Immigration and Americanization; selected readings. Compiled and edited by Philip Davis assisted by Bertha Schwartz

IMMIGRATION AND
AMERICANIZATION

SELECTED READINGS

COMPILED AND EDITED BY

PHILIP DAVIS

LECTURER ON IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION
AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

ASSISTED BY

BERTHA SCHWARTZ

GINN AND COMPANY

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON
ATLANTA • DALLAS - COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO

, COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
PHILIP DAVIS

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
320.1

Tgftc

G1NN AND COMPANY • PRO-
PRIETORS • BOSTON • U.S.A.

TO

MY WIFE

PREFACE

We are on the threshold of a new era in the history of immi-
gration in this country. The combined effects of the European
war and the new immigration law of 1917 will be so great as to
render much of our antebellum literature on immigration out of
tune with the new order. Hence the need of a representative
volume summarizing the best thought in past and current literature
on immigration and Americanization.

The book aims to cover the field of immigration and Amer-
icanization from every possible point of view, subject to the limits
of a single volume. It is particularly designed to meet the needs
of high schools, colleges, universities, and Chautauquas, which
have been frequently at a loss in recommending to the student,
investigator, official, or general public a handbook on these twin
topics.

This reference book is the outgrowth of several courses on
these subjects for teachers at Boston University and of similar
courses for workers with immigrants under the joint auspices of
the Old South Historical Association and the University Extension
Division of Massachusetts Board of Education. Much of the mate-
rial of the present volume was critically examined and tested by
the students in the light of definite standards of choice, primarily
with the idea of making available to the general reader and
special student alike the best that there is in the literature to date,
covering many centuries and countries and, therefore, necessarily
scattered and inaccessible.

These selections have been so arranged as to present not only a
chronological but a logical development of the subject matter, in-
cluding the most significant recent contributions to the all-important
problems of Americanization in terms of the broadest American
spirit. The volume should prove a useful handbook for similar
courses in immigration and Americanization which are growing
in number and variety in colleges and Chautauquas, as well as

vi IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION

among men's and women's clubs everywhere, and equally useful
for general or supplementary reading for thesis work, debates, or
general information about races and peoples, conditions and issues,
brought into special prominence by the World War.

As the volume goes to press, it becomes evident that our real
problem is not immigration per se, in spite of the fact that the
League of Nations Treaty may precipitate many international
problems on this issue, but the Americanization of the millions of
immigrants in our midst, to the end that the United States may
also represent a united people.

" Many People, One Nation " is the watchword of the Amer-
icanization movement, and many of the distinguished men and
women who generously contribute to the volume are themselves
important factors in the movement. To all contributors and their
publishers the editor desires to make grateful acknowledgment.

PHILIP DAVIS
PHEASANT HILL,
WEST MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The editor is indebted to all authors listed in the table of
contents for generous permission to use selections from copy-
righted works and other publications. Grateful acknowledgment
is also made to the following publishers : The Macmillan Com-
pany, the Century Company, Funk and Wagnalls Company,
Henry Holt and Company, Little, Brown and Company, G. P.
Putnam's Sons, the Fleming H. Revell Company, and George
Routledge and Sons; to the publishers of the American Eco-
nomic Review, the American Hebrew, the Educational Review, the
Immigrants in America Review, the Journal of Sociology, the
Popular Science Monthly, the Quarterly Journal of Economics,
the Scientific Monthly, and the Survey; and also to the American
Sociological Society, the Committee for Immigrants in America,
the Knights of Columbus, the National Conference of Charities
and Correction, and the American Federation of Labor.

vii

CONTENTS

BOOK I. IMMIGRATION
INTRODUCTION

PAGE

Immigration : A Field Neglected by the Scholar, by Jane Addams, LL. D.,

Hull House, Chicago 3

I. HISTORY

Colonization and Immigration, by Edward Everett 23

Immigration — A Review, by Henry Cabot Lodge, LL.D 50

X" History of Immigration, by Prescott F. Hall, LL. B., Secretary, Immi-
gration Restriction League, Boston 61

II. CAUSES

Causes of Emigration. United States Immigration Commission ... 69

III. CHARACTERISTICS

A. EMIGRATION FROM NORTHWESTERN EUROPE

Emigration from the United Kingdom, by Stanley C. Johnson ... 95
German Immigration, by Gustavus Ohlinger 125

B. EMIGRATION FROM SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE

Jewish Immigration to the United States, by Samuel Joseph, Ph.D.,

Commercial High School, Brooklyn 136

The Coming of the Italian, by John Foster Carr, Director, Immigrant

Publication Society, New York 141

The Newer Slavic Immigration, by Emily Greene Balch, formerly Pro-
fessor of Political and Social Science, Wellesley College . . . . 155

C. EMIGRATION FROM ASIA

Japanese Immigration, by H. A. Millis, Professor of Economics, Uni-
versity of Kansas 1 70

Chinese Immigration. United States Immigration Commission . . . 190

Chinese Immigration, by Kee Owyang, Former Consul at San Francisco 200

x IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION

PAGE

IV. THE NEW IMMIGRATION

A Twenty-five Years' with the New Immigrant, by Edward A. Steiner,

* Professor of Applied Christianity, Grinnell College 204

Immigrants in Cities, by E. A. Goldenweiser, United States Immigration

Commission 216

The Immigrant Woman, by Kate Waller Barrett, M. D., Special Agent,

United States Immigration Commission 224

V. EFFECTS '

d Effects of Immigration, by Leon Marshall, Professor of Political

Economy, University of Chicago 231

Economic : Immigration and the Minimum Wage, by Paul U. Kellogg,

A. M., Editor of The Survey 242

Economic : Immigration and the Living Wage, by John Mitchell . . 255
Economic : Immigration and Crises, by Henry Pratt Fairchild, Professor

of the Science of Society, Yale University ......... 264

ial Problems of Recent Immigration, by Jeremiah W. Jenks, LL. D.,
and W. Jett Lauck, of the United States Immigration Commission 276
Immigration and Health, by Alfred C. Reed, M. D., United States

Public Health and Marine Hospital Service 299

Immigration and Crime, by Isaac A. Hourwich, Ph. D 309

Political Consequences of Immigration, by Edward Alsworth Ross, Pro-
fessor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin 319

,

\

v VI. IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

Federal Immigration Legislation. United States Immigration Commission 326

Restriction of Immigration, by General Francis A. Walker .... 360
The Selection of Immigrants, by Edward T. Devine, LL. D., Director,

New York School of Philanthropy ........... 373

The Literacy Test : Three Historic Vetoes, by Grover Cleveland, William

H. Taft, and Woodrow Wilson ............ 376

The Immigration Law of 1917 .............. 381

Future Human Migrations, by F. J. Haskin ......... 420

CONTENTS xi

PAGE

BOOK II. AMERICANIZATION
VII. AMERICANIZATION: POLICIES AND PROGRAMS

Americans and our Policies, by Lillian D. Wald 427

The Immigrant and the State

A. The work of the California Commission of Immigration and

Housing 440

B. The work of the Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration .... 474

. . VIII. DISTRIBUTION

Immigration and Distribution, by J. E. Milholland, Publicist .... 497

Distribution of Agricultural Immigrants, from The Survey 502

Distribution of Immigrants in the United States, by Walter F. Willcox,

Professor of Economics and Statistics, Cornell University . . . 505
Schemes to " Distribute " Immigrants, by Samuel Gompers, President,

American Federation of Labor 52^

Governmental Distribution of Immigrants. United States Bureau of

Immigration 549

IX. EDUCATION

^The Education of Immigrants, by H. H. Wheaton, Specialist in Immi-
grant Education 567

X Schooling of the Immigrant, by Frank V. Thompson, Superintendent,

Boston Public Schools 582

X. NATURALIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP

The Naturalization of Foreigners, by R. E. Cole, Counsel on Naturaliza-
tion for Committee for Immigrants in America 600

The International College for Immigrants, by Henry M. Bowden, Pro-
fessor of English, American International College for Immigrants,
Springfield, Massachusetts 607

XI. AMERICANISM

Address at Convention Hall, Philadelphia, May 10, 1915, by Woodrow

Wilson 611

What America Means, by the Honorable Franklin K. Lane, Secretary

of the Interior 615

xii IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION

PAGE

Americanization, by P. P. Claxton, Commissioner of Education . . . 621

What is Americanization ? by Frances A. Kellor, LL. B. . . ' . . . 623

True Americanism, by Louis D. Brandeis, Justice of Supreme Court . 639

Americanism, by Theodore Roosevelt 645

What America Means to the Immigrant, by Philip Davis, Lecturer on

Immigration and Americanization, Boston University 66 1

APPENDIX

National Americanization Conference 702

Americanization, by Richard K. Campbell, United States Commissioner

of Naturalization 673

Human Documents: Polish Peasant Letters 741

BIBLIOGRAPHY 749

INDEX 767

IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION
BOOK I. IMMIGRATION

f INTRODUCTION

IMMIGRATION : A FIELD NEGLECTED BY THE
SCHOLAR \

JANE ADDAMS, LL.D.

IT IS, perhaps, well to rid myself at once of some of the impli-
cations of this rather overwhelming title by stating that it
is not the purpose of this short address to enter into a discussion
concerning the restriction or non-restriction of immigration,
not to attempt to analyze those astounding figures annually
published from Ellis Island; neither do I wish to charge the
scholar with having neglected to collect information as to the
extent and growth of immigration in the United States, nor in
failing to furnish statistical material as fully perhaps as the
shifting character of the subject permits. Such formal studies
as we have on the annual colonies of immigrants in American
cities, and of the effect of immigration in districts similar to the
anthracite coal regions, have been furnished by university men ;
indeed, almost the only accurate study into the nationalities
and locations of the immigrants in Chicago has been made by a
member of this University.

But in confining the subject to a scrutiny of the oft-repeated
statement that we as a nation are rapidly reaching the limit of
our powers of assimilation, that we receive further masses of
immigrants at the risk of blurring those traits and characteristics
which we are pleased to call American, with its corollary that
the national standard of living is in danger of permanent debase-
ment, a certain further demand may legitimately be made upon
the scholar. I hope to be able to sustain the contention that
such danger as exists arises from intellectual dearth and apathy ;
that we are testing our national life by a tradition too provincial

1 Convocation Address at the University of Chicago. Printed in The Commons,
Vol. X., No. i, January, 1905.

4 INTRODUCTION

and limited to meet its present motley and cosmopolitan char-
acter ; that we lack mental energy, adequate knowledge, and a
sense of the youth of the earth.

IDEALS NOT IN ACCORD WITH EXPERIENCE

The constant cry that American institutions are in danger
betrays a spiritual waste, not due to our infidelity to national
ideals, but arising from the fact that we fail to enlarge those
ideals in accord with our faithful experience of life ; and that
our political machinery, devised for quite other conditions, has
not been readjusted and adapted to the successive changes
resulting from our industrial development. The clamor for the
town meeting, for the colonial and early-century ideals of gov-
ernment is in itself significant, for we know out of our personal
experience that we quote the convictions and achievements of
the past as an excuse for our inaction in moments when the
current of life runs low ; that one of the dangers of life, one of
its veritable moral pits, consists in the temptation to remain
constant to a truth when we no longer wholly believe it, when
its implications are not justified by our latest information. If
the immigration situation contains the elements of an intellectual
crisis, then to let the scholar off with the mere collecting of
knowledge, or yet with its transmission, or indeed to call his
account closed with that still higher function of research, would
be to throw away one of our most valuable assets.

THEORY UNDER THE FACT OF MIGRATION

In a sense the enormous and unprecedented moving about over
the face of the earth on the part of all nations is in itself the
result of philosophic dogma, of the creed of individual liberty.
The modern system of industry and commerce presupposes
freedom of occupation, of travel and residence; even more, it
unhappily rests in a large measure upon the assumption of a
body of the unemployed and the unskilled, ready to be absorbed
or dropped according to the demands of production ; but back
of that, or certainly preceding its later developments, lies "the
natural right" doctrine of the eighteenth century. Even so

IMMIGRATION 5

late as 1892, an official treaty of the United States referred to
the " inalienable right of man to change his residence and reli-
gion." This dogma of the schoolmen, dramatized in France
and penetrating under a thousand forms into the most backward
European states, is still operating as an obscure force in sending
emigrants to America, and in our receiving them here. But in
the second century of its existence it has become too barren and
chilly to induce any really zealous or beneficent activity on
behalf of the immigrants after they arrive, and those things
which we do believe — such convictions as we have, and which
might be formulated to the immeasurable benefit of the immi-
grants, and to the everlasting good of our national life — have
not yet been apprehended by the scholar in relation to this
field. They have furnished us with no method by which to dis-
cover men, to spiritualize, to understand, to hold intercourse
with aliens and to receive of what they bring.

EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DOGMA VERSUS EXPERIENCE OF
THE NINETEENTH

A century-old abstraction breaks down before this vigorous
test of concrete cases, the Italian lazzaroni, the peasants from
the Carpathian foothills, and the proscribed traders from Galatia.
We have no national ideality founded upon realism and tested
by our growing experience, but only the platitudes of our crudest
youth with which to meet the situation. The philosophers and
statesmen of the eighteenth century believed that the universal
franchise would cure all ills ; that fraternity and equality rested
only upon constitutional rights and privileges. The first polit-
ical document of America opens with this philosophy and upon
it the founders of a new state ventured their fortunes. We still
keep to this formalization because the philosophers of this gen-
eration give us nothing newer, ignoring the fact that the world-
wide problems are no longer abstractly political, but politico-
industrial. If we could frankly face the proposition that the
whole situation is more industrial than political, then we would
realize that the officers of the government who are dealing with
naturalization papers and testing the knowledge of the immi-
grants concerning the constitution of the United States are only

6 INTRODUCTION

playing with counters representing the beliefs of a century ago,
while the real issues are being settled by the great industrial
and commercial interests which are at once the product and the
masters of our contemporary life. As children who are allowed
to amuse themselves with poker chips pay no attention to the
real game which their elders play with the genuine cards in their
hands, so we shut our eyes to the exploitation and industrial
debasement of the immigrant, and say with placid contentment
that he has been given the rights of an American citizen, and
that, therefore, all our obligations have been fulfilled. It is as
if we should undertake to cure our current political corruption
which is founded upon a disregard of the interstate commerce
acts by requiring the recreant citizens to repeat the constitution
of the United States.

NATURALIZATION: OLD LAWS, NEW NEEDS

As yet no vigorous effort is made to discover how far our
present system of naturalization, largely resting upon laws
enacted in 1802, is inadequate, although it may have met the
requirements of "the fathers." These processes were devised
to test new citizens who had emigrated to the United States
from political rather than from economic pressure, although
these two have always been in a certain sense coextensive. Yet
the early Irish came to America to seek an opportunity for self-
government denied them at home, the Germans and Italians
started to come in largest numbers after the absorption of their
smaller states into the larger nations, and the immigrants from
Russia are the conquered Poles, Lithuanians, Finns, and Jews.
On some such obscure notion the processes of naturalization
were worked out, and with a certain degree of logic these first
immigrants were presented with the constitution of the United
States as a type and epitome of that which they had come to
seek. So far as they now come in search of political liberty,
as many of them do every day, the test is still valid ; but in the
meantime we cannot ignore those significant figures .which show
emigration to rise with periods of depression in given countries,
and immigration to be checked by periods of depression in
America, and we refuse to see how largely the question has

IMMIGRATION 7

become an economic one. At the present moment, as we know,
the actual importing of immigrants is left largely to the energy of
steamship companies and to those agents for contract labor who
are keen enough to avoid the restrictive laws. The business man
here is again in the saddle as he is so largely in American affairs.

EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANTS

From the time that they first ma"ke the acquaintance of the
steamship agent in their own villages, at least until a grandchild
is born on the new soil, the immigrants are subjected to various
processes of exploitation from purely commercial and self-seeking
interests. It begins with the representatives of the trans-Atlantic
lines and their allies, who convert the peasant holdings into
money and provide the prospective emigrants with needless
supplies. The brokers in manufactured passports send their
clients by successive stages for a thousand miles to a port suit-
ing their purposes. On the way the emigrants' eyes are treated
that they may pass the physical test, they are taught to read
sufficiently well to meet the literacy test, they are lent enough
money to escape the pauper test, and by the time they have
reached America, they are sp hopelessly in debt that it takes
them months to work out all they have received, during which
time they are completely under the control of the last broker in
the line, who has his dingy office in an American city. The
exploitation continues under the employment agency whose
operations merge into those of the politician, through the natu-
ralization henchman, the petty lawyers who foment their quarrels
and grievances by the statement that in a free country every-
body "goes to law," by the liquor dealers who stimulate a lively
trade among them ; and finally by the lodging-house keepers and
the landlords who are not obliged to give them the housing which
the American tenant demands. It is a long, dreary road and the
immigrant is successfully exploited at every turn. At moments
one looking on is driven to quote the Titanic plaint of Walt
Whitman :

As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly
affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who do
not believe in men.

8 INTRODUCTION

BROKERAGE IN CITIZENSHIP

The sinister aspect of this exploitation lies in the fact that it
is carried on by agents whose stock in trade are the counters
and terms of citizenship. It is said that at the present moment
there are more of these agents in Palermo than perhaps in any
other European port, and that those politicians who have found
it impossible to stay even in that corrupt city are engaged in
the brokerage of naturalization papers in the United States, that
certainly one effect of the stringent contract-labor laws has been
to make the padrones more powerful because "smuggled alien
labor" has become more valuable to American corporations,
and also to make simpler the delivery of commercial interests.
It becomes a veritable system of poisoning the notions of decent
government because the entire process is carried on in political
terms, our childish red, white, and blue poker chips again !

More elaborate avoidance of restrictive legislation quickly
adapts itself to changes either in legislation here or at the points
of departure ; for instance, a new type of broker in Russia at
the present moment is making use of the war in the interests
of young Russian Jews. If one of these men should leave the
country ordinarily, his family would be obliged to pay three
hundred rubles to the government, but if he first joins the army
his family is free from this obligation for he has passed into the
keeping of his sergeant. Out of four hundred Russian Jews who
three months ago were drafted into the army at a given recruit-
ing station, only ten reported, the rest having escaped through
immigration. Of course the entire undertaking is much more
hazardous because the man is a deserter from the army in addi-
tion to his other disabilities, but the brokers merely put up the
price of their services and continue their undertakings. Do we
ignore the one million false naturalization papers in the United
States issued and concealed by commercialized politics, in the
interests of our uneasy knowledge that commercial and govern-
mental powers are curiously allied, although we profess that the
latter has no connection with the former and no control over it ?

The man who really knows immigrants and undertakes to
naturalize them makes no pretense of the lack of connection
between the two. The petty and often corrupt politician who

IMMIGRATION 9

is first kind to them realizes perfectly well that the force pushing
them here has been industrial' need and that its recognition is
legitimate. He follows the natural course of events when he
promises to get the immigrant "a job," for that is certainly what
he most needs in all the world. If the politician nearest to him
were really interested in the immigrant and should work out a
scheme of naturalization fitted to the situation, he would go on
from the street-cleaning and sewer-digging in which the immi-
grant first engages to an understanding of the relation of those
simple offices to city government, to the obligation of his alder-
man to secure cleanliness for the streets in which his children
play and for the tenement in which he lives. The notion of
representative government should be made quite clear and con-
crete to him. He could demand his rights and use his vote in
order to secure them. His very naive demands might easily
become a restraint, a purifying check upon the alderman, instead
of a source of constant corruption and exploitation. But when
the politician attempts to naturalize the bewildered immigrant,
he must perforce accept the doctrinaire standard imposed by
men who held a theory totally unattached to experience, and he
must therefore begin with the remote constitution of the United
States. At the Cook County Courthouse only a few weeks ago,
a candidate for naturalization who was asked the usual question
as to what the constitution of the United States was replied:
"The Illinois Central." His mind naturally turned to his work,
to the one bit of contribution he had genuinely made to the new
country, and his reply might well offer a valuable suggestion
to the student of educational method. The School of Education
of this University makes industrial construction and evolution
a natural basis for all future acquisition of knowledge and claims
that anything less vital and creative is inadequate.

NATURAL OPENINGS INTO CIVIC LIFE

It is surprising how a simple experience, if it be but genuine,
affords an opening into citizenship altogether lacking to the more
grandiose attempts. A Greek-American who slaughters sheep
in a tenement-house yard on the basis of the Homeric tradition
can be made to see the effect of the improvised shambles on his

io INTRODUCTION

neighbors' health and the right of the city to prohibit him only
as he perceives the development of city government upon its
most modern basis.

The enforcement of adequate child-labor laws offers unending
opportunity for better citizenship, founded not upon theory
but on action. An Italian or Bohemian parent who has worked
in the fields from babyhood finds it difficult to understand that
the long and monotonous work in factories in which his child
engages is much more exigent than the intermittent outdoor
labor required from him; that the need for education for his
child is a matter of vital importance to his adopted city, which
has enacted definite, well-considered legislation in regard to it.
Some of the most enthusiastic supporters of child-labor legis-
lation and compulsory education laws are those parents who
sacrifice old-world tradition as well as the much needed earnings
of their young children because of loyalty to the laws of their
adopted country. Certainly genuine sacrifice for the nation's
law is a good foundation for patriotism, and as this again is not
a doctrinaire question, women are not debarred, and mothers
who wash and scrub for the meager support of their children
say sturdily sometimes, "It will be a year before he can go to
work without breaking the law, but we came to this country
to give the young ones a change and we are not going to begin
by having them do what's not right."

Upon some such basis as this the Hebrew Alliance and the
Charity Organization Society of New York, which are putting
forth desperate energy in the enormous task of ministering to
the suffering that immigration entails, are developing under-
standing and respect for the alien through their mutual efforts
to secure more adequate tenement-house regulation, and to
control the spread of tuberculosis, both of these undertakings
being perfectly hopeless without the intelligent cooperation of
the immigrants themselves. Through such humble doors as
these perchance the immigrant may enter into his heritage in
a new nation. Democratic government has always been the
result of spiritual travail and moral effort; apparently even
here the immigrant must pay the cost.

IMMIGRATION n

HOW PATRIOTISM MAY NOT BE TAUGHT

As we fail to begin with his experience in the induction of the
adult immigrant into practical citizenship, so we assume in our
formal attempts to teach patriotism that experience and tradi-
tions have no value, and that a new sentiment must be put into
aliens by some external process. Some years ago a public-spirited
organization engaged a number of speakers to go to the various
city schools in order to instruct the children in the significance
of Decoration Day and to foster patriotism among the foreign-
born by descriptions of the Civil War. In one of the schools
filled with Italian children, an old soldier, a veteran in years and
experience, gave a description of a battle in Tennessee, and his
personal adventures in using a pile of brush as an ambuscade
and a fortification. Coming from the schoolhouse an eager
young Italian broke out with characteristic vividness into a
description of his father's campaigning under the leadership of
Garibaldi, possibly from some obscure notion that that too was a
civil .war fought from principle, but more likely because the
description of one battle had roused in his mind the memory of
another such description. The lecturer, whose sympathies
happened to be on the other side of the Garibaldian conflict,
somewhat sharply told him that he must forget all that, that
he was no longer an Italian, but an American. The natural
growth of patriotism upon respect for the achievements of one's
fathers, the bringing together of the past with the present, the
pointing out of the almost world-wide effort at a higher standard
of political freedom which swept over all Europe and America
between 1848 and 1872 could, of course, have no place in the
boy's mind, because it had none in the mind of the instructor,
whose patriotism apparently tried to purify itself by the American
process of elimination.

OLD GRAFTS ON THE NEW STOCK

How far a certain cosmopolitan humanitarianism ignoring
national differences is either possible or desirable, it is difficult
to state, but certain it is that the old type of patriotism founded
upon a common national history and land occupation becomes

I2 INTRODUCTION

to many of the immigrants who bring it with them a veritable
stumbling block and impedimenta. Many Greeks whom I
know are fairly besotted with a consciousness of their national
importance, and the achievements of their glorious past. Among
them the usual effort to found a new patriotism upon American
history is often an absurd undertaking; for instance, on the
night of last Thanksgiving I spent some time and zeal in a descrip-
tion of the Pilgrim Fathers, the motives which had driven them
across the sea, while the experiences of the Plymouth colony
were illustrated by stereopticon slides and little dramatic scenes.
The audience of Greeks listened respectfully, although I was
uneasily conscious of the somewhat feeble attempt to boast of
Anglo-Saxon achievement in hardihood and privation to men
whose powers of admiration were absorbed in their Greek back-
ground of philosophy and beauty. At any rate after the lecture
was over one of the Greeks said to me quite simply, "I wish I
could describe my ancestors to you; they were different from
yours." His further remarks were translated by a little Irish
boy of eleven who speaks modern Greek with facility and turns
many an honest penny by translating, into the somewhat pert
statement: "He says if that is what your ancestors are like,
that his could beat them out." It is a good illustration of our
faculty for ignoring the past, and of our failure to understand the
immigrant estimation of ourselves. This lack of a more cosmo-
politan standard, of a consciousness of kind founded upon creative
imagination and historic knowledge, is apparent in many direc-
tions, and cruelly widens the gulf between immigrant fathers
and children who are "Americans in process."

A hideous story comes from New York of a young Russian
Jewess who was employed as a stenographer in a down-town
office, where she became engaged to be married to a young man
of Jewish-American parentage. She felt keenly the difference
between him and her newly immigrated parents, and on the night
when he was to be presented to them she went home early to
make every possible preparation for his coming. Her efforts
to make the menage presentable were so discouraging, the whole
situation filled her with such chagrin, that an hour before his
expected arrival she ended her own life. Although the father

IMMIGRATION 13

was a Talmud scholar of standing in his native Russian town,
and the lover was a clerk of very superficial attainment, she
possessed no standard by which to judge the two men. This
lack of standard can be charged to the entire community, for
why should we expect an untrained girl to be able to do for her-
self what the community so pitifully fails to accomplish ?

TO HUMANIZE THE NEW SCHOLARSHIP

As scholarship in the first half of the nineteenth century saved ^
literature from a futile romanticism and transformed its entire
method by the perception that "the human is not of necessity
the cultivated ; the human is the wide-spread, the ancient in
speech or in behavior, it is the deep, the emotional, the thing
much loved by many men, the poetical, the organic, the vital,
in civilization," so I would ask the scholarship of this dawning
century to save its contemporaries from materialism by revealing
to us the inherent charm and resource of the humblest men.
Equipped as it is with the training and the " unspecialized cell"
of evolutionary science, this ought not to prove an undesirable
task. The scholar has already pointed out to us the sweetness
and charm which inhere in primitive domestic customs and shows
us the curious pivot they make for religious and tribal beliefs
until the simple action of women grinding millet or corn becomes
almost overladen with penetrating reminiscence, sweeter than
the chant they sing. Something of the same quality may be
found among many of the immigrants ; when one stumbles upon
an old Italian peasant with her distaff against her withered face
and her pathetic old hands patiently holding the thread, as has
been done by myriads of women since children needed to be clad ;
or an old German potter, misshapen by years, but his sensitive
hands fairly alive with the artist's prerogative of direct creation,
one wishes that the scholar might be induced to go man hunting
into these curious human groups called newly arrived immigrants !
Could he take these primitive habits as they are to be found
in American cities every day, and give them their significance
and place, they would be a wonderful factor for poesy in cities
frankly given over to industrialism, and candidly refusing to read
poetry which has no connection with its aims and activities. As a

I4 INTRODUCTION

McAndrews' hymn may express the frantic rush of the industrial
river, so these could give us some thing of the mysticism and charm
of the industrial springs, a suggestion of source, a touch of the
refinement which adheres to simple things. This study of origins,
of survivals, of paths of least resistance refining an industrial
age through the people and experiences which really belong to
it and do not need to be brought in from the outside, surely affords
an opening for scholarship.

IMMIGRANT LIFE LARGER THAN OUR LOGIC

The present lack of understanding, the dearth of the illumina-
tion which knowledge gives can be traced not only in the social
and political maladjustment of the immigrant, but is felt in
so-called " practical affairs" of national magnitude. Regret is
many times expressed that, notwithstanding the fact that nine
out of every ten immigrants are of rural birth, they all tend to
congregate in cities where their inherited and elaborate knowl-
edge of agricultural processes is unutilized, although they are
fitted to undertake the painstaking method which American farm-
ers despise. But it is characteristic of American complacency
that when any assisted removal to agricultural regions is con-
templated, we utterly ignore their past experiences and always
assume that each family will be content to live in the middle of
its own piece of ground, although there are few peoples on the
face of the earth who have ever tried isolating a family on a
hundred and sixty acres or eighty, or even on forty, but this is
the American way, a survival of our pioneer days, and we refuse
to modify it, notwithstanding the fact that the South Italians
from the day of medieval incursions have lived in compact
villages with an intense and elaborate social life, so much of it
out-of-doors and interdependent that it has affected almost
every domestic habit. Italian women knead their own bread
but depend on the village oven for its baking, and the men would
rather walk for miles to their fields each day than to face an
evening of companionship limited to the family. Nothing
could afford a better check to the constant removal to the cities
of the farming population all over the United States than to be
able to combine community life with agricultural occupation,

IMMIGRATION 15

affording that development of civilization which curiously enough
density alone brings and for which even a free system of rural
delivery is not an adequate substitute. Much of the significance
and charm of rural life in South Italy lies in its village compan-
ionship quite as the dreariness of the American farm life inheres
in its unnecessary solitude. But we totally disregard the solu-
tion which the old agricultural community offers, and our utter
lack of adaptability has something to do with the fact that the
South Italian remains in the city where he soon forgets his cunning
in regard to silk worms and olive trees, but continues his old
social habits to the extent of filling an entire tenement house
with the people from one village.

LAND TENURE, OLDEST AND NEWEST

We also exhibit all the Anglo-Saxon distrust of any experi-
ment with land tenure or method of taxation, although the single
tax advocates in our midst do not fail to tell us daily of the
stupidity of the present arrangement, and it might be well to
make a few experiments upon a historic basis before their enthusi-
asm converts us all. The Slavic village, the mir system of land
occupation, has been in successful operation for centuries in
Russia, training men within its narrow limits to community
administration; and yet when a persecuted sect from Russia
wishes to find refuge in America — and naturally seven thousand
people cannot give up all at once even if it were desirable a system
of land ownership in which they are expert and which is singu-
larly like that in Palestine during its period of highest prosperity
— we cannot receive them in the United States because our
laws have no way of dealing with such a case. And in Canada,
where they are finally settled, the unimaginative Dominion
officials are driven to the verge of distraction concerning regis-
tration of deeds and the collection of taxes from men who do
not claim acres in their own names but in the name of the vil-
lage. The official distraction is reflected and intensified among
the people themselves to the point of driving them into the
medieval "marching mania," in the hope of finding a land in
the south where they may carry out their inoffensive mir
system. The entire situation might prove that an unbending

»

16 INTRODUCTION

theory of individualism may become as fixed as status itself.
There are certainly other factors in the Doukhobor situation
of religious bigotry and of the self-seeking of leadership, but in
spite of the fact that the Canadian officials have in other matters
exhibited much of the adaptability which distinguishes the
British colonial policy, they are completely stranded on the rock
of Anglo-Saxon individualistic ownership, and assume that any
other system of land tenure is subversive of government, although
Russia manages to exert a fair amount of governmental control
over thousands of acres held under the system which they detest.

THE SALON OF THE GHETTO

In our eagerness to reproach the immigrant for not going upon
the land, we almost overlook the contributions to city life which
those of them who were adapted to it in Europe are making to our
cities here. From dingy little eating houses in lower New York,
performing a function somewhat between the eighteenth century
coffeehouse and the Parisian cafe, is issuing at the present
moment perhaps the sturdiest realistic drama that is being pro-
duced on American soil. Late into the night speculation is
carried forward not on the nice questions of the Talmud and
quibbles of logic, but minds long trained on these seriously dis-
cuss the need of a readjustment of the industrial machine that
the primitive sense of justice and righteousness may secure
larger play in our social organization. And yet a Russian in
Chicago who used to believe that Americans cared first and fore-
most for political liberty and would certainly admire those who
had suffered in its cause finds no one interested in his story of
six years' banishment beyond the Antarctic circle, and is really
listened to only when he tells to a sportsman the tale of the
fish he caught during the six weeks of summer when the rivers
were open. " Lively work then, but plenty of time to eat them
dried and frozen through the rest of the year," is the most sym-
pathetic comment he has yet received upon an experience
which at least to him held the bitter-sweet of martyrdom.

IMMIGRATION 17

SPIRITUALIZING OUR MATERIALISM

Among the colonies of the most recently immigrated Jews
who still carry out their orthodox customs and a ritual preserved
through centuries in the Ghetto, one constantly feels during a
season of religious observance a refreshing insistence upon the
reality of the inner life, and the dignity of its expression in in-
herited form. Perhaps the most striking approach to the ma-
terialism of Chicago is the sight of a Chicago River bridge lined
with men and women on one day in the year oblivious of the
noisy traffic and sordid surroundings, casting their sins upon
the waters that they may be carried far from them. That
obsession which the materialism of Chicago sometimes makes
upon one's brain so that one is almost driven to go out upon
the street fairly shouting that after all life does not consist in
wealth, in learning, in enterprise, in energy, in success, not even
in that modern fetish culture, but upon an inner equilibrium,
"the agreement of soul," is here for once plainly stated, and is
a relief even in its exaggeration and grotesqueness.

The charge that recent immigration threatens to debase the
American standard of living is certainly a grave one, but I
would invite the scholar even into that sterner region which we
are accustomed to regard as purely industrial. At first glance
nothing seems further from an intellectual proposition than this
question of tin cups and plates stored in a bunk versus a white
cloth and a cottage table, and yet, curiously enough, an English
writer has recently cited "standards of life" as an illustration
of the fact that it is ideas which mold the lives of men, and states
that around the deeply significant idea of the standard of life
center our industrial problems of to-day, and that this idea forms
the base of all the forward movements of the working class.
The significance of the standard of life lies, not so much in the
fact that for each of us it is different, but that for all of us it is
progressive, constantly invading new realms. To imagine that
all goes well if sewing machines and cottage organs reach the
first generation of immigrants, fashionable dressmakers and
pianos the second, is of course the most untutored interpretation
of it. And yet it is a question of food and shelter, and further
of the maintenance of industrial efficiency and of life itself to

i8 INTRODUCTION

thousands of men, and this gigantic task of standardizing suc-
cessive nations of immigrants falls upon workmen who lose all
if they fail.

POLITICAL NATURE OF THE INDUSTRIAL SITUATION

Curiously enough, however, as soon as the immigrant situa-
tion is frankly regarded as an industrial one, the really political
nature of the essentially industrial situation is revealed in the
fact that trade organizations which openly concern themselves
with the immigration problem on its industrial side quickly
take on the paraphernalia and machinery which have hitherto
associated themselves with governmental life and control. The
trades-unions have worked out all over again local autonomy
with central councils and national representative bodies and the
use of the referendum vote. They also exhibit many features
of political corruption and manipulation but they still contain
the purifying power of reality, for the trades-unions are engaged
in a desperate struggle to maintain a standard wage against the
constant arrival of unskilled immigrants at the rate of three
quarters of a million a year, at the very period when the elabora-
tion of machinery permits the largest use of unskilled men.
The first real lesson in self-government to many immigrants
has come through the organization of labor unions, and it could
come in no other way, for the union alone has appealed to their
necessities. And out of these primal necessities one sees the
first indication of an idealism of which one at moments dares
to hope that it may be sturdy enough and sufficiently founded
upon experience to make some impression upon the tremendous
immigration situation.

SUBSTITUTION OF RACES AT STOCKYARDS

'To illustrate from the Stockyards strike of last summer, may
I quote from a study made from the University of Wisconsin -
and mindful of my audience all I say of trades-unions shall be
quoted from Ph.D.'s :

Perhaps the fact of greatest social significance is that the strike
of 1904 was not merely a strike of skilled labor for the unskilled, but

IMMIGRATION 19

was a strike of Americanized Irish, Germans, and Bohemians in behalf
of Slovaks, Poles, and Lithuanians. . . . This substitution of races
in the Stockyards has been a continuing process for twenty years.
The older nationalities have already disappeared from the unskilled
occupations and the substitution has evidently run along the line of
lower standard of living. The latest arrivals, the Lithuanians and
Slovaks, are probably the most oppressed of the peasants of Europe.

Those who attended the crowded meetings of last summer
and heard the same address successively translated by inter-
preters into six or eight languages, who saw the respect shown
to the most uncouth of the speakers by the skilled American
men who represented a distinctly superior standard of life and
thought, could never doubt the power of the labor organizations
for amalgamation, whatever opinion they might hold concern-
*ing their other values. This may be said in spite of the fact
that great industrial disturbances have arisen from the under-
cutting of- wages by the lowering of racial standard. Certainly
the most notable of these have taken place in these industries
and at those places in. which the importation of immigrants
has been deliberately fostered as a wage-lowering weapon, and
even in those disturbances and under the shock and strain of a
long strike disintegration did not come along the line of race
cleavage.

HOW UNIONS BLEND THE RACES

It may further, be contended that this remarkable coming
together has been the result of economic pressure and is with-
out merit or idealism, that the trades-union record on Chinese
exclusion and negro discrimination has been damaging, and
yet I would quote from a study of the anthracite coal fields
made from the University of Pennsylvania :

The United Mine Workers of America is taking men of a score of
nationalities — English-speaking and Slavmen of widely different
creeds, languages, and customs, and of varying powers of industrial
competition, and is welding them into an industrial brotherhood,
each part of which can at least understand of the others that they are
working for one great and common end. This bond of unionism is
stronger than one can readily imagine who has not seen its mysterious
workings or who has not been a victim of its members' newly found

20 INTRODUCTION

enthusiasm. It is to-day the strongest tie that can bind together
147,000 mine workers and the thousands dependent upon them. It
is more than religion, more than the social ties which hold together
members of the same community.

This is from a careful study by Mr. Warne, which doubt-
less many of you know, called " The Slav Invasion."

HUMAN PROBLEMS OF THE STRIKE COMMISSION

It was during a remarkable struggle on the part of this amal-
gamation of men from all countries, that the United States
government in spite of itself was driven to take a hand in an
industrial situation, owing to the long strain and the intolerable
suffering entailed upon the whole country, but even then public
opinion was too aroused, too moralized to be patient with an
investigation of the mere commercial questions of tonnage and
freight rates with their political implications, and insisted that
the national commission should consider the human aspects of
the case. Columns of newspapers and days of investigation were
given to the discussion of the deeds of violence, having nothing
to do with the original demands of the strikers, and entering
only into the value set upon human life by each of the con-
testing parties; did the union encourage violence against non-
union men, or did it really do everything to suppress it, living
up to its creed, which was to maintain a standard of living that
families might be properly housed and fed and protected from
debilitating toil and disease, that children might be nurtured
into American citizenship ; did the operators protect their men
as far as possible from mine damp, from length of hours proven
by experience to be exhausting ; did they pay a sufficient wage
to the mine laborer to allow him to send his children to school ;
questions such as these, a study of the human problem, invaded
the commission day after day during its sitting. One felt for
the moment the first wave of a rising tide of humanitarianism,
until the normal ideals of the laborer to secure food and shelter
for his family and security for his old age, and a larger opportunity
for his children, become the ideals of democratic government.

IMMIGRATION 21

NEW IDEALISM OF SIMPLE FOLK

It may be owing to the fact that the working man is brought
in direct contact with the situation as a desperate problem of
living wage or starvation, it may be that wisdom is at hef old
trick of residing in the hearts of the simple, or that this new
idealism which is that of a reasonable life and labor must from
the very nature of things proceed from those who labor, or
possibly because amelioration arises whence it is so sorely needed,
but certainly it is true, that while the rest of the country talks
of assimilation as if we were a huge digestive apparatus, the man
with whom the immigrant has come most sharply into compe-
tition has been forced into fraternal relations with him.

All the peoples of the world have become part of our tribunal,
and their sense of pity, their clamor for personal kindness, their
insistence upon the right to join in our progress, cannot be dis-
regarded. The burdens and sorrows of men have unexpectedly
become intelligible and urgent to this nation, and it is only by
accepting them with some magnanimity that we can develop
the larger sense of justice which is becoming world-wide and is
lying in ambush, as it were, to manifest itself in governmental
relations. Men of all nations are determining upon the abolition
of degrading poverty, disease, and intellectual weakness with
their resulting industrial inefficiency. This manifests itself
in labor legislation in England, in the Imperial Sick and Old-
Age Insurance Acts of Germany, in the enormous system of
public education in the United States.

CONTEMPORANEOUS PATRIOTISM

To be afraid of it is to lose what we have. A government has
always received feeble support from its constituents as soon as
its demands appeared childish or remote. Citizens inevitably
neglect or abandon civic duty when it no longer embodies their
genuine desires. It is useless to hypnotize ourselves by unreal
talk of colonial ideals and patriotic duty toward immigrants as
if it were a question of passing a set of resolutions. The nation
must be saved by its lovers, by the patriots who possess adequate
and contemporaneous knowledge. A commingling of racial

22 INTRODUCTION

habits and national characteristics in the end must rest upon the
voluntary balance and concord of many forces.

We may with justice demand from the scholar the philosophic
statement, the reconstruction and reorganization of the knowl-
edge which he possesses, only if we agree to make it over into
healthy and direct expressions of free living.

I. HISTORY

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION1

EDWARD EVERETT

MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN OF THE HISTORICAL
SOCIETY : Although I appear before you at the season at
which the various religious, moral, and philanthropic societies
usually hold their annual meetings to discuss the stirring and
controverted topics of the day, I need not say to you that the
proprieties of this occasion require me to abstain from such sub-
jects; and to select a theme falling, to some extent at least,
within the province of an historical society. I propose, ac-
cordingly, this evening, to attempt a sketch of the history of
the discovery and colonization of America and of immigration
to the United States. I can of course offer you, within the
limits of a single address, but a most superficial view of so
vast a subject; but I have thought that even a sketch of a
subject, which concerns us so directly and in so many ways,
would suggest important trains of reflection to thoughtful
minds. Words written or spoken are at best but a kind of
shorthand, to be filled up by the reader or hearer. I shall be
gratified if, after honoring my hasty sketch with your kind
attention, you shall deem it worth filling up from your own
stores of knowledge and thought. You will forgive me, if, in
the attempt to give a certain completeness to the narrative, I
shall be led to glance at a few facts, which, however inter-
esting, may seem to you too familiar for repetition.

In the last quarter of the fifteenth century, an Italian mari-
ner, a citizen of the little republic of Genoa, who had hitherto
gained his livelihood as a pilot in the commercial marine of
different countries, made his appearance successively at various

1 A lecture delivered before the New York Historical Society, in Metropolitan
Hall, on the first of June, 1853.

23

24 HISTORY

courts in the South and West of Europe, soliciting patronage
and aid for a bold and novel project in navigation. The
state of the times was in some degree favorable to the adven-
ture. The Portuguese had for half a century been pushing
their discoveries southward upon the coast of Africa, and they
had ventured into the Atlantic as far as the Azores. Several
conspiring causes, and especially the invention of the art of
printing, had produced a general revival of intelligence. Still,
however, the state of things in this respect was at that time
very different from what we witness in the middle of the nine-
teenth century. On the part of the great mass of mankind,
there was but little improvement over the darkness of the
Middle Ages. The new culture centered in the convent, the
court, and the university, places essentially distrustful of bold
novelties.

The idea of reaching the East by a voyage around the Af-
rican continent had begun to assume consistency; but the
vastly more significant idea, that the earth is a globe and ca-
pable of being circumnavigated, had by no means become
incorporated into the general intelligence of the age. The
Portuguese navigators felt themselves safe as they crept along
the African coast, venturing each voyage a few leagues farther,
doubling a new headland, ascending some before unexplored
river, holding a palaver with some new tribe of the native races.
But to turn the prows of their vessels boldly to the west, to
embark upon an ocean, not believed, in the popular geography
of the day, to have an outer shore, to pass that bourne from
which no traveler had ever returned, and from which experience
had not taught that any traveler could return, and thus to
reach the East by sailing in a western direction, — this was a
conception which no human being is known to have formed before
Columbus, and which he proposed to the governments of Italy, of
Spain, of Portugal, and for a long time without success. The
state of science was not such as to enable men to discriminate
between the improbable and untried on the one hand, and the
impossible and absurd on the other. They looked upon Columbus
as we did thirty years ago upon Captain Symmes.

But the illustrious adventurer persevered. Sorrow and dis-
appointment clouded his spirits, but did not shake his faith nor

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 25

subdue his will. His well-instructed imagination had taken
firm hold of the idea that the earth is a sphere. What seemed
to the multitude even of the educated of that day a doubtful
and somewhat mystical theory; what appeared to the un-
informed mass a monstrous paradox, contradicted by every step
we take upon the broad, flat earth which we daily tread beneath
our feet ; — that great and fruitful truth revealed itself to the
serene intelligence of Columbus as a practical fact, on which he
was willing to stake all he had, — character and life. And it
deserves ever to be borne in mind, as the most illustrious example
of the connection of scientific theory with great practical results,
that the discovery of America, with all its momentous conse-
quences to mankind, is owing to the distinct conception in the
mind of Columbus of this single scientific proposition, — the
terraqueous earth is a sphere.

After years of fruitless and heart-sick solicitation, after offer-
ing in effect to this monarch and to that monarch the gift of
a hemisphere, the great discoverer touches upon a partial suc-
cess. He succeeds, not in enlisting the sympathy of his country-
men at Genoa and Venice for a brave brother sailor; not in
giving a new direction to the spirit of maritime adventure which
had so long prevailed in Portugal ; not in stimulating the com-
mercial thrift of Henry the Seventh, or the pious ambition of the
Catholic King. His sorrowful perseverance touched the heart
of a noble princess, — worthy the throne which she adorned.
The New World, which was just escaping the subtle kingcraft
of Ferdinand, was saved to Spain by the womanly compassion
of Isabella.

It is truly melancholy, however, to contemplate the wretched
equipment, for which the most powerful princess in Christendom
was ready to pledge her jewels. Floating castles will soon be
fitted out to convey the miserable natives of Africa to the golden
shores of America, and towering galleons will be dispatched to
bring home the guilty treasures to Spain ; but three small vessels,
two of which were without a deck, and neither of them probably
exceeding the capacity of a pilot-boat, and even these impressed
into the public service, composed the expedition, fitted out under
royal patronage, to realize that magnificent conception in which the
creative mind of Columbus had planted the germs of a new world.

26 HISTORY

No chapter of romance equals the interest of this expedi-
tion. The most fascinating of the works of fiction which have
issued from the modern press have, to my taste, no attraction
compared with the pages in which the first voyage of Columbus
is described by Robertson, and especially by our own Irving
and Prescott, the last two enjoying the advantage over the
great Scottish historian of possessing the lately discovered
journals and letters of Columbus himself. The departure from
Palos, where a few years before he had begged a morsel of bread
and a cup of water for his wayworn child ; his final farewell to
the Old World at the Canaries; his entrance upon the trade
winds, which then, for the first time, filled a European sail;
the portentous variation of the needle, never before observed;
the fearful course westward and westward, day after day and
night after night, over the unknown ocean ; the mutinous and
ill-appeased crew ; — at length, when hope had turned to despair
in every heart but one, the tokens of land ; the cloud-banks on
the western horizon ; the logs of driftwood ; the fresh shrub
floating with its leaves and berries ; the flocks of land-birds ; the
shoals of fish that inhabit shallow water ; the indescribable smell
of the shore ; the mysterious presentiment that ever goes before
a great event ; — and, finally, on that ever memorable night
of the 1 2th of October, 1492, the moving light seen by the sleep-
less eye of the great discoverer himself from the deck of the
Santa Maria, and in the morning the real, undoubted land, swell-
ing up from the bosom of the deep, with its plains, and hills, and
forests, and rocks, and streams, and strange, new races of men ; —
these are incidents in which the authentic history of the discovery
of our continent excels the specious wonders of romance, as
much as gold excels tinsel, or the sun in the heavens outshines
that flickering taper.

But it is no part of my purpose to dwell upon this inter-
esting narrative, or to follow out this most wonderful of histo-
ries, srnking as it soon did into a tale of sorrow for Columbus
himself, and before long ending in one of the most frightful
tragedies in the annals of the world. Such seems to be the
law of humanity, that events the most desirable and achieve-
ments the most important should, either in their inception or

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 27

progress, be mixed up with disasters, crimes, and sorrows which
it makes the heart sick to record.

The discovery of America, I need hardly say, produced a
vast extension of the territory of the power under whose aus-
pices the discovery was made. In contemplating this point,
we encounter one of the most terrible mysteries in the history
of our race. "Extension of territory!" you are ready to ex-
claim ; "how could Spain acquire any territory by the fact that
a navigator, sailing under her patronage, had landed upon one or
two islands near the continent of America, and coasted for a few
hundred miles along its shores? These shores and islands are
not a desert on which Columbus, like a Robinson Crusoe of a
higher order, has landed and taken possession. They are occupied
and settled, — crowded, even, with inhabitants, — subject to
the government of their native chiefs ; and neither by inheritance,
colonization, nor as yet by conquest, has any human being in
Europe a right to rule over them or to possess a square foot of their
territory." Such are the facts of the case, and such, one would
say, ought to be the law of equity of the case. But alas for the
native chiefs and the native races ! Before he sailed from Spain,
Columbus was furnished with a piece of parchment a foot and a
half square, by Ferdinand and Isabella, creating him their
Viceroy and High Admiral in all the seas, islands, and con-
tinents which he should discover, his heirs forever to enjoy
the same offices. The Viceroy of the absolute monarchs of
Aragon and Castile !

Thus was America conquered before it was discovered. By
the law of nations as then understood, (and I fear there is
less change in its doctrine at the present day than we should
be ready to think,) a sovereign right to the territory and gov-
ernment of all newly discovered regions inhabited by heathen
tribes we believed to vest in the Christian prince under whose
auspices the discovery was made, subject to the ratification
of the Pope, as the ultimate disposer of the kingdoms of the
earth. Such was the law of nations, as then understood, in
virtue of which, from the moment Columbus, on that memora-
ble night to which I have alluded, caught, from the quarter-
deck of the Santa Maria, the twinkling beams of a taper from

28 HISTORY

the shores of San Salvador, all the territorial and political
rights of its simple inhabitants were extinguished forever.
When on the following morning the keel of his vessel grated
upon the much longed for strand, it completed, with more than
electric speed, that terrible circuit which connected the islands
and the continent to the footstool of the Spanish throne. As
he landed upon the virgin shore, its native inhabitants, could
they have foreseen the future, would have felt, if I may pre-
sume thus to apply the words, that virtue had gone out of
it forever. With some of them the process was sharp and
instantaneous, with others more gradual, but not less sure ; with
some, even after nearly four centuries, it is still going on ; but with
all it was an irrevocable doom. The wild and warlike, the in-
dolent and semicivilized, the bloody Aztec, the inoffensive Peru-
vian, the fierce Araucanian, — all fared alike ; a foreign rule and
an iron yoke settled or is settling down upon their necks forever.
Such was the law of nations of that day, not enacted, how-
ever, by Spain. It was in reality the old principle of the right
of the strongest, disguised by a pretext ; a colossal iron falsehood
gilded over with the thin foil of a seeming truth. It was the same
principle which prompted the eternal wars of the Greeks and
Romans. Aristotle asserts, without qualification, that the Greeks
had a perpetual right of war and conquest against the barbarians,
- that is, all the rest of the world ; and the pupil of Aristotle
proclaimed this doctrine at the head of the Macedonian phalanx
on the banks of the Indus. The irruption of the barbarous races
into Europe, during the centuries that preceded and followed
Christianity, rested on as good a principle, — rather better, -
the pretext only was varied ; although the Gauls and Goths did
not probably trouble themselves much about pretexts. They
adopted rather the simple philosophy of the robber chieftain
of the Scottish Highlands :

Pent in this fortress of the North,
Think'st thou we will not sally forth,
To spoil the spoiler as we may,
And from the robber rend the prey ?

When the Mohammedan races rose to power, they claimed
dominion over all who disbelieved the Koran. Conversion or

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 29

extermination was the alternative which they offered to the
world, and which was announced in letters of fire and blood
from Spain to the Ganges. The states of Christian Europe
did but retort the principle and the practice, when, in a series
of crusades, kept up for more than three hundred years, they
poured desolation over the west of Asia, in order to rescue
the sepulcher of the Prince of Peace from the possession of
unbelievers.

Such were the principles of the public law and the practice
under them, as they existed when the great discoveries of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries took place. When the Por-
tuguese began to push their adventures far to the south on
the coast of Africa, in order to give to those principles the
highest sanction, they procured of Pope Nicholas the Fifth, in
1454, the grant of the right of sovereignty over all the heathen
tribes, nations, and countries discovered or to be discovered
by them, from Africa to India, and the exclusive title thus
conferred was recognized by all the other nations of Chris-
tendom.

On the return of Columbus from his first voyage, the king
of Spain, not to fall behind his neighbors in the strength of
his title, lost no time in obtaining from Pope Alexander the
Sixth a similar grant of all the heathen lands discovered by
Columbus, or which might hereafter be discovered, in the west.
To preclude as far as possible all* conflict with Portugal, the
famous line of demarcation was projected from the north to
the south, a hundred leagues west of the Azores, cutting the
earth into halves, like an apple, and, as far as the new dis-
coveries were concerned, giving to the Spaniards all west of
the line, and confirming all east of it to the Portuguese, in virtue
of the grant already mentioned of Pope Nicholas the Fifth.

I regret that want of time will not allow me to dwell upon
the curious history of this line of demarcation, for the benefit
of all states having boundary controversies, and especially
our sister republics of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. It is suf-
ficient to say, that, having had its origin in the papal bull just
referred to of 1454, it remained a subject of dispute and col-
lision for three hundred and sixty-one years, and was finally
settled at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 !

