AMERICA GOD'S MELTING POT LAURA GEROULD CRAIG Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library MAY -2 m^ May -s H0V25 ^996 SS3 27214 I AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT Interdenominational Home Mission Study Course Each Volume i2mo, cloth, 50c, net (post. 7c.) J paper, 30c. net (post. 5c.) Under Our Flag By Alice M. Guernsey The Call of the Waters By Katharine R. Crowell From Darkness to Light By Mary Helm Conservation of National Ideals A Symposium Mormonism, The Islam of America By Bruce Kinney^ D.D. The New America By Mary Clark Barnes and Dr. L. C. Barnes Supplementary America, God's Melting-Pot By Laura Gerould Craig Paper, net 250. (post. 40.) JUNIOR COURSE Cloth, net 40c. (post. 50.) ; paper, net 25c, (post. 4c.) Best Things in America By Katharine R. Crowell Some Immigrant Neighbours By John R. Henry, D.D. Paper, net 25c. (post 4c.) Comrades from Other Lands By Leila Allen Dimock LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS UR6ANA L Issued under the direction of the Council of Women for Home Missions AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT A PARABLE-STUDT BY / LAURA GEROULD CRAIG ILLUSTRATED We wait beneath the furnace-blast The pangs of transformation. Not painlessly doth God recast And mold anew the nation. Hot burns the fire Where wrongs expire; Nor spares the hand That from the land Uproots the ancient evil. —Whittier New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago: 125 N. Wabash Ave. Toronto: 25 Richmond St., W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street i ^ <^ TO THE COUNCIL OF WOMEN FOR HOME MISSIONS, WHICH SEEKS TO KNOW THE MIND OF THE DIVINE ALCHEMIST FOR HIS MELTING-POT- AMERICA I I 92335 H/M n '.'ni U//f: '';' n n ) 1 ^ I ,vH CONTENTS I. The Alchemist and the Melting-Pot . 13 II. The Ingredients 21 III. Weighing the Ore 43 IV. Reduction and Transformation . . 57 V. Re-Agents 73 VI. Testing the Product 85 ILLUSTRATIONS On the Way to America .... Frontispiece The Area of the Melting-Pot (map) . . . . i6 The Melting-Pot 24 Hebrew Types 32 From the Black Mountains 67 An Immigrant Evening School . . . • 7^ THE STORY OF THE MELTING-POT " Ages after a fire has been extinguished what do we know of the temperature of a planetary melting-pot, the contents of which were stirred and intermingled by ter- rific volcanic explosions ? What do we know of the pres- sure that caused a priceless crystal to separate from a solution that boiled aeons ago in some huge basin that is now a ruby mine in Burma or a diamond field in South Africa?" What indeed ! The greatest scientists, thinking " God's thoughts after Him," are but groping for knowledge of the processes that shaped the " melting-pot." Even if its atoms had been sentient beings what could they have known of the myriad factors of the before-the-world action, what could they have dreamed of the ultimate product ? For our purposes the crucible may be considered a vessel finished and in use to-day. And we of the great, splendid native race whom the white man is slowly learn- 10 THE STORY OF THE MELTING-POT ing to respect — we with Plymouth Rock as our Immi- grant Station — we whose deepest stain is measured by the white man's blood in our veins — we of the swarthy Mexicans, the stolid Eskimos, the volatile Italians — we from the lands of the midnight sun and the domains of the Great White Czar — we with eyes " cut bias " and our neighbors from " India's coral strand " — we, one and all, are in the melting-pot. As its contents we are subjected to stress and strain, heat and pressure, tests and forces, as much greater than those which formed the " melting-pot " as humanity is superior to rocks and clods. Fusion? Yes — and only by terrific heat can the pure metal be sep- arated from the dross. New combinations? Yes — for the better, in the far ultimate, we doubt not. Discomfort, suffering, even agony? Yes — but out of it will come the perfected product, the ideal sought by the Great Alche- mist. And since it is His hand that directs the tempera- ture and His eye which sees that which shall be, we, the crude rough ore, may wait in full assurance of hope the certain transformation after the pattern of the Master. In this hope and with this faith, the Council of Women for Home Missions presents this book. THE ALCHEMIST AND THE MELTING-POT God of the Melting- Pot, praised be Thine hand Which fashioned in beauty and blessing this land — A "vessel to honor," fulfilling command. Redeem her by righteousness, purge her from dross. Deep in her substance preserve without loss The sign of salvation, the mark of the cross. —L. G. C. THE ALCHEMIST AND THE MELTING-POT " I .^ATHER, those crazy men down there are fill- rl ing the big pots with chunks of rock. And when I say * Why ? ' one says, * To separate things,' and another says, * To unite things,' and when I ask * Why ? ' again they say, ^ To make boys like you ask questions,' and, * Go ask your father.' " Then the father, with the aid of magnifying-glass and specimens of ore, told the wonderful story of rock formation and described the process of reduction. So vivid was the talk that in the imagination of the child the atoms became sentient individuals, and when it was finished he questioned still more eagerly : " But suppose, father, suppose some of those little atoms were bad and wouldn't mind the laws. Sup- pose those who were nice and red-hot in the bottom of the pot wanted to keep all the warm to themselves, or suppose they forgot about the cold places and didn't pass on the heat to the other fellows. Suppose those bottom bubble fellows wouldn't go chasing up to the top and making room down by the fire for the cold fellows. Suppose they just joined together and said they wouldn't let any big, cold lumps settle down among them to get melted into them. Suppose the fellows, I mean, that get hot first wouldn't go rushing 13 14 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT around like little rivers, softening the hard places and warming the cold ones as you say they have to do. Then what would happen ? " " What would happen, my son ? Your father's busi- ness would fail. The rock that holds precious metals in trust would be good for nothing. If naughty atoms should hug selfishly to the bottom of the pot they would spoil the whole plan. I am very thankful, my boy, that the rocks that make up the charge of the melting-pots in my refinery are good fellows, who al- ways obey the laws of the God of the rocks." THE PURPOSE As children of the great Alchemist, we are privi- leged to ask some vital questions. First, what is the why of it all — " What is God's purpose ? " in this. His melting-pot? The answer has been spoken by prophets, sung by the Psalmist, and proclaimed by the heralds of the Gospel : it is the redemption of the race. Through Isaiah He declares, " I will turn my hand upon thee and thoroughly purge away thy dross — Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her converts with righteousness." The apostle Paul states the purpose of God's supreme contribution to His process — Christ the Redeemer — to be " that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.'* His " righteousness " has ever been triumphant life to individuals and to nations. And God's purpose is for the entire content of His ALCHEMIST AND MELTING-POT 15 melting-pot. He is not willing that a soul in America shall escape His redemptive process. THE PROCESS " What is God's process ? " As in the lesser alchemy, it includes, reduction, transformation, union. Reduc- tion requires both being submitted and being submis- sive to God's great reductive agents, — to Christ as Saviour and Lord, and to the Spirit as His fire. Transformation advances in accordance with the for- mulas of " love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." The advancement of the process depends not only upon the Alchemist but upon the contents of the pot. He furnishes authority, direction and power for its reducing currents, but the process waits upon the atten- tion, obedience and responsibility of those touched by these currents. THE PRODUCT " What shall be the product? " The transformation of baser metals into gold is the alchemist's dream; it is God's marvelous accomplishment. " He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver," wrote the prophet Malachi. And the test of purity, in lives as in alchemy, is clear reflection of the alchemist's image in the con- tents of the melting-pot. In olden days, crucibles wxre marked with the image of the cross lest evil spirits mar the operations carried on within. Has not America, God's melting- pot, borne from its very beginning the sign of the cross ? i6 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT Shall she retain that imprint? As we answer these questions, " we, the people," we foretell the destiny of our country. THE MELTING-POT The melting-pot of the alchemist is a vessel of special formation and adaptation to its purpose. It must be capable of withstanding great and sudden changes of temperature without fracture or disintegration. It must not be affected by the substances it contains, and it must be infusible at the temperature to which it is exposed. Moreover, its dimensions must be adequate to the alchemist's task. That America is a melting-pot big enough for a fair experiment in reducing world races is made apparent by observing that to fill her capacity to the brim we may empty the area measures of no less than twenty prominent lands : China, Japan, Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Greece, Palestine, Austria-Hungary, Bul- garia, European Turkey, Roumania, Cuba, Jamaica and nearly the full area of Portugal. Arizona is larger than Italy and New Mexico than the United Kingdom. Texas has room for Austria-Hungary and Greece, and Kansas nearly holds Japan. The remaining eight- een divisions west of the Mississippi correspond in area with the eighteen provinces of China Proper. While Maine is less than a fifth the size of California, it has room for Holland, Belgium and Switzerland. And what of America as the melting-pot of God? Is it a vessel fit for His use in the process of world ALCHEMIST AND MELTING-POT 17 redemption? Is it capable of withstanding sudden changes and high pressure ? Will it be injured by the ingredients introduced, or fuse with their fusion? God's melting-pot must meet these tests. Geographically, the part of America with which we have specifically to deal lies within the north-temperate zone, the zone of power. On whichever great ocean the world's commerce may center, American doors front to it, and she has the Panama Canal opening the East to her West and the West to her East. No other com- manding power is so conveniently located to the great undeveloped resources of all lands. We may not tarry for the story of God's shaping of His melting-pot. It is a story millions of years long. It tells of dry land in the midst of His seas; of how He lifted ocean bottoms, tilted and folded mountain ranges, and hollowed out harbors and shut them in with guarding walls; of how He shaped the surface by the grinding and polishing of mighty glaciers, leav- ing in their path myriads of lakes and watercourses; of how He made it a treasure-house of mineral re- sources — for " the gold of this land is good," and there is more gold in its iron and coal fields than in its gold and silver mines. And God planted a garden westward in America wherein grow " trees pleasant to the sight and good for food." The American flora includes countless species, each of many varieties. It numbers its kinds of tropical fruit by the score, and its varieties of apples by the hundred; its grapes rival the grapes of Eshcol; its southern swamps are filled with cypress and i8 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT gum trees, while the upper regions of its great lakes and much of the northwest are still covered with primeval forests. And besides its native plant-life America has already admitted something like thirty thousand immigrant vegetable creations — " assisted immigration " resulting in the mingling of races by which to secure the best. American cotton is the best grown, and by far the most valuable product exported, wheat coming second. America's corn patch is the biggest on the globe. The land is sufficient unto itself and a suppliant of no other for resources vital to human life and progress. As for its fauna, man's needs are amply supplied, while there are few ferocious animals. Here are His " cattle upon a thousand hills," and He has " let the waters bring forth abundantly." And here humanity is at its physical best. A temperate climate tempers the race, giving the best foundation for mental and spiritual development. There is enterprise, endurance, efficiency, ennoblement in the very air of America. But God did not make America for the sole purpose of stocking coal-trains, filling grain elevators or sup- plying cotton markets. As a melting-pot He made it for beauty as well as for adaptation and for strength. And even more than they need to understand the Eng- lish language, its citizens, whether by birth or adoption, need to understand the message of God's love spoken through His workmanship. " There is no hope for you," says Thoreau, " unless the bit of sod under your feet is the sweetest of all the earth." We add, " unless you tread it as God's creature in God's country." II THE INGREDIENTS "O Thou holy One and just, Thou who wast the Pilgrims' trust, Thou who watchest o'er their dust By the moaning sea; By their conflicts, toils and cares. By their perils and their prayers. By their ashes, make their heirs True to them and Thee." "Lift up thine eyes round about and behold; all these gather themselves together and come to thee." n THE INGREDIENTS THE labels on geological specimens indicate the information first desired by the observer — ^the whence and the what. Standing in the observa- tion gallery at Ellis Island, watching the charging of the melting-pot and noting the conglomerate composi- tion of the ingredients there seen, one wishes that those specimens were distinctly labeled as to character and the mines and quarries whence they had come. The botanist enjoys greeting every tree and shrub and flower in the park by name; the ornithologist hap- pily recognizes the call of a hundred winged friends; but the sociologist who, as a friend to man, can label