Now, it is known to every respectable sociologist in America that our recent Eastern European immigrants, including the Russians, are just as peaceable and law-abiding people as native Americans or native American ancestry.  This is a fact about which there is not the slightest doubt in the mind of any competently informed person.  It has been repeatedly established by careful studies made by the United States Bureau of the Census; by various State boards and by highly qualified private foundations.

Furthermore, the most honest, thrifty, industrious, upright, God-fearing and conservative portion of our foreign population is precisely that portion which has clung most stubbornly to its native ways of life and has been least influenced by American customs.  Our immigrants upon changing their foreign languages, customs, beliefs and ideals upon becoming “Americanized,” deteriorate profoundly in moral character; deteriorate to a degree that shows itself in the criminal statistics.

It is very fortunate for the moral welfare of millions of our foreign population that the present furore for “Americanization” is destined to fail in its object.  Its failure is in its own nature.  The fundamental social virtues, honesty, industry, thrift, truthfulness and the rest, are the same for all societies on the same general level of development.  They are not promoted by the custom of saluting any particular flag nor advanced by the ability to read any particular Constitution.

The very complete and profound change of character implied by the phrase:  “The Americanization of the Foreigner” can be wisely and safely accomplished only if spread out over at least three generations, while four or five would be better.  Every year less than three generations, that the progress is hastened, means moral and spiritual breakdown for thousands—­means domestic tragedy and congested criminal calendars.  There is only one foreigner who is really a menace to American society.  He is the foreigner who is in rapid process of “Americanization.”  The danger point is the foreign-born child and the American-born child of foreign parents.

The danger from these classes is real and serious, perhaps the most serious presented in the whole range of immigration questions.  Here again we have very reliable statistics which leave no room for reasonable doubt.  America needs protection, needs it urgently, against the foreigner of the second generation, particularly against the youthful foreigner who goes through our Public school system.  The father who stubbornly refuses to learn English or to adopt American ways is commonly a man of admirable moral character.  The son, often quite as American as young men of our old stock, is equally commonly a youth of vicious and unprincipled character.