The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-11-10
NATIONAL IMMIGRATION.

There are those who take sanguine
view of the immigration problem as it
has been changed by the influx of Rus
sian Poles, Hungarians and Italian
iazzaroni. Recalling the days when
the entrance of Irish peasantry caused
grave misgivings to the Anglo Saxon
Americans and inspired the Know
Nothing movements phase of imTnl-
grafton which is now regarded as
boon to the country-they urge that, In
the long run, we shall feel grateful
for the latest Corners. Their concrete
proposition is that the Poles, Hun
garians and Italians will eventually
take the hue of their surroundings and
that, in the second and third genera
tions, their racial strain will disappear
and they will have become of the
American type.
But when the Irish phase of the story
is looked into there is little about it
which serves for an example of what
may be expected of Latins and Slavs.
The Irish came, knowing English
speech and English ways. They spread
over the country doing day labor, TAX
ing up land when the time came and
sending THEM children into the democ-
racy of the public schools. Especially
in the country villages they became, in
the course of the second generation,
Americans in feeling, custom and
accent Their young men were quite
likely to marry the daughters of
American farmers and the Irish serv-
ing girl and the Yankee farm hand
became mates. In the cities the young
women went into American families to
work and learned ways which, whether
the girls afterward married in their
own race or another made them mothers
of boys to whom America was all in
all. During the seventy years which
have elapsed since the first rush of
Irish came we have absorbed millions
of them into the American body polite
and they are as ready as any other cit
liens to fight and die for their coun-
try. -s.>s,.,s., 49,,
But how about the w-browed, fur
tive, dark-skinned offscourings of
decadent races that are swarming in
now? They know neither English
speech nor ways and are not willing
to learn them. They do not spread
over the country but form colonies in
great cities which are but the slums
of Prague and Warsaw and Naples
translated to another land. They in
termarry as the Jews do; their chill
dren speak no English and are among
the ones who hide away from schools.
OF America they know nothing except
as a place for getting money; it's laws
and institutions are sealed books to
them. Not only do they refuse to as
simulate with Americans but Ameri-
cans refuse to assimilate with them
and they remain as alien as the Chi
nese-foreign interlopers encamped up
ON our soil. Besides this they are
nucleus for outlawry; the people who
will, on occasion, swell the ranks of
the anarchists whom America must yet.
meet and crush.
To cut off this sewer stream from
the submerged tenth of Europe is the
highest demand of American states
manship today. If the work is not
done the national idea will be sorely
tried by the growth and power of alien
communities The time has come to
discourage the worst and encourage
the best immigration. The United
States needs more men of English,
Irish, German and Scandinavian blood
and no more at all of Slavs and Latins.
Self representation is the law to observe
now and it is a higher one than con-
siderations of good viii with decadent
treaty powers.
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