EEST thou a man diligent in business?" You remember the rest of the Proverb-"He shall stand before kings."

S

The saying that was written came to pass when their sovereign majesties, George V and Mary, rode the length of the rebuilt and beautified Regent Street, the sightliest and most exclusive shopping artery of London.

Beginning where the street swings in graceful curve from Piccadilly and down its entire length, flags, flowers and festoons imparted to the marble fronts of uniform height a gala aspect as the royal car went by, preceded by outriders in scarlet coats.

Heralds ceased their trumpetings while the Mayor of Westminster delivered a few dedicatory words within hearing of the reigning house of the British Empire. "Silversmiths to His Majesty," "Furriers by Appointment," and like legends, set off with kingly crests, were emblazoned over shop windows, themselves bowers of beauty.

Did the tens of thousands who took in the colors and the excitements of it all, take in all that was back of the presence of the king and queen as central figures of this merchandising pageant?

A few weeks later at Olympia a vast exhibition, stressing art in advertising, commanded royal patronage. The Duke of York made the wonderful display of pictorial salesmanship the occasion of his first public appearance since his return from Australia.

"Advertising seems to have become a great power in the land," said His Royal Highness, surveying the attractive presentation of the Empire's products and the irresistible devices for disposing of them. "It is a new form of education or popular education highly organized."

Cabinet ministers, lords, and nobles. were about him in that panorama of purveyance through printed appeal. For know ye that knighthood is in flour now, and soap, and publishing, and advertising! Voices raised at the Olympian ban

quets (sessions of the National Advertisers Association fringed the acres of art-in-selling portrayals) derived their inflection from offices, factories and counting-rooms, to a large extent.

Forty years ago those melodic mockers, Gilbert and Sulllivan, satirized what has since come to pass with this ballad of the head of the admiralty:

Wide World

Trade triumphant

King George V and Queen Mary, the central figures in the opening of the rebuilt Regent Street in London "When I was a lad I served a term As office boy to an attorney's firm; I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor And I polished up the handle of the big front door;

And I polished up the handle so care-
fully

That now I am the ruler of the
Queen's navy."

THE significance of all of which is that trade is now second to nothing in the new Brittannia. Trade has arrived, politically, socially. Being in trade, igpolitically, socially. Being in trade, ignoble not so very long ago, means being "out in front" now.

Whatever brought it about-postbellum adversity, unemployment, empire unity-the ministry of merchandizing is established in the United Kingdom.

into merchant-guilds, artisans into craftguilds became general throughout Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. Organization, the historian goes on to say, secured for the guilds recognition. and favor from the crown and strength to overcome encroachments by lords and barons, and protection against imposition from greater folk or other guilds.

In due course the London guilds united into one for the purpose of carrying out more effectually their common aims, and at a later time the guilds of Berwick enacted "that where many bodies are found side by side in one place they may become one, and have one will, and in dealings with one another have a strong and hearty love."

The system known at a later time as frank pledge, or free engagement of neighbor for neighbor, was accepted after the Danish wars as the base of social order. Athelstan accepted frithguilds as a constituent element of borpugh life in the Dooms of London. A common fund was raised by contribuions among the members, which not only provided for the trade objects of the guild, but sufficed to found chantries and masses; and to set up painted windows in the church of their patron saint. Even at the present day, Greene wrote, the arms of the craft-guild may often be seen blazoned in cathedrals side by side with those of prelates and kings.

HOSE ancient worthies were the outriders of trade's triumphant advent n this year of our Lord in London. The ate Lord Leverhulme, manufacturer; Lord Ashbridge and Sir Henry Thornon, transportation executives; Viscount Burnham, Lord Riddell, Lord Rothenere, Lord Beaverbrooke, newspaper ublishers; the late Lord Stevens, disiller; Sir Charles Higham, advertising xpert-all attest the co-equality of ommercialists with the nobility and professional class.

There was a plug tobacco producer vho held that his business eminence enitled him to a coat of arms. A Latin cholar decorated his automobiles with uitable heraldry and inscribed underheath, "Quid Rides." But they couldn't eep the irreverent rabble from shoutng as the tobacco lord passed, "Look-it -quid rides!"

Look at the endless procession of ondon busses, every one of them a raveling billboard. Not only quid, but igarette, cider, cocktail, catarrh cure ides! Trade not only has both sides of the London streets, but the middle of he streets besides. Kingship may surive merely as a symbol in the British

Commonwealth, but it is outshone, outshouted wherever the be-lettered London busses betake themselves. Trade is secure in its new estate-and also assertive.

T1

HE same conclusion, so reflective of the passion for reconstruction in Europe, came out of the fourth bi-annual congress of the International Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm, in July last. Sweden's beautiful capital received the 1,000 delegates with nothing of the old contemptuousness for tradesmen, but as the full-credentialled ambassadors of business, world statesmen seeking restored confidence and prosperity.

