Martin Ambrose Foran Quotes
No matter how high a moral standard a community may attain, the introduction in that community of any considerable number of persons of a lower moral tone will cause a general moral deterioration just as sure as night follows a day. The intermarriage of a lower with a higher type certainly does not improve the latter any more than does the breeding of cattle by blooded and common stock improve the blooded stock generally.
Martin Ambrose Foran, 1844-1921, U.S. Representative (Ohio), Response to the question of Chinese immigration, June 19, 1884, Quoted in Mink, Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party, and State, 1875-1920
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Every refugee and immigrant group has had to provide the “value” to which he refers. Usually this has been in the form of labor or scientific-cultural skills.
Although Jefferson was a strong immigration enthusiast, he and others were concerned about the ghettoization. The early German immigrants did not universally adopt English, just as today’s immigrants do not all. This was a concern of Americans since the first immigrations. Yet it has always occurred despite concerns about it. However, the second and third generations all become fluent and literate in English.
The congressman was distraught with the national immigration picture at that time. He believed that the influx of Hispanic immigrants into the United States would radically change the culture and the immigrant culture would then predominate. Throughout American history with every wave of immigration, there have been fears expressed about the culture of America. The Irish immigration, the Scandinavians, the Germans, Italians, Jews, the Chinese—all engendered fear that they would “take over” and radically change the country. The reality is that none of them took over but all made some changes and influenced cultural direction of the nation. The congressman was repeating an old refrain.
