Omaha daily bee., 1905-12-17
eliot on IMMIGRATION
President of Harvard Takes Exception to
Position Of "Laboring Glass"
AMERICA SHOULD WELCOME ALL coMtRs
Finds Irish Hard Ia Digest. hut
would Not Restrict Japanese
or Chinese from the
United states.

BOSTON, Dec. 16 In an address before
the Economic club of Boston last night
President Charles w. Eliot OF Harvard,
speaking of "immigra- ion" said
1t is the labor unions who teach the doc
trine of contract labor exclusion. That is
the source of all the agitation along these
lines. The Americans who have got into
the good trades want to keep out all new
corners from those trades. Mr.. Gompers
the other day In New York opposed the ad-
mission of Chinese students and educa ed
travellers on the ground that Chinese cool
les might smuggle themselves into the
country in that guise. l want to protest
against that line of argument, that we
should try to keep out new arrivals be-
cause our earnings would be reduced. That
Is not the real danger. Have wages fallen
in the last five years or risen? Yet imni-
grants have been coming by the millions
Our laboring class-if / may use such a
term-hold a very unmannerly opinion
about the newcomers. They have not con-
f1dence enough in their own superiority re-
ought to have a profound confidence from
our own experiences on this soil OF the
trustworthy effects of freedom for every
man.
| am no kind Of a restrictionist to any
body, either in education, religion or immi-
grafton. We are all OF us pretty content
with the results of the immigration of the
last generations. 1t has been the source OF
our civilization and of our ideals
only Possible Doubt.
The only possible doubt about the present
immigration contrasted with the former is
this: Are the races that are coming now
as sound physically, morally and mentally
as the races that have come since 16l2P
| There is a good deal of race and religious
| prejudice in the matter. Men say: Can
we digest this mass OF Roman Catholcs?'
| Well we have digested many millions OF
| them and they have turned out humane,
/ excellent citizens. What race have we d.
! gested with more difficulty than the Irish 2
are two strains Of blood, one Dutch and
| the other Irish.
What shall we say of the yellow race -?
| Last week in New York attempt was
| made to draw clear-cut distinction. The
| labor orators denounced the Chinese and
| japanese, implying that these races were
| physically, mentally and morally differen-
| tiated from us in such a degree that they
! could not be lived with-and all we want
| to know about race is, can we live with
! it? A minister who had long lived in China
| replied that that nation had produced q
! high civilization when the ancestors OF
/ every man in the room were living in fur
| clothing In the wilderness.
! We have had an excellent opportunity to
see what the japanese are. What an ex.
| hibition they have given us in physical
strength and power in their mastery of the
art of war They actually taught the Eng
fish how to fight a naval battle. No fleet
In the world ever made such intelligen,
| preparations for battle as the surgeons OF
! Togo's fleet. And witness the intellectual
the moral qualities in its conclusion. Yet
we have the insolence to conceive of ex
/ Guiding Japanese from this country because
| of their inferlority. As to contract labor
the law ca mot be enforced, never has beer
/ enfor ed ard never ought to be enforced.