dividual effort. Americanization is a work that must be undertaken and
directed on a scale so extensive that only through the cooperation of
the States and the Federal Government can it be successfully carried
out. It cannot longer be neglected without serious harm to the life and
welfare of the Nation."

Some even more startling facts are given out in figures by the
Department of the Interior, figures supplied to it by the Surgeon
General's Office of the Army. The War Department records show that 24.9
per cent. of the draft army examined by that department's agents were
unable to read and understand a newspaper, or to write letters home. In
one draft in New York State in May, 1918, 16.6 per cent. were classed as
illiterate. In one draft in connection with South Carolina troops in
July, 1918, 49.5 per cent. where classed as illiterate. In one draft in
connection with Minnesota troops in July of the same year, 14.2 per
cent. were classed as illiterate. In other words it means for example
that in New York State we have in round numbers 700,000 men between 21
and 31 years of age who are illiterate. The same source reveals the fact
that in the nation in round numbers over 10,000,000 are either
illiterate or without a knowledge of our language. The South is the home
of most of the wholly uneducated, the North of those of foreign speech.
And in speaking of this class a recent editorial in another
representative New York daily, after making mention of one industrial
centre but a few miles out of New York City, in New Jersey, where nearly
16 out of every 100 cannot read English, has said:

"Such people may enjoy the advantages America offers. Of its spirit and
institutions they can comprehend nothing. They are the easy dupes of
foreign agitators, unassimilable, an element of weakness in the social
body that might easily be converted into an element of strength. Many
of them have the vote, controlled by leaders interested only in designs
alien to America's welfare.

"The problem is national in scope * * *. The best way to keep Bolshevism
out of America is to reduce ignorance of our speech and everything else
to a minimum. However alert our immigration officers may be, foreign
agents of social disorder are sure to pass through our doors, and as
long as we allow children to grow up among us who have no means of
finding out the meaning of our laws and forms of government the seeds of
discontent will be sown in congenial soil."