Aliens or Americans? Part 23

In the larger cities throughout the country the encroachments of the money-makers have been steady. Performances of all kinds are permitted, theaters run either openly or with thinly veiled programs, saloons are open to those who know where the proper entrances are, and many forms of business and labor are carried on seven days in the week. The Jews claimed that it was a hardship to have to close on Sunday, when their religious observances came on Sat.u.r.day, with result that a good many manage to keep shops and factories open all the year around. Pleas of necessity have been put forward where contractors desired to push jobs and profits. Sunday excursions are universal, and in order to gain their Sunday pleasure-outings several millions of people of all races keep several other millions hard at work on the day of rest. All places are crowded on Sunday except the churches. Go among the foreign elements in the city and you would never know it was Sunday. Holiday has supplanted holy-day. Observe the trolley-cars or subway or elevated trains on Sunday and you will see nine foreigners out of every ten persons. Go into the suburbs and you will find springing up in out-of-the-way places, where land can be secured cheap, little recreation parks, with games and dancing platforms; and here there will be throngs of Italians and other foreigners all day.

[Sidenote: Loss of the American Sunday]

Let us be just in this matter. The loss of the American Sunday is undoubtedly due in great measure to immigration; due in part to the weakness and dereliction of American professing Christians who have surrendered to the foreign elements and fallen in with their ideas instead of maintaining public worship and insisting upon respect for law at least. Let the blame fall where it belongs, and let the Church members recreant to duty take their share. When the sea threatened Holland her resolute people built the d.y.k.es and maintained them; American Christians have failed to stop the leaks in the church d.y.k.es, and we have had a Sunday submergence in consequence. The effect of it upon our national development is already evident and is most disastrous to our highest interests. Sabbath-breaking and progress-making never go together. Sunday work and pleasure combined form the peril alike of the American workingman and of Christian civilization.

[Sidenote: General Deterioration]

Along with this inflow of alien ideas in religion goes a lowered morality and a lower tone generally. Not that the sins of those in high places are to be charged upon the poor immigrant, for he rarely if ever belongs to that cla.s.s. The statement may be true that the great rascals are of native stock. But that only increases the peril. The ma.s.ses that come to us from southern Europe certainly will not raise the moral or commercial, any more than they will the political or intellectual, level. If we do not raise them they will tend to lower us; and much of what they see and hear can have nothing less than a demoralizing effect.

[Sidenote: The Only Safeguard of Liberty]

Where shall we find the zealous and consistent Christians who by sympathetic contact will represent the true spirit of Christianity, and make the elevation of the aliens possible? The supreme truth to be realized is that nothing but Christianity, as incarnated in American Protestantism, can preserve America's free inst.i.tutions.

[Sidenote: Spread of Socialism]

Ex-President Seelye, of Amherst, said that socialism is the question of the time, and this is more apparent with every pa.s.sing year. Socialism has its source in the foreign element. It is not native to America. Its swelling hosts are composed almost entirely of immigrants of recent coming. It is found not only in the great cities but is spreading through the farming sections. Now, there is a truth in socialism that must be intelligently dealt with; and there is a Christian socialism that should become dominant. And this is the only force that can check and counteract the foreign socialism that would sweep away foundations instead of ameliorating conditions and remedying evils.

[Sidenote: Migration a Severe Test]

In the same way, Protestant Christianity is the only agency that can save us from the moral degeneracy involved in migration, even if the immigrants were of our moral grade before coming. As Dr. Strong says, the very act of migration is demoralizing. All the strength that comes from a.s.sociations, surroundings, relations, the emigrant leaves behind him, and becomes isolated in a strange land. Is it strange, then, that those who come from other lands, whose old a.s.sociations are all broken and whose reputations are left behind, should sink to a lower moral level? Across the sea they suffered restraints which are here removed.

Better wages afford larger means of self-indulgence; often the back is not strong enough to bear prosperity, and liberty too often lapses into license.[85]

[Sidenote: Why Foreign Colonies are Perpetuated]

This result of migration is at once an evil and an opportunity. Breaking away from the old a.s.sociations leaves room and necessity for new ones.