3o HISTORY

The territorial extension of Portugal and Spain, which re-
sulted from the discovery of America, was followed by the
most extraordinary effects upon the commerce, the finances,
and the politics generally, of those two countries, and through
them of the world. The overland trade to the East, the great
commercial interest of the Middle Ages, was abandoned. The
whole of South America, and a considerable part of North
America, were, in the course of the sixteenth century, settled
by those governments; who organized in their Transatlantic
possessions a colonial system of the most rigid and despotic
character, reflecting as far as was practicable in distant prov-
inces beyond the sea the stern features of the mother coun-
try. The precious metals, and a monopoly of the trade to the
East, were the great objects to be* secured. Aliens were for-
bidden to enter the American viceroyalties ; none but a con-
traband trade was carried on by foreigners at the seaports.
To prevent this trade, a severe right of search was instituted
along the entire extent of the coasts, on either ocean. I have
recently had an opportunity, in another place, to advert to the
effects of this system upon the international relations of Eu-
rope.1 Native subjects could emigrate to these vast colonial
possessions only with the permission of the government.
Liberty of speech and of the press was unknown. Instead
of affording an asylum to persons dissenting from the religion
of the state, conformity of belief was, if possible, enforced
more rigidly in the colonies than in the mother country. No
relaxation in this respect has, I believe, taken place in the
remaining colonies of Spain even to the present day. As for
the aboriginal tribes, after the first work of extermination was
over a remnant was saved from destruction by being reduced
to a state of predial servitude. The dejected and spiritless
posterity of the warlike tribes that offered no mean resistance
to Cortes and Pizarro are now the hewers of wood and the
drawers of water to Mexico and Peru. In a word, from the
extreme southern point of Patagonia to the northernmost limit
of New Mexico, I am not aware that anything hopeful was

1 Speech on the affairs of Central America, in the Senate of the United States,
aist of March, 1853.

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 31

done for human improvement by either of the European crowns
which added these vast domains to their territories.

If this great territorial extension was fruitless of beneficial
consequences to America, it was not less so to the mother
countries. For Spain it was the commencement of a period,
not of prosperity, but of decline. The rapid influx of the pre-
cious metals, in the absence of civil liberty and of just prin-
ciples and institutions of intercourse and industry, was pro-
ductive of manifold evils; and from the reign of Philip the
Second, if not of Charles the Fifth, the Spanish monarchy
began to sink from its haughty position at the head of the
European family. I do not ascribe this downfall exclusively
to the cause mentioned ; but the possession of the two Indies,
with all their treasures, did nothing to arrest, accelerated even,
the progress of degeneracy. Active causes of decline no doubt
existed at home ; and of these the Inquisition was the chief.

There was the weight that pulled her down.

The spirit of intolerance and persecution, the reproach and
scandal of all countries and all churches, Protestant as well as
Catholic (not excepting the Pilgrim Fathers of New England),
found an instrument in the Holy Office in Spain, in the six-
teenth century, such as it never possessed in any other age or
country. It was not merely Jews and heretics whom it bound
to the stake ; it kindled a slow, unquenchable fire in the heart of
Castile and Leon. The horrid atrocities practiced at home and
abroad, not only in the Netherlands, but in every city of the
mother country, cried to Heaven for vengeance upon Spain;
nor could she escape it. She intrenched herself behind the eternal
Cordilleras ; she took to herself the wings of the morning, and
dwelt in the uttermost parts of the sea ; but even there the arm
of retribution laid hold of her, and the wrongs of both hemi-
spheres were avenged in her degeneracy and fall.

But let us pass on to the next century, during which events
of the utmost consequence followed each other in rapid suc-
cession, and the foundations of institutions destined to influ-
ence the fortunes of Christendom were laid by humble men,

32 HISTORY

who little comprehended their own work. In the course of
the seventeenth century, the French and English took posses-
sion of all that part of North America which was not pre-
occupied by the Spaniards. The French entered by the
St. Lawrence ; followed that noble artery to the heart of the
continent ; traced the great lakes to their parent rivulets and
weeping fountains; descended the Mississippi. Miracles of
humble and unavailing heroism were performed by their gallant
adventurers and pious missionaries in the depths of our Western
wilderness. The English stretched along the coast. The geog-
rapher would have pronounced that the French, in appro-
priating to themselves the mighty basins of the Mississippi and
the St. Lawrence, had got possession of the better part of the
continent. But it was an attempt to compose the second volume
of the "Fortunes of America," in advance of the first. This it was
ordained should be written at Jamestown and Plymouth. The
French, though excelling all other nations of the world in the
art of communicating for temporary purposes with savage
tribes, seem, still more than the Spaniards, to be destitute of the
august skill required to found new states.1 I do not know that
there is such a thing in the world as a colony of France growing
up into a prosperous commonwealth. Half a million of French
peasants in Lower Canada, tenaciously adhering to the manners
and customs which their fathers brought from Normandy two
centuries ago, and a third part of that number of planters of
French descent in Louisiana, are all that is left to bear living
witness to the amazing fact, that in the middle of the last century
France was the mistress of the better half of North America.

It was on the Atlantic coast, and in the colonies originally
planted or soon acquired by England, that the great work
of the seventeenth century was performed, — slowly, toilsomely,
effectively. A mighty work for America and mankind, of which
even we, fond and proud of it as we are, do but faintly guess
the magnitude ! It could hardly be said, at the time, to prosper
in any of its parts. It yielded no return to the pecuniary capital
invested. The political relations of the colonies from the first
were those of encroachment and resistance ; and even the moral

*"La France saura mal coloniser et n'y re"ussira qu'avec peine." — VICTOR
HUGO, "Le Rhin," Tom. II, p. 280.

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 33

principle, as far as there was one, on which they were founded, was
not consistently carried out. There was conflict with the savages,
war with the French and Spaniards, jarring and feud between
neighboring colonies, persecution of dissenting individuals and
sects, perpetual discord with the crown and the proprieta-
ries. Yet, in the main and on the whole, the WORK was done.
Things that did not work singly worked together ; or if they did
not work together, they worked by reaction and collision. Feeble
germs of settlement grew to the consistency of powerful colonies ;
habits of civil government rooted themselves in a soil that was
continually stirred by political agitation; the frame of future
republics knit itself, as it were in embryo, under a monarchical
system of colonial rule ; till in the middle of the eighteenth
century the approach of mighty changes began to be dimly
foreseen by gifted spirits. A faint streak of purple light blushed
along the eastern sky.

Two things worth mentioning contributed to the result.
One was the absence of the precious metals. The British
colonies were rich in the want of gold. As the abundance of
gold and silver in Mexico and Peru contributed, in various
ways, to obstruct the prosperity of the Spanish colonies, the
want of them acted not less favorably here. In the first settle-
ment of a savage wilderness the golden attraction is too powerful
for the ordinary routine of life. It produces a feverish excitement
unfavorable to the healthy growth and calm action of the body
politic. Although California has from the first had the advantage
of being incorporated into a stable political system, of which, as
a sister State, she forms an integral part, it is quite doubtful
whether, looking to her permanent well-being, the gold is to be
a blessing to her. It will hasten her settlement ; but that would
at any rate have advanced with great rapidity. One of the most
intellectual men in this country, the author of one of the most
admirable works in our language, I mean "Two Years before
the Mast," once remarked to me, that "California would be one
of the finest countries in the world to live in, if it were not for
the gold."

The other circumstance which operated in the most favor-
able manner upon the growth of the Anglo-American colonies
was the fact, that they were called into existence less by the

34

HISTORY

government than the people; that they were mainly settled,
not by bodies of colonists, but by individual immigrants. The
crown gave charters of government and grants of land, and a
considerable expenditure was made by some of the companies and
proprietors who received these grants ; but upon the whole, the
United States were settled by individuals, — the adventurous,
resolute, high-spirited, and in many cases persecuted men and
women, who sought a home and a refuge beyond the sea ; and
such was the state of Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, that it furnished a succession of victims of a long series
of political and religious disasters and persecutions, who found,
one after another, a safe and a congenial retreat in some one of
the American colonies.

This noble theme has been treated with a beauty and a
power, by one whom I need not name in this presence (the
historian of the United States), which, without impairing their
authenticity, have converted the severe pages of our history
into a magnificent Odyssey of national adventure. I can
but glance at the dates. The first settlement that of Vir-
ginia, was commenced in the spirit of worldly enterprise, with
no slight dash, however, of chivalry and romance on the part
of its leader. In the next generation this colony became the
favorite resort of the loyal cavaliers and gentlemen who were
disgusted by the austerities of the English Commonwealth, or
fell under its suspicion. In the meantime, New England was
founded by those who suffered the penalties of nonconformity.
The mighty change of 1640 stopped the tide of emigration to
New England, but recruited Virginia with those who were dis-
affected to Cromwell. In 1624 the island of Manhattan, of which
you have perhaps heard, and if not, you will find its history
related with learning, judgment, and good taste, by a loyal* de-
scendant of its early settlers (Mr. Brodhead) , was purchased of
the Indians for twenty-four dollars; a sum of money, by the
way, which seems rather low for twenty-two thousand acres
of land, including the site of this great metropolis, but which
would, if put out at compound interest at 7 per cent in
1624, not perhaps fall so very much below even its present
value; though I admit that a dollar for a thousand acres is
quite cheap for choice spots on the Fifth Avenue. Maryland

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 35

next attracted those who adhered to the ancient faith of the
Christian world. New Jersey and Pennsylvania were mainly
settled by persecuted Quakers ; but the latter offered an asylum
to the Germans whom the sword of Louis the Fourteenth drove
from the Palatinate. The French Huguenots, driven out by
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, scattered themselves from
Massachusetts to Carolina. The Dutch and Swedish settlements
on the Hudson and the Delaware provided a kindred home for
such of their countrymen as desired to try the fortune of the New
World. The Whigs of England who rebelled against James the
Second, in 1685, and were sent to the Transatlantic colonies, lived
long enough to meet in exile the adherents of his son, who
rebelled against George the First, in 1715. The oppressed
Protestants of Salzburg came with General Oglethorpe to
Georgia ; and the Highlanders who fought for Charles Edward,
in 1745, were deported by hundreds to North Carolina. They
were punished by being sent from their bleak hills and sterile
moors to a land of abundance and liberty ; they were banished
from oatmeal porridge to meat twice a day. The Gaelic lan-
guage is still spoken by their descendants, and thousands of their
kindred at the present day would no doubt gladly share their
exile.

There is no doubt that the hardships which awaited the
emigrant at that early day were neither few nor slight, though
greatly exaggerated for want of information. Goldsmith, in
"The Deserted Village," published in 1769, gives us a some-
what amusing picture of the state of things as he supposed it
to exist beyond the ocean at that time. As his local allusion
is to Georgia, it is probable that he formed his impressions
from the accounts which were published at London about
the middle of the last century by some of the discontented
settlers of that colony. Goldsmith, being well acquainted
with General Oglethorpe, was, likely enough to have had his
attention called to the subject. Perhaps you will allow me
to enliven my dull prose with a few lines of his beautiful poetry.
After describing the sufferings of the poor in London at that
time, reverting to the condition of the inhabitants of his imaginary
Auburn, and asking whether they probably shared the woes he
had just painted, he thus answers his question :

36 HISTORY

Ah, no ! To distant climes, a dreary scene,

Where half the convex world intrudes between,

Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,

Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe.

Far different there from all that charmed before,

The various terrors of that horrid shore :

Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray,

And fiercely shed intolerable day ;

Those matted woods, where birds forgot to sing,

But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling ;

Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned,

Where the dark scorpion gathers death around, —

Where, at each step, the stranger fears to wake

The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake, —

Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey,

And savage men more murderous still than they ;

While oft in whirls the mad tornado flies,

Mingling the ravaged landscape with the skies.

In this rather uninviting sketch, it must be confessed that
it is not easy to recognize the natural features of that thriv-
ing State, which possesses at the present day a thousand miles
of railroad, and which, by her rapidly increasing population,
her liberal endowment of colleges, schools, and churches, and
all the other social institutions of a highly improved com-
munity, is fast earning the name of the "Empire State" of
the South.

After repeating these lines, it is scarcely necessary to say
that there was much ignorance and exaggeration prevailing
in Europe as to the state of things in America. But a few
years after Goldsmith's poem appeared, an event occurred
which aroused and fixed the attention of the world. The revolt
of the Colonies in 1775, the Declaration of Independence in
1776, the battles of the Revolutionary War, the alliance with
France, the acknowledgment of American Independence by
the treaty of 1783, the establishment of a great federative
republic, the illustrious career of Lafayette, the European rep-
utation of Franklin, and, above all, the character of Wash-
ington, gave to the United States a great and brilliant name
in the family of nations. Thousands in every part of Europe

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 37

then probably heard of America, with any distinct impres-
sions, for the first time ; and they now heard of it as a region
realizing the wildest visions. Hundreds in every walk of life
began to resort to America, and especially ardent young men,
who were dissatisfied with the political condition of Europe.
Among these was your late venerable President, Albert Gal-
latin, one of the most eminent men of the last generation, who
came to this country before he attained his majority; and the
late celebrated Sir Isambert Brunei, the architect of the Thames
Tunnel. He informed me that he became a citizen of the State
of New York before the adoption of the Federal Constitution,
and that he made some surveys to ascertain the practicability
of the great work which afterwards united the waters of Lake Erie
with the waters of the Atlantic, and gave immortality to the
name of your Clinton.

Before the Revolution, the great West was shut even to
the subjects of England. A royal proclamation of 1763 for-
bade the extension of the settlements in North America beyond
the Ohio. But without such a prohibition, the still unbroken
power of the Indian tribes would have prevented any such
extension. The successful result of the Revolutionary War did
not materially alter the state of things in this respect. The
native tribes were still formidable, and the British posts in the
Northwestern Territory were retained. So little confidence was
placed in the value of a title to land, even within the limits of the
State of New York, that the enterprising citizens of Massachu-
setts, Messrs. Gorham and Phelps, who bought six millions of
acres of land on the Genesee River, shortly after the Peace, for
a few cents the acre, were obliged to abandon the greater part
of the purchase from the difficulty of finding under purchasers
enough to enable them to meet the first installments.

On one occasion, when Judge Gorham was musing in a state
of mental depression on the failure of this magnificent speculation
he was visited by a friend and townsman, who had returned from
a journey to Canandaigua, then just laid out. This friend tried
to cheer the Judge with a bright vision of the future growth of
western New York. Kindling with his theme, he pointed to a
son of Judge Gorham, who* was in the room, and added, "You
and I shall not live to see the day, but that lad, if he reaches three

38 HISTORY

score years and ten, will see a daily stage-coach running as far
west as Canandaigua ! " That lad is still living. What he has seen
in the shape of travel and conveyance in the State of New York,
it is not necessary before this audience to say.

It was the adoption of the Constitution of the United States,
in 1789, which gave stability to the Union and confidence to
the people. This was the Promethean fire, which kindled
the body politic into vital action. It created a national force.
The Indians on the southwest were pacified. On the north-
western frontier the troops of the general government were at
first defeated; but after the victory of Wayne, and the peace
of Greeneville, in 1795, the British posts were surrendered,
and the tide of emigration began to pour in. It was rather,
however, from the older States than from foreign countries.
The extensive region northwest of the Ohio had already re-
ceived its political organization as a territory of the United
States by the ever memorable Ordinance of 1787.

While Providence was thus opening on this continent the
broadest region that ever was made accessible to human prog-
ress, want, or adventure, it happened that the kingdoms of
Europe were shaken by the terrible convulsions incident to
the French Revolution. France herself first, and afterwards
the countries overrun by her revolutionary armies, poured
forth their children by thousands. I believe there are no offi-
cial returns of the number of immigrants to the United States
at the time, but it was very large. Among them was M. de
Talleyrand, the celebrated minister of every government in
France, from that of the Directory, in 1797, to that of Louis
Philippe, in whose reign he died. I saw at Peale's Museum,
in Philadelphia, the original oath of allegiance, subscribed by
him in I794.1 Louis Philippe himself emigrated to this country,

1 Since this lecture was delivered, I have been favored with a copy of this paper
by Edward D. Ingraham, Esq., of Philadelphia. It is in the following words:

I, Charles Maurice Talleyrand Perigord, formerly Administrator of the Depart-
ment of Paris, son of Joseph Daniel de Talleyrand Perigord, a General of the
Armies of France, born at Paris and arrived at Philadelphia from London, do
swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to the Commonwealth of Penn-
sylvania and to the United States of America, and that I will not at any time will-
fully and knowingly do any matter or thing prejudicial to the freedom and inde-
pendence thereof. CH> MAU> D£ TALLEYRAND PERIGORD.

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 39

where he passed three years, and is well remembered by many
persons still living. He habitually spoke with gratitude of the
kindness which he experienced in every part of the Union.

As yet, no acquisition of territory had been made by the
United States beyond the limits of the British colonies; but
in 1803 a most important step was taken in the purchase of
Louisiana, by which our possessions were extended, though
with an unsettled boundary both on the south and the north,
to the Pacific Ocean. The War of 1812 reduced the Indian
tribes in the Northwestern States ; and the campaigns of General
Jackson a few years later produced the same effect on the
southern frontier. Florida was acquired by treaty from Spain in
1819; and the Indians in Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi
were removed to the west of the river Mississippi ten or twelve
years later. Black Hawk's war in Wisconsin took place in 1833,
and a series of Indian treaties, both before and after that event,
extinguished the Indian title to all the land east of the Mississippi,
and to considerable tracts west of that river. Texas was annexed
to the Union in 1845, and in 1848 New Mexico and California
came into our possession.

I have, as you perceive, run rapidly over these dates, com-
pressing into one paragraph the starting points in the history
of future commonwealths, simply in their bearing on the subject
of immigration. These acquisitions, not inferior in extent to
all that there was solid in the Roman conquests, have resulted
in our possession of a zone of territory of the width of twenty
degrees of latitude, stretching from ocean to ocean, and nearly
equal in extent to the whole of Europe.1 It is all subject to the
power of the United States ; a portion of it has attained the
civilization of the Old World, while other portions shade off
through all degrees of culture, to the log-house of the frontier
settler, the cabin of the trapper, and the wigwam of the savage.
Within this vast domain there are millions of acres of fertile
land, to be purchased at moderate prices, according to its position
and its state of improvement, and there are hundreds of millions
of acres in a state of nature, and gradually selling at the govern-
ment price of a dollar and a quarter per acre.

1 Square miles in the United States, 3,260,073 ; in Europe, 3,700, 971. — Amer-
ican Almanac for 1853, pp. 315 and 316.

40 HISTORY

It is this which most strikes the European imagination.
The Old World is nearly all appropriated by individuals. There
are public domains in most foreign countries, but of comparatively
small amount, and mostly forests. With this exception, every
acre of land in Europe is private property, and in such countries
as England, the Netherlands, France, Germany, and Italy,
what little changes hands is sold only at a high price. I presume
the number of landholders in England is far less than in the State
of New York. In the course of the French Revolution the land
has been greatly divided and subdivided in France and in Ger-
many, and is now held in small farms ; but owing to the limited
quantity of purchasable land, these farms, when sold, are sold
only at high prices. Generally speaking, the mass of the in-
habitants of Europe regard the ability to hold and occupy a
considerable landed property as the summit of human fortune.
The suggestion that there is a country beyond the ocean, where
fertile land is to be purchased, in any quantity, at a dollar and a
quarter per acre, and that dollar and a quarter to be earned in
many parts of the country by the labor of a single day, strikes
them as the tales of Aladdin's lamp or AH Baba's cave would
strike us, if we thought they were true. They forget the costs
and sacrifices of leaving home, the ocean to be traversed, the
weary pilgrimage in the land of strangers after their arrival. They
see nothing with the mind's eye but the "land of promise" ; they
reflect upon nothing but the fact, that there is a region on the
earth's surface where a few days' unskilled labor will purchase
the fee simple of an ample farm.

Such an attraction would be irresistible under any circum-
stances to the population of an old country, where, as I have
just said, the land is all appropriated, and to be purchased,
in any considerable quantity, only at prices which put its
acquisition beyond the thought of the masses. But this is
but half the tale. It must not be forgotten that in this ancient
and venerable Europe, whose civilization is the growth of two
thousand years, where some of the luxurious refinements of
life are carried to a perfection of which we have scarcely an idea
in this country, a considerable part of the population, even in
the most prosperous regions, pass their lives in a state but one
remove from starvation, — poorly fed, poorly clothed, poorly

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 41

housed, without education, without political privileges, with-
out moral culture. The average wages of the agricultural
laborer in England were estimated a year ago at 95. 6d. ster-
ling— about $2.37^- — per week. The condition of the work-
ing population on the continent of Europe is in no degree
better, if as good. They eat but little animal food either in
England or on the Continent. We form romantic notions at a
distance of countries that abound in wine and oil; but in the
best governed states of Italy, — in Tuscany, for instance, — the
peasantry, though they pass their lives in the vineyard and the
olive orchard, consume the fruit of neither. I have seen the
Tuscan peasants, unable to bear the cost of the most ordinary
wine from the vineyards in which their cottages are embow-
ered, and which can be bought at retail for a cent a flask, pour-
ing water over the grape skins as they come from the press,
and making that their beverage.

Even for persons in comparatively easy circumstances in
Europe, there are strong inducements to emigrate to America.
Most of the governments are arbitrary, the taxes are oppres-
sive, the exactions of military service onerous in the extreme.
Add to all this the harassing insecurity of life. For sixty or
seventy years the Continent has been one wide theater of
scarcely intermitted convulsion. Every country in it has been
involved in war; there is scarcely one that has not passed
through a revolution. We read of events like these in the
newspapers, we look upon them with curiosity as articles of
mere intelligence, or they awaken images of our own revolu-
tion, which we regard only with -joyous associations. Far dif-
ferent the state of things in crowded Europe, of which the fair-
est fields are trampled in every generation by mighty armies
into bloody mire ! Dazzled by the brilliancy of the military
exploits of which we read at a safe distance, we forget the
anxieties of those who grow up within the sound of the can-
non's roar, whose prospects in life are ruined, their business
broken up, their little accumulations swept away by the bank-
ruptcy of governments or the general paralysis of the industry
of the country, their sons torn from them by ruthless conscrip-
tions, the means of educating and bringing up their families
consumed in a day by disastrous emergencies. Terrified by

42 HISTORY

the recent experience or the tradition of these miseries, thou-
sands emigrate to the land of promise, flying before, not merely
the presence, but the "rumor of war," which the Great Teacher
places on a level with the reality.

Ever and anon some sharp specific catastrophe gives an in-
tense activity to emigration. When France, in the lowest
depth of her Revolution, plunged to a lower depth of suffering
and crime, when the Reign of Terror was enthroned, and when
everything in any way conspicuous, whether for station, wealth,
talent, or service, of every age and of either sex, from the crowned
monarch to the gray-haired magistrate and the timid maiden,
was brought to the guillotine, hundreds of thousands escaped
at once from the devoted kingdom. The convulsions of San
Domingo drove most of the European population of that island
to the United States. But beyond everything else which has
been witnessed in modern times, the famine which prevailed a
few years since in Ireland gave a terrific impulse to emigration.
Not less, probably, than one million of her inhabitants left her
shores within five years. The population of this island, as highly
favored in the gifts of nature as any spot on the face of the earth,
has actually diminished more than 1,800,000 since the famine
year ; 1 the only example, perhaps, in history, of a similar result
in a country not visited by foreign war or civil convulsion. The
population ought, in the course of nature, to have increased
within ten years by at least that amount ; and in point of fact,
between 1840 and 1850, our own population increased by more
than six millions.

This prodigious increase of the population of the United
States is partly owing to the emigration from foreign coun-
tries, which has taken place under the influence of the causes
general and specific, to which I have alluded. Of late years,
from three to four hundred thousand immigrants are registered
at the several customhouses, as arriving in this country in the
course of a year. It is probable that a third as many more
enter by the Canadian frontier. Not much less than two mil-
lions of immigrants are supposed to have entered the United
States in the last ten years ; and it is calculated that there are

1 London Quarterly Review for December, 1851, p. 191.

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 43

living at the present day in the United States five millions of
persons, foreigners who have immigrated since 1790, and their
descendants.

There is nothing in the annals of mankind to be compared
to this; but there is a series of great movements which may
be contrasted with it. In the period of a thousand years,
which began about three or four hundred years before our
Saviour, the Roman republic and empire were from time to
time invaded by warlike races from the North and East, who
burst with overwhelming force upon the South and West of
Europe, and repeatedly carried desolation to the gates of
Rome. These multitudinous invaders were not armies of
men, they were in reality nations of hostile emigrants. They
came with their wives, with their " young barbarians," with
their Scythian cavalry, and their herds of cattle ; and they
came with no purpose of going away. The animus manendi
was made up before they abandoned their ice-clad homes ;
they left their Arctic allegiance behind them. They found
the sunny banks of the Arno and the Rhone more pleasant
than those of the Don and the Volga. Unaccustomed to the
sight of any tree more inviting than the melancholy fir and
the stunted birch, its branches glittering with snowy crystals, —
brought up under a climate where the generous fruits are un-
known, — these children of the North were not so much fasci-
nated as bewildered "in the land of the citron and myrtle";
they gazed with delighted astonishment at the spreading elm,
festooned with Falernian clusters ; they clutched, with a kind
of frantic joy, at the fruit of the fig tree and the olive ; — at
the melting peach, the luscious plum, the golden orange, and
the pomegranate, whose tinted cheek outblushes everything
but the living carnation of youthful love.

With grim delight the brood of winter view
A brighter day and heavens of azure hue,
Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose,
And quaff the pendent vintage as it grows.

By the fortune of war, single detachments and even mighty
armies frequently suffered defeat ; but their place was imme-
diately taken by new hordes, which fell upon declining Rome

44 HISTORY

as the famished wolves in one of Catlin's pictures fall upon
an aged buffalo in our Western prairies. The imperial mon-
ster, powerful even in his decrepitude, would often scatter
their undisciplined array with his iron tusks, and trample them
by thousands under his brazen feet ; but when he turned back,
torn and bleeding, to his seven hills, tens of thousands came
howling from the Northern forests, who sprang on his throat
and buried their fangs in his lacerated side. Wherever they
conquered, and in the end they conquered everywhere, they
established themselves on the soil, invited newcomers, and
from their union with the former inhabitants, the nations of
the South and West of Europe, at the present day, for the
most part, trace their descent.

We know but little of the numbers thus thrown in upon
the Roman republic and empire in the course of eight or ten
centuries. They were, no doubt, greatly exaggerated by the
panic fear of the inhabitants ; and the pride of the Roman
historians would lead them to magnify the power before which
their own legions had so often quailed. But when we consider
the difficulty of subsisting a large number of persons in a march
through an unfriendly country, and this at a time when much of
the now cultivated portion of Europe was covered with forest
and swamp, I am disposed to think that the hosts which for a
succession of centuries overran the Roman empire did not in the
aggregate exceed in numbers the immigrants that have arrived in
the United States since 1790. In other words, I am inclined to
believe, that within the last sixty years the Old World has poured
in upon the United States a number of persons as great, with
their natural increase, as Asia sent into Europe in these armed
migrations of barbarous races.

Here, of course, the parallel ends. The races that invaded
Europe came to lay waste and to subjugate; the hosts that
cross the Atlantic are peaceful immigrants. The former
burst upon the Roman empire, and by oft-repeated strokes
beat it to the ground. The immigrants to America from all
countries come to cast in their lot with the native citizens,
and to share with us this great inheritance of civil and religious
liberty. The former were ferocious barbarians, half clad in
skins, speaking strange tongues, worshipping strange gods with

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 45

bloody rites. The latter are the children of the countries from
which the first European settlers of this continent proceeded,
and belong, with us, to the great common family of Christendom.
The former destroyed the culture of the ancient world, and it
was only after a thousand years that a better civilization grew
up from its ruins. The millions who have established themselves
in America within sixty years are, from the moment of their
arrival, gradually absorbed into the mass of the population,
conforming to the laws and molding themselves to the manners
of the country, and contributing their share to its prosperity and
strength.

It is a curious coincidence, that, as the first mighty wave
of the hostile migration that burst upon Europe before the
time of our Saviour consisted of tribes belonging to the great
Celtic race, the remains of which, identified by their original
dialect, are still found in Brittany, in Wales, in the Highlands of
Scotland, and especially in Ireland, so by far the greater portion
of the new and friendly immigration to the United States con-
sists of persons belonging to the same ardent, true-hearted, and
too often oppressed race. I have heard, in the villages of Wales
and the Highlands of Scotland, the Gospel preached in sub-
stantially the same language in which Brennus uttered his
haughty summons to Rome, and in which the mystic songs of
the Druids were chanted in the depths of the primeval forests of
France and England, in the time of Julius Caesar. It is still
spoken by thousands of Scotch, Welsh, and Irish immigrants, in
all parts of the United States.1

1 A learned and friendly correspondent, of Welsh origin, is of opinion that I
have fallen into a " gross error, in classing the Irish, Welsh, and Scotch as one
race of people, or Celts, whose language is the same. The slightest acquaintance,"
he adds, "with the Welsh and Irish languages would convince you that they were
totally different. A Welshman cannot understand one word of Irish, neither can
the latter understand one word of Welsh."

In a popular view of the subject this may be correct, in like manner as the
Anglo-Saxon, the Teutonic, and Scandinavian races would, in a popular use of the
terms, be considered as distinct races, speaking languages mutually unintelligible.
But the etymologist regards their languages as substantially the same ; and ethno-
graphically these nations belong to one and the same stock.

There are certainly many points, in reference to the ancient history of the Celts,
on which learned men greatly differ, and at which it was impossible that I should
ever glance in the superficial allusions which my limits admitted. But there is no
point on which ethnographers are better agreed, than that the Bretons, Welsh, Irish,

46 HISTORY

This great Celtic race is one of the most remarkable that
has appeared in history. Whether it belongs to that extensive
Indo-European family of nations, which, in ages before the dawn
of history, took up a line of march in two columns from Lower
India, and, moving westward by both a northern and a southern
route, finally diffused itself over Western Asia, Northern Africa,
and the greater part of Europe ; or whether, as others suppose,
the Celtic race belongs to a still older stock, and was itself driven
down upon the South and into the West of Europe by the over-
whelming force of the Indo-Europeans, is a question which we
have no time at present to discuss. However it may be decided,
it would seem that for the first time, as far as we are acquainted
with the fortunes of this interesting race,, they have found
themselves in a really prosperous condition in this country.
Driven from the soil in the West of Europe, to which their
fathers clung for two thousand years, they have at length,
and for the first time in their entire history, found a real home
in a land of strangers. Having been told, in the frightful language
of political economy, that at the daily table which Nature spreads
for the human family there is no cover laid for them in Ireland,
they have crossed the ocean, to find occupation, shelter, and
bread on a foreign but friendly soil.

This " Celtic Exodus," as it has been aptly called, is to all
the parties immediately connected with it one of the most
important events of the day. To the emigrants themselves
it may be regarded as a passing from death to life. It will
benefit Ireland by reducing a surplus population, and restor-
ing a sounder and juster relation of capital and labor. It
will benefit the laboring classes in England, where wages have
been kept down to the starvation point by the struggle between
the native population and the inhabitants of the sister island
for that employment and food of which there is not enough for

and Highland Scotch belong to the Celtic race, representing, no doubt, different
national families, which acquired each its distinctive dialect at a very early period.
Dr. Prichard (the leading authority on questions of this kind), after comparing
the remains of the ancient Celtic language, as far as they can now be traced in
proper names, says, "We must hence conclude that the dialect of the ancient
Gauls was nearly allied to the Welsh, and much more remotely related to the Erse
and Gaelic."- "Researches into the Physical History of Mankind," Vol. Ill,
p. 135. See also Latham's " English Language," p. 74.

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 47

both. This benefit will extend from England to ourselves, and
will lessen the pressure of the competition which our labor is
obliged to sustain, with the ill-paid labor of Europe. In addition
to all this, the constant influx into America of stout and efficient
hands supplies the greatest want in a new country, which is
that of labor, gives value to land, and facilitates the execution
of every species of private enterprise and public work.

I am not insensible to the temporary inconveniences which
are to be offset against these advantages, on both sides of the
water. Much suffering attends the emigrant there, on his
passage, and after his arrival. It is possible that the value
of our native labor may have been depressed by too sudden
and extensive a supply from abroad; and it is certain that
our asylums and almshouses are crowded with foreign inmates,
and that the resources of public and private benevolence have
been heavily drawn upon. These are considerable evils, but they
have perhaps been exaggerated.

It must be remembered, in the first place, that the immi-
gration daily pouring in from Europe is by no means a pauper
immigration. On the contrary, it is already regarded with
apprehension abroad, as occasioning a great abstraction of
capital. How the case may be in Great Britain and Ireland,
I have seen no precise statement ; but it is asserted, on appar-
ently good grounds, that the consumption and abstraction of
capital caused by immigration from Germany amounts annu-
ally to twenty millions of rix-dollars, or fifteen millions of our
currency.1

No doubt, foreign immigration is attended with an influx
of foreign pauperism. In reference to this, I believe your
system of public relief is better here in New York than ours
in Massachusetts, in which, however, we are making impor-
tant changes. It is said, that, owing to some defect in our
system, or its administration, we support more than our
share of needy foreigners. They are sent in upon us from other

1 In an instructive article relative to the German emigration in Otto Hiibner's
" Jahrbuch fiir Volkswirthschaft und Statistik," the numbers who emigrated from
Germany, from 1846 to 1851 inclusive, are estimated to have amounted to an
annual average of 96,676, and the amount of capital abstracted by them from the
country to an average of 19,370,333 .rix-dollars (about fifteen million Spanish
dollars) per annum.

48 HISTORY

States. New York, as the greatest seaport, must be exposed
also to more than her proportionate share of the burden. How-
ever the evil arises, it may no doubt be mitigated by judicious
legislation ; and in the meantime Massachusetts and New York
might do a worse thing with a portion of their surplus means than
feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give a home to the stranger,
and kindle the spark of reason in the mind of the poor foreign
lunatic, even though that lunatic may have been (as I am
ashamed, for the credit of humanity, to say has happened) set
on shore in the night from a coasting vessel, and found in the
morning in the fields, half dead with cold, and hunger, and fright.

But you say, "They are foreigners." Well, do we owe no
duties to foreigners? What was the founder of Virginia, when
a poor Indian girl threw herself between him and the war-
club of her father, and saved his life at the risk of her own?
What were the Pilgrim Fathers, when the friendly savage, if
we must call him so, met them with his little vocabulary of
kindness, learned among the fishermen on the Grand Bank, -
"Welcome, Englishmen"? "They are foreigners." And suppose
they are ? Was not the country all but ready, a year or two ago,
to plunge into a conflict with the military despotisms of the East
of Europe, in order to redress the wrongs of the oppressed races
who feed their flocks on the slopes of the Carpathians, and pasture
their herds upon the tributaries of the Danube, and do we talk
of the hardship of relieving destitute foreigners, whom the hand
of God has guided across the ocean and conducted to our doors ?

Must we learn a lesson of benevolence from the ancient
heathen? Let us then learn it. The whole theater at Rome
stood up and shouted their sympathetic applause, when the
actor in one of Terence's plays exclaimed, "I am a man ; nothing
that is human is foreign to me."

I am not indifferent to the increase of the public burdens;
but the time has been when I have felt a little proud of the
vast sums paid in the United States for the relief of poor
immigrants from Europe. It is an annual sum, I have no
doubt, equal to the interest on the foreign debt of the States
which have repudiated their obligations. When I was in
London, a few years ago, I received a letter from one of the
interior counties of England, telling me that they had in their

COLONIZATION AND IMMIGRATION 49

house of correction an American seaman, (or a person who
pretended to be,) who from their account seemed to be both
pauper and rogue. They were desirous of being rid of him,
and kindly offered to place him at my disposal. Although
he did not bid fair to be a very valuable acquisition, I wrote
back that he might be sent to London, where, if he was a sailor,
he could be shipped by the American Consul to the United
States, if not, to be disposed of in some other way. I ventured
to add the suggestion, that if her Majesty's Minister at Washing-
ton were applied to in a similar way by the overseers of the poor
and wardens of the prisons in the United States, he would be
pretty busily occupied. But I really felt pleased, at a time when
my own little State of Massachusetts was assisting from ten to
twelve thousand destitute British subjects annually, to be able
to relieve the British empire, on which the sun never sets, of the
only American pauper quartered upon it.

IMMIGRATION — A REVIEW1
HENRY CABOT LODGE, LL.D.

THERE is nothing so dry as statistics, nothing which falls so
dully on the listening ear as the recitation of many figures,
not figures of speech but of enumeration. It is also very difficult
to grasp the important statistics by merely hearing them read,
and yet it is impossible to deal with the question of immigration
without them. To comprehend the subject at all the very first
step is to realize what the number of immigrants to this country
has been, and, further, to trace by the figures the changes which
have occurred in the character and origin of the immigration. I
have here a table which shows the number of immigrants to
this country during the past forty years, that is, since the close
of the Civil War, and I also have tables showing the countries
from which the immigrants come and which reveal the changes
of nationality, or rather the change in the proportion of the
nationalities of which our immigration has been composed. I
will not read to you these long lists of figures because it would
simply be confusing and they can really only be properly studied
in detail when printed, as I hope they may be. I shall confine
myself to an analysis of them by which you will be enabled to
understand what they signify. In the first place, the number
of foreign immigrants to this country during the past forty years
reaches the enormous total of 19,001,195. Since the formation of
the Government, twenty-four millions of people, speaking in
round numbers, have come into the United States as immigrants,
and of that number, still speaking in round numbers, twenty-
two millions have come from Europe. Of the twenty-two mil-
lions from Europe, seven and a half millions were from the
United Kingdom, over four millions of these being from Ireland,
and nearly three millions from England ; over five millions were
from Germany, and nearly a million and a half were from Norway

1 Reprinted from address delivered at Boston City Club, March 20, 1900.

50

IMMIGRATION — A REVIEW 51

and Sweden, two and one half millions each from Austria-
Hungary and Italy, and two millions from Russia, including
Poland.

During the decade 1880-1890 there was for the first time
large immigration from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia.

In the decade 1890-1900 there was a marked reduction in
arrivals from Germany, Ireland, England, Scotland, and Norway
and Sweden, and great increase from Italy, Austria-Hungary,
and Russia.

Immigration from France, never large (average about five
thousand a year), decreased in the decade 1890-1900, but has
since increased.

The first point to be observed here is the size of this huge total
of nineteen millions. It is safe to say that there has never been
in the history of the world such a movement of peoples as these
figures represent. Neither ancient nor modern history discloses
any such migration as this. The great influx of barbarians into
Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, so far as we can
determine from all extant accounts, was small compared to the
immigration to this country within the lifetime of a single gen-
eration. Moreover, the largest movements, numerically speak-
ing, at the time of the dissolution of the Roman Empire, were
flung back by the forcible resistance of the people of Europe,
where Romans and Teutons united to arrest the advance of Huns,
Tartars, and Scythians. These were all, like our own, voluntary
migrations, although, unlike ours, they were armed invaders
instead of peaceful citizens. On the other hand, there is cer-
tainly no record of any forced migration which can compare for
a moment in numbers with the voluntary immigration to this
country. Probably the largest forced immigration which the
world has ever seen was that which brought negroes from Africa
to the two Americas, and yet in all the two centuries or more of
the African slave trade, the total numbers of negroes actually
brought to the Americas would fall far short of the millions who
have come to the United States in the last forty years. Such a
displacement of population, and such a movement of peoples as
this is in itself a historic event of great magnitude deserving the
most careful consideration ; but what we are concerned with is its
effect upon, and its meaning to, the people of the United States

52 HISTORY

and the future of our country. The problem which confronts
us is whether we are going to be able to assimilate this vast body
of people, to indoctrinate them with our ideals of government,
and with our political habits, and also whether we can main-
tain the wages and the standards of living among our working-
men in the presence of such a vast and rapid increase of popu-
lation. In what I am about to say I have no reflections to cast
upon the people of any race or any nationality, and I say this
because it is the practice of the demagogue who neither knows
nor cares anything about the seriousness of this question to en-
deavor to make political capital among voters of foreign birth
by proclaiming that any effort to deal intelligently with the
question is directed against them individually. The question
is just as important to the citizen of foreign birth who took out
his naturalization papers yesterday and thus cast in his lot and
the future hopes of his children with the fortunes of the United
States, as it is to the man whose ancestors settled here two or
three hundred years ago. To all true Americans, no matter what
their race or birthplace, this question is of vast moment in the
presence of such a vast and rapid increase of population. I am
not here to-night to make arguments or appeals, still less to reflect
upon any people or any race either here or elsewhere. I shall
deal simply with the conditions of the problem and the facts of
the case, and leave it to you to draw your own inferences and
determine what in your opinion ought to be done.

The thirteen colonies which asserted their independence and
compelled England after a long war to recognize it, were chiefly
populated by men of the English race, immigrants from England
and from the Lowlands of Scotland. These people were in an
overwhelming majority in all the colonies, and especially in
New England. In New York there were the Dutch who had
founded the colony. They were not very numerous compared
with the entire population of all the colonies and were practically
confined to their original settlement. Of kindred race with the
predominant English they were a strong, vigorous people and
furnished an element of great importance and value in the colonial
population.

In the eighteenth century there was an immigration of Hugue-
not Frenchmen which was scattered all through the various

IMMIGRATION — A REVIEW 53

colonies, and which, although comparatively small in numbers,
was of a most admirable quality. There was also a considerable
immigration of Germans from the Palatinate, and of people from
the North of Ireland known generally as Scotch-Irish. These
Germans and Scotch-Irish settled chiefly in Western Pennsyl-
vania, Virginia, and North Carolina. They were good robust
stocks and added to the strength as well as the number of .the
population. Immigration to the colonies from other sources
than those which I have mentioned was trifling, and, speaking
bfoadly^the thirteen colonies, at the time of the Revolution,
had an overwhelming majority of inhabitants who were English
speaking and who came from Great Britain and Ireland. It
was this population which fought the Revolution and adopted
the Constitution of the United States. Our political institutions
and bur governments, both State and National, were founded
by and for these people, and in accord with their ideals and
their traditions. They were a homogeneous people, and the
institutions which they thus established were essentially their
own, were thoroughly understood by them, and suited them in
every respect. The soundness of our political system has been
demonstrated by more than a hundred years of existence and
by the manner in which it has surmounted great strains and
perils. But the population of the country, in the meantime,
has changed, largely by the processes of immigration, and one
of the great problems, both in the present and in the future, is
to determine whether these political institutions, founded more
than a century ago, can be adapted to, and adopted by, the
population of the United States as it is to-day constituted.

Let me now review very briefly the changes in our immi-
gration. The first great immigration was that from Ireland,
which began in the forties after the Great Famine, and which has
continued, although in diminishing numbers, to the present
time. This Irish immigration came from all parts of the island
and was no longer confined principally to the North as it had
been in the Colonial days. The Irish spoke the same language
as the people of the United States, they had the same traditions
oi ' government and they had for centuries associated and inter-
married with the people of Great Britain. Without dwelling
on their proved value as an element of the population, it is enough

54 HISTORY

to say that they presented no difficulties of assimilation, and
they adopted and sustained our system of government as easily
as the people of the earlier settlement. At a slightly later period
began the great German immigration to the United States,
followed in time by the Scandinavian. There could not be a
better addition to any population than was furnished by both
these people. They spoke, it is true, a different language, but
they were of the same race as the people who had made them-
selves masters of Great Britain, so they assimilated at once
with the people of the United States, for the process was merely
a reblending of kindred stocks. But the German and the Scandi-
navian immigration has diminished of late years, and, relatively
to the other races which have recently begun to come, has di-
minished very greatly. Later than any of these was the immigra-
tion of French Canadians, but which has assumed large propor-
tions and has become a strong and most valuable element of
our population. But the French of Canada scarcely come within
the subject we are considering because they are hardly to be
classed as immigrants in the accepted sense. They represent
one of the oldest settlements on this continent. They have
been, in the broad sense, Americans for generations, and their
coming to the United States is merely a movement of Americans
across an imaginary line from one part of America to another.

Within the last twenty years, however, there has been a great
change in the proportion of the various nationalities immigrating
from Europe to the United States. The immigrants from Great
Britain and Ireland, and from Germany and Scandinavia have
gone down in numbers as compared with immigrants from coun-
tries which, until very recent years, sent no immigrants to
America. We have never received, and do not now receive, any
immigration from Spain, or any considerable immigration from
France and Belgium. The great growth in recent years in our
immigration has been from Italy, from Poland, Hungary, and
Russia, from Eastern Europe, from subjects of the Sultan, and
is now extending to the inhabitants of Asia Minor. With the
exception of the Italians these people have never been amal-
gamated with, or brought in contact with, the English-speaking
people, or with those of France, Germany, Holland, and Scandi-
navia who have built up the United States. I except the Italians

IMMIGRATION — A REVIEW 55

not merely because their noble literature and splendid art are
a part of our inheritance but because they are conspicuously
one of the countries which belong to what is known as Western
civilization. They, like ourselves, are the heirs of the civilization
of Ancient Rome, and until one has traveled in Eastern Europe
and studied the people one does not realize how much this
signifies.

I am not concerned here with whether the civilization of Rome
was better than that of Byzantium, or of the Orient, or of China.
I merely state the fact that the civilization of Rome was a widely
different civilization from the others, and that it was the civiliza-
tion whose ideas we have inherited. In Eastern Europe the people
fell heirs, not to the civilization of Rome, but to that of Byzan-
tium, of the Greeks of the Lower Empire. As an example of
what I mean, the idea of patriotism, that is, of devotion to one's
country, is Roman, while the idea of devotion to the Emperor,
the head of the State, is Byzantine. I point out these differences
merely as conditions of the problem of assimilation which we
have presented to us.

I wish next to call your attention to the manner in which this
question of immigration has been dealt with by the successive
laws passed by Congress. Let me begin by making clear one
point which I think is sometimes overlooked. Every independent
nation has, and must have, an absolute right to determine who
shall come into the country ; and, secondly, who shall become
a part of its citizenship, and on what terms. We cannot, in fact,
conceive of an independent nation which does not possess this
power, for if one nation can compel another to admit its people,
the nation thus compelled is a subject and dependent nation.
The power of the American people to determine who shall come
into this country, and on what terms, is absolute, and by the
American people I mean its citizens at any given moment,
whether native born or naturalized, whose votes control the
Government. I state this explicitly, because there seems to be
a hazy idea in some minds that the inhabitants of other countries
have a right, an inalienable right, to come into the United States.
No one has a right to come into the United States, or become
part of its citizenship, except by permission of the people of the
United States. The power, therefore, of Congress as representing

HISTORY

\ all the people, is absolute, and they can make any laws they deem
wise, from complete prohibition down, in regard to immigration.
" The laws regulating immigration are of two kinds, — restric-
tive and selective. The only restrictive legislation in regard
to immigration into the United States is that which is to be found
in the Chinese Exclusion Acts. All the rest of our immigration
legislation, although it has a somewhat restrictive effect very
often, is purely selective in character. We have determined by
law that the criminal and the diseased, that women imported
for immoral purposes and laborers brought here under contract,
shall be excluded, and we also undertake to exclude what are
known as "assisted immigrants," those whose expenses are paid
for them by others, whether individuals, corporations, or govern-
ments, because it is believed that such immigrants are paupers
and likely to become a public charge. I will give you the figures
which show the results of these provisions of our statutes, and
which are as follows :

IMMIGRANTS DEBARRED

YEARS

PAUPERS

CONTRACT
LABORERS

DISEASED
AND OTHER
CAUSES

TOTAL

7.896

2 OIO

776

1 3

2 7OO

1807 .

1,277

328

12

1, 6l7

1898 ....

2 261

4.17

3^2

•7 O3O

1800 .

2.CQO

74.1

4X8

3,708

IQOO

2 Q74.

8*3

4.3O

424.6

IOOI

2 70S

727

3QI

3 Cl6

1902
IOO3

3>944
5 812

275
I 086

755
i 871

4,974
8 760

1 004.

A 708

I ^OI

I 6(K

7,004

IQO^

7 808

I 164

2 418

1 1 480

1006

7 060

2 314.

•3 O4O

12,432

IOO7

6 866

I 4.34

4764.

I 3 064

50,306

11,196

l6,2I7

77,719

In considering these statistics, it must be remembered that
these laws are largely preventive and that the number of diseased,
pauper, and criminal immigrants actually excluded and deported
are only a very small part of these classes who would come if
there were no such laws, but who never leave Europe for the
United States because these laws exist.

IMMIGRATION — A REVIEW 57

Of the wisdom of all these measures which shut out the undesir-
able immigrants just described, I do not think there is much
question anywhere ; but there is great resistance to their enforce-
ment, especially from interested parties, like steamship com-
panies and large employers, who desire an unlimited supply of
cheap labor. So far as the diseased immigrants go, the laws are
pretty thoroughly enforced, although there is a continual pressure,
for sentimental reasons, to set the law aside and admit the physi-
cally unfit in special cases, which constantly recur. To those
who resist our immigration laws and who strive to make polit-
ical capital by opposing them, as well as to all law-abiding and
liberty-loving Americans, I would, in this connection, point
out some of the results of our still inadequate statutes and of our
inefficient enforcement of those which exist. Within the past
few weeks we have seen a beloved priest devoted to good works
brutally murdered, while in the performance of his sacred func-
tions, by an alien immigrant. We have seen a murderous assault
by an alien immigrant upon the Chief of Police of a great city,
not to avenge any personal wrong, but because he represented
law and order. Every day we read in the newspapers of savage
murders by members of secret societies composed of alien immi-
grants. Can we doubt, in the presence of such horrible facts
as these, the need of stringent laws and rigid enforcement, to
exclude the criminals and the anarchists of foreign countries
from the United States ? The exclusion of criminals is now very
imperfect, and one of the efforts of the Immigration Commission
is to get sufficient information to enable us to make laws on this
all-important point which shall be effective. The laws against
contract labor are constantly evaded, but the immigration act
passed last year provided an annual appropriation of $50,000
which is to be used in the enforcement of the clause excluding
contract laborers, the importance of which cannot be overesti-
mated. The laws against assisted immigrants are also, I am sorry
to say, in a great measure ineffective, owing to the ease of eva-
sion; and here again, we hope, by the investigations of the
Immigration Commission, to secure information which shall
enable us to make decided improvements in this direction.

The question of immigration is emphatically one of a per-
manent character. There can be no finality in our legislation,

58 HISTORY

which must, in the nature of the case, be constantly open to
improvement in its provisions and in administrative arrange-

^ments. There is also a growing and constantly active demand
for more restrictive legislation. This demand rests on two
grounds, both equally important. One is the effect upon the
quality of our citizenship caused by the rapid introduction of
this vast and practically unrestricted immigration, and the other,
the effect of this immigration upon rates of wages and the stand-

v ard of living among our working people. The first ground is
too large and too complex to be discussed in a brief address ; but
the second is so obvious that it is easy to make it understood in
a few words. I have always regarded high wages and high
standards of living for our working people as absolutely necessary
to the success of our form of government, which is a representa-
tive democracy. It is idle to suppose that those rates of wages
can be maintained, and those standards of living be held up to
the point where they ought to be kept, if we throw our labor
market open to countless hordes of cheaper labor from all parts
of the globe. This incompatibility between American standards
of living and unrestricted immigration became apparent to
the great mass of our people in the case of the Chinese, and the
result was the Chinese Exclusion Acts. But what applies to the
Chinese applies equally to all Asiatic labor. We have heard a
great deal lately about Japanese immigration, but it is not a
subject which ought to lead, or which will lead, to any ill-feeling
between the two countries. Japan, now, by Imperial edicts,
excludes workingmen of all nations, except under strict restric-
tions in a few of what are known as Treaty Ports, and she excludes
the Chinese altogether. Japan does not expect, and no nation
can expect, that she should have the right to force her people
on another nation, and there is no more cause for offense in the
desire of our people in the Western States to exclude Japanese
immigrants than there is in the Japanese edicts which now exclude
our working people from Japan. Moreover, the sentiment of
our people is not peculiar to the United States. It is, if anything,
more fervent in British Columbia than in California. The people
of Australia exclude the Chinese just as we do, and it may as
well be frankly stated that the white race will not admit Asiatic
labor to compete with their own in their own countries. Nothing

IMMIGRATION — A REVIEW 59

is more fatal, in this connection, than to make trite economic
arguments and talk about the survival of the fittest. The white
race of Western America, whether in Canada or in the United
States, will not suffer the introduction of Asiatic labor, and as
for the saying "the survival of the fittest," the people who use
that phrase never complete it. The whole statement is "the
survival of the fittest to survive," which is something very dif-
ferent from the survival of what is abstractly the best. If I may
use an illustration employed by Mr. Speaker Reed, I can make
my point clear to your minds. The bull of Bashan is always
spoken of as a singularly noble animal, and the little minnow,
or shiner, which you can see in shallow water anywhere on our
coast, is a much lower form of life : but if you cast the bull of
Bashan and the minnow together into the middle of the Atlantic
Ocean, the bull will drown and the minnow will survive in that
environment. Yet is the bull of Bashan none the less the nobler
animal. In the environment of Chinese labor, our labor could
not long survive as we desire it to exist, and, therefore, by an
overmastering instinct, our people of the West are determined
not to admit Asiatic labor to this country, whether it is Chinese,
Japanese, or Hindoo. I think that by and by our working people
of the Eastern States will begin to question whether they desire
to have Arabs, who I see are planning to come in large numbers,
and other people from Asia Minor and the west of Asia, pour
into this country. I am not here to argue this question, but
merely to call attention to some facts for your consideration,
and this ominous fact which I have just mentioned is one.

Many people believe that we should also go a step further
in our general legislation, and add ignorance to poverty, disease,
and criminality as a valid ground for exclusion. Congress passed
a bill containing a provision of this sort, which was vetoed by
Mr. Cleveland. The same provision has come up again and again,
and has passed the Senate more than once. Those who advocate
it maintain that it excludes in practice, and with few exceptions,
only undesirable immigrants. Here, again, I shall not attempt
to argue the question with you, but will merely point out the
number of persons who would have been excluded since 1896
if the illiterates over fourteen years of age had been thrown out.
During that period, as shown by the table which I shall give,

60 HISTORY

the illiterates who, by their own admission, could neither read
nor write in any language, numbered 1,829,320. The figures
in detail are as follows :

1896 83,196

1897 44,580

1898 44,773

1899 61,468

1900 . . 95,673

1901 120,645

1902 165,105

1903 189,008

1904 172,856

1905 239,091

1906 269,823

1907 343,402

1,829,320

The only thing I desire to say on this point is, that nothing
is more unfounded than the statement that this exclusion is
aimed at any race or any class. It is aimed at no one but the
ignorant, just as the provision in regard to the diseased immi-
grants is aimed only at the diseased ; but it is unquestionably re-
strictive, and it therefore meets with the bitter resistance of
the steamship companies, from whom, directly or indirectly,
come nine tenths of all the agitation and opposition to laws
affecting immigration.

