The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1917-01-25
Restricted immigration.

NO9lBbCVCO 0eeV0s
The question of restricted immigra-
ton has been increasing in Importance
and discussion for many years. And
in the mean time undesirables from for
eign countries have been entering our
portals by the millions. We are not OPP
posed to the immigration idea-we
rather believe in it. There has been a
need for it, and there is still room for
the better sort, but our present immi-
grafton laws are unsatisfactory. They
should be changed and revised. We
should require a more thorough inspec-
ton abroad, and more rigid system OF
examination at our immigration ports.
We should devise system by which the
undesirable immigrants shall be kept out
entirely, and the desirables be properly
distributed throughput the country.
Self-defense is the first law of nature
as well as of nations. Unrestricted inn
migration is Trojan horse in our midst.
From it will come danger and destruc-
ton, unless the gates are closed against
all ssundesirables." We are allowing
great and powerful criminal class to be
developed. 1t increases from year to
year and in various ways asserts its
power on society. So well is this COM
ing to be known by criminal classes in
Europe that it is understood here that
they look upon the United States as a
"happy hunting ground" and more and
more seek it. Their coming has been OF
benefit chiefly to the transportation
companies who brought them over. The
present tide of immigration is menace
to our country and it's institutions. The
skilled laborers are remaining in Eura-
STA and we seem to be getting those who
have not and do not desire to possess
skill. If the money spent upon aliens
in our prisons and insane hospitals
could be devoted to the industrial train
ing of such aliens as we have already
with us, the results would be much bet
ter. We are not protecting our working
classes so long as we open the gates
wide to competition from European
labor. The time has come when most
drastic measures are absolutely nee
essary to prevent great harm to the
future of our country. Our very ex-
istence seems seriously threatened by
the presence already of millions of peo-
pie whom we can never properly assim-
ilate. We should stop all immigration
now, except in few cases of people of
education and means, who for some evil
dent purpose wish to come here to be-
come bona Jfde citizens, and these rea-
sons should be carefully inquired into
and shown to be satisfactory. If we
shut out all other countries we may save
ourselves from direful complications
with orientals in the future.
My theory is that the we'll educated
foreigner, of say thirty-five or forty
years, reared as he has been under the
monarchial governments of the old
world, after residing in America for ten
years, understands and appreciates less
of the fundamentals and spirit of our
institutions than does the average boy
of American descent at the age of six
teen years. Yet this American boy is
required to reside here for twenty one
years before he can vote, and think the
foreigner should be subjected to the
same residential probation, that is,
twenty lone years before becoming full
fiedged citizen, and if during such period
he exhibits criminal qualities, he should
be excluded from naturalization alto
gether. All our troubles, including
Anarchists and our dangerous cranks of
many kinds, are mainly due to a lax
system of immigration laws. A gene
ration owes two great duties-one to
itself and one to the future. We are
almost guilty of double crime of fall
ing in both.
Immigrants usually prefer to stay
where another will furnish them with
food, and hence are mostly found loiter-
ing on the lines of public works. Else
they come to us in large bodies, being
DESTROYS Of living together, and through
that course they preserve the whole cur
rent of their prejudices and national
peculiarities and never become trans
formed to our habits of thinking and
acting. Even our lands, under the cul-
tivation of the foreigner, will yield but
little more than half as much as under
our own husbandry.
It is an incontrovertible truth that the
civil institutions Of the United States OF
America have been seriously affected
and that they now stand in imminent
peril from the rapid and enormous in
crease in that body of residents of for
eign birth of an ignorant and immoral
character. The almshouses of Europe
are emptied upon our coast, and this by
our own invitation-not casually, but
systematically, and upon a constantly
increasing scale. The United States
are rapidly becoming the penal colony
Of Europe. The alnishouse returns show
that about 66 per cent Of the persons
relieved by charitable aid are of foreign
birth. A very large percentage of vice
and crime in the United States, especi-
ally in the large cities, is chargeable to
European immigration. The police alta.