Omaha daily bee., 1920-01-26
No Autocracy Should be
Found In Ranks of Either
Of Workers or Capitalists
More Democracy in the Industries Is One Solution Of
Present State of Unrest-Answer to Many Let
ters Asking: what Are We to Do About the
Present Situation?

and the workers do need political ex-
preston, but we must understand
thoroughly what is implied by each
movement and how far it is intend
ed to go with it. In following ar
ticles | shall exhibit some of the
more intensive and scientific expert
ments and try to show how far each
is effective in meeting the trouble
for example welfare work, the shop
committee system, the method Of
continuous arbitration as remarkably
prachced in the clothing industry,
the new science of management as
stimulated from the employers side,
and the new impulse toward co-op-
erative enterprises among the work
ers.
Consider now the subject of
"Americanization." | know OF a
meeting held not long ago by a
group of business men in New York
City to discuss this problem. They
were deeply concerned about it. The
suggestion made in all seriousness
by the principal speaker was to have
a large number of copies of the con-
stitution of the United States print
ed aud distributed. He said that
there was Bible i'll practically every
hotel room in America; there ought
also to be constitution. People
must get back to the sources! At
another meeting I know of speaker
suggested a wide advertising Of
American principles in the newspa-
pers; said that it had been already
adopted with great success in one or
two cities. Another plan provided
for a resurrection of the "four-min-
ute men" who spoke so effectively
for the Liberty loan campaigns dur
ing the war, in which American
principles would be presented in the
aters, schools, and SO on-in four
minutes. Other proposals, many Of
them very valuable so far as they
60, provide for the wide teaching of
the English language in night
schools, shop schools and the like.
This is actually being done in many
places.
The "One. Language" Plants.
I know of one plant in Milwaukee,
a tannery, where 400 foreign-born
employees recently completed nine
weeks instruction in the English
anguage-speaking, reading, writing
and arithmetic. They had an hour
every day for hvcNdays each week on
the company's time and without loss
of wages. The results were excel
lent. There are said to be 500 in
dustrial plants in America where
work of this sort is being carried on
1t is not only good for the workers,
but it pays the employer to have
"one Language" plant. Certain cities.
like Cleveland, have begun serious
to teach English to for
eigners, and there has been wide
revival of interest in night schools
and adult schools.
There have also been many pro-
posals to forward the same end by
law. In its report, after investigat-
ing the steel strike, the senate COM
mittee recommended change in
our naturalization laws to require
some education of all foreigners,
at least to the extent of speaking the
American language" and providing
that if they do not acquire this
knowledge within FIVE years after
their arrival they may be deported.
All OF these suggestions, though
some OF them indicate an extraor-
dinary failure to visualize the STU
peadous nature Of the problem they
are attacking so lightly, are signih-
cant of one great fact-and this is
the conviction that the melting pot"
idea of America has failed, the idea
that merely being in America was
enough, by some kind of magic |
hocus-pocus, to turn vast numbers
Of foreigners of old and resistant
races into good Americans.
A Starting Fact. |
Consider this familiar and yet al
ways startling fact, that in the last
p years, since l897-the period of |
the greatest expansion of American
100000 immi-
grants have come to America. |
Twice as many people as there are
today in all Canada! A stupendous
migration! Unlike the earlier inl-
migrants, who distributed them
selves more evenly throughout the
nation, these later peoples have
tended to settle i'll indigestible
Jumps in the industrial regions.
Foreigners largely dominate the
great baic industries of the nation:
:oal, steel, oil, textiles, the packing
houses and the clothing trades. We
nave been so confident of the magic
If the melting pot, SO busy making
money, that we were blind to the
,act that, instead of transforming
hese masses of foreigners, Ameri-
IAN institutions were being trans