I have tried in all I have said to lay before you the statistics,
the conditions, the facts, and the past results involved in this
great question. As I have already said more than once, I shall
make no argument and draw no conclusion. I leave it to you to
make your own inferences and reach your own decisions. I
say only this, — that to every workingman and to every citi-
zen of the United States, whether native born or naturalized,
to whom the quality of our citizenship and the future of our
country are dear, there is no question before the American people
which can be compared with this in importance ; none to which
they should give such attention or upon which they should seek
to express themselves and to guide their representatives more
explicitly and more earnestly.

HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION

PRESCOTT F. HALL, LL.B., SECRETARY IMMIGRATION LEAGUE,

BOSTON

A. IMMIGRATION PRIOR TO 1820

IN POPULAR discussions of the immigration question it is
often said that all who have come to this continent since its
discovery should be considered equally as immigrants, and that
only the aboriginal inhabitants can be properly called natives.
In a certain sense this is of course true, but in another it is entirely
misleading; for one cannot speak of immigration to a country
until that country has entered upon a career of national existence.
Accordingly a distinction has been made, and with reason, be-
tween those who took part in building the political framework
of the thirteen colonies and of the Federal Union, and those
who have arrived to find the United States Government and
its social and political institutions in working operation. The
former class have been called colonists, the latter are immi-
grants proper. In discussing the immigration question, this
distinction is important; for it does not follow that because,
as against the native Indians, all comers might be considered
as intruders and equally without claim of right, those who have
built up a complicated framework of nationality have no rights
as against others who seek to enjoy the benefits of national life
without having contributed to its creation.

The number of persons in the country at the date of the Revolu-
tionary War is not accurately known. The population of New
England was produced out of an immigration of about 20,000
persons who arrived before 1640, and it overflowed into the
other colonies without receiving any corresponding additions
from them. Franklin stated in 1751 that the population then in
the colonies, amounting to about one million, had been produced

1 "Immigration and its Effects upon the United States." Chapter I. Henry
Holt and Co., New York, 1906.

61

62 HISTORY

from an original immigration of less than 80,000. The first census
of the United States, in 1790, gave the total population as 3,929,-
214; but, as has been pointed out by Professor F. B. Dexter,
this number does not include Vermont or the territory north-
west of the Ohio River, which, he says, would make the total
over 4,000,000. The first records of immigration begin with
the year 1820, and, although the number of immigrants who
arrived in the United States from the close of the Revolutionary
War to 1820 is not certain, it is estimated by good authorities
at 250,000.

It is difficult to ascertain the number of immigrants from the
various countries in the early part of the nineteenth century.
The number from Great Britain increased from 2081 in 1815,
to 34,787 in 1819, after which it diminished to 14,805 in 1824.
In the year 1820, out of a total immigration of 8385, the United
Kingdom furnished 6024. Germany was second, with 968;
France third, with 371 ; and Spain fourth, with 139. The total
immigration from the other parts of North and South America
was 387.

The original settlers of this country were, in the main, of
Teutonic and Keltic stock. In the thirteen original States the
pioneers were practically all British, Irish, Dutch, and German,
with a few French, Portuguese, and Swedes ; and, in this con-
nection, it should be remembered that a large proportion of the
French people is Teutonic in origin. The Germans were Protes-
tants from the Palatinate, and were pretty generally scattered,
having colonized in New York, Western Pennsylvania, Mary-
land, and Virginia. The Swedes settled upon the Delaware
River. The French were Huguenots driven from home by Louis
XIV; and, though not numerous, were a valuable addition to
the colonies. The Irish were descendants of Cromwell's army,
and came from the north of Ireland. All the settlers had been
subjects of nations which entertained a high degree of civiliza-
tion, and were at that time the colonizing and commercial nations
of the world. At a later period, the annexation of Florida and
Louisiana brought in elements of Mediterranean races, so called ;
but, owing to various considerations into which it is not necessary
to enter here, the civilization and customs of the British over-
spread these regions, as well as those colonized originally by the

HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION 63

Dutch and French, and produced a substantial uniformity in
institutions, habits, and traditions throughout the land.

This process of solidification and assimilation of the different
colonies under British influence reached its consummation with
the establishing of the Federal Government. After the birth
of the United States as a separate nation, colonization in the
earlier sense ceased entirely. European nations could no longer
send out their own citizens and form communities directly de-
pendent upon themselves and subject to their own jurisdiction.
The immigration of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,
therefore, differs widely in character from the colonization of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

B. IMMIGRATION FROM 1820 TO 1869

With the year 1820 the official history of immigration to the
United States begins ; for it was then that collectors of customs
at our ports were first obliged to record the arrival of passengers
by sea from foreign countries. The record included numbers,
ages, sexes, and occupations. Before 1856 no distinction at all
was made between travelers intending to return and immigrants
intending to remain.

Although still comparatively small, immigration increased
from 8385 in 1820 to 22,633 m I^3I- The first marked rise took
place in 1827 and 1828, following the commercial depression in
England in those and in the previous year. From 1831, with
the exception of the period 1843-1844, numbers continued stead-
ily to advance until they reached totals of 104,565 in 1842,
and 310,004 in 1850. The most striking annual increases were
from 114,371 in 1845 to 154,416 in 1846, and 234,968 in 1847.
These sudden movements of population were chiefly due to hard
times in Europe, and especially in Ireland, a cause which, with
the Revolution of 1848, in Germany, continued to operate until
1854, when a total of 427,853 was reached — a figure not again
attained until nearly twenty years later. With the year 1854
the tide began to beat less fiercely; immigration decreased
steadily until, during the first two years of the Civil War, it was
below 100,000. But in 1863, a gradual increase once more set
in, and in 1869 352,768 persons landed. During the whole of

64 HISTORY

this period the only immigration of importance came from Europe
and from other parts of America. Immigration from Asia,
which began in 1853, consisted in the largest year, 1854, of
13,100 persons.

In 1869 the ethnic composition of immigration commenced
in a marked way to change, and considerations which apply to
the earlier years do not necessarily hold for those from 1870 to
the present time. For this reason the period is made to end with
1869.

C. IMMIGRATION FROM 1870 TO 1905

In this period from 1870 to 1905, immigration increased more
than twofold. In 1870 the total immigration was 387,203 ;
in 1903 it had reached the enormous number of 857,046, and,
in 1905, the still more significant figure of 1,026,499. Directly
after 1870 a time of industrial and commercial depression began,
culminating in the panic of 1873. The barometer of immigra-
tion, always sensitive to such changes in the industrial atmos-
phere, began to fall, though there was no rapid movement
until the panic was well under way. In fact, immigration in-
creased to 459,803 in 1873 ; but it fell in the following year to
313,339 and then steadily diminished to 138,469 in 1878. After
this it very suddenly increased again, and in 1882 it reached
788,992 — the largest immigration of any year except 1903,
1904, and 1905.

A part of this sudden increase in 1882 and the two subsequent
years must be ascribed to the promulgation of the "May Laws"
by Russia, which caused large numbers of Hebrews to emigrate.
Thus, immigration from Russia, exclusive of Poland and Finland,
was nearly four times as great in 1882 as in 1881, and by 1890
was more than seven times as great. But, in addition to these
special causes, there seems to have been a general advance all
along the line of nations. One reason for this may have been the
enactment by Congress of the first general immigration act of
August 3, 1882, and the fear that this might be the forerunner of
further restrictive legislation, a fear which has undoubtedly
operated during the last two or three years.

After 1882 numbers again diminished, making another low
point of 334,203 in 1886. Then an increase took place until the

HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION 65

total reached 579,663 in 1892. In 1893 came the epidemic of
cholera in the East and quarantine regulations at various ports,
followed by a period of commercial depression lasting from 1894
to 1898. As a result of these causes, immigration fell off largely,
touching a minimum of 229,299^1 1898. From that yearitroseby
rapid strides to 648,743 in 1902 ; to 857,046 in 1903 ; to 812,870
in 1904; and to 1,026,499 in 1905.

The total for 1905 was an increase of 26 per cent over that of
1904; 58 per cent over that of 1902; and 349 per cent over
that of 1898. The record for a single day seems to have been
reached on May 7, 1905, when 12,000 immigrants entered New
York inside of twelve hours.

D. SUMMARY

It appears that the total immigration to the United States
from the close of the Revolutionary War to 1905 was not far
from twenty-three millions, a movement of population unprece-
dented in history. This was divided by decades as follows :

1821 to 1830 143,439

1831 to 1840 599,125

1841 to 1850 : 1,713,251

1851 to 1860 „ . . . . 2,598,214

1861 to 1870 2,314,824

1871 to 1880 2,812,101

1881 to 1890 5,246,613

1891 to 1900 3,687,564

1901 to 1905 (five years) 3,833,076

Total, 1821-1905 22,948,297

If the average holds to the end of the present decade, the
number for 1901-1910 will be nearly eight millions of souls, much
the largest contribution on record for the same period. It need
surprise no one, however, if the total for the decade should be
twice as large as this, for the increase in the last few years is
enormous, and the general tendency during the past century
has been toward a steady and rapid growth of the immigration
movement.

Another way of viewing the annual immigration is with refer-
ence to the volume of population into which it flows. This has

66

HISTORY

the advantage of showing how relatively small the annual addi-
tions are, though they are enormous compared with the additions
to the population of other countries. But it has also a disad-
vantage in that it takes account merely of numbers, and does
not reckon with the character of racial composition either of the
annual additions or the people with whom they are to be mixed.
The following table shows the number of immigrants arriving
in each year, from 1839 to 1901, and the number of immigrants
to 10,000 population :

FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES

YEAR ENDING
DECEMBER 31

NUMBER OF
IMMIGRANTS

NUMBER OF
IMMIGRANTS TO

10,000

POPULATION

YEAR ENDING

NUMBER OF
IMMIGRANTS

NUMBER OF
IMMIGRANTS TO

10,000

POPULATION

1839 • -

68,069

41

June 30

1840 . .

84,066

49

1871 . .

321,350

81

1841 . .

80,289

45

1872 . .

404,806

99

1842

104,565

57

1873 • •

459,803

no

Sept. 30

t»

1874 • •

313,339

73

1844 • •

78,615

40

1875 • •

227,498

5i

1845 • •

H4,37i

57

1876 . .

169,986

37

1846 . .

154,416

75

1877 . .

141,857

30

1847 • •

234,968

in

1878 . .

138,469

29

1848 . .

226,527

103

1879 • •

177,826

36

1849 • •

297,024

132

1880 . .

457,257

9i

1850 . .

369,980

134

1881 . .

669,431

128

1851 . .

379>466

158

1882 . .

.788,992

150

1852 . .

371,603

149

1883 . .

603,322

112

i8S3 • •

368,645

i43

1884 . .

5i8,592

94

1854 • .

427,833

162

1885 • •

395,346

70

i855 • •

200,827

73

1886 . .

334,203

58

1856 . .

195,587

69

1887 . .

490,109

85

1857 . .

246,945

85

1888 . .

546,889

9i

1858 . .

119,501

40

1889 . .

444,427

72

1859 . .

118,616

35

1890 . .

455,302

72

1860 . .

150,237

47

1891 . .

560,319

88

1861 . .

89,724

28

1892 . .

579,663

88

1862 . .

89,007

27

1893 • •

439,730

64

1863 . .

J74,524

52

1894 . .

285,631

42

1864 . .

!93,i95

57

1895 • •

258,536

37

1865 . .

247,453

7i

1896 . .

343,267

48

1866 . .

314,9*7

88

1897 . .

230,832

32

1867 . .

310,965

86

1898 . .

229,299

30

June 30

1899 . .

3H,7I5

40

1869 . .

352,768

93

1900 . .

448,572

58

1870 . .

387,203

IOO

1901 . .

487,918

61

HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION 67

It will be noticed that while in such a table it would be natural
for the index numbers to grow smaller as the population grew
larger, in general they are as high during the past twenty years
as during the periods from 1839 to 1846, from 1855 to 1865,
and from 1875 to 1880.

The only times when immigration exceeded one per cent of
the receiving population were the period 1847-1854, the years
1870, 1873, the period 1881-1883, and the years 1903-1905.

E. EMIGRATION

It is unfortunate that no accurate records are available of
emigration from this country. The Immigration Bureau has
repeatedly made recommendations for supplying this defect,
but Congress has not seen fit to act, and consequently the only
figures available are those of the transportation companies,
supplemented by such guesswork conclusions as can be drawn
from the census. The census obviously cannot furnish very accu-
rate data for estimating emigration, because persons who have
been in the country more than once may figure at a certain date in
the census and a year or two later in the immigrant arrivals.

The same facilities for cheap and rapid transit which operate
so powerfully to encourage immigration are available also for
passage in the other direction. Passage from New York to
European ports is from two to ten dollars less than the rate to
this country ; and the number of domestic servants, for example,
taking advantage of these rates to pass a summer or winter
abroad has become so large as to cause comment. In 1903,
eastbound steerage passengers, according to figures obtained
by the Department of Commerce and Labor, numbered 251,500 ;
and for the decade 1891 to 1900, excepting the years 1896 and
1897, for which no figures are available, the number was 1,229,-
909; or a probable total for the decade of 1,529,909. At cer-
tain times the exodus is larger than the influx. *Thus, during
the period from November i to December 8, 1894, the number
of emigrants was 25,544, while immigrant arrivals for the month
of November numbered 12,886.

The hard times of 1893 caused large numbers of Italians to
return home. The total of steerage passengers sailing from New

68 HISTORY

York, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Mon-
treal in that year was 268,037; in 1894, it was 311,760. The
Italian Commissioner- General of Emigration states that, in
1903, 214,157 Italians went to the United States and 78,233
returned.

Naturally, many of those who return home come again to the
United States when conditions here are more favorable, or they
have spent the money accumulated while in this country. In
1898, 1 8 per cent of immigrants had been in this country before ;
in 1901, 12 per cent; in 1903, 9 per cent; in 1905, 17.1 per cent.
These figures do not, of course, show how often the immigrants
represented have been in the United States ; for although this
information appears to some extent upon the manifests, it is
not tabulated in the official reports. From a personal examina-
tion of the manifests of several thousand Italians at Ellis Island,
New York, the writer can state that large numbers have been
here two, three, four, and in some cases six or more times. In
view of this the inaccuracy of estimates based on the census
becomes even more apparent. Poles, Slovaks, and other mining
laborers are frequent birds of passage ; and in the case of Cana-
dians working in the United States, there is a large exodus of
persons returning home, some in the winter and some in the sum-
mer, according to the nature of their occupation.

II. CAUSES

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION

UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COMMISSION

THE present movement of population from Europe to the
United States is, with few exceptions, almost entirely attrib-
utable to economic causes. Emigration due to political reasons
and, to a less extent, religious oppression, undoubtedly exists,
but even in countries where these incentives prevail the more
important cause is very largely an economic one. This does
not mean, however, that emigration from Europe is now an
economic necessity. At times in the past, notably during the
famine years in Ireland, actual want forced a choice between
emigration and literal starvation, but the present movement
results in the main from a widespread desire for better economic
conditions rather than from the necessity of escaping intolerable
ones. In other words, the emigrant of to-day comes to the
United States not merely to make a living, but to make a better
living than is possible at home.

With comparatively few exceptions, the emigrant of to-day is
essentially a seller of labor seeking a more favorable market.
To a considerable extent this incentive is accompanied by a
certain spirit of unrest and adventure and a more or less definite
ambition for general social betterment, but primarily the move-
ment is accounted for by the fact that the reward of labor is much
greater in the United States than in Europe.

The desire to escape military service is also a primary cause
of emigration from some countries, but on the whole it is rela-
tively unimportant. It is true, moreover, that some emigrate
to escape punishment for crime, or the stigma which follows
such punishment, while others of the criminal class deliberately
seek supposedly more advantageous fields for criminal activity.

69

7o CAUSES

The emigration of criminals of this class is a natural movement
not altogether peculiar to European countries, and, although
vastly important because dangerous, numerically it affects
but little the tide of European emigration to the United States.

In order that the chief cause of emigration from Europe may
be better understood, the commission has given considerable
attention to economic conditions in the countries visited, with
particular reference to the status of emigrating classes in this
regard. It was impossible for the commissioners personally
to make more than a general survey of this subject, but because
an understanding of the economic situation in the chief immi-
grant-furnishing countries is essential to an intelligent discus-
sion of the immigration question, the results of the commission's
investigation have been supplemented by official data or well-
authenticated material from other sources.

The purely economic condition of the wageworker is generally
very much lower in Europe than in the United States. This is
especially true of the unskilled laborer class from which so great
a proportion of the emigration to the United States is drawn.
Skilled labor also is poorly paid when compared with returns
for like service in the United States, but the opportunity for
continual employment in this field is usually good and the wages
sufficiently high to lessen the incentive to emigration. A large
proportion of the emigration from southern and eastern Europe
may be traced directly to the inability of the peasantry to gain
an adequate livelihood in agricultural pursuits either as laborers
or proprietors. Agricultural labor is paid extremely low wages,
and employment is quite likely to be seasonal rather than con-
tinuous. In cases where peasant proprietorship is possible, the
land holdings are usually so small, the methods of cultivation
so primitive, and the taxes so high, that even in productive years
the struggle for existence is a hard one, while a crop failure
means practical disaster for the small farmer and farm laborer
alike. In agrarian Russia, where the people have not learned to
emigrate, a crop failure results in a famine, while in other sec-
tions of southern and eastern Europe it results in emigration,
usually to the United States. Periods of industrial depression
as well as crop failures stimulate emigration, but the effect of
the former is not so pronounced, for the reason that disturbed

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 71

financial and industrial conditions in Europe are usually coin-
cidental with like conditions in the United States, and at such
times the emigration movement is always relatively smaller.

The fragmentary nature of available data relative to wages
in many European countries makes a satisfactory comparison
with wages in the United States impossible. It is well known,
however, that even in England, Germany, France, and other
countries of western Europe wages are below the United States
standard, while in southern and eastern Europe the difference
is very great. The commission found this to be true in its investi-
gations in parts of Italy, Austria-Hungary, Greece, Turkey,
Russia, and the Balkan States. In fact, it may safely be stated
that in these countries the average wage of men engaged in
common and agricultural labor is less than 50 cents per day,
while in some sections it is even much lower. It is true that
in some countries agricultural laborers receive from employers
certain concessions in the way of fuel, food, etc., but in cases
of this nature which came to the attention of the commission
the value of the concessions was insufficient to materially affect
the low wage scale.

It is a common but erroneous belief that peasants and artisans
in the European countries from which the new immigrant comes
can live so very cheaply that the low wages have practically as
great a purchasing power as the higher wages in the United
States. The low cost of living among the working people, espe-
cially of southern and eastern Europe, is due to a low standard
of living rather than to the cheapness of food and other commod-
ities. As a matter of fact, meat and other costly articles of food,
which are considered as almost essential to the everyday table
of the American workingman, cannot be afforded among laborers
in like occupations in southern and eastern Europe. The same
is true of the American standard of housing, clothing, and other
things which enter into the cost of living.

Notwithstanding the bad economic conditions surrounding
the classes which furnish so great a part of the emigration from
southern and eastern Europe, the commission believes that a
laudable ambition for better things than they possess rather
than a need for actual necessities is the chief motive behind the
movement to the United States. Knowledge of conditions in

72 CAUSES

America, promulgated through letters from friends or by emi-
grants who have returned for a visit to their native villages,
creates and fosters among the people a desire for improved
conditions which, it is believed, can be attained only through
emigration.

It is the opinion of the commission that, with the exception
of some Russian and Roumanian Hebrews, relatively few Euro-
peans emigrate at the present time because of political or reli-
gious conditions. It is doubtless true that political discontent
still influences the emigration movement from Ireland, but to
a less degree than in earlier years. The survival of the Polish
national spirit undoubtedly is a determining factor in the emi-
gration from Prussia, Russia, and Austria of some of that race,
while dissatisfaction with Russian domination is to a degree
responsible for Finnish emigration. In all probability some
part of the emigration from Turkey in Europe and Turkey in
Asia, as well as from the Balkan States, is also attributable to
political conditions in those countries. There is, of course, a
small movement from nearly every European country of political
idealists who prefer a democracy to a monarchial government,
but these, and in fact all, with the exception of the Hebrew peo-
ples referred to, whose emigration is in part due to political or
religious causes, form a very small portion of the present Euro-
pean emigration to the United States.

Contributory or immediate causes of emigration were given
due consideration by the commission. Chief of these is clearly
the advice and assistance of relatives or friends who have pre-
viously emigrated. Through the medium of letters from those
already in the United States and the visits of former emigrants,
the emigrating classes of Europe are kept constantly if not always
reliably informed as to labor conditions here, and these agencies
are by far the most potent promoters of the present movement
of population.

The commission found ample evidence of this fact in every
country of southern and eastern Europe. Of the two agencies
mentioned, however, letters are by far the more important. In
fact, it is entirely safe to assert that letters to friends at home
from persons who have emigrated have been the immediate
cause of by far the greater part of the remarkable movement

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 73

from southern and eastern Europe to the United States during
the past twenty-five years. There is hardly a village or com-
munity in southern Italy and Sicily that has not contributed
a portion of its population to swell the tide of emigration to the
United States, and the same is true of large areas of Austria,
Hungary, Greece, Turkey, and the Balkan States. There is
a tendency on the part of emigrants from these countries to retain
an interest in the homeland, and in consequence a great amount
of correspondence passes back and forth. It was frequently
stated to members of the Commission that letters from persons
who have emigrated to America were passed from hand to hand
until most of the emigrants' friends and neighbors were ac-
quainted with the contents. In periods of industrial activity,
as a rule, the letters so circulated contain optimistic references
to wages and opportunities for employment in the United States,
and when comparison in this regard is made with conditions at
home it is inevitable that whole communities should be inoculated
with a desire to emigrate. The reverse is true during seasons of
industrial depression in the United States. At such times intend-
ing emigrants are quickly informed by their friends in the United
States relative to conditions of employment, and a gre^at falling
off in the tide of emigration is the immediate result.

Emigrants who have returned for a visit to their native land
are also great promoters of emigration. This is particularly
true of southern and eastern European emigrants, who as a class
make more or less frequent visits to their old homes. Among
the returning emigrants are always some who have failed to
achieve success in America, and some who through changed
conditions of life and employment return in broken health. It
is but natural that these should have a slightly deterrent effect
on emigration ; but, on the whole, this is relatively unimportant,
for the returning emigrant, as a rule, is one who has succeeded.
In times of industrial inactivity in the United States the large
number of emigrants who return to their native lands of course
serve as a temporary check to emigration, but it is certain that
in the long run such returning emigrants actually promote rather
than retard the movement to the United States.

The importance of the advice of friends as an immediate
cause of emigration from Europe is also indicated by the fact

74

CAUSES

that nearly all European immigrants admitted to the United
States are, according to their own statements, going to join
relatives or friends. The United States immigration law provides
that information upon this point be secured relative to every
alien coming to the United States by water, and the record
shows that in the fiscal years 1908 and 1909, 94.7 per cent of all
European and Syrian immigr^its admitted were destined to
relatives or friends. It is worthy of note that the percentage
was higher in the new immigration than in the old, being 97
per cent in the former and 89.4 per cent in the latter.

The foregoing not only indicates a very general relationship
between admitted immigrants and those who follow, but it sug-
gests forcibly that emigration from Europe proceeds according
to "well-defined individual plans rather than in a haphazard way.

Actual contracts involving promises of employment between
employers in the United States and laborers in Europe are not
responsible for any very considerable part of the present emi-
gration movement. It will be understood, however, that this
statement refers only to cases where actual bona fide contracts
between employers and laborers exist rather than to so-called con-
tract labor cases as defined in the sweeping terms of the United
States immigration law, which classifies as such all persons

. . . who have been induced or solicited to migrate to this country by
offers or promises of employment or in consequence of agreements,
oral, written, or printed, express or implied, to perform labor in this
country of any kind, skilled or unskilled.

Under a strict interpretation of the law above quoted, it would
seem that in order to escape being classified as contract laborers
immigrants coming to the United States must be entirely with-
out assurance that employment will be available here. Indeed,
it is certain that European immigrants, and particularly those
from southern and eastern Europe, are, under a literal construc-
tion of the law, for the most part contract laborers, for it is
unlikely that many emigrants embark for the United States
without a pretty definite knowledge of where they will go and
what they will do if admitted.

It should not be understood, however, that the commission
believes that contract labor in its more serious form does not

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 75

exist. Undoubtedly many immigrants come to the United
States from southern and eastern Europe as the result of definite
if not open agreements with employers of labor here, but, as
previously stated, actual and direct contract labor agreements
cannot be considered as the direct or immediate cause of any
considerable proportion of the European emigration movement
to the United States. As before stated emigrants as a rule are
practically assured that employment awaits them in America
before they leave their homes for ports of embarkation, and
doubtless in a majority of cases they know just where and what
the employment will be. This is another result of letters from
former emigrants in the United States. In fact it may be said
that immigrants, or at least newly arrived immigrants, are
substantially the agencies which keep the American labor market
supplied with unskilled laborers from Europe. Some of them
operate consciously and on a large scale, but as a rule each immi-
grant simply informs his nearest friends that employment can
be had and advises them to come. It is these personal appeals
which, more than all other agencies, promote and regulate the
tide of European emigration to America.

Moreover, the immigrant in the United States in a large
measure assists, as well as advises, his friends in the Old World
to emigrate. It is difficult, and in many cases impossible, for
the southern and eastern European to save a sufficient amount
of money to purchase a steerage ticket to the United States.
No matter how strong the desire to emigrate may be, its ac-
complishment on the part of the ordinary laborer, dependent
upon his own resources, can be realized only after a long
struggle. To immigrants in the United States, however, the
price of steerage transportation to or from Europe is relatively /
a small matter, and by giving or advancing the necessary money /
they make possible the emigration of many. It is impossible /
to estimate with any degree of accuracy what proportion of the /
large amount of money annually sent abroad by immigrants /
is sent for the purpose of assisting relatives or friends to;
emigrate, but it is certain that the aggregate is large. The/
immediate families of immigrants are the largest beneficiaries m
this regard, but the assistance referred to is extended to manf
others.

76 CAUSES

Next to the advice and assistance of friends and relatives
who have already emigrated, the propaganda conducted by
steamship ticket agents is undoubtedly the most important imme-
diate cause of emigration from Europe to the United States.
This propaganda flourishes in every emigrant-furnishing country
of Europe, notwithstanding the fact that the promotion of emi-
gration is forbidden by the laws of many such countries as well
as by the United States immigration law.

It is, of course, difficult if not impossible to secure a really
effective enforcement of this provision of the United States law,
but undoubtedly it does supplement the emigration laws of
various European countries in compelling steamship ticket
agents to solicit emigration in a secret manner rather than openly.
It does not appear that steamship companies as a rule openly
or directly violate the United States law, but through local
agents and subagents of such companies it is violated persistently
and continuously. Selling steerage tickets to America is the
sxDle or chief occupation of large numbers of persons in southern
and eastern Europe, and from the observations of the commis-
sion it is clear that these local agents as a rule solicit business
by every possible means and consequently encourage emigration.

No data are available to show even approximately the total
number of such agents and subagents engaged in the steerage
ticket business. One authority stated to the commission that
two of the leading steamship lines had five or six thousand ticket
agents in Galicia alone, and that there was "a great hunt for
emigrants" there. The total number of such agents is undoubt-
edly very large, for the steerage business is vastly important to
all the lines operating passenger ships, and all compete for a share
of it. The great majority of emigrants from southern and eastern
European countries sail under foreign flags, Italian emigrants,
a large proportion of whom sail under the flag of Italy, being
the only conspicuous exception. Many Greek, Russian, and
Austrian emigrants sail on ships of those nations, but the bulk
of the emigrant business originating in eastern and southern
European countries, excepting Italy, is handled by the British,
IGerman, Dutch, French, and Belgian lines. There is at present
Vn agreement among the larger steamship companies which in
I measure regulates the distribution of this traffic and prevents

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 77

unrestricted competition between the lines, but this does not
affect the vigorous and widespread hunt for steerage passengers
which is carried on throughout the chief emigrant-furnishing
countries.

The commission's inquiry and information from other sources
indicate that the attempted promotion of emigration by steam-
ship ticket agents is carried on to a greater extent in Austria,
Hungary, Greece, and Russia than in other countries. The
Russian law, as elsewhere stated, does not recognize the right
of the people to emigrate permanently, and while the large and
continued movement of population from the Empire to over-seas
countries is proof that the law is to a large degree inoperative,
it nevertheless seems to restrict somewhat the activities of
steamship agents. Moreover, there were at the time of the
commission's visit two Russian steamship lines carrying emi-
grants directly from Libau to the United States, and the Govern-
ment's interest in the success of these lines resulted in a rather
strict surveillance of the agents of foreign companies doing
business in the Empire. Because of this, much of the work of
agents of foreign lines was carried on surreptitiously; in fact,
they were commonly described to the commission as "secret
agents." Emigration from Russia is, or at least is made to appear
to be, a difficult matter, and the work of the secret agents con-
sists not only of selling steamship transportation, but also in
procuring passports, and in smuggling across the frontier emi-
grants who for military or other reasons cannot procure pass-
ports, or who because of their excessive cost elect to leave Russia
without them. This was frequently stated to the commission.
A Russian official at St. Petersburg complained to the com-
mission that Jewish secret agents of British lines had been em-
ployed in Russia to induce Christians, instead of Jews, to emi-
grate. It was learned that some letters had been received by
prospective emigrants containing more information than the
dates of sailing, terms, etc. (as allowed by section 7 of the United
States Immigration Act), and also that on market days in some
places steamship agents would mingle with the people and en-
deavor to incite them to emigrate.

The Hungarian law strictly forbids the promotion of emigra-
tion and the Government has prosecuted violations so vigorously

78 CAUSES

that at the time of the commission's visit the emigration authori-
ties expressed the belief that the practice had been checked. It
was stated to the commission that foreign steamship lines had
constantly acted in contravention of the Hungarian regulations
by employing secret agents to solicit business, or through agents
writing personal letters to prospective emigrants, advising them
how to leave Hungary without the consent of the government.
Letters of this nature were presented to the commission. Some
of them are accompanied by crudely drawn maps indicating the
location of all the Hungarian control stations on the Austrian
border, and the routes of travel by which such stations can be
avoided. The commission was shown the records in hundreds
of cases where the secret agents of foreign steamship companies
had been convicted and fined or imprisoned for violating the
Hungarian law by soliciting emigration. It was reported to
the commission that in one year at Kassa, a Hungarian city
on the Austrian border, eight secret agents of the German lines
were punished for violations of the emigration law.

In Austria, at the time of the commission's visit, there was
comparatively little agitation relative to emigration. Attempts
had been made to enact an emigration law similar to that of
Hungary, but these were not successful. The solicitation of
emigration is forbidden by law, but it appeared that steamship
ticket agents were not subjected to strict regulation, as they are
in Hungary. Government officials and others interested in the
emigration situation expressed the belief that the solicitations
of agents had little effect on the emigration movement, which
was influenced almost entirely by economic conditions. It was
not denied, however, that steamship agents do solicit emigration.

The Italian law strictly forbids the solicitation of emigration
by steamship agents, and complaints relative to violation of
the law were not nearly so numerous as in some countries visited.
Nevertheless there are many persons engaged in the business of
selling steerage tickets in that country, and the commission was
informed that considerable soliciting is done.

The commission found that steamship agents were very active
in Greece and that the highly colored posters and other advertis-
ing matter of the steamship companies were to be found every-
where. According to its population Greece furnishes more

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 79

emigrants to the United States than any other country, and the
spirit of emigration is so intense among the people that solicita-
tion by steamship companies probably plays relatively a small
part even as a contributory cause of the movement.

ASSISTED EMIGRATION

Emigration from Europe to the United States through public
assistance is so small as to be of little or no importance. It is
probable and easily conceivable that local authorities sometimes
assist in the emigration of public charges and criminals, but such
instances are believed to be rare. As a matter of fact, European
nations look with regret on the emigration of their young and
able-bodied men and women, and the comity of nations would
prevent the deportation of criminals and paupers to a country
whose laws denied admission to such classes, however desirable
their emigration might be. Besides, the assisted emigration to
the United States of the aged or physically or mentally defective
would be sure to result in failure because of the stringent provi-
sions of the United States immigration law. It is well known
that in the earlier days of unrestricted immigration large num-
bers of paupers and other undesirables were assisted to emigrate,
or were practically deported, from the British Isles and other
countries to the United States. Even at the present time, as
shown in the commission's report on the immigration situation
in Canada, there is a large assisted emigration from England
to Canada and other British colonies, but it does not appear
that there is any movement of this nature to the United States.

On the other hand various nations of the Western Hemisphere
make systematic efforts in Europe to induce immigration. The
Canadian government maintains agencies in all the countries
of northern and western Europe where the solicitation of emigra-
tion is permitted, and pays a bonus to thousands of booking
agents for directing emigrants to the dominion. Canada, how-
ever, expends no money in the transportation of emigrants.
Several South American countries, including Brazil and Argen-
tine Republic, also systematically solicit immigration in Europe.

Several American states have attempted to attract immigrants
by the distribution in Europe of literature advertising the

8o CAUSES

attractions of such states. A few States have sent commis-
sioners to various countries for the purpose of inducing immi-
gration, but although some measure of success has attended
such efforts the propaganda has had little effect on the immi-
gration movement as a whole.

EMIGRATION OF CRIMINALS

That former convicts and professional criminals from all
countries come to the United States practically at will cannot
and need not be denied, although it seems probable that in the
popular belief the number is greatly exaggerated. This class
emigrates and is admitted to this country, and, in the opinion
of the commission, the blame cannot equitably be placed else-
where than on the United States. The commission is convinced
that no European government encourages the emigration of
its criminals to this country. Some, it is true, take no measures
to prevent such emigration, especially after criminals have paid
the legal penalties demanded, but others, and particularly Italy,
seek to restrain the departure of former convicts in common
with other classes debarred by the United States immigration
law. The accomplishment of this purpose on the part of Italy
is attempted by specific regulations forbidding the issuance of
passports to intended emigrants who have been convicted of
a felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude
within the meaning of the United States law. Under the Italian
system local officials furnish the record upon which is determined
the intending emigrant's right to receive a passport, and it is
not denied that some officials at times violate the injunctions
of the Government in this regard, but as a whole the commission
believes the effort is honestly made and in the main successfully
accomplished. The weakness and inefficiency of the system,
however, lie in the fact that passports are not demanded by the
United States as a requisite of admission, and although subjects
of Italy may not leave Italian ports without them, there is
little or nothing to prevent those unprovided from leaving the
country overland without passports or with passports to other
countries and then embarking for the United States from foreign
ports. Thus it is readily seen that the precaution of Italy,

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 81

however effective, is practically worthless without cooperation
on the* part of the United States.

EXAMINATION OF EMIGRANTS ABROAD

The practice of examining into the physical condition of
emigrants at the time of embarkation is one of long standing
at some European ports. In the earlier days, and in fact until
quite recently, the purpose of the inspection was merely to pro-
tect the health of steerage passengers during the ocean voyage.
The Belgian law of 1843 provided that in case the presence
of infectious disease among passengers was suspected there should
be an examination by a naval surgeon in order to prevent the
embarkation of afflicted persons. The British steerage law of
1848, the enactment of which followed the experiences of 1847
when thousands of emigrants driven from Ireland by the famine
died of ship fever, provided that passengers should be examined
by a physician and those whose condition was likely to endanger
the health of other passengers should not be permitted to pro-
ceed. Similar laws or regulations became general among the
maritime nations and are still in effect.

The situation is also affected somewhat by provisions of the
United States quarantine law, which requires American con-
sular officers to satisfy themselves of the sanitary condition of
ships and passengers sailing for United States ports. The laws
above referred to are intended to prevent the embarkation of
persons afflicted with diseases of a quarantinable nature, and
the only real and effective protection this country has against
the coming of the otherwise physically or mentally defective
is the United States immigration law which, through rejections
and penalties at United States ports, has made the transportation
of diseased emigrants unprofitable to the steamship companies.
This law is responsible for the elaborate system of emigrant
inspection which prevails at ports of embarkation and elsewhere
in Europe at the present time.

A systematic medical inspection of immigrants at United
States ports was first established under the immigration act of
March 3, 1891. Under that law steamship companies were
required to return free of charge excluded aliens, and the number

82 CAUSES

of rejections soon compelled the companies to exercise some
degree of care in the selection of steerage passengers at foreign
ports of embarkation. The necessity of a careful inspection
abroad was increased when in 1897 trachoma was classed as a
" dangerous contagious" disease, within the meaning of the
United States immigration law, and again when the immigra-
tion law of 1903 imposed a fine of $100 upon steamship com-
panies for bringing to a United States port an alien afflicted
with a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, when the
presence of such disease might have been detected by a compe-
tent medical examination at the foreign port of embarkation.

The immigration law of 1907, at present in force, increased
the causes for which a fine of $100 may be imposed on steamship
companies to include the bringing of idiots, imbeciles, epileptics,
and persons afflicted with tuberculosis whose condition might
have been detected at the foreign port of embarkation.

How to prevent the embarkation at foreign ports of emigrants
who under the immigration law cannot be admitted at United
States ports is a serious problem, in which the welfare of the emi-
grant is the chief consideration. In a purely practical sense,
except for the danger of contagion on shipboard the United
States is not seriously affected by the arrival of diseased persons
at ports of entry, because the law does not permit them to enter
the country.

From a humanitarian standpoint, however, it is obviously of the
greatest importance that emigrants of the classes debarred by law
from entering the United States be not allowed to embark at
foreign ports. This is accomplished in a large measure under the
present system of inspection abroad, for in ordinary years at
least four intending emigrants are turned back by the steamship
companies before leaving a European port to one debarred at
United States ports of arrival.

In view of the importance of the subject the Commission made
careful investigation of examination systems prevailing at the ports
of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Bremen, Cherbourg, Christiania, Copen-
hagen, Fiume, Genoa, Glasgow, Hamburg, Havre, Libau, Liver-
pool, Londonderry, Marseille, Messina, Naples, Palermo, Patras,
Piraeus, Queenstown, Rotterdam, and Southampton, from which
ports practically all emigrants for the United States embark.

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 83

There is little uniformity in the systems of examination in
force at these ports. At Naples, Palermo, and Messina, under
authority of the United States quarantine law and by agreement
with the Italian Government and the steamship companies, the
medical examination of steerage passengers is made by officers oi
the United States Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service,
who exercise practically absolute control in this regard. These
officers examine for defects contemplated by the United States
immigration law every intended emigrant holding a steerage
ticket and advise the rejection of those whose physical condition
would make their admission to the United States improbable.
While acting unofficially, these officers have the support of both
government and steamship officials, and their suggestions rela-
tive to rejection are always complied with.

The other extreme, so far as United States control is concerned,
exists at Antwerp, where the Belgian Government is unwilling to
yield even partial control of the situation, this attitude being due
in part to a former disagreement incidental to the administration
of the United States quarantine law at that port. At Antwerp
not even American consular officers are permitted to interfere
in the examination of emigrants. Between these extremes there
exists a variety of systems, in which, for the most part, American
consular officials perform more or less important functions, as
outlined in the United States quarantine law previously referred
to. As a practical illustration of the value of examinations at the
various European ports in preventing the embarkation of diseased
or otherwise undesirable emigrants, the Commission, as will
appear later, has made a comparative study showing rejections,
by cause, at United States ports of emigrants from different ports
of Europe.

The examination of intending emigrants, however, is not con-
fined entirely to ports of embarkation, but in several instances is
required when application for steamship ticket is made or before
the emigrant has proceeded to a port of embarkation. The most
conspicuous existence of such preliminary examinations is the
control-station system which the German Government compels
the steamship companies to maintain on the German-Russian
and German-Austrian frontiers. There are thirteen of these
stations on the frontier and one near Berlin. Germany, as a

84 CAUSES

matter of self-protection, requires that all emigrants from eastern
Europe intending to cross German territory to ports of em-
barkation be examined at such stations, and those who do not
comply with the German law governing the emigrant traffic
through the Empire or who obviously would be debarred at
United States ports are rejected. During the year ending June
30, 1907, out of 455,916 intended emigrants inspected 11,814
were turned back at these stations.

In some countries an effort is made to prevent intending
emigrants from leaving home unless it is evident that they will
meet the requirements of examinations at control stations and
ports of embarkation, or of the United ^States immigration law.
This is particularly true of Hungary, where at several points there
is local supervision of the departure of emigrants for seaports.
While this supervision is due largely to Hungary's purpose of
controlling emigration, particularly where emigrants are liable
to military service, the system prevents many from leaving home
who would be rejected at ports of embarkation on account of
disease.

Medical examinations, with a view to determining the admissi-
bility of emigrants under the United States law, are not un-
common in connection with the sale of steamship tickets. The
most conspicuous example of examinations of this nature was
found in Greece, and this resulted from a most forcible illustration
of the rigidity of the United States law. In 1906 the Austro-
Americano Company, which was then new in the emigrant-carry-
ing business, had over 300 emigrants refused admission to the
United States and returned on a single voyage. On arrival at
Trieste these returned emigrants mobbed the steamship com-
pany's office, and the experience resulted in the establishment by
the Austro-Americano Company of a systematic scheme of
examining intended emigrants in Greece. Agents of the company
in that country sent their head physician to study the medical
examination of immigrants at United States ports, and physicians
were provided for the 40 subagencies of the company in different
parts of Greece. Under the system in force in Greece, before
any document is given to an intended emigrant he is examined
by the physician attached to the subagency. If that physician
accepts him he receives a medical certificate, makes a deposit

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 85

toward the price of his ticket, and space is reserved for him on a
steamer. When he goes to the port of embarkation the emigrant
is examined by the company's head physician and, if accepted,
is permitted to complete his purchase of a ticket.

In Italy it is the policy of the Government to examine the
records of intended emigrants at the time application is made
for a passport, and unless the applicant can comply -with the
Italian and United States laws the passport is refused. But this
refers particularly to the cases of criminals and convicts rather
than to the physically defective, and usually Italian emigrants
are given their first medical examination at ports of embarkation.

During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907, a total of 13,064
immigrants were rejected at United States ports, and for the
three fiscal years ending June 30, 1909, the total number of
immigrants from all sources rejected was 34,377, or 5304 less
than were turned back at the European ports and control stations
above mentioned in a period of thirteen months.

The large number of rejections at United States ports is not
essentially an unfavorable reflection on the medical examinations
conducted in Europe for the reason that the latter are in the
main confined to the physical condition of emigrants, while at the
United States ports the examination is much broader. But this
is not all, for in addition to the requirements of the United States
law relative to the return of rejected immigrants to ports of
embarkation, European laws, as a rule, require that steamship
companies forward those returned to their homes, or home
countries, which, in many cases, are at a considerable distance
from the ports at which the rejected ones embarked. The Italian
law relative to emigrants returned from foreign ports imposes
even greater burdens on the carriers. Under that law the
returned emigrant is entitled to damages from the carrier if he
can prove that the carrier was aware before his departure from
Italy that he could not be admitted under the law of the country
to which he emigrated. A tribunal known as the arbitration
commission has been established in each province of Italy to
examine cases of this nature, and the emigrant who has been
returned may make a claim before that commission without ex-
pense to himself. In many cases, besides returning the passage
money, the carrier is compelled to pay the returned emigrant for

86 CAUSES

loss of wages incurred by reason of his journey across the sea.
For these reasons the transportation of emigrants who cannot be
admitted to the United States is usually unprofitable, but not-
withstanding this fact some companies are willing to assume
considerable risk for the sake of increasing their steerage business.
In the main, however, the examinations conducted at the various
ports are good and effective, so far as concerns the physical
condition of emigrants; and as a safeguard against the trans-
portation of the diseased, who are certain to be rejected at United
States ports, they are of the greatest importance, a fact which
the commission believes is not always fully realized by students of
the immigration problem in the United States.

In the complete report of the commission upon this subject a
detailed description is given of the inspection of emigrants at
each port considered, but for the purpose of this abstract it is
necessary only to note the real and final authority in determining
rejections at the different ports under consideration for causes
contemplated by the United States immigration law. In some
instances this is difficult on account of apparently divided
authority, but the following summary, it is believed, fairly
represents the situation of each port :

Antwerp: Physician employed by steamship company.

Bremen: Physicians employed by American consul, but paid by
steamship companies.

Cherbourg: Ship's doctor.

Christiania : Physician of the board of health.

Copenhagen : Municipal physician.

Fiume : Physician employed by steamship company, who also acts
for the American consul.

Genoa: Ship's doctor.

Glasgow: Ship's doctor.

Hamburg: Physicians (including eye specialists) employed by
steamship company.

Havre : Physician (including an eye specialist) employed by steam-
ship companies.

Libau : Physician employed by steamship company.

Liverpool : Physicians employed by steamship companies.

Londonderry : Ship's doctor.

Marseille: Physicians (including an eye specialist) employed by
steamship company, and the ship's doctor.

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 87

Messina: Acting assistant surgeon of the United States Public
Health and Marine-Hospital Service.

Naples: Officers of the United States Public Health and Marine-
Hospital Service.

Palermo: Acting assistant surgeon of the United States Public
Health and Marine-Hospital Service.

Pair as : Physicians employed by steamship companies.

Pirczus : Ship's doctor.

Queenstown : Ship's doctor.

Rotterdam: Physicians (including eye specialists) employed by the
steamship company, a physician employed by the American con-
sulate general, and the ship's doctor.

Southampton : Ship's doctor.

Trieste: Physicians employed by steamship company, the ship's
doctor, and police officers. The American consul exercises unusual
authority.

From the foregoing it is clear that the steamship companies
are in the main responsible for the medical examination of emi-
grants at European ports of embarkation, and they are the chief
beneficiaries of the system. A study of the situation also shows
that the real controlling factor in the situation at every port is the
United States immigration law, for without it there would be no
examination worthy of the name.

Methods of conducting the inspection differ at the various
ports. At some the examination, as a rule, extends over several
days, and specialists are employed to detect trachoma, which
disease is the chief factor in making a competent examination
necessary. At others, and particularly at some ports of call, the
inspection is conducted hurriedly and under seemingly un-
favorable circumstances. In some instances American officials
have absolutely no part in the work and exercise no authority ;
in others American consuls participate actively ; and in the case
of some of the Italian ports American medical officers absolutely
control the situation.

Because of the absence of records the commission was unable to
ascertain for any stated period the total number of rejections
made at all European ports included in the inquiry. In the case
of some ports information was not available for all of the steam-
ship lines embarking emigrants there, and in other cases the
number of persons rejected was found, but the cause of rejections

88 CAUSES

could not be ascertained. Consequently the material at hand is
incomplete, but it is sufficient to illustrate the great sifting process
that goes on at control stations and ports before emigrants are
finally allowed to embark for the United States.

As previously explained, it is impossible to state the exact
number of intended emigrants who are refused passage to the
United States from European ports during any given period.
From the records available it may be seen that of the ports in-
cluded within the commission's inquiry no data relative to rejec-
tions were available for Antwerp, Cherbourg, Chris tiania, Copen-
hagen, Londonderry, Marseille, Piraeus, and Southampton, while
for Genoa, Liverpool, Libau, and Patras the record is incomplete.
This is particularly unfortunate in the case of Liverpool, which is
one of the four great emigration ports of Europe. Moreover,
the inquiry did not include the minor ports of Barcelona, Bor-
deaux, Boulogne, Cadiz, Calais, Dover, Gibraltar, Hull, Leghorn,
Plymouth, and Stettin, at all of which some emigrants embarked
for the United States during the year 1907. No data whatever
could be secured relative to the number of applicants who, on
account of their physical condition, were refused transportation
by agents of the various lines requiring a medical examination in
connection with the sale of tickets. It is believed, however, that
the number rejected in this way is relatively small.

From the foregoing it is clear that while the number of rejec-
tions, 39,681, shown in the preceding table in all probability
represents the greater part of all rejections at ports of em-
barkation and elsewhere in Europe, the number would be con-
siderably increased were complete data available. Of course
any estimate of the total number rejected would of necessity be
largely speculative, but it seems safe to assume that during the
period of the thirteen months — December i, 1906, to December
31, 1907 — covered by the commission's inquiry at least 50,000
intended emigrants were refused transportation from European
ports to the United States because of the probability that they
would be debarred at United States ports under the provision of
the immigration law.

It is worthy of note that practically all of the rejections under
discussion were for some physical or mental disability. This is,
perhaps, only natural, in view of the fact that the inspection at

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 89

practically every port is conducted purely from a medical stand-
point. In much of the data secured by the commission the
causes of rejection were not given in great detail, the classification
"other causes" including a considerable proportion of the rejec-
tions at several ports. So far as shown by the data, however, all
of the rejections under consideration were for physical or mental
causes except in the following instances : Liverpool, 4 "arrested " ;
Trieste, 2 "without means," 117 "rejected by police"; Queens-
town, i "refused examination."

It does not appear, however, that the police inspection at
Trieste is an attempt to prevent embarkation of persons likely
to be excluded from the United States, and consequently it can
hardly be considered as a means of protecting the United States
against the coming of undesirable classes.

It is, of course, possible that among emigrants rejected for
"other causes" there may be some criminals, prostitutes, pro-
curers, paupers, contract laborers, or other classes specifically
debarred by the United States immigration law ; but, if so, the
number is too small to be worthy of consideration.

At the German control stations on the Russian and Austrian
boundaries the amount of money possessed by intended emigrants
is taken into consideration, and according to the records 755
persons were rejected there during the year 1907 for "want of
means."

On the whole, however, the examination abroad as conducted
at the time of the commission's visit and at the present time
affords practically no protection from any of the classes debarred
by the United States law except the physically or mentally
defective, and this notwithstanding the fact that at several
ports American consular officers actively participate in the
inspection and are accorded the privilege of rejecting emigrants
who are undesirable within the meaning of the United States
immigration law.

The system of emigrant inspection in force at Naples, Messina,
and Palermo is of particular interest because of the somewhat
prevalent belief that an examination by United States officers
at ports of embarkation would prevent the sailing of persons
who could not be admitted to the United States under the
provisions of the immigration law. In his annual report for the

90 CAUSES

fiscal year 1900 Honorable T. V. Powderly, Commissioner-General
of Immigration, reiterated a recommendation that had been
made in the two preceding reports of the bureau, as follows :

That physicians representing the government be stationed at the
foreign ports of embarkation for the purpose of examining into the
physical condition of aliens who are about to embark for the United
States. Experience of the ability and energy of the surgeons of the
United States Marine-Hospital Service leaves no room for doubt that,
should they be assigned to such duty, but few cases of this dangerous
disease would be permitted to embark, and that, besides accomplish-
ing the most important object of preventing the introduction of tra-
choma (or other contagious diseases of the non-quarantinable class),
the delay and trouble and uncertainty incident to examination at the
ports of the United States, where limited accommodations and an
ever increasing and continuous flow of arrivals necessitates a degree
of expedition not always consistent with thoroughness, would be
avoided.

The late Frank P. Sargent, for many years Commissioner-
General of Immigration, was an advocate of this policy, and in
annual reports of the bureau repeatedly urged that it be adopted.
In 1906 Commissioner- General Sargent, in referring to the exam-
ination of immigrants, said :

The ideal plan for controlling this situation, however, is the one that
has been urged by the bureau for years, i.e., the stationing of United
States medical officers abroad, with the requirement that all prospec-
tive passengers shall be examined and passed by them as physically
and mentally fit for landing in this country. This would prevent the
emigration not only of those afflicted with contagious disease, but also
of those afflicted with idiocy and insanity.

Fortunately the plan so long and urgently advocated by Messrs.
Powderly and Sargent has been in operation at Italian ports long
enough to demonstrate its usefulness and to make possible a
comparison of results between the inspection as conducted there
and at other European ports.

Since the only purpose of the medical inspection of emigrants
at European ports of embarkation as here considered is to avoid
rejections and penalities at United States ports, the only fair
and adequate test of the efficiency of such examinations is the
record of rejections by the United States Immigration Service.

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION V 91

In order to apply this test, the commission secured from
published records of the Bureau of Immigration and Naturali;
tion data showing the number of alien immigrants arriving
United States ports from the various ports of Europe and th
number of such arrivals who were refused admission to th<
United States for purely medical reasons. Tru's record covers (
six months of the year 1907, when the method of conducting
medical examinations at the various European ports was as
previously described. Thus the results are perfectly comparable.

In the first place, it is of interest to note that the number de-
barred is remarkably small when compared with the total number
carried. This alone clearly illustrates the fact that as a whole the
medical inspection of emigrants prior to embarkation at European
ports is thoroughly effective. Only 0.36 per cent of the persons
carried were debarred at United States ports for medical reasons,
which is a much smaller proportion than were rejected at Italian
ports and German control stations for the same causes.

For the purpose of this study, however, figures would be
chiefly interesting as illustrating the relative effectiveness of the
examination at the various European ports under consideration.
In the beginning it may be well to state that the class of emigrants
carried from the various ports may and doubtless does affect the
situation somewhat. For instance, practically all emigrants
from Chris tiania are Scandinavians, and trachoma and favus,
which are the principal causes of medical rejection at United
States ports, do not prevail in Scandinavian countries. Every
other port, however, is to a greater or less extent affected by one
or both of these diseases. Copenhagen is perhaps only slightly
affected, through emigration from Finland where trachoma is
prevalent, and Glasgow, because relatively few continental
emigrants sail from that port. Trachoma is not unknown in
Ireland, but it does not exist to such an extent as in southern and
eastern Europe, and consequently Queens town and Londonderry
cannot perhaps be fairly classified with other ports with regard
to the particular kinds of loathsome, contagious diseases which
cause the rejection of so many aliens at United States ports.

Liverpool, Southampton, and the continental ports, with the
exception of Christiania and Copenhagen, all draw the greater
part of their emigrant traffic from southern and eastern Europe,

92 CAUSES

and while, of course, the degree to which the diseases under
consideration prevail differs in various sections, nevertheless
such diseases are sufficiently widespread to require a careful
.'medical inspection of emigrants coming from those sections. Be-
cause of this fact the results of the inspections at these ports
are fairly comparable, which makes possible a reasonable test
of the relative effectiveness of the different inspections.

It will be noted from the preceding table that the percentage
of rejections was smallest among emigrants embarking at Cher-
bourg, only 3 rejections out of 2016 emigrants carried being
recorded. This result is particularly noteworthy because Cher-
bourg draws emigrant traffic from the Levantine countries where
trachoma and favus are widespread, as well as from other southern
and eastern European countries. Moreover, it is only a port of
call and no elaborate system of medical inspection prevails there,
the ship's doctor being the determining factor in the matter of
rejections.

