Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/231

The Modest Immigrant The contempt which the German "is not always nice in concealing" shines with a chastened lustre in the words and deeds of other foreign-born citizens. They accept the vote which we enthusiastically press upon them, regarding it as an asset, sometimes of marketable value, sometimes serving a stronger and more enduring purpose, always as an esteemed protection against the military service exacted by their own governments. They do not come to us "with gifts in their hands,"—to quote Mr. Lowell. They are for the most part destitute, not only of money, but of knowledge, of useful attainments, of any serviceable mental equipment. Mr. Edward Alsworth Ross, who is not without experience, confesses ruefully that the immigrant seldom brings in his intellectual baggage anything of use to us; and that the admission into our electorate of "backward men"—men whose mental, moral, and physical standards are lower than our 215