Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1852-07-23

and true devotion to the common brotherhood
FRANKLIN PIERCE.
The Naturalization Laws--Appe"Is to Foreigners
as such-Gen. Scott and the - Native Party
Sudden Changes, etc.
No body of men or class of citizens in our country
ought to regard with more suspicion or greater con-
tempt appeals made to the prejudices of foreign ma
tionality, than our adopted citizens to whom such
appeals are made. They should look upon all such
attempts at fattery cajolement. neither more
nor less than direct insult. In their political rela-
tons they simply American citizens, with the
rights privileges, and duties of such-and such.
they should go to the polls forming their judgments
upon political questions in American light, and
acting in accordance. Their private and personal
feelings are their own-their wishes and their sym
pathies as we'll as their purses, their own But,
by their oath as American citizens, they have con-
tracted paramount and primary obligations of po-
lcal character, and these due to their adopted
country. In great measure, such has been the
course of adopted citizens 1t is true some of them
have been turbulent and unfaithful but this is also
true of those native and to the manor born"
As might have been expected feelings ofjealousy
have frequently arisen against foreigners, chiefly In
the larger seaports where the worst classes Of emf
grants are thrown in contact with the dissoue
or turbulent members of the native community, and
the consequence has been Native American asso-
ciations for the purpose either of procuring the
abolition of all laws for the naturalization OF for
eigners, or for extending the term of probation to
such length as to amount to prohibition. This
Native American party continued to grow and
strengthen from 1885 till the excitement eliminated
in 1914, when its course signazed by the cele-
brated Philadelphia riots of May and July of that
year. These shocked the moral sense of the people,
and from that time the affair went down. The Mex
lean war gave it its finishing stroke.
In 1871 this organization had taken strong start
and assuming porentous proportions, and it was
on the 10th of November of that year, that General
Scott in reply to letter from some of the heads of
the movement in Philadelphia, wrote them letter
in which the following passages occur:
Fired with Indignation two friends sat down with
me in nv parlor at the Astor House, November
1900 to draw up an address, designed to rally the
American party. The day after the election L set
out for the South and have never known precisely
why our appeal was not published. Probably the
election of Gen Harrison rendered its publication at
that time unnecessary, in the opinion of my two
friends
now hesitate between extending the period ofre-
sidence before naturalization and total repeal OF
all acts of Congress on the subJect-my MIND lncnes
to the latter
Concurring fully in the principles of the Philadel
pha movement, l. should prefer assuming the name
of American Republicans, as in New York or Dem
ocraic Americans, as would respectfully suggest.
The practical working ofthese principles was eel
long illustrated by the smoking ruins of one of on
or two churches and the battered front of another
while from first to last some fifty sixty citizen
lost their lives in the memorable Philadelphia riots
Gen Scott says. in another part of his letter, tina
those views had their origin in the stormy cleo
tons of the spring of 1885 p so that when Genera
Scott wrote they could boast the maturity of sever
years growth.
Well, the Native American" party passed ava.
and there poor as do it reverence
the summer of 1913, the Wing party held a CONVEX
ton to nominate candidate. Gen. Scott was a
aspirant and seeing the necessity of doing ava
with the impression which his 1871 letter had prt
duced, he wrote another, in which he said it woul
be impossible for him to recommend or support an
measure intended to exclude foreigners from ju
and full participation in all civil rights now secure
to them by our republican laws and institutions.
SAYS that in the Mexican campaign he had witnesse
the valor and devotion of these people, and he W.
happy to call them brothers in the field as he shou
be happy to call them eountrymen at home. Just loo
ut the thing. When Gen. Scott made his sweepir
dcnunciation of foreigners he was nearly sixty yea
of age-so that it was not the crude opinion of
Young man his views had had their orig near
seven years BEFORE as he says, so that they were
hasty ebullitions of passion. They were the vieN
of man of mature age, deliberately enumerated
serve particular end to conciliate party whl
was then rapidly increasing.
,-< For the change in his opinions which he evow
in lS48 he accounts by his association with foreig
ers in our Mexican army, and his high opinion
their vaor and fidelity to the country in that stru
gle Was the Mexican war the first time that &c
Scott had Irish or German soldiers to deal with
Those who know anything Of the composition of o
regular armies-Gen. Scotts favorite force-knC
that the majority are Irish. He had seen them I
fore on many battle-felds. 1t was the death Of
Native American party alone, and the necessity
con 2iating the foreign vote, which opened his ey
to their merits so late in the day the Mexican wi
But Gen Scott is not satisfied He is not certa
that he has yet sufficiently kicked the dead lion
Nativeism, and he, therefore, gives it q hnshi
stroke in the letter in which he accepts the VIII
nomination "W with the resolutions annexed ="
wishes to add new plank to the Wing platform
suggested by his military experience-his very
cent military experience, we should think-tor
naturalization of such foreigners as shall ser
Saithfully one year in the United States army or