The largest percentage of rejections occurs among emigrants
embarking at Marseille, which is not surprising because of the
fact that steerage passengers sailing from that port are largely
drawn from Syria and countries of southern Europe where
trachoma is particularly prevalent.

A rather curious situation is found in comparing rejections
among emigrants from the four ports of Antwerp, Bremen, Ham-
burg, and Rotterdam. The steerage business of these four
ports is very largely recruited in eastern Europe, and the class of
emigrants embarking is much the same at each port. It is true
also that the great majority of all emigrants embarking at the
German ports, and a large part of those sailing from Antwerp
and Rotterdam, are subjected to an inspection at the German
control stations. Notwithstanding these facts, however, there
is a wide difference in the proportion of persons embarking at
the four ports who are debarred at United States ports for medical
causes. These proportions are as follows :

Bremen 110165 Hamburg 110312

Rotterdam i to 279 Antwerp i to 565

It is necessary to note in this connection that the thAe ports
having the largest proportions rejected have excellent emigrant

CAUSES OF EMIGRATION 93

stations, superior facilities for handling emigrants, and elaborate
and apparently thorough systems of inspection. At Bremen,
which port makes by far the worst showing in the matter of
debarments at United States ports, it will be remembered hat
the determining factor in the matter of rejections is a physician
in the employ of the American consulate, while at Antwerp,
which shows relatively a very small proportion of emigrants
rejected at United States ports, American consular or other
officials have absolutely no part in the inspection.

Most interesting of all, however, is a - comparison between
Antwerp and Naples, for it will be recalled that the emigrant-
inspection systems in force at these ports represent extremes, so
far as American control is concerned, the inspection at Naples1
being entirely in the hands of the United States Public Health
and Marine-Hospital surgeons. Measured by debarments at \
United States ports, however, the inspection at Antwerp is \
considerably more effective, for while the proportion refused
admission to the United States is only i to 565 among emigrants
embarking at that port, the proportion among emigrants sailing
from Naples is i to 305. In the case of other Italian ports where
American medical officers were in charge the proportion of
emigrants debarred at the United States ports is as follows :
Palermo, i to 215 ; Messina, i to 293 ; and Genoa, where during
the period under consideration the medical inspection was made
by ship's doctors, i to 421. It may be said, however, that the
particular diseases for which emigrants are debarred at United
States ports are not so prevalent among classes embarking at
Genoa as at the more southern ports of Italy.

A comparison between the Adriatic ports of Trieste and Fiume
is interesting. At the latter port the medical inspection is made
by a steamship company doctor and a physician employed by
the American consul, but the Commission was informed that
the examination by the former was so rigid that it had not been
necessary for the consulate physician to reject any emigrants for
some time previously. The American consul attends the examina-
tions, but does not exercise unusual authority. At Trieste the
medical inspection is made by resident physicians of the steamship
company and the ship's doctor, while the American consul, at the
time under consideration, exercised a greater degree of authority

94 / CAUSES

than /was exercised by such consular officers at any other Euro-
pean/port. The consul informed the commission that he insisted
on rejections not only for trachoma and favus, but for less con-
spiouous physical defects as well. Experience at United States
porp with emigrants from Fiume and Trieste indicates that,
notwithstanding the great degree of authority exercised by the
consul at the latter port, the inspection at Fiume is much more
effective. In fact, the proportion debarred at United States ports
ai/nong emigrants from Fiume is only i to 597, while the pro-
>rtion debarred among emigrants sailing from Trieste is i to
, 1 8 . The proportion debarred among emigrants embarking at the
rreek ports of Patras and Piraeus is large, being i to 175 in the
ise of the former, and i to 163 in the case of the latter.

III. CHARACTERISTICS

A. EMIGRATION FROM NORTHWESTERN

EUROPE

\

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM

STANLEY C. JOHNSON
PRELIMINARY SURVEY (1763-1815)

BY THE Treaty of Peace, which was signed at Paris on
February loth, 1763, Great Britain gained possession
of the whole of North America situated east of the Mississippi
River, with the exception of the town of New Orleans and the
neighboring district. She thus retained the original thirteen
states, and added to her dominions the territory of Canada with
all its dependencies, and the island of Cape Breton.

For some few years prior to these diplomatic arrangements,
the original British Colonies had been welcoming a steady inflow
of immigrants from the Mother Country, and, as these maritime
states suffered little or no change of administration following
on the terms of peace, the human stream continued to find its
way into them unaffected by the redistribution of political power
between France and England. No authoritative data concern-
ing the statistics of this migratory movement were preserved
or even collected, but it is safe to say that its strength was by
no means insignificant. A writer in the Gentleman's Magazine l
'of 1774 gave figures to show that in the five years 1769-1774 no
less than 43,720 people sailed from the five Irish ports of Lon-
donderry, Belfast, Newry, Larne, and Portrush to various settle-
ments on the Atlantic seaboard. These points of departure
were thus responsible for an annual outgoing of at least 8740

1 Op. cit., p. 332, Vol. XLIV.
95

96 CHARACTERISTICS

souls. Scotland was contributing even more,1 at this time, to
the /exodus than was Ireland, whilst England was also furnishing
colonists, but to a lesser degree. From these facts it seems fair
to assume that the home emigration to the English states across
the Atlantic resulted in a displacement of quite twenty thousand
souls per annum.

The majority of the settlers within this area were drawn
from the Highlands of Scotland and from Ireland generally.
The Scots Magazine for the years 1771-1775 contains a number
oi references to the emigration of these early times.

We are informed [runs one paragraph],2 that upwards of five hun-
dred souls from Islay and the adjacent islands prepare to migrate
next summer to America under the conduct of a gentleman of wealth
and merit whose predecessors resided in Islay for many centuries
past, and that there is a large colony of the most wealthy and sub-
stantial people in Sky making ready to follow the example of the
Argathelians'in going to the fertile and cheap lands on the other side
of the Atlantic Ocean.

Another quotation 3 says :

In the beginning of June, 1772, about forty-eight families of poor
people from Sutherland arrived at Edinburgh on their way to Greenock
in order to imbark 4 for North America. Since that time, we have
heard of two other companies, one of a hundred, another of ninety,
being on their journey with the same intention. The cause of this
emigration they assign to be want of the means of livelihood at home
through the opulent grasiers ingrossing the farms and turning them
into pasture.

Perhaps a still more interesting quotation is the following : 5

In the beginning of September, the Lord Advocate represented to
the commissioners of the customs, the impropriety of clearing out
any vessels from Scotland with emigrants for America : in consequence
of which, orders were sent to the several custom-houses injoining 8
them to grant no clearances to any ship for America which had more
than the common complement of hands on board.

1 Vide Annual Register, Scots Magazine, Gentleman's Magazine, etc., of a con-
temporary date.

2 Vol. XXXIII, p. 325, year 1 771.
8 Vol. XXXIV, p. 395, year 1772.

4 The original spelling is preserved.

6 Scots Magazine, Vol. XXXVII, 1775, P- 523. 6 Original spelling.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 97

Summarizing the substance of these and other passages of a
contemporary date, we may state that, between 1763 and 1775,
emigration to the old British Colonies in North America was
regularly and constantly practiced, that those who joined in
the exodus were sometimes in possession of considerable sums of
money,1 that changes in agricultural economy were usually the
cause of the unrest, and that the local authorities feared, but
with little reason, that the outward streams might eventually
depopulate the country.

When Canada and its dependencies were placed under British
rule, it became an obvious advantage for a proportion of our
colonists to settle within this newly acquired territory. We
find, therefore, that the Royal proclamation of 1763 authorized
the free granting of land, within this area, to officers and soldiers
who had served in the war ; it also encouraged British settlers,
generally, by providing a General Assembly.

The first to take up military settlements were the Frasers
and Montgomeries, who chose Murray Bay as the site of their
new homes; this they did in 1763. Farming was their chief
occupation, but in 1775 they formed the first battalion of the
Royal Highland Emigrants. Speaking of this regiment, the
Scots Magazine for 1775 2 said :

A ship sailed lately from Greenock for America with shoes, stock-
ings, plaids, belts, etc., for a regiment of emigrants now raising by
Government in America to be called the Royal Highland Emigrants.
Mr. Murdoch Maclean of Edinburgh is appointed captain in them.

Quickly following on the settlement of the Frasers and Mont-
gomeries was that of a* party of British colonists who had pre-
viously made their home in the New England states; they
encamped at Maugerville, on the banks of the St. John River.3 A
third group of colonists came from Belfast and Londonderry,
where they had been engaged in the wool trade. In 1767, the
whole of Prince Edward Island was allotted to sixty-seven
proprietors, chiefly Scotch, on condition that they should settle
European Protestants or British Americans on their domains,

1 " People sailed from Maryburgh and took at least £6000 with them." —
Scots Magazine, Vol. XXXV, p. 557. 2 Vol. XXXVII, p. 690.

3 J. D. Rogers, "Historical Geography of the British Colonies" (Lucas), Vol. V,
part 3, p. 81.

98 CHARACTERISTICS

a condition which they fulfilled by stocking the land exclusively
with Highlanders, most of whom were of Roman Catholic faith,
and with Dumfries men.1 In 1772-1774, a number of Yorkshire
Methodists settled at Sackville, New Brunswick, and Amherst,
Nova Scotia.2 Many other records of colonization in Canada
may be mentioned, but it has been shown, with sufficient insist-
ence, that the inflow from England, Ireland, and especially
Scotland, during this period, was of an important nature.

Though Canada had received great numbers of emigrants
from the United Kingdom, th,ese were few in comparison with
the crowds of men and women who entered this territory after
the war broke out. The extent of this complex movement is but
imperfectly understood. It is known, however, that the Loyalist
migration into British territory flowed in two great streams, one
by sea to Nova Scotia and the other overland to Canada. In
this second stream were many Highland families which had only
recently settled in the Colony of New York — Macdonells,
Chisholms, Grants, Camerons, M'Intyres and Fergusons. Promi-
nent among these Highland families were the Macdonells, who
were Roman Catholics from Glengarry in Inverness. In 1773,
they had settled in the Mohawk Valley, but, when hostilities
began, had flocked to the Loyalist banner; they afterwards
went to Ontario and made their new homes in a country to which
they gave the name of Glengarry.3 This site was probably chosen
because it bordered on the edge of Lower Canada, and so enabled
the Highland Catholics to enter into a bond of religious sympathy
with the adjacent French Catholics.

Treating the movement in greater detail, it may be said that
the Loyalists first entered the provinces of Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick in 1783, and in the following year mustered 28,347
souls. The older settlers of British descent in this area, it may
be mentioned in parenthesis, only totaled fourteen thousand.
Cape Breton Island attracted, roughly, three thousand settlers,
whilst other streams of exiled humanity poured into the peninsula
of Gaspe and the seignory of Sorel. In Upper Canada and the
present province of Ontario, the refugees numbered some thirty

1 J. D. Rogers, "Historical Geography of the British Colonies" (Lucas), Vol. V,
part 3, p. 54.

2 Ibid., p. 57. 3 J. Murray Gibbon, "Scots in Canada," pp. 63-65.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 99

thousand, but it is probable that this estimate includes at least
a small proportion of reemigrated Loyalists from the maritime
provinces, as the total movement was not supposed to exceed
forty thousand in all.1

The Loyalists were drawn from almost all the original states,
but Virginia and New York, their stronghold, provided the main
body ; Connecticut also furnished an important element ; whilst
Pennsylvania sent a slightly lesser number than Connecticut.
From the town of Philadelphia, alone, three thousand people
fled when the British Army withdrew.

As a body, the United Loyalists fared badly in the early years
of their settlement. Some drifted away, many complained of
the long winters, and, had it not been for Government gifts of
land, seed, food, clothing, and money, their plight would have
been disastrous. Later, the more determined ones attained suc-
cess and "made of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia sound and
thriving provinces of the British Empire." 2

The actual settlement of the Loyalists forms in itself an impor-
tant chapter of colonial history, but the welcoming of these refu-
gees from the south to the sparsely populated lands of Canada is
to be remembered most for its effect on succeeding generations
of emigrants. We must remember that, until the arrival of the
Loyalists, most of the lands situated more than a few miles from
the chief waterways were uninhabited, uncultivated, and more
or less forbidding. But the Loyalists went in of sheer necessity
and formed, as it were, the nucleus for later settlers. Thus, it is
not too much to say that they laid the foundation for the west-
ward extension of Canada as we know it to-day.

In 1785, the men of Glengarry, Canada, induced a party of
five hundred Scotch Glengarries to come and join them. In
the Gazette of Quebec, under the date of September 7th, 1785,
their coming was heralded as follows :

Arrived, ship McDonald, Captain Robert Stevenson, from Green-
ock with emigrants, nearly the whole of a parish in the north of
Scotland, who emigranted with their priest (the Reverend Alexander
Macdonell Scotus) and nineteen cabin passengers, together with five
hundred and twenty steerage passengers, to better their case.

1 Cf. Sir Charles Lucas, "History of Canada," 1763-1812, pp. 225-226.

2 Sir Charles Lucas, "History of Canada," 1763-1812, p. 224.

ioo CHARACTERISTICS

The success of these men of Glengarry induced others to follow.
Apparently, Alexander Macdonell conducted a second party
to Canada in the year 1791. In 1793, Captain Alexander M'Leod
took out forty families of M'Leods, M'Guaigs, M'Gillwrays and
M 'In toshes from Glenelg and placed them on land at Kirkhill,
whilst a large party of Camerons from Lochiel, Scotland, settled
in 1799 at Lochiel, Canada.1 Other Highlanders went to Cape
Breton Island, to the Niagara district, and to the shores of Lake Erie.

In 1803, Lord Hobart, Secretary of State for the Colonies,
wrote from Downing Street to Lieutenant-General Hunter,
Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, the following letter : 2

A body of Highlanders, mostly Macdonells, and partly disbanded
soldiers of the Glengarry Fencible Regiment, with their families and
immediate connections, are upon the point of quitting their present
place of abode, with the design of following into Upper Canada some
of their relatives who have already established themselves in that
Province.

The merit and services of the Regiment, in which a proportion of
these people have served, give them strong claims to any mark of
favor and consideration which can consistently be extended to them :
and with the encouragement usually afforded in the Province, they
would no doubt prove as valuable settlers as their connections now
residing in the District of Glengarry of whose industry and general
good conduct very favorable representations have been received here.

Government has been apprised of the situation and disposition
of the families before described by Mr. Macdonell, one of the Ministers
of their Church, and formerly Chaplain to the Glengarry Regiment,
who possesses considerable influence with the whole body.

He has undertaken, in the event of their absolute determination
to carry into execution their plan of departure, to embark with them
and direct their course to Canada.

In case of their arrival within your Government, I am commanded
by'His Majesty to authorize you to grant in the usual manner a tract of
the unappropriated Crown lands in any part of the Province where they
may wish to fix, in the proportion of 1200 acres to Mr. Macdonell, and
two hundred acres to every family he may introduce into the Colony.

The Highlanders in question arrived in due course, and were
settled close to the lands taken by their kinsmen in 1783 and 1785.

1 J. Murray Gibbon, " Scots in Canada," p. 70.
2 Reprinted in " Scots in Canada," p. 70.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 101

Among the earliest organizers of colonization schemes in the
nineteenth century may be placed Lord Selkirk. This Scotch-
man banded together a number of thrifty farmers of his own race
who had given up their highland territories, and escorted them
to Prince Edward Island, where they were comfortably located
on a settlement vacated by the French. The Government
freely placed tracts of land at their disposal, but proffered no
financial support. What money was necessary came either from
Lord Selkirk or was derived from sales, held in the Old Country,
of the settlers' stock.1

Three vessels were chartered to carry the eight hundred odd
colonists across the Atlantic, and these reached their destination
on the yth, gth, and 2yth of August, 1803. Selkirk took passage
in one of the regular liners, and arrived in the island shortly
after the first party had landed. The following account,2 written
by himself, is interesting in that it gives a capital insight into
the early life of his settlers :

I lost no time in proceeding to the spot, where I found that the
people had already lodged themselves in temporary wigwams, con-
structed after the fashion of the Indians, by setting up a number of
poles in a conical fashion, tied together at top, and covered with
boughs of trees.

The settlers had spread themselves along the shore for the dis-
tance of about half a mile, upon the site of an old French village,
which had been destroyed and abandoned after the capture of the
island by the British forces in 1758. The land, which had formerly
been cleared of wood, was overgrown again with thickets of young
trees, interspersed with grassy glades. I arrived at the place late
in the evening, and it had then a very striking appearance. Each
family had kindled a large fire near their wigwams, and round these
were assembled groups of figures, whose peculiar national dress added
to the singularity of the scene.

Provisions, adequate to the whole demand, were purchased by
an agent; he procured some cattle for beef in distant parts of the
island, and also a large quantity of potatoes, which were brought
by water carriage into the center of the settlement, and each family
received their share within a short distance of their own residence.

1 Edinburgh Review, Vol. VII, pp. 180-190.

2 Observations on the Present State of the Highlands of Scotland, 1805. The
passage has been reprinted recently in "Scots in Canada," p. 51, etc.

102 CHARACTERISTICS

To obviate the terrors which the woods were calculated to inspire,
the settlement was not dispersed, as those of the Americans usually
are, over a large tract of country, but concentrated within a moderate
space. The lots were laid out in such a manner that there were gen-
erally four or five families and sometimes more, who built their houses
in a little knot together ; the distance between the adjacent hamjets
seldom exceeded a mile. Each of them was inhabited by persons
nearly related, who sometimes carried on their work in common, or,
at least, were always at hand to come to each other's assistance.

The settlers had every inducement to vigorous exertion from the
nature of their tenures. They were allowed to purchase in fee simple,
and to a certain extent on credit; from fifty to one hundred acres
were allotted to each family at a very moderate price, but none was
given gratuitously. To accommodate those who had no superfluity
of capital, they were not required to pay the price in full till the third
or fourth year of their possession.

Selkirk remained in the colony for a month, and then set him-
self the task of exploring the inland tracts of Upper Canada.
Twelve months later he returned and made the following report : 1

I found the settlers engaged in securing the harvest which their
industry had procured. They had a small proportion of grain of
various kinds, but potatoes were the principal crop ; these were of
excellent quality and would have been alone sufficient for the entire
support of the settlement. . . . The extent of land in cultivation
at the different hamlets I found to be in the general proportion of
two acres or thereabouts to each able working hand ; in many cases
from three to four. Several boats had also been built, by means of
which a considerable supply of fish had been obtained, and formed
no trifling addition to the stock of provisions. Thus, in little more
than a year, one year from the date of their landing on the island,
had these people made themselves independent of any supply that
did not arise from their own labor.

So great was the success of Selkirk's first attempt at coloniza-
tion that he made plans for a second scheme in 1811. In this
year he leased lands from the Hudson's Bay Company, some
two thousand square miles in extent, and stretching from Mani-
toba to Minnesota. To this colony many shiploads of dispos-
sessed Scotch farmers were sent, but neither he nor his officers
fully appreciated the difficulties which were to confront them.

1 Quoted from "Scots in Canada," pp. 54, 55.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 103

Selkirk did not seem to realize that the establishment of a colony
in the then unknown West was quite a different matter to organ-
izing-an encampment on the accessible shores of Prince Edward
Island. From the very outset, the second expedition proved
disastrous. Not only were the colonists improperly equipped for
carrying on agricultural pursuits in such remote parts, but the
position of their settlement brought them into conflict with the
Northwest traders. The newly acquired farm lands, it must be
explained, lay across the trading routes leading into the interior
and, therefore, constituted a menace to the hunting expeditions
of the half-breeds. As a consequence, these latter determined to
rid the locality of the newcomers, which they did in 1815 by pil-
laging and burning the farms belonging to Selkirk's tenantry.
More than a half of the sufferers, however, took up settle-
ments in other parts of the country, chiefly around St. Thomas
and London in Ontario, but their ultimate fate is uncertain.

Closely following the schemes of Selkirk came that of Colonel
Talbot, a member of the Lieu tenant- Governor's staff in Canada.
From various parts of the United Kingdom, but specially from
Scotland, he collected some two thousand men, women, and
children, probably during the year 1813, and settled them at
Port Talbot on Lake Erie. To this nucleus of settlers he annually
added other emigrants, until in 1823 it was reported that he had
under his control no less than twelve thousand souls. The
financial burden of his undertaking was probably borne jointly
by the British Government and the Canadian Legislature, the
former finding the passage money, and the latter providing the
food supplies. On this matter, however, some uncertainty exists,
but it is recognized that his followers were too poor to provide
for themselves, whilst Colonel Talbot, we know, received pay-
ment for his services. As to the success of the scheme, the Report
says that the people who emigrated were of the poorest descrip-
tion, but, when last heard of, were as independent and contented
a band of yeomanry as any in the world.1

1 The following is interesting in that it is a copy of a leaflet which was handed
to each of Talbot's original settlers :

"On application made to the superintendent of the land granting department
of the district in which he proposes to settle, the colonist will obtain a ticket of
location, for a certain quantity of land ; furnished with this, his first care ought

104 CHARACTERISTICS

Selkirk and Talbot had few contemporary imitators, for
between 1806 and 1815 Napoleon was harassing Europe, and
men found employment in connection with military and transport
operations, not needing for the time, the possibilities which a
colonial life offered them.

The period of 1783-1815 is important, in that it paved the way
for the movement which was to assume such notable proportions
during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Without the
inrush of Loyalist settlers to Canada in the closing years of the
eighteenth century, the map of British North America, to-day,
would probably present a very different aspect. It was these
sturdy men and women who broke down the barriers of forests
and wildernesses which seemed impenetrable, and opened the
course for later settlement. In comparison with the volume of
the present outflow, the emigrants of this early period were, of
course, insignificant in numbers, but they were pioneers and
made history and must be valued accordingly. Their actual
labors, commercial and agricultural, were of no great moment,
for they had many difficulties with which to contend. In Lower
Canada, financial conditions were oppressive : land tenure,
everywhere, bred discontent, whilst discord with the rebel
neighbors of the south proved a constant source of danger.

Major-General T. Bland Strange, in the United Service Maga-
zine, May, 1903, pp. 151-152, writes:

to be to select a proper situation for his house. This should be placed, as near as
may be, to the public road on which his lot abuts, and contiguous, if possible, to
a spring or run of water. Having chosen his spot, he then sets about clearing a
sufficient space to erect his house on, taking care to cut down all the large trees
within the distance of at least 100 feet. The dimensions of the house are generally
20 feet by 1 8 feet, and the timber used in constructing the walls, consisting of the
rough stems of trees cut into those lengths, is not to exceed 2 feet in diameter ; the
height of the roof is commonly about 13 feet, which affords a ground- room and one
overhead ; the house is roofed in with shingles (a sort of wooden tiles) split out of
the oak, chestnut, or pine timber ; a door, windows, and an aperture for the chimney
at one end, are next cut out of the walls, the spaces between the logs being filled
up with split wood, and afterwards plastered both inside and out with clay and
mortar, which renders it perfectly warm. When once the necessary space for the
house is cleared and the logs for the walls collected on the spot, the expense and
labor of the settler in erecting his habitation is a mere trifle ; it being an established
custom among the neighboring settlers to give their assistance in the raising of it ;
and the whole is performed in a few hours. The settler having now a house over
his head commences clearing a sufficient quantity of land to raise the annual supply
of provisions required for his family."

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 105

The British effort at military colonization, after the conquest by
Wolfe, proved futile. The Eraser Highlanders were disbanded and
settled at Murray Bay, on the St. Lawrence, but as no Scotch lassies
were provided, they married the lively little French girls, whose creed,
language, and nationality they adopted; the only traces of their
Highland descent are their names and red hair. At the close of the
Peninsular War, individual naval and military officers settled in what
was called Upper Canada, but no systematic effort was made to en-
courage the settlement of the rank and file — quite the contrary,
from that day to this, everything has been done to discourage it.
Under the administration of Mr. Cardwell, the garrisons were with-
drawn from all the Colonies suitable for settlement by white soldiers.
The old Royal Canadian Rifles, composed of Volunteers from various
British regiments, were struck off the Army list, as also the old Cape
Mounted Rifles, and the emigration of officers was checked by a Royal
warrant subjecting them to loss of pension, should they elect to serve
under any Colonial Government. At the close of the Crimean War,
the only soldiers assisted to emigrate, and given grants of land, were
the German Legion whom we settled in South Africa, though they
never fired a shot for us ; some of their descendants probably fought
against us in the late war. Our own British-born soldiers of the
Crimean War and Indian Mutiny were, in many cases, left to die in
the workhouse, as the shorter periods of service then introduced
deprived them of the right of pension. At the close of these wars,
the reductions in our arsenals and dockyards drove large numbers
of mechanics, some of whom were ex-soldiers and sailors, with their
families, to the United States, whose industries, especially of war
material, largely benefited thereby. According to Lord Charles
Beresford something similar is now going on in his constituency
at Woolwich.

The earlier settlement by the Pilgrim Fathers was on independent
lines, assisted in the Southern States, as later in Australia, by the trans-
portation of convicts, sometimes for slight offences, who in many
instances became good citizens.

HISTORICAL SURVEY (1815-1912)

Though emigration from the United Kingdom to North
America had begun on a limited scale in the early part of the
seventeenth century 1 and had grown in volume during the

1 Colonization Circular, 1877, p. 7.

io6 CHARACTERISTICS

eighteenth, no official returns relating to the extent of the exodus
were made until 1815. In this year, the great war, in which
England had for so long been engaged, terminated, and men
turned to emigration as though it were the one panacea for all
social ills.1 In 1815, the outflow to North America stood at 1889
persons; it then grew annually with slight fluctuations until
1852, when the enormous total of 277,134 was reached, an exodus
which is, considering the volume of people from which it was
drawn,2 probably without parallel in the history of any civilized
country. The years 1846 to 1854, inclusive, were remarkable
for their high rate of departures, but, after 1854, a sudden and,
with some fluctuations, a continued shrinkage took place until
in 1 86 1 the numbers dropped to 62,471, the smallest emigration
since 1844. The Crimean War, 1854-1856, and the Indian Mu-
tiny, 1857-1859, which caused an increased demand for young
men in the army and navy, were largely responsible for the
falling off in the returns of this period. Between 1861 and 1869
the exodus took an upward tendency, and, in this latter year,
acute distress at home made the figures rise to 236,892, and they
remained somewhat high until 1873. The middle seventies
proved a period of diminished emigration, but the ebb was
soon followed by a copious flow, for, in the year 1882, the impor-
tant total of 349,014 was reached. Recent times have shown
somewhat high figures; in fact, for every year since 1903, with
the exception of 1908, an exodus to North America of over three
hundred thousand has been returned. In 1910, the outward
stream numbered 499,669, and, in 1911, 464,330 souls.

The above figures require some qualification. The early records
refer almost entirely to men and women of British nationality ;
the later ones speak of the volume of traffic as carried by the
Atlantic transport concerns and so contain an important foreign
element. It is thus misleading to make comparisons without
duly allowing for this change in the composition of the exodus.
A second point to note is that, at the present time, the outward
passengers are largely counterbalanced by the inward passengers,
but, prior to the sixties, the inward passengers were few compared

1 Cf. J. D. Rogers, "Historical Geography of Canada" (Lucas), p. 67.

2 Census of 1851. England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland; population given as
27,309,346

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 107

with the outward. Thus, net emigration to-day is found by sub-
tracting the incoming from the outgoing stream, but net emi-
gration until about the year 1860 was the total outflow with
few or no deductions whatever. A third point to note is that the
total population of the three kingdoms has grown considerably
since the year 1815 ; it is thus misleading to compare, say, the
277,134 emigrants of the year 1852 with the 499,669 emigrants
of 1910 without taking into consideration the gross populations
of these two years. Certain statistics which deal with this
matter, state that the proportion of emigration to the population
was 0.84 per cent between 1853 and 1855, but only 0.39 per cent
in the period 1906-1910. Thus the exodus from the Mother
Country was, in reality, more remarkable in the earlier than in
the later period.

Of the 983,227 emigrants who left the United Kingdom for
all destinations, prior to 1840, 499,899, or more than half, went
to British North America; of the remainder, 417,765 went to
the United States, and 58,449 to the Australian Colonies, includ-
ing New Zealand. Since 1834, however, the total annual migra-
tion to the United States has always exceeded that proceeding
to Canada, but it must be mentioned that when British emigrants
as distinct from all emigrants from Britain are considered, it
will be found that, on two occasions since 1880, Canada has
welcomed more men and women than the United States. This
happened in the last two years of the period, 1910 and 1911.

The history of emigration in the nineteenth and twentieth
century may be traced from the Government reports and papers
which have, from time to time, been published. The first of these
documents, which was devoted solely to a consideration of the
present subject, was the report of the Select Committee which
sat in 1826 to consider emigration from the United Kingdom.
From this report we learn that the Government first gave its
serious attention to the matter in 1820. In that and the following
years many debates were held in both Houses of Parliament
to discuss its value as a remedy for the social distress which then
existed in the home country.1 As a result of these debates, the
select committees of 1826 and 1827 were appointed.

1 Cf. Hansard, "Parliamentary Debates," Vol. XII, p. 1358 ; Vol. XIV, p. 1360;
Vol. XVI, pp. 142, 227, 475, 653.

io8 CHARACTERISTICS

The Committee of 1826 reported generally on the evidence
placed before it, and stated that there was a greater amount of
laboring population in the United Kingdom than could be
profitably employed, and that the British Colonies afforded a
field where the excess could be disposed of with advantage. The
Committee of 1827 entered further into detail and pointed out
more specifically the nature and extent of the assistance which
it would recommend to be given to emigration from national
resources. The Bishop of Limerick, who appeared before the
earlier body, said :

The evil is pressing and immediate. It calls, therefore, for an
immediate remedy. Take any system of home relief, it must be grad-
ual in its operation : before it can be brought to bear, the present
sufferers will have died off, and others will have supplied their place,
but not without a dreadful course of intermediate horrors. Now,
Emigration is an instantaneous relief, it is what bleeding would be to
an apoplectic patient. The sufferers are at once taken away : and,
be it observed, from a country where they are a nuisance and a pest,
to a country where they will be a benefit and a blessing. Meantime,
so far as displaced tenants are taken away, the landlords, aided by
existing laws, and especially by the Act now about to be passed (Sir
Henry ParnelPs Act), will have it in their power to check the growth
of population, somewhat in the same way as, after removing redundant
blood, a skillful physician will try to prevent the human frame from
generating more than what is requisite for a healthful state.1

The committee called a considerable number of witnesses and
repeatedly put the following question to those giving evidence :

Were the Government to advance an indigent man his passage
money and provide him with a homestead, could he be expected to
repay the loan at the rate of £5 per annum, commencing after his
fifth year of residence ?

Most witnesses replied in the affirmative, with the result
that the committees suggested that the Treasury should advance
a sum of about ten thousand pounds, with which it was proposed
to form a loan fund for emigrants. The essence of this report
is contained in the following extract :

Your Committee cannot but express their opinion that a more
effectual remedy than any temporary palliative is to be found in the
1 Page 142 of first Report.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 109

removal of that excess of labor by which the condition of the whole
laboring classes is deteriorated and degraded. The question of
emigration from Ireland is decided by the population itself, and that
which remains for the Legislature to decide is, whether it shall be
turned to the improvement of the British North American Colonies,
or whether it shall be suffered and encouraged to take that which
will be and is its inevitable course, to deluge Great Britain with pov-
erty and wretchedness and gradually but certainly to equalize the
state of the English and Irish peasantry. Two different rates of wages
and two different conditions of the laboring classes cannot perma-
nently coexist. One of two results appears to be inevitable : the Irish
population must be raised towards the standard of the English or
the English depressed towards that of the Irish. The question whether
an extensive plan of emigration shall or shall not be adopted appears
to your Committee to resolve itself into the simple point whether
the wheat-fed population of Great Britain shall or shall not be sup-
planted by the potato-fed population of Ireland ?

Resulting from the advice contained in this report, a letter
was sent to Colonel Cockburn on January 26th, 1827, from Down-
ing Street, stating that His Majesty's Government required
him to survey three hundred thousand acres of waste land in
Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, and
to make preparation for the reception of about ten thousand
souls. He was to proceed to these places without delay, to confer
with the lieutenant governors of these provinces, to inspect,
personally, the land, and, above all, he was to keep in mind the
advantage to be derived from placing new settlements as near
to inhabited parts of the country as possible. One month's
provisions were actually to be stored at each settlement previous
to the arrival of the emigrants. There was one proviso added
to these plans. All was to be ready, were the assisted people to
proceed, but should their exodus be deferred or abandoned,
Colonel Cockburn was to cancel his arrangements.

The projects were abandoned, and Colonel Cockburn was
called upon to nullify the arrangements on which he had spent
so much labor. The reasons for this change of policy were
threefold. Suitable land could not be found of the requisite
quantities in the provinces mentioned; coin of the realm was
so scarce that it was felt that the emigrants would not be able
to repay their indebtedness with anything but produce, which

no CHARACTERISTICS

the Government could not undertake to accept, and, finally,
there were fears that a man might leave his homestead and jour-
ney into the United States and so shirk his liability.

Although the loan was refused by the Treasury on this occasion,
grants in aid of emigration were made by Parliament in iSig,1
1821, 1823, 1825, and 1827 amounting to £50,000, £68,760,
£15,000, £30,000 and £20,480 respectively. In 1834, an Act
was passed enabling parishes to mortgage their rates and to
spend a sum not exceeding £10 a head on emigration. In the
same year emigration agents were placed at various ports of the
United Kingdom, and from that time until 1878 sums varying
in amount up to £25,000 were voted annually by Parliament
for purposes of promoting the removal of indigent people from
this country. The money, however, was mostly spent on direct-
ing the flow of human beings to Australia.

In 1830, a searching inquiry into the state of the Irish Poor was
undertaken by the House of Commons, and the report,2 which
was subsequently communicated to the House of Lords, said :

Emigration, as a remedial measure, is more applicable to Ireland
than to any other part of the Empire. The main cause which pro-
duces the influx of Irish laborers into Britain is undoubtedly the
higher rate of wages which prevails in one island than in the other.
Emigration from Great Britain, if effectual as a remedy, must tend
to raise the rate of wages in the latter country, and thus to increase
the temptation of the immigration (i.e. into England and Scotland) of
the Irish laborer. Colonization from Ireland, on the contrary, by rais-
ing the rate of wages in the latter country, diminishes this inducement
and lessens the number of Irish laborers in the British market.

From about the year 1830, the views put forward by Mr.
E. G. Wakefield 3 grew in popularity. His efforts were directed
to the discovery of means whereby capital and labor might be

1 Page 327 of the Report on Agricultural Settlements says that the grant of
1819 does not seem to have been spent. There is, however, ample evidence to show
that a sum of £50,000 was spent on the Albany settlers in the year in question.
Of this there is abundant though perhaps not official testimony. .Surely this ex-
penditure is the grant of 1819.

2 Report of the Committee appointed to inquire into the state of the Poorer
Classes in Ireland and the best means of improving their condition.

3 Vide "The Art of Colonization."

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM in

introduced into a colony in such a manner and in such propor-
tions as to lead to its more stable development. He disapproved
not only of the form of emigration which was then in vogue, but
also of the system of making free grants of colonial lands. Land,
he held, should not be given gratuitously, but should be sold
and the proceeds used in conveying other emigrants to the colony.
The basis of all successful colonization, he once wrote,1 lies in
keeping a certain ratio between the amount of alienated land
and the amount of labor available in any colony. If land be
given away lavishly, the ratio immediately breaks down, for
laborers speedily become landowners and capitalists suffer
from an urgent want of labor. When, however, tracts are
sold and the money so obtained is used in conveying further
batches of emigrants to the colony, the ratio holds good, for the
more the sales, the more the labor which can be introduced by
the proceeds of the sales and the more the labor which can find
remunerative employment. Obviously, his system demanded
that the selling price of real property should be carefully adjusted,
from time to time, with the amount of available labor.

The views of Wakefield were carried out in a few of the settle-
ments of the Australian Colonies, and some effect was given to
them by the South Australian Act and the Australian Land Act
of 1842. But Gibbon Wakefield did more than theorize on ques-
tions affecting real property. Before he studied the question of
emigration, people had looked upon life in the colonies as socially
degrading, and having much in common with penal transporta-
tion, but with the spreading of his teachings they grew to consider
it a means whereby individuals might improve their position
as well as a factor which would strengthen the Empire by the
foundation of overseas dominions.2

In 1831, a Government commission on Emigration was formed
and, in the same year, the commissioners reported that from an
annual average of about nine thousand during the first ten years
after the Peace, the inflow to Canada had increased in the five
years ending with 1831 to an annual average of more than twenty
thousand, also that these great multitudes of people had mostly

1 In "The Art of Colonization."

2 Report of the Committee on Agricultural Settlements in British Colonies,
Vol. I, 1906, p. 2.

1 1 2 CHARACTERISTICS

gone out by their own means and disposed of themselves through
their own efforts without any serious or lasting inconvenience.
The commissioners did not propose, therefore, to interfere
by a direct grant of money with a practice which appeared to
thrive so well spontaneously. They recognized, probably, how
vast an outlay would be necessary to carry on the business to a
corresponding extent through public funds, while it must always
have remained to be seen whether any immediate interposition
of the Government could have provided for such multifarious
bodies so well as individual judgment and energy, stimulated by
the sense of self-dependence.

The commissioners, therefore, contented themselves, in regard
to the North American Colonies, with collecting, publishing, and
diffusing, as widely as possible, correct accounts of prices and
wages, and with pointing out the impositions against which emi-
grants should be most on their guard. This body was dissolved,
however, in 1832 and the practical working of its recommenda-
tions entrusted to the Colonial Department.1

In 1838, Lord Durham held an inquiry into the unrest then
existing in Upper and Lower Canada ; his observations, together
with the views of Gibbon Wakefield and Charles Buller,2 appeared
as a Blue Book in January, 1839. After discussing the differences
which gave rise to friction between the French and British in-
habitants, the report dealt somewhat fully with the evils encom-
passing the lot of the emigrant, the want of administration which
characterized the action of the Colonial authorities, and the
unsatisfactory systems then in vogue of granting land. Durham
advised that self-government should be given to Canada, but,
in addition to this important recommendation, suggested that
emigration to these areas should be made more attractive,3 that
the lands should be efficiently surveyed, and that a judicious
system of colonization should be introduced.

1 Report to the Secretary of State for the Colonies from the Agent-General for
Emigration, April 28, 1838, No. 388, p. 3.

2 Vide Sir Charles Lucas — Lord Durham's Report, Vol. Ill, p. 336, etc., and
especially page 351, for account of Durham's mission.

1 "All the gentlemen whose evidence I have last quoted are warm advocates
of systematic emigration. I object, along with them, only to such emigration as
now takes place without forethought, preparation, method, or system of any kind."
— Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of British North America, Vol. I, p. 189.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 113

Buller complained that though emigration to Canada was
more or less unsatisfactory yet people were content to allow the
system to continue unchallenged. "This misconception is un-
doubtedly attributable, in a great degree," he said, "to the cir-
cumstance that all evidence obtained on the subject was collected
in the country from which the emigrants departed, instead of
that at which they arrived. Had the position of the inquiries
been reversed, they must have arrived at very different conclu-
sions, and have discovered that no emigration so imperatively
demanded the regulating interposition of the Legislature as that
for which they specially refused to provide." x Buller then went
on to point out the trials which beset the emigrant on landing
in Canada.2 It was the duty of the Government, he affirmed,
to organize the outflow to North America just as much as that
to Australia. There may be a difference in the character and
circumstances of the movement to the two regions, he argued,
but none so great as to free the former from all interference,
while the latter was to a great extent officially regulated.

Buller summarized his views as follows : 3

The measures which Government have adopted are deplorably
defective. They have left untouched some of the chief evils of emi-
gration, and have very incompletely remedied those even against
which they were specially directed. Although the safeguards for
the emigrant during the passage are increased, and, in many places,
enforced, yet there is still no check of any sort whatever over a large
proportion of the emigrant vessels.4 The provisions for the reception
of emigrants at Quebec, so far as the Government is concerned, are
of the most inefficient and unsatisfactory character : and the poorer
classes would have to find their way as they best might to the Upper
Provinces, or to the United States, were it not for the operation of
societies whose main object is not the advantage of emigrants, but
to free the cities of Quebec and Montreal from the intolerable nuisance
of a crowd of unemployed, miserable, and, too often, diseased per-
sons. The Government agent at Quebec has no power ; he has not
even any rules for his guidance. At Montreal there has not been any
agent for the last two years. The whole extent, therefore, of the

1 Report, p. 225.

2 Vide Chapter VII. "The Reception of Immigrants."

3 Report, p. 227.

4 I.e. those carrying fewer passengers than constitute an emigrants' ship.

1 14 CHARACTERISTICS

Government interference has been to establish in England agents to
superintend the enforcement of the provisions of the Passengers'
Acts, in respect of the emigrants from some ports, and to maintain
an agent in -the Province of Lower Canada to observe rather than
regulate the emigration into that province.

I would recommend, therefore, that a specified portion of the prod-
uce of the wild-land tax and of the future sales of land and timber
should be applied in providing for emigration : a part in furnishing
free passage to emigrants of the most desirable age, as far as may be
of both sexes in equal numbers, and part in defraying any expenses
occasioned by the superintendence of the emigration of those to whom,
in conformity with this rule, or from other circumstances, a free pas-
sage cannot be offered.

The whole emigration from the United Kingdom should be so
far placed under the superintendence of Government that emigrants
conveyed at the public expense should necessarily proceed in vessels
chartered and regulated by the Government, and that all persons
willing to pay for their own passage should be entitled to proceed in
vessels so chartered and regulated at a cost for the passage not exceed-
ing the charge in private vessels. Proper means of shelter and trans-
port should be provided at the different ports in the Colonies to which
emigrants proceed ; and they should be forwarded to the place where
they can obtain employment under the direction of responsible agents
acting under central authority.

When, in 1845, the Great Famine overtook Ireland with such
disastrous results, a Select Committee was appointed to consider
the means by which colonization might be employed to alleviate
the sufferings which were then existing in that country. After
examining the causes which had brought about the crisis, the
Committee directed its attentions to an inquiry into the follow-
ing matters :

1. The capacity which certain Colonies possessed for absorbing
European labor.

2. The extent to which a supply of labour might be safely intro-
duced into the various Colonies.

3. -The effect of an increased supply of emigrant labor on the
productiveness and value of Colonial land.

4. The effect which colonization would probably produce on the
investment of British capital within the colony to which such coloni-
zation might be directed.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 115

5. The effect which might be anticipated by the promotion or
encouragement of works of undisputed usefulness, such as the rail-
roads projected in British North America.

6. The effect of an augmented population in the British Colonies,
not only in increasing their wealth, their agricultural, mineral, and
commercial resources, but in adding to their strength and means of
defense and thus consolidating and securing the power of the Empire.

Unfortunately, little or no good came of the inquiry. Char-
itable societies continued to do their utmost to alleviate the
sufferings of the afflicted people, but governmental action was
in no wise accelerated as a result of the inquiry.

In consequence of the representations made by Lord Dur-
ham, the Colonial Land and Emigration Department was
founded in 1840. The principal functions of this body were to
collect and diffuse statistical information pertaining to the
Colonies, to effect sales of colonial lands in Australia, to promote
by the proceeds of such sales emigration to the Colonies in which
the sales had occurred, to superintend, generally, all emigration
movements connected with this country and its dependencies,
and, lastly, to carry into execution the Passengers' Acts.1

The operations of the board were fluctuating, but between
1847 and 1869 they sent out 339,338 emigrants at a cost of
£4,864,000 of which £532,000 was provided by those taking
part in the exodus or their friends, and the rest by colonial funds.
The arrangements were mostly concerned with Australia.

In their thirty-third report, under the date of April 3oth,
1873, the Chief Commissioner wrote :

My Lord, We have the honor to submit to your Lordship our
Report on Emigration for the year 1872. As the administration of
the Passengers' Act has been intrusted by the Act of last session
(35 and 36 Viet. c. 73) to the Board of Trade, this is the last report

1 Lord John Russell's instructions to the Emigration Commissioners, January
I4th, 1840 (Government paper, No. 35) :

"In your capacity of a General Board for the sale of lands and for promoting
emigration, your duties may be conveniently arranged under the four following
heads. First, the collection and diffusion of accurate statistical knowledge; sec-
ondly, the sale in this country of waste lands in the colonies ; thirdly, the applica-
tion of the proceeds of such sales towards the removal of emigrants ; and, fourthly,
the rendering of periodical accounts, both pecuniary and statistical, of your adminis-
tration of this trust."

1 1 6 CHARACTERISTICS

we shall have to make to the Secretary of State on emigration from
this country.

Other functions which they performed had been gradually
taken from them as the Colonies, one by one, became self-
governing. After the Act of 1872 their sole duties consisted in
controlling the movement of coolie labor, and, when each
commissioner retired, his post was allowed to lapse. The last
commissioner withdrew in 1878. Between 1873 an<^ I^77 a
Colonization Circular was published annually.

In 1880, the Canadian authorities approached the Home
Government with a colonization scheme by which the latter
should advance moneys, about £80 per family, for meeting
expenses incurred in transporting and settling poor families from
Ireland on plots situated in the Northwest Provinces. The
Canadian Government was to give each settler 160 acres of land,
upon which the advance was to be secured by a first charge, but
they were to undertake no guarantee for the repayment of such
advance. It was intended to carry out the scheme through a
commission or association. These proposals were submitted to
the Irish authorities, who took no action in the matter.1 The
reasons for allowing the proposal to lapse were never definitely
stated, but it may be conjectured that the home authorities were
dissatisfied, first, with the guarantees, and, secondly, with the
refusal of the Canadian officials to undertake the task of collect-
ing the repayments.

In 1883, the Northwest Land Company of Canada empow-
ered Sir George Stephen to place another proposal before the
Imperial Parliament. The basis of this scheme was as follows :
the Government was to lend the company a million pounds for
ten years, free of interest, and in consideration of this loan the
company would undertake to remove ten thousand families,
say fifty thousand people, from the west of Ireland and settle
them in the northwest of Canada.

In the ordinary way the Canadian Government was prepared
to give each head of a family 160 acres of land, and the company
proposed to supply him with a house, a cow, implements, and
everything necessary to insure a fair start, even to providing
sufficient plowing and seeding for the first year's crop. The
1 Report on Colonization, 1891, Appendix, p. 45, par. i.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 117

company also agreed to meet all expenditure incidental to the
removal and settlement of the emigrants. It was thus submitted
that the cost to the Home Government would only be the interest
on £100 for ten years, say, at the rate of 2-J per cent, £25 per
family. The emigrants themselves, however, were to be called
upon to pay certain moderate charges to the company. This
scheme received the warm support of the Colonial Office and the
Irish Government, though the latter made two requests which
were approved by the Treasury, viz. (a) that the emigrants
should be drawn in entire families from the congested districts
only, and (b) that the holding of each emigrating family should
be consolidated with a neighboring holding.

The proposal, it must be added, was abandoned because the
Treasury thought it necessary to stipulate that the Dominion
Government should make itself responsible for recovering the
advances from the settlers, both principal and interest, a burden
which the Canadian authorities declined to undertake on polit-
ical grounds.1 Other schemes of emigration were suggested from
time to time, but all suffered rejection, as the Home Govern-
ment was temporarily averse to considering any which returned
less than 3^- per cent interest on the capital involved, and in
which they were not relieved of all financial liability.

The prolonged depression amongst the working classes which
lasted between 1884 and 1886, however, forced the Government
to change its views, and Mr. Rathbone 2 wrote : 3

In the autumn of 1887 Lord Lothian asked the land companies
if they would renew their proposals; but they declined to do so,
stating that the circumstances had altered (though in what way did
not appear) and the scheme which was eventually agreed upon was
far less favorable to the Government, in that there was no guarantee
by the companies for repayment even of the capital.

The scheme to which Mr. Rathbone referred was the Crofters'
Colonization Scheme of 1888 and 1889.

As a result of numerous representations made to the Gov-
ernment by philanthropists who viewed emigration with favor,
the Emigrants' Information Office was opened in October, 1886.

1 Report on Colonization, 1891, Appendix, p. 45, par. 2.

2 A member of the Colonization Committee of 1891.

3 Report on Colonization, 1891, Appendix, p. 46, par. 3.

1 18 CHARACTERISTICS

From its inception this Institution has been placed under the
control of the Colonial Office. It is subsidized by Government
but managed by a voluntary unpaid committee.1 The committee
included members of parliament, philanthropists, and repre-
sentatives of the working classes. The Secretary of State for
the Colonies is nominally President of the committee, but does
not actually preside. He nominates the members of the commit-
tee, and all points on which any serious doubt arises are referred
for his decision, but the expenditure of the Parliamentary grant
and the management and working of the office are left to the
discretion of the committee.

The Government at the outset allowed an annual sum of £650
to cover rent of rooms and all office expenses, in addition to free
printing and postage. After the report of the Colonization Com-
mittee in 1891 the sum was raised to £1000 and the grant became
subsequently increased to £1500.

Originally the scope of the office was confined to the British
Colonies and to those Colonies, only, which are outside the tropics,
and are thus fields of emigration in the ordinary sense. It was
found necessary, however, to widen its sphere and to give in-
formation — though more limited in extent — not only as to
certain tropical colonies, but also, from time to time, concerning
various foreign countries ; and especially it has been found neces-
sary to issue warnings in cases where, as, for example, in the case
of Brazil, it has seemed desirable to discourage emigration from
the Mother Country.

In regard to foreign countries, the committee derives its
information almost entirely through the Foreign Office and His
Majesty's representatives abroad. In regard to the British
Colonies, information is supplied partly by official, partly by
unofficial sources.

In June and July of the year 1889 a Select Committee of the
House of Commons sat to " inquire into various schemes which
have been proposed to Her Majesty's Government in order to
facilitate emigration from the congested districts of the United
Kingdom to the British Colonies or elsewhere ; to examine into
the results of any schemes which have received practical trial
in recent years ; and to report generally whether, in their opinion,

1 The Chairman, who is a member of the Colonial Office, is paid.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 119

it is desirable that further facilities should be given to promote
emigration; and, if so, upon the means by and the conditions
under which such emigration can best be carried out, and the
quarters to which it can most advantageously be directed."1
After having examined nine witnesses the following interim report
was issued towards the end of the month of July :

Your Committee are of opinion that at this late period of the
Session it will not be in their power to conclude their investigations ;
they have therefore agreed to report the evidence, already taken, to
the House, and to recommend that a committee on the same subject
should be appointed early in the next Session of Parliament.2

The committee again sat in 1890, and for a third time in 1891.
It was in the latter year that the following summary of their
conclusions was issued :

1. Your Committee have no grounds for thinking that the
present condition of the United Kingdom generally calls for any
general scheme of state-organized colonization or emigration.

2. The powers in possession of local authorities should be
sufficient to enable them, at no onerous risk, to assist in the coloni-
zation or emigration of persons or families from their own localities.

3. The congested districts of Ireland and of the Highlands
and Islands of Scotland form an exceptional case and require relief
by assistance to industries, to colonization or emigration, and, where
suitable, to migration.

4. The provisions proposed in the Land and Congested Districts
(Ireland) Bill are ample for these purposes.

5. Provisions similar to some of the foregoing should be made
for the Crofter districts of Scotland.

6. The Colonization Board be continued and reconstructed
for the purpose of colonization and emigration from such districts.

7. The power of enlarging Crofters' holdings in that Act should
be kept alive.

8. Crofts vacated by emigration or migration should be added
to existing holdings without power of subdivision.

9. The experiment of colonizing the Crofter population in Can-
ada should be further tried.

10. The proposals of the Government of British Columbia3
should be favorably entertained.

1 Report on Colonization, 1889, p. in. 2 Ibid.

3 These proposals fell through as the Governments failed to agree on matters
of finance.

1 20 CHARACTERISTICS

11. The agency of companies for colonization and emigration
should be taken advantage of, both as regards the aforesaid coloniza-
tion in Canada and elsewhere.

12. The Government grant to the Emigrants' Information
Office should be increased.1

As a result of this report, further governmental schemes were
dropped, but the grant awarded annually to the Emigrants'
Information Office was augmented. From 1891 to 1905 no action
seems to have been taken, but, in the latter year, the Unemployed
Workmen Act, which contained clauses facilitating the trans-
ference of needy workpeople, was passed.2 In the following year,
Sir Rider Haggard made certain suggestions for a colonization
scheme, which may be briefly summarized as follows. The
authorities at home were to advance to the Salvation Army, or
a similar body, a sum of money roughly equaling thirty thousand
pounds, and in return the institution was to collect a vast num-
ber of distressed town-bred families and install them on farm
plots in Canada. A departmental committee was appointed to
give consideration to the suggestions, but this body reported
unfavorably and the scheme was not attempted.3 Since 1906
the inactivity of the central authorities has been continued, but
a great expansion in the working of charitable institutions has
marked the period. To-day there are considerably more than
a hundred societies engaged in the emigration movement ; some
give their services in a general way, others confine their opera-
tions to people of certain religious denominations or to dwellers
in particular localities, whilst others again deal only with women
or children. The majority give financial assistance in deserving
cases, though certain of them are organized merely to provide
information, guidance, and protection. As a general rule, the
societies are doing valuable work by sending to the various
colonies able-bodied people who could not otherwise join in
the exodus.

1 Report on Colonization, 1891, p. xvi.

2 "The Central Body may, if they think fit, in any case of an unemployed person
referred to them by a distress committee, assist that person by aiding the emigra-
tion or removal to another area of that person and any of his dependents." — 5
Ed. 7, ch. 18, sec. 5.

3 Cf . " Colonization Schemes," Chapter X, p. 244.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 121

In bygone years, certain of the less responsible organizations
made emigration a vehicle for transferring " undesirables " from
the Mother Country to the Colonies. As no such practices have
been attempted for many years past, it is somewhat discouraging
to note the attitude with which a few of the Colonial Governments
still approach the home societies as a body. Everything which
can be done to eliminate the unfit from the fit is now performed
by the societies, and none but those who can undergo a severe
and searching test are permitted to proceed. In many cases,
farm colonies have been instituted within the United Kingdom
and prospective settlers are required to give practical demon-
strations of their fitness at one or other of them before they are
passed as suitable. Not only do the societies themselves require
their candidates to pass a very severe test, but the officials
attached to the staffs of the various High Commissioners and
Agents-General institute searching inquiries also. Authentic
figures are available to prove that, of the people befriended by
the East End Emigration Fund, less than 5 per cent turn out
failures, only 5 per cent fail from the Church Emigration Society,
never more than 4 per cent annually from the South African
Colonisation Society, less than 2 per cent from Dr. Barnardo's
Homes, whilst other societies can show equally satisfactory
records.1 In spite of this complex system of selection and these
reassuring figures, there are still people, living in the colonies,
who condemn the work of the societies in general. A writer
living at Hamilton, Ontario, says : 2

At present, among the great stream of English people whom your
agencies are sending to us, are many who are the scourings from Lon-
don streets — the hangers-on to Church charitable organizations —
the type of men who demand work, but that is the last thing they
really desire.

