Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-07-19
LawIess Foreigners Sunday.

Last weeks REGISTER contained a
short article deprecating the presence
of foreigners in this country and charg-
ing them with being Sabbath breakers
and violators of law generally. We
take issue with Mr.. Pulliarn, the writer
of said article, as to foreigners being
more criminal or less law-abiding than
those who are born in this country. 1t
does not sound well for any one who
cannot look back but a generation or
so without meeting his own foreign
parentage to make such invidious DIS
tinctions between those who are born
here and those who are not. Last fall,
while in Arkansas on the line of Indian
Territory, found men every day anx-
ious to make others believe they Lad
Indian blood in their veins, as they
were eager to get through between
those iron posts into country where
private property in lard had never
been acknowledged; but elsewhere it
would almost be an insult to insinuate
that a mans ancestors used to roam
among our woods and hills in all the
glory of greasy breechclouts or sat by
a dull campfire at night watching fat
pups head bubble up in a kettle OF
succotash. We are all foreigners, and
every foot of land we inhabit was taxi
en- by force, or fraud, from its original
possessors and inhabitants. 1t i'll be-
comes the kettle then to call the pot
black.
But Mr.. P. talks too fast. Our GEN.
sus tables show that crime increases at
a much greater rate among those who
are born in the United States than
among those born in other lands. Be-
tween 1850 and 1880, during period
of only 80 years, crime doubled in our
foreign born population, but among
the native born it quintupied. That
is, where we had one criminal in the
thousand in 1850 among our foreign
born population, we had two in 1880;
but where we had one among our ma
tive born in 1850, we had five in 1880.
Here are figures that prick our wind
bag and let some of the narrow conceit
out of us. These figures, the statisti-
clan tells us, are taken from actual con-
viction aud are, therefore, accurate as
far ss tl.ey go; but they do not go faI
enough, and the farther we go the
worse for the native born. Foreigners
are placed at disadvantage in lacking
a knowledge of the language and Gus
toms of this country, and they cnnno,
so easily escape detection and convic
ton as those who are born and brought
UP here, hence if we had the figures
for the crimes committed instead ol
only for the convictions for crime, il
would make still sadder showing fol
us. We have been crying out thai
this was the home for the oppressed ol
all nations
"Come from every nation, come from every
way;
Come! Come! o, come along, and don't you
he alarmed,
For Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us al
a farm"
But when the oppressed got here
they found Uncle Sam wus a cold.
blooded speculator in human flesh and
blood and that his declaration of human
rights was only blind and lure tc
| the victims OF his avarice. Hence
there is no wonder that those he had
deceived should become desperate and
more criminal; but as those who de
ceive suffer, in the end, more thar
those who are the victims of their de
ceit, we find the native born becoming
even more criminal; and majority O
| those who call this their native lant
have to pay some private individual
often foreigner, for the privilege 0
| living in it.
| do not care whether man believes
that Jesus Christ was miraculously be.
gotten by the Holy Ghost, or whether
he was the reputea son Of the Roman
soldier Tssaehar, that is superstition
| of little moment, but we cannot tram