B CHAPTER XXII. THE AMERICANIZATION OF THE ALIEN. Y Americanization is meant the adoption of the best ideals that have prevailed in America since its birth as a nation. This explanation is needed, because, to Americanize the foreigner in one way would mean to degrade and demoralize the foreigner. There are forces at work in this country which are as deadly and devilish in their operations as any to be found in heathen countries. Nor do we refer simply nor primarily to the SALOON,- infinitely damning and demoralizing as that institution is. Back of the saloon, permitting and fostering it and a nest of other terrible and nameless evils, is the spirit of avarice and ease, which is a root of all evil. This love of money is in a sense a prominent American characteristic and a most demoralizing force among us. It is responsible for the fact that, "While we range with science glorying the time, City children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime. There the master scrimps his seamstress of her daily bread; floor, And the crowded couch of incest in the warrens of the poor." But for the spirit of avarice and ease on the part of the American people, found even within our churches, there would be no districts in Chicago and New York and other large cities of this country where people live like, but worse than, rats in a nest, to whom in consequence, the saloon, the street, the gambling den, the cheap, vulgar theater, and the dance hall, are a kind of heaven on earth, furnishing light and air and a chance to exercise,-three absolutely essential conditions of life in the body,-though the enjoyment of these conditions may be in the midst of associations which completely demoralize and destroy all intellectual and spiritual activities. Such an Americanization of the foreigner is going on all too rapidly. He falls an easy prey into all such traps and conditions which soon rob him of his splendid endowment of physical and nervous poise, with which go also his spirit of industry and thrift so characteristic of the majority of those who come to us from foreign lands. A But it is of the other kind of Americanization that we treat in this chapter,-that which plants in the heart and mind of the foreigner the true and lofty ideals which characterized the founders of this nation. How can we Americanize the foreigner thus? Our answer is:-BY TREATING HIM RIGHT. Sunday School superintendent once asked:-"How many bad boys does it take to make one good boy?" An answer came back from the bad boys' class, "One, sir, if you treat him right." There are some people who seem to think that bad boys and girls, and bad men and women are to be thrown out on the dump pile like so many rotten apples. Some people used to say of the Indian:-"There is no use trying to do any thing with the Indian. The only good Indian is a dead Indian." So some people are saying today of the Negro, "No use trying to save the Negro. Get the shot gun out and exterminate him." So they tell us: "We can never Americanize the foreigner. Therefore, shut him out of the country." We would say so too, if we did not have a Savior greater than George Washington, the father of this country, or greater than Abraham Lincoln, the savior of this country,-viz: Jesus Christ the Savior of the world, "who is able to save unto the uttermost all that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for us." The trouble with us, in this, as in all other questions of human need, is, we do not have faith enough in our Christ and in the principles of the religion which He taught, to rely upon them to do just what He said they and He would do,-viz: Save, save unto the uttermost; save all men. In the last analysis, this immigration problem is a religious test. Maybe we do not ourselves have the true religion. We do not mean to intimate that the Christian religion is not true, but perhaps we are not truly Christian. We have plainly shown our lack of faith in the principles and power of the gospel of Christ, by shutting out from this country almost entirely a third of the human race, viz: with few exceptions, the Chinese, the Japanese and other Orientals from the Far East. We would not need to be afraid of the Goths and Vandals, nor of the Chinese and Japanese, if we would honestly and truly practice our religion and treat these people according to its teachings. I. WE SHOULD TREAT THE FOREIGNER RIGHT WHILE HE IS STILL IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. To do this, 1. We should take the gospel to him. No nation, no people can ever become an enemy or remain alien in spirit to our country and to its ideals, having received from us the gospel of Jesus Christ. It removes all barriers. Christ will break down the middle wall of partition between us and all people. He makes all one in Himself. Let us send China today enough Christian missionaries to give them the gospel in the right way and there will be no yellow peril. They will become brothers and friends in Jesus Christ to us. And this it is our duty to do. We owe it to the nations of the earth to give them the gospel. Only by doing so are we treating them right. If we fail in this, we have sinned against God and against our fellowmen, and we may be sure our sin will find us out. 2. We should treat the foreigner right in our social, commercial and political dealings with him in his own country. Many Americans travel abroad these days. More than two thousand people went around the world last year. The way they regard and treat the foreign people among whom they journey and sojourn has much to do with Americanizing the foreigner. For example, two friends of mine recently went to Italy. One manifested no interest in, or regard for the Italian people. Indeed she treated them with contempt, and declared that she did not like them. Neither did they like her, but tormented her. The other took his family and lived among the Italian people, learned their language, |