The man with a job to offer or land to sell has been America's land interpreter. On him has fallen the burden of presenting its romance, adventure, a… - Frances Kellor

We disagree about who should be Americanized. The immigrant, working in some of the industries, and set apart from American life, thinks the native-born needs it most; the American, visiting the crowded quarters of his city, thinks the immigrant needs it more; and there is as yet no common meeting ground of men's minds upon whom to Americanize and especially upon how to go about it. Despite the great contributive value of the Liberty Loan, the Red Cross, the war camp communities, the Councils of Defense, and other activities that are helping to unite the many peoples, the fusion of a youthful race with those wise races of the old world, which have withstood many an enthusiasm and many a peril, cannot be achieved by a popular movement or by sporadic specialized campaigns. Without specific knowledge of points of differentiation and without sympathetic points of contact, anything like real fusion becomes impossible.

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.

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?