Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1920-02-13
Curing BoLshepisn1 By Education

Curing B0tSheplSm BY EduC0tIOn
The first step in effective campaign
against Bolshevism" is what the PROVI-
! DENCE JOURNAL (Ind.) calls the Kenyon
alien education bill. Senator Kenyon
(Iowa), author of the measure, describes its
objects thus:
Our purpose in this bill is to do some
thing you cannot accomplish by deporta-
tons You may deport Goldmans and Berk-
mans, but you cannot deport ideas. We must
combat these ideas with ideas"
The measure carries an appropriation of
$4,000, 600, and provides, according to
the INDIANAPOLIS STAR (Ind. RepO :
That states sharing in the Tund shall re-
quire all iIliterate persons between the ages
of 16 and 81, whether citizens or aliens, to
study the English language at least 200
hours year for a term to be specified by
the state educational authorities and APPROX
ed by the secretary Of the Interior The
states must further provide facilities for the
voluntary study Of English by persons be-
| tween Fl and SO years Of age who are I'M
able to read, write or speak the language"
The STAR declares that the movement
to Americanize must not end in talk and
thinks Senator Kenyon's plan "is a practical
step toward Americanization."
when the time comes that every adult
person in the United States speaks, reads
and writes the same language" submits the
SALT LAKE TELEGRAM (Ind. }, "there will
disappear much of the misun derstanding that
heretofore has made the stranger in our
midst easy prey for the radical agtator"
Our many illiterate aliens, as the BUFFA-
10 EVENING NEWS (Rep.) points out, "do
not understand American institutions: they
do not understand the democratic plan of
things. -. They are eager to be taught but
the only teachers that have offered them
selves are the teachers of discomfort" '"They
were not to blame for being neglected" adds
the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER (RepO
for they seldom had opportunities to learn
Americanism even if they had wished The
harvest has come in the shape of Bolsheyism
spreading almost exclusively among the
Slavonic peoples here and these have had
some success in propaganda among the other
ignorant groups. The inevitable cure for
Bolshevism is intelligenee;" and the AL
BANY ARGUS (Dem.) thinks that "had this
Dill been law ten years ago the ranks of the
reds IN this country would not be swollen
with illiterate aliens"
When we entered the war, as the UTICA
OBSERVER .(Den.) recalls ''the draft en-
phasized the fact that there were millions
OF immigrants who could not even speak the
language" AS a consequence, according to
the SIOUX CITY JOURNAL (Rep. ;, "their
officers had to give their orders in signs"
although many of the men could speak a
large number of foreign tongues. A diff
Guilty remarked on by the SPRINGFIELD
(Ohio) NEWS (Dem.) has been that our
immigrants have moved into Colonies
where the native language was spoken and
the customs of the old countries fostered
and maintained.
However, we are warned by the SPRING.
FIELD UNION (Rep) that cit is possible to
carry the characterization idea to unwise ex-
tremes and give it fanaticaI twist. For
example:
There exists an excessive opposition and
prejudice toward forward language publica-
tions. Far from being an unmixed evil such
II
force and may be of great value in culcating
knowledge Of America among those that
cannot get that knowledge from English
speaking publications. Barring that ee-
ment of the foreign-language press that ex-
lists for mischievous propaganda purposes,
1T is in every way preferable that our
foreign speaking residents should, read mat
ter printed IN foreign tongues thanlthat they
should read no publications at ALL" p.
Yet the Kenyon plan is lot without it's OPP
ponents. The ST. 10 us 'POST-DISPATCH
(Dem.) holds that the bill sis so worthy in
its objects as to blind many to the serious
question of the rightfulness of Federal au-
thority in the field Of education" For:
If congress may rightfully appropriate
public moneys for education through state
agencies, it is but short step to the institu-
ton Of a full Federal educational system
go. 1t is this process of increasing the Fed
eral powers little by little, under pleas of
utility and necessity, which accounts for their
present alarming magnitude and which if
persisted in, will render ours the most obnox-
ious bureaucratic government on earth
The POST-DISPATCH further reminds US
of the extent to which the Prussian govern
ment used Federal education Gin the mold
ing of German national sympathies and pref
udices." .+'.
Frankly skepticaI Of the practical effects
of the measure is the SAN FRANCISCO
CHRONICLE (Ind) which doubts whether
teaching the English language to adult
aliens will have any influence in American
ling them" and adds
at does not seem to have occurred to any
senator that the method may equip the
bright to proselyte more effectively among
Americans, of whom some are quite suscep-
tible. AS for the average alien adult, there