Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-05-29
Restriction of Immigration.

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Gen. Walker admits at the outset that a
proposition to restrict immigration is con.
trary to the traditions of the fathers and to
the spirit of our institutions as declared
for a hundred years. But does it of neces-
sity follow that, while the fathers were
right in their views for their own time,
those who advocate the restriction of i'm
migration today must be in the wrongP
Does it not sometimes happen, in the
course of national development, that great
and permanent changes in condition re-
quire corresponding changes of opinion
and of policy?
In answer to this question Gen. Walker
refers to an instance in an altogether diff
ferent department of public interest and
activity. For nearly hundred years after
the peace of 1888 opened to settlement the
lands beyond the Alleghanies the cutting
away of the primeval forest was regarded
by our people with the highest approval.
The emblem of American civilization, as
the axe of the pioneer. As the forests of
the Ohio valley bowed themselves before
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settlers of that region, all good citizens re-
joiced. 1t was time Of splendid human
achievement. Yet today all intelligent
men admit that the cutting down of our
forests has already gone too far, and both
individual states and the nation have
united in efforts to undo some of the mis-
chief which has been wrought to our agri-
culture and to our climate from carrying
too far the work of denudaton. In pre-
cisely the same way, it may be true that
our fathers were right in their view of i'm
migration, while yet the patriotic Ameri-
can of today may properly shrink in terror
from the contemplation Of the vast hordes
of ignorant and brutalized peasantry
thronging to our shores.
Three general causes have arisen which
affect our ability to care for large acces-
sions of foreigners quickly and easily. The
first is the complete exhaustion of the free
public lands of the United States. Fifty
years ago, thirty years ago, vast tracts of
arabic land were open to every person ar
irving on our shores, under the pIeemption
act, or later, the homestead act. A good
farm of 100 acres could be had at the mini
mum price of Sl.2j All acre, or for merely
the fees of registration. Under these cir
cumstances it was very simple matter to
dispose of large immigration. Today
| there is not a good farm within the limits
of the United States which is to be had
under either of these acts. The immigrant
must pay the value of the land and its i'm
provements, a fact which shuts out at least
9j per cent from immediate occupation of
the soil.
A second cause is the fall of agricultural
prices which has gone on steadily since
1878. 1t makes no difference what has
caused this fall-whether we refer it to
the competition of South America and
India, or the appreciation of gold. The
fact remains. There has been great re-
duction in the cost of producing crops in
some favored regions where steam-plows
and steam-reaping, steam threshing, and
steam-sacking machines can be employed;
but there has been no reduction in the cost
of producing crops upon the ordinary
American farm at all corresponding to the
reduction in the price of the produce. 1t
is necessary consequence of this that the
ability to employ a large number of un-
educated and unskilled hands in agricul-
ture has greatly diminished.
Third there comes the labor problem
which has begun to thrust itself upon this
country so persistently and threateningly.
More properly speaking it is the question
of unemployed labor. No longer is it a
matter of course that every industrious and
temperate man can find work in the United
States. And it is to be remembered that,
of all nations, we are the one which is
least qualified to deal with labor prob
lem. We have not the machinery, we
have not the army, we have not the police,
we have not the traditions and instincts,
for dealing with such a matter, as the
great railroad and other strikes of the last
few years have shown.
Gen. Walker holds the right of the ma
tion to protect itself from the dangers of
unrestricted immigration to be unques-
toned. In conclusion he says:
'oelI ueIence is the nrSt law OF nature
and of nations. If that man who careth
not for his own household is worse than an
infdel the nation which permits its insti-
tutions to be endangered by any cause
which can fairly be removed is guilty not
less in Christian than in natural law. All
the good the United States could do by
offering indiscrminate hospitality to few
millions more of European peasants, whose
places at home will, within another genera
tion, be filed by others as miserable as
themselves, would not compensate for any
permanent injury done to our republic.
Within the decade between 1880 and 1890
five and a quarter millions of foreigners
entered our ports No nation in human
history ever undertook to deal with such
masses of alien population. That man
must be a sentimentalist and an optimist
beyond all bounds of reason who believes
that we can take such load upon the ma
tional stomach without failure of assimi-
latlon, and without great danger to the
health and life of the nation. For one,
believe it is time that we should take a
rest, and give our social, political and in
dustrial system some chance to recuperate.