The king, princes and princesses gave their presence to the business sessions and social functions of the congress, thus indicating that the divine rights of kings must take due account of the development of trade and industry.

In one of his "Songs of the Seven Seas," Kipling relates how Mulholland promised the Almighty he would become his minister if he would save the stormtossed cattle-ship. The craft rode safely into harbor and Mulholland prayed again and said: "You have spared our lives, O God! Now put upon me the robes of office and I will enter the pulpit and become your minister!" But the

87

Almighty answered, "Nay, Mulholland! Be my minister on the cattle-ship!"

The commercial and industrial crisis in the Old World is calling for an aristocracy of quality and competency to take hold without disadvantage as to rank, recognition, or prestige, and serve at the strategic points of economic recovery.

The nation's ministers in ships, shops, stores!

Trade has not only attained parity with the noble and the professional, but is on the way to still higher distinction. Commercialists may outstrip chancelleries in establishing the "covenanted friendship of the world."

A real league of nations looking to the outlawing of wholesale slaughter in the name of national integrity or patriotism, was the trade gathering at Stockholm, for both Germany and the United States were there in a "parliament of man, a federation of the world" to promote amity and mutuality.

Something better than an incomplete league of nations was at Ostend last June the international convention of that fine-visioned body of business clubs that carry the name of Rotary, and whose sixth objective is world concord. "Friendliness in international rela

(Continued on page 93)

No country in the world has a larger foreign-language press than we have here. Our fourteen million foreign-born are said to read some twenty-five thousand publications in their own tongues. Of these 165 are dailies, 870 weeklies, and the rest either monthlies, semimonthlies, or quarterlies. In Greater New York, with its immense polyglot populations, the foreign dailies boast as high a circulation as almost one million copies, with the Jews, Germans and Italians in the lead. The average foreign publication is the product of a few hands, often written and printed by the same man. It lives from day to day, or from week to week, and the slightest ill wind will cause it to subside. On the other hand, such publications as "Forward," "Corriere "Corriere D'America," "Il Progresso," the "Staats-Zeitung," the "Russky Golos," "Atlantis," "La Prensa," "Courrier Des Etats Unis" and others of their kind are firmly established, well organized, and ably written.

The influence of this press is not to be questioned. Its power for good or evil is unlimited. In form it follows the school of "personal journalism," preferring the standards of Europe to those of America. Not only are its editorials signed, but its news columns are so "doctored" as to be made to coincide with its editorial policies. The American newspaper, strictly impersonal, has a voice of its own-that is to say, it speaks as a newspaper, a journalistic entity, and its opinions are those of a group of editors hardly known to the public. Not so with the foreign-language publication, excepting, of course, the large daily. Its voice is that of its editor or editor-owner. There is no more important figure in any immigrant "colony" than the editor of the immigrant newspaper. He is the alpha and the omega of every movement among his people, whatever be its na

Edward Corsi

STRE

TREET riots and bomb explosions after the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti have shown the danger of disunity between the United States and its immigrants. What America means to the people who have left their own countries to make homes here is a critical question for the future. Mr. Corsi presents a set of suggestive answers from the point of view of men who see through the immigrant's eyes.

THE EDITORS.

ture. Without his aid and that of his publication very little is possible. He speaks for his people, and, through him, his people speak to the world. He knows their wants and needs, their likes and dislikes, their prejudices and convictions. He is the comforter of the homesick "exile," the ruler of his mind and vote. In years gone by, when the immigrant press was but a shadow of its present self, the property of "bankers" and barbers, this editor was a poor scribbler of bad prose and worse poetry. To-day he is a professional journalist, the equal of his European colleagues. Many of of his European colleagues. Many of Europe's best editors have found their way to this country since the war.

What, then, are the opinions of these editors?

I might say that each editor has an opinion of his own, limited to his own experiences and those of his group. The points on which they all agree are few compared to those on which they dis agree. We are dealing, of course, with men of different mentality, different tem perament, and, naturally, different reac tions. Let me illustrate. Geza D. Berko, of the "Amerikai Magyar Nep szava, "tells us that the Hungarians. "sons of Louis Kossuth," are a libertyloving people and appreciate the freedom they enjoy here. Ivan Ovuntsoff, of, the "Novoye Russkoye Slovo," on the other hand, complains that the Russians also a liberty-loving people, find less comfort here than "in Russia under the Czars." Thus one editor praises America for the very quality which, in the opinion of the other, she does not pos sess. Not only are the impressions and opinions of one group at variance with those of another, which is natural, bu there is lack of harmony even among spokesmen of the same group. Swedish editor, for instance, feels that his people by immigrating are compensated morally, spiritually, and finan cially. Another replies that they are compensated only in proportion to their ability to learn English, while a third adds "they are hardly compensated." Variety being the spice of life even among immigrant editors, uniformity of opinion is not to be had.

