WHO IS AN AMERICAN? ★^755Progressives found themselves ill prepared to develop a defense of minority rights
against majority or governmental tyranny. From the AFL to New Republic intellec-
tuals, moreover, supporters of the war saw the elimination of socialists and alien
radicals as a necessary prelude to the integration of labor and immigrants into an
ordered society, an outcome they hoped would emerge from the war.
WHO IS AN AMERICAN?
In many respects, Progressivism was a precursor to major developments of
the twentieth century— the New Deal, the Great Society, the socially active
state. But in accepting the idea of “race” as a permanent, defining character-
istic of individuals and social groups, Progressives bore more resemblance to
nineteenth- century thinkers than to later twentieth- century liberals, with
whom they are sometimes compared.
The “Race Problem”
Even before American participation in World War I, what contemporaries
called the “race problem”—the tensions that arose from the country’s increas-
ing ethnic diversity— had become a major subject of public concern. “Race”
referred to far more than black- white relations. The Dictionary of Races of Peoples,
published in 1911 by the U.S. Immigration Commission, listed no fewer than
forty- five immigrant “races,” each supposedly with its own inborn character-
istics. They ranged from Anglo- Saxons at the top down to Hebrews, Northern
Italians, and, lowest of all, Southern Italians— supposedly violent, undisci-
plined, and incapable of assimilation.
Popular best- sellers like The Passing of the Great Race, published in 1916 by
Madison Grant, president of the New York Zoological Society, warned that
the influx of new immigrants and the low birthrate of native white women
threatened the foundations of American civilization. The new science of
eugenics, which studied the alleged mental characteristics of different races,
gave anti- immigrant sentiment an air of professional expertise. If democracy
could not flourish in the face of vast inequalities of economic power, neither,
most Progressives believed, could it survive in a nation permanently divided
along racial and ethnic lines.
Americanization and Pluralism
Somehow, the very nationalization of politics and economic life served to
heighten awareness of ethnic and racial difference and spurred demands for
“Americanization”—the creation of a more homogeneous national culture. A
How did the war affect race relations in the United States?