Public opinion in this matter is grievously at fault.  There is danger to American institutions, and that danger is real, but it is just the opposite of what is popularly feared.  The danger lies precisely in the process of Americanization itself, particularly in the endeavor to hasten that process.  If, as is commonly maintained, the present need in America is peace and safety, security and conservatism, then the Americanization of the foreigner should be slowed down in every way possible.  No encouragement should at this time be offered to the foreigner to abandon his native language or religion or to change his ethical or cultural standards.

On the other hand, every possible assistance should be given to Roman and Greek Catholic priests, Orthodox rabbis and other such leaders in maintaining and strengthening the traditional loyalties of their various groups.  Our Mohammedans—­no negligible element in recent immigration—­should be encouraged to build mosques, to read the Koran and to obey the various other requirements of their faith.  Our public libraries should provide themselves more liberally with books in foreign languages.  Foreign language lectures and speakers of all sorts should be much encouraged.  By such means and only by such means can the spirit of unrest and disquiet be stilled and the spirit of conservatism and contentment with the status quo be developed among our foreign population.

It is a most curious popular misconception that peace and quietness and respect for law and order can be developed in the foreigner by suddenly and violently disturbing his mental life.  Changing a man’s language, upsetting his moral and social conventions, altering his inherited traditions of conduct, unsettling his ancestral faith—­these are the very best means possible for making him a disbeliever in all established institutions, including those of the United States.  Yet this is precisely what “Americanization” aims to do with the best intentions.

Let us take a specific illustration.  It may perhaps be theoretically desirable to bring our new immigrant to a realization of the crudity and superstition of his Eastern Orthodox faith, and to be a lively recognition of the superiority of American Protestantism.  Practically, it can be seldom done and the reason is simple.  When a person has been brought to realize the faults, imperfections, and limitations of a traditional system of belief in religion, government or what not, he inevitably applies his new critical attitude towards whatever system of belief is offered to him as a substitute for the one he has been encouraged to cast aside.

Most commonly the alternative system, being human, has serious faults, imperfections and limitations of its own, which are easily enough discoverable.  The net result of very much conscientious missionary work in America is that the foreigner ceases to believe his traditional faith, refuses allegiance to any American substitute and becomes an infidel agnostic or atheist.  The same thing is just as common in the realms of social, ethical and political faith as in that of religious belief.