Do not reverence

ward and see others reap it with you. anyone for the mere position he may occupy; respect the position, but reverence in him only that which partakes of the divine, that which you recognize as worthy of imitation. Thus may the priest-teacher help you to become a helper of men in your turn; and a helper you may be, whether immersed in the affairs of the world or free to devote your whole time to the service of humanity.

If ideal teachers be rarely met with to-day, begin now to make their existence likely in the near future. And meanwhile bless the many good priests working in the world around us, unselfishly and according to the light that is theirs — among Romans and Protestants alike, among Jews and Gentiles, and throughout the whole of heterogeneous "heathendom." These men, though nominally belonging to different religions, are in fact most intimately united in a cause they all hold sacred, the cause of universal brotherhood. For the good of the race they labor, careless of reward either in this life or the next; fired with a profound belief in the perfectibility of man and with the urgent need of reminding him of his ever-waiting birthright—that ancient and undying Light which lighteth every man who cometh into the world.1

1 It has not seemed necessary to give quotations from the writings of Madame H. P. Blavatsky and W. Q. Judge bearing upon the views put forward throughout this article. It is sufficient to say that these views were learned from them-particularly in my own case from Mr. Judge, whose pupil I was; and also from association with Mrs. K. A. Tingley, the present head of the theosophical movement.

IMMIGRATION, HARD TIMES, AND THE VETO.

T

O a great many people who had been striving or hoping for real immigration reform the news of the presidential veto came fittingly on March 3- Ash Wednesday. The late lamented bill was vetoed on several grounds. Some of the objections were technical or confined to matters of detail, or else to the difficulty of construing or enforcing certain sections of the proposed law. Upon them, however, the veto message was not really based and they do not concern us, though stated with all the force and sincerity that mark their eminent author.

The first, foremost, and fundamental objection to the bill was "its radical departure from our national policy relating to immigration." Therein lay the great interest and importance of the veto message, especially as a bill framed on similar lines is to appear at the December session of Congress, and the ultimate fate of that bill will be of much concern to American civilization. For, as has been pointed out more than once,' all past agitations for reform have been both fruitless and spasmodic. The present one, having lasted several years, shows signs of drawing to a close. And unless Congress speedily comes to the rescue its net result will have been some improvements in administering the law, and keeping out by the law just of 1 per cent of the new arrivals. This is according to the official reports of the Bureau of Statistics for February, 1897, and is about as good a showing as any yet made.

The provision of the late Bill to which President Cleveland took special exception in his message of March 2, 1897,. added to those to be excluded:

All persons physically capable and over sixteen years of age who cannot read and write the English language or some other language; but a

1 Overland Monthly, Feb., 1894, "Is It Possible to Regulate Immigration?" Also chapter second of “Immigration Fallacies."

person not so able to read and write who is over fifty years of age and is the parent or grandparent of a qualified immigrant over twenty-one years of age and capable of supporting such parent or grandparent, may accompany such immigrant, or such parent or grandparent may be sent for and come to join the family of a child or grandchild over twenty-one years of age similarly qualified and capable; and a wife or minor child not so able to read and write may accompany or be sent for and come and join the husband or parent similarly qualified and capable.

This amendment to the laws it was believed would each year shut out as many as a hundred thousand people of a densely ignorant type with whose society we could readily dispense. But according to the views of the President,

The best reason that could be given for this radical restriction of immigration is the necessity of protecting our population against degeneration, and saving our national peace and quiet from imported turbulence and disorder. I cannot believe that we should be protected against these evils by limiting immigration to those who can read and write in any language twenty-five words of our Constitution. In my opinion it is infinitely more safe to admit 100,000 immigrants, who, though unable to read and write, seek among us only a home and an opportunity to work, than to admit one of the unruly agitators and enemies of governmental control.

