- "The specific object of this volume is to help Americanize
the youth of this country, whether of native or of foreign birth.
This is the opening paragraph of the preface to a textbook used throughout
the nation in the early 1900's AMERICAN PATRIOTISM IN PROSE AND VERSE.
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- This textbook and others were among the ways that our
great grandparents dealt with what has been called "The Great Wave"
of immigration. In the late 1800's and early 1920's millions of immigrants
gazed at Lady Liberty and processed through Ellis Island. Since many of
these immigrants were not educated in academics or the basic civics in
a free democracy, two coping mechanisms jumped into motion by far-thinking
men. They heeded Teddy Roosevelt's wisdom: "The one absolutely
certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, or preventing all possibility
of its continuing as a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a
tangle of squabbling nationalities."
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- First, our nation's leaders took a pragmatic assessment
of how many newcomers we could absorb without damaging our own economic
and civic culture, and put a sharp cap on the number of immigrants.
The nation housed a mere 100 million.
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- After 1930, the numbers steadily decreased to a low of
100,000 to an average of 178,000 up to 1965. This allowed assimilation
into the American Dream. The English language was taught as the cohesive
glue to hold all immigrants together.
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- Today, exploding beyond our ability to deal with ourselves
at 300 million people, our Republicans and Democrats flood the nation with
three million illegal and over one million legal immigrants annually.
Except for Tom Tancredo, who sees this invasion as the downfall of America
as well as all Americans being affected by it, our Congress wallows in
stupidity, foolishness and inanity. Why would anyone in their reasonable
mind flood this country with four million more people annually? What
is the point?
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- Second, leading educators of the day, fully understanding
the delicate language/cultural/civic balance essential to a Republic. They
devised a curriculum to "Americanize" the newcomers and their
children. Those children went on to become known as "The Greatest
Generation."
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- Again from that textbook: "The child is the future
adult citizen. Education is the living spring of his character. If democracy
is to endure, democratic ideals must be woven into the very texture of
the thoughts, the feelings, and the life of the individual: for "character
is destiny." It's hard to overemphasize the importance
of education in either global competition or in cultural cohesion.
Equally inescapable is the fact that the sheer number of students with
multiple languages is steadily overwhelming our national education system.
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- California demonstrates what awaits other states, as
these immigration-driven numbers increase. Over two million of California's
six million students are housed in trailers, many more millions are in
overcrowded, undertaught, textbook-starved classrooms. Another two million
are in ESL classes. Science and math instruction often must take a back
seat to teaching English. No surprise that the state trails the nation
in academic outcomes. Less than 50 percent of potential high school
seniors who started the eighth grade graduate. In Denver, Colorado
last May, 2005, only 35 percent of high school seniors graduated.
Fellow Americans, that is a 65 percent flunk out/drop out rate of our
children. How can we endure with a functionally illiterate population?
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- One last quote from that wise text: "It is possible
that we have proceeded too long on the basis that American democracy is
imperishable and will somehow take care of itself. This is not a safe conception."
Our great grandparents met the challenge of their wave's numbers at a
time when our nation was still largely unsettled, high school graduation
was rare, and labor-intensive careers could absorb those with little or
no education. They met that challenge by cutting the number of immigrants.
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- How will we meet the challenges? Why are we piling
them onto ourselves like an obese person in pastry shop? What are
we trying to prove? At what point will be unable to deal with
them? Current immigration numbers of 4.1 million immigrants per year,
legal, illegal and their offspring, have added over 106 million in the
past 40 years. Every corner of our society is vibrating with unease.
In short, we face the 21st century with a vast population whose skills
belong to past centuries.
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- More sobering is the fact that our republic demands an
educated population with a similar moral and ethical foundation speaking
the same language. We are losing both. We have over 35 million
functionally illiterate adults in the United States. California and
Georgia falter with over 60 languages in their elementary schools.
States struggle when immigrants want to wear a Burka to hide their faces
for a driver's license shot. Others deal with rituals such as 'female
genital mutilation'. Still others deal with thousands of hit and
run accidents without repercussions. More suffer school chaos and
medical breakdowns. Millions of newcomers wave the flags of their
countries higher than Old Glory and send $56 billion back to home countries.
Even more disconcerting is the fact that over 400 million people worldwide
want to move to America.
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- One last quote heralds Mark Twain's genius. He
spoke about 'silent assertion' back in 1855 when Northerners didn't speak
out against slavery. "It is the shabbiest of all lies,"
he said. "When good people stand around watching an evil continue
or grow and do nothing about it, they condone it by their inaction."
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- Today, most people are either afraid to speak up about
illegal and massive legal immigration because they fear reprisals such
as being called names. What they need to fear even more is the loss
of their communities to a foreign invasion unprecedented in American history.
It happened to the Indians and it's happening to us. They didn't
stop it-perhaps couldn't-but we can and we must if we respect the future
for our children.
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- Our country stands at a juncture. We, as a nation,
either decide our citizens and way of life are worth maintaining or we
may spiral into a quagmire of Roosevelt's words, "squabbling nationalities."
One look at Amsterdam, Holland; Paris, France or Sydney, Australia
should give you enough impetus to stand up and speak out for America.
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- http://frostywooldridge.com
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