A recent issue of the Springfield “Republican” contained a labored article in which it was maintained that the mathematical custom of neglecting infinitesimals cannot be safely followed in politics. In illustration it was argued that the Chinese should be excluded notwithstanding this fact that we have five hundred Caucasians to each Mongolian. But, curiously enough, a subsequent paragraph contained these words: “Barbarism neglects the infinitesimal, the individual, the petty. The savage gorges himself so long as he has food, and starves until he has it again. He knows nothing of slow accumulation and patient saving; he acquires wealth in mass, if at all, and lacks the percentage virtues. Rudely civilized society in a less degree deals only in the gross. . . . . As civilization progresses, smaller coin comes in, closer reckonings are made, until it is the man who looks out for the nickel who succeeds.” Now it is well known that the Chinese surpass all other peoples in slow accumulation, patient saving, and the percentage virtues. The “Republican,” then, assumes the awkward position of advocating the exclusion from our shores of the very people whose virtues it commends to Americans and who, by its own standard, have reached a higher point in the scale of civilization than any other element from which our population is increased.
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