Page:Mead - The Overthrow of the War System.pdf/121

 in sympathy with the lynchers would no longer be possible.

'''The five per cent. idea'''

Prof. Sidney L. Gulick, for many years a missionary in Japan, proposes a plan which has great value. He says that since the best assimilative agency for immigrants "consists of those of the same nation that are already naturalized and know the languages, customs, ideals, political and social life of both peoples," therefore "all immigration should be limited to a definite per cent. per annum from each people, of those from that people already naturalized with American-born children of the first genera-ion. Five per cent. suggests itself as a suitable rate with which to begin the experiment." With the present foreign-born population in America, this five per cent. plan would admit relatively few from southern Europe, and very few indeed from Japan. But being universal in application, the five per cent. plan commends itself as just to all. From the outcry made against Japanese in California one would imagine that they numbered at least a half-million, in that State alone, whereas in the whole country there are less than 100,000.

Professor Gulick says of Japan, "Her sense