Teach the foreigner to respect our forms of government.  Make the foreigner understand that we have settled the question of government forms and that criticism is disloyalty.  We must discourage the practice of biting the hand that feeds.

Teach the foreigner the English language.  There is no room in this country for more than one language.  Alien intrigue could be killed if we turned the United States into a country of one language.

Make every foreigner take out citizenship-papers within a specified time or deport him.

Now, it is inevitable that when Americanization is made a popular “drive” by a vast propagandist organization that the army of men and women of one idea, apostles of simplicist solutions, will flock into the ranks of the propagandists.  Even when the official program of the organization is well rounded, the army of simple-solutionists will do irreparable damage in their work as servants of the movement.

The problem cannot be dismissed by preaching to the foreigner that he should stick to the job and produce.  The problem of maximum production has a thousand ramifications that run throughout the whole industrial problem.  The preaching of industrial patriotism is a waste of breath unless it goes hand in hand with a far-reaching liberal program of industrial justice and efficiency.  The industrial program is more important than the industrial preaching.  Put the program into effect and the preaching of loyalty to the job may be unnecessary.

Far from being Americanism, it is fundamentally anti-American to urge an uncritical deification of any form of government.  Americanism involves an invitation to continuous constructive criticism in behalf of a bettering of our machinery of government.  It is no solution of the foreign-born problem to preach loyalty to the status quo.  We shall get further by saying to the foreigner, “We are engaged in a great democratic experiment on this continent.  We have settled a few principles in our minds.  We believe in popular rule through political action, but as to details we are on a search for improvement.  We ask you to learn our language and our institutions and then give us the benefit of your best thought on ways and means for the improvement of our machinery for democratic government.  The bars are down for the frankest criticism from men and women who have the democratic patience to trust their proposals to peaceful procedure.”

Learning the English language is only a means to an end.  It is too frequently made an end in itself.  There is no more virtue in talking English than in talking Hottentot.  We shall not get far by the mere exaltation of a language.  The only lasting results we shall achieve will be through the making of participation in this national democratic experiment of ours so attractive to the foreigner that he will burn with the desire to master our tongue, that he may better play his part and appreciate his privilege.  A man can plot the downfall of the republic in English as easily as in an alien tongue.