USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lawrence > Immigrant city: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845-1921 > Part 15
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selves be absorbed. Many of them, said Le Progrès, had not suf- fered the crises the French had endured, while others, such as the Irish, became intensely patriotic only to become popular. The terms "Canayen," meaning half American and half Canadian, and "Canuck" enraged Le Progrès.
But the Canadian newspapers were fighting in vain; the very acts they despised attested to the Americanization that had al- ready taken place. The Puritanism with which they attacked the Canadian youth was in itself an important part of Americanism, as was the concern for "success" which preoccupied Le Progrès. Its very name-"Progress"-was also an important assumption in the minds of most Americans. Even while warning its readers against absorption, it denied wanting them to become a "band apart." The maintenance of old traditions did not preclude loyalty to America.
Politically Le Progrès was no more anxious than the Journal to alter the American way. It constantly urged its readers to be- come naturalized and vote. Evil trusts should be eliminated, but the government should help business with the protective tariff. By supporting the tariff Le Progrès revealed the extent of its Americanization because many Canadians opposed the tariff on the grounds that it hurt Canadian exports to the United States. Le Progrès would allow unions, but any government aid to labor would be merely helping one class at the expense of another. The "perverse doctrines" of anarchism and socialism were intolerable. Somewhat more conservative than the Journal, Le Progrès was consistently Republican. So, in spite of its desire to prevent as- similation, Le Progrès showed that it was far more American than it would admit or could even suspect.4
From the insecure Progrès there was a marked change to the resolute and self-righteous Anzeiger und Post. While Le Progrès
4. For fear of persecution see Le Progrès, May 12, June 9, 1899, June 23, Sept. 7, 1900, April 25, 1902. For preservation of language see ibid., Jan. 27, June 2, 30, July 14, 1899, Feb. 2, Mar. 2, 1900, June 7, 1901, Feb. 7, 11, June 24, July 2, 1902, Sept. 22, 1903, Jan. 12, April 22, June 10, 1904, June 8, 1905, April 16, 1908; Le Courrier de Lawrence, April 4, May 16, 30, 1912. For efforts to prevent assimilation see Le Progrès, July 20, 1900, May 10, 1901, Feb. 7, 1902, May 8, 1903, Oct. 26, 1905. For political views see ibid., Feb. 9, Aug. 3, 1900, July 12, Sept. 13, 1901, Aug. 12, 1902, May 1, 1903, Nov. 5, 1904, Oct. 25, 1906.
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mourned the failure of Canadians to preserve their culture, the Anzeiger said Germans had no reason to "creep in the shadows" and proudly listed German influences on American life. Christmas, it said, was better celebrated the German way than in the old Puritan style. German music, art, idealism, love of beer, in short, the German ability to understand and enjoy life, were invaluable in America, where people were too intent on making money. The Anzeiger complained that in America, where material matters dominated the intellectual, the teacher had little influence and there was little regard for the law. Unlike Le Progrès the Anzeiger was sure enough of the German position in America to criticize Ameri- can life and did not care if some Germans failed to retain their old customs. Enough of the German traditions would remain anyway. Thus while Le Progrès became Americanized because it was so afraid of America, the Anzeiger did so because it did not fear America. But both found security in their Americanism.
While the Irish Journal epitomized the late nineteenth-century cult of reason, moderation, and inevitable reform, and Le Progrès reverted to Puritan ideals, the Anzeiger represented the Progressive mentality. Coming three decades later than the Journal, the Anzeiger was unwilling to wait for laissez faire to improve Ameri- can life and therefore supported measures that were in most Pro- gressive platforms. These included a tariff for revenue only, the dissolution of all trusts, a ban on child labor, the initiative and referendum, and the direct election of senators. Puritanism with its opposition to intoxicants was obviously out of the question for the beer-drinking Germans, who rated the right to imbibe on a plane with freedom of speech and labeled prohibition "fanaticism."
