Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-11-13

but whether they can or not, they are
sworn through in crowds, and thenceforth
become the natural supporters of demagog-
ism and all that goes with it. To such
pass has this been carried that there are
now important cities in the Union which
for all practical purposes have ceased to be
is outnumbered, outvoted, or out-cheated.
The municipal government has fallen into
the hands of politicians who use the natu-
rallied foreign vote for the most hagitious
purposes. In one such city the voice of
reason has been so effectually silenced that
though it contains the most powerful
and enlightened press in the country,
and though it abounds with the best edu-
cationai machinery, it is impossible even at
the most critical junctures to overcome
the organized foreign influence, and it has
for almost generation been helpless in the
hands of it's robber rulers.
The same process is going ON in many
other cities. 1t is already very marked in
San Francisco, where the foreign born
voters outnumber those of American birth,
and where all the germs of Tweedism have
for some time existed. Thinking men who
love their country have been watching the
tendency of events with increasing anx-
iety, and the drift of opinion is more and
more toward the conclusion that it is neces-
sarY to modify the naturalization laws for
the protection of the republic. The time
has long passed when it was an object to
increase the population by immigration.
A nation of fifty millions needs no extra
neous assistance. Its natural growth will
tax all its educational resources, and
considering the increasing complexity
of our Government, and the ever
growing magnitude of the interests and
issues which have to be dealt with,
it will be well if with the entire exclusion
of all foreign elements of danger, we can
keep pace with the demands which will be
made upon native sagacity and judgment.
But to continue in the present corrse is
madness. Every year makes it more
necessary that the popular vote should be
swayed by intelligence. but every great
election impresses upon us more forcibly
the narrowness of the margin by which
terrible disasters are avoided. The cleo
ton of General Garfield is alphabetically an
escape from great evils, but assuredly it is
not satisfactory to observe how small the
popular majority for the Republican can
didate really is. The amendment of the
naturalization laws is imperatively re-
quired therefore. The object should no
longer be to facilitate the acquisi-
ton of the rights of citizenship,
but to bar out unfit applicants
in the most certain way. We do not
need to borrow intelligence from abroad.
What we need is to exclude foreign ignor-
ance. This, however, is but one of the
protective measures which are called for
1t would be a great mistake to suppose
that all would be done when this was
done. The native vote requires far better
methods of education than it has yet had.
When we have secured the door against
the influx of alien ignorance it will be
necessary to Danish home ignorance as well,
and to do that the whole system of pub
lie education will have to be remodeled on
more practical basis than it now occupies.
The security of democracy rests upon
the intelligence of its citizens, and the in
telligence demanded must be fostered and
educated. The Republican party will be
called upon to deal with these matters,
but if it refuses they will still have to be
dealt with.