Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1893-07-01

- all oshers are unveIcone. | believe
that, within two decades, there viii sveey
over this country m irresistible demand foI
far more stringent immigration and natural
ixation laws, = demand in meeting which
every political party will make eager haste
70 prove itself, If il can, the simon pure
American and national party. But mean
while, dishonest, lazy, zvaricious and an
afchistic Europeans are unweIcorne TO the
intelligent Irish and French in our midst.
upon whose hard earnings they directly or
indirectly poach. Future problems Of immi-
grafton are TO be solved by the friendly aid
and potent vote Of those who we're them
selves, half century ago, deemed by some
To be OF the dangerous classes" but Who
have been Americanized by the descendants
OF the Purifans rather than confirmed in
their old-worid faults by any insalarity or
rsce-higotry On their oxn part. We are
slowly getting nd Of the race problem in
the South We shall be nd of il in the North
when dsmagogues Of all Of our present Gay
political parties cease to address any Irish
vote, or German vote, or French Canadian
vote, or native American vote, or Protestant
vote, or Catholic vote, az such and shall
no longer drag into American politics for
eign policies with which we have no iegiti-
mate concern. To the spirit Of American
iibf rty we can say, in paraphrase Of Tenny-
sons lines On the msrrige of Alexandra
saxon and Norman and Dane are W.
But all Of Us Danes In welcome Of thee"
That the situation il In some ways serious
mast be admitted nor can we yield to that
easy going spirit Of American optimism
which now submits metropolis to the
power Of s corrupt ring, or permits plutoe-
racy 70 invade the sacred precincts Of the
most powerful upper-ehamber in the gov
ernmental history Of the world. The Amer
lean public too long en1ures; then, by
sporpiic effort. ii eorreets the evil; and
then II ndares again. Cstastrophism must
b. npinimized IL se would enjoy the security
OF .vpiaiiua We must work, we cannot
safely drift; to benefit the future we must
stn. for. sight and d,liberation, an, not
ttr9F too many burdens on the by-4nd-by.
Nesefihel. ss, it is the optimist. not the pes
INIT, that the more clearly forsees that
fu'ufc.
ia'i-ed. the so-called ''foreigniza,ion" of
TIL e. tied States has not gone SO far a.
some suppose. Says a recent Investigator
" he foreign-boru population Of the u ited
States IN 1850 vas 2,2ii cor, or 3,gs per
crir Of the total; in 1890 il vas {. ,249 81,
or AZ pr cent. Bat the great increase
w. not evenly distributed over the whole
pen iod. 1t was cro~del for the most pant
in,p the decade ending with 1860, in which
the foreign element increased from 9 IS per
cent. Of the total population to 1877 per
cent. Since 1870 there has been practical
ly TO increase in the proportion of foreign
bVrr 10 the whole population"
Another specialist, having before him, as
authority, all the figures Of the census of
1870, adds The percentage of resident
migrants has on the whole bare
ly increased since 1860. In that
year 1916 per cent. of the whole num-
Der Of persons in the United States were
foreign born. BY 1870 the percentage had
increased to ii4i. 1t dropped to 1882 in
1880. Ia 1890 the foreign born element
WAS IA Y per cent. of the total, but only
slightly above the point reached in 1870.
Tie small percentage of the whole which
they form would indicate no serious men
ace as yet from them. II il true that the
rate of increase in their number during the
past dozen years has been great, but this is
on of the cases where the method of reek-
oning by percentages is decidedly delusive.
That the number of Italians in the country
gu .drupled from 1850 to 1870 strikes the
ordinary mind as very remarkable. and yet
th" high rate of Increase may be iue rather
to the small initial number than to the
lsrgeness of the present number. This, in
fact is the case as to Russia, Italy, Poland.
Austria AMI Bohemia, the five countries
commonly supposed to furnish the worst
elments of our immigration.
To these considerations may be added the
Statement that Maine has n smaller per-
ce ntage of foreign-born than any other New
England state.
OF course an American born child of a
foreign born citizen may remain, to all in
TENS and purposes, foreigner; but over
against this fact is the self-evident truth
that sometimes a native stock runs out. and
needs renewal by an interpixture of alien
blood And candor. | fear, will compel
the most patriotic New Highlander to admit
tn st, while immigration must surely be re-
strcted. and while it furnishes to the crimI-
nal class the majority of its members, too
NJ ny of those peculiarly bestial murders
which from time To time disgrace the out
81 irts Of our Puritan commonwealth, and
re mind us of Dahomey or Red Gulch rather
tluln of Plymouth Rock and the Old South
NJ citing house, are committed by those who
b. ar IN alive American" names. Bradford,
in his earliest records of the Plymouth col
otN, tells US of the wretehed and preterna-
tu-allv vicious crew that hung on the skirts
ri the elect; We have not got rid of them
y,t, and reform must begin at Jerusalem.
Prophecy is dangerous thing; but pre-
nising that New England is part Of the
United States mot unwarrantably to be
severed therefrom even for purposes of dis
a.. siou), and declaring boldly that the
[ nited States is one of the five great ma
tons of the modern world, and one of the
tv that are most rapidly multiplying in
tangible and intangible resources, | think
we may reach few definite conclusions,
arranged as topically, and perhaps as over
=, nfhently, as the heads" in the sermons
io which our progenitors used so patiently
to listen.
/. The New F., glander of the twentieth
g. utury will continue to love freedom, poll
u, Il AMI religious. AN oppressed people
II, yer creates" but New Englanders have
| b, IN great creators in the realms of religion,
educa ion philanthropy literature. manufac-
| tu-, AMI commerce. We shall see, as hith-
.itu, this connection het~een the free spirit
an, the productive hand Patriotism, not
| n tion,l egotism" will. il is 10 be hoped, be
our motto: but il will be- a patriotism that
will never compromise save in the sense IN
| which .elf-sacriice for the right IL a com
| promise Some of US can remember the
uprising of the North for an idea, wht n the
Hover of the youth and millleaIe of thi.
valley sprang to save the insulted h'g. am
/ ~, AL, ,,,1,,