citizen in the community. The man who becomes Europeanized, who loses
his power of doing good work on this side of the water, and who loses
his love for his native land, is not a traitor; but he is a silly and
undesirable citizen. He is as emphatically a noxious element in our
body politic as is the man who comes here from abroad and remains a
foreigner. Nothing will more quickly or more surely disqualify a man
from doing good work in the world than the acquirement of that flaccid
habit of mind which its possessors style cosmopolitanism.
It is not only necessary to Americanize the immigrants of foreign birth
who settle among us, but it is even more necessary for those among us
who are by birth and descent already Americans not to throw away our
birthright, and, with incredible and contemptible folly, wander back to
bow down before the alien gods whom our forefathers forsook. It is hard
to believe that there is any necessity to warn Americans that, when
they seek to model themselves on the lines of other civilizations,
they make themselves the butts of all right-thinking men; and yet
the necessity certainly exists to give this warning to many of our
citizens who pride themselves on their standing in the world of art
and letters, or, perchance, on what they would style their social
leadership in the community. It is always better to be an original
than an imitation, even when the imitation is of something better than
the original; but what shall we say of the fool who is content to be
an imitation of something worse? Even if the weaklings who seek to be
other than Americans were right in deeming other nations to be better
than their own, the fact yet remains that to be a first-class American
is fifty-fold better than to be a second-class imitation of a Frenchman
or Englishman. As a matter of fact, however, those of our countrymen
who do believe in American inferiority are always individuals who,
however cultivated, have some organic weakness in their moral or mental
make-up; and the great mass of our people, who are robustly patriotic,
and who have sound, healthy minds, are justified in regarding these
feeble renegades with a half-impatient and half-amused scorn.
We believe in waging relentless war on rank-growing evils of all
kinds, and it makes no difference to us if they happen to be of purely
native growth. We grasp at any good, no matter whence it comes. We do
not accept the evil attendant upon another system of government as
an adequate excuse for that attendant upon our own; the fact that
the courtier is a scamp does not render the demagogue any the less
a scoundrel. But it remains true that, in spite of all our faults
and shortcomings, no other land offers such glorious possibilities
to the man able to take advantage of them, as does ours; it remains
true that no one of our people can do any work really worth doing
unless he does it primarily as an American. It is because certain
classes of our people still retain their spirit of colonial dependence
on, and exaggerated deference to, European opinion, that they fail
to accomplish what they ought to. It is precisely along the lines
where we have worked most independently that we have accomplished
the greatest results; and it is in those professions where there
has been no servility to, but merely a wise profiting by, foreign
experience, that we have produced our greatest men. Our soldiers and
statesmen and orators; our explorers, our wilderness-winners, and
commonwealth-builders; the men who have made our laws and seen that
they were executed; and the other men whose energy and ingenuity have
created our marvellous material prosperity,--all these have been men
who have drawn wisdom from the experience of every age and nation, but
who have nevertheless thought, and worked, and conquered, and lived,
and died, purely as Americans; and on the whole they have done better
work than has been done in any other country during the short period of
our national life.
On the other hand, it is in those professions where our people have
striven hardest to mould themselves in conventional European forms
that they have succeeded least; and this holds true to the present day,
the failure being of course most conspicuous where the man takes up
his abode in Europe; where he becomes a second-rate European, because
he is over-civilized, over-sensitive, over-refined, and has lost the
hardihood and manly courage by which alone he can conquer in the keen
struggle of our national life. Be it remembered, too, that this same
being does not really become a European; he only ceases being an
American, and becomes nothing. He throws away a great prize for the
sake of a lesser one, and does not even get the lesser one. The painter
who goes to Paris, not merely to get two or three years’ thorough
training in his art, but with the deliberate purpose of taking up his
abode there, and with the intention of following in the ruts worn deep
by ten thousand earlier travellers, instead of striking off to rise
or fall on a new line, thereby forfeits all chance of doing the best
work. He must content himself with aiming at that kind of mediocrity
which consists in doing fairly well what has already been done better;
and he usually never even sees the grandeur and picturesqueness lying
open before the eyes of every man who can read the book of America’s
past and the book of America’s present. Thus it is with the undersized
man of letters, who flees his country because he, with his delicate,
effeminate sensitiveness, finds the conditions of life on this side
of the water crude and raw; in other words, because he finds that he
cannot play a man’s part among men, and so goes where he will be
sheltered from the winds that harden stouter souls. This _emigré_ may
write graceful and pretty verses, essays, novels; but he will never
do work to compare with that of his brother, who is strong enough to
stand on his own feet, and do his work as an American. Thus it is
with the scientist who spends his youth in a German university, and
can thenceforth work only in the fields already fifty times furrowed
by the German ploughs. Thus it is with that most foolish of parents
who sends his children to be educated abroad, not knowing--what every
clear-sighted man from Washington and Jay down has known--that the
American who is to make his way in America should be brought up among
his fellow Americans. It is among the people who like to consider
themselves, and, indeed, to a large extent are, the leaders of the
so-called social world, especially in some of the northeastern cities,
that this colonial habit of thought, this thoroughly provincial spirit
of admiration for things foreign, and inability to stand on one’s own
feet, becomes most evident and most despicable. We believe in every
kind of honest and lawful pleasure, so long as the getting it is not
made man’s chief business; and we believe heartily in the good that
can be done by men of leisure who work hard in their leisure, whether
at politics or philanthropy, literature or art. But a leisure class
whose leisure simply means idleness is a curse to the community, and
in so far as its members distinguish themselves chiefly by aping the
worst--not the best--traits of similar people across the water, they
become both comic and noxious elements of the body politic.
