THE “I. W. W.” AND THE HOMELESS WORKER
This latter consideration is more important than is commonly realized. The rank and file of the Industrial Workers of the World—better known as the “I. W. W.”—for example, is made up of men without fixed abode; itinerant workingmen, largely, though by no means wholly, of foreign birth. They have left their homes and families, if they ever had either. The I. W. W. is the only organization which at least pretends to look after the interests of the homeless, jobless worker. The homeless, jobless worker cannot become naturalized, because the naturalization process presupposes a fixed residence, and witnesses who can testify to that residence over long periods of time. And even if the man be native born or long since naturalized, he cannot vote or otherwise function as a political unit because he has no fixed home from which to register and vote.
A fixed abiding place, a home, is psychologically a sine qua non of real and wholesome civic interest, as well as a legal prerequisite for participation in public affairs. Theoretically, a native-born or naturalized citizen has a membership in and duty toward the United States. Actually, the degree of his participation depends upon the depths of his roots in some locality, and the relation of that locality to the civic unit toward whose welfare the voter contributes, not only his taxes, but his personal interest. A good part of the trouble with city government in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and other great cities is due to the fact that so many fine, public-spirited voters live in suburbs.
Thousands of the best men who participate in the daytime in the life of New York City live in New Jersey and Connecticut, or, anyway, in towns outside of Greater New York. Their real interests are in New York, but they vote in another state. They contribute little to the local welfare in the places Where they live because of their real interest in New York. Consequently their civic vitality, so to speak, is entirely lost to both communities—and to the United States. The foreign-born voter in the crowded East Side of New York is a far more effective citizen, for good or ill, than the presumably more intelligent business man who cannot—or at any rate does not—participate substantially in the political life either of the city where his business and daily activities are carried on, or in the village in another state where he has his legal residence.
Over against this anomalous condition put the case of the well-meaning citizen, native or foreign born, who works for a certain mining corporation in Illinois. The town where he lives belongs absolutely to that corporation. It so happens that a part of the mining property of that corporation lies in Illinois and a part in Indiana. Under stress of business and mining conditions the company suddenly moves the whole population, men, women, and children, over the state line. What must happen then to any possible civic interest or enthusiasm—supposing any to exist—on the part of American citizens, voters, who had begun to think about the public interests of the state of Illinois? What happens to the naturalization proceedings begun by any alien to make himself a useful citizen of his adopted country? How can any real civic interest live under such conditions?
It is common to sneer at the city workingman because he stays in town unemployed when he might get a job in the wheat fields or at mining or fruit picking where labor is scant. Laying aside the question of any desire on his part to stay with his family, or any doubt in his mind about his ability as a hodcarrier or a tailor to make good as a farm hand, or any reluctance on the part of the railroad to assist him with the gift or loan of transportation to some distant and practically most uncertain job—what becomes in such a hop-skip-and-jump sort of industrial—and social-existence, of any interest in civic affairs? To a newly made citizen, who has faithfully memorized, if you please, the Constitution of the United States, who knows just how Senators are elected and what is the relation between the functions of the President and those of the local dog-catcher, and who can sing, duly standing uncovered, all the stanzas of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” it must appear that his intellectual equipment for citizenship is more or less extraneous to the practical and immediate task of feeding his wife and babies!
It is this sort of experience, of shifting employment and residence and the conditions that go with it, that has given momentum to the I. W. W. and kindred movements. “Stag towns” in the Far West, matching “women towns” in New England; permanently separated families; the utter impossibility of getting and keeping wives or maintaining any sort of decent, not to say normal, domestic life, are major factors that have brought into such organizations not only foreign-born wanderers, some of them naturalized, but a surprisingly large number of native Americans—the latter particularly among the leadership.
