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Show I Com TO AMERICA. This country may see a great influx of foreigners in the nar future. fu-ture. An American, who has traveled through Turkey, the Holy Land and Egypt, says: "Wherever one goe in the nar east he meets rrrn eager to emigrate emi-grate to America. So sadly upset is this oldest part of the woi'd and so grievous the experience men hr.ve undergone, that there are hosts of them millions in the aggregate in the near east alone who pui-pose pui-pose to take the short, suie v?y cm of their difficulties and go to ihe I United States. They are lifer! cf l. ruble. America is prosperous end safe; therefore to America they will sail by the hrst ship that will carry them. "Among the Armenian survivors this feeling is strong. They would rather live in America than in the new Armenia about which the politicians poli-ticians talk. The experience of thier own leaders during the years of ordeal has not been happy, wheieas the Americans have been bountiful ancl tireless in sympathy They refuse to see ny reason why America, having done so much for them, should now shut them I out of its gates. The proposal was seriously made to me, by representative rep-resentative Armenians, that Amciica should arrange for the transportation trans-portation of 100,000 Armenians, en masse, to the United States, via the Pacific. This same spirit abounds among the Assyrians, or Nestonans, who j have been decimated by Moslem persecution. Many of their number have been in the United States and Canada; now the survivors want to follow in their footsteps. Like most other war victims, they have been sorely unsettled in their minds, and their habits of industry and self-support hae been impaired. They are convinced that oner in America the beneficent Americans will care for them. "Even upper class Turks, Greeks and Russians show the same disposition. dis-position. They are defeated in the game of life; therefore, they will go to America. There is no talk of serving America, or of supporting the great American ideals; it is avowedly a matter of safety and shelter shel-ter and succor for themselves. "Looking back upon recent travels in the larger near east, which includes Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Western Asia, I recall a long succession of peoples, high and low, whose greatest present desire de-sire is to get to America. In Russia I found a large proportion of the population animated by this purpose. The number represented would total many millions. "As an American, I am bound to say that I have not been encouraged encour-aged by the spirit or estate of these expectant immigrants Whatever What-ever the fulfillment of their dream might mean to them individually, for America it would spell calamity. This mass is of peculiarly indigestible indi-gestible material. It is not the stuff of which our country was made. I see these hosts as a real menace to the American type of life. Surely Sure-ly congress will be wise enough to shut the gates of the nation absolutely abso-lutely for a period of at least five years against all immigrants, whether they come first-class or steerage. We can best help this old world by being brave enough to remain our own truest selves." aiW |
