The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., August 01, 1923, Page 7, Image 7

7
THE UNITED AMERICAN
AUGUST, 1923
sagebrush or stump-land in exchange for a chance to
live and work in America and bring their healthy
children here, are told that America can not receive
them because of their educational handicap.
In our uplands and valleys there are hundreds of
thousands of acres of tillable American land, waiting
for development. Prosperous Americans are giving up
their homes on the farm and are moving to the cities
and with no one to work the farm with any fixed
purpose and intensely, the farm gradually goes back
to its pre-agricultural state. Meanwhile the modern
European immigrant flocks to the city. Large con­
tingents of them join the merry non-producing throng,
half civilized, half decent, and reckless to the ex­
treme, having little or no respect for law and order,
traveling constantly on the borderland of the illicit.
On account of this constant stream of literacy
tested city bred immigrants from the old world, our
American cities (particularly in the eastern and
middle western parts of our country), are gradually
becoming overrun with immigrants who prefer the
city to the country to live in. These immigrants are
mostly of the easy-going wage-earning kind, who
never worked independently in their lives. They
rather hold down a poorly paid job any day with no
responsibility attached, than tackle an independent
proposition on a piece of farmland.
And right here lies the main reason for the enor­
mous increase in alien population in our larger cities
that has taken place during the last two decades.
Outwardly these cities are becoming foreignized in­
stead of the immigrant dwellers becoming Ameri­
country as Americans, regardless of their parentage,
but the Association of Commerce has seen fit to make
this finer distinction—and sometimes there is more
than ample justification for pursuing that course.
Next to the Americans come the Poles, then the
Germans, the Russians, the Swedish, the Norwegians,
the Irish, the Italians, the Czecho-Slovakians, the
negroes, the Austrians and the English in the order
named.
There are 62,000 Canadians, 11,379 French and but
3,078 Indians and Chinese, who are grouped to­
gether. These, of course, are East Indians, as the
American Indian comes under the head of Americans.
That there are 230,668 Russians in Chicago may
prove a surprise to many people, but it may explain,
in part, recent warnings that Chicago has become
the center of soviet activities in the United States.
Meanwhile Chicago has given more thought to
feudal politics, the “wet” and “dry” contentions and
the constitutionality of the prohibition act;'than to
the needs of a practical and intelligent method of
Americanization whereby the city at least could claim
to have a workable majority of Americans. This is not
an indictment of the citizens of foreign birth in Chi­
cago who are loyal citizens and bona fide Americans.
With the sectionalization of Chicago’s population,
not alone of nationalities, but of race and religion,
there is small chance for a united front among those
who are anxious that the city of Chicago shall retain
its American identity. This is not an assumption,
but it is a conclusion based on facts recorded on the
pages of American history, which tells the story of a
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiifiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiifiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinuiimiiimiiiiiiiiiHiiiiig
canized.
♦
*
♦
Whole districts in our cities are now exclusively
populated with one nationality or another where only
a foreign language is spoken and where things that
are essentially American are carefully excluded while
a veil of secrecy has been thrown over these separate
and almost unassimilable parts of the city population.
This situation presents an unprecedented problem
in today’s America. That American protective meas­
ures must be taken to assimilate these elements, or
weed them out, is undisputable, but how to do it is
the grave and all absorbing question.
Take for example the case of Chicago where the
American population has been cut down to twenty­
eight per cent with the population of foreign birth
and parentage increased to sevety-two per cent, ac­
cording to statistics made public a few days ago, by
the Chicago Association of Commerce. This city,
located in the heart of the middle west, is now the
dwelling place of 1,947,376 persons of foreign birth
or parentage, embracing practically every nationality
on earth.
The statistics reveal that only 752,329 residents of
Chicago were born in the United States and of Amer­
ican born parents. Of this number of Americans in
that city, 109,458 are said to be negroes, leaving a
total white American population of but 642,871, or
less than twenty-five per cent of the entire population,
which is placed at 2,701,705.
A Word About Credit to
Young Couples
For 58 years this store has been helping young
couples furnish homes complete with furniture of
the best type, not only providing it at prices that
are down to rock bottom, but in addition offering
a liberal credit plan that enables them to own
and enjoy the best furniture without making any
large cash expenditure.
Just a small deposit is all that is necessary to
deliver any piece you choose to your home at
once. The balance may be paid just a little at a
time as convenient—just a simple credit arrange­
ment that enables you to have the kind of furni­
ture you have always wanted, and to pay for it on
easy terms.
If yet. are considering furnishing a new home
this fall, by all means come in this week and
take advantage of these special low terms. A
visit incurs no obligation to purchase.
We
Charge
No
Interest
1*111 II
THIRD?
JgVmrrU YAMHILL
The federal census classes all persons born in this
Place Your Orders With The United American Advertisers—and Tell Them Why
We
Charge
No
Interest
|
|
|
|
|