open sky of my new country I swore to do so, and every 
 drop of blood in me will keep that vow. I am proud of 
 my future. I am an American!" 
 
 The genius of America is summed up in those two de- 
 clamations. Our future is secure so long as we can hold in 
 balance those two ideals: fidelity to the best in our past and 
 fidelity to our mission to humanity. The men who laid the 
 foundations of this republic were prophets. Nathan Hale's 
 regret was not that he should not live to enjoy freedom, but 
 that he had but one life to give to the making of the Promised 
 Land. 
 
 The closing verses of that wonderful eleventh chapter of 
 Hebrews should be kept ever before us: "And these all, 
 having had witness borne to them through their faith, re- 
 ceived not the promise, God having provided some better 
 thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be 
 made perfect." We cannot be true to our past unless we 
 are true to our mission to humanity. The past must be 
 justified by the fidelity of the present. We are heirs and 
 stewards of that past and will, in turn pass on to those who 
 come after us the nation that w^e hold in trust. We must 
 see to it that we do not dissipate that trust or squander our 
 patrimony, to the impoverishment of the America that is 
 to be. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 
 
 THE popular interest in the use of foreign languages 
 has been such as to make this phase of Americaniza- 
 tion one of the most important topics of discussion. 
 There are very natural reasons for this intense interest. 
 
 The question is not as simple as it appears to some and 
 cannot be disposed of summarily by legislation or executive 
 decrees restricting the use of any language but English. 
 There are many who advocate such direct and drastic action 
 and who are impatient with any delay or compromise; but 
 we cannot settle a matter of such far-reaching import and 
 with as many ramifications as this involves, except by de- 
 liberate and well-considered measures. In order to make 
 progress toward our goal, we must be able to carry with us 
 all the fair-minded people who are directly and vitally con- 
 cerned in these matters. The admirable statement of prin- 
 ciple which we quoted from Professor Commons in our first 
 chapter may serve us as a text for our consideration of this 
 subject: *'To be great, a nation need not be of one class; 
 it must be of one mind. If we think together, we can act 
 together, and the organ of common thought and action is 
 common language.*' 
 
 We believe that national unity lies deeper than unity of 
 language. Men may speak the same language and have 
 
 43 
 
44 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 nothing else in common. Men may speak different lan- 
 guages and yet be spiritually united. But other things being 
 equal, there is far greater likelihood of being able to think 
 and act together if we can understand one another's speech. 
 We might achieve an apparent unity which would be super- 
 ficial and artificial. We seek a spiritual unity which is far 
 more difficult of attainment. This higher spiritual unity is 
 dependent upon our ability to do the simpler thing, to achieve 
 unity of language. 
 
 The Experience of Other Countries. Without 
 going unnecessarily into detail, it will be illuminating for 
 us to recall the experiences of other countries in regard to 
 this matter of a common language. 
 
 In the French section of Canada, the French language is 
 the language of business, of the school, and of the church. 
 Business men, especially traveling salesmen, must be bi- 
 lingual if they wish to do an extensive business. The French 
 people cling most tenaciously to this privilege, which has 
 been guaranteed by treaty. 
 
 In Belgium there is a curious situation in respect to the 
 language.. There is no Belgian language. The Belgian 
 population is divided between the Walloons in the south and 
 the Flemings in the north. French is the official language of 
 the government and of the army, although this is not in ac- 
 cordance with the wishes of the Flemish, who constitute 
 five eighths of the population. The Walloons in the south 
 speak a language which is largely French (Romailic), in- 
 fluenced by the Celtic, but almost unintelligible to a French- 
 man and of no literary influence. The Flemings, in the 
 north, speak a language differing but slightly from the Dutch. 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 45 
 
 The Flemish element, which centers culturally in Antwerp, 
 has had the greatest artistic and literary influence. There 
 is a kind of rainbow shading of languages from The Nether- 
 lands through Belgium to France. The question of lan- 
 guages in Belgium has, in the past, been the source of much 
 irritation. The German war governor, during the period 
 of occupation, attempted to split the country and array the 
 two elements against each other, but he did not succeed. 
 This experience illustrates the fact that nationality is deeper 
 than language or blood. 
 
 In Switzerland there are three official languages, a fact 
 which must be taken into consideration in all representative 
 and appointive arrangements. For example, there are nine 
 federal judges, who are divided into groups of three each, 
 so as to give representation to the three official languages. 
 There Is no national standing army, but each canton has its 
 own army, speaking the official language of the canton. It 
 is one of the wonders of nationality that Switzerland has 
 niyintalned such a strong and impregnable front against all 
 separatist movements. Woodrow Wilson has said, "They 
 . . .show the world how Germans, Frenchmen, and Italians, 
 if only they respect each the other's liberties as they would 
 have their own respected, may by mutual helpfulness and 
 forbearance build up a union at once stable and free."^ Many 
 awkward situations are naturally created by three official 
 languages, and the accommodations necessitated by this fact 
 account for many anomalous features of the Swiss constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 Austria-Hungary needs only to be recalled as a horrible 
 example of an artificial state which over-stayed its time in 
 1 Wilson, The State, p. 30, 
 
46 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 history. The language question there was a fertile source 
 of discord and an occasion of repressive and tyrannical 
 measures which we will do well to keep in mind in any 
 program of Americanization. Germany's dealings with the 
 French, Danish, and Polish languages in the annexed ter- 
 ritories are, likewise, an illustration of the difficulties involv- 
 ed and should serve as a warning to any nation which aspires 
 to full spiritual unity. 
 
 These citations illustrate two facts: first, that language is 
 a matter to be handled as delicately as a high explosive; 
 second, that a difference in language within a country creates 
 artificial distinctions which are at best awkward and are 
 always a fertile source of discord. 
 
 Illuminating Facts. It is naturally impossible to state 
 with exactness how many people in America are unable to 
 speak or read the English language. The Bureau of Educa- 
 tion, which is the government agency for promoting the 
 teaching of English, is authority for the statement that there 
 are more than 3,250,000 persons over ten years of age who 
 do not understand English. The National Americanization 
 Committee, one of the pioneers in the movement to spread 
 the use of English, states that there are more than 2,000,000 
 persons over twenty-one who do not understand English. 
 We are informed that 1,275,902 foreign-born men were 
 registered under the first selective draft, and the amazing 
 lack of ability to understand English on the part of thou- 
 sands of our soldiers has become a matter of common know- 
 ledge. Of course, many who "speak English" are unable 
 to read a newspaper and have a vocabulary so meager that it 
 is barely sufficient for use in the shops. 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 47 
 
 There are many areas in our country outside the large 
 cities, where a foreign language is the language of the neigh- 
 borhood and English is foreign. These settlements rep- 
 resent a serious menace to complete nation-wide assimila- 
 tion, because of their insulation from contacts that might 
 otherwise be relied upon to spread the use of the English lan- 
 guage. Social and missionary^ workers in our large cities 
 report uncounted thousands who, after many years of resi- 
 dence in this country, do not know English. These sug- 
 gestive facts are sufficient evidence of a situation which is 
 worthy of most serious consideration. 
 
 The Foreign Language Press. The wide-spread in- 
 fluence of the foreign-language press is attested by many 
 signs. The powder it wields for good or for ill is immeasur- 
 able. It appeals strongly to the public imagination and 
 seems sinister, partly because the vast majority of us can- 
 not read the various languages. Many of the sheets merely 
 repeat news culled from the English papers and wield no 
 political influence. The editorial office is frequently a dingy 
 little room, and the editors lead, financially, a precarious 
 hand-to-mouth existence. But there. are many ably edited 
 and strongly financed papers that exert a powerful and wide- 
 spread influence. The government reports a circulation of 
 periodicals of more than 1200 written in foreign languages. 
 There are 600 German-language periodicals published in 
 the United States. There is a well-organized Foreign Lan- 
 guages Press Association with offices in the Woolworth 
 Building, New York City. In 191 5 this Association re- 
 ported 764 different periodicals which were registered in 
 the organization, including 130 dailies. The combined cir- 
 
48 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 culation of these papers aggregated 9,000,000. Doubtless, 
 this list represents some duplications. Nevertheless, the 
 figures are impressive and suggestive. 
 
 Foreign Language Societies. In any enumeration of 
 conditions representing the wide-spread use of foreign lan- 
 guages as the medium of intercourse, we must include the 
 many societies which help to perpetuate the use of these 
 languages among other customs associated with the life of 
 other da5^s and other lands. The churches which use a for- 
 eign language in their public worship include both Protest- 
 ants and Catholics. A majority of the Jewish synagogues 
 in our great cities use either Yiddish or some other foreign 
 language. In any large city directory the section devoted to 
 the classification of societies instantly impresses one with the 
 limitless capacity for organization possessed by all immi- 
 grant groups. 
 
 Foreign Language Schools. Foreign-language paro- 
 chial schools are to be found in all of our cities and repre- 
 sent both Catholic and Protestant faiths. In some western 
 communities the public schools were conducted in foreign 
 languages up to the time of our entrance into the war. No 
 analysis of the factors to be considered in dealing with the 
 problem of foreign languages would be of great value which 
 failed to take into account the seriousness of the parochial 
 school situation as it exists to-day. 
 
 In twenty-eight of the leading cities for which we have 
 figures, attendance at parochial schools has increased from 
 ten to fifteen per cent, more rapidly than in our public 
 schools. In Cleveland, two years ago, there were more 
 than 27,000 children in parochial schools; this number in- 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 49 
 
 eludes nearly half the children of school age. At the same 
 time in Chicago, there were 300,000 children in the public 
 school, while there were 112,000 in parochial schools. 
 
 One racial group may stand as an illustration of the diffi- 
 culty experienced in bringing American influences to bear 
 upon the children of immigrants who do not enter the public 
 schools. There are, in round numbers, 3,000 Lithuanian 
 children in the parochial schools of Chicago. These rep- 
 resent a Lithuanian population of 50,000 in the city. It is 
 startling to be informed by competent authorities that about 
 three years ago there were only twenty Lithuanians in the 
 high schools of Chicago. 
 
 As concerns the parochial school in Milwaukee, Wiscon- 
 sin, Newark, New Jersey, and scores of other cities with 
 a high percentage of foreign-born population, the situation 
 is such as to give intelligent Americans the gravest concern. 
 The report of the Educational Commission of Massachusetts 
 stated: "Many of these parochial school-teachers have but 
 a limited knowledge of the English language; comparatively 
 few speak it fluently; some do not speak it at all." There 
 are a few higher institutions of learning which are conducted 
 in foreign languages. Some of these are for the training of 
 ministers and missionaries. There is a Finnish Socialist 
 college in Minnesota and at least one Polish college for gen- 
 eral education. There are also some Scandinavian higher 
 schools. 
 
 The Issues Involved. We must face this matter 
 honestly and without prejudice. Hatred of a foreign lan- 
 guage just because we cannot understand it, is weak and 
 foolish and is unbecoming to intelligent minds. The Ian- 
 
50 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 guages of other lands represent the mother tongues of some 
 of the world's greatest philosophers and artists and have 
 been the vehicle of lofty and ennobling utterances. Let us 
 rid ourselves of any animus which remotely suggests dislike 
 for foreign languages, per sc, and face the issue on grounds 
 of national unity and community of interest. We are neither 
 intolerant nor provincial nor nativistic when we press the 
 absolute necessity of the use of English for the sake of na- 
 tional unity. It goes without argument that, unless there 
 is a common language, there cannot be perfect assimilation 
 upon the spiritual basis which we have set forth as our ideal 
 for America. Let us make this clear and unmistakable and 
 repeat it until no one can misunderstand us. However, we 
 must grant to ever}- newcomer the privilege of retaining the 
 use of his mother tongue ; to speak it, to read it, to pray in 
 it, and to sing in it. We would be bigoted, indeed, if we as- 
 sumed a position of intolerance and repression. Our position 
 should be not negative but positive. Our objective should 
 be not the repression of foreign languages but the knowledge 
 and use of the English language. 
 
 We have seen that it is possible to establish a working 
 basis of national unity with more than one language ; but we 
 appreciate at once the artificial nature of the adjustment re- 
 quired to operate under such a system. In America the 
 question is not a matter of t^vo languages or three, as in the 
 case of Switzerland, but of fifty or more. Surely no one 
 would be insane enough to advocate making this officially a 
 polyglot nation. We are not discussing an academic ques- 
 tion nor dealing with a problem in abstract philosophy. We 
 are thinking in terms of community life and umty of action. 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 51 
 
 We have In this vast country many natural and inevitable 
 barriers to unity of action, without adding artificial ones. 
 It is sufficiently difficult to make one's self understood when 
 people speak the same language and have the same general 
 hereditary background. If to this common human limita- 
 tion must be added another, if we must overcome the bar- 
 rier of a foreign speech in any attempt to discuss our com- 
 munity problem, we are driven to despair. We cannot hope 
 for assimilation and all which depends upon it unless we can 
 achieve unity of language. 
 
 A Conserving Force. Foreign languages are a factor 
 — perhaps we may say the most potent factor — in the per- 
 petuation of foreign ideas. We have been officially and 
 solemnly assured, upon the highest authority, that German 
 Kultur cannot be appreciated except through the medium 
 of the German language. No translation can sufficiently 
 interpret the spirit which Inheres In the language. We may 
 discount this considerably as prejudiced testimony and re- 
 mark, In passing, that there is a ver>^ real and almost in- 
 separable connection between language and ideas. Ludwig 
 Fulda Is quoted as saying in his American ImpressionSj 
 "Germanlzation Is synonymous with causing to speak Ger- 
 man, and speaking German means to remain German." For 
 every language the claim may be made that to speak the 
 mother tongue is to be held true to the ideas which are as- 
 sociated with it. 
 
 It Is reported that a German church in Pennsylvania re- 
 cently considered changing from the German to the English 
 language. After some younger men had raised the question 
 and had argued for the change, the matter was settled by 
 
52 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 a resolution which made this suggestive statement, "German 
 has been the language of this church for 175 years, and as 
 long as the grass is green and the sky is blue, it will con- 
 tinue to be." It is evident that, in that church, conserva- 
 tion relies upon language for maintaining the status quo. 
 
 Without here discussing the question as to what conces- 
 sions should be made, let us keep clearly in mind the fact 
 that the use of foreign languages constitutes an actual re- 
 sistance to the forces of assimilation. It may not be a de- 
 liberate or intentional or conscious resistance, but in effect 
 it is a barrier to complete and perfect assimilation. This is 
 not true of any one language more than another, but it is 
 true in a general way of all foreign languages. 
 
 Unity in Family Life. One of the tragedies which 
 develops in the families of immigrants is the rift between 
 parents and children, due to the question of language. If 
 the children attend the public school, they learn English 
 quickly and as quickly forget the mother tongue of their 
 parents. They soon resent the popular taint connected with 
 their being "foreigners" and come not only to renounce their 
 heritage but to despise their parents. The appalling lack 
 of discipline, the breakdown in respect and reverence among 
 the children of the foreign-born in America, is a condition 
 which every social and missionary worker views only with 
 pain and misgivings. 
 
 The mother is usually the conservative member of the 
 family, religiously, socially, and nationally. The husband, 
 less affected than the children, is, none the less, much more 
 easily inducted into the knowledge of American ways and 
 the mysteries of the English language; so the mother is the 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 53 
 
 one who suffers most keenly. We lose the most valuable 
 asset for our national well-being when we weaken the unity 
 and influence of the home life. 
 
 Duties of Citizenship. In a democracy we are likely 
 to put the primary emphasis upon human rights. The con- 
 stitution makes very explicit provision for safeguarding our 
 rights against all infringement or abridgment. Our persons, 
 our property, our spiritual liberties are all hedged about with 
 every precaution against violation. But duties are not so 
 clearly defined. The duties of supporting the state by paying 
 taxes and rendering military service are specified, but these, 
 with obedience to law and order, practically exhaust the list. 
 
 A knowledge of the English language is now a condition 
 for naturalization. One wonders why any one has ever 
 been permitted to become a citizen without fulfilling this 
 condition. There is a wide range of duties to the commu- 
 nity which are vital to its welfare but are all extra-legal. 
 Moral and social obligations, the sense of social responsibility, 
 intelligent appreciation of the issues at stake; all these 
 spiritual rather than legal duties are not enjoined by the 
 constitution, but they are essential to a sound public opinion 
 and are, therefore, of the utmost importance in a democracy. 
 As every socially minded person has learned by experience, 
 it is difficult enough, even under the most favorable cir- 
 cumstances, to keep the morale of the community high and 
 steady; but when we interject the element of diversity of 
 tongue, our democracy becomes another Tower of Babel. 
 This matter of language is not one of sentiment but of 
 democratic efficiency and common sense. 
 
 We are an easily deluded people, if we imagine that we 
 
54 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 can rise to the full measure of our democratic power and 
 ideals when we are careless or indifferent concerning public 
 and community responsibility. We have misgivings about 
 the equitable distribution of wealth, but we cannot settle a 
 question like that until we can settle a more vital one — that 
 is, the equitable distribution of individual responsibility, the 
 duty which every citizen owes to the republic. 
 
 Educational Problems. The vexed question of for- 
 eign languages has been a very live one wherever the policy 
 concerning public schools is under consideration, and espe- 
 cially in those states where there is a large percentage of 
 foreign-born. The principle of state control in education is 
 everywhere recognized as fundamental and essential to the 
 welfare of the state. This is peculiarly important in a demo- 
 cracy. It would seem to be the most natural thing and the 
 evident duty, on the part of the state, to insist upon all in- 
 struction for children being given in the language of the 
 country. If state control rests upon the right and duty of 
 the state to train its future citizens, it certainly is the part 
 of wisdom to see to it that the training shall be given in the 
 language of the nation, whether that training be given in 
 public or in private schools. There is very little dispute 
 about this general principle. The difficulty is encountered 
 a little further on. There the question becomes: Has any 
 immigrant group a just claim upon which to base a plea that 
 instruction in the parents' mother tongue be given to chil- 
 dren in the public schools? 
 
 The aggressiveness and zeal on the part of certain racial 
 groups which cling tenaciously to their own languages have 
 raised this issue, and in many localities it has become very 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 55 
 
 acute, involving a principle vrhich we must endeavor to 
 clarify. If the claim of one group that provision must be 
 made in the public schools for its children to receive instruc- 
 tion in their parents' mother tongue is justified, has not every 
 other foreign group an equally valid claim that similar pro- 
 vision be made for its children? If German must be pro- 
 vided, why not Italian, Bohemian, Hungarian, or Swedish? 
 Personally, I have advocated that the children of parents 
 who are unable to speak the English language should be at 
 great pains to retain the knowledge of their parents' mother 
 tongue for the sake of family unity, but it does not necessarily 
 follow that it is the duty of the state to provide such in- 
 struction at public expense. It is the privilege of any family 
 to provide such instruction for their children, but it is not 
 the duty of the state. 
 
 The cultural value and utility of foreign languages and 
 the provision which should be made for them is a question 
 for educational experts. We should be clear in our minds 
 on the central issues. We must insist that the perpetuation 
 of foreign languages for sentimental reasons at public ex- 
 pense is not consistent with national unity. And of far 
 greater importance, the general instruction of children in 
 both public and private schools must be given in the lan- 
 guage of the country. 
 
 Religious Problems. The use of a foreign language in 
 religious worship is one of the most delicate phases of the 
 language problem. The experience of being for any length 
 of time in a foreign country, hearing only a foreign tongue 
 spoken and surrounded constantly by foreign customs and 
 unfamiliar sights, enables one to appreciate what it means 
 
56 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 to pass from these sights and sounds Into a church where 
 one's native tongue is spoken and join In worship with 
 people who are "own folks." If any of us have had that 
 experience, we have discovered an unsuspected depth of ap- 
 peal in the familiar scripture and songs, and a stirring of 
 emotions which was doubtless a revelation to us. The reli- 
 gious sanctities lie so far beneath the surface, are so vital and 
 elemental, and so Involve our deepest emotions and highest 
 and truest sentiments, that they are even more vital than 
 the question of national unity. They are as elemental as 
 the love of parents and wife and children. They cannot be 
 denied. They brook no restraint. 
 
 We have not forgotten that we have just stated the prin- 
 ciple of the conserving force of a foreign language. We are 
 not indifferent to the fact that probably no single agency or 
 institution exercises so powerful an Influence In conserving 
 the ancient heritages and authorities as does public worship 
 In the mother tongue of the foreign-born. Most of our 
 home mission boards employ missionaries or aid in supporting 
 pastors who minister to their own racial group in a foreign 
 language. The policy which has been pursued has been 
 justified on the grounds that we were meeting the religious 
 needs of these people through the only possible medium. Now 
 we are beginning to ask ourselves the question whether this 
 initial stage has been unduly prolonged. 
 
 Deliberation Needed. In the past we have, as a na- 
 tion, been indifferent to the deep significance of such mat- 
 ters as we are here considering. It Is important, therefore, 
 that we should approach the problem now in a spirit of fair- 
 ness and deliberation rather than in passion. We cannot 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 57 
 
 undo the harm and mischief of the past by rushing blindly 
 to the opposite extreme. We only create new difficulties by 
 pursuing such a course. Popular sentiment is more easily 
 swayed by words than by ideas. When the passions of the mul- 
 titude are deeply stirred, a catching phrase has more in- 
 fluence with the multitude than the wisest reasoning. We 
 have need of all the wisdom and restraint we can summon 
 in order to avoid the dangers of hysteria. We must be pre- 
 pared to take all measures with a deliberation born of 
 clear vision and thorough appreciation of all practical phases 
 of the issue. We must act with that settled purpose be- 
 coming to high-minded people who, undeterred by diffi- 
 culties, seek a worthy goal and persist long after the atten- 
 tion of the crowd has been distracted and its passions have 
 cooled. 
 
