CHAPTER XXV.

CAUSES OF OPPOSITION TO FOREIGNERS.

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THE immense immigration of late years, and the palpable growing influence of the foreign born has become a source of anxiety, and it is not now regarded with great favor by any considerable portion of the native citizens. Many causes have conspired to produce this change of sentiment and feeling in the American people, and to induce a very general conviction, that the present unlimited and unguarded admission of foreigners into this country, is a serious public evil. And why do they so regard it, and are they anxious for some reformatory legislation on the subject? The inquiry is well answered in the pamphlet, written by a foreigner, already quoted from. It is, in truth, as he says:

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"Because any body and every body may come without let or hindrance. The rogues and vagabonds from London, Paris, Amsterdam, Vienna, Naples, Hamburg, Berlin, Rome, Genoa, Leghorn, Geneva, &c., may come and do come. The outpourings of alms and work-houses, and prisons and penitentiaries, may come and do come. archies, oligarchies and aristocracies may and do reduce millions of the people to poverty and beggary, and compel the most valueless to seek for a shelter and a home in the United States of America, and they do so. And what are the consequences? The consequences are that about 400,000 souls from Europe, chiefly Germans, Irish, and Dutch, are annually arriving in this country and making it their permanent abode. That a vast number of these immigrants come without money, occupation, friends, or business; many, very many, have not the means of buying land, getting to it, stocking it, and waiting for first crops, and many others would not settle upon land if they could. That, go where you will in the United States, you find nearly all the dens of iniquity, taverns, grog shops, beer houses, gambling places, and houses of ill fame and worse deeds, are kept by foreigners; and that numerous objects of poverty and destitution are to be seen crawling along the streets in every direction. That not a few become criminals, filling our prisons and putting the country to great expense. This is a fearful catalogue of consequences, but they are by no means all. This unlimited and unrestricted admission of foreign immigrants, is a serious injury to the native laboring population, socially, morally, religiously, and politically; socially, by overstocking the labor market and thus keeping wages down; morally and religiously, by unavoidable contact and intercourse; and politically, by consequence of want and employment and low wages, making them needy and dependent, whereby they become the easy prey or willing tools of designing and unprincipled politicians. And in this way the native population is deteriorated and made poor, needy, and subservient: and these realities produce want of self-respect, hopelessness, laxity in morals, recklessness, delinquencies, and crimes.

"But there is another consequence which is deserving of notice, and it is this. Our manufacturers, iron makers, machinists, miners, agriculturists, railway, canal, and other contractors, private families, hotel keepers, and many others, have got into the way of

expecting and seeking for cheap labor, through the various supplies of operatives, workmen, laborers, house help, and various kinds of workers, kept up by the indiscriminate and unrestrained admission of immigrants. Indeed, it is no secret that immigrants, or rather foreign workers, have become an article of importation, professedly for the purpose of providing for the deficiency of supply in the labor market, but in reality with the intention of obtaining efficient workers at lower wages."

Yet, with all these evils flowing from the unguarded admission of foreigners, evils of every class and character, affecting all the relations of life, there is no disposition among the native born Americans to discourage the immigration of moral and industrious Europeans. On the contrary, they rejoice in being able to furnish them an asylum from oppression, and a home in which they may enjoy all the blessings of liberty; but they neither feel nor feign any attachment or regard for the criminals and adventurers who have left their own country for their country's good. They gladly welcome to their country every honest and industrious man in Europe, with this exception, that they do not come to rule America, but to be content to let those rule who are to the manor born. "We do not propose," is the language of a recent address of the American State Council of Georgia, "to shut our doors on the world, but that we continue to be the asylum of the oppressed of all nations. Let the victims of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny come. What we mean to say is, that with our consent they shall not rule the land."

