The vital trouble with America to-day is that she can not assimilate the 600,000 debased, ignorant, poverty-stricken foreigners who are coming in every year. They keep out the one peaceful nation. They exclude the Chinese and take to the national heart the Jew, the Socialist, the Italian, the Roumanian and others who constitute a nation of unrest. What America needs is the "rest cure" that you hear so much about here. She should close her seaports to these aliens for ten years, allow the people here to assimilate; but they can not do it. The foreign transportation lines under foreign flags are in the business to load up America with the dregs of Europe. I know of one family of Jews, four brothers, who wished to come to America, but found that they would have to show that they were not paupers. They mustered about one thousand dollars. One came over, and sent back the money by draft. The second brought it back as his fortune, then immediately sent it back for another brother to bring over, and so on until they all arrived, each proving that he was not a pauper. Yet these same brothers, each with several children, became an expense to the Government before they were earners. The children were sent to industrial homes, and later entered the sweat-shops. In America there is not a Chinaman to-day in a workhouse, or a pauper[13] at the expense of the Government; yet the Chinese are not wanted here.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] This is doubtful.—Editor.
CHAPTER XVI
SPORTS AND PASTIMES
I had not been in Washington a month before I received invitations to a "country club golf" tournament, to a "rowing club," to a "pink tea," to a "polo game," to a private "boxing" bout between two light-weight professionals, given in Senator ——'s stable, to a private "cock-fight" by the brother of ——'s wife, to a gun club "shoot," not to speak of invitations to several "poker games." From this you may infer that Americans are fond of sport. The official sport—that is, the game I heard of most among Government officials, senators, and others—was "poker," and the sums played for at times I am assured are beyond belief. There are rules and etiquette for poker, and one of the most distinguished of American diplomatists of a past generation, General Schenck, emulated the Marquis of Queensberry in boxing by writing a book on the national game, that has all the charm claimed for it. It is seductive, and doubtless has had its influence on the people who employ the "bluff" in diplomacy, war, business, or poker, with equal tact and cleverness.
Middle-class Americans are fond of sport in every way, but the aristocrats lack sporting spontaneity; they like it, or pretend to like it, because it is the fashion, and they take up one sport after another as it becomes the fad. That this is true can be shown by comparing the Englishman and the American of the fashionable class. The Englishman is fond of sport because it is in his blood; he does not like golf to-day and swimming to-morrow, but he likes them all, and always has done so. He would never give up cricket, golf, or any of his games because they go out of fashion; he does not allow them to go out of fashion; but with the American it is different.