an uneducated race. It is true that we have not many great scholars;
the reason is that we are engaged with immediate pressing problems; we
apply intelligence to living issues which in other lands is applied to
the Genitive and the Accusative and the Dative cases of the Latin and
Greek languages. When we look backward and consider the provision made
for the intellect of the nation during the last fifty years, we claim
that there is no parallel to it in any country on which the sun shines.
More money has gone to found colleges and schools and universities for
men and for women, open to all talent from ocean to ocean and from the
Canadian border to the Gulf, than was ever dedicated to education in
the same length of time in the history of mankind. Not only is there
provision for the regulars, but also for the irregulars; all sorts of
evening schools flourish in our cities where the first teachers of the
community are available for talented and aspiring youth of slender
means. Men are practicing medicine and law; they are in the ministry
and in other professions, usually called learned, who never saw the
inside of a college or a university, who have obtained an education
in what is called an irregular way, from and by the very men who are
teaching in these regular academic institutions.
Let me remind you of the abundant hospitality, the wonderful generosity
of the American people toward aspiring youth. Talent which would be
ignored in Great Britain, promise which would be sneered at in every
continental country in Europe, is here discovered and encouraged
to develop into power. This is a phenomenon of which we must never
lose sight, the chance here in the United States for a man to be
intellectually all that it is possible for him to be. The best teachers
may often be seen here wielding the educational power of history and
the arts to train the youth to whom college is an impossibility, for
service requiring educated powers, in his day and generation.
There is to be noted the opportunity in the way of character and moral
influence that comes to citizens of the United States. What does that
mean? The chance to change and improve the law of the land, the chance
for a man to change and improve the government of the United States,
the chance to modify, in the line of humanity, the social feeling of
the United States. And freedom is here the condition of all; every man
who complains that things are not what they should be has a chance by
his vote to remedy the abuse and to take another step toward the ideal.
Here again there is something new, measuring it against the whole
people. We are dupes and fools when we allow ourselves to be ruled by
groups in this country; we are free men, with the power in our hands.
If we have moral ideals of our own, and moral character, we can so use
them as to lift the character of the land in which we live.
3. Finally, there was the duty of the tribune as a Roman citizen. Paul
was about to be bound and tortured, without trial, when he appealed
to the chief captain, “Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is
a Roman and uncondemned?” This startled the man. “Tell me, art thou a
Roman? Good heavens, this will never do! I am pledged to do my duty!
Get off those shackles and set the man free and guard his life!” There
was the man’s sense of his duty.
What is the duty of foreign-born American citizens? First to learn the
English language and to prefer it to all other tongues on the face of
the earth. That tongue comes in the splendor of a June day; it breaks
over life like a June sunrise, with an atmosphere, tone, beauty, and
power which for Americans must ever be unapproachable. Let no American
citizen hug his foreign tongue, go into the closet with it and shut out
the light of the great English language which carries all our ideals as
Americans! The very vessel of the Lord it is, in which American freedom
is carried,--the language of Shakespeare and Milton, the incomparable
free man; the language of Bacon and Burke and Washington and Hamilton
and Webster and Lincoln. This tongue consecrates the immigrant who
would be a citizen; he never can be a citizen of the United States
without that, never. This is the tongue that carries in a unique
translation the literature of Israel; the Bible is the maker of free
peoples.
Next, we foreign-born American citizens must read the story of the
Revolution into our blood. What is the significance of the Revolution
for the foreign-born American citizen? These men were Englishmen or
the sons of Englishmen; they loved the British Isles better than
any portion of the earth’s surface, except their own Colonies; they
loved them with an inexpressible love. Yet when it came to question
of principle they stood out and said, “We must be free; the Colonies,
or the United States, first!” You recall Daniel Webster’s splendid
eloquence here:--
“On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar
off, they raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of
foreign conquest and subjection, Rome in the height of her glory is not
to be compared,--a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole
globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drumbeat,
following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the
earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of
England.”