from forty to fifty varieties represented in the popula- tion of our great metropolis has chosen the most fasci- nating and profitable of special studies. WHENCE AND WHO No land in the Old World has failed to yield the products of her mines of humanity to charge God's melting-pot. They came first from Britain, Ireland, Holland and Germany, and then, in lesser degree, from France, Portugal and Sweden. After the constitution of the republic considerable populations of west Medi- 21 22 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT terranean races were admitted, the Spanish by way of Florida and the Southwest, the French through Louisi- ana and the Northwest. During the period of " the old immigration," America's fatherlands came to embrace all of northwest Europe. Since 1883, while the old mines have been operating, the bulk of the in- flux has been quite different in character and produced by the newer fields of south and east Europe. Its chief elements have been Italian, Hebrew and Slavic: the Italian largely from South Italy and Sicily; the Jews in order of quantity from Russia, Austria-Hungary, Roumania, Great Britain and Germany; the Slavs prin- cipally from Austria-Hungary, whence also come the Magyars. Asia has sent her contribution largely from China, Japan, India and Turkey. Africa early permitted vandals to stock the melting- pot with human ores from the Guinea Coast, Dahomey and the Sudan, and from the Bantu, Zulu and Kaffir lands farther south. South America, Australia, Mexico, Canada and the islands of the Atlantic and Pacific have added their con- glomerate ores. The prophecy of the Revolutionary patriot, Daniel Dickinson, — who heard " the sound of the pattering feet of coming millions " and saw " races to civilize, educate and absorb — as America's triumph in the cause of progress and civilization " — has come to pass. JHE INGREDIENTS 23 THE FIRST CENSUS The first census act was passed at the second session of the first Congress, and signed by President Washing- ton on March i, 1790. By it the United States became the first country in the world to provide for periodical enumeration of its inhabitants. Census-taking then was no sinecure. Transportation was by horseback, stage or private coach. The roads — when there were any — were poor, and bridges were al- most unknown. At best speed it took eight days to go from New York to Washington. The existing fear of increased taxation and of incurring Divine dis- pleasure by enrollment did not lighten the task. The enumeration required nine months, and showed a popu- lation of 3,920,214. New York City numbered 33,131 inhabitants. The first census report is a rare volume of but fifty-six pages. If one can trace his ancestry to the bedrock of these records he may safely assume to belong to the first families of America. Its only concern regarding origin is expressed in the terms white and colored. The gross area of the country was but twenty-seven per cent, of the area of continental United States (ex- cluding Alaska) to-day, and but a little over one-quar- ter of this area was settled. THE LAST CENSUS The last census, that of 19 10, is the thirteenth in num- ber. The enumerations were made within two weeks in 24 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT the city and a month in the country. The full report — making a dozen or more large quarto volumes — gives the entire population as about 101,100,000, that of con- tinental United States being 91,973,266. The sparsest settlement, seven-tenths of a man to the square mile, was found in Nevada ; the densest, in Rhode Island, 508.6. Greater New York returned nearly two-thirds of the national enumeration of the first census, and one hundred and twenty cities of 19 10 would class with our great metropolis in 1790. The dimensions of the melting-pot have long since expanded and supplemen- tary vessels have come into use, Alaska being the largest. The racial classification has increased to forty-seven nationalities. The census sheets asked thirty-two questions concerning each individual. It is evident that the melting-pot has not nearly reached its capacity : to make the whole land as populous as Rhode Island would take over nine-tenths of the population of the world; Texas alone would require the present population of the United States and over forty- five per cent. more. COMPOSITE AMERICANS If Israel Zangwill is correct in saying, " The real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the crucible," it is interesting to note what racial elements God is using to produce him, and in what relative pro- portions they appear. Census returns show that the elements are in widely differing volumes. The com- posite looks decidedly white, though it is ii.i per cent. THE MELTIXG-POT. Each of the fifty triangles represents one per cent, of the population of the United States. The triangles below the heavy black line are the native-born, the shaded ones representing the Negro, and the dark spot the Indian. These constitute 64 per cent of the entire population, the Indian being 3 per cent. The triangles above the heavy black line (35 per cent in round numbers) are "foreign white stock," the portion above the dotted line being foreign- born, those below, native-born of foreig^n parents. The triangles marked J4 stands for those having one foreign parent. The triangles in small diagonal checks represent immigration from Italy, 2 per cent; vertical lines, England, 2j^ per cent; small squares, Canada, 3 per cent; broken horizontal lines, Russia and Finland, 3 per cent; horizontal lines, Ireland, 5 per cent; dotted triangles, Germany, 9 per cent. These six nationalities form three-fourths of the foreign white stock. LIBRARY ^wtRSiTYoHumo.s THE INGREDIENTS 25 colored, 10.6 per cent, being Negro and the rest three parts Indian to one each of Japanese and Chinese. This is 8.9 per cent, whiter than it was in 1790. Of the 88.9 per cent, white, 53.8 per cent, are native-born Amer- icans; 20.6 per cent. Americans of foreign parentage; 14.5 per cent, are foreigners. But the 53.8 per cent, classified as real American is itself a composite, for we are confronted by various complications of American making. The bulk of the British, Irish, German and Scandinavian elements have been long in the melting- pot, and have given material help in the fusing of later arrivals. The growing impact of the more alien ingre- dients gives cause for question whether the contents of the melting-pot are in danger of being cooled to a de- gree that will stop the reducing process. DISTRIBUTION The disposition of ingredients within the melting- pot is alike important to the welfare of those coming in and those already here. The northeast portion, above Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi, held, in 191 1, 47.9 per cent, of the entire population and 80 per cent, of the entire immi- grant population. The Atlantic portion of it contains the bulk of the Irish; three- fourths of the Italians are in the four states of New York, New Jersey, Penn- sylvania and Massachusetts. The Poles choose Penn- sylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware; the Jews, New York, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. Welsh and English miners naturally settle in Pennsyl- 26 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT vania. In nearly all the manufacturing towns of New England the Swedes and Germans have first place, closely pressed by the Italians and Poles. New England mills receive also a great influx of French Canadians. In spite of the contract labor laws the Slovak is billed to an agent in New York and taken to mines, mills and coke ovens in Pennsylvania and to lime- stone quarries along the lakes. The great steel mills of Cleveland have drawn Magyars by the tens of thou- sands. Chicago's Bohemia was established in 1848; Cleveland's in 1869. Among her foreign quarters Chicago even has her New Greece, fortunately close by Hull House with its Americanizing activities. Not only the cities but the farming lands of the western part of this populous section of the United States hold large numbers of Bohemians, Poles, Ger- mans, Scandinavians, Belgians, Slavs and other Euro- pean nationalities. The southeast section of the land, cut off by the southern border of Pennsylvania and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, contains 22.y per cent, of the popu- lation, nearly a third of which is colored. Over two- thirds of the entire Negro population live here. The Gulf States until recently have not received much of the foreign influx, but urgent efforts are now being made to direct thither some of the immigrant streams. The great west-central region, between the Mississ- ippi River and the Rocky Mountains, can claim less than a fourth of the population, one-tenth of which is Negro. Eighty-eight per cent, of its Negroes live in its four southern states: Arkansas, Louisiana, Okla- THE INGREDIENTS 27 homa and Texas. Further north whole counties may be found of immigrant extraction, common in origin with those of the north central states east of the Mississippi. The eight Rocky Mountain states hold but 2.8 per cent, of the population, less than 5 per cent, of which is colored, three-fifths of the colored contingent being Indian. In the Pacific coast states, where the remaining 5 per cent, of America's population resides, one in five is a white foreigner, one in twenty-five is colored, either Indian, Japanese or Chinese. Sixty-five per cent, of the Orientals in the United States are found here. It is easy to discover the causes that have naturally brought about the present unequal distribution of in- gredients, and the wisdom of directing the currents of immigration from crowded to sparsely settled re- gions, particularly from cities to rural communities, and of holding in check, everywhere, both the entry and the segregation of anti- American elements likely to encyst themselves within the national body. Concerning progress in distribution, the center of population in the last decade has moved westward thirty-nine miles, from Columbus to Bloomington, In- diana: it still clings to the thirty-ninth parallel of lati- tude, just above which, near the center of Kansas, the geographical center is found. The eleven states whose population has increased over 50 per cent, are all west of the Mississippi, Washington leading with 120 per cent, increase, followed by Oklahoma, 1097 P^^ cent., and Idaho, 10 1.3 per cent. Iowa, the only state to re- port a decrease, lost 3 per cent. There is a noticeable 28 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT migration of whites south and of blacks north. The Chinese are moving east, the Japanese element has been decreasing since 1909. PHYSICAL CHARACTER What the ingredient is physically, industrially, so- cially and educationally is of vital interest. While al- most half of our total foreign element in 19 10 were bom in northwest Europe and considerably familiar in these respects, over a third came from southern and eastern Europe, being nearly as strange as Orientals. Statistics along vital and moral lines may lead far astray in estimating people, for the law does not bear alike upon all, and previous as well as present environ- ment and assistance in overcoming physical and moral predisposition differ widely. But it is beyond dispute that if not removed from their environment, the second generation of the nationalities that congregate in slums shows both physical and moral deterioration as com- pared with the first. INDUSTRIAL CHARACTER The industrial significance of the elements received is important. Less than ten per cent, of those coming in the last twenty years have had as much as fifty dol- lars between them and some " bread line." Eighty per cent., having no trade, have had no employment before them save as unskilled laborers. But other lands have paid the price of bringing up and presenting to us this THE INGREDIENTS 29 laboring class sound in body and mind, generally with considerable initiative energy, and able, with direction, to support themselves. Statistics compiled by the In- dustrial Department of the Y.M.C.A. show that immigrants and their children of the first generation furnish about thirty per cent, of the workers in all our industries, while in certain lines they form more than seventy per cent, of the laboring force. Two-thirds of the Jews; nearly two-thirds of the Scotch and Welsh; one-half of the English and Bo- hemians; one-third of the Germans and Dutch and one-quarter of the Scandinavians are accounted skilled workers. The newer immigrants are at the other ex- treme, less than ten per cent, of the Slavs, twenty per cent, of the North and six per cent, of South Italians belonging to this class. But American skill has so dif- ferentiated its industrial mechanism that many men, women, and children are used as mechanically as the levers and cogs in its machinery. The industry of the Slav is not confined to mines and mills; twenty-six states report Slavic farmers, Bohemians and Poles in majority. The 19 10 census shows nearly fifty- four per cent, of foreign-born bread- winners engaged in agriculture, the Germans being most important from the standpoint of numbers and success. More than half the Norwegians are farmers, the Swedes have a larger percentage engaged in manu- facture and mining. Many Swiss make cheese and raise stock. Unhampered by family, as a rule, the Italian new- comer is free to follow the migratory life that railroad 30 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT building requires. He is industrious, thrifty and prompt '' on the job." He is also a success in market- gardening and small-fruit growing. The Armenians, being money-lenders in the homeland, become traders here; Syrians are most likely to be peddlers. Jewish enterprise is individualistic and social : few Hebrew immigrants, from Russia or elsewhere, have been farmers. The largest Jewish settlement, though launched as an agricultural enterprise, has resolved it- self into a clothing factory. However, the Hebrew has preferred the tragic freedom of the sweatshop to the system and restraints of the factory and is ambitious to operate his own store, although only a peddler's pack and his stock of English the one word — " buy." His American forerunners have placed within his motley pack the energizing vision of a big Main-street cloth- ing