The American Jewish world. [volume] (Minneapolis ;) 1915-current, 1922-02-17
WASHINGTON post" FOR~ PRE-
SERVING NATIONAL INTEG-
RITY AGAINST BARBARIAN"
IMMIGRANTS
Newspaper Close to White House
Favors Retention of Quota Law
for Restricting immigration
Because Foreigners Inacces-
sible to All Public and
Private Virtues

oSIlO1AlS Vic PICSCIlC 1Iu1 OpCdA
grants as "barbarians," the Wash
ington Post, credited, since President
Harding entered the White House,
with being officially inspired on most
important political issues, and in
turn having great influence on the
Chief Executive and the Republican
Party, because of the personal friend
ship between Edward B. Mclean,
millionaire publisher of the paper,
and the President, published an un-
usually strong attack against immi-
grafton, favoring the retention Of the
present restrictive quota law. The
editorial leader, headed preserving
National Integrity" published at this
time, when the form of new law is
being considered in Congress, will
probably have a considerable effect
upon many of the legislators who are
reading the "Post."
The editorial warns America
against the present character of i'm
migration from Europe, alleging it to
be of a very dangerous kind. Europe
since the war;" the editorial declares,
presents psychology quite different
from the pre-war Europe. Some of
the virtues conspicuous in some
classes of the Europeans seem to have
disappeared. The willingness to per-
form hard labor and to turn out good
work, because Of the pride of work
manship, are lost virtues. Excessive
and boastful, or infammatory talk
ing, laziness, profligacy, gaming, and
gross immortality are qualities that
are more prominent now in the Euro
pean immigrants, it is said, than be-
fore the war"
The editorial also indicts aliens on
the ground of their failure to assimi-
late, and in this connection cites con-
ditions in New York as an example,
particular attention being paid to this
point because of a boast quoted in the
editorial to have been made by New
York paper, of the Americanizing
energies of New York City, described
as a gigantic melting pot. The Post
declares this description to be very
misleading. "The superficial manners
acquired by certain classes Of Aliens"
the editorial asserts to be "a false
Americanism of the baser sort, leav- i
ing the foreign vices in full vigor,
and actually giving them more OPP
portunity for malign operation. The
vices of America are equally acquired
by some foreigners, who remain in
accessible to all public and private
virtues"
New York is declared to be "a
steadily growing mass of indigestible
human material, so refractory that it
cannot be Americanized, but on the
contrary communicating the Ameri
canism that is in Others"
The "Post" even fears the fate of
America will be that Of ancient
Greece. if liberal immigration were
allowed, and it is in this connection
that present immigrants are called
''barbarians." The editorial expresses
itself in this wise: "The history of
many glorious nation ends with the
melancholy recital of it's downfall in
through the encroach-
ment or conquest of barbarians or
unassimilable races. Greece did not
fall because of the degeneracy of the
Greeks, but because Of the inroads of
peoples who debauched and destroyed
all that was glorious in that race.
Human nature is susceptible of i'm
by education and civiliza-
tion-that fact mrst be kept in mind,
despite all the disbursements ex-
when one contemplateS the