University of Wisconsin Superior - Gitche Gumee Yearbook (Superior, WI)

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lain dormant under the load of centuries of monarchy and aristocracy; cattle in the yoke of landlordism; brute beasts of burden; men with tiger passions of resentment against that law which made them economic and political slaves, and against all laws—these arc the materials with which we must deal. Tremendous task! We ask “What mysterious hand Has thus uprooted from their ancient place These myriad exiles, cast them on our shore, And what the purpose?” We glimpse the answer in the poet’s second query: “Shall our country be The crucible of nations whence a race Shall issue in dim ages to restore God’s image to mankind, and make men free?” But the immensity of the task appalls us. Wc turn to the great social laboratories in the large cities—the social settlements—where, through experience in direct contact and work with these strangers to our customs, we may learn of the temperaments and possibilities of the alien and of the ways of dealing with him to make the most of him. We come to a hopeful attitude. There wc learn that in bringing about a solution of the alien’s problem of assimilation wc solve a great American problem; that through lifting him from the dormancy of many generations wc broaden and raise American civilization. May not the Celtic and Latin elements of this great contact and mixture of cultures soften and idealize the material nature of the American? May we not be gentler in our thoughts and feelings because of the addition of the Slavic elements? May not the golden calf cease to be our idol and we become more able to enjoy the beautiful things of life? With our broader natures shall we not be more scientific, more progressive, more daring in all lines in the search for infinite truth? If these arc worthy ends, and if wc desire that these new peoples shall make the most of themselves in the service of mankind, then these strangers within our gates must be made to realize that they arc to live in America and not underneath America. Picture this huge mass from the peasantry of Europe crowded into the unhygienic tenements in the “slums” of our great cities. Picture then the broad and fertile plains of the West and the riches of the undeveloped South. A monstrous inconsistency! Wc must sec that these followers of the plow, trained by centuries of work with the soil, shall find occupation suited to the powers within them. Picture the children of these aliens working at the same never-ending tasks day after day in the tenements. Picture them in the glass works of southern New Jersey. Think of hands delicately sensitive to every artistic impulse picking coal in the mines of Pennsylvania. What a waste of living genius through lack of opportunity! Lest the hope of America—the second generation—be dwarfed in youth, we who think of America’s future must see to it that these builders of the future arc brought within the influence of the school, and there by a full and free development raised from the thralldom of circumstances into the kingdom of mastery. There, through Industrial Education, wc must train the mind, that when it secs a human need, it may body forth in imagination the instrument to fill that need; there we must train the hand, that it may shape into physical form the creature of the imagination. Give this education PACE EICHT