Upon the character of these the future of the immigrant will largely depend. Here is the Christian opportunity. See to it that the new a.s.sociations make for righteousness and patriotism. If the immigrant is evangelized, a.s.similation is easy and sure. It is recognition of this fact that leads the Roman Catholic Church to keep foreign colonies in America as isolated and permanent as possible. The ecclesiastics realize that children must be held in the parochial schools, so as to avoid the Americanization that comes through the public schools, with the probable loss of loyalty to the Church. The parents equally must be kept away from the influences that would broaden and enlighten them. Dr.

Strong tells of large colonies in the West, settled by foreigners of one nationality and religion; "thus building up states within a state, having different languages, different antecedents, different religions, different ideas and habits, preparing mutual jealousies, and perpetuating race antipathies. In New England conventions are held to which only French-Canadian Roman Catholics are admitted. At such a convention in Nashua, New Hampshire, attended by eighty priests, the following mottoes were displayed: 'Our tongue, our nationality, our religion,' 'Before everything else, let us remain French!'" And it is well said: "If our n.o.ble domain were tenfold larger than it is, it would still be too small to embrace with safety to our national future, little Germanies here, little Scandinavias there, and little Irelands yonder."

To-day there are also little Italies and little Hungaries, and a long list of other races.

_V. The Hopeful Side_

[Sidenote: A Brighter Picture]

Turning to the pleasanter and brighter side of this great question, we give the encouraging view of one who has spent years among the immigrant population, studying their environment, conditions, and character, with view to improving their chances. She says:

"The writer will risk just one generalization which, it is hoped, the ultimate facts will bear out, that in the case of the new immigration we shall see a repet.i.tion of the story of the old immigrant we are so familiar with. First comes the ignorant and poor but industrious peasant, the young man, alone, without wife or family. For a few years he works and saves, living according to a 'standard of life' which shocks his older established neighbors, and we may guess would often shock his people at home. At first he makes plans for going back, sends his savings home, and perhaps goes back himself. But he usually returns to this country, with a wife. America has now become his home, savings are invested here, land is bought, and a little house built. The growing children are educated in American schools, learn American ways, and forcibly elevate the 'standard of life' of the family. The second generation, in the fervor of its enthusiasm for change and progress becomes turbulent, unruly, and is despaired of.

[Sidenote: The Open Door]

"But out of the chaos emerges a third generation, of creditable character, from whom much may be expected. Our Austrian, Hungarian, and Russian newcomers are still in the first and second stages, and there seems no good reason why they should not pull through successfully to the third. But in that endeavor we can either help or materially hinder them, according to our treatment of them, as employees, as producers, as fellow citizens. America, for her own sake, owes to the immigrant not only the opportunities for 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'

that she promises to every man, but a sympathetic appreciation of his humanity, and an intelligent a.s.sistance in developing it."[86]

[Sidenote: How the Children Lead]

This is a picture of progress in a.s.similation to be remembered, and the conclusion is admirably expressed. a.s.similation is made easy when the wheels of contact are oiled by kindness and sympathy. The children lead the way to Americanization. Mr. Brandenburg gives this report of a conversation overheard in an Italian tenement in New York, the parties being a mother, father, and the oldest of three daughters: "Said the mother in very forcible Tuscan: 'You shall speak Italian and nothing else, if I must kill you; for what will your grandmother say when you go back to the old country, if you talk this pig's English?' 'Aw, g'wan!