The third sense in which the word “Americanism” may be employed is
with reference to the Americanizing of the newcomers to our shores.
We must Americanize them in every way, in speech, in political ideas
and principles, and in their way of looking at the relations between
Church and State. We welcome the German or the Irishman who becomes
an American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who remains
such. We do not wish German-Americans and Irish-Americans who figure
as such in our social and political life; we want only Americans, and,
provided they are such, we do not care whether they are of native or of
Irish or of German ancestry. We have no room in any healthy American
community for a German-American vote or an Irish-American vote, and it
is contemptible demagogy to put planks into any party platform with the
purpose of catching such a vote. We have no room for any people who do
not act and vote simply as Americans, and as nothing else. Moreover, we
have as little use for people who carry religious prejudices into our
politics as for those who carry prejudices of caste or nationality. We
stand unalterably in favor of the public-school system in its entirety.
We believe that English, and no other language, is that in which all
the school exercises should be conducted. We are against any division
of the school fund, and against any appropriation of public money for
sectarian purposes. We are against any recognition whatever by the
State in any shape or form of State-aided parochial schools. But we
are equally opposed to any discrimination against or for a man because
of his creed. We demand that all citizens, Protestant and Catholic,
Jew and Gentile, shall have fair treatment in every way; that all
alike shall have their rights guaranteed them. The very reasons that
make us unqualified in our opposition to State-aided sectarian schools
make us equally bent that, in the management of our public schools,
the adherents of each creed shall be given exact and equal justice,
wholly without regard to their religious affiliations; that trustees,
superintendents, teachers, scholars, all alike, shall be treated
without any reference whatsoever to the creed they profess. We maintain
that it is an outrage, in voting for a man for any position, whether
State or national, to take into account his religious faith, provided
only he is a good American. When a secret society does what in some
places the American Protective Association seems to have done, and
tries to proscribe Catholics both politically and socially, the members
of such society show that they themselves are as utterly un-American,
as alien to our school of political thought, as the worst immigrants
who land on our shores. Their conduct is equally base and contemptible;
they are the worst foes of our public-school system, because they
strengthen the hands of its ultramontane enemies; they should receive
the hearty condemnation of all Americans who are truly patriotic.