Against that power to which they were as nothing, against that lovely
land of their origin they stood out when it was a question of their
own independence and their own manhood.
That applies to every foreign-born American citizen to-day,--Saxon,
Celt, Scandinavian, Teuton, Slav, Latin, Syrian, bond and free. Learn
the lesson of the Revolution. This country will have no hands upon
it, from any origin, anywhere outside of itself. Learn the lesson of
the Civil War; the nation that set to work to keep its integrity as a
political whole, to keep its integrity as a human whole, to fight, as
it had done a foreign dominion, an evil genius inside its own border.
There again is a vast lesson to all of us who are foreign-born. Once
again we should store in memory and ponder in clearest conscience and
intelligence the great ideas, the great political ideas of America as
they are exhibited in Washington, in Hamilton the Nationalist and in
Jefferson the State Rights’ patriot; and again in Webster and Calhoun,
in Lincoln and the Confederate, and as they issued at last in a true
conception of State freedom in a sisterhood of States that constitutes
a great nation. These things should be part of the common store of
knowledge of the adopted citizen. They are the great forces that have
moved this country from its earliest beginning, and that have lifted it
into power and renown.
America must be first; cherish your love for the old country, your
tenderness,--a man does not need to hate his mother because he loves
his wife, but it is his duty to stand by his wife even against his
mother. What kind of a country should we have if every citizen, when
trouble comes, should prefer in loyalty the land of his birth! What
a confused mob of a country we should have! Duty overrides origin,
tradition, sentiment. Here and here alone is our supreme and inviolable
obligation.
I often think that this great country of ours is ultimately to be the
deepest-hearted and the brightest-minded nation of the world. Hither
come, with sore hearts, burdened humanity and quickened intelligence,
the elect from all nations. You look at them when they land, and you
laugh. If you had been in Quebec when I landed, perhaps you would not
have wanted me as your minister! The elect from all nations, parts
of a splendid orchestra,--violin, flute, cornet, drum, trumpet, and a
score of other instruments, all pouring forth their genius to make the
great, swelling, soul-stirring symphony of this mighty nation. Thus
from Scandinavia, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Armenia, Greece; from
England, Ireland, and Scotland they come,--all are here with great
souls to make a new and greater America. Out of this composite land,
this Pentecostal nation,--sometimes it seems to me minus the Holy
Ghost,--this nation gathered from every people under the heaven, rags
and tatters and dirt and all, I believe the Eternal Spirit will evolve
and establish the most gifted, the most far-shining and the mightiest
people in the world. God grant that our dream may come true!
FOOTNOTE:
[9] _And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this
citizenship._--Acts xxii. 28.
SERAPHIM G. CANOUTAS
An American Greek who has traveled extensively throughout the
United States, and has mingled freely with his people and therefore
understands their aspirations and needs, is Seraphim G. Canoutas,
member of the Boston Bar and author of the “Greek-American Guide” and
the “Adviser for Greeks in America.”
The following plain recital of Mr. Canoutas’s struggle and
achievement is worthy of presentation here, because it shows that
what the immigrant seeks for in America he may find, and that back
of real success and contentment lies the will to serve. He says in a
letter to the editor:--
“I arrived in this country fifteen years ago, and my hardships during
the first five to seven years cannot be briefly told. Still, I am
glad that I have suffered so much. I was born in a little village
of Greece, in 1873 or 1874; I do not know the exact date of my
birth. There were no records kept in those days, and my parents were
illiterate. There was no school in the little village; no church
either. I went to school to another village at a distance of about
three miles. I do not know how I managed to go to what they call
Gymnasium in Greece, and finally to the University at Athens--a
very uncommon thing for a poor peasant’s son. I graduated from
the University of Athens, Law Department, in 1898, and in 1899 I
received my license to practise law. But a poor young man in those
days had no chance whatever to get any clients in Greece, except
by selling his conscience and his principles to some politician. I
left Greece immediately after my admission to the bar and settled
in Constantinople, Turkey, where I started to practise law before
the Consular Court of Greece. (Each nation maintains separate courts
for its citizens or subjects in Turkey.) I practised law there for
over five years and was doing very well. But I wanted to see other
countries; there was something there which I did not like. I went to
France, Italy, Austria, and at last I decided to come to America.
