Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-04-26
THE UN-AMERIcAN SPIRIT.

a study of the issue in Wisconsin between
the foreign element and the supporters OF
the Bennett law. The reason for the law,
it discovers, is found in the fact that the
teaching of English in the parochial
schools is very Indifferent. Indeed, it is
often in the hands of teachers who so i'm
perfectly understand the tongue that the
teaching has become farcical. This must
always be the case where English is taught
as a foreign tongue. As matter of fact,
say the people of Wisconsin, the Luther
ans have been friendly to the public
school system, have voted for it and an
nounced by their word and action that
they believe in it, and they never have,
as have the Catholics, demanded share
or division of the school funds They
have been led into grave mistake in this
Wisconsin matter by the cunning devices
of those who are secretly enemies of the
school system, and would crush out the
Lutheran as well as the State schools.
We are assured that this is the belief
among the friends of the free school sys-
TEN in Wisconsin, and that when the
Lutherans once clearly understand the
matter they viii cut loose from their allies
of the present. 1t is, therefore, as We ex-
pected it would turn out to be, the result
of clannishness. The same spirit is mani
fest in every community where there is
any considerable foreign element. The
false idea seems to have fastened upon it
that there must be unity among foreigners
and distinctiveness from Americans OF
native origin. This spirit has given birth
to what the RECORD UNION has many
time declared to be menace TO the Re-
public-the formation and maintenance Of
organizations with avowed American pur-
poses, but distinguished by foreign titles.
Thus we have in nearly all important
campaigns clubs with titles that part in
the middle, and which may well be termed
hyphenated clubs. According to our view,
there is no real place in our system for
political or other organizations formed to
influence the political thought of the day
such as Irish-American, German-American,
Italian-American, British or
other societies that prefix American with
foreign title. Everyone of these organ
izations speak of clannish spirit and class
distinctions that are really antagonistic to
the American idea, and whether intended
to be so or not, do subordinate the thought
of American citizenship to the foreign
idea.
The naturalized citizen ought to be IN
willing to be set apart and distinguished
from the native-born. He ought to con-
slider such separation as derogatory to his
social and political standing, and he would
so hold were it not that the clannish spirit
is assiduously cultivated by demagogues
and low-level politicians and is not de-
nounced with vigor and fearlessness by
patriots. Suppose, for moment, that the
native-born American citizens should or
ganize themselves throughout the country
into clubs and associations of a political
and semi-political character, from which
naturalized citizens were excluded solely
because they are Of a generation not
native-born. Might we not reasonably ex-
pect the entire foreign population to rise
up in honest indignation and protest
against this exclusive action, and to con-
slider it as reflection directly upon the
trustworthiness of large body of Ameri-
can citizens? How does the organization
of foreigners differ in principle from the
situation that we have supposed might
exist?
The un-Ameriean character and the
dangerous tendency of these elannish or
CARNATIONS and the spirit born of them is
illustrated in the opposition to the Bennett
law. That opposition is not, after all, so
much to the teaching of the English
tongue as it is to refusal of the law to
recognize nationalities in the schools. The
German, Polish and Bohemian Lutherans
are willing enough that English shall be
taught in all schools, but are unwilling
that the process shall be conducted except
through agencies exclusively theirs,
falsely assuming that the Alnerican-born
teacher is not in close sympathy with the
citizen who was born abroad, and that he
or she cannot therefore instruct the chill
dren of the foreign-born with the
sympathetic interest that is supposed
to be felt by imported teachers. Another