On the other hand, the I. W. W. from its beginning[176] has paid close attention to the immigrant. Fifteen years ago, at the second convention of the I. W. W., it was urged that propaganda should start in Europe before the immigrant left the homeland, so that he would be prepared upon arrival in this country to join the organization. This was not done, but even so early there was a large issue of printed matter in foreign languages, and the whole machinery was conceived on the presumption of a polyglot membership. Moreover, the I. W. W. always has taken the most liberal position as regards any form of race prejudice. At the opening of the first convention William D. Haywood took a strong stand against discrimination against the negro by craft unions, and the organization never has tolerated any distinction of race, color, nationality—or sex. Even with regard to the Japanese of California, at the third convention a delegate from that state declared that “the whole fight against the Japanese is the fight of the middle class of California, in which they employ the labor faker to back it up.”
The Communist party, into which to a considerable extent went the extremists from the older movements when the effects of the war brought division to their ranks and made it impossible for moderate and ultraradical to abide under the same roof, at first became a nucleus for the spread of the extreme form of Communist doctrine. It embodies the essentials of the platform of the Third Internationale. The ruthless suppression of this organization by the public authorities may well prevent its having any but a fugitive life. The I. W. W., too, seems, for the time being, at least, to be under effective handicap. But whether these, or either of them, survive or perish, or whatever other organization may be the residuary legatee of their existence, the fact remains, and it is a most important fact from the point of view of this Study, that such movements have no room under their ægis for what Americans understand as political action. They seek revolutionary change not only in the form, but in the nature of government—would, in fact, abolish all government as we know it, and substitute the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as it exists—or has been supposed to exist—in Russia. Their theory has no use for our present parliamentary methods, for representative government in our understanding of the word; they scoff at and would utterly destroy what we mean by Democracy. They would not leave a recognizable vestige of our Constitution, our courts, our legislatures. They would provide no political function for the voting citizen as we visualize him. And—what is most important—they would bring about these basic changes by compulsion. The ballot box has no substantial place in their program.
Such propaganda, such programs, appeal only to those who have and who, however mistakenly, believe they can have, no stake in our present civilization. To such as these, citizenship in the sense in which we have here discussed it has no meaning; the “America” which has been built up, by native and foreign born together, since the landing of the Pilgrims, arouses no enthusiasm.
It is not surprising that such movements as the I. W. W. and the Communist parties appeal to the wandering, homeless folk of any race. And when their propaganda tells such folk (as it does) that the actual fruit of their labor is a product of sixty dollars a day, and that the difference between that figure and what they receive is the measure of what the capitalist class is appropriating, it is small wonder that the ignorant and reckless, without attachment to any home or land, smarting under concrete conditions about whose reality—whoever may be to blame for them—there can be no dispute, follow such leadership and look to it to bring them into better conditions.
From the moment of his arrival in this country, every hardship that the immigrant of any race suffers, every injustice practiced upon him by his own countrymen or other foreign-born persons who preceded him hither, by the police and other local officials (to him the embodiment of government), by landlord or employer or others in more prosperous circumstances, every hour of unemployment and privation, every enforced separation from his family, every disillusioning experience, contributes just so much to his readiness of mind to accept the “Red” teachings and promises. Revolution finds no hospitality in contented minds. Injustice, real or fancied, is, in the last analysis, the only agitator we have to combat.
Every particle of information coming to the Americanization Study on the subject of the mental attitude of the immigrant of any race in America confirms the fact which ought to be obvious as a matter of ordinary common sense: that the opportunity to work, at fair wages, under anything like decent conditions of home and social surroundings, and from that work to gain a place to live, the means of maintaining and supporting a family and making a reasonably comfortable and happy home, establishing a real stake in the community, assures the making of a good citizen and a well-meaning voter, a valuable active member in our body politic.
[XIII]
SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
The one thing that emerges most clearly in the results of this or any other candid study of the naturalization and political activity of the foreign-born citizen of the United States is that admission to active membership in our political society should be based upon the personal qualifications of the individual.