The last sentence is perplexing. It seems to assume that the 100,000 ignorant laborers who come to seek a home and work are all innocent and peaceable. But how can such be the case? These 100,000 are from central and southern Europe, a considerable portion being Huns and Bohemians of the class that swarms in the Pennsylvania coal-fields practising polyandry and rifling the bodies of the dead. Many more swell the ranks of the Poles and Slavs toiling in Western mines, a very unruly and dangerous element. Some prove to be Italian or Sicilian ex-bandits, members of the Mafia, bound for New Orleans, perhaps, to embroil us again with their mother country. Many others of course are quiet orderly folk. It must be the latter alone whom the message refers to.

If so it is certainly more safe to admit a good many of them than one educated enemy of society or the state such as an anarchist, nihilist, or prominent criminal. The ex-President intimates that the latter are allowed to enter, and that we should begin the reform with them. So we should-if we could. The trouble is that the criminal is infinitely

harder to detect and exclude than is the mere ignoramus. By requiring the applicant to read and write we can test him in the alphabet of language, but in no way can he be tested in the alphabet of crime. In the great majority of cases, his character and record are sealed from our vision, and so they must ever remain under our singular system, or rather total lack of system, of admission. When we are ready to apply the character test in earnest we shall begin at the other end of the Atlantic, whence, under a proper system of consular inspection, no emigrant will be allowed to sail without a clean bill of health, not only physical and moral, but mental and financial.

But this reform is much more "radical" than that of the bill in question, and even surer to encounter a veto. If we must begin elsewhere, and it is clear that we must, why not start with the ignorant peasant or with the specimen of "inherited inefficiency" from the slums of Europe? To say that the anarchist or agitator is worse than he, is not to say that he is at all desirable. Strangely enough the message emphasizes this very thought in a plea for the illiterate. The ex-President urges that it is more safe to admit 100,000 illiterates than one of the unruly agitators or enemies of government who, he says (without italics), "can not only read and write, but delight in arousing by inflammatory speech the illiterate and peacefully inclined to discontent and tumult. Violence and discontent do not originate with the illiterate laborers. They are rather the victims of the educated agitators." But does not this make the illiterate about as dangerous to society as the agitator? For, in lack of the illiterate, where would the agitator look for a following?

As many an urgent appeal to restrict immigration has been made in behalf of American labor, the ex-President's views on the subject are most important. He observes:

The claim is also made that the influx of foreign laborers deprives those who are better fitted than they of the privilege of earning their livelihood by daily toil. An unfortunate condition is certainly presented when any who are willing to labor are unemployed. But so far as this condition now exists among our people it must be conceded to be a result of the phenomenal business depression and the stagnation of all

enterprises in which labor is a factor. With the advent of settled and wholesome financial and economic policies, and a consequent encouragement to the activity of capital, the misfortune of unemployed labor should, to a great extent at least, be remedied. If it continues, its natural consequence must be to check the future immigration to our cities of foreign laborers, and to deplete the ranks of those already here.

Of course a "phenomenal business depression" has some temporary influence in lessening labor immigration, but so long as the rate of wages in this country is appreciably higher than that abroad, the toiling masses there will as "a natural consequence" gravitate to us. Moreover, natural laws are not allowed to control. Immigration nowadays is largely artificial, constantly stimulated by the steamship companies and their agents. During last year's Congressional debate it was claimed that the emissaries of transportation are now restricted by law in their methods of advertising our resources to the credulous European. On the other hand, it was pointed out that immense ships had lately been built for this very emigrant traffic which were obliged to earn interest on the investment. One of their representatives stated to a House Committee that the companies had agents in every village of Europe for the purpose of inducing emigration; and another witness said that not only were the immigrants posted as to our scale of wages, but that many of them on landing in an American city knew more about the organized charities of the city than the people who lived there.

But the former part of the foregoing paragraph alluding to the causes of the great business depression is the all-important portion of the message, since the supposed injury of immigration to labor accounts for the "radical" nature of the vetoed bill. Many people have come to feel that, whatever the influence of the currency or the tariff, the numbers and especially the recent character of the new-comers have contributed both to produce and to aggravate the "hard times" of labor if not of capital. The ex-President, however, is evidently of those who think otherwise. For the condition of unemployed labor, he says, "must be conceded to be a result of the phenomenal business depression," which