objective is that we may learn to understand each other as we work together in an actual functioning democracy. OBSERVABLE RESULTS OF THE ORGANIZATION THE ORGANIZER'S ANALYSIS Paul Franklin, Executive Secretary, Bowling Green Neighbor- If American social history were written, much which is dramatic would center around the story of the village of Bowling Green-Wall Street's "back yard." Here, in the old days, were located the first homes of some of our country's most celebrated families, but as the years passed and business interests claimed the lower end of Manhattan Island, the mansions gradually grew moldy with age and neglect, the fine shops became dingy rooming-houses beneath the roar of the elevated railroad, and the native-born population slowly gave place to a mixture of racial groups so great that the district has been called the most cosmopolitan in all America. The little village in the shadow of the skyscrapers became a veritable cesspool of filth and disease. Overcrowding, miserable sanitation, utter lack of recreational facilities, irregular hours of employment, a population largely illiterate and foreign-born, with little conception of American ideas and ideals and total ignorance of the laws of health—all this was Bowling Green just eleven years ago. Here was the "Tub of Blood," the "Battlefield," and the many other notorious water-front dance halls, saloons, and cellar pool parlors. This was the section where tuberculosis flourished, where smallpox came and returned as the years passed, where the great cholera epidemic of 1849 first gained its hold on the city of New York. There are but 10,000 residents in Bowling Green, but it is a community with an extraordinary diversity of languages, religion, and racial characteristics. In 1914 a survey of the district was made which brought to light startling conditions of disease and death. An infant mortality of 175 baby deaths per 1,000, as against a city rate of 98; a general death-rate two and one-half times as high as that for the city as a whole; an alarmingly high tuberculosis deathrate, three and a half times that of the city's average, 25 times that of the city's healthiest districts; much malnutrition, much contagion. With the facts in hand, a little group called together representatives of sixteen of the city's social service agencies, who subsequently organized the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association. Then the business men were approached for assistance, with the result that twenty bankers and brokers of Wall Street agreed to give their time, thought, and money to the movement, and became the association's first board of directors. It was decided that the work should be organized around a distinct health center, and that the association should appoint itself a clearing house for the city-wide private and municipal agencies. From the first the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association was aimed toward local operation, though it was clearly realized that in this long neglected section the first period would necessarily be one of outside initiative and leadership; that, for years to come, there must needs be a compromise form of neighborhood organization-a form to be gradually modified as the district became better educated and its economic status improved. It was determined that the organization should be nonsectarian and non-political; should work closely with the church and the school; should carefully foster any organized elements within the community; and that national and racial groupings should be recognized and respected in any citizenship program which might be developed. In 1917 the association's present quarters were obtained through the alteration of a four-story tenement on the river front, and Bowling Green Village at last had a community house. Results in this small district were readily seen and measured and the program quickly grew to meet the district's needs. Nutrition clinics, a malnutrition restaurant, adult health examination service, oral hygiene clinics for school children, suitable recreational provisions, a day nursery, an adequate program of field visiting all these came into being as the years passed. After ten years it is possible to see many measurable results. The baby death-rate has decreased from 175 deaths per 1,000 births to 88, a reduction of over 50 per cent. The general death-rate shows a decrease from 33 deaths per 1,000 in 1915 to 19 deaths in 1924. In 1915 there were 52 deaths from pulmonary tuberculosis in a population of less than 10,000! In ten years the mortality from this disease has decreased nearly 46 per cent. The housing situation has been bettered by the removal of sixty-five yard toilets, the razing of ten of the district's most ancient tenements, the construction of two model tenements, and through countless minor improvements and repairs. Four hundred and thirty-one men and women have been directly helped to citizenship by intensive individual instruction and planning. Truancy in the district, once a real problem, is now little noted, according to present reports from parochial and public school officials. Since 1920 juvenile delinquency records show a consistent yearly improvement in both the number and character of the offenses, with a total reduction in children's court and probation cases of 47.2 per cent. From the first, local residents were encouraged to join the organization and to take an active part in molding its policies. The school and church workers, several small shopkeepers, real estate agents, the local school principal, who subsequently became the association's first president, some Syrian editors, one or two doctors-these joined as individuals and attended the quarterly meetings where the work of the association was discussed and planned. Two years ago, at the suggestion of the association, a men's club was organ ized, and has grown to sixty-five members. It has its own orchestra, an English and citizenship class, and has sponsored many community dances and entertainments. Incorporated as the Bowling Green Slovak-American Club, it functions as a neighborhood advisory council and is undoubtedly the most important liaison in Bowling Green between the residents and the association's staff. The enviable social position in the neighborhood reached by this club has inspired the establishment of similar groups. A club for Syrians is particularly active, and many of its members belong to the association. The largest, the Carpathian Social Club, with 127 members, meets in a neighboring loft building, and its program of English instruction and recreation is largely inspired by the Bowling Green Association, which bears a part of the expense. The development of the young people's groups was more of a problem. Bowling Green was in no sense a melting-pot to them; they felt a national consciousness, perhaps more than did their parents. They felt little of the control of proper home life, but largely ran in gangs, with a strong sense of national antagonisms. These conditions and the necessity of going outside the district for what recreation they wanted effectually deterred the growth of any group interest or pride in their community; therefore, the association's first step was to provide some sort of recreation within the district itself. It took years to develop leaders and a club ritual among these young