The mighty tide of immigration to our shores has brought in its train
much of good and much of evil; and whether the good or the evil shall
predominate depends mainly on whether these newcomers do or do not
throw themselves heartily into our national life, cease to be European,
and become Americans like the rest of us. More than a third of the
people of the Northern States are of foreign birth or parentage. An
immense number of them have become completely Americanized, and these
stand on exactly the same plane as the descendants of any Puritan,
Cavalier, or Knickerbocker among us, and do their full and honorable
share of the nation’s work. But where immigrants, or the sons of
immigrants, do not heartily and in good faith throw in their lot
with us, but cling to the speech, the customs, the ways of life, and
the habits of thought of the Old World which they have left, they
thereby harm both themselves and us. If they remain alien elements,
unassimilated, and with interests separate from ours, they are mere
obstructions to the current of our national life, and, moreover, can
get no good from it themselves. In fact, though we ourselves also
suffer from their perversity, it is they who really suffer most. It
is an immense benefit to the European immigrant to change him into an
American citizen. To bear the name of American is to bear the most
honorable of titles; and whoever does not so believe has no business
to bear the name at all, and, if he comes from Europe, the sooner
he goes back there the better. Besides, the man who does not become
Americanized nevertheless fails to remain a European, and becomes
nothing at all. The immigrant cannot possibly remain what he was,
or continue to be a member of the Old-World society. If he tries to
retain his old language, in a few generations it becomes a barbarous
jargon; if he tries to retain his old customs and ways of life, in a
few generations he becomes an uncouth boor. He has cut himself off from
the Old-World, and cannot retain his connection with it; and if he
wishes ever to amount to anything he must throw himself heart and soul,
and without reservation, into the new life to which he has come. It is
urgently necessary to check and regulate our immigration, by much more
drastic laws than now exist; and this should be done both to keep out
laborers who tend to depress the labor market, and to keep out races
which do not assimilate readily with our own, and unworthy individuals
of all races--not only criminals, idiots, and paupers, but anarchists
of the Most and O’Donovan Rossa type.
From his own standpoint, it is beyond all question the wise thing for
the immigrant to become thoroughly Americanized. Moreover, from our
standpoint, we have a right to demand it. We freely extend the hand
of welcome and of good-fellowship to every man, no matter what his
creed or birthplace, who comes here honestly intent on becoming a good
United States citizen like the rest of us; but we have a right, and
it is our duty, to demand that he shall indeed become so, and shall
not confuse the issues with which we are struggling by introducing
among us Old-World quarrels and prejudices. There are certain ideas
which he must give up. For instance, he must learn that American life
is incompatible with the existence of any form of anarchy, or of any
secret society having murder for its aim, whether at home or abroad;
and he must learn that we exact full religious toleration and the
complete separation of Church and State. Moreover, he must not bring
in his Old-World religious race and national antipathies, but must
merge them into love for our common country, and must take pride in the
things which we can all take pride in. He must revere only our flag;
not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second.
He must learn to celebrate Washington’s birthday rather than that of
the Queen or Kaiser, and the Fourth of July instead of St. Patrick’s
Day. Our political and social questions must be settled on their own
merits, and not complicated by quarrels between England and Ireland, or
France and Germany, with which we have nothing to do: it is an outrage
to fight an American political campaign with reference to questions
of European politics. Above all, the immigrant must learn to talk and
think and _be_ United States.
The immigrant of to-day can learn much from the experience of the
immigrants of the past, who came to America prior to the Revolutionary
War. We were then already, what we are now, a people of mixed blood.
Many of our most illustrious Revolutionary names were borne by men
of Huguenot blood--Jay, Sevier, Marion, Laurens. But the Huguenots
were, on the whole, the best immigrants we have ever received; sooner
than any other, and more completely, they became American in speech,
conviction, and thought. The Hollanders took longer than the Huguenots
to become completely assimilated; nevertheless they in the end became
so, immensely to their own advantage. One of the leading Revolutionary
generals, Schuyler, and one of the Presidents of the United States,
Van Buren, were of Dutch blood; but they rose to their positions,
the highest in the land, because they had become Americans and had
ceased being Hollanders. If they had remained members of an alien
body, cut off by their speech and customs and belief from the rest
of the American community, Schuyler would have lived his life as a
boorish, provincial squire, and Van Buren would have ended his days
a small tavern-keeper. So it is with the Germans of Pennsylvania.
Those of them who became Americanized have furnished to our history
a multitude of honorable names, from the days of the Mühlenbergs
onward; but those who did not become Americanized form to the present
day an unimportant body, of no significance in American existence.
So it is with the Irish, who gave to Revolutionary annals such names
as Carroll and Sullivan, and to the Civil War men like Sheridan--men
who were Americans and nothing else: while the Irish who remain such,
and busy themselves solely with alien politics, can have only an
unhealthy influence upon American life, and can never rise as do their
compatriots who become straightout Americans. Thus it has ever been
with all people who have come hither, of whatever stock or blood. The
same thing is true of the churches. A church which remains foreign, in
language or spirit, is doomed.