store. The Mexicans and the Japanese do a great part of the railroad and mining work of the Far West. The Mexican is almost entirely unskilled and regarded inferior as a laborer. He is deplorably lacking in ambition and thrift; half of those entering through El Paso claim return transportation. Physically the Mexican is stronger and more tractable than the Japanese but so much less efficient that he commands less pay. The Japanese on the Pacific coast are employed, in greater part, in agricultural labors that require hand work, as the growing of berries and sugar beets, and in city trades among which from ten to eleven thousand are in independent business for themselves and from THE INGREDIENTS 31 twelve to fifteen thousand employed as domestic serv- ants, the latter being largely students working half time for small pay with board. In railroad work, as sec- tion hands, the foremen generally prefer the Japanese to Italians, Greeks or Slavs. In salmon canning the Chinese are preferred to the Japanese as more careful and more faithful to their contracts. Chinese indus- try has settled most securely in laundry, merchandising and restaurant w^ork. Chinese cooks in private families, hotels and saloons receive big wages. East Indians are considered most undesirable as workers: deficient in both physical and mental quali- ties, they are confined to such rough, unskilled labor as lumber camps and railroads supply. French Canadians are employed principally in the manufacture of cotton goods, shoes, collars and cuffs, and in copper mining. They belong to the cheap-living, low-wage class, com- ing as transients to make money and return. The Portuguese work almost exclusively in cotton mills. The Cuban and Spanish specialty is cigars and to- bacco; the Danish, leather goods and furniture; the French, gloves and silk-dyeing; the Russian, silk goods and clothing; the Irish, electric and steam railroad transportation and manufacturing linen, silk and woolen goods. With the Irish alone does female ex- ceed male immigration. SOCIAL CHARACTER The amalgamating or social properties of immigrants are also of primal importance. The social base, largely 32 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT English, was at first separated in exclusive communi- ties, and Puritan, Quaker and Cavalier differed as radically as people of different races. The Scotch- Irish v^ere fitted by their composite origin, uniform religion, common heritage of free and democratic spirit and their general distribution through the colonies to serve as the first amalgam in developing everywhere a distinctively American character. The Irish have always helped in the assimilation of other nationalities and contribute wholesome optimism, spon- taneous humor and other admirable social traits. The English, whether coming from England or Canada, mingle freely but cling to their national characteristics. The Germans often establish themselves in groups but the second generation, at least, becomes thoroughly American. Moreover, the German will not develop a slum or inhabit one. The Jew is a true cosmopolitan, readily taking on the language, customs and even modes of thought of the people with whom he makes his home. But Jewish assimilation by marriage is comparatively small; he mingles but does not fuse. Italian peasants bring a low standard of living but readily respond to environ- ment. The various Slavic people bring their Old World animosities with them and their old scores must be taken into account in considering their amalgama- tion. With their seven regular languages and various dialects and their conflicting religious allegiance, it is not strange that they often establish and maintain separate social communities next door to each other. Mexicans show little progress towards assimilation; UUWtRSlTV Of ILUN0J8 URBMiA THE INGREDIENTS 33 they class as social liabilities rather than assets. In all cases, inferior place for woman accompanies inferior Christian culture. The Slav says, " A man of straw is worth more than a woman of gold." " Twice in his life is a man happy — once when he marries and once when he buries his wife." The Montenegrin says, " My wife is my mule." To many an immigrant woman America means a vision of social emancipa- tion, to be realized partly by herself and in a fuller degree by her daughters. Social undesirability is largely due to lack of educa- tional advantages. Inability to speak English enforces separateness upon the immigrant and creates prejudice in the native. Standards of living advance according to ability to speak or to acquire the language. Yet in linguistic attainments " ignorant foreigners " often sur- pass those who consider themselves far superior. Said her hostess to a high-school girl who spoke lightly of the young Japanese who was scrubbing a floor, " Have you reached the point where you think in Latin? That Japanese boy has." EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER Teachers of Japanese say their students greet each new word with the question, "Has it origin?" or, " Has it root meaning ? " Sometimes the outcome is amusing as when one said, " Columbus was a great ventilator," the reason being that he " opened the door to a new country." A Japanese book-store in Los Angeles carries the standard works of all nations. 34 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT Prior to 1882 our immigration came from lands of universal education. Some were highly educated. The Polish patriots that Congress located in Illinois in 1832 were men of letters, officers, leaders — in general, an intellectual addition to the melting-pot stock. The Bohemians, whose early migration followed the Ger- man suppression of their patriotic uprising in 1848, were students and professional men; the early Mora- vians were the most highly educated and patriotic of Slavic people. The illiteracy rate is but three per cent, in their home province and school attendance is com- pulsory. Scandinavians are staunch supporters of pub- lic schools and well represented both as pupils and professors in Western colleges. The " new immigration " has been in greater part from lands where illiteracy abounds. The Portuguese are the most illiterate at entry, followed in order by the Turkish, Syrians, Ruthenians, South Italians and Albanians; from one-half to one-third of these cannot read and write. Education, however, has not extended to the interior regions from whence these people come. The Italian children show alert and plastic minds and Italian men and women beyond school age evince an interest in learning, indicating that lack of education is chiefly due to lack of opportunity. It is encouraging to note that while but eighty-eight per cent, of the total number of foreign-born employees can read and write, ninety-eight per cent, of the American employees having foreign fathers can. Of the latter, the Mexicans are lowest in literacy, the Greeks nine per cent, higher, the Portuguese, Cubans, French Canadians and Ital- THE INGREDIENTS U I H 35 n ! f i ians, three per cent, above the Greeks, and but three per cent, lower than the native-bom whites. AMERICAS APPEAL What " America " has meant in foreign quarters that has made her the Mecca of emigration, has also its bearing on what the immigrant means to America. To the best of the first immigrations America meant an asylum or place of refuge and protection. To Pil- grims, Puritans, Quakers and so on to the end of per- secuted saints, " America meant a sanctuary," where they might find freedom to worship God. To Bo- hemians and Germans and Poles it meant an asylum from governmental tyranny. Congress made a grant of thirty-six sections near Rock River, Illinois, to the political exiles of the Polish insurrection of 183 1. Political dissatisfaction due to reaction towards despot- ism following the German Revolutionary year, 1848, brought both Bohemian and Polish refugees. Georgia was established by General Oglethorpe as an asylum for prisoners for debt, but became a general retreat for the persecuted and oppressed. The Jew, destined to be scattered among the nations of the earth, has been forced to dispersions that have kept him ever on the trail of cities of refuge. The first Jewish immigration recorded by American history was of Dutch Jews driven from Brazil by the Portuguese and seeking asylum with the Dutch of New Amsterdam. Next came Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal during the years of American discovery, and coming bj 36 AIMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT way of Holland, while the greatest colonial influx fol- lowed the Napoleonic wars. No sooner was America discovered than mercenary interests were awakened. Where a few came for love o f souls to teach the Indians to pray, more came for love of money to prey on the Indians. The first colonies were established by commercial companies. This was true of Jamestown and New Amsterdam, and Wil- liam Penn's colony was a big real estate adventure. As America has announced her vast natural wealth, she has made increasing appeal to outsiders seeking aggrandizement or re-achievement of fortune. In 1849, after the discovery that stirred the whole melting- pot content, sending the money-mad from coast to coast at such a rate that in five months the population of California was quadrupled, sails were spread to- wards the new El Dorado in the ports of all nations. Within four years California's gold fields brought our first ten thousand Chinese. To a large part of the immigrant class America has meant little more than maintenance. In the half- century just preceding the Revolutionary period, 200,- 000 left the Emerald Isle because of famine conditions, and the majority sought America. In the decade of 1840-1850 more than a million and a quarter of Irish emigrated from the ports of the United Kingdom to the United States — and this because of the Irish potato. J^and used for potato-growing was found to support three times the number of people it would if sown to wheat. The island teemed with hungry people sub- jected to a system of government that practically re- THE INGREDIENTS 37 duced them to a diet of potatoes. The " great potato rot " of 1846 which destroyed the staple food of the peasant was, therefore, a terrible calamity. As an in- direct result. Old World governments and private so- cieties undertook to make America an asylum for their paupers and began to export them hither on an ex- tensive scale. Assisted immigration has also been an exploit of capital seeking cheap labor, the cheapest at first and dearest at last, having been the forty thousand African slaves. To the industrious, America has offered em- ployment for all and American wages have been, as ex-Commissioner Watchom has expressed it, "the honey-pot that brings the alien flies." " The earth is the lords' and the fullness thereof," thought the Irishman as he struggled to pay his land rents. America looked to him like the Lord's own country, where " the fullness thereof " was his who claimed it. Since Austro-Hungarian peasants have re- ceived the right to divide their landed estates and have cut them up until what was sufficient for one house- hold is too small to support several, Slovaks, Poles and Ruthenians have crossed the seas to find room, or to earn enough to go back and buy out the others. The Portuguese crowded out of island homes have found larger opportunity in New England. America has not failed to be a fountain of perpetual illusions and delusions to the world's dreamers. Amer- ican ideals regarding individual independence and so- cial equality, and the privilege of becoming a part of " we the people " who govern are strong appeals to 38 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT native democracy. Escape from military service has brought many young men at considerable risk; a chance to begin life over with better assistance has brought others. To English prisoners of debt Oglethorpe's asylum was almost the only chance. The sense of equality is in itself expansive, and America means to the toiler in every field the hope of advancement in position and in the rewards of industry and devotion; regardless of class distinctions. The American standard of free education has drawn not only the more intelligent but those who have had no such advantages. Sometimes the children have been left behind while the father opened the way; sometimes the ambitious youth has been sent ahead to make his own way. Since the atrocities of recent years, the Armenians have sought refuge here, while the oppression of Asiatic Turkey has driven hither Syrian Christians of the Greek Church. The Montenegrin, who has been the living wall resisting the advance of Islam, and without occupation and sustenance in the measure in which peace prevailed in the Balkans, has immigrated for maintenance. The reinforced restriction of the Russian Jews within the shrinking Pale of Settlement has sent them to America for both refuge and room. The stream of Italian immigration, the merest trickle before 1890, and now become the Amazon of our for- eign tributaries, finds its source in the whole catalogue of immigration causes. The Italian peasants' portion of cereal food is but three- fourths as large as Eng- land gives her paupers; of meat, less than one-fifth as THE INGREDIENTS 39 much. American enterprises offer him work and pay him so well for it that he may hope to return a man of means. The other immense current of to-day, the Slavic, is said to pour this way because of opportunity. The Croatian and Slovenian say, " We go to see if there is still justice in the world." The Pole, harassed by the cruel and repressive measures of the government of St. Petersburg, and the Finn by the steady and merciless pushing of the Finland Russification policy, seek peace in America. America's welcome The base of the welcome to immigrants in recent years has been largely the question of what he will be as a financial resource to those who receive him. American capitalists with selfish sympathy for the sub- jects of European economic distress have sent their messengers all the w^ay to his door to meet him and invite him to come. They have loaned him transpor- tation, acted as guides for his journey and promised him no end of blissful and profitable entertainment during his sojourn. After a time some of these re- turn, wearing American dress and the American air of independence, to become the prophets of America's welcome to others who accompany them when they come hither again. To-day's immigrants are mostly welcomed by relatives and various racial organiza- tions have lent a guiding hand to those of kindred blood. The Baron de Hirsch Fund, for illustration, 40 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT was organized as a great endowed reception committee for eastern European Jews. Some states, as California and Louisiana, have especially invited certain classes, and other Western and Southern states have urged the coming of the Italian farmer. America was seeking admission to China and so the Burlingame treaty gave permission to the Chinese to enter this country. But no one dreamed that such numbers of them would come hither. California finally became so embarrassed by the influx that she be- sought national relief and the first race restriction law was enacted. The Supreme Court has declared the right to exclude aliens, or to revoke entry previously allowed, at pleasure, to be necessary to national inde- pendence. Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are excluded from naturalization on the ground that it is the Amer- ican policy to limit the privilege to white people. Hindus are now coming to the Pacific coast in every steamer from the Orient. Their habits, their intense caste feeling, their lack of home-life and their cheapen- ing of American labor, leave little to be said in favor of their coming from the social or the civic point of view. But the East Indian is of the Aryan race, and against people of our own race no general restrictive laws have been made. " I do not think any immigrant who will lower the standard of life among the people should be admitted," says one of our prominent statesmen. Yet Christian America needs the immigrants who need lifting; and many who, left to themselves, would lower our standards, want to be lifted. Ill WEIGHING THE ORE God's balance, watched by angels, is hung across the skies. Shall justice, truth and freedom turn the poised and trembling scale. Or shall the evil triumph and robber wrong prevail? —Whittier iir WEIGHING THE ORE THE balances of God weigh only character. Character is that which the ingredient really is and which God only can weigh with absolute justice. In the ultimate analysis the success or failure of the reductions now being made in America, God's melting-pot, depends on character; and character de- pends on relationship to God. god's intent It w^as auspicious that the first great chargings of this melting-pot were not only Teutonic in race, but that they were Protestant in religion. Divine Provi- dence seems to have hid the melting-pot from the sight of the Old World until the fullness of time when it was needed for God's purpose. Had America been discovered even one century earlier, its Christianity would have been that of the European church in the deepest darkness of the night that preceded the dawn of the Reformation. May we not recognize in the centuries of successive failures of Spanish civiliza- tion and Christianity to get lodgment in the South and West, and the almost dramatic failure of the French occupation in both North and South, God's intent that 43 44 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT the New World should not become the domain of the Old World monarchies and hierarchies? THE pilgrim's CALL The real founders of America were people of God seeking and acknowledging His leadership. Straugh- ton of the Massachusetts colony declared that " God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice seed- grain over into this wilderness." The Pilgrim Fathers, kneeling upon the quay at Delft Haven to receive the parting benediction of their pastor, " knew they were pilgrims, and lifted up their eyes to the heavens, their dearest countrie, and quieted their spirits." They re- garded their migration as providential and predeter- mined, and attributed the existence of their settlements to the protecting hand of Him who went before Israel with cloud and pillar of fire. The history of the infant colonies that endured indicates that they had " in heaven their angels always beholding the face of the Father." PHYSICAL PROVIDENCES And did not forbidding angels with the drawn swords of rough seas, rigorous climate, hardship, toil, disaster turn back the unfit from this melting-pot so that Columbus did not plant the Roman cross on the New England coast ? Maryland was unsainted at her chris- tening; adventurous seekers did not discover our gold; " extreme extremes " made the attempt at commercial colonizing so futile and trading voyages so disastrous WEIGHING THE ORE 45 as to lead to the belief that Indian conjurors had laid a spell on the northern coast to keep white people away. A revenue-seeking government did not find revenue- seeking colonists enduring — but she did find that colonists with rugged hills and niggardly soil under- foot and harsh climate and gloomy forests sur- rounding, but with God overhead, could build thrifty towns unaided, and erect enduring commonwealths, planting therein the best institutions of their mother- country and improving upon them. And she found, too, that they could not be made subjects of oppression. They had crossed unknown seas, experiencing untold sufferings, to gain " freedom to worship God." INTELLECTUAL PROVIDENCES William Pitt, speaking on a motion to remove the British troops from Boston, said of the American situa- tion, " It is the alliance of God and nature — immutable, eternal, fixed as the firmament of heaven. Look at the papers transmitted us from America — for solidity and reasoning, force of sagacity and wisdom of con- clusion, no nation or body of man can stand in prefer- ence to the general Congress at Philadelphia." Nothing less than " alliance with God " could have given to America and to the world such colossal men as then stood shoulder to shoulder " with firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, pledging to each other our sacred honor for the support of this declaration." Jhe great papers and orations supporting early na- 46 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT tional documents were also distinctly religious. The sovereignty of God as the creator of human rights and the *' Governor of the world " was acknowledged and made authority for the sovereignty of the people. The session of the Congress that framed the Constitution was opened with prayer at the suggestion of Benjamin Franklin, who said regarding the prospect of the na- tion that he had " no hope except from heaven." But the document of all documents most powerful in shaping the movements of this period was that upon which rested the hand of the first President when he took the oath of office — the open Bible. " In God we trust " was not an idle motto to our fathers nor mis- placed upon the coinage of a realm established in that trust. RELIGIOUS AFFILIATIONS Weight as to religious character is generally read from the rather uncertain scale-beam of church affilia- tion. The reading shows that those coming from Eng- lish and Teutonic lands are still, as at first, mainly Protestant. America's pioneer Protestant churches, in order of appearance, were Episcopal, Dutch Reformed, Congregational, Friends, Baptist, Presbyterian, Meth- odist; three almost exclusively German branches were well in evidence, German Reformed, Lutheran and Moravian. To these many have been added both of foreign and of native birth, the last religious census listing 1 86 denominations. Early in the seventeenth century, when Frederick of Austria was giving Protestants their choice between WEIGHING THE ORE 47 going to the gallows and going into exile, Bohemian Pilgrim fathers sought refuge in America. When Louis XIV overran the Palatinate thousands of Ger- mans fled to England to be directed to their haven. In one year four thousand of them, the largest single emi- gration of colonial times, found their way to Penn's Woods, and we know their descendants as Pennsyl- vania Dutch. During 1718 over four thousand Scotch- Irish Presbyterians sought America as an asylum from both civil and religious persecution, settling in New England, western Pennsylvania and the foothills of Vir- ginia and Carolina, and gradually pushing over the Alleghanies into Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. In 1836 Count von Zinzendorf transferred to Georgia a considerable body of Moravian Brethren from Herrn- hut, " God's House," in Saxony. Scandinavian immigrants are confessedly adherents to some Protestant church in which they are generally ardent workers and worshipers. They are said to " believe in missions, pray for missions, give to mis- sions, and thus have a wide horizon." The state church of Scandinavian lands is Lutheran and that of Holland is the Dutch Reformed, but many other branches of Christianity have come to us by way of Holland. The English church is supposedly Episcopalian but the Eng- lish immigrant is quite likely to be of some other com- munion. The Scotch-Irish are still in greater part Presbyterians and the Irish remain the typically ardent devotees of the Roman hierarchy. Of the " new immigration," neither the race, the land of birth, nor the font of baptism insures the re- 48 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT ligious belief of the immigrant. The Austro-Hungarian Slav coming from the borderland of the rupture in the early church, divides his adherence between Rome and Constantinople. Bulgarians and Servians, generally speaking, belong to the orthodox Greek church; Poles, Bohemians, Croatians, Slovenes and Slovaks to the Roman, one- fourth of the Slovaks being classed as Protestants. The Russian Slav is generally rated as Greek Catholic, although a considerable number of Russian immigrants are Protestant. The Finns are usually Lutheran; the Letts, Protestant; the Lithua- nians, Roman Catholics. The Magyar is as likely to be Protestant as Catholic, and when Protestant likely to be Calvinist, Lutheran, United Greek or Armenian. Syria is largely Mohammedan, but Syrian immigrants are of various ancient Christian sects. The Hebrews are divided into three classes — the orthodox, con- servative and reformed. Italy is accounted Roman Catholic, but the Romish church in America does not find the Italian immigrant a reliable supporter. None are more ignorant of the Bible; comparatively few Romans to-day know that the apostle Paul ever wrote the Roman epistle. Many Italians bring to America as strong a desire for ec- clesiastical as for political freedom and they are prone to give up Christianity altogether if not looked out for by the Protestant church. Bohemians have shown the most marked tendency to settle down to old-fashioned infidelity. Infidel societies are maintained and Sunday school children are taught an infidel catechism. Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Persians and Turks have WEIGHING THE ORE 49 erected their heathen shrines, and we are prone to con- ceive of our immigration as being " too religious '' in the sense of worshiping at too many altars and, too often, an unknown God. It is the part of American Christianity to " declare unto them Him whom they ignorantly worship." Separation of church and state is new to most im- migrants and it is encouraging to note how many of them shoulder the new responsibility of providing themselves church buildings and maintaining worship. RELIGIOUS FRUITAGE However a tree may be catalogued, it must be judged finally by its fruits : not everyone that saith, " Lord, Lord," but " he that doeth the will," weighs well in the balances of God. The assay of gold in the Chris- tian product is indicated by its response to God's proc- ess and its relation to the missionary enterprise. While the church body in America has not been alto- gether a perfect representative and revelator of Christ; has not always busied itself with seeking the lost; has not preached the gospel to all nations even within her borders, yet such has been the high ideal and holy pur- pose of the Church. Sometimes the world outside has been justified in saying, " Physician, heal thyself " : sometimes the Church has been so occupied in healing herself that she has not taken that best assistant to heal- ing — exercise in the open. The Church has not always been a unit in her interpretation of eternal justice, as in the question of slavery : she has been slow to realize 50 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT her ability to overthrow the twin evils, intemperance and immorahty; still, in every struggle of " the weak against the strong " and '"the right against the wrong," she has lifted up her voice for God. Efforts for American betterment have prevailingly had church origin or have sought and obtained church encourage- ment and support. The vision, the faith and the cour- age of American Protestants have produced the most notable philanthropic and missionary movements of modern times. In weighing the Church it is not just to put into the balances samples of extremely indifferent character only, ignoring the weighty specimens such as officially equip, with the very gold of the Kingdom, not only the Church and her manifold missionary agencies, but the thousands of outside benevolent institutions which also depend, almost entirely, upon her for their officials. For the Church to be oblivious of the former, is to lack wisdom for her task; for her to fail to appreciate the latter, is to lack the hopeful vision necessary to accom- plish her mission. If every Christian could be possessed of a sense of the Divinely appointed mission that the commanding place of leadership and power given to America signi- fies, there would be no problem concerning American assimilation of immigrants. If the Church really be- lieved that the task of saving America was God- imposed, would she not fear to refuse any possible service ? And would not any service needed be recog- nized as possible if the Church really believed the prom- ises of God ? Too many churches, too many Christians, WEIGHING THE ORE 51 are doing nothing that cannot be accounted for with- out putting God into the reckoning. There are no barriers to the constraining love of Christ. InabiHty to understand English, so long al- lowed to bar immigrants from the ministry of the church, has become for the Home missionary the open