New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1918-10-18

fem1n1ne members are seen even now
making a display of Jewelry in super
abundance, so that one may truly
wonder whether the German women
who gave their wedding rings to aid
the State might not furnish examples
of patriotism for these. And what
shall we say to the woman who is
extravagant Of food now as our Land
faces a food shortage, so as to feed
our neighbors beyond the sea? Surely
the women who wear costly new furs
in wartime lack the American spirit
of the young artillery captains wife
who declined to wear his parting gift
of furs, because it seemed bad taste
to do so during the war. Even the
unneeded purchases of home furni-
ture at this time tends to divert both
the money itself and also the labor
of those men who make the articles,
from tasks that will make U. S. stand
for unconditional surrender" of q
criminal and outlawed autocracy. If
there were ever a need for American
women to be sane, it is now. Happily
such reminders can be for only a mi
noritY of women, to be sure, but that
minority is very real and at times
rather too prominent. They are not
true to the American type.
The Greater Need.
But why and how to proceed in
Americanizing women of foreign
birth? At the very start it must be
almost self evident that if we succeed
in educating the mon only, we tend
to promote a cleavage in the family,
which is itself un-American. If the
mother continues to wear old-country
clothes, speak a foreign tongue and
to remain unchanged in manner, she
will be left at home by the others
in the family who are adapting them
selves to our ways; and that home will
not cease to lack the cleanliness, the
neatness, and the sanitation that
mark our standards of living. Still
further we must consider those men
of their own kin who later coming
home from the army and the camps,
Am ericanized, will perhaps feel little
attracted to these women who have
neither learned English, nor the bet
ter ways of living and of keeping tho
homes, as we'll as themselves, attrac-
tive. All this will make for a negation
of Americanism. Our duty is certainly
too clear for any division Of counsel
in this matter. We simply must reach
the women of foreign birth in a sym
pathetic and helpful way. These wo-
men must be helped to understand
America and the factors immediately
touching their own lives in this coun-
try. They must be instructed in the
use of our language. Let it be clearly
understood that the language of the
home will not be English unless the
mother also uses it. These same wo-
men who have previously been shun-
ned and sighted must be made to like
America and to feel at home here.
This will surely signify that they are
entitled to courtesy, to the necessary
forms of information, to help and
sympathy in their troubles, and to
the opportunity for friendly hospitali-
ty in the Land of their choice. There
is the implication here that the aloof-
ness of the highbrow, the barriers of
prejudice, and the snobbishness of the
pseudo cultured, are all as averse to
good Americanism as is the clannish
ness, the segregation, and the racial
colonizing of those who happen to
differ from us in the geography of
their birth. H.
Natiyism and its Errors.
Tt is entirely unfair for us to con-
denim a whole group of diverse
people, as though lacking in intellec-
tual traits or in reasonable standards
of living. when we ourselves have
Judged everything according to our
own nativism, when we have made
money out of the crowded, unsanitary
ill-housing conditions that the new
conner was forced to accept and was
led to believe were American, when
our provision for the learning of our
language and our ways has often been
cr,a 6jc nd f. hos ri
we have with impunity called them
names and hurt their feelings. We
certainly do not know what would
have been possible, had we used more
sense and system in our attitude. But
we do know that to secure the sp1en-
did development of the vast resources
of the great Northwest such treatment
was not employed.
It is not safe to forget that we
needed and wanted these men and
women in our work. Theirs may be
the opportunity, but we should reflect
that ours is the profit The potent fact
TO be regarded in all of this is that
these women as we'll as the men are
to be future American people. One
might almost be pardoned at this
point for wondering whether those
honored and noble souls of the May
flower, whom we remember with re-
verence, might, if landed now, also be
regarded by us as crude, provincial
Foreigners. Would their successors
and descendants be as naughty to
them now as to other modern ad-
venturerS from abroad? The uppish-
ness that sits in the scorner's seat"
because people from other lands seem
foreign to u.s. might well consider
that it is only democratic and Ameri-
can to live by the side of the road,
and be a friend to man"
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