CHAPTER X
THE WILL TO NATIONAL UNITY
Thinking America is to-day in a mood of sober exaltation. Gone is the naïve popular optimism of former times. Gone, likewise, are the dark forebodings of reflective minds before 1914, and the dread alarms which beset us during the war and post-war periods. The American people to-day stands, chastened by a realization of past errors and present difficulties, yet inspired by a further realization that it has found the way to a splendid future. The road before us may be long, but the eye can already glimpse the goal of national security upon the far horizon.
Every true American knows that to insure those blessings of peace, prosperity, and progress which are the fruits of national security, he must work for the attainment of national unity. Wherefore, the American people to-day displays a firm
will to unity that will endure. The task which we have set ourselves may take generations; yet it can, and will, be done. For, to paraphrase an old-time jingle: "We
know where we're going—and we're
on our way!"
The "Great Awakening" which came with the Great War has aroused a profound longing for national unity in American minds and hearts—not merely political unity in the formal sense, but even more that solidarity of ideals and culture which are the necessary foundations for real and lasting political stability. As President Coolidge well says: "We have a great desire to be supremely American." And the President significantly continues: "That purpose we know we can accomplish by continuing the process which has made us Americans. We must search out and think the thoughts of those who established our institutions."[54]
This is why Americans are "thinking historically" so much more than they used to. In the days of naïve optimism, Americans took the permanence of their ideals and institutions almost as much for granted as they did the sunshine and the air they breathed. But, realizing as they now do that their national heritage is not automatically secure, the American people are studying their historic past and are discovering that its roots go back, far beyond even the achievement of nationhood in the Revolution, to the racial and cultural foundations of the early colonial period. America is, indeed, a stately growth, with roots striking deep through the centuries. Our America is not a half-formed thing, to be lightly made over at the behest of disgruntled critics; it is a stanch and vital creation, begotten of a picked breed, and nourished by the wisdom, courage, and self-sacrifice of many splendid generations.
"America" is not an area, a government, or a convenience; it is the cultural and spiritual birthright of all true Americans—past, present, and future. And we living Americans, who are its present guardians, are resolved to bequeath this birthright to our children. We know only too well that past errors have impaired the national heritage. But this makes us all the more determined to restore its former potency and to hand it on, improved, to the next generation, who will continue the great task.
Our historical survey has taught us the secret of national unity. That secret is:
like-mindedness in basic ideals and outlook—which, in turn, is due to basic similarity in temperament and blood. We know the reason why the like-mindedness of former times has given place to jarring discords and conflicting attitudes. That reason is: mass-immigration, prodigious in volume and increasingly "alien" in character. That, in the last analysis, is why our standards are to-day so demoralized and our culture is so distracted and confused. Yet, unhappy as is our present plight, the hopeful thing is that we have at last become keenly conscious of our cultural responsibilities. The American people is awake to the fact that, just as it has always stood ready to defend the national territory against the menace of armed invasion, so it must stand equally ready to defend the national culture, ideals, and institutions against the far more insidious menace of alien "peaceful penetration." That is why the gates of the Republic have been shut to mass-migration. And that is also why, despite possible temporary setbacks, the policy of restrictive, selective immigration has come to stay.
The closing of the gates has averted national ruin. It gives us the opportunity to stabilize our national life and to begin the re-forging of our national unity. But we should not underestimate the problems which confront us in the accomplishment of our task. Although the immigrant flood is now stopped, it has wrought havoc which the labor of generations can alone fully repair. Its effects have, of course, varied greatly with different regions. The South, the Far West, and much of the Middle West, have been almost untouched, and have thus remained almost purely American. Furthermore, the immigrant flood came in two sharply contrasted waves—the "Old" and the "New" Immigration, which produced correspondingly different results. The effect of the Old Immigration may be compared to a flood which leaves behind it a deposit of silt, temporarily disturbing yet soon incorporated into the original soil. The effect of the New Immigration, on the other hand, was that of a destructive torrent, bearing with it quantities of sand and gravel which will impoverish the soil for a very long time to come. Fortunately, its full force was confined to our Northeastern States; but that section will feel the effects for generations.
