Catholic Problems in Western Canada Part 17

3. Bureau.-Clearing house-where "expert knowledge and effective presentation" are to be found. To this bureau should be attached a priest who would specialize in social work. He could be helped by an efficient secretary. His would be the energy that would carry to the various organizations life and power. The "Volksverein" in Catholic Germany was a model in this line of work.

"Praesentia tangens ... futura prospiciens" is a motto which translates well the lofty ideal Catholics should have before their eyes at this turning point of history. Although we stand amid the ruins acc.u.mulated during four long years of war and are confronted by distressing after-war problems in every order of human activity, still we raise our heads in hope and look beyond the crude realities of the present to a brighter day breaking on the horizon of time, a day tinted with the rising sun of Christian doctrine... .

Instaurare omnia in Christo ... to re-establish all things in Christ, is the only reconstruction that will last.

CHAPTER XVIII.

ULTIMA VERBA

The Canadian West offers to one who has never gone beyond the Great Lakes but a misty vision of boundless prairies that stretch over three immense Provinces and lose themselves in the foothills of the snow-capped Rockies. Conflicting are the impressions that a.s.sail the traveller's mind, various the feelings that crowd around his heart when leaving behind him the East, he faces, for the first time, the "great lone land" of the West. From the immensities of the fertile prairie comes to him an invigorating air of optimism which fires him with enthusiasm and confidence in the possibilities of the country and gives him the a.s.surance of its future. From the vast horizon that melts away into the distant blue skies "he seems to hear the footsteps of Freedom treading towards him." This mysterious attractiveness of the boundless desert that the plough has just turned into restful and fertile meadows has at all times a peculiar fascination. But it is at harvest season that our glorious West it at its best. Then under the deep blue firmament, in the glorious sunlight and exhilarating atmosphere of the rolling prairie one can hear, as it were, "the song of the land." With the hum of the binder, it comes to him froth the long rows of golden sheaves, it rises from the fields where yet waves the ripening harvest.

Nature indeed is then most beautiful in the West. But for the Christian soul to whom Faith "is the evidence of things unseen and the substances of things we hope for," the visible harvest leads to the thought of that spiritual harvest to which the Master so often points in the Gospel. Under all the feverish activities which characterize our Western communities lie deep in the consciences of men those unseen realities, those spiritual values and eternal issues which const.i.tute the religious world. In the mysterious furrows of the human heart is ripening the harvest of eternity.

The Church of G.o.d ever stands as Christ by the mysterious well of Jacob, at the intersection of the highways of History. Now, as in the days of the Saviour, winter has set in; a cold blast of indifference and unbelief sweeps over the land. Yet with the Master's vision and boundless confidence, the Church, pointing to the Western plains, repeats to us all the divine challenge. "Do not you say there are yet four months and then the harvest cometh? Behold I say to you lift up your eyes and see the countries for they are white already to the harvest." (Jo. iv, 35.)

Before parting with you, kind reader, may we make ours this pressing invitation of the Master. Yes, the immense West is "white already to the harvest." There stand as immense fields of ripening wheat, the Catholic youth of Eastern Canada, the st.u.r.dy and thrifty Catholic settlers of the British Isles and continental Europe. There the rising generation of Catholic children, like the tender green blades of the future harvest, is springing into manhood. Staring us in the face, their eyes in our eyes, the children of foreign parentage wonder what account we will make of their faith, what protection we will offer it. They are the new Canadians, the nation of to-morrow.

To focus the Catholic mind of the nation on the great problems which the West with its scattered population has forced upon our attention, has been the object we have consistently pursued through the pages of this book. For it is a fact of every day experience that problems are only solved by those who know them, who understand their full meaning, and grasp their vital importance.

Our sole endeavour has been to point out the controlling forces, the spiritual issues that lurk behind these problems. In debatable matters we always have tried to find that higher level which lies undisturbed by the cross-currents of opinions. Naturally there are conclusions we draw or forms of action we propose which may not find favour with everyone. There are so many angles of vision from which moral problems can be viewed. But we will say with Cardinal Newman "nothing would be done at all if a man waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault with it." Were we, in our insistency on certain topics and suggestions, accused of undue repet.i.tion, the importance of the subject and our eager desire of immediate action would be our only excuse and defence.

The Western spiritual harvest is indeed great and now ready for the reapers. Never in our mind has a period in the history of the Church in Canada been more fraught with greater problems than the present one which the sudden increase of the West has created. The vastness of their proportion and their far-reaching consequences involve to a great extent the future of the Church in these new Provinces and, consequently, in the Dominion at large. Moreover this immense harvest is now white and calls for the reapers. To-morrow will be too late, for, there comes a critical stage in the maturing harvest, when the labours of past months and the most bright prospects melt away in an hour. If therefore action is not immediate, irreparable, we contend, will be the loss to the Church in the West. Only by a prompt and united action will the stern and burning realities of the present be converted into the bright visions that our Faith has a right to expect.