door to service. Nearly every Oriental convert on the Pacific coast will assert that his faith in Christ was born in the English-teaching night-school. Moreover, common speech is not an absolute essen- tial to fellowship in worship. Some Texas Mexican children who attended a mission school urged the mis- sionary to '' have church " which their parents might attend. When she sought to excuse herself because un- able to speak Spanish, a little girl in evident relief ex- claimed, " Oh, it doesn't matter whether they under- stand, only so it's church; English is as well as Latin ! '* Recognizing the truth of the child's reflection, the teacher conducted an English service through which the people listened most reverently if not understand- ingly. RELIGIOUS PROBLEMS Oflicial figures for 19 10 show that two-fifths of America's total population report as church members, three-fifths of them being Protestant and over a third Roman Catholic. This awakens inquiry concern- ing irreligious elements. The church provides a min- ister to every 550 of the population, one to every 207 of the Christian church membership; yet. Christian meeting-places, which furnish seatings for about half 52 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT the population, are often not half filled. One is in- clined to question whether the most dangerous foes of the Church may not be those of her own household. The indifference existing regarding the empty pews shows that the church members fail to realize that they are responsible elements in a perpetual process — that to the immigrant and irreligious native they are the epistles of America's faith in church ministry. A young Japanese being asked where he attended church, replied, " I no go church ! People no go church in America! America surprise me much; I suppose America all Christian — all go church. I find no one Christian — no one go church." The indifference of Christian parents who direct their best energies to the physical, intellectual and so- cial advancement of their children and take little evi- dent concern for their spiritual development is a de- Christianizing element. Susceptibility to the power of the Holy Spirit, secured through individual prayer, Bible study and meditation upon holy things, can alone overcome the spirit of indifference. The Jamaicans have a proverb that too often fits the American Christian home : " When fowl drink water, him lif up him head an' say, * T'ank God! T'ank God ! ' but man drink water an' no say not'ing." The foreign and false faiths which, in their contact with the true religious elements of the melting-pot, take on something of their appearance, adopting methods and endeavors that make outward Christian appeal, are the greater menace to Christian faith be- cause what they really are is thereby concealed. Some WEIGHING THE ORE 53 forms of socialism are in pronounced opposition to God and to America. The questions of immigration restriction have re- ligious bearings. Shall America, established on a Chris- tian basis, shut her doors in the face of some and throw leading-ropes across the seas to others ? To do so were un-American, un-Christian — so say some, both in church and state. Shall America, the melting-pot of God, be profaned by those who do not seek to know Him or to walk after His counsels, those who build up high-places for the worship of their Baalim and Ashtaroth? Should not the doors be closed fast to all who do not come out of respect for that to which America was consecrated by the blood of our sires? So question others. But shall not the processes of God within His melt- ing-pot be for the salvation of the whole world? Even so, were there not preparatory reductions in other ves- sels of the ores with which this was charged in the beginning? Should there not be preparation of that which goes in to-day? Would it not be better for God's far purpose in the world that the heathen come not to see and hear Him dishonored, perhaps to find Him unknown; to set up their idols here and have our own people go after their strange gods ? Should we not for- bid the charging of the melting-pot faster than the fires and solvents can effect reduction and transformation? So question others. Which are right? IV REDUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION Prayer and pains through faith in Jesus Christ will do any- thing. — John Eliot. IV REDUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION DURING the colonial period the process of Americanization was well begun. The thirteen separate colonies, each holding to its own an- cestral peculiarities, having its own interests, its own struggles, its own problems for the future, were being fused into a national character with common interests, common struggles, common problems, and a dawning vision of united independence. The pioneer patriot was born and bred in a simple home to simple living; but not to the modern " simple life." The twentieth century housewife might find her- self even more perplexed to carry out a day's programme of a colonial dame, in w^hich everything was home- made from raw materials, than that dame might be to adjust herself at once to a twentieth century equip- ment. If the day were a Puritan Sabbath with a family of colonial dimensions, there might be even greater appreciation of New England mothers, SUBJUGATION" " A barren country is a great whet to the industry of a people "; the Pilgrims, who landed on New England's *' stern and rock-bound coast," bestirred themselves lest 57 58 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT they, too, fall into the category of " all things which," as Bradford said, " stared at them with weather-beaten face." But strenuous toil, hardship, difficulty, danger and disaster, if met nobly and bravely, are wholesome discipline. Moreover, our forefathers brought with them the desires, tastes and ambitions of the most advanced society of their time. The wish to gratify these led to the devising of substitutes for what they could not obtain or could not afford, and the resultant originality and resourcefulness have made America the land of inventive genius. EDUCATION God's purpose for the country required men of brain as well as brawn, and so some of the most brilliant clergymen of England were its first pastors, while graduates of Cambridge, Scotch reformers, Irish lib- erals and French patriots became its schoolmasters. An early New England law ruled that " none of the Brethren shall suffer so much barbarism in their fami- lies as not to teach their children and apprentices so much learning as may enable them perfectly to read the English tongue." A system of public education was among the very first institutions established by the Puritans. As early as 1649 all the New England colonies save Rhode Island had compulsory education laws. Latin schools and academies soon supplemented the common schools. Boston was but six years old when Harvard College was established (1636) and William and Mary was opened in 1693 and Yale in REDUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION 59 1700. Nine colleges, worthy the name, were founded in colonial days. In the middle colonies, under Dutch dominion, com- mon schools flourished in New York supported by public aid. But because fostered by a non-conforming church the English were slow to perpetuate them. The famous Penn Charter School, opened in 1698, was for fifty years the only public school in Pennsylvania. The Gemians and Moravians maintained good private schools in the larger towns, but, as in the states far- ther south, rural places had only such educational ad- vantages as parents and tutors could give in the homes. By the Revolutionary era, American printing presses were " divulging disobedience " to British rule to the number of thirty-seven newspapers. The Boston News Letter y 1704, heads the list. The Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and the required adoption of these by states which brought their dis- cussion to every hamlet and home, were potent factors in the making of Americans. " We the people," the majestic opening words of the Constitution, held for the humblest citizen a sense of individual authority, and of obligation for all that document was to " ordain and establish." Americans to-day may well peruse the immortal speeches of our first century and reflect upon the character of the mothers and sisters who rocked the cradles of American freedom and the atmosphere of the homes wherein our first orators obtained their high ideals. First, in time and importance, among the reducing 6o AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT and transforming forces in the melting-pot, has stood the Christian church. The church fathers were Amer- ica's school fathers. In the beginning American col- leges were church colleges. The first of these was named for a Christian minister who gave half of his worldly goods for its endowment, and his books for its library. The motto on its seal is " Christo et ec- clesiae." The rules demand that " every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider that the chief end of his life is to know God and Jesus Christ — and, therefore, to lay Christ as the foundation of sound learning." In 1757 the Continental Congress passed an ordi- nance relative to the opening of the Northwest Terri- tory which said, " Religion, morality and knowledge being necessary for the good government and the hap- piness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged/' Religion came first with our national fathers. TOLERATION A proper understanding of the development of re- ligious liberty and toleration in America begins with the Protestant Reformation in Europe and its elimina- tion of priests and popes as intermediary between man and God. Since refusal to conform to the established church was regarded as a species of treason against so- ciety, there was needed a land of refuge. Room and time for individual study and investigation were neces- sary — room for light, room to worship according to REDUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION 6i that light, room to try out its quality with no one to molest or make afraid. As Holland became the cradle that rocked the first-born sects of the Reformation, America became the nursery wherein they found room for the struggles through which they learned to respect each other. A succession of religious persecutions and oppres- sions sent hither the English Puritans, Catholics, Quak- ers and Baptists; Scotch and Irish Presbyterians; French Huguenots; Rhenish Palatines; German Quak- ers, Dunkards, Pietists and Moravians. With some of these aversion due to a former relationship of per- secuted and persecutors had to be overcome. Among harmonizing providences, sympathy began in their being alike exiles for freedom's sake; they counted liberty dear enough to be suffered for, and truth valuable enough to be loyal to at any cost. Provi- dentially, the early Stuart Charters established them in independent and democratic colonies with the church left free from the English hierarchy. Later, when charters were revoked until all but Connecticut and Rhode Island had Royal or Proprietary governments under English officers, the officers, as a common cause of irritation, became a source of common sympathy. In the wars that beset the colonies, fhey mingled their prayers and shared a common faith in a common Father, out of which grew an understanding and con- fidence that made for toleration. Harshly intolerant at first with Baptists and Quakers, they made public confession later of the wrong they had done. Under Dutch rule New Amsterdam, after the ex- 62 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT ample of the mother country, allowed full liberty of conscience in religion. As early as 1644 Manhattan spoke eighteen different languages and had a half- dozen or more creeds. In the center of the land flour- ished the " Holy Experiment " of William Penn, pro- viding as perfect toleration as exists to-day. While as close to exclusive Massachusetts as might be, lay Rhode Island, whose founder, Roger Williams, had expanded the Puritan demand for liberty for themselves to a de- mand for liberty for all. DENOMINATIONAL LIBERTY The beginning of the eighteenth century witnessed prevailing moral and spiritual depression followed by the first great awakening. Of this, the earnest, able and devout young pastor of the church in Northamp- ton, Massachusetts, Jonathan Edwards, wrote, " The town seemed to be full of the presence of God.'