Your vote and how to use it

by Gertrude Foster Brown

Night Schools are sometimes provided, but there are many localities still without them; and, after all, it is difficult for a man who has been at manual labor all day to study at night. They are most successful when they are made interesting with stories and games. Experiments have been made with classes held from five to seven o’clock in the afternoon in the factory buildings, and employers often welcome them.

Neighborhood Classes for Women are being held in the afternoon in some localities. In this case the babies must be included. Provision is made for them in a separate room with a nurse or kindergartner to take charge of them. The best lessons for the mothers are not found in books, but are based on the interests connected with their daily lives and their domestic duties. Paper patterns and a lesson in how to make garments for her baby will chain her attention, and the English names of articles used will be learned unconsciously. “Playing store” with the articles she depends on to feed her family will fascinate her and teach her more practical English.

The immigrant woman is often keen to learn American ways and customs. She is eager to know how to take better care of her family. When the public schools of New York City give away pamphlets about economical cooking, the call for them from the mothers of the pupils is so great that the supply is soon exhausted.

The need for some special help for the foreign woman was never as great as it is to-day. There are about four hundred thousand of them in New York State who have become citizens because their husbands are citizens. They are going to vote. Many of them cannot speak English. In the course of time the law providing that a woman shall take the citizenship of her husband without qualifying for it herself, may be changed, but meanwhile these women are voters. They need help and education, and for the protection of the State the community must give it to them.

Home Teaching of women in the tenements as part of the regular school system is being tried in California. Teachers are sent into the homes to show by practical demonstration economical cooking, how to improve sanitary conditions, and to teach the mother how to care for her children.

Naturalization would do more to arouse a sense of responsibility in the alien if it were conferred with a ceremony which would appeal to the imagination. Many of the people who come to our shores come from countries where beauty and ceremonial are part of the national life. The process of naturalization, as conducted in many courts, is usually perfunctory and often sordid. If the courts are crowded, an applicant may have to come six or eight times with his witnesses, losing not only time, but being in danger of losing his job. He is often ignorant of the whole subject of government; he may know nothing of the questions involved in an election, but there is rarely an effort made to teach him anything of American ideals. The political club that wants his vote is the only thing connected with government that pays any attention to him, or offers him help. Often he finds that his vote has a market value. So the ballot, the symbol of freedom and self-government, becomes to him only a bit of graft. Definite standards of citizenship that apply to all alike, better tests of their knowledge of English and of our government, would help to impress on aliens the meaning of the oath of allegiance.

Uniform Naturalization Laws: In New York State an alien has to wait five years to become a citizen with a vote. In Nebraska, a Turk or a Greek or an Armenian who landed six months before, if he has taken out his citizenship papers, is permitted to vote, although he may have no educational qualifications of any kind, and know no English nor anything about our government. In seven other States a man can vote simply by declaring his intention of becoming a citizen.

Ignorance of Laws: Besides the lack of provision for learning the duties of citizenship, there is little opportunity for the immigrant either to become familiar with our laws or to learn respect for the law. He gets his knowledge of the vote from the ward boss, and he learns contempt for the law when he sees the curtains of the saloons pulled down in front, and the back door open. As he sees the constant disregard for law all around him, liberty becomes license in his mind. Then as he prospers and grows well-to-do, building laws, factory inspection, fire protection, and other attempts at government regulations, often seem to him restrictions which are to be evaded as much as possible.

Sweatshops and the padrone system are to his mind part of the American system for getting rich. In taking advantage of them for his own profit he feels that he is only following the custom of the country. A contempt for law and opposition to any attempt of the law to interfere with what he considers his rights are the natural results.

The study of civics[10] in the public schools should begin not in the high schools and colleges, but in the lower grades. A majority of children leave school before they reach the grammar school. A practical course in government may be made simple and interesting even for them.