When I arrived in America, I found myself wholly discouraged. Nobody
could give me advice what to do. There were very few educated Greeks,
fifteen years ago, in this country, and they did not know how to help
others; they rather discouraged me. I knew not a word of English;
but, knowing French, I managed to learn some English in a few months.
Two years after my arrival I started to write a book for the new
immigrants under the title of ‘Greek-American Guide,’ giving them
as much information about the country as I knew. But books do not
pay. Although everybody appreciated the usefulness of my book, the
purchasers were very few.
“In 1909 to 1910 I made a trip all over the United States and
Canada to gather information about my countrymen from personal
experience. Finally I met a good American who told me how I could
study law in this country and be admitted to the bar. In 1912 I was
admitted to the bar in Boston, and have practised law since; but I
like social work better than law. I have continued to lecture to
Greeks throughout this State and in New England; and I feel a great
satisfaction that I have been able to do some good for my countrymen,
as well as for my adopted country, which offers the greatest
opportunities to everybody, although it takes a long time for a
foreigner to find out.”
In 1918 Mr. Canoutas published his “Hellenism in America,” dedicating
the book “to the Greeks in America in general, but those serving
under the glorious American flag in particular ... in perpetual
remembrance of their devotion to our beloved country and their
heroic sacrifices for the cause of democracy.” From this volume the
following sensible advice on Americanization is quoted.
AMERICANIZATION: ITS PRINCIPLES AND MEANING
It was a wrong practice, in my opinion, and against the principles of
true democracy, for certain Americans to induce foreigners to become
American citizens quickly if they wished “to make more money and to
get better jobs.” Because love of mere money and better jobs, above
all other things, leads to materialism, plutocracy, bureaucracy and
aristocracy, and not to true democracy.
Candidates for admission to citizenship of a democratic country should
be taught to understand and appreciate the superiority and the beauty
of its democratic principles instead of being promised “better jobs and
more money.”[10]
When a man or woman is inspired by those high and noble ideas and
principles stated in the Declaration of Independence, and repeated
by such unselfish and magnanimous heads of a Republic as Lincoln and
Wilson, and feels them and applies them, we can say that person has
been influenced by Americanism or is Americanized. But unfortunately a
tendency prevails lately to confuse the word “Americanization” with the
word “naturalization.” There is nothing more erroneous than to consider
every naturalized person as Americanized, or to accept as a general
proposition that a person not naturalized cannot be Americanized.
Naturalization is simply a matter of form, while Americanization
refers to a person’s heart and soul and mind. A naturalized American
citizen who has not been inspired by the lofty principles which
Americanism stands for, but who has been induced to acquire American
citizenship for some material profit, bears the same relation to the
State as a hypocrite bears to the Church. For this reason I have always
been astonished to hear Americans, even among the best statesmen
and educators, encouraging wholesale naturalization before they
become sure of the Americanization of the applicants. What has the
State or the nation to gain from the man who is induced by the petty
politician to become a citizen because it pays? What has the State to
profit by me, for instance, for being an American citizen if I am not
Americanized? On the contrary, it is dangerous, because in a serious
crisis, like the present one, I may use my citizenship as a shield in
defence of my un-American conduct. Common sense therefore requires that
the foreigner should not be given that powerful weapon before we are
sure that he will use it in defending his fellow-citizens and American
institutions, and not in destroying them.
