The record-union., 1897-03-04

mer1caI volume 1t has now reached
conditions changed and common pru-
dence would seem to advise the mar
rowing of privileges which We're per-
mitted without limitation in a period
when the need for larger population
and more workers was great.
That the competition of labor forces
is not denied; that there is not now
sufficient employment for all demand
ing and needing to labor is unques-
toned. Nor is there any reason to
believe that the labor supply we now
have will for a good many years prove
inadequate. 1t was therefore common
justice to those already with US and
those born among our people, to check
the flow CT wage earners into the coun-
try that is dangerously intensifying
competition and undeniably overstock
ing the labor market.
But the President we believe is right
when he says that it would be far more
dangerous to admit freely the agitators
against law, order and content, who
have the required educational quail
flcations, than the illiterate who come
to work and remain, and have the
physical ability and the energy to carve
out homes for themselves in a new
land; who are orderly and law abiding,
and not given to the breeding of dis
content and the fomenting of discord.
AS the Record Union has all along
contended, SO it now agrees with Pres
ident Cleveland, that the educational
test was, for the foregoing and other
reasons misleading. Iliteracy is not in
itself proof of incapacity for good citi-
zenship, whereas intellectual culture is
not per Sc evidence of fitness for ad-
mission.
But we do not think the President
makes a good case when he claims
that the provision is harsh and unjust
prohibiting the coming in Of those who
do not intend to become citizens; those
who enter solely for the purpose of
working for a time and then departing
with their gains. Mr.. Cleveland points
out that this would work hardship
along the Canadian frontier, where the
line is so slightly marked that the peo-
pie mingle quite in common in the ex
change of labor and in mutual industry
and works. 1t is very true that there
would be for time apparent hardship
along the Canadian line. But we can
not understand how it would be a con-
tinuing one The Canadians would soon
learn that they must prosecute their
industries On their side Of the line with
out that unjust competitive intrusion
on our side that enables them to share
all our privileges without bearing any
of our burdens and responsibilities.
But take the case of the European
workers who in seasons of exceeding
low rates of transportation cross the
Atlantic and flock to our shores as
skilled laborers, enter the fields of in
dustry in our greater centers of pop
citizen workers, and at the close Of the
season return to their European homes
with greater net gains accumulated in
a few months here than their labor
would yield in year or two of toll in
their native lands. Should these un-
fair competitors, who contribute moth
ing in the way of taxes, share none Of
the burdens of citizenship and the re-
sponsibilities common to all, aided in
their practices because Canadians also
wish to cross the line and indulge their
fancy or their well being by working
in this country? We think not. The
truth Is that by this last veto President
Cleveland struck a hard blow and an
undeserved one to the well being of his
country.