Debates about the value of mass culture in assimilation and Americanization appeared before the war and continued during the 1920s. Among prominent academics, businessmen, intellectuals, and politicians who worried about the loss of what they perceived to be pure American values, Americanization was essential. Edgar D. Furniss, a social scientist from Yale, Marsh's alma mater, wrote in his 1925 study of labor problems,
Americanization is the paramount need, not only for the immigrant, but for the very existence of the Republic. Unless the millions of immigrants present and future are made an integral part of the population, understanding our institutions, sharing the standards and ideals of the democracy, the Nation itself is imperiled.[99]