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Show Hlf, Immigrants. H i J It is noted at Ellis Island that the percent- H hi age of illiteracy among immigrants is in- H'! creasing. Last year the percentage of illit- H-ri eracy above 14 years of age was 28. It is H; expected that 500,000 will come this year. Hj'p Some thoughtful people east are worried H ! h over this. They note that there are many Hjg more males than females arriving, and are Hfff counting from this year's importations a H II solid phalanx in a few years of 1 50,000 voters Hj who can neither read nor write and who of HH jv necessity can know very little of the institu- li tions of our country. H II The only consolation is in the fact that HH this has been going on for a hundred years Htifliffi and still the Republic rides on an even keel. Hffl A worse feature than the illiteracy is the HHK character and nationalities of the comers. A flK& generation back nearly all comers were from HB northern Europe, from the races that are fB disciplined at home, who believe in law and HS order, and who, if a law seems wrong, have the patience to gc about its repeal through ' the legal channels". The comers now are from lands where the people are bound to superstitions and often governed more by passion than reason, and who are prone to construe liberty as but another term for license. li-cense. That true liberty which is liberty under the law they have no conception of. There is a cause for their coming. During the past five years the volume of trade in favor of the United States has been some thing unknown before in any country. Most of that balance has been paid by Europe and times have" been growing hard there faster than they have been growing prosperous prosper-ous on this side of the Atlantic. It means more poverty For the people there, more illiteracy and a growing anxiety to find a new home in a land where people are permitted per-mitted to hope. Such of them as are hpnest and come with honest purposes we have no right to keep out. We must receive them and trust to the assimilative powers of the great Republic to absorb them, for the earth and the air are free to all of God'speoples. The only excuse for refusing domicile to any people or class is where the coming puts in jeopardy the health and morals of our own people. |