Hall High School - Hall Light Yearbook (Spring Valley, IL)

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we now realize more keenly than before is our most vital need, not only for the foreigner, but for the American as well. There are thousands of American-born who need Americanization just as much as do the foreign-born. No law, no lip-service, no effort, however well in-tentioned, will amount to anything worth while in inculcating the true American spirit in our foreign-born citizens, until we ourselves feel and believe and practice in our own lives what we are teaching to others.” Americans, you who are willing to do more than lip-service for your country, let us consider seriously these faults which have been imputed to us by foreigners within our gates, foreigners of keenest insight such as Jacob Riis, Edward Steiner, and Edward Bok, men who have cared enough about our country to become one of us, men who have had sufficient affection for our country to scorn platitudinous praises, and have preferred rather to deplore the fact that we are falling far short of our potential possibilities. They have realized that we are failing the foreigner in many ways; they are trying to make us appreciate the fact that unless we can live up to the dream of the foreigner, our future American citizen, we shall lose much that is of incalcuable value. Fellow Americans, let us heed their pleas, let us burst the swollen bubble of our pride and realize that it is with humility we should say with Kipling in his great Recessional— “For frantic boast and foolish word— Thy mercy on thy people, Lord!” HALL HIGH ’Tis fine to see all other schools, And travel up and down, Throughout their shining corridors And class-rooms of renown; To admire their grounds, and students, Their athletes, straight and tall, But now I think I’ve seen enough— Let me travel back to Hall. 0 it’s Hall again, Hall again, Hall Township High for me; My heart turns back to good old Hall, And there I long to be. —Carl Blum. TWENTY-FIVE

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Americanisms, “That’s good enough,” and “That will do” are to be heard everywhere. We don’t seem to care how we do our work, just so it “gets by.” Rightly did Theodore Roosevelt say that the curse of our nation is its lack of thoroughness. Can we reasonably expect painstaking, thorough work from our foreign born citizens if everywhere we are setting them an example of shiftless inefficiency? As distinctly bad as are these first two faults, we have yet another which probably causes greater adverse reaction on the part of the foreigner than the first two taken together. The American people have too little respect for law and authority. Too often our laws are regarded as restrictions which if cleverly evaded need not bother us a great deal. Too often the policeman is a person to be feared, an enemy. Why are we so reluctant to realize that laws are made to protect us, not to tyranize over us, that policemen are the safe-guards of our life and our property, not bitter foes! The foreigner comes to us eager to accept our ideas and our ways, and this is what we teach him! We fall short of the foreigner’s dream in yet another way. We tolerate slums, we allow our foreigners to have their first introduction into American life in these detestable tenements. The living conditions in these places are unspeakable; they cannot but create toughs and bad citizens. Jacob Riis speaking of the slums declares, “Half the tenement-house population is always moving, and to the children the word “home” has no meaning. Good citizenship hangs upon the rescue of the home imperilled by the slum. With the home gone, which made life worth living, what were liberty worth ? With the home preserved, we may look forward without fear.” Americans need to recognize the value of this statement, to realize that the slums cannot produce real Americans—that at best they are naught but hot beds of disaster. Then too, consider the matter of education. We are making entirely too little effort to teach our foreigners the native language—our native traditions and ideals. How can we expect the foreigner to acquire this knowledge? By instinct? Surely not. And yet too often he is allowed to shift for himself. Especially is this true of the older people. Groping about in the dark trying vainly to understand this new world into which he has been thrust, small wonder that he prefers to congregate in crowded sections of the city with people of his. kind. If this is true, whose fault is that that American cities today are confronted with the problem of China-town, of Russian quarters, of Little Italy? “To the American,” quotes Edward Bok, “These particulars in which his country falls short with the foreign born are perhaps not so evident; they may even seem not so very important. But to the foreign born they are distinct lacks; they form serious handicaps, which in many cases are never surmounted; they are a menace to that Americanization which it today more than ever our f ondest dream and which TWENTY-FOUR

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RADIO (Salutatory by Janet Camerlo) Only a comparatively few years ago, radio, which is now considered one of the most important inventions of the ages, was regarded as an utter absurdity, as the brain child of a fanatic who was attempting the ridiculously impossible. About twenty-five years ago, in 1897 to be exact, Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian, then only twenty-two years of age, first began to dream of sending wireless messages—at least ten miles. A little later he aspired to span the English channel, and then he conceived the idea of sending messages across the Atlantic. At each stage in this development of the wireless, people assured him that he was simply wasting his talents and energies, but in each case he kept forging ahead. At last in 1902, he succeeded in creating a really successful apparatus. Two other men, Bellini and Tosi, both Frenchmen, then became interested in this invention of the youthful Marconi and began their years of struggle in developing the radio as w6 know it today. As late as 1903 is was nothing but a crude laboratory toy with little prospect of becoming truly practicable. Sensational publicity, moreover, had claimed for the wireless and radio, such startling poWers that much harm was done because the public was led to expect too much from them and when tests were made from time to time, people were exceedingly disappointed at the seemingly negligible results. But in spite of almost insurmountable difficulties, radio is coming unto its own. It is now acknowledged to represent the very highest technique in applied electricity, and is recognized everywhere as the science which in all probability will, and for that matter is, revolutionizing the thought of the universe. Today, in fact, radio has come to take an almost indispensable part in the activities of our busy world. Every town has its group of interested enthusiasts, and through these groups practically every citizen can keep in touch with the information daily broadcasted by great public utility concerns—market reports, weather predictions, lectures on matters of public interest, sermons, grand opera, light musical comedies, jazz music—even bed-time stories for the youngsters of the family have come to be within the reach of even the most isolated homestead. Pick up the Chicago Tribune, and you will find lengthy articles headed, “Special—By Radio”—practical use is here being made of an invention which only a few years ago was regarded as absurdly foolish. Again, consider the matter of ship to ship communication. Here the radio is alone in efficiently accomplishing its purpose. Properly equipped with radio, no ship need at any time be out of touch with the affairs of the world. And of course no one needs to be reminded of the TWENTY-SIX