On the Trail of the Immigrant

by Edward Alfred Steiner

The German immigrant invariably has a good common-school education, although not always possessed of culture, and, if he has it, he does not find much of it among those with whom his lot is cast. A young chemist whom I met grew so despondent at the sight of his German boarding-house, and at the lack of manners among the boarders that he returned to Germany two weeks after he landed. Not many such young men come, and few of such who come succeed, for the “hustle and bustle,” the common tasks to be performed, and the common people whom they must meet as equals, repel them. The weaning from aristocratic notions, the being thrown into the hopper without being asked, “Who are you, and who are your parents?” are painful processes, and only the fit survive. Although the process is slow, it is sure. A young man who has come to this country to study our way of doing business was employed in a large department store in Chicago as a bundle-boy. At first he politely addressed the elevator man thus: “Vill you blease let me off on de second floor?” but within two months he said imperatively, “Second”; and he was on the road towards complete Americanization.

The city of Milwaukee is probably the most German city in the United States, although nothing in its business or residence portion suggests the Germany across the sea and, with sixty per cent. of its population German, it has not impressed upon the city the best things which we usually associate with that nationality. The intellectual life of its people does not receive that stimulus which one might expect; and whatever German culture there is outside of the ever-diminishing circle of the “forty-eighters” has been transplanted by Americans who have travelled and studied in the Fatherland. The few Germans who try to bring the Germany of America in touch with its glorious heritage across the sea, usually fail most miserably. The cry I most often heard from them was, “The idealists are dead, and the dollar reigns supreme.”

With a few exceptions, neither the German stage nor the German newspaper has been able to keep alive that intellectual spirit; and, as a rule, the German population falls below the American in its desire to keep in touch with the intellectual life of Germany. “We have two kinds of Germans in Milwaukee: soul Germans and stomach Germans, and the latter are in the vast majority,” said a keen observer; and it does seem that the national spirit rallies around social usages rather than around the things which make Germany a world power in the noblest sense. The editors upon whom I called were all intent upon telling me how great their papers were and how many subscribers they had, and I could not go beyond the business point with any of them, although I wasted two hours upon one, trying to get a glimpse of his German soul; but if I saw it at all, it had the American dollar-mark written all over it. Upon the social side the German is abnormally developed, and to be a “good fellow” is to him a high ideal. He usually belongs to numberless lodges and societies, in few of which he receives any intellectual stimulus. He retains his convivial habits and frequents the saloon, but is seldom intemperate, although the American treating habit often works havoc with his frugality.

That I have not misjudged the situation is proved by the fact that similar conclusions have been reached by eminent German scholars who have recently visited the United States.

Prof. K. Lamprecht, of the University of Leipsic, who has recently published his notes under the title “Americana,” says: “Have the Germans done much besides having a large share in making the soil tillable? A visit to the great cities such as Chicago and Milwaukee compels to the sad answer, no.

“The Germans, capable as they are, in their separate and narrower activities have not held together and have been overcome by others; overcome to the degree that they still make the stupid “Dutchman” the target for their jokes. One need only to see the part he plays in the American farce to be convinced of this. He is the man who is always too late, who always wants much and at last gets but little, and who in spite of the fact that he is portrayed as good natured, is laughed at. This caricature tells some truth and is the product of some observation.

“Intellectually he does not stand very high; (the Negro also learns reading and writing), but in intense thinking he is outdistanced by the Englishman and presumably by the Slav also.

“Whoever has visited the beer gardens of Milwaukee, especially the unfortunate Pabst Park, that pattern of stupidity, must say to himself that a people which enjoys such things as are here offered, is not capable of intellectual competition in America. “Still sadder is the lack of political discernment. One need not speak of the corrupt condition of American politics. If the Germans had really had the desire they could greatly have improved the political morals of the United States. That they did not use their opportunity is due largely to the fact that when the early German immigrants came to us, their country was not politically ripe; nevertheless they may be accused of not having kept pace with the citizens of the mother country, who, under more difficult conditions have reached a very high political development. The common people from whom our immigrants sprang, now have large powers in directing the political well-being of the Fatherland under less favourable conditions. This is also true in regard to the German intellectual development with which the German-American has not kept in touch and to which he is now very slowly awaking.”

Another thing which this vast German population has failed to impress upon our cities is the love of law and order which characterizes it in its native home, and almost without exception it stands arrayed against any attempt to curtail the privileges of the saloon; while lawmakers, and officials, are usually kept from enforcing existing laws by their fear of the German vote. One of the Milwaukee beer-brewers with whom I talked in regard to his influence upon local politics naively said: “No, we have no influence upon politics at all, but if a sheriff or a judge should try to enforce laws against our saloons, he would simply lose his head.” The fact is that a certain phase of municipal life is completely controlled by the brewing interest in nearly every city where the German element plays a political part, and that element always rallies to the support and defence of the brewers. It is a strange but general experience that the German immigrant is immediately arrayed against the temperance element; this is due in no small measure to the facts that his first lodging-place is usually connected with a saloon; that the German newspaper almost always ridicules temperance effort and misinterprets the motives of its leaders, and, lastly, that designing politicians make their slogan, “personal liberty,” synonymous with “beer at any time and anywhere.” Only very recently a large portion of the German population of Chicago was the leading element in a mass-meeting in which over ten thousand people took part, demanding the granting of special licenses to dance-halls; a precedent which would be as illegal, as dangerous.

Nevertheless, the German is a law-abiding citizen, although he has never been convinced that temperance laws are either wise or just; and that, in spite of the fact that his own Fatherland is making strenuous efforts in that direction, and that temperance societies are coming to be as numerous in Germany as they are in America, but much more sensible in their agitation than with us. The average German comes, willing enough to obey all the laws, and, if he has proper environment, develops quickly into the best kind of citizen.