All that is desired of foreigners is to lay aside their national peculiarities and prejudices, to deport themselves with becoming modesty and propriety, and, instead of at once mingling in political broils, and attempting to regulate and control public affairs, mind their own private business. No American finds fault with them for remembering the country of their birth. All they would have the foreigner do is to study to become a good and useful citizen, making himself acquainted with the principles of the government, imbibing the spirit and genius of its institutions, assimilating himself to its manners and customs, and, in a word, to fear God and honor the country of his adoption. Alas! there are, however, too many of the immigrants from the Old World who do not thus conduct themselves after their arrival in this country, and hence the prevailing sentiment now extant among the native citizens, in favor of restricting, by law, the power and privileges of aliens to within prudent limits. No such general feeling would probably now exist, had the foreigners been content with a rational exercise of the privileges which are so freely by law conferred upon them; but, instead of enjoying these in that becoming and unassuming manner which would do them most credit, and exerting themselves to the utmost to lay aside their nationality, and assimilate in character, habits, manners and associations with the native born, they have formed clans, and organized into bands,

whose misconduct is but the too frequent cause of disorder and tumult in our large towns and cities. Nor is this all. Instead of refraining from participating in political and religious controversy, they have been the most active in introducing it on both subjects. They have not been satisfied with the rights of citizenship and the protection of American laws, but demand office as a right, and even insist upon the political proscription of Americans for resisting their demand. Need we, then, wonder that they have become obnoxious?

In consequence of this state of feeling now extant, Thomas D'Arcy McGee, an Irish refugee at New York, has lately volunteered his advice to Irish journalists on the subject of immigration, and pointed out the evils which, he thinks, Irish immigrants have to meet in the United States. His advice to them is, to migrate to Canada, and, though he fled himself from British tyranny and oppression, and was but a few years since glad to make this country his own home, the new order called Know Nothings seems to have frightened him from his propriety, and brought upon him a fit of admiration for British rule in Canada; and in this advice he has been thus seconded by the Dublin Telegraph, which is said to have a larger circulation than any other journal in Ireland:

"As to the Irish people themselves, they really want something more substantial and more beneficial to them, as a working and industrious nation, than a republic. The Irish have had two bitter experiences of a republic-in their own country, as subjects of an English republican government-in the United States, as subjects of the great American republic. In both, they have suffered a remorseless, ruthless, pitiless persecution, here, from the Cromwellians-there, from the Know Nothings. The Irish are aware that under a republican form of government, there may and can be no safety for bishops, priests, monks or nuns. This is the Irish experience of a republican form of government. Why should they expose themselves to all the horrors of civil war to bring such a calamity upon their country?"

Mr. McGee's advice, and the article of the Telegraph, are of the same character, and deserve about the same consideration as the advice of the Irishman to his countrymen to migrate to South America, which is mentioned by James K. Paulding, in his Letters from the South, vol. ii., p. 205. If the opinions of that eminent American writer, who has since held a cabinet office under a democratic administration, were so well settled on the subject of immigration as early as 1816, as the annexed account, taken from one of those published letters, would seem to indicate, how much more must he now be confirmed in them, when foreigners virtually control, in many of our cities, the action of political parties, and not only fill the home offices, but represent the American people at the courts in Europe! If the following well-drawn picture was justified by facts in 1816, it is doubly so now:

"The truth is, the great cities along the sea-coast are not quite one-half American

cities, and change their aspect every year, as a snake does its skin. When I last visited N—————, after an absence of two years, I walked the streets without knowing any body. The ancient inhabitants seemed to have been swallowed up by the strange party-colored mixture of all kinds of figures that elbowed me on every side. The signs, which in our frolics we used sometimes to pull down, were all changed, and the city was a new world. Hence arises the singular change of politics observed to take place in this ancient and renowned emporium of foreign trade and foreign influence. Foreigners rule the banks, foreigners are the loudest at elections, and foreigners, in more than one place, have had the hardy ingratitude to array themselves in direct opposition to the people who afforded them an asylum, and a participation of their rights, as well as of their happiness. A wretched fugitive, who lately set up a paper in your city, has had the insolence to upbraid us with affording his starving countrymen, last winter, nothing but soup in charity; as if we were under any obligation, but that of our own humanity, to support them! Does he suppose we feel their visits to this country an honor—or an obligation; or that we are bound to pamper them with luxuries as strangers of distinction! He has, however, made some amends for his insolence, by advising his countrymen in future to immigrate to South America; and I earnestly hope they will be fools enough to take his advice.

"This subject reminds me of a queer fellow that went by the name of Paddy Whack, who came over from a place called Knockecroghery, as I think, and palmed himself upon a good-natured kinsman of mine, whom we familiarly called Uncle Sam. Pat had many good qualities, but was a little apt to forget himself, and become ungrateful.

