Speech #500050940

Yet. strange to say. this serene and utopian view does not in the least propitiate the Knight of Labor. or go ever so little way tosoothe his animosity. representing.as he does. a more formidable clement in the situation. For he sees with a vague and unreasoning terror. the more clearly in proportion to his intelligence. that the hundred and fifty thousand. more or less. already here are only the first driblets of a flood. immeasurable and irresistible. that is held in check just now by dikes of law and general opinion. which certain idealists and economists are doing their best to undermine. There is no extravagance in saying that there are at anygiven time. among the hundreds of millions of the Chinese Empire. as many as fifty millions of the male working class. of emigrating age. to whom it would be vast gain to come to America for such poor chances as Chinamen hereenjoy. and there is no obvious difficulty. granting tinm amd notive for preparation. why a million a year should not be landed iii this paradise of their hope. without in the least relieving the misery at home or diminishing the pressure of the supply. This thing. It is true. looms vaguely like a cloud. of which we are not bound to calculate the bulk and density very closely. The dread of it is felt. not reasoned. But we need not wonder very much at the rage and despair that impel the laboring class blindly against the possibilities of this monstrous invasien. Not that a sudden avalanche of Asiatic hordes is any way likely. not that the acts of blind wrath that have been perpetrated are not shocking. unpardonable. to be energetically put down. Such acts are inexcusable. mainly because (as I said at first) the problem in its present stage is not at all a formidable one. and we are in an experimental or waiting period. Still if all repressive legislation should be abolished and if the floodgates should be thrown wide open.we may take it as the challenge to a conflict in the not very faroff future. which will as much outrun the restraints of our placid everyday ethics as the abnormal. demuonic. yet historically justifiable passion of the Crusades or of the French revolution.