 Important Distinctions. In considering the question 
 of languages, vv^e have endeavored to make clear that its sig- 
 nificance lies in what it indicates. It is symptomatic of what 
 is beneath the surface. 
 
 We must distinguish between three different phases or 
 aspects of this question, not only because each phase indicates 
 something significantly different but because each calls for 
 a different course of action, a different remedy. These 
 phases represent three distinct groups of people v/ith whom 
 we must reckon. The phase which has received the 
 greatest public attention and which, in a way, is the most 
 critical and serious, Is the aggressive propaganda for per- 
 petuating and extending the use of a foreign language for 
 the sake of sentiment and the culture which it carries. This 
 has primarily to do with the German language. The second 
 
58 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 phase Is the strong sentiment on the part of large numbers of 
 people of foreign antecedents which has made them cling 
 to the use of their native language In religious worship and 
 in those social gatherings which keep alive and glowing the 
 memories of their fatherland. These people, almost without 
 exception, are able to speak and read English, but they feel 
 a certain pride and a sense of duty in conserving the language 
 which is their mother tongue. 
 
 The third phase has been receiving earnest attention, be- 
 cause we have come to see that we have heretofore been too 
 indifferent to its significance. This concerns almost ex- 
 clusively the Immigrants who have come to America in more 
 recent years. While multitudes of these are still unas- 
 simllated, they have not attained that highly organized race 
 consciousness and group separateness which makes itself felt 
 in the other groups to which we have referred. Any sweep- 
 ing statements regarding the use of foreign languages will 
 probably be incorrect, and any salutary measures for deal- 
 ing with them will probably fail of accomplishing their end, 
 unless they distinguish clearly between these groups. 
 
 Enemies in America. As a people, we have been so 
 completely indifferent or so easy-going and tolerant that 
 many of our fellow citizens are not quite able to understand 
 the meaning of the volcanic eruption which has taken place. 
 There are thoughtless and Irresponsible people who are "more 
 vocal than influential" (as the President has said of another 
 group) and who may have done the cause of national unity 
 harm because of their zeal. But sober and thoughtful people 
 feel deeply on this question. They resent the un-American 
 propaganda and ideals cherished by fanatical men and 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 59 
 
 women from other lands, who have been accorded every 
 right and privilege of American citizenship and yet have 
 worked tirelessly and with consummate skill to disrupt our 
 national unity and perpetuate race consciousness and separ- 
 ateness. The people who have done this are, at heart, 
 enemies of America. We have no desire to prolong un- 
 necessarily the bitterness of the war, now that it is over, but 
 we shall have lost much for which we fought if we fail to 
 heed the lesson that the war has taught. 
 
 To return to the first group, which engages in aggressive 
 propaganda, we come to the activities of the National Ger- 
 man-American Alliance. While the Alliance has been dis- 
 solved by the government, we can hardly believe that the 
 persons who composed it have been regenerated. We must 
 discriminate and recognize the fact, which we gladly admit, 
 that the Alliance did not represent a majority of the Amer- 
 icans of German descent, nor the best element in that racial 
 group. It had as one of the most important points in its 
 program the introduction of the German language into the 
 public schools. Local societies were urged to use their in- 
 fluence and take the necessary practical steps to compel 
 school boards to put German into the curriculum. The very 
 active Federation of German Societies in Nebraska was held 
 up as a model because it had brought about the enactment 
 of a law making the teaching of a foreign language com- 
 pulsory when fifty parents of children demanded it. In 
 Omaha, where there were 3,500 children taking German, 
 the official visitor of the Federation was delighted to find 
 with what a fine Berlin accent the children were speaking 
 and with what fervor they sang "The Watch on the Rhine." 
 
60 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Indiana and Ohio had enacted similar laws. Chicago was 
 reported to have 20,000 children in the grades studying 
 German. The Alliance was endeavoring to make a know- 
 ledge of German a requirement for admission into state 
 universities or accepted as a substitute for Latin. A rep- 
 resentative of the Alliance, who was an Inspector of this 
 phase of the organization's work, reported that, wherever 
 these schools prospered, the children remained German in 
 spirit and In sentiment to the third generation. It was 
 discovered in some of the camps that there were second 
 generation "Americans" of German descent who, when 
 drafted, were unable to speak English. The Alliance also 
 had a committee on text-books to make certain that German 
 history and Kultur were fairly presented from the German 
 point of view. 
 
 We cite these facts that we may understand the reactions 
 which followed upon the awakening of the American pop- 
 ulation in these states to a full consciousness of the signifi- 
 cance of the propaganda. Six states have either restricted the 
 use of the German language or forbidden It altogether In 
 public assemblies. This was a war measure. German text- 
 books have been examined and thrown into the scrap-heap 
 in many cities all over the country. Either the circulation 
 of German language publications has been forbidden, or 
 dealers have refused to handle them. There has been a 
 wide-spread diminution of the use of all foreign languages, 
 and the most drastic measures have been advocated 
 to restrict or abolish the use of any language but the 
 English. 
 
 Loyal Americans, The second group, which clings to 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 61 
 
 the use of the mother tongue In worship and in social gather- 
 ings, Includes many loyal Americans of German antecedents, 
 and among them there has been a voluntary and very whole- 
 some reaction. It is Impossible to state with any degree of 
 accuracy just how many churches have either entirely 
 abandoned the use of a foreign language or Introduced Eng- 
 lish and now carry on their work In both languages. This 
 has been markedly true of Scandinavian people in certain 
 sections. In services of public worship, the English language 
 has been used for the first time or greatly extended. Many 
 foreign-language publications have voluntarily suspended, 
 and a reaction in favor of English has set in strongly in 
 every section of the country. 
 
 Measures o£ Doubtful Wisdom. There can be no 
 doubt that the restrictive measures which have been taken 
 by executive order will be reflected later in legislation. It 
 Is, therefore, important that we consider very carefully just 
 what measures should be taken. 
 
 In the first place, the laws which have compelled the intro- 
 duction of a foreign language into the curriculum of a pub- 
 lic school should be repealed. It is our duty to be alert and 
 to resist every form of aggressive propaganda for extending 
 the use of foreign languages or fastening such languages 
 permanently upon any institution. As we have already 
 said, this is a matter of private privilege and not a public 
 duty. True culture does not require a press agent and a 
 political lobby. The German language must stand with 
 French and Spanish and ask no special favors. Who ever 
 heard of a French propaganda to force French culture on 
 America? Yet educated people in America have, as a rule, 
 
62 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 been more influenced by French ideas and culture than by 
 those of any other foreign nation, with the exception of 
 England. 
 
 But there is great danger in legislation of a restrictive or 
 compulsory nature, because of the psychological reaction 
 which may follow and which would most certainly defeat 
 the end desired. The policy of Germany and Austria-Hun- 
 gary has been identical at this point. By harsh measures, 
 they forced the national language upon their subjects, and 
 they enforced the restrictions relentlessly. In Germany, the 
 use of any foreign language in a public assembly was for- 
 bidden except by special permit, and then twenty-four hours' 
 notice was required and two representatives of the police 
 must be present and report the proceedings. The repressive 
 and harsh measures to which Count Apponyi, minister of 
 public education in Hungary, resorted would have turned 
 some of us into anarchists. I have spoken in Austria with 
 a censor of the police sitting with open note-book to report 
 what I might say. Thomas Capek, in his book, The Slovaks 
 of Hungary, tells us that Slovak students in the theological 
 school who were found conversing in their mother tongue 
 were severely punished. It would be unwise for us to resort 
 to such measures, and every true friend of democracy in 
 America should be as vigilant to guard against such foolish 
 coercion and restriction as he should be against the menacing 
 encroachments of foreign-language propaganda itself. 
 
 The Governors of several western states issued executive 
 orders which were designed to seal the lips of all foreign- 
 speaking people of those states. One of these orders was 
 more like an edict of a czar or a kaiser than a proclamation 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 63 
 
 of a governor of one of the United States. Of course it 
 was intended to be in effect only during the war. The 
 executive order was as follows: First: English should be 
 and must be the only medium of instruction in public, 
 private, denominational, or other similar schools. Second: 
 Conversation in public places, on trains, and over the tele- 
 phone should be in the English language. Third: All 
 public addresses should be in the English language. Fourth: 
 Let those who cannot speak or understand the English lan- 
 guage conduct their religious worship in their homes. 
 
 The utter futility of such proclamations to accomplish 
 the desired end should be obvious. Their actual effect is to 
 fasten more firmly the bands of the past and to endear the 
 native speech which is being persecuted. It would make our 
 national language hated and despised and produce an ani- 
 mosity which we could never overcome. A man who could 
 give only a poor exhibition of his ability to speak his mother 
 tongue or that of his parents, and who had no desire to 
 perpetuate it, would be roused to champion the cause of the 
 language placed under the ban if any attempt were made 
 either to force the use of the English language or to forbid 
 the use of another language. During the war we became 
 amazingly and unprecedentedly obedient and submissive. 
 We were determined at any cost to win the war. But we 
 are not ready — or we should not be — to surrender our 
 cherished liberties and resort to autocratic measures to en- 
 force an artificial unity which has no value. 
 
 We must remind ourselves that our ideal is not a formal 
 and artificial national unity but a moral and spiritual unity, 
 and we need constantly to repeat that such a lofty goal can 
 
64 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 be attained only by spiritual processes. While we must be 
 vigilant against aggression and unremitting in our resistance 
 to every insidious enemy of our unity, we must remember 
 that unless we can convert the patrons of foreign languages 
 to our ideals, we shall fail. If they are incorrigible, they 
 should seek another home where they can enjoy their kind 
 of culture unmolested by Americanism. If the president 
 of the German Alliance and his fellow Germans are still of 
 the same mind, they should renounce any pretended citizen- 
 ship and retire from America. Then might it be said, as was 
 written of old, **They went out from us, because they were 
 not of us." 
 
 Potent Incentives. If we refuse to resort to coercion, 
 there is all the more reason for making certain that the 
 forces upon which we must rely are well understood and 
 well organized and that we are prepared to meet our duty 
 and opportunity to the full. There are incentives which 
 are sufficiently potent and upon these we must place the 
 major emphasis. 
 
 Without doubt, foreign languages serve a valuable pur- 
 pose and must be relied upon during a period of transition 
 while candidates for American citizenship are in course of 
 training. We also must admit that there are people too old 
 now to make the effort to become proficient in English, and 
 as we have been partly to blame for past neglect, we must 
 be patient with them. Therefore, many of our churches 
 will continue to have some part of the service or an oc- 
 casional service in the language of the mother country for 
 these older people. Even under such circumstances, much 
 will have been gained when a foreign language no longer 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 65 
 
 receives a major recognition and has dropped into a minor 
 place. It must pass entirely with the passing of the necessity 
 which existed when this older generation was to be con- 
 sidered. Some mission boards have decided to refuse grants 
 of aid to any church which does not introduce the English 
 language into the service. No missionary should hereafter 
 be appointed who has not a sufficient command of English 
 to minister to all the community. 
 
 The pastor of a certain Swedish church has recently 
 introduced the use of English and has formally stated that 
 he considers it the duty of his church to minister to the entire 
 community regardless of racial antecedents. That church 
 has become Americanized. The failure to introduce Eng- 
 lish into the services of public worship among foreign-lan- 
 guage groups is due to a drifting policy rather than to de- 
 liberate intention. I heard "America" sung in Italian re- 
 cently by a congregation to whom I spoke in English without 
 an interpreter. The pastor was not antagonistic to the use 
 of English, nor were his people. They simply had not given 
 any thought to the matter. There can be no excuse for 
 conducting Sunday-schools among children of foreign-speak- 
 ing parents in anything but English, provided competent 
 teachers can be secured. 
 
 Rights of the Young People. The younger people 
 have long resented the selfish domination of those elders who 
 have been short-sighted in retaining the mother tongue for 
 sentimental reasons, and who have insisted that their chil- 
 dren submit to their wishes. The time has come when the 
 older people must yield and be content with an occasional 
 service or a part of the service in their mother tongue. 
 
66 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 The business incentives to learning English have been well 
 set forth by leading industrial concerns which employ large 
 numbers of foreign-born men and women. It may not be 
 fair to make the use of English absolutely a condition of 
 employment, but it is certainly logical and wholly just to 
 make some knowledge of English, and further study to per- 
 fect the limited knowledge, a condition for advancement. 
 
 The work of the educational department of the Y. M. C. 
 A. in military camps has been productive of unmeasured 
 good in the matter of teaching English. A very happy idea 
 was conceived and put into effective operation by the Neigh- 
 bors' League, which is especially interested in meeting this 
 problem in the home. It furnished the chaplains and 
 Y. M. C. A. secretaries with mailing cards to be filled in 
 by husbands who were in military service. The card stated 
 that the man was learning English and urged his wife to do 
 the same, in order that together they might take their part 
 in the life of America. The home service department of 
 the Red Cross has also been able to use this incentive and 
 enlist practical assistance in teaching English to foreign-born 
 women, mothers and wives of men in service. 
 
 A new consciousness of being a real part of the nation, a 
 new knowledge of and pride in its achievements, have come 
 to foreign-born men in military service as well as in the 
 industrial service and through the general education which 
 was a part of the Liberty Loan propaganda. All these in- 
 centives for complete identity with America have made it 
 easier to interest people of the newer immigration in study- 
 ing English and have aroused the older groups, who have 
 been at heart loyal to America, to take aggressive measures 
 
THE LANGUAGE QUESTION 67 
 
 to familiarize themselves with the language of the country. 
 Such natural reactions, of which we must take full ad- 
 vantage and which we must be prepared to utilize, have 
 vastly more promise than any sort of coercion. 
 
 Teaching English. This phase of the subject is 
 worthy of an entire chapter and deserves fuller exposition 
 as to materials and methods than our limitations of space 
 will permit. This service naturally concerns the newcomers 
 and is a constructive measure of the greatest importance. 
 
 For several years prior to the war, intelligent friends both 
 of America and of new Americans had been gravely con- 
 cerned with the lack of progress toward assimilation on the 
 part of the great masses of the more recent immigration. 
 It was, of course, no new idea to teach English to foreigners, 
 but such teaching had never been popularized, no adequate 
 provision was made for it, no incentives were furnished, and 
 very little, if any, well-adapted material was provided for 
 teachers who were amateurs but who saw the need and 
 were ready to serve. 
 
 The needed material and the popularization of a scientific 
 and efficient method adaptable to the needs of pupils of the 
 various degrees of intelligence and to the ability of the 
 teachers, have now been created. The Y. M. C. A. has 
 developed and furnished charts and advanced material, so 
 that they have been able to cooperate in evening classes and 
 clubs as well as shop classes. Most of the public night- 
 schools have clung to text-books slightly modified but not 
 so well adapted to the use of beginners. Several books in 
 civics and history, with biographies of great Americans, have 
 been published and are well adapted to the needs of more 
 
68 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 advanced pupils. At least two different adaptations of 
 Biblical and religious material have been published. 
 
 One of the most important fields for the extension of 
 this work is the home, where the teacher must go with the 
 lesson if it is to be given at all. The practical difficulties 
 which debar the mother from attending a class anywhere 
 outside the walls of her home have aroused resourceful 
 women, and they have now undertaken to provide lessons 
 in the homes. There is one missionary teacher in New 
 York City w^hose entire time, energy, and skill — and she has 
 a vast deal of the latter two qualities — are devoted to home 
 teaching. She has enlisted scores of socially minded friends 
 who have demonstrated beyond any doubt the possibilities 
 and value of this service. Neighborliness and home service 
 have come to be recognized as the only possible means by 
 which the teaching of English can be extended to reach the 
 women in the homes. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 
 
 IN' the course of this study we have sought consistently 
 to get at underlying facts and forces and not allow 
 ourselves to accept as final and conclusive the easy in- 
 terpretations which lie upon the surface. There is no ar- 
 bitrary scale by which assimilation may be tested or upon 
 which progress can be registered. At almost any gathering 
 of socially intelligent people, an interesting and lively dis- 
 cussion can be aroused upon the question: When has a for- 
 eigner ceased to be a foreigner and when has he become an 
 American ? 
 
 The trend of things is always more significant than their 
 status at any chance moment of charting. The significance 
 of direction is often overlooked. In an admirable and sug- 
 gestive statement of elemental forces which must be reckoned 
 with in considering the matter of assimilation, Professor 
 Henry P. Fairchild says, "Assimilation is a matter of the 
 force of environment pitted against that of heredity."^ We 
 are called upon to face the fact that, in a great many cases 
 and in many localities, progress toward the goal is slow and 
 difficult and, in some instances, has been wholly arrested. 
 In other instances we are able to demonstrate that encourag- 
 ing progress has been and is being made. If we can ascertain 
 what are the causes that weaken the assimilative force of 
 environment and what reinforces the power of heredity, we 
 
 1 Fairchild, Immigration, p. 406. 
 
 69 
 
70 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 will have gone a long way toward understanding and mea- 
 suring the forces wnth which we must reckon. 
 
 Evidence in the Case. It is not necessary to enumerate 
 all the evidence which indicates that assimilation is being re- 
 tarded and that environment in many cases is losing ground 
 in this contest. Not each count has equally significant value. 
 We do not seek here to bring an indictment against all un- 
 assimilated foreign-born men and w^omen nor against every 
 institution which is identified with immigrant folks; we cite 
 some well-attested facts, the cumulative force of which fur- 
 nishes a pov/erful argument for a radical change of policy 
 in our attitude toward the foreign-born. 
 
 Use of Foreign Language. The wide-spread persist- 
 ence in the use of foreign languages as a medium of social, 
 cultural, and religious intercourse, on the part of people who 
 are able to use the English language but who eagerly seize 
 every opportunity to use their mother tongue, is a matter 
 that once received little notice. We do not deny them the 
 privilege but cite it as an indication of the fact that heredity 
 is still a dominant force to be reckoned with in their lives. 
 I attend officially meetings of boards and committees repre- 
 senting foreign-speaking groups, and I am impressed with the 
 fact that they seem to prefer to use a foreign language. They 
 use English freely when discussing matters that I present; 
 but although I am a guest, and courtesy, if nothing else, 
 would suggest using English in the conduct of other business, 
 all of which is supposed to be of public interest and of espe- 
 cial official interest to me, they invariably lapse irrto the 
 language of their group. Most of the men whom I have 
 in mind were born in this country. 
 
ARKESTED ASSIMILATION 71 
 
 Inability to Speak English. We have considered 
 fully the wide-spread inability on the part of multitudes, 
 many of whom have been in America for years, to under- 
 stand English, but it must enter into the reckoning here. 
 The fact that over 2,500,000 adults still cannot understand 
 our language is certainly sufficiently significant to cause us 
 serious anxiety as to the progress of assimilation. 
 
 Foreign Colonies. I do not refer to the predominance 
 of a particular racial strain in a given community, such as, 
 for instance, the Scandinavians in Minnesota. I have in 
 mind, rather, the existence of well-defined foreign colonies; 
 for example, those of the Bohemians in Minnesota, Iowa, 
 and Nebraska; of Russians in North Dakota; of Poles in 
 Wisconsin; of Germans in Texas and Nebraska. In these 
 colonies the English language is the foreign language, and 
 an American is a foreigner in the community. This isola- 
 tion, which has persisted in some cases for more than a gen- 
 eration, constitutes an intolerable situation and is painful 
 evidence that assimilation has made not even a beginning. 
 
 Racial Cleavage. It is not at all strange that people 
 coming to a new land should seek the society of their fellow 
 countrymen. But when after years of life here, the same 
 groupings and lines of cleavage are manifest in the second 
 and third generation, one can but wonder how deeply 
 the influence of the new world has penetrated. To some 
 of us it is conceivable that other considerations than former 
 nationality may occasionally determine alignment. Perhaps 
 the well-known tendency of dissolved crystals to re-crystalize 
 in accordance with original formation ought to warn us that 
 any such complete assimilation as we dream of is impossible. 
 
72 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 The only answer to that doubt is that the grouping along 
 old-world national and racial lines is not manifest where 
 environment has had a fair chance. This tendency to follow 
 racial lines has not yet been proved to be as invariable as a 
 physical law; but it is certainly apparent that, whenever 
 these lines of cleavage persist, there is presumptive evidence 
 that the process of assimilation is not yet complete. 
 
 Old World Animosities. To an American it is some- 
 thing in the nature of a never ending wonder that old-world 
 animosities should persist on American soil. The shop 
 fights, neighborhood riots, and even church brawls, which 
 have frequently occurred in sections where racial stocks are 
 highly variegated, are evidences of the persistence of those 
 racial antagonisms and antipathies that we find difficult to 
 understand. I have good friends from Hungary who, after 
 living here for j'ears, continue to be true to the Magyar 
 type in their attitude toward the Slovaks and Rumanians 
 and are unable to see wherein these races have anything to 
 complain of» One of the most curious expressions of this 
 spirit is the difficulty which one experiences in attempting to 
 intermingle Swedish-speaking people from Finland with 
 Swedish-speaking people from Sweden. Even the Roman 
 Church, with all its autocratic authority, has learned that 
 it cannot ignore the survival of these racial antagonisms. 
 
 The difficulties in reconciling racial antagonism experi- 
 enced by the committee of arrangements for the Fourth of 
 July pageant in New York City in 191 8 is an illustration 
 in point. The pageant was planned as a demonstration of 
 loyalty on the part of new Americans. It was naturally to 
 be assumed that, in the spirit of the day, the old antagonisms 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 73 
 
 would be lost sight of; but the extremely bad taste of one 
 group in persistently demanding the privilege of displaying 
 the flag of Its nation, allegiance to whose ruler they had 
 renounced, was the spark which set off the magazine. The 
 trouble was on. In the end, the matter was settled through 
 the tact of the committee, which decided to eliminate the 
 use of all flags but those of the Allies. Of course this is 
 simply another proof that these people have not 5'et gotten 
 the old-world heritage out of their systems and become full 
 partakers of the spirit of America. 
 
 Old World Authorities. It Is probably sufficient to 
 state, without amplification, that for many thousands the 
 center of authority In matters social and religious as well 
 as political is not In America but In the old world. Mr. 
 Allan L. Benson, candidate of the Socialist Party for presi- 
 dent In 19 1 6, resigned from the party on the ground that, 
 as It had developed during the war. It was controlled by for- 
 eign influences and w^as un-American. Others, while not 
 renouncing their Socialist convictions and principles, left the 
 party for the same reason. This old-world authority Is one 
 of the most significant evidences that American influences 
 are not yet predominant and determinative In the lives of 
 many people who have sought America as a land of freedom. 
 
 Old World Habits. We do not consider that there Is 
 anj'thing objectionable In the continuance of many old-world 
 customs. We are fond of many old-world dishes and have 
 long looked upon them as delicacies. We like the beautiful 
 and picturesque costumes, which, of course, are not in any 
 sense incompatible with the American spirit. But some of 
 our foreign residents retain habits of mind and traditional 
 
74 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 practices which are un-American and would rouse bitter 
 resentment if fully understood. Treatment of women and 
 children may serve as an Illustration of what we^mean. In 
 America we have rather decidedly objected to wife-beating; 
 when native Americans indulge in such practises they are 
 either ostracized or imprisoned. But there are foreign-born 
 men living In America who feel that an occasional beating 
 is rather helpful in keeping wives In proper subjection. 
 
 I have a test of this un-American attitude of mind which 
 I apply occasionally. In a certain foreign-speaking church 
 the wife of the pastor was holding her baby on her lap. The 
 behavior of the baby annoyed one of the men so much that 
 he produced a strap, and while the service was still in ses- 
 sion, walked over to the mother and struck the baby with 
 the strap! Nobody knocked him down or even protested. 
 I have reported this Incident to various men of foreign birth 
 In order to observe their mental reaction, and I have yet to 
 find one who showed the slightest surprise, unless It was 
 surprise at my Indignation. 
 
 The American respect for womanhood, for the privacies 
 of family life, and for the refinements which are instinctive 
 in every decent American are often wanting in many of the 
 foreign colonies in our large cities. I call attention to this 
 as evidence that American influences have not penetrated 
 deeply Into the lives of the people of whom these things are 
 still true. No one will be foolish enough to make sweeping 
 generalizations and say that all these characteristics are 
 present in all sections or among all old-world races who have 
 come to America. They are cited as proof of the fact that 
 the American spirit has not yet leavened tlie whole lump. 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 75 
 
 Accounting for the Facts. Causes which operate 
 to arrest assimilation must be classified. We will be unable to 
 apply the remedy unless we properly diagnose the disease. 
 We must distinguish between the causes which are natural 
 and those which are artificial, between the causes over which 
 we have no control and those which we can control. We 
 must recognize causes which inhere in heredity and causes 
 which grow out of environment. We use the term ''hered- 
 ity" loosely to cover all the influences and associations which 
 the immigrant brings and of which he can hardly be ex- 
 pected to divest himself consciously and deliberately, as he 
 takes off his foreign clothes, as soon as he sets foot on Anjer- 
 ican soil. 
 
 Motives. If men come to America to exploit America 
 even on a modest scale, they are not likely to take any great 
 pains to throw o£f what has always been natural to them and 
 eagerly seek a new culture. If they have become discontent- 
 ed in their old homes and have some intelligent conception 
 of what America means, they will, naturally, absorb Amer- 
 ican ideas more readily. 
 
 Not all immigrants come deliberately, as the early settlers 
 came, to make a new home and, figuratively, burn their ships 
 on the shore behind them when they have landed. The 
 immigrant of recent years, at least, has come on a voyage of 
 exploration to discover America, and expects to go back to 
 his native land. If all is well, he may return with his family 
 or send for them. These ''birds of passage" have numbered 
 hundreds of thousands; to them America means a "job" first 
 of all and not a new life. Some who have lived here for 
 many years think of themselves as exiles. In his searching 
 
76 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 article, "A Family Letter" in The Atlantic Monthly for 
 December, 191 7, Rudolph Heinrichs has painted a vivid 
 word-picture of the life of self-expatriated Germans who 
 glory in their exile and whose hearts have never been trans- 
 ferred to America. There is, however, great cheer and 
 promise in the attitude of others who are represented by a 
 young German conscript in Toledo. A friend of mine, a 
 lawyer who was serving on a draft board, had occasion to 
 help the young man fill out his questionnaire. He explained 
 that, as an alien, he was entitled to claim exemption. The 
 young man straightened himself and with a high look re- 
 plied, ''When I came to America, / came all. If America 
 wants Karl Klausen, Karl Klausen is ready!" 
 
 Natural Inertia, It requires an efiEort to discover 
 America and become an American. It is far easier to drift 
 with the familiar faces, speech, and associations; only the 
 ambitious and enterprising attend night-schools. I think of 
 the early struggles and sacrifices of a prosperous business man 
 whose life-story I know well. He left Germany and ran 
 away to America, to be rid of a step-mother. He first 
 found work in a truck garden, but that did not offer suffi- 
 cient advancement for his ambition; so he sought employ- 
 ment on the ore docks in Cleveland. It was hard work, the 
 hardest kind of work, but he found he could make more 
 money by overtime; so he used his virile strength without 
 stint on those ore piles. Then he found out about night- 
 schools and gave up working overtime to become a pupil. 
 He kept on until he had a fair business education. He had 
 saved his wages, and hearing of a good bargain, bought an 
 apartment-house. With this first venture, he entered the 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 77 
 
 real estate business. Later he married an American girl, 
 the daughter of his employer. Early in his career he had 
 begun to attend an English-speaking church, and now he is 
 one of the influential office-holders in that large city church. 
 He is as Americanized as one could desire; and he is not a 
 rare exception. I mention him only because he illustrates 
 the struggle required to overcome the natural inertia which 
 is one of the deadliest enemies of assimilation. 
 
 Capacity. As a theory, we may hold that all men are 
 capable of education ; yet we all know that there are decided 
 differences in their capacity. 
 
 When we are considering the matter of assimilation, we 
 must recognize that many factors enteV into it. For ex- 
 ample, there is the simple demerit of age> Youth quickly 
 adjusts itself. I have seen young boys hardly a year resident 
 in America throw their chests out and boast that they were 
 Americans. We have all heard of the boy of foreign -born, 
 parentage who complained of parental chastisement on the 
 ground that he objected to being whipped by a foreigner! 
 
 Native capacity, early training, the previous conditions 
 and customs under which men have lived, must all be taken 
 into consideration. I have examined applicants for admis- 
 sion to a school for immigrants from Russia Though 
 several had but meager school advantages, it became ap- 
 parent that native capacity was the determining factor in 
 their progress. One applicant stated pathetically that he 
 had no education — he was a mature man — ^but he said he 
 knew that animals could be trained and he thought perhaps 
 we might help him. It was very difficult for him to learn. 
 anything, and he finally left the school. 
 
78 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Literacy has been made a test of admittance to America, 
 but both President Taft and President Wilson vetoed the 
 proposed measure. Finally it was passed over President 
 Wilson's veto, but it was well understood to be an arbitrary 
 and artificial barrier to cut down the volume of immigration. 
 We must have wondered sometimes during the past four 
 years if the ability to read and write v/as a fair test. Some 
 very brilliant men and women of foreign birth have proved 
 rather dangerous and with all their native capacity seem not 
 to have assimilated the American spirit to any marked 
 degree. But of course, other things being equal, younger 
 men of initiative and capacity are "better risks" from the 
 Americanization point of view. 
 
 Another question of great importance is that of racial 
 capacity. Are all races capable of being assimilated into the 
 life of America? Some Orientals have been debarred from 
 citizenship and many from admission to the country on the 
 ground that they are incapable of being assimilated. Teutonic 
 peoples are supposed to be more naturally akin to Americans, 
 and yet we have been at war with a leading Teutonic power 
 that represented the antipodes of American ideals. 
 
 No adequate data have ever been assembled and analyzed 
 upon which to base a scientific judgment as to this matter of 
 racial capacity. Speaking in general terms, the capacity or 
 incapacity for assimilation is an individual, rather than a 
 racial matter. There is no reason why Mazzini or Gari- 
 baldi would not have made Americans of distinction. Petofi 
 and Kossuth, of Hungary, and Kosciusko and Pulaski, of 
 Poland would have been given carte blanche in America. 
 There are Japanese and Chinese scholars, gentlemen, states- 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 79 
 
 men, Christian students who have won many honors in 
 American university life; these would not be "bad hazards'* 
 as citizens. 
 
 Conservatism. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon this 
 element in human nature. All of us habitually regard our 
 habits and customs as superior to those of other peoples. It 
 is utter folly for us to think that immigrant peoples coming 
 to America are overwhelmed by its splendor and magnifi- 
 cence and are eager to abandon lifelong habits and manners 
 for American ways. In superficial matters, such as dress, 
 they readily adjust themselves to their new surroundings, 
 but one has only to become intimately acquainted with im- 
 migrants to learn the secret scorn with which they regard 
 some of our manners, our tastes, our lack of reverence, our 
 hurry and bustle, our methods of production, and the work- 
 manship which characterizes much American production. 
 
 The women, who remain at home out of touch with Amer- 
 icanizing influences, are naturally the least affected by Amer- 
 ican influences and are by virtue of their sex and tempera- 
 ment more conservative than the men. The strongest citadel 
 of conservatism, therefore, is the least exposed to the only in- 
 fluences which can capture it. 
 
 The Old Folks at Home. It has been brought out 
 in many conferences that a very human and wholly worthy 
 interest in the fortunes of the homeland may be a barrier to 
 complete assimilation. 
 
 I remember a fine young pastor who came from Bohemia 
 and has been naturalized. When I remonstrated with him 
 for calling himself a Bohemian after he had become an 
 American citizen, and a thoroughly sincere one too, he re- 
 
80 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 plied that he was deeply interested in the cause of freedom 
 in Bohemia. I assured him that I, also, was deeply in- 
 terested in that cause and had been for ye^rs. I tried to 
 make it clear that a true conception of Americanization did 
 not exclude the most ardent devotion to the cause of free- 
 dom anywhere. Some things are incompatible with the 
 American spirit. One cannot be a true American and at 
 the same time a good Junker or Turk. But one may love 
 the land of his birth and desire its prosperity without com- 
 promising his Americanism. Nevertheless, the family ties 
 and the heart ties which bind millions to the old world oper- 
 ate to hold them back from complete identification with the 
 fortunes of America. 
 
 Self Interest. It is natural to take advantage of the 
 impulses of human nature. Therefore, many immigrant 
 people have shrewdly capitalized the well-known sentiments 
 and impulses of other immigrant people and have profited by 
 them immensely. Very naturally, they do not like to lose 
 special benefits accruing from this separatist sentiment. 
 
 As a matter of course the foreign-language press depends 
 for its patronage upon the people of foreign speech who wish 
 to keep alive the associations of the homeland from which 
 they have come. The very existence of these periodicals hangs 
 on the perpetuation of these sentiments. We have readily 
 acknowledged that, as a temporary expedient during the 
 period of transition, foreign-language papers serve a worthy 
 purpose ; but it is almost more than can be expected of human 
 nature that the editors should urge their readers to learn 
 English quickly and to put down deep roots into the soil 
 of America. 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 81 
 
 The same thing Is true of foreign-speaking business con- 
 cerns, from the little shopkeeper to the banks, Insurance 
 companies, and other large interests. They, too, have cap- 
 italized the sentiment of loyalty to language and former 
 nationality. They would, many of them, go Into bankruptcy, 
 if they lost this patronage. 
 
 Foreign-language churches are, perhaps, the most potent 
 agency for conserving the foreign heritage. It is well es- 
 tablished that the older clergy have most tenaciously upheld 
 foreign traditions and maintained the position that all was 
 lost, if their followers or their followers' children forsook 
 the foreign-language church. Representatives of these 
 churches are often considered renegades because they have 
 united with English-speaking and purely American churches. 
 The younger ministry is less conservative, but has been 
 dominated by older members, who often hold the purse- 
 strings and control the policy. It Is true that some of our 
 most influential ministers in American churches were reared 
 in foreign-speaking homes and have identified themselves 
 fully with American interests, but the future influence and 
 support of many foreign-speaking ministers depends upon 
 the conservation of foreign sentiments and language. It 
 may be startling to some Americans to know that religious 
 organizations have been financed largely by foreign money 
 and have in this way been held rather firmly to the old 
 country. These organizations probably do not realize that 
 this money has any power over them, but they would be al- 
 most more than human if they were uninfluenced by it. 
 
 Deliberate Resistance. At first thought, it may seem 
 purely arbitrary and wholly meaningless to distinguish be- 
 
82 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 tween two kinds of resistance to assimilation. The effect 
 is apparently the same, no matter what may be the motive 
 or the method. Nevertheless, it seems important that we 
 make that distinction and reserve our decision as to the ques- 
 tion of dealing with both in precisely the same way or in 
 totally different ways. 
 
 There is a systematic and persistent resistance to assimila- 
 tion which is effective but which is not highly organized and 
 does not breed antagonism to America. There is another 
 systematic and persistent resistance to assimilation which is 
 highly organized, efficient, amply financed, assisted, and 
 directed, deliberate, intentional, and wholly sinister. The 
 practical effect of these two forces may not be essentially 
 different, but the motives and morality are radically different. 
 For this reason we need to distinguish between them. The 
 first force we may designate as sentimental resistance to as- 
 similation. The other is well known as an organized propa- 
 ganda of resistance.. 
 
 We have called attention repeatedly to various expressions 
 and manifestations of the sentimental impulse to cling tena- 
 ciously to everything which is associated with the old coun- 
 try. In many, if not in most instances, the old-world cus- 
 toms are not cherished with the conscious and deliberate 
 intent to defeat or resist the normal processes and forces of 
 assimilation; but the effect is the same, no matter what the 
 intent may be. We have been tolerant and rather indiffer- 
 ent to the significance of this tendency on the part of the 
 foreign-born who attend only the gatherings where their 
 native language is spoken, join only the societies made up of 
 their own countrymen, and mingle only with the people of 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 8^ 
 
 their own racial groups. There is more than conservatism 
 and more than inertia in such conduct. We must face these 
 facts kindly but firmly and be willing to speak and hear the 
 truth. 
 
 One of the most illuminating articles in all the literature 
 on this subject produced by the war is "A Family Letter,"^ 
 to which we have referred before. It is a letter from one 
 brother to another regarding the matter of active loyalty to 
 America and her interests. We mention it and quote the 
 following passage from it because of the picture of family 
 life which represents sentimental resistance to assimilation. 
 The family happens to have been German, but it might have 
 been Swedish, or, for that matter, of any other race which 
 is marked by clannishness and which manifests this separatist 
 spirit. 
 
 "All aliens tend to be clannish, and the Germans in this 
 country have kept more to themselves, possibly, than the 
 nationals of any other European country. You know how 
 it was in our own family. All father's and mother's friends 
 were German except the B — s, and our intimacy with the 
 B — s was due primarily to the accident that they happened 
 to be our next-door neighbors. You remember that, after 
 we moved away, we saw little of them, except on that an- 
 nual occasion, Christmas Eve, when they alwaj^s came, load- 
 ed to the gunwales with presents, to celebrate with us, Ger- 
 man-fashion. Your friends at first (and mine also as a boy) 
 were largely in the German set, though you and I, like the 
 rest of the children, had been born in this country; and all 
 the men who called on the girls were German. You re- 
 member, we spoke of it at the time, fifteen years or more ago. 
 
 1 The Atlantic Monthly, December, 1917. 
 
g4 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 The girls did not seem to care for American men, and 
 American men did not seem to be drawn to them, though 
 they were unquestionably attractive . . . Counts and barons 
 besieged them, but Americans somehow kept away or were 
 gently pushed away — I never could quite decide which. And 
 the girls were all four of them born in America -and had 
 all attended American schools. 
 
 "The trouble, I suppose, was that the atmosphere of our 
 household was absolutely German, and American boys felt 
 shy in it, out of their element, embarrassed to know exactly 
 how to act. Father, in insisting on keeping our home as 
 German as possible, was, we know, acting from the highest 
 sense of loyalty to his German origin. . . He became an Amer- 
 ican citizen and a most conscientious supporter of good gov- 
 ernment in his city as well as his nation. 
 
 "We had a wonderful home, and there are a thousand 
 memories of things distinctively German which I cling to 
 gratefully. I need not tell you that. The memory of those 
 Christmas Eves is something always to treasure, and there 
 w^ere countless Sunday parties, including always the whole 
 family and troops of friends, parties lasting from one to ten 
 (when father wound up the clock), with Volkslieder, games, 
 and good, lively talk, that neither you nor I will ever forget 
 or ever want to forget. Our home was the best sort of home 
 a boy could have, but the insistence morning, noon, and night 
 that it be above all a German home, has, so far as our 
 family life is concerned, had tragic results. After mother's 
 death, father and the girls returned to Germany to live. 
 One of the girls married a German officer, another a Ger- 
 man civil administrator, a third a German professor. Carl, 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 85 
 
 of course, was altogether German an>^vay. His school-days 
 in Germany definitely settled that. You, having had a part 
 of the same training, naturally tended toward the German 
 point of view. I, coming at the tail end of the family and 
 going to American schools, and particularly to an Amer- 
 ican boarding-school, became somehow Americanized. I 
 don't know exactly how it happened, but the fact remains; 
 I went to Germany as often as the rest of the family, but 
 I never made any friends there. German boys and Amer- 
 ican boys, I found, looked at almost everything under the 
 sun from different angles, and my angle happened to be the 
 American angle . . . 
 
 "It was not the German government that was responsible 
 for this particular wreck. It was mainly clannishness and 
 sentimentality — clannishness, which prevented us as a fam- 
 ily from striking our roots out into true American soil, hav- 
 ing: Americans as our daily companions and the guests of our 
 Sunday parties, instead of always German bankers and mer- 
 chants and reserve officers and traveling noblemen; senti- 
 mentality, which loved to insist that we were good Germans 
 after all, and which prevented father from ever buying an 
 inch of American land, because he wanted at any and every 
 time to feel foot-free to return to Germany. Clannishness 
 and sentimentality — the futile looking backward to a happy 
 state which never was — are prominent characteristics of the 
 German." 
 
 A pastor of a German church in a western state was con- 
 victed of sedition. In sentencing him, Judge Charles F. 
 Amidon uttered sentiments, so true and so forcefully ex- 
 pressed that they should be widely read: 
 
86 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 "You received your final papers as a citizen in 1898. By 
 the oath which you then took, you renounced and adjured 
 all allegiance to Germany and to the emperor of Germany 
 and swore that you would bear true faith and allegiance to 
 the United States. What did you mean? That you w^ould 
 set about earnestly growing an American soul and put away 
 your German soul. That is what your oath of allegiance 
 meant. Have you done that? I do not think you have. 
 You have cherished ever>'thing German, prayed German, 
 read German, sung German. Every thought of your mind 
 and every emotion of your heart through all these years has 
 been German. . .There have been a good many Germans 
 before me in the last month... They have lived in the 
 country, like yourself, ten, twenty, thirty, forty years; and 
 they had to give their evidence through an interpreter. . .It 
 [the oath of allegiance] means that you will begin to sing 
 'American songs; that you will begin earnestly to study 
 American history; that you will begin to open your lives 
 through every avenue to the influence of American life. . . 
 If half the effort had been put forth in these foreign com- 
 munities to build up American life in the hearts of these 
 foreign-born citizens that has been put forth to perpetuate 
 a foreign life, our situation would have been entirely dif- 
 ferent from what it is to-day. . .You have cherished foreign 
 ideals and tried to make them everlasting. That is the basic 
 wrong of these thousands of little> islands of foreigners, that 
 instead of trying to rfimove the foreign life out of their souls 
 and to build up an American life in them, they have striven 
 studiously from year to year to stifle American life and to 
 make foreignness perpetual."^ 
 
 1 The Outlook, September 18, 1918, "A Judicial Definition of 
 Allegiance." 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 87 
 
 That some of the responsibility for this condition of affairs 
 rests with the older American stock we will admit ; but that 
 does not relieve these groups from responsibility for a senti- 
 mental resistance to assimilation which is in effect a violation 
 of the oath of allegiance and is essentially disloyal. 
 
 Organized Resistance. The highly organized propa- 
 ganda which has taken advantage of this sentimental resist- 
 ance to assimilation has become so familiar that we hardly 
 need to do more than include it in a list of forces with which 
 to reckon. It would be strange if it should disappear al- 
 together as a factor in our national life. We need to get 
 at the underlying spirit of this propaganda if we are to meet 
 its challenge. 
 
 Quoting again from "A Family Letter" (which is inside 
 testimony) : "The Great War has brought home to us, with 
 startling shock, the realization that, unknown to the great 
 majority of the American people, a foreign government has 
 for the past fifteen or twenty years been slowly constructing 
 machinery to counteract the assimilative potencies of this 
 American spirit. Through the schools, through the churches, 
 through the colleges and universities, through associations 
 of school-teachers, through athletic, social, and literary clubs, 
 organized and closely bound together into a highly central- 
 ized alliance; and lastly, and most effectively, through the 
 daily and weekly papers, religious as well as secular, this 
 government has been endeavoring to consolidate the largest 
 and on the whole the most respected and most trusted por- 
 tion of our population of foreign birth or immediate foreign 
 origin, into a solid mass, organized, not only to prevent its 
 own assimilati')n but also to work actively toward its own 
 
88 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 political dominance, first In the state and later in the na- 
 tion. I refer, I need not say, to Germany." 
 
 Gustavus Ohlinger tells us that, according to its own offi- 
 cial statement, some of the principal objects of the National 
 German-American Alliance were "to strengthen the sense 
 of unity among the people of German origin in America; to 
 check nativistic encroachments [whatever that may mean] 
 to augment the Influence of German culture by encouraging 
 the use of the German language and making its teaching in 
 the public schools compulsorj- ; to liberalize our naturaliza- 
 tion laws by removing knowledge of the English language 
 and other educational tests as requirements of citizenship; 
 and finally, to combat Puritan influences, particularly inva- 
 sions of personal liberty in the form of restriction of the 
 liquor traffic."^ The President of the Alliance, speaking 
 in 191 1, called upon its members to assert themselves. He 
 said, "Let us, therefore, with united energies and with every 
 available means, battle for the preservation of our racial 
 character and of Its intellectual achievements."^ Before ten 
 thousand Germans In Milwaukee, he declared, "We have 
 long suffered the preachment that 'you Germans must allow 
 yourselves to be assimilated; you must merge in the Amer- 
 ican people ;' but no one will ever find us prepared to descend 
 to an inferior culture."^ 
 
 The National German-American Alliance and the Sons of 
 Herman have not been alone in this organized opposition to 
 assimilation. They have formed a political alliance with 
 the Irish which has borne abundant fruit during recent 
 months. Several years ago, before the war, the Alliance 
 pointed proudly to the fact that citizens of Italian origin 
 
 1 Ohlinger, Their Faith and Allegiance, p. 37. 
 
 2 Ibid, p. 58. 
 S Ibid, p. xi. 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 89 
 
 had formed a national organization taking as its model the 
 German Alliance. The activities of other racial organiza- 
 tions differ from the National German-American Alliance 
 in method and efficiency, and in an absence of the peculiar 
 spirit of bitterness toward America. But their one test of 
 success is their ability to preserve undiminished and to 
 perpetuate race solidarity and race separateness. 
 
 Judge Amidon, whose speech in convicting a German pas- 
 tor we have quoted above, said, as he concluded his charge, 
 "It [freedom of the press] won't protect any press or any 
 church which, while it is trying to meet a temporary need, 
 does not set itself earnestly about the business of making that 
 temporary situation just as temporary as possible, and not 
 making it, as has been true in the past, just as nearly per- 
 petual as possible." It is this distinction, between the tem- 
 porary and the permanent which we must keep before us. 
 The test of a policy lies in its trend and tendency. Sincere 
 Americans of foreign antecedents will not aid or abet this 
 propaganda, which has now been exposed in all its sinister 
 character, by silence or by continuing to practise the princi- 
 ples which this movement has promulgated. 
 
 Environment and Assimilation. Recalling Professor 
 Fairchild's statement, "Assimilation is a matter of the force 
 of environment, pitted against that of the force of heredity," 
 let us consider the causes growing out of environment which 
 retard, instead of assist, assimilation. 
 
 When we realize that our only hope is in environment, it 
 is truly alarming to be confronted at once by the fact that 
 environment has not always been a trusty ally of assimilation 
 
90 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 but has often either been neutralized or has turned traitor. 
 We have placed the responsibility for systematic and deliber- 
 ate resistance to assimilation where It belongs, that is, large- 
 ly upon the foreign-speaking people themselves; but re- 
 sponsibility for environment rests almost entirely upon Amer- 
 ica. Professor Fairchild puts a finger on the weak spot when 
 he saj's: "Our knowledge of how to produce satisfactory 
 social relations Is far behind our knowledge of how to pro- 
 duce wealth."^ This failure to surround newcomers with 
 an environment which is one hundred per cent. efHcIent for 
 assimilation does not make pleasant reading for Americans 
 who have been aroused to the real dangers of an un-Amer- 
 ican element in our national life. But we can correct our 
 mistakes and change our policy only when w^e understand the 
 situation which exists and while humbly confessing our sins, 
 are willing to accept our full share of blame. 
 
 To quote once more from Judge Amidon, "I blame my- 
 self; I blame my country. We urged you to come. We 
 welcomed you ; we gave you opportunity ; we gave you land ; 
 we conferred upon you the diadem of American citizenship 
 — and then we left you. We paid no attention to what you 
 have been doing." 
 
 National Policy. The major emphasis of the govern- 
 ment's activity as touching the Immigrant has been restrictive. 
 It has been concerned with the exclusion or deportation of 
 undesirables, which form a mere fraction of the Immigrant 
 population. Conditions at ports of entry have been greatly 
 Improved in recent years, and safeguards have been thrown 
 about the newcomers at the landing stage; but we have yet 
 to inaugurate a large, wise, and well-conceived policy which 
 
 1 Fairchild, Immigration, p. 433. 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 91 
 
 meets the exigencies of the case. When one considers the 
 tremendous significance of the Issues which are involved in 
 the right adjustment of these newcomers to their environ- 
 ment and the importance of surrounding them, not simply 
 w^ith safeguards but with an atmosphere which will be con- 
 ducive to assimilation, we find It difficult to understand the 
 failure of the national and the state governments alike to 
 appreciate the importance of this matter. 
 
 First impressions are often ineradicable. If they are un- 
 favorable, they are always difficult to overcome. The im- 
 migrant has come with every preconception In our favor. 
 He brings an enthusiasm and a naivete which is amazing 
 and beautiful. When we realize how this precious spiritual 
 v/ealth Is dissipated, we are filled with wonder that Amer- 
 ica Is ever able to regain the faith which she has forfeited. 
 We have trusted to chance and to commercial agencies, 
 which have every temptation to serve their own ends rather 
 than the interests of these new Americans or the welfare of 
 the nation. The only real assistance has been provided by 
 private cooperation and by a few semi-official agencies for 
 which a mere pittance of financial aid has been grudgingly 
 provided by municipal authorities. 
 
 Much has been written and uttered regarding the trans- 
 portation of the Immigrant, the unorganized and undirected 
 flow of employment, the maladjustment between supply and 
 demand, the congestion of cities, and the dearth of seasonable 
 labor. These are problems which lie deeper than the sur- 
 face and require consummate wisdom for their solution. But 
 the chief point is that. If ever an Immigrant needs a friend 
 and if ever a friend could make his service yield a thou- 
 
92 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 sand-fold return, it Is during the early days of the immi- 
 grant's induction into American life. To guide these eager 
 newcomers into classes in English, to give them wise counsel 
 and friendly advice as to the perils to avoid and the oppor- 
 tunities and privileges offered, the prizes to be won, and the 
 higher values which are to be gained in America; these are 
 the services which need to be rendered, and they are so emi- 
 nently practical, that we wonder what blindness has shut our 
 eyes to their vital importance. The failure to do these 
 things has often turned eagerness and enthusiasm, simple 
 faith and confiding trust, into suspicion, distrust, hatred, and 
 the bitterness of gall. 
 
 Un-American America. Socially minded Americans 
 repudiate unwholesome social conditions as being out of 
 keeping with what, we like to think, is typical of America. 
 The vast majority of Americans do not know what these 
 conditions are. They exist here; they are characteristic of 
 many sections of America; they represent about all that 
 many hundreds of thousands of the foreign-born know of 
 this country. Their America is crowded, unsanitary, often 
 industrially cruel and dangerous, socially unfriendly, and 
 very unjust. We say, and rightly, that such conditions are un- 
 lAmerican. They would be changed if the great body of 
 Americans knew them as some of us do. The living condi- 
 tions demanded by American standards are not lu^^urious. 
 They include such elemental necessities of life as privacy, 
 sanitation, and sufficient air and sunlight, as have been de- 
 monstrated to be essential to decency and health. To these 
 simple requirements are added wholesome surroundings, phy- 
 sical and moral. If these very simple tests are applied, it is 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 93 
 
 immediately evident that there are literally millions in the 
 United States who do not enjoy them. 
 
 The picture drawn for us in that vivid story, "The Wop 
 in the Track Gang,"^ rather than being exceptional, is 
 characteristic of the living conditions in many public works. 
 There are, as I write, several hundred Mexicans living in 
 box cars near Chicago, with two families to a car and no 
 decent provision for the most primitive necessities. The 
 conditions in the lumber-camps in the past against which 
 many workers have revolted are, according to the late 
 Professor Carlton Parker, of Washington University, **the 
 kind of conditions which would turn any -self-respecting 
 American into a revolutionist."^ 
 
 The slums of our great cities are not created by foreigners. 
 The foreigner is forced there by circumstances. The situa- 
 tion in the Italian quarter of Milwaukee, as described by a 
 competent witness not long ago, is, we hope, un-American: 
 "In a single dwelling, which is not unlike many we saw, 
 there lived together in ignorant misery one man, two 
 women, ten children, six dogs, two goats, five pigeons, two 
 horses, and other animal life which escaped our hurried 
 observation." The same investigator says that the Ghetto 
 of that same city defies description. The stockyards district 
 of Kansas City, Kansas, ought to receive dishonorable men- 
 tion, when specific local compliments are being distributed. 
 
 To expect to assimilate newcomers to a high standard of 
 American life under such conditions constitutes an unwar- 
 rantable reliance upon the miraculous. As Professor Edward 
 A. Steiner says, "The American people as a whole clamor 
 with a kind of savage hunger for the assimilation #of the im- 
 
 1 The Immigrants in America Review, July, 1916. 
 
 2 The Atlantic Monthly, November, 1917, "I. W, W." 
 
94 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 migrant; but the question into what he is to be assimilated 
 has not agitated them to any marked degree."^ 
 
 The World of Work. The immigrant comes to Amer- 
 ica to work. The best news which he can hear is that there 
 is a job awaiting him. He is not looking for soft jobs, but 
 steady jobs and reasonably good pay. He wants to invest his 
 energy in America, and America has wanted him to do so. 
 That so many men have become embittered, and at last 
 turned to hate America, is something for which the Amer- 
 ican people ought to demand an explanation. 
 
 Men, who afterward became good Americans, have told 
 me of the circumstances which at first turned them against 
 America. It is not always a deliberate injustice. It is quite 
 as often a lack of informatior> or of a friend at hand who can 
 be trusted. The long, long day leaves the average man too 
 exhausted to seek a night-school, too worn out to go to church 
 at night. By making it impossible for men and women to 
 respond to American appeals, the seven days' work and the 
 twelve-hour day have done more to prevent assimilation, 
 than the vicious and immoral agencies, which have received 
 the m.ost attention. But the sense of helplessness, the conscious- 
 ness of being unable to cope v/ith the situation, the feeling 
 of being the victim of circumstances over which they have 
 no control, owing to their ignorance and inability to speak 
 English ; these are the things which breed despair and enmity, 
 and are deadly foes to Americanization. 
 
 Exploiting the Foreigner. The foreigner represents 
 "easy money" to numberless unscrupulous persons, who seem 
 to feel that as they "need the money," the foreigners are 
 providentially provided to furnish it. Grafting foremen 
 
 1 Steiner, From Alien to Citizen, p.p. 166-167. 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 95 
 
 who do a thriving business in job selling, the "banker" who 
 sends money home or poses as doing so, the real estate shark 
 who unloads land which is still under water; all these and 
 many others fleece foreigners out of literally millions of dol- 
 lars each year. 
 
 I am informed on what I consider the most reliable au- 
 thority that, in a mid-western city not long ago, a lawyer 
 Vv^as consulted by a Persian concerning some property in the 
 homeland which he was trying to sell or for the sale of which 
 he wanted to collect the proceeds. The lawyer offered to 
 telephone the President and held a fake telephone conversa- 
 tion with him in the client's presence. He assured the client 
 that the President had agreed to collect the bill and would 
 declare war on Turkey if it was not paid. The transaction 
 cost the client $150. As no returns materialized, the 
 man called again and once more paid for a fake call on the 
 telephone and another fee for legal advice. The dishonest 
 lawyer was found out and summoned to defend himself in 
 a suit to disbar him. I do not know the outcome. In the 
 same section, a doctor was called upon in his office by two 
 children of foreign parentage to get "something for a cough" 
 for their mother. The doctor asked them how much money 
 they had and found they had two dollars with them. He 
 pressed his inquiry and found that they had enough at home 
 to make up seven dollars. He sent them home for the money 
 and upon their return consented to part with a bottle of 
 cough-dope in exchange for the seven dollars. We do not 
 cite these instances as universal, but they are prevalent 
 enough to make us realize that the foreigner has reason to 
 be suspicious of America. It is quite likely that these dis- 
 
96 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 honest men were themselves foreigners. The effect, how- 
 ever, is the same. 
 
 The Helpless Wayfarer. Our Declaration of In- 
 dependence, which we have never repudiated, officially ex- 
 presses the conviction that all men have free and equal rights 
 before the law. There is ground for suspicion that in 
 practise, in the mind of many officers of the law as well as 
 many employers, a foreigner has no rights which a native 
 American is bound to respect. Oftentimes policemen, train- 
 men, street-car conductors, and others who are employed 
 to discharge specific duties, treat the typical bewildered for- 
 eigner with utter disregard of his need. I have — as we, 
 doubtless, all have — been aroused almost to fur>' at the tone 
 and manner which these servants of the public sometimes 
 use in dealing with foreigners whose ignorance of the lan- 
 guage, inexperience, and bewilderment, instead of appealing 
 to the sympathy and humanity of such officials, seems to 
 rouse only contempt or anger. 
 
 I shall never forget the remark of a man who stood by 
 my side on a railroad platform, as we watched a trainload of 
 westward bound immigrants on a side track. They were hur- 
 riedly buying loaves of bread from hampers brought from a 
 near-by bakery. They w^ere just a lot of cheerful, hungr}^ 
 vigorous men, eager to get to work and willing to endure 
 much privation for the privilege. My companion remarked 
 with indescribable scorn, "There are a lot of cattle who are 
 to become future American citizens!" It is impossible for the 
 foreigner to remain insensible to this contempt. He had not 
 suspected in Europe that it existed, and to discover it here 
 is a decided shock. How much that attitude has arrested 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 97 
 
 assimilation it would be impossible to say, but it is one of 
 the causes of bitterness and discontent for which America 
 must suffer. 
 
 Isolation. The isolation of the foreign-born from 
 American contact is, of course, the crux of the entire mat- 
 ter. A Bishop in Scranton said, "My people do not live in 
 America. America goes on over their heads." He referred 
 to men at work in the mines which underlie that city, but 
 it is figuratively true of much of the life of the foreigner. 
 They do not come into contact with America. A friend of 
 mine, a Czech in Chicago, told me that he lived in Chicago 
 for years before coming into contact with Americans. The 
 way he put it was, "Chicago was in America, but America 
 was not in Chicago." (Of course he referred to the part 
 of Chicago he knew.) 
 
 We have been describing in this part of our study the un- 
 favorable environment which concerns more particularly 
 the new immigration and has little bearing upon the assimila- 
 tion of the older groups. It is at this point that we touch 
 one of the most, if not the most, fruitful causes of unassimila- 
 tion. One of the reasons why the older groups have not 
 more fully entered into the life of America is because Amer- 
 ican homes and American social life have been generally 
 closed to them. I cite a single instance, which is significant 
 because it is characteristic and not in the least exceptional. 
 In a group of ministers at a luncheon where I was a guest 
 and had spoken of Americanization problems, there were 
 present several men who were not born in America. When 
 I had finished and the discussion had become general, one 
 of these men was requested and heartily urged to speak. 
 
98 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 He was one of the finest-looking men in the room, well- 
 educated, refined, and beloved by all, a man to attract at- 
 tention anywhere. He arose, and after a few preliminary 
 words, paused an instant, and then with deep feeling said, 
 "I have been a minister for twenty-one years; I have lived in 
 America twenty years; but I have never been in an Amer- 
 ican home." If he had exploded a bomb, he would not have 
 created a greater sensation. When the gathering broke up, 
 the guests rushed to him with one accord and poured upon 
 him invitations enough to fill his engagement book for 
 months. 
 
 Let us apply the test to ourselves. How many of us have 
 on our calling list or have ever invited into our homes any 
 of the people of whom we are thinking? May I add that, 
 if we have not done so, we have missed, from the point of 
 view of pure interest, a most refreshing experience, as well 
 as having lost invaluable opportunities for interpreting Amer- 
 ica. "What we are really suffering from is. . .a determined 
 withdrawal of native Americans from the real situation in 
 America, a positive refusal to face their destiny, a stupid 
 neglect to provide anj^thing for the immigrant but a job."^ 
 
 At least three books bearing upon the phases of this 
 problem deserve special notice. Grace Abbott's admir- 
 able work, The Immigrant and the Comrnunity, is one of 
 the most stimulating and suggestive books on the subject. 
 The other two books are autobiographies: Professor Steiner's 
 From Alien to Citizen and Marcus E. Ravage's An Amer- 
 ican in the Making. 
 
 The facts to which we have called attention in this chapter 
 are so familiar that until now they have attracted little gcn- 
 
 1 Kellor, Straight America, p. 86. 
 
ARRESTED ASSIMILATION 99 
 
 eral attention. We cannot achieve national unity by shutting 
 our eyes to the situation and going blithely on our way, con- 
 fidingly trusting in luck. Resolutely and courageously we 
 must face the facts and determine relentless warfare against 
 everything which threatens the realization of our goal, the 
 achievement of our destiny. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE PATH OF PROGRESS 
 
 PROGRESS Is made through the monotonous round 
 of our daily life, but it registers in crises. Chemical 
 elements in solution may be precipitated and crystal- 
 ized by a shock. The war furnished that shock for thou- 
 sands of foreign-born men and women in America and crys- 
 talized the love and devotion which had been held in solu- 
 tion. Heretofore no great demand had been made upon 
 them. Most of us are not sufficiently introspective to know 
 just what takes place in our minds while we are passing 
 through a transition. The great mass of foreign-born citi- 
 zens in America had never faced a great issue like war. 
 They had been slowly growing American souls but had not 
 yet found themselves. 
 
 A man of foreign birth said to me recently, "I had taken 
 out my first papers and declared my intention of becoming 
 a citizen, but Sweden was still first in my heart. Then one 
 day — it was the fifteenth of October — it came to me what 
 America was doing in the war; how unselfish were her 
 purposes; what a wonderful part she was playing. That 
 day America became first, and Sweden dropped to a second 
 place. Now when I see Old Glory, I can say 'my country!' '* 
 The depth of feeling with which he uttered the words spoke 
 volumes. 
 
 Jacob RIIs was as loyal and true an American as ever 
 lived, but even he needed to go through this awakening 
 
 101 
 
102 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 process ; he had to discover by a sudden revelation how much 
 America meant. While on a visit to his native Denmark, 
 he became very ill. One day during his convalescence, he 
 was lying where he could look out upon the harbor, when 
 there hove in sight a vessel flying the Stars and Stripes. I 
 will let him tell in his own way what took place. "All at 
 once there sailed past, close inshore, a ship flying at the top 
 the flag of freedom, blown out on the breeze till every star in 
 it shone bright and clear. That moment I knew. Gone were 
 illness, discouragement, and gloom; forgotten, weakness and 
 suffering, the cautions of doctor and nurse. I sat up in bed 
 and shouted, laughed, and cried by turns, waving my hand- 
 kerchief to the flag out there. They thought I had lost my 
 head, but I told them, 'No, thank God'; I had found it, 
 and my heart, too, at last. I knew then that it was my 
 flag; that my children's home was mine, indeed; that I also 
 had become an American in truth. And I thanked God, 
 and like unto the man sick of the palsy, arose from my bed 
 and went home, healed.*'^ 
 
 We have insisted that becoming an American is a pro- 
 found inner experience. There is a sense in which we may 
 say that one must be born again of the American spirit In 
 order to become an American. As in a religious experience 
 it is often an emotional upheaval which awakens us, so it is 
 in this matter of becoming an American. An eminent psy- 
 chologist has spoken of religious conversion as "the shock of 
 regeneration.*' The war has furnished the crisis and pro- 
 duced the needed shock which will, we believe, save America 
 for a true national unity. 
 
 Encouraging Signs. In the last chapter we were pri- 
 
 1 Riis, The Making of an American, p. 443. 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 103 
 
 marily concerned with those influences which were unfavor- 
 able to assimilation and tended to retard it. Of course that is 
 not the whole story; else America would long since have 
 been ruined past redemption. There are more wholesome 
 and potent influences at work in our American life upon 
 which we rest our faith in the nation's genius to perform this 
 miracle of assimilation. We may overcome the resistance 
 to assirnilation, if we understand the forces which are at 
 work to counteract them. If we gauge them fairly, we may 
 strengthen and accelerate them. 
 
 Because Americanization is a process, it must be regarded 
 as relative. The crisis reveals the degree to which assimila- 
 tion has progressed. When in this chapter we are speak- 
 ing of favorable influences which promote assimilation, we 
 have in mind the trend, the process, the relative achieve- 
 ment, and not altogether complete and perfect assimilation. 
 We have suggested, in a previous chapter, that there is no 
 arbitrary standard or graduated scale for testing progress 
 toward Americanization. Doubtless there is a mysterious 
 line which marks the transition, the shifting of the balance 
 of influence from heredity to environment. But most men 
 are wholly unconscious of any such tropical line. A man 
 may be considered to have become an American when he 
 ceases to regard himself as a foreigner and thinks of Amer- 
 ica in terms of proprietary interest; when he can say "my 
 country," "our flag," *Sve Americans," instead of "your coun- 
 try," "your flag," "you Americans." We need to be warned 
 against accepting superficial indications of assimilation as 
 conclusive and allowing them to pass for more than they are 
 worth. The use of carpets and bathtubs and the wearing 
 
104 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 of American clothes are not evidences of Americanization. 
 When his old clothes wear out, a foreigner naturally buys 
 American clothes. With all the advertising and display of 
 departm.ent stores and the deceptive allurements of the in- 
 stalment plan, a newcomer must have a strong moral char- 
 acter to resist the appeal of American rugs, furniture, and 
 bathroom fixtures. These all help to make attractive and 
 comfortable homes, but Americanization is a matter of the 
 spirit and not the letter. The letter is often deceptive. It 
 is to the spirit we must look for evidence of life. The out- 
 ward and visible signs of this inward grace of the spirit must 
 be sought in other directions. It costs more to become an 
 American than the price of furniture and clothes. 
 
 It Takes Time. If we reread Dr. Laidlaw's statement 
 concerning the racial amalgamation of the past generations,^ 
 we will be impressed by the fact that time is an essential 
 element in the process of assimilation, as it is in education 
 and in everything else that has to do with life. We need 
 constantly to keep in view the background of the past against 
 which w^e see the present. 
 
 A picture of the typical American of fifty years ago and 
 a similar picture of the typical American as he is to-day would 
 probably fail to not reveal any very marked divergence 
 in character. We know we have changed, but we do not 
 believe that we are less American and more European. 
 There is a greater variety of individual types in our popula- 
 tion, but there has been a substantial maintenance of the 
 national type. When we consider individuals, we find 
 abundant evidence of the potencies of the American spirit 
 to transform old-world men and women into real Amer- 
 
 1 See page 30. 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 105 
 
 icans. We are naturally impatient with what seems delay. 
 We forget that life processes are slow, secret, subtle, and 
 unconscious. When a nation of 100,000,000 souls is in- 
 volved, the process of developing spiritual unity requires im- 
 measurably greater patience and faith. 
 
 Wholesome Signs. We ought to thank God and take 
 courage every time a foreign-born man or woman or a 
 foreign-born group rises in revolt against conditions which 
 we know to be un-American. 
 
 Generations of oppression, petty tyranny, and social re- 
 pression, such as these people have experienced, breed either 
 submissiveness and servility or sullen hate. We have during 
 the past few months seen the revolutionary spirit become 
 rampant in Europe; but that has not been the case in times 
 past, and even yet many have not the spirit to rise and de- 
 mand their full rights. America has taught her immigrant 
 folk lessons of self-reliance and self-assertion which would 
 disconcert their former masters in Europe. The reflex in- 
 fluence of America is felt in the remotest parts of Europe, 
 and in Asia as well. The spirit of America is the spirit of 
 self-respect, independence of domination, and resentment of 
 injustice and tyranny. Men or women born to a life of 
 toil in Europe find a new spirit in America, and the measure 
 of their assimilation of the American spirit is the measure of 
 their independence, their self-assertion, and their self-reli- 
 ance. 
 
 Of course there must go with these a higher spirit, which 
 is harder to acquire — the spirit of consideration for others; 
 of unselfishness; of readiness to yield personal claims that 
 all may be benefitted and to surrender non-essentials for the 
 
106 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 sake of higher Interests. But my contention is that the tem- 
 per of naturalized citizens which makes them resent and 
 rebel at un-American conditions is an indication that they 
 have partaken of the American spirit. Discontent is a 
 primary and essential element of ambition and must be 
 strong in a man's heart before he can aspire to something 
 better. The very fact that these men were not content with 
 Europe indicates that they had in them the stuff of which 
 Americans are made. I know full well that, in the minds of 
 some Americans, a contented spirit on the part of these 
 people, a spirit of humble gratitude for the privilege of being 
 admitted to America, is considered to be a more fitting at- 
 titude of mind. The ruling classes of Europe have laughed 
 at our gospel of equal rights and say that we have spoiled 
 these peasants. If we believe our own gospel, we must hail 
 with joy that noble discontent which aspires to better things 
 and will not be content with conditions which we know are 
 not representative of the best of America. 
 
 Partakers o£ the Community Spirit. We have 
 recognized that to separateness and segregation from the 
 vitalizing and wholesome American influences was due much 
 of our failure to assimilate alien elements in our population. 
 Everything, therefore, w^hich indicates the growth and deep- 
 ening of community consciousness on the part of the foreign- 
 born is a measure of the growth and deepening of the Amer- 
 ican spirit in their lives. 
 
 One of the first, and perhaps one of the most significant, 
 signs of this spirit is the establishment of homes in America. 
 The purchase of property, not for investment but for the 
 establishment of a home, is for the immigrant the beginning 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 107 
 
 of a new relationship to the community. He and his family 
 become more deeply rooted in the soil. Everything which 
 affects the public welfare becomes a matter of concern to 
 the immigrant family. The school, the local government, 
 taxes, and civic improvements are all of interest to him. He 
 has become a stockholder and partner in the business. There 
 are reported to be more than thirty thousand people of 
 Polish birth who own their own homes in Buffalo. There 
 are many thousand home owners of the same nationality in 
 Detroit and Cleveland. A Polish immigrant has become 
 the health officer of Buffalo, and a Hungarian immigrant is 
 — or was In 19 17 — the mayor of Indiana Harbor, Indiana. 
 
 Not long ago, on an extension of the subway system in 
 New York City, I overheard a man with a decidedly foreign 
 accent telling a friend what a prolonged struggle the tax- 
 payers and property owners of that section had gone through 
 to get the line extended. He spoke with a sense of personal 
 interest and possession which betokened a real and deep 
 community spirit. During the recent *'wet-and-dry" cam- 
 paign in Indiana it was conceded that the foreigners of East 
 Hammond would vote "wet" ; but when the votes were 
 counted, to the amazement of both sides, these same for- 
 eigners had carried their district for the "drys" ! In matters 
 of community welfare. It Is noticeable that our citizens of 
 foreign birth are conspicuous for their devotion. To them, 
 participation In public affairs Is a new experience. Amer- 
 icans of the older stock are often conspicuous for their in- 
 difference. 
 
 The quickening of community consciousness has been im- 
 measurably advanced by the many activities connected with 
 
108 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 home service during the war. The Red Cross, the "war 
 chest," food conservation, Liberty Loans, and other 
 campaigns, and finally the Inspired "block party," with its 
 community service flag, have done more to enrich the com- 
 munity spirit and endow it with a new self-consciousness 
 than anything else that has ever come to the life of America. 
 
 Enrichment of America. In sharp contrast with the 
 withdrawal from American life on the part of many new- 
 comers, who colonize and refuse to share the responsibility 
 of the country of their residence, is the inspiring example of 
 thousands of other men and women of foreign birth vs^ho 
 have demonstrated their Americanism by identifying them- 
 selves with all well-defined movements to advance the higher 
 welfare of the nation. 
 
 If we call the roll of conspicuous names in almost any 
 phase of activity for the national welfare, this fact is at once 
 apparent. To be a great philanthropist or social engineer, 
 an eminent physician, scientist, or educator, one does not 
 need to have been born in America. To have vision, in- 
 sight, and idealism raised to the highest power, one need not 
 be a descendant of the Mayflower Pilgrims. 
 
 The list is so long that we hesitate even to mention names. 
 The record of men like Carl Schurz, Franz Siegel, and hun- 
 dreds of others less conspicuous but equally faithful and de- 
 voted represents a glorious chapter In the development of the 
 nation. The juvenile court was conceived by a man of Scandi- 
 navian birth. One of the best-loved men in New York was 
 Jacob Rlis, a native of Denmark, who helped to make the 
 more comfortable "half" understand "how the other half 
 lives." When Governor Hughes was trying to abolish race- 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 109 
 
 track gambling in New York State, the man to cast the decid- 
 ing vote in the senate was a German immigrant, Senator 
 Faulkner, who, though dangerously ill, insisted upon being 
 carried to Albany and wheeled in a chair into the senate 
 chamber, in order to record his vote. Members of the Jewish 
 race often have a positive genius for philanthropy and a 
 social passion which has enriched America beyond computa- 
 tion; a partial list of names includes men and women like 
 Samuel Gompers, Julius Rosenwald, Rabbi Wise, the Straus 
 brothers, Mortimer Schiff, Julius Kahn, Paul Warburg, 
 Lillian Wald, Felix Adler, Ambassador Morgenthau, Simon 
 Bamberger (a Jew who is the "Gentile" governor of the 
 Mormon state of Utah), Justice Brandeis, and Edward A. 
 Steiner. It is difficult to think of Andrew Carnegie as one 
 of the new Americans, but he was a Scotch immigrant. 
 Among eminent educators we may mention Dr. Franz Boas, 
 professor of anthropology in Columbia University and a 
 Chevalier of the Legion of Honor; the great naturalist Pro- 
 fessor Louis Agassiz of Harvard; Professor Michael Pupin 
 of Columbia University; and Enrico Suzallo, president of 
 the University of Washington. The late Walter Rauschen- 
 busch, a saint and prophet of the social order, was the son 
 of a German immigrant of the Revolutionary period. I 
 have compiled a long list of naturalized Americans or the 
 sons or daughters of naturalized citizens, who have gone out 
 from America to foreign mission fields. Men in the Chris- 
 tian ministry in America who have come of immigrant 
 stock represent some of the best leadership in the American 
 pulpit to-day. These all stand as irrefutable witnesses of 
 the life-giving power of the American spirit. 
 
110 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Faithful unto Death. The casuahy lists have been 
 a revelation even to those who knew how the foreign ele- 
 ment w^as intermingled with the American stock. The de- 
 votion and sacrifice of foreign-born parents in giving their 
 sons; the response of these Americans to the appeal of the 
 Liberty Loans and all other drives; the services of yeomen 
 in the navy and of army and Red Cross nurses ; all represent 
 the spirit of millions of the foreign-born who were eager and 
 ready to pour out their newly discovered love and devotion 
 for America. 
 
 Agencies o£ Progress. We have every reasonable 
 ground for confidence and courage as we seek to understand 
 more perfectly the agencies and influences which may be 
 relied upon and which truly represent and interpret the 
 American spirit. We have criticized the past failure of the 
 federal and state governments to seize the psychological ad- 
 vantage offered at the beginning of the immigrant's adjust- 
 ment to new surroundings. The government has in more 
 recent times made elaborate studies and has gathered valu- 
 able data upon which, rather than upon the passions of the 
 war years, it is hoped the policy of the reconstruction era 
 is to be based. 
 
 The Bureau of Education is doing admirable work by 
 way of promoting the teaching of English to non-English- 
 speaking peoples in the United States, and the Commissioner 
 of Education is bringing to this service a high-minded devo- 
 tion and understanding which promises further great achieve- 
 ments. The government has made the largest appropriation 
 for the program of the Bureau ever voted for education. 
 The teaching of English in the military camps and the service 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 111 
 
 of the Red Cross in immigrant homes have brought these 
 public agencies into close human touch with the personal 
 and family problems of the unassimilated, and this must 
 produce far-reaching reactions in both directions. The gov- 
 ernment is not a policeman — at least, not in the old concep- 
 tion of a policeman. It is the nation organized for self- 
 direction and self-development. The far-reaching plans of 
 the Department of the Interior for land development and 
 larger opportunities for obtaining land credit, in order to 
 enable men of limited means to become land owners, are 
 certain to produce most beneficial results. They will exert 
 a wide influence for good among our younger immigrants, 
 who" have, by their participation in the war, become pos- 
 sessed of a new spirit of oneness with America. The govern- 
 ment's interest in housing, to meet the needs of communities 
 that were created or suddenly expanded by the emergency 
 of war production, has established precedents and standards 
 which we must not allow to be dissipated. New commun- 
 ities, such as Yorkship Village, New Jersey, Harriman, 
 Pennsylvania, and the tract adjacent to Chester on the north 
 and Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, on the south, and some 
 fifty or more other model communities which are under con- 
 struction have been financed by government investments and 
 loans. They have demonstrated that, with intelligent plan- 
 ning, it is possible to raise the standards of housing and the 
 whole community life. This movement was the outcome of 
 the constructive work of the National Housing Association 
 and kindred agencies. Government employment agencies 
 represent another step forward. Now that their service has 
 passed the experimental stage and is to be extended, grave 
 
112 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 faults will be corrected. They are among the most valuable 
 aids which the government can render to the foreign-born. 
 
 Much has been gained when the public has become accus- 
 tomed to thinking of the government as responsible for the 
 welfare of the people, who are, in a sense, still its wards, 
 and must be until they have in truth become Americanized. 
 
 The Dignity of Naturalization. The scandalous 
 misuse of naturalization papers in the past and the cheap 
 and undignified way in which even perfectly legal transac- 
 tions were consummated have constituted a grievous and 
 tragic failure to make citizenship appear the noble and lofty 
 privilege that we know it to be. The city of Cleveland has 
 the distinction of being in the van of many good movements, 
 and now it must be given the credit for an innovation which 
 raised the ceremony of naturalization to a new dignity. The 
 city and the Y. M. C. A. combined in an educational pro- 
 gram in behalf of candidates for citizenship. When the 
 members of that first class were to be granted their final 
 papers and the oath of allegiance was to be administered, 
 a public reception was arranged, and addresses were delivered 
 by the presiding judge (now one of the justices of the 
 Supreme Court), by a City Judge, who was himself a natur- 
 alized citizen, and by other public-spirited and high-minded 
 citizens. The administration of the oath was as solemn as 
 if it had been a sacrament, and never before in America has 
 such a "confirmation class" been seen as assembled in the 
 United States district court-room that day. Cleveland's good 
 example was contagious, and since then, in our large cities 
 at least, this dignifying of the ceremony of naturalization 
 has been maintained. The Fourth of July has now come to 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 113 
 
 be for naturalization what Easter is for entrance upon 
 church membership. 
 
 But our concern and interest ought not to stop with the 
 receipt of the naturalization papers which are the patent of 
 American nobility. Politicians and partisan interests are 
 very much alive to the importance of enrolling this new 
 citizenship for their own ends. Ought not the socially 
 minded and unselfish agencies to enlist this newly conferred 
 power for the building of a better America? Some re- 
 sourceful person should work out a practical plan for 
 extending this educational propaganda beyond natural- 
 ization and lending practical aid. Many Industrial concerns 
 have made citizenship a condition of advancement. 
 
 Pressure brought to bear among men of foreign birth to 
 become citizens is well meant, but fraught with danger. The 
 importance of full and careful education as to the meaning 
 of citizenship, the history and ideals of America, and govern- 
 mental principles has been recognized. This education 
 should be popularized and brought within reach of all, both 
 men and women. It is only by such a process of education 
 that men come to know America. According to recent con- 
 fessions many an oath of allegiance has been sworn lightly 
 and with mental reservation. If employment be conditioned 
 upon citizenship, we cheapen citizenship. 
 
 Educational Plans. The influence of our public 
 schools upon the process of assimilation can hardly be over- 
 estimated. One of the strongest arguments against the 
 parochial school is its class bias, which is inimical to the 
 spirit of free democracy. The coercive measures resorted 
 to by Roman Catholic priests and some Protestant pastors 
 
114 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 to compel attendance upon parochial schools should be re- 
 sisted as valiantly as any other encroachment upon personal 
 liberty. We must safeguard the educational freedom of 
 every citizen as vigilantly as we would the priceless privilege 
 of religious liberty. Private schools of the more democratic 
 type are powerful Americanization agencies, owing to the 
 greater intimacy of the social life and the continuity of social 
 contacts, which cannot be had so fully in the public schools. 
 There are, however, but few secondary schools in the country 
 to which foreign-born students can be admitted. The 
 Mount H'ermon School, founded by Dwight L. Moody, is 
 an illustration of a private school which has exerted a power- 
 ful influence upon hundreds of the youth of foreign birth or 
 parentage. The influence of college life upon foreign-born 
 young men and women or children of foreign parents who 
 are able to enter is of great potency, and it is the atmosphere 
 in which the most ambitious and promising of these young 
 people are going to get their working convictions of Amer- 
 ica. 
 
 The influence of the public school has never received a 
 finer tribute than that paid to it by Mary Antin in The 
 Promised Land. Thousands of school-teachers have felt 
 that their high calling was a mission to interpret America 
 to the boys and girls of foreign parentage, and the influence 
 which they have wielded can never be adequately measured 
 nor sufficiently appreciated. In the Ladies' Home Journal 
 for April, 191 8, there was a striking short story, by James 
 F. Dwyer. It was entitled "The Little Man in the Smoker." 
 The discussion in a Pullman smoker had turned upon Amer- 
 ica's preparedness for the part she was called upon to play in 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 115 
 
 the war. One member of the party had expressed rather un- 
 complimentary opinions as to America's military powers. A 
 little man in the corner, after listening to the un-American 
 exponent of America's military weakness, finally gets the 
 floor, and in a quiet voice tells his own story : 
 
 " 'I am a Swede ; so is my wife. We came to New York 
 in 1889. I couldn't speak English, neither could my wife. . . 
 My oldest boy. Christian, was born in the basement of that 
 house on One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Street. So were 
 my second son, Sigurd, my youngest boy, Henrik, and my 
 daughter, Hilda. When Christian was old enough to go to 
 school, I took him 'round to Public School No. 186 on One 
 Hundred and Forty-fifth Street. I saw the principal, a nice 
 man. He took Christian and me into his office, and he ques- 
 tioned me. . .*We will do the best for little Christian, and 
 when your other children are big enough to come to school, 
 we will look after them too." 
 
 '* 'Gentlemen, that schoolmaster kept his word. My chil- 
 dren were everything to me, and he had them in his care for 
 nearly half of their waking time ... I learned to speak cor- 
 rect English from my son Christian. He taught my wife 
 and me. I learned from him of George Washington, of 
 Abraham Lincoln, of Nathan Hale, of Grant, of a thousand 
 others. He got it at the school, got it from the principal 
 who didn't care whether I was a janitor or a barrister, and 
 whose only duty it was to teach boys to be good citizens. 
 
 " 'They made my boy, Christian, flag bearer at the as- 
 sembly exercises. . .1 went over one morning and saw him, 
 and I cried ... Christian graduated, gentlemen. He won a 
 medal for history, my Christian, and I was there, there on 
 
116 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 the piatf orm when it was presented to him . . . Listen to me 
 a little while, and I will tell you what this country, this 
 United States, has done to prepare for war! I cried that 
 evening. Yes, sir, I am not ashamed to acknowledge it, I 
 cried ! It was a gold medal presented by that commissioner 
 that I had been introduced to, and my son had got it. My 
 son, Christian! And I was a Swede, a laboring man from 
 Upsala, who was working as a janitor. That commissioner 
 wrote Christian to come and see him . . . My boy, Christian 
 Sigbold, earned last year over thirteen thousand dollars! 
 He is a junior partner in the firm he went to work for as an 
 office boy that day. 
 
 '* 'My second boy, Sigurd, also won a medal when he 
 graduated ... My boy, Sigurd, became a doctor, helped by 
 the principal. He is a specialist. He is young, but he is 
 well known... A special train took him from New York 
 to Chicago a few months ago, so that he could perform an 
 operation on a millionaire's baby. Henrik also became a 
 flag bearer in that school . . . Strong as a young bull he grew, 
 and when he walked down the aisle carrying the silk flag, 
 you would think he was a young Crusader. He graduated 
 and became an architect.' 
 
 "The train was slowing up. 'This stop is the nearest sta- 
 tion to one of Uncle Sam's biggest camps,' continued the 
 little man, *and I have three sons and a son-in-law in that 
 camp, sir. The old country has not been asleep. She's been 
 preparing, but preparing in a different way from the 
 Huns.' "1 
 
 That is not an over-colored picture. It is well for us to 
 remember that millions of boys and girls have been drinking 
 
 1 Reprinted from "The Little Man in the Smoker," by the 
 courtesy of the Paget Literary Agency. 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 117 
 
 in the love and devotion to democracy and freedom in our 
 public schools. The greater reason for making them safe 
 for democracy and keeping them free from exploitation ! 
 
 But now we must consider the extension of that influence. 
 The night-school for teaching English places within reach 
 of the ambitious the opportunity which has been denied them 
 of fitting themselves for larger things. But the night-school 
 must be popularized and humanized. It cannot be the same 
 kind of a school as the day-school. It is a school for tired 
 working young men and young women, and needs to be bright 
 and cheerful, fresh and stimulating. We have abundant 
 testimony to the effect that for lack of these elements it often 
 falls short of even ordinary efficiency. The uniform testimony 
 brought out by every investigation of night-schools for the 
 foreign-born emphasizes the fact that long hours of toil pre- 
 vent the great majority from availing themselves of this 
 privilege. Syracuse, Rochester, Cleveland, and Detroit have 
 been setting new standards for the extension of this privilege 
 and making the night-school truly worth while. They have 
 had men of vision and imagination to direct, and the boards 
 have followed their lead. 
 
 The extension of the school influence is bringing the life- 
 giving spirit of our democracy within reach of foreign-born 
 mothers. The kindergarten, with its outreach to the mother 
 in the home, lays siege to that citadel of conservatism. The ex- 
 tension and enlargement of this service is of prime importance. 
 The appointment of a school nurse who can form a connect- 
 ing link between the foreign home and the school is a practical 
 measure which has been inaugurated in Syracuse. In Syracuse, 
 also, a very happy plan has been conceived. Election Day, 
 
118 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 which is a holiday, is made the occasion for getting parents 
 to the school-building. Interesting exercises are held there, 
 including an educational address in the native tongue of the 
 parents represented. Ingenious teachers have wrought out 
 many practical and highly successful measures for overcoming 
 inertia, timidity, and other barriers which separate parents of 
 foreign birth from the influences of the public school. Here 
 is ample scope for the genius of loving minds and hearts. 
 
 The school that is inspired by a lofty vision of its function 
 as a radiating center of Americanism will not confine its activ- 
 ity to instruction in what might be called the "technique" 
 of citizenship but will be alive to every opportunity to diffuse 
 the American spirit throughout the community. With the 
 possible exception of a wide-awake church, the public school 
 is the greatest dynamic force in our democracy. 
 
 The Public Forum. The influence of centers like 
 Cooper Union in New York City for many years, the Ford 
 Hall Forum in Boston, the Chicago Commons under Graham 
 Taylor, and the multiplication of these centers of public educa- 
 tion and discussion represent a popular educational agency 
 which is essential in a growing democracy. The seething spirit 
 of freedom, newly born in the hearts of multitudes who have 
 never known the privilege of free speech and open discussion 
 of public affairs, may alarm the older American element, but 
 it is the school of democracy. The many clubs, societies, and 
 *'sokols'' in the centers of immigrant population, have offered 
 a vent for the pent-up passions, questionings, suspicions, aspira- 
 tions, and strivings which have stirred the minds and hearts 
 of the suppressed races, who have found here the chance to 
 grow. The profound philosophy which is expressed, the 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 119 
 
 Idealism, the deep knowledge of life, of history, and of the 
 Issues involved, the frank and fearless facing of facts re- 
 vealed ; these amaze the average American who may partici- 
 pate in these discussions. 
 
 Other Centers of Americanization. The far reach- 
 ing educational plans of the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. 
 deserve conspicuous mention and measureless honor. They 
 have been pioneers In extending Into shops and mills the 
 classes in English and In citizenship. The beautiful idea set 
 forth in the Neighbors' League and the program of the Na- 
 tional Americanization Committee are designed to meet needs 
 which some of the public agencies cannot. The social settle- 
 ments, the public and branch libraries, and kindred social 
 agencies have been dynamic centers of Americanization. They 
 have been the recruiting stations of some of the most ardent 
 lovers of America. The influence which has emanated from- 
 them cannot be measured. Here is a typical instance: A 
 young Russian Jew came as an immigrant to the city of Cleve- 
 land. He located In a colony on the lower part of Woodland 
 Avenue where the topic he heard most discussed was the 
 opportunity that America ofiFered for making money. He 
 was shocked by the frank recognition of graft and dishonesty. 
 He found corruption In the petty courts and the debauching 
 of justice on the part of petty officers. He was In a fair 
 way to being ruined, when he was induced to enter one of 
 the clubs or classes at Hiram House, the settlement which 
 has served that colony for a number of years as an interpreter 
 of our best American ideals. He found there a new world 
 opened to him and was introduced to the America of his 
 dreams. He became an eager seeker after the best Amer- 
 
122 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 these matters with me has come to feel deeply his respon- 
 sibility for the men in his employ. Some of the practical ways 
 in which he has been able to help them are by advising them 
 regarding the investment of their savings, helping them to 
 acquire property for their family, and manifesting a warm 
 personal interest in their general welfare. This firm of 
 Christian men has definitely come to feel that the sphere of 
 largest influence and service for Christ is afforded in busi- 
 ness associations. 
 
 We have nothing but praise for the welfare work of in- 
 dustrial concerns which are sincerely interested in human 
 rights and justice. Many foreign-born workmen, however, 
 have come to feel that it i^ a cheap substitute for justice and 
 a cloak for pitiless greed, and is used to cover a multitude 
 of sins. Welfare work must represent sincere interest in 
 everything that concerns the well-being of the foreign-born. 
 The two qualities most essential and the most difficult to 
 secure are imagination and patience. The corporations 
 which have these sufficiently developed will provide for the 
 education of their employees, help them to become more effi- 
 cient, and discuss with them the wide reach of interests in 
 which these workingmen are profoundly concerned. But 
 first of all there must be established as fundamental an un- 
 shakable respect for human rights and faith in democracy. 
 
 American Home Life. The most potent influences 
 are the most natural ones. Society is not affected by institu- 
 tions and organizations, by direct and conscious efforts, so 
 much as by the normal, unconscious, and direct influences 
 which emanate from the home life of a community and 
 radiate from dynamic personalities. The withdrawal of 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 125 
 
 these potent assimilating influences from contact with the 
 foreign-born has necessitated the social settlement. The 
 Christian home life of missionaries and other Christian resid- 
 ents on the foreign mission field has done as much for 
 evangelizing heathen lands as the Interpretation of the Gospel 
 by public preaching. Un-Christian foreign residents, some 
 globe trotters, and other unworthy representatives of Chris- 
 tian lands have by the same power done much to retard the 
 evangelization of foreign lands. 
 
 The influence of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Robins in the 
 ward in Chicago in which they chose to live Is an illustra- 
 tion of what a Christian home can mean to a city ward. I 
 have been told of a fine Christian woman In the city of Buf- 
 falo, who, instead of withdrawing before the incoming flood 
 of Italians which surrounded her home, decided to remain 
 and live her life among them as an interpreter of Christian 
 America. She died a few months ago, and the pastor who 
 officiated at the funeral service in that home told me what a 
 profound impression her life had left upon that community 
 and of the evidences of love and esteem that were manifest 
 at the community funeral. 
 
 One of the most striking illustrations of the influence 
 of the typical American home came to my knowledge from 
 a friend in Chicago who has told It often as his personal 
 experience of Americanization. He came from Bohemia and 
 had lived for some time in Chicago. He was critical of 
 American manners and customs, especially of political cor- 
 ruption, of the abuse of public office, and of the whole sordid 
 business of our city politics, as It was revealed to him for the 
 first time. The man was an idealist, of a philosophical 
 
124 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 mind; he was a keen observer of men and a student of his- 
 tory, with especial reference to practical democracy. He 
 resolved never to become a citizen of the United States. 
 The Bohemian, German, and Polish papers, all of which 
 he read, never represented America in any other light; 
 their stock in trade was criticism of American political and 
 social life. After three years' residence in Chicago, he 
 lectured on Austria before a group of Americans. One of 
 them asked him why he did not become an American, and 
 he publicly denounced American democracy as inefficient and 
 corrupt. After a time he had occasion to visit a small city 
 in Michigan and was entertained for the first time in what 
 he calls "an Anglo-Saxon home." He was profoundly im- 
 pressed by the life of that home, the freedom of opinion, the 
 intelligent interest in public affairs, the Christian atmosphere, 
 and the mutual love and respect of all the members of the 
 family. He thought that this must be an exceptional family, 
 but when his host took him to call upon several neighbors 
 and he found the same spirit elsewhere, his eyes were opened. 
 The city was a "dry" town, and the moral order was some- 
 thing he had never seen before. The jail was unused. The 
 people did not now take the trouble to lock their doors when 
 they left the house. All the way back to Chicago he pon- 
 dered the amazing revelation of an America which he had 
 never suspected existed. He came to the conclusion that 
 he had not discovered America until that day. Now he is 
 one of the most ardent Americans, has rendered invaluable 
 service to the government and the cause of Christian demo- 
 cracy, and is in the confidence of some of the foremost men 
 in the country. 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 125 
 
 The problem of Americanization is the problem of bridg- 
 ing the chasm between genuine Americans and these poten- 
 tial Americans. 
 
 The Christian Church. In the preceding chapter, 
 references were made to churches which use a foreign lan- 
 guage in their worship and in the proclamation of the Gospel. 
 It would be impossible to estimate the value of thousands 
 of these churches and of their contribution to the enrich- 
 ment of the life of America. The weakness of the program 
 of many churches composed of members of foreign birth and 
 antecedents is in its limited range and scope. It would 
 be wholly unjust to make a sweeping condemnation of all 
 pastors of foreign birth and all churches of foreign language 
 because some have not fully measured up to their opportunity. 
 The same would have to be said of many English-speaking 
 churches. Those who know anything of the moral dangers 
 to which multitudes of foreign young men and young women 
 are exposed, the lure of the gay lights, the relaxed standards, 
 and the withdrawal of the restrictions of old-country life in 
 the freedom of America know that these churches have been 
 a conserving social and moral influence. 
 
 There is grave danger that, in the revulsion of feeling and 
 reaction growing out of the disclosures of the un-American 
 attitude and the resistance to American influences which 
 have characterized some foreign-language churches, we shall 
 go to an opposite extreme and underestimate this potent in- 
 fluence for good which is at work among the people of for- 
 eign birth In the country. What we need is a re-study of 
 the problem in the light of our recent experiences, and the 
 adoption of a forward-looking and constructive program, 
 
126 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 for these churches and for the missionary work, through 
 which our Christian ideals and influence are being extended 
 to those sections otherwise untouched. We must confine 
 ourselves here to one aspect of this matter. We are con- 
 sidering the value of the church and missionary activities as 
 an influence for promoting assimilation. It is of funda- 
 mental importance that we keep steadily in mind the fact 
 that the foundations of democracy are in the character of 
 the people. We cannot have a democracy on paper. It must 
 be grounded in the moral character of free people. It is 
 the business of the church to vitalize the moral life of the 
 community and interpret democracy in spiritual as well as 
 in social terms. 
 
 American conceptions of religion and the place which It 
 holds, the part which it plays in our social and civic life, 
 is so radically different from the conception which is enter- 
 tained by the vast majority of immigrants that we cannot 
 interpret America without interpreting the American con- 
 ception of religion. The union of church and state, with the 
 whole set of implications which are involved in that rela- 
 tionship, is the inherited conception of organized religion 
 which the great majority of the immigrant population brings 
 to America. This preconception is a positive barrier to 
 Americanization. The violent interference with religious 
 services, which has often occurred in our foreign colonies, 
 are but a reflection of this Imported and un-American Idea 
 of religious tyranny. Ignorance and superstition, blind and 
 unquestioning acceptance of authority, do not comport with 
 American conceptions of religious liberty. Intelligent free- 
 dom of inquiry and liberty of choice, which are absolutely 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 127 
 
 essential to vital religion, are likewise essential to the ex- 
 ercise of democratic responsibility. The atheism and re- 
 ligious infidelity which have been imported into America from 
 Europe represent the reaction against the religious tyranny 
 and oppression of centuries. However, the movement seems 
 not to have been able to flourish in the atmosphere of Amer- 
 ican freedom. It perishes because it has nothing to feed upon 
 and fails in propagation. Progress cannot be made upon 
 the basis of denials and negations. A banker in Chicago 
 resented the activity of an influential evangelical minister. 
 The banker protested that he had spent $16,000 the previous 
 year to propagate atheism and he felt that the propagan- 
 da was being defeated by the large-minded and well-organ- 
 ized work of my friend. Professor Steiner also bears witness 
 to the unfriendliness of our American atmosphere to atheism. 
 
 Wholesome religious influences also make for higher stan- 
 dards of living. I recall a mission station, located in one 
 of the congested sections of a great city, where the highest 
 rate of juvenile delinquency in the city was registered and 
 the mortality was alarming. As rapidly as families came 
 under the influence of the mission and united with the parent 
 church with which it was connected, they straightway re- 
 moved to other more desirable sections of the city. Where 
 it is not possible to remove, one of the first evidences of a 
 new religious experience is the transformation of living con- 
 ditions. 
 
 What we have been considering here is the indirect in- 
 fluence upon Americanization that is exerted by a vigorous 
 religious life in the missions and churches among our for- 
 eign-speaking peoples. We must consider briefly the direct in 
 
128 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 fluences of these institutions, organized and designed to 
 promote assimilation and offering a channel through which 
 the American spirit may be transmitted. The first requisite 
 for making these churches effective agencies for assimilation 
 is an effective leadership. The pastor or missionary should, 
 of course, be a citizen who regards himself as an interpreter 
 of the American spirit, as well as an interpreter of Christ. 
 We have too often been obliged to emiploy as the leaders of 
 these groups untrained men of very little general education 
 who had very little knowledge of English. Churches in 
 foreign-speaking communities really require more than or- 
 dinarily intelligent and capable leadership. Then, too, the 
 building equipment has more than frequently been meager, 
 and our program confined to religious services of worship 
 and personal evangelism, with no provision for education and 
 community service. These churches and missions must be- 
 come the cultural centers of the community life. The skill 
 and statesmanship which has characterized successful for- 
 eign mission enterprises must be enlisted for the w^ide-reach- 
 ing task of interpreting Christianity and the American spirit 
 in terms that are not only comprehensible but also com- 
 prehensive. 
 
 Guiding Principles. In summarizing our study of the 
 constructive forces that may be relied upon to promote as- 
 similation, it is important th'at we recognize clearly certain 
 well-defined principles. 
 
 The Indirect and unconscious Influences are the most 
 potent. There is a real danger that in our awakened en- 
 thusiasm for forwarding Americanization we shall attempt 
 to do violence to the psychology of the foreign-born. Men 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 129 
 
 cannot be bludgeoned into loving America or Into possession 
 of the American spirit. Too much self-consciousness Is un- 
 healthful. High-pressure revival methods cannot make up 
 for past neglect. Fervid oratory and argument cannot be 
 relied upon to achieve what must come In natural ways. 
 
 Everything which enhances the welfare of the Immigrant 
 community, family, or Individual, promotes assimilation. 
 Prosperity, the consciousness of progress, self-respect, and 
 w^ell-belng, are all In favor of assimilation. They are as es- 
 sential as the element of temperature In chemical reactions. 
 When the temperature Is at the correct point, certain reac- 
 tions may be expected which cannot take place below that 
 point. 
 
 Contact with wholesome American influences is absolute- 
 ly necessary. Concrete Illustrations of the American spirit, 
 the personification of that spirit, can be better understood 
 than volumes of profound works or expositions of the doc- 
 trines of democracy. The natural, unstudied, unofficial con- 
 tacts are the most potent. As an example of normal Amer- 
 ican life, a home surcharged with the social spirit is worth 
 more than any settlement. 
 
 Appreciation of what the immigrant has to contribute 
 is a psychological expedient. The immigrant brings to 
 America much that America needs, and he will receive what 
 we have to give If we prize what he has to offer. For ex- 
 ample he can enrich our dull grayness with his brighter color 
 and his love of music. His fine craftsmanship Is needed as 
 a rebuke to some of the cheap and tawdry machine-made 
 stuff which we turn out In carload lots and which must have 
 an unwholesome Influence on the men who do the work. 
 
130 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 I think of the happy and possibly unexpected result that 
 followed an exhibit of Italian art and handwork. A woman's 
 club of Mount Vernon, New York, arranged for a loan ex- 
 hibition in the public library and gathered some very fine 
 reproductions of Italian art: sculpture, painting, needle- 
 work, costumes. It was open for a week and was visited by 
 hundreds of the residents of the city. The Italian popula- 
 tion mingled freely with others and seemed overjoyed that 
 the things they loved and admired were appreciated by the 
 American people as well. The Fourth of July pageant in 
 New York City in 1918 must have impressed every observer 
 with the wealth of beauty and imagination with which the 
 various racial groups may enrich America, if only they do 
 not repress and discard those elements of their heritage 
 which we have lacked. If we can rid ourselves of our fool- 
 ish conceit and invite and welcome what our immigrants 
 have to offer, we shall not only enrich our national life but 
 more easily and quickly win acceptance for the American 
 ideas which they should assimilate. 
 
 We must have patience and maintain an unwavering faith 
 in the genius of our nation and also in the capacity of new- 
 comers to become genuine Americans. We have repeatedly 
 urged patience, and it is sorely needed now. In view of all 
 our past achievements we do not need to lose faith. Miss 
 Abbott makes a cogent comment concerning the need of 
 patience and time in getting people to think together; 
 "We should probably rather seriously disagree among our- 
 selves about what these fundamental Americanisms are; 
 but I suppose most of us would like to class religious tolera- 
 tion as one of them. When we remember how long, judged 
 
THE PATH OF PROGRESS 131 
 
 by this standard, it took to Americanize our Puritan ances- 
 tors, it is a surprise to find that people believe that such 
 principles can be taught by ten lessons in Americanism."^ 
 
 If we despair now and resort to coercion or pressure, we 
 may relieve our own feelings, but we shall make progress 
 very slowly and have eventually to retrace our steps. There 
 is no such thing as Americanization in twelve lessons, or 
 even in twenty-four. It is necessary to give instruction, to 
 teach English, to interpret America's aim and spirit, but the 
 daily round of neighborhood life, of the working hours, of 
 contact with America, are also indispensable. These things 
 cannot be organized. They must be the natural expression 
 of the social spirit, which we must strengthen and enrich. 
 
 We need to cultivate a spirit of humility. We must 
 recognize frankly that America has not always been true to 
 her ideals and that we have made many mistakes. We do 
 not relish being told this by people who came from other 
 lands. I have writhed as I have heard men of foreign birth 
 say the very things about America that I have said. We all 
 prefer to say them first and not have them said by another. 
 We will do well to acknowledge that no one is more sensitive 
 to our faults than we are. This attitude is wholesome and 
 honest and disarms any suspicion of national self-righteous- 
 ness and Phariseeism. 
 
 1 Abbott, The Immigrant and the Community, p, 235. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 
 
 THIS Is nothing less than a "second chance," a national 
 Day of Grace divinely given. 
 The war has so nearly stopped the flow of the im- 
 migrant stream that, for the first time in a generation, we 
 have been given a much-needed breathing spell. Also, as we 
 have seen, the war has furnished the supreme test of our 
 policy, disclosed its defects, and revealed the weak points 
 in the alignment and coordination of those agencies and forces 
 upon which we must rely. We have experienced an arrest 
 of attention, a profound shock to our sensibilities. We have 
 awakened from our national indifference, from the tendency 
 to evade responsibility and put our faith in luck. 
 
 But the deepest significance of this Day of Grace is to be 
 found in the fact that in some miraculous way society and 
 long-established institutions seem suddenly to have become 
 plastic, almost fluid. Conservatism has melted, and minds 
 that seemed hermetically sealed to new ideas have mysteri- 
 ously opened at some secret "sesame" which has worked a 
 magic transformation. We are not so foolish as to imagine 
 that human nature has suddenly and unconsciously been re- 
 generated and that selfishness has been transfigured into 
 saintliness. Many of our mistakes and follies in the past 
 have been due to ignorance and preoccupation, to narrow 
 views of history, and to a wrong philosophy of racial super- 
 
 133 
 
134 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 iorities and priorities. It is in a new openness of mind on 
 the part of multitudes of people who really love their fellow 
 men and are devoted to their country that we place our faith. 
 Upon their enlistment we base our hope of achieving national 
 unity. We can realize this hope, if we are willing to pay the 
 price, but we cannot realize it on any other terms. It will 
 cost us much, but it will be worth all it costs. If we do not 
 falter, those who come after us will rise up and call us 
 blessed. This "second chance" has been given us to make for 
 our children and children's children, a better world in which 
 to live. 
 
 National Morale. We have consistently maintained 
 that Americanization is not a war issue but is related to the 
 entire process of growing national solidarity and deepening 
 self-consciousness. A far-seeing program of reconstruction 
 must give a prominent place to the development and co- 
 ordination of those agencies which promote assimilation. 
 Not only have we gained a sharper definition of the es- 
 sential issues and a truer estimate of the potencies of the 
 agencies at work, but we have experienced an immense re- 
 enforcement of the national morale. During the past four 
 years we have learned that, before battles are won or lost on 
 the field of Mars, they are lost or won in the souls of the 
 army and of the nation. Morale is what Bismarck would 
 have called an "imponderable," but we know that it is an 
 asset of supreme importance. In the conflict of the forces 
 which are contending for mastery in America, national unity 
 will win the victory only upon the condition that we are 
 able to maintain the high morale of this hour of triumph. 
 
 Without attempting anything like an analysis of our na- 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 135 
 
 tional mind, let us consider some of the facts that bear direct- 
 ly upon this problem. 
 
 A New National Faith. Professor Usher says, "A 
 nation becomes ... a great factor in human development as 
 much by the splendor of its ideals as by reason of its actual 
 achievement."^ One great benefit to us, as a people — perhaps 
 the greatest benefit following the war — is a new-born faith 
 in ourselves as a nation. 
 
 This experience is not by any means peculiar to America; 
 Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as some older 
 countries, have had the same experience. But while it is 
 not peculiar to America it is a new experience for us. 
 Nothing like this has ever come to us before. We have en- 
 dured a reputation for boastfulness which possibly we do 
 not deserve. We talk more freely than some other nations. 
 People who talk a good deal are naturally liable to say more 
 foolish things than people who do not talk so freely. We 
 knew our power in a general way, but we had never ex- 
 perienced a consciousness of moral and spiritual power in 
 any degree commensurate with what has come to us in this 
 self-discovery. If we have been accorded a place of great 
 moral influence, no one has been more surprised than our- 
 selves. The behavior of our army and navy, the work of our 
 food commission and of the national service agencies, have 
 all been such as to make us justly proud, while detracting 
 not one whit from the appreciation due to England, France, 
 Italy, and other heroic allies, such as Belgium and Serbia. 
 
 It is, however, the qualities we have discovered in our- 
 selves, our capacity to rise to lofty heights and our sustained 
 determination upon a volunteer basis of sacrifice, that have re- 
 
 1 Usher, The Rise of the American People, p. 3. 
 
136 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 vealed a unity of spirit and a moral quality that gives us an 
 Immense new hope for the future. We have loved America 
 and believed in America, but we feel that we have risen to a 
 higher plane and can never, must never, allow ourselves to be 
 content with material prosperity. Although we have not at- 
 tained our Ideals, the splendor of them has meant the moral 
 reenforcement of the world in the supreme hour of its crisis. 
 We may, therefore, go forw^ard, with humility but with 
 fresh courage, to undertake the completion of our task, the 
 building of a nation which all the world will trust and 
 respect. 
 
 A New International Sympathy. It would hardly 
 be possible to overestimate the mental and moral value of 
 the lessons which we, as a people have learned through the 
 events of the past few years. 
 
 There have been but few people in the country who pos- 
 sessed the "international mind.*' We were not in the habit of 
 thinking in international terms, because we had lived so 
 much apart from other nations. That part of our popula- 
 tion which could ailord to travel abroad has, as a rule, kept 
 to the beaten lines. Our tourists have not been concerned 
 particularly with the social and political problems of the 
 peoples among whom they tarried but for a few days. They 
 did not grasp the significance of the Czecho-Slovaks, the 
 aspirations of the Poles, the Rumanians, the Jugo-Slavs, or 
 the status of the Italians in Austria. The immigrants who 
 came represented to us only curiously different kind of folk, 
 with weird tastes for garlic, a tendency to riot, and an un- 
 famillarity with American manners which suggested that 
 they must be backward people. What their presence meant 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 137 
 
 gave us little concern ; or, if it troubled us at all, it was be- 
 cause of what they meant to us, not of what America might 
 mean to them. But through our experience in the war, we 
 have had a liberal education in the aspirations of peoples we 
 never before understood ; an appreciation of the tragedy, the 
 struggle, and the heroic persistence which has enabled them 
 to cling to their dreams of freedom. We have discovered a 
 sense of kinship which we had never suspected. What Amer- 
 ica has meant to these foreigners, we have but just dis- 
 covered. We find that here in America the fires of liberty have 
 been kept burning until the hour of destiny struck. Then these 
 men, who seemed so stolid and strange, were transformed 
 over night into patriots and heroes, and for the first time 
 we saw them in their true light. To-day the Stars and 
 Stripes are displayed everywhere in Czecho-Slovakia. It is 
 to America these people pay their tribute of affection and 
 gratitude, not simply for shelter but for sympathetic under- 
 standing and aid in their supreme hour. 
 
 This experience must prove of immense value to our na- 
 tional morale. We must keep the altar-fires still burning 
 and cherish undimmed the new-found sense of kinship. By 
 the same token, we must think in different terms of those 
 who are still with us and who have not yet attained their 
 dream. 
 
 Broadening Experience for Our Soldiers. More 
 than 2,cxx),ooo American men have been in France. Still 
 other thousands have been in other lands. The Y. M. C. A. 
 and Red Cross workers, as well as numberless other people 
 who have never before crossed their state line, have been 
 given the immensely valuable experience of travel, of meeting 
 
138 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 other races and having their minds opened to contacts and 
 to most rewarding fellowship. It has been an enlightening 
 experience, which can but leave us with more catholicity of 
 spirit and a broader outlook upon life. 
 
 Next in point of importance to our new faith in America, 
 w^e should place the new status of the foreign-born American. 
 He has marched and fought, and his comrades have died 
 under the flag of his adoption. He has earned a new respect, 
 and the nation accoids it to him w^ith characteristic Amer- 
 ican generosity and appreciation. And alongside the admira- 
 tion of his fellow citizens we must place the reflex influence 
 of service upon the man himself. 
 
 We have learned that the basis of our interest and love 
 is not so much gratitude for what others do for us as con- 
 sciousness of what we have done for them. To have fought 
 for America must give these men a new and more vital in- 
 terest in America, a new sense of proprietorship in the land 
 under whose flag they have fought and in whose glory they 
 have a full share. The casualty lists which appeared in the 
 daily papers gave ample evidence of the admixture of many 
 racial strains in the American Army. The city of Bridge- 
 port observed Thanksgiving Day, 191 8, by a community 
 service and published a list of the men of that city who had 
 given their lives in the struggle for democracy. It was a 
 striking exhibit of the racial variations that had been blended 
 to make the Army of Liberty. There hangs in my office a 
 service flag with one large star, which represents 875 Amer- 
 icans of Italian blood who went into the service from the 
 churches and missions fostered by one home mission society. 
 One American Italian Protestant church in Syracuse fur- 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 139 
 
 nished from its membership thirty-six men for military 
 service, of whom twenty-nine were in the American Army 
 and seven in the Italian Army. Of this number, four paid 
 the last full measure of devotion ; two were gassed and lost 
 their speech ; and one was decorated for distinguished service. 
 Besides, those who remained at home did their full duty in 
 the various drives for the Liberty Loans, the Red Cross, 
 and other causes. The fellowship in military service with 
 native-born men, the training in English, and the conscious- 
 ness of being accorded recognition as Americans have given 
 birth to a sense of oneness with America which many years 
 of ordinary life in normal times could hardly have produced. 
 New Optimism. By common consent we are entering 
 upon a period of peace and of normal activity in which we 
 expect a thorough-going re-study of our social relationships. 
 We hope that, in accordance with the experience of all 
 modern nations after a great war, it will be the dawn of a 
 new era in industry and commerce. The impressive thing 
 about our present hope is the spirit of it. Something akin 
 to a spiritual revival has aroused the national conscience. 
 Nothing seemi, impossible. No hoary conventions claim 
 respect or consideration. There is an almost youthful dis- 
 regard of the difficulties to be overcome and the practical 
 details to be taken into account. We are a nation with a 
 "heavenly vision" that has gripped our imagination, with an 
 imperative call that will not be denied. This spiritual ex- 
 altation must not be lost. It must be steadied and given 
 concrete tasks at once. It is the compensation for the suf- 
 fering and anxiety of the era which has closed, and it gives 
 us the courage and determination to obey our heavenly vision 
 
140 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 and put solid foundations under that city celestial which 
 Cometh down out of heaven from God, the city which eager 
 hearts expect. 
 
 Practical Considerations. We are sure no one can 
 justly charge that in this study we have Ignored well-estab- 
 lished facts and tendencies or have shut our eyes to stern 
 realities. We have not, however, lost sight of the significant 
 fact, which certainly ought to carry weight, that those who 
 know the people of foreign birth and antecedents most 
 intimately and who, therefore, are In a position to form an 
 opinion which has full value believe In them and are full of 
 confidence in the eventual victory. The task before us, as 
 it is defined in our minds, is one of bridging chasms, estab- 
 lishing right relations, and demonstrating to the people of 
 good-will the practical possibility of doing the thing which 
 needs to be done. We need to keep in balance these two es- 
 sential elements: national idealism and the practical aspects 
 of the situation with which we must deal. Our ideal of 
 national unity Is not to be achieved by sentimentalists or 
 theorists. We must have the courage to face all the facts 
 and the faith to keep our ideals. 
 
 Patience. No ceremony or ritual, no waving of a fairy 
 wand, can make a boy into a man. We cannot ignore the 
 successive stages through which one must pass before be- 
 coming a full-fledged American. Even with perfect con- 
 ditions at every stage, this is a process which inevitably re- 
 quires time. The present temper of the popular mind, as 
 well as that of some people in very responsible positions, Is 
 that of unreasoning impatience. Such a spirit positively re- 
 fuses to recognize the fact that Americanization is an educa- 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 141 
 
 tional process, a spiritual process, and involves not only the 
 knowledge of the English language but a deep understanding 
 of the spirit of America. One element of the price we must 
 pay is patience. As practical idealists, let us rely with firm 
 faith upon the potency of our national spirit and ideals. If 
 our conception of an American is the true one, we must 
 realize the practical necessity of reliance upon spiritual forces. 
 One cannot grow an American soul over night or in a year. 
 We must not lose faith in spiritual forces and processes^ 
 
 Cooperation. We must find a way to enlist the im- 
 mense reserves of good-will and the volunteer service of 
 private citizens and neighbors, the people in responsible offi- 
 cial positions, the socially minded men and women who help 
 to create public opinion and shape public sentiment. We 
 must recognize that this is not a task for professional social 
 workers or salaried missionaries. They are very necessary, 
 but we cannot shift the responsibility from the shoulders of 
 society to the hearts and minds of these devoted specialists. 
 The thing most needed, perhaps, is guidance; practical and 
 sane suggestions as to ways in which people may help. The 
 program of Americanization that is going to win is the 
 program that is most natural, simple, and human, and the 
 least self-conscious and advertised. 
 
 And may we frankly recognize this other fact : there must 
 be a closer coordination of forces. The organizations which 
 are usually distinguished as "social" and those denominated 
 "religious" must learn to respect one another and work to- 
 gether. The task is not a monopoly of any committee or 
 group ; it is not a matter for the Council of National Defense 
 alone, or even of the government. It is the common task of 
 
142 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 all. We may adapt the words of Livingstone in which, dis- 
 cussing the African slave trade, he invoked the blessing of 
 God upon any agency which would enlist to heal that "open 
 sore of the world." So, too, we must recognize that Amer- 
 icanization is neither a sectarian nor a partisan service, but 
 a great national undertaking that should enlist every element 
 of good-will. Just as our various "war drives" made a place 
 for all, so we must cooperate in furthering every sane, sound, 
 and constructive effort to achieve national unity. 
 
 Who Is My Neighbor? The community is a microcosm, 
 a little world in itself. It is the nation on a smaller scale. 
 We should more properly say the nation is only an enlarged 
 community. It is the aggregate of all the local commun- 
 ities which comprise it. The measure of the national spirit, 
 therefore, is the measure of the community spirit. The com- 
 munity is the unit with which we must concern ourselves. 
 The local community is but a cross-section of the nation. 
 
 Our emphasis must be upon the community, and our en- 
 deavor must be to strengthen and enrich the community 
 spirit, because that is our natural point of contact. We are 
 more responsible for our community than any one outside can 
 be, and more responsible for our own than for any other 
 community. Our interest in some other community cannot 
 serve as an excuse for any neglect of our own. Many of us 
 are troubled with hypermetropia. We can see conditions 
 at a distance which are desperately wrong, but we often 
 have a blind spot to similar conditions which exist next door 
 to us. The presumptions are always in favor of our duty 
 being near at hand and in the natural relationships of life; 
 the burden of proof is on the distant appeal. The test of 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 143 
 
 our sincerity in the larger affairs of the nation is to be found 
 in our devotion to the community where we live. 
 
 In every community there is an immense amount of latent 
 good-will which awaits an opportunity to find expression. 
 One of the most tragic illustrations of unutilized power 
 which should be released is the wasted spiritual energy in 
 our urban communities. If we can introduce socially minded 
 men and women to the common tasks and make them con- 
 scious of the common weal, we have taken the first steps 
 toward the creation of a real community spirit. The ad- 
 vantage which has been gained during the war through com- 
 munity activities must not be allowed to lapse. After what 
 we have experienced, no community enterprise should be al- 
 lowed to languish for want of understanding and apprecia- 
 tion. The school, the library, the churches, all furnish points 
 of community interest and must be held to the community 
 point of view. The democratic value of the local Red Cross 
 units can hardly be overestimated. If society teas and card 
 parties shall now intrude and monopolize the energy that 
 is so much needed for the period of reconstruction, we shall 
 have lost much that we can ill afford to lose. 
 
 Love with Sincerity. A great opportunity for service 
 appeals to the imagination and readily arouses the enthusiasm 
 of people of fine impulses. There is a temperament, all 
 too common among good people, which responds quickly to 
 an appeal but is often unable to stand the strain of the long 
 steady grind. As Professor Steiner says, "A whiff of garlic 
 can put a whole army of such people to flight." Only 
 genuine love for folk can meet the demands of the situation. 
 The faddist will be sure to work havoc. The sentimentalist 
 
144 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 will not last. Nothing but the love which is free from 
 patronage or condescension will suffice. 
 
 I know of a young woman of wealth and social enthusiasm 
 who was interested in working girls. On one occasion she 
 helped to arrange a social evening for the entertainment of 
 a group of young women who were employed In various 
 trades. Good taste dictated the simple costume she wore, 
 and so perfectly did she fit Into the gathering that some one 
 innocently asked her where she worked. Strange as it may 
 seem, she was very much incensed and resented the stupidity 
 that failed to distinguish her from the others present. She 
 could not have sincerely loved these young women. They 
 simply interested her, and she found a certain satisfaction In 
 her efforts to "improve" them. But she was unwilling to 
 make a sacrifice or identify herself with them in any vital 
 way. Without genuine love, one Is incapable of deep and 
 genuine friendliness or of entering into sympathetic relation- 
 ship with people who possess no special charm. I like to 
 think of another young woman who stands in contrast with 
 this make-believe working girl. She had nearly completed 
 her art course and gave promise of a brilliant career. Need- 
 ing a change on account of ill health, she went into employ- 
 ment in a large millinery establishment in New York City, 
 expecting to remain but a few weeks. There were many 
 other young women employed by the concern, and they rep- 
 resented the usual assortment of working-girl types. She 
 was the one cultured Christian young woman in the group. 
 She did not preach sermons, but she lived a life of rare un- 
 selfishness and loving comradeship. Her influence became a 
 determining factor in the lives of the girls, and they came 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 145 
 
 to confide in her and to accept her standards as authoritative. 
 By her quiet Christian grace and refinement, she trans- 
 formed the atmosphere of the place. She remained for eight 
 years, and when she retired a few weeks ago on account of 
 her health, the firm pleaded with her to remain for the sake 
 of her influence and o£Fered her every financial inducement 
 saying, "You can never know what your life has meant to 
 the girls in our employ." The difference between genuine 
 love and sentimental interest will mean the difference be- 
 tween success and failure, between seeing a thing through 
 and giving up at the first rebuff. Raymond Lull, a bril- 
 liant young aristocrat who was the first missionary to the 
 Mohammedan world, turned his back upon the life in which 
 he was bred and sought to regain North Africa for Christ. 
 Three times he was banished ; a year and a half he lay in a 
 foul dungeon in Algiers. When at last, in defiance of the 
 edict of banishment, he returned, men dragged him out of 
 the city and stoned him. As his life ebbed out, they saw 
 his lips move, and leaning over to catch his words, they 
 heard him whisper, "He that loves not, lives not, and ho 
 that lives by the Life can never die." 
 
 Wayside Democracy. He that goeth forth bearing 
 precious seed, shall certainly return again bringing 
 a harvest with him. We are very properly endeavoring to 
 organize and standardize our program of Americanization. 
 I would like to add to all the formal and organized propa- 
 ganda a plea for the cultivation of the habit of friendliness. 
 I want to urge the joy and zest of little ventures in wayside 
 democracy. If we observe the number of chance contacts 
 that are brought to us by the daily round, we will be amazed 
 
146 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 to find that we who represent America to other peoples have 
 innumerable opportunities for radiating the American spirit 
 and interpreting, in concrete ways, the American ideals. 
 
 A friend of mine was waiting for a train in the South 
 Station, Boston, when a Swedish immigrant girl inquired 
 the way to the post-office. On being directed, she asked him 
 if he would guard her suit-case until she returned. She was 
 a long time in returning, and my friend was embarrassed. 
 To wait meant not only to lose the train, but to miss an. 
 engagement. But to disappoint the naive faith of the young 
 woman was to do inestimable damage to a priceless treasure. 
 So he waited and was rewarded with the simple gratitude of 
 the young woman and the consciousness of having saved her 
 faith in human kindness. Josiah Strong used to say that 
 an essential qualification of a missionary in the congested 
 sections of our great cities was to be able to smile entrancingly 
 in all languages. A woman of my acquaintance, passing oa 
 the street some Italian children with their arms full of 
 flowers, smiled upon them as was her wont, for sheer love 
 of children. A half block farther on she was overtaken by 
 one of them, who had run back and thrust a rose into her 
 hand, saying, *'This is for you." A Christian woman was 
 waiting for a train in the New Haven station one night, 
 and noticing bvo perturbed women, a young woman and an 
 older woman who appeared to be her mother, smiled kindly 
 and invited the question, "Can you tell me when the next 
 train goes to Boston?" Inquiry was made and the informa- 
 tion given, and so the way was open for a further friendly 
 word. The women proved to be Syrians, and they had gone 
 to Bridgeport to attend a funeral. They were very tired 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 147 
 
 and would not reach Boston until the next morning. Sud- 
 denly the young woman took the lady's hand and said with 
 great earnestness, "Oh, I wish I knew you!" They exchanged 
 addresses and later exchanged letters, and each life was en- 
 riched by the little adventure in Christian democracy. 
 
 We have repeatedly emphasized the importance of recog- 
 nizing that democracy is not simply a form of govern- 
 ment, but the spirit of society. If we will cultivate the habit 
 of friendliness and helpfulness in our daily contacts with 
 those who are learning Americanism, we will become living 
 lessons in the American spirit. As it is, we do not realize 
 how often we confirm the suspicion in the minds of the 
 foreign-bom, that democracy is only a glittering generality. 
 "Nor knowest thou what argument 
 Thy life to thy neighbor's creed hath lent."^ 
 
 To democratize and Christianize our contacts is to be- 
 come a radiating center of the American spirit. 
 
 Organized Christianity. We have been dwelling up- 
 on the privilege and responsibility of individuals for service 
 in behalf of national unity. It is fitting that we shall bring 
 our study to a close by a frank and serious consideration of 
 the privilege and responsibility of organized Christianity 
 for the achievement of the ideal which we cherish. In the 
 judgment of most thoughtful men, the church is the institu- 
 tion upon which we must rely to keep the moral and spiritual 
 ideals of the nation pure and to vitalize the national con- 
 science. Professor Masaryk, the president of the new Czecho- 
 slovak Republic, is reported to have said that the thing 
 which most impressed him about American democracy was 
 its moral power. Coming from a profound student of his- 
 
 1 Emerson, Each and All. 
 
148 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 tory and a man of keen philosophic mind, this observation 
 is worthy of consideration. We know that there can be no 
 sustained moral enthusiasm, no supreme spiritual earnest- 
 ness that is not inspired by a profound religious faith. The 
 church has a great part to play in maintaining the morale 
 which will make the period of reconstruction fruitful of the 
 greatest good. 
 
 A Test of Spiritual Health. Only a spiritually dead 
 church could be indifFerent to the social issues of this pre- 
 sent fateful era. The test of the spiritual power of the 
 church is the sympathy that is generated in behalf of those 
 who need her ministry. As the church has a responsibility 
 to maintain the moral vitality of the nation, so she has a 
 responsibility to keep the social sympathies full and strong 
 and true. 
 
 In his Short History of the English People, John R. 
 Green, attributes to the Wesleyan revival a social regenera- 
 tion which we may well recall whenever we are inclined 
 to lose sight of the relation of religious life to social 
 conditions. He says: "In the nation at large appeared 
 a new moral enthusiasm, which, rigid and pedantic as it 
 often seemed, was still healthy in its social tone and whose 
 power was seen in the disappearance of the profligacy which 
 had disgraced the upper classes, and the foulness which had 
 infested literature ever since the Restoration. A yet nobler 
 result of the religious revival was the steady attempt, which 
 has never ceased from that day to this, to remedy the guilt, 
 the ignorance, the physical suffering, the social degradation 
 of the profligate and the poor. It was not till the Wesleyan 
 impulse had done its work, that the philanthropic move- 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 149 
 
 ment began. The Sunday-schools, established by Mr. 
 Raikes of Gloucester at the close of the century, were the 
 beginnings of popular education. A passionate impulse 
 of human sympathy with the wronged and afflicted raised 
 hospitals, endowed charities, built churches, sent missionaries 
 to the heathen, supported Burke in his plea for the Hindu 
 and Clarkson and Wilberforce in their crusade against the 
 iniquity of the slave trade." He adds a fine tribute to the 
 heroic work of John Howard, whose efforts in behalf of 
 prison reform eventually cost him his life. John Howard 
 lighted his torch at the same altar fires which the spiritual 
 revival had kindled. 
 
 Recruiting Workers. The atmosphere of a spiritually 
 and socially minded church is an atmosphere of service and 
 heroic chivalry. The outlet for this impulse and devotion 
 upon which the church has placed the greatest emphasis has 
 been the Christian ministry and foreign missions. Yet from 
 the church have gone forth social missionaries who have 
 caught their inspiration for service and received their call, 
 under the same divine spell. The church has lost much, 
 whenever she has failed to recognize the consecration and 
 devotion, the beauty and power, the moral grandeur and value 
 to the kingdom of God, of the labors and lives of these social 
 missionaries. I shall never forget the distress of a young 
 woman, who told me of her keen disappointment that her 
 church so utterly failed to appreciate what she was doing as 
 a parole officer of the juvenile court in her city. She wanted 
 to feel that in the social prayer service she might bring the 
 problems and burdens of her work to the attention of the 
 church, be refreshed and strengthened by their understand- 
 
150 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 ing and sympathy, and find a place in their intercession. 
 The church in its preaching service is generating service- 
 power, s}TT»pathy, and unselfishness; yet it often fails to direct 
 the awakened impulses and enlist the splendid abilities which 
 are so greatly needed in the community. Failure on the 
 part of some churches to consider the public welfare as a 
 legitimate field of service accounts for the gulf which exists 
 between organized Christianity in our churches and organ- 
 ized social agencies which are rendering service in the spirit 
 of Christ, though sometimes with little cooperation or recog- 
 nition on the part of the church. The service which is 
 needed to make a sane Americanization program effective 
 calls for an army of recruits of which the church must 
 furnish her full share and inspire with the same lofty spirit 
 of Christian service and sacrifice which has characterized 
 so much of the history of the past four years. 
 
 Democracy a Christian Conception, The social and 
 political conception of the rights of man, which we term 
 democracy, is primarily a Christian conception. Before it 
 was written into the Declaration of Independence, it was 
 written into the constitution of the universe. Democracy 
 is the Christian valuation of human personality. The 
 Epistle of James is a revolutionary Christian document of 
 the first century which proclaims boldly the democracy of 
 the Christian church. Paul, writing to Philemon, calls 
 Onesimus, a Roman slave, the "brother" of his master. The 
 story of Christian missions in heathen lands is the story of 
 the faith of the Christian church in the value of human per- 
 sonality. The Christian church was designed to be a working 
 model of the society which Jesus calls the kingdom of God. 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 151 
 
 I made a tour of a neglected section of a city in the Middle 
 West, not long ago, in conference with a local pastor who 
 had upon his heart the burden of this district. The streets 
 swarmed with little children; evidences of need abounded 
 everywhere with no religious institution of any description. 
 I asked if it were not possible to enlist the united support of 
 all the local churches in a concerted affort to meet this need. 
 He replied that he had endeavored to do so without success, 
 and then told me that one of the pastors had declined to co- 
 operate, saying, '*I am on a still hunt for substantial people." 
 A local church must choose between being an exclusive re- 
 ligious club, patronized by "substantial people," with a 
 private chaplain for a minister, and being a church of Jesus 
 Christ, who ''came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, 
 and to give his life a ransom for many." It cannot be both. 
 The two conceptions are antagonistic, irreconcilable, and 
 mutually exclusive. Some one is reported to have said, "The 
 church can have the people any time it wants them, but to 
 want them is a spiritual achievement of a very high order." 
 Not only must the church proclaim her faith In democracy 
 as a principle; she must consistently practise it. Nothing 
 could be more un-Christlan than a sentimental Interest In 
 distant peoples which fades away or turns to Ice upon contact 
 with similar people at home. We may test our love for the 
 Chinese in China by our attitude toward the Chinese in 
 America. 
 
 In referring to the part which the churches must play in 
 the work of direct Americanization, I have had in mind the 
 churches composed of people of foreign birth or their chil- 
 dren. It would be a very grave mistake for us to conclude 
 
152 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 that there is no direct service which English-speaking 
 churches, composed largely of the older American elements, 
 can render in this important undertaking of interpreting 
 Christian ideals and our American spirit. While, in more 
 clearly defined colonies in which they have settled, it is 
 natural for immigrants to worship in churches composed al- 
 most wholly of their own countrymen, such churches by no 
 means meet the religious needs of all the peoples of foreign 
 birth, nor do they promise the best results for Americaniza- 
 tion. These churches have perhaps the greatest service to 
 render, or more accurately we may say that in all probability 
 they will minister to the largest numbers; but we cannot 
 rely upon them to do all of this work because they do not 
 and cannot reach all the people who need to be ministered to. 
 English-speaking churches by the thousands are not only 
 passing by a great opportunity but in many instances are 
 deliberately refusing to bear their share of the community 
 responsibility. A casual canvass or survey of the parishes of 
 many thousands of our English-speaking churches would dis- 
 close the fact that within the natural field of influence and 
 the community reach of these churches there are many for- 
 eign-born residents and residents of the second generation 
 of foreign antecedents, who are practically untouched by 
 their ministry. 
 
 On the other hand, there are glorious and inspiring ex- 
 amples of English-speaking churches which have succeeded 
 in rendering most helpful and rewarding service to these 
 people. There are many thousand Christian Chinese in 
 America, and the majority of them have been won to Christ 
 through the English-speaking churches and Sunday-schools 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 153 
 
 and the personal service of individuals who have done in- 
 tensive work in teaching English. There is a strong church 
 in Connecticut which Ln one year baptized more than twenty 
 Chinese, and among its membership are numbered some of 
 the leading Chinese businessmen of that city. There is an 
 English-speaking church in California which had, accord- 
 ing to the latest report, eighteen Japanese members. They 
 were won for the Christian faith by the personal service and 
 loving intercession of one Christian woman. I shall never 
 forget the personal testimony of a bright young Japanese 
 who for two years had declined every invitation to attend 
 her English Bible class and finally, when he could no longer 
 resist, went away alone into the mountains to think over 
 this amazing love and patience which would not be denied. 
 When he had reached the conclusion that the explanation of 
 this woman's persistence must lie in her Christian faith, he 
 returned to town, procured a copy of the New Testament, 
 and shut himself up in the seclusion of his room for a week 
 in an earnest endeavor to discover the secret. At the end 
 of that week he sought the pastor of the church of which 
 this Christian woman was a member and asked for Chris- 
 tian baptism. When the pastor had explained the way of 
 God more perfectly and satisfied himself as to the genuine- 
 ness of the young man's Christian experience, he was re- 
 ceived and later baptized. Among the eighteen Japanese 
 members is a graduate of the Imperial University of Japan, 
 and all of them are young men of parts and high promise. 
 I have been deeply impressed with the fact that many of 
 the capable leaders in the ministry who are serving our for- 
 eign-speaking congregations were converted in our English- 
 
154 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 speaking churches. I am further impressed that they have, 
 as a rule, an outlook and appreciation of fundamental Amer- 
 icanism which sometimes is missing when the contact with 
 older Americans is lost or cannot be enjoyed. 
 
 The churches in the communities where there are for- 
 eign-born residents must be judged by their fruits. The bar- 
 riers are strong and difficult to overcome, but they can be 
 surmounted if there Is sufficient love and faith and patience. 
 A member of a foreign-speaking church In one of our cities 
 complained not long ago that her neighbor, an American 
 woman who belonged to the same denomination but to an- 
 other local church, did not speak to her. It is not so much 
 what occurs within the walls of the church building that 
 will interpret Christ and the American spirit, as the every- 
 day neighborliness and human kindness which seems to be 
 and is the natural fruit of loving hearts. 
 
 The Mind of Christ. The church has this unique 
 prerogative. She may speak for Christ. When the church 
 reflects his mind and radiates his spirit, she renders the high- 
 est possible service to society. It is not necessary for the 
 church to attempt to duplicate, or parallel, the work of such 
 splendidly endowed and organized agencies as the various 
 foundations, which have been conceived by public-spirited 
 men and women and which have enlisted the best skill and 
 talent in the task of making social studies and promoting 
 social education. The church has the exalted privilege of 
 interpreting, not the social philosophy of any particular 
 school or party, but the mind of Christ. That mind which 
 was in Christ was free from all subtleties or evasions, free 
 from all compromises and expediencies. His was the spiritual 
 
THE PRICE OF NATIONAL UNITY 155 
 
 mind as reflected in his sense of values, in his certainty of 
 spiritual realities, and his unfaltering reliance on spiritual 
 forces. Jesus had the social mind. He had not only social 
 sympathy and loved folks and the society of his fellows, but 
 he gave to social obligations the authority of duty to God and 
 made fidelity to them the final test of love to himself. He 
 had the universal mind, above race and class prejudice. He 
 included all men in his love and was content with nothing 
 less than the whole world as the subject of his redemption. 
 Many unreasonable demands are made upon the church, 
 and she is called upon to bear much undeserved criticism and 
 censure because of her failure to do this particular thing or 
 that, for which advocates of various causes claim the official 
 and organized support of the church. She is expected to 
 foster every good cause and endorse every movement which 
 promises to promote the public welfare. In reality this is 
 an unintended tribute to the moral and spiritual leadership 
 of the church. It is doubtless impossible to agree among 
 ourselves as to just what official action the church or the 
 churches should take on many of the vital social and political 
 questions of the nation and the local community. But of 
 one thing there can be no shadow of doubt nor note of 
 disagreement. It is the prerogative of the church to speak 
 for Christ with prophetic authority, and amid distracted 
 counsels and cries of "Lo here!'* or "Lo there!" she must 
 confidently and steadily reflect and interpret the mind of 
 Christ and radiate his life-giving spirit. 
 
 As a nation we are committed irrevocably to the separa- 
 tion of church and state; but that does not involve the 
 divorcement of religion from the national life. In this 
 
156 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 supreme hour in our history it is for the Christian church 
 to interpret afresh our democracy and our destiny in accord- 
 ance with the mind of Christ. In the need of the nation for 
 men and women who will interpret its spirit and ideals 
 aright, there is the call of a great opportunity to render 
 service to the land we love. But above that, and more 
 compelling, is the call of Christ in the humanity about us, 
 to interpret him and impart his spirit. In the last analysis, 
 w^hat we call "the immigrant problem" is just the personal 
 life problem of a great many very lovable men and women 
 and boys and girls who are all about us and who need 
 friends. And you and I are the ones who must meet that 
 need. We are told that in the Alps there is a hospice de- 
 dicated to wayworn travelers, especially those who have 
 lost their way. Those who serve and keep vigil are in- 
 structed that, whenever at any hour of the day or night a 
 traveler may be brought in, they shall summon the Mother 
 Superior with the w^ords, *'The Master is come and calleth 
 for thee." St. Paul, who so truly reflects the mind and 
 spirit of Christ, considered himself as a debtor to all men 
 who needed what he had, just because he had what they 
 needed. Let us, like him, reply to every need, "As much as 
 in me lies, I am ready," 
 
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 Century Company, New York. $2.00. 
 
 Immigration: General Aspects 
 
 Immigration, H. P. Fairchild. 1913. The Macmillan Company, 
 
 New York. $1.75. 
 Immigration and Labor, I. A. Hourwich. 1912. G. P. Putnam's 
 
 Sons, New York. $2.50. 
 Immigrant and the Community, The, Grace Abbott. 1917. The 
 
 Century Company, New York. $1.50. 
 Old World in the Netv, The, E. A. Ross. 1914. The Century 
 
 Company, New York. $2.50. 
 Races and Immigrants in America, John R. Commons. 1915. The 
 
 Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 157 
 
158 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Immigration: Missionary Aspects 
 Immigrant Forces, W. P. Shriver. 1913. Missionary Education 
 
 Movement, New York. 60 and 40 cents. 
 Immigrant Tide: Its Ebb and Flow, The, E. W. Steiner. 1909. 
 
 Fleming H. Revell and Company, New York. $1.75. 
 Leadership of the Neiv America, Archibald McClure. 1917. 
 
 George H. Doran Company, New York. $1.25. 
 Neiv America, The, Mary Clarke Barnes and Lemuel Call Barnes. 
 
 1913. Fleming H. Revell and Company, New York. 50 and 
 
 30 cents. 
 On the Trail of the Immigrant, E. A. Steiner. 1906. Fleming H. 
 
 Revell and Company, New York. $2.00. 
 
 Autobiography 
 American in the Making, An, Marcus E. Ravage. 1917. Harper 
 
 and Brothers, New York. $1.40. 
 Confessions of a Hyphenated American, E. A. Steiner. Fleming 
 
 H. Revell and Company, New York. 50 cents. 
 From Alien to Citizen, E. A. Steiner. 1914. Fleming H. Revell 
 
 and Company, New York. $2.00. 
 From the Rabbis to Christ, H. L. Hellyer. 1911 The Westminster 
 
 Press, Philadelphia. 25 cents. 
 Making of an American, The, Jacob Riis. 1901. The Macmillan 
 
 Company, New York. $3.00. 
 My Mother and I, E. G. Stern. 1917. The Macmillan Company, 
 
 New York. $1.00. 
 Promised Land, The, Mary Antin. 1912. Houghton, Mifflin Com- 
 pany, New York. $2.00. 
 
 Races 
 
 Chinese 
 
 Asia at the Door, Kiyoshi K. Kawakami. 1914. Fleming H. 
 
 Revell Company, New York. $1.50. 
 Chinese Immigration, Mary Coolidge. 1909. Henry Holt and 
 
 Company, New York. $1.75. 
 
 Greek 
 
 Greek Immigration, H. P. Fairchild. 1911. Yale University Press, 
 New Haven, Connecticut. $2.00. 
 
 Italian 
 
 Sons of Italy, Antonio Mangano. 1917. Missionary Education 
 Movement, New York. 60 and 40 cents. 
 
 Struggle for Christian Truth in Italy, The, G. Luzzi. 1913. Flem- 
 ing H. Revell and Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 159 
 
 Japanese 
 
 American Japanese Problem, The, Sidney L. GuHck. 1914. Charles 
 
 Scribner's Sons, New York. $1.75. 
 Japanese Problem in the United States, The, H. A. Miller. 1915. 
 
 The Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Slavic 
 
 Bohemia under Hapsburg Misrule, Thomas Capek. 1915. Fleming 
 H. Revell and Company, New York. $1.00. 
 
 Our Slavic Felloiv Citizens, E. G. Balch. Charities Publication 
 Committee, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York. $2.50. 
 
 Slovaks of Hungary, The, Thomas Capek. 225 East 71st Street, 
 New York. $1.50. 
 
 With the Poor Immigrant, Stephen Graham. 1914. The Macmil- 
 lan Company, New York. $2.25. 
 
 Americanization Problems 
 
 American Ideals and Other Essays, Theodore Roosevelt. G. P. 
 Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.50. 
 
 'Tamily Letter, A," Rudolph Heinrichs. The Atlantic Monthly, 
 December, 1917. 
 
 Great Adventure, The, Theodore Roosevelt. 1918. Charles Scrib- 
 ner's Sons, New York. $1.00. 
 
 Straight America, Frances Kellor. 1916. The Macmillan Com- 
 pany, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Their True Faith and Allegiance, Gustavus Ohlinger. 1916. The 
 Macmillan Company, New York. 60 cents. 
 
 Material for Teaching English 
 
 Civics for Neav Americans, Hill and Davis. 1915. Houghton, 
 Mifflin Company, New York. 88 cents. 
 
 English for Coming Americans, Peter Roberts. Books, leaflets, 
 charts, and cards, comprising a complete course for preparing 
 foreign-speaking men to become American citizens. Association 
 Press, 347 Madison Avenue, New York. Prices upon applica- 
 tion. 
 
 Primer of Civics, A, J. J. Zmrhal. The Illinois Society of the 
 Colonial Dames of America, 1362 Astor Street, Chicago, Il- 
 linois. 50 cents. 
 
160 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 Social Christianity 
 
 Christianity and the Social Crisis, Walter Rauschenbusch. 1912. 
 The Macmillan Company, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Christianizing the Social Order, Walter Rauschenbusch. 1912. The 
 Macmillan Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
 Church and the Changing Order, The, Shaller Mathews. 1913. 
 The Macmillan Company, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Church and the Community, The, Worth M. Tippy. 1914. Mis- 
 sionary Education Movement, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Gospel for a Working World, The, Harry F. Ward. 1918. Mis- 
 sionary Education Movement, New York. 60 and 40 cents. 
 
 Redemption of the City, The, C. H. Sears. 1911. American Baptist 
 Publication Society, 1701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. 50 
 and 35 cents. 
 
 Social Aspects of Foreign Missions, The, W. H. P. Faunce. 1914. 
 Missionary Education Movement, New York. 60 and 40 cents. 
 
 Social Message of the Modern Pulpit, The, Charles R. Brown. 1912. 
 Charles Scribner's Sons, New York. 50 cents. 
 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 "Gloucester Moors," from Poems and Plays, William V. Moody. 
 
 Houghton, Mifflin Company, New York. $1.50. 
 Harbor, The, Ernest Poole. 1917. The Macmillan Company, 
 
 New York. $1.50. 
 Just Folks, Edgar Albert Guest. 1917. Reilly and Briton, 1006 
 
 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. $1.25 and $2.50. 
 Leaven in a Great City, Lillian W. Betts. 1902. Dodd, Mead 
 
 and Company, New York. $1.50. 
 Scum 0* the Earth, Robert Haven Schauffler. Houghton Mifflin 
 
 Company, New York. $1.00. 
 Work-a-Day Girl, The, Clara Laughlin. 1913. Fleming H. 
 
 Revell and Company, New York. $1.50. 
 
Materials for the Study of 
 CHRISTIAN AMERICANIZATION 
 
 FOR ADULTS 
 
 Christian Americanization: A Task for the Churches. 
 By Charles A. Brooks, D. D. 
 
 Price, cloth, 75 cents; paper, 40 cents. 
 Suggestions to Leaders of Discussion Groups. Price, 10 cents. 
 Teachers' Supplement. Price, 5 cents. 
 Bible Readings. 
 
 Arranged by Mrs. Ida V. Harrison. 
 Price, 15 cents. 
 
 FOR JUNIORS 
 
 Called to the Colors 
 
 By Martha Van Marter. 
 
 Price, cloth, 45 cents; paper, 29 cents. 
 Leaders' Manual for Called to the Colors 
 
 By Margaret Applegarth. Price, 10 cents. 
 A Take-home Envelope 
 
 By Margaret Applegarth. Price, 10 cents. 
 Americans All: Stories to Tell. 
 By Augusta Huiell Seaman. 
 
 Price, paper, 40 cents. 
 Picture Sheets to accompany Americans All. 
 Children of the City 
 Mexicans in the United States 
 Orientals in America 
 Price, 15 cents each. 
 Little Neighbors: Picture Story Set 
 By Elizabeth Colson 
 
 For teachers. Six pictures and six stories (Eskimos, 
 Indians, Mexicans, Negroes, the children of our South- 
 ern Mountains, and those in our big hospitals). Price, 
 30 cents. 
 
 DRAMATIC MATERIAL 
 
 A Pageant of Democracy. 
 
 May be simply or elaborately presented. 
 Price, 15 cents. 
 
 Order from Your Denominational Headquarters 
 
 All prices include postage. 
 161 
 
Y Title of the Previous 
 Home Mission Study Courses 
 
 For Adults 
 
 Under Our Flag. By Alice M. Guernsey. 
 
 The Call of the Waters. By Katharine R. Crowell. 
 
 From Darkness to Light. By Mary Helm. 
 
 Conservation of National Ideals. A Symposium. 
 
 Mormonism, the Islam of America. By Bruce Kin- 
 ney, D.D. 
 
 The New America. By Mary Clark Barnes and L. C. 
 Barnes, D. D. 
 
 America, God's Melting Pot. By Laura Gerould Craig, 
 
 In Red Man's Land. A Study of the American Indian. 
 By Francis E. Leupp. 
 
 Home Missions im Action. By Edith H. Allen. 
 
 Old Spain in New America. By Robert McLean, D.D. 
 and Grace Petrie Williams. 
 
 Missionary Milestones. By Margaret R. Seebach. 
 
 The Path of Labor. A Symposium. 
 
 For Juniors 
 
 Best Things in America. By Katharine R. Crowell. 
 Some Immigrant Neighbors. By John R. Henry, D.D. 
 GooDBiRD THE INDIAN. By Gilbert L. Wilson. 
 Comrades from Other Lands. By Leila Allen Dimock. 
 All Along the Trail. By Sarah Gertrude Pomeroy. 
 Children of the Lighthouse. By Charles L. White. 
 Bearers of the Torch. By Katharine R. Crowell. 
 Jack-of-All-Trades. By Margaret Applegarth, 
 
 162 
 
Princeton Theological Semmarv Li^u.^n,^^ 
 
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