AMERICA'S ALIEN PROBLEM.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3141, 30 October 1922, Page 2

AMERICA'S ALIEN PROBLEM.

(By J. W. T. Mason.) The new immigration law, designed to prevent the United States from being flooded with undesirable nationalities from Southern and Eastern Europe, is working occasional hardships on innocent persons. But America is convinced that without the law the English language would eventually sink into second place in the Jfcnited States, and eventually would Oe spoken by most American citizens with a foreign accent. The law provides that the number of aliens admitted within any one year from any country shall be limited to .'1 per cent, of the number of persons from that country resident in America n 1910. Not more than 20 per cent, of each nationality can be admitted in any one month. Anglo-Saxons led the foreign residents of America in 1910. Under the new law the largest number of immigrants that can be admitted in any years from any one country is 77,206 from the United Kingdom. Germany comes next with 68,039, then Italv follows with 42.021, Russia with 34.'247, Poland with 20,019, Sweden with 19,956. and other countries with lesser numbers. By the operation of the law, America is on the road to maintaing the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race on this continent. For that reason the other races are bringing persistent pressure to bear on tlie Government to abolish the restrictive measures. The favorite device of the opponents of the law to create public sentiment against it is to secure wide-spread publicity, not only in America but also in Europe, for every apparent hardship, in distressing circumstances, whiqh results from a literal interpretation of the law. The stated quotas, when exhausted, must be made to serve their purpose. % Yet it has been the frequent custom of foreign organisations in New York to attempt to wring tears of pity from free-born Americans by painting the' plight of families arriving from far away countries too late to be entered within the legal number. Especially when women and youg children are on the excluded list is propaganda used to appeal to America's sense of chivalry. Another method of attacking the law through playing upon feelings of pity is by making the most of the occasional separation of families. The law defines immigrants by the country of birth. No other method could possibly keep out the undesirables at whom the law is aimed. If birth were not the the determinant, hordes of south Europeaners and Easterners would get themselves naturalised in other' countries, as, for instance, Cuba, after their national quotas were exhausted, and would enter America under that disguise. The authorities at Washington are now working on a plan whereby read tape can be cut and authority given to immigration officials to admit all the members of an affected family, and to do away with other harsh features of the law'. But the law as a whole is working well, and is surviving the attacks of New York's critics. SevenLyseven per cent, of New York's population was- born abroad or have foreign parents. That explains New York's attitude. ,