Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1890-07-16
IANcAsrER. Pa. July le, 1880.
The Immigration Question.

There Is castle In this land which Is
stormcd and taken every day by for
'eign foe. A regiment eleven hundred
strong upon the average makes this
daily assault, takes daily possession, and
by night departs from the captured
fortress to the interior, and on the NOR
row the same operation is successfully
performed by their countrymen. For
some years past, the arrival Of foreign
Immigrants at Castle Garden, New
York, averaged eleven hundred daily.
The growth Of this immigration has ex-
ceedcd the growth Of population. But
great AZ 1t is, we might welcome 1t with
Joy were II not for the great change
(which has taken place in recent years
both in its source and in its character
Prior TO 1890 no record was kept of the
number Of arrivals, but a careful esti-
mate places the number living in the
country at that time at about 250,O00,
while the whole population, native and
foreign, numbered 9,63S,S2 Thus, IN
that year, our foreign population was
but two and half per cent. of the whole
people. Sixty years later, with popu-
latior oi 4s,0o0,0o0, our foreign popula-
tion numbered nearly 100000 or four
teen per cent. Rev. DIR. Strong esti-
mates that at the close of the century,
II 1t be not restricted, IL will number at
least 10000 900. As II is increasing at
nm annual rate of over half a million
and already numbers eleven millions,
this estimate Is by no means extravagant,
especially when it is considered that the
foreigner, as q rule, IL much more pro-
life than the native.
These facts assume very serious
aspect when we consider the radical
change in recent years In the source and
character of this Mississippi river Of
Immigration which Is now declared to
! be, by all special students of this ques-
tion, as dark aud muddy as the Father
OF Waters itself. Instead of the Germans,
Irish, English, Scotch, French, Swedes
and Norwegians who In the earlier days
helped to develop and build up in the
Western wilderness the greatest agricul-
tural aud industrial nation on earth, we
have had for the last ten years thousands
upon thousands of the very dregs Of
European liie--Russians, Hungarians,
Italians, Polish and Russian Jews, Irish
and German malcontents. From being
the asylum for the oppressed of all
nations, we have allowed the great
republic TO become the dumping ground
for the ofiscourings of Europe. The
briefest study of the statistics of recent
Immigration Is amply sufficient TO reveal
ifs character. The ccnsus of 1880 showed
that Sc, ,2i6 persons of foreign birth were
inmates of almshouses, asylums, hospi-
tails and prisons IL revealed the fact
that while foreigners constituted but
fourteen per cent. of our population they
numbered twenty eight and half per
cent. Of the insane, nearly twenty-five
per cent. of the prisoners in our jails
and penitentiaries thirty-four per cent.
OF our paupers and forty-four per cent.
Of the inmates Of our warehouses and
houses of correction. The statistics of
the state of New York are much worse,
and the question Is becoming daily, In
that commonwealth, more serious and
pressing.
Our few weak and badly executed
laws intended to regulate and check
this vast tide, have utterly failed to ac-
complish their object. Yet each and
every student of this question has in
sisted upon the urgent necessity of regu-
lating and decreasing the numler of
raw. undisciplined, semi-barbarian i'm
migrants, who for ten years past have
been thronging to our shores, over
crowding and demoralizing the market
for labor, filling our tails and aims
houses, the easy prey and willing ser.
wants Of corrupt politicians and consti-
tuting an indigestible mass Of ignorance
and superstition which menaces the
peace, good order, and prosperity of the
people of this republic"
At Mount tsretun.