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

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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

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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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G1TCHE GUM EE TLA.TTEVJLLE THE RISING STAR OF THE ORIENT JAMES R. WALLIN HE present industrial stage of the world is the Atlantic and her encircling lands. Her broad expanse of water opens to receive the commerce of the world. She is the highway of the products of industry. Her ships arc the mistresses of the sea. Her people arc the industrial geniuses of the world. But with the cvcr-onward progress of civilization toward the setting sun, transforming desolate plains and stony mountains into beautiful gardens and spacious storehouses, the broad billows of the Pacific open to receive the implements of modern industry and to bear them to a distant land and to place them in the hands of a new people—a people whose industrial genius has not found superior during all time, a people whose inventive ingenuity was the first to assert itself on the face of the earth. The world’s greatest stage of commercial activity in the future will be the Pacific ocean. The people into whose hands the implements of industry arc to be transferred arc the Chinese. The greatest transformation of the twentieth century will be the transformation of China. We of the western world often regard the Chinese as a people unworthy of our thought and consideration, as a people too conservative to progress in civilization. True, they have been conservative in the past. They were proud, and justly proud, of their achievements. They thought their civilization the highest in the world. They refused Western learning; but that learning was presented to them with an air of pride and exultation. The Chinese have at length thrown aside their prejudices, and have opened their doors for the reception of Western culture. So let us throw aside our false ideas and look the Chinese question squarely in the face, and “render unto China what is her due.” The three things on which national existence depends are religion, government, and industry. In order that any people may maintain their existence in our present day civilization, they must keep pace with the ever-changing ideas of religion, government, and industry. Will the Chinese be able to maintain their existence and to take their place in the developed East? Is China able and willing to keep pace with the ever-advancing ideals of civilization? We often regard the Chinese moral code as one founded on superstition, as a code devoid of any virtue. The fact is, they have a moral code which contains many commendable things. This code was expounded by two of the great philosophers of all time, Confucius and Mencius, men whose thoughts arc at least on a level with those of Socrates or any Greek philosopher. This code embodies the Golden Rule, the highest sentiment in our own religion. It exalts intellectual attainment above military attainment. Nowhere in the world has intellectual achievement been held on so high a plane as it is in China. PAGE TEN