Los Angeles herald., 1905-12-06

the south. always provided, however.
| that stricter effort is made to see that
only immigrants of the right kind come
to our country anywhere. In actual
practice it has proved so difficult to
enforce the immigration laws where
long stretches of frontier marked by
an Imaginary line alone intervene be-
tween us and our neighbors that ]
recommend that no immigrants be al
lowed to come in from Canada and
Mexico, save natives of the two coun-
aries themselves. AS much as possible
should be done to distribute the inn
migrants upon the land and keep them
away from the congested tenement-
house districts of the great cities. But
distribution is palliative, not a cure.
only Good Citizens Wanted
The prime need is to keep out all i'm
migrants who will not make good
American citizens. The laws now eX-
isting for the exclusion of undesirable
immigrants should be strengthened.
Adequate means should be adopted, en-
forced by sufficient penalties, to COM
pei steamship companies engaged i'm the
passenger business to observe in good
faith the law which forbids them to en-
courage or solicit immigration to the
United states. Moreover, there should
be a sharp limitation imposed upon all
vessels coming to our ports as to the
number of Immigrants In ratio to the
tonnage which each vessel can carry.
This ratio should be high enough to In
sure the coming hither of as good
class of aliens as possible. Provision
should be made for the surer punish
ment Of those who induce aliens to
come to this country under promise or
assurance OF employment 1t should
be made possible to nfict "A sufficiently
heavy penalty on any employer violat-
ing this law to deter him from taking
the risk II seems to me wise that
there should be an International con-
ference held to deal with this question
of irnmigration which has more than
merely national sgnificance such
conference could, among other things.
enter at length into the methods for
securing "A thorough inspection or
would-be immigrants at the ports from
which they desire to embark before
permitting them to embark.
Must Not Lower Standard
In dealing with this question it is un-
wise to depart from the old American
tradition and to discriminate for or
against any man who desires to come
here and become a citizen, save on the
ground of that mans fitness for citizen
ship 1t is our right and duty to con-
slider his moral and social quality. His
standard of living should be such that
he will not, by pressure of conpetltlon'
lower the standard of living of our own
wage workers.; for it must ever be a
prime object of our legislation to keep
high their standard of living. If the
man who seeks to come here is from
the moral and social standpoint of such
a character as to bid fair to add value
to the community he should be heartily
welcomed. We cannot afford TO pay
heed to whether he is of one creed or
another, of one nation or another we
cannot afford to consider whether he
is Catholic or Protestant, Jew or Cen
tile; whether he is Englishman or
Irishman, Frenchman or German, Jap
anese, Italian, scandinavian, Slav or
Magyar. What we should desire to find
out is the individual quality of the in
dividual man. In my judgment, with
this enc in view, we shall have to pre-
pare through our own agents far
more rigid inspection in the countries
from which the immigrants come. 1t
will be a great deal better to have
fewer immigrants, but all of the right
kind, than q great number of immi-
grants, many of whom are necessarily
of the wrong kind. AS far as possible
we wish to limit the immigration to this
country to persons who propose to be-
come citizens of this country, and we
scrutiny of the character of those who
are thus proposed for future citizen
ship. There should be an increase in
the stringency of the laws to keep out
insane, idiotic. epileptic and pauper i'm
migrants. But this is by no means
enough. Not merely the anarchist, but
every man of anarchistic tendencies. all
violent and disorderly people, all people
of bad character, the incompetent, the
lazy, the vicious, the physically unfit,
defective or degenerate should be kept
out. The stocks out of which American
citizenship is to be built should be
strong and healthy, sound in body,
mind and character. If it be objected
that the government agents would not
always select well, the answer is that
| they would certainly select better than
do the agents and brokers of foreign
steamship companies. the people who
now do whatever selection is done.