Omaha daily bee., 1888-04-22

n hlt lClLIlS dIts hCA
and, Notwithstanding ONE very marked
and disagreeable faults and failings,
superior TO any other people, in Europe
or elsewhere, in the traits and capaci-
ties that fit them for self-government
and for performing the duties incident
to citizenship; but ~far-seeing students
must also admit hat most of
the foreigners who come here will very
oon-at the slowest, in the course of n
couple Of generations-make Ameri-
cans, not only as good as, but, moreover,
absolutely indistinguishable from, the
rest of us.
Besides, it is well to remember that,
from the outset, from the days OF the
first white settlers on this continent, we
have had to contend with the dangers
arising from certain kinds of unwhole-
some immigration. Before the New
Englandcrs had been domiciled in the
home of their choice for two genera
tions, the more serious of them became
greatly alarmed on account OF the rapid
deterioration in morals consequent,
among other things, upon the importa-
tion Of ''redemptionersn and the like.
Condemned English criminals, captured
Irish rebels, and sodden, starving Ger
man labormen were imported wholesale
to New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia
and the Carolinas, as apprentices and
bond-servants, to give rise to a pecu-
liarly vicious and shiftless race OF
social outlaws. 1t is very. doubtful if
we now receive, relative to our popula-
ton, as great a number Of immigrants
of bad character as were sent to the
colonies prior to the revolution. But,
of course, the founders of our people,
the exiles for the sake of political or
religious freedom, were superior to any
of their successors Of to-day.
The enormou bulk of the immigrants
of the present time come from the Brit
ish Isles, from the Germanic lands, and
from Scandinavia, the exact countries
that, though in varying proportions,
furnished the great bulk of the first
settlers of the various colonies. There
are very few German, Gaelic or French
names, and, probably, not very many
Scandinavians, borne by immigrants
of the present day, which were not also
TO be found here in the last century.
With greater or less rapidity, all these
peoples nave been fused together in
the past, and the fusing will go on just
as steadily in the future.
At the time OF our birth as a nation,
we already differed in blood, as well as
in from the British; the word
American already had more thar a mere
TdpniCul SlSnlHCduCe, anu tne
streams of humanity that nave since
flowed to our shores have, after all, but
slightly altered the proportionsin which
u elemental race-strains were already
combined.
The Americans who first rave us q
name and Ii n~ation-the descendants of
the early English, Dutch and Swedish
adventurous, and of the Puritdn, Hugue-
not and Scotch-Irish eXiles for con
science sate-also made the mold into
which the nation was to be cast.
All subsequent immigration to our
shores, of whatever race, have perforce
been run through it. Formerly, as we'll
as now, there were some base alloys in
the metal filling this mold; but then, as
now, the good outweighed the bad; and
| good and bad alike came out indelibly
stamped as American. The influence
of foreigners within our borders upon
us is sometimes serious, but it is
nothing compared to our influence upon
them. The change in our national
character during the past century has
been due to our own growth, and but
little to the character of the accession
to our population from the outside. The
grandson of the immigrant who came
here at the beginning of the present
century has become exactly like the
| SlStiUS ttIlNDoh vi pIO 4 lttti "lo
fought in the revolution, and differs
from the ma of 1875 no more han
does the latter's descendant.
AS regards the mere question of race,
u whole past history shows thatnearly
all the people represented among the
present immigrants were also repre-
scented among our forefathers who
fought for independence, in much the
same proportion as at present; and as
German, Dutchman, Swede, Frenchman
and Irishman have always been turned
into American citizens absolutely indis-
tinguishable from their fellow citizens
in the past, we have excellent reason
for believing that such will be the case
in tho future. In CHANGING at the mar
rative of the last party contest carried
on in colonial New York in 176S,
it seems ~amusingly like modern
felt about the ''solid" German vote
and of the hostility with which the con-
sentative or ~Episcopalia party regarded
the ''Irish beggars." Probably a good
half ofthe descendants of these Irish and
German voters of 1868 were ardent
k~nownothings in tho middle OF the pres.
emit century.
Nor does our past history show ans
reason for fearing lest the increase in
certain sects will work any radical
change IN our body polite. Since the
revolution the Methodist and Baptist
churches-the former espccially-have
grown enormously INT have
become the most important in the
land, but as far as this has
had any effect, it has been for good
The Reformed church, to which mos
of the French and Dutch and many OF
the Germans belonged has become com.
pletely Americanized, the Lutheran, OF
which more hereafter, is rapidly be-
coming so. The Catholics, who were
so numerous and influential in Mary,
land in l776, divided on the question o.
independence, precisely as did the yari
Gus Protestant sects and---except on one
point to be discussed later--the same
holds true now, for there is not a state
in the union where the members O
every religious body are not to be found
on each side OF every question of public
policy from the tariff to prohibition.
IL IS, of course, true that the rate O
speed at which Americanization pro
ceeds differs widely among different
groups of foreigners, and even among
different groups of the same race. BY
the beginning of the present century
the Dutch were almost completely anal,
pnmata1 with thnir EnoliSh ainhb