Chippewas, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, and such like.  Suppose, when our fathers were trying to come to this country, the Indians had stood on Plymouth Rock and at the Highlands of the Navesink, and when the Hollanders and the Pilgrim Fathers attempted to land, had shouted, “Back with you to Holland and to England; America for Americans!” Had that watchword been an early and successful cry, where now stand our cities would have stood Indian wigwams; and canoes instead of steamers would have tracked the Hudson and the Connecticut; and, instead of the Mississippi being the main artery of the continent, it would have been only a trough for deer and antelope and wild pigeons to drink out of.  What makes this cry of “America for the Americans” the more absurd and the more inhuman is that some in this country, who themselves arrived here in their boyhood or only one or two generations back, are joining in the cry.  Having escaped themselves into this beautiful land, they say:  “Shut the door of escape for others.”  Getting themselves on our shores in the life-boat from the shipwreck, they say:  “Haul up the boat on the beach, and let the rest of the passengers go to the bottom.”  Men who have yet on them a Holland, or Scotch, or German, or English, or Irish brogue, are crying out:  “America for the Americans!” What if the native inhabitants of heaven (I mean the angels, the cherubim, and the seraphim, for they were born there) should say to us when we arrive there at last, “Go back.  Heaven for the Heavenians!”

Of course, we do not want foreign nations to make this a convict colony.  We wouldn’t let their thieves and anarchists land here, nor even wipe their feet on the mat of the outside door of this continent.  When they send their criminals here, let us put them in chains and send them back.  This country must not be made the dumping-ground for foreign vagabondism.  But for the hard-working and industrious people who come here, do not let us build up any wall around New York harbor to keep them out, or it will after a while fall down with a red-hot thunderburst of God’s indignation.  Suppose you are a father, and you have five children.  One is named Philip, and Philip says to his brothers and sisters:  “Now, John, you go and live in the small room at the end of the hall.  George, you go and stay up in the garret.  Mary, you go and live in the cellar, and Fannie, you go and live in the kitchen, and don’t any of you come out.  I am Philip, and will occupy the parlor; I like it; I like the lambrequins at the window, and I like the pictures on the wall.  I am Philip, and, being Philip, the parlor shall only be for the Philipians.”  You, the father, come home, and you say:  “Fannie, what are you doing in the kitchen?  Come out of there.”  And you say to Mary, “Mary, come out of that cellar.”  And you say to John, “John, don’t stay shut up in that small room.  Come out of there.”  And you say to George, “George, come down out of that garret.”