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Show WILSON'S LAME REPLY. Governor Wilson of New Jersey, in the course of his campaign for the Democratic nomination to be President, has stopped to explain what he meant when he wrote in bis History of the American People the following criticism criti-cism of certain forms of immigration into this country: But now there came multitude: of men of the lowest class from the south of Italy and men of the meaner sort out of Hungary and Poland, men out of tho ranks where there was neither skill nor energy nor any Initiative of quick intelligence; in-telligence; and they came In numbers which Increased from year to year, as If the countries of the south of Europe were disburdcninBT themselves of the more sordid and hapless elements of their population, the men whose standards stand-ards of life and of work were such as American workmen had never dreamed of hitherto. . . . The unlikely follows who came in at the kastern ports were tolerated because they usurped no plm-e but the very lowest In the scale of labor. His reply does not seem to he much else than a plea of confession and avoidance. He undertakes to divide bis opiuion as between the national characteristics of the southern nations of Europe, placing his opinion vor high upon those who sta' at home, and taking back nothing as to those who come to this country. His reply on this point i? as follows: f was not spoaklnr of a nation, but of certain 1eiiejits which had rccontl. disclosed dis-closed themselves anions: our Immigrants i I am perfectly willlnc to abide by am I fair ro.-iding; of the passage In my history, his-tory, to which you probably allude . . . If I have at any time deplored certain element? that have come to us In our later immlerratlon. I count myself ery unfortunate If I have lien so awk ward in my wav of expressing: what I had to eay as to bring injustice tu a people whom 1 admire and resprcl. From this il appears that Governor Wilson admires and respects the peoples peo-ples of southern Jiurope, but only when I they stay at home. He "deplores cer- i tain elements that have come to us iu our later immigration,' but does not think that this ought to count against his admiration and respect for (he bulk of those nationalities iu their home surroundings. It may well be doubted whether an explanation and plea like this will help him very much, because the votes of those foreigners in their native country could not be valuable to him in his Prc?idcntial race, while it is the very elements which he deplores de-plores the coining of to this country which will cast votes in the Presidential Presi-dential election so far as thefre immigrants immi-grants have been naturalized; and unquestionably un-questionably those votes would go with zeal and vim against Governor Wilson as a Presidential candidate. It is always a mistake, for a Presidential Presi-dential candidate to stop and bother himself about matters of this kind. But, inasmuch a Wilson had completely com-pletely reversed himself in his lifelong life-long teachings against the initiative and referendum, perhaps the Poland-ers, Poland-ers, the Hungarians, and the southern Europeans whom he assailed in his history, hoped that he could be driveu to retract his criticisms against them n. immigrants and his denunciation of them as more undesirable than China men But thev could not drive Wilson quite that fnr, though tho drove him into a corner in wh cli he leaiiuigv torri |
