1.

The ideal of most social thinkers has been that of uniformity, absence of parties and swallowing of groups in a common loyalty.

Uniformity and unity within, hostility and spoils from without—this is the old ideal of the happy society, founded on the patriotism of the little Greek cities in their petty isolation.

But now this point of view of the state, appropriate in its origin, is applied uncritically to a great modern nation, with a hundred cities larger than any one of ancient Greece, with its inhabitants drawn from the ends of the earth—such a nation shall also present a uniformity of blood, speech and loyalty. What is the method by which such an end can be achieved? What is the theory by which such an end can be justified?

Dr. I. Berkson in his “Theories of Americanization” has developed in detail four types of theory for the relation of the sub-groups, especially the immigrant sub-groups, to the American nation. Of these the first two imply uniformity, “Americanization” by imposing the social and cultural standards of the Anglo-Saxon group on the newer arrivals; the “Melting-Pot” by which uniformity is to be achieved through a general admixture and intermingling, racial or social. The viewpoint of Americanization has been mentioned previously in this study—the view that the United States ought to be a homogeneous people, and that the proper standard of homogeneity is that of the white, Protestant, gentile group, of Anglo-Saxon origin. The newer arrivals are expected to forget their native languages and habits, to throw off their former loyalties, to copy the standards of life which they see already established in this country. The new loyalty is conceived as antagonistic to the old; the demands of democracy that the new citizen also shall express himself are quite disregarded. The rapidity of the process of intermarriage among many immigrant groups, and the still greater speed of social adaptation and assimilation are evidences that this theory has something in its favor. The awakening group loyalties which its repressive methods arouse show definitely that it has not the final word. As Lewis S. Gannet put it:

A variation of this, which posits uniformity, but not the uniformity of one group imposed on all the rest, is the Melting-Pot theory. The term was fathered by Israel Zangwill, who made the young Jewish immigrant exclaim:

Something of the same view seems to be voiced by John J. Smertenko:

The Melting Pot theory marks an advance over the Americanization theory in its treatment of the immigrant, not in its conception of the United States. Uniformity, physical or social or both, is taken as the sine qua non of group unity, like-mindedness as its minimum. But many ethnic groups, religious groups and others, wish to maintain their identity in their new home. Democracy would allow them to do so. The group theory of American life—which I have already elaborated historically and in the present, would not merely allow this, but take it as the only normal way in which an over-group of a hundred million people can ever hope to attain the unity of a group mind.

2.

The first form of such a theory is called by Dr. Berkson the “Federation of Nationalities.” It is modelled after the Federal government, which is a union of self-governing states. In the same way, as geographical units grow steadily less important and functional units more important in our national life, the same conception of federation was applied to these. The Soviet government has taken national control as a function of a federation of economic interests; the federation of nationalities view takes it as a federation of ethnic and religious groups. Our greater cities are now beginning to establish this sort of an appearance. They have Italian quarters, Jewish quarters, Negro quarters, even an American quarter, restricted to families whose acceptability can be approved and vouched for. The advocate of this theory holds that races are unchangeable—“a man cannot change his grandfather,” they say—the best that they can do is to live in amity within the same general national boundaries. Now, it is true that groupings based on heredity and on interest are growing increasingly important, as compared with the geographical groupings which once meant so much. Only in the old families, whose associations with a particular state have persisted for generations, is much state sentiment left among us. On the other hand, the Catholic, the Bohemian, the German, the Jew—every national and religious group has enduring loyalties. And the new economic groupings, labor, capital, the commercial class, the trade association, are developing their own group minds more rapidly than we can easily note.

The danger of this theory, however, is as obvious as its partial justification. It would make for the stability of what is actually fluid. All groups take more than they give when they enter a great mass of other groups, such as the United States. Immigrant communities in the United States are changing constantly, due to imitation—the Federation theory would establish them in the fixity of conflict and opposition. It would result, on the one hand, in permanent immigrant groups, with little participation in the general American group mind; on the other, in permanent groups of protest, such as the Ku Klux Klan. Carried to its logical extreme, it would give us the situation of the Levant, where a half dozen different races and religions, represented in the same village, preserve their isolation and their enmity for a thousand years.

3.