Bearing these facts in mind, let us examine more closely the difficulties which the immigrant elements of our population present to the attainment of America's national unity. As far back as the beginning of our national life, Thomas Jefferson put the thing in a nutshell when he declared that we must Americanize the immigrant, or the immigrant would "foreignize" us. And one of our leading scientists recently well summarized the problem when he wrote: "We had counted on America changing the foreigner instead of the foreigner changing America. The latter possibility is coming now to loom up in a portentous manner. No nation can be a great nation without a spirit of unity—a certain degree of like-mindedness among its people. It is desirable also that it contain much diversity, but it should be diversity on approximately the same level. An infiltration of a moderate number of people from other countries (not too unlike ours) is a wholesome influence in counteracting the tendency to fixity which is a natural proclivity of social groups. But carried too far, it would result in making a people a mere hodge-podge of heterogeneous elements."[55]
In our previous survey of the immigrant flood we emphasized the fundamental importance of the factors of
mass and
time, and we contrasted the difference between the gradual arrival of relatively small numbers of immigrants who dispersed among a large native American population, and the rapid influx of vast numbers of immigrants who settle in solid blocks and live almost entirely out of personal contact with real Americans. These factors of mass and time apply to all immigration, and account for the slow assimilation of certain "Old Immigrant" groups, like the German and Scandinavian population-blocks of Wisconsin and Minnesota, even though those groups are similar to us in blood and ideals, and are thus predisposed to Americanization—as is shown by the rapid assimilation of Germans and Scandinavians in other parts of the country, where they live among "American" surroundings.
Furthermore,
individuals, even of more distantly related European stocks, assimilate easily when they live among Americans and are anxious to identify themselves with their American neighbors. In America's early days a good many individual Italians, Poles, and other South and East Europeans reached our shores. These individuals were, however, usually persons of education and intelligence, who were able to understand their new surroundings and appreciate what America had to offer them in other than merely material ways. And, be it noted, such persons nearly always received a hospitable welcome. Despite what some disgruntled aliens assert, the fact remains that the American people has never shown a spirit of dislike for the foreigner
as such. What Americans
do dislike, and dislike most heartily, is the
alien—either the low-grade alien who disrupts our living-standards, or the aggressive alien who dislikes our ways and wants to change everything here to suit himself.
To illustrate this, we need cite only two out of many possible examples. Contrast the respective American attitudes toward North and South Italians, and toward Sephardic and East European Jews. The North Italians are mostly intelligent, high-grade folk, who try to Americanize themselves and who are well-liked everywhere. The bulk of the Southern Italians herd together in "Little Italies" and are looked down on as "Dagoes." The Sephardic Jews have been an asset to the community since colonial days, and never had to complain of any popular prejudice against them until the recent mass-immigration of Ashkenazim aroused a strong anti-Jewish feeling which most unjustly failed to discriminate between different sorts of Jews.
Throughout our early national life, when foreigners were few and when our culture and ideals were as yet intact, America showed a strong power of assimilation. Many prominent citizens of those days bore French, Dutch, or German names, while the names of others reveal a Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, or Slavic origin. Yet these men were all thoroughly "American" in their actions and outlook, and would unquestionably have been as indignant as any other Americans at the "hyphenism" and aggressive "alienism" which many immigrant groups to-day display.
As Brander Matthews well puts it: "This process of satisfactory assimilation persisted up to the middle of the nineteenth century. There were in the United States only a few compact settlements of immigrants from any one country; and most of the newcomers, no matter whence they came, were soon scattered in American communities. The various stocks intermarried; and whatever the parents, the children were Americans, often with little sentimental affection for the remote land from which their fathers had migrated .... Even where a given foreign element was numerically strong, the immigrant was likely to abandon his native language, and to speak by preference his acquired English .... These people had been subdued by what they lived in; and they were anxious to assert their solidarity with the older stock of Americans. They wanted to be like us; they accepted our traditions; they acquired our folk-ways; they shared our opinions and even our prejudices."[56]
On the other hand, even our early history reveals some instances of the stubborn persistence of "mass-alienage," where foreign groups retained nationalistic and cultural self-consciousness. Two striking examples are Louisiana and New Mexico. We annexed Louisiana in the year 1803, and New Mexico in 1848. Yet in neither case have we Americanized the original inhabitants. After a century and a quarter of American rule, the "Creoles" of New Orleans'
Vieux Carré and the "Cajuns" of the Bayou Parishes still speak French and frankly dislike American ways. As for the Spanish-speaking element in New Mexico, it is almost as "alien" to American culture and ideas as it was when we took over the country three-quarters of a century ago. These two long-standing failures of Americanization may give us useful hints as to what we are likely to encounter in efforts to assimilate some of the immigrant "colonies" which have established themselves so thickly and so firmly in various parts of our Northeastern States—particularly those of South and East European origin, which have practically no natural affinities with American life.
