The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/More About Americanization

by Bohumil Šimek

More About Americanization
By PROF. B. ŠlMEK,
University of Iowa.

Our unfortunate war experience with certain of our immigrants and their descendants, particularly those of German origin, has developed a distrust and even hatred of all foreigners. That this feeling works an injustice in many cases will not be questioned by anyone familiar with our foreign-born people. It seems to be very hard for some Americans to comprehend that no other government but that of Germany and the German-Magyar government of Austria-Hungary ever attempted, or dared, to develop a destructive propaganda in our country; and that no other foreign people in our land in like proportion retained their devotion to their former government against the interests of their adopted land. It is therefore manifestly unjust to many other foreigners to class them in the same category with the oil loyal element of our German population.

This unfriendly feeling toward foreigners is in part a natural reaction from the exaggerated worship of everything German which was so fashionable here before the war. Germany’s learning, her art, her schools, her industries, her military prowess, were exalted beyond reason, and the label “made in Germany” was regarded as synonymous with “excellent”. When this idol of clay was demolished by the war, there followed in many places a reaction against everything foreign, and citizens of foreign blood whose loyalty to our country could not be questioned have been insulted by being classed with disloyal Germans.

Out of this experience with disloyal citizens has come a desire to prevent its possible recurrence in the future. Various plans have been presented for the Americanization of our population of foreign extraction. Every honest, intelligent effort in this direction must be welcomed by all right-minded citizens. No one will deny that it is desirable that every citizen should be able to use the language of this country: that he should have sufficient intellectual training to enable him to inform himself on the duties of citizenship and that above all he should have an abiding love and appreciation of our country. These results can be secured by kindly, intelligent interest in the people who have come to us from foreign lands. Secretary Lane stated this very clearly in his recent address at the Hotel Astor in New York, when he said that “there is no way by which we can make anyone feel that it is a blessed and splendid thing to be an American, unless we are ourselves aglow with the sacred fire, unless we interpret Americanism by our kindness, our courage, our generosity, our fairness.” You cannot make worthwhile Americans with a club.

Among the means to be employed in Americanization compulsory teaching of English in all schools, public and private, is emphasized as the most efficacious; it is al so insisted that instruction be given which will develop a real American spirit based on the knowledge of the fundamental principles of our government. Common assent will be given to both of these propositions. Unfortunately there are those who in the enthusiasm of their new-found zeal would use measures which must inevitably react against the very purpose of all such efforts. They would prohibit the teaching of all other languages until the high school an college are reached, under the mistaken belief that if they cut off knowledge of other lands they will make better Americans of the pupils in our schools.

Some of these restrictive measures have already been carried out. In Iowa teaching of languages other than English be prohibited in public and private schools, but the law contains a proviso that the teaching of religion is exempted. This really nulliies the ostensible purpose of the law. The German parochial schools were hot beds of disloyalty, and under this law they are permitted to continue in their old practices. Anyone who knows the German character will expect them to take advantage of the opportunity thus offered to carry on their old work of Germanization. Thus far the only effect of the law in Iowa has been the closing of a few Bohemian (Czech) vacation schools, attended by children who go regularly to public schools, and which have been thoroughly patriotic in all their teaching. The writer of this article taught for many years in one of these vacation schools, the purpose of which was simply to impart a knowledge of the language; the advanced reader he used was a history of the United States, while another contained articles on the Declaration of Independence, on George Washington, Benjamin Fraklin, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. In Nebraska they have gone so far as to prohibit the use of a foreign language in public addresses.

The Bohemian people have resented this action in both states for the following reasons:

1. They protest against any action which places them in the same class with disloyal Germans. They have been consistently and wholeheartedly loyal, and it must be a very stupid individual indeed who would criticize their resentment at being ranked with those who have been openly disloyal, or at best made a half-hearted pretense of being loyal.

2. They object to being made the victims of designing politicians who are seeking to appease the German vote. There is no question that this has played a large part in the agitation of this subject in both Iowa and Nebraska. The Germans knew that restrictions would be placed upon them, but they found special comfort in the fact that other, wholly loyal citizens, like the Danes and Bohemians, should be made to suffer with them. Their pleasure was all the more keen, because these people were loyal and because they were hated by the Germans, from whom they have suffered much injustice, both in Europe and in this country. A prominent German of Iowa made the statement, in the presence of the writer, that some of the foreigners, like the Danes, were well-satisfied as long as restrictive measures were aimed at the Germans, but that they cried out, when they themselves were included. He showed the animus of his kind, when he added that “what was good for the goose was good for the gander.” Such restrictive measures, if they had any honest purpose, were aimed at disloyal Germans. Why should loyal Danes or loyal Czechs be included with them?