The harvesters are few. But were the Church at this critical hour able to count on all the spiritual forces that lie dormant in the souls of her children in Canada, the history of the future in the West would be different from that of the past. As in times of emergency, the conscription of Catholic forces is the supreme duty of the hour. It is the duty of our leaders to affect by a definite policy the "indeterminate ma.s.ses," just as it is the duty of each individual of the ma.s.ses to shoulder his share of responsibility by an active co-operation. Without a definite workable policy of united action, and the awakened consciousness of the Catholic ma.s.ses at large, throughout the Dominion, the Catholic problems in Western Canada will not be solved.

The Church in Canada, we maintain, stands at one of those critical periods when the sweeping current of events give a decided bend to the course of History. The hour is serious, for never was the future so greatly involved in the present as it is now. All depends, to a very large extent, on how, within the next decade or so, the Catholics will consolidate their forces and extend their energies to meet the religious issues of the West. Were we to fail at this momentous period, our inactivity and want of co-operation will be charged against us, and in the eyes of the Church we shall be marked as felons and traitors to her great cause. The chapter of our times in the history of the Church would then be fittingly headed with this accusing caption: "What should have been!" For, we are the makers of History; we prepare its verdicts.

One last word before parting with you, gentle reader. If you have followed us through the various problems to which we have given our attention in this book you will have remarked that there is one idea which permeates, we would say, every page of it. It is the key-note of our work. This idea is that of "responsibility," which a genuine and active Catholicism necessarily implies. This thought of Catholic solidarity has inspired our humble effort; in it we place the hopes of the future. There lies in one word the burden of our message.

THE CHURCH OF THE WEST IS IN OUR HANDS-ITS FUTURE WILL BE WHAT WE SHALL MAKE IT-THAT FUTURE, WHAT SHALL IT BE?-THE DIVINE MASTER, HIS CHURCH, AND CATHOLIC POSTERITY, AWAIT OUR ANSWER.

APPENDIX

We thought it would be a benefit to our Canadian reader to republish here three thought-compelling and illuminating articles that appeared, the first in the "New York Times," the second in the "Century Magazine" and the third in the "Detroit News." As they deal with a similar problem that confronts Canada also, they will corroborate views we have expressed here and there in our book. Let the reader subst.i.tute "Canadianization" for "Americanization" and he will find that the statements made can be well applied to existing conditions in our own Country.

I. AMERICANIZATION

By L. P. Edwards in N.Y. Times.

The United States is suffering from one of its periodic attacks of Know Nothingism. It is seriously maintained in the public prints that our recent Eastern European, and particularly our Russian, immigration contains enormous numbers of murderers, thieves, counterfeiters, dynamiters, arsonists and other criminals of the most atrocious character. It is alleged that the lives and property of all of us are in imminent danger from these incredibly numerous blackguards, and that the only salvation lies in what is called the Americanization of the foreigner.

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, G.o.d-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 Const.i.tution.

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 cla.s.ses 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.

Public opinion in this matter is grievously at fault. There is danger to American inst.i.tutions, 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 a.s.sistance 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 inst.i.tutions, including those of the United States. Yet this is precisely what "Americanization" aims to do with the best intentions.

Let us take a specific ill.u.s.tration. It may perhaps be theoretically desirable to bring our new immigrant to a realization of the crudity and superst.i.tion 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 att.i.tude towards whatever system of belief is offered to him as a subst.i.tute 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 subst.i.tute 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.

Respect for Government and law is not a natural instinct. It is an artificial att.i.tude slowly built up in the individual by all sorts of direct and indirect social pressure. The breakdown of old habits of thought in any one of the great departments of social activity very rapidly affects the other phases of conduct. The whole moral life of the individual tends to become unsettled. Nothing is held firmly except the selfish determination to obtain material wealth. Ideas and ideals which stand in the way of this are cast aside. The Americanized foreigner possesses all the native Americans' ruthless greed without possessing his social, ethical, religious, or political idealism.

No man can learn a language perfectly who learns it deliberately, and social ideals are harder to learn than language. They can never be learned naturally and completely except when they are learned so gradually and imperceptibly that the process is unrecognized and largely unconscious. This can never be possible in the case of the foreign born, and is only very partially attainable in the case of the children foreign born. Its complete realization is possible only in the case of children born and reared in an entirely American environment. That is to say it cannot be accomplished before the third generation at the earliest, and often not then.

II. THE FAD OF AMERICANIZATION

By Glenn Frank in the "Century Magazine," June, 1920.

We are a nation of confirmed uplifters. We are never happy except when we are reforming something or saving somebody. It doesn't matter greatly whom we are saving or what we are reforming; the game is the thing. This uplift urge expresses itself in the "movement" mania, the endemic home of which is United States. The American cannot live by bread alone; he must have committees, clubs, const.i.tutions, by-laws, platforms, and resolutions. These things, the machinery of uplift are his meat and wine. The American society women takes to "social service" and the American business man to "public work" as a bird takes to the air or a hound to the trail. It is in the blood.

