Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 April 1919 — EVERY CITIZEN AN AMERICAN [ARTICLE]

EVERY CITIZEN AN AMERICAN

* Women's Foreign Language Division of Victory Liberty Loan Committoe Hae Active Organization. “Every citizen an American. Every American a government stockholder. Bolshevik doctrines will not flourish in °the minds and hearts of those who have a proprietary interest in their government.” That is the threefold object of the newly organized woman’s foreign-lan-guage division of the Victory Liberty loan, according to Mrs. Edward Bemis, director for the Seventh federal reserve district. Tn reply to a question, Mrs. Bemis said: “Our foreign-born women have often had reason in the past to think we cared little for them, but now since their sons and brothers and husbands have fought side by side with ours the differences have fallen away. We are all women of one country, working to one end —a united America.” Mrs. Bemis believes there need be no lack of ccßoperation between the native and foreign«bom inhabitants of America. She is inclined to place a large part of the responsibility for a lack the countless native Americans who stand in need of re-Americanizing. War work has shown that much of the renewed patriotism on the part of descendants of the older generations of Americans may well be learned from our patriotic foreign born. The Council of Foreign-Language Women has been presenting “Gifts of the Nations” to the pdople of Chicago since the Third Liberty loan campaign. After a program attended by fifteen nationalities, the majority being Americans, one foreign-born woman said: “This is the first time since I came to America that I have been asked to du anything with the American people.” Said another woman : “I always could speak enough English to get things at the store, but never before did American ladles want to talk with me. Now I shall get books and learn to speak English like the rest of them.” “Many do not realize that the heritages of many of our foreign nationalities may well be emulated by our far newer civilization,” said Mrs. Bemis. “There is an innate courtesy in some of these older countries, and they have a patriotism engendered by years of seeking the liberty found in America.

“We want to know our foreign-lan-guage neighbors for what they can teach us as much as for the service that we ourselves can render them. "Every member of each » mnunlty has an Interest In supporting our government’s financial program. We must bring the boys home; we must establish business for our returned sol-, dieys and we must help this country and Europe -to stand free and for peace. We women are as interested In this as men can possibly be.” The five states of the Seventh dis trict. Michigan, Illinois. Indiana, Wisconsin and lowa, will have a foreign language chairman for women. Each county where there are resident for elgn groups will have as county'chair man a woman who understands the Io cal needs of the various communifie> Group meetings are planned for each nationality wherever it exists in con siderable numbers. ; ' “Out of this work wilt come—if our hearts are in It—that united interest in the service of our country which we. call Americanisation.” f ...