Though the Anzeiger wanted reform and occasionally used radi- cal terms, it was not a socialist paper and supported only the milder demands of socialism. This ambivalence stood out in its attitude toward labor issues. First it opposed the strikers of 1902 and urged them to go back to work. Then three years later it attacked certain millowners for using strikebreakers and said the owners were protected by the police, the militia, and the courts. But, it added, the workers had only themselves to blame because they elected men to office from the very class that was holding them in "economic slavery," men who "forged new weapons" for the
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capitalist over the laborer. The Anzeiger came the closest to socialism when it suggested taking away the Supreme Court's right of judicial review in order to keep the will of the people from being thwarted and to protect labor. It applauded the reforms pushed by the socialist Victor Berger but denounced state ownership and anarchism. Like most Progressives-indeed, most Americans -the editors of the Anzeiger admired some of the socialists' ideas but did not care for socialism.5
To some, the Anzeiger and Le Progrès seemed most un- American in their attacks on imperialism. Le Progrès feared a rise of militarism that would disgrace the United States in the future. Comparing the United States with the Macedon of Alex- ander, the paper accused it of wanting Canada in order to "inun- date" it with goods. When the Anzeiger argued that a boiler ex- plosion was probably responsible for the sinking of the Maine, it said that those not influenced by "highriding chauvinism" agreed. With the words "protect us from militarism" it ridiculed the concept that the United States had to have a great army and navy in order to "march at the peak of civilization." The Anzeiger doubted that intervention in Nicaragua would make us more loved in Central America or even increase our trade. As the World War ap- proached, it blamed the yellow press for the arms race. But this anti-imperialism was not really un-American for a large segment of the population deplored the actions of Theodore Roosevelt, Albert Beveridge, and Henry Cabot Lodge. Le Progrès maintained that the end of imperialism would mean a return to the "past traditions" of the United States, and the Anzeiger compared resistance to im- perialism in 1900 to the "spirit of '76."6
The best example of the immigrants' search for security in Americanism came between 1907 and 1910 in the Syrian Al-Wafa (Fidelity), which was actually the second newspaper published in
5. For German adjustment to American life see Anzeiger und Post, Mar. 25, Oct. 14, 1899, Sept. 15, 1900, July 16, 23, Aug. 6, Sept. 3, 24, 1904, Jan. 28, Feb. 11, Oct. 7, Dec. 30, 1905, June 16, 1906, May 2, 1908, Dec. 18, 1909. For political views see ibid., Nov. 25, Dec. 30, 1899, Feb. 17, Mar. 3, April 14, Nov. 24, 1900, Nov. 9, Dec. 7, 14, 1907, Mar. 21, Oct. 3, 1908, May 27, 1911. 6. Le Progrès, Jan. 19, Mar. 30, 1900, June 6, 1902, April 1, Sept. 1, 1904, May 18, 1905; Anzeiger und Post, July 8, 1899, July 29, Sept. 16, 1905, April 6, Sept. 28, Nov. 30, 1907, April 24, May 29, June 5, 1909, June 4, 1910, July 29, 1911.
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Arabic in Lawrence. The first, Al-Ikbal (Prosperity), lasted only briefly. Al-Wafa eagerly encouraged the Americanization of its readers. Instead of the self-conscious talk about retaining the mother tongue, Al-Wafa said simply: study English because it will help you earn money. It suggested that the Syrians use the United States as a college and take advantage of the great oppor- tunity that was theirs. No immigrant should presume to improve American laws or to change the "magnificent constitution." The Syrian who did things the American way would get ahead much faster than the one who tried to retain the old customs. Rarely did Al-Wafa show the insecurity of Le Progrès. Once when the Syrians were accused of being Mongolians and therefore ineligible for citizenship, it did carry articles proving they were Caucasians and occasionally it supported the idea of separate Syrian schools and priests.
Such was the Americanization of Al-Wafa that it accepted Progressivism, wealth, and generosity as the great virtues of the United States. It was even enthusiastically in favor of American imperialism. Believing Japan a menace to the Philippines and Hawaii, Al-Wafa urged sending the Atlantic fleet to the Pacific. The Japanese fleet was a "wave approaching the United States," and America must build up its navy to prepare for the inevitable war. Seizing Panama and building a canal were perfectly proper because the United States was destined to expand from Colombia to the Arctic.7
The immigrant newspapers, then, shared many views, some critical of the United States. Of the four leading papers, all, even Al-Wafa, were opposed to monopoly. Two, the Anzeiger and Le Progrès, were anxious to preserve their old customs, though for different reasons. Of the four, only the Anzeiger was not con- servative and its efforts at radicalism were occasional and hesitant. But while the Journal and Anzeiger wanted only moderate changes, they both used revolutionary terms, and this may explain why so many people linked the immigrant to the radical movement. Though only Al-Wafa supported imperialism, all four were patriotic.
7. Al-Wafa, April 30, Sept. 17, Nov. 15, 26, Dec. 13, 1907, Jan. 14, Mar. 17, April 14, 1908, Mar. 19, 1909. George Abdo of Salem, Mass., translated Al-Wafa from the Arabic for me.
