The Northman., May 06, 1920, Page 4, Image 4

4
Shoulder to Shoulder
his annual message to the legislature
1 Governor Smith of New York, called at­
tention to a danger that cannot be too
carefully avoided. The governor said, in'
denouncing the anarchists and the violent
revolutionaries among our alien popula­
tion:
“But while we should be relentless
toward this type of distorted per­
sonalities, we must not confuse them
with the hundreds of thousands of
our brothers of alien stock who have
made America their home and who
have helped to build up our great na­
tion by self-respecting labor and their
citizenship. Their sons have added
luster to our name in the battlefields
of the great war. Let us remember
them now and let us resent as sinister
and as a new expression of the old
know-nothing spirit, the attaching to
all citizens of foreign birth of the
stigma of radicalism.”
Commenting on the governor’s state­
ment the New York Evening Mail says:
“The future of America as a nation de­
pends in an important degree upon the
measure of success we achieve in uniting
all the racial strains in our population
into a single racial element—the Amer­
ican—with a single American aim and a
single American ideal.
“There is a tendency among some of
the native-born whose vision is not far-
reaching to visit upon the foreign born
as a class the resentment that is merited
only by a fractional minority of our
people of alien origin-
“The vast majority of our foreign-born
population is sound to the core, anxious
to do its part to upbuild the country,
eager to live up to every American ideal,
to be absorbed completely into our social
and political structure.
“We cannot afford to alienate these
people—about 40 per cent of our popula­
tion—by setting up against them a barrier
of prejudice, of misunderstanding and of
undeserved suspicion.
“The aim of all patriotic Americans,
whether native or foreign born, should be
to eliminate barriers, not to erect them.
“During the war we accomplished an
incidental purpose that can be made of
vast value in building up America.
“The loftiness of our ideal elicited from
our foreign born a demonstration of de­
votion to America and an understanding
of the meaning of America that furnished
a mighty impetus to the work of wiping
out all racial lines in our country.
“In every movement designed to
strengthen our arm and steel our soul for
effective dealing with the enemy, every
class of our foreign-born people took their
part—and their full part—proudly and
without reservation.
“Now that the enemy who menaced us
from without has been conquered, we are
confronted with an enemy who is assail­
ing us from within.
“Our moral and governmental machin­
ery has been set in full motion to deal
with the monster of subversion at home,
just as it was put in motion to deal with
the monster of imperialism abroad.
“In our present emergency, as in the
one that ended on November 11, 1918, we
can rely on the overwhelming majority of
our fellow citizens of foreign origin to
stand unflinchingly by us in our determi­
nation to vindicate the faith that is in us
TN
May 6, 1920
THE NORTHMAN
to demonstrate the vigor of our institu­
tions and make America united in pur­
pose, imperious to the criminal assaults of
the “borer within.”
HUMANIZING HUMANITY
HEN a town begins to straighten out
the cow-trail, along which are strung the
shacks in which it first began business,
the patriots who build apartment houses
accumulate an aversion for the young of
their kind and families with children are
barred as tenants, while people with
watery-eyed specimens of some freak
breed of cur for pets are extended the high
sign of welcome accompanied by expres­
sions of great joy.
During the decades of sweet peace lead­
ing up to the recent conflict, the custom of
barring children grew until it attained the
significance of a general principle with the
housebuilders, and the patriot with “kid­
dies” was shunted into habitations whose
owners were not so particular.
But war appears to have brought a new
appreciation of common humanity’s young
and they are no longer to be consigned to
the kennel while the canine is cuddled in
the parlor. The humanitarian aidermen of
New York City have become appreciative
of children to the extent that a resolution
has been adopted making landlords bar­
ring children subject to a fine of $250.
Now if they will take the bar thus low­
ered against children and raise it against
the dogs, providing a like fine for land­
lords permitting long-haired and other ut­
terly useless curs on the premises, the
New York board of aidermen may be
judged by its actions to be related to
humanity instead of the scions of somber-
shaded canicula.
Landlords cannot be expected to do any­
thing of the kind of their own volition. It
takes war and statutory enactments to
make some people move and act like
human beings.
HONORABLE DEFEAT.
It is better to prefer honorable defeat to a
mean victory, to lowering the level of our aim
that we may more certainly enjoy the com-
plancency of success.
In the battle of life we cannot hire a
Harold Bell
Nothing stales so quickly as a good
David Graham
/
substitute.
Wright.
resolution.
Phillips.
: ——x
*
MAN’S BEST FRIEND.
A. L. Orr.
While serving Toil, a man one day
Was badly wounded. Long he lay
In want and pain upon his bed,
And grievous words, of Toil, he said.
Soon raised him from his bed again.
Sweet Charity came, soothed his pain,
But when she said,“Friend,I must go/'
He could not bear to have it so;
For in the days she served him there,
He learned to love her tender care;
While for friend Toil a deadly hate
Was growing in his stupid pate,
But Charity was wise for once—
Unheeding, left the lazy dunce.
And soon as she was out of sight
He loved friend Toil with all his
might;
Upon his fruits learned to depend,
And proved him ever man’s best
friend.
<____________________________________________
I
American in Ascendency
Chautauqua held at Parkland,
Washington, in 1910, Rev. M. A-
Christensen, now pastor of Our Savior’s
Lutheran Church, of . Portland, read a
paper on the subject, “Shall We Organize
More English Congregations?” Rev.
Christensen presented statistics gathered
from seventeen representative parishes of
the Pacific district: Of every hundred
sermons, thirty-one are delivered in the-
English language. Of every hundred
catechumens, sixty are confirmed in Eng­
lish, and sixty-three per hundred scholars
are instructed in English in the Sunday
schools. Of ministerial acts—baptism,
marriage, burial—thirty-eight per cent
are performed in English.
The following statements were read
from letters received by Rev. Christensen
from the pastors of the seventeen parishes
that formed the basis of investigation:
“English appears to be gaining ground.
English services are better attended than
the Norwegian.”
“In Sunday school, ninety-five children
are instructed through the medium of the
English language, thirty in Norwegian.”
“English more and more in demand. At
funerals, English sermons are generally
requested ‘for the sake of the children.’ ”
‘I have not been able to take care of the
English work, but perform some min­
isterial acts, especially funerals, in Eng­
lish. The German Lutherans have now
started an English congregation. We
might begin with a larger number than
they.”
“We must do more for our children in
this respect than we have done.”
And this was a decade ago. The move­
ment has gone forward a long way in the
meantime.
At a recent meeting held in Bethlehem
Norwegian Lutheran church in Portland,
an American clergyman delivered an ad­
dress, at the conclusion of which Rev.
Wilhelm Pettersen, pastor of the church,
in his closing remarks, made a statement
to the effect that he would welcome the
day when he in the church work need
speak only the American language and no
longer be required to preach or speak in
a foreign tongue.
These incidents within the scope of local
observation may be taken as fairly repre­
sentative of the situation and sentiment
throughout the country. The movement
has steadily grown. Efforts to stay the
advance have been utterly futile, from
this time forward the progress will be
more rapid.
The language of the people is the lan­
guage of God.
ATA
BACKBONE
(Anon)
When you see a fellow mortal
Without fixed or fearless views,
Hanging on the skirts of others—
Walking in their cast-off shoes;
Bowing low to wealth and favor
With abject, uncovered head,
Ready to retract or waver,
Willing to be drove or led—
Walk, yourself, with firmer bearing!
Throw your moral shoulders back!
Show your spine has nerve and marrow,
Just the things which his must lack.
J
A stronger word
Was never heard
In sense and tone
Than this—Backbone.