A m e r i c a n
THE
WESTERN
(continuing The Northman)
A MAGÄZINE of good citizenship
Devoted to the Cause of
Americanization, Assimilation and Group Elimination; Pointing the way to a Constitutional
Americanism, to Equality in Citizenship, and a better understanding
between Native bom and Foreign bom.
Vnl 1
»Ul. 1
Continuous 1 O
Volume
MAY 1923
Number 8
ON THE BORDERLAND OF MANY LANGUAGES
AN AGGRAVATING SITUATION AND ITS SOLUTION
T HERE ARE sincere and honest American citizens
1 of foreign birth who believe that the foreign lan
guage press is an essential agency to assimilate the
foreign born and at the same time maintain a measure
of native language knowledge among the immigrated
people, a knowledge they contend has a potent value
from an intellectual and cultural standpoint. While
in theory this is true and in practice it could be made
so, the question is to what extent such citizens are
personally familiar with the current attitude of the
foreign language press, all languages included, and
if they are conversant with the subject matter therein
commonly discussed? Lacking this"knowledge, neces
sary from time to time, they may in their zeal to de
fend an unquestioned principle of rights, defend a
multitude of sins. Unless a man has read one or
more foreign language newspapers for some little
time he is not qualified to discuss the merits or de
merits of the foreign language press, except in
regard to the hypotheses of its cultural value. In
the case of the larger number of these well-meaning
citizens they candidly admit that they themselves
very seldom read a foreign language paper.
We believe that they should, in view of the interest
they are taking in the subject.
Whatever the standard the foreign language press
I represented a decade or two ago, as an assimilation
¡agency, that standard is certainly not maintained in
that press today.
t When a few years ago the old world nations went
to war, the immigrants in America mobilized with
[them, in spirit, and to some extent in substance.
¡Naively they fought their native country’s squabbles
lover here, in their business, in their colonies, in their
societies and lodges, in their newspapers and even in
their churches.
It is barely possible that if they had fought less
vigorously the war of their old countries among them
selves over here, that they would have saved them
selves the trouble of the “reaction” that has taken
many novel forms in the last few years among na
tive Americans, who are evincing a frank determina
tion that what they call “foreignism” in one form or
another, shall be eradicated from the soil of America.
The Scriptural language “What ye sow, ye shall reap”
may be an old axiom, but there is something in this
language that applies to the situation.
When America finally took a hand and decided to
go against the central powers, bedlam broke loose in
the American foreign language press. Coercive
measures and, in some cases, suppression could only
at best be temporary, and as soon as the war days
were over, the unalterable foreign language editors
assuming preceptorial positions, mapped a new course
and proceeded to put a new phase on the foreign lan
guage press, working towards a new goal; a common
foreign language newspaper front. They set about as
far as possible to cement the twelve hundred or more
foreign language papers in America, speaking in forty
odd languages, into one bond with one common policy.
Genuine American citizens of all nationalities—who
believe in equality rights in citizenship for all, native
and foreign born alike, who believe that every foreign
born, honestly living up to the requirements in citi
zenship, should in no way be made to feel that his
allegiance is in doubt—ought to begin reading any
number of the newspapers printed in the lan
guage of the country of their birth. They should not