The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-18
ATTITUDE TO ALIENS
AGood Many of Our Immigrants
Unfit for Citizensip.
MANY OF THEM UToPiANS'
Ex-Minister Benjamin Thinks the Hit
crate Foreigner should Not Be FER
mitted to Acquire Land Or Vote.

In one sense we are all aliens IN this
country. Leaving the aboriginal Indians
out of account, We are all descended from
immigrants. The chief characteristic OF
this nation is and has been immigration.
1t may seem strangely inconsistent tnere-
fore to undertake 20 discuss the question
now as one productive of mischievous re-
suits and requiring careful lnspec-
ton and regulation. That this has at
last become necessary, is due TO
marked change in the conditions OF emil
grafton to the United States. They who
oppose any official supervision of the COM
ing of foreigners to the United States
either ignore this fact or consider the al
tered character of the conditions as giving
to foreigners greater rights here than be-
long to those whose ancestors lald the
foundations of this republic.
So long as the sparse population OF THIS
country was scattered in widely separated
communities, having little relation to
each-as during the colonial period-it
mattered little whether they were Dutch,
English, German, Swedish, French or
Spanish. Nor when the colonies were
united under common government, was
there any danger to our institutions while
the character of the immigra-
ton contained practically homoge-
ous So long as the emmi-
grants readily and naturally accepted the
principles of the constitution. and identi-
fed themselves with our country and its
institutions without reservation, and with
out arrogance or a disposition to assert
separate nationahties here, the danger
from this source was slight. 1t was slight.
also, while our urban population was
small and the vastness of the public do
main attracted the largest proportion OF
immigrants to agricultural pursuits. That
there has been very remarkable change
in all these respects there is unfortunately
no longer room to doubt.
For long time many of the immigrants
were of a high average of merit, intelli-
gent and often led to come here by high
ethical motives. Now not only are these
aliens very largely drawn from the dregs
of the countries whence they came, but
they also come from nations having
but faint conception of civil or religious
liberty. 1t follows that these people,
whom we hasten to endow with the rights
of citizenship, are often as ignorant of its
responsibilities, as well as privileges, as
newborn babes. Their unfitness for citi-
zenship is only equalled by our folly in
granting it to them. Nor is this unftness
simply passive quality; it is character
lied by pernicious activity that renders
it positive energy opposed to the very
spirit which gives value and force to
our institutions. Attack the spirit that
infuses those institutions with vitality,
and you take away the strength of this
great republic-to which are turned the
eyes of the oppressed in all lands, and the
hope of the race in ages to come. And yet
it IS precisely this very spirit of civil and
religious liberty which the immigrants of
the present period attack as soon as they
land IN our ports.
Not only are many of these immigrants,
as We have already said, from races widely
alien to- those which created this republic,
but worse still, they now come from the
classes in those countries which are accus-
toned to yield the domination of their
conscences to their civil and especially
their religious leaders. Their souls are
not their own. Are such men fit to exer-
else the great responsibilities of citizen
ship in this land of educated freemen?
Are men fit to hold the ballot, and to elect
legislators and presidents, who only vote
as they are ordered by ambitious and I'M
scrupulous politicians? Are men capable
ofgoverning in free community who are
bound hand and foot by hierarchical or
CARNATIONS, whose dictator lives abroad
and whose guiding principle is secretly or
openly TO oppose any government that al
lows free thought and does not yield
prior allegiance to the clergy? Further
more, are men tit to hold political power
and mold the economic destinies of a great
country having vast and various interests,
who bring utophian theories here Matched
i'll countries where caste and the oppres-
sion of ages of tyranny have forced the la
borer to remedies by violent methods?
The suffering and heavy laden are not
blamable in Europe, Asia or Africa, if
sometimes they prefer pandemonium to
the intolerable oppression which still exists
in many parts OF the old world. But in our
country the conditions are altogether
different. They who assume therefore
that the INSTRUMENTATION and anarchy that
are capable OF some palliation in Europe.
are equally reasonable in the United States,
are unit to elect our lawmakers or admin
lister our laws.
Nor are they fitted for American citizen
snip VINO import the teuds or politicrl per-
plexltles OF Europe to this country and
use that citizenship as a protection for
promoting and minsling in the iutrigues
and revolutions of the lands whence they
came.
He who cannot wholly and absolutely
identify himself with his American citizen
ship, dropping forever all previous polit-
zeal affiliations, should never assume it, nor
should he be admitted TO so great privi-
lege. Now it is precisely because of
these changed conditions in the char
acter of our immigration. precisely be-
cause so large a proportion of our
immigrants are now unit To exercise or
appreciate citizenship here. that the ques-
ton has arisen "What shall be our attI-
tude toward aliens?" Doubtless the COM
plete pre-emption of the pubic lands, and
the opening OF other eligible fields OF labor,
especially in Central Africa and Central
Asia, together with other causes, will
gradually reduce emigration to the United
States The Latin population especially,
shows a growing tendency towards South
America. But even so, it will not
be in our time that the evil will be s9ffi-
GENTLY reduced TO cease 10 be a source of
danger to our institutions. And before
that time comes, great further mischief
NAV be added 10 the turbulence of our
trades-unions. and the vast corruption of
our local governments and politics, of
which the chief cause has been the indis-
criminate extension of citizenship TO
aliens.