How Did America Go Too Far

America is exceptional, but it has not lived up to its full potential. America has achieved many great things, but has also managed to go too far and ruin what started out as a great idea. A prime example of what started out as a great idea but was then corrupted would be Americanization. America also fell short in the way workers were treated in its means of industrializing. One more thing America was able to take too far was religious fundamentalism. Americanization started out as a great idea to help immigrants reflect on American culture and become more “American.” Settlement Houses were built around 1886 to give immigrants a place to go for help and assistance in getting a job. These houses provided food, shelter, and clothing for free as long as the men of the families spent every day looking for a job to get the family started. The children had to go to school in

Aimee McPherson would hold massive revivals and there was a radio program called “The Old Fashioned Revival Hour.” Both of these events were optional to everyone. You did not have to go nor did you have to listen. Religious fundamentalism was off to a great start until the enactment of federal and state laws prohibited anything but the teaching of biblical evolution in public schools. This law forced teachers to only teach what religious beliefs proclaimed, not the scientific side of the matter. Religion should not be forced upon anyone. Everyone should have equal rights to what they want to believe but to also be open to learning other theories. Upton Sinclair notes in his book I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked that, “There are a score of great religions in the world, each with scores of hundreds of sects, each with its priestly orders, its complicated creed and ritual, its heavens and hells; each damns all the others and each is a mighty fortress of graft. (Sinclair,