Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 February 1915 — The Haven Argument. [ARTICLE]

The Haven Argument.

Every immigration debate rings the changes on Ipujr traditional policy of opening a haven of refuge to the oppressed of every land. Of course that is not our traditional policy. Probably in no land is there more oppression than in China, and the Japanese are the most heavily taxed people; but we are very decidedly not inviting the oppressed of those lands to swarm over to our haven. We have never hestitated to exclude immigration that seemed unprofitable to us. If our only duty with regard to immigration is to provide a haven, then obviously we ought to welcome the halt, the blind and the beggared most of all. St. Francis would have sore doubts about an eleemosynary institution that shut out, the most helpless. There are those who hold the fine and brave idea that we should keep an open door to all healthy, well intentioned white immigration, because, in the long run, that is best for us, best for humanity, and most nearly corresponds with the true democratic • ideal. Then there are those who want no restriction on the supply of cheap unskilled labor, because that is the raw material of their business. Again, there are those who believe that unrestricted immigration acts as a constant weight on the condition of labor in this country and has already reached undigestible proportions, so that, instead of quickly blending with the mass, it tends to stagnate in alien pools. Free immigration is the finer idea; but a million aliens a year, mainly from southern and eastern Europe, raise a very practical problem that can not be brushed aside by empty phrases.—Saturday Evening Post.