"When the country first tried in 1915 to Americanize its foreign-born people, Americanization was thought of quite simply as the task of bringing native and foreign-born Americans together, and it was believed that the rest would take, care of itself. It was thought that if all of us could talk together in a common language unity would be assured, and that if all were citizens under one flag no force could separate them. Then the war came, intensifying the native nationalistic sense of every race in the world. We found alien enemies in spirit among the native-born children of the foreign-born in America; we found old stirrings in the hearts of men, even when they were naturalized citizens, and a desire to take part in the world struggle, not as Americans, but as Jugo-Slavs or Czecho-Slovaks. We found belts and stockings stuffed with gold to be taken home, when peace should be declared, by men who will go back to work out their destinies in a land they thought never to see again. We found strong racial groups in America split into factions and bitterly arraigned against one another. We found races opposing one another because of prejudices and hatreds born hundreds of years ago thousands of miles away. We awoke to the fact that old-world physical and psychological characteristics persisted under American clothes and manners, and that native economic conditions and political institutions and the influences of early cultural life were enduring forces to be reckoned with in assimilation. We discovered that while a common language and citizenship may be portals to a new nation, men do not necessarily enter thereby, nor do they assume more than an outer likeness when they pass through."

“The most moving appeal from the greatest of orators, the most beautifully written declaration of rights, the finest interpretation of American ideals by any living American finds the immigrant unresponsive if he has suffered injustice, if he has been denied a hearing, or if he has failed to see realized in the land of his dreams the things for which he left his native land. He forgives the man who has wronged him; he never forgets the government that has failed him. The law which was passed in one of the States prohibiting an alien from owning a dog, the enforcement of which resulted in deception and lying, has done much to imperil the immigrant's faith in the justice of American ideals. It reached his heart and his home, and he has never understood a country whose highest authority the court sanctioned such discriminations.”

“In America, where many peoples are held together largely by their sense of opportunities and their hope of reward, the subject is of the gravest concern. The attitude and reactions of the native-born American who believes in Americanization, and the one who does not, with all shades of opinion and of feeling lying between the two extremes, are to be considered. There is the man who comes here to stay and the one who in- tends to return. There is the racial solidarist bent upon reestablishing his own race here with as few changes as possible. There is the race which hates another, and for its own independent reasons tries to block its progress in the new land. We have to reckon with a situation created by men who are representatives of powerful foreign corporations, who will spend their lives here, make their homes here, and who never intend to become part of America. There are leaders who manipulate their people in the interest of the country of their origin, as well as those genuinely interested in serving America. In addition, there are factions in each race having no desire to unite with one another; there are races opposed to healing their own differences of centuries ago ; and there are groups passionately devoted to their own culture and ideals, to which in their opinion nothing can compare.”

“Americanization, finally, is not any one of these things alone. There may be a home stake, and in the absence of identity of economic interest, it may fail. All other elements may be present, but if the court fails, the immigrant turns away. Americanization is the bringing to bear in the life of every stranger who enters the country, the sum total of American ideals in his home, in the shop, in the neighborhood, and in the legislatures and courts. The native-born American is the keeper of these ideals. His is the spirit that will maintain the free and strong institutions of America. His reception of the immigrant and the contacts he makes with him in large measure determine the immigrant's understanding of America and his reaction towards it. It is here that we enter the field of the science of racial relations. No effective program can be made until we set our own house in order, until we attain the right attitude individually, and until we equip ourselves with the necessary information to give us the right approach to the many races who are among us but not of us, whose faces, regardless of the high wages, the luxuries, and the freedom of America, are set towards the east.”

“Americanization is a common citizenship. Does it make any difference what kind of citizenship, and over what road a man travels mentally, spiritually, and economically to citizenship? If every man in America were to be made into a citizen tomorrow by any of the prevailing superficial methods, America basically would be unchanged, and most of the new citizens would not be greatly affected. Would the examination of any ten newly naturalized citizens give a common denominator of Americanization? How can it when several thousand judges who apply the tests vary in their own concept so widely that of two men equally qualified one gets the coveted paper and the other fails? And what of women, who become citizens automatically with their husbands, and who in three of the greatest immigration States in the union have equal citizenship powers? Are we really any nearer Americanization with each new citizen admitted by inadequate naturalization law requirements and through superficial judicial examinations?”

“America is no longer afraid of the word culture. In fact, it is considering quite seriously in some quarters having a culture of its own and calling it by that name. This makes it possible to consider as Americanization a recognition of the cultural forces in the various races as expressed in their literature and institutions. There is a growing appreciation of the fraternal and religious forces in the lives of the various races and their indispensable value in race fusion. In the old world, the cultural life of a race is so inextricably associated with their religious life that its first vital contact with American cultural life would seem to proceed along the lines of religious and fraternal development.”

“Much of the present unpopularity of the theory of Americanization is due to confusion in men's minds. It has grown with such rapidity that this has been inevitable. One thinks it is summed up in learning the English language; another thinks it is achieved by becoming an American citizen; a third, that it is adopting American clothes and manners and associating with native Americans; and a fourth, that it means that everybody should be able to sing "The Star Spangled Banner". The means of Americanization are still confused with its essence. While the necessary things were being done each day to help win the war, people were asking : Can we work intelligently and effectively together in a national effort, without agreement as to the definition, the substance, and the form of Americanization? What are the probabilities of success if these matters are left to the individual determination of the thousands of persons and of agencies now at work Americanizing the 2400 or more communities having foreign-born residents? They are beginning to ask what will be the final indestructible definitions and principles of Americanization and what are to be its finally approved methods. So early in the experiment the answers can only be postulated.”