It is a very unfortunate impression that this American lack of respect
for those in authority makes upon the foreign-born mind. It is
difficult for the foreigner to square up the arrest and deportation of
a man who, through an incendiary address, seeks to overthrow
governmental authority, with the ignoring of an expression of exactly
the same sentiments by the editor of his next morning's newspaper. In
other words, the man who writes is immune, but the man who reads,
imbibes, and translates the editor's words into action is immediately
marked as a culprit, and America will not harbor him. But why harbor
the original cause? Is the man who speaks with type less dangerous
than he who speaks with his mouth or with a bomb?
At the most vital part of my life, when I was to become an American
citizen and exercise the right of suffrage, America fell entirely
short. It reached out not even the suggestion of a hand.
When the Presidential Conventions had been held in the year I reached
my legal majority, and I knew I could vote, I endeavored to find out
whether, being foreign-born, I was entitled to the suffrage.
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