New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-07-19
Becoming an American.

It NAV be that Americans have had too
complacent a view of the mental struggle
involved in forswearing a foreign ale
glance to become an American citizen.
We are apt to think, perhaps, that the
choice is too obvious one to exercise the
psychology of the immigrant peasant, or
for that matter of the immigrant intel
lectual; too much ike exchanging the
Middle Ages for the Twentieth Century
to permit of heart searchings or the
torture of INDIGESTION. Mr.. Guido BrpnO's
experience, as set forth in his magazine.
"Grcenwich Village" should help to check
this tendency in some Of us.
An introduction to the words and char
acter of Abraham Lincoln finally decided
Mr.. Bruno, a very young man at the time,
to become naturalized Il wanted to be
citizen Of the country this man had lived,
and worked and finally died for" he
writes. But even here, in his sudden
fealty to a personality, Mr.. Bruno showed
his alien heritage Of monarchical tradition.
We Americans, passionately partisan as
some of us are. never completely yield cur
selves to personal leadership. We create
no princes, not even in our imaginaticns.
The writer continues:
And so ! stood there before the clerk IN
Western city and desired 20 make my appli-
cation for American citizenship. 1t was
Tormalitv Of a couple Of minutes. | glanced
over the slip of paper he handed me. There
it stood, black on white, glazing into my
face, that ! had to renounce the sovereign
the prince whose subject then was.
There are moments in the life Of every
human being when his brain works with
hurrfying alacrity. Thoughts memories,
vivid pictures of scenes that have left an
everlasting impression shoot through the
brain in terrifying quick succession. They
follow one the other, covering as long stretch
Cf years as OUT conscious and unconscious
memory goes back in our lives. 1t happened
there to me. In the clerks Office, white
was looking at the disinterested face Of the
man who wanted me to raise my hand and
repeat the oath and to be done with me-
saw myself as a young boy singing patriotic
songs. saw myself as a youth in uniform
with unsheathcd sword swearing an oath Of
allegiance to my king. How terrible that
OSln was. DuIlUE udy anu NISHt, we OdtI
reads, I'm water and on land, in peace and
IN war, will follow his leadership, will be
loyal to him. Even against my father and
my brothers will be loyal to him"
And then ! thought how | had been edu-
Gated at his expense, being a beneficiary of
a stipcndum, how | had 20 thank him midi
rcctly for my college and for my university
education And | thought OF my father and
of his father and Of all my ancestors. and
thought OF my brothers who wore his coat and
spent their lives in his service, and all this
thought in less than a minute, and tod the
clerk that ! would come back on another day
20 sign my declaration of intention
The young man went back in few Gays.
and made his declaration, but only after a.
long session with himself In his hall bed
room. And he made it because he had
discovered that in becoming an American
he would become a cosmopolitan, the.
member of a community which drew its
millions from all lands and all races His
feeling was undoubtedly akin to that Of
the young graduate who steps from the
to which he has pledged his
oyalty out into world composed of grad
yates Of countless institutional natural
And it has endured with him as the |