On As Maine Goes certain posters are hoping that the first thing Governor Paul LePage does is to revoke Maine’s policy on not seeking out undocumented immigrants for the reason of their status alone.

I thought this might be an appropriate time to share the story of a Maine immigrant who came to America in an attempt to improve his life. He did not get a visa. He did not get a green card.

He was French-Canadian.

Tea partiers are so fond of the “good old days,” well, check out these good old days and compare them to today.

There were different reason why they left, I suppose. When a person leaves one place and goes to another, the main reason why he leaves is because he wasn’t satisfied in the first place, and he thinks he can better himself by going somewhere else. I know a lot of people up there were hard up. They thought times were better in the states, and I guess they were. Some of the farmers thought they could do better farther south (in Maine) where the growing season would be a little longer. Some of the young fellows, like myself, couldn’t see much future for themselves on a small village farm where there were a lot of kids growing up. Some of them wanted a change, or they wanted to see a little of the world. The ones that left were generally of the poorer classes, and they thought they could better across the line.

In early days there were no restrictions whatever on immigration; that is, there were no laws or regulations to prevent any one from coming to the states from Canada. There may have been family objections in a few cases, but they were seldome serious. The greatest obstacle was generally a lack of the necessary cash.

Of course, some people at the time argued that the French-Canadians were an impediment to our state, a burden, and a danger to our culture. One official in Massachusetts wrote:

“the Canadian French are the Chinese of the Eastern States.  They care nothing for our institutions, civil, political or educational…  They are a horde of industrial invaders.”

How did that turn out?

History teaches if one is willing to listen.

Later immigrants from Canada has to pay a head-tax and, eventually, were subject to a quota. But prior to that something around 900,000 French Canadians emigrated to the United States, which is a large number even in today’s terms, much less in early 20th century. Are we better or worse off because of it?