VOL. I

NO. 4

A

NY discussion of Americanization, it seems to me, might well be prefaced by a statement of what the speaker or writer understands by that term. The term, it seems, is capable of several definitions, usually the same in essence but differing just enough to be the cause of endless misunderstanding.

In my city we put a broad interpretation upon Americanization. We say it is any process that will help to make a man or woman a good citizen of America. Perhaps I had better say any intensive process, be cause I exclude that slow and gradual fitting into American society which follows the constant contact of the alien with American life and institutions, although it is certainly true that ninety per cent of the newcomers from abroad are subjected to absolutely no other influence.

Our definition of Americanization, then, is any intensive process that will help to make a man or woman an intelligent, loyal, active citizen of America. It is a singularly simple definition, devoid of philosophical subtleties, as it ought to be, because Americanism is simple. Americanization is just a plain attempt to apply to government the second of the two great commandments, which is expressed, in the vernacular of this dynamic age, as "the square deal."

*All rights reserved, Frank Cody.

That is what we have to teach the foreigner and all the rest hinges upon it: Americanization means "the square deal."

This question of Americanization is one of the oldest living questions in our history. It has seemed to the people of each decade a question of importance varying with the political conditions of the time and the concurrent volume of immigration. But never, until the last few years, so far as I know, did these two factors become present in a sufficiently acute form to cause any general campaign or extensive organized movement looking to intensive Americanization. was only in this age that a combination of events and conditions brought Americanism and Americanization to the fore as one of the most vital of the problems confronting the people of the United States.

It

The event which brought it home was the World War; the conditions were the resultant threatened deluge of immigration and the alarming wave of bolshevism which followed the Russian revolution.

We need not review here the conditions the war revealed to complacent, go-as-youplease America. We know it revealed many, many splendid things of which we may everlastingly be proud, but we know, too, that it showed many things of which we must be ashamed, because they were the consequences of our own careless folly and

lack of proper policy. I mean the too considerable number of absolute traitors whom we were nurturing in our midst. I mean, too, the number of people in America who were not friendly to her, although not openly hostile. I mean the number who were indifferent and of the "let George do it" type. I mean the number who were aliens without first or second papers of naturalization and with no intention of getting them. I mean the number of people who did not know the language of America, to whom our appeals for support had to be made in two scores of languages. I mean the thousands of others who wanted to put their signatures to a draft exemption petition, but could not because they did not know how to write their own names.

Our wonderful hindsight has shown us these conditions were the result of a careless immigration policy and an equally careless policy with respect to the alien after he was admitted. Whether, in the Whether, in the case of our threatened wave of immigration, we shall be able to turn our hindsight into foresight will be most interesting to

observe.

Immigration is the condition which vitalizes the question of Americanization today. Whatever we may believe is the true policy to be followed in the case of immigration, we must admit that in it lies the whole responsibility for the existence of an Americanization question at all, and that the latter question will wax and wane in proportion. to the volume and nature of immigration. Without wishing to appear as an advocate of exclusion, I nevertheless do not belong to that school which contends that, as a matter of principle, America has no right to restrict immigration. I believe that this is a case where self-preservation, as the first law of nature, may be invoked if expedient. Whether self-preservation requires at this. time restriction or exclusion may be a debatable matter.

It seems to me, however, in the light of my experience with Americanization work,

that nothing has been more clearly demonstrated than that there is a limit to our national powers of assimilation during any given period. It is entirely possible for a man to swallow an elephant one bite at a time, and it will make him a bigger, stronger man, too. But he cannot swallow it all at once and he must reject the ivory, in any event. What our yearly limit is, I cannot attempt to say. It should be determined from year to year or from month to month, not by guess work, but as a result of continuous study along scientific lines by a permanent immigration commission similar in character to our Interstate Commerce Commission. Legislation regulating the volume of immigration, as well as legislation dealing with any other of the many domestic and international phases of the question, should be based on the findings of this commission. What we need in this problem first of all is a policy, an intelligent, scientific policy, and what we must positively get away from is our present method of alternate apathy and hysteria. I think the time is ripe to regulate within liberal but carefully worked out limits the quantity and quality of immigration.

Whatever may be the ultimate policy adopted by the country-whether it be the present rather free and easy one, or one of total permanent exclusion, or one of liberal but sane and scientific regulation (of which policy I am an advocate)-I should like this paper to be a plea for a universal, sane, and scientific program of Americanization, for, in any event, there is need of it. The need for Americanization and the machinery for it will continue to be vital to our commonwealth, not only until every foreignborn resident is a good citizen, but until every native American and Mayflower descendant is a good citizen as well. sor Clark, of the University of Chicago, said in a recent address in our Open Forum in Detroit that Americanization is just exactly like charity-it ought to begin at home. He meant, of course, that to serve as a

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