The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-09-22
OBJECTIONABLE IMMIGRANTS.

The Chinese Six Companies appear to be
In dead earnest in the matter Of contesting
the validity of the Congressional law which
requires Chinese at present in this country
and who desire to remain here, to obtain
certificates of Identification. The heads of
these companies under whose jurisdiction
all Chinese in the United States come, have
issued a second proclamation urging the
Mongolians not to register and procure the
certificate. and declaring the matter will be
tested in the courts. 1t would seem that
the Companies are right in their interpre-
tation, though they may not be sus-
tanned in the position assumed.
The Chinese now here are in this coun-
try by permission of our laws and the
treaty between China and the United
States, and strictly speaking they are en-
titled TO the protection accorded to all other
aliens lawfully within the republic and
cannot be subjected to impositions not put
upon the subjects Of "the most favored na-
tons" However. the right in the case and
what will be done. may prove to be entirely
different things. Politics has had a good
deal to do with anti Chinese legislation,
and Is largely responsible for the
unjust and almost inbuman treat
ment to which the Orien tails have
been subjected. 1t is assumed that the
Chinese will procure the Identification
certificates within the specified period, or
they will be bundled out of the country,
regardless of treaties and national obliga-
tons. People are glad enough to get rid
Qf 10 will
scruple to do things tending to that result
which would be denounced in the case of
others.
There are also other foreigners against
whose coming an effective protest will DE
raised one of these days, and their landing
will be resisted, law or no law. We re-
fer to certain class of 'psuper labor
ers" brought here from Europe by
protected" manufacturers, mill and mine
owners, to take the places of men who
cannot live and support their families OH
''pauper' wages. If reports are true, a
good many OF these European immigrants
are infinitely worse than the Chinese. Mr.
HENRY RooD who has spent long time in
the mining region of Pennsylvania, study
ing the social political and economical life
of the undesirable foreigners there, writes
in one of the magazines forcible argu-
ment against permitting continuance of
this immigration. A brief extract will
show that however Objectionable the
Chinese may be, they are not more Of
fensive than the people with whom Mr.
ROOD has been living:
One who desires to study the vital phase OF
the immigration problem should 20 TO the
anthracite fields of Pennsylvania There he
viii find one OF the richest regions of the earth
overrun with horde of Hungarians. Slavs
Poianders, Bohemians, Arabs, Italians Sicil-
ians. Russians and Tyrolese of the lowest class,
section almost denationalized by the scum of
the continent, where women hesitate to drive
about the country roads by day, where unarmed
men are not safe after the sinking OF the sun.
There he will see prosperous little cities like
Hazletou Mahanoy, Ashland, Shenandoah,
with line business houses and educated people
Of fortune, and surrounding these towns great
wastes of the commonwealth diseased.
by thousands and tens of thousands of
foreigners who have no desire to become A1neri-
cans, who emigrate to the United Sta.es for q
few years TO make money, who have driven to
The cities and 10 the west the great army OF
English, Scotch. Irish. Welsh, Germans and
Americans who once gave stability to the coal
regions; in short condition OF affairs which, if
equaled elsewhere, may become more than a
national problem-a national peril. They leave
their families abroad. and send to them sums of
money that seem enormous when the fact is
considered that they belong to the laboring
class. The little city OF Hazleton is said to send
each month to southern Europe from $500
TO si25.o0o Such immigrants, as rule, make
no attempt to become Americans. They care
naught for our country but as q place where
they can accumulate enough money to make
them independent when they return home.