Both the old Americans, who insist on American unity, and the newer immigrants, who see and love their own group identity, have taken hold of real elements in the total situation, but neither has envisaged the social process as a whole. It is true that ethnic and religious groups are distinct in America, both racially and socially; on the whole, the Jew refuses to intermarry with the gentile, the white with the Negro, a prohibition that in the Southern states is reinforced by law. Similarly, the Irishman preserves his loyalty and his interest in the struggle for Irish liberty; the Italian and Greek reservists return to their native lands when called for military duty; the Jew raises huge sums for the relief of his fellow-Jews across the seas. But at the same time, all these groups were ready to unite in a common purpose when the United States was at war. Every immigrant group, as every native group, daily sacrifices its own purpose in a crucial problem for the greater welfare of the United States. The double process, which we have traced in the formulation of the Constitution of the United States and in subsequent history, is constantly going on—the entrance of new groups into the United States, and their incorporation into the American group. This is what Dr. Berkson calls the “community” theory, Professor Miller, “proportional loyalty,” and many other thinkers by other terms, a point of view toward which social theory and political thought is constantly tending; one which we may call, in the terms employed in this study, the integration of sub-groups into the American group mind by the sacrifice of their own purpose for that of the United States as a whole.

This theory recognizes the necessary and proper existence of the sub-groups, whether family, religious, racial or ethnic units. Human beings live naturally in comparatively small units, which can be easily recognized and whose loyalty is habitual (some would even claim, instinctive). These groups then join with others into larger units of synthesis, by accepting the common purpose of the whole in place of the conflicting purposes of each. Just as the individual becomes a loyal member of a family, the family of a Protestant church or a Jewish people, so that church or ethnic unit becomes, in turn, a unit in the larger whole of the American people. Group intolerance is thus sacrificed to America in increasing proportion and scope; while group individuality preserves the democratic ideal by which a man is an end in himself. The personal satisfactions and welfare of the immigrants themselves cannot be advanced by compelling them to give up everything they hold dear—instead, the attempt will prove subversive of the hoped-for unity by the usual result of group resistance. But all these values can be retained in a higher synthesis, a gradation of loyalties, an integration of minds in a true group mind.

The traditional Hebrew phrases for the Jewish people are Am Israel, the People of Israel, and Keneseth Israel, the Congregation of Israel—grasping thus both the racial and spiritual elements in one conception. To quote Berkson:

Professor Dewey put the matter similarly:

Dr. Drachsler represents the same point of view:

But, many will say, does this theory erect conflicting loyalties? Can they be reconciled? The answer to this is in terms of proportional loyalties. I quote Professor Miller’s summary:

Among these international values he finds the religious, economic and cultural ones, all of which transcend the nation, either by being wider or narrower, belonging to a sub-group or to humanity.

4.

This integration of groups need not stop at the nation as at present constituted, as is hinted in the last citation. The nation is itself an integration of groups, and can enter into other integrations, which include it or which cross it with different lines of interest and of grouping. In the words of U. G. Weatherly:

To return to Miller for another phrase:

There is no beginning and no end to the growth and the organization of the mind. Beginning with the individual and the family, we may analyze the elements which enter into these elementary mental units, or we may observe the mounting synthesis to the city, state and nation; or, following other lines of interest and of affiliation, to the movements of world culture, religion and economic organization, in their world-wide bearing. The nation is formed by a synthesis of its sub-groups; and the nation, in turn, enters into a wider synthesis to form the nascent but still growing conception of mankind. The mind of the many groups of Americans yield up their purposes, when called upon, for the greater unity—greater not only in size, but in richness, variety and tradition—that constitutes the mind of America. The future will mark the growing unity in diversity of the American group mind; the mounting beauty of its many-colored canvas, the increasing harmony of its many-throated symphony. At the same time, America will become more and more a part of a still greater synthesis, the group mind that will transcend the selfish purpose of the nation in such common purposes as the struggle against the adverse forces of nature; the organization of men for welfare and for culture; the prevention of that ancient group intolerance, which means the destruction of many small groups and the standardization and impoverishment of many great ones. The fulfillment of the prophet’s vision will be at hand when groups of men will not strive to destroy each other but to fulfill each other, when the sub-group will not undermine but serve the greater unity, when the ultimate vision of every struggling group of men, be it small or great, will be to serve the purpose of the whole, to enter into the mind of humanity, the ideal of God.