New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-08-05
Health, happiness-and more.

health, happiness-and more.
In sending nearly 5000 children of
the tehemcnts to the country for va
cations so far this summer. The Trib
une Fund has given them n chance for
health and happiness-tlat can hardly
be geinsaid.
But health and happiness are b. no
n.enrs the sum total Of the benefits
conferred by Fresh Air vacation
The editorial which appeared in yes.
terday's Tribune, under the caption
Rural America" points to a by-prod-
uct of country vacations for tenement
children which is not generally
recognized
New York is gradually becoming a
great foreign city with small Ameri-
can quarter, as "The Saturday Evening
Post puts it. Says the editorial re-
ierred to, "Of the fetal urban poou
latlon (of the United States) only
Ah,2 per cent ere native born of native
PARENTS"
But in urban" population the CEN
sus takers include all communities Of
more than $500 inhabitants. Every
BODY knows that the larger the "ur-
Ian community, the greater it's pro-
rcrtion of foreign population. Evil
IDENTIFY the percentage of population of
naive birth from native parents in
New York is far less 'nan the 45.2 per
cent average mentioned above. Much
more than half the people of the
metropolis have foreign blood in
their veins.
Aliens Crowd Tenemcnts
1t is so evident as to make the state
ment trite that it is this foreign
FLOODED population which to an over
wheming extent fills the congested
tenement sections of New York.
Quoting again from the editorial
New Workers generally realize, for ex-
ample, that their city contains an
enormous foreign population. But thew
fail to see that the tendency is toward
making New York non-American."
There are to-day sections Of New
York which are not American in any
thing but the fact that they are located
on American soil. They are Italian,
Jewish, Syrian or something else in
language, customs and thought. In
them are multitudes of children grow
ing up amid surroundings absolutely
non-American in essentials. 1t will
be hard for these children to become
real Americans, with American minds
and American ideals, amid such sur
roundings.
What these children need more than
anything is to be given chance to
! mingle with the folks of native Amer
lean stock and to get inside of native
American homes. By such contact they
will absorb most readily and most
thoroughly the real American spirit.
Fund Helps Americanization
This native American stock is pre-
dominant in rural America. And here
is where the Fresh Air Fund cam
paign merges with the need for Amer
canization. Every year the Tribune
Fund sends thousands of boys and
girls from the foreign tenements OF
the city out to native American homes
in the country to pass vacations in
them as the guests of the native Amer
leans who own those homes. For two
weeks, night and day, these little
Americans in the making live amid
American surroundings, feel the in
fluence of American, thought, absorb
American ideas and ideals.
To-day the Fund has about 2,7OC
children out for vacations undergoing
this treatment for the cure of the
hyphen spirit. So far this summer il
has sent not less than 5000 children
into these rural American family
homes. In years gone by it has sent
hundreds of thousands of youngsters
out to the same thing.
Do you believe that these children