Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1891-04-07

l NOW 0eFfu8uy nexutates lmmtGratiOn.
| BALTIMORE, April 4, 1891.
/ To the Editor Of The Evening Star:
In the Friday number of The EVENING STAR
| you brought an editorial wherein you pleaded
| for the changing and sharpening of the exist
ing immigrant laws. Now that matter ia very
interesting for me. am German by birth and
did not immigrate into the United States but
a year and half ago. Therefore hope you
will allow me to write some words to you about
it, Besides, am fellow journalist of yours.
being now dispatch editor of the Baltimore
Journal, German paper Of this city. have
to read TIRE EvEyISa STAR every night, and
confess that like il best Of all Eugiish-Ameri-
can papers on account of the reasonable views
which can be found in its columns. But now
to our theme.
am fully convinced that hitherto all immi-
grafton laws have been q failure, and also be-
iieve that all future ones " ich may be made
Will not be better. How can you find out which
Immigrants are desirable and which are to be
repuised before they enter they United States2
In the following shall not speak about the
immigration at large, but only about that from
Germany. There can be no doubt that great
many persons come over from that country
whom the Americans would highly like to
anywhere else, to wit. first anarchists. and,
secondly, socialists. But suppose a steamer of
the North German Lloyd arrived with about
LOCO Immigrants at New York or Baltimore,
how will you pick ont the reyolutionists among
them! AS much as | know there exists no an
| archist type or socialist nose, and the carica-
lures in Puck, where ali anarchists look like
| unwashed and uncombed Russian peasants, are
rather childish. Nor can you say that the
| poorest and most ragged people are very likely
| to be dangerous elements.
| l know that a prominent socialist came over
/ with his family in the cabin, and think that
John Most made money enough in London by
sheariug his faithful sheep to be able to travel
! in the style of the greasy money bags" but l.
| myself, came for economic purposes under the
! Storage
1t would be very unreasonable. too, to make
] the immigrants show q certain amount of
money, say hundred dollars. Maybe ar
honest. hard working laborer, who is Just the
man to become a good citizen, comes with
ninety-nine dollars in his pocket; he would be
repulsed, whereas a doubtful character, who
made some more dollars in 4 questionable way.
slips through the mcshes of the law.
Some people have proposed that the inmi-
grants ought to be controlled in their own
country. Nobody, they say, ought to be
allowed to tread upon the soil of the United
States If he does not bring with him certificate
OF an American consul that his character is ir-
reproachable. Now, do not believe that such
provision would be of any use. The Amer-
can consul in Hamburg or in Bremen cannot
possibly know the former life of every person
that applies TO him for Il certificate He must
IullF feiE upon the CertlQcatCs which Such
pie bring with them from their last place of
residence and which were given to than nv
the local police But the police authorities i'm
Germany do not know every reyolutionist bv
any means; and suppose they know him to be-
long to that party thew youid AT all evepts
give him certificate that nothing can be said
against his character if he has not vet openly
revolted against the law. Besides il would not
be very dfiicult to get police certificate on the
name Of another person, or to provide a false
three score of emigrants at once is very likely
not to examine every certificate as carefully as
possible.
May be you will ask now: SIS America ALWAYS
to be the gutter of the whole WORLDLY BY no
means America must HELM herself. and can
do that by forming a practicable law. In the
law books of the German states yon will find a
provision which can be. after some changing yery
well applied to the immigration question Bnt
ID seems to me that if America wants to initiate
any German insitution-for instance the secret
Fote or the land purchase laws-it must do SO
on the roundabout way over Australia
think many Americans will be surprised to
learn that a good many people immigIate into
Germany but this is an undeniable fact The
census OF 1885 showed that more than 400 OO0
foreign-born men lived in the German empire.
Italian laborers may be found working AT rail-
road constructions in south and middle Ger
many and digging in many coilieries. Russian
Poles cover the frontier of the eastern prov
iAees VI Trussia, because, as tney say, "a child
OF six years earns as much money in Germany
as man and his wife in Poland" Swedish
workingmen and Swedish servant girls are quite
common appearance in northwest Germany.
Now there are no laws that forbid or aggrayate
the immigration of any foreigner, but The gov
ernments of all the German states have the
right to exile every immigrant provided that
he is dangerous for the welfare Of the popula-
tion or is an enemy of the existing laws and an
thorities And, to tell the truth. the govern
ments use their right sometimes very freely.
In 1881 and 1885 30 600 Russian Poles had to 20
ment knew that these Poles if naturalized
would be at the polls willing tools
OF the Polish clergy OF the eastern provinces.