Catholic Problems in Western CanadaDaly, George Thomas
Religion
Catholic Problems in Western Canada
Daly, George Thomas
Catholic Church -- Canada
Now, all this is said not to suggest that there is no room or need for
special consideration of the Americanization problem by groups of
public minded citizens. It is not intended to suggest that
Americanization may not properly be made the subject of considerable
propaganda. This comment has indulged in rather severe and unqualified
strictures upon the Americanization "drive" in the hope of capturing
attention for three manifest dangers that may prove the undoing of the
real Americanization work that cries aloud for administration. These
three dangers are; first, the danger of making the Americanization
movement so plainly a conventional uplift movement that the foreigner
will resent what he might, with a more tactful approach, request;
second, the danger that, by thinking of Americanization as something
needed by the foreigner alone, we shall miss the opportunity of making
Americanization a vast national effort of self-education in the nature
and application of the principles of liberty justice, and equality of
opportunity that, theoretically at least, comprise the American idea;
and third, the danger that the propagandist's passion for simple
solutions will further postpone the day of a broad and well-balanced
program of national development.
We do not want "Americanism" to degenerate into a mere "protective
coloration" for politicians who want to hide their reaction and their
lack of ideas.
III. AMERICANIZATION WORK MUST PROCEED SLOWLY
_By Rev. D. P. Tighe, "Detroit News," Aug. 23, 1919_.
There are two methods of Americanizing the immigrant, says Fr. D. P.
Tighe in the August number of the Catholic Light. One of them is
_revolutionary_, the other _evolutionary_. To Americanize means to
take the immigrant and remake him. Teaching him to write and speak the
language of the country is a mere detail of the process. One cannot be
awake to the industrial and social needs of the country without
co-operating in every movement calculated to discourage the diversity
of language, and to give to the foreigner every facility for the quick
and easy mastery of English. But Americanization is a different
proposition. Trotzky, when he lived in East New York, could speak and
write English fluently, but he was not an American. He had neither
understanding of, nor sympathy with American institutions; and, so,
instead of setting himself to remedy the abuses in our industrial and
political life as a good American citizen would remedy them he became
an anarchist and envisioned to himself a millennium of destruction that
involved the good as well as the evil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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