killed if
we turned the United States into a country of one language.

Make every foreigner take out citizenship-papers within a specified
time or deport him.

Now, it is inevitable that when Americanization is made a popular
"drive" by a vast propagandist organization that the army of men and
women of one idea, apostles of simplicist solutions, will flock into
the ranks of the propagandists. Even when the official program of the
organization is well rounded, the army of simple-solutionists will do
irreparable damage in their work as servants of the movement.

The problem cannot be dismissed by preaching to the foreigner that he
should stick to the job and produce. The problem of maximum production
has a thousand ramifications that run throughout the whole industrial
problem. The preaching of industrial patriotism is a waste of breath
unless it goes hand in hand with a far-reaching liberal program of
industrial justice and efficiency. The industrial program is more
important than the industrial preaching. Put the program into effect
and the preaching of loyalty to the job may be unnecessary.

Far from being Americanism, it is fundamentally anti-American to urge
an uncritical deification of any form of government. Americanism
involves an invitation to continuous constructive criticism in behalf
of a bettering of our machinery of government. It is no solution of
the foreign-born problem to preach loyalty to the _status quo_. We
shall get further by saying to the foreigner, "We are engaged in a
great democratic experiment on this continent. We have settled a few
principles in our minds. We believe in popular rule through political
action, but as to details we are on a search for improvement. We ask
you to learn our language and our institutions and then give us the
benefit of your best thought on ways and means for the improvement of
our machinery for democratic government. The bars are down for the
frankest criticism from men and women who have the democratic patience
to trust their proposals to peaceful procedure."

Learning the English language is only a means to an end. It is too
frequently made an end in itself. There is no more virtue in talking
English than in talking Hottentot. We shall not get far by the mere
exaltation of a language. The only lasting results we shall achieve
will be through the making of participation in this national democratic
experiment of ours so attractive to the foreig