Now, in the mind of every immigrant there are at least two Americas, one of fancy and one of fact. When I speak of the immigrant, I mean the bread-winne of our acquaintance, a peasant or worker without education, inexperienced of the world, credulous, and easily disillusioned I am not concerned with the new arrival (the post-war immigrant), who is in mos cases a member of the middle class, no with the "Nordics" from English-speak ing countries. These have few illusions and less heartaches. The America of the immigrant's fancy is the Utopia of hi dreams, a land of liberty unrestraine and fortunes easily acquired. Thi America is a European creation, a legen that has found its way in the towns and hamlets of the Old World, personified Washington and Morgan, Lincoln and Rockefeller, in the peasant who return

ome with money and experience, in the ast Side boy who rises to political fame nd industrial power. In thinking of the illions who sell all that they have, who bandon all that they hold dear, to venire life in a strange and unknown world, is well to remember this Utopia. It elps explain our five decades of mass nmigration and the deserted villages of urope.

The America of fact is quite somehing else. It dawns upon the immigrant ith his landing at Ellis Island, chilling im to the marrow of his bones. It preents no streets paved with gold, no forunes easily acquired, no liberty unretrained. On the other hand, its offering ; hard, incessant labor and bitter strugle. In the words of M. S. Dunin, of he Polish "Ameryka Echo," this Amera is "variable, disappointing, not as deal as imagined." Its impression on he newly arrived is a discouraging one. It compels him to work long hours in teel mills," says Ivan F. Lupis, of the erb, Croat, Slovene, "Hravatski Glasik," "live segregated in mining towns, with no opportunities to learn English, to ead, study, distinguish. It subjects him o injustices and misunderstandings in ourt (with too long and heavy punishnents compared to natives), continual heating by 'banker,' 'boss,' 'lawyer,'

and 'promoter.' It offers no protection from the thousands of abuses practiced on the 'ignorant foreigner.'" "The wonderful impression," adds Colonel Andrew Cherna, of the Hungarian "Szabadsag," "turns to psychic disappointment at the end of a few years of work in our factories," where the immigrant learns "that he is not a white man as he used to be on the other side."

89

one of adjustment, of "settling down." Unable to speak English, a stranger in a strange land, with no funds and often no friends, he seeks comfort and protection among his own. He settles in a foreign "colony"-a Little Italy, a Little Hungary, a Ghetto-and unless fortune favors him he remains in that "colony" to the end of his days.

There is another America, of course, an America which is neither a Utopia nor a steel mill nor a factory. This is the real America, real to every man or woman who, without false illusions or unfair pretensions, embraces her spirit and enters into her life. To be sure, "she is imperfect, immature, ambitious, and without patience," but also fair and magnanimous. She is known to every immigrant who has come into contact with her and reaped of her fruits. "Nowhere on earth," says V. K. Rackakauskas, of the Lithuanian "Dirva," "is personal freedom, individual initiative, and business enterprise guarded with greater care." "She is the goal of the liberty loving," adds Oliver Linden, of the Swedish "Svenska Amerikanaren," "and a land of economic promise."

The immigrant's aim is to attain to this America, but his journey is an arduous and difficult one. His first step is

"These 'colonies,'" the editor of the Italian "La Follia" explains, "are not mere accidents. They are the products of that 'will to live' which is common to all men. We might never have had such 'colonies,' or we might have greatly reduced their number, had the American people been more conscious of our difficulties and less prejudiced against us.' It is in "colonies" such as these, with their foreign customs and standards, that the immigrant lives his spiritual life, out of contact with the life of the country about him. Thus when we ask if America fills the immigrant's spiritual needs, we are reminded that the immigrant's America is one of his own making. "Only a limited number of my people," says the editor of the "Hrvatski Glasnik," "find compensation in America. The mass has its own association, its own songs, music, and amusements, all related to the old country." The editor of the Slovak "Obrana" speaks in like terms. His countrymen have little contact with America. "They have lived their national life in this country since 1886." The Armenians, in the words of the "Gotchnag," do get some spiritual satisfactions, but only when they become adjusted to their new environments.

With the Poles it is a matter of "individual and not national adaptability," while in the case of the Bohemians spiritual and material progress go hand in hand. The least repaid seem to be the Russians, who "accept American culture in form but not in spirit." The only tone of optimism is furnished by the editors. of the "California Greek" and the "Amerikai Magyar Nepszava." Their people are well compensated, especially the Greeks, who, if we are to believe Mr. Tasos Mountanos, find greater spiritual satisfactions in this country than in their own, "where wars and the selfishness of European Powers" make life impossible.

The "will to live" is but one of many reasons contributing to the creation of foreign "colonies." There are others, among them inability to speak English. Colonel Cherna, voicing the opinion of many of his colleagues, maintains that the immigrant cannot be compensated, either spiritually or morally, while he is ignorant of the language of the country. Knowledge of English is the key to