Where the Water Gushes From the Rock Klansmen Assemble Each Year to Drink the Libation of Fellowship.
Meanwhile every conception and institution upon which our social and political life is established is torn from its mooring and broken up by the force of the inpouring waves. In Southern and Eastern Europe and in the Near East, these masses are, or have been, until very recently, ruled as they were in the Middle Ages. Rebellion against tyrants to them means acceptance of Anarchism or Bolshevism, or at least German state Socialism. East of the Rhine and south of the Alps they are capable at present only of running wildly about from one tyranny to another, from one stupid blunder to another and back again. If this population in Europe is proving itself to be totally incompetent to govern itself, how can we expect it to take an intelligent and useful part in all the complexities of democracy here? If a million Hungarians, for instance, have failed at every point of the political compass in Hungary, how, in Heaven's name, can we expect them to succeed in New York or Chicago? That mass of Hungarians, like Italians and Germans, like Jews and Greeks, induces the vilest sort of boss rule. They are largely kept away from our public schools by clerical opposition to our school system. A slave population in Europe, they become a slave population here. Politically they are the willing tools of every hidden and dangerous force at work in our public life.
It is no part of my purpose to arouse, in the slightest degree, hatred of these people. Many of them are kind, innocent, simple, unknowing creatures. As strangers in a strange land, they deserve every degree of consideration, every means of help at our hands, which it is in our power to give to them. Their natural inclination, as well as their great numbers, are responsible for that separation from us which the foreign quarter implies. The continued use of foreign languages, and the clinging to foreign customs, are things which should never have been tolerated on our soil. By herding together they bring up their children in a foreign atmosphere, thus perpetuating and increasing the weaknesses and dangers which they have brought into our national life. I used the word "increasing" advisedly. In Europe each unit of this backward and inept mass of poor is merged in a nation which understands him and where he, in turn, somewhat understands his surroundings. But segregated by language and nationality here, they are broken away from their old moorings without binding themselves to the new. In the old world they are led politically, sometimes, by men of education and ideals. With us they fall easy prey to any fool and fakir and dishonest representative of the political machine or vicious interest which may seek to prey upon them and mislead them.
A few particular facts concerning propagandistic activities among our immigrant population may be illuminating if set down together. During the war the pro-Germans organized and conducted a most elaborate and expensive propaganda among our Ukrainian immigrants. This was done in order to weaken Russia at home, both before and after the revolution.
Sinn-Fein Irish, because of their inveterate hatred of the British, were in many cases used to spread pro-German propaganda. This was effectual both before and after we went into the war.
A very large percentage of the Russian Jews in New York City and elsewhere were, at the beginning of the war, pro-German because they were anti-Russian. After we entered the war they were bitterly anti-American because they were pro-Bolshevist. No possible turn of events could make them take a pro-American position upon any issue under the sun. This is the element, by the way, which used funds from Russia to carry on its pro-Bolshevistic propaganda among our Negroes. In certain places, including New York City, it urged the Negroes to arm themselves and fight the whites.
The French-Canadian immigrants among us number, with their children, nearly half a million. During the war they were, strange as it may seem, anti-French. The French-Canadian population is completely dominated, politically, socially and intellectually, by their clergy. These clericals still hate France and the French Government because the French Revolution overthrew the power of the Roman Church in France. They still belong to the ancient regime. So they naturally took the side of the ancient regime, the German side. Among us, they were largely passive. In Canada they actively opposed every war activity of their government from start to finish of the war.
Of the Asiatics there are two main elements—the Japanese and the East Indians. Of the East Indians there are not many, but their number is steadily increasing. They are being widely used to stir up an Indian revolution against the British Empire. Whether this is or is not justified we are not discussing here. The point is that this foreign element is using America as a vantage-point from which to make war upon another country.
Finally, we come to the Japanese. Here we find the climax of this whole matter. The religion of the Japanese immigrants is, primarily, Mikado-worship. Sums of money to build the temples for this delectable form of religious expression are furnished largely by the Japanese government. When we ponder these facts we may well ask whether we as a nation do not ourselves require a guardian. We resemble a five-year old child with a purse full of money, sitting in a poker game with greedy and astute gamblers. To carry our sentimentalism so far, to overwork the theory of the brotherhood of man to such an extent as this, is to court total disaster. We as a nation are asleep because selfish, corrupt and designing interests among us have drugged us out of our senses. These great interests want cheap labor. They are aided in their designs by a crowd of well-meaning but ignorant sentimentalists, most of whom do not dream that they are helping to destroy our American nation in order to experience an emotional satisfaction. The employers get their cheap labor, and the sentimentalists their self-satisfaction. We, the foolish majority, are losing our freedom and our country. If the facts do not cry us into action, why multiply words? All America is hoping, praying and preparing for peace with Japan. But to further permit even the smallest amount of Japanese immigration will surely tend to war. In the event of war any American in Japan will undoubtedly take the side of his own country. We shall fully expect him to do so. For the same reason the hundred and fifty thousand Japanese in our own country will prove to be a hundred and fifty thousand skillful and resolute enemies. Making an American out of a Japanese under the conditions above described is as impossible as making a sheep out of a goat, or a dog out of a cat. As to whether or not we are superior to the Japanese, is not the matter at issue here. The important fact right here is that we differ greatly from each other in the basic things of life, and these differences are largely inherited qualities. Furthermore, these differences must surely make Japanese amalgamation with our people wholly undesirable. Such a mixture of bloods runs counter to a fundamental principle of biology which all high-school children learn as a matter of course. The offspring of such a blending of widely different stocks are likely to be unstable in mind. In general they can not qualify as to either the physical, mental or moral standards of either race. In amalgamation there is likely to be a loss from the standards of either side.
The Japanese child in the United States is sent to a school owned and controlled by the Japanese Government. There he is taught the language, ideals and duty of an abject subject of the Mikado. Finally, the Japanese birth rate in California is sixty-nine per thousand annually, the white birth rate nineteen per thousand.