Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/28

8 firmly and devoutly held, so that the proffer to change it for another would be scorned and utterly withstood, — if that religion had not been in name or symbol Christian, it would at once have decided what must be the relations between the people and their visitors. As we shall see, the very axiom and conviction of right and duty for all European discoverers of that day was that those of every race and clime who were outside of the fold of the Roman Church were heathen, uncovenanted and damned, and must come into it or perish.

The fancy which I have ventured to suggest, — that the first European adventurers here might have found a continent and people advanced above their own in intelligence, civilization, and all the ministering resources of life, — may find a semblance approximating to reality in the reception which has been accorded to the Mongolians from China. Those immigrants have certainly found here a land preferable for their wants and uses above that which they have left. They certainly cannot congratulate themselves on the warmth of the welcome which they have received. Interested parties, those whose individual gains in commerce or labor are served by these destitute and hungry and humble people, — who thrive on stinted wages and refuse food, — have been pronounced public enemies for favoring the incoming of the Chinese. Among those directly concerned in the exciting question there is a bitter controversy whether this Mongolian race shall make further increase on our continent, and whether those already here shall not be driven out. It is easy by the imagination, helped by some ready statistics and calculations, to forecast deplorable consequences from such an unchecked immigration. We are told that there are more of wretched and starved millions of population in China to-day than there are of all whites and Europeans in the United States, and that, if the way were left open and free for them to come, with their habits of industry and thrift they would soon have predominance here. The