December 1926
THE UNITED AMERICAN
guage missions and churches is, according to “The
Watchman,” approximately fifteen thousand, but this
membership ic constantly being absorbed into the main
church units and as fast as language unity is possible.
The foreign language churches of the Adventists may
therefore properly be classified as religious training
stations and schools where all foreign born members
are fused with an absorbing ambition—that of ac
quiring the language of their adopted country suffici
ently to enable them to transfer into the permanent
congregations of the larger English or American
speaking church.
That is the ideal religious work plan for America.
The foreign church that has its independent
church government, with no incentive for its mem
bers to acquire the American language, has never
been and never will be an AMERICAN church, except
in name. Where the incentive to acquire something
is lacking, there will be no noticeable progress in the
direction of that something. A church building or a
house may be erected in America and fashioned after
an American plan, but if the spirit within is foreign,
in form and expression, the products fashioned within
the church building will bear as little evidence of
being American as the products that come from the
well fashioned house that represents foreign home
life within.
American church organizations, both Jew and
Gentile, Protestant and Catholic can profit by the
example set by the Adventists. It is as deplorable
as it is true that the independent foreign language
church bodies of every faith in America are so ex
tremely concerned with the retention of the foreign
language that they willingly accept the alternative—
the sacrifice they suffer in membership and spiritual
growth. America has been waiting too long for
a frank admission from the leaders in the foreign lan
guage field, indicating that they are ready to amal
gamate and accept American church and social govern
ment, in expression as well as in form. Unless we
become more vitally concerned in the work of Ameri
canization the day may never come when the immi
grant—through the aid of American teachers and
clergymen speaking his language in missions and
spiritual harbors of his choice—can be delivered into
the common American language church of his faith
before the spiritual assets he brought along have be
come wasted and hopelessly impaired.
THE CHINESE TONGS
IV HATEVER THE argument in favor of the
Chinese “Tong,” it’s an abscess on the very
countenance of Uncle Sam and before another of the
periodical “outbreaks” occur, let us end all concessions
to these heathen practices and put it squarely up to
the tribe, one for all and all for one, that if they want
to have their little slaughter festivals there isn’t a
square yard of ground available for another tong
feud, within the geographical boundary of the United
States, so long as China furnishes such an idéal setting
for the promotion of celestial eradication.
We should be able to make them understand that
we are not concerned in how much blood they have
to collect from the other tong to appease their in-
Page Eleven
satiable appetite, or how many “chinks” they want
butchered, but we do object to ’them staging their
killings in our front yard and making us pay the cost
of cleaning up their dirty mess. Why should we have
to waste the time of our courts to delve into the abys
mal hopelessness of celestial perversities when we
have other and more important matters within reason,
in our own housekeeping, that should have the atten
tion of the courts ? There cannot be any good reason
for making Uncle Sam suffer these indignities so long
as there is a sea lane open to China and boats available
to carry the waring tong tribes across to their home
land, where they can take as many shots at one another
as they mind to.
As foreign societies the tongs will never be regu
lated according to American ideas, and governed ac
cording to American standards. The tongmen have
this in common with all others who form foreign
societies of their nationalities in America—they
organize according to old country patterns and, of
course, cut the cloth accordingly.
A CHARTER THAT IS NOT FOOL-PROOF
THE CURTAILMENT of local self-government in
1 America in favor of centralized, or Federal
Government, which is going on today through various
forms of new legislation in state legislatures and in
Congress, is striking a great many soundly thinking
citizens as being inimical to democracy and to its
precepts of freedom, in that it destroys the func
tions of government which originally were rightfully
committed to the states and tend to overload the
Federal Government with functions which never were
intended for Federal supervisioii or control, legisla
tive or executive.
The American brand of democracy leaves nothing
to be desired if it is left alone in its original form. It
was devised to make the individual citizen as free as
possible and at the same time give him adequate pro
tection and speedy and just settlement of matters
in dispute. The Constitution by which our specific
kind of democracy is defined is more specific in its
grant of freedom than in its restriction. It gives the
individual broad discretionary power which creates a
wholesome sense of responsibility to -self as much as
to the state. This covenant which made government
by the people, for the people, possible, was broad
enough to give practical democracy its fullest, fairest
and freest form of expression, but it couldn’t be
made fool-proof without defeating the very purpose
for which it was intended.
When the people surrender local government, which
can be made flexible enough to suit every local con
dition, and turns it over to the Federal Government
under the assumption that it will mean more uni
formity in government all around, they are moving
in the direction of limited democracy and limited
freedom, neither of which are akin to the true spirit
of America.
Our representative form of action, with annual
and biennial legislative sessions in every state,
leave plenty of room for adjustments necessary to meet
adequately every exigency affecting the people of
each state in order that they may pursue happiness