* Reach- ing the Scotch Presbyterians in New Jersey and Penn- sylvania, the wave of evangelism, through the preaching of George Whitefield, swept the coast from Maine to Georgia, leaving the existing denominations strength- ened and enlarged, and adding to their number. " The effect of this vigorous propagation of rival sects openly in the face of whatsoever there was of church estab- lishment," says Bacon in " American Christianity," " settled this point : that the law of American states, by whomsoever administered, must sooner or later be the law of liberty and equality among the various com- REDUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION 63 This quickening of a common religious life and com- mon destiny had its influence on the nation soon to be born. And with it came new missionary zeal. Zealous efforts were made to Christianize the Indians, and planters looked to the moral education of their slaves. THE EFFECTS OF WAR Another period of moral and religious degradation followed the Revolutionary war — " the lowest low- water mark of the lowest ebb-tide of spiritual life in the history of the American Church." The good old days when the Puritan church register was consulted as the civil roster had given place to uncertain days when church rolls wxre being forgotten. Religion was con- sidered as for the clergy, the meeting-house, and for Sunday. It looked as if God's experiment with America as His melting-pot might fail. Among the causes producing this alarming state were the demoralizing effect of the war itself and the grievous loss to the Church by the sacrifices of war, of those young men who would have become its sup- porters and ministers. The prevailing popular infidelity of Europe had infested American camps through for- eign officers, and was tainting the currents of immigra- tion. Tom Paine was having his day. Separation from the mother country required some reconstruction of church polity among American de- nominations. The Presbyterians and Dutch had previ- ously attained independence of foreign jurisdiction. Congregationalists and Baptists had independent 64 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT church organization. But Episcopalians and Metho- dists had to reconstruct themselves. It had not always been clear that one could be at once an Episcopalian and a patriotic American. Friends and Moravians, whose convictions forbade them to take part in war, were in disfavor w^ith both Tories and patriots. It took time to reconstruct and re-equip the churches. "building up- In the midst of these times which truly " tried men's souls," came a second great awakening. It began in movements within the Church so widespread in loca- tion and church association and, yet, so harmonious in appeal as to leave no doubt that they w^re of God. Among these appeals was a call to Bible searching, which was just preceded by the organization of the British and Foreign Bible Society, which made it possible for even the poor man to have his copy of the Word. With the old sword of the Spirit, American and English champions of infidelity were met and vanquished, and Christian faith was restored. The evangelism of this period swept the country to the west of the course of the former great awakening. It added to the pioneer churches of the middle west the people known as the Disciples of Christ, or Christians. With this arousement came organized reformatory, benevolent and missionary enterprises carried on by united church forces, and the abolition and temperance movements were bom. REDUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION 65 Immediately preceding the Civil War, a general re- ligious impulse fortified the country to stand the forth- coming strain. And as God's church in all the churches has been unitedly organized for the advancement of His kingdom of righteousness and justice, it has assuredly been " building up itself in love." CONSERVATION Advancement in reduction and transformation de- pends not only upon developing but on sustaining or conserving influences. Gradually, through the years, natural laws have become more and more concerned with the problems of the human. To-day the patent remedy is no longer allowed to keep secret any deceit- ful drug it may contain, and the per cent, of alcohol must appear on every bottle of beer. States have prohibited the manufacture and sale of cigarettes and outlawed King Alcohol. There are almost as many sorts of inspectors as there are commodities sold on the city markets. We sterilize, we fumigate, we segregate, we annihilate ! The child is " set in the midst " and the Christian hand is laid upon it in loving protest against everything that does not conserve his best in- terests. Attention is focused upon the betterment, morally and physically, of child races, and of defectives and delinquents of all sorts. It is recognized that the slum and the sweatshop vitally affect the nation. The avenue cleans up the alley to protect itself as well as to conserve life in the alley. Schools are tending more and more to develop and 66 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT conserve mechanical skill and economic force. Patent and copyright laws encourage by remunerating creative genius for the time and labor expended. America offers to every boy a dream of opulence and recogni- tion. Every public library and every oil lamp in the re- motest cabin stimulates energy to that end. Shall the dream be conserved? With what diligence young Franklin cut wicks and poured tallow while his father poured into his brain the wisdom of Solomon, " Seest thou a man diligent in business, he shall stand before kings "; — this done, Franklin passed on the dream by proverbs of his own. Is it well to arouse the enthusi- asm of diligence in honest effort to earn such honors as one accepts? Is it well to cultivate the imagination that for every boy there opens an uphill road and a vantage ground where he can stand with America's nobility, not of retainers — but of attainers? The pub- lic school says it is well; and the child has not pro- gressed far before it learns : ** Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime.'' Study of the development of our educational system proves that the trust of framing and sustaining it was providentially left to the people. The national idea of equality has insured for every child its inalienable right to an equal chance to learn. The public school aim has advanced, from the storing of the mind with learn- ing, to the equipment of life for service. The conservation of the influences that have ema- LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA REDUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION ^y nated from the Christian church is most important of all. These forces have insisted that the nation is bound to maintain the moral and spiritual status under which, in the providence of God, it was given a place among the nations of the earth. Of late there has been a wholesome looking backward to discover afresh the ideas that are fundamental to our national life. Little foreigners are very appreciative of America's early heroes. A tiny Japanese of California exhibited an amusing degree of assimilation of our historical heritage when he accosted a new white pupil thus: *' Have you English father ? — and English mother ? " — " Then, we beat you, and your men were regulars and we just farmers." "God made the sands and deserts of Africa: the angels made the rest of the world." So the Ethiopian expresses his crude patriotism. The truer American patriotism looks upon America as the land in which God's people of every race are brought to dwell to- gether in security and brotherliness, as fellow-citizens of the best country on earth. We do not want the immigrant to be a citizen of the world, glorying in no particular flag. He is not welcome if he does not in the beginning believe in America and in her govern- ment. The fact that he observes his fatherland cele- brations does not indicate that he is not a patriotic American. The Pole who forgets Kosciusko, the Ital- ian who forgets Garibaldi, will fail to realize that the Fourth of July is more than a legal holiday. Professor Steiner writes, " I know no fatherland but America; for, after all, it matters less where one 68 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT was born than where one's ideals had their birth, and to me America is not the land of mighty dollars but the land of great ideals. I am not yet convinced that the peril to these ideals lies in those who come to you crude and unfinished. If I were I would be the first one to call out, * Shut the door ! ' and not the last one to exile myself for your country's good." American patriotism is often distant, and even dis- dainful in its welcome to the alien who seeks shelter under the American flag: with ballot in hand he is to many a threatening picture. Yet the exercise of suf- frage is in itself educational. " For what did you vote ? " The question was asked of some Poles on election day, and they promptly re- plied, " For two dollars." The story has been often quoted as evidence of the danger in the alien vote. But who bought those votes ? American traitors ? Greater patriotism hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his country. The blood of many nationalities was poured out on freedom's altar when America was born, and with every call to arms the foreign element has given proof of loyalty. A Bo- hemian rifle company was the first to leave Chicago to fight for the Union in i860. A Japanese Christian minister in Los Angeles, pointing to an American flag, asked his little son, " What would you do if there was war between the United States and Japan?" " I should be very sad, papa," the lad replied, " to fight against your people, but I should have to fight for my own country." Fortunately, the time is passing when the sacrifices REDUCTION AND TRANSFORMATION 69 of war proclaim the patriot. Instead we welcome the *' battle of the ballot " for the gaining and maintaining of moral victories, and brand as a traitor the man who considers his private interests above those of country and community. V RE-AGENTS There'll be pots of real gold 'neath the rainbows that span Our fair skies when we catch the Christ-vision of man. Then the aliens, no longer the " scum o' the earth," But as brothers to us of the haughtiest birth. Shall be welcomed as pilgrims who follow His hand That hath crowned with the fulness of blessing, our land. —L. G. C, V RE-AGENTS SUBJECT to the operation of certain fixed laws the alchemist varies at will the product from his melting-pot. It may be a globule of silver or a " button " of lead, according to the degree or kind of heat applied, or the substances — the re-agents — fused with the ore. THE CHURCH In close touch with the varied ore brought from all lands to this — His "melting pot" — the Great Alchemist has manifold agencies that — fused with the ore — bear an important relation to the finished product. Only a few of them can be considered here. Foremost among God's *' re-agents " are the great Missionary Societies. God Himself brought them about — He called and fitted the men and women whom the Church has separated for their leadership. When objection was made in the Massachusetts Senate to the incorporation of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions because its purpose was " to export religion, whereas there is none to spare from among ourselves," the reply was made, " Religion is a commodity of which 73 74 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT the more we export the more we have remaining." The century has demonstrated that foreign missions demand home missions and that home missions cannot be kept at home. The publications of mission boards keep the Church acquainted with herself, her environment and her rela- tion thereto, and furnish her with feeling, sympathy, appeal and response. It is especially true that the work of the organized Women's Missionary Societies, with their systematic giving, their regular meetings for increase of mission- ary intelligence and spiritual culture, their mission study-classes, their missionary training for children and young people and their tireless efforts for the help- less, have had immeasurable influence upon the char- acter of the Church. Upon them rests to-day a large part of our faith in the making and keeping of America a Christian nation. The Student Volunteer Movement, which began in 1896, has contributed a world-brotherhood spirit to the influence of education by enlisting college students in mission study and enrolling volunteers for missionary service. Its great quadrennial meetings of missionary force have grown hotter and hotter in spiritual awakening power. The Ecumenical Conference on Foreign Missions, held in New York City in 1900, was the first great exponent of the united missionary zeal of the modern church. Out of this, directly or indirectly, have grown many movements of interdenominational union in mat- ters pertaining to the Kingdom. Among these are The RE-AGENTS 75 Federal Council of Churches of Christ in 'America, whose stated object is " to express the fellowship and Catholic unity of the Christian church and bring the Christian bodies of America into united service for Christ and the world." Through a special commission, " The Church and Social Service," it aims to bring the great moral power of the Church into action as a creator of public opinion on social problems. The Home Missions Council is a self -perpetuating body composed of the official leaders of the church's great Home Mission Boards, and organized for mutual help and effort. The Council of Women for Home Missions is the unifying body for Women's Home Missionary So- cieties, as is the Federation of Women's Boards of Foreign Missions, for their sister Foreign-Mission so- cieties. The slogan of the one — " Our Country God's Country" — ^may well merge into the rallying-call of the other, " The World for Christ." The Jubilee wave of woman's Foreign Mission rallies of 1910-11 had its balancing simultaneous Home Mission campaign of 19 12, under the united direction of the two Home Mis- sion Councils. The Laymen's Missionary Movement, born Novem- ber 15, 1906, in a prayer service on the anniversary of the " Haystack prayer-meeting," has deepened the con- viction — ^through a long series of conventions — ^that the American Church must bear an important part in the effort to " evangelize the world in this generation." The Men and Religion Forward Movement, inaugu- rated in 191 1, has mightily helped to make religion >](> AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT real to men and boys, and so to lift American masculine Christianity to a higher plane. The Young Men's Christian Association is a vigor- ous, indefatigable force for righteousness. In the midst of trade and class organizations, it serves as an inter-vocational and inter-common Christian mixer. " Man efficiency," " betterment," " serve and conserve," " a fair chance," " all-around welfare " — these are among its stock phrases. " Tiding over the teens " is a vital feature of its effort. The great unchurched railroad, army and navy forces are responsible to its ministry. The sailor boy on shore makes for the Y.M.C.A. haven in every port. The membership in its Bible classes and Prayer League has more than doubled in five years. In the mill villages of the South and the factory towns of New England it is working for social and Christian betterment, while its thought and care reach out to the neglected country boy, giving to him new ideals and enlarging hopes. Educationally, the work of the Association is too varied for enumeration here and too valuable for computation in figures or words. The Young Women s Christian Association, of like spirit and endeavor with her elder brother, is render- ing inestimable all-around service to young women, shielding them from dangers in city and country, teach- ing and guiding them, and upholding them by constrain- ing love. Among its latest and most important de- partments is one giving special attention to immigrant women and girls. When the Salvation Army and its later comrade, the RE-AGENTS yy Volunteers of America , first came into contact with what seemed refuse ore in the melting-pot, the Church regarded it of small import, and the world scoffed. To-day the Church and the world recognize their value as spiritual re-agents. The great Bible Societies have demonstrated beyond a doubt that the Word of God is still the " quick and powerful " " sword of the Spirit." It is circulated in thirty-seven languages in the city and harbor of New York, and every immigrant landing at Ellis Island may receive it, if he will, " without money and without price." Bible Training-Schools and Vacation Bible Schools are carrying the work of Sunday schools into the week- days with their varied activities. The Gideons, an organization of Christian commer- cial travelers, in a single year, 191 1, placed 117,000 Bibles in American hotels. Among numberless philanthropic and semi-philan- thropic societies which are more or less closely allied to church activities, first place belongs to the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, organized in 1874, " for God and Home and Native Land," having as its object " the protection of the home, the abolition of the liquor traffic and the triumph of Christ's Golden Rule in custom and in law." With a programme of law-enforcement and a " down with the saloon " policy, the Anti-Saloon League came into action in 1895. 