I. AMERICANIZATION
By L. P. Edwards in N.Y. Times.
The United States is suffering from one of its periodic attacks of Know Nothingism. It is seriously maintained in the public prints that our recent Eastern European, and particularly our Russian, immigration contains enormous numbers of murderers, thieves, counterfeiters, dynamiters, arsonists and other criminals of the most atrocious character. It is alleged that the lives and property of all of us are in imminent danger from these incredibly numerous blackguards, and that the only salvation lies in what is called the Americanization of the foreigner.
Now, it is known to every respectable sociologist in America that our recent Eastern European immigrants, including the Russians, are just as peaceable and law-abiding people as native Americans or native American ancestry. This is a fact about which there is not the slightest doubt in the mind of any competently informed person. It has been repeatedly established by careful studies made by the United States Bureau of the Census; by various State boards and by highly qualified private foundations.
Furthermore, the most honest, thrifty, industrious, upright, God-fearing and conservative portion of our foreign population is precisely that portion which has clung most stubbornly to its native ways of life and has been least influenced by American customs. Our immigrants upon changing their foreign languages, customs, beliefs and ideals upon becoming "Americanized," deteriorate profoundly in moral character; deteriorate to a degree that shows itself in the criminal statistics.
It is very fortunate for the moral welfare of millions of our foreign population that the present furore for "Americanization" is destined to fail in its object. Its failure is in its own nature. The fundamental social virtues, honesty, industry, thrift, truthfulness and the rest, are the same for all societies on the same general level of development. They are not promoted by the custom of saluting any particular flag nor advanced by the ability to read any particular Constitution.
The very complete and profound change of character implied by the phrase: "The Americanization of the Foreigner" can be wisely and safely accomplished only if spread out over at least three generations, while four or five would be better. Every year less than three generations, that the progress is hastened, means moral and spiritual breakdown for thousands—means domestic tragedy and congested criminal calendars. There is only one foreigner who is really a menace to American society. He is the foreigner who is in rapid process of "Americanization." The danger point is the foreign-born child and the American-born child of foreign parents.
The danger from these classes is real and serious, perhaps the most serious presented in the whole range of immigration questions. Here again we have very reliable statistics which leave no room for reasonable doubt. America needs protection, needs it urgently, against the foreigner of the second generation, particularly against the youthful foreigner who goes through our Public school system. The father who stubbornly refuses to learn English or to adopt American ways is commonly a man of admirable moral character. The son, often quite as American as young men of our old stock, is equally commonly a youth of vicious and unprincipled character.
Public opinion in this matter is grievously at fault. There is danger to American institutions, and that danger is real, but it is just the opposite of what is popularly feared. The danger lies precisely in the process of Americanization itself, particularly in the endeavor to hasten that process. If, as is commonly maintained, the present need in America is peace and safety, security and conservatism, then the Americanization of the foreigner should be slowed down in every way possible. No encouragement should at this time be offered to the foreigner to abandon his native language or religion or to change his ethical or cultural standards.
On the other hand, every possible assistance should be given to Roman and Greek Catholic priests, Orthodox rabbis and other such leaders in maintaining and strengthening the traditional loyalties of their various groups. Our Mohammedans—no negligible element in recent immigration—should be encouraged to build mosques, to read the Koran and to obey the various other requirements of their faith. Our public libraries should provide themselves more liberally with books in foreign languages. Foreign language lectures and speakers of all sorts should be much encouraged. By such means and only by such means can the spirit of unrest and disquiet be stilled and the spirit of conservatism and contentment with the status quo be developed among our foreign population.
It is a most curious popular misconception that peace and quietness and respect for law and order can be developed in the foreigner by suddenly and violently disturbing his mental life. Changing a man's language, upsetting his moral and social conventions, altering his inherited traditions of conduct, unsettling his ancestral faith—these are the very best means possible for making him a disbeliever in all established institutions, including those of the United States. Yet this is precisely what "Americanization" aims to do with the best intentions.
Let us take a specific illustration. It may perhaps be theoretically desirable to bring our new immigrant to a realization of the crudity and superstition of his Eastern Orthodox faith, and to be a lively recognition of the superiority of American Protestantism. Practically, it can be seldom done and the reason is simple. When a person has been brought to realize the faults, imperfections, and limitations of a traditional system of belief in religion, government or what not, he inevitably applies his new critical attitude towards whatever system of belief is offered to him as a substitute for the one he has been encouraged to cast aside.
Most commonly the alternative system, being human, has serious faults, imperfections and limitations of its own, which are easily enough discoverable. The net result of very much conscientious missionary work in America is that the foreigner ceases to believe his traditional faith, refuses allegiance to any American substitute and becomes an infidel agnostic or atheist. The same thing is just as common in the realms of social, ethical and political faith as in that of religious belief.
Respect for Government and law is not a natural instinct. It is an artificial attitude slowly built up in the individual by all sorts of direct and indirect social pressure. The breakdown of old habits of thought in any one of the great departments of social activity very rapidly affects the other phases of conduct. The whole moral life of the individual tends to become unsettled. Nothing is held firmly except the selfish determination to obtain material wealth. Ideas and ideals which stand in the way of this are cast aside. The Americanized foreigner possesses all the native Americans' ruthless greed without possessing his social, ethical, religious, or political idealism.
No man can learn a language perfectly who learns it deliberately, and social ideals are harder to learn than language. They can never be learned naturally and completely except when they are learned so gradually and imperceptibly that the process is unrecognized and largely unconscious. This can never be possible in the case of the foreign born, and is only very partially attainable in the case of the children foreign born. Its complete realization is possible only in the case of children born and reared in an entirely American environment. That is to say it cannot be accomplished before the third generation at the earliest, and often not then.