It my be added that the Bohemian people regard as a mere subterfuge the statement, also coming from the politicians, tht there was much disloyal work carried on through the medium of languages other than German, and that therefore they should be suppressed. Why not include the English as well, for of course English was employed more than any other language in promoting treason. Morever, there is not a trace of evidence to show that Danish, Bohemian, Polish and other languages spoken by perfectly loyal foreign-born citizens, were used at any time for disloyal propaganda.

3. They found that restrictions placed upon the use of foreign languages interfered seriously with much of the patriotic work done by the Czechs of this country during the war. There are still many of the older people who have difficulty in following an argument in English, and it was possible to reach them much more effectively through the medium of their own tongue.

There are those who criticize these older people (the children of course all speak English) for not acquiring a thorough knowledge of English; but have they considered that we have done practically nothing to help them? How would a mature man or woman who had come to us from a foreign land go about it to learn English? They are past school age and would not be received in our public schools, even if they were able to overcome the natural aversion to being classed with children. Moreover, most of them work for a living during the day and could not attend day schools. With the exception of a few large cities practically no community has made provision for evening schools for such people. Their employer seldom takes trouble to teach them—he is more intent on getting increased production out of them. One brilliant newspaper correspondent suggested that since foreigners as a rule learn to swear fluently in English they might as well learn the rest of the language. He forgot that the facilities for learning in the former case are much better, for the unfortunate workman usually hears a string of oaths, if he fails to comprehend the directions of his employer or his foreman. We have no right to blame these people for any shortcoming in this direction so long as we have not provided means of instruction and assistance.

One Iowa editor, criticizing the Bohemians of Cedar Rapids for continued use of their language said that they had no need of it, since the colony was seventy years old and even the oldest people ought to know English. In his desire to deceive, or in his child-like simplicity, he failed to see that many of the people in that colony had come there in mature years, that many had been in this country but a few years, and that it did not follow that because the colony was seventy years old all its people had been there during all that time. It is not easy for a mature person to learn a new language, especially when no facilities are offered for instruction in it. Imagine even the average college graduate who had acquired some knowledge of French or German or Spanish in the later years of his life, trying to follow an elaborate argument or making an effort to feel enthusiasm through the medium of one of these languages. And that is what some Americans expect of the immigrant.

4. It is a mistake to bar the learning of other languages on intellectual grounds, as well as on the ground of usefulness to our own country. We shall be in contact with the world in business and in other common interests, and we need men an women who can use other languages than our own. But we also need knowledge of these languages for general intellectual purposes. The writer, an American by birth and training early gained a knowledge of the language of his fathers (Czech), and it has been to him a source of infinite pleasure and satisfaction. It has opened a new field for intellectual effort; it has given access to sources of intellectual inspiration and information which would have been closed entirely; it furnished means of information concerning the dangers of German autocracy of Europe which could not have been received otherwise; and it did not in the least weaken or under mine his spirt of American patriotism. On the contrary, by bringing to his knowledge the record of the struggles of his own forefathers for the very blessings which we enjoy in our country, it made him appreciate better and understand more fully the intense idealism which is, or should be, the heart and soul of real Americanism.

We must understand that America offers something better than the mere opportunity to gain wealth and high position. Both of these have been freely secured by some men under the worst governments which the world has known. We must place before our youths higher ideals than those of the stomach and the pocket-book. For the purpose of fully developing and maintaining our finest ideals of political freedom we need all the knowledge which can come to us from government-ridden Europe, as well as from other parts of the world, and we should welcome the bearers of that knowledge, if they are willing to use it to help us, from whatsoever land they may come to us.

The danger to us does not lie in the teaching of languages. Must we restrict our intellectual horizon and remain in ignorance of much that would be useful to us, in order that we might remain good Americans? Ignorance and Americanism surely cannot be synomymous or related terms. The teaching of no language is harmful in itself. Even the teaching of German would have done no harm; it was the dissemination of Germanism which caused the trouble.

We not only have a right, but it is our duty to protest against the development of any “ism” which is contrary to our ideals of government. But that does not mean that we must shut ourselves from all the world like the stupid ostrich. We should master more languages, we should learn more concerning other countries, we should welcome the finer ideals of all the nations of the earth, but we should make use of all this for our own purposes, for strengthening the foundations of our institutions, and for the enrichment of our own ideals. And in all these efforts we will receive the heartty help of all the grateful foreigners who come to us, if we but use judgment and “interpret Americanism by our kindness, our courage ,our generosity, our fairness”, and do not permit ourselves to be influenced by those whose interests are not unselfish.

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