78 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT PHILANTHROPIC ORGANIZATIONS Of the multiplying of American organizations for specific preservative and conservative tasks there seems no end. Faith in the genius and destiny of the Ameri- can people is kept alive by the fact that every fresh awakening to the existence of unrighteous, un-Ameri- can conditions crystallizes into some aggressive force for their correction. From disclosures of the twelfth census the National Child Labor Committee had its birth. Church and state, labor and capital, education and philanthropy, society and law, manhood and womanhood, are represented in its personnel, and its work is upon broad lines. The declaration of inde- pendence that it voices for children in mines, factories and workshops has aroused the interest of the Ameri- can public and produced practical results. One reform calls for another and the Society for Industrial Education followed the Child Labor Com- mittee by natural sequence. To secure the sympathy of the home and factory with enforced school attend- ance and factory absence, there must be assurance that the schools would render the best possible economic assistance. The Public School, in spite of the fact that in some places the name of Christ is eliminated even from its Christmas exercises, has an inestimable influence on the contents of the melting-pot. The National Educor- tional Association, with its home co-operative depart- ments of " School Patrons," " Extension Committees," "Aid Societies," "Mothers' Clubs" and "Parent- LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF lUlNOtS URBANA RE-AGENTS 79 Teacher Associations," assures advancement in the purpose, province and power of public school service. Various organizations serve by gathering and dis- pensing statistics. Statistics are not dry when their units are living factors in solving problems of social betterment. By them came the recognition of the misery occasioned by housing, child labor, factory and mine conditions. The American Institute of Social Service acts as a clearing house for social information by gathering facts bearing on the solution of social problems and interpreting them in terms of cause and effect. It furnishes information to colleges and has its hundreds of church clubs studying social problems, and its organ, " The Gospel of the Kingdom." The Traveler's Aid Society renders most important protective service. The American Vigilance Associa- tion, the Florence Crittenton Missions, and other simi- lar organizations conserve for the purposes of the Great Alchemist much that would otherwise be worse than waste and useless ore. Civic organizations supplement the admirable work of government officials at the ports of entry and else- where. The North American Civic League guides the perplexed newcomer to his destination in the great city, protects him from land-sharks, provides, directly or indirectly, schooling and a varied training for American citizenship. Nowhere is one more sure of finding heavy, lonely, needy hearts than at America's gateways. There is virtue there in the very touch of the missionary's hand, and a halo in her smile. But she does more than 8o AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT smile. She hunts for lost children, clothes the naked and feeds the hungry. She carries many a cup of water " in His name." She explains misunderstand- ings, writes letters, sends telegrams, looks after bag- gage, reports hospital cases to anxious mothers, and fearlessly defends the helpless from mistreatment or misjudgment. Civic Clubs and Night Schools give the foreign-born a course in government while the home-born study immigration from the brotherhood-of-man viewpoint. Charity Organisations and Humane Societies have done much over and above the direct relief given, to foster the sympathetic nature and to enforce the kindli- ness of the Golden Rule. Many potent " re-agents " cannot even be named here and many of those named combine in themselves many kinds of endeavor as distinctive as have called independent organizations into being. The " do every- thing policy " of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union has developed no less than forty specific de- partments, the latest being " Co-operation with Mis- sionary Societies." Home Missions have various ad- junct departments carried on largely by separate boards, as Church Extension, Benevolence, Temper- ance, Publication and Evangelism. Missions proper has its fireside, settlement, orphanage, home and hos- pital work; its day, night, industrial and mission-train- ing schools; its colleges and university Bible Chairs; and every form of evangelistic work. Considering the number, the character and the po- tentiality of the reductive agents now provided, we are RE-AGENTS 8l disposed to affirm that they should accomplish the re- duction of the American " ore " in this generation, and that they would do so were it not for the delaying streams of immigration. From the last mountain-top of his long pilgrimage, Dr. A. T. Pierson, — ^that great American seer of God's word and God's world, — had his glad vision of swiftly on-coming victory in the con- quest for Christ. He deemed that the Lord had by suc- cessive movements of men, women and children, called out His last reserves and was so mobilizing and con- centrating His forces as to indicate the approach of a decisive hour; it signified to him the dawn of the last of the ages. VISIONS Other men have had their visions. Abbe Felix Klein in his book, " America of To-morrow," predicts that *' the church of Rome may in a quarter of a cen- tury prevail over all other confessions combined; it may make the United States, according to a dream that is no longer merely visionary, the first Catholic nation in the world." Whether the church of Rome comes hither as a fugitive or a conqueror, the fact that the God of na- tions is removing her candlesticks from lands of former occupation indicates not that He is giving America to her, but her to America. Is not God bring- ing her to the open Bible, the " all authority " given to Jesus Christ, and the liberty wherewith He made man free? Does He not count upon the American church to be true to her trust of passing on her rich 82 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT inheritance — the well-ripened fruit of the Protestant Reformation? Perhaps, in God's providence, the Roman church has something to give as well as to get. May not America need her help in conserving faith in a Divine Christ, in stimulating loyalty to church worship and demonstrating the strength of united organization? We are forced to recognize that the melting-pot has not only its re-agents but its counter-agents which neutralize and delay its processes. Such are the or- ganized liquor traffic, which is powerful and obdurate, and foreign and false religious cults which contami- nate and endanger. But there are solvents enough for reduction: the process only waits the power of spiritual heat. Sometimes the Church — His glorious Church — has humbled herself before her opponents and been apolo- getic when she should have been defiant. She has had her day upon the stand as the target of the doubter's questionings, but has now become the questioner, chal- lenging every " robber wrong " to declare what it has to offer in place of the Christian consolation and the pledge and power of salvation it would take away. Higher Criticism is getting back into " the old paths " and reaction is setting in against materialism. The money god is being recast by lifelong worshipers into angels of ministry. Who can fight against God ? VI TESTING THE PRODUCT "That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" VI TESTING THE PRODUCT THE purity of gold and silver products is tested by the " streak " which they leave upon the touchstone and by comparing that streak with that of samples already tested. INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY The character of the products of reduction in Amer- ica, God's melting-pot, is tested by the impress upon national life and the touchstone of comparison is the ideal Christian citizen. The more foreign the immi- grant assimilated, the stronger the test of the truth of American democracy. Co-operation is a basic qual- ity of democracy. Alien and American must co- operate with common interest and mutual trust in the establishment of ideal social and economic relation- ships. The foreigner who comes to dig our ditches must be helped to make his way out of the ditch. There must be recognition of equal right to continual oppor- tunity to make one's self more capable, and equal pro- tection by law. The laborer must not be goaded to his task by the thorns of inexorable fate and haunting fear of want. The thistles of race depreciation, and the mercenary motive that makes machines of men and 85 86 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT runs them without oihng unmindful of their creaking, are not in accord with the ideals of American democ- racy. Those ideals demand respect for every toil and every toiler that ministers to human need; leaving him alone without regard who refuses to do his share of the world's work. They demand Robert Browning's recognition that — **A11 service ranks the same with God:" "There is no last nor first." SOCIAL DEMOCRACY Race repulsion is soonest overcome by direct ac- quaintance — " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- self." America furnishes the field in which people of different races, living and working side by side, may get acquainted and outgrow their antipathies and grow into sympathy. When the brotherly-love of the Golden Rule prevails, none shall put the cup to his brother's lips, defile his brother's sister, or hurt his brother's child. " What shall one then answer to the messengers of the nation? That the Lord hath founded Zion and the poor of his people shall trust in her." Faith is a great economic force. National progress requires that the coming American not only '' hitch his wagon to the stars in the heavens but to the stars in the flag." Be- coming a citizen should mean pledged faith to the mis- sion and destiny of America, and fitness and desire to further her mission. To the poor oppressed peasant immigrant the idea of personal responsibility for the TESTING THE PRODUCT 8;; maintenance of our national ideals is almost incon- ceivable. It is national economy to teach him at once that he must match his superior advantages by being superior, that he must live on the American plane. To this end he must be shielded from hard bargaining on the part of his employer and protected from danger while at work. To make it first possible and then obligatory for the immigrant to live up to the national standards of civilization is not only humanitarian but sound political and economic policy. What he does is not a fair test of what he would gladly do under proper assistance. Observing the tubs in the boys' dormitory of an in- dustrial mission-school of the South, I inquired how the proverbially " dirty negroes " took to the bath. " Take to it ? " the matron replied; " just like ducks ! Our trouble is to keep them out; they lose no oppor- tunities given and watch for chances to steal them." The patient who, after reluctantly taking the medical missionary's prescription — a bath — said, " It makes me feel bad ! I'd lived forty years without one, and it will be forty years before I take another," was a grown-up, or rather a stayed-down man. However dirty and un- kempt motherless little Mexicans come to the mission schools of the West, they feel good when made clean. The little girls pat down their fresh clean aprons as affectionately and proudly as ever we did ours and beam as brightly out of freshly-washed faces. Alahandra was to her teachers a very hopeless prop- osition; listless, heedless and slovenly. At the end of three months it took close watching to discover any 88 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT improvement. She must always be told to wash on rising and before eating and sleeping. Then someone at home was taken sick and wished to see Alahandra. The missionary, fearing the child might not return to a life yet unappreciated, decided to leave the child at home only while she drove farther on for a call. On returning, she found her pupil with sleeves rolled up, scrubbing the almost unscrubable adobe kitchen as if life depended upon its getting clean. She had taken a little sister to the nearest irrigation ditch and sub- jected her, as nearly as possible, to the school induc- tion; afterwards combing her hair — on the outside, anyway. She remarked to the missionary while rid- ing back, " No wonder our'n's gets sick when they's all so dirty." The teacher took courage. THE CHRISTIAN IMPRINT The American standards of living are best enforced in the formative period of childhood. The foreign mother who returned to the public school the child sent home to be made clean with the statement, " I send my child to school to be learned