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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 5, 1919)
mm , ST : VOL. XXXVIII. PORTLAND, OREGON, SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 5, 1919. NO. 40. VIRILE AMERICANS MADE OF PORTLAND'S FOREIGN BORN Newcoming Aliens Find They Cannot Resist the. Infection of Healthy Citizenship as Expressed Here, v 1 - , .'1 O1 f ' . -T if? 1 JY" 1- J . ? r Tiff - t v 4 ,o- I7'- 1 jtfSLU Ks.l v- Norwegian i - -"J American English - ' Negro . Russian Jew Italian .. Austrian Rife - r ifi - 'i,-, v-i- , -s:as V j i s- &i9 f jots v 1 tip i45?C . ' ' Kgjdj J - AW few " v"''" ' tyawBW ; 1 BT DEWITT HARRT. , (Copyright. 1319. by Harry Morton.) THE average Portlander doea not even atop to question whether problems of immigration exist here. Most of the residents of the city do not care, or are too uninter ested to ascertain what local condi tions are. The proportion of foreign born population In the city la larco. situated In various localities, and I mostly segregated according; to the land of their origin and their religions ' beliefs, for they are often alow to lose hold on old-country customs. Possibly the largest section of this kind is that of the Orthodox Jews In South Portland. There is another; large Jewish settlement In Albina, near Going street. Near the Jewish settlement in South Portland is one of Italians. Orthodox Greeks have their headquarters on Eaat Twelfth, near Clinton street. A large settle ment of Finns reside near Beech and Failing streets, in Upper Albina. In the Jewish and Finn settlements are also many Russians, of different re ligious beliefs. There Is a large set tlement of Italians In Woodstock and a number of foreign-born also live In North Portland near the old Lewis and Clark fair grounds. Al most every one Is familiar with the Chinese and Japanese section THE MELTING POT. There she lies, the great Melting Pot. Listen! Can't you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth the harbor where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the earth, to pour In their human freight. Ah. what a .seething and a stirring! Celt and Latin. Slav and Teuton. Greek and Syrian black and yellow. Tea. East and West, and North and, South, the palm and the vine, .the pole and the equator, the crescent and the cross how the great alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame!. Here shall they unite to build the Republic of Man and the kingdom of God. Ah, what Is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem where all nations and races come to worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where all races come to labor and look forward.' ' ' 1 ISRAEL ZANGW1LL, of the city on Second and North Fourth streets and scattered among these are many other foreigners from other climes. There are by no means all of the. settlements In the city, but they, are a few of the principal ones. There are other minor groups as well as ,many families and even single individuals in other sections. As the foreign-American adapts him self to the new conditions he fre quently breaks away from his parent group and demonstrates his new found Americanism by mingling free ly with those who have been in the country longer 'than he has. "At Tail ins; school in South Portland, where Miss Fannie G. Porter has been prin cipal for 15 years, the registration shows 65 per cent foreign born. Virile Americans Betas Made The average Portland citizen, in common with those of other, parts of the United States, falls to realize that this section Is a nation of im migrants, the only difference being that some of them came here long ago, others ' but yesterday. All are Americans in embryo, and many of the new-comers reach the true Ideal before the older' and enfranchised ones, When their mind becomes In 'ac cord, wit the fufltfamental principles of American government and con duct, and their judgment accepts them as sound, their Industrial, civic, and home practices and modes of living conforming with American standards. Many of our older resi dents are absolutely lacking in the true comprehension of real Ameri canism, even though they and their parents have lived here and they have had the benefit of the citizen ship courses in the public schools. Often the new-comer can put them to shame. There is the marvel of the new coming foreign-born who I adapts himself to American condi tions with a comprehension and true understanding. This is mainly be cause he tries and has an ideal in view and works to that end. What kind of citizens is Portland making of her foreign-born? What does she do for them and how? What should she do what is yet lacking? Where do they live? Work? Study? What progress are they making? - Surely in answering these questions there is ample field for the sociolog ical student right at home. While in the eastern states they have in the past had to deal with a greater pro portion of the immigrants, the prob lem has not 'been as varied as on the Pacific where the oriental has entered " the 1 field as -an additional! yield to the "melting pot" influence? Can real American citizens be made from the children of Nippon? Of the disciples of Confucius? Diverse Natloaalltles Bewildering. In Failing school. Tor instance, there are some 25 nationalities found by a superficial 'examination. They come from all countries England, France, Belgium, Canada, Japan, China, Italy, Roumanla, Russia, Tur key, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Austria and Germany, as well as the number less minor principalities and in a puzzling mixture of 'birth origins. National characteristics are jealously adhered to and the atmosphere of the land of their birth is simulated as much as possible at the outset in an endeavor to ease the break from the old to the new. The minority of American-born at tending this school are hard put to meet the competition of wits, as It seems that transplanting has a tend ency to sharpen the ' intellects of the newly arrived and they are so interested and trying so hard to make good that they, in many-cases, " out distance those who have managed to arrive here by means of birth: Close observers of this fact have al ways -taken - great 'encouragement from it and augur well for the coming 1 Racial and national types taken at one pobllc school. S 51 Us . Fannie G. Porter, who has made enviable record educating foreign born. 3 Typical rookery tenements In Portland's ghetto. 4 Miss Ida Lowenberg, mentor of Jewish destinies at Neighborhood House. :5Yoic foreign-bora girls studying American cookery. A Rabbi Herman Marchbeln and him . aacred choir at Shaarel-Toraa nyn -; ,ngogne. complication. .Will he mix. ? Will he race pi Americans. .'.It. fcas- been-a well-established fact for generations that only the hardiest and best of the parent stock has been possessed of the daring and courage; to emi grate. : This is being demonstrated every day right here in Portland and it only needs a casual investigation to show any one that the new citizens are fully up to the standard of those who have been here for demdes, and are in some respects even superior. Handicaps Fall to Appal Them. Consider for a moment the task that confronts the new laid American. Coming here, : ignorant of existing practices and life, with- hazy ideas. often distrustful because of frequent betrayals in the old country, seldom speaking , a word of English, and in the majority .' of . cases lacking even thet faintest foundation of an educa tion.--Yet they make-the -plunge and often outdistance the old-timer here, It .feeing the jrule,- instead, of -the-ei- ception, for the brightest students in the schools situated In the foreign districts to number their best pupils from the newcomers. Nine years' work in six seems to be usual. Results talk. South Portland as a district in which the foreign-born element predominates suffers less from truancy and delinquency than do the so-called better districts of the city. Why? The children are inter ested. They have incentive. . Witness the tremendous change that has taken place of late In methods of teach ing. Think how much more compli cated it has been to apply these methods where the children lack, the groundwork ordinarily bestowed in this country. But the little foreigner, ambitious and keen to become a real American, assimilates ideas faster and applies them better than - the average , child . of American-born parents. They realize their handi- .(Concluded. on fage fi.l