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More important than the criticisms of the adopted country were the many explicit and implicit acceptances. All were demo- cratic in their opposition to monarchy, privilege, and oppression. And while all but Al-Wafa would modify certain features of American life, they agreed that they could best attain their ideals in the United States. They adopted the new country and its institu- tions almost without a murmur, even though they found much in America that was unfamiliar. Though unaccustomed to city life, the editors adjusted to it and their newspapers were an important part of the new urban environment. The newspapers made no attack on the two-party system, on the written constitution, on the quadrennial presidential elections, all institutions fundamental to the United States, and the one attack on the Supreme Court was not followed up. The freedom that America accorded women, as strange to most peasants as the urban scene, went unchallenged. Whether it was the Puritanism of Le Progrès, the naïve optimism of Al-Wafa, the moderate reforming instincts of the Journal, or the Progressivism of the Anzeiger, each of the newspapers adopted some theme of American political and social thought. But most basically American was their unanimous acceptance of the cult of success and faith in progress. Their very titles-"Progress," "Ad- vertiser," "Prosperity," and "Fidelity"-were as American as base- ball. There was little to distinguish the immigrant newspapers from the native.
The Lawrence clergy, whether native or immigrant, interpreted Americanism in the same manner as the journalists. Typical of the native ministers was William Lawrence, who started his career at Grace Episcopal Church in Lawrence and later became the famous Bishop of Massachusetts. His letters revealed that even though he was the grandson of Abbott Lawrence, he did not at first share his grandfather's concern for his fellow man. The funeral that he performed for the baby of an Irish couple in the tenement district showed his original reluctance to take much part in the society about him. After going through the service in the shabby home, Lawrence begged off from the trip to the cemetery because he had a cold, but the drunken father reacted so violently that Lawrence felt obliged to go. The picture of the sniffling young clergyman cowed by an intoxicated worker is not a pretty one. Within a
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few months Lawrence had other encounters with drunken workers, one whose wife ran away after their baby died and another whose wife threw herself out of a third story window. To such tragedies the young rector responded at first with a singular lack of feeling. When he went to the cemetery it was through fear, and he wrote about the incident only because he thought his father might enjoy the description of the tenement.
But the immigrant city changed William Lawrence. Within a year he was able to appreciate the devotion of workers who came to the church after eleven hours in the factories and who con- tributed generously to church drives, and the situation of an un- employed woman who said she was reduced to two crackers a day moved him. When the city heat sent him off to Bar Harbor, he remarked: "How the children up here in the tenements live through it I don't see." Lawrence soon came to believe that after preaching Christ the first duty of the rector was to help the poor. Not only did he oppose child labor and monthly wage payments, but he even blamed the 1882 strike on his uncle who was treasurer at the Pacific. There is no record, however, that William Lawrence actually did much to improve the condition of the poor.8
Equally hesitant about reform were the other Protestant clergy- men. Reverend Talmage, for example, delivered a sermon against idleness saying: "I propose for ... idlers: On the one side of them put some healthy work; on the other side put a rawhide, and let them take their choice." During the strike of 1894 the Protestant clergy took a stand considered unsympathetic to the workers. When told that the strikers wanted contributions to their benefit fund, Reverend Young of the Unitarian Church replied that the church should not take sides. Management, he said, was not anti-labor, nor had the owners ganged up against their employees. "Who is the capitalist?" continued Young, "Often he is from the ranks of the laborers ;- a man who by superior energy, brain power, ap- plication, has secured more than the average." Reverend Kerr said that while the church was against covetousness and was not for
8. Letters from William R. Lawrence to his father, A. A. Lawrence, Collec- tion of A. A. Lawrence Letters, MSS, Massachusetts Historical Society Library, XLV (1871-76); XLVI (1876-77); XLVII (1877); XLVIII (1877-78); William Lawrence, The City Church (Lawrence, 1896), pp. 21-27; William Lawrence, Memories of a Happy Life (Boston, 1926), pp. 48-53.
