The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1892-12-09
FOREIGN IMMIGRATION.

President Harrison has again brought
to the attention ofcongress and the ma
ton the necessity of more stringent laws
regulating foreign Immigration. The
suggestion is made in connection with |
the question of quarantine regulations;
and our recent experience with cholera,
which we could not halt upon the outer
Threshold, emphasizes the Importance
of some positive and prompt action on
the part of congress to protect us from
this and other contagious diseases.
But Asiatic cholera is by no means
the worst evil coming to us through i'm
perfect immigration regulations; the
Pacific States fully appreciate the situa-
ton because of their experience with the
Chinese question; they have suffered
much more, and have therefore, heen
more persistent in demanding and more
successful in obtaining protection at the
hands of congress than any other por-
ton of the United States; and the ques-
ton, so far as we are directly concerned,
is about disposed of; the pauper labor of
eastern Asia is excluded: every China
man within our borders musL stand, be
numbered and registered, and when he
once returns 10 his native land he gen
orally has not the courage to attempt to
get back.
The Atlantic States have been farther
removed from the evil of unrestricted
immigration, and until recently have
little felt the danger; but with increased
facilities of travel, the danger has become
more real, and its accompanying scourge,
a terrible disease, calls the nations at
tention directly to it, and now for the
first time, the people of the entire coun-
try synpathize with us in our opposition
to the Chinese. Ignorance, immortality,
physical deformity and weakness, dis
torted views of political, social and re-
ligious life are quite as disastrous to ma
tional safety and happiness as are the
contagious diseases which originate and
best thrive in the home of these less
easily quarantined evils.
Two thousand per week is not large
estimate of the number of undesirable
population which have passed from the
decks of the great immigrant transports
to our shores during the past year; and
every male among them who is not, at
the time he lands under l6 years of age,
may, in five years, exercise every right
of citizenship; except that of holding
some of the offices; ignorant of every
principle of government, with distorted
social ideas, even vicious III large num-
ber OF cases, unable to speak our Ian
guage, much less to read it, he takes his
place beside the best citizen of the land
and has as much voice in the govern
ment.
Had the Chinese worn a less yellow
skin, and therefore been. eligible tc
American citizenship under the consti
tuition and had they been as eager to be
naturalized as are the Russian, Italian
and Bulgarian paupers who are now
seeking to land here, the Pacific States
at one time would have rebelled and re
fused to be governed by class of people
so utterly devoid of every qualification
to exercise the functions of American
citizenship; yet who will say that W.
would have been worse off than ar
many portions of the cities of New York
Chicago, st. Louis and New Orleans?
The problem is both serious and diff
cult and will tax the ability of our legis
lators and diplomats during the mex
few years as no other question; wis
solution by the incoming administratio
of this problem will do more for the ulti
mate welfare than any measure ths
will be brought before it. Already sex
eral plans have been suggested absC
lutte exclusion is neither practicable nc
polite, and any plan which is likely
be adopted, will be found inefficient III
til after experience has enabled US
perfect it. But some plan is imperi
lively necessary.
What use will there be in the sena