The Communist party, into which to a considerable extent went the extremists from the older movements when the effects of the war brought division to their ranks and made it impossible for moderate and ultraradical to abide under the same roof, at first became a nucleus for the spread of the extreme form of Communist doctrine. It embodies the essentials of the platform of the Third Internationale. The ruthless suppression of this organization by the public authorities may well prevent its having any but a fugitive life. The I. W. W., too, seems, for the time being, at least, to be under effective handicap. But whether these, or either of them, survive or perish, or whatever other organization may be the residuary legatee of their existence, the fact remains, and it is a most important fact from the point of view of this Study, that such movements have no room under their ægis for what Americans understand as political action. They seek revolutionary change not only in the form, but in the nature of government—would, in fact, abolish all government as we know it, and substitute the “dictatorship of the proletariat” as it exists—or has been supposed to exist—in Russia. Their theory has no use for our present parliamentary methods, for representative government in our understanding of the word; they scoff at and would utterly destroy what we mean by Democracy. They would not leave a recognizable vestige of our Constitution, our courts, our legislatures. They would provide no political function for the voting citizen as we visualize him. And—what is most important—they would bring about these basic changes by compulsion. The ballot box has no substantial place in their program.
Such propaganda, such programs, appeal only to those who have and who, however mistakenly, believe they can have, no stake in our present civilization. To such as these, citizenship in the sense in which we have here discussed it has no meaning; the “America” which has been built up, by native and foreign born together, since the landing of the Pilgrims, arouses no enthusiasm.
It is not surprising that such movements as the I. W. W. and the Communist parties appeal to the wandering, homeless folk of any race. And when their propaganda tells such folk (as it does) that the actual fruit of their labor is a product of sixty dollars a day, and that the difference between that figure and what they receive is the measure of what the capitalist class is appropriating, it is small wonder that the ignorant and reckless, without attachment to any home or land, smarting under concrete conditions about whose reality—whoever may be to blame for them—there can be no dispute, follow such leadership and look to it to bring them into better conditions.
From the moment of his arrival in this country, every hardship that the immigrant of any race suffers, every injustice practiced upon him by his own countrymen or other foreign-born persons who preceded him hither, by the police and other local officials (to him the embodiment of government), by landlord or employer or others in more prosperous circumstances, every hour of unemployment and privation, every enforced separation from his family, every disillusioning experience, contributes just so much to his readiness of mind to accept the “Red” teachings and promises. Revolution finds no hospitality in contented minds. Injustice, real or fancied, is, in the last analysis, the only agitator we have to combat.
Every particle of information coming to the Americanization Study on the subject of the mental attitude of the immigrant of any race in America confirms the fact which ought to be obvious as a matter of ordinary common sense: that the opportunity to work, at fair wages, under anything like decent conditions of home and social surroundings, and from that work to gain a place to live, the means of maintaining and supporting a family and making a reasonably comfortable and happy home, establishing a real stake in the community, assures the making of a good citizen and a well-meaning voter, a valuable active member in our body politic.
[XIII]
SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS
The one thing that emerges most clearly in the results of this or any other candid study of the naturalization and political activity of the foreign-born citizen of the United States is that admission to active membership in our political society should be based upon the personal qualifications of the individual.