Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1918-05-20
SCUM OF THE MELTING POT.

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-W.S.S.-
SCUM OF THE MELTING POT.
Saturday Evening Post: American
carelessness, cussedness and politics
are responsible for the internal situa-
ton that has caused so much anxiety
during the past year. In the heat and
stir of preparation the scum has risen
to the top.
AS America has turned her face
toward the enemy every dirty cur in
this country has snapped at her heels.
We have found that enemy in
trenched in America as we'll as in
France-sapping in our schools, I'M
dermining in our press, burrowing in
our municipal and state government
shipping whenever back has been
turned.
1t looks bad, but it is only scum,
and beneath it Americanism is COM
ing to the boiling point. We are in
the healthy condition of knowing
what the trouble is. We have been
too free with America - giving
everything and demanding nothing.
We have had a happy-go-lucky,
don't care theory that nobody needs
worry about what the unassimilated
foreigner did or thought, that every
thing would come out right in the
end;H that there was some magic in
our air that would transform the
lazy, the weak, the vicious, into hard
workers, honest, desirable American
citizens. We have considered the
right" of every nationality in the
world except our own.
The immigrant who comes to
America to become an American and
who works at that job should be well
come; but of late years too many of
another kind have settled here. Pow
erful influences have been at work
against their Americanization in the
old way. Free entry and opportunity
have been given not only to the hon
est, sturdy immigrant with sin
cere admiration for our country and
the will to work and become a loyal
American, but to the fellow who had
only the will to work us and against
us. The foreign agitator has been
welcomed and told to go ahead and
agitate, even when he blackguarded
our country and lied to the ignorant
and the credulous about our govern
ment. The professional trouble
maker has been permitted to go
ahead and make trouble. Almost any
scoundrel in Europe who fancied
trip to our shoers has had fair
field and plenty of favor over here
because this is free country and
the refuge of the oppressed" 1t has
been the refuge of the oppressed, but
it has also been the haven of lot
of rascals who have abused our hos
pitality and besmirched our institu-
tons, not only from the soap box but
from the forum.
The final blame for these condi-
tons rest at the door of naturalized
and native-born American politicians
and demagoues, who, to gain and
keep office, have basely appealed to
sectional and race prejudice, to pas
sion, ignorance and discomfort. They
have. made possible the perpetuation
of a babel of tongues, segregation
of race, growing class prejudice
in this country. They have exalted
the hyphen until it has become al
badge of honor; they have groveled
to every vote except the American
vote. 1t is about time to show them
what the solid Americanism of this
country can do to them at the polls.
Added to all these forces, selfish,
grating, sinister, we have the class
easiest of all with the
uneducated or half-educated for
egner, who has been class-ridden all
his life, without the opportunity that
he has over here to become a men,
Der of any class for which his brains
and his will to work qualify him. AS