Part 11

There should be, in the large foreign colonies, organized lectures, clubs, stereopticon lectures, distribution of information, both in Italian and in English, to explain and to instruct in regard to American history, laws, institutions, and ideals. There should be free courses on a university extension plan for Italian professional men, with a view to preparing them to expound to their people in the right way the principles and standards of American life. A regular and carefully carried out campaign should be started in the Italian newspapers, with well-written articles by leading men on the subject of American life; and a careful censorship of Italian newspapers should be established to challenge every article that is unduly depreciatory of America.

Churches should be centres where American volunteers of the best kind can in deed and word represent their country to the foreigner. Churches furnish a good means to bring about Americanization. Italians are apt to move from place to place, and those who become attached to Evangelical churches, besides the good which they eventually get in their own churches, are also brought into contact with American congregations, who by their example initiate them into the ways of American life.

A campaign to enlighten the immigrant as to his duties towards his new country should be started on a somewhat different basis from those already tried. The immigrant is often made to feel how great the material advantage is for him in becoming an American citizen, and thus is trained to enter into American public and political life in a mercenary spirit. When I applied for citizenship papers, I received this letter from the Bureau of Naturalization, Washington, D.C.:--

“_Dear Sir_:

“You have just filed your petition for naturalization to become a citizen of the United States, and because of this the United States Bureau of Naturalization is sending this letter to you, as it desires to show you how you can become an American citizen. It also wants to help you to get a better position that pays you more money for your work. In order to help you better yourself it has sent your name to the public schools in your city, and the superintendent of those schools has promised to teach you the things which you should know to help you to get a better position. If you will go to the public school building nearest where you live the teacher will tell you what nights you can go to school and the best school for you to go to. You will not be put in a class with boys and girls, but with grown people. It will not cost you anything for the teaching which you will receive in the school, and it will help you get a better job and also make you able to pass the examination in court when you come to get your citizen’s papers.

“You should call at the schoolhouse as soon as you receive this letter so that you may start to learn and be able to get a better job as soon as possible.

“Very truly yours, N. N.”

As you see, four times there occurs in this letter the exhortation to become a citizen and to learn the English language in order to get “a better job.” The letter contains not a single appeal to higher motives nor a reference to the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship, yet it is sent to every foreigner who applies for citizenship. I think a letter of this kind is demoralizing. I wonder whether America is better off for exhorting foreigners to become citizens from such motives, or whether it would not be more desirable to instruct immigrants carefully on the altruistic side as to the duty of sharing the responsibilities of American life.

It may be worth mentioning that thirty years of residence in the city of Rome is required of any man, even of Italian birth, in order to become a Roman citizen.

Human nature, fortunately, is always longing for an appeal to its best side. I accompanied a friend when the American citizenship was granted to him. The judge, a man with a fine, clean-cut face, turned toward the candidates--there were about a hundred in the room--and told the story of the Pilgrim Fathers who, although starved and in great distress, refused the opportunity of going back to England, where religious and political freedom was denied them. The words were to me an inspiration, and in glancing around I saw the faces of those present light up and show signs of emotion. Big Irishmen, heavy-faced Slavs, small, dried-up Jews, dark Italians, small-headed Greeks, I could see in the eyes of them all the light of men who were seeing a vision. The appeal to the best there is in man should be the leading thought in educating immigrants to a desire for American citizenship.

OTTO HERMANN KAHN

Otto H. Kahn was born at Mannheim, Germany, February 21, 1867. His father had emigrated to the United States in 1848, where he became a naturalized citizen, returning to Germany ten years later. The son was educated in Germany and served one year in the German army. He then learned banking, and for five years was with the London branch of the Deutsche Bank. In 1893 he came to the United States, where he became connected with the banking house of Speyer & Co., and later with the firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.

During the Great War Mr. Kahn delivered several patriotic speeches which were collected under the title, “Right Above Race.”

The following excerpt is part of an address given at Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, April 24, 1919.

CAPITAL AND LABOR--A FAIR DEAL

We have often heard it said recently--it has become rather the fashion to say it--that the rulership of the world will henceforth belong to labor. I yield to no one in my respect and sympathy for labor, or in my cordial and sincere support of its just claims. The structure of our institutions cannot stand unless the masses of workmen, farmers, indeed all large strata of society, feel that under and by these institutions they are being given a square deal within the limits, not of Utopia, but of what is sane, right and practicable.