people, but suddenly they seemed to catch the spirit of organization and team play, and during the past two years their progress has been unbelievably rapid. Today there are twentyone boys' and girls' organizations within the association, with an approximate membership of four hundred. They have a wealth of interests, meet regularly, and plan and finance their own entertainments. Their work is building character in the individual and developing a neighborhood interest and leadership, which has already resulted in the formation of a house council which largely directs the recreation program and the use of the neighborhood house. In turn, the council elects representatives for membership in the association, and the young people of Bowling Green thus have an opportunity to participate in its manage ment. It is this new neighborliness which will have most to do with the future development of Bowling Green Village. Possibly the neighborhood's share in the work in this section, with its diverse racial groups, its poverty, and its ever changing population, will never be wholly satisfying. But substantial progress has been made, and so impressed are the contributing members with the direct progress of the past ten years and with the response shown by the community, and so confident are they of the residents' willingness and ability to assume a greater share in the work as time passes, that they have recently provided $250,000 for the erection of a new community house. This will make possible an enlargement of the health service, an adequate assembly hall, a modern gymnasium, and, best of all, an extension of the complete welfare program into the adjoining district, which still has health and social problems as acute as those of Bowling Green of a decade ago. But here, again, every effort will be made to have progress come as a growth from within rather than a gift from without. No important steps will be taken until there has first been sought the advice and assistance of that growing group of residents of the district who have learned to regard the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association as the most effective means of community betterment. It is certain that those who have the interest of Bowling Green Village most at heart will lend every effort to make the residents' share in the future work of the association as complete as the education and ability of the district to finance its projects permit. RESULTS FROM THE STANDPOINT OF AMERICANIZATION Mr. Franklin has made it plain that the Bowling Green district is an immigrant community-actually, several immigrant communities. In 1920, of the 8,020 people in the district, only 847 were native whites of native parents; 4,133 were foreign-born whites- the remaining 3,000, mainly their children. Twentysix nationalities are listed in the district, the predominant ones being Slovak, Polish, Syrian, Greek, and Irish. Even in these nationalities, however, the total number, except in the case of the Slovaks and Irish, is hardly over 1,000. The original Trinity survey, which preceded the organization of the Bowling Green Neighborhood Association, pictured clearly the foreign character of the district. A full section was devoted to immigration, corresponding to the sections on housing, health, recreation, and the like. Analysis of the racial composition of the neighborhood is given, the need for education emphasized, and the central problem of the district, in fact, defined as "one of adaptation and assimilation." Practically every report of the association has given Americanization or Immigration a correlative heading with Health. Almost informally the immigrant nature of the neighborhood is emphasized, and the problem of assimilation and adaptation noted. Specific activities to accomplish this end are, however, meagre, and without visible relation to a thoroughgoing and long-run plan, as is the case with the health program. The health program shows consistent and consecutive development-the Americanization program does not! There is in the health program a definite acceptance of ends to be achieved and a visible relationship of means and technical facilities to these ends, which does not exist in the Americanization program. There are standards-many of them statistical-by which the results of the health program can be measured. This is not the case with the Americanization program. Which brings me to what is, I assume, the topic of my paper-“Observable Results in the Organization of a Local Community from the Standpoint of Americanization." And that raises the question for which I have no answer— and for which I think we must admit such Americanization movement as exists in this country has no satisfactory answer-namely, What are results from the standpoint of Americanization? Perhaps it is wrong to say that the Americanization movement has had no answer. It has had many: loyalty to the Constitution and the flag, patriotism-understanding and love for America, citizenship-understanding of our customs and institutions, assimilation. In one field, at least, something more definite ability to read and write English. But except for this last, these terms mean almost nothing, and their content and meaning varies directly with the people who are using them. Unless we can get something more tangible than these, we shall never have anything to observe and, incidentally, unless the Americanization movement comes soon to a quite different analysis of ends and objectives—in the broader aspects which it has assured, at least I am afraid it is doomed. There is, of course, a perfectly understandable, and I think, inevitable, reason why the Americanization movement has so little to give us in the way of measurable and observable results. It not only explains, but it points the way to the possibility of effective progress. For Americanization is fundamentally a psychological process. It is what happens to the immigrant during the entire twenty-four hours of the day that makes him the kind of an American resident that he is. The psychologists refer to this process as a slow and gradual change in the attitudes, values, and habits of the individual. It is a breaking down of thought processes and habit responses, and the substitution of new ones. It starts when the immigrant first commences to think of leaving the old country-and it ends when he dies. It is a twenty-four-hour-a-day proposition, and it is conditioned on the simple fact of living. It is a process which is no different in kind, although with most immigrants it is different in degrees, from that which is going on in all of us. While this point of view in regard to Americanization results is, I think, fundamental, there is also another which, as a practical matter, seems to me exceedingly important. Much of our so-called "Americanization" work is carried on by organizations whose primary function is not Americanization or even social work-particularly the church and other religious and semi-religious organizations and the racial societies. Now the conduct of a citizenship class may make a contact for the church which will bring into its active membership men and women who may not otherwise have been reached by the church. Their participation in the religious activities of the church may be one way in which this broad process of transition from the old to the new is assisted, al |