Part 13 (1/2)

”I'd think America was the melting pot if I could see more signs of the melting,” Conover answered. ”But look at Delafield; how much does the melting pot melt here?”

Then he looked across the store. ”Do you know the proprietor, Mr.

Farwell?” he asked.

”Yes, indeed; Nick and I are good friends,” answered J.W.

”Then I wish you'd introduce me,” returned Conover.

”Oh, Nick,” J.W. called, ”will you come over here a minute?”

Nick came, wiping his hands on his ap.r.o.n.

”Nick,” said J.W., doing the honors, ”you know Mr. Drury, the pastor of our church. And this is Mr. Conover from Philadelphia, a very good friend of ours. He's been looking around town, and wants to ask you something.”

Nick's brisk and cheerful manner was at its best, for he liked J.W., besides liking the trade he brought.

”Sure,” said he, ”I tell him anything if I know it. Glad for the chance.”

”Mr. Dulas,” said Conover--he had taken note of the name on the window, ”you know the East Side pretty well, do you? Then, you know that many Italians live just north of Linden Street, and there's a block or so of Polish homes between Linden and the next street south?”

”Sure I do,” said Nick, confidently, ”I live on other side of them myself. See 'em every day.”

”Very well,” Conover went on. ”What I want to know is this: how do the Italians and the Poles get along together?”

”They don't have nothing much to do with one another,” Nick replied.

”It's like this, the Poles they talk Polish, and maybe a little English.

The Italians, they speak Italian, and some can talk English, only not much. But Poles they can't talk Italian at all, and Italians can't talk Polish. So how could they get together?”

”That's just the question, Mr. Dulas,” Conover agreed. ”I'm telling these gentlemen that it is harder for the different foreign-born people to know one another and to be friendly with one another than it is for them to know and a.s.sociate with Americans.”

”Sure, Mister,” Nick said, with great positiveness. ”Sure. Before I speak English I know n.o.body but Greeks, and when I start learning English I got no time to learn Polish, or Italian, or whatever it is.

English I got to speak, if I run a candy store, but not those other languages.”

And he went off to serve a customer who had just entered.

”There you have that side,” said Conover to the minister and J.W. ”The need of English as an Americanizing force, and the meed of it as a medium of communication between the different foreign groups. Looks as though we've got to bear down hard on English, don't you think?”

”As Nick says, 'Sure I do,'” Mr. Drury a.s.sented. ”It will come out all right with the children, I hope; they're getting the English. But it makes things hard just now.”

”What can the church do?” J.W. put in. ”Should it undertake to teach English, as that preacher taught Phil Khamis, you remember, Mr. Drury; or Americanization, or what?”

”I think it should do something else first,” said Conover. ”Why should we Americans try to make Europeans understand us, unless we first try to understand them? Isn't ours the first move?”

”But this is the country they're going to live in,” returned J.W. ”They can't expect us to adjust ourselves to European ways. They've got to do the adjusting, haven't they?”

”Why?” Conover came back. ”Because we were here first? But the Indian was here before us. We told him he needn't do any adjusting at all, and see what we've made of him. Maybe these Europeans can add enriching elements to our American culture.”

”I guess so, but”--and J.W. was evidently at a loss--”but they've got to obey our laws, you know, and fit into our civilization. The Indian was different. We couldn't make Indians of ourselves, and he wouldn't become civilized.”

”Americanized, you mean?” and Conover laughed a little at the irony of it.