America for Americans! | Page 9

the enormous figure of eight hundred thousand,
and at the present rate of immigration it is said there will be in the year
1900, fourteen years from now, nineteen millions of persons of foreign
birth, and with their children of the first generation there will be
forty-three millions in this land of foreign born. Now the question, and
a serious one, is, Who are those that come? I have said some are noble,
some are true, some are easily transformed into the Typical American.
But then we are to remember that most of the foreigners who come here
are twelve times as much disposed to crime as are the native stock.
Our population of foreign extraction is sadly conspicuous in our
criminal records. This element constituted, in 1870, 20 per cent. of the
population of New England, and furnished 75 per cent. of the crime.
The Howard Society of London reports that 74 per cent. of the Irish

discharged convicts have come to the United States. I hold in my hand
the annual rum bill of this country for the last year. It is nine hundred
millions of dollars! I ask myself, Who drinks this rum? Native
Americans? Some! [Laughter.] Some drink a good deal. [Renewed
laughter.] But let us see the danger that comes to us from inebriety
among our foreign population.
The wholesale dealers in liquor are estimated at sixty-five per cent.
foreign born, and the brewers seventy-five per cent. Let us take
Philadelphia, that old Quaker city, the City of Brotherly Love, that city
that seems to be par excellence the city of the world, and here are the
figures: There were 8,034 persons in the rum traffic, and who were they?
Chinamen, 2; Jews, 2; Italians, 18; Spaniards, 140; Welsh, 160; French,
285; Scotch, 497; English, 568; Germans, 2,179; Irish, 3,041; Africans,
265; American, 205. I suppose we will have to mix the Africans with
the Americans, and the total would be 470 Americans, and then there
were persons of unknown nationality in the rum traffic, 672; the sum
total being 8,034. Of this number 3,696 were females, but out of the
3,696 all were foreigners but one. There was one American woman in
the rum business, and I blush for my country. Yet there were 1,104
German women, and 2,548 Irish, and of the whole number of the 8,034
engaged in the liquor traffic of that city, 6,418 had been arrested for
some crime. [Applause.] We are bound to look at these facts. Are we a
nation of foreign drunkards?
Then there is another danger--the tendency of emigrant colonization. I
suppose it is known to you that New Mexico is in the hands of
foreigners--in the hands of the Catholic Church. It is also a fact of
Congressional report that 20,557,000 acres of land are in the possession
of twenty-nine alien corporations and individuals, an area greater than
the whole of Ireland. I would have no part of this country subject to any
church. I would have no foreign language taught in the public schools
to the exclusion of or in preference to the English language. I would
have no laws published in a foreign language, whether for the French of
Louisiana or the Germans of Cincinnati. [Loud applause.] I would utter
my solemn protest, and that in the hearing of all politicians, especially
those men who want to be Presidents and can not be Presidents, and

those who hope to be ere long--I would utter my solemn protest to-day
against what is known as the "Irish vote" and the "German vote."
[Applause.] We do not want any "foreign vote." Down with the
politician that would seek an "Irish vote" or "German vote." [Great
applause.] All we want here is an American vote. I would not vote for
any man for President who would stoop so low as to bid for the
German vote or the Irish vote. [Continued applause.] The other
safeguard is an extension of the term of residence required for
naturalization. Some say make the term twenty-one years. What is the
term now? Five years. I read from "Revised Statutes," section 2165 and
2174, that a person applying for citizenship must be a resident of the
United States at least five years, and one year within the State or
Territory wherein the application is made, and that during that term (I
wish I had all the judges here to-day) and that during that term he is to
give satisfactory assurance to the court that he has behaved as a man of
good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of
the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of
the same. "A man of good moral character!" what a sublime utterance,
and how infinite. I would be glad