208 EMIGRACJA
exploitation, sweated and interbred in the dirtiest slums. They were the gangers
of the great American Railway Age, and the 'industrial niggers' of the northern
cities. As one Canadian textbook on the subject has phrased it: 'Poles and police
courts seem to be invariably connected in this country. It is hard to think of the
people of this nationality other than in that vague class of undesirable citizens.'^8
Even Woodrow Wilson, when a Professor at Prince-ton, had to be taken to task
for referring to the Poles as 'inferior'.^9 Nowadays, perhaps, the situation is
changing. The extraordinary social mobility of the USA is fast diluting the old
ethnic ghettos. One hypothesis for the persistence of the Polish Americans'
unfavourable image points to the resentment felt by more fortunate minorities
at the advancement of former underdogs. Those underdogs may yet have their
day.^10
Even so, important divisions still divide the Polish American community. The
'old Poles' of the economic emigration do not mix easily with the 'new Poles'of
the more recent political emigration. Among the politicals, a wall of suspicion
divides the professional anti-communists of the pre-war generation from later
refugees from People's Poland. The generation of 1939, which was deprived of
its birthright by the communist victory, has nothing in common with the gener-
ation of 1968 which, as often as not, willingly served the Stalinist regime.
Numerous organizations compete. The Roman Catholic community grouped in
thousands of Polish parishes commands the greatest numerical following, which
mainly supports the Polish Roman Catholic Union. The Polish Seminary of
Saints Cyril and Methodius, with its associated Center for Polish Studies at
Orchard Lake (Michigan), goes back to 1885. More recently, an 'American
Czestochowa' has been developed round the Polish church and community
centre at Doylestown (Pennsylvania). The dominance of the Irish and German
priests in the Roman Catholic hierarchy of the USA, and the Americanization
policy of replacing national parishes with territorial ones, led to constant trou-
bles and eventually to a minor schism. The small, breakaway Polish National
Church, founded in 1875, seeks to preserve the exclusively national character of
its parishes, together with its Polish language liturgy. In the secular sphere, the
Polish National Alliance was founded in Philadelphia in 1880, and in its turn
founded Alliance College at Cambridge Springs (Pennsylvania). In Chicago,
there is a Polish R.C. Union and Museum. In New York, the Kosciuszko
Foundation was created in 1925 to promote Polish cultural enterprises, and has
taken the lead in maintaining links with Poland. From time to time, its neutral
political position has been fiercely attacked, notably by militant bodies such as
the National Committee of Americans of Polish Origin (KNAPP), which made
a determined effort after the Second World War to turn the Polonia Congress
against any form of contact with the communist regime. The Polish Institute of
Arts and Sciences in America Inc. acted as a forum for academic and profes-
sional activities, and published The Polish Review. The Jozef Pilsudski Institute
of America Inc., under its veteran director, Waclaw Jedrzejewicz, possessed a
valuable library and historical archive.