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the individual immigrant have, as a rule, a most chaotic and hazy notion of the “quod erat demonstrandum”, and their flounderings only serve to roil the waters all the more.

As a matter of fact “Americanization” does not mean the same thing to any two organizations engaged in their self-appointed tasks. To certain of them, it means merely the naturalization and attainment of citizenship by the foreigner. To others, it means the acceptance of a certain veneer or brand of religion along with the “dose”. Some have a broad conception inclusive of every virtue under the sun. Another class, chiefly those heading large industrial establishments, regards Americanization as a fight on radicalism and bolshevism and often linked with it are quasi-foreign or so-called inter-racial organizations which purport to be friendly to the foreignborn in advising them, in highly paid advertisements in the foreign language press, not to take part in strikes or protests against economic injustice, though the latter term is never so used, for obvious reasons.

The “57—Varieties” of Americanization programs proposed by national, state or local organizations in more or less incoherent or general terms which sound big and inflatedly Fourth-of-Julyish involve the expenditure of millions of good American dollars. From such an investment one should reasonably expect some results. The outward visible signs of the immense outlay consist of probably 50,000 jobs for as many persons who two years ago had never heard of “Americanization” and didn’t know nor care a tinker’s dam about the immigrant, or his troubles or our problem in having him in the United States. But to-day—avaunt! they are are full-fledged “Americanizers” and glibly discuss at Mrs. Astorbilt’s luncheon or at a prayer meeting of the Pink Teatotallers how they are implanting “American ideals” in the lowly foreigner and his more lowly wife.

One is reminded of the “special course” advertisements which assure the reader of a return of loads of money after taking and “no previous knowledge of the subject necessary”. The analogy is not at all far fetched. The summer sessions of practically every university, college and normal school in the United States last year offered “special courses in Americanization” and innumerable institutions are this year offering similar courses. Whence came this horde of “expert authorities on Americanization” who to-day by their own honest confession know all there is to know on the subject, but yesterday were not wise enough to utter a single word of warning to a waiting multitude of the dangers lurking in the imigrant masses? Did they spring Minerva-like, all equipped with this special intelligence, from the brain of some modern Only Original Americanizer? The naiveness of this erudite group of Americanizers is characterized in the example of one of them, a professor in a certain western university who not long after advertising a series of extensive lectures on “The Causes of the War” and “European Peoples” asked the writer if the Bohemian people and the Hungarians were not one and the same. When told of their vastly different origin, the Czechs or Bohemians being Indo-European and the Hungarians or Magyars of Ural-Altaic or Mongolian stock, this authority (?) on the “causes of the war” exclaimed, “Oh yes, yes. I made a mistake. The Bohemians are the same as the Germans, aren’t they?” One can’t help saying “What’s the use?” when university professors, posing as authorities, continue benighted. Nor can one wonder that the mass of the people know so little of those they are bent on “Americanizing” when a representative of the highest “intelligentsia” of the state has such an addled understanding of the whole situation.

Americans are quick at adaptation—too quick some times one meditates—and readily adjust themselves to the needs of the moment. In a sense Americans are opportunists, if not always for pecuniary reasons, then for their real desire to be of service. But unfortunately all the Minute Men who sprang to the “aid of their country” when the wave of Americanization first began to sweep over the country were not actuated by purely patriotic zeal or armed with the weapons of real understanding. A member of the California Commission on Immigration and Housing which, by the way, very emphatically eschews the use of the word “Americanization” in connection with its very real services, which are only incidentally patriotic and never offensively or too obviously of that character, said recently: “The trouble is that every one who has failed at everything else thinks he’s exactly cut out to do “Americanization work”. It is a fact that one of the men appointed as a regional director of Americanization