No sound basis is disclosed for discrimination on the ground of race or color, religious beliefs or political predilection. Even the statutory bar against belief in anarchism or polygamy is obviously ineffectual, because the anarchist theory per se involves, if not virtual atheism, at least repudiation of government and a disbelief in the sanctity of an oath. And a declaration of disbelief in polygamy, so far as it may be assumed to imply anything concerning personal morality, conveys no assurance of chastity in any sense of the word. Furthermore, what is the practical use of inquiring into a person’s beliefs to-day, when there can be no guaranty as to what they will be to-morrow?
The educational test assures no safety as to character. The ability to speak, read, and write English or any other language, intelligence and general or even exact information as to our form of government and the “high spots” of American history, are little in the way of assurance of loyalty or usefulness as a citizen. The most noxious propagandist that we could import or admit to citizenship could pass the most rigid intellectual test. During the debate on the naturalization law in the House of Representatives in June, 1906,[177] Representative Steenerson of Minnesota said:
... The qualifications that we have required of people in the past who intend to become citizens is that they be men of good moral character and that they are attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States.... They may be men of good moral character and attached to the principles of the Constitution, and yet be unable to comply with this requirement. Ability to write the English language.... If, for instance, an elderly man like President Fallières of France should decide to emigrate to the United States, he cannot be naturalized, because in all probability he would not be able to learn the English language within five years; whereas Count Boni de Castellane, who has undoubtedly had opportunities in the past ten years of learning the English language, could be naturalized, because he could speak and write English....
It is not from the immigrants who come here to settle on our public domain, who come here to abide permanently and to build homes and raise families, that we may expect frauds upon our election laws or danger to our free institutions. Such immigrants should not be denied citizenship because of inability to speak and write English. They may, notwithstanding, be as loyal and as patriotic as any. Nothing has been shown that connects inability to speak English with any of the evils complained of. There is no relation of cause and effect between them. The frauds and perjury against naturalization laws were committed by persons proficient in English.
One of the naturalizing judges in Kansas, long familiar with the workings of the law, said in his answer to the questionnaire of the Americanization Study:
My judgment is that this government has occasion for greater fear from many of the educated foreigners than from the uneducated foreigner. More stress should be placed upon the character of the man and his loyalty to this government, and his willingness to abide by its laws and uphold its Constitution than upon his mere educational qualifications. My observation has led me to conclude that one of the chief difficulties with the administration of our naturalization laws is that the Department seems inclined to apply to all foreigners the same test; whether the applicant has been a resident of the community for twenty-five years, leading an exemplary life, upholding all the institutions, interested in all the efforts to upbuild the state physically, mentally, and morally, or whether he be a unit in the slum hordes of the city. The Department seems to have conceived it to be its duty to force all of them into the same strait-jacket.... I have in mind cases where the Department has endeavored to withhold citizenship on the merest technicality from men who for years have been our best citizens, thoroughly loyal and devoted to the best interests of the state. We seem to have gone upon the theory that the educated foreigner, by reason of his education alone, will necessarily be a good citizen, and that the ignorant foreigner is necessarily an undesirable citizen.
An educational test, such as that to which petitioners for naturalization are subjected by some judges and some naturalization examiners, applied at the ballot box to all who would vote, would wreak havoc upon the enrollment of both native and naturalized. It is safe to say that not one out of a hundred of native-born citizens, even college educated, could pass respectably the examination. A very small proportion of American-born citizens of any age or of either sex have read the Constitution of the United States or have even a superficial knowledge of its contents. The present writer has derived some amusement during his conduct of this investigation from asking of more than ordinarily intelligent acquaintances some of the questions to which applicants for naturalization have to respond in various courts. The ignorance of even fundamental matters displayed by these scions of the “old stock” has been almost invariably both ludicrous and lamentable.
One of the questions which the Americanization Study asked of the naturalization judges was whether they would favor a standard intellectual test for both native and foreign born as a prerequisite for admission to the ballot box. Of 326 judges who answered the question a substantial majority (180) answered, “Yes,” and 44 were not sure but that it would be a good thing. The best answer that the 102 who opposed the idea could make was valid enough—i.e., that the native born have had 21 years of residence in the atmosphere of American institutions, and may be assumed to have a general intellectual fitness. The other objections were legalistic; but they all came out to the same fact—that fitness for citizenship and the ballot is a question of personal character and general attitude toward the public welfare.
