Part 23 (1/2)

”What does it o up to the ballot-box and put your ballot in, and that's all there is to it”

But I knew very well that that was not all there was to it, and was deternificance of the franchise I norance on every hand I went to the Brooklyn Library, and was frankly told by the librarian that he did not know of a book that would tell me what I wanted to know This was in 1884

As the can increased in intensity, I found n nificance and e I was for the first ti with Seth Low, and, of course, got the desired information

But fancy the quest I had been compelled to make to acquire the simple information that should have been placed in n-born would take equal pains to ascertain what I was determined to find out?

Surely America fell short here at the moment most sacred to me: that of n citizen to acquire this information when he approaches his first vote? I wonder! Not that I do not believe there are agencies for this purpose You know there are, and so do I But how about the foreign-born? Does he know it?

Is it not perhaps like the owner of the bulldog who assured the friend calling on him that it never attacked friends of the faht You know and I know that I a know?”

Is it to-day e of suffrage for the first tie means: is the means to know made readily accessible to hiht to him?

It was not to me; is it to him?

One fundamental trouble with the present desire for Americanization is that the American is anxious to An-born; if he is an employer, his employees It never occurs to him that he himself may be in need of Aranted that because he is Aht understanding of American ideals

But that, by no means, always follows There are thousands of the American-born who need An-born There are hundreds of American employers who know far less of American ideals than do soed today in the work of Americanization, men at the top of the movement, who sadly need a better conception of true Americanism

An excellent illustration of this cae Aton One of the principal speakers was an educator of high standing and considerable influence in one of the most i forth his ideas of Americanization, he dithinto the hest respect for American institutions

After the Conference he asked me whether he could see me that afternoon at azine

When he ca the object of his talk, he launched out on a tirade against the President of the United States; the weakness of the Cabinet, the inefficiency of the Congress, and the stupidity of the Senate If words could have killed, there would have not re ton

After fifteen minutes of this, I reminded him of his speech and the e in the foreign-born respect for American institutions

Yet thisinfluence upon others; he believed he could A to his own statements, lacked the fundamental principle of Areater degree, true of hundreds of others Their Americanization consists of lip-service; the real spirit, the only factor which counts in the successful teaching of any doctrine, is absolutelya true Americanism until we ourselves feel and believe and practise in our own lives e are teaching to others No law, no lip-service, no effort, however well-intentioned, will a the true An-born citizens until we are sure that the American spirit is understood by ourselves and is warp and woof of our own being

To the American, part and parcel of his country, these particulars in which his country falls short with the foreign-born are, perhaps, not so evident; they n-born they seee; they form serious handicaps which, in many cases, are never surmounted; they are a menace to that Americanization which is, to-day, more than ever our fondest dream, and whichrealize more keenly than before is our most vital need

It is for this reason that I have put them down here as a concrete instance of where and how America fell short in my own Americanization, and, what is farshort in her An-born

”Yet you succeeded,” it will be argued

That may be; but you, on the other hand, must ads: it was in spite of theht not achieve

CHAPTER XXII

WHAT I OWE TO AMERICA