Arizona republican., 1902-08-17
PHOENIX, ARIZONA, AUG. r, 1s'
A Crowded Asylum

The New York Tribune finds cause for alarm in the immigration figures for the fiscal year. and thinks that there ought to be better understand ing of that long misused expression applied to this country, An Asylum of the Oppressed The total number of immigrants was 64S,743. That was 8 per cent more than in 1901 45 per cent more than in 1900. POS per cent more than in 1889 and 2S3 per cent more than in 1898.
 The Tribune says: Ut was a record breaking record-if We may use the phrase-in respect of quantity. It was equally record breaking in respect of quality, or lack of quality. The more they come the worse they are. Of those over fourteen years old 28.7 per cent were illiterate. That was the highest rate of illiteracy on record. Those coming from the countries of eastern and southern Europe, the least desira- ble parts of that continent, were 54.6 per cent of the whole, the largest per- centage on record. The number of South Italians, the least desirable from that kingdom, rose from 65, 5,500 in 1889 to 152. 300 in 1902. The number of Poles rose from 2S, 400 to 69,600. The number of Slovaks rose from 15.S00 to S6,9OO. The number of Greats and Slovnes rose from $500 to 30, 200. These last four are conspicuous in the disorders and out rages of the present time in the coal regions.
 Not only are We thus getting in- creased numbers and and an increased proportion of the least desirable peo- pies of Europe, but we are getting a lower and lower grade of them. Thus of the Greeks, 17,1 per cent were illit- crate in 1900. 279 in 1901 and 30 in 1902. The proportion of illiterates among the Greats and Slovenes has similarly increased in the three years, from 3l.4 ures of illiteracy for the three years are 31.7, 49.S and 54.1 per cent. The Portuguese are worst of all-namely. 59.9, 63.S and 71.6 per cent. Against such figures there is little comfort in noting that the average amount of money brought in by the immigrants has increased trifie. from s15 in 1901 to s16 in 1902. Sixteen dollars is too small sum to counterbalance the il- literacy and degradation which ac- company it. Nor does it greatly mat ter that the proportion destined for New York. Massa chusetts. Pennsylva mia and Illinois-that is, for the great centers nf population-has decreased from 69.5 to 67.S per cent. Illiterates are no more welcome in rural than in urban districts.
 we cannot justly be charged with unfriendliness or inhospitality in say ing that such influx should be checked It is all well enough to talk of Americas being the asylum of the oppressed and all that. America should not be an asylum for illiterates made the dustbin and cesspool of the nations. We have not always fully sympat thized with the attempts of "or- Ranized labor to exclude competition with it's own restricted ranks. But we are free to say that all American la Dor, organized or unorganized. skilled or unskilled. should be protected against such an invasion as these fig ures indicate. Two-thirds of a million a year. and nearly one-third of them illiterates and practically paupers, The American social, industrial and po- litical system may be able to digest such a mass and to assimilate it. But it can do so only under greater strain than it should be subjected to. It can scarcely do so without more than one attack of indigestion with all its at tendant evils
 The Labor Vote