Democracy versus the Melting Pot: A Study of American Nationality

Eliminate the pressure of immigration, and we may be headed for a caste system based on ethnic diversity and mitigated to only a negligible degree by economic differences. –Horace Kallen, in Democracy versus the Melting Pot, 1915

Democracy versus the Melting Pot was published in The Nation magazine by Horace Kallen in 1915, at a time when the United States were receiving the largest influx of immigrants in history. The government tried to enable the assimilation of those diverse peoples into American culture through Americanization programs, but Kallen saw these programs as being mostly in the interest of Anglo-Saxon business classes and against the spirit of democracy. Kallen rejected the melting pot concept, and supported cultural pluralism, a term he coined.

Democracy versus the Melting Pot also strongly influenced Randolph Bourne, another progressive writer. Just as Kallen, Bourne was also against forcing immigrants to assimilate to the dominant Anglo-Saxon culture as he described in his famous article Trans-national America in 1916.

Kallen’s work is relevant as ever for students of history, political scientists, and others interested in the current discussion about immigration in America.