As A Chinaman Saw Us | Page 3

all classes were sent by the ship-load, and sold for wives. I reminded a lady of this, who was lamenting the fact that in China some women are sold for wives. She was absolutely ignorant of this well-known fact in American history, and forgot the selling of black women. Among the men were many representatives of old and noble families; but the bulk, I judge from their colonial histories, were people of low degree. Very soon other countries began to ship people to America. Italy, Germany, Russia, Norway, Sweden, and other lands were drawn upon for constantly increasing numbers as years went by. All tumbled into the American hopper. Imagine a coffee-grinder into which have been thrown Greek, Roman, Jew, Gentile, and all the rest, and then let what they call Uncle Sam--a heroic, paternal, and comical figure, representing the government--turn the handle and grind out the American who is neither Jew, Gentile, Greek, Roman, Russe, or Swede, but a new product, sui generis, and mostly Methodist.
This process has never ceased for an hour. America has been from 1492 to the present time, in the language of the American "press," the "dumping-ground" of the nations of the world, the real open door; yet this grinding assimilation has gone on. It is, perhaps, due to the climate, perhaps the water, or the air; but the product of these people born on the soil is described by no other word than American. It may be Irish-American, very offensive; Dutch-American, very strenuous, like the Vice-President;[1] Jewish-American, very commercial; Italian-American, very dirty and reeking with garlic; but it is American, totally unlike its progenitor, a something into which is blown a tremendous energy, that is very wearisome, a bombast which is the sum of that of all nations, and a conceit like that possessed by ---- alone. You see it is incurable, also offensive--at least to the Oriental mind. Yet I grant you the American is great; I have it from him and from her; it must be so.
You have the spectacle here of the nations of the world pouring a stream, that is not pactolean, and not perfumed with the gums of Araby, flowing in and peopling the country. In time they had grievances more fancied than real, yet grievances. They rose against the home government, threw off the English yoke, and became a republic with a division into States, which I will write of when I tell you of the American politician. This was the first trust--what they call a merger--but it occurred in politics. They have killed off a fair percentage of the actual owners of the soil, the Indians, swindling them out of the balance, and driving them back to a sort of ever-changing dead-line. Without delay they assumed the form of a dominant nation, and announced themselves the greatest nation on the earth.
Immigration was resumed, and all nations again sent their refuse population to America. I have facts showing that for years English poorhouses and hospitals were emptied of their inmates and shipped to America. It was a distinct policy of the anti-home-rule party in Ireland to encourage the poor Irish to go to America; and now when there are more Irish in America than in Ireland the fate of Ireland is assured. Yet the American air takes the fight out of the Irishman, the rose from his cheek, and makes a natural-born politician out of him. America still continued to receive immigrants, and not satisfied with the natural flow of the human current, began to import African slaves to a country founded for the benefit of those who desired an asylum where they could enjoy religious and political freedom. The Africans were sold in the cotton belt, their existence virtually creating two distinct political parties. America long remained a dumping-ground for nearly all the nations of the world having an excess of population. Great navigation companies were built up, to a large extent, on this trade. They sent agents to every foreign country, issued pamphlets in every European language, and uncounted thousands were brought over--the scum of the earth in many instances. There was no restriction to immigration until the Chinese were barred out. After accepting the outlaws of every European state, the poor of all lands, they shut the door on our "coolie" countrymen.
In this way, briefly, America has grown to her present population of 80,000,000. The remarkable growth and assimilation is still going on--a menace to the world, but in a constantly decreasing ratio, which has become so marked that the leading Americans, the class which corresponds to our scholars, are aghast at the singular conditions which exist. Non-assimilation shows itself in labor riots, in the murder of two Presidents--Garfield and Lincoln--in socialistic outbreaks in every quarter, and in signal outbreaks in various sections, at lynchings,