It will be noticed that in this quotation not one shred of evi-
dence is given to support the serious allegations made, nor does
the writer seem to be aware that no man who was work-shy
and studied his comforts would leave London for Hamilton;

1 Official Report of the Emigration Conference convened by the Royal Colonial
Institute, 1910, pp. 33, 37, 39, 43, etc.

3 Quoted from The Times of May 3oth, 1910.

122 CHARACTERISTICS

also, it may be pointed out that such statements not only condemn
the operations of our home organizations, but they presuppose
a want of confidence in the colonial emigration commissioners
as well.

Within recent years public opinion has gradually grown to
view with considerable disfavor any form of British emigration
proceeding to foreign countries. In 1907, the Imperial Confer-
ence gave expression to this feeling by passing the following
resolution :

That it is desirable to encourage British emigrants to proceed to
British Colonies rather than foreign countries: that the Imperial
Government be requested to cooperate with any Colonies desiring
immigrants in assisting suitable persons to emigrate : that the Secre-
tary of State for the Colonies be requested to nominate representa-
tives of the Dominions to the committee of the Emigrants' Infor-
mation Office.

In 1908, the question of emigration was discussed by the Poor
Law Commission. Unfortunately, the ground necessarily covered
by this inquiry was so extensive that little time could be spared
for an adequate consideration of the factors governing the na-
tional exodus. The Majority Report of this Commission spoke
of the value of emigration when supplemented with other reforms,
but gave no hint as to the ways and means of organizing such
a movement. The Minority Report was more informing. What-
ever provisions are made for minimizing unemployment, it
affirmed, there will always be a residuum of men and women
who will be in want of work ; for them, an emigration and immi-
gration division will prove valuable. This division, it suggested,
should develop the office now maintained by the Secretary of
State for the Colonies in close communication with the responsible
governments of other parts of the Empire. A Minister of Labor
would direct this office, and his duties would include not only
the control of aided but non-aided emigrants as well. So far
as they go, the suggestions made by the Minority Commissioners
are valuable, but, from such an authoritative body, a complete
sketch of the machinery required to control both the emigration
from home and the immigration to the Colonies would have
proved welcome.

EMIGRATION FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM 123

Finally, the subject of emigration was considered by the recent
Imperial Conference of 1911. Mr. Burns, as President of the
Local Government Board, said that since the last Conference
the object of the resolution passed in 1907 had been, to a great
extent, secured. In 1906, the total number of emigrants from
the Mother Country was 194,671, of whom the different parts
of the Empire took 105,178 or 54 per cent. In 1910, the num-
bers were 233,944 and 159,000 respectively, showing 68 per cent
to the Empire. For the first four months of the year 1911 there
was an increase over the corresponding period of 1910 of 23,000
or 29 per cent, and the Empire had taken the whole of that in-
crease. Australia and New Zealand had received ten thousand
more people in the first four months of 1911 than in the similar
period of 1910, or 133 per cent increase. If the rate of increase
for the first four months were continued for the whole of 1911,
the total emigrants for Great Britain to all countries would
amount, he said, to three hundred thousand, of whom, it was
estimated, 230,000, or nearly 80 per cent, would go to different
parts of the Empire, a generous contribution in quantity and
quality from the Mother Country. In 1900, the percentage
absorbed by the Empire of the total emigration from the United
Kingdom was only 33 per cent. The increase from 33 per cent to
80 per cent was a justification of the excellent and increasing
work in the right direction carried on by the now admirably
organized Emigrants' Information Office at home. Moreover,
it was generally admitted that the quality of the emigrants
had also improved. The total estimated emigration of 300,000
for 1911 represented 60 per cent of the natural increase of the
population of the United Kingdom as compared with 48 per cent
in 1910 and 50 per cent in 1907. But for the saving in life repre-
sented by a lower death rate, and a much lower infant mortality,
this emigration would be a very heavy drain on the United King-
dom. In ten years Scotland and Ireland combined had increased
their population by 210,000, or less than "the total emigration
from Great Britain for the one year 1910. With a diminishing
birth rate the Mother Country could not safely go beyond 300,000
a year, and if 80 per cent of these went to different parts of the
Empire, the Conference would probably agree that this was as
much as they could reasonably require. The Dominions were

124 CHARACTERISTICS

entitled to have the surplus, but they must not diminish the
seed plot. They could absorb the overflow, but they must not
empty the tank.

In reviewing emigration generally, Mr. Burns said that the
business of the Emigrants' Information Office had more than
doubled since 1907, and that its machinery was being kept up
to modern requirements. Over organization, or attempts to do
more than was now being done, would probably check many of
the voluntary non-political and benevolent associations con-
nected with the work, which filled a place that no State organiza-
tion could possibly occupy. Information was disseminated
through one thousand public libraries and municipal buildings
in addition to many post offices. Six hundred and fifty Boards
of Guardians sent all their emigrated children to the Dominions.
In twenty-one years 9300 Poor Law children had been emigrated
at a cost to the rates of £109,000. The quality of these children
was indicated by the fact that out of 12,790 children from the
Poor Law Schools of London, only 62 had been returned by
their employers in consequence of natural defects, incompatibility
of temper, or disposition. One hundred and thirty Distress Com-
mittees had sent 16,000 emigrants to different parts of the Em-
pire in five years at a cost of £127,000. Lastly, before 1907,
army reservists were not allowed to leave this country and to
continue to draw their reserve pay. This regulation had been
modified, with the result that since 1907, 8000 reservists had
been allowed to reside abroad, of whom only 329 were not under
the British flag.

GERMAN IMMIGRATION1

GUSTAVUS OHLINGER
THE PILGRIMS

AN INCENTIVE similar to that which brought the Pilgrims
Ix to New England inspired the German immigrations of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1677 William Perm,
on one of the missionary tours which he undertook for the purpose
of spreading the doctrines of the Quaker sect, happened to visit
the Pietists of Fra.nk;fort-on-the-Majn. Four years later, when
he received a grant of land in America, these people corresponded
with his agent. A company was formed among them which
eventually purchased twenty-five thousand acres of land. In the
summer of 1683 the first immigrants, most of them Mennonites
whom Penn's preaching had converted to Quakerism, sailed on
the ship Concord. They arrived in Philadelphia on October _£.
1683. That day has since been celebrated by German- Americans
as the beginning of their history in this country, and the Concord
and its passengers have been regarded with something of the
same veneration that the Mayflower and the Pilgrim Fathers
have received from Americans generally.

During the religious and political troubles of the eighteenth
century, England and her colonies were the refuge of the per-
secuted of the continent. In 1709 thirteen thousand inhabitants
of the Palatinate fled to London. They were maintained by the
English government, and subsequently colonized in New York
and the Carolinas. The same was done for the Protestants of
Salzburg, Austria, who fled from the persecution of Archbishop
Leopold. According to a German scholar, England's humane
and generous treatment of these unfortunates will always re-
dound to her glory.

1 From " Their True Faith and Allegiance " by Gustavus Ohlinger. The
Macmillan Company, 1916.

125

1 26 CHARACTERISTICS

Many other sects — the Moravians, the Reformed, the
Lutherans, the Tunkers, the Schwenkfelders — followed. All
were attracted by the same ideal, — freedom of worship after
the dictates of their own consciences. In religious belief they
had much in common with English denominations. Having no
ties to bind them to the old country, they soon adapted them-
selves to the conditions of the new. At the outbreak of the
War of Independence they numbered some two hundred and
twenty thousand, and they contributed their full quota to the
revolutionary armies. One of the traditions of those stirring
times relates how Peter Muhlenberg, pastor of a Lutheran church,
mounted his pulpit one Sunday soon after the call to arms had
gone forth. At the end of his sermon he admonished his flock
that there was a time for prayer, a time for fasting and a time
for battle ; the time for battle had now come, and casting aside
his clerical gown he stood before his congregation in the uniform
of a colonel of the continental army. The drums beat outside,
Four hundred of his parishioners rallied to the standard, and on
the fields of Brandy wine, German town, and Monmouth proved
their allegiance to their adopted land.

THE EXILES

The high tides of German immigration during the first seventy
years of the nineteenth century were marked by the political
troubles in the old country, — the suppression of the student
societies and turners in 1820, the revolution of 1832, and the more
important revolution of 1848. Each of these disturbances sent
its quota of political refugees to America. Some sought America
merely as a temporary asylum, intending to return when con-
ditions in the old country had improved. Others, despairing
of the struggle for national unity and freedom in Germany,
hoped to realize their ideals by founding a German state in the
American west. The leaders in the movement were Paul Follen
and Friedrich Munch, — names which in the last few years
have been given much prominence by German- American or-
ganizations. "We must not," these enthusiasts argued, "leave
Germany without at least taking the first steps towards realizing
German national unity and freedom ; we will lay the foundations

GERMAN IMMIGRATION 127

of a new and free Germany in the great North American Re-
public. We will take with us as many as possible of our best
people, and will provide for others to follow; thus may we be
able to establish in one of the American territories an essentially
German state as a refuge for those who have found conditions in
Germany intolerable."

Numerous societies were formed to facilitate the immigration
necessary to accomplish this purpose. Niles' Register remarks
in a contemporary paragraph that "a plan is in progress in the
southwest of Germany to make up a state and ship it over to
America to become the twenty-fifth member of the confederacy."
One such state arrived at New York with a complete outfit, in-
cluding a telescope and a town bell, but disintegrated on the
long trip to St. Louis. The territories of Arkansas and Wisconsin
were at different times selected as the promised land. When
Texas declared its independence, the opportunity seemed pre-
sented for a peaceful conquest of that sparsely settled country,
and several thousand immigrants were sent to the Lone Star
state. It is said that the British government favored the scheme,
hoping thereby to place a permanent barrier in the way of the
further expansion of the United States towards the southwest.

Of all these refugees the " f orty-eighters " clung most tena-
ciously to their language and national ideals. These people have
become known in German-American history as the " greens," as
distinguished from the older settlers, who were dubbed the
" grays." The " greens" severely upbraided their countrymen
who had preceded them for having allowed themselves to become
Americanized, and they made serious efforts to retard further
assimilation. As Germans they felt they had a mission to fulfill,
and that mission was nothing less than the complete Germanizing
oHhe United States. This was to be accomplished through their
intellectual superiority, their claims to which, though un-
doubtedly justified in some instances, they made no efforts to
conceal, — and also by founding German communities, and from
these as centers making their influence felt throughout the
country. At one time it was proposed to concentrate immigration
in Wisconsin until through a jprerjonderance of the population
they~°had succeeded in repjacjflgjjiglish with German as the
, of the legislature, and of the schools. Some

I28 CHARACTERISTICS

of the enthusiasts went so far as to forecast the time when the
United States, having come under the influence of German ideas,
would extend its sway throughout the world. The German
people would in that indirect way realize their ambition for
world dominion.

But as the years passed, the vision of these exiles faded and
grew dim. A new Germany, free and powerful, seemed an im-
possibility ; a transplanted Germany, in the form of a state set
down in the western wilderness, dissolved upon contact with the
realities of the frontier ; German communities could not maintain
their solidarity amid the complexities of industriaHife ; and the
dreamers were left with the empire of the German spirit, the
romantic Germany of the bards and singers, the world of the
philosophers and poets. And when, after hopes deferred and
years of waiting, the man arrived who through the stern dis-
cipline of blood and iron was to weld the principalities of Germany
into an empire, there had appeared in America one of the most
tragic and compelling figures of all history. Bjsjrmrck__was
forgotten, and the exiles rallied to the call of Lincoln.

KULTURPOLITIK

The succeeding immigration differed materially from those
that have been described. The earlier immigrants had brought
with them bitter memories of German disunion and of the
tyrannies and persecutions of their petty princes. Pride of
nationality they had in some degree, but none of state or country.
The less educated, lacking the political vision and ambitions of
the revolutionaries, had scarcely more than family sentiment to
bind them to their old homes. To them America was the great
country of freedom, of religious liberty, of__or£rjortunity, the
promised land of anthejrjreams. Their old allegiance, together
with all that it implied, they were glad and anxious to cast aside
as a loathed garment. But the great waves of German immi-
gration, which, gathering volume in the seventies, finally reached
their flood in the eighties, came from entirely different impulses.
Neither national ideals, political freedom, nor religious liberty
was uppermost in the minds of these strangers. Germany had
been united. What Bismarck termed "the tragedy of the ages"

GERMAN IMMIGRATION 129

had been repaired. The empire furnished a concrete expression
for German national aspirations. No longer as outcasts did
these wanderers approach our shores, but as representatives of a
state of whose achievements they were proud and of whose future
they vaguely hoped to remain a part. National and political
aspirations had been fulfilled, — what they asked from America,
primarily, wasfmaterial benefits?
i A spiritual change came over Germany. The will to power,
enthralled from the time that the last Hohenstaufen met his fate
on the scaffold in Naples, was emancipated. This had been
accomplished largely by merging the individual in the State,
and by making the State synonymous with the Hohenzollern
dynasty. But this was overlooked in the enthusiasm for the
new-found strength, and German professors set to work to square
theory with fact. "The State is a person," exclaims Bluntschli.
More than that, it is a man, not a woman, and possesses all the
primal male attributes of positive action on environment. It
owes no responsibility and must be ruthless in accomplishing its
destiny.

With these vital forces of the nation organized and ready to be
released, the educated men surveyed the past and present.
Spain, France, and England had each had its day. They had
.each boasted a world dominion. Each had in turn succumbed
to its successor. England, the last, had long since lost its pre-
eminence in every field of human endeavor. The British empire
was held in palsied hands which required only the effort of youth
'to strike down. Each of these conquering nations had, however,
through its culture, language, and institutions, struck deep root
in foreign soil. German culture would therefore have to establish
itself in order to pave the way for commerce and political control.
To do this required organized effort. Every German in a position
of influence in a foreign land, whether as an educator, aj>rp-
fessional man, a clergyman, a technician, or a director of industrial
enterprises, represented an outlay of productive capital. It was
the task of these men to make known the aims and content of
German culture in all its branches, from the tilling of the soil to
the 'philosophy of life, from the technique of mechanics to the
technique of statesmanship, so that the desire to acquire the
benefits of this culture might be stimulated. The respect which

1 30 CHARACTERISTICS

they earned through the thoroughness of their achievement
would redound to the prestige of the empire, and the influence
which they thus acquired was to be an asset in the achievement of
national ideals. The conscious direction of these influences is
what Germans call Kulturpolitik, a word which has no English
equivalent, for the reason that the whole idea is a German
invention.

Equally important was it to retain at least the spiritual and
intellectual allegiance of German emigrants. In 1881 there was
organized the "Educational Alliance for the Preservation of
German Culture in Foreign Lands " (Allgemeiner deutscher
Schuherein zur Erhaltung des Deutschthums im Auslande).
"Not a man can we spare," so reads its declaration of principles,
— "if we expect to hold our own against the one hundred and
twenty-five millions who already speak the English language
and who have preempted the most desirable fields for expansion."
A similar thought inspired the Pan-German Alliance (Alldeutszher
Verband). It aims to preserve German language and culture,
to vitalize the German national sentiment throughout the world
and to support Germans wherever, in a distant land, they are
struggling to preserve their solidarity against a foreign civili-
zation. "The German ppnpje is a race of rulers." so they declare.
"As such it must be respected everywhere in the world. The.
Alliance does not believe that German national development
ended with the results of the war of 1870, great and glorious
though they were. It is rather convinced that, with the position
then won, there has come a multitude of new and greater duties,
to neglect which would mean the decadence of our people." A
number of branches of this society, as well as of the Navy
League (Flottenverein) , were established in the United States.

The educated Germans had become imbued with these ideas
before leaving the old country, and they now kept in touch
with their development. Journalists and clergymen naturally
found it to their interests to encourage German traditions and
the use of the German language. The circulation of jtheirja£ws-
papers and the membership of their churches depended upon
these conditions. The most potent influence, however, in
Kulturpolitik have been the men who, in constantly increasing
numbers, have come to occupy positions in our universities,

GERMAN IMMIGRATION 131

colleges, and public and private schools. Being, by virtue of
their profession, less exposed to assimilative influences, they
form the outposts of Germanism, in the United States.

It was about twenty years ago that voices of the new Germany
were first heard in this country. The Spanish-American war at
one stroke destroyed the isolation of the United States. The
part she would play on the stage of world politics became a
matter of vital interest. American ideas of colonial expansion and
of responsibility towards foreign races approached to those which
had built up the British Empire. Many points of contact between
American institutions and those of England were brought to
consciousness. Cecil Rhodes, dying, left a will which provided a
means for closer intellectual and cultural association between
the United States and Great Britain. Kipling celebrated in
verse the mission of the Anglo-Saxon people. Much was said
about Anglo-Saxon unity, a phrase which Germans interpreted
as Anglo-Saxon imperialism.

This was the beginning of the struggle. It was the signal for the
mobilization of the forces of Kulturpolitik in this country. Anglp-
Saxon unity, or even a closer understanding between the branches
of that race, was seen as an insuperable obstacle in the way of
German plans for world dominion. Journalists, clergymen,
educators, began to agitate among their countrymen for the
solidarity of the German element, the preservation of the German
language, and the spread of German culture. Their appeals
found a ready response among the later arrivals and even engaged
the attention of the older element, who, though having no interest
in Germany as an empire, still cherished the memory of the
Fatherland as the home of Goethe, Schiller, of Grimm's Fairy
Tales, of the philosophers and musicians. Men holding chairs
in our universities, permeated with the teaching of Treitschke,
Droysen, and other modern German historians, pointed to what
they regarded as signs of the impending dissolution of the
British^Empire ; the costly Boer war had drained its strength ;
the discontent in India, the troubles in Ireland, were under-
mining its constitution; Germany was destined to overthrow
the palsied colossus and succeed it as a world empire ; German
culture would then be supreme, the German language the
universal tongue. Anglo-Saxon civilization the agitators both

I32 CHARACTERISTICS

disparaged as decadent and, like Treitschke, cordially hated.
Puritanism, to them the essence of hypocrisy, represented its
most odious pha,se. They proclaimed that only in a political
ancLgeoffraphical sense had they become Americans with the
oath of naturalization, — in all other respects they remained
Germans ; they condemned any approach to assimilation and
decried the moral of Zangwill's "Melting Pot." Some sought to
give the propaganda a patriotic guise by declaring that it was
the sacred mission of the German element to guard themselves,
their language, and their culture from native influences in order
that as a chosen people they might save America from the decay
which was destroying the vitals of everything Anglo-Saxon. The
media for the propaganda were the lecture platform, the German
newspapers, German societies, churches, and schools. A German
who had served as a member of the Reichstag began the publi-
cation in New York of a monthly magazine as the special expo-
nent of these ideas.

Organizations of every kind have always been a feature^ of
German life in America.' The national "Sangerbund" was
organized in 1849. The turners organized as far back as 1848,
and have had a national alliance since 1850, and to-day boast
forty thousand members, with a normal school in Indianapolis.
In 1870 the association of German teachers (Deutsch-amerikan-
ischer Lehrerbund) was formed and soon after that a training school
was established in Milwaukee. In 1885 a national organization
of German schools (National deutsch-amerikanischer Schulverein)
was started, but met with the opposition of the older element,
who, while they favored the propaganda for the German language
in parts of Austria and Hungary, could see no reason for such
a movement in the United States. There are associations of
German veterans and reservists, many mutualjud and Jbenefit
societies, the well-known singing societies, and innumerable
other organizations.

Under the influence of the new propaganda all these societies
were brought into closer touch with each other. In 1899 the
German societies of Pennsylvania formed a state federation
known as the German-American Central Alliance. This suggested
a national organization, and in the following" year delegates from
Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Minnesota assembled in

GERMAN IMMIGRATION 133

Philadelphia and formed a temporary association. In 1901, on
the anniversary of the landing of the Concord pilgrims, a perma-
nent organization was perfected, known as the National German-
American Alliance. This achievement the promoters regard as
of the greatest importance for the future of the German element
in the United States.

According to its constitution the membership of the Alliance
is made up of state and local alliances. German societies every-
where have been urged to unite in local and state federations.
It is only where city and state federations have not been organized
that individual societies are taken into membership. The work
of organization has been prosecuted with vigor in the last few
years, with the result that there is now a state federation in every
state of the Union, and every city of importance has its Stadtver-
band, made up of delegates of local organizations. The Alliance
is supported by a per capita levy upon the membership of all
component societies. In 1907 it was incorporated by act of
Congress, and it now claims to reach, through its subordinate
state and local federations and individual societies, not less than
two million five hundred thousand Germans.

The principal objects of the Alliance, as officially announced,
are to awaken and strengthen the sense of unity among the
people of German origin jn America; to check nativistic eji-
croachments ; to maintain and safeguard friendly relations
between~S.merica and Germany; to augment the influence of
German culture by encouraging the use of the German language
and making its teaching in the public schools compulsory: to
introduce into school histories a proper estimate of the work of
German pioneers and of their part in developing our institutions ;
to oppose restrictions upon immigration; to_ )i,bera.Hze qur
naturalizaticn^Taws by removing knowledge of the English
language and other educational tests as requirements of citizen-
ship; and, finally, to combat Puritan_influences, particularly
invasions of personal liberty in the form of restrictions upon the
liquor traffic. The Alliance is pledged to bring its entire organi-
zaHonTo the support of any state federation which is engaged in
a struggle for any of these objects.

"We must be united, united, united, — every petty jealousy,
every local interest, must be forgotten," the officers of the

I34 CHARACTERISTICS

Alliance have repeatedly admonished their members. From the
point of view of the American who is interested solely in the
amalgamation of races in a more perfect union and in the highest
development of our national life, it is difficult to understand
what exigency requires the awakening and strengthening of the
sense of unity among citizens of German origin. If the Alliance
professes patriotic purposes, why should it aim to develop a
solidarity. within racial lines ? Why should the sense of unity be
encouraged among Germans, and if among Germans, why not
among those citizens who happen to be of English, Canadian,
Russian, or Italian descent?

Equally difficult is it to understand the need of such an
organization for resisting "nativistic encroachments." Long
before the Alliance came into existence, German citizens,
from Michael Hillegas, the first Treasurer of the Continental
Congress, to Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior in Hayes'
administration, have been welcomed to the highest offices in
the gift of the people. From the time the Know-Nothing
movement collapsed — a movement which was called into
being in large measure by the separatist ideals of the immi-
grants of 1832 and 1848 — Americans have kept their rjplitics
aloof from racial or religiou.fi extinctions, and those who have
trespassed this unwritten law have received prompt and merited
rebuke.

In estimating the activity of the Germans during the last
eighteen months allowance must be made for the high tension of
feeling produced by the war. Nor must it be imagined for one
moment that the majority of Germans in this country subscribe
to the opinions put forth by the noisy propagandists. This
group, though compact and well organized, forms but a small
fraction of the thirty millions of citizens of German birth or
descent in this country. They represent the laterimmigra tions , —
for the most part those which followed theTormation of the
empire. The official roster of the Alliance may fairly be taken as
representative of its membership, or at least of the controlling
faction in that membership. Of the twelve officers not one can
point to an Americanism more than two generations old. The
majority are foreign-born.

GERMAN IMMIGRATION 135

It is for the descendants of those Germans who fought under i
Herkimer at Oriskany; of those who followed Muhlenberg; of f
those who over the trenches of Yorktown heard the opposing
commands given in their native tongue, and finally saw the
garrison march out to the time of German .music ; of those who
fought under Schurz and Sigel in the Civil War, to rebuke these
prophets of disunion and to turn the aspirations of their country-
men in the direction of true American nationalism. s

B. EMIGRATION FROM SOUTHEASTERN
EUROPE

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES1
SAMUEL JOSEPH, PH.D., COMMERCIAL HIGH SCHOOL, BROOKLYN

THE Jewish immigration has been shown to consist essentially
of permanent settlers. Its family movement is incomparable
in degree, and contains a larger relative proportion as well as
absolute number of women and children, than any other im-
migrant people. This in turn is reflected in the greater relative
proportion as well as absolute number of those classified as
having "no occupation." The element of dependency thus
predicated is another indication of the family composition of the
Jewish immigration. Its return movement is the smallest of
any, as compared both with its large immigration and the
number of total emigrants. The Jewish immigrants are dis-
tinguished as well by a larger relative proportion and absolute
number of skilled laborers, than any other immigrant people.
In these four primary characteristics the Jewish immigrants stand
apart from all the others.

It is with the neighboring Slavic races emigrating from the
countries of Eastern Europe and with whom the Jewish immi-
grants are closely associated that the contrasts, in all these
respects, are strongest. The Slavic immigrants are chiefly male
adults. Their movement is largely composed of transients, as
evidenced by a relatively large outward movement and em-
phasized by the fact that the vast majority of them are unskilled
laborers. An exception, in large measure, must be made of the
Bohemian and Moravian immigrants, who present characteristics
strongly similar to those of the Jewish immigrants.

The division into "old" and "new" immigration brings
out even more clearly the exceptional position of the Jews in

1 Summary and conclusions, of Jewish Immigration to the United States. Chap-
ter VI. Columbia University Studies, 1914.

136

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES 137

regard to these characteristics. Although the Jewish immi-
gration has been contemporaneous with the "new" immigration
from Eastern and Southeastern Europe, and is furthermore
essentially East-European in origin, its characteristic place is
altogether with the "old" immigration.1 Most striking, how-
ever is the fact that in all of these respects — family composition
and small return movement (both indicating permanent settle-
ment) and in the proportion of skilled laborers — the Jewish
immigration stands apart even from the "old" immigration.

Further confirmation may be obtained, in the study of the
characteristics of the Jewish immigration, of the principle
established in the preceding sections that the rejective forces of
governmental oppression are responsible for the largest part of
this immigration. The large family movement of the Jewish
immigration is a symptom of abnormal conditions and amounts
almost to a reversal of the normal immigration, in which single
or married men without families predominate. Even the family
movement of the "old" immigrants may largely be attributed
to the longer residence of their peoples in the United States as
well as to their greater familiarity with the conditions and
customs of the United States. That so large a part of the Jewish
immigrants is composed of dependent females and children creates
a situation of economic disadvantage for the Jewish immigrants,
all the stronger because of their relative unfamiliarity with the
language or the conditions facing them in this country.

Again, the Jews respond slowly and incompletely to the pres-
sure of unfavorable econo*mic conditions in this country. This
was emphasized by the 'almost complete lack of response to the
panic of 1907, as well as expressed in the small, practically un-
changing return movement of the Jews to their European homes.

The pressure upon the Jewish artisans, or skilled laborers,
in Eastern Europe is reflected in the predominance of this class
among the Jewish immigrants to this country. That so useful an
element in Eastern Europe with its still relatively backward in-
dustrial development — a fact that was given express recognition

1 So strongly Was this the case that the Immigration Commission in discussing
these characteristics was compelled to separate the Jewish from the "new" immi-
gration, in order to bring out the essential differences of the latter from the "old"
immigration.

1 38 CHARACTERISTICS

by the permission accorded the Jewish artisans in Alexander
IPs time to live in the interior of Russia — should have been
compelled to emigrate indicates that the voyage across the
Atlantic was easier for them than the trip into the interior of
Russia, access to which is still legally accorded to them.

That the oppressive conditions created particularly in Russia
and Roumania and operating as a pressure equivalent to an
expulsive force does not explain the entire Jewish immigration
to this country is evident from the preceding pages. In a great
measure, the immigration of Jews from Austria-Hungary is an
economic movement. The existence, however, of a certain degree
of pressure created by economic and political antisemitism has
however been recognized. The Jewish movement from Austria-
Hungary shares largely with the movement from Russia and
Roumania the social and economic characteristics of the Jewish
immigration which we have described. A strong family move-
ment and a relative permanence of settlement, especially as
compared with the Poles, and a movement of skilled laborers
must be predicated of the Jewish immigrants from Austria-
Hungary, though undoubtedly not to the same degree as in the
case of the Jewish movements from Russia and Roumania.

It is also clear that the forces of economic attraction in the
United States do not play an altogether passive part in the
Jewish immigration. The very fact of an immigrant-nucleus
formed in this country and serving as a center of attraction to
relatives and friends abroad — a force which increases in direct
and multiple proportion to the growth of immigration — is an
active and positive force in strengthening the immigration
current. This was early understood by the Alliance Israelite
Universelle which had acted upon this principle in the seventies
and had prophetically sought to direct a healthy movement of
Jewish immigrants to this country in the hope of thereby laying
a foundation for future Jewish immigration to this country.
This current, however, once started and growing only by the
force of its increasing attraction, would reflect in its movement
almost Wholly the economic conditions in this country. That so
large a part of the Jewish immigration, and so many of the
phenomena peculiar to it, find their explanation, for the largest
part of the thirty years, in the situation and the course of events

JEWISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES 139

in the countries of Eastern Europe leads to the inevitable con-
clusion that the key to the Jewish immigration is to be found
not in the force of economic attraction exercised in the United
States but rather in the exceptional economic, social, and legal
conditions in Eastern Europe which have been created as a result
of governmental persecution.

Reviewing the various phases of the history of Jewish immi-
gration for these thirty years, we are enabled to see more closely
its nature. The study of the immigration, its movement and its
social and economic characteristics, in comparison with those
of other immigrant peoples, has revealed in it a number of dis-
tinguishing traits. In the causes of the emigration of the Jews,
in the pressure exerted upon their movement as reflected in their
rate of immigration, in their family movement, in the permanence
of their settlement, and in their occupational distribution have
been found characteristics which mark them off from the rest
of the immigrant peoples. The number of these characteristics
and the degree in which they are found in the Jewish immigration,
put it in a class by itself.

The facts of governmental pressure amounting to an expulsive
force, and reflected in an extraordinary rate of immigration, in a
movement of families unsurpassed in the American immigration,
the largest part economically dependent, in an occupational
grouping of skilled artisans, able to earn their livelihood under
normal conditions, and in a permanence of settlement in this
country incomparable in degree and indicating that practically
all who come stay — all these facts lead irresistibly to the con-
clusion that in the Jewish movement we are dealing, not with
an immigration, but with a migration. What we are witnessing
to-day, and for these thirty years, is a Jewish migration of a
kind and degree almost without a parallel in the history of the
Jewish people. When, in speaking of the beginnings of Russian
Jewish immigration to Philadelphia, David Sulzberger said : "In
thirty years the movement of Jews from Russia to the United
States has almost reached the dignity of the migration of a
people," he used no literary phrase. In view of the facts that
have developed, this statement is true without any qualification.

This migration-process explains the remarkable growth of the
Jewish population in the United States, within a relatively short

140 CHARACTERISTICS

period of time. In this transplantation, the spirit of social
solidarity and communal responsibility prevalent among the
Jews has played a vital part.

The family rather than the individual thus becomes the unit
for the social life of the Jewish immigrant population in the
United States. In this respect the latter approaches more nearly
the native American population than does the foreign white or
immigrant population. One of the greatest evils incident to and
characteristic of the general immigration to this country is
thereby minimized.

Again, the concentration of the Jewish immigrants in certain
trades explains in great measure the peculiarities of the occupa-
tional and the urban distribution of the Jews in the United
States. The development of the garment trades through Jewish
agencies is largely explained by the recruiting of the material
for this development through these laborers.

These primary characteristics of the Jewish immigration of the
last thirty years will serve to explain some of the most important
phases of the economic and social life of the Jews in the United
States, three fourths of whom are immigrants of this period.

Of all the features in this historic movement of the Jews from
Eastern Europe to the United States, not the least interesting is
their passing from civilizations whose bonds with their medieval
past are still strong to a civilization which began its course un-
hampered by tradition and unyoked to the forms and institutions
of the past. The contrast between the broad freedom of this
democracy and the intolerable despotism from whose yoke most
of them fled has given them a sense of appreciation of American
political and social institutions that is felt in every movement of
their mental life.

THE COMING OF THE ITALIAN1

BY JOHN FOSTER CARR, DIRECTOR, IMMIGRATION PUBLICATION
SOCIETY, NEW YORK

' AT EVER judge a ship from the shore," say the Tuscans, and

1 Nl the contadino, who is fond of proverbs, often quotes this
bit of traditional wisdom when he finds that his wolf was only a
gray dog after all. Hamlet's cloud is not a camel; nor is an

onest workman a shiftless beggar buffoon. The laborer and
not the organ-grinder now represents the Italian in America;
but the popular idea mistakes the one for the other. Thanks to
the secluded ways of Italians, the actual facts of their life among
us are almost entirely unknown. In common with Mexicans and
Jews, they are pilloried by insulting nicknames. They are
charged with pauperism, crime, and degraded living, and they are
judged unheard and almost unseen. These short and sturdy
laborers, who swing along the streets with their heavy stride early
in the morning and late at night, deserve better of the country.
They are doing the work of men, and they are the full equals of
any national army of peasant adventurers that ever landed on

ur shores.

To brand an Italian immigrant with the word "alien" is to
curse him for being unlike ourselves. But when we know who
and what he is, and why he comes to the United States, and what
he becomes after he gets here, we recognize human kinship, and
see what we ourselves should be with different birth and breeding.
One serious misconception starts in a name. It is as misleading
to dub a nation " La tin" as "Anglo-Saxon." Italians differ from
one another almost as much as men can differ who are still of
the same color. Ethnography now makes its classifications
according to cranial formation. Most northern Italians are of
the Alpine race and have short, broad skulls. All southern
Italians are of the Mediterranean race and have long, narrow

1 From The Outlook, February 24, 1906.
141

142 CHARACTERISTICS

skulls. Between the two lies a broad strip of country, in northern
and central Italy, peopled by those of mixed blood. History has
a less theoretical story to tell, and explains the differences that
separate near neighbors, in the north as in the south. If a single
race ever inhabited Italy to form an original parent stock, it has
borne the grafts of so many other races that all sign of it is lost.
For prolonged periods sometimes one part of the land, sometimes
another, and sometimes the whole peninsula and the islands,
have been held in the power of Phcenicians, Greeks, the countless
wild hordes of the North, the Saracens, the Spanish, French,
and Germans. They all came in great numbers and freely married
with native women. In the northeast there is a Slav intermixture,
and a trace of the Mongol. In appearance the Italian may be
anything from a tow-headed Teuton to a swarthy Arab. Vary-
ing with the district from which he comes, in manner he may
be rough and boisterous; suave, fluent, and gesticulative ; or
grave and silent.

These differences extend to the very essentials of life. The
provinces of Italy are radically unlike, not only in dress, cookery,
and customs, but in character, thought, and speech. A distinct
change of dialect is often found in a morning's walk, and it would
probably be impossible to travel fifty miles along any road in
Italy without meeting greater differences in language than can
be found in our English anywhere between Maine and Cali-
fornia. The schools, the army, and the navy are now carrying
the Italian language to the remotest province, but an ignorant
Valtellinese, from the mountains of the north, and an ignorant
Neapolitan have as yet no means of understanding each other ;
and, what is more remarkable, the speech of the unschooled
peasant of Genoa is unintelligible to his fellow of Piedmont, who
lives less than one hundred miles away. A Genoese ship's captain
can understand his Sicilian sailors, when they are talking famil-
iarly among themselves, about as well as an English commander
of a "Peninsular and Oriental" liner can follow the jabbering of
his Lascar crew. Nor can ignorant men from some of the prov-
inces understand the pure Italian. Two classes were recently
held in the Episcopal Church of San Salvatore, in Broome Street,
New York, to teach Sicilians enough Italian to enable them to
use their prayer-book.

THE COMING OF THE ITALIAN 143

The age-long political division of Italy into a number of petty
States preserved all differences and inspired an intense local
patriotism ; nor did the narrow belfry spirit wholly vanish with
the political union of 1870. Relics of it are still found. Ask a
Roman peasant if he is an Italian, and he is as likely as not to
say "No," that he is a Roman; and so with a Genoese or a
Neapolitan. In dislike or indifference toward those from other
parts of the country, the Italian abroad usually seeks those of
his own city or province. In the same way, little circles of friends
are formed in the Italian army and navy. Question a group of
sailors on shore leave from an Italian man-of-war, and you will
probably find that, with perhaps a single exception, they are all
of one place. Ask them how this happens, and they may tell
you, as they have told me, laughing: "Friendship is for those
from the same fatherland"

These profound dissimilarities make sweeping generalities
about Italians impossible. Yet in one point every province is
alike. The poor everywhere are all crushed by heavy taxes for
maintenance of the large army and navy which make Italy a first-
class European power. More serious than the exactions of
the taxgatherer is the long-continued agricultural depression
that has reduced a large part of the south to poverty. Nor is
this all. The peasant's lot is made infinitely worse by an Irish
question that is the blight of nearly all southern Italy, Sicily, and
Sardinia. There are the same huge entailed estates and the
same lazy, reactionary, and absentee landlords. Throughout
large sections great tracts of fertile soil support only one shepherd
or one farmer per square mile. To these idle lands must be added
the vast stretches of barren mountains, and the malaria-infested
fifth of the entire surface of the peninsula. No new territory has
been added to the kingdom, while the population has been in-
creasing within twenty years from twenty-eight and one half
to thirty-two and one half millions — an average density for the
whole country of 301 per square mile. And the excess of births
over deaths amounts to nearly 350,000 a year — the population
of a province. Through whole districts in this overcrowded land
Italians have to choose between emigration and starvation.

A definite economic cause drives the poor Meridionale from his
home, and a definite economic cause and not a vague migratory

144 CHARACTERISTICS

instinct brings him to America. He comes because the country
has the most urgent need of unskilled labor. This need largely
shapes the character of our Italian immigration, and offers
immediate work to most of the newcomers. Almost eighty per
cent of them are males ; over eighty per cent are between the
ages of fourteen and forty-five ; over eighty per cent are from
the southern provinces, and nearly the same percentage are un-
skilled laborers, who include a large majority of the illiterates.
These categories overlap, so that the bulk of our Italian immi-
gration is composed of ignorant, able-bodied laborers from the
south. They come by the hundred thousand, yet their great
numbers are quickly absorbed without disturbing either the
public peace or the labor market. In spite of the enormous
immigration of Italians in 1903 and 1904, the last issue of the
United States Labor Bulletin shows that the average daily wage
of the laborer in the North Atlantic States — the " congested"
district at the very gates of Ellis Island — had increased within
the year from $1.33 to $1.39. And 1904 was not a particularly
prosperous year. Equally significant, in view of the unprec-
edented Italian immigration of the first six months of this year,
is the announcement in the last number of the Bulletin of the
New York State Department of Labor that the improvement
in the conditions of employment has been so marked, and "the
proportion of idle wage-earners has diminished so rapidly, that
the second quarter of 1905 surpasses that of 1902, the record
year."

The demand of the East for labor is first heard by the new
arrival who needs to look for work, and probably a majority of
Italian braccianti never go more than a hundred and fifty miles
away from New York. Immediate work and high wages, and not
a love for the tenement, create our "Little Italics." The great
enterprises in progress in and about the city, the subways,
tunnels, waterworks, railroad construction, as well as the
ordinary building operations, call for a vast army of laborers.
For new and remodeled tenements alone, authorized by the
Building Department between April and June, 1905, the esti-
mated cost was over $39,000,000. This gives one measure of the
demand. A labor leader has furnished another. At a recent
conference, arguing that restriction of immigration would benefit

THE COMING OF THE ITALIAN 145

American labor, he said that an authority in the building trade
had calculated that with immigration suspended, common labor
in New York would be receiving $3 within a year. He had not
calculated the paralysis that such a wage would inflict upon
industry.

Of all that come in response to our national invitation to the
worker, the educated Italian without a manual trade is the
Italian who most signally fails in America. He 'is seen idling
at the cheap restaurants everywhere in the Italian colonies. But
the illiterate laborer takes no chances. He usually has definite
knowledge of precisely where work is needed before he leaves
home. Fifteen thousand immigrants sometimes reach Ellis
Island in a single day. Yet each Italian must earn his living in
some way, and that at once, for he brings no more than eight or
ten dollars with him.

This same inborn conservatism that risks nothing makes of
southern Italians the most mobile supply of labor that this
country has ever known. Migratory laborers, who come here to
work during eight or nine months of the year, and return between
October and December, are a very large part of the annual immi-
gration. They form a stream of workers that ebbs and flows from
Italy to America in instant response to demand ; and yet the
significance of the movement has gone almost entirely unnoticed.
More than 98,000 Italians — laborers and others, but chiefly
laborers — went back to Italy in 1903. In 1904, owing to a
temporary lull in our prosperity and the general business un-
certainty during a Presidential campaign, the demand slackened.
The common laborer, who ordinarily pays a padrone fifty cents as
a fee for employment, was offering as high as five dollars for a
job in the summer of 1904. In the end, more than 134,000 Italians
returned to Italy within the year, and we were saved the problem
of an army of unemployed.

If the ignorant immigrant is a menace, the mobility of Italian
unskilled labor has conferred another blessing upon us, for it is
the very element that contains a large majority of the dreaded
illiterates. The whole number of them who enter the community
thus gives no indication of the number who are permanently
added to our population, and the yearly percentage of their
arrivals since 1901 has fallen from 59.1 per cent to 47 per cent,

I46 CHARACTERISTICS

and is likely to fall still lower. But there is something to be said
on behalf of the illiterates who remain among us. They are never
Anarchists; they are guiltless of the so-called "black hand"
letters. The individual bracciante is, in fact, rarely anything but
a gentle and often a rather dull drudge, who still has wit enough
to say that he knows he cannot be Caesar, and is very well content
to be plain Neapolitan Nicola. Knowledge is power, but an
education gives no certificate of character, and still less does
ability to read and write afford any test whatever either of
morals or of brains. A concrete instance gives a practical proof.
There are more than four times as many illiterates in the general
population of the United States as were found, according to the
last published report, among those arrested in Greater New York
between January i and March 31, 1905 : 44,014 persons were
arrested; of these, only 1175, or a little over 2.6 per cent, were
unable to read or write. The percentage of illiteracy for the
entire United States is 10.6 per cent, and for that of the native
whites alone 4.6 per cent.

The very success of American schools goes far in explaining
the mystery of our exorbitant demand for unskilled labor. In
proportion as they fulfill their mission they are depriving us of
the rough laborer. The boy who is forbidden by the New York
law to leave school until he is fourteen years old and has reached
the fifth grammar grade, later in life does not join a gang that
digs sewers and subways. Such laborers are recruited from the
illiterate, or nearly illiterate — those who have failed in the
beginning of the struggle in which brains count. For our future
supply of the lower grades of labor we must depend more and more
upon countries with a poorer school system than ours.

Lies have short legs, the Florentine tag has it, but the Ital-
ian is still accused of being a degenerate, a lazy fellow and
a pauper, half a criminal, a present danger, and a serious menace
to our civilization. If there is a substantial basis of truth in
these charges, it must appear very clearly in Greater New York,
which is now disputing Rome's place as the third largest Italian
city in the world. Moreover, New York contains nearly
two fifths of all the Italians in the United States, and in propor-
tion to its size it is the least prosperous Italian colony in the
country, and shelters a considerable part of our immigrant

THE COMING OF THE ITALIAN 147

failures — those who cannot fall into step with the march of
American life.

First, as to the paupers. The Italian inhabitants of New York
City number nearly 450,000 ; the Irish, somewhat over 300,000.
In males — the criminal sex — the Italians outnumber the Irish
about two to one. Yet by a visit to the great almshouse on
Blackwell's Island and an examination of the unpublished record
for 1904, I found that during that year 1564 Irish had been
admitted, and only 16 Italians. Mr. James Forbes, the chief
of the Mendicancy Department of the Charity Organization
Society, tells me that he has never seen or heard of an Italian
tramp. As for begging, between July i, 1904, and September 30,
1905, the Mendicancy Police took into custody 519 Irish and
only 92 Italians. Pauperism has a close relation with suicide,
and of such deaths during the year the record counts 89 Irish and
23 Italians. The Irish have always supplied much more -than
their share of our paupers ; but Irish brawn has contributed its
full part to the prosperity of the country ; and the comparatively
large proportion of Irish inmates in all our penal institutions
never justified the charge that the Irish are a criminal race, or
Irish immigration undesirable. That was the final answer to the
Know-Nothing argument !

Nor do court records show that Italians are the professional
criminals they are said to be. Take the city magistrates' reports
for the year ending December 31, 1901 — the latest date for
which all the necessary data are available. At that time, using
Dr. Laidlaw's estimate of additions by immigration to the
population of the city to May i, 1902, there were about 282,804
Irish and 200, 549 Italians in Greater New York. If the proportion
of the sexes remained unchanged from the taking of the census,
there were 117,599 Irish males, and 114,673 Italian. This near
equality of the criminal sex in the two nationalities makes possible
a rough measure of Italian criminality.

In these columns of crime the most striking fact in the Italian's
favor is a remarkable showing of sobriety. During the year,
7 281 "Irish were haled into court accused of "intoxication" and
" intoxication and disorderly conduct," while the Italians arrested
on the same charge numbered only 513. With the exception of
the Russian Jews, Italians are by far the most sober of all

i48 CHARACTERISTICS

nationalities in New York, including the native born. Next,
noticing only offenses committed with particular frequency, the
Italians again appear at a pronounced advantage in : Assaults
(misdemeanor), 284 Irish and 139 Italians; disorderly conduct,
3278 Irish and 1454 Italians; larceny (misdemeanor), 297
Irish and 174 Italians; vagrancy, ic^i^Irish and 80 Italians.
Insanity is here listed with crime, and there are 146 Irish commit-
ments to 35 Italian. Irish and Italians are nearly at an equality
in : Burglaries, 63 Irish and 57 Italians ; and larceny (felony), 122
Irish and 94 Italians. On the other hand, Italians show at the
worst in : Violation of corporation ordinance (chiefly peddling
without a license), 196 Irish and 1169 Italians; and assault
(felony), 75 Irish and 155 Italians. In homicides, quite contrary
to the popular impression, -the Italians are only charged with the
ratio exactly normal to their numbers after taking the average
per 100,000 for the whole city, while the Irish are accused of
nearly two and one half times their quota : Irish 50, Italians 14.
The report for 1903, the last published, after important changes
effected by almost two years of immigration, shows an unchanged
proportional variation : Irish 59, Italians 21.

The one serious crime to which Italians are prone more
than other men is an unpremeditated crime of violence . This is
mostly charged, and probably with entire justice, upon the
men of four provinces, and Girgenti in Sicily is particularly
specified. It is generally the outcome of quarrels among them-
selves, prompted by jealousy and suspected treachery. The
Sicilians' code of honor is an antiquated and repellent one, but
even his vendetta is less ruthless than the Kentucky moun-
taineer's. It stops at the grave. Judged in the mass, Italians
are peaceable, as they are law-abiding. The exceptions make up
the national criminal record ; and as there is a French or English
type of criminal, so there is a Sicilian type, who has succeeded
in impressing our imaginations with some fear and terror.

The Mafia is the expression of Sicilian criminality, and here,
as in Italy, the methods of the Sicilian criminal are the -same.
For some of his crimes he is more apt to have an accompilre
than most other criminals. But there is no sufficient reason for
believing that a Mafia, organized as it often is in Italy, a definite
society of the lawless, exists anywhere in this country. No one

THE COMING OF THE ITALIAN 149

who knows the different Italian colonies well will admit the
possibility of its existence. The authorities at police head-
quarters scout the idea. As with the Mafia, so with the Black
Hand. I went to Sergeant Petrosino, who is said to know every
important Italian criminal in New York. He disposed very
summarily of the bogey :

As far as they can be traced, threatening letters are generally a hoax ;
some of them are attempts at blackmail by inexperienced criminals,
who have had the idea suggested to them by reading about the Black
Hand in the sensational papers ; but the number of threatening letters
sent with the deliberate intention of using violence as a last resort to
extort money is ridiculously small.

It is important that two or three other truths about the
Italian should be known. Like all their immigrant predecessors,
Italians profess no special cult of soap and water; and here,
too, there are differences, for some Italians are cleaner than others.
Still, cleanliness is the rule and dirt the exception. The inspectors
of the New York Tenement-House Department report that the
tenements in the Italian quarters are in the best condition of
all, and that they are infinitely cleaner than those in the Jewish
and Irish districts. And the same with overcrowding. One of
New York's typical "Little Italics" is inhabited by 1075 Italian
families — so poor that only twenty-six of them pay over $19
monthly rent — and yet, when a complete canvass was made by
the Federation of Churches, the average allotment of space was
found to be one room to 1.7 persons. Like the Germans and Irish
of the fifties, our Italians are largely poor, ignorant peasants
when they come to us. But by the enforcement of the recent
law our present immigrants are greatly superior physically and
morally to those of the Know-No thing days. The difference in
criminal records is partly the proof of a better law. The worst
of the newer tenements are better than the best of the old kind,
and every surrounding is more sanitary. Better schools, rec-
reation piers, public baths, playgrounds, and new parks are
helping the Italian children of the tenements to develop into
healthy and useful men and women.

To understand our Italians we need to get close enough to them
to see that they are of the same human pasta — to use their word

1 50 CHARACTERISTICS

-as the rest of us. They need no defense but the truth. In
spite of the diverse character that all the provinces stamp upon
their children, our southern Italian immigrants still have many
qualities in common. Their peculiar defects and vices have been
exaggerated until the popular notion of the Italian represents
the truth in. about the same way that the London stage Yankee
hits off the average American. Besides, as the Italian Poor
Richard says, "It's a bad wool that can't be dyed," and our
Italians have their virtues, too, which should be better known.
Many of them are, it is true, ignorant, and clannish, and con-
servative. Their humility and lack of self-reliance are often
discouraging. Many think that a smooth and diplomatic false-
hood'is better than an uncivil truth, and, by a paradox, a liar
is not necessarily either a physical or a moral coward. No force
can make them give evidence against one another. Generally
they have little orderliness, small civic sense, and no instinctive
faith in the law. Some of them are hot-blooded and quick to
avenge an injury, but the very large majority are gentle, kindly,
and as mild-tempered as oxen. They are docile, patient, faithful.
They have great physical vigor, and are the hardest and best
laborers we have ever had, if we are to believe the universal
testimony of their employers. Many are well-mannered and
quick-witted; all are severely logical. As a class they are
emotional, imaginative, fond of music and art. They are honest,
saving, industrious, temperate, and so exceptionally moral that
two years ago the Secretary of the Italian Chamber of Commerce
in San Francisco was able to boast that the police of that city had
never yet found an Italian woman of evil character. Even in
New York (and I have my information from Mr. Forbes, of the
Charity Organization Society) Italian prostitution was entirely
unknown until by our corrupt police it was colonized as scien-
tifically as a culture of bacteria made by a biologist ; and to-day
it is less proportionately than that of any other nationality
within the limits of the greater city. More than 750,000 Italian
immigrants have come to us within the last four years, and during
that entire time only a single woman of them has been ordered
deported charged with prostitution.

So far from being a scum of Italy's paupers and criminals, our
Italian immigrants are the very flower of her peasantry. They

THE COMING OF THE ITALIAN 151

bring healthy bodies and a prodigious will to work. They have an
intense love for their fatherland, and a fondness for old customs :
and both are deepened by the hostility they meet and the gloom of
the tenements that they are forced to inhabit. The sunshine,
the simplicity, the happiness of the old outdoor ways are gone,
and often you will hear the words, "Non c'e piacere nella vita"
- there is no pleasure in life here. But yet they come, driven
from the land of starvation to a land of plenty. Each year about
one third of the great host of industrial recruits from Italy,
breaking up as it lands into little groups of twos and threes, and
invading the tenements almost unnoticed, settles in the different
colonies of New York. This is a mighty, silent influence for the
preservation of the Italian spirit and tradition.

But there are limits to the building of an Italian city on
American soil. New York tenement houses are not adapted to
life as it is organized in the hill villages of Italy, and a change has
come over every relation of life. The crowded living is strange and
depressing ; instead of work accompanied by song in orangeries
and vineyards, there is silent toil in the canons of a city street ;
instead of the splendid and expostulating carabiniere there is the
rough force of the New York policeman to represent authority.
There is the diminished importance of the church, and, in spite
of their set ways, there is different eating and drinking, sleep-
ing and waking. A different life breeds different habits, and dif-
ferent habits with American surroundings effect a radical change
in the man. It is difficult for the American to realize this.
He sees that the signs and posters of the colony are all in Ital-
ian; he hears the newsboys cry "Progresso," "Araldo," "Bolle-
tino" ; he hears peddlers shout out in their various dialects the
names of strange-looking vegetables and fish. The whole
district seems so Italianized and cut off from the general
American life that it might as well be one of the ancient walled
towns of the Apennines. He thinks that he is transported to
Italy, and moralizes over the " unchanging colony." But the
greenhorn from Fiumefreddo is in another world. Everything
is strange to him; and I have repeatedly heard Italians say
that for a long time after landing they could not distinguish
between an Italian who had been here four or five years and a
native American.

1 5 2 CHARACTERISTICS

Refractory thaugh the grown-up immigrant may often be to the
spirit of our Republic, the children almost immediately become
Americans. The boy takes no interest in "Mora," a guessing
match played with the fingers, or "Boccie," a kind of bowls —
his father's favorite games. Like any other American boy, he
plays marbles, "I spy the wolf," and, when there is no policeman
about, baseball. Little girls skip the rope to the calling of
"Pepper, salt, mustard, vinegar." The "Lunga Tela" is for-
gotten, and our equivalent, "London bridge is falling down,"
and "All around the mulberry-bush," sound through the streets
of the colony on summer evenings. You are struck with the deep
significance of such a sight if you walk on Mott Street, where
certainly more than half of the men and women who crowd every
block can speak no English at all, and see, as I have seen, a
full dozen of small girls, not more than five or six years old,
marching along, hand in hand, singing their kindergarten song,
"My little sister lost her shoe." Through these children the
common school is leavening the whole mass, and an old story is
being retold.