For let us frankly face the unpleasant truth: America's assimilative power has long been on the wane. Let us not deceive ourselves. For many, many years, the vast flood of variegated humanity which poured into America has not been really incorporated into the national life. Of course, great numbers of immigrants have been genuinely assimilated, and many of these new citizens have risen to an honored eminence which reflects their stanch Americanism and their high value to America. Yet such things, though encouraging, should not blind us to the ominous fact that "alienism," which in America's early days was exceptional, has become so wide-spread that to-day a majority of the recent immigrant stocks,
native-born as well as foreign-born, have not been genuinely assimilated, and are not "Americanized" save in a superficial, formal sense. For the past half-century, America has been suffering from a rapidly growing "hyphenism" and mass-alienage, and only our fatuous optimism kept us from seeing this until the Great War took us by the scruff of the neck and forced us to look the situation squarely in the face. Now that we see things as they are, let no "pollyanna" optimists delude us into playing the silly old game of drawing up lists of eminent New-Stock citizens and then jumping to the conclusion that millions outside those lists are equally "good Americans."
That is just plain
bunk. Every one who has honestly faced the facts knows that the immigrant masses which congest our industrial centres or have settled in blocks upon the land are, generally speaking, not "good Americans." They are still essentially "aliens," who are, for the most part, either indifferent or hostile to American ideals and institutions. America is to-day confronted with a "mass-alienage" which is not merely passive but which is becoming increasingly aggressive, and seeks, frankly and even exultantly, to attack the existing fabric of our national life. Furthermore, the reflex effect of this alienism has weakened the morale of many Old-Stock Americans, and has thereby still further lowered America's assimilative power. That is the plain, ugly truth of the matter; and all real Americans, Old Stock and New Stock, who love
our America, should close ranks and get together on a common policy and programme of action.
The problem of "mass-alienage" in its wider aspect has nowhere been better analyzed than in the writings of Mr. Gino Speranza—one of those New-Stock Americans whose whole-hearted patriotism is the most hopeful aspect of what is in many ways a dark situation. So excellent is his analysis that we would do well to consider it at first hand.
Mr. Speranza begins by emphasizing the shortsightedness of our fathers regarding wholesale immigration. "This nation," he writes, "in all the essentials of its Life and character, was grafted upon a historically definite and distinguishable North European or Anglo-Saxon stock. And upon that graft there was developed a definite and distinguishable racial type—the historic American people ....
"This does not mean that there is no room within the republic for peoples whose views, beliefs, and antecedents differ from those of the historic American stock. It does mean, however, that when, by the sheer weight of numbers, these peoples bear down too heavily with their cultural differences upon the structure of the democracy, they become a distinctly denationalizing element within the republic. It does mean that when, by combining and solidifying their unlikenesses and divergences from the American civilization, they attempt to impose their dissentient social and political ideas, ideals, and habits, they then become a distinctly disrupting element within the democracy. They are then political and cultural disturbing factors akin to those racial minorities which have threatened, and to-day still threaten, the life and peace of some of the states of Europe ....
"The effect of
mass, so obvious and impressive in nature, was not considered at all in its workings and consequences upon a distinct civilization and political system developed by a homogeneous people."[57] ...
Summarizing the alien situation by stating that "one out of every six whites in this country, today, is foreign-born and belongs to one of thirty different nationalities and has one of thirty different languages as his mother-tongue," Mr. Speranza draws the following trenchant conclusions: "It is no answer, and it has become distinctly misleading, to point to our Michael Pupins or our Edward Boks, as proof of the desirability of such alienage. The problem is a sociological one; it does not deal with
individuals, but with
masses; its concern is not with specific successes or specific failures, but with
general averages. Just as you cannot impute the vices and the crimes of a few immigrants to the racial group to which those few belong, neither can you attribute the virtues and the character of a few outstanding 'alien-Americans' to the immigrant stock of which they are a cultural part. The trouble is that New-Stock spokesmen and some Old-Stock 'liberals' recognize the law of averages when it comes to the good qualities of the immigrant; they vehemently deny it, or quietly 'side-step' it when his deficiencies are involved.