Prudence requires us to educate the foreigner and thoroughly
Americanize him, if he appreciates Americanism, before admitting him to
citizenship. But this education and Americanization cannot be carried
out successfully by words or preaching alone. We must show to the
foreigners by our example, by acts and deeds, that we ourselves stand
for Americanism and apply the American ideals in our daily life, in our
every-day contact with foreigners.
If Americans look down with contempt upon the immigrant, because he is
poor, uneducated, or cursed with certain faults which he acquired while
living in a poor or ill-governed country, they cannot make him believe
that America stands for democracy, justice and general brotherhood....
When Americans, in their struggle to instruct the foreigners, have
acquired for their own part a better knowledge of the characteristics
of each race, when they rightly attribute the faults of foreigners to
the painful conditions under which they lived in their own country,
when they patiently bring to light the better qualities of those whom
they aspire to educate, then that unity so desirable, so necessary
for this great nation, will be perfected. Then there will be no more
“foreigners,” but all races will be one people, offering their best
efforts to the land in which they have equal obligations and equal
rights.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] This and the two following paragraphs are part of an address given
at an Americanization meeting held in Attleboro, Massachusetts, in 1917.
STEFANO MIELE
That one should come to America for the sole purpose of making money,
as the author of the following selection frankly states he did,
may seem an unworthy motive; but, after all, it is not essentially
different from the impulse that causes the country-bred American
boy to seek the larger cities for what he thinks will be greater
financial opportunities. Motives, in the final analysis, must be
judged in large part by their issues and results.
This young Italian, ambitious to become a lawyer and finding it
impossible in Italy to get employment with an opportunity to study,
decided to try his luck in America, where he was willing to “shovel
coal,” “wash dishes,” or “do anything to get up.” In a little more
than five years after landing at Ellis Island he was admitted to the
New York bar.
The following selection is reprinted from his article, “America as a
Place to Make Money,” published in the issue of _The World’s Work_
for December, 1920.
SOME OBSTACLES TO AMERICANIZATION
I was about twenty years old when I first thought of going to America.
But it is not so easy to leave one’s native land: it was not until
three years later that I said good-by to my father and mother and
our neighbors. I did not think for a moment that it was for the last
time--I was only going to America to make money and then return to
Baiano and the old folks.
My father gave me a little money so that I could buy a second-class
ticket. But I was young; I was starting on my first big adventure;
and--in Naples my money went, this way, that way--I came in the
steerage. It was no great hardship. My fellow-passengers were
Italians, most of them laborers, men used to hard work. They were very
happy--laughing, singing, playing--full of dreams, ambitions.
Then came Ellis Island!
Every one crowded--discomfort--lice--dirt--harshness--the officers
shouting “Come here,” “Go there,” as though they were driving animals.
And then the uncertain period of detention--sometimes a week, sometimes
two, three, or even four weeks--it is as though a man were in prison.
Ellis Island does not give the immigrant a good first lesson in
Americanization.
America wants the immigrant as a worker; but does it make any effort
to direct him, to distribute him to the places where workers are
needed? No; it leaves the immigrant to go here, there, any place. If
the immigrant were a horse instead of a human being, America would be
more careful of him; if it loses a horse, it feels it loses something;
if it loses an immigrant, it feels it loses nothing. At any rate, that
is the way it seems to the immigrant; and it strengthens his natural
disposition to settle among people of his own race.
A man needs to be a fighter to come to America without friends. I was
more fortunate than many: I had a brother in America. He worked in
a private bank. He met me when I landed and took me to his home in
Brooklyn. I looked for a job for about a month. I tried to get work on
the Italian newspapers; I tried to get work in a law office. Finally
a friend took me to a Jewish law office, and I was employed--I was
to get 25 per cent. of the fees from any clients that I brought in.
I stayed there two months and got $5. Three months after I arrived
in New York I was given the kind of a place that I had looked for in
vain in my native land--one that would enable me to support myself and
study my chosen profession. I was given a place on an Italian religious
newspaper. I worked from eight in the morning to six in the evening,
and attended the night course of the New York Law School.