At first glance it might seem simple enough to devise an oral or written examination by which to test the individual equipment of an applicant for citizenship—or a native-born citizen seeking access to the ballot box; actually it is impracticable. A set of questions would permit memorizing and recital by rote; to leave it as at present to the wit of the examiner or the judge means that no two applicants will be subjected to the same test. The naturalization judges say frankly that they cannot outline an examination, though they think that somebody might!
The Merchants’ Association of New York appointed a committee on immigration and naturalization which gave considerable study to this subject, and came out where everybody else comes out:
In recommending that unnecessary obstructions and technical difficulties be eliminated from naturalization procedure your committee does not believe qualifications for citizenship should be lowered. On the contrary, it believes they should be raised. In addition to present requirements concerning residence and moral character there should be an educational qualification requiring proficiency in English and reasonable familiarity with our history and government. Your committee will not attempt to enumerate the details of such requirement, but recommends that a suitable and well-defined educational standard for citizenship be fixed by statute.
Every applicant for citizenship—including the wives who now are swept in regardless of their own fitness by the naturalization of their husbands, or kept out by their rejection or failure to apply, should be considered in the light of his own personal character and record of behavior during the preliminary-period residence here. And character and behavior should be proved as any other material facts are proved—by preponderance of evidence. The present practice is quite otherwise. The whole procedure would be revolutionized if the applicant were required, or permitted, to produce a body of reasonable and competent evidence sufficient to convince the court or its representative assigned to take the testimony. His neighbors, his employer, his pastor, the school-teacher, his fellow workmen, by word of mouth or affidavit—in short, all those who know what sort of person he (or she) has been during the five years of required residence—could readily satisfy the court as to the essential fact. The judges themselves in most cases would welcome this change. As it is now, the whole business is wound up with red tape, and thousands of persons have been excluded on the flimsiest technical grounds, simply because the evidence presented to the court must be, in the typical case, that of two witnesses, only two, and the same two throughout the whole proceeding. If anything can be found amiss with these or either of them, the application must be rejected.
It may even be argued that the presumptions and the benefit of doubts should be in favor of the applicant; that the burden of proof should lie upon those who oppose admission. During the whole period, 1908–18, in the whole United States only 14.3 per cent of all denials of petitions for naturalization were for reasons involving the personal fitness of the applicant—“ignorance” and “immoral character.”[178] This means that if every alien who applied for citizenship during those eleven years had been granted his certificate of naturalization without investigation or formality, the proportion of “ignorant” and “immoral” admitted would have been only 1.7 per cent—less than two in a hundred!
Whatever might have been the merits, real or imaginary, of the hairsplitting, meticulous policy which has governed the operations of our naturalization system since the Act of 1906 swept into ancient history the scandals of the previous years, that policy was effectively junked during the war. Since the beginning of the fiscal year, 1918–19, under the operation of the military naturalization plan, more aliens have been naturalized on the sole ground that they were in the war service—practically without regard to race, declaration of intention, previous residence, educational or moral qualifications—than the ordinary naturalization of any year since the beginning of the present system. These are direct admissions; we have no means of knowing how many “derivative” citizens these soldiers and sailors carried in with them, or have made by marriage to alien women since their naturalization.
This wholesale letting down of all the bars, however necessary and innocuous it may be deemed, at least has reduced to absurdity the policy of hand picking and superscreening practiced in the ordinary cases. It furnishes a sound and logical starting point for a new, more reasonable, and more humane system, under which the alien may know with greater certainty what he must do and prove in order to establish his right to join us; a system which will give him a different impression of our common sense and efficiency, as well as of our attitude toward him not only as a petitioner for fellow citizenship with us, but as a fellow member of the human race.