"It is, therefore, both the 'suddenness' and the massiveness (with the resulting coherence and aggressiveness) of our immigrant-alienage, which
threaten seriously to modify our whole social structure. And they threaten it, not because of any inherent inferiority or superiority, but because that cohering mass is a mass of social and moral views, customs, ideals, and 'ways'
different in varying degrees, from those of the American people."[58]
This illuminating survey of mass-alienage enables us to appreciate another matter that must be carefully borne in mind—the fact that the alienage which America confronts is not a temporary but a
continuing alienage, which threatens to persist for generations. We usually identify alienage with the immigrant, and thus think of alienism solely in terms of "hyphenism"—a preference for the "old country" over America. But, as a matter of fact, that is only the beginning of the difficulty. Of course, many children of immigrants are likewise hyphenates, especially those reared in the larger immigrant "colonies." Yet a much larger number of immigrant children are plainly not hyphenates, since they break away from their parents' view-point and scornfully reject the ancestral language, culture, and ideals as "old stuff." But this, in itself,
does not make them Americans. All too frequently it makes them mere nondescripts, with no ideals, standards, or culture of any kind.
And, be it noted: these unfortunate nondescripts are just the ones who are apt to be not merely
un-American but bitterly
anti-American. The reason for this is clear. The nondescript regards America's ideals and culture, like those of his ancestors, as so much "old stuff." Wherefore, our moral standards and social controls irk him, and make him restless and dissatisfied. For, why should he respect duties and disciplines which we cherish but which to him are meaningless and foreign? And why should he not instinctively dislike these foreign ways and institutions, and try to break them down in order to remould America according to his desires?
That is the question which will confront America long after the present immigrants have died and "hyphenism" (in its true sense) has shrunk to minor proportions. Not the foreign-born hyphenate, but the native-born nondescript, is the real concern of the future. A few keen-sighted observers have already glimpsed this, and somebody has collectively termed our alien nondescripts "The New American." That description is of course much too flattering. A more accurate term would be "The Nothing-in-Particular." However, since that would be a cumbersome phrase, let us employ the term "New American"—always recalling its true meaning.
The "New American" is a social phenomenon without precedent in modern times. His nearest counterpart is probably the mongrel urban populace of the Roman Empire, which was "Roman" only in name. A clever journalist has aptly described the nondescript elements of our Eastern cities and industrial centres as "American citizens but not Americans." That is just what they are; and, so far as the more unassimilable immigrant stocks are concerned, that is just about what many of their children and grandchildren will be, one or two generations hence. We will deal with the "New American" more fully in our concluding pages, when we come to survey future trends and policies. Let us here note the "New American" as an increasing factor in that challenge to our national ideals, institutions, and culture which America today unquestionably confronts.
This challenge is at present not so much a definite movement as it is a complex emotional trend, ranging all the way from a slight distaste for certain aspects of American life to a deep-seated, malevolent hatred of everything characteristically American. The milder phases of this anti-American tendency are harmless signs of temporary maladjustment on the part of elements destined to harmonious assimilation. Other phases, however, are symptoms of really dangerous alien antipathies which must be carefully watched.
We must remember that the Great War increased the self-consciousness of all our immigrant groups, while the success of foreign propagandas here during the war and post-war periods has led several European governments to continue their propagandist activities. The distinctly hyphenate attitude of certain immigrant stocks and their persistent efforts to influence American foreign policy in favor of their homelands are too well known to need detailed comment. Such hyphenate activities are of course most annoying, but they need not really alarm us, because they inevitably work at cross-purposes and so tend to cancel one another out. What we should watch, however, is the attitude of unassimilated elements on domestic issues, because there the alien groups tend to sink their Old World differences and line up solidly for common ends. A good example of this is the way that groups which are hereditary enemies in Europe combine in efforts to break down our immigration-restriction laws. Each of these groups would be glad to see the others kept out, if it could get its own kinsmen into America. But since this is impossible, they pool their interests in a common "log-rolling" programme, and we witness an alliance of diverse alien elements on the immigration issue, which could not be formed for any other purpose.
The crux of the whole problem is, however, not specific alien activities but the general spirit of
alienism, which includes not only the hyphenated groups but also the denationalized mass of "New Americans." This alien spirit is hostile to the very foundations of our national life. Alienism reveals itself in a general attitude of mind which systematically belittles our past, sneers at our present, and hopes for a future when
our America shall have been destroyed.
Alienism is America's irreconcilable foe. That is the plain, ugly truth of the matter; and the sooner we realize it, the better for us.
