The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1905-12-17
ELIOT WOULD
LET DOWN BARS
President Of Harvard Favors Unre-
stricted immigration.
DEFENSE OF THE CHINESE
MANIFEST SUPERIORITY OF THE
JAPS.

Boston. Dec. 16.-In an address be-
fore the Economic club OF Boston last
night. President Charles w. Eliot Of
Harvard. speaking on immigration"
said.
1T is the labor unions Who teach the
doctrine 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 10
Keep out oil the newcomers Trom those
trades. Air. GOmpeTs. the other day in
New York. opposed the admission Of
Chinese students and educated Chinese
and other travellers on the ground that
Chinese coolies might smuggle them
selves into the country in that dis
guise. l want 20 protest against that
line OF argument that we should Try
10 keep out new arrivals because our
earnings viii be reduced. That is not
the real danger. Have wages fallen
in the last fifty years, or risen? Yet
immigrants have been coming by the
millions. Our laboring class-if l may
use such a term-h0ld q very unmaHiy
opinion about the newcomers. They
have not confidence enough in their
own superiority resulting from their
own advantages. We ought TO have a
profound confidence from our own eX-
perience on this soil of the trustworthy
effects Of freedom for every man.
immigration in the Past.
az am no kind of a restrictionist to
anybody, either in education, religion
or Immigration We are all of us con-
tent with the results OF the immigTa-
ton Of the last eight generations. It
has been the source al our civilization
and of our ideals. The only possible
doubt about the present immieration,
contrasted with the former, is this:
Are the races that are coming now
as sound physically. morally and men,
tally as the races that have come since
1872? There is a good deal of race and
religious prejudice in the matter. Men
say: Can we digest this mass of Ro-
man Catholics Well. we have digest
ell many millions of them and they
have turned out humane. excellent cit
liens What race have We digested
with more difficulty than the lrishf
Yet in President Roosevelt there are
two strains Of blood, one Dutch and
the other Irish.
Defense of the oricntals.
"What shall wo say of the yellow
race Last week, II New lOIh, 1il
attempt was made TO draw clear-cut
distinction. The labor orators de-
nouneed the Chinese and Japanese, i'm
plying that these races were physical
". mentally and morally differentiated
from US in such a degree that they
could not be lived with. All We want
to know about a race is, can we live
with il? 4 minister who had lived IN
China replied that that nation had pro-
duced a high civilization when the an
cestors Of every man in the room were
living il fur clothing in the wilderness.
We have had an excellent oppor-
tunfty to see what the japanese are
like. See what an exhibition they have
given us I'm physical strngth and pow
er in their mastery of the art of war.
They actually taught the English now
to fight a naval battle. No fleet IN the
world ever made such intelligent prep
arations for battle as the surgeons OIL
Togo's fleet. And witness the intellect
nal insight in the conduct Of the strus-
gle and the moral qualities in its con-
clusion. Yet we have the insolence 10
conceive OF excluding japanese from
this country because Of their INFERIOR
itv. As 20 contract labor the law can
moi be enforced never has been en-
forced and never ought TO be en-
ioreed-'