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"Pat heard of America, 'THE SWEET LAND OF THE EXILE,' where the industrious stranger is ever welcome, and ever sure of competency, if he seeks it any where but at grog-shops and soup-houses, and where freedom, plenty, safety and happiness are so often repaid by base ingratitude. To that happy land he set out, on a stick instead of a horse, and was quite surprised at two things, to wit: that his horse was of little use in preventing his getting tired, and that he could not get to America by land. So he took shipping, and when he came there, the first thing he did was to abuse the captain of the ship for not giving him a free passage, and the people for not giving him roasted turkeys instead of soup for charity; seeing how valuable a citizen he was, and what a compliment he paid the country by his visit. He was still more nettled when he found that he got no practice, except with people who paid no fees; for there were already more lawyers than suits in that famous city. So he took up the business of patriotism, and fastened himself upon Uncle Sam, who was a liberal, good-hearted old fellow, that kept open house to all comers, and received Pat with kindness and hospitality, because he was poor and an exile.

"Uncle Sam in a little time gave Pat all the privileges of his household—kitchen, cellar, and all; and, in truth, fed and pampered him at such a rate, that in a short time his legs came to look like Jupiter's thigh, with a little whiskey Bacchus in it. As I said before, Pat was a fellow of many good qualities-hospitable, brave, and generous-but his hospitality was not often exercised in favor of Uncle Sam, for he had no house to be hospitable in; his bravery was rather indiscriminate at times, for he sometimes defended himself when nobody attacked him, and generally attacked friends as well as foes; and his habit of unthinking generosity too often made him forget the favors he received, and become ungrateful. Pat, in fact, was a fellow that did not get credit for half his good qualities; because he had such a queer left-handed way of showing them, that one-half of the time people mistook them for faults.

Living so long at Uncle Sam's good house, he began to think that because he had been fed in the eagle's nest, he must needs be a young eagle. So he said to some roaring boys that used to come and see him and drink Uncle Sam's whiskey, ‘By Jasus! let us turn Uncle Sam out of house and home, and have a time of it. The old fellow has taken us into his house and entertained us handsomely; but what of that? We are the true liberty boys, and will take the bull by the horns at once. So down with the old aristocrats, the fellows that side with England, because they won't give us our land, and who have kept us out of our inheritance these two hundred years; for wasn't Kit Columbus a Knockecroghery man, sure?' So they got drunk upon Uncle Sam's whiskey, and then marched into the parlor to turn him out of doors. But the old man and his sons were too stout for them, and put them out for that time. But he could not find it in his heart to discard Pat from the house, he was such a queer, good-natured dog, there is no knowing what may happen in the end. The last I heard of Pat was his making such a rout at an election, that the people in the neighborhood were obliged to get up a society for the protection of native born citizens against Pat and his roistering companions, who wanted to be represented by Pat in the Legislature ! !"

Mr. Paulding has presented a no less humorous than truthful description of the conduct of but too many Irishmen in America. So formidable and powerful a class have naturalized citizens now become, that they not only, to a great extent, control the action of political parties of the country, but are so fully conscious of it that the bolder spirits among them do not hesitate to threaten Americans with what they can and will do, if their requests be not complied with. But a few years ago the Irish Repeal movement was made a hobby by some of our American demagogues whereon to ride into office in some of the large cities. As soon, however, as they had effected their own personal purposes, the movement was permitted to languish and fall into odium. It was then that the Freeman's Journal came out with an article, probably written by Archbishop Hughes, containing the following impudent threat in the disguised language of what purports to be advice to Irishmen :

"Irishmen learn in America to bide their time; year by year, the United States and England touch each other more and more nearly on the seas. Year by year the Irish are becoming more and more powerful in America. At length the propitious time will come—some accidental, sudden collision, and a Presidential campaign at hand. We will use, then, the very profligacy of our politicians for our purposes. They will want to buy the Irish vote, and we will tell them how they can buy it in a lump from Maine to California by declaring war on Great Britain, and wiping off at the same time the stains of concessions and dishonor, that our Websters, and men of his kind, have permitted to be heaped upon the American flag by the violence of British agents."

In this threat we have confirmed the apprehensions felt and expressed by Americans; for it is an unblushing avowal, from a high source of authority, among a very large class of foreigners in this country, that that vote may be purchased by those who will consent to the terms on which it is disposable. Other threats, no less startling, have been fre