Page Nineteen
THE UNITED AMERICAN
JANUARY, 1925
On the Borderland of Truth and Falsehood
«THE INTERPRETER” which in this instance is
a small tract issued or permitted to issue month­
ly by the Board of Trustees of the Foreign Language
Information Service in New York, is like most in­
terpreters, sometimes reliable, sometimes fairly
reliable and sometimes wholly unreliable.
As we find it, it isn’t so much what is said as
how it is said by this Interpreter that counts. The
Service may be all right by way of helping the newer
immigrants, we don’t know, but it isn’t all right the
way the publication of this bureau in reference “in
terprets” the thoughts and expressions of the parties
in question (the immigrant and Uncle Sam), and con­
tinually goes out of its way to sneer and jeer at all
Americanization work, giving copiously of its limited
space to anybody who is willing and interested in
taking a whack at Americanization.
For the edification of the Americans who do not
read foreign language newspapers or periodicals let
us explain that these interpreters always translate
the best they find in those papers. In this way they
help to put a quietus on American public opinion
against the pernicious expressions in contributions
and editorials in the foreign language press. Through
circulars in the American language and through the
Interpreter, the monthly tract in reference, the in­
terpreters of this bureau are carrying on a very
finished form of propaganda against Americanization
work, appealing to public sympathy for “the down­
trodden and helpless aliens” with a view to creating a
sentiment favoring a hands-off policy respecting the
immigrant people who by inference are held to be fully
able to care for themselves, if let alone. The work of
the interpreters in this bureau has been instrumental
in boosting the “stock” of the foreign language press,
allaying public sentiment and obtaining a very much
better rating for such publications in political and com­
mercial channels, as time goes on. And to the foreign
language press they hold out the assurance that the
public sentiment is turning and that due to the
bureau’s “intelligent” efforts, resentment is dying out
and the old friendly and patronizing attitude is
gradually coming back. Caustic remarks against
Americanization, always showing it up in an unfavor­
able light, runs rampant through the channels of the
bureau and in turn is stressed with ill concealed joy
in the foreign language press. A few foreign language
newspapers are wise enough not to enlarge upon the
■bureau’s informations, which are regularly sent to
them, mostly in foreign language form. Evidently
they are afraid that the bureau interpreters might
work too fast and by some mistake undo the work
that has been done.
A fair sample of the kind of expressions anent
immigrant assimilation and Americanization in which,
the learned interpreters of this bureau are interested
may be had from the following paragraphs, in smaller
print, which the interpreters have purloined from a
New York Times’ interview with Willa S. Cather,
the novelist. By way of introduction and whole­
hearted support of the caustic remarks by this writer,
who is clearly outside of her element and beyond the
depths of her intelligence on the subject, the in­
terpreters’ “Interpreter” indulges in the following
prefacing:
Willa S. Cather, novelist, has a word to say
about immigrant contributions to American life.
It is not the conventional word, but it recalls some
virtues which prevailed in the United States a
generation ago and ought to be copied by the
over-zealous advocates of stereotyped citizenship.
OUCH! There you got it, you foolish citizens of
America who are heart and soul interested and
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