Just now the most popular social sport is "Americanization." It is in many ways an ideal movement. It fully satisfies the pa.s.sion of the comfortable cla.s.ses for uplift, and is a G.o.dsend to the candidate who wants something to grow fervent about in lieu of a frank facing of fundamental issues of politics and industry. Above all, Americanization work gives one the righteous feeling of a defender of the faith. The epidemic faddist character of much Americanization work was pointedly stated in a recent article by Simon J. Lubin and Christina Krysto in "The Survey." They said:

"Every social organization, every religious society, every large industry, every woman's club has been busy for months mapping out its own particular program. The study of Americanization has been used to stimulate interest in organizations which were dying a natural death; Americanization has been used as a pretext for sudden improvements in industrial management when the att.i.tude of labor has made sudden improvements imperative; Americanization has been used to give employment to social workers out of jobs."

This article further points out the inevitability of innumerable perversions of Americanization in such an orgy of organization. The article says on this point:

"Every political party has its hangers-on who, consciously or unconsciously, discredit the fine principles of that party by their erroneous expounding of these. Every new phase in industrial progress has its profiteers-men who capitalize the advanced ideas of their field for their own interest, regardless of the harm which they bring to the whole by their methods. Every scientific discovery has its charlatans who mix enough of the truth with their lies to undermine the whole truth when their lies become known. Every religion has its false messiahs, and many a man has been made an unbeliever because he has followed these too easily and been disappointed too grievously."

It should be said that the profiteers, charlatans, and false messiahs of Americanization are not, in the main, men and women of bad intentions so much as they are men and women of half-ideas of fractional and incomplete conceptions of Americanization. The t.i.tle of false messiahs fits them better than either profiteers or charlatans, for false messiahs are usually profoundly sincere, although profoundly misguided.

No straight-thinking person disputes the need of a fundamentally sound program of Americanization, a vast collective effort toward the stimulation and spread of sane principles of national life among all sorts and conditions of men and women who make up our population. But anything and everything that goes by the name of Americanization is not necessarily an effective move in that direction. There is slowly growing up a body of incisive criticism dealing with the current epidemic of Americanization work that is sweeping the country on the wings of clever catch-words and generous emotions. It may be of interest and value to attempt an a.n.a.lysis and statement of the main points of that body of criticism. Here are a few plainly valid criticisms.

First, it is psychologically bad to approach Americanization work through a super-organized and much-trumpeted movement, because such a policy warns the foreigner in advance that a crowd of superior persons have set out to improve him. That is generally resented. The fact is that hardly a thing has been proposed as desirable in an Americanization program that is not the duty or function of some existing inst.i.tution of our country, the church, the school, the industry, the press. Education, hygiene, and a decent inter-cla.s.s courtesy are necessary features of any sound Americanization program, but they can be more effectively applied by calling them what they are and promoting them in normal ways than by branding them Americanization and cursing them with the blight of paternalistic uplift.

But it is probably useless to quarrel with a long established national habit. It is a habit of ours to create a new organization for every new task. Not only does that practice have the drawbacks just mentioned, but it robs our established inst.i.tutions of the habit of doing creative work, leaves our established inst.i.tutions as homes of the routine and the regular. There is a fundamental difference between England and the United States in this matter. In England the few men who have caught an idea or envisioned a need, do not, as a regular practice, create a new propagandist organization instanter, but in most cases set quietly to work to get the machinery of established inst.i.tutions going on the task. An increasing number of clear-minded folk are becoming convinced that Americanization would proceed much faster and more soundly through the increase efficiency of the existing machinery of school and church and press and industry, without any fanfare of trumpets, than through any propagandist "drive" for uplifting the foreigner.

Second, it is a fallacy to suppose that Americanization is a process needed by the foreigners only. Much Americanization work proceeds upon the a.s.sumption that what is needed is to make the foreigner "like us." The fact is that Americanization is sorely needed by many of "us," Americanization does not mean merely getting an immigrant ready for his citizens.h.i.+p-papers. It means the continuous fostering of the American spirit of liberty, justice, and equality of opportunity in every man and woman and inst.i.tution and policy. Americanization should be looked upon as the inspiring goal of both native born and foreign born, not as a missionary enterprise among the foreign born alone. To single out the foreign born as the exclusive objects of an Americanization effort is organized tactlessness. If, on the other hand, the foreign born feel that they are being invited to join with the native born in a vast collective effort to build a better nation in which liberty, justice, and equality of opportunity shall increasingly prevail, they will go out of their way to acquire the English language, a knowledge of our inst.i.tutions and ways, and all the instruments necessary to the task of collaborating with us in the improvement of the republic.

Third, serious danger lies in the over-simplification of the problem of Americanization by propagandist organizations. We are in constant danger from too simple a.n.a.lysis of problems and too simple as the epigrams that grow up about it. Panaceas usually touch only a part of a problem. It is interesting to watch various types of minds approach the problems of Americanization in committee discussion. Here are a few simple solutions that the writer has heard from time to time:

Teach the foreigner to stick to the job and produce. We need to teach the foreigner that Americanism means patriotic production for the relief of the world's present peace-time plight, just as it meant patriotic production for the necessities of war-time. A great drive for industrial patriotism is the supreme need.

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.