The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., January 01, 1925, Page 21, Image 21

JANUARY, 1925
Page Twenty-one
THE UNITED AMERICAN
Pointed Lessons in Americanization
SQUARING standards in work and play according
to the acceptable American code is a work that
should be looked after among adults as well as among
children everywhere in America, particularly in the
communities where foreign-born people live and labor.
The need for such work in equally great in the rural
districts where only a few immigrant families reside
as it is in the most congested city centers where the
foreign-born in many instances outnumber the native-
born.
Whether the playing-square code is in writing or
not, whether or not it is down on the calendar, in
the workaday world as well as on the college campus
and on the public school ground, square-shooting
Americans should stress the point of being on the
level much more than is being done.
The foreign-born will be no worse, if not any better
than those Americans with whom he works or plays,
and this applies to adults as well as to children. Amer­
icans who cheat, whether they steal time, material
or money, are setting a poor example where foreign-
born people are working with them and are watching
their actions. Their influence is fully as effective for
evil as it is for good. Honorable conduct is another defi­
nition for good example. Reproach the foreign-born
for an unbecoming conduct in his work, in his social
relations and in his pleasure seeking, and his defense
is immediately a recitation of what he has seen among
his American fellows at work, what he has seen of the
American’s social' and home standards in the neigbor-
hood, and what he has seen and knows of the “parties”
of “the American’s” (meaning the native-born) in their
homes, clubs and societies. The foreign-born guages his
contention for individual “rights” on the basis of
equality. The American law and moral code to him
is not what is written in books but what he sees.
The standard that is visible on every hand is his
standard, not what is in the law-libraries. His ever­
lasting question is: “Well, if the Americans can
‘get away with it,’ why can’t I?”
True, there are Americans who are leading chaste
and clean lives, but that is also true of an equally
large proportion of the foreign-born. That part of
America which calls itself native-born has no patent
on the idea of right living. Indeed the very source and
foundation to the morals upon which America is build­
ing consists of interlocking units imported from all of
the European countries whose emigrants compose the
ancestry of the native Americans of today. Upon
this basis is built the superstructure we call America
in thought, speach and action. Its character is a
blend of the best that has come here from every
shore, and it has been molded and fashioned by the
composite ingenuity of the good, the moral and the
clean of the native-born and the immigrant.
The citizen who is fundamentally an American,
whether native-born or foreign-born, shapes his life
according to the American code of clean living and
measures his own responsibility in citizenship so that
he need not apologize to himself of anybody else.
Police authority is unnecessary to keep him pursuing
the path of right thinking, right living and law-ob­
servance. . Indeed, he is the one that sets the pace,
establishes and maintains the inconquerable force
we call the American consciousness.
But the citizen who was fond of the unrestrained
practices that were tolerated and promoted com­
monly in America during a long period of time when
we stretched the term American Liberty to include
almost anything, even licensed and protected vice and
degraded morals, does not subscribe to the present
restrictions which to him have come to mean limita­
tions of the popular ideas of American liberty. What
he cannot practice any more in the open, he continues
to practice in secret. In his defiant attitude he pro­
claims the license-restraining laws an encroachment
upon the liberty of America, and sets a pace that runs
counter to the laws that stand for the better things.
So remarkably successful has this type of citizen been
that he has gained political recognition and is very
frequently found to occupy powerful positions in
America’s legislative halls, in our administrative
chairs and on the bench with the American judiciary.
Through these channels the law-breaking American is
in a position-to juggle the truth, make vice out of
virtue, make a mockery out of our laws and permit
influential citizens to break the laws and enjoy their
social vices with immunity.
Many of the police officers who draw their salaries
from the public treasury for enforcing the laws are
shielding the law-breaker who is influential, and the
miserable rat who is willing to do “stool pigeon”-
service and hand over a percentage of his ill-
gotten gain is permitted to practice his nefarious
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