The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American PeopleRoss, Edward Alsworth
History
The Old World in the New: The Significance of Past and Present Immigration to the American People
Ross, Edward Alsworth
Immigrants -- United States; Noncitizens -- United States; United States -- Emigration and immigration
Warm-hearted, sociable, clannish, and untrained, the naturalized
Irish failed to respect the first principles of civics. "What is the
Constitution between friends?" expresses their point of view. In
their eyes, an election is not the decision of a great, impartial
jury, but a struggle between the "ins" and the "outs." Those who
vote the same way are "friends." To scratch or to bolt is to "go
back on your friends." Places and contracts are "spoils." The
official's first duty is to find berths for his supporters. Not
fitness, but party work, is one's title to a place on the municipal
pay-roll. The city employee is to serve his party rather than the
public that pays his salary. Even the justice of courts is to
become a matter of "pull" and "stand in," rather than of inflexible
rules.
A genial young Harvard man who has made the Good Government movement
a power in a certain New England city said to me: "The Germans want
to know which candidate is better qualified for the office. Among
the Irish I have never heard such a consideration mentioned. They
ask, 'Who wants this candidate?' 'Who is behind him?' I have lined
up a good many Irish in support of Good Government men, but never by
setting forth the merits of a matter or a candidate. I approach my
Irish friends with the personal appeal, 'Do this for me!' Nearly all
the Irish who support our cause do it on a personal loyalty basis.
The best of the Irish in this city have often done as much harm to
the cause of Good Government as the worst. Mayor C., a high-minded
Irishman desiring to do the best he could for the city, gave us as
bad a government as Mayor F., who thought of nothing but feathering
his own nest. Mayor C. 'stood by his friends.'"
The Hibernian domination has given our cities genial officials,
brave policemen, and gallant fire-fighters. It has also given them
the name of being the worst-governed cities in the civilized world.
The mismanagement and corruption of the great cities of America have
become a planetary scandal, and have dealt the principle of manhood
suffrage the worst blow it has received in the last half-century.
Since the close of the Civil War, hundreds of thousands of
city-dwellers have languished miserably or perished prematurely from
the bad water, bad housing, poor sanitation, and rampant vice in
American municipalities run on the principles of the Celtic clan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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