not to be smelled," was given a better comprehension of the American idea of learning and of the workings of the Golden Rule. The industrial mission school has the advantage over the day-school in that it has oppor- tunity not only to point out the way but to insure walk- ing in it until habits are formed. These, however, can only touch a group here and there. What Dr. W. R. G. Temple has well said regarding spiritual culture. TESTING THE PRODUCT 89 applies as well to the social uplift: " Oases will not do. Special cultivation of large spiritual tracts will not do. It must be the whole nation for Christ. We must cease dividing up large cities into sections and labeling them the Jewish quarter, the Latin quarter, the Bo- hemian quarter, the Chinese quarter. We must turn them into an American Christian whole. We must ex- tend our leavening power among all classes of our population until the rallying cry ' America for Christ,' shall be answered by the paean, * America has become Christian.' " Concerning this conquest, the American pessimist reads the third chapter of Second Timothy and sees perilous times at hand; but the optimist knows the thirty-seventh Psalm and sees Christ ruling and " the meek " inheriting the land. The dubious have failed to note the apostle's encouraging prophecy, " But they shall proceed no farther, for their folly shall be made manifest unto all." Present times are making manifest the impurities that have been hiding in the melting-pot. The proc- esses of reduction are making the " slag " more and more conspicuous, showing that it is only a question of time when it will be consigned to the waste heap. The good American in progress is the one who is get- ting better. The intrinsically best American is the one who with greatest hold upon Divine assistance makes the hardest fight to attain the Divine standard of human life. The safety of our democracy demands recognition of the fact that the government is appointed the con- 90 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT server of life unto higher life for all the people; that the Franklin maxim, '' Honesty is the best policy," is established on the Lincoln basis, " Honesty is right " ; that transgression of the moral law does not rest upon being discovered. It would have all who lift their eyes to the hills of God's country feel the force of what has been written in bold letters upon the gray moun- tain-side overlooking the village of Roseberg, Oregon • — the assuring, or warning, w^ords, " God sees you." The Bible is the text-book of democracy. When the Jew apprehends Christianity and the Roman Catholic seeks the one advocate with the Father, the Bible will be taught as the book of all school-books, whether con- sidered as literature or ethics. The annals of American missions are full of illustrations showing that the open Bible of the Protestant church has stood its test as a guide-book for human progress. A Jewess who had become a Protestant mission worker was asked to call upon an unknown woman in a distant part of the city. The lady, in fashionable attire in a fashionable home, seemed far removed from the humble missionary whom she greeted with the words : " I, also, am a Hebrew. Tell me, honestly and secretly, how much do you receive. Are you working for money or do you believe ? " Satisfied with the reply she continued, " For years I had a Gentile serv- ant, the best girl I ever had. She was continually reading out of a book which she kept hid in the china closet. I would get that book and read it myself. I have never met anyone before that I thought fully be- lieved its teachings. By chance some incidents of TESTING THE PRODUCT 91 sacrifice in your life reached me that indicate that you live by that book. I have sought long for your address. Tell me what you know about that book." A servant girl who read and believed the Book; the reading of the Book herself; a sacrificing life exempli- fying the teaching of the Book; these were links in the chain of evidences that made a Jewess and all her household Christians. An American Mexican church has a truly Bible- made deacon, said to measure fully up to the Scriptural requirements. When a lad he did chores for a mis- sionary who, though soon recalled, left him two un- failing sources of blessing — a Bible and ability to read it. Years after w^hen another missionary came, he found a man manifestly different from his neighbors and living upon a different plane. The Book had been a general and spiritual education to him, and had made him a strict Protestant. " I cannot see Jesus, I cannot read His Book. So I can only listen for Jesus' words and follow the sound of your footsteps." With this oft-repeated testimony well may the missionary addressed " keep more closely to the blood-marked footsteps of his Master." The In- dian ear is acute, and Elder Two Crow's footsteps sound indeed like his own, and he knows that after him there follows a long trail treading in Indian file the " Jesus road." The '' living epistles " of Christianity have been powerful even in their newest editions. A Chinese woman was converted, and her husband, hating Amer- ica's God because Americans did not always deal kindly 92 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT with his people, was very angry. " For two days I no food," she told the missionary, " but Jesus stay in my heart." Her life was so consistent that it changed her husband's idea of Christianity. " Me velly glad my wife Clistian," he told the missionary. " She no scold, she kind." Seven times he read the Bible through and then he said, " I believe Jesus is God be- cause He shows inside the heart what only God can." A stalwart Pole, of the infidel-socialistic class, met disappointment in America. Starting out to try the one article of his faith — Death ends all — he providentially drifted into a Christian mission, and there found not only faith for temporal but for eternal life. Work was found for him and he soon sent for his family. The wife could only read by the language of life. What she read astonished her. God, whom her husband formerly reviled, he now revered. The marvelous transforma- tion of his life in the home made her, too, a Christian. " Tony," called an Italian mother, " don't you go near that mission again! It's forbid." " But," argued Tony, " if you knowed her you'd let me. She don't call a fellow a ' dago,* and you should hear her pray. She talks to God like she know'd 'im." The contents of the " melting-pot " have not yet reached the all-fusing point. New ingredients and new re-agents are constantly added, delaying and changing the processes of reduction and transforma- tion. But there is abundant evidence that it is going on, and that no ingredient is so stubborn that it cannot be reduced by contact with its currents. TESTING THE PRODUCT 93 Recently there died in the Buffalo almshouse Old Joe, " the queen of Canal Street," one of the toughest characters of that section when it was one of the most dangerous slums in America. At least thirty years of her life Old Joe had spent in the penitentiary. For Army and Volunteer workers her antipathy was so great that she would snarl and spit at them through the bars like an infuriated beast. But Captain Haag believed that there was no soul so dead to love and God but that a way could be found to pierce the hard exterior. She learned that Old Joe was very fond of red peppers and she brought her some of the brightest and hottest to be found in the market. They proved the key to open the sealed door to the dark heart. When again at liberty, Joe visited the Volunteer rescue home, stayed two wrecks within its shelter, and was converted. The last four years of her seventy- six were years of complete change in her life, and she died in full confidence of sins forgiven. Canal Street is no more; Old Joe is no more; but God, through prison-workers, continues to save unto the uttermost. " The Queen wishes to know did the children all get hom.e safely." Thus read a telegram Queen Victoria ordered sent to the mayor of a large city where several thousand boys and girls had sung in welcome of the royal visitor. If only America's children " get home safely," all will have been gloriously well with the processes of the melting-pot. 94 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT god's ultimate God's purpose for America is a world purpose. He cannot make America a better nation without making the world a better world. Patriotic ideas and accom- plishments are uplifts to world ideals. The constrain- ing love of Christ, the commission of the Gospel, make it impossible for the Christian to withhold the bless- ings of God. "For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along, Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong; Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame Through its ocean-sundered fibers feels the gush of joy or shame,— In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim." The massing here of representatives of the world races suggests that all may have something to supply and something to surrender for the making of an ideal people. The great ethnic problem before America is how, while advancing the fusion of her heterogeneous immigration, to maintain the ideal national homogene- ity necessary to a great nation and a great destiny. To take from every race and man his best and to culti- vate in one another God's best, is, in the final analysis, to produce the best human. The physical and intellectual characteristics of the American type are already clearly distinguished. Steiner declares the miracle which America works upon the Bohemian to be " more remarkable than any other of our national achievements; the dominant look, so characteristic in Prague, is nearly gone; the surliness TESTING THE PRODUCT 95 and unfriendliness have disappeared and the young Bohemian, American-born, is as frank and open as his neighbor of Anglo-Saxon parentage." In ten years Armenians are seen to lose their pecu- liar sharpness of features and to take the American im- print. Even in his humor, the Negro is English in Jamaica and Yankee in the United States. The intent of the Great Alchemist concerning the race fusion to be finally attained in His " melting-pot " is unknown. Some infer that God proposes to restore here the one race from which all nations sprang. There are, however, conflicting opinions on the results of race crossing : some affirm that only pure races are strong, while others hold the opposite view and still others claim that disaster lies beyond certain degrees of ad- mixture. Dispersed among the nations, the Jews have kept their racial integrity. From every country they come to America as Jews. Shall this monumental race be- come altogether Americans here? Inhabitants of the most widely separated parts of the United States are said to show less difference in language, customs and feelings than those of con- tiguous counties and provinces of European states which have had diverse histories. Like experiences, thoughts, ideals, aspirations, produce like people, even in physical appearance. May it not be that the unity of the final American stock shall be born of kinship in the spirit more than of kinship in the flesh? Surely upon faces of Chris- tians of every racial mold, — Indian, Negro, Chinese 96 AMERICA, GOD'S MELTING-POT and Anglo-Saxon, — the imprint of the stamp of Christ is readily recognized. Whatever be the final outcome, we know that the Revelator heard this new song: " Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof : for Thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation." PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMKICA C "Prof. Edward A. Steiner's book is an epic of present day immigration and is indeed a revelation that should set America thinking. It is crammed with information which may be called vital statistics, gained only by first hand association with the actual people concerned. d. "Prof. Steiner is himself an immigrant though educated in the Universities of Ger- many. Nearly ever/ year he has been passing and repassing over the same trail in order to understand thoroughly the subject which has absorbed his constant thought and burned itself into his very being. ^ "The author has not only taken such pains to get the actual facts — he has taken similar pains with their presentation to arrest the sympathetic attention of men and women who read. His alert and vivid imagination and uncommonly keen sense for literary effect make story and statement concrete, picturesque and telling. C "It is just such a book as was needed. It could not be more timely. Impassioned as one who undertakes to tell about it may be, at the best, his representations will still be but the ** rhetoric of understatement ^ From a lengthy reviezv in the Chicago Evening Post, ON THE TRAIL OF THE Immigrant Illustrated^ Cloth $ijo net EDWARD A. STEINER'S Studies of Immigration The Broken Wall Stories of the Mingling Folk. Illus- trated net $1 .00 "A big heart and a sense of humor go a long way toward making a good book. Dr. Edward A. Steiner has both these qualifications and a knowledge of immigrant's traits and c haracter. ' ' — Outlook, Against the Current Simple Chapters from a Complex Life. i2mo, cloth, ., net $1.25 "As frank a bit of autobiography as has been published for many a year. The author has for a long time made a close study of the problems of immigration, and makes a strong appeal to the reader."— TA* Living A gt. The Immigrant Tide — Its Ebb and Flow Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50 "May justly be called an epic of present day immigra- tion, and is a revelation that should set our country thinking." — Los AngeUt Times. On the Trail of the Immigrant 7th Edition. Illustrated, l2mo, cloth, net $1.50 "Deals with the character, temperaments, racial traits, aspirations and capabilities of the immigrant himselfl Can- not fail to afford excellent material for the use of students of immigrant problems." — Outlook. TJie Mediator A Tale of the Old World and the New. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth net $1.25 "A graphic story, splendidly told."— Robert Watchorn, Former Commissioner o/ Immigration. Tolstoy^ the Man and His Message A Biographical Interpretation Revised and enlarged. Illustrated, i2mo, cloth, net $1.50 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA