The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1918-05-03
Scum of the Melting Pot

Scum of the Melting Pot
The Saturday Evening Post in the issue Of
this week pays it's respect Of the trouble maker
and agtator in terms so strong and logic so ir
resistable that we reprint it with the hope thai
every patriot will read it for the guidance of his
conduct and every fomenter of unrest in this
community will study it for the benefit of his
soul and the immediate Improvement of his con
duct.
The editorial follows:
American carelessness, cussedness and poll
tics are responsible for the internal situation
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 the country has snap
ped at her heels. We have found that enemy in
trenched in America as we'll as in France-sap
ping in our schools, undermining in our press
burrowing in our municipal and state govern.
Notwithstanding whenever back has been
turned
It looks bad, but it is only scum, and beneath
it Americanism is coming to the boiling point
We are in the healthy condition of knowing what
the trouble is. We have been too free with
Misunderstanding everything and demanding
nothing. We have had happy-go-lucky, don't
care theory that nobody need worry about what
the unassimilated foreigner did or thought; that
everything would come out right in the end; that
there was some magic in our air that would
transform the lazy, the weak, the vicious, into
Woodworking, honest, desirable American citi-
zens. We have considered the rights" of every
nationality in the world except our own.
The immigrant who comes to America to be-
come an American and who works at that job
should be welcome; but of late years too many
of another kind have settled here. Powerful in
fluences have been at work against their Amer
icanization in the old way. Free entry and Op-
portunity have been given not only to- the honest,
sturdy immigrant with sincere 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 for
elgn 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 government. The profess
sional troubemaker has been permitted to go
ahead and make trouble. Almost any scoundrel
in Europe who fancied trip to our shores has
had fair field and plenty of favor over here
because "this free country and the refuge Of
the oppressed. 1t has been the refuge of the
oppressed, but it has also been the haven of a
lot of rascals who have abused our hospitality
and besmirched our institutions, not only from
the soap box but from the forum.
The final blame for these conditions rests at
the door of naturalized and native-born Ameri-
can politicians and demagogues. who, to gain and
keep office, have basely appealed to sectional
and race pre- JUDGE, to passion, ignorance and
discomfort. They have made possible the per-
petuation Of a babel of tongues, segregation of
races, growing class prejudice in this country.
They have exalted the hyphen until it has be-
come 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, gratfing,
sinister, we have the class appeal-the easiest of
all with the uneducated or half-educated foreign
or. who has been class-ridden all his life, with
out the opportunity that he has over here to be-
come a member of any,class for which his brains
and his will to work qualify him. AS the appeal
to discomfort, to class, is the easiest it offers
the best field for the demagogue the CRATER,
the cheap 'intellectuap' limelighter It's apostles
"men with soft faces, are everywhere just now
among labor, bidding it take advantage of the
nations need; among farmers, telling them that
they are getting raw DEAL They search out
particular spot local grievance IN each
town and county, and base their appeal on that
Last and least are those fatuous fools-the nut
sundae Socialists from the ranks of the self
styled "intellectuals' and the well-to-do lemon
pop Bolsheviki uplifters-preaching something,
they don't just care what, so it keeps the spot
1;,rbt ~, fbon, Thov GRO So1f.So ;1o,1