The call of the North. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1923-1924, 1923-10-31


i tent of illiteracy, insanity, disease
dependency and crime would be grave
ly portentious, if we had no immigra.
ton crisis to consider. One in ten OF
our people are socially inadequate
That number at least, instead of be.
ing able to carry their part of the
public load and contribute to the com,
mon welfare, are heavy, dangerous
incumbrarce upon the body polite
And we should not forget that, while
a much larger proportion of social
inadeguates are to be found in immi-
grant stock, probably four millions
of native Americans are outstanding.
ly deficient mentally, physically o,
morally.
Leaving out of account the present
dilluting and often polluting streams
of population from abroad, and elm
mating our own inadequate" it is
undeniable that we have not more
than thirty-five million one-hundreo
percent Americans-men, women ano
children-perhaps thirty millio \
would be the limit. Of course I am
here using that phrase to describe po-
tential personal and not public quail.
tiles. Upon these three or four in
ten must we largely depend for the
predominance and perpetuity of real
Americanism in this country.
The Old immigration And The New
With that picture in mind, let us
proceed, to examine the quantity and
quality of the immigrant streams.
I have done this without prejudice
orSany preconceived attitude. There
is no hatred in my heart for any in
dividual, nationality or race upon the
face of the earth today. I love all
humanity; for that reason my SUI
preme love is for America. The full
est, most effective, expression of that
love lies in the fulillment of her des-
tiny. believe that the safeguarding
Of sacred traditions, the realization of
fundamental ideals Of human welfare.
can be accomplished only by keeping
our citizenship at the highest level of
Intelligence and health and virtue
If we are not successful, socially and
governmentally, mankind everywhere
will suffer and have heavier burdens
to bear. Therefore, I stand for the
survival of the fittest in this nation
because that means material and
moral blessings for all the world.
In the beginning of the national
life, and for long years after, our
policy was rightly that of the open
door. The gates were always ajar,
Those who would might come. Mill
ions did come-the best the earth had
to offer-Huguenot and Vavalier and
Puritan. No mercenary motive
brought them to our shores. They
possessed limitless courage. They
sought no favors that their own Ia
bors could not bestow. They wanted
an enduring freedom founded upon
their traditional reverence for law
They built chapels and congresses and
chanceries. Later, through immigra-
ton, that kind Of opportunity beckon-
ed to kindred humanity in northwest
ern Europe. Likewise they came and
established homes. Into those homes
we gladly gave our sons and daugh-
tiers, and as freely did they enter ours
to remain forever as husbands and
wives. There was complete, har-
monious merging, hindered by no OBJ
stacle that God or man could reason
ably impose. Out of all that grew the
America of the last generation-pros-
porous and proud, pure and patriotic.
Then, suddenly, the character of
our immigration changed. The cources
of our citizenship became radically
different. There was a fundamental
inferiority of racial and national
strains. The Anglo-Saxon, the Scand-
inavian and the Teuton began to re-
cede, with an overwhelming prepond-
erance of peoples like the Slav, the
Latin, and the Greek.
From 1920 to 1923, a grand total of
35,192,224 immigrants came to this
country. By 1914, when the European
turmoil engulfed the world in TRACE
dy, the annual influx was 1,21S,4SO.
What part of this mighty flood of
alien peoples was desirable? Upon
that point, quote from "The Immi-
grafton Problem" a book by Prof.
Jeremiah w, jerks and Mrs. w. Jet
Lauck, as follows:
"a study of the immigration in the
United States, from the time that our
immigration began in 1919, to date,
shows a change in, the character of
the immigration as we'll as in it's ex-
tent. During the last twenty-five to
thirty years so marked has been the
change in the type of immigrants that
it is convient to classify our immi-
grafton as the old, that is, the immi-
grants prior to 1883, and the new,
namely, those coming since that date
The former class includes primarily
immigrants from England, Ireland
Scotland, Wales, Belgium, Denmark
France, Germany, the Netherlands
Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland
These countries Furnished some 81
Iper cent of the immigrants coming