A second is a common citizenship. We have thought of this as the most sacred of rights and have safeguarded it with every possible technicality. Again our policy has been negative, discouraging, and hampering. We have put up the bars with one hand while with the other we have poked holes through the hedges for the political boss. We make it impossible for an alien to acquire citizenship within five years, but permit him to vote--with all that implies--in eight states after he has been there a few months. What conception can he have of how we regard this privilege and right and why has he no compunction in selling it? He leaves his home country to escape military duty and attends meetings in America where he is told he is not even expected to defend this country in case of war. Not one public school in a hundred makes any provisions for teaching him about American conditions, life, and government. Again he finds a closed door to Americanism, and it is small wonder when it is opened that he enters, a skeptic of democracy. Men work for and defend what is dear to them. When a job is the only stake, it is a rather narrow base for patriotism. The newly arrived immigrant is not given much of an opportunity to have any sentiment or inspiring associations about his job. The average employer feels that when he raises wages he has discharged his full duty to his workman and to his country. But America is concerned not only with what a man earns, but with how he spends it. It is interested in his having a home stake in America, and in his investing in America. Only a prodigal, short-sighted, hand-to-mouth nation can look with indifference upon workmen sending $400,000,000 abroad, and following their savings there each year. So it is with his living conditions. In the vermin-ridden bunk house the Italian dreams of Italy. In the bungalow with a flower garden Italy is far in the background. The “pursuit of happiness” was mentioned with life and liberty, but as we have forgotten our duties in privileges, so have we neglected happiness for life in terms of gain.