Let us watch alienism at work. The first thing we notice is the way its spokesmen deny our very nationhood! Some readers may raise their eyebrows at this statement, but if they will read on, they will discover that we are stating sober fact. Of course, our entire history testifies to the truth that America is a nation, with roots deep in the past, with long-established institutions, and with distinctive ideals and culture. But all this the spokesmen of alienism blithely sweep aside. With amazing effrontery, they vehemently assert that America is not a true nation, but that it is a sort of inchoate mass, still "in the making." Some alienist writers try to make out that even in colonial days America was a mere hodge-podge of many races, and they further imply that America has never been much more than a fluid mixture of immigrant elements.
One phrase especially popular with alienist orators is that "the only real Americans are the Red Indians." That bright remark has been used numberless times by hyphenated speakers, and it never fails to bring a good "hand" from an alien audience. But think of the mental attitude which such a statement implies! Logically, it means that "America" is nothing but a stretch of land, and that the instant a person sets foot on it, he is as much an "American" as anybody else who happens to be here. Why, then, bother about a needless formality like citizenship? Indeed, carrying the idea to its logical conclusion—can there ever be any real "Americans" except Red Indians, since persons of other stocks, though domiciled here for centuries, are as much "hyphenates" as persons who landed only yesterday? To hear some alienist spokesmen, one might think that America had no history, no traditions, no institutions, no coherent fabric of civilization, but that all of us had been dumped down together at Ellis Island a few short years ago. Of course, the idea behind all this is that America is a sort of no man's land—or, rather, every man's land, to which people from every part of the world have a "right" to come and develop a separate group-life along any lines that they may see fit. As for American objections, they are instantly stigmatized as "race prejudice" and—
"un-American"!
Americans unacquainted with alienist writings cannot imagine the amazing fables which are to-day being palmed off as "American history." So grotesque are some of these effusions[59] that to most Americans they might seem to be the work either of madmen or of burlesque humorists. Yet they are neither. They are written with a very practical purpose, and they are gladly received by large circles of readers who want to hear just such things. What such writings do is, of course, to satisfy balked emotions, by portraying in an unreal past what authors and audience alike long to see actually happen in the future—the replacement of
our America by an
alien "America."
Accordingly, our past is garbled into a glorification of this or that racial element. Even where only a few representatives of a stock can be specifically identified in earlier times, those few worthies are magnified until they almost monopolize "front-stage." And of course where a group was really present in considerable numbers, they are made out to be nothing less than the whole show. Last but not least, the villain of the piece is always the native American—or, as alienist writers usually term him, "The Anglo-Saxon." It is he who thwarts their separatist aspirations and crushes them into a mould of national and cultural uniformity. Wherefore, the alienist cry is one of revolt against the "Anglo-Saxon aristocracy" which "rules" America.
This picture of the Anglo-Saxon element as a small ruling upper class does not square with the census figures, which report the colonial and British immigrant stocks as together forming well over one-half of the entire white population of the United States. But—what are census reports to the alienist? Is not the Census Bureau probably a propaganda-organ of the "Anglo-Saxon aristocracy"? Alienist writers have, therefore, compiled their own statistics, which are certainly interesting, since they usually magnify the size of their respective groups from two to five times as much as the official figures. Indeed, if we consider these private statistics as a whole, we arrive at some startling results. The author has tabulated the numerical claims of a number of spokesmen for non-English-speaking elements, and finds that these claims total a trifle more than the entire white population. This gives us a paradoxical America containing not a single individual of English or Scottish blood, to say nothing of the Irish. Indeed, this would logically resolve "The Anglo-Saxon" into a myth, since he must be as extinct as the Dodo!
Of course, the exaggerations and extravagances which we have been narrating are found mainly in foreign-language publications not intended for American eyes. When alienism employs the English idiom it is usually less crude and more careful of its facts. But the alien spirit is there, just the same, and the same general arguments are used. America is described, not as a true nation, but as a geographical area inhabited by a more or less fortuitous collection of people, which is still "in the making." Above all, our past is systematically belittled and assailed. American history is "muck-raked" in good, lusty fashion. The colonial period is either ignored or is turned into a racial medley, while the Revolution gives the Anglo-Saxon Fathers of the Republic a splendid chance to buttress their special privileges by erecting such annoying barriers to "progress" as the Constitution and the Supreme Court.
Our winning of the West is likewise taken severely to task. The pioneers, it seems, were rude fellows who messed up matters badly and who destroyed better things than those they brought into being—such things, we presume, including the infrequent clusters of Indian tepees and the occasional river-shacks of half-breed French-Canadian
voyageurs, which typified the culture encountered by our pioneers. Lastly, to bring the picture down to date, the present-day American is caricatured either as a sour-faced Puritan or as a banal member of the Rotary Club.
