42 True Americanism 



people across the water, they become both comic 

 and noxious elements of the body politic. 



The third sense in which the word "American- 

 ism" may be employed is with reference to the 

 Americanizing of the new-comers to our shores. We 

 must Americanize them in every way, in speech, in 

 political ideas and principles, and in their way of 

 looking at the relations between Church and State. 

 We welcome the German or the Irishman who be- 

 comes an American. We have no use for the Ger- 

 man or Irishman who remains such. We do not 

 wish German-Americans and Irish-Americans who 

 figure as such in our social and political life; we 

 want only Americans, and, provided they are such, 

 we do not care whether they are of native or of 

 Irish or of German ancestry. We have no room in 

 any healthy American community for a German- 

 American vote or an Irish-American vote, and it is 

 contemptible demagogy to put planks into any party 

 platform with the purpose of catching such a vote. 

 We have no room for any people who do not act 

 and vote simply as Americans, and as nothing else. 

 Moreover, we have as little use for people who carry 

 religious prejudices into our politics as for those 

 who carry prejudices of caste or nationality. We 

 stand unalterably in favor of the public-school sys- 

 tem in its entirety. We believe that English and 

 no other language is that in which all the school ex- 

 ercises should be conducted. We are against any 

 division of the school fund, and against any appro- 

 priation of public money for sectarian purposes. We 



