Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-07-30
THE OTHER SIDE OF FREEDOM
These Are Times When We Ignore the
Riehts Of Small Nations

!
age man experiences in adjusting his in
dividual action and viewpoint to the high
motives for which he is willing, in the
mass, to stake his life. There are land
lords who never have hesitated to plunder
poor tenants whom they find at disad-
vantage. Yet they send their sons to
battle for the rights of small nations!
Men who have bitterly opposed every
movement for the betterment of labor are
the first to cry out of the depths of genu-
inc indignation that the Junkers must 60
We in America are just now applaud
ing the Czecho-Slavs for one of the
bravest and noblest adventures ever en-
dured for the cause of liberty. And here
| at home we are accustomed to isolate
| these same Czecho-Slavs in slums and
regard them with prejudice and suspi-
cion as people different from ourselves.
Italians and Serbians are people whom
we seem able to understand only at dis
tance or in the second generation. We
are moved profoundly by their fidelity
and valor in the present war. When
them in quarters" and leave them to the
politicians and the eXploiters to be mis-
led. cheated and oppressed.
The parable written by Albert c.
Barnes and printed in another column on
this page shows the manner in which the
law of compensation reacts upon US in
consequence to help political corruption
in American cities. The ward politician
has altogether shrewder view of the
orcigners in this country than the aver
age American in or out of Congress. He
finds Z state of affairs that makes his
singular job easy. The public schools
work miracles with the second generation
of foreigners. But the immigrants them
selves are another story.
If the war has done one thing it has
interpreted the spirits of these people.
They have adventured this far to escape
from torment. But most of them do not
escape it. They go bewildered to their
graves. The ward boss is to them the
permanent sign and symbol of the free
country. Through his friend, the corner
what he believes to be the might and
power of the great republic. That the
new country should seem to its new
citizen to be unkind and limited alike in
its intelligence and its sense of justice is
not strange.
1t is often said that the foreign quar-
ters are obstacles in the way of good
municipal government. They are. And
the fault isn't with any of the ordinary
practices or theories Of government. 1t
is with the viewpoint of the average
American, which tends to keep aloof all
those who do not know our accent or
wear clothes identically like ours or eat
the same food.
1t was in this city not long ago that
manufacturer excused low wages in his
factory with the announcement that
almost all his employees "were Italians"
In the coal regions of Pennsylvania Poles
followed the Irish, English and Welsh
miners when these miners died or retired
after having sent their sons into other
less rigorous employments. The Poles
who took up the work were gentle,
credulous men of great physical power.
But the older residents in that region in
vented a term of kindly derision for
them, set them apart and viewed them
as a lesser breed. These were the de-
scendants of men who had warred for
liberty before the Declaration of Inde-
pendence was written.
There is IN the natire rieUpoint of all
of the foreigners Who come to America
to Hvc are desperately poor. And 1t may
be lcorth observing that in this country
prosperity is acorshiped to the exclusion
of many things better ,corth 1ChiLe. In
the end it may prove that it is the pou-
erty of the alien that makes his Wny diff
cult in America.
Now we are seeing these people of the
European continent in the mass for the
first time-as people who are as spirited
as brave, as eager as ourselves. Those
of them who come to this country bring
trends of character and faiths that prop
erly might make the national character
| of America still richer and more various
We shall not hare finished the fight for
| the rights Of small nations until each
new citizen is given an opportunity to be
good one and made free from the
immoral exploitation by politicians on
the one hand and dependent industries
on the other. The avar should be ade-
quate to sho,c that the little people noho
are our allies abroad are fitted to be ou,.
a!lies-not our deDendents--at home.
immigration will increase after the
war. The great unleavened masses of
the foreign born, isolated in many east
ern cities, are already peril to many
institutions of local government. Left to
| themselves. nnintnrmad aliens are ca silu