Catholic Problems in Western Canada

by George Thomas Daly

II. THE FAD OF AMERICANIZATION

By Glenn Frank in the "Century Magazine," June, 1920.

We are a nation of confirmed uplifters. We are never happy except when we are reforming something or saving somebody. It doesn't matter greatly whom we are saving or what we are reforming; the game is the thing. This uplift urge expresses itself in the "movement" mania, the endemic home of which is United States. The American cannot live by bread alone; he must have committees, clubs, constitutions, by-laws, platforms, and resolutions. These things, the machinery of uplift are his meat and wine. The American society women takes to "social service" and the American business man to "public work" as a bird takes to the air or a hound to the trail. It is in the blood.

Just now the most popular social sport is "Americanization." It is in many ways an ideal movement. It fully satisfies the passion of the comfortable classes for uplift, and is a Godsend to the candidate who wants something to grow fervent about in lieu of a frank facing of fundamental issues of politics and industry. Above all, Americanization work gives one the righteous feeling of a defender of the faith. The epidemic faddist character of much Americanization work was pointedly stated in a recent article by Simon J. Lubin and Christina Krysto in "The Survey." They said:

"Every social organization, every religious society, every large industry, every woman's club has been busy for months mapping out its own particular program. The study of Americanization has been used to stimulate interest in organizations which were dying a natural death; Americanization has been used as a pretext for sudden improvements in industrial management when the attitude of labor has made sudden improvements imperative; Americanization has been used to give employment to social workers out of jobs."

This article further points out the inevitability of innumerable perversions of Americanization in such an orgy of organization. The article says on this point:

"Every political party has its hangers-on who, consciously or unconsciously, discredit the fine principles of that party by their erroneous expounding of these. Every new phase in industrial progress has its profiteers—men who capitalize the advanced ideas of their field for their own interest, regardless of the harm which they bring to the whole by their methods. Every scientific discovery has its charlatans who mix enough of the truth with their lies to undermine the whole truth when their lies become known. Every religion has its false messiahs, and many a man has been made an unbeliever because he has followed these too easily and been disappointed too grievously."

It should be said that the profiteers, charlatans, and false messiahs of Americanization are not, in the main, men and women of bad intentions so much as they are men and women of half-ideas of fractional and incomplete conceptions of Americanization. The title of false messiahs fits them better than either profiteers or charlatans, for false messiahs are usually profoundly sincere, although profoundly misguided.

No straight-thinking person disputes the need of a fundamentally sound program of Americanization, a vast collective effort toward the stimulation and spread of sane principles of national life among all sorts and conditions of men and women who make up our population. But anything and everything that goes by the name of Americanization is not necessarily an effective move in that direction. There is slowly growing up a body of incisive criticism dealing with the current epidemic of Americanization work that is sweeping the country on the wings of clever catch-words and generous emotions. It may be of interest and value to attempt an analysis and statement of the main points of that body of criticism. Here are a few plainly valid criticisms.

First, it is psychologically bad to approach Americanization work through a super-organized and much-trumpeted movement, because such a policy warns the foreigner in advance that a crowd of superior persons have set out to improve him. That is generally resented. The fact is that hardly a thing has been proposed as desirable in an Americanization program that is not the duty or function of some existing institution of our country, the church, the school, the industry, the press. Education, hygiene, and a decent inter-class courtesy are necessary features of any sound Americanization program, but they can be more effectively applied by calling them what they are and promoting them in normal ways than by branding them Americanization and cursing them with the blight of paternalistic uplift.

But it is probably useless to quarrel with a long established national habit. It is a habit of ours to create a new organization for every new task. Not only does that practice have the drawbacks just mentioned, but it robs our established institutions of the habit of doing creative work, leaves our established institutions as homes of the routine and the regular. There is a fundamental difference between England and the United States in this matter. In England the few men who have caught an idea or envisioned a need, do not, as a regular practice, create a new propagandist organization instanter, but in most cases set quietly to work to get the machinery of established institutions going on the task. An increasing number of clear-minded folk are becoming convinced that Americanization would proceed much faster and more soundly through the increase efficiency of the existing machinery of school and church and press and industry, without any fanfare of trumpets, than through any propagandist "drive" for uplifting the foreigner.

