Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1855-07-26
THE POLICY OF ENCOURAGING FOREIGN
IMMIGRATION.

THE POLICY OF ENCOURAGING FOREIGN
IMMIGRATION.
AT the establishment of our Government.
when we were small and comparatively weak az
a people, numbering but about three millions,
itwas the policy of our Statesmen to institute
course Of public measures best calculated to en-
courage and invite foreign immigration to our
shores, to help expel the hostile and predatory
aborigines, cultivate our seemingly boundless
wastes of wilderness country, and swell and
strengthen our numerical force asa nation. And
at that time the policy was a very natural,
and, probably, wise ono. The Revolu-
tionary struggle, which our fathers had just
passed through, and in which they had won our
Independence by the hardest, had taught them
how easily they might have been defeated under
less fortuiteus and favorable combination of
circumstances in the political affairs of the old
nations of Europe, on whose aid, or forbearance,
the result Of their gallant efforts for Freedom
depended, and how probable it was that an ad-
verse combination among those nations might
arise, which might still jeopardize that Indepen-
ence, unless they were soon sufficiently strength
ened as nation to meet the crisis to which they
were so obnoxious They also, in looking about
them at home, saw, in the possessions they had
acquired by the happy result of their strug
gle, a wilderness domain which as.yet they had
comparatively only skirted with population-a
domain which was seemingly without end, and
filled with untold numbers Of hostile savages,
who were to be overcome, Or driven back, before
that domain could be appropriated, and the
peace and security Of their country be realized.
And tits no wonder, therefore, that they desired
an accession of help and strength, in view of
such probable exigencies, and no wonder that
they believed both patriotism and prudence die
tatcd the policy in question as the best means Of
securing such an accession.
Such was the policy of our fathers, and such
the sufficient reasons on which that policy was
grounded. That policy is still cherished and
continued by us; but while doing SO have we
stopped to consider whether the reasons on which
it was grounded. have an existence any longer
The period which tested this question was that
of the war of 1912. Till that time, thong h
Mr.. Jefferson, in his wish that an oc can of fire
rolled between us and Europe, leaves us to infer
that he thought otherwse-till that period
there was some FEASIBILITY in keeping up the
policy. But in the result Of that war, together
with the previous cffectual conquests of the saw
ages of the western vii DIS, and the rapid march
of our population in numbers, wealth and ex
pansion, we were taught to know that we could
stand of ourselves and that we need no longer
court foreign accessions Of strength to enable
us to cope either with our foes of the forest, or
any foreign nation. or combination Of nations,
on earth, who might choose to assail u.s. And
in this knowledge Of our national strength and
these proofs Of our unqualified Independence of
all powers, and over all exigcncies, ,vanished-
entirely vanished, as it appears to u.s., each and
all the valid reasons which had demanded Or
justified our policy with regard to foreign immi-
grafton. But though all the reasons of that
policy have long since ceased to exist, the policy
itself still continues to be kept up, made ma,
tional boast, and urged as q matter Of patriotism
and national glory till it has at length resulted
in so far opening the sluice-ways of foreign i'm.
migration as now to throw upon us half mill
ion of the lowest minions of European mon
archy with every succeeding year.
Now. without stopping here to discuss the i'm
portant question understood to be involved in
the late American movement--that of the effect
of this influx Of foreign population on our re
publican institutions-let US consider wFa
mus soon be the more certain and direct eonse
quences of the continuance of this policy to IL,
native Americans, the rightful inheritors of tn.
national domain earned and bequeathed us by
our evolutionary fathers.
From population Of about three millions, at
the time of the Revolution, we have gone ON
doubling our numbers, every twenty years, til
we have now about twenty-five millions. Al
this RATIO we shall have fifty millions in 1875
one hundred millions in 1895, two hundred mill
lOub Al IJAO, anu iOuI uuudIOu milllOub Ill 1905
that is, in eighty years, and within the life
time of some of our own children, our popula
ton will nearly equal that of the whole of over
burdened, swarmlng Asia, with an area fiv
times larger than that of the United States an,
all its unoccupied possessions. Our whole are
is put down in our biographies at less thai
three millions of square miles, and our unoccu
pied territory cannot now be more than on
million, measuring from boundary to boundary
From. this deduct the rivers, lakes, the vast un
,cultivable sleeps of the Rocky Mountains, tn
long and wide volcanic and worthless range O
mountains bordering the Pacific from Oregon t
Mexico, and the widespread barren desert
between, and how much remains which woul
support life in the avocations Of husbandry
Not probably more than ten millions Of squar
,miles-which would give sixty millions of farm
of 100 acres each, Or one farm to every six o
seven persons of the surplus three hundred AMI
seyenty-6ve millions Of inhabitants that woul'
accumulate within the next eighty years. Blu
what would the division be at the doubling 0
the population, at the end of the next twent
years--of the next and the next! Every persol
may calculate for himself, and tell how near a
hand is the period when all of our now cultiva
bic domain will cease to be enough 10 suppl
the native population Of America, even withou
the accession, of single foreign occupant here
after.