Source: TW
An editorial from the San Francisco Call, 1910
Hindu Immigration Must Stop
The present rate of importation of Hindu laborers runs about 300 a month and is increasing…
If not checked the influx will exceed 5,000 a year, and these figures are moderate if we consider the virtually unlimited cooly population from which the supples are drawn and the pernicious activity of the steamship companies engaged in this profitable trade. These Hindus are by far the most objectionable call of Asiatic immigrants arriving in this country. They are unfitted by constitution to withstand the rigors and variations of the American climate and as laborers they are distressingly inferior.
In fact, it is merely a question of time when they shall become a public charge. Indeed, it is form of cruelty to bring them here, because they are wholly unfitted to withstand the struggle for existence on this continent. The Hindus, moreover, constitute a race problem of even more difficult and dangerous character than do other Asiatics. Their caste prejudices preclude any sort of assimilation with the spirit of American institutions. They are, in fine, impossible.
San Francisco appears to be the only port at which they are granted free admission to the United States or to any country on this continent. In Seattle the immigration authorities have eliminated most of this immigration on the legal grounds that the Hindus are mostly polygamists– a reason that may serve as a temporary barrier to the flood. It is imperative that the Untied States shall erect some effective legislative barrier against this immigration.
The labor conditions of the coast must not be left subject to the caprice of officials, most of whom are subject to powerful political influences exercised by the corporations which make a profit from this trade. Congress will be asked at the coming session to deal with this subject as a whole in a radical way. The prevailing conditions have risen to the importance of a menace to American institutions.