Like the Italians, the Irish and the Germans had to meet dis-
trust and abuse when they came to do the work of the rough
day-laborer. The terrors and excesses of Native Americanism and
Know-Nothingism came and went, but the prejudice remained.
Yet the Irish and Germans furnished good raw material for
citizenship, and quickly responded to American influences.
They dug cellars and carried bricks and mortar ; they sewered,
graded, and paved the streets and built the railroads. Then
slowly the number of skilled mechanics among them increased.
Many acquired a competence and took a position of some dignity
in the community, and Irish and Germans moved up a little in the
social scale. They were held in greater respect when, in the dark
days of the Civil War, we saw that they yielded to none in self-sac-
rificing devotion to the country. Thousands of Germans fought
for the Union besides those who served under Sigel. Thousands
of Irishmen died for the cause besides those of the "Old Sixty-
ninth." "Dutch" and "Mick" began to go out of fashion as
nicknames, and the seventies had not passed before it was often
said among the common people that mixed marriages between
Germans or Irish and natives were usually happy marriages.

THE COMING OF THE ITALIAN 153

From the very bottom, Italians are climbing up the same rungs
of the same social and industrial ladder. But it is still a secret that
they are being gradually turned into Americans ; and, for all its
evils, the city colony is a wonderful help in the process. The
close contact of American surroundings eventually destroys the
foreign life and spirit, and of this New York gives proof. Only
two poor fragments remain of the numerous important German
and Irish colonies that were flourishing in the city twenty-five
or thirty years ago; while the ancient settled Pennsylvania
Dutch, thanks to their isolation, are not yet fully merged in the
great citizen body. And so, in the city colony, Italians are
becoming Americans. Legions of them, who never intended to
remain here when they landed, have cast in their lot definitely
with us ; and those who have already become Americanized, but
no others, are beginning to intermarry with our people. The mass
of them are still laborers, toiling like ants in adding to the wealth
of the country ; but thousands are succeeding in many branches
of trade and manufacture. The names of Italians engaged in
business in the United States fill a special directory of over five
hundred pages. Their real estate holdings and bank deposits
aggregate enormous totals. Their second generation is already
crowding into all the professions, and we have Italian teachers,
dentists, architects, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and judges.

But more important than any material success is their loyalty
to the nation of their adoption. Yet with this goes an undying
love for their native land. There are many types of these new
citizens. I have in mind an Italian banker who will serve for one.
His Americanism is enthusiastic and breezily Western. He has
paid many visits to the land of his birth, and delights in its music,
art, and literature. He finds an almost sacred inspiration in the
glories of its history. Beginning in extreme poverty, by his own
unaided efforts he has secured education and wealth; by his
services to the city and State in which he lives he has won public
esteem. Perhaps no other Italian has achieved so brilliant a
success. But as a citizen he is no more typical or hopeful an
example of the Italian who becomes an American than Giovanni
Aloi, a street-sweeper of my acquaintance.

This honest spazzino of the white uniform sent a son to Cuba
in the Spanish War; boasts that he has not missed a vote in

1 54 CHARACTERISTICS

fifteen years ; in his humble way did valiant service in his political
club against the "boss" of New York during the last campaign.
And yet he declares that we have no meats or vegetables with
" the flavor or substance " of those in the old country ; reproaches
us severely for having "no place which is such a pleasure to see as
Naples," and swears by "Torqua-ato Ta-ass" as the greatest of
poets, though he only knows four lines of the Gerusalemme. Side
by side over the fireplace in his living room are two unframed
pictures tacked to the wall. Little paper flags of the two countries
are crossed over each. One is a chromo of Garibaldi in his red
shirt. The other is a newspaper supplement portrait of Lincoln.
A man like Giovanni Aloi, yearning for the home of his youth,
sometimes goes back to Italy, but he soon returns. Un-
consciously, in his very inmost being, he has become an American,
and the prophecy of Bayard Taylor's great ode is fulfilled.
Their tongue melts in ours. Their race unites to the strength of
ours. For many thousands of them their Italy now lies by the
western brine.

THE NEWER SLAVIC IMMIGRATION: SINCE 1880
EMILY GREENE BALCH

CHANGES IN COMPOSITION OF SLAVIC IMMIGRATION

WITH the coming of the eighties the original contingent of
Bohemians and Poles began to be overlaid by a much
larger volume of newcomers differing in various important re-
spects from the old. In the first place, the later Slavic immi-
grants were largely of nationalities previously little represented
in America. Since up to 1899 the American immigration data
are classified only by " country of last permanent residence"
and not by nationality, it is not possible to. get any precise
measure of this change in the make-up of the Slavic stream.

Neither can the beginning of the movement to America among
the newer immigrant nationalities — Slovaks and Ruthenians,
Slovenians and Croatians, Bulgarians, Serbians and Russians —
be dated in any hard and fast way.1 Apparently, as already
said, the impulse spread from the Poles in Germany eastward
to their brothers in Galicia in the latter part of the seventies,
and to the Poles in Russia somewhat later. The Slovaks began
to come in considerable numbers in the early eighties, and the
Ruthenians at about the same time.

These three nationalities converge in the eastern Carpathian
district, and more or less interpenetrate one another ; and
emigration to America having once started, it was natural
that so contagious a movement should spread through the whole
Carpathian group. Moreover, among all these peoples trade
is largely in the hands of the Jews, who are apt to have inter-
national affiliations, and it seems often to have happened that

1 Discussion of the origin and spread of the emigration movement among the
first four of these nationalities will be found in the appropriate chapters in Part I,
of " Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens " but for convenience it is resumed here as a whole.

155

1 56 CHARACTERISTICS

some enterprising Jew first among his fellow townspeople became
aware of the land of promise across the Atlantic, explored and
reported on it, and thus set the stream of immigration flowing.
The South Slavs began to come to America somewhat later.
Though individual Slovenians came very early, as already men-
tioned, it was not till about 1892 that the movement became
noticeably important among them. In the Croatian group, the
Dalmatians, sailors and wanderers, had sent now and then an
immigrant from very early times ; but it was not till toward the
middle of the nineties that Croatians, and especially Croatians
from the country back of the coast, began coming in numbers.
Serbians and Bulgarians are still more recent comers, numerous
only since 1902 or so, but growing rapidly. As to Russians, of
66,000 in the last eleven years (1899 to 1909 inclusive), over
nine tenths came after 1902 and over two thirds in the last three
years.

CAUSES AND INDUSTRIAL CHARACTER

The grounds of the earlier immigration may be said to have
been, roughly, the opportunity of acquiring farming land cheaply,
if not gratuitously, and in a less degree the desire for the greater
political and religious freedom promised by America. In the
course of time both these grounds lost their importance. As the
supply of desirable land to be had on easy terms diminished,
this incentive to immigration grew weaker, and lessening political
unrest in Western Europe allayed the other. On the other hand,
the great industrial development of the United States, following
after the Civil War, and especially after the hard times in the
seventies, meant a great increase in the demand for labor. The
Teutonic element of the older immigration, to which the Bohe-
mian was very similar, was not looking primarily for wage jobs,
but for independence, especially the independence of the farm
owner. The same was largely true of the British immigrants,
English, Welsh, and Scotch. Besides, neither belonged, in any
sense, to the class of cheap labor. The Irish alone were not
enough to supply the demand for "hands," and French-Cana-
dians, while an important element in New England, have not
been numerous elsewhere. Italians and Slavs, proving most
available, were consequently called in to meet the want.

THE NEWER SLAVIC IMMIGRATION 157

These newer groups of Slavic immigrants were mainly drawn
from more primitive districts than the earlier groups, districts
where the population was less in touch with Western Europe.
They generally came, not intending to take up farms and settle,
but hoping to earn money to send back to their homes, to which
they planned to return. To this end they sought the best-paid
work that they could find in mines, foundries, factories, and else-
where. A large proportion of both the old and the new comers
were peasants, that is, small independent farmers ; but among
the new, the proportion of men possessing trades was less, and
mere laborers were more numerous.

IMMIGRATION INDUCED BY EMPLOYERS

Historically, the American origin of the more recent immigra-
tion, so far as such a movement can have a specific origin, seems
to have been the desire of certain Pennsylvania anthracite mine
owners to replace the employes that they found hard to deal with,
and especially the Irish, with cheaper and more docile material.
Strikes were a frequent source of friction, the Molly Maguire
affair had caused great bitterness, and it was natural that
employers should be on the lookout for new sources of labor
supply. In a number of places these raw recruits of industry
seem to have been called in as the result of a strike, and there
probably were plenty of instances of sending agents abroad to
hire men or of otherwise inducing labor to immigrate either under
contract or with an equivalent understanding. These proceedings
were, of course, perfectly legal up to 1885, when the law for-
bidding the importation of labor under contract was passed.

One story is that the first comers were brought over for a
certain mine operator at Drifton, Pennsylvania, through an
"Austrian" foreman. I have never been able to verify the story
nor to date it. I was interested to run across a Slovak hatter
in Bartfield, Hungary, who emigrated about 1880, and told of
having gone "to Drifton, where there was an Austrian foreman,"
who, however, does not appear to have had anything to do with
his emigrating.1

1 Industrial Commission, Vol. XV (1901), page 32.

1 58 CHARACTERISTICS

Mr. Powderly, formerly Commissioner of Immigration, testified
before the Industrial Commission :

I believe in 1869, during a miners' strike which was then in prog-
ress, a man who was connected with one of the coal companies made
the statement that in order to defeat the men in their demands it
would be necessary to bring cheap labor from Europe, and shortly
after that, miners were noticed coming to the anthracite region in
large numbers from Italy, Hungary, Russia, and other far-off lands.

It will be seen that Mr. Powderly mentions a comparatively
early date at which the importation of workmen under contract
was in no way forbidden. But even then such a course, while
legal, would have been unpopular among workingmen, and prob-
ably always more or less sub rosa. This may be one reason why
it is very hard to get any definite information about these
matters ; but indeed, on both sides of the water, the doings of less
than a generation ago are surprisingly hard to ascertain.

INFLUX INTO THE ANTHRACITE FIELDS

In Pennsylvania the great early goal appears to have been, as
already indicated, the anthracite coal region of the eastern part
of the state. The Poles seem to have been the first to come, and
right on their heels came the Slovaks. An informant from Hazle-
ton, a district where they appeared quite early, gave me, in 1904,
the following account of their first arrival :

They began to come about twenty years ago; a few stray ones
came earlier. Nowadays not so many are coming, but at one time
they came in batches, shipped by the carload to the coal fields.
When they arrived they seemed perfectly aimless. It was hard for
them to make themselves understood, and they would be sent to a man
who kept a saloon on Wyoming street. They would land at the
depot, and at the beginning they would spend the first night on the
platform. I have quartered many in my stable on the hay. One
pulled out a prayer-book and read a prayer. They were mainly
Catholics, but some were Protestants, though we did not know that
till later. Sometimes they would go up into the brush and build a
fire and sleep, or if it was too cold, just sit there on the ground. As
soon as they had earned something, or if they had a little money, they
would go to the baker's or get meat of any cheap sort, regardless of

THE NEWER SLAVIC IMMIGRATION 159

its condition. Many were so poor that they came in old army suits,1
their belongings all in one big bundle. At first it was only men that
came.

MASSACHUSETTS FARMERS CALL IN POLES

An interesting account of the coming of the first Poles to the
Connecticut valley farms of Massachusetts tells how here, as in
Pennsylvania, the influx was in direct .response to a demand on
the part of employers : 2

It was about twenty years ago that the Poles were first brought to
the Connecticut Valley. In the particular section under consideration,
the farmers could not hire men and boys to work on their farms, or
girls and women to assist in the household work. The demand was
pressing. Charles Parsons of Northampton, who has since died, then
a pushing, aggressive farmer, conceived the idea of going to New York
and Castle Garden and there securing enough of the strong and sturdy
immigrants to meet the demand for farm and domestic labor.

The business grew rapidly. Mr. Parsons made weekly trips.
Agents at New York told the incoming immigrants as pleasing stories
as was necessary to make the Pole see the Connecticut Valley farms
as the promised land. Being new and green to America, the Pole at
first paid the highest price, and was given the small end of the bargain.
The agent in New York had to have a fee for his trouble. Mr. Parsons
had to advance the money to bring the Pole to the farm, and, of course,
he had to have a profit also. This meant, as a rule, that the immigrant
was practically mortgaged for $10 when he commenced work. It
was, of course, to be taken out of the wages to be paid him for his
labor. The contract was not particularly bad for either the farmer
or laborer. The men came first, and were followed by women and
children. How many Mr. Parsons took from New York cannot be
stated. The number must have been in the thousands.

Next Francis Clapp of South Deerfield took up the business.
Mr. Clapp is one of the substantial farmers of the Mill River
district in South Deerfield. He tells his story in this way :

I began with the Poles in 1889. I continued it for six years and then
it was no longer profitable. The Poles had learned by this time to

1 Some of the peasant costumes might easily be mistaken for some sort of uni-
form.

2 Boston Daily Globe, June 29, 1902.

160 CHARACTERISTICS

find their own places. In many cases their relatives, who had been
working in this country for several years, sent for their friends.
They secured places for them. During the six years I secured places
for more than three thousand. I sent them to places in each of the six
New England states, men and women, boys and girls. I treated them
well. I found many of them suspicious, but they were " square" as a
rule. The yarns told them by some of the New York agents and by
others who desired to make money out of them, at times caused
trouble. One day I brought eighteen to South Deerfield. The New
York agent had told them that they had friends in the vicinity. Of
course I knew nothing of this. I did not have an interpreter, and we
could not talk. They realized they had been deceived, and they
determined to go back to New York. I succeeded in keeping only
three. The other fifteen walked back to New York. They were
entirely without money. They were frightened, and went in a drove.

I had a license from the town to transact the business. I secured
a girl as an interpreter who spoke seven different dialects. She could
also do as much work in the house as any girl we ever had. She went
back to New York after a time, married, and went to work in a cigar
factory. While they were waiting for places if such happened to be
the case or for other reasons they were quartered at my farm.

They seem, when they first come, to be entirely without nerves.
They sleep well under all conditions. Their appetites are enormous.
Of course they are given only coarse food. I have known the men to
eat from ten to fifteen potatoes at a meal, together with meat and
bread. They are very rarely sick.

They make good citizens. Almost without exception they are
Roman Catholics, and faithful to their obligations. They are willing
to pay the price to succeed. That price is to work hard and save.
They do not keep their money about them. They place it in the
savings banks. When I first went to New York to get them it cost
the farmer nothing. The Pole had to pay the fee for the New York
agent, the money which I advanced to pay his fare, and other expenses,
and the profit I made. Then, as they grew to know the custom better,
the Pole paid half and the farmer half. Now the farmer has to pay
the whole when the men come from a distance.

As a rule, the men are hired for a season of eight months, the
time of outdoor work on the farms. At first the contracts, on an
average, were about $80 for the eight months. The Poles were given
little money, only as they needed it. They had to work off the mort-
gage of $10 which they had contracted. They really needed little
money. They were fed and lodged, and, as a rule, they had sufficient

THE NEWER SLAVIC IMMIGRATION 161

clothing, for they had little occasion to dress finely. There was a
chance, too, that if they had money they might leave the former with-
out help, and so the settlement came at the end of the contract period.

Roman Skibisky is a young Pole who is quite a daring speculator
as well as farmer. He lives in what was formerly one of the fine old
mansions on the broad main street of Sunderland. For several years
he has been plunging more or less in onions. Last fall he made his
heaviest strike. All told, he purchased about 6500 bushels of onions.
They cost him on an average less than forty cents a bushel. He kept
them until this spring and sold them at an average of $1.10 a bushel.

Taking out the cost of cold storage and insurance he netted more
than $4000 on an investment of about $2600. At one time he could
have sold his entire holdings at $1.25 a bushel. His success has not
given him a big head. He works barefooted in the field this season
just as though he had not made a rich strike. When Mrs. Skibisky
was asked what she likes in this country she replied, "Me happy
here." They have three children.

" FIRST COMERS"

Just as in emigration districts in Europe one hears of more
than one " first man to go to America," so on this side there
doubtless have been many "first comers." Sporadic and exper-
imental trials of the land of the dollar, both induced and sponta-
neous, have opened new fields to immigrants. As a spider
throws his first thin thread across, and, his anchorage secured,
gradually thickens and confirms it, so each immigrant who gets
an economic foothold strengthens the bridge between the coun-
tries and draws others over. Thus among the Slavs the streams
of immigration, once set flowing, have made paths for them-
selves, and constantly increased in volume. As one labor market
becomes supplied, new openings are sought and found.

DISTRIBUTION DETERMINED BY DEMAND FOR LABOR

The character of the later Slavic influx naturally produced
a territorial distribution quite different from that of the older
- movement. The new immigrants, guided in the main by the
chances of good wages rather than of cheap land, rapidly found
their way to the points where there was a demand for their
undaunted though unskilled labor. Once within the country, no

162 CHARACTERISTICS

contract labor law impeded the employers' agents, and men were
drafted off to different places according as hands were needed
in mine, coke oven, rolling mill, lumber camp, or, less typically,
factory. Consequently, while the immigrants of the preceding
period had mainly gone to the farming country lying north and
west of Chicago, these later comers, answering primarily the
call for labor in mines and related industries, found their center
of gravity in Pennsylvania, and spread thence through the
industrial districts, especially the industrial districts of the
middle West, and above all to the various mining and metal-
working centers throughout the country.

FARMING

But though during this period agricultural settlement1 has
been overshadowed, it has by no means been lacking, especially
among the Bohemians and the Poles. It has taken place mainly
in the group of states west of the Great Lakes ; but in the Connect-
icut Valley, and elsewhere in the East, the number of
"Polanders" who have bought land is also considerable. I have
been surprised to see in a Bohemian paper in New York the space
devoted to advertisement of Connecticut and other farms.

CITY COLONIES

This period has also seen the formation of large urban colonies
of different nationalities, in various cities large and small,
colonies which often have very curious and interesting distinctive
features.2 Such a movement as this later Slavic immigration is,

1 Cf. Chapter XV of " Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens " for a discussion of this
phase of settlement.

2Cf., for the Bohemians of Chicago, Mrs. Humpal-Zeman's account in "Hull
House Maps and Papers," and Dr. Alice Masaryk's article, "The Bohemians in
Chicago," in Charities, Vol. XIII, pages 206-210 (December 3, 1904). On Bohe-
mians in New York see Dr. Jane E. Robbins, "The Bohemian Women in New
York," ibid , pages 194-196. In the same issue of Charities Miss Laura B. Garret
has "Notes on the Poles in Baltimore," and Miss Sayles an article on "Housing
and Social Conditions in a Slavic Neighborhood," which deals with Jersey City.
Another study of conditions among the Slavs of Jersey City by Miss E. T. White has
been published by Whittier House. Of these various accounts those by the two
Bohemian women first mentioned are much the most valuable to those who are
seeking true understanding of the life of such a group as is there studied.

THE NEWER SLAVIC IMMIGRATION

163

however, hard to deal with historically. It has little coherent
history, and what it has is still too much in the making to be
easily studied or presented. . . .

NUMERICAL INCREASE CENSUS DATA

NATIVES OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY, BOHEMIA, POLAND, AND RUSSIA, 1880,
1890, AND 1900. [UNITED STATES CENSUS]

NATIVES OF

1880

1890

1900

Austria
Bohemia

Hungary

38,663
85,361

I I ^26

123,271
118,106
62 A.1Z

275,907
156,891
I4C 714.

Poland

48 Z<7

14.7 4.4.O

•28? 4.O7

Russia

35,722

182,644

423,726

Total

210 82Q

622 806

i 18$ 64.$

Total per cent of foreign born

32

6 8

I -2 A

The period since 1880 has seen not only changes in the racial
and economic character of the Slavs coming to the United States
but a vast increase in their numbers. A rough indication of this
is the large share of the foreign-born population that comes to
be made up of natives of Austria-Hungary (including Bohemia),
Poland, and Russia. As shown in the Table above, in 1880
they were 3.2 per cent of the total foreign-born ; in 1890, 6.8 per
cent ; in 1900, 13.4 per cent. In absolute numbers they increased
in the twenty years over sixfold, from something over 200,000 to
nearly 1,400,000.

If we consider, not population as shown by the census, but the
count of arriving immigrants, the increase is even more striking.
In the last decade of our previous period, 1871-1880, Austria-
Hungary and Russia1 sent us 4.5 per cent of all immigrants ; in
the decade 1900-1909 they sent 'almost 43 per cent.

1 Austria- Hungary presumably includes Bohemia and Austrian Poland (Galicia) ;
Russia includes Russian Poland. That is, all Poland except German Poland is
included. It must of course be remembered that these groups of immigrants are
very mixed racially.

164 CHARACTERISTICS

IMMIGRATION STATISTICS

Up to 1899 the best material that we have consists of the
figures, supplied by the immigration authorities, as to the
countries from which immigration is drawn. After that year
the immigration figures are also classified according to "races
and peoples" l and these not only give us direct information,
but throw light on the racial significance of the figures for the
different geographical contingents, which are all that we have
to go by for the years before 1899. We find that during the
decade 1899-1908, the immigration from Austria-Hungary was
six tenths Slavic. Since there is no reason to think that this
proportion would be less in earlier years, and since for the same
decade 69 per cent of all Slavic immigrants came to us from Aus-
tria-Hungary (and for earlier periods this proportion would
doubtless be still larger), the Austro-Hungarian contribution to
our immigration may be taken as a rough index of the incoming
Slavs. . . .

The year 1880, which we have taken as our landmark, shows
a sudden rise, the numbers of that year being almost three times
those of the preceding. From this time onward there is an in-
crease, which is, however, sharply checked in 1893 by the de-
pression then beginning. It was not till 1900 that the numbers
reacted from this to their level of 1892. The culminating point
up to date was reached in 1907, after which the recent panic
again lessened the influx, and started a new period of decline,
though a brief one, since the figures for 1909 indicated a re-
covery from 168,509 to 1 70, 1 9 1.2

CLASSIFICATION BY "RACES AND PEOPLE"

The change spoken of above by which the immigration data are
presented by racial and national groups instead of by country
of last permanent residence only, is a great boon to the student
of this subject. The classification was made by one of our best

1 For a criticism of this classification, see below, "Our Slavic Fellow-Citizens,"
page 247.

2 The years are not calendar but fiscal years ending June 30, so that e.g. 1907
means July i, 1906, to June 30, 1907.

THE NEWER SLAVIC IMMIGRATION 165

known ethnologists, the late Professor Otis T. Mason, but it is
probably impossible to make one that shall be at once practical
and quite logical. This one is open to several minor objections.
Distinct nationalities like Croatians and Slovenians, Bulgarians
and Serbians, are lumped together, and at the same time special
place is given to a group which is merely a territorial division ;
namely, Dalmatians, Bosnians, and Herzegovinians (who are
Servo-Croatians) .

It is hard, however, to explain or excuse, the practice of the
immigration authorities of including Hebrews in the Slavic
group, as was done, for instance, on page 21 of the 1906 report
of the Commissioner General of Immigration. In the same report
the Lithuanians and Rumanians are also included as Slavic, but
this is less objectionable as these peoples, although they never
count themselves as Slavs nor are so counted by others, and
although they speak non-Slavic languages, probably have much
Slavic intermixture, and considerably resemble, in culture and
habits, the neighboring Slavic peoples. The same might be
said of the Magyars, despite their Mongolian type of speech.

The Jew, on the contrary, even the Polish or Russian Jew, is
not only remote in blood and speech from all Slavs, but moves in
another world of ideas and purposes, and plays a very different
economic part both in Europe and America. To put him into
one class with Slavic immigrants in a table of racial divisions
can only create confusion.1

The years 1899 and 1908 are the earliest and latest for which
full information as to immigrants by races is available. In
these ten years the country admitted over one and a half mil-
lion Slavs, many of whom, however, had been here before or have
since returned. It is not uncommon for a Slovak to have made
the trip to America eight times, in which case he appears in our
figures as eight immigrants.

1 For a further consideration of this subject, see Boeckh : " The Determination
of Racial Stock among American Immigrants." Quarterly Publications, Ameri-
can Statistical Association, Vol. X, pp. 199-221 (December, 1906).

166 CHARACTERISTICS

IMMIGRATION BY COUNTRIES AND PEOPLES

Statistics show that for the period between the years 1899 and
1908, .69 in 100 of Slavic arrivals came, as already said, from
Austria-Hungary, 25 per cent more from Russia, 2 per cent each
from Germany and the territory Bulgaria-Servia-Montenegro,1
per cent from Turkey, and only i per cent from all other coun-
tries combined.

The immigration from Bulgaria, Servia, and Montenegro is
almost wholly Slavic (96 per cent), that from Austria nearly
two thirds such (61 per cent), while the streams from Russia and
Turkey are not far from one third Slavic, and that from Germany
is one tenth Slavic.

Our previous study of conditions in Europe, combined with
the American figures, indicates that we have received during the
decade 1899-1908 the following groups from the countries
named:

I. From Austria-Hungary :

Bohemians (Chekhs) from Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia

(83,698).

Poles from Galicia (about 335,651).
Slovaks from northern Hungary (about 320,047).
Ruthenians from Galicia and northeastern Hungary (about

102,036).
Slovenians from the Austrian province of Carniola and adjacent

parts (number unknown).1
Croatians from Croatia-Slavonia, Istria, Dalmatia, Bosnia and

Herzegovina, and southern Hungary (number unknown).1
Serbians from the same territory (certainly less than 28,677).

II. From outside Austria-Hungary :

The largest of the three Polish contingents, that from Russia

(369>973)-

The smallest of the three Polish contingents, that from Germany
(32,388).

Russians proper, from Russia (53,454), only between three and
four per cent of the total of almost a million and a half immi-
grants that Russia has sent us in the decade.

THE NEWER SLAVIC IMMIGRATION 167

Serbians (beside those from Austria-Hungary) from Serbia, Mon-
tenegro, Bulgaria (?), and Turkey (?) (number unknown).1
Montenegrins are Serbians from Montenegro.

And lastly, Bulgarians from Bulgaria and Turkey, which latter,
I suppose, here means Macedonia (number unknown).

A large part of the Slavic immigrants that come from outside
the five main fields ((i) Austria-Hungary, (2) Russia, (3) Ger-
many, (4) Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro, and (5) Turkey in
Europe) are those who give their last permanent residence as
British North America or the United States. The latter rubric
was, however, provided only in the 1906 tables, in which it occu-
pies a large space (1059 Poles, for instance, gave the United
States as their last country of permanent residence).

RACIAL GROUPS

Turning now to the consideration of the separate national
streams, it has been noted that the great numerical predomi-
nance is with the Poles, who make up 44 per cent of the Slav
total for the decade. The little people of the Slovaks make the
second group, with almost one fifth of the whole. Third comes
the mixed group of Croatians and Slovenians, which the data
do not allow us to separate, and which together make over 16
per cent. The other groups are all much smaller. The Bohe-
mians, who were the most important group of Slavic immigrants
in the earlier years, and even in 1880 were not far from twice as
numerous in the country as natives of Poland, sank during this
period to one twentieth of the whole; that is, to less than the
little group of the Ruthenians and to scarcely more than those
newcomers, the Serbians and Bulgarians.

Even within the period the emphasis has been shifting. Within
the Slavic group, as in European immigration in general, the
spread of the movement has trended south and east. Taking
1907, the year of the high tide of immigration, and comparing

1 Unfortunately the immigration data are so grouped as to make it impossible
to distinguish Croatians and Slovenians from one another, or Bulgarians and
Serbians from one another, though these are all separate nationalities with distinct
languages.

1 68 CHARACTERISTICS

this with 1899, we see that the different groups have increased at
very different rates. The Bulgarian-Serbian group rose from
under 100 to 27,000 or to two hundred and ninety-one times as
many. The related group from Dalmatia and Bosnia increased
twentyfold; the Ruthenians, starting with 1400, rose to over
24,000, multiplying more than seven times; the Russians in-
creased their numbers nearly ten times. The older immigration
groups also increased, though at a less rate; Bohemians and
Poles and the Croatian-Slovenian group all about fivefold, while
the Slovaks increased less than threefold, and reached their
maximum in 1905.

"ALIEN DEPARTURES" AND NET INFLOW

We must, however, be on guard in using any immigration totals
not to overlook the fact that they represent gross, not net,
arrivals. We must allow for the numbers of immigrants returning
from the United States. In the appendix to the report of the
Commissioner General of Immigration for 1908, an estimate is
attempted of "Alien departures/' with the result that the ac-
cepted immigration figures should be reduced as follows :

1899 by 41 per cent 1904 by 37 per cent

1900 by 31 per cent 1905 by 34 per cent

1901 by 28 per cent 1906 by 26 per cent

1902 by 21 per cent 1907 by 22 per cent

1903 by 21 per cent 1908 by 73 per cent

That is, while the total immigration for 1908 was 782,870,
the real, net immigration was only 209,867, or not far above
a quarter as much, — and for this one year the figures are not
estimated but actual. What then are we to suppose in regard
to the Slavic immigration? What proportion of their total of
nearly 1,700,000 during the decade 1899-1908 represents a net
addition to our numbers ? We may get a side light on this by
studying the successive immigration reports, which give the
number of immigrants of each nationality who have been in
the country previously. Statistics present percentages for two
years (for 1906 and^ for purposes of comparison, for 1900),
and I find to my own surprise that the English, Irish, and

THE NEWER SLAVIC IMMIGRATION 169

Scotch have the largest proportion and thus appear to come
and go the most, and that the Scandinavians and Germans also
stand high. The Slovaks have nearly as high a rate of those
returning as the Irish, in both years ; other Slavs have smaller
proportions. Jews, as one might expect, come to stay, and go
back and forth less than any other class noted.

From these figures we see that while the Slavs, except the
Slovaks, are (if the data are correct) less migratory than the
average, there is still a large deduction to be made for those
entering the country more than once, and in addition to this,
for the large though hitherto unknown number who leave and do
not return.

Another indication of the discrepancy between immigration
totals and net additions to the population is given by a comparison
of the figures for immigration with the United States census.
Foreign countries sent us, in the decade 1891-1900, 3,687,564
immigrants. The census of 1900, however, shows a gain of
foreign born since 1890 of less than a third as many (1,091,729).
Part of this difference, but not by any means all of it, is accounted
for by deaths among our foreign-born population.

C. EMIGRATION FROM ASIA

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION1
H. A. MILLIS, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS, UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

THE one thing really settled is that there shall not be a free
flow of laborers from such a high pressure country as Japan
to the low pressure United States for the mere pecuniary gain
of those who come. No country can afford indefinitely to
provide the opportunity for draining off an excess of population
found elsewhere — the diminished numbers to be quickly re-
placed by a high birth rate. There are few in the United States
who will question the wisdom of the principle of restriction rather
vigorously applied and most of the Japanese people freely con-
cede it. Japan has for some time been acting upon that prin-
ciple in restricting emigration directly or indirectly, that is, by
way of Mexico and Canada, to the United States. She has ap-
plied it also in dealing with Chinese laborers who came to her
own shores.

With reference to this matter I wish not to be misunderstood.
Until conditions materially change, vigorous restriction of the
free movement of laborers from Japan must be taken for granted.
It must not be taken for granted, however, because of any alleged
inferiority of the Japanese race, for it is not an inferior one.
Nor must it be taken for granted because of dependency, disorder,
ignorance, or undesirability attaching possibly to some indi-
viduals, for there has been no problem of any moment connected
with any of these. Nor, again, must it be taken for granted
because of gambling or related evils found in some places, for
the communities in which such evils have arisen are chiefly to
blame for them. Nevertheless, in a practical world restrictions
must be taken for granted, because of evils for which no one

1 Printed by The American Sociological Society and The Committee of One
Hundred, Federal Council of Churches in America, August, 1915.

170

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 171

in particular was to blame, but connected with the earlier influx
and perhaps inherent in a comparatively free movement of immi-
grants from Eastern Asia to such a country as the United States.

One of the evils experienced and which is indissolubly con-
nected with any considerable immigration of Asiatic laborers
is the conflict of economic standards. We have witnessed it
in industry when employment was taken by the Asiatics as
section hands and shop and mill laborers at lower wages than
others were paid. Seldom, it is true, was the underbidding
through the acceptance of lower wages great. The primary
reason for the difference of only about twenty or twenty-five
cents per day in wages was that the slightly lower sum was
sufficient to absorb the numbers available. The wages accepted
in Hawaii and elsewhere would indicate that the rates accepted
here might have been lower if need be to be effective in securing
employment. But when the immigration was greatest, industry
was expanding, there was a shortage of labor at the wages then
current, and the contractors, working in connection with board-
ing-houses and other sources of supply, could place their Japanese
laborers at the slight discount indicated. Yet that the immi-
gration of Japanese laborers and the organized search for employ-
ment previous to 1908 was accompanied by effective under-
bidding is an established fact. In spite of the expanding industry,
a check was placed upon the increase in wages and improvement
in labor conditions. That organized labor was the first to pro-
test against the competition was only to be expected, for organized
labor stands for the maintenance and improvement of standards.
Laborers without organization, also to the best of their lim-
ited ability, stood opposed to any impairment of their working
conditions.

But the Japanese laborers were employed much more exten-
sively in agriculture than in industrial pursuits such as those
just mentioned. They accepted the places vacated by the aging
and disappearing Chinese, maintained the old Asiatic labor econ-
omy, and extended it to new branches of agriculture as they
developed in California and to the sugar industry as it gained
an important place in several of the western states. They found
employment chiefly as migratory hand laborers in the growing
of intensive crops, where much of the work is of the stoop-over

172 CHARACTERISTICS

variety and unattractive to white men. They easily found
place in such occupations because they were organized by and
easily secured through bosses, were easily shifted from place to
place as needed, were easily housed and self-subsisting, and,
to begin with, always accepted lower wages than white men,
whether paid by the day or by the job. They, of course, by
reason of their availability, cheapness, and fair efficiency, had
not a little to do with the rapid advance of branches of agriculture
of an intensive type and of farming communities where the supply
of labor was not at all commensurate with the needs of the highly
specialized operations most profitable if labor was readily avail-
able on favorable terms. Indeed by Asiatic labor not a few of
the out-of-the-way places were brought to that state of develop-
ment where they could be settled by others. In other words,
their labor was to a considerable extent supplementary to that
of others. Moreover, it must be admitted that their presence
made more employment for laborers in some occupations in
which they did not themselves compete for work. Yet it is true
that there was considerable displacement of other laborers be-
cause of the easy terms on which the Japanese could be obtained.
The disappearance of the Chinese was hastened by their compe-
tition, and in some instances white laborers as well were dis-
placed. The Japanese were effective competitors and generally
underbid for work. Moreover, others tended to withdraw as
certain agricultural occupations became tainted. My investi-
gations have led me to the conclusion that the economic effects
of the employment of the Japanese in agricultural work were
(i) to promote certain kinds of farming and to hasten the develop-
ment of the natural resources, (2) to cause an advance in land
values, (3) to retard the subdivision of large holdings and to
maintain a certain amount of capitalistic agriculture, (4) to retard
the advance in wages of unskilled laborers and to extend the old
labor economy, and (5) to give the Japanese a pivotal place in
the labor supply, especially in many California communities.
As this pivotal place was secured less room was left for the em-
ployment of others in certain occupations and they sought work
elsewhere.

Most of the Japanese who came to us brought only their hands
and sought to better their economic condition as laborers in some

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 173

of the lower and more distasteful walks of life. With time,
however, a relatively large number became shopkeepers or
tenant or landowning farmers. Few races have made the transi-
tion as quickly as the Japanese, and in their shopkeeping and
farming, differences in standards corresponding to those in wage-
employment became evident.

The number of Japanese farmers, most of them tenant, in the
West in 1909, was perhaps not far from 6000. Many of their
4000 holdings were not farms, but small plots, so that the com-
bined acreage held by them was perhaps approximately 200,000,
about three quarters of it in California. Though this acreage
seems to be of little consequence where millions of acres sparsely
settled are found in the West, it had perhaps tripled in five years,
and the details connected with the rapid progress thus shown
were significant of what might be expected to happen were
large numbers admitted to the country, and gave rise to fear
for the future — especially in those localities in which most of
them found place. More recently they have continued to make
substantial progress as farmers. It is my opinion that with a
large immigration of Asiatics, and especially of Japanese, much
of the land would rapidly come into their possession and impor-
tant changes in the composition and life of agricultural communi-
ties settled in would occur. With an immigration problem, an
important land problem would inevitably develop. The reasons
for this conclusion may be briefly presented.

Numerous things have combined to place a premium on shop-
keeping or farming by the versatile and efficient Japanese. The
Japanese are ambitious, and the immigrants of every ambitious
race tend strongly to rise in the adopted country to the position
they occupied in their native land. This is especially true of the
Japanese, who find the wage relation distasteful. With them to
be a wage earner is to show inferiority; to be economically
independent shows merit. Again, their advance as employees
to the higher occupations has been made difficult, and this has
virtually forced many to leave the wage-earning class in order
to advance at all. Most of them have been employed in gangs
and limited to work done by gangs. A third important factor
is found in the fact that they are a home-loving people and wish
to have their families with them. Ordinarily this has been

1 74 CHARACTERISTICS

difficult unless they become shopkeepers or farmers. If laborers,
they were expected to be rolling stones, and to live under such
conditions as to make a desirable family life impossible.

Again, because of the great respect attaching to agriculture
in Japan and the highly developed agricultural arts there found,
in so far as labor and scientific application are concerned, the
Japanese have been the more eager to obtain possession of farms.
But most important of all has been the place they have occupied
in the agricultural labor supply, especially in California.

It is a general fact that the land tends to fall into the posses-
sion of the race employed as laborers, if the race is a capable
one. It has been only a slight change from the employment of
Japanese laborers under a "boss" to share tenancy where the
landowner provided most of the equipment, did the work with
teams, advanced the wages of the employees, managed the
business in all of its details, sold the produce and collected the
selling price, and then shared this with the tenant after all bills
were paid. Cash tenancy, with liberal advances and the rent
collected out of the receipts from crops sold, differs little except
that more of the risk is taken by the tenant. To the landowner,
however, either arrangement has had the distinct advantage
of interesting the "boss" and obtaining with a greater degree
of certainty his cooperation in securing laborers as needed and
in supervising them at work. Most of the tenant farming by
Japanese in the growing of grapes and deciduous fruit in Cali-
fornia and in growing sugar beets everywhere has grown out
of the fact that the Japanese worked under a "boss" and occu-
pied a dominant place in the labor supply required for taking
care of the crop. As some landowners leased their holdings and
secured an advantage in the labor market, there was the more
reason for others to do so.

Again, the Japanese, like the Chinese before them, have had
an advantage over other races, as competitors for land, in Cali-
fornia especially, because they could be easily and cheaply pro-
vided with shelter. If not the bunkhouse, then a corresponding
shelter would suffice ; and if a new structure was required, it was
frequently built by the tenant with the privilege of removing
it upon the expiration of the lease. The landowner and his family,
if they desired, as in most cases they have, could occupy the farm

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 175

residence and reserve such part of the farm as was desired. The
members of no white race could be had as tenants unless the
family residence was let with the land ; or cottages, superior to
those which have generally been provided, were erected at the
landowner's expense for their use. With respect to the kind of
housing required, the Asiatics have competed with others for
the possession of land on the basis of a lower standard. It has
been an important factor in explaining the advance of the
Japanese as tenant farmers.

The Japanese, like the Chinese before them and now, have
been willing to pay higher rents than others for land — such
high rents in fact that the owner has frequently found it more
profitable to lease his land than to farm it on his own account.
That the Japanese and Chinese can afford to pay a relatively
high rent is explained in part by the fact that their efficiency
and the kinds of crops grown by them will bear it ; in part by
the fact that they have a different standard of application;
and in part by the fact that the income in prospect from farming
need not be so large as that expected by most other farmers.

The Asiatic farmer expects to work hard and for long hours ;
the Japanese is usually assisted in garden or field by his wife,
if he has one ; the opportunities for employment other than as an
unskilled laborer have been limited, and as a result of careful
and efficient growing of intensive crops his return per acre is
ordinarily a large one. But whatever the reason or reasons, the
most nearly universal fact in the West has been that the Asiatics,
with the possible exception of German Russians in Colorado,
have been the highest bidders for land. This fact is undisputed.
In some localities the sums paid have been ruinously large, so
that an organized effort has now and then been made by the
Japanese organizations to limit the amount paid. It is equally
true that they have paid correspondingly high prices for the
comparatively small amount of farm land purchased.

Another factor of some importance in explaining the progress
of Japanese as farmers is the ease with which they, like the
Chinese and the Italians, form partnerships to carry on their en-
terprises. Of still more importance has been the aid extended by
commission men and others interested in the marketing of the
crops. Liberal advances have been made on crops in order to

1 76 CHARACTERISTICS

control the marketing of them. Fruit shippers have frequently
served as middlemen in the leasing of land, and here and there
have leased land themselves and then sublet it to Asiatics in
order to control the marketing of the crops.

And, finally, one not unimportant fact entering into the situa-
tion has been the reclamation and reduction of raw land by the
Japanese tenants. Numerous instances are found in Washing-
ton and Oregon and along the Sacramento River here in Cali-
fornia. It should be stated, however, that, for the most part,
the lands acquired by the tenants have been those improved
by others, though when acquired they were perhaps devoted to
a more intensive purpose.

Thus, numerous factors have cooperated to explain the rapid
progress of farming by the Japanese. In passing, some of the
community effects should be noted, for they are of importance.

Japanese farming has been accompanied by a tendency
toward a rise in land values and the keeping of large holdings
intact as profitable investments. It has placed a slight premium
on absentee-landlordism, and, though it is not true that the earlier
elements in the farming population have been driven out of any
community in California, and though it is true that Americans
have continued to move into localities where the largest per-
centage of Asiatics were settled, it has tended to deflect the tide
of settlers moving west to other localities. Moreover, in a few
cases the acreage of certain crops has been greatly increased by
the Japanese farmers until prices have broken and others have
tended to withdraw from their production.

In this way the thesis is maintained that with a large immi-
gration of Japanese laborers, a land problem would develop.
The comparatively small influx of earlier years has in fact resulted
in one third of the land about Florin, one half of the orchards
in the Vaca valley, a still larger percentage of the orchards about
Newcastle, and most of the farms above Sacramento along the
American River coming into their hands and important commu-
nity effects have been witnessed. The situation in several other
localities differs from that in those mentioned only in degree.

The progress of the Japanese as shopkeepers has also been
rapid, especially since 1904. By 1909 they were conducting some
four thousand business establishments in the West, these giving

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 177

employment to approximately one sixth of those gainfully
occupied. At present, perhaps one fifth of the Japanese in the
West are so engaged, as principals or as their employees.

As branches of business, contracting and the supply house
came early, of course. So did the boarding house, the barber
shop, the restaurant, and the places of amusement, for the mem-
bers of this race were usually discriminated against by others
and it was necessary for them to supply their own needs. But
sooner or later they began in some places to compete with gro-
ceries, restaurants, clothes cleaning and tailor shops, and the
like, for so-called American trade, and the competition was
usually on unequal planes. With lower wages bills incurred
in the conduct of their shops and with a lower standard of neces-
sary profit, considerable cutting of prices accompanied the
progress made by them. Their laundry prices were effectively
lower than those charged by their competitors, and this was
equally true in most of the competitive trades. Moreover, the
shifting of population incidental to the settlement of newcomers
in restricted localities was in some cases even more important
than the cutting of prices. The formation of colonies thus added
its weight to the underselling with the result that though the
number of their establishments was relatively not large and most
of their shops quite small, established businesses and profits of
rivals suffered in some cases. When such was the result, it was
regarded as an evil by those injuriously affected, and opposition,
in some cases organized opposition employing fines and boycotts
and other methods of defense which appear drastic to the out-
sider, developed at new points.

Thus, especially before immigration was greatly restricted
in 1907, competition in unskilled labor, in some branches of
petty business, and in certain branches of farming for which
many localities in the West are peculiarly well suited, has taken
place in unequal terms. There has been a conflict of standards.
While the labor has been helpful in developing the country be-
cause cheap, efficient, and easily secured; while it has been a
great convenience in other cases, as in domestic service ; and while
profitable branches of agriculture have been caused to grow
rapidly, the disturbing effects of even such a small immigration
as has given us a total population of Japanese, old and young,

1 78 CHARACTERISTICS

of less than a hundred thousand, must be regarded as outweigh-
ing the good. The immigration of large numbers to settle on the
Pacific Coast and to compete on unequal terms because of differ-
ences in standards must be regarded as undesirable from an eco-
nomic point of view, unless one holds — as no one can successfully
maintain — that the economic welfare of the country depends
more upon the most rapid industrial progress, exploitation of
resources, and amassing of wealth than upon an improvement in
the lot of those at or near the bottom of the economic scale, with
relatively low land values, and the settlement of land along
lines more nearly normal according to the American standard.

The fundamental economic problem is to be emphasized.
Yet the problem has not been merely an economic one. Because
of clannishness on the part of the Japanese and the tendency of
others to limit their relations with them to business affairs, col-
onies have tended to develop and the newcomers to be encysted
in rather than be assimilated to the population. In spite of
considerable capacity on the part of the Japanese for assimila-
tion, it has not been taking place in desired degree, partly because
of the strong appeal made by native institutions to a people
living in colonies, partly because of the failure or refusal of
others to do their share in a process which requires the coopera-
tion of the several elements in the population. In the speaker's
opinion a difficult problem in connection with assimilation has
developed. Even with limited numbers the situation is such that
assimilation of those here is now unlikely to occur in desired
degree. With large numbers it would not take place.

Naturally, considerable friction has developed, chiefly because
of differences in economic standards, and though immigration
has undoubtedly caused an expansion of commerce between the
two countries, trade relations at one time were seriously im-
periled. All of these things, the increase of dissatisfaction due
to misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and organized agitation,
the obvious difference in color, and the extreme solicitude of the
Japanese government for the welfare of its subjects and its
treatment of them as pseudo-colonists, have tended to produce
a new race problem. Had matters continued for some years
longer as they were ten years ago, such a problem would inevi-
tably have resulted.

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 179

Thus it is maintained that there cannot be a free flow of
laborers from Japan to the western part of the United States.
But, happily, for seven years, with the gentlemen's agreement
faithfully observed by the Japanese government and with the
prohibition of re-migration from Hawaii, Mexico, and Canada,
we have had and now have no immigration problem in so far
as incoming Japanese laborers are concerned. The statement
is true that "with unswerving constancy and fidelity the Japanese
government has maintained the gentlemen's agreement by
which it undertook to suppress the immigration of laborers to
the United States." It has done more. By regulating immigra-
tion to neighboring countries, the difficult border problem has
ceased to be of importance. There can be no reasonable doubt
that we have in the agreement the most effective exclusion
arrangement, and the United States owes a debt of gratitude to
the Japanese government for its cooperation in effecting it. The
number of Japanese laborers in the country is slowly diminish-
ing, and the problems involved in the earlier situation are grad-
ually settling themselves. Of underbidding in the labor market
there is now practically none ; the conflict of standards in petty
business has become largely a matter of the past ; and no serious
or extensive problem connected with the land can develop.
The feeling of opposition is less intense than it was. Neverthe-
less there are unsettled problems. They should be settled and
the policy of drifting along with some harassing legislation
should not be permitted to continue if we can agree upon the
direction positive efforts should take.

With no particular immigration to complicate the situation,
what are these unsettled problems to which consideration should
be given ? One is found in- the gentlemen's agreement as a method
of control; others are found in connection with the treatment
of immigrants who are here or who may be admitted. These
two questions or groups of questions may be considered in turn.

Though the gentlemen's agreement and the President's order
relating to the indirect immigration which accompanied it have
served well as a method of restriction, the agreement has come
in for considerable adverse criticism. Approaching the matter
from different angles different groups have advocated new immi-
gration legislation to replace it. First of all, a vigorous agitation

i8o CHARACTERISTICS

for an exclusion law applying to all Asiatics has been carried on
for years. It antedated the adoption of the agreement and has
not died away since it became effective. Much of its force is
found in the widespread but erroneous belief that the agreement
is not effective as a restrictive measure, in the fear that it might
cease to be effective, and in the feeling that the right to control
immigration to the country is a sovereign right which should
be exercised, not compromised, by treaty or agreement. In the
least offensive form this demand would find expression in a
general immigration law which would admit only those who
are eligible to become citizens by naturalization. Admission
and the possibility of becoming citizens should go hand in hand,
but exclusion in this way raises the additional question as to
the soundness of the discrimination now involved in our naturali-
zation law about which something will be said presently. But,
in so far as Japanese immigration is concerned, it seems to me
that there is at present no problem to be solved by exclusion
legislation, whatever form it might take. An exclusion law
modeled after the Chinese exclusion act would be illogical when
the existing agreement is more effective than any law of that
character would be. It could solve no problem and it is illogical
to enact any law unless there is a problem to be solved by so
doing. The Japanese government has on more than one occasion
expressed its willingness to continue the present agreement, and
it would be unjust to enact an exclusion law so long as she is
willing and capable of limiting the issuance of passports to would-
be immigrants. Moreover, to enact such a law as long as the
Japanese government faithfully observes the agreement entered
into in 1907 would be too serious an affront to a people jealous
of its honor and determined to command the treatment due a
first-class nation. To enact an exclusion law of any kind would
be illogical, unjust, and an affront to Japan.

On the other hand, some would remove the restriction which
now obtains. In Japan there seems to be some restiveness
under the agreement and a limited amount of feeling that it
was a temporary measure to tide over an emergency and that it
has accomplished its object. A smaller number of persons on
this side, interested in cheap labor, would be glad to see the bars
let down. But to grant an unrestricted immigration under our

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 181

present immigration law in order to meet the wishes of a minority
in Japan and a small number in this country who wish cheap
labor would be unwise for reasons already set forth. It would
be out of harmony with the forward movement to which we are
devoting so much effort. If the agreement is to be replaced by
law at all, it should be replaced by a new immigration law of
the general nature of the measure advocated so brilliantly by
Dr. Gulick.

Dr. Gulick's plan is best stated by himself. But, briefly put,
his suggestion is that the number of independent immigrants
admitted from any country, or of any race or mother tongue,
in any one year should be limited to, say, 5 per cent of the
number of immigrants from that country already here and nat-
uralized and the American-born offspring of the same stock.
A system of registration would be worked out for the adminis-
tration of the plan. All who secured admission unlawfully or
who were not law-abiding would be deported.

The general effect of a measure shaped in this way would be
to bring the control of all immigration under one law and to get
rid of the Chinese exclusion act with its invidious distinctions,
the strained and unsatisfactory interpretation of the present
law in dealing with the East Indians, and perhaps to end the
movement to enact an exclusion law applying to the Japanese.
It would not limit immigration from the northwestern European
countries unless under new conditions it should tend to expand
much beyond its dimensions in recent years ; it would materially
limit the more or less induced immigration of recent years from
southern and eastern Europe, and would not materially affect,
for the time being, the number of Chinese, Japanese, Koreans,
and East Indians coming directly to our shores.

Were Dr. Gulick's plan applied to the figures given in the
census of 1910, it would admit annually into the United States,
including Hawaii, to begin with, a maximum, the excepted classes
of wives, children, etc., not counted, of some 1200 or 1300
Japanese and about noo or 1200 Chinese immigrants. These
figures, it would appear, are somewhat larger than of the corre-
sponding classes admitted in recent years but the difference to
begin with would not be material. With time the basic number
to which his 5 per cent would be applied would increase because

i82 CHARACTERISTICS

of a considerable number of Japanese who would become nat-
uralized if given the opportunity his plan calls for, and because
of the few thousand born annually in this country. Thus the
plan would make possible a cumulative immigration.

It was partly because of these cumulative figures, partly
because of the administrative difficulties connected with a census
the results of which were to be employed in this way, and partly
because of the inducement held out to seek naturalization so as
to increase the numbers which might be admitted, that I have
elsewhere suggested a modification which in its essence would
admit definite numbers arrived at in Dr. Gulick's manner, these
numbers being based upon the census returns of 1910, but obtain-
ing indefinitely unless waived by order properly issued in any
case where the motive for emigration was found in political or
religious persecution.

Thus, as has already been stated, under this plan the issues
involved in the trans-Atlantic and the trans-Pacific immigrations
would be joined, and reasonably so, for there has been a problem
of large numbers in the so-called "newer immigration." What
the situation will be after the present war is not clear ; we can
only guess, but there is the possibility of large numbers once the
work of reconstruction has been completed and the weight of
the inevitable tax burden is felt. The best students of the sub-
ject of immigration — those who can look beyond things merely
personal to things in their collectivity, are generally agreed that
radical restriction has been needed. They agree with the recent
Immigration Commission that we have had "an oversupply of
unskilled labor in the industries of the country as a whole, and
a condition of retarded improvement with some deterioration
of labor conditions which demanded legislation restricting the
further admission of unskilled labor." They are generally
agreed, moreover, that this problem is closely connected with
the fact that more than four fifths of the European immigration
has recently been from the southern and eastern countries, which
have the lowest standards, and the immigrants from which are
most congested in their occupations and residence as compared
to the distribution of the native-born. All agree that in the case
of the "newer immigration" there are greater differences in
institutions and customs than in the case of immigrants from

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 183

northwestern Europe to be overcome in the process of assimila-
tion. Most students are agreed that the south and east Euro-
peans taken as a whole are less sensitive than the northwest
Europeans to the American environment, and that a situation
has developed in the industrial centers of the East in which
assimilation has proceeded in halting and uncertain fashion and
out of which numerous problems of local government, adminis-
tration, and institutions have developed. Some argue that a
wider distribution is all that would have been required, but it
is probably true that it would have served to lower temporarily
the content of the labor reservoir and then to increase the inflow
from abroad. If so, high birth rates would continue the inflow
indefinitely. A problem of dependency was developing out of
the influx, and a proper use of the data available shows that
some prominent elements in the immigration from the southern
countries complicate and make more difficult the problem of
maintaining law and order. Before the war our biggest problem
was found in the trans-Atlantic immigration. Would it not be
well to safeguard ourselves against its possible return?

It was stated a while ago that under the plan suggested there
would be no material change in the trans-Pacific immigration.
This was based upon the assumption, however, that the present
effective bar against re-migration of Asiatics from Hawaii to
the mainland would be retained or a desirable substitute found
for it. Without such a bar an influx like that of ten years ago
would take place because of the inferior conditions which are
found in the Islands. It would result in an acute labor problem
in the Islands and an undesirable situation here. I should not
advocate any plan which would involve a re-migration from
Honolulu to the mainland.

