Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-06-07
FATHER CROWLEY ON IMMIGRATION
Takes Editors to Task for Utterances Believes Fora eigners Who Come Here Make Good Citizens ts Quotes Authority to Back Up His State- ments, and Asks for Facts and
 Figures to the Contrary.

eign immigration.
 As one of the clergymen engaged in recent dispute on the ,immigra- tion question am naturally interest ed in that editorial. trust that I am not infringing on good nature if ask space for reply. I assume that both the editor and I are native born, and that we have the common interest of the country at heart. In fact believe both of us would take acvan- tage of every opportunity to make the American eagle. scream whenever an occasion offered to shout the praises of our native land.
 The report quotes statistics, and makes some reflections on the changed character of the immigrants now coming to our shores. Then the editorial says: "We were able to assinlilate those who came from northern European coun- tries" and it is asked in consterna- tion, What shall we do with the hordes Of unassimiIable etc?' Was lit not formerly thought that we could not assimflate those whom we admit we have assimilated? When the alien l. under discussion when the so-called spirit of native Americanism was rampant, how bitter were the denun- citations of the foreigner coming here, and whilst religious. hatred was the motive back of the fierce philippics, 1 yet the ostensible reason was that they never could become good Ameri- can citizens. Their ways were for eign to -our ways. their racial habits were so different from ours that in the minds of a certain class the country was being ruined. And yet many of them have become good, upright, thrifty, honest citizens that any country, even our good republic, might be proud of. But the present. hordes are unassimiIable. This is the constant cry, especially from such sources las the Immigration Restric- l ton league. It has it's special object l in painting the foreigner as black as he can be painted. What their object l is does not concern the present ques- 1 ton.
 Why are the present foreigners un- assimilable? The writer has read to some considerable extent on the i'm migration question and he has as yet l failed to see assigned any reasons 1 why the Italian and the Slav cannot be assimilated. He has heard them referred to as paupers, as ignorant, as not having that refinement to be found amongst us. Do these things make them non-assimilable? Some of the l sturdiest characters some of the staunchest citizens. this country has known came here poor and ignorant and so lacking In what we might call refinement external refinement, at least-that they would have been laughed to scorn by many of our up- per ten whose refinement is not al- ways that of character. but rather that of costly clothes and beiewelled hands. That the foreigner, and his children particularly, are being fast assimilat- l ed no city furnishes better example than New York. remember reading a few years ago a description in, I think. the New York Times, of the Italians in Houston street, Prince and l other streets of that locality. The gist of the description was to the ef- 1 feet that our public school system had made such change among foreign born children that they had become thorough Americans in everything except their racial characteristics of accent and countenance that cannot be changed, but which will never keep them from being good citizens.
 I have talked with men whose daily experience brought them into contact with the foreigner and particularly with the Italian. and their testimony is that they take kindly to our Ameri- can institutions. from the very fact that they perceive in them a decided amelioratlon of their condition So l fully, indeed. has the Italian taken to our countly's ways that he has now l to be reckoned with in local politics in our larger cities Most of the inn l migrants who enter our gates are hon. l est, thrifty industrious and w-abid- l Ing. Tn times gone by those who came to us in the steerage were the pick of their class. and says one of our former consuls: Ut was largely because of this fact that the newly established industries of the United 1 States came to the front almost at a leap" That the standard has low cred somewhat cannot be denied, yet our consul to Naples, whence come so many of our immigrants ts-the ones, I presume, most objectionable to the Immigration Restriction league-says: "There are very few paupers or beg l gars among the Naples emigrants
 They are generally poor people who desire an opportunity to make an hon l est living. It is, however. ditti- cult for any criminal to leave Naples for the United States. The Italian emigration commission exercises a rigid control of this matter.'
 The Republican editorial says that l 60 per cent of the inmates of insane asylums are of alien birth. Perhaps so. I have never seen any statistics relating to this matter. Even so, it
 leaves a fairly good per cent of native
 born in the insane retreats. If New
 York pays a sum of money for them
 is New York reaping no advantage
 from the aliens within her borders :?
 Many of them are taxpayers. Indeed, 1t seems almost incredible with what 1 rapidity the so-much despised alien ac- I quires property. Again who would
 do the subway work and other labor | or that class so extensively done in