The Alaska daily empire., 1919-01-09
FOREIGN BORN
 REFERRED TO
 BY SECRETARY
Lane in His Annual Report Thinks a Great 0ppor- tunity Presented to
 Americans.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9.-SpeakinG cf the foreign born in his annual re- rort to Congress, Secretary Frank
 lin K. Lane says:
 The next grand division of those
 who need education, inspiration, ana
 outlook, land for whom we are re sponsible, is the foreign born. Our
 responsibility arises out of our gen erosity These sons and daughters
 of all the world have been drawn
 here by the generosity of our laws;
 the open hand has been extended
 across the seas. We have said to them that coming clean they would
 be welcome. This was the land Of
 their hearts desire, where men could
 be their own masters and rise ac
 cording to the quality that they had
 Here was youth with which they
 could identify themselves, land which
 they could own, society which they
 could help to shape and in which they would have satisfied that world long yearning for recognition. The
 man could here be developed; the full man, for schools were here ana
 a sympathetic environment; others
 were climbing, too, with whom they could measure their progress. This
 was fair picture surely. And they came, some for economic reasons, de siring their chance at the good things
 spread on this rich table that Col
 umbus found. Others came that they might have the larger satisfactions
 of an independent, unhampered, un- 1 mastered growth as man among his
 equals. They came in no apologetic
 humor, for they brought something
 from the older lands which they felt
 would be a contribution to new
 civilization their art, literature
 their far-reaching historical prospec
 tive, their fervor for the opportunity i to experiment, to adventure, to give
 cast to this new worlds life.
 Here was an opportunity. We
 met them at the gate with truly 1 American welcome, which most of
 them could not understand; Enter | and make a place for yourself" TbiS had been the greeting we. ourselves had received There was to be no coddling here. This was a mans land, a place of test. The art that was most needed was the art of get
 ting on. If literature and science
 and experiment were to come they
 must be founded upon the solid
 rock of a self-sustained, unpatron ized people. Dreams of case and 1 long debate must be cast aside un | til the right of dream was earned. The American was to be journey man. doing his bit at the making of lthe land. If this was not a worth
 while job, then there was no place for the stranger. We had mines to dig, wells to drill, buildings to erect. railroads to construct, farms to blow, sewers to lay, machines to build and when one had done his share Of these there might come the singing The Lord had laid on us the respon
 sibility of reclaiming for mankind a large slice of this lost land, and all else could wait in life till this end was reached.
 In this steady drive we made our selves. We were impatient with those who called out to stop or go slow. The pace that we set was that which must be kept. "All men are born free and equal" we called | to the newcomer, and went on, for eetful that he was not free, for he had still the limitation of his old life not equal, for many reasons. Mani
 festly a man without tools is not the equal of the man with, and those
 here already were men who knew the language of the new land, who
 knew its spirit and the way to meet 1t and run with it, who had access to the heart of a people and knew
 what it's call was. Things did not