THE U.S. ALIEN PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 87, 7 January 1920, Page 8

THE U.S. ALIEN PROBLEM

MILLIONS' NOT YET NATURALISED.

One of the chief causes of the industrial unrest in the United States is the number .f alien working men. The Press has been full of accounts of the wav in which the alien has been the snearhpad of the strike 'in the steel trade (writes a. Washington correspondent in the London "Times"). Only a small minority of the American-born workmen, it is averred, were unbalanced enough to to out in response to the agitation of tho extremist Labour leaders. To meet this state of affairs a Bill has been introduced into Congress to spend 5,000,000 dollars this year, and after that twice as much annually, for the Amencaidsatinn of the alien. Tho Bill is supported officially bv figures' to prove that of over 30.000,000 people of alien blood in the country some 3,000,000 cannot speak English, and more than 5,000,000 cannot read it Congress has also had its attention drawn to the large number of foreigners who fail to be.naturalised. Within a three, to nine year period after their ar. rival in the country only 8 per cent, of Russians are stated to become citizens; while 9G per cent, of Bulgarians, 95 ner cent, of Rumanians and Croatian. 92 per cent, of. Greeks, and 7G per cent, of Aush'ians in the service of 112 representative employers were found to have marketed to take out their papers.. "How." asks the New York "Tribune, "can wo ever hope for a united nation amidst such conditions?- What can we expect except that extreme leaders, appealing to these alien groups in their own lonirue. can easily win them to stunid and suicidal attacks. upon that which thev do not understand?' Considerations such as these, ■ coupk-.l with the prevalence of unrest wherever the alien is gathered together, are prompting not onlv the Government but many Church organisations and other interested in social problems to proclaim thai, for the next generation Americanisalion must be, Hie great social problem.

Domestic Problems. This uromng pre-occupntion with the alien is bv no means the least patent of the various anises that threaten to prevent the interest o[ the. United States in the reconstruction mid permanent Dncinwition of the world becoming as nositive as President Wilson had hoped. The country is being provided with an absorbing and nil-important domestic nroblem which cannot but tend to turn its eves inwards. ' One of tlio '.Republican loaders of the Senate was explaining to the writer what he described us the root reason of tho opposition of himself, and his colleagues to the league of Kations lpu must not think," ho aaxl in effect, that wo are careless of American vcsptmsilnlitiw towards civilisation. You will not find us backward if it is necessary to intervene again in world aftairs to save humanity. This war has given us our lesson. We rfui.ll not take three years again to make up our minds that a thing like tho outrage of 191-1 concerns tho whole world. But we cannot p edge ourselves to interfere in every little Bnua.bhio in Europe. Our great problem is-the AmericanJwHon of a naton in which nearly all the European countries and races are strongly represented, lor us to be continually taking sides "'European affairs would infinitely complicate the solution of that problem." President Wilson, ;t will bo remembered, based in 1911 his much-discussed appeal for neutrality m tnought and word as well as in action upon precisely that consideration. It is'a point of view with which nobody who knows the Dm led States and has seen the reaction of he i .'var and, still more, of the peace ilisj cussion, upon her polyglot population, win I fail to sympathise.

Bolshovik Activity. Thero is little doubt that foreign agitators are helping the Industrial Workers of the World to alif «P the alien proletariat. There is abundant prop that the Russian Soviet, headqimi era n Mew York, which were raided nst bummer have been working hard m tho steei districts and elsewhere. ■ It is recognised, of course, that a largo proportion 'of the better-class aliens arc. foval and law-abiding that, ns then showing in the-war has proved, there j. re hundreds of thousands of German.\,neri«iiis and Irish-Americans who put tho country of their adoption beiore all oV; but the feeling seems to grow in conservative quarters Hint, apart from ..II (.nnsideralioii.' of the continuance ol ,'tnulitions of alonfiie??, the development of Iho American polity is still at a f a f (hat renders it advisable to con'C'trnre on domestic problems, when it ccincs to foreign adventures, rather than risk restless controversy beyond the water.

Commercial circles in Buonos Aires are commenting upon the activity of tho Germans in Argentine commercial life