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one particular class, it still wanted order. Reverend Keese opposed labor unions because they allowed passions to run wild, but he did support their emphasis on the brotherhood of man. Though these churchmen felt sorry for the workers, they would do little to upset the status quo.9
Spokesman for the immigrant Catholics in Lawrence was Father James T. O'Reilly, who as priest at Saint Mary's from 1886 to 1925, reflected or influenced what all the Irish were thinking. Saint Mary's calendar, which O'Reilly edited, revealed not only his views but those of his parish. During his regime Father O'Reilly concentrated almost all the English-speaking Catholic churches in Lawrence and Methuen under his control, and with ten assistants guided as many as 20,000 souls. As priest at Saint Mary's and prior of the Augustinian community he held the most important Augustinian post in America. Within three years of his coming he had paid off $100,000 or 50 per cent of the Augustinian debt. He carried on an extensive building program, started the parish calendar, and founded a number of societies. Working far be- yond his own group, O'Reilly helped set up several immigrant churches, including Greek, Syrian, Portuguese, and Lithuanian parishes. He spearheaded the celebration of Columbus Day in 1892 in order to help the few Italians in Lawrence.
The man who did this constructive work was born in Lansing- burgh, New York, of an Irish family, in 1851, and came to Law- rence in 1886 at the age of thirty-five. He may have become acquainted with Lawrence boys earlier when he attended Villanova College. He steadily increased his influence and popularity so that in 1895, when he left for a visit to Rome, his parishioners gave him $2,100 and on his return held a big parade in his honor. The Tribune said he had endeared himself to the people of Lawrence and, when he was elected to the Board of Library Trustees, de- clared that he would be a valuable member. He was also elected to the School Committee, started a cooperative bank, and led the anti-saloon movement. The 1899 celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination was an event in which the entire city participated.10
9. The Evening Tribune, April 20, 1891, Mar. 5, 1894, June 12, 1897.
10. The American Foundation of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur .. (Philadelphia, 1928), p. 305; Alice L. Walsh, A Sketch of the Life and Labors
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For O'Reilly the doctrines of Catholicism were universal and unchanging. In supporting Pope Leo's statement condemning "Americanisms" and all other compromises with liberalism, he called for a "fixed code of doctrine." He continually exhorted his parishioners to be better Catholics. All must attend church even when on a seaside vacation; young people were to read Catholic literature and marry Catholics; they must not read the works of authors such as Bulwer-Lytton; nor were they to get divorces. When he encouraged his flock to discuss religion, they had only to consult the parish calendar to discover what to say.
Whenever anti-Catholic prejudice threatened, O'Reilly was the first to object, whether it was attacking the Essex County Training School for its advertisement, "No Catholic Need Apply," or exert- ing pressure to get the G.A.R. to give a salute at Saint Mary's School on Decoration Day. He even accused the supposedly non- sectarian Young Men's Christian Association of proselytizing for the Protestant churches. When he openly denounced the public schools for not teaching religion, O'Reilly drew Protestant opposi- tion. "Our public schools," he stated, "fail to supply the whole- some, life-giving draught [of knowledge]." While Reverend Young condemned this speech as "un-American," at least half of Lawrence was in sympathy with O'Reilly.11
If O'Reilly was un-American, so were his native Protestant critics because their views were almost identical to his. Even though he seemed to be strongly pro-labor at first, he gradually shifted until, in 1912, he was in the owners' camp. In 1894 O'Reilly criticized the mill owners for cutting wages just because the market was off. He sent $50.00 to the strike leaders "as an evidence," he said, "of my faith in the justice of your cause, and as a most emphatic protest against the inhumanity of those who would rather lose one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) in defeating you than allow it to you as fair compensation for your
of the Reverend James T. O'Reilly, ... (Lawrence, 1924), pp. 4, 44-45, 61-77, 89; Sunday Register, Feb. 19, 1899; Augustinian Fathers, Lawrence, Mass., Our Parish Calendar, III (1898-99), No. 12, p. 13; The Evening Tribune, July 1, Aug. 1, Dec. 23, 1895, April 29, 1897, July 1, 1898, Feb. 18, April 5, 1899.
11. Walsh, O'Reilly, pp. 10-14; Sunday Register, Feb. 26, Mar. 5, 1899; The Evening Tribune, Feb. 27, June 20, 26, 1899, Mar. 10, 1902; Notre Dame de Namur, p. 305; Parish Calendar, II (1897-98), No. 12, p. 15; XI (1906-7), No. 1, p. 1; XVI (1911-12), No. 1, p. 21; No. 3, p. 25.
