The new movement that started in Chicago lately of deporting Italian gangsters who are not American citizens will cause more harm than good, and will not succeed in rooting out gangsterism. The Chicago Daily Tribune is responsible for pushing this movement until it reached Washington. The Tribune is a bitter enemy of all the foreign-born in America and would gladly join in a movement to rid the country of all the foreign-born.

Although this movement seems to be one to root out the gangsters, it is in reality a campaign carried on by the Chicago Tribune intending to deport those coming from the southern part of Italy and from Sicily. The Chicago Tribune is afraid to come out openly with the statement that it is carrying on a dangerous and poisonous campaign of race discrimination against a nationality--against Italians. It, therefore, is attempting to make all people believe that all the 2murderers and gangsters come from one place in Italy--from Sicily--and that we should get rid of these people by putting them all on board ships and sending them back where they came from.

Since the Chicago Tribune felt that the campaign against the entire Italian populace may be considered as an insult by it, it came out this week with an editorial which attempted to soften the charge against the Italians. The Chicago Tribune is now trying to show that the fine, respectable Italians are highly pleased with the movement that has developed to deport the gangsters of Sicily and that the more refined Italians are themselves the victims of their own gangsters. These Italians should, therefore, not only be pleased, but also help deport their "bad" countrymen as soon as possible. In the same editorial, however, the Chicago Tribune also states that steps will soon be taken to place restrictions on other foreigners. Herein lies the great danger of which we must be aware before it is too late.

First of all we must remember that gangsterism in America is not an Italian 3product, and that even the Italian gangsters are not all Sicilians. It is true that that part of Italy is the most impoverished and that the people coming from that section are not only very poor but also very ignorant. Yet we also know that the majority of Italian workers who are engaged in the most common and most difficult work in this country--digging tunnels and paving streets--come from Sicily. The question arises: Is it right and just to blacken the faces of these honest laborers who harm no one just because their race has produced a certain number of gangsters and scoundrels?

Is there one race in America that can say with a clear conscience that it is free from a criminal element? And would any of the races and nations that compose the melting pot of America tolerate such an ugly and disgraceful attitude as that which is shown toward the Italian people? We know for a fact that many of the numerous murderers and stick-up men who were recently sentenced in the Chicago courts bear America names and are descendants of the Nordic race. It is silly to try to convince anyone that by deporting a few hundred gangsters we shall eradicate the plague of gangsterism in America.

If the authorities in Washington strongly sympathize with such a movement--even if the President himself strongly supports such a movement--there must be enough thoughtful people in this country who will be able to foresee the great danger which is inherent in a movement which proposes to spread racial discrimination. Who will apply the proper remedy to eradicate the poisonous discrimination against the foreigners so that it shall have no root in the soil of democratic America?