Of late some of the very people who declared that the immigrant comes here with only “sordid motives” have favored pressure upon him to become a citizen by means of refusing him employment unless he does become one. The great increase in declarations of intention during the past three or four years has been due almost entirely to the restrictions adopted formally or informally all over the country confining employment, even in privately owned industries, to those who have at least taken out “first papers.” Even in the Bureau of Naturalization there was for a time more than a tendency to pursue this policy of forcing citizenship upon aliens. It was abandoned because no government can kidnap the subjects or citizens of another without getting into difficulty. There is still a good deal of confusion of thought about this matter. The importance of it lies in the fact--obvious to any right thought about it--that we want for our new citizens _only those who come of their own accord and free will_. We want, moreover, only those who are right-minded. The effort to stamp out the use of every mother tongue but one, to obliterate all affection for the old home in Scandinavia, Bavaria, Dalmatia, Bohemia, not only is futile; we do not want for our fellow citizens the kind of people who can turn their back without a qualm upon the memories of childhood. Breathes there the man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned As home his footsteps he hath turned From wandering on a foreign strand? What sort of an American could be made out of one able in any circumstances--worst of all under repressive compulsion--to turn his back upon the tongue, the traditions, and the associations of his fathers? We are not such ourselves, and in our sane minds we do not want those who join us to be such. The process of real assimilation is a process slow in its nature, reaching not forms and words, but sentiments of the highest and most subtle kind. You cannot beat love of country into any worthwhile person with a club--or with a law. III CITIZENSHIP: UNDER THIS FLAG, AND OTHERS