But the rulership of the world will and ought to belong to no one class. It will and ought to belong neither to labor nor to capital, nor to any other class. It will, of right and in fact, belong to those of all classes who acquire title to it by talent, hard work, self-discipline, character and service.

He is no genuine friend or sound counselor of the people nor a true patriot who recklessly, calculatingly or ignorantly raises or encourages expectations which cannot or which ought not to be fulfilled.

We must deal with all these things with common sense, mutual trust, with respect for all, and with the aim of guiding our conduct by the standard of liberty, justice and human sympathy. But we must rightly understand liberty. We must resolutely oppose those who in their impatient grasping for unattainable perfection would make of liberty a raging and destructive torrent instead of a majestic and fertilizing stream.

Liberty is not fool-proof. For its beneficent working it demands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the reality of things, of the practicable and attainable, and a realization of the fact that there are laws of nature and of economies which are immutable and beyond our power to change.

Nothing in history is more pathetic than the record of the instances when one or the other of the peoples of the world rejoicingly followed a new lead which it was promised and fondly believed would bring it to freedom and happiness, and then suddenly found itself, instead, on the old and only too well-trodden lane which goes through suffering and turmoil to disillusionment and reaction.

I suppose most of us when we were twenty knew of a short cut to the millennium, and were impatient, resentful and rather contemptuous of those whose fossilized prejudices or selfishness, as we regarded them, prevented that short cut from becoming the high road of humanity.

Now that we are older, though we know that our eyes will not behold the millennium, we should still like the nearest possible approach to it; but we have learned that no short cut leads there, and that anybody who claims to have found one is either an impostor or self-deceived.

Among those wandering signposts to Utopia we find and recognize certain recurrent types:--

There are those who, in the fervor of their world-improving mission, discover and proclaim certain cure-alls for the ills of humanity, which they fondly and honestly believe to be new and unfailing remedies, but which, as a matter of fact, are hoary with age, having been tried on this old globe of ours at one time or another, in one of its parts or another, long ago,--tried and found wanting and discarded after sad disillusionment.

There are the spokesmen of sophomorism rampant, strutting about in the cloak of superior knowledge, mischievously and noisily, to the disturbance of quiet and orderly mental processes and sane progress.

There are the sentimental, unseasoned, intolerant and cocksure “advanced thinkers,” claiming leave to set the world by the ears, and with their strident and ceaseless voices to drown the views of those who are too busy to indulge in much talking.

There are the self-seeking demagogues and various related types, and finally there are the preachers and devotees of liberty run amuck, who in fanatical obsession would place a visionary and narrow class interest and a sloppy internationalism above patriotism, and with whom class hatred and envy have become a ruling passion. They are perniciously, ceaselessly and vociferously active, though constituting but a small minority of the people, and though every election and other test has proved, fortunately, that they are not representative of labor, either organized or unorganized.

Among these agitators and disturbers who dare clamorously to assail the majestic and beneficent structure of American traditions, doctrines and institutions there are some, far too many, indeed--I say it with deep regret, being myself of foreign birth--who are of foreign parentage or descent. With many hundreds of thousands they or their parents came to our free shores from lands of oppression and persecution. The great republic generously gave them asylum and opened wide to them the portals of her freedom and her opportunities.

The great bulk of these newcomers have become loyal and enthusiastic Americans. Most of them have proved themselves useful and valuable elements in our many-rooted population. Some of them have accomplished eminent achievements in science, industry and the arts. Certain of the qualities and talents which they contribute to the common stock are of great worth and promise.

When the great test of the war came, the overwhelming majority of them rang wholly and finely true. The casualty lists are eloquent testimony to the patriotic devotion of “the children of the crucible,” doubly eloquent because many of them fought against their own kith and kin.

But some there are who have been blinded by the glare of liberty as a man is blinded who, after long confinement in darkness, comes suddenly into the strong sunlight. Blinded, they dare to aspire to force their guidance upon Americans who for generations have walked in the light of liberty.

They have become drunk with the strong wine of freedom, these men who until they landed on America’s coasts had tasted little but the bitter water of tyranny. Drunk, they presume to impose their reeling gait upon Americans to whom freedom has been a pure and refreshing fountain for a century and a half.

Brooding in the gloom of age-long oppression, they have evolved a fantastic and distorted image of free government. In fatuous effrontery they seek to graft the growth of their stunted vision upon the splendid and ancient tree of American institutions.

Admitted in generous trust to the hospitality of America, they grossly violate not only the dictates of common gratitude, but of those elementary rules of respect and consideration which immemorial custom imposes upon the newcomer or guest. They seek, indeed, to uproot the foundations of the very house which gave them shelter.

We will not have it so, we who are Americans by birth or by adoption. We reject these impudent pretentions. By all means, let us move forward and upward, but let us proceed by the chart of reason, experience and tested American principles and doctrines, and let us not entrust our ship to demagogues, visionaries or shallow sentimentalists who most assuredly would steer it on the rocks.

When you once leave the level road of Americanism to set foot upon the incline of Socialism, it is no longer in your power to determine where you will stop. It is an axiom only too well attested by the experience of the past, that the principal elements of the established order of civilization (of which the institution of private property is one) are closely interrelated. If you tolerate grave infringement upon any of these elements, all history shows that you will have laid open to assault the foundations of personal liberty, of orderly processes of government, of justice and tolerance, as well as the institution of marriage, the sanctity of the home, and the principles and practices of religion.

The strident voices of the fomenters of unrest do not cause me any serious apprehension, but we must not sit silently by, we must not look on inactively. Where there are grievances to redress, where there are wrongs existing, we must all aid in trying to right them to the best of our conscience and ability.

To the extent that social and economic institutions, however deep and ancient their roots, may be found to stand in the way of the highest achievable level of social justice and the widest attainable extension of opportunity, welfare and contentment, they will have to submit to change. And the less obstructive and stubborn, the more broad-minded, co-operative, sympathetic and disinterested those who pre-eminently prospered under the old conditions will prove themselves in meeting the spirit of the new day and the reforms which it may justly call for, the better it will be both for them and for the community at large.

But to the false teaching and the various pernicious “isms” with which un-Americans, fifty per cent. Americans or anti-Americans are flooding the country, we must give battle through an organized, persistent, patient, nationwide campaign of education, of information, of sane and sound doctrine. The masses of the American people want what is right and fair, but they “want to be shown.” They will not simply take our word for it that because a thing is so and has always been so, therefore it should remain so. They do not mean to stand still. They want progress. They have no use for the standpatter and reactionary.

Even before the war a great stirring and ferment was going on in the land. The people were groping, seeking for a new and better condition of things. The war has intensified that movement. It has torn great fissures in the ancient structure of our civilization. To restore it will require the co-operation of all patriotic men of sane and temperate views, whatever may be their occupation or calling or political affiliations.

It cannot be restored just as it was before. The building must be rendered more habitable and attractive to those whose claim for adequate houseroom cannot be left unheeded, either justly or safely. Some changes, essential changes, must be made. I have no fear of the outcome and of the readjustment which must come. I have no fear of the forces of freedom unless they be ignored, repressed or falsely or selfishly led.

Changes the American people will make as their needs become apparent, improvements they welcome, the greatest attainable well-being for all those under our national roof-tree is their aim. They will strive to realize what formerly were considered unattainable ideals. But they will do all that in the American way of sane and orderly progress--and in no other.

Whatever betide in European countries, this nation will not be torn from its ancient moorings. Against foes within, no less than against enemies without, the American people will ever know how to preserve and protect the splendid structure of light and order, which is the treasured inheritance of all those who rightfully bear the name Americans, whatever their race and origin.

MARCUS ELI RAVAGE

The story of the Rumanian immigrant, Marcus E. Ravage, was published in 1917 under the title, “An American in the Making.” The most significant steps in his transformation from alien to American seem to have been his experiences as a sweat-shop worker and as a student at the University of Missouri. It has sometimes been thought that the immigrant who wishes to find the real America should go West. At any rate Ravage is not the only one who has felt the stimulus of the free and democratic spirit among the people of the Great Plains. We have heard much in times past of an exchange of professors between the United States and Europe. One wonders whether a more liberal exchange both of professors and students between our larger and smaller, our Eastern and Western and Northern and Southern, and our metropolitan and our rural institutions of higher learning might not be beneficial to the intellectual life of the colleges and universities and also, by helping to eradicate provincialism and sectionalism, to greater and more abiding national unity.