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V. crucible than that of American institutions could so many various elements be poured without the destruction of the crucible itself. To the England from which came the Pilgrim Fathers, we owe an everlasting debt of gratitude for the strong basic elements of our crucible. There, first among the nations of Europe, were asserted the rights of the many against the rights of the few. And there, from Magna Charta to the Bill of Rights, the rights of the many gained in ascendency until monarchy was but a check upon democracy. When the fathers of the American constitution constructed “the most perfect piece of work ever struck off at one time by the mind and purpose of man,” they cut off from monarchy and aristocracy the last vestige of their inheritance of the ages, and made the will of the people supreme. From England we received our body of common law, and from the same England we received the spirit of the laws—the spirit of “fair play.” To the mother who gave our nation birth, then, be everlasting thanks; for “Law is the deep, august foundation, whereon peace and justice rest.” Add to English law perfected the principle of religious toleration ingrained in the American system—the principle which permitted Puritan, Huguenot, and Catholic to unite in the formation of our national government, and the principle which has freed us from the Old World curse of religious feuds. Much we owe in the development and maintenance of American institutions to this toleration which holds sacred to every man his choice in the worship of his God. The nineteenth century bequeathed to civilization many precious gifts, but none more close to human welfare than the principle of universal education, the gift of America. Democracy brought forth the first application of this principle; for no democracy can long exist without it. In a government by the people, “ignorance is a crime,” for ignorance, a necessity to the existence of despotism, strikes at the heart of democracy. America, through free schools, is lifting and shall continue to lift the ignorant and morally uncertain masses into the clear realm of reason and rectitude of purpose. With the greatest instrument ever possessed by any people, this nation shall produce the mightiest intellectual and moral host the world has ever seen. English law, religious toleration, and our system of public instruction afforded the opportunity for the making of the America of today, and in them lies the making of the America of tomorrow. Put into this institutional crucible the suppressed and hidden powers of peoples of eighty races. What infinite possibilities shall leap to light! What mighty forces shall come into action! What glorious works shall be wrought! But who shall watch over the molten and seething mass? Who shall see the promises of gold in the mixture? and the evidences of impurities? Who shall draw off the dross and mold the gold? We, the already assimilated Americans. We, who number among our ancestors many Old World races. From as many sources come these new people. Peasantry from the hogs of Ireland, from the squalid villages of Italy, from rugged Norway, from the plains of Hungary and Poland and Finland, wanderers from the old Grecian cities, worn toilers from Sweden and Germany, Jews from out the realm of Russian oppression, blindly seeking for the better thing—all these alien hordes, congregated in the tenements of the “slums,” working in factories and in mines, arc the substances with which we, as the chemist, must work. The clods of many nations—a million and a half added in 1907 to the already innumerable throng; men whose nobler and finer instincts have GI TCI IE GUMEE PACE SEVEN

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to these thousands with eager minds and hands, and, emancipated from the drudgery of industrial slavery, they shall enter into the joyous freedom of creation, where each is a god in his sphere, where art and industry arc one; then the works of man in this American nation shall be like the works of God—made with a free purpose and a free hand. Not only to add new elements is the duty of the chemist, but to cast out the worthless, the destructive. We must eliminate the folly of regarding law as the enemy of liberty—a habit formed under despotic rule and unsuited to government by the people. Anarchy must not breed within our borders because of the unjust policy of Old World despots. We must see that political corruptionists shall not long find their supremacy through influencing those yet ignorant of our language, our government, and our social conditions. We must soften the passion of the Mediterranean and let him know the sufficiency of government in the punishment of wrong. Not only should we cast out the hurtful, but we should retain the good. We must recall the best of the foreigner’s past. We must recognize his true heroes as we expect him to recognize ours. For the love of country of Arnold von Winkelricd is as sublime a patriotism as that which beat in the heart of Nathan Hale. Divine heroism and righteousness of deed should find their acknowledgment in nothing less than the universal heart of mankind. And so, filled with the true spirit of democracy, the desire of the more efficient to lift the less efficient into efficiency,” let us enter into the sublime task before us. Recognizing the humanity in these aliens, we must discern its quality, and knowing the potentialities of each, we must aim to develop the good, though buried deep. And forget not the secret of it all. By the sympathy which the Man of Galilee showed in his work among men, he lifted them from the lowest depths of degradation to the heights of nobility of character. By the sympathy which we show toward these strangers in all the activities of life where men meet men, we shall lift them into the exercise of their powers, we shall aid in their assimilation into this American people. And thus, as with all human deeds, the good shall be to the giver as well a«( to the receiver. America shall receive many fold for the w-ork she will have done. The past shall live again in the lives of these ignorant Italians and Poles and Jews and Greeks. Touched by the magic wand of human sympathy, breathing the free air of a new' opportunity, there shall arise a new' Michelangelo to build a new St. Peter’s, a new Moses W'ith a new and finer moral code, a new Homer with a new epic picturing the wanderings of many peoples, a new Beethoven with new sonatas, a new Goethe with new Fausts. And from this crucible of the nations there shall come forth the golden age of this new empire—this Empire of a Free Humanity. GITCHE GUMEE PAGE NINE