Canada has been the great obstacle to extending the American immigration quotas to the countries of the Western Hemisphere. The majority of its inhabitants are our own kinsmen, many of whom have already contributed elements of great value to our population. Others would be most welcome if they chose to come.
Our nation has been unwilling to put the slightest restriction on Canadian immigration, by applying a quota; and it was thought it would be invidious and discriminatory to apply a quota to the countries south of us, and not to the one to the north. That difficulty will have to be met firmly in the near future. One proposed solution has been to admit from Canada only those whose mother tongue is English.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Acadie in the Micmac language means "place." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's pathetic poem, "Evangeline," embodies the anti-English sentiments of the early nineteenth century in New England and is founded largely on an error of spelling, which made "Arcadia" out of the Indian word. The expulsion of the French in 1758 was by Bostonians under Colonel John Winslow, and was justified by the refusal of the French to accept loyally the rule of the English.
OUR NEIGHBORS ON THE SOUTH
Unlike Canada on our north, the countries south of the Rio Grande have been relatively little influenced by Nordic culture, to say nothing of anything resembling a Nordic conquest. The outlying territories of Mexico which were annexed to the United States were nearly empty lands and present Mexican influences in the Southwest are matters of more recent date.
Latin America is one of the major divisions of the World, and from the present point of view should no more be discussed as a unit than could Europe or Asia. Its original population represents one of the great racial divisions of mankind. Its twenty different nations now speak several different languages, and embrace representatives of all the important races of both hemispheres.