SAMPLE PROGRAM FOR FOURTH OF JULY CITIZENSHIP 1. Patriotic selections 2. Songs from all nations 3. "America" CELEBRATION 4. Prayer (specially written; the Rauschenbusch type) 5. Welcome to the new citizens 6. "Oath of Allegiance". 7. Selected folk songs 8. Address, "The State and the New America". 9. "Star Spangled Banner" 10. Five minute speeches or papers 11. Awarding of prizes. 12. "Hail Columbia" 13. Trip through America 14. Patriotic selections Band Phonograph records The Mayor Chorus and audience Band 1. CHORUS: The chorus should be made up of representatives of the choirs of the prominent nationality groups. 2. PRIZES: The municipality should offer simple prizes to all applicants registered in the school for citizenship for a short paper or speech on one of these topics, "What America Means to Me," "How to Americanize Immigrants," "How to Celebrate Americanization Day." 3. ORGANIZATION: The committee in charge of Americanization Day should always be headed by the mayor, as honorary chairman, and by leading citizens as active chairman and secretary, and small working committees on prizes, on invitations, on program, on reception. The committee on arrangements should be as representative a body as possible, including the various branches of the government of the city, state, and nation as well as representatives of the various nationalities and prominent public organizations. 4. CAUTION: The administration should not be too prominent in the celebration. It should be willing to keep in the background, yet coöperate in every way with the committee. SUGGESTIONS 1. All songs on the program should be printed in full, also the oath of allegiance and committees in charge. Insert loose leaf in program with list of textbooks on America. 2. The celebration must not be a detached affair, but the final step in the process of naturalization. 3. In all communities where the attendance is not too large, CERTIFICATES OF CITIZENSHIP should be given out on this occasion on presentation by the immigrant of a certificate of fitness issued by the local School for Citizenship. The school should be regarded by the municipality as an integral part of the Americanization process. 4. The invitation should include the wives, and children over sixteen years of age, also all native-born persons who have just reached the twenty-first birthday. 5. Invite the leading employers to coöperate, preferably through the Chamber of Commerce or Board of Trade. 6. If possible, plan a banquet. 7. Wherever circumstances and weather permit, have celebration outdoors in a park, followed by a little pageant, or song fest or carnival, or a play like "At the Gates of the Young World." This plan would have the advantage of bringing out the children as well as the grown-ups. In small communities, plan refreshments. 8. Where the celebration takes place in a hall, decorate it with the flags of all nations. 9. Place registration cards, printed beforehand, on every seat, inviting all to join the New American Club, which should be organized immediately after the celebration. 10. Plan mock naturalization court to prepare candidates for Americanization Day. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TRANSLATED INTO A DECLARATION OF CITIZENSHIP FOR THE NEWLY-NATURALIZED When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for certain persons to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another country and to assume the separate and equal station to which the laws of their adopted country entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of the people of that country requires that they should openly declare their belief in the basic principles of the land of their adoption. They must hold, as these United States hold, these truths to be selfevident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happi ness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown, that menkind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by serving their affiliations with the government to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of circumstances compel them to sever their connections with one country and affiliate themselves with another country, it is their right, it is their duty, to swear allegiance to the new government of which they are to be a part. We, therefore, the new citizens of these United States of America, assembled this Fourth of July . . ., appealing to the Supreme Judgment of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name and by the authority of the good people of these United States of America, solemnly publish and declare our allegiance to them and we accordingly forswear allegiance to any king or crown; that all political connections between us and any king or crown is and ought to be totally dissolved. As free and independent citizens we solemnly declare our allegiance to these United States whether in war or peace and to do only those acts and things which independent citizens may of right do. For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to these United States our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. APPENDIX AMERICANIZATION 1 RICHARD K. CAMPBELL 1 THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AS PARTICIPANTS IN FEDERAL ADMINISTRATION 'N PRESENTING this the first review of this new activity of the bureau, it is eminently desirable to refer to the fact that while this report deals with the achievements during the year it also refers to the preliminary steps in a work which has been in process of development and actual growth for over two years. When its full potentiality has been exerted it is possibly safe to assume that it will rank among the most far-reaching fundamental administrative activities ever launched by any department of the Government, dealing directly, as it does, individually with the citizenship of the entire body politic. It presents the first linking together of the American public school with the Federal Government for the definite object of elevating the average of understanding of the most neglected of all professions the profession of self-government - a profession most vital to the perpetuation of those principles enunciated in the American Declaration of Independence that "All men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights." Only by an intelligent appreciation of that sovereignty embraced in self-government can the spirit of these words, uttered when "our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new Nation," be comprehended. Heretofore the only attention given by the public school authorities directly to candidates for citizenship had been to the petitioners for naturalization. The petitioners in all instances have passed through the declarant stage for at least two years and have completed the five years' residence. They are eligible for a hearing and admission to citizenship 90 days after the petition has been made. It is the candidate for citizenship at this stage for whom the citizenship classes heretofore had been organized. Their period of probation has all but expired, they are about to be invested with citizenship, and become a part of the body politic. They represent the smaller, 1 From the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Naturalization, 1916. |