I just can't imagine that it's only a coincidence. I think they feel that it's kind of getting out of their control, and they're trying to tighten it back up.

From these activists we can learn a crucial lesson: without citizens creating the institutions necessary for facilitating the growth of public deliberation, democracy will be a meaningless term. Without political leaders articulating this idea and acting upon it, public life and citizenship will continue to stagnate.

At the 1894 ALA conference it was fairly well agreed that the primary goal of the public library must be to teach good citizenship. Libraries recognized that such Americanization could be achieved through literacy. Thus, teaching immigrants to read was not just a benefit in and of itself literacy would also serve the interests of democracy.