Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1890-06-13

animate beings to spread out from
thickly inhabited areas or countries into
less populous ones, where mutual COM
petition for the means of subsistence
is less acute. And, in the absence of
restrictions. they will keep on coming,
until an equilibrium is established
until the population of this country
bears as great ratio to its produc-
tions as the countries of the old world,
from whence they come; and then immi-
grafton will cease, unless the re-distri-
button of population is effected on the
basis of greater religious and political
liberty in America plus less wealth
being equal to glrater wealth plus less
liberty in other countries. In this case
even our greater freedom will be a
disadvantage to us; for, other things
being equal, people will keep on coming
here for the sake of the greater liberties
they are permitted to enjoy, until the
material prosperity of our country is
reduced considerably below the aver
age Until our greater liberty, as
compared with other countries, is neu-
traIiZed by greater poverty, as com
pared with theirs.
When cOnSiderd in relation to man
kind at large, this continual re-distri-
button of the inhabitants of the globe,
which is going on in conformity with
the varying capabilities of different
portions of the earth's surface to af-
ford them subsistence, must be re-
garded as of the highest benefit to the
race as a whole. But regarded in re-
lation TO people who occupy an eX-
ceptionably favorable country, rich in
all the elements that promote human
life, and comfort and happiness, the
continual peaceable invasion of their
territory by surrounding peoples, and
participation by them in its advantages,
and consumption of its wealth, must
inevitably make the struggle for life
more severe. Judged from the stand
point of the exclusive welfare of this
people; any economic policy, which
fosters indiscriminate immigration, is
a policy the wisdom of which is not re-
markably conspicuous, except deter
mined by the necessity OF suddenly
charging the population for defensive
purposes.
To conclude that protection is to be
credited with the prosperity of the
country, is to deny that there are
other efficient causes. 1t is to ignore
the plain fact, apparent to every per
son of moderate intelligence and infor-
nation, that the United States pos
sesses the natural elements of wealth
and progress in higher degree than
any other nation on this earth does
now, or ever did possess. In extent and
fertility of its soil, in healthfulness
and diversity Of climate, in abundance
and accessibility Of natural prOduc-
tions, -coal, iron, copper, lead, zinc,
gold, silver, mercury, and many other
metals, in its vast forests of timber,
its broad streams, and level prairieS,
facilities of intercommuniCation, alb
sence of surrounding enemies, and
consequent exemption from the bur
dens of maintaining a large standing
army. A new country, and relative to
its sustaining capacity, provided with
a moderate population, of liberal, en-
Iightened, educated, industrious, pro-
gres3ive, ambitious, inventive, peace
able, lawabiding people, and a greater
than average proportion of them en-
gagged in productive pursuits, and a
comparatively inexpensive form of
government; people sprung from,
and speaking the language of, and
peryaded by the thoughts, aspirations,
institutions, literature, and laws of one
of the most energetic, aggressive, per
seyering, indomitable and intellectual
races of men the world has ever
known; Il race that has demonstrated
its ability to conquer and maintain a
leading place in every department of
human activity, in the arts of peace
and the arts of war. In the industrial
arts, in literature, science, philosophy, |
agriculture, commerce, manufacturing
and the acquisition of material wealth,
the extension of its power and influ-
ence, and appropriation of the habit |
able surface Of the globe, it stands
to-day unrivalled. With such a country
and such people. with all these mag
niIicent advantages, aud no disadvant- |
ages, except those of Our own making,
and such wealth producing forces, is
it not puerile in the extreme. and I'M
worthy of our intelligence to have re-
course to a superstition to account for
our national wealth and progress? The
cooperation of these internal and eX-
ternal forces makes national poverty
simply impossible. No conceivable
badness OF economic arrangements,
within the limits of federation, could |
defeat this result.