$2.00 t ™
20 CENTS
A MAGAZINE OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP
WHERE AMERICA MUST GO BARGAINING
UNLESS NATURALIZATION LAWS CHANGE
I TNTIL AN intelligent process of educational Americanization
shall precede the formal naturalization of the aliens, their
inability to comprehend American issues from an American point
of view will in the eyes of future historians absolve them from
blame for having put a foreign stamp upon that branch of Amer
ican government over which they have a margin of control
through sheer voting power. American issues of vital importance
will in the future be bargained for at the alien nationality counter,
if the present developments of political interfusion of naturalized
nationality elements continue unabated. If the earnest appeals
from thinking Americans of native and foreign-birth, who for years
have been pleading for a revision of the present naturalization
laws, can be so wantonly ignored, then there should be little need
for further evidence that the bargaining process is already in a
fair state of development. The strength and loyalty of political
units in the home district or state is something Congressmen and
Senators cannot afford to discount, but meanwhile it should not be
wholly overlooked that more converts to the foreign political
doctrines of the Third Internationale are going through the form
of becoming naturalized citizens of America than ever before.
The naturalization proceedings have come to be looked upon
by a large contingent of aliens, who are anxious to become voting
units in America, as a ludicrous form. Listlessly they observe the
court-clerk’s reading of the formula by which they forswear all
foreign attachments and mumble incoherently the acknowledge
ment of the oath of allegiance. A keen examiner and a consci
entious judge may pierce the curtain and have their misgivings, but
their hands are tied by forms and adages, while busy America is
heedlessly passing on, unconscious of its participation in the staging
of the play—a time-worn farce, with tears behind the scenery.
march . 1925
PORTLAND. OREGON
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AM ERICAN I
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