PERILS. — IMMKiKATlON^. 61 



lished and are, therefore, less easily modified by foreign 

 influence, but in the West, where institutions are forma- 

 tive, that influence is far more powerful. We may well 

 ask— and with special reference to the West — whether 

 this in-sweeping- immigration is to foreignize us, or we 

 are to Americanize it. Mr, Beecher once said, "When 

 the lion eats an ox, the ox becomes lion, not the hon, ox." 

 The illustration would be very neat if it only illustrated. 

 The lion happily has an instinct controlled by an luifail- 

 ing law which determines what, and w^hen, and how 

 much he shall eat. If that instinct should fail, and he 

 should some day eat a badly diseased ox, or should very 

 much over-eat, we might have on our hands a very sick 

 lion. I can even conceive that under such conditions 

 the ignoble ox might slay the king of beasts. Foreigners 

 are not coming to the United States in answer to any 

 appetite of ours, controlled by an unfailing moral or 

 political instinct. They naturally consult their own in- 

 terests in coming, not ours. The lion, without being 

 consulted as to time, quantity or quality, is having the 

 food thrust doAvn his throat, and his only alternative is, 

 digest or die. 