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labor." As the strike progressed, O'Reilly maintained that William Wood at the Washington Mill had asked him to get the strikers back to work, but Wood denied it. When, however, the strike seemed hopeless and the corporation offered to take the strikers back with promises of good pay, O'Reilly did encourage them to return. Shortly afterward he presided at the Boston meeting of the Massachusetts Total Abstinence Union and voted not to use Pull- man cars because of the Pullman strike. For these 1894 actions he was called "a champion of labor" and "a tower of strength to the laboring element of Lawrence."
But James O'Reilly was by no means a radical. In 1896 he said naïvely that the mills should shut down that summer to give the workers a rest-without pay. He warned the owners of the trouble ahead before the strike of 1902 and later begged the workers to return. At the Gompers banquet in 1905 he asked capital and labor to see the best in each other and avoid class hatred. Socialism he attacked as anti-Catholic, impracticable, and dangerous. Since he believed strongly in personal independence, he opposed a bill that would have fed the children in the public schools. His ardent patriotism appeared at the 1892 Columbus Day celebration, when he organized a large group of girls into a marching flag formation. The meaning of America he summed up in an address at the death of President Mckinley: "The spirit that threatens the destruction of our institutions is the spirit of materialism, and it is spreading rapidly everywhere. No God- no religion, no morality, no respect for law, no obedience to authority, the disintegration of the 'human family.' These are the weaknesses of our civilization that are producing this crop of anarchists. . . . "12
Here was an American priest of Irish background who was basically conservative and yet felt deeply the troubles of the work- ingman. Like the immigrant newspaper editors he accepted most
12. Walsh, O'Reilly, pp. 54-55, 103; The Evening Tribune, Mar. 23, April 27, July 25, 1894. The Evening Tribune said that O'Reilly's labor attitudes put the church in a better light. The Evening Tribune, Mar. 24, 1894; Parish Calendar, II (1897-98), No. 10, p. 20. For O'Reilly's basic conservatism: ibid., I (1896- 97), No. 3, p. 23; X (1905-6), No. 1, p. 19; No. 5, p. 9; XII (1907-8), No. 10, p. 17; XIII (1908-9), No. 2, p. 3; XV (1910-11), No. 1, p. 13; No. 2, p. 15; XVI (1911-12), No. 1, p. 11; No. 8, p. 15; The Evening Tribune, May 6, 1902; Walsh, O'Reilly, pp. 10-16.
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of America and was moved to action only to rebuke sectarian attack or oppression of labor. That he was as much a child of nineteenth-century liberalism as the Tribune or the Journal or even William Lawrence was clear in his passionate love of individualism and independence. Had he been more concerned with the national scene he might have adopted the Progressivism of the Anzeiger, but since he saw only the flock about him, he was still deep in nineteenth-century Americanism when the strike of 1912 arrived.
The positions taken by the Lawrence clergy were then exactly those occupied by the immigrant newspapers. The same ac- ceptance of America, advocacy of moderate reform, abhorrence of radicalism, belief in hard work, independence, and propriety, and faith in patriotism and success appeared in both. These ideas were not unusual because they were the same as those motivating the native press, native Lawrence citizens, and most Americans at the end of the nineteenth century. In the immigrant city of Lawrence the first- or second-generation American found security by speak- ing, writing, or listening to the same brand of Americanism as that expressed by the natives. This was security in Americanism.
Meanwhile the immigrants were proving their Americanism by becoming citizens and voting. The politicians, particularly the Democrats, were so anxious to naturalize the immigrants that they often paid the four-dollar naturalization fee. The Republican Essex Eagle said bitterly that the immigrant voted Democratic just because his friends did, but admitted that the Democratic party did help him become a citizen. So the Republicans went to work. While the French Naturalization Club was Democratic, the Re- publicans more than matched it with the Franco-American Inde- pendent Club and Le Club Lincoln. A giant French naturalization meeting took place at the Music Hall in the fall of 1902 with the clergy, naturalization clubs, press, and political parties partici- pating. By 1910, 42 per cent of the foreign-born in Lawrence were naturalized or had first papers, evidence that the immigrant city was rapidly turning the immigrant into an American.13
13. Lawrence American, Oct. 29, 1864, Oct. 28, 1887; The Lawrence Sentinel, Oct. 30, 1869; The Essex Eagle, Oct. 26, 1872, Sept. 5, 1874; The Evening Tribune, Sept. 21, 1899, Sept. 7, 1900, April 19, 1901, July 18, Sept. 23, 1902. Foreign-born whites in Lawrence in 1910: total 17,414; naturalized 6,588; first papers 678; alien 9,608; unknown 540. United States Census Bureau, Thirteenth
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