Straight America, a call to national service

by Frances Kellor

We are still stunned by the realization that we are not in a position to grapple intelligently, instantly, and decisively with situations in our own country. Trinidad and Mexico have driven this lesson home. Our national method of dealing with hyphenism and its activities indicates little comprehension of its real roots. We now know also that we are not in a position to participate disinterestedly and courageously in the international adjustments that will take place at the close of the war. We suspect that the “peace ship” illustrated American capacity. Its founder’s victory in the presidential primary exposes our capacity for caprice in a nation’s crisis. We talk about fighting humanity’s battles when we have done none of the things that qualify us for such championship. We but dimly realize that a united, not a divided, nation must enter the lists. We talk about upholding the President’s hands, but we now know that we did in truth elect a minority President in 1912, and it is no great task to promise to uphold him. It is lip service to which we have long been accustomed.

The war has revealed to us the biting truth that we have one body of people on the coast line realizing the need of protection and another in the interior feeling quite safe at this distance. We see a conglomeration of colonies and ghettos and immigrant sections in our large cities, and the country dotted with settlements quite as un-American as anything to be found abroad. We face the fact that America is not first in the hearts of every resident, that not every man works for America, and that not every man trusts her present or believes in her future. This is still the land of promise for the “bird of passage” who exploits us, and whom we pluck in return.

Thanks to the war, we have been freed from the delusion that we are a united nation marching steadily along an American highway of peace, prosperity, common ideals, beliefs, language, and purpose. Security and prosperity have blinded us to the fact that we do not all speak the same language nor follow the same flag. We have marveled at the revelation that our own native-born sons and daughters of foreign-born parents could justify the Lusitania and defend the invasion of Belgium, and we have let it go at that, not realizing what the acceptance of this portends for future America. America has neglected, even forgotten, its task of making Americans of the people that have come to its shores. Men may be workmen and voters and taxpayers and bosses, but the final question for this nation to answer is—are they loyal American citizens?

In our quest for nationalism, we stand aghast at the task before us. About one seventh of our population is foreign born, and about one third is of foreign-born or mixed parentage. It is no small assimilative task to preserve the best in the traditions, beliefs, standards, and points of view of these peoples for the strengthening of America, and to give them enough of America’s ideals to make them strong citizens of a democratic country. Mr. Carl Snyder is authority for the statement that one half of all the aliens that have come to America are still alive. Despite the volumes written on the subject, we do not yet know whether this is a good or bad thing for America. The test has not yet been applied. The war is giving us a breathing spell to find out and to define a policy which will insure Americanism. In the absence of any constructive policy or clear national purpose we can predict little for the future. This we do know, that every government but our own has a national purpose which it is carrying out in America with its own subjects—naturalized or alien—through its representatives and agents, its publications, institutions, and business interests. America alone in its own territory has a negative procedure and is without a policy. We are concerned chiefly with those we can keep out or send back. Once an alien is admitted there is no system of protection, distribution, and assimilation; no specific inducements to citizenship; no encouragement to acquire a home stake in America. Sectional and specific interests compete for what the immigrant has to offer; the parent government keeps an eye on the new arrival and helps him in distress. The Federal government alone remains silent and indifferent.

It is true we have the beginning of such a system in several departments. It is encouraging that the Bureau of Naturalization has changed its attitude and is now being of some service to aliens who have applied for citizenship. For the many years of its existence, prior to 1915, this Bureau had not in any way encouraged or urged educational assistance for the prospective citizen. There is in the Bureau of Education a Division of Immigrant Education which for the past two years has been carrying on important educational work among immigrants. The educational work of these bureaus does not receive adequate support or authority and has not so far been considered as an essential part of real preparedness. The vision and faith and effort of these officials is not part of any strong defined policy; it is not coördinated with the government’s larger activities and could be wiped out to-morrow by a single order. It is makeshift, not policy.

This country is alive to the inadequacy of its army and navy. It has a glimmering that even the strengthening of these may not entirely protect its interests. If we may judge from the record of Congress and the press reports of the activities of our citizens to date, there appears, however, to be but the smallest comprehension of the slack that must be taken up throughout this nation; of the discipline, self-sacrifice, and spirit of service that each one of us must acquire; and of the need of organization along national lines that American institutions will require to be prepared to even maintain peace.

After many months of the European war, official America still finds its chief slogan to be “Safety first” and “Made in America.” Toward nationalizing its transportation lines, toward bringing all ports under Federal control, toward national citizenship training, toward educational unification and industrial preparedness the nation has made little progress. We are still dealing with ships and guns and ammunition, taking little thought of the questions of unity which will make a nation effective behind these defenses. We still quibble over whether we are for universal training or uniform service. We cannot federalize the militia or abandon useless army posts because it will offend some sectional interest that controls votes in the next election. This narrow conception of preparedness is the despair of thinking America. It is the doom of national unity.

In considering the hyphenated American, it is not so much that we question his ultimate loyalty. It is that we question his understanding and ability to act in an intelligent, organized way on behalf of America. It is that we do not know what influences may control his action though his heart and interest may be with America. The question for America to answer is whether we can create a united nation in both spirit and efficiency in the short time remaining before we have to deal with new questions arising after the war. We face the humiliating truth that for any immediate conflict this cannot be done, that we must take the risk and, if need be, weld our many peoples together on the firing line. Will the American desert his forum for the training camp; and the platform for inconspicuous field action? Will he erase his name from committees and memorials and petitions and throw away the press notices with his name in them for the toil and sweat of industrial mobilizing? Will the American woman stop making bandages and joining organizations and put the immigrant family on her calling list and send the illiterate adult to school and help to make English the common language of America? Can the Federal administration abandon its involved correspondence and political fences long enough to consider what the real preparedness of any nation comprises? A body of the best railway men in the country was asked some months ago to assist the government in railway preparedness and is still awaiting instructions. The Naval Consulting Board, representing the best brains in the country yet called together for industrial preparedness, pays its own bills, largely because of our national lack of vision and the “Pork barrel” methods of Congress.

In the growing demand for a more united America it is apparent that America needs a national spirit which shall combine reverence and service; a national consciousness which shall be willing to give as well as to receive benefits and to put something into politics as well as take something out; an ideal, which shall make every resident give something of his interest, service, time, and money voluntarily to America without waiting for conscription and without quibbling over “rights,” “emergencies,” “time of need,” or “obligations of business.”

The practical questions before America are how to become Americanized and how to stay Americanized. The answer to the first question comprehends all measures of preparedness adapted to our present needs. The answer to the second question comprehends America’s policy after the war.