Undigested Foreigners

The immigration for April, judging from the figures at this writing accessible, will have broken the record of any month of any year. Most of our new friends come from that part of Italy where the ways of justice are tortuous and dark. The Mafia, or private vengeance society, seems to have been transported in full florescence to New York, where it is dealing with our Italian citizens in true Sicilian fashion. Americans of longer residence object to having death distributed by secret societies, and we shall do what we are able to exterminate these bands of assassins. The semi-official Italian dagger is a picturesque bit of foreign color, but it does not agree with the habits and customs of the United States. The leading Italian paper in this country estimates that if the immigration tide continues to rise at its present rate, the Germanic races will lose their domination in this country in about twenty years, and it urges the Italians not to forget their language, which will hold them together and bring glory to old Italy, when her sons rule under the Stars and Stripes. We rather expect English to be the language officially spoken here for some years to come, and even expect American civilization to keep its present aspect but it will do no harm to put up breastworks in time. There has been some objection to paying the bill of an expert whose business it is to keep out insane foreigners, but personally we should regret to see the end of this amiable official. Recent arrivals occupy much more than a fair share of the asylums as well as of the prisons. The immigration laws are none too strict, and their enforcement might well be more severe. If the Pennsylvania mine owners were unable to meet the American laborer's advance in requirements by employing masses of the poorest and most ignorant excretion of Europe, their problems would be solved with fewer firearms. The head of the manufacturer's association declares the "muscle trust," as he calls the unions, a national menace. A muscle trust is precisely what the unions have not been. They have been rather trusts for light and leading, for the protection of intelligence and ideals. Manufacturers have worked against factory legislation, the unions have worked for it. Capital often seeks to import large masses of depraved foreigners, labor favors a slower and more careful importation. If the test of power in this country ever becomes one of muscle instead of right or brains, the misfortune will be largely due to the greed of capital.--Collier's Weekly.