Youse tink I'm goin' to talk dago 'n' be called a guinea! Not on your life. I'm 'n American, I am, 'n you go 'way back an' sit down,' The mother evidently understood the reply well enough, for she poured forth a torrent of Italian, and then the father ended matters by saying in mixed Italian and English: 'Shut up, both of you. I wish I spoke English like the children do,' Many parents have learned good English in order to escape being laughed at or despised by their children."[87]

[Sidenote: The Young American]

The language is not cla.s.sic, but it is that of real life such as these children have to endure. The rapidity with which foreigners become Americanized is ill.u.s.trated, said Dr. Charles B. Spahr, by the experience of a gentleman in Boston. In his philanthropic work he had gotten quite a hold on the Italian population. A small boy once asked him: "Are you a Protestant?" He said "Yes," and the boy seemed disappointed. But presently he brightened up and said, "You are an American, aren't you?" "Yes." "So am I!" with satisfaction. Children become American to the extent that they do not like to have it known that they have foreign parents. One little girl of German parentage said of her teacher: "She's a lady--she can't speak German at all." Where a.s.similation is slow, it is quite as likely to be the fault of the natives as of the immigrants, much more likely, indeed. How can he learn American ways who is carefully and rudely excluded from them? We build a Chinese wall of exclusiveness around ourselves, our churches, and communities, and then blame the foreigner for not forcing his way within.

In a thoughtful treatment of this whole subject, Mr. Sidney Sampson says:[88]

[Sidenote: The Real Question]

"It has become a pressing and anxious question whether American inst.i.tutions, with all their flexibility and their facility of application to new social conditions, will continue to endure the strain put upon them by the rapid and ceaseless introduction of foreign elements, unused, and wholly unused in great measure, to a system of government radically differing from that under which they have been educated. Can these diverse elements be brought to work in harmony with the American Idea? The centuries of subjection to absolutism, or even despotism, to which the ancestors of many of the immigrant cla.s.ses have been accustomed, has formed a type of political character which cannot, except after long training, be brought into an understanding of, and sympathy with, republican principles. This is by far the most important aspect of the question, much more so than questions of industrial compet.i.tion."

If the republic will not ultimately endure harm, he believes industrial questions will slowly but surely right themselves; if otherwise, none even of the wisest can foresee the result. We give his conclusion:

[Sidenote: Optimism the True View]

"What is to be the outcome of this movement of the nations upon American political and industrial life is a question which confronts us with a problem never before presented in the world's history. Upon a review of the entire situation I think we may be optimists. Notwithstanding all unfavorable features, there are antagonizing elements constantly at work, not the less potent because they work silently. We may attach undue importance to statistics merely.

[Sidenote: a.s.similating Agencies]

"Students of the immigration problem do not sufficiently observe the influences--in fact, the immigrant may not himself be conscious of them--which year after year tend to adjust his habits of thought and his political views and actions to his new environment. Freedom of suffrage, educational advantages, improved industrial conditions, the dignity of citizenship, equal laws, protection of property--all these nourish in him an increasing respect for the American system; and we have reason to believe that, under proper legislation, the combined influence of all these will in the long run fully neutralize the distinctly unfavorable results of future immigration."

[Sidenote: Solution by Combined Forces]

With this we are in accord, provided the Christian people of America can be brought to see and do their whole duty by the aliens. The solution of the problem demands the combined forces of our educational, social, political, and evangelical life. In that solution is involved the destiny of ultimate America.

QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VII

AIM: TO REALIZE THE EFFECT OF IMMIGRATION UPON THE NATIONAL CHARACTER AND OUR INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR IMPROVING CONDITIONS

I. _Reasons for Concern._

I. * Do you think that immigration makes a very serious problem for the United States? Why? Mention others who think differently. Why do you not agree with them?

2. * Are there any foreigners in your neighborhood? What are they and what can you do for them?

3. Do these immigrants long retain their foreign aspect and ways?

In what respects do they change most quickly?

4. What does Professor Mayo-Smith say about keeping American ideals intact? Must Protestant Christianity be guarded?

II. _Threatening Changes._

5. In what respects has immigration since 1820 introduced un-American standards?

6. * Have the average character and the plane of living of the immigrants been raised or lowered by their coming here? Same as to wages? As to intelligence?

7. * How are our public schools affected? Is there any menace to our school system? Can we provide compulsory education for all the children?