Over against this unflattering portrait stands the alien, overflowing with exuberant vitality and cultural possibilities. And, of course, the best thing about the alien is his alienism. It is highly significant to note how alienist spokesmen have soft-pedalled their former slogan of the "Melting-Pot." So long as that slogan could blind Americans to realities and keep the gates open to mass-immigration, it was worked overtime. But now that the Melting-Pot argument is hopelessly cracked, the alienist throws it contemptuously on the scrap-heap and no longer disguises his real feelings. Wherefore, the alien is to-day warmly patted on the back for his reluctance to melt and for his retention of Old World particularisms even unto the third and the fourth generation.
This viewpoint is well expressed in a recent volume[60] devoted to the various foreign "colonies" scattered so thickly over parts of America. The book states that after a brief period of bewilderment in which many American ways are adopted and the immigrant becomes superficially "Americanized," a reaction sets in, and the newcomers "begin to look with critical eyes at everything. They compare, weigh, and measure; and nine times out of ten they return to their own life, accepting only reluctantly what they must."[61] According to this book, the country is in for a prolonged "friction and elbowing"; yet out of this "tremendous travail," the descendants of the immigrants "will form and build something new, something that has never been before at any time in history anywhere in the world." And what will this marvellous novelty be like? It will be: "Not a nation—" (Oh, dear, no; perish the thought!)—"but groups of individuals whose bond will be fitness to live in that particular part of the country where they will have settled."[62] If this is not whittling America down to the vanishing-point, we are greatly mistaken.
That alienism is developing a definite philosophy and body of doctrine is shown by a very revealing book which appeared a short time ago, entitled:
Culture and Democracy in the United States. The significance of this volume is heightened by the antecedents of its author, Horace M. Kallen. Doctor Kallen is an Ashkenazic Jew, born in Silesia near the Polish border, but brought to America when only five years old. He took full advantage of America's educational opportunities and proved to be a brilliant scholar. A Harvard graduate and Ph.D., he has specialized in philosophy and English literature, making his mark in both fields. Indeed, the volume which we are now considering is dedicated: "To the Memory of Barrett Wendell: Poet, Teacher, Man of Letters, Deep-Seeing Interpreter of America and the American Mind, In Whose Teaching I Received My First Vision of Their Trends and Meanings."
Surely we have in Doctor Kallen a man surrounded by American influences since early childhood, thoroughly educated in American schools and in one of America's leading universities, the disciple of a characteristic American man of letters, and endowed with a keen intellect, for good measure. Now, what do we find? We find an arch-champion of "hyphenism," who exemplifies the alien spirit better than any other of its spokesmen! Doctor Kallen is a striking example of what we have already emphasized: that high intelligence in immigrants may be combined with a temperamental make-up so different from ours that assimilation is absolutely impossible. Despite his keen, analytical mind, Doctor Kallen simply cannot pierce to America's deeper realities. He is temperamentally as unadapted to America as a fish out of water. Profoundly ill at ease, he protests against
our America and cries for radical change according to his unsatisfied desires.
The doctor certainly leaves us in no doubt as to where he stands. His first words are a challenge to our very nationhood. "This book," he says, "is a study in the psychology of the American
peoples."[63] In Doctor Kallen's eyes, our population resolves itself into a miscellaneous lot of hyphenated groups, the largest and most influential of which is at present the Anglo-Saxon. He rejects scornfully the term "native American," and lumps together all persons of British blood, recent arrivals or descendants of first colonists, into one group, the "British-Americans"—who are as hyphenated as every one else. Doctor Kallen thus reveals himself not only as an unassimilated alien who refuses to be assimilated, but as an alien who denies that there is any "America" to which he can be assimilated. America, he contends, is not a nation; nor can it ever be a nation. And that, be it understood, is something which greatly rejoices the doctor's heart, because he has his own idea of what "America" should be. This fond goal he calls "Cultural Pluralism."
Let us follow the doctor's chain of argument. Since hyphenism is ineradicable, and since the population is bound to remain an assortment of widely varying racial and cultural groups, why not anticipate the inevitable, give up our national delusion, and enthrone hyphenism as our rule of life? There being no "fear" (
sic!) of the formation of an "American race," why not systematically encourage and develop ethnic and cultural divergencies, thereby turning America into a small-scale replica of the whole world and all mankind?