But I wish to be distinctly understood on one point. Americanism
is a question of spirit, conviction, and purpose, not of creed or
birthplace. The politician who bids for the Irish or German vote,
or the Irishman or German who votes as an Irishman or German, is
despicable, for all citizens of this commonwealth should vote solely
as Americans; but he is not a whit less despicable than the voter who
votes against a good American, merely because that American happens to
have been born in Ireland or Germany. Know-nothingism, in any form, is
as utterly un-American as foreignism. It is a base outrage to oppose
a man because of his religion or birthplace, and all good citizens
will hold any such effort in abhorrence. A Scandinavian, a German, or
an Irishman who has really become an American has the right to stand
on exactly the same footing as any native-born citizen in the land,
and is just as much entitled to the friendship and support, social
and political, of his neighbors. Among the men with whom I have been
thrown in close personal contact socially, and who have been among my
staunchest friends and allies politically, are not a few Americans who
happen to have been born on the other side of the water, in Germany,
Ireland, Scandinavia; and there could be no better men in the ranks of
our native-born citizens.
In closing, I cannot better express the ideal attitude that should be
taken by our fellow-citizens of foreign birth than by quoting the words
of a representative American, born in Germany, the Honorable Richard
Guenther, of Wisconsin. In a speech spoken at the time of the Samoan
trouble, he said:
“We know as well as any other class of American citizens where our
duties belong. We will work for our country in time of peace and
fight for it in time of war, if a time of war should ever come. When
I say our country, I mean, of course, our adopted country. I mean
the United States of America. After passing through the crucible
of naturalization, we are no longer Germans; we are Americans.
Our attachment to America cannot be measured by the length of our
residence here. We are Americans from the moment we touch the American
shore until we are laid in American graves. We will fight for America
whenever necessary. America, first, last, and all the time. America
against Germany, America against the world; America, right or wrong;
always America. We are Americans.”
All honor to the man who spoke such words as those; and I believe
they express the feelings of the great majority of those among our
fellow-American citizens who were born abroad. We Americans can only
do our allotted task well if we face it steadily and bravely, seeing
but not fearing the dangers. Above all we must stand shoulder to
shoulder, not asking as to the ancestry or creed of our comrades, but
only demanding that they be in very truth Americans, and that we all
work together, heart, hand, and head, for the honor and the greatness
of our common country.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[3] _The Forum_, April, 1894.
[Illustration]
III
THE MANLY VIRTUES AND PRACTICAL POLITICS[4]
Sometimes, in addressing men who sincerely desire the betterment of our
public affairs, but who have not taken active part in directing them,
I feel tempted to tell them that there are two gospels which should be
preached to every reformer. The first is the gospel of morality; the
second is the gospel of efficiency.
To decent, upright citizens it is hardly necessary to preach the
doctrine of morality as applied to the affairs of public life. It is
an even graver offence to sin against the commonwealth than to sin
against an individual. The man who debauches our public life, whether
by malversation of funds in office, by the actual bribery of voters
or of legislators, or by the corrupt use of the offices as spoils
wherewith to reward the unworthy and the vicious for their noxious
and interested activity in the baser walks of political life,--this
man is a greater foe to our well-being as a nation than is even the
defaulting cashier of a bank, or the betrayer of a private trust. No
amount of intelligence and no amount of energy will save a nation which
is not honest, and no government can ever be a permanent success if
administered in accordance with base ideals. The first requisite in
the citizen who wishes to share the work of our public life, whether
he wishes himself to hold office or merely to do his plain duty as an
American by taking part in the management of our political machinery,
is that he shall act disinterestedly and with a sincere purpose to
serve the whole commonwealth.
But disinterestedness and honesty and unselfish desire to do what
is right are not enough in themselves. A man must not only be
disinterested, but he must be efficient. If he goes into politics he
must go into practical politics, in order to make his influence felt.
Practical politics must not be construed to mean dirty politics. On
the contrary, in the long run the politics of fraud and treachery
and foulness are unpractical politics, and the most practical of all
politicians is the politician who is clean and decent and upright. But
a man who goes into the actual battles of the political world must
prepare himself much as he would for the struggle in any other branch
of our life. He must be prepared to meet men of far lower ideals than
his own, and to face things, not as he would wish them, but as they
are. He must not lose his own high ideal, and yet he must face the fact
that the majority of the men with whom he must work have lower ideals.
He must stand firmly for what he believes, and yet he must realize that
political action, to be effective, must be the joint action of many
men, and that he must sacrifice somewhat of his own opinions to those
of his associates if he ever hopes to see his desires take practical
shape.