THE NEW IMMIGRATION

Oh, if I could show you America as we of the oppressed peoples see it! If I could bring home to you even the smallest fraction of this sacrifice and this upheaval, the dreaming and the strife, the agony and the heartache, the endless disappointments, the yearning and the despair,--all of which must be ours before we can make a home for our battered spirits in this land of yours. Perhaps if we be young we dream of riches and adventure, and if we be grown men we may merely seek a haven for our outraged human souls and a safe retreat for our hungry wives and children. Yet however aggrieved we may feel toward our native home, we cannot but regard our leaving it as a violent severing of the ties of our life, and look beyond toward our new home as a sort of glorified exile. So, whether we be young or old, something of ourselves we always leave behind in our hapless, cherished birthplaces. And the heaviest share of our burden inevitably falls on the loved ones that remain when we are gone. We make no illusions for ourselves. Though we may expect wealth, we have no thought of returning. It is farewell forever. We are not setting out on a trip; we are emigrating. Yes, we are emigrating, and there is our experience, our ordeal, in a nutshell. It is the one-way passport for us every time. For we have glimpsed a vision of America, and we start out resolved that, whatever the cost, we shall make her our own. In our heavy-laden hearts we are already Americans. In our own dumb way we have grasped her message to us.

Yes, we immigrants have a real claim on America. Every one of us who did not grow faint-hearted at the start of the battle, and has stuck it out, has earned a share in America by the ancient right of conquest. We have had to subdue this new home of ours to make it habitable, and in conquering it we have conquered ourselves. We are not what we were when you saw us landing from the Ellis Island ferry. Our own kinsfolk do not know us when they come over. We sometimes hardly know ourselves.

WHAT COLLEGE LIFE IN THE WEST DID FOR AN IMMIGRANT

ACQUIRING A SENSE OF HUMOR

On the whole, then, it looked as if I might yet work out my salvation if only those barbarians would leave me to myself. But it was not in them to do that. They seemed determined on disturbing my peace of mind. They were devoting, I honestly believe, all their spare thoughts and all their inventive genius to thinking up ways of making me uncomfortable. One young gentleman, still reminiscent of my ignorance of rural things, made up a tale of how I went to get a job on a farm, and proceeded to relate it at the table. “The farmer gave Max a pail and a stool and sent him out to milk the cow. About an hour later, when the old boy failed to show up with the stuff, Reuben went out to see what was the trouble. He found his new assistant in a fierce pickle. His clothes were torn and his hands and face were bleeding horribly. ‘What in heck is the matter?’ asked the farmer. ‘Oh, curse the old cow!’ said Max, ‘I can’t make her sit on that stool.’” A burst of merriment greeted the climactic ending, although the yarn was a trifle musty; and the most painful part of it was that I must laugh at the silly thing myself.

It was not at all true, as one of my numerous room-mates tried to intimate, that I shunned baths. I was merely conservative in the matter. One day, however, he had the indelicacy to ask me the somewhat personal question whether I ever took a bath; and I told him rather sullenly, that I did once in a while. Some time later I overheard him repeat the dialogue to the other men in the house and provoking shouts of laughter. It puzzled me to see where the joke was, until I learned that these fellows were taking a shower-bath at the gymnasium every day. It seemed to me that that was running a good thing into the ground. Again, I noticed that my room-mates were making a great show of their toothbrushes. They used them after every meal and before retiring--as the advertisements say--and always with an unnecessary amount of splash and clatter. At home I had been taught to keep my mouth and teeth clean without all this fuss. Nevertheless, I thought that I would get a brush and join in the drill. After that the other brushes became noticeably quiet.

And then, of course, there was the institution of the practical joke. On April 1st there was soap in the pie. If you got in late to a meal, it was wise to brush your chair and “pick your bites,” if any bites were left. If not, there was no telling what you might swallow or sit on. More than once I tasted salt in my water and pepper in my biscuits. I seemed to have been marked from the first as a fit subject for these pranks.

On Hallowe’en a squad of cadets commanded by a corporal entered my room and ordered me to get into my uniform, shoulder my gun, and proceed to the gymnasium, which, according to the order read, the commandant assigned me to guard against stragglers. I guarded through a whole uneventful night. Toward morning the captain of the football team, who had a room in the gymnasium, returned from a party. I ordered him to halt and give the password. He smiled and tried to enter. I made a lunge for him, and would have run my bayonet through him if he had not begun to laugh. “Go on home, you poor boy,” he said. “They pull that stunt off every year. Poor joke, I think.” The next day my table-mates tried to jolly me about it. They said I would be court-martialed as a deserter from duty. I got angry, and that made them all the more hilarious. Then a great, strapping fellow named Harvey spoke up. “Be still, you galoots,” he said to them; and then to me, “For gosh sake, fellow, be human!” I tried a long time to figure out what he meant by “human,” and for the rest of my college career I strove to follow his advice. It was the first real hint I had got on what America, through her representatives in Missouri, was expecting of me. Harvey became my first American friend.

THE ROMANCE OF READJUSTMENT