Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 April 1918 — Plan Outlined for Making Melting Pot Do Its Full Duty Toward Democracy [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Plan Outlined for Making Melting Pot Do Its Full Duty Toward Democracy

By DR. I. N. HOLLIS.

President of Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Through our workshops and our schools and through associations we should teach ideals of citizenship. This is more important than importing into the United States great examples of art in Europe. The perpetuation of German or other foreign societies in America is unthinkable, and we ought to break that down in one way or another. There should be a great organization within the United States for Americanism, and it ought to be used to counteract all other influence by public speaking and by a more effective propaganda than the Germans

ran ever again set up in America. This is the melting pot, and it is our duty to make sure that, when the whole mass is fused, it remains an American democracy firm in its convictions. If there is to be service in war, the whole nation, every individual, men, women and children, must share in the sacrifice and must be prepared. We listened too closely to the politician a few years ago, and we have been fed up with three or four thoughts that would destroy the discipline and the correct reasoning of any nation if that nation believed them. I have never been a believer in the German system, because it gave too much control into the hands of a comparatively small number of officers constituting the German general staff. The idea of service beneath that system is, however, good. It makes for the education of young men and for obedience to law. Military training is probably the best method we have of Americanizing the young men who come to us from foreign countries, and every one of them ought to be required to take his turn of service. It is not necessary that a foreign citizen, making his home here should be required to bear arms against his old country; but he should, for the sake of teaching him American ideals and American institutions, be obliged to take his place in the camps with young Americans if he is permitted to make his livirtg on our soil. The simplest of military training is learning how to keep step, and that is a great moral influence. We need it beyond everything else in this country, where the forces are so pronouncedly centrifugal. Keep step!