Review of Making an American Citizen

The story is strongly told. The title amply explains the picture, how a foreigner, accustomed to treating his wife as a beast of burden and of beating her as he would a beast, has the American spirit whipped into him. He began on his wife at the Battery, and was shown his mistake. In the tenement a neighbor gave the husband further lessons when the wife was abused; in the country, where the couple take up their home, a farmer uses a horse-whip. That being insufficient, six months on the stone-pile are given the newcomer. As the embryo citizen emerges from the correctional institution the reformation is about complete. He is shown under improved circumstances and now he is considerate of his wife. Lee Beggs plays the immigrant and Blanche Cornwall the wife. The two make a strong team. Their work is impressive and forceful. - The Moving Picture World, November 9, 1912