Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-11-05
Et1f1ttttg Gtlat

Steelton some years ago thai wher
man IN a certain branch of the
great steel works yelled '1et go" in
ms natlVe language 1t meant "hold
on IN the tongue of men near him
ana was unintelligible to others.
MODERN mill management does not
stand FOR any such conditions and.
there are Few parts of the Bethle-
mem plant down the river where
/ warning signs and words are not
Understood. The men have either
TO learn the language of the works
or get other jobs, to sum up the
! policy rather bluntly. Now the
point is that If the head of "a mill
| can unscramble a labor force so
that the men can be made to under
stand enough plain English to work
ana save their necks and not
| wreck the machinery the problem
| or Americanzation can also he
solved in Harrisburg. It means
work, getting down among the
foreigners, finding out their nation
| allty, why they came here, why thew
stay and what they think is wrong.
EVERY foreigner has u grievance.
say newspaper reporters who have
| worked among them. Most of the
troubles are more or less imaginary.
but they stick. And precious few
OF the aliens understand our scheme
OF government except as it OCCASION
ally relates to q squire or a con-
stable and too often have they heen
exploited by minions of the law,
Americanization is going to be a
good bit of problem in Harrisburg
ana steelton in the next few years.
more than once the waters were
troubled during the war and ,nly
effort that is unknown kept the
steel strike from spreading here.
80 that to-day opportunities for
augmentation really abound in
Harrisburg and its daughter borough.
Just as an instance of what the
propiem really means it may be
mentioned that one day e. Allen
Drawbaugh, principal of the
Fothergill school in the lower end
or Steelton, wrote a story for the
harrisburg Telegraph in which he
counted children of thirty-two or
three nationalities in one school.
Bringing it nearer home there have
peen compiled in the last few years
some figures on Harrsburgs own
schools that are enough to make
people think. Austin Miller, the at
tendance officer of the Harrisburg
School Board, who has made q study
OF the pupils, says that his last count
shows that there are in the schools
OF the State Capital, children whose
parents represent twenty-five ma
tons, while the foreign born chill
dfen actually in our schools come
from fourteen nations. In one room
IN Harrisburg school it is said
there are eight or nine nationalities
! represented. Mr.. Miller figured
! out that the foreign born children
come from these stocks: Russian,
hungarian, italian, German, Polish,
: English, Austrian, Greek, Rou-
l m a nj In ptt1ar
Porto Rican and Canadian. No at
tempt was made to divide up the
Russian branches. but it is safe to
say that three or four were repre-
sented. In addition to all these,
Steelton has Syrians, Swedes, Ser
bians, Turks and Macedonians rep
: resented in schools now. The old
4 German, French, Swiss and Scanda-
/ navian families have been largely
, assimilated, but there is enough to
make watching the melting pot a
1 problem.
The Harrisburg Public Library,
: which has just arranged a table for
2 members of the American Legion
3 to contain books relative to the war
Y and the literature of the organiza-
3 ton to the men in khaki, has been
specializing in books on citizenship
l as means of helping men to be-
= come naturalized. The Library
r several years ago became a partici-
= pant in the Americanization move
c ment and many of the readers who
o thronged the place were given ad-
vice in study and also furnished
:, with the very books that they need
I, ed to get good grasp on what con-
e stitutes citizen of a common
a wealth and republic. Miss Alice
t r. Eaton, the librarian, in selecting
Y books for the children's school Ii
t braries, has chosen many which
: deal with early American history,
n the founding of the republic, its de-
j velopment and the men who made
s it, all told in easily understandable
S stories. These school libraries have
: been a great work toward inculcat-
J" ing the right kind of ideas in the
n minds of the juvenile readers, many
= of whom are of foreign birth, but
n who are already as intensely patrio-
y tic as the descendants of men who
y fought in the Pennsylvania Line.
One of the activities of the
Dauphin County Historical Society
has been the assembling of data
relative to local history and a plan
is now being considered whereby
s the basic facts of lower Susque-
hanna valley history can be brought
q to the notice of students in the more
y advanced schools of the city. There
4 never has been printed a history of
% Dauphn or it's neighbor counties
along the wide branching river that
- could be put in the so-called ''popu-
y lar class" The histories are all
:, =, more or less ponderous and filled
=, with detail. The dates, the events,
:, the economic reason, Harrisburg S
a u relation to the State government
q the part of the county and its neigh
-, bors in building up the State and
% in defense of it's liberties could he
"a gathered and made available for
- study at comparatively little effort
10 In some western States counties
20 whose history is hardly more in
80 point of time than that of Steelton
"a the beginnings and the share of the
~ county in affairs of its State are
re taught in schools through local en-
,e terprise.