ASSIMILATION AND PROGRESS 331
country to which it comes, a feeling of hostility grow
ing out of race prejudice is likely to be roused. Such
has been the feeling on the western coast of the United
States against the Chinese, Japanese and Hindus, ow
ing to the very decided difference in personal charac
teristics and in habits of living of these people, entirely
aside from the question of their influence on wages
and the welfare of the wage-earning classes.
desirable to exclude those who can not be
ASSIMILATED
Such a feeling is natural, altho, of course, one can
not justify race prejudice as such. The coming in of
People who will not be assimilated creates discord and
makes separate classes or castes in a community.
Usually this process does not tend toward an im
provement of political institutions, but rather toward
their deterioration, entirely aside from the question
as to whether the immigrants were lower or higher
m the scale of civilization. If the newcomers are so
different that they can not be adapted to the condi
tions prevailing in the country to which they have
come, they inevitably produce discord, even tho their
habits are fundamentally no worse, either politically
Dr morally, than those of the people with whom they
are brought into contact. Of course, if they were
powerful enough so that they could promptly mold
the institutions of the new type into harmony with
their ideas, the situation would be different, but such
a state of affairs has not arisen and will not arise
with any group of immigrants in this country. It
may, therefore, be assumed that the immigrant who
can not be adjusted with a reasonable degree of readi
ness to the customs and institutions of his adopted