Catholic Problems in Western Canada

by George Thomas Daly

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.