Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1905-05-31
HIGH TIME TO ACT.

measures by Congress towards plac-
ing barrier on undesirable i'm
migration to this country from
Europe, and now that Pres. Roose-
welt is taking hold of the matter it
is to be hoped that the United States
will no longer be a dumping ground
for the skum of other countries.
A large portion of the emigrants
coming to our shores in the past
decade will be found ranked with
strikers, anarchists and thieves, and
Grant county people have an ex-
ample of this class boarding at the
county Jail at the present time in
the person of the swarthy. ignorant
Russian-Jew who is awaiting trial
on charge of breaking into the
Cassville stores recently. This pris-
oner will have cost the taxpayers of
this country $500 by the time the
expense of his trial and keep at
prison is accounted for, and at the
expiration of his sentence he will
be turned loose to enter in all prob
ability similar path of crime, to
perhaps commit murder ere he is
again rounded up.
This culprit is but one example of
the thousands read of daily and it
is time the trash was barred at our
shores.
The presidents next messageIwill
doubtless set forth stringent and
effective measures for the reduction
and sitting of this immigl alton.
The incoming tide for the current
fiscal year is breaking all records,
and, reckoning on the basis of ar
rivals during the last nine months,
the total will be over million.
Of this total a proportion rela-
lively very small comes from coun-
tries like Great Britain, Germany,
and the Scandinavian states where
the average of character and ca
pacity for self-government is high.
The great bulk Of the newcomers
are from sections of Europe where
gross popular ignorance is the rule,
and it is the testimony of the inn
migration officials that ''many
thousands of them are of the most
undesirable class" It is beyond
question that the average quality
OF our immigration has greatly de-
Perforated of late years, and to
modify correspondingly our i'm
migration policy is simply matter
OF national self-protection.
President Roosevelt's views and
recommendations on the subject
will no doubt be based largely on
reports from agents sent abroad to
investigate the alleged practices of
some European governments and
local authorities who, in collision
with steamship companies, have
been treating the United States as
poor farm for their pauperism and
dumping ground for their human
refuse. Some of these reports are
OF sensational character, and the
president is not at all likely to
mince his words if it becomes neces-
sary to publish the facts in order to
secure the needed measures of pre-
vention.
President Roosevelt's known broad
and liberal Americanism, which
condemns all unfair and invidious
distinctions of race or creed among
our citizens, should operate to
prevent the raising of the silly and
shallow counter cry of 'nativism"
against restrictions recommended
etAN AOPOI YOU Wy u1II. Iu0 UrOdU
principle is that the successful
working and indeed the life of our
free institutions depend on high
average lof popular character and
intelligence. A large proportion of
this enormous tide of current i'm
migration consists of people of a
comparatively low average of char
acter and intelligence. A certain
percentage of such arrivals can
always be assimilated. But there is
a limit even to the American capacity
OF assimilation, and common ma
tional prudence requires that it
should not be Appropriated, much
less passed.
The presidents recommendations
- I10 I.