Legislation along the lines suggested, supported by effective
restrictions upon re-migration. of the kind mentioned, while leav-
ing the numbers admitted not materially different from those
during the last few years, would relieve the Japanese government
of the embarrassment of the agreement in a way forced upon
it and the criticism of those of its subjects who maintain that
it was adopted only to save Japan's face and was expected
to be temporary. Moreover, it would safeguard the situation
in the event that the position of the government should be

1 84 CHARACTERISTICS

changed by growing democracy. It would meet the position of
our own people who maintain that the right to control immigra-
tion is a sovereign right and that this should be exercised, not
compromised. But most important of all, it would disabuse
many of our people of the erroneous impression that many labor-
ers are actually being admitted, or, in the absence of strong
opposition displayed, would be admitted, to the United States,
and would go far to prevent discrimination by law and otherwise.
My investigations have convinced me that there is a widespread
feeling that many in some way or other are admitted. Others
feel that in the absence of organized opposition, the agreement
would not be effectively administered.

Much of the opposed legislation has not been directed at seri-
ous problems but has appealed because anti-Asiatic and because
it was felt to be necessary in order to prevent an influx of new
immigrants. A measure of the kind suggested should go far to
relieve the situation in so far as connected with mistaken views
of what is actually occurring and with the apprehension of what
might take place. Moreover, it would not stand in the way of
literacy or other selective tests if they should be desired.

Thus, it is maintained that restriction of immigration in gen-
eral is needed. If proper provision is made for those persecuted,
the restrictions imposed should discriminate in their effects
but not in terms against the races of South and East Europe.
They should discriminate in their effects, but not expressly,
still more against immigrant laborers from Asia, who without
restriction are the cheapest and frequently the best organized
and have the most injurious effects in competition, who institu-
tionally and in thought and in mode of life have more to be
overcome in assimilation, who are handicapped by an obvious
difference in color, and who, moreover, find a natural stopping-
place on the Pacific Coast, so that the effects of their immi-
gration would be concentrated upon a limited territory. The
plan suggested is believed to have merit in that it is restrictive,
is general and non-discriminatory in form, would discriminate
only reasonably in its effects, would correct false impressions
with reference to Japanese immigration, and would not stand
in the way of such individual selective tests as might be consid-
ered desirable.

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 185

Coining to unsettled problems relative to the treatment of
Japanese residing in the United States, one of the most serious
is found in the political disability under which they labor. At
present Japanese, Chinese, and other eastern Asiatic subjects,
because neither white nor black, are ineligible to become Ameri-
can citizens by process of naturalization. Some of the western
Asiatics stand in the shadow of doubt. Though the disability
under which all save the Chinese rest, is not the result of dis-
criminatory legislation directed against them, but merely inci-
dental under a law given shape many years ago and interpreted
by the courts, the invidious distinction between races has come
to be regarded by the Japanese as " hurtful to their just national
susceptibility," and the reasonableness of the law was officially
raised in the long-drawn-out correspondence over the Cali-
fornia land law. Certainly the political disability has opened the
way for discriminatory legislation of the kind just mentioned.
Moreover, the Japanese feel that it is unjust to withhold from
them rights which foreigners may enjoy in Japan and which the
Japanese themselves have in Canada. They naturally desire
equal treatment under the law.

As a matter of principle, all aliens admitted to this country,
regardless of race, should be admitted to a full partnership in
our institutions as soon as they as individuals are properly pre-
pared to exercise their rights and are willing to accept the
responsibilities which must go hand in hand with rights.
The reasons assigned by those who oppose an amendment
of the naturalization law so as to permit the Japanese
admitted to become citizens do not seem to me to be suffi-
cient to support their case. It must be admitted of course
that the Japanese have much of medieval loyalty to their
native government. Rapid strides in economic matters have
not as yet greatly affected the concept of the state held
by those who have not emigrated. Yet it is undoubtedly
true that most of those who have decided to settle here per-
manently have had their mode of thought considerably
changed, and it is probably true that those who sought the
privilege of citizenship would accept its responsibilities in
pretty much the same degree as they have been accepted by
some of our European-Americans who have immigrated from

1 86 CHARACTERISTICS

countries where the attitude toward the state is not materially
different from that in Japan.

Of course a Japanese vote might develop, but, if it did, it
would not be unique in our political history. In any event the
number of votes would be small. This might not be true in
Hawaii, however, where the Japanese and Chinese constitute
a majority of the population. But this raises the question as
to the terms on which citizenship should be conferred. Under
a proper naturalization law only a comparatively small percent-
age of the aliens residing there could become naturalized.

In advocating an amendment of the naturalization law so
that it shall not discriminate against any race, I would not advo-
cate a mere extension of the present law. Though the abuses
under it are not so great as they once were, in many places its
administration is little short of a farce. We cannot be said to
have in operation any well-defined requirements always and
everywhere to be met by those who seek citizenship. We hold
citizenship too cheap and pay dearly for it. The law should
be administered by specialized naturalization courts, and citizen-
ship should be conferred only upon those who can read and
write English understandingly, who know the structure of and
principles underlying our government, and who have an accept-
able knowledge of our history. But the law should be changed
so as to make all who possess these qualifications eligible, and
provision should' be made to enable immigrants of all races to
meet the tests.

Thus I would advocate a general naturalization law based
upon individual merit and not at all upon the matter of race.
Such a law would be based upon good principle, would remove
all contested cases growing out of doubtful eligibility, would
tend to prevent discriminatory legislation, and would undoubt-
edly do more just now than anything else to further harmonious
relations with the people across the Pacific which unites as well
as divides us. At the same time it may be observed that the
time will soon come when the number of native-born Japanese
citizens will be as large as the number who could qualify for
citizenship granted on proper terms. Their attitude as citizens
will depend to a considerable extent upon the rights enjoyed by
their fathers. The objections to such a law, extending rights

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 187

enjoyed by whites and blacks to races of a different color, can be
easily exaggerated — especially if it is adopted along with a
general restrictive immigration law. That they may easily
be exaggerated is indicated by the fact that while we have for-
bidden the naturalization of Chinese in this country, those who
gained citizenship in Hawaii at an earlier time are generally
regarded as a good class of conservative voters.

With an amendment of the naturalization laws of the kind
suggested, the California and Arizona land acts would cease to
be effective for they merely place limitations upon those ineligible
to citizenship. It is my opinion that they were mistakenly
adopted and were unjust, impolitic, and unnecessary. Yet,
I would not be understood to maintain that in California there
was not a problem in some communities closely connected with
permanent tenure of the land — largely because of the settlement
of Japanese in colonies. Nor do I wish to be understood as
maintaining that were the prohibition of land ownership rendered
ineffective, no local problems would develop. There is a problem
connected with an extensive colonization and a partial assimi-
lation which must be solved if confusion and discord are to be
avoided and right relations maintained.

Representing a very different civilization, clannish in unusual
degree, seeking much the same thing, and discriminated against
and more or less avoided by most of the other elements in the
population, of course the majority of the Japanese have settled
in restricted localities and are more or less colonized. Colonies
have their advantages in meeting the needs of a people in so far
as they remain foreign. But unfortunately the very existence
of the colony makes assimilation difficult, tends to give its mem-
bers inferior standing, and to cause the locality to be less desir-
able for residence by others. With the colony the full comple-
ment of Japanese institutions appears, association is chiefly
with members of the one race, the learning English is retarded,
and the native bonds loosen slowly in spite of the fact that the
Japanese are very sensitive to certain parts of their environment.
In the absence of colonies, Americanization appears to proceed
fairly rapidly, and no important community effects are to be
noted. Livingston affords a case in point. In that community
there has been no conflict of standards and no important

i88 CHARACTERISTICS

colonization and the situation is normal according to American
standards. Though the white residents may state that they would
prefer families of their own color, the Japanese are well received
and have good standing in the community. But unfortunately
there seems to be no way in which the colony can be attacked
directly. Time and more rapid assimilation must undermine
it if it is to disappear.

As has already been stated, with any large immigration it is
believed that assimilation of the Japanese would not take place.
The problem would be complicated, as it has been in the past,
by friction and discrimination. With a narrowly restricted
immigration, however, friction over the clash of economic stand-
ards has tended to diminish and eventually discrimination will
perhaps disappear. Certainly much should be said for an edu-
cational campaign to remove misunderstanding so that its dis-
appearance will be hastened.

Of course the Japanese are being assimilated. Those who
return to Japan after some years spent in the United States,
find the situation difficult if not intolerable and frequently return
here to reside permanently. Yet the problem of assimilation is
present, and in interest of present and future relations it should
be attacked vigorously. It calls for much more effort than has
been as yet put forth. Though the Japanese themselves have
done more than any other race to provide facilities for teaching
the English language, more extensive facilities should be pro-
vided as a part of an internal immigration policy. There should
be cooperation between the school authorities and the Japanese
association of each locality, and night schools should be provided
for the adults. The Christian mission churches are doing much
of value, but the provision for carrying forward their work is
not adequate. Without passing judgment upon the relative
merits of different religions for different peoples, it may be said
that nothing save the use of a common language seems to be of
more value than the spread of Christianity in the process of
assimilation of the Japanese. Its importance has appealed to
me more and more as I have watched the changes going on in
different communities. It is not too much to say that here at
home we have the best opportunity to support needed mission-
ary work, to be done of course along the lines upon which that

JAPANESE IMMIGRATION 189

best done proceeds. After the process of assimilation has taken
place to a certain extent, the native-born element will do much
to hasten it if it is not prevented by discrimination from occupying
the normal place it will wish, provided the older elements do not
prove to be too conservative, and in so far as they control the
situation, bring them up as Japanese.

With the clannishness natural to the Japanese, the respect
for their elders, the differences representing diverse civilizations
to be overcome, and the situation which obtains, considerable
time will be required to make much headway even with small
numbers. The progress made will depend largely upon the degree
of cooperation between the diverse elements in the community.
The question should be raised whether the organizations of the
Japanese should not be less official in their aspects, less shaped
as though the country was to be colonized and exploited for
gain, and be conducted more than they generally are with refer-
ence to securing the adoption of American standards. The ques-
tion should be raised, also, whether something cannot be done to
secure a more general observance of Sunday, and to give women
the place in the family and the family life we expect in the United
States. However much it may be needed, the general practice
of having the women gainfully occupied in men's work in the
field, cannot but alienate the native element and give the Japan-
ese lower standing in the communities in which they reside.
When a people is admitted to the country, their presence imposes
obligations upon the native population. We have been neglectful
in this matter. But when admission is secured, it imposes an
obligation upon the newcomers to give heed to the normal
standards of the country to which they have been admitted.
Both the Asiatic and trfe white races are on trial in the West.
The final outcome is important. Will the white races, when their
institutions are safeguarded by a narrowly restricted immigration,
give necessary opportunity and cooperation and avoid evils and
friction ? Will those admitted retain their clannishness and seek
chiefly to make gain rather than strive to become Americans?

/

CHINESE IMMIGRATION

UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COMMISSION

THOUGH a few thousand Armenians are found in the West,
most of them in Fresno County, California, and perhaps
a thousand Syrians in Los Angeles, most of the Asiatic immi-
gration has been from eastern Asia — China, Japan, Korea,
and India. For reasons already given elsewhere, no special
investigation was made of the Chinese. Such data as were
obtained were secured incidentally to the investigation of other
races and of industries in which Chinese are or have been em-
ployed. A few points concerning their number, occupations,
and related matters may be commented on briefly, however,
chiefly for convenience in discussing Japanese immigration,
upon which most emphasis was placed in the investigation made
in the Western division.

According to the census, the number of Chinese in the con-
tinental United States in 1900 was 93,283. Of these, 88,758
were males and 4525 were females. In all probability the number
of adult males was somewhat larger than the figure reported, as
it is almost impossible to enumerate all but a negligible percentage
of the foreign-born males living under such conditions as were
at that time found among the Chinese. It is impossible to esti-
mate the number of persons of that race now in the United States,
as many have died or returned to China since 1900, while others
have returned from China to this country, and men, women,
and children of the eligible classes to the number of 19,182 have
been admitted to the United States between July i, 1899, and
June 30, 1909. Moreover, it is acknowledged by those familiar
with the administration of the law that some foreign-born have
secured admission as " native sons," while others have been
smuggled across the Canadian or the Mexican boundary. How-
ever, it has become evident from the investigation conducted

190

CHINESE IMMIGRATION 191

by the Commission that of the number of Chinese in all of the
cities of the West, many are occupied in growing potatoes and
the coarser vegetables. Such interests are usually combined
with general farming, however.

The Portuguese are excellent farmers, and frequently, while
improving their land, obtain two or three crops from the same
field in the course of the year. In their thrift, investment of
savings in more land, in the character of their housing and stand-
ard of living, they are very much like the Italians. In some
instances, however, their housing is of a distinctly better type.
The one important difference between the two races, besides
the kind of crops usually produced, is found in the fact that the
Italians cooperate in leasing land, while the Portuguese are very
individualistic and seldom rent or own land in partnership.
Because of this circumstance and the fact that the members of
this race, unlike the Asiatics and German-Russians, have not
been induced to settle upon the land as a solution of the labor
problem, the Portuguese, in spite of their perseverance in their
efforts to establish themselves as independent farmers, have
usually made slower progress in this direction than the Italians,
Japanese, and German-Russians.

Few of the other south European immigrants are engaged in
agriculture. A few Greeks have become tenant farmers, but
without much success. About Watsonville, California, a compar-
atively large number of Dalmatians have engaged in apple
growing, but this instance perhaps stands alone. In fact, immi-
grants from the south European countries, and the east Euro-
pean as well, Italians, and Portuguese excepted, have come to
the West too recently to have established themselves. More-
over, in most cases the number of transient laborers is large
as compared to the number who have come to this country to
make their permanent home. The principal exception to this
is found in the German-Russians, an agricultural people, who
have come to this country to escape heavy taxation and military
service and in search of better land. Within some twenty years
several thousand have come to Fresno County, California, where
they have worked at unskilled labor to begin with, though a com-
paratively large number have been able to establish themselves
as farmers, which is the goal practically all have in view. The

1 92 CHARACTERISTICS

acreage controlled by them is roughly estimated at 5000. In
Colorado there are perhaps between 800 and 900 .tenant and
landowning farmers of this race, occupying for the greater part
holdings in excess of 60 acres and not infrequently much larger
tracts. This farming has developed within the last ten years
and has been incidental to the growth of the beet-sugar industry.
The sugar companies have brought large numbers of families
of this race from Nebraska to do the hand work involved in grow-
ing sugar beets. From laborers doing the hand work on a piece
basis they have rapidly advanced to tenant and to landowning
farmers. Their advance is in part to be ascribed to their great
industry, the labor of all members of the family except the small-
est children, to their very great thrift, to the liberal advances of
capital made by the sugar companies, and the credit extended
to them freely by the banks.

Not even the Japanese have made as rapid advance as the
German-Russians. A comparatively small number of German-
Russians are engaged in tenant farming in one locality in Idaho
also. They, too, were brought to the community (from Port-
land) by the manufacturers of beet sugar, and settled upon the
land. In their housing and the number engaged in the different
industries in which they have found employment in the past,
they have materially decreased within the last decade or so. It is
unlikely that the migration from the Coast States, mainly from
California to the East, and the more general distribution of Chi-
nese throughout the country, explain entirely the decreasing
number of persons of that race, including the native-born, found
in the West.

The immigration of Chinese laborers to this country may be
said to date from the rush to California in search of gold sixty
years ago. Within ten years a relatively large number of persons
of that race, more than 45,000 in fact, found a place in the popu-
lation of that State. Before the close of the decade of the sixties,
they had engaged in a variety of occupations, as the absence of
cheap labor from any other source, their industry and organiza-
tion, and the rapid growth of the country placed a premium
upon their employment. The largest number (some 20,000 in
1861) engaged in gold mining; several thousand, many of them
imported under contract, were employed toward the end of the

CHINESE IMMIGRATION 193

decade in the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad,
which was to form the first of the transcontinental railways
making possible an influx of laborers from the East. Other
Chinese engaged in gardening, laundering, domestic service,
and hand labor in the fields, while still others found employment
in factories and workshops or engaged in business for themselves.
As domestic servants in San Francisco, in 1870, they numbered
1256 out of a total of 6800, their number being exceeded by
that of the Irish only, of whom 3046 were reported. Chinese
laundrymen numbered 1333 in a total of 2069 reported. As
laborers in domestic and personal service they numbered 2128
in a total of 8457. According to the census for 1870, they num-
bered 296 of 1551 persons employed in San Francisco in the
manufacture of boots and shoes, 1657 °f the 1811 employed in
the manufacture of cigars, 253 of 393 employed in the manufac-
ture of woolens, and no of 1223 employed in the manufacture
of clothing, a total of 2316 of a grand total of 4978 employed
in these four industries. These were the chief branches of manu-
facture in cities in which they found employment. With the
development of salmon canning in Oregon and Washington dur-
ing the eighties and still later with the development of the same
industry in Alaska, they were for many years employed almost
exclusively in canning, under contract, the fish caught by white
fishermen. They also constituted a large percentage, when not
a majority, of the "powder makers" and general laborers em-
ployed in powder factories.

For twenty years, beginning in the late sixties, several thousand
found employment as construction laborers upon the new rail-
ways constructed from time to time and as section hands upon
those already constructed. They also found employment as
general laborers, engine wipers and boiler washers, and in other
occupations calling for little skill in railroad shops. Or still
previous to 1870, as hand laborers in the orchards, fields, hop-
yards, and vineyards of California north of the Tehachapi, and
in the canneries and other establishments incidental to conserving
and marketing the crops produced. In 1870 they numbered
1637 in a total of 16,231 farm laborers reported by the census
for California. Though the estimate made by the California
bureau of labor in 1886, that Chinese constituted seven eighths

1 94 CHARACTERISTICS

of the agricultural laborers of the State, was doubtless a great
exaggeration, they did most of the hand work, such as hoeing,
weeding, pruning, and harvesting, in all localities in the central
and northern part of the State in which intensive farming was
carried on. Their presence and organization at a time when
cheap and reliable white laborers were difficult to obtain made
possible the high degree of specialized farming which came to
prevail in several localities. They occupied a much less conspicu-
ous place in the harvest work involved in general farming. Being
inefficient with teams, and white men being available for such
work in most localities, they were practically limited to hand
work. In other States than California they found little place
in agricultural work, the largest number being employed in the
hop industry of the Northwest. In fact, until the eighties few
of the Chinese resided outside of California. This race never
gained a place in coal mining except in Wyoming, where they
were employed in the mines developed after the completion of
the Union Pacific Railway.

The ease with which the Chinese found employment and the
place they came to occupy in the. West is explained by several
facts. First of all, they were the cheapest laborers available
for unskilled work. The white population previous to the eighties
was drawn almost entirely from the eastern States and from
north European countries, and, as in all rapidly developing com-
munities, the number of women and children was comparatively
small. According to the census of 1870, of 238,648 persons en-
gaged in gainful occupations in California, 46 per cent were
native-born, 13 per cent were born in Ireland, 8 per cent in Ger-
many, 4.8 per cent in England and Wales, 2 per cent in France,
and 1.4 per cent in Italy. The Chinese, with 14 per cent of the
total, were more numerous than the Irish. The Chinese worked
for lower wages than the white men in the fields and orchards,
in the shoe factories, the cigar factories, the woolen mills, and
later in most of the other industries in which the two classes
were represented. As a result of this, a division of labor grew
up in which the Chinese were very generally employed in certain
occupations, while white persons were employed in other occu-
pations requiring skill, a knowledge of English, and other quali-
ties not possessed by the Asiatics, and sufficiently agreeable

CHINESE IMMIGRATION 195

in character and surroundings to attract white persons of the
type at that time found in the population of the West. Upon
occasion, too, the lower cost of production with Chinese labor
caused more of the work to fall into their hands as they became
well enough trained to do it. Instances of this are found in the
manufacture of cigars and shoes in San Francisco.

Chinese labor was well organized and readily available; for
the cigar makers, shoemakers, and tailors, as well as the launder-
ers, were organized into trade guilds with an interpreter and
agent or " bookman" in each white establishment in which they
were employed. Agricultural laborers were secured through a
"boss" and employed under his supervision. The same organi-
zation was found in fish canneries, where the work was done
under contract at so much per case, also in the fruit and vegetable
canneries — in fact in all industries in which more than a few
men were employed. The hiring and supervision of men in this
way was convenient and of great advantage to the employer
in such industries as were seasonal in character. In agriculture,
where several times as many men were wanted for a limited
period as during the remainder of the year, this organization of
labor placed a great premium upon the Chinese as employees.

In the manufacture of cigars, some manufacturers state that
Chinese were found to be much slower than women and youths,
while in the manufacture of boots and shoes they never attained
to highly skilled work. In other industries, however, they were
very generally regarded as efficient workers for all kinds of hand
work. This is especially true of fish, fruit, and vegetable canning
and of all kinds of hand work in orchards and vegetable gardens.
Though unprogressive and slow, they accomplished much work
through industry and long hours, and by the exercise of care the
quality of the work performed was of a high order.

Finally, to mention only the more important of the facts
giving rise to an effective preference for Chinese for such work
as they were employed to do, in canneries, on the ranches, and
in other places where the employees ordinarily could not live
at home, they found favor because they involved the least trouble
and expense. They provided their own subsistence where white
men, if they did not live close at hand, would ordinarily be pro-
vided with board. Lodgings were easily provided for the Chinese,

I96 CHARACTERISTICS

for whatever may be said concerning their standard of living
as a whole, they are gregarious and are less dissatisfied when
" bunked" in small quarters than is any other race thus far
employed in the West.

After much ineffective state and local legislation in California
the further immigration of Chinese of the laboring class was
forbidden by the first of the federal exclusion laws, enacted in
1882. There had been opposition to the Chinese in the mining
camps of California as early as 1852, this finally leading to the
miners' license tax collected from them alone, in the cigar trade
in San Francisco as early as 1862, and in other trades in which
the Chinese were engaged beginning somewhat later. For the
opposition many reasons were assigned, but the most important
appears to have been race antipathy based upon color, language,
and race traits, which has frequently found expression where
numerous Chinese and white men of the laboring classes have
been brought into close contact. This feeling found expression
not only in San Francisco on numerous occasions, but in many
other towns in California, in Tacoma, where Chinese have not
been permitted to reside, and in the riots at Rock Springs,
Wyoming, in 1882. In public discussion many reasons were
advanced rightly or wrongly for excluding the Chinese, but that
the opposition was more than a part of a labor movement is
evidenced by the fact that many ranchers who were employing
Chinese at the time voted " against Chinese immigration" at
the election held in California in 1879, at which time the matter
of Chinese exclusion was submitted to popular vote.

It has been estimated that the number of Chinese in the
United States at the time the first exclusion act went into effect
(1882) was 132,300. The number of Chinese laborers did not
diminish perceptibly for several years after this. More recently,
because of the wider distribution of the Chinese among the States,
the decreasing number in the country, the large percentage who
have grown old, a strong sentiment against employing Asiatics
in manufacture, and the appearance of the Japanese, a change
has laken place in the occupations in which the Chinese engage.

During the nineties, with the growth of the fishing industry
.on the Pacific coast, the number of Chinese engaged in cannery
work has grown ; but owing to the increasing difficulty involved

CHINESE IMMIGRATION 197

in securing them and the higher wages which they have come to
command since 1900, an increasing number of Japanese and,
very recently, Filipinos, have been employed.

During the year 1909 some 3000 Chinese were employed in
canneries in Oregon, Washington, and Alaska, most of them
migrating from San Francisco and Portland. The number of
Japanese employed was approximately the same. Both races
are employed in the great majority of the establishments, a
Chinese ordinarily having the contract for the work done, em-
ploying his countrymen for the more skilled work, and Japanese,
under a Japanese "boss," and other persons for the less skilled
occupations. The Chinese command much higher wages than
the Japanese. In fruit and vegetable canning in California per-
haps 1000 or more Chinese are employed. Of 750 men employed
in six asparagus canneries on the Sacramento River, nearly
all are Chinese secured through one Chinese "boss." Most of
the others are employed in two canneries operated by Chinese
companies. In other canneries European immigrants of the
newer type, chiefly Italians, Greeks, and Portuguese, have been
substituted for them. In some instances where Chinese were
formerly employed but were discharged by their employers
because of the feeling against the race or because of public criti-
cism, Asiatics are not now employed.

Few Chinese are now employed in railway work. As section
hands they had all but disappeared ten years or more ago, and
the number still employed in railway shops is small. As they grew
old and their numbers diminished so that they could not furnish
a large percentage of the laborers required, their departure was
hastened by the well-organized Japanese, who took employment
at the same wages (and less than was paid to other races) , though
the Chinese are almost universally regarded as better "help"
than the Japanese except in such occupations about the shops
as require adaptability and progressiveness. The Chinese were
in part replaced by other races before Japanese became avail-
able, and where this was done it was generally at a higher wage,
except in the case of the Mexicans, than the Chinese had received.

The Chinese engaged in agriculture were very largely replaced
by Japanese. The Chinese engaged in the growing of sugar beets
were underbid and displaced by the more progressive and quicker

198 CHARACTERISTICS

Japanese and have all but absolutely disappeared from the
industry. In the hop industry the Japanese underbid the Chinese
as the Chinese had the white men. Because of this fact and the
further fact that the Japanese had the same convenient organiza-
tion and were more numerous, the Chinese have come to occupy
a comparatively unimportant place in that industry. The same
is true in the deciduous-fruit industry, though Chinese lease
orchards and in almost every locality are employed in compara-
tively large groups on some of the older ranches. The largest
amount of land is leased by them and the largest number of them
are employed for wages in the orchards and on the large tracts
devoted to the production of vegetables on the Sacramento and
San Joaquin rivers. In a few localities they migrate from place
to place for seasonal work, but such instances have become
exceptional. Nearly all work in the same place throughout the
year. Moreover, as the Japanese have advanced the Chinese
have leased fewer orchards and withdrawn to grow vegetables
or have gone to the towns and cities. Though the number em-
ployed in agricultural work is by no means small, they are no
longer a dominant factor in the labor supply, and especially
in that required for harvesting the crops. The place once occupied
by them has for several years been occupied by the Japanese.

The number of Chinese engaged in mining has for many years
been small, some 40 in coal mining in Wyoming as against several
hundred formerly employed there, and several hundred as against
many thousand in gold mining in California.

Many Chinese are living in the small towns of the West, en-
gaged in laundry work, petty business, and gambling, or rather
conducting places for gambling. The laundries are patronized
chiefly by white people, the shops by Chinese, and the gambling
places by Chinese and Japanese. In San Francisco they are
much less conspicuously employed in domestic service and manu-
facture than formerly. Most of those engaged in domestic serv-
ice are high-priced cooks in private families and in saloons.
They now have a scarcity value. The most recently published
estimate made by the assessor for the city and county of San
Francisco of the number of Chinese engaged in manufacture
(in San Francisco) was, for 1903, 2420, the branches of manu-
facture having more than 100 being cigar making, with 800

CHINESE IMMIGRATION 199

Chinese in a total of 1300 ; clothing, with 250 in a total of 1050 ;
shirt making, with 300 in a total of 1500, and shoemaking, with
250 in a total of 950. Their numbers in all of these, cases are
smaller than formerly. In shoe and cigar making many were
discharged during the seventies and eighties because of public
criticism or fear of boycott. When white persons were substi-
tuted it was, in some cases at least, at a higher wage and for a
shorter work day. At present the Chinese employed are among
the low paid laborers in " white shops." The same is true of
those employed in powder factories, where the number is much
smaller than formerly.

The assessment roll for 1908 shows 20 cigar factories, 3 broom
factories, i shoe factory, and 5 overall factories conducted by
Chinese in San Francisco. By far the largest number of Chinese,
however, some 1000, are ejnployed in the 100 Chinese laundries.
The other branches of business are of comparatively little impor-
tance save the art and curio stores which are conducted by busi-
ness men from China. Of the Chinese in other cities much the
same may be said, except that they occupy no important place
in manufacture and that they frequently conduct cheap restau-
rants, patronized largely by workingmen. In Portland they also
conduct numerous tailor shops. On the whole, the Chinese have
not shown the same progressiveness and competitive ability
either in industry or in business for themselves as the Japanese.
They have, however, occupied a more important place in manu-
facture, especially in San Francisco, where, until within the last
twenty years, little cheap labor has been available from other
sources.

y

CHINESE IMMIGRATION1

KEE OWYANG, EXPOSITION COMMISSIONER, FORMER CONSUL AT SAN

FRANCISCO

LET me have the pleasure of raising the question at the outset
as to what is the Chinese Exclusion Law. What is the es-
sence of the spirit of it all? Is it born of justice or otherwise?
I think if you will take the pains and trouble of finding it out for
your own satisfaction and information, you will readily observe
that the Exclusion Law is the outcome of a long series of unwise
legislation hi one of the chapters of American history.

To be sure, the trouble dated back to the time when the
Chinese and their Occidental brothers first came in contact
with one another in the days of '49 — in the days of mad rush
after gold in California, and railroad construction on the western
coast.

Doubtless there were differences, strife, and contention among
them in the placer mines, which would inevitably arise when
people of divers tongues, manners, and customs come together
for the first time. It was even difficult for the working people
of the various European nations to get along well together in the
earlier days of California, but we can easily imagine the greater
differences existing between the Chinese and the white people
whose religion and education have made them think and act
entirely different from one another. In consequence, misun-
derstanding and discord were bound to arise. The early politi-
cal leaders and other agitators, instead of attempting to alleviate
conditions, instilled in the people at large hatred and prejudice
which I think you will agree with me were unwarranted and
unreasonable.

However, we must not forget that most of these Chinese
laborers came here at that time, at the invitation of the United

1 Printed by The American Sociological Society and the Committee of One
Hundred, Federal Council of Churches in America, August, 1915.

200

CHINESE IMMIGRATION 201

States. The right of so coming of the Chinese people was guar-
anteed under solemn treaty between China and the United
States, which treaty existed until 1880. The Chinese were then
no longer desirable, and because of all these agitations and
clamor of all the mischief-makers, the government of this coun-
try had committed itself to an act which justice cannot defend.
You know the United States solemnly agreed in said treaty that
the coming of Chinese laborers may be suspended but never
absolutely prohibited. But since that time the United States
prohibited Chinese immigration and thus the government broke
faith with China by passing a law in direct violation of said
treaty, and the courts have aided in said violation by deciding
that Congress had the right to pass such an act.

The American Christian missionary in China from that time
on found their good work seriously hindered. Thus you see
that from time immemorial political leaders, demagogues, and
agitators resorted to misrepresentation, falsehood, and vehemence
to secure their political jobs and favors, and they did not dare
say anything favorable to the Chinese. I need not labor much
longer upon this point. Suffice it to indicate that all this agitation
directed against the Chinese by political demagogues was respon-
sible for the Exclusion Act. The act excluding the Chinese immi-
gration was not tempered with justice or a square deal. The
Exclusion Law to-day is nothing but the culmination of all the
early agitators. The reason for excluding Chinese people is
racial, not economic. As a noted lawyer of this c*oast once said :
"We are afflicted with the malady of race hatred; and infected
with this disease. Everything that the Oriental does is, to our
sick vision, distorted into an offense which causes us to vomit
forth at home our rancor and spleen."

All we ask of the American Government is to give the Chinese
fair treatment and not favor in the matter of exclusion, and give
us the same treatment as is accorded to people of other nationali-
ties. I wish I had time to enter into details regarding the differ-
ences in which the people of other nations are treated. The
Exclusion Law does not only exclude all Chinese laborers, or
coolies as you call them, but it inflicts tremendous hardships
upon the Chinese of the exempt classes ; that is, merchants,
travelers, students, and teachers, and even officials at times.

202 CHARACTERISTICS

It seems that it is much easier for them to enter Heaven than
to set foot on the American continent, even when they enter this
port with the Consul's Certificate or other documents issued
and signed by American diplomatic agents in China.

The spirit of the Exclusion Law is to exclude the coolie class,
but it was certainly not intended to hinder those who are above
the coolie class when they are properly vouched for by the Ameri-
can Consular or Immigration Agent in China. On presentation
of the proper certificate they ought to be permitted to land with-
out much ado. When the officials place all these obstacles in
our way, can it be said that they are acting in a spirit of justice ?
The Exclusion Law as it stands is a discrimination against a
single nation, a legislation against a race of people, branding
them as being totally unworthy of the privilege of travel, resi-
dence, or citizenship in the United States. I frankly admit that
there must be restriction for immigrants coming into this country,
but the restriction ought to be applied to Oriental and Occi-
dental people alike. There should be no unfair discrimination
against a single nation, especially when that nation believes in
peace and righteousness so firmly that it scorns to think that it
has to be maintained or enforced by might.

I sincerely hope to see the Exclusion Law altered to read,
.Restriction Law. If you do that you will have done much in
removing the only element of friction between the two most
friendly republics on each side of the Pacific. Aside from her
objection to the Exclusion Law, China has every reason to be
thankful to the United States. Political leaders and wild agita-
tors in this country have inflicted much harm upon the Chinese
people in the name of the Exclusion Law, while, on the other
hand, many statesmen have bestowed much good and many
blessings upon China.

China cannot help but hold the United States in grateful
memory. I say exactly what I mean, and mean what I say.
The United States is the only powerful nation that has not at
any time resorted to methods of bullying, coercing, or browbeat-
ing China for the sake of commercial gain. ,In short, she is ever
ready to stretch forth a helping hand in any crisis that China
might have to pass through. Who helped to preserve the integ-
rity of China by means of the open door policy, but the United

CHINESE IMMIGRATION 203

States? Who took the lead in returning a portion of the Boxer
indemnity fund which the powers extorted out of China, but the
United States? Which was the first power to recognize the
establishment of the Republic of China, but the United States?
Who is doing the best medical and educational work in China,
but the United States? Counting up the blessings one by one
we have much indeed to be thankful for to the United States.

So you can readily see that the Exclusion Law is the only
obstacle in the way of the most friendly relations between the
two nations. Removing that, you will have a great admirer in
the younger republic of the world.

America has always set a noble example to the world and a
striking illustration is her position of neutrality in the present
great war. As one great American said: " She ought to decree
such wise things and such right things that she shall be considered
a leader to the free nations of the earth."

The best means, therefore, of modifying the Exclusion Law is
for the Christian people as well as all fair-minded Americans,
to band together and educate and awaken the public opinion to
the realization of the fact that there is but very little spirit of
justice in the Exclusion Law. You will then have accomplished
much in getting rid of the little element of friction between the
two countries, and you will have exemplified to the wide world
that America is a land full of noble impulse for justice and
humanity.

IV. THE NEW IMMIGRATION

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS WITH THE NEW IMMIGRANT

EDWARD C. STEINER, PROFESSOR OF APPLIED CHRISTIANITY,
GRINNELL COLLEGE

IT IS now twenty-five years since I landed in the United States
with a group of Slovaks from the district of Scharosh in
Hungary.

I followed them across the sea and watched this historic move-
ment of the Slavs, who until then had remained practically
dormant where they had been left by the glacier-like move-
ment of their race, the pressure of the invader, or the fate which
governed Eastern European politics.

It was a fascinating experience to see these forgotten children
of an unresponsive soil coming in touch with a civilization of
which they had never dreamed ; to see the struggle of emotions
in their usually impassive faces, as they saw the evidences of
European culture and wealth in the Northern cities through
which we passed.

What fear crept into their hearts and drove the healthy blood
from their cheeks when for the first time they saw the turbu-
lent sea.

The ocean was vaster and the fear of it most real to us who
sailed out of Bremerhaven in the steerage of the steamer Fulda;
for we were the forerunners of a vast army of men which had
scarcely begun to think of leaving its age-long bivouac. The
Slav has never taken kindly to the sea, and the more held
unconquered terrors.

It is difficult now to describe the incidents of that first landing
in New York, for in rapid succession the experience has been so
often repeated ; and all the joys, fears, and hopes which repeatedly
I have shared with hundreds and thousands of men are so blended
in my memory into one great wonder, that either analysis or
description seems vain.

204

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS WITH NEW IMMIGRANT 205

It is strange and yet natural, no doubt, that I remember
the trivial incidents of that first landing. The attempt on the
part of some of my Slovaks to eat bananas without removing
the skins; their first acquaintance with mince pie, which they
declared a barbarous dish; our first meal on American soil,
in a third-rate boarding-house for immigrants, and the injunc-
tion of one of the earlier comers: " Don't wait for anybody,
but grab all you can. In this country the motto is : 'Happy is
the man who can help himself ! ' '

I remember the lonely feeling that crept over us as we found
ourselves like driftwood in the great current of humanity in the
city of New York, and the fear we had of every one who was
at all friendly; for we had been warned against sharpers. I
remember our pleasure in the picturesque ferryboat which
carried us to New Jersey, its walking beam seeming like the
limbs of some great monster crossing the water.

Then crowding fast upon one another come memories of hard
tasks in gruesome mines and ghostly breakers ; the sight of lick-
ing flames like fiery tongues darting out at us, from furnaces full
of bubbling, boiling metal ; the circling camps of the coke burn-
ers who kept their night's vigil by the altars of the Fire God.

There are memories of dark ravines and mud banks, choked
by refuse of mill and mine ; the miners' huts, close together, as
if space were as scarce on the earth as compassion for the stranger.

I remember the kindness of the poor, the hospitality of the
crowded, the hostility of the richer and stronger, who feared
that we would drive them from their diggings ; and the unbelief
of those to whom I early began preaching the humanity of the
Slav — rough and uncouth, but human still, although he has
scarcely ever had a fair chance to prove it.

Of the names of the various towns through which I passed,
in which I worked and watched, I particularly remember
four : Connellsville, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and
Streator, Illinois, all of them typical coal towns. In none of
them were my people received with open arms, although they
rarely met with organized hostility.

In Scranton and in Streator, they still remember our coming
and our staying. Since then, I have repeatedly visited all these
four places upon errands of investigation and interpretation.

206 THE NEW IMMIGRATION

I always dreaded going back to them; not only because it
would revive painful memories of a very hard apprenticeship,
but because I could not avoid asking myself if the optimism
with which I have treated the problem of immigration, by voice
and pen, would be justified.

What if the Americans in these cities should say :

We have lived with these Slavs for twenty-five years and more;
we have been with them day after day, while you have flitted about
the country. We know better than you do. We told you the "Hun-
key" was a menace when he came, and he is a menace still.

f^f well know that my readers and my auditors have often criti-
cized my optimism, and especially the sympathetic note with
which I approach this problem, regarding which they are always
more skeptical the more remote they are from it.

I have tried to modify my view of the problem by facing it
in all its bearings; I have not shrunk from seeing the worst of
it. In fact I know American cities best from that dark and
clouded side. I know the Little Italics, the Ghettos, the Patches
around the mines, the East Side of New York and the West
Side of Chicago ; although I have never been the full length of
Fifth Avenue and have never seen the famous North Shore
drive.

I am familiar with penitentiaries, jails, police courts, and even
worse places ; for I wanted to know to what depths these leaden
souls can sink, and I fear that I have more anxiety as to their
nativity than their destiny. Yet, having seen the worst of the
bad, I never lost my faith in these lesser folk and my optimism
remained unclouded. One fear alone assailed me; that what
my critics said to me and of me was true. "He is an immigrant
himself, and of course it is natural that he should see the brighter
side of the problem." To me, that was the severest and most
cutting criticism, just because I feared it might be true ; yet I
have honestly tried to see the darkest side of this question, both
as it affected the immigrant and the country that received him.

I have listened patiently to jeremiads of home mission secre-
taries about these "Godless foreigners." I have read the reports
of Immigrant Commissions, and all the literature written the
last few years upon this subject, and I am still optimistic, and

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS WITH NEW IMMIGRANT 207

disagree with much that I have heard and read. Many authors
who have written regarding this question had no first-hand in-
formation about it. They knew neither the speech nor the
genius of these new people ; they had a fixed belief that all civiliza-
tion, culture, and virtue, belong to the north of Europe and that
the east and southeast of that continent are its limbo ; and they
relied upon statistics, which at best are misleading, when used
to estimate human conduct and human influences.

Typical of this class of literature is a recent pamphlet upon
the subject, which, judging from the excellent bibliography ap-
pended, must be based upon extensive reading ; yet the author
comes to this conclusion :

Assimilation in the twentieth century is a very different matter
from assimilation in the nineteenth. In many respects, the new immi-
gration is as bad as the old was good.1

There are several facts which this author has forgotten, as
have those from whom he draws. First, the older immigrant
is not yet assimilated. In the agricultural counties of Mr.
Edwards' own state, there are townships in which the English
language is a foreign tongue, although the second generation
of Germans already plows the fertile fields of Wisconsin; and
there are cities where the Germans have thoroughly assimilated
the Americans.

There are places of no mean size in Pennsylvania, which are as
German as they were 200 years ago, and as far as the Irish every-
where are concerned, it is still a question what we shall be when
they have done with us.

I venture to predict that the twentieth century immigrant
will assimilate much more quickly and completely than the
immigrants of the eighteenth and the early half of the nineteenth
centuries assimilated.

Beside the fact that the process is going on much more rapidly
than ever before, as I asserted, my theories are corroborated
by Professor Ross, of the University of Wisconsin, whose book
is suggestive if not conclusive. Speaking of the assimilation of
the immigrant, he says :

1 " Studies on American Social Conditions — Immigration." By Richard
Henry Edwards, p. 9.

208

THE NEW IMMIGRATION

On the whole, those who come now Americanize much more readily
than did the non- English immigrants of the seventeenth and eight-
eenth centuries. Not only do they come from lesser peoples and from
humbler social strata, but, thanks to the great role the United States
plays in the world, the American culture meets with far more prestige
than it had then. Although we have ever greater masses to assimilate,
let us comfort ourselves with the fact that the vortical suction of
our civilization is stronger now than even before.1

Neither is any one prepared to prove that the "new immigrant
is as bad as the old was good."

It is very interesting that when authors and speakers quote
statistics, as they usually do, to prove the criminal nature of
the new immigrant, they do not differentiate between the older
and the newer groups. If they did, and would let statistics
determine the issue, they would find that the new immigrant is
good and the old bad ; yes, very bad.

The following tables, quoted from the Report of the Commis-
sion of Immigration of the State of New York, are worthy the
close study of Mr. Edwards and the authors upon whom he has
relied.2

STATISTICS REFERRING TO FOREIGN-BORN OFFENDERS COM-
MITTED TO NEW YORK STATE PRISONS AND PENITENTIARIES

DURING 1904

TOTAL NUMBER OF PRISONERS COMMITTED

MAJOR
OFFENSES

MINOR
OFFENSES

TOTAL

Aggregate .

"2 6?0

26,136

20,81^

Total white

T..T.4.Z

24,060

28,^14

Native white

2 266

16 7^0

10 O2<C

Native white of native parentage
Native white of foreign parentage
Native white of mixed parentage

1,223
732
263

10,266
4,500

I ^O^

11,489
5,232
1,768

Native white of unknown parentage
Foreign-born whites

48
I O7Z

488
8 1 58

536
0*233

Whites of unknown nativity

4

^2

56

Negroes

•2 -2Q

I T2Q

1,460

Mongolians

I

i

Indians ....

27

•zi

185.

Social Psychology," Ross, p. 140.
2 Report of Commission of Immigration of the State of New York, pp. 182 and

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS WITH NEW IMMIGRANT 209

FOREIGN-BORN WHITE OFFENDERS BY NATIVITY

MAJOR
OFFENSES

PER

CENT:

MINOR
OFFENSES

PER
CENT

48

A.<

2^0

3-2

Canada

68

6 3

43^

e.^z

Denmark

r

o ^

28

o.^

England and \Vales

67

6 2

6s*

8 i

France . .....

IO

i 8

no

1.4

Germany

• 212

10-7

1,136

l^. o

Hungary

T r

I 4.

8*

I O

Ireland

IAS

I? 7

•2 r6o

4-2.0

Italy

2CC

2^.7

601

7.7

JVJexico

6

O.I

Norway

7

O 7

46

O.1?

Poland

?o

2.8

232

2.8

Russia

I IO

no

•2Q2

4.0

Scotland ....

17

i 6

2 2O

2.7

Sweden

14

i. T.

163

2.O

Switzerland

4

0.4

A7

O-5

Other countries

47

4.4

171

2.1

Totals

1,07^

IOO.O

8,158

IOO.O

PAUPERS ADMITTED TO ALMSHOUSES IN NEW YORK STATE

DURING YEAR 1904, BY NATIVITY AND LENGTH OF RESIDENCE

IN THE UNITED STATES

All paupers admitted 10,272

Per cent of white paupers admitted : x

Native - . . 44.0 per cent.

Foreign-born 56.0 per cent.

FOREIGN-BORN WHITE PAUPERS ADMITTED IN 1904, BY NATIVITY

COUNTRY OF BIRTH

PER CENT

PER CENT

Ireland

S4-.3

Germany

18.7

England and Wales ...

6.4

Canada (including Newfoundland) ....

4-3

Scandinavia .

2.0

France ....

0.9

Scotland .... .

2.O

Italy . .

3-5

88.6

Hungary and Bohemia ....

0.6

3.3

Unknown

. 4.0

11.4

Grand total • •

IOO.O

2IO

THE NEW IMMIGRATION

What is more striking still is the following table which seems
to prove that the new immigrant does not increase his percentage
in the criminal column materially, in fact that there is a slight
tendency to decrease it.1

FOREIGN-BORN OFFENDERS ACCORDING TO YEARS OF RESIDENCE IN THE

UNITED STATES

YEARS

MAJOR

OFFENSES

PER
CENT

MINOR
OFFENSES

PER
CENT

Under one year

l6

32

86

I O

One year

7O

72

220

2 8

Two years .

6*

* 8

2O7

* 6

Three years

C2

4.8

a8<

7 A

Four years

AQ

3 6

1 77

2 2

Over four years

824.

71? 3

7 14.3

87 o

Totals . . f

I OQ4.

IOO O

8 217

IOO O

I am not trying to prove that the old immigration was worse
than the new ; I do not believe that these statistics prove it, in
spite of their appearing to. But they do prove conclusively
that statistics of this kind are absolutely unreliable in furnishing
tests of the moral fiber of this or that group.

Far more reliable is the verdict of various communities after
twenty-five years' experience with the new immigrant.

Take for example the city of Streator, 111., which has steadily
grown in size and in the number and variety of its industrial
establishments; a development which could not have taken
place without the new* immigrant. There are certain unprofitable
seams in the mines which the English-speaking miners would not
have worked ; even as there are less profitable veins which the
Slav does not care to touch and which are being worked by Sicil-
ians, new upon the scene.

It is true that out of the 500 Welsh miners there are only
about fifty left ; but the 450 were pushed up and not out, and

Lare in no position to complain. They have moved on to farms
and have grown prosperous, while some of the most lucrative
business in the city is theirs.

It does seem a great pity that a skilled trade like mining should
x have passed into the hands of unskilled laborers ; but for this,

1 Report of Commission of Immigration of the State of New York, p. 183.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS WITH NEW IMMIGRANT 211

the invention of machinery is to blame, and not the foreigner.
Had comparatively cheap labor been unavailable, the genius
of the American would not have stopped until he had all but
eliminated the human element, as he has done in many other
trades in which unskilled foreign labor is not a factor.

Twenty-five years ago I "squatted" near mine No. 3 with
my men from Scharosh. It was as wretched a patch as miners'
patches always are. We bunked twenty in a room and took as
good care of our bodies as conditions permitted ; so that when
we went down- town we were cleanly if not stylish.

My men soon learned to drink whisky like the Irish, swear
like the English, and dress like the Americans.

After twenty-five years the patches around the mines in Streator
are practically gone, and the homes there are as good as the Welsh
or English miners ever had. Some of the newer additions in that
growing city are occupied entirely by Slavs and do them credit.

Nor has the Slav been content to remain in' the mines; he,
too, has begun to move out and up. He owns saloons and sightly
stores in which his sons and daughters clerk, and it would take
a very keen student of race characteristics to distinguish the
Slavs from the native Americans.

"Do you see that young man at the entrance to the Chautauqua?"
said Mr. Williams, its public spirited secretary.

"Racially, his father is as sharply marked a man as I have ever
seen, and the son, a graduate of Harvard, looks as if his forefathers
had all grown up in the salt air of the New England coast."

Here in Streator were the people who have lived with the new
immigrant a quarter of a century and more, and I have spoken
to them three times, in my most optimistic vein ; many a man
and woman have said :

You are right, they make splendid citizens.

They are good neighbors.

They are as human as we are, and they are proving it.

This, in spite of the fact that in Streator as in Connellsville
and in hundreds of industrial towns, they have been met with
suspicion and have been treated with injustice !

212 THE NEW IMMIGRATION

"They are a great strain upon our political institutions," said
Mr. Williams, himself once a Welsh miner, pushed out of the
mine by the Slav and now one of the leading citizens of Streator.

But Mr. Williams knows that the year I lived in Streator, when
the Slav had no vote or influence, politics in that city were already
corrupt and that the corrupters were native Americans, whose
ancestors harked back to the Mayflower, and who were rewarded
for their corruption by high political offices. In truth, when the
Slav came to this country, there was nothing left to corrupt,
in Scranton or Wilkes-Barre, in Connellsville or Streator; or,
indeed, in all Pennsylvania and Illinois. The Slav now has some
political power ; but as yet he has not produced the "grafter." I
do not say that he will not ; but when he does, small blame to him.

In one of the four cities which I have mentioned, I shared with
a group of Poles the vicissitudes of the first few weeks in a
boarding-house, a combination of saloon and hotel, common in
Pennsylvania, and usually offering more bar than board.

One evening an American came among us, a splendid type
of agile manhood. When my men saw him, they said, "This is
a prince!" They did not know that he was a politician. He
shook hands with every one of us, and I said to the men, "This
is democracy ! " Poor fool ! I did not know that it was the day
before election.

Then he marched the men to the bar, and said to the barkeeper :
"Fill 'em up." And as they drank the fiery stuff, no doubt
they thought they were in Heaven, and forgot that they were
in Pennsylvania. When the whisky took effect, they were
marched into a large hall, where other Poles, drunk as they,
were congregated ; speeches were made, full of the twaddle of
political jargon which they did not understand, and when morn-
ing came, these Poles, so intoxicated that they did not know
whether they were North Poles or South Poles, were marched
to the voting-place and sworn in.

I have told this story in each of the four places referred to,
and in the place where it occurred, a judge, who was among my
audience, said to me :

"Don't tell that story again."

" Why not ? It is true," I replied.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS WITH NEW IMMIGRANT 213

"Yes," he said, "it is perfectly true; but you'd better save your
strength. In this city, not only the foreigners, who are not citizens,
vote; but the dead vote, ,long after they have become citizens of
Kingdom Come."

One of these same Poles recently took me through the Capitol
of Pennsylvania at Harrisburg. With great pride he guided
me from foundation to dome, pointing out those objects of inter-
est which every stranger must see, as if they were the memorials
of noble deeds of valour.

They consist of wood, painted to imitate marble, chan-
deliers of base metal, to be sold by the pound, at fabulous
prices, and among many other spurious things, a safe, sup-
posed to be fireproof and burglar-proof, but which was not
politician-proof, for an ordinary gimlet bored a hole into its cor-
rupt heart.

What was distressing to me was not so much that the State
paid millions for this veneered and varnished fraud, but that
my Polish guide pronounced the word graft with evident relish
and without fear or shame.

I do not doubt that the presence of the new immigrant is "a
great strain upon our political institutions"; but not greater
than the old immigrant was, and still is. This certainly is true
of Pennsylvania ; for there are counties in that state, into whose
wilds the new immigrant has not yet penetrated, and where
those who have been living off its fat acres since their birth —
the sons of immigrants who came two hundred years ago —
hold their right of franchise cheap. I am told that in these coun-
ties nearly every vote can be bought for five dollars.

This may be idle rumor ; but the fact remains and can be
proved by any one who chooses to investigate, that Scranton,
Wilkes-Barre, Connellsville and a hundred other cities and towns,
are better governed now than they were before Slav, Latin, and
Jew came to live in their Patches and Ghettos. This is true in
spite of our having tried to corrupt these new citizens from the
very hour when they received their political rights, and that,
when they had no rights, we treated them with neglect and
scorn.

The mayor of Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a man of the newer
and better type of administrators, whose territory is completely

214 THE NEW IMMIGRATION

environed by the coke regions and has an almost totally foreign
population — says :

They make reliable citizens. They can be trusted absolutely.
Their worst enemy is drink ; but when a foreigner comes before me
and is fined, if he has no money and I let him go home, he will come
the next day to pay his fine even if he lives ten miles from town. Yet
in spite of the fact that the "Hunkey" and the "Dago" have helped
build up Greensburg and have enriched its citizens, they are still
held in contempt by the majority of its people.

This same official told me that a few years ago when the
Italians celebrated their Independence Day, the High School
boys of that city threw decayed vegetables at them and their
national flag.

Without the slightest reserve I can say this : Wherever an
enlightened official, like this mayor, or teachers of the public
schools, ministers of the Gospel and business men, have come in
real contact with the new immigrant, their verdict was entirely
different from that of Mr. Edwards and many of the professional
writers upon the problem which the foreigner represents.

There are some places in the United States where I have found
the immigrant a menace, and one of them is in Pittston, Pennsyl-
vania. There the Italian is really bad ; there he is an Anarchist
and a murderer. But in Pittston I discovered the really bad
American, an Anarchist and a murderer; although he may be
the owner of some of the mines or a high official in the town. In
that city, every law which governs mining has been openly
violated, and there is at least one mine in the place which is
nothing but a deep hell-hole and is known as such by the men
compelled to work in it. It is a mine in which anything may be
had for a bribe and anything may be done without fear of punish-
ment. In one of the last communal elections, the candidate for
its highest office kept open house, with beer and " booze" in one
of the miners' shacks ; young boys, not out of their teens, were
allowed to drink to intoxication, and the candidate already
mentioned was not an Italian or a Slav or a Jew ; but an Ameri-
can, unto the tenth generation, and a member of a Protestant
church.

I do not rejoice in writing this or in telling it as I have had to

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS WITH NEW IMMIGRANT 215

tell it in the towns affected, and to the very men who have thus
offended.

It is painful to me, because, after all, I do not feel myself so
closely identified with the immigrant as with the American.
While my sympathies are with the immigrant, they are much
more with this, my country, and with that circle of the native
born, whose ideals, whose hopes, and whose aspirations have
become mine.

I am not greatly concerned with immigration, per se; that is
a subject for the economist, which I am not. It is for him, if
he is skilled enough, to know whether we can afford to keep our
gates open to the millions who come, or when and to whom to
close them.

Narrowly, or perhaps selfishly, I am concerned for those who
are here ; that they be treated justly, with due appreciation of
their worth, and that they may see that best in the American
which has bound me to him, to his land and to its history ; to
its best men living, and to those of its dead who left a great leg-
acy, too great to be squandered by a prodigal generation.