It was about August when I landed in America, and already there was
election talk. (It was the year McClellan ran for Mayor.) I met some
of the Italian-American politicians. It is said that I have a gift for
oratory. The politicians asked what would be my price to talk in the
Italian sections of the city. I said that I did not want anything. I
made speeches for McClellan, and I have made speeches in every campaign
since.
That was one of the first things that struck me in America--that every
one working in politics was working for his own pocket. Another thing
that also amazed me was that most of the men elected to an office,
in which they are supposed to deliberate and legislate, were in
reality only figureheads taking orders from some one else. They had no
independence, no individuality. Another discovery was that the Italians
with most political influence were men of low morality, of low type.
Then I discovered the reason: the politicians needed repeaters and
guerillas, and that was why “the boss had to be seen” through a saloon-
or dive-keeper.
A thing that seemed very strange was the way the American newspapers
magnified crime in Italian districts, how they made sensational
stories out of what were really little happenings, how they gave the
Italians as a people a character for criminality and violence. No
less strange was the way the Italian newspapers answered the American
press. They were both building up a barrier of prejudice. If I were
to judge America through the American newspapers, I would not have
become an American citizen; or if I could know America only through the
Italian-American newspapers, I would say that the Americans are our
enemies.
It must be frankly admitted, however, that there is a change in the
second generation, a change that is too frequently not for the better.
As I have said, the majority of Italian immigrants come from the rural
districts of Italy, and, because there is no policy of distribution,
most of them settle in the big cities. They are not prepared to meet
the situation presented in a big industrial centre. They think to
apply the same principle in bringing up children that had been applied
in the little village or on the farm in Italy. They let the children
run loose. And in the streets of the crowded tenement districts the
children see graft, pocketpicking, street-walking, easy money here,
easy money there; they see the chance to make money without working.
The remedy is to be found in distributing the newly arrived immigrants.
Most of what I have said has been of the faults of America. I have
spoken of them because they are things that hold back Americanization.
America has been good to me. I have prospered here as I could not
have prospered in Italy. I came to make money and return; I have made
money and stayed. A little more than five years after I had landed
at Ellis Island I was admitted to the New York bar. I have already
had greater success than I dreamed, when I left Italy, that I should
have. And I look forward to still greater success. For me, America has
proved itself, and promises to continue to prove itself, the land of
opportunity, but I have not forgotten Italy--it is foolish to tell any
Italian to forget Italy. I say Italy; but for me, as for the others,
Italy is the little village where I was raised--the little hills, the
little church, the little garden, the little celebrations. I am forty
years old, but Christmas and Easter never come around but what I want
to return to Baiano. In my mind I become a little child again. But I
know enough to realize that I see all those scenes from a distance and
with the eye of childhood.
But even if I wanted to return to Italy, my children would not let me.
America is their country. My father is dead. I have brought my mother
here. When an Italian brings his parents to America, he is here to stay.
America is a wonderful nation. But we make a mistake if we assume
that the Anglo-Saxon is the perfect human being. He has splendid
qualities, but he also has faults. The same thing is true of the
Latins. The Anglo-Saxon is pre-eminently a business man, an executive,
an organizer, energetic, dogged. But in the Anglo-Saxon’s civilization
the Latin finds a lack of the things that go to make life worth
living. I remember the returned Italians, the “Americans,” that
I used to see at Baiano: they had made money in America and were
prosperous and independent, but they had also lost something--a certain
light-heartedness, a joy in the little things--the old jests no longer
made them laugh. The Latin has the artistic, the emotional temperament,
a gift for making little things put sunshine into life, a gift for
the social graces. If the Latin could get the qualities that the
Anglo-Saxon has, and give to the Anglo-Saxon those that he lacks,--if
all the nationalities that make up America could participate in this
give-and-take process,--then we would have a real Americanization.
JOHN KULAMER