Billings Senior High School - Kyote Yearbook (Billings, MT)

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18 THE KYOTE out the undesirables we must deal with the problem of those undesirables who are native born. Men with bad characters can l e seen in saloons of most American cities. Some of them intoxicated, some of them partly so. These men do not have high ideals. They will never move the world or figure in the uplifting of their country. Some of them are young men. Indeed, the solution of the problem lies with the young men found here if it is to be solved at all. The older men are past remedy. These men, as they are, represent so much waste material of humanity. They may, indeed, celebrate the Fourth of July as noisily as any but they celebrate with the wrong spirit. They are only make believe Americans. America could dispense with a large majority of them and never feel the loss. Some of them argue that the world owes them a living but the world refuses to honor their checks. Why do so many of these men go to ruin when there is a place for them in the upbuilding of the nation! God has bestowed upon them as many gifts as he has on others. They could Iw really happy if they only would. All men can have good characters if they have the will power enough to say “No ’ We admire the character of Macbeth but his great ambition gets the better of his will power and he is led on and on until he sinks to a level in which our sympathy for him is dead. So it is with many men who might have figured as leaders in our history had not their desires mastered their will. Hut liquor is not the only evil that ruins character. Take for instance the bad literature that we often find in our I ook stores. Such books do not in- spire people to good thoughts and deeds. They do not have one spark of genius about them. They are not only useless, but they are positively harmful. We flatter ourselves that the day of the yellow back novel is passing but it is not entirely passed. We still have something of the problem to solve. I et us do our share by instilling a love of good literature into the minds of the young with whom we come in contact. Men of this type of citizenship, whose ideals have been formed with associations with the dime novel, the saloon, and the gambling house, are very nearly useless to our modern civilization. Some philanthropists have argued that the sooner a mail of this type drinks himself to death the better off the land will l e« With this view we do not agree. In our modern times no man lives unto himself. He may not have a family to suffer by his mirifc Trigs but however bad he is, he has some economic value, some labor value in Hie world. The world has a right to demand this of him. Suicide is as much a crime as murder. This man's relation to his fellow man, slight though it may tx. s still of enough importance to deny him the right to make away with his own usefulness. When we view the problem from the standpoint of the philanthropist, yhen we consider not what such a man is, but what he might be under proper gih ance and with proper ideals, his possible usefulness in the world becomes infinite - So the real citizenship of America has an added problem. In addition to stopping the growth of such evils it must provide for and reform that other misguided class of men. These men not only injure themselves but also the people with whom they associate. Another practical problem before the citizenship of the United States is the child labor problem. Our intense commercialism lias made us forget

