The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-02-11


grafton. Both sides of the question
| are ably presented. OF course the ar
guments are along familiar lines. One
| side says that we no longer assimiIate
| our immigrants and that the further
indiscrimnate coming of millions of
iiliterate and backward persons is
| adding to the number of our social
/ and civic problems and increasing the
gravity of existing ones: that the
aliens make our slums, occupy the time
of our police, crowd our hospitals and
asylums and longest our prisons: de-
grade our electorate, corrupt public
| service, Overwhelm American ideals.
Speaking on this side Robert c. De
Ward says:
Southeastern Europe has furnished
northwestern Europe to the slums of
Baltimore. nineteen times as many to
the slums of New York. twenty times
is many to the slums of Chicago, sew
anty-one times as many to the slums
of Philadelphia. The Little Italys,"
Little Syrias" Little Armenias," etc.
we find increasingly difficult and bur-
densome problems of public and pri-
Vate charity. of police. of education. of
religious training. of public health.
There is no know Nottingham in
the feeling that the unlimited immigra-
ton of the races who are now coming
to us in such large numbers should
in some wise way be regulated. 1t is
pretty clear that we are not prop
erly assimilati ting our foreign popula-
we'll as of our native born is made
harder because of the ever increasing
competition caused by the newer i'm
migrants"
The other side, of course, contends
thai new blood has ever been the life
of this nation, and that the Very exist
ence of our nation demands that the
foundations of society shall be con-
tinually broadened and strengthened
by the incoming of millions willing
and glad to do the hard and dirty work
that the second generation of Ameri-
cans usually shrink from. Those who
argue in this way seem to think that
it is only by continued infusion of new
blood that our society is to be pre-
vented from crystalizing along the
lines of social caste that prevail in all
the old countries to a greater or less
extent. The following paragraph |
from Kate Holiday Claghorns paper
concisely puts the argument in favor
of unrestricted immigration:
The Italians, Russians and Aus
trians are almost exclusively of |
that great body of toilers on
erS rests the towering structure |
of European states. Their very |
presence here shows a desire for |
their condition and the ener- |
sy to set about it that is so character !
istic a lack in the true pauper. The
pauper population is predOminantly |
composed of the Old and the very
young. This immigrant group is COM |
posed of young adults. males in the |
care of itself Considering the volume |
of immigration il is obvious that the |
great mass of our immigrants are alb !
sorbed in the industries of the coun-
try with surprising rapidity and COM |
pletenesS. Our foreign-forn pOpula- |
ton furnishes the greater part of our |
dependent population because the for |
eigners constitute the greater part of |
these economic classes from which the !
dependents of any country are drawn. /.
while the nHtiveborn are for the most !
part found in those economic classes |
that do not furnish dependents"
The advocates of restr ction of i'm |
do not cOncede that it is only !
by keeping up sort of social lluX by |
the importation of aliens that We can |
keep our society from crystallzing. |
They maintain that the influx of cheap |
labor simply delays the development |
of machinery that will do away with |
the necessity for hard and dirty man.
uHl work. The man who runs q ma
chine is always Il step above the man
who is a machine. If common labor |
should become scarce in this country |
by reason of restriction of immiGra |
ton. it is argued, that soon practical !!
~ all work would be done with the aid |
of machines, thus utterly abolishing in |
American life what is now the lowest |
stratum industrially.
Oklahoma hortoulturists.
GUTHRIE. Okla. Feb. 1.-THE pro- !