The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1921-05-01
THE UNDESIRABLE IMMIGRANT

Much has been said and written. espe
cially since the world war, about the lax
manner in which the United States admits
aliens and the equally lax manner in which
it endows those aliens, after an all too brief
residence here, with the full rights of citizen
ship.
The matter of more restricted immgra-
ton law is now pending before the national
legislature This proposed legislation pro-
vides, among other things, for the closing
of the gates of this country for period of
one year, against all immigration.
There is possibly not another country on
the globe, today, which has been so prone to
admit and take into full communion the
heterogeneous masses, pauper labor and red
radicals, as has the United States during the
time it has been nation There is not
another country which has opened its gates
as widely and admitted to good fellowship
as freely and unsystematically to all kinds and
classes Of aliens as has the United States
And as result cosmopolitanism has de-
generated into rabbleism, while democracy
and republicanism, as institutions of equal
rights, have evolved from the highest peaks
Of idealism into the slums of radcalsm The
mass Of undesirables, the offscourngs and
criminal of European countries have poured
into our ports and been scattered broadcast
Throughout the land, or permitted to gather
IN fostering centers of corruption and dis
loyalty, creators of discord, scatterers of
malcontent eXpounders of syndcalism and
proponents of doctrines against the constitu
ton of the country which has admitted them
to full fellowship and which protects them in
their righteousness.
We may have all the Americansm days
which human mind may conceive or imagine
we may have all manner and kinds of schools
which seek to teach the doctrines of Ameri-
caniSm and inculcate the principles of Ameri-
but as long as we admit in
those who have no ideas of
what constitutes good government, lust that
long will we be guardian angels over unde-
Slrables whose real aims are directed against
all good government, whose ultimate end
should be behind the bars of prisons.
The United States government, the house
of representatives and the United States sen,
ate, Republican and Democrat, owes it to the
people whose representatives they are, to put
up the bars against the admission of any
more ndesirables. The man or woman who
applies for admission to this country should
dollars and cents alone The mere fact that
the immigrant has enough money to live upon
should not be the deciding factor in admit
ting him to our ports But man or woman,
the prospective citizen should be a human
being possessed of enough intelligence to
appreciate the beauties of American institu.
tions, and should be endowed with sufficient
moral stamina to distinguish between right
and wrong.
Our present Immigration laws are bad
deploraby bad Tky open the way for the
lnscrupuous employer to import pauper labor.
They open the way for admission of those
who would overthrow the government. They
make the true American people victims of the
vampires of socialism, of red ruin of anarchy
and of disloyalty. They afford means of
bringing into this country the macontents of
other nations, the unworthy from other coun-
.res.
These laws should be sternly amended
and then, as amended, rigidly enforced. The
gates should be closed, we think, against
all immigration until, at least conditions here
return to normal until the spirit of unrest,
that spirit created by the radical element, the
undesirable element brought here through our
AK immigration and naturalization systems,
shall have been eliminated And when the
gates are opened to the immigrant, to the
fellows who want to leave the lands of their
birth and cast their lots in lands where great
er opportunities offer a strict censorship
should be maintained and strict inquiry
made into the worthness of the prospective
United States citizens of foreign birth.
None should be admitted until proven