Naturally, this would relegate the "British-Americans" to a very minor back seat, because the doctor obviously has a poor opinion of the Anglo-Saxon's intellectual and cultural qualities; but, of course, since the Anglo-Saxon is so inferior, a back seat is just where he belongs. Doctor Kallen would, to be sure, retain the English language—as a convenient business code and a useful medium of communication between the various culture-groups. But English would be merely a convenience, since each group would cherish its own language and would have no further use for anything characteristically American, except as our old traditions and ideals might be preserved inside the humble culture-group of "British-Americans." The English idiom debased to a sort of
lingua franca, and a loose, ill-defined administrative union, would be the only vestiges surviving from
our America, if Doctor Kallen could have his way.
And, in place of our vanished America, there would appear the majestic outlines of the doctor's "Pluralistic America." Let us describe it in his own words: "Its form would be that of a federal republic; its substance a democracy of nationalities, co-operating voluntarily and autonomously through common institutions in the enterprise of self-realization through the perfection of men according to their kind. The common language of the commonwealth, the language of its great tradition, would be English, but each nationality would have for its emotional and involuntary life its own peculiar dialect or speech, its own individual and inevitable aesthetic and intellectual forms." After a bit more description, the doctor sums up his Pluralistic America as "a multiplicity in a unity, an orchestration of mankind."[64]
Now understand, gentle reader, that we are here dealing, not with an isolated crank, but with a highly intelligent man who unquestionably voices thoughts and feelings shared, in greater or less degree, by several million persons living among us to-day. Doctor Kallen's book is a frank expression of that aggressive alienism which is mustering its forces and formulating a clear-cut challenge to our national life. Furthermore, we must also realize that alienism is sympathetically regarded by certain so-called "American" elements, such as mushy sentimentalists, half-baked "liberals," extreme internationalists, and revolutionary radicals eager to welcome anything which tends to upset the existing order.
That the challenge of alienism strikes at the very vitals of American life, there can be no doubt. For surely, the disintegration of national unity into anything like a "Pluralistic America" would mean, not an "orchestration of mankind," but a hellish bedlam. As Brander Matthews aptly remarks in his review of Doctor Kallen's book: "The United States would become a racial rag-bag with a linguistic crazy-quilt .... If the United States were to recognize legally the 'free diversification of groups no less than of individuals,' centrifugal force would soon shatter the union, and chaos would come again, as it has in the Balkans, where the Cultural Groups are forever flying at each others' throats."[65]
Now, in the light of all this, it must be clear that we need a well-considered, effective policy toward the alien problem. And we should formulate such a policy, not because there is to-day any real likelihood of alienism's triumph, but because we ought to solve this vexatious problem with as little disturbance as possible to America's progress and with as little pain as possible to the alien elements themselves.
To the author it appears that the first thing to do is to make it absolutely plain to the alienist leaders that their schemes are vain dreams which can never be realized and which, if persisted in, will merely involve themselves and their deluded followers in all sorts of misfortune. Alienism had only one real chance—mass-immigration. The alienist leaders know this—which is the reason why they are to-day fighting desperately to break down our immigration-restriction law, or at least to prevent an alien-registration law that would enable our government to detect smuggled aliens and expel undesirable intruders. The American people is, however, so alive to the situation that the alien campaign against our immigration policy will almost certainly fail. As yet the alienist leaders have not quite given up hope. But when they do have to admit to themselves that our gates are finally shut, half the fight will ooze out of them and they will be in a much more amenable mood. With the supply of recruits cut off, the aggressive alien elements, even though fully organized, would bulk small beside the balance of our 100,000,000 white population, and could therefore never make more than local trouble.
Local troubles there surely will be. Some of our Northeastern States may be in for serious times.
Yet such difficulties will be localized and will not stop the re-forging of America as a whole. In fact, those local alienisms may serve a useful purpose, by keeping Americans consciously to their task. The Great Awakening roused the American people to keen national consciousness and gave them their present will to national unity. The persistence of alienism here and there should be enough to prevent the American people from being lulled into false security that would result in fresh misfortunes. We Americans have to-day come to realize through bitter experience that there is no "substitute" for
patriotism—"that sentiment of solidarity, that passion for common action, that love of the things which are our own and the life we live with and among our fellows, the custom and habit of every-day existence, and those deeper springs of action, self-sacrifice and devotion to something greater than ourselves; greater, indeed, than the sum of us all."[66] And, in the exalted realization of these truths, our will to unity should deepen with time and grow more resolute from the very oppositions that it may encounter.