Second, it is a fallacy to suppose that Americanization is a process needed by the foreigners only. Much Americanization work proceeds upon the assumption that what is needed is to make the foreigner "like us." The fact is that Americanization is sorely needed by many of "us," Americanization does not mean merely getting an immigrant ready for his citizenship-papers. It means the continuous fostering of the American spirit of liberty, justice, and equality of opportunity in every man and woman and institution and policy. Americanization should be looked upon as the inspiring goal of both native born and foreign born, not as a missionary enterprise among the foreign born alone. To single out the foreign born as the exclusive objects of an Americanization effort is organized tactlessness. If, on the other hand, the foreign born feel that they are being invited to join with the native born in a vast collective effort to build a better nation in which liberty, justice, and equality of opportunity shall increasingly prevail, they will go out of their way to acquire the English language, a knowledge of our institutions and ways, and all the instruments necessary to the task of collaborating with us in the improvement of the republic.

Third, serious danger lies in the over-simplification of the problem of Americanization by propagandist organizations. We are in constant danger from too simple analysis of problems and too simple as the epigrams that grow up about it. Panaceas usually touch only a part of a problem. It is interesting to watch various types of minds approach the problems of Americanization in committee discussion. Here are a few simple solutions that the writer has heard from time to time:

Teach the foreigner to stick to the job and produce. We need to teach the foreigner that Americanism means patriotic production for the relief of the world's present peace-time plight, just as it meant patriotic production for the necessities of war-time. A great drive for industrial patriotism is the supreme need.

Teach the foreigner to respect our forms of government. Make the foreigner understand that we have settled the question of government forms and that criticism is disloyalty. We must discourage the practice of biting the hand that feeds.

Teach the foreigner the English language. There is no room in this country for more than one language. Alien intrigue could be killed if we turned the United States into a country of one language.

Make every foreigner take out citizenship-papers within a specified time or deport him.

Now, it is inevitable that when Americanization is made a popular "drive" by a vast propagandist organization that the army of men and women of one idea, apostles of simplicist solutions, will flock into the ranks of the propagandists. Even when the official program of the organization is well rounded, the army of simple-solutionists will do irreparable damage in their work as servants of the movement.

The problem cannot be dismissed by preaching to the foreigner that he should stick to the job and produce. The problem of maximum production has a thousand ramifications that run throughout the whole industrial problem. The preaching of industrial patriotism is a waste of breath unless it goes hand in hand with a far-reaching liberal program of industrial justice and efficiency. The industrial program is more important than the industrial preaching. Put the program into effect and the preaching of loyalty to the job may be unnecessary.

Far from being Americanism, it is fundamentally anti-American to urge an uncritical deification of any form of government. Americanism involves an invitation to continuous constructive criticism in behalf of a bettering of our machinery of government. It is no solution of the foreign-born problem to preach loyalty to the status quo. We shall get further by saying to the foreigner, "We are engaged in a great democratic experiment on this continent. We have settled a few principles in our minds. We believe in popular rule through political action, but as to details we are on a search for improvement. We ask you to learn our language and our institutions and then give us the benefit of your best thought on ways and means for the improvement of our machinery for democratic government. The bars are down for the frankest criticism from men and women who have the democratic patience to trust their proposals to peaceful procedure."

Learning the English language is only a means to an end. It is too frequently made an end in itself. There is no more virtue in talking English than in talking Hottentot. We shall not get far by the mere exaltation of a language. The only lasting results we shall achieve will be through the making of participation in this national democratic experiment of ours so attractive to the foreigner that he will burn with the desire to master our tongue, that he may better play his part and appreciate his privilege. A man can plot the downfall of the republic in English as easily as in an alien tongue.

Nor is there magic in the legal assumption of citizenship. It is the man behind the papers that counts. If anything, we have made citizenship too easy a privilege in the past.

Now, all this is said not to suggest that there is no room or need for special consideration of the Americanization problem by groups of public minded citizens. It is not intended to suggest that Americanization may not properly be made the subject of considerable propaganda. This comment has indulged in rather severe and unqualified strictures upon the Americanization "drive" in the hope of capturing attention for three manifest dangers that may prove the undoing of the real Americanization work that cries aloud for administration. These three dangers are; first, the danger of making the Americanization movement so plainly a conventional uplift movement that the foreigner will resent what he might, with a more tactful approach, request; second, the danger that, by thinking of Americanization as something needed by the foreigner alone, we shall miss the opportunity of making Americanization a vast national effort of self-education in the nature and application of the principles of liberty justice, and equality of opportunity that, theoretically at least, comprise the American idea; and third, the danger that the propagandist's passion for simple solutions will further postpone the day of a broad and well-balanced program of national development.

We do not want "Americanism" to degenerate into a mere "protective coloration" for politicians who want to hide their reaction and their lack of ideas.