Evening star., 1951-12-25
The Melting Pot q Reality

When George washington in 1787 said, "Let
us raise a standard to which the wise and
honest can repair; the event is in the hands Of
God" America was at best q courageous expert
ment. What he and his colleagues proposed was
a nation made from various and diverse sources.
No man could tell whether the effort could
succeed Thousands could-and did-hope for
the BEST but there was no guarantee of achieve
ment. True enough, as early as 1882, Michel
Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur French traveller
who settled in Orange County, New York, in 1859,
had written in his Letters from an American
Farmer: Here :. individuals Of all nations
are melted into a new race Of men," but his
prophecy had not then really commenced to
come true.
Only In the last two or three decades of
the 18th century could authors like Jacob Riis
and Myra Kelly speak Of "the melting pot" as
an accomplished fact-and they were limited to
a single neighborhood of Manhattan. Elsewhere.
self-imposed segregation was the rule from coast
to coast. Immigrants from abroad "stuck to-
gether" In separate communities in the cities or
with still greater intensity in small towns and
villages to which they gave names reminiscent
of the countries from which they had come.
An English-Jewish dramatist Israel zangwll,
popularized the phrase melting pot" in 1908 by
using it as the title of play declaring: America
is Gods Crucible, the great melting pot where
all the races of Europe are melting and re-
forming! God is making the American"
One of the aids of Providence was the
inventive capacity Of the new nation. It de-
veloped the automobile, the airplane, the tee-
graph, the telephone and finally radio and
television to render travel and communication
easier. Meanwhile, World War I and World
War II exposed armies of men to geography and
history "close up" Soldiers sailors and Marines
of many different backgrounds served on many
different fronts in both of those struggles. The
melting pot gradually was becoming matter
of historical demonstration. Generation after
generation we were compounding as Woodrow
Wilson suggested in 1915, new metal of
nationality" including every branch of the
human family.
Now, however, the amalgamation which
Washington anticipated and which advancing
events, some joyful and some sorrowful have
forecast seems to be even truer. We Ameri-
cans still are what our ancestors provided that
we should be. Our differences, our distinctions,
are born in us as theirs were born in them But
there is also the compelling power of our common
destiny to bring us together. Read the POW
lists in The Star last Wednesday and Thursday
for the revelation which they furnish. The
melting pot is reality in the roster which
includes Americans of every race and national
stock Listen to them: Dean, Daujat, Bell, He'd
lund, Castle, Hart, Dunning, Demeo, Hansen,
Bazevic, Burke. Dutra, Gennaro LaBorde,
Caprin, Belhomme. Hardesty, Campbell, Cameron,
Sconberg, Phillippi, McGrath, Gonsalez, Christen-
sen, Carico, Burdelas, Chavez. Chinault, Celus-
MAX, Aaronson, Abrahamson, Augleira, Gallagher,
Funkhouser, Fitzpatrick, Shinagawa, Zimmerman,
Mizoguchi ...
"Td fight It out on this line II 1t took all
summer, If it were summer" said Washing
tonian, resigning under fire.