Yet the
will to unity, however indispensable as the vital basis for national reconstruction, is not, of itself, enough. This emotional force must be wisely guided and must express itself in intelligent action according to existing realities. We must avoid a recurrence of anything like war-time hysteria, with its panic fears and its programme of instant "100-per-cent Americanism." That hysterical phase, however regrettable, was probably inevitable, because to the excitement of foreign war there was added a sudden popular awakening to the hitherto unrealized menace of hyphenism and mass-alienage at home. With scant opportunity to think or plan, it is not strange that public opinion thereupon jumped to measures of crude repression and equally crude "Americanization."
Such methods, however, are not only silly; they tend to defeat their own objective as well. An alien browbeaten into taking out citizenship papers, or an alien-minded American citizen forced to kiss the flag and buy Liberty Bonds, may thenceforth adopt an outward semblance of 100-per-cent Americanism. Yet at heart he will probably be more bitterly "alien" than ever, and he will be confirmed in that large category of persons who are "American citizens but not Americans."
What we need, therefore, in order to accomplish our task of national reconstruction with maximum efficiency and minimum, friction is a well-considered policy, informed by an exact knowledge of facts and pursued with full realization of the time-factor involved. Alienism should be regarded not as an organic unit but as a complex grouping of elements some of which are merely temporary while others are deep-seated. Obviously, our policy should be flexible enough to deal with these various elements according to their respective natures. Furthermore, what their natures really are can be better ascertained with time and experience.
The time-factor cannot be too strongly emphasized, because we Americans are apt to be impatient and want quick solutions. We must realize that in alienism we are confronted by a problem that cannot be quickly solved. To incorporate into our national life the millions of unassimilated aliens who now dwell among us is a task which, even at best, will take two or three generations. Indeed, it may be that certain elements can never be genuinely absorbed. But that is something which time will prove and which can then be specially dealt with in the fuller light of experience.
Detailed discussion of national reconstruction will be deferred to our concluding chapters. Here let us confine our attention to the national will to unity and its attitude toward alienism.
The key-note of our policy toward the alien problem should be: frankness and firmness, combined with patience and sympathetic understanding. The alien should be convincingly told that our will to unity is inflexible, that aggressive alienism will be effectively combated, and that anything savoring of sedition will be sternly dealt with. But the alien should also be assured that we neither intend nor desire to force him into an artificial "Americanization," or to persecute him because he clings to ancestral ways. And we ourselves must never forget that alienism is, in the last analysis, a state of mind, which cannot be suddenly abolished even by the alien himself but which can gradually fade to the extent that the alien is temperamentally fitted to absorb our viewpoint and appreciate our ways.
Finally, let all parties realize that the problem is, at bottom, one of
difference, for which no one is morally to blame. We Americans have built up
our America, and we cherish it so supremely that no one should honestly blame us for our resolve that it shall be kept "American." Of course that is no reason why the alien should like our America, and no moral turpitude should attach to him if he voices his discontent. Let him speak freely, so long as his words are not incitements to illegal and seditious activities. Let us be patient with his impatience, and sympathetic with his unhappiness at maladjustment to American surroundings. Let us do our best to help the alien Americanize himself. But, first and last, let us make it unalterably clear that
our America is going to fulfil its national destiny.
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[54] From the President's address entitled:
Thought, the Master of Things.
[55] Holmes, S. J.:
Studies in Evolution and Eugenics, pp. 209-210 (1923).
[56] Quoted from
The Literary Digest, September 9, 1922, pp. 31-32.
[57] Speranza, Gino:
Race or Nation, pp. 14, 17, 20 (1924).
[58] Speranza,
op. cit., pp. 137-138.
[59] For some almost incredible examples, see Gino Speranza's amusing and enlightening article entitled "Playing Horse with American History,"
World's Work, April, 1923, pp. 602-610.
[60] Bercovici, Konrad:
On New Shores (1925).
[61] Bercovici,
op. cit., p. 15.
[62] Bercovici,
op. cit., p. 17.
[63] Italics mine.
[64] Kallen,
op. cit., p. 124.
[65] Matthews, Brander: "Making America a Racial Crazy-Quilt,"
Literary Digest International Book Review, August, 1924.
[66] Abbott, Wilbur C.: The New Barbarians, p. 240 (1925).