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the kyote 17 It is this: Is the American of today as nearly the true American as his Puritan ancestors? Is In po s'SH'd of the same high motives ami lofty ideals? Vre fear not. Perhaps the occasion is lacking or perhaps the type has changed. What is the true American? lie is one who has respect for morality, one who has a literal education, lie is a lover of industrial and home life. He has an high ideal of government ami society. The fact is today that the original type has changed. Where we had only one sort we now have at least two. In every community one finds two types of men. The one, the true Ameri- can; the other, one who professes to be. Which of these makes the more de- sirable citizen? We all readily recognize the true American as a man who up- lifts. Our forefathers fought, not for the love of glory hut that they might not te compelled to bear a foreign yoke. When the war was over these brave men went home to a truer citizenship than otherwise would have been theirs. We telieve it is even harder for one to te true to his country in time of peace than in time of war. We do not infer from this that one is more likely to lx a traitor, but in times of danger a common cause binds men together. They work for one common interest, their hearts beat in a common sympathy. In peaceful times, on the other hand, pursuits of men are various and people be- come more widely separated, partisan, sectional, and even antagonistic. Then it is the hardest to maintain the loyal spirit of our forefathers. Peace is a blessed thing but perhaps an occasional war may serve a useful purpose. Men who strive continually to further their own interest, no matter what it may cost their neighbor, make but indifferent citizens and the more they do this the more they depart from the type of the true American. It is plain to every thinking man that a slavish devotion to personal interests cannot fail in time to make of us a very un-American nation. But a more eminent danger to our citizenship lies in excessive foreign immigration. The immigration of a certain type of foreigner is regarded by all the prominent men of this land as a great evil. It is not our intention to criticize intelligent and enlightened foreigners but only those of the lower type. Many Chinese, Japanese, Italians, Greeks, Russians, and Poles who are loo ignorant and shiftless to rise in their home land come here for the sole pur- pose of earning and carrying hack home some of our freer American money. They know nothing of our ideals, care nothing for the goverimffcttl of our country. I arge groups of such laborers, if they become natupfized, vote as their employer may direct rather than incur his wrathyrifus debasing the American ballot. Crimes and anarchy breed test intte soil. Intermarriages sometimes occur and the evil is fastened upon us. fne immigration evil is one. of the biggest feeders to the wrong type ( citizenship. Fortunately this matter is under our control. It is to te hp eil that the legislation already be- gun will te prosecuted with vigor ajpKtist all worthless immigrants, whether they come from the Orient or the Occident. Again there are men of two types in all parts of the world, the man with the good character and the man with the bad character. The foreign immigra- tion to which we object represents men of the latter type but unfortunately for us we have some native born citizens of the same sort. In addition to keeping

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THE K Y O T E 19 muih of the principles of health and growth. In large cities young children are made to work in factories day after day without knowing what a vacation means. They have never looked upon the green fields and blue rivers of their country. They have never received even a common school education. They know nothing of the great world about them. I heir little li es aie often blotted out before they have u chance to begin to live. Who is at fault in this! The father, if he is able to earn a living, but in a great number of cases he is not, for wages in the large cities are not of the l e.st. In other cases the father squanders all of his earnings. Often the employer is to blame. He takes no pains to ascertain the age of the child. If lie looks strong enough to do the work required no questions are asked. We should find some adequate remedy for this evil. It should lie made difficult for fathers to squander their money. The employer should lie com- pelled to pay salaries large enough to enable laborers to keep their families comfortably. The children themselves should lie forced to attend school for their own good that their earning capacity may la increased for later useful- ness These little citizens should be educated and taught the real values in life. They should be enlightened so that they can recognize and form high ideals. The child laborer of today is making the wrong kind of citizenship. If we could only see the evil in its true light, the reforms already l cgun along this line would te prosecuted so rapidly and effectively that the problem would disappear in a decade. One man among all others the Americans dislike—that man is a coward. There is no one so unpopular among his fellow men as this type of man. One who strikes down another fur faithfully carrying out his duties receives short shrift from the hands of American justice. On the other hand every one admires the man who does his duty, who waits not for an opportunity to come, to him hut looks for the opportunity. It takes a brave man to face a line of battle but it takes a braver one to face alone the forces of unlawful people. If all were as faithful in carrying out our duties as some have recently proved themselves to Ik , it would not lx? long before we made an ideal nation out of ibis land of ours. Some of our true Americans stand out in the limelight and show their fellows what fearless men may do. We need more citizens who are faithful and upright. We do not need any more boards of trade with their bull and bear operators. We want more men like Roosevelt, La toilette, Johnson, Hughes and Folk. Men who stand for the best and the highest in our American life. It is only through the youth of America that we can hope to continue her better citizenship. Tin problem comes to each one of us to decide; whether we «■hall east our lot with that class which stands for the upbuilding of the nation or with that other class which does not look to this end. Ix»t us do some good in the world. Let us join the ranks of the men who uplift and are striving for a tetter citizenship. Ix t us ever have before us a high ideal. I et us all be true Americans in the fullest sense of the word and do all in our power to uplift ouu fellowmen, to weed out the present evils and to bring the standard of Ameri- can citizenship back to the standard of our Puritan forefathers. —Ray Van Hoi ten, 08.