The Mt. Sterling advocate. (Mt. Sterling, Ky.) 1890-current, 1891-05-19
THE ADVOCATE.
OVERRIDING the Asylum Business.

The immigration into this country
in 1890 was about 491,000. There
was an increase in the number of Ital.
ians, Hungarians, Russians, Poles, b.
hemians and Austrians, and falling
off of English, Scotch, Irish, Neither
land and Swiss. The change is not a
favorable one for Democratic institu-
tions, and, together with the size OF
the total, must lead us all to ask, more
anxiously than ever, whether we are
not undertaking greater burden than
we can safely carry, are not admitting
greater amount Of unpromising ma
terial than we can easily assimilate.
The late Henry Ward Beecher once
remarked, in speaking of this ques-
ton, that when lion eats an OK the
OK becomes lion and not the lion OK.
But it has been equally well answered
(by the Rev. Josiah Strong, of Cincin-
nati), that the lion is guided by an un-
erring instinct when to eat OK and
when not to. The lion does not eat
the whole OK as it comes, hide, horns
and hoofs, and moreover he will prob
ably go good deal out of his way to
get an OK instead of putting up with
weasels and wood-chucks, or what
ever may be the corresponding ami
NAL in his district. Immigration into
this country is not governed by an APP
petite of ours. "The lion, without be-
ing consulted as to time, quantity and
quality, is having the food thrust
down his throat, and his only alterna-
tive is to digest or die" The lion has
begun to grumble little about his
board, and has made the psuper inn
migration law, and the contract labor
law, and the law excluding the Chi
nese, but it now becomes question
whether he does not need a further
reformation of his diet.
1t will undoubtedly seem somewhat
churlish and somewhat presumptuous
of us to say that we will pick and
choose who shall come into this great
country and who shall not, and will
admit only the best. But after all it |
is only the right to repel invasion. In
the good old days our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors had cheerful way of exter-
minating any neighbors or visitors
whom they did not take a fancy to.
The treatment was little severe, but
it was very effectual, and it may be
questioned whether even so cruel a
method as that has not been justified
it has led to large part of the earth
being peopled by a stronger, Drawer
and happier race than would other
wise have been produced.
1t is felt by many thu s. !. IS Atmeri-
cas- mission to be the hume and the
asylum of the poor and the oppressed
of all races. But America has
higher mission than that. The world
wants something more Of us than
sort of exalted poor-farm and reforma-
tory. We can do more for the Old
World, as well as for ourselves, by
making our social and political insti-
tutions success, and by developing
higher type of man on this continent
than by affording temporary allevia-
ton of the evils of Over-population.
America has done much good as an
asylum for the oppressed, and has re-
ceived much good in return, but the
.ylum business may be carried on too
far. Much discrimination, at all
events, should be exercised in regard
to the sort of cases admitted, where
an asylum is managed, as ours is, by
its inmates Boston Post.
1t Isn't Always Wise.