It is the hopeless old story of opposing races, of people unable to understand one another because they have no mutual standards, no common denominator. Mary Antin is perfectly sincere, and, from her point of view, justified, in bidding us remember that among the Harrison Avenue tenants, “who pitch rubbish through their windows,” was the grocer whose kindness helped to keep her at school. And she adds with sublime because unconscious egotism, “Let the City Fathers strike the balance.” But Elizabeth Robins Pennell is also sincere, and, from her point of view, justified, when she says with exceeding bitterness that, if Philadelphia blossomed like the rose with Mary Antins, the city would be but ill repaid for the degradation of her noble old streets, now transformed into foul and filthy slums. Dirt is a valuable asset in the immigrant’s hands. With its help he drives away decent neighbours, and brings property down to his level and his purse. The ill-fated Philadelphian is literally pushed out of his home—the only place, sighs Mrs. Pennell, where he wants to live—by conditions which he is unable to avert, and unwilling, as well as unfitted, to endure.
It is part of the unreality of modern sentimentalism that we should have a strong sense of duty toward all the nations of the world except our own. We see plainly what we owe to the Magyar and the Levantine, but we have no concern for the Virginian or the Pennsylvanian. The capitalist and the sentimentalist play into each other’s hands, and neither takes thought of our country’s irrational present and imperilled future. We go on keeping a “civic kindergarten” for backward aliens, and we go on mutely suffering reproach for not advancing our pupils more rapidly. In the industrial town of New Britain, Connecticut, the foreign population is nine times greater than the native population, which is a hideous thing to contemplate. Twenty nationalities are represented, eighteen languages are spoken. The handful of Americans, who are supposed to leaven this heavy and heterogeneous mass, take their duties very seriously. Schools, playgrounds, clubs, night-classes, vacation classes, gymnasiums, visiting nurses, milk-stations, charitable organizations, a city mission with numerous interpreters, a free library with books and newspapers in divers tongues, all the leavening machinery is kept in active service for the hard task of civic betterment. Yet it was in New Britain that an immigrant was found who, after sixteen years’ residence in the United States, was not aware that he might, if he chose, become a citizen; and this incident, Mary Antin considers a heavy indictment against the community. “It makes a sensitive American,” she writes passionately, “choke with indignation.”
It makes an exasperated American choke with angry laughter to have the case put that way. The ballot is not necessary to safe, decent, and prosperous living. A good many millions of women have made shift to live safely, decently, and prosperously without it. If it is to be regarded as an asset to the immigrant, then his own friends, his own people, the voters of his own race, might (in the welcome absence of political bosses) be the ones to press it upon his acceptance. If it be considered as a safeguard for the Republic, we cannot but feel that this highly intelligent alien might be spared permanently from the electorate.
For the first nine months of the war, when Italy’s neutrality swayed in the conflicting currents of national pride and national precaution, and no one could foretell what the end would be, a young Italian gardener, employed near Philadelphia, suffered dismal doubts concerning the expediency of naturalization. He was a frugal person, devoid of high political instincts. He did not covet a vote to sell, and he did not want to pay the modest cost of becoming an American citizen. He preferred keeping his money and staying what he was, provided always that Italy remained at peace. But the prospect of Italy’s going to war disposed him to look favourably upon the safeguard of a foreign allegiance. Being unable to decipher the newspapers, he made anxious inquiries every morning. If the headlines read, “Italy unlikely to abandon attitude of neutrality,” he settled down contentedly to his day’s work. If the headlines read, “Austria refuses guarantee. Italy sending troops to northern frontier,” he became once more a prey to indecision. Then came the May days when doubt was turned to certainty. Italy, long straining at the leash, plunged into the conflict. Thousands of Italians in the United States stood ready to fight for their country, to give back to her, if need be, the lives which they might have held safe. But one peace-loving gardener hurried to Philadelphia, applied for his naturalization papers, failed utterly to pass the casual tests which would have secured them, grew frightened and demoralized by failure, appealed desperately to his employer, and, with a little timely aid, was pitched shivering into citizenship.
If ever there comes a cloud between the United States and Italy, this doughty “Italian-American” will, I am sure, be found fighting with “weapons of the spirit” for the welfare of his adored and endangered “Fatherland.”
Waiting
In the most esteemed of his advisory poems, Mr. Longfellow recommends his readers to be “up and doing,” and at the same time learn “to labour and to wait.” Having, all of us, imbibed these sentiments in their harmonious setting when we were at school, we have, all of us, endeavoured for many months to put such conflicting precepts into practice. Mr. Longfellow, it will be remembered, gave precedence to his “up and doing” line; but this may have been due to the exigencies of verse. We began by waiting, and we waited long. Our deliberation has seemed to border on paralysis. But back of this superhuman patience—rewarded by repeated insult and repeated injury—was a toughening resolution which snatched from insult and injury the bitter fruit of knowledge. We are emerging from this period of suspense a sadder and a wiser people, keenly aware of dangers which, a year ago, seemed negligible, fully determined to front such dangers with courage and with understanding.
When Germany struck her first blow at Belgium, the neutral nations silently acquiesced in this breach of good faith. The burning of Louvain, the destruction of the Cathedral of Rheims, were but the first fruits of this sinister silence. The sinking of the Lusitania followed in the orderly sequence of events. It was a deliberate expression of defiance and contempt, a gauntlet thrown to the world. The lives it cost, the innocence and helplessness of the drowned passengers, their number and their nationalities, all combined to make this novelty in warfare exactly what Germany meant it to be. We Americans had tried (and it had been hard work) to bear tranquilly the misfortunes of others. Now let us apply our philosophy to ourselves. Herr Erich von Salzmann voiced the sentiment of his countrymen when he said in the Berlin “Lokal Anzeiger”:—
“The Lusitania is no more. Only those who have travelled by sea can appreciate the extraordinary impression which this news will make all over the world.... The fact that it was we Germans who destroyed this ship must make us proud of ourselves. The Lusitania case will obtain for us more respect than a hundred battles won on land.”
The severing of fear from respect is a subtlety which has not penetrated the mind of the Prussian. He recognizes no such distinction, because his doctrine of efficiency embraces the doctrine of frightfulness. His Kultur is free from any ethical bias. The fact that we may greatly fear lust, cruelty, and other forms of violence, without in the least respecting these qualities, has no significance for him. He frankly does not care. If he can teach the French, the English, or the Americans to fear him in 1916, as he taught the Chinese to fear him in 1900, and by the same methods, he will be well content.