Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-30
A DAY OF JUDGMENT
.4iter the Var The Foreign-Born Who Hare Cherished Foreign
Ideals Are 10 Be Brought 10 he Bar Of The Republic

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Of Neo salem. ". d. FoiIo'ci'9 is 'ohot Judge
VOU received your final papers as a citi-
i zen in 1898. BY the oath which YOU then
took you renowned and abjured all allegiance
to Germany and to the Emperor Of Ger
many, and swore that you would bear true
faith and allegiance to the United States.
What did that mean? That you would set
about earnestly growing an American soul
and put away your German soul. That Is
what your oath of allegiance meant.
Have you done that? | do not think you
have. You have cherished everything German
and stifed everything American. You nave
preached German, prayed German, feau her-
man. sung German. Every thought OF your
mind and every emotion of your heart
through all these years has been German.
Your body has been in America, but your
life has Been in Germany If YOU were set
down in Prussia today YOU would be III mar
mony with your environment. II would mt
YOU just as a flower fits tho leaf and stem
Of the plant on which it grows.
You have influenced others who nave beeh
under your ministry to de- the same thlng.
You said YOU would cease 10 cherish your
herman sout- dHu AhdN N'h N'''u II -
build up inside Of you an American soul
That meant that YOU would begin the study
Of American life and history that you would
open your mind and heart to all Of its in
nuences: that YOU would try to understand
it's ideals and purposes, and love them that
YOU would try to build up Inside of yourself
a whole group of feelings for the United
States, the same as you felt toward the
E'atherland when you left Germany.
YTNIIIpE have hpau a good many ,plmd ms
/ before me in the last month. They have
lived in this country. like Yourself. ten.
twenty, thirty. forty years. and they had
to give their evidence through an Interpreter,
1t has been an impressive part of the trial.
As looked at them and tried, as best |
could. TO understand them. there was written
all over every one of them, Made in Ger
many" American life had not dimmed that
mark in the least. 1t stood there as bright
and fresh as the inscription upon a new
coin.
do not blame YOU and these men alone.
| blame myself. / blame my country. We
urged YOU TO come we welcomed YOU; we
gave YOU opportunity; we gave YOU lana
we conferred upon YOU the dladein OF Amer
lean citizenship-and then we left you. We
paid no attention to what you have been
DOING.
And nov the world war has thrown a
searchlight upon our national me- ana what
have we discovered? We find all over these
United States. in groups. little Germanys,
little Italys, little Austrias, little Norways,
little Russias. These foreign people have
thrown a circle about themselves, and in
stead of keeping the oath they TOOK that
they would try to grow American souls in
side of them they have studiously strlNen
to exclude everything American. and to
cherish everything foreign.
A clever gentleman wrote a romance called
America. the Melting Pot" II appealed ia
our vanity, and through all these years we
have been seeing romance instead or fact
That is the awful truth. The figure OF my
country stands beside YOU today. II says &c
me: "Do not blame this man alone. i am
partly TO blame. Punish him for his offenSe
but let him know that | see things in a new
light that a new era has come here. Punisi
him to teach him and the like of him, ant
| all those who have been misled by him ant
his life. that a change has come that Their
must be an Interpretation anew of the oatl
OF allegiance. 1t has been in the past moth
ing but a formula of words. From this TIM
on IL must be translated into living characters
| incarnate in the life of every foreigner who
has his dwelling place within our midst. j
they have been cherishing foreign history
foreign ideals, foreign loyalty, it must b
stopped. and they must begin at once. al
over again, to cherish American thought
American history, American ideals.
T AN not so simple as TO entertain the idei
/ that racial habits and qualities can be pu
aside by the will In a day. in a year. in
generation but because that Is difficult
all the more reason why you should g
about II and quit cherishing a foreign llf'
II half the effort had been put forth in thes
foreign communities to build up an Amer
can life in the hearts of these foreign-bor
citizens that aas been put forth to perpetual