The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1903-07-29
IMMIGRATION.

called upon 70 meet. In its new form
il means that the country is taking in
about 500 900 immigrants a year, the
majority of them from inferior or de-
Gazing races with which there is and
should be no assimilation. Unless this
influx is soon checked there may be
grave consequences to the nation and
its organic life.
The first great tide of immigration
came from Ireland. On the whole it
was a desirable gain for the United
States. The Irishman was sturdy Ia
borer and he was willing to settle in
the country and work on farms in case
there was no good opening for him in
the town. Today he is in both city and
! country doing his part in building mp
the commonwealth. During the last
thirty years the number of farms and
the amount of urban property owned
by people of Irish blood has vastly
! increased; and intermarriage in the
rural districts between young people of
Irish and American or English ancestry
2
( the Irish peasantry the United States
I is deriving a good middle class citizen
! ship from which many national leaders
have already sprung.
After Irish immigration began to de-
cline in volume, a German and Scan
| dinavian tide commenced to flow. Here
was an Anglo-Saxon replenishment
from the old fountains As a usual
thing the German became American In
his ideas in proportion as he learned
the language. He was already we'll
disposed. Most of our Teutonic imnli-
grants were either social democrats at
home or were in sympathy with liberal
ideas, and the creed of the American
republic appealed to them at the out
set. It was. indeed, the reason of their
coming. So, as a result, the German
American became a good citizen and, in
the second generation, nothing was
German about him but his name. To-
day the German strain in American
blood is one of its elements of strength;
it is a tincture of iron. Ard the same
is true of the scandinavian strain.
Unfortunately the spirit of migration |
to the United States has moved towards |
the Balkans and Russia AMI into Italy |
the lands of the serfs and the laz-
zaroni We are taking the entire nat
ural increase of Southern Italy and ,
something more. For every boy born |
there two men emigrate to the United /
States. All in all the accretioa from
Southern Italy in 1902 was 1884, From
Austria Hungary we got $4,000 Slovaks,
81. 900 Poles, 10000 Croats and Siovenes,
q, 900 Magyars, $4,000 Germans, 10000
Jews and the rest of the grand total of
III. 900 are divided between Ruthenians,
Lithuanians, Dalma-
tians, Boznians, Herzogovinians, Be-
hemians and Moravians. Russia gave
us 100, 900 of Jews, Poles, Firms and
These people have certain definite
ambitions and antipathies. They wish
TO live by themselves in great cities and
have nothing to do with agriculture.
must be as peddlers. For the Ameri-
can they have no friendship; their hope
is merely to get something away from
him that he owns; and the American,
on his part, does not want to mix his
blood with theirs. These low-born peo-
pie come as foreigners and stay as for
eigners; and their only idea of the suf-
frage is a thing of merchandise. They
form alien and predatory camps on
American ground. a surprising pro-
portion of them belong to the depend
ent, defective and delinquent classes.
the very material, during hard times,
of which to make mobs and criminals.
1t cannot be shown that, except in
cheap labor, America derives any good
from their presence; and even cheap la
Dor has it's disadvantages.
What the United States needs is
period of rest and assimilation. 1t
would be a godsend if the incoming
were made to bring at least
$500 of his own. In that case we snoulo
only get farmers and other men of sub
stance, leaving out the riffraff that are
here to exploit the cities. Admitting
that the reform would be difficult, 1t
vet remains true that any country has
the right to protect itself from unde-
sirable guests and that the countries |
most likely to complain Of American |
safeguards are the ones which freely |
make use of them on their own account.