The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-12
WAR AND The ALIEN
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
BY Frederic j. Haskin. Director
Washington, ID. c.

there Is surprisingly large amount
of the kind of patriotism that leads a
man to offer his life for his country.
Patriotism is not the right word, of
course, for that means love of father
land; while these men are Offering
their lives for a step-country, which
has not yet fully adopted them.
Germans and Austro- Hunga rians
taking out first papers in face of the
fact that it makes them liable to be
drafted for service against the lands
where they were born; Poles, Croats,
Lithuanians, coming to the naturaliza-
ton offices in bands, bringing recruit
ing officers with them: Italians volun-
teering in blocks of 0,OO0-these are
some of the ways in which the ALLEN
menace" has manifested itself since
the war began.
And back of these demonstrations
of loyalty lies the large fact that nat
uralization in this country is proceed
ing about $50 per cent more rapidly
than it ever did before; while immi-
grafton is almost nil, and will prob
ably remain SO for some years after
the war. Meantime, citizenship schools
nave been established in 100 COM
munities and the department of labor
is getting ready to publish a free text
book for the use of aliens who want
to learn to speak English and become
citizens.
In the past year, the number of de-
clarations made monthly has increas-
months of 1870 to 59,O11 average
for three months of this year,. There
are some twelve million aliens in the
United States, and Mr.. Raymond F.
Crist, deputy commissioner of natural
ization, estimates that these will soon
be making themselves citizens at the
rate of a million year. Incidentally,
they will be learning to read, finding
out about the resources and oppor-
tunitieS of this country, getting out
of their foreign quarters and sections,
weaving themselves into the ia brio of
the nations social and industrial life.
1t is a well-known fact that America
needs the immigrant-he is the man
that does the work. But there is also
reason to believe that We have not
been digesting our immigration very
well for some years past. Too much
of 1t has remained in foreign quarters,
insulated against American influences.
Then. too, this is not the country of
opportunity that it was to the immi-
grant of twenty-five years ago. When
a man leaves the land of his birth
and goes to another, he goes in the
| hope of radically changing his social
status. In nine cases out of ten he
goes because at home he belongs to a
class with no property, and he hopes
to find in the new country an oppor
| tunity to acquire land That oppor-
tunity we once offered generously, but
We do so no more Our lands, like
those of European countries, are tied
up in enormous private holdings
There is a movement on now to break
up these holdings by a high tax on
| uncultivated lands And in this food
emergency, the administration is
threatening to take over and cultivate
| such lands, or lease the right to Gull
tivate them.
| So that after the war, we may have
more to offer the immigrant. If so. he
will soon begin coming again And
when he arrives, perhaps. instead
of finding his fellow countrymen who
nave gone before huddled into quar-
ters, speaking their native language,
| he will find them speaking English,
| living as integers of the whole
population, touching the civilization of
America at a hundred points. Our
citizenship schools will have become
institutions all over the country. We
will have a machinery very likely that
will make citizens of the aliens almost
as fast as they can come.
This sudden boom in the naturaliza :
| ton business only started last Feb
ruary. In January there were 14,151
declarations of the intention to become
| citizens, and in February there were
1888. The rate took a new impulse
| from the declaration of war. and has
steadily increased. OF course, there is
d
movement. The employees are threat
ening their alien employees with dis
| charge unless they become citizens.
Others are paying them half time
III some case full time-for attendlng
the classes in citizenship. Others are
motivated by the consideration that
aliens may not live within half a mile
of arsenals, and various other govern
ment works. Then, too. the s1tuauon
of an enemy alien is unpleasant wher-
ever he lives
But more potent than any of these
seems to be the desire of the 1ntelll-
gent alien to demonstrate his loyalty
to his adopted country, to ldentl1y
himself with its interests. The nat
uraI-born American is nearly always
proud to call himself patriotic But
the chances are that no man knows
better what "Patria' means than the
Door peasant who leaves the land
where he was born-a iand whlcn
holds him by a thousand bonds-ano
goes out to seek a land of greater
opportunity. 1t is no visit or excur-
sion. He sinks his all, and knows he
is going never to return. For years
he struggles along in poverty, unable
even to learn the language of the
great new country. For years he i:
literally a man without country
Whatever fatherland may mean to E
man he learns by the bitter expert
ence of having lacked 1t.
And when the American words be
gin to come, and the American dol
lars, and he sees his children growing
up as Americans, this man has a grea
and earnest desire to become al
American. to prove, with his blood i
need be, that he is an American. lie
is far less apt to question the cause
or argue the ethics of war than the
natural-born citizen. For him, war 1.
the chance to prove himself.
Mr.. Crist, who has helped thou
sands of aliens to become citizens
firmly believes that to the more intel
hgent of the foreign born, the ideal
of citizenship and patriotism are rea
and vivid emotions. He cites as proc
: a city election in Pittsburg. which wa
analysed to determine whether or no