Knowing how great this legacy is, and yet may be for the
blessing of mankind, I am pleading for this new immigrant. If
we care at all for that struggling, striving mass of men, un-
blessed as yet by those gifts of Heaven which have blessed us,
let us prove to these people of all kindreds and races and nations,
that our God is the Lord, that His law is our law and that all
men are our brothers.

IMMIGRANTS IN CITIES1

E. A. GOLDENWEISER, EXPERT IN CHARGE OF ClTY INQUIRY,
UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COMMISSION

SEVEN cities were included by the Federal Immigration
Commission in its study of conditions : New York, which
with its hundreds of thousands of tenement houses and with an
equal number of pages describing their evils is preeminently
the congested city ; Chicago, which in lifting itself out of a swamp
left behind many a basement where the poor seek shelter, and
many a yard which is dry only in the hottest season ; Philadel-
phia, with its network of narrow alleys with surface drainage, its
three-room houses with insufficient water supply and sanitary
equipment, in a word, with its " horizontal tenement houses";
Boston, where " Americans in process" succeed each other in the
restricted area of the North and the West Ends, and where the
one-family dwelling, converted for the use of several households,
emphasizes the rapid change of conditions; Cleveland, which
awoke to find itself one of the leading cities in America and has
not had time to think of the necessity of protecting itself from
the slum ; Buffalo, with its enormous colony of Poles who have
come from. farms in Europe and have to learn the solution of the
problem of existence in a city ; and Milwaukee, the most foreign
city of them all, where there is no limit of space, and where in
spite of that, economic pressure frequently results in crowding
of houses on a lot and of persons in a house.

It was felt that an inquiry covering representative districts
in these seven cities could safely be accepted as indicative
of what may be found elsewhere in the United States, in the
poorest environment and most congested quarters. This also
would afford a much broader basis for judgment than the study
of a single locality. For many reasons the problem of the

1 From The Survey, January i, 1911.
216

IMMIGRANTS IN CITIES 217

immigrant in large cities has for almost a generation attracted a
great deal of attention. The vast majority of immigrants land in
two or three seaports, and large numbers remain there, for a time
at least. The phenomenal growth of cities and the difficulties
accompanying their growth have been intensified by the influx
of millions of aliens, who for the most part are unacquainted with
urban conditions in their own countries, and are dazed by the
complexity of existence in the great American cities. And it
must be remembered that writers, like immigrants, congregate
in large cities, and their proximity to the foreign colonies has had
its natural result. The social reformer who wishes to remedy
preventable evils, as well as the journalist who is anxious to
present readable material, has consistently dwelt on the crowding
and filth, the poverty and destitution, of which there are such
extreme instances in the poorer quarters of every city. Public
opinion has been aroused, and legislation enacted which has
tended to minimize the evils of overcrowding in many of the
older cities, and to inform the younger cities of the dangers of
unregulated growth. But the result also has been to create in the
popular imagination an impression that the extreme instances
cited are the whole story, and that the congested quarters of large
cities, full of filth, squalor, and depraved humanity, are a menace
to the nation's health and morals. Moreover, the responsibility
for these conditions is almost universally placed by old residents
on the immigrant, and primarily on the recent immigrant, from
the South and East of Europe. The Italian, the Hebrew, and
the Slav, according to popular belief, are poisoning the pure air
of our otherwise well-regulated cities ; and if it were not for them
there would be no congestion, no filth, and no poverty in the
great industrial and commercial centers of America.

Once the cities were selected, the problem was to choose the
districts. The method of study agreed upon was to canvass a
certain number of blocks, representing the most important races
in each city and the worst representative conditions. After the
blocks had been selected every household living there was visited,
and schedules were secured from them. In this way the study was
not confined to individual cases showing extremes of poverty or
of prosperity, but included every family that resided within the
chosen quarter. In most cases the blocks studied were uniformly

2Ig THE NEW IMMIGRATION

populated by one race. It was no easy problem to find blocks
of that description. The population of the districts in many
instances changes so rapidly, that the race which predominates
in one of them to-day may constitute but a small minority to-
morrow. City officials and settlement workers were helpful in
locating foreign colonies, but in addition we interviewed physi-
cians, district nurses, grocers, letter-carriers, priests, and saloon-
keepers. It was especially difficult to find solid blocks of Irish
and of Germans, and it is only fair to add that the households of
these older races often represent the failures which were left
behind when their more successful countrymen moved to better
.neighborhoods. For the sake of comparison, it was felt that some
American households ought to be included ; but that was a still
harder proposition. What was meant by Americans were house-
holds whose heads were natives of native fathers . Few such house-
holds were found in crowded districts, and never did they form
the majority of the population of a block. They were studied
whenever found within the specified areas inhabited by working
people. In Boston, to secure one hundred family schedules from
such native stock, about 700 homes were visited. It is worthy of
note that the search for Americans in the poorer quarters of
American cities was an arduous task.

To secure the desired information from every family visited
was not always an easy undertaking. The recent immigrants,
who are more accustomed to a paternalistic government and
have not learned the hall-marks of American liberty, were the
easiest to interview. Some of the old residents, who have learned
to look upon themselves as the sovereign people and consider
the government as their agent, were unwilling to answer the
questions. I shall never forget my own experience with an Irish
woman, twice my size, but as it turned out with a bad memory
for faces, who not only refused to answer my timid questions,
but took the trouble to escort me downstairs and to threaten
violence should I come " nosing around" again. This was at
the very outset of the work. A month or two later, fortified by
accumulated experience, I returned to the same house and
obtained schedules from all the tenants, including my formidable
antagonist, who this time was quite accommodating and confided
that she knew the difference between a real government agent

IMMIGRANTS IN CITIES 219

and a fraud. As proof, she told of the treatment she had recently
accorded to a "mutt" who wished to impose upon her. One of
the women agents had an exciting time in a "Krainer" household
in Cleveland. The owner of the house, a man of consequence in
the community, refused point blank to answer any questions,
grabbed the agent by the arm and put her out. The agent re-
ferred the matter to the United States marshal who accompanied
her on her next visit. The "Krainer" was impressed, helped
fill out the schedule, and ended by a proposal of marriage which
was taken as a great compliment by the canvasser. Another
schedule worker was one time surrounded by a crowd of irate
Italians, who would not let her leave the premises until she had
destroyed the records which she had taken great pains to obtain.
Incidents of this nature w.ere not unusual, but every agent who
worked in this investigation will agree with me, that the pro-
portion of "difficult" families was 'surprisingly small, when
the large number of questions asked and the personal character
of some of them are taken into consideration, and that the in-
vestigators owe a great deal to the willingness and courtesy of
most of the families canvassed.

The inquiry covered over 10,200 households and over 51,000
individuals. The largest number of households, 2667, was
studied in New York, and the smallest, 687, in Buffalo. It is
apparent that this total represents only a small proportion of all
families living amid congested conditions in the United States.
Yet those studied were representative of many times as many
households living under substantially similar conditions in the
seven cities chosen. It seems fair, therefore, to say that what the
study reveals are the worst living conditions existing on a large
scale in any of the large cities of America.

What then are some of the vital facts disclosed by the in-
vestigation? First of all, it reaffirms that crowded districts are
largely populated by immigrants, and more particularly by
recent immigrants. In the eastern cities, New York, Philadel-
phia, and Boston, the Russian Hebrews and the south Italians
are the largest elements in congested foreign colonies. In the
cities on the Great Lakes, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, and Mil-
waukee, the various Slavic races, the Poles, Slovaks, and Slove-
nians, are found in large numbers. About two thirds of the

220 THE NEW IMMIGRATION

foreign-born in the selected districts have been in this country
less than ten years, and one< fifth has immigrated within the
past five years.

A noteworthy fact in this connection is that about one family
out of every ten visited owns its home. Of course, this does not
mean that the families have clear titles to the property ; but it
is indicative of thrift and of the intention on the part of the
immigrants to settle permanently in this country. The propor-
tion varies greatly from city to city; in Milwaukee, it is one in.
five ; in Buffalo, one in six ; in Chicago and in Cleveland, about
one in seven ; in Philadelphia, one in fourteen ; in Boston, one
in twenty, and in New York, one in two hundred.

In connection with the prevailing opinion about the filth,
which is supposed to be the natural element of the immigrant, it
is an interesting fact that, while perhaps five sixths of the blocks
studied justified this belief, so far as the appearance of the street
went, five sixths of the interiors of the homes were found to be
fairly clean, and two out of every five were immaculate. When
this is considered in connection with the frequently inadequate
water supply, the dark halls, and the large number of families
living in close proximity, the responsibility for uncleanliness and
insanitary conditions is largely shifted from the immigrants to
the landlords, and to the municipal authorities who spare no
expense in sprinkling oil to save the wealthy automobilists from
the dust, but are very economical when it comes to keeping the
poorer streets in a habitable condition. The water supply, the
drainage, and the condition of the pavement are also outside the
jurisdiction of the tenants ; and yet their neglect results in- bad
conditions for which the resident of the crowded districts is
blamed.

Congestion itself is a relative term, and hard to measure
statistically without going into more details than any extensive
investigation can afford to do. And yet it does seem like some-
thing of an anti-climax to the cry about terrible congestion,
when the fact is stated that the average number of persons per
room in the 10,000 households studied by the commission is
1.34. The average is higher in Boston, Philadelphia and Cleve-
land than in New York, and is lowest in Milwaukee, where the
figure is 1.15. Some races show averages far higher than those

IMMIGRANTS IN CITIES 221

for all the households studied, and yet the highest figure which
is found among the Slovenians does not exceed 1.72 persons per
room. These figures are significant, because they indicate that
the pictures of six or more persons per room, which are frequently
given to the public, do not represent general conditions, but are
exceptional. It is also interesting that New York shows lower
averages than Boston and Philadelphia. This suggests that after
all, when a certain density of population is reached, the building
of tenement houses tends to increase the amount of floor area
per acre and reduce the number of persons per square yard of
floor space, and presumably per room. Not that congestion per
acre is devoid of evils, such as traffic congestion, lack of breathing
space or of playgrounds for the children ; but this problem is part
of the general problem of the growth of large cities and is not
confined to foreign quarters.

Another current belief is that all of the foreigners in poorer
sections of cities keep large numbers of boarders or lodgers, and
sacrifice comfort and decency to their inordinate desire to save
money, in order presumably to return home and live on what they
have earned in America. I shall not stop to consider the economic
fallacy involved in this reasoning, and in the theory that these )
savings when sent abroad are a loss to America; I shall only 1
point out that the study of immigrant homes has shown that/
only about one out of every four keeps boarders or lodgers at/
all, so that three fourths of the households consist of what may
be called the natural family. It is further noteworthy that crowd-
ing in larger apartments is never as great as in smaller apartments,
which suggests that the immigrant household is crowded either
because, having a large family, the head cannot afford a sufficient
number of rooms ; or because, having taken an apartment of
standardized size, he finds himself unable to pay the rent and
support his family without the help of one or two lodgers. There
is no evidence of boarders or lodgers being kept as a business nor
of a sacrifice of comfort or decency to cupidity, as it is called in
the immigrant, or even to thrift, as it is called in the native. >
Crowding, when it appears, is the result of grim economic neces- /
sity, and as a rule it disappears as soon as the pressure relaxes. I

In studying foreign colonies in cities, one is constantly reminded
of the forces which create them and keep them together. Most

222 THE NEW IMMIGRATION

immigrants come to join friends or relatives and thus form the
nucleus of a colony ; the first few families attract more, and in a
short time a racial island is created in the city. Once the colony
is established there are many reasons for its continued existence
and growth.

It is expensive to move ; it is sometimes hard to find a position
in a new environment or to pay car fare, or even to be deprived
of the possibility of coming home for lunch. Furthermore,
friendly relations, kinship, language, religious affiliations, dietary
laws and preferences, and the greater ease of securing boarders in
districts where immigrants of the same race are centered, tend
to keep the families where they have once settled.

But when the immigrant becomes accustomed to American
conditions, when he has gained a firm economic footing, when his
children have gone to American schools, the desire for better
surroundings overcomes the economic and racial reasons for
remaining in congested districts. The stream of emigration from
the foreign colonies in large cities is continuous ; some move up-
town when they marry, some seek new places to establish their
own business ; others look for cleaner streets, and still others
follow the current for no conscious reason. The older immigrants
do not often form colonies in American cities any longer, and
the newer arrivals clearly tend to follow the example of their
predecessors in congested districts, gradually scattering over the
city of residence and often leaving that city altogether.

In conclusion, I wish to say that this study has not touched the
general problem of the distribution of immigrants and their
concentration in cities. What it has done is to show that the
immigrants in cities in a large majority of cases live a clean and
decent life, in spite of all the difficulties that are thrown in their
way by economic struggle and municipal neglect. The study
strongly indicates that racial characteristics are entirely sub-
ordinate to environment and opportunity in determining that
part of the immigrant's mode of life which is legitimately a matter
of public concern ; and finally, it shows that foreign colonies in
large cities are not stagnant, but are constantly changing their
composition, the more successful members leaving for better
surroundings, until finally the entire colony is absorbed in the
melting pot of the American city. The population of congested

IMMIGRANTS IN CITIES 223

quarters constantly changes, but the quarters themselves remain
congested and will remain so as long as new immigrants continue
to arrive in large numbers. It is vitally important for the city
to keep her crowded quarters clean and her tenement houses
sanitary ; but it is just as important that the public understand
that congested quarters of large cities are temporary receptacles
of newly arrived immigrants, rather than stagnant pools of filth,
and vice, and destitution.

THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN1

KATE WALLER BARRETT, M. D., SPECIAL AGENT, UNITED STATES
IMMIGRATION SERVICE

THE consideration of the subject of immigration is not new.
Ever since the days of the Athenian Republic, nations have
had the subject to deal with in some form.

The United States has passed through several stages in its
attitude on the subject. In early colonial days immigration was
so earnestly desired that enforced immigration was resorted to
and unwilling lawbreakers were deported from England to this
country and shiploads of slaves were brought from Africa. Let
us not forget that one of the most conspicuous problems that this
country has to face in regard to aliens dates from this latter
source.

One of the charges made against King George in the Declaration
of Independence was that he interfered with immigration, and yet
as early as 1780, Benjamin Franklin declared that unless the
immigration from the continent is stopped the English language
will cease to be the language of the country. Also in spite of the
fact that William Penn showed himself to be an able forerunner
of the present day immigration agent in the manner in which
he advertised the advantages of Pennsylvania, we find that at
that early day others were deploring the fact that those who were
coming were very inferior to those who had come with the first
ships. It is remarkable what virtues priority seems to give in the
eyes of many !

After the country became fairly well populated there was a
period of indifference to the subject and it was only in 1882 that
any effort towards regulating immigration was undertaken by
the government.

1 Printed by The American Sociological Society and The Committee of One
Hundred, Federal Council of Churches in America, August, 1915.

224

THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN 225

At the present time I might characterize the attitude of most
of our citizens as one of questionings if not of hostility, toward
unrestricted immigration.

In spite of the attention which has been directed to the subject
in the past ten years when we have been receiving annually over
one million aliens, most legislation has been abortive and un-
related to the crux of the matter. The cause of this confusion in
legislative enactment is due largely to the fact that none of
the political parties and no candidates for election have had the
courage to define their position upon this subject for fear of losing
the naturalized vote. To my mind the hyphenated American
citizen is as much interested in a sane and intelligent solution
of this question as the native-born. He has sought this country
for larger social or economic opportunities and frequently has a
greater appreciation of American institutions than those born
under the Stars and Stripes. A pertinent question for every
native son of the United States to ask himself, especially those
of colonial descent, whose fathers' blood made possible this
government and who with bloodless effort availed themselves
of the treasures that nature had stored up in geological periods,
is : If I had not been born to this heritage of freedom would
I have had the courage to claim it? Upon his ability to
answer this subject in the affirmative rests their position as
the leaders of the future destinies of this republic ; if answered
in the negative, no adventitious circumstances, no pride of birth,
no unjust laws can build a fortress around them sufficient
to protect them for long against the onward and irresistible
march of progress. I never see an alien woman in the street,
in her peasant costume, with the look of anxiety and often fear
on her face, that I do not mentally make obeisance to her,
for I question if I would have the bravery to do what she
has done.

What she has done, it did not matter how circumstance
pressed. And so we pay, one way or another, for all that we have,
it does not matter in what form it comes. Now that Nature has
been tanied, the only way that we can hope to keep alive the
splendid pioneer spirit of our ancestors is to stand on the
frontiers of moral reform and to be the adventurous bowman for
civil economic and religious liberty.

226

THE NEW IMMIGRATION

Easy living, easy dying is as true of the national as of the
physical body.

While there is nothing startlingly new in the general subject of
immigration the problem of the unattached alien woman is new
in its present form.

.We who traceour^ ancestry back to the colonial days, rather
resent having our attention callecTto the fact that large numbers
of women who were deported from Great Britain to the colonies
and whose progeny were doubtless absorbed into some of the
first families for eligible females were rather scarce in those days.
A picture of what the inhumanity of man caused some of those
first alien women to suffer has come down to us in that wonderful
classic "Manon Lescaut." If you want to know what our civiliza-
tion has cost alien women, read some of the official manuscripts
preserved in the Library at Paris, of the settlement of Louisiana.
A young friend of mine went to Paris to prepare a thesis upon
the settlement of Alabama, and she told me the horrors that were
revealed to her in those musty documents were unbelievable.

Let us not forget that much of the civilization of America was
built upon the sufferings of alien women and that the ties
which bound together the thirteen colonies were cemented with
their blood.

But it is with the alien woman of to-day that I have to deal.

The movement of unattached women of every nationality is
a significant feature of the day. It is an unmistakable sign of
her unrest and dissatisfaction of the old order. Even our own
daughters prefer occupation far from their home in the majority
of cases. This practice on the part of American women has
affected European women. \ Formerly men of the family came
first. Now it is not at all unusual to find women coming first and
sending back for the men of the family. Many have said to me
that American women do not have to have a home. Why should
they? A boarding house answers every purpose.

In considering the alien woman it is safe to say that if you
multiply the injustices which alien men are subjected to it will
not exaggerate her plight. All that he suffers she suffers also
and added to it the burden incident to her sex.

If the injustice is economic and he is a married man, the woman
must stretch the family purse to meet the demands of the family,

THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN 227

and if any member must go without, it is always the mother. Is it
any wonder that foreign children are so often ashamed of their
mothers because they are so different from other children's
mothers and because of this drift away from her wholesome
influence ? If we believe that in a well-ordered American home,
the mother should be the center, is it not time we took some for-
ward step which will lead to some permanent constructive meas-
ures that will dignify the alien mother who is often an uncrowned
heroine ? Something has been done at Hull House by establishing
a museum of hand industries, but every locality should perfect
some machinery where the alien mother might have just rec-
ognition without having to wait to get to heaven to receive it.

The economic injustice to which the self-supporting alien
woman is subjected is well known. Usually unskilled and in-
capable of initiative, there are practically no labor unions which
are open to her and she has practically no redress from greedy
employers. Frequently I have had in my charge, in New York,
girls who had been employed in a private family for several
months and then have been taken out on the street and left, in
order that they might not be forced to pay them their earnings.
Sometimes it has taken weeks to find where the parties lived, for
as strange as it may seem, these girls often stay for months in a
house and never learn the name of the street. The number of
girls thus cheated must be enormous for their fear of the invisible
government often makes them afraid to make complaints, and it
is only the few cases that fall into the hands of some philanthropic
organization that are ever heard of.

Social injustice -is the alien woman's reward at every turn.
Even the legislation which is passed to protect her often becomes
a boomerang. The deportation acts of the Federal Department
of Immigration cover the punishment of those who contribute
to her delinquency as much as they punish her. In spite of this
fact and although the sympathy of the heads of the department
has always been with the friendless woman, minor officials have
seen in this law an opportunity to magnify their importance and
to swell the amount of work they have accomplished, have been
indefatigable in arresting women, but strange to say are very
unsuccessful in finding the guilty male partner. A well-merited
rebuke was administered by a federal judge in San Francisco

228 THE NEW IMMIGRATION

lately when he declined to hold the woman until her partner
in crime was also arrested.

Nothing is more in keeping with the wishes of man when he
has gotten a woman in trouble than to have her deported and thus
put the ocean between them, thus ridding him of his incumbrance.
But I am glad to say that the recent order of the secretary of
labor and Commissioner-General Camineti, placing all women
held for deportation in the hands of a woman officer and in the
custody of some private society, preferably of her own nationality
and religion, assures every woman of having friends who will see
that justice is done her.

The difficulty of alien women_ get ting in touch with the best
class of her countrymen is another source of social injustice
and often sheer loneliness and the desire to talk to someone who
speaks her own language will cause her to seek companionship
among those, who, if other avenues were open to her, would not
attract her. In every city there are groups of those of the same
nationality, segregated into clubs, with different objects, all
giving opportunities for social companionship and development,
but these organizations are all for men. I know of none such for
women. True, there are national organizations for women but
they are invariably exclusive and the woman who needs them most
is not eligible for membership. If they are not exclusive the best
women of that race don't go to tnem. But it does not matter how
democratic a man's club may be you will find the leading citizens
of that nationality in the city belonging to them.

The importance of reaching the alien woman is paramount if
we are going to Americanize our foreign population. She is the
crux of the whole subject. It is she who selects the neighborhood
and the house in which the family live and the church which they
attend. She has the opportunity to supplement the lessons at
school and her attitude towards the problems of daily life un-
consciously are reflected in the other members of the family. In
the states in which women have the ballot she will be sought for by
the ward politician and her ideals of the ballot will reflect the
attitude of her teacher.

As some practical suggestions as to the means, I would rec-
ommend that every state pass a law similar to the California
law whereby teachers may be sent into the home to instruct the

THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN 229

mothers. That efforts be put forth by the men's clubs to form
national centers to which the mothers may be gathered and where
they will be addressed in their own language. That our national
holidays be set aside especially for the education in American
ideals. That special occasions of joy be participated in on the
national holidays of that nationality. That we educate ourselves
in the contributions that each nation has made to our literature
and that we voice our appreciation of these contributions.
That we see to it that the municipality is not lax in enforcing the
health laws in the foreign community and that if any part of
the municipality must suffer at the hands of the street cleaning
department it shall be other than the foreign district where
frequently the streets and alleys are often the only playgrounds
or parks. Neighbor liness on the part of the women of the com-
munity who have a recognized standing will do more to wipe out
the injustices than any other one thing. When the exploiters
find they have the club women of the community to deal with
they will be more careful or at least more guarded in their
approach. That the inferior courts, particularly the police courts,
be dignified and organized upon a basis that will command for them
the same respect as the superior courts, for it is in the police
courts that the alien usually gets his introduction to the legal
machinery of this country and his first impressions are the most
lasting.

That in each locality the district attorney's office set aside a
particular time, putting in charge one of his most efficient assist-
ants with a good interpreter, to hear the complaints of alien
women. That where there are juvenile courts, special probation
officers are detailed to get in touch with the foreign districts and
enlighten the mothers upon the scope and value of the juvenile
court, in order that when necessary she can use the court un-
officially. In this way the arrest of many children would be pre-
vented and the court would assist in upholding parental authority.

Many things which make for national deterioration are laid
at the door of the alien which do not rightly belong there. I
was interested to note at a recent disgusting performance I "\
attended there was not apparently a foreigner there. The \
audience was composed of well-dressed American boys and girls. 1
I could not help but think that if such a performance had been ^

23o THE NEW IMMIGRATION

given by foreign element the whole city would have rung with
theory that our American institutions, our American Sunday, were
being murdered by foreign influence.

The above suggestions are based upon the belief that it does not
matter how much we may disagree upon the policy of immigration,
that we are all agreed that after the alien has been admitted into
this country he is entitled not only to be given his just right but
also to have the best opportunity to become a good citizen.

V. EFFECTS
RACIAL EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION 1

LEON MARSHALL, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, UNIVERSITY

OF CHICAGO

^"PEAKING in broad general terms, this country has expe-
O rienced the inflow of three great sections of the human races
— European, African, and Asiatic. In the one we have a case of
voluntary immigration, and in the second a case of forced immi-
gration, and in the third a case of exclusion.

As the result of the forced immigration we have in the negro
an element containing n.6 per cent of our total population, or
more than one in ten, that for some reason or group of reasons —
whether historical accident or inferior ability or the ban of race
prejudice — has failed to be assimilated and now forms a most
serious problem in a democracy. We are far from the day when
arguments of either industrial development or mistaken self-
sacrifice would tempt us to repeat this particular experience.

In the case of the excluded element, the Chinese, we have
a race with many estimable qualities, a race furnishing excellent
material for self-sacrificing effort upon our part, a race anxious
to aid our industrial development by coming in what would have
been perhaps the largest tides of immigration we have ever ex-
perienced. Nevertheless they are a people that for racial, social,
political, and economic reasons 'we have decided to exclude.

Between these two extremes, — a race forced to immigrate
and one forbidden to immigrate, stand, or rather come, the Eu-
ropean races. Our prime concern is with them. With no other
defense for my classification than that it serves well for discussion
purposes and cannot be charged with inaccuracy or misrepresen-
tation,— when its difficulties have been frankly acknowledged,
— and with the further defense that this classification is coming

1 Reprinted from the Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and
Correction, 1906.

231

23 2 EFFECTS

to be accepted by many of the best scholars,! shall speak of three
races of Europe, the Baltic, the Alpine, and the Mediterranean.

The Baltic race occupies the British Isles, Scandinavia, the
southern and eastern shores of the Baltic in Russia, the northern
half of the German Empire, northeastern Holland, northern Bel-
guim, and northeastern France. In short, as the name indicates,
this race is concentrated around the Baltic sea and includes the
peoples of northwestern Europe.

The Alpine race dwells in Switzerland, northern Italy, cen-
tral France, southern Germany, and the greater part of 6-ussia
and of the Balkan Peninsula. In short, it occupies the great
highland region of central Europe.

The Mediterranean race has as its habitat Spain, Portugal,
the islands of the Mediterranean west of Italy, a strip of the
southern shore of France, and southern Italy. In a badly mixed
state it is to be found in Greece, and, mixed with Arab and Ne-
groid strains, it is to be found in Africa north of the Sahara and
west of Tunis. In brief, this race is concentrated in the sub-
tropical region around the Mediterranean.
*~ It is evident that in dealing with the effects of the immigra-
tion of these races we shall have to consider three matters :

1. The composition and quality of the population of this
country before the great tides of immigration began.

2. The volume and character of. the immigration.

3. The results, both present and future, of the interplay of
these forces.

Taking up these matters in turn, what was the character of
our population in 1790, the date of the first census? As we look
back over our colonizing agencies, we might at first glance think
of this population as being very heterogeneous. In New Eng-
land there were the Puritans; in Virginia, the Cavaliers; in
Maryland, the Catholics ; in New York, a strong Dutch element,
stronger than is generally supposed ; in Pennsylvania and Dela-
ware, one third of the population German or German descent ;
along the Delaware river, .the descendants of the Swedes ; in the
Carolinas, many villages of Highlanders and Huguenots, -v ap-
parently a population varied in race, nationality, religion, tastes,
and speech. And yet, a careful view of the evidence will cause
a reconsideration of that opinion.

RACIAL EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION 233

After all, this 1790 population was mainly of English descent.
The foreign element was a considerable portion in only a few of
the colonies, while in New England, then comprising in itself
about one third of the total 1790 population, there was perhaps
the purest representation of the English people in the world.
But whether of English descent or no, this 1790 population was
emphatically of Baltic origin. It may almost be said to be ex-
clusively Baltic, for the other elements are negligible, so much
so that it is difficult to enumerate any non-Baltic elements of the
whole population. Further, this population was, in the main, of
most excellent stock. It is true that many of the early comers
were mere adventurers and in some of the southern colonies
worse than adventurers ; it is true that in some of the colonies
there were convicts and indentured servants. Nevertheless the
fact of the excellent stock remains. The influence of the un-
desirables and adventurers was never dominant and diminished
as time went on; the convicts were often merely political
offenders — men who had reserved the right to think for them-
selves and so were the very best of colonists ; an important section
of the indentured servant class was composed of thrifty, ambi-
tious, progressive people who served out an indenture in order
to better their condition, and these were excellent colonists.
The rest of the population was well sifted indeed. It was com-
posed of men who had left their European homes because their
religious, social, political, or economic ideals were too large for
their surroundings, men who were sufficiently sturdy in mind and
body to overcome the perils and hardships of voyage and settle-
ment. The evidence is clear that in mental capacity, physical
qualities, and moral stamina these settlers were among the best
of their race and that the 1790 population was, in the main, of
excellent stock.

Finally, the conditions of life were such that this population
was not merely assimilated, but fused. The frontier life with its
dangers, hardshipsVand informal society ; with its cultivation of
the capacity for self-government and of the spirit of self-reliance ;
with its necessity for the breaking away from old world traditions
and performing tasks under American conditions, took but a gen-
eration to weld the population into one people, and even in the more
settled regions the same forces served as a strong fusing agent.

234 EFFECTS

Such was the 1790 population. Mainly English, certainly
Baltic, of excellent stock, rapidly becoming fused and amalga-
mated, for one half century these people reproduced their kind
and developed a national life and character. They increased with
f great rapidity — an averagejrate of over 34 per centjlecade by
! decade — until the population that had number edTbut 3,900,000
in 1790 was over 17,000,000 in 1840. In this entire period the
immigration they received was of the same Baltic type and was
insignificant in amount, for the total immigration from 1776 to
1820 did not exceed 250,000 and the great immigration did not
x begin until 1845.

This, then, is the people upon whom immigration is to work
its racial effects. Our next task is to estimate the volume and
character of the immigration. It is evident that our immigration
has come in waves, each larger than its predecessor, and since
so much of the total inflow since 1820 is recent, the more far-
reaching effects are to be realized in the future. It is further
evident that a great change has taken place in the character and
conditions of immigration. This question of changed character
opens a bitter controversy. Upon the one side are those who
point out that in the early immigration there were many un-
satisfactory elements. Upon the other side are those who contend
that to-day we are not only receiving inferior races, — we are
getting the inferior classes of these races, and they refer to the
immigrants of to-day as the beaten men of beaten races. Let us,
if possible, steer clear of this controversy. Both sides will, of
course, agree that there has been a change in the racial origin of
our immigration. Both sides will, probably, further agree that the
earlier immigrants were subjected to a sifting process that does
not apply to those of to-day. The nature of the causes of the
early immigration and the hard conditions of voyage and settle-
ment produced that sifting and sorting of the earlier period which,
according to Professor Ripley , resulted in our securing immigrants
physically above the average of the peoples from whom they came
and which must have similar effects upon mental and moral
qualities.

Both sides will probably further agree -that a change has
occurred in the conditions in this country. For, while we still
have many forces making for assimilation and while some of

RACIAL EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION 235

these forces are stronger than ever, nevertheless the immigrant of
to-day comes to a land where there is a labor problem, where the
free public lands which permitted the dispersion of his predeces-
sors and were the escape valve of the nation, are no longer avail-
able, where such development has taken place that we are now
turning back upon ourselves, where the social organism has be-
come so large that the formation of inner classes is readily possi-
ble, and where such concentration of nationalities has already |
taken place that many assimilative forces haveTbeen seriously \
impeded. In this connection it should be noted that the changes
which have taken place in this country are of such a kind and
character that they will be more and not less pronounced in the
years to come.

In our discussion thus far we have seen the character of
the population upon which immigration was to work its effects
and we have seen the volume and the changed conditions of that
immigration. We come now to our third problem, the outcome,
the, race effects, fcet u"s again avoid controversial matters as far
as may be. Clearly there are but two great elements to 'w con-
sidered. One of these is heredity; that is, the permanent race
traits and characteristics of those who form and are to form ow
population. The other is environment, both social and physical.

Now since the changed character of immigration has been a
thing comparatively recent let us hinge our further discussion
upon this fact of changed character and inquire : ist. What were
the effects of the earlier immigration? 2d. What are to be the
effects of the present and future immigration?

As to the racial effects of the earlier immigration time will
only permit a couple of propositions that I am content to let
stand or fall according to their own inherent reasonableness.

The first of these propositions is that the early immigrant
did not produce any very serious racial change, (i) His environ-
ment was such as to render him entirely American. The qualities
possessed both by him and by his new home rendered assimilation
easy and rapid. (2) His racial traits were practically identical
with the racial traits of those whom he found here. He was
Baltic (undoubtedly there were some bad elements in this early
tide, however) and he was but added to a Baltic population.
(3) His method of selection was, upon the whole, most excellent ,

236 EFFECTS

We have already seen that, by the very force of circumstances,
those early immigrants were physically, mentally, and .morally
the pick of the nations from which they came. True it is that at
certain times undesirable classes came, but perhaps this may
not have been so much an argument against the entire body as
an argument for some sane restriction or regulation of immigra-
tion even at this early period.

The second proposition is that while the earlier immigration
did not, in the elements it contributed, produce serious racial
change, it is at least an open question as to whether it did not
check the increase of the population of colonial descent. That
there has been a great decline in the birth rate of the original
(colonial) stock there can be no possible doubt. Had no decline
taken place, our population from native stock alone would to-day
amount to some 100,000,000 and the element of " colonial de-
scent" would to-day be three times as large as the element of
" immigrant descent," according to some authorities.

But was this decline due to immigration? In answering this
question, it should be frankly recognized upon the one hand that
if immigration did so operate, it was doubtless but one of several
forces acting in the same direction, though possibly a very im-
portant one. It should be as frankly recognized, upon the other
hand, that it is never possible to establish with mathematical ex-
actness a relation of cause and effect in elusive social phenomena.
All that can be done is to present the usual evidence and each
must be convinced or not convinced according to his estimate of
the value of the evidence.

1. Part of this evidence is the evidence of authority, that is,
the statements of many families and many earnest students, in
short, those in a position to know, as to what has taken place.
There may be said to be a very considerable agreement upon this
matter.

2. But aside from the evidence of authority, it is urged that
what little we understand of the laws of population and its in-
crease renders it quite probable that a causal connection should
exist between immigration and the checking of native increase.
It is argued that the presence of the immigrant and his compe-
tition should be expected to give a sentimental and an economic
cause for a check to the increase of population, — a generalization

RACIAL EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION 237

that would apply with particular force to our original Baltic
stock which had great race pride and a strong desire to give its
children every advantage.

3. It is further pointed out that the decline of the native
stock began and kept pace with the flow of immigration. This
may, of course, have been a coincidence, but the facts are beyond
dispute that in the period from 1790-1830, a period of practically
no immigration, our population increased decade by decade at
an average rate of 34.5 per cent, while in the period from 1830-
1860, a period of great immigration, the native stock retarded
its increase so that the average rate of increase of the whole
population was only 34.7 per cent.

4. Again, it is urged that, as far as can be determined,
this decline in the native stock took place mainly in those regions
in which the immigrants concentrated. This, also, may have
been a coincidence, but it does seem possible to trace a connection *
between large families of native stock and districts not invaded
by immigration. It seems to be true of whole sections such as the
South, of single states such as West Virginia, and even of small
districts within states.

5. Another argument that is advanced is that in the period
1830-1860, the time when the checking of the native stock began,
other causes for this checking are hard to establish. It is pointed
out that this was a period more favorable to life and reproduction
than was the period before 1830. The pressure of city life was
not yet heavily felt, for even in 1850 the urban population was
but 12.5 per cent of the total; the average density of popula-
tion was only 7.9 per square mile ; there were great areas of
public lands open, and, further, great progress had been made in
medicine, food, and clothing. And yet it is in this period that
the native stock begins to limit its increase.

6. A final bit of evidence rests upon the recent investiga-
tions of population in the coal fields. These investigations seem
to indicate that even as the earlier immigrant checked the increase
of native stock, so the immigrant of to-day is checking the in-
crease of the earlier immigrant stock. If this be true, its impor-
tance can scarcely be overestimated, for it would indicate that
immigration not only has been, but will continue to be, a process
of replacement rather than of addition. It puts us face to face

238 EFFECTS

with a vital question as to the future composition of our
people.

By way of final statement as to the effect of our early im-
migration it seems pretty clear that, while undoubtedly it con-
tained elements not ideal, it did not produce racial change be-
cause, Baltic itself, it was added to a Baltic population in such a
way and under such conditions that it was readily assimilated.
It is not so certain, however, but that it did cause a decline of
the native birth rate and so served to replace our native popu-
lation, and whether this was desirable or no each must decide
for himself.

We come now to the effects, present and future, of the Alpine
and Mediterranean immigration to-day. Time will permit only
\ a series of short propositions concerning this recent immigration.

1. As far as can be predicted to-day, the change in the
character of immigration is to become more marked and its vol-
ume is to increase. The origin of our immigration is swinging
more and more to the east and, judging from the data now at
hand, such as the trend of statistics, the lines of steamship devel-
opment, the tapping of new centers of population in Asia by
railroad lines, the attitude of the immigrants, and investigations
such as those of Mr. Brandenburg, — judging from this and other
data, unless conditions change or restriction takes place, it is not
merely present immigration but that of ten or fifteen years hence
that should command our attention. Under present laws and
regulations this immigration will doubtless continue to flow as
long as there is any difference of level in the status of Europe
and America. Mr. Bryce called this "drainage," and Prof.
Walker referred to it as "pipe line immigration." We need not

/ commit ourselves to these rather offensive terms, but we cannot

1 close our eyes to the fact that the essential features of the propo-

\ sition are fairly defensible. Inasmuch as there is great doubt

I whether emigration from Europe has in the least diminished the

pressure of population or has greatly raised the standard of

living there, the possible proportions of the problem are fairly

j clearly indicated.

2. Assuming these conditions of changed character and
increased volume, there will undoubtedly be considerable racial
change. Indeed, competent authorities assert that a change is

RACIAL EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION 239

already noticeable in regions in which our newer immigrants
have concentrated. If this be true to-day there can be little
doubt but that the future has in store considerable changes if the
tide of immigration flows unchecked. And this will be especially
the case if it be true that immigration so affects the principle of
population that our present stock is replaced rather than supple-
mented by the new arrivals.

3. The third proposition must be put in the form of a
question. Will this changejbe a, good or a bad one? Here, of
course, is tlie crux of the whole matter. In order to avoid a con-
troversy that could not possibly be satisfactorily treated in the
time at my disposal, I am sure I shall be pardoned if I merely
indicate some of the questions to be answered if one is to arrive
at a sane judgment on this matter. Discussion of these questions
may the more readily be omitted since practically every one has
already reached some conclusion as to most of them.

But before proposing this series of questions it should be
noted that it is not safe to try to reach any conclusion by that
overworked argument as to the mixture of races. The trouble
with the argument is that it proves nothing either way. It proves
nothing historically, contrary to public opinion, for while some
mixed races have been successful, others have been most wretched
failures. Further, anthropology and ethnology frankly admit 4
they can predicate nothing frorrTrmxture of races, nothing opti- j
mistic, nothing pessimistic. It is simply an argument of little or ]
no scientific value.

We must abandon the popular mixture of races argumenl^-y
and turn to the fundamental elements of the problem ; upon the
one hand environment, both social and physical, upon the other
hand race characteristics. Since the physical environment is a
matter which we can control but little and one that operates upon
all, we may omit it in this discussion and then the questions to
be answered are fairly obvious. Are the permanent racial char-
acteristics, — those they will retain after they, have changed na-
tionality, religion, tongue, and customs, — are these permanent
racial characteristics of the newcomers such as will be satisfactory
to a democracy ? Are they by racial disposition fitted or unfitted
for the exercise of political rights ? Undoubtedly, they, like all
other peoples, have some bad qualities. Will these qualities

240

EFFECTS

change with a change of environment, or are they inbred and
permanent? Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that immi-
gration means replacement, are we willing to turn over to ele-
ments other than Baltic the control of the future of the nation ?
Would it be a good, a bad, or an indifferent thing if in the future
the race composition of this nation should be such that the Baltic
element would, compared with the other elements, hold some
such position as the descendants of colonial stock hold? In
a word, are the permanent race traits of the newcomers equal
in quality to those of. the present stock ? We must remember
that, as Professor Commons says, "race and heredity form the
raw material, education and environment form the tools to
fashion social institutions."

And as to environment. Here a series of questions arises,
and to discuss any one of them in even a cursory manner would
require a whole paper in itself. It deals with the effect of the
present immigrant upon a list of matters ranging through disease,
illiteracy, pauperism, crime, tendency to form classes, standard
of living, and a host of others, not the least important of which
is the fact that since the so-called lower classes are the classes
with large families, from the racial point of view it is highly
worth considering who are to compose the lower classes. Then,
too, we should not forget that the future aspects of this problem
are the important ones. Suppose, for the sake of the argument
at least, that the number coming is to increase and the change in
racial origin to become more marked, what then? These are
some of the questions to be considered.

And must the whole discussion end with a question? Yes
and no. As far as it can be treated in a short paper merely in-
tended to outline the nature of the problem — yes, though that
is doubtless displeasing to the mind that demands a short, satis-
factory answer, whether true or false. But the matter is not
altogether indefinite. Some few things are pretty clear: (i)
This people, before the great tides of immigration began, was
mainly Baltic and mainly of excellent stock. (2) This people has
been influenced to a considerable degree by immigration. Prob-
ably the racial effects of the early immigration were not great,
but to-day conditions are different. There has been a change in
the racial origin of our immigration, a change in the method of

RACIAL EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION

241

selection, and a change in the conditions of this country. (3) If
present conditions, laws, and tendencies continue (a large "if,"
this), there will clearly be considerable racial change in the future.
Whether such a change would be a good or a bad thing, each
must decide for himself, and it rests with the American people to
decide whether for their own interests and for the interests of the
world in general they desire the change.

IMMIGRATION AND THE MINIMUM WAGE1

PAUL U. KELLOGG, A.M., EDITOR, The Survey

9

THE line of least resistance in extending the protection of the
state over labor conditions has been to enact laws with
respect, to women and children. The world-old instinct of the
strong to shelter the weak has led the conservative to join forces
with the radical, in prohibiting child labor and in shortening the
hours of women's work. On the other hand the liberty loving
tradition of a male democracy has more often than not thrown
the balance on the other side of the scale when the exercise of
public control over men's labor has been under discussion.

This tendency has been repeated in the movement toward mini-
mum wage legislation. The voluntary Massachusetts law which
goes into effect this year concerns women and children ; and so,
too, does the compulsory statute which has just passed the
Oregon legislature. Public discussion the past winter has centered
around relation between the low. wages paid working girls and
prostitution.

Accident legislation is an exception to this tendency in the field
of labor legislation. We do not think of limiting compensation
laws to the girls who lose an eye or a hand ; we are perhaps
even more concerned that industry bear its human wear and tear
when workingmen are crippled or their lives snuffed out. The
explanation is, of course, a simple one; in this connection we
conceive of the workingman as the breadwinner of a family
group ; and in self -protection American commonwealths are
belatedly devising schemes of insurance which will safeguard
those dependent upon him.

J As we come to look at the problem of living wages more closely,
Jmy belief is that legislatures and courts will increasingly take

1 From the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
July, 1913.

242

IMMIGRATION AND THE MINIMUM WAGE 243

cognizance of the household and community well-being which
hangs on the earnings of men. It is this aspect which makes the
question of the minimum wage as it concerns common labor —
;,nd as it is aggravated by immigration — if anything, more
serious than the question of the minimum wage as it concerns
women.

We have seen whole cities scotched by the floods. Our self-
er grossed neglect of the water courses of the midwestern basin,
tho encroachments of private holdings upon the beds of streams,
and the persistent stripping of their woodsy sources have brought
a retribution. The nation leaps to tardy relief as the waters
bur^t the dams, strangle men and women, and swamp the cities in
their course. Dwellings go under before men's eyes and whole
communities which have taken their security for granted see
store and street and familiar meeting place sunk in currents over
which t'vey have lost control. It has all been spectacular and
vivid. Ti e laws of gravitation and of fluids, the "Mene, Mene,
Tekel" of LTIOW private ends and of public preoccupation have
been written . irge in mud and privation. Misery has daubed its
lesson up and dovvn the river valleys for all men to read.

The economic ebb and flood of our common life has usually no
such spectacular appeal to the imagination ; yet, if we turn to the
forty volumes of the federal immigration commission — volumes
which, seemingly, Congress has done its best to keep from general
reading — we find a story of household wreckage and of the slow
undermining of community life as real as this seven days' wonder
of the Ohio Valley. They show us that in the states east of the
Rocky Mountains the basic industries are to-day manned by
foreigners three to two ; that there are as many names on these
pay-rolls from eastern Europe and Asia as there are names of
native-born and second generation Americans put together. They
do not show that the new immigrants have hired out as common
laborers for less pay than the old did in their time, for the revolu-
tionary rise in prices throughout the period under discussion
must be taken into account. But they go far to show that the
newcomers have at least kept down wages and have perpetuated
other standards against which the older men were ready to
protest. Of the heads of foreign households tabulated by the
commission, seven out of ten earned less than $600 a year,

244 EFFECTS

while among the native-born the proportion was only four out cf
ten. Of the foreigners very nearly four out of ten earned undt;r
$400 a year, or an average, this last year, of less than $1.50 per
working day. In less than four out of ten of the foreign-born
households were the husband's earnings depended upon as the
sole sources of family income.

^ In a word, the immigration commission's report was an ext m-
sive exhibit that the American day laborer's pay is less thaa a
living wage for a workman's family by any standard set by any
reputable investigation of the cost of living; that the bultc of
day laborers are immigrants ; that their numbers and industrial
insecurity are such as to perpetuate these low pay levels and to
introduce and make prevalent lower standards of living- than
customary among the workmen they come among.

The commission's figures are such as to give strength to the
searching charge of the immigration res trie tionists th?rc "so long
as every rise of wages operates merely to suck in unlimited thou-
sands of the surplus population of Europe and Asia . no permanent
raising of our own standards can be hoped for.'

Nine out of ten of the common laborers of America are to-day
of the new immigration. A light is thrown on why they lend
themselves to exploitation by the facts that before coming only
a third of these eastern Europeans and Asians can read and
write ; that half are peasants and farm hands ; that only an
ighth are labor unionists ; and that nearly afif th have never in
their lives worked at wages. Neither in literacy^ industrial skill,
money-wisdom, nor cohesive strength are they as self-resourceful
as the men of the immigration which preceded them, much less of
the native-born. More important to my mind than the fact that
before coming a third are unlettered, is the fact that nearly a
fifth have never worked for wages before coming.

We have assumed that the economic law of supply and demand
would bring a wholesome equilibrium to this inrush of the terrible
flood. As well count on trie law of gravitation to solve the flood
problem of the Miami. That law is, to be sure, the ultimate rule
of physics on which any scheme of flood prevention must be
based. Water is health-giving, thirst-quenching, power-giving,
beneficial ; gravity holds the world to its course ; but left to their
own devices water and mass attraction may become brute forces

IMMIGRATION AND THE MINIMUM WAGE 245

for destruction. So, too, the unregulated forces of an economic
immigration.

Let us consider some of the social reactions which these forces,
left to their own devices, have exacted.

They have changed the make-up of entire communities among
us. During the Westmoreland coal strike, whole villages of
miners were evicted with their families from the company houses
and new miners installed. But what happened thus overtly in
strike time has been going on slowly and half -noticed throughout
western Pennsylvania for twenty years. The function of the
old pick miners has been largely done away with. With the
coming in of new methods and mine machinery, their labor
organizations have been driven out, and they, themselves, have
left the Connellsville region for the new fields of the middle West
and Southwest, where the pressure of competition by recent
immigrants is not so strong. Churches, lodges, the whole slow-
growing fabric of English-speaking community life, have been
supplanted by a new order. And not only have the immigrants
dislodged the earlier races from their footing, but their own indus-
trial tenure is insecure. Dwellers in company houses, whole
communities, live by sufferance of the mine operators who can
call in new greeners to take their places.

The effect on household life has been as disturbing as that upon
community life. At these low economic grades people live on the
boarding boss system, one woman cooking, washing, and keeping
house for from two to twenty lodgers who sometimes sleep two
shifts to a bed.

It might be thought that the immigrants' desire to save is
responsible for these results. In part that is true. As the Pitts-
burgh survey pointed out, a single man can lay by a stocking
full at this barracks life ; a boarding boss can get ahead at cost
of a dead baby or two, or his wife's health ; a whole family can
eat, sleep, and live in a single room ; but the foreigner who takes
America in earnest and tries to settle here and support a family,
must figure closer than our wisest standard of living experts
have been able to do, if he succeeds in making good on a day
labor wage. The Buffalo survey found #1.50 as the common
labor rate in that city in 1910. The maximum income which a
common laborer can earn working every day but Sundays and

246 EFFECTS

holidays at $i .50 per day is #450 a year ; bad weather, slack work
and sickness, cut this down to #400 for a steady worker Yet the
lowest budget for a man, his wife and three children which Buffalo
relief workers would tolerate was $560^ There is a deficit here of
#160 which must be made up by 'skimping or by income from other
sources, and that deficit is as much as the man himself can earn by
four months' solid labor. Yet this budget called for but three
small rooms, for five people, to sleep, eat, and live in ; called for
but 5 cents a week for each one of the family for recreation and
extravagance. How people make shift against such odds was
illustrated by one household where in a little room 6 feet by 9,
a room which had no window at all to let in air, they found two
cots each with a man in it, and a bed which held two young
men and two girls, one of whom was thirteen years old. This
was not a house of prostitution. It was a family which had
taken in lodgers to increase its income.

Household and community life are further affected by the in-
filtration of women-employing trades in centers of immigrant
employment; and with it the spread of the family wage, not
the family wage earned by the man, but the family wage earned
by man, woman, and children all together, such as is the curse of
Fall River and the cotton towns of Massachusetts.

The New York bureau of labor statistics has just issued its
report on the Little Falls strike, the first adequate pay roll
investigation ever made in New York at the time of a strike
against a reduction in wages. Nearly half of the men were found
to be receiving #9 a week or less. Nearly 24 per cent were
receiving not over #7.50 per week ; 48^- per cent of all the women
employed were receiving $7.50 or less and 30 per cent received
#6 or less. The official figures taken from the pay rolls by the
bureau of labor statistics tended to justify substantially what the
strikers had alleged as to their wages. The testimony of the
employers before the bureau of arbitration that the wages
paid in Little Falls were not less than those paid in other mills
in the district indicates that here is a problem not of one locality
alone. "The one outstanding and unavoidable conclusion of this
report," says the bureau of labor statistics, "is that there is need
of a thorough and general investigation of the cost of living among
the textile workers of the Mohawk Valley."

IMMIGRATION AND THE MINIMUM WAGE 247

This trend toward the family wage is a matter of much concern
to the state of Pennsylvania in the years ahead, with the coming of
textile mills to the coal regions, and with the widespread develop-
ment of the state's water power. I was told at the time of the
strike in the railroad shops at Altoona — it may be hearsay,
but there was truth in the underlying tendency — that in the
councils of the local Chamber of Commerce the Pennsylvania
Railroad had been averse to inducing any metal trades establish-
ments to settle in Altoona. The reason ascribed by my informant
was that these establishments would have competed as em-
ployers in hiring mechanics and the men's wages would have
gone up locally. But invitation to textile mills was encouraged
- textile mills which would employ wives and daughters and
increase family incomes while lessening the tuggingsTal the car
shop pay roll.

Let me cite a case brought out last year at a hearing before
the New Jersey immigration commission. This was an account
book of a methodical German weaver in a Passaic woolen mill.
It illustrates the soil in which the revolutionary labor movement
is taking root so fast and which the sanctioned institutions of
society, in more than this solitary instance, have failed to con-
serve. The man is forty-five years old, a weaver of twenty-
seven years' experience, and his expertness as a workman is, it
was said, shown by the fact that he had seldom or never been
fined for flaws in his work — one of the grievances most keenly
felt by a majority of the strikers. The record showed a total
income of $347.40 for nine months. And a careful estimate
put the annual earnings on which this father of thirteen — three
now " under the ground," three now old enough to work — could
count upon from his own efforts in bringing up his family, as
less than $500.

The record revealed much else, good and bad, besides this
blighting total. In the first place it showed the seasons. Except
in bad years the woolen trade is said to have no period of shut
down. But July and August are slack months and the short
hours worked flattened out his pay envelopes for weeks at. a time.
Settlement and charity organization workers know that there
is nothing that tends toward demoralization in a family like an
unsteady income — up and down. No pay at all was received by

248 EFFECTS

this weaver for the week of June 12 (fifty-five hours' work).
His explanation was that some wool is bad and requires constant
mending, keeping the output low, .that pay was strictly based
on the number of yards turned out, and that no payments were
made until a certain quantity was on hand. This no-pay week
was followed by a low pay week of June 19. That is, after two
weeks' work amounting to no hours at the looms, with practi-
cally no fines for flaws, a weaver of twenty-seven years' experience
took home #6.65. It is this SQrt_of^ pressure which sends the
women and children of a householdto the mills.

IWeTmay differ as to the desirability of the 'entry of women into
industry, and as to its- effect on the women and on the home ;
but we should be united in holding that if the women go into
the world's work, their earnings should lift the joint income to
new and higher levels, and not merely supplement the less than
family wage paid the man ; add two and two, only to find that the
resulting sum is two.

It is to be said for this onrush of international workmen that
they have supplied a flexible working force to American manu-
facture and have stimulated industrial expansion beyond all
bounds. But against these gains must be set off the fact that they
have as powerfully accentuated city congestion and all its attend-
ant evils, and have aggravated unemployment. The immigra-
tion commission found that in some industries the oversupply of
unskilled labor had reached a point where a curtailed number of
working days results in a yearly income much less than is indi-
cated by the daily rate paid.

A more serious aspect of the situation is that changes in machin-
ery are adapted to the permanent utilization of these great
masses of crude labor — 60 per cent of the whole force in steel
production for example. The old time ditch diggers and railroad
construction gangs paved the way for our city trades and train
crews. They were building foundations for normal work and
life. They appealed to the get ahead qualities in men. The
new day labor is a fixed, subnormal element in our present
scheme of production fit stays yit will "continue to stay so long as
back muscles are cheaper than other methods of doing the work.

My own feeling is that immigrants bring us ideals, cultures,
red blood, which are an asset for America or would be if we gave

IMMIGRATION AND THE MINIMUM WAGE 249

them a chance. But what is undesirable, beyond all peradven- /
ture, is our great bottom-lands of gmVk-cashT low-mcorne^em-
ployments in which they are bogged. X We suffer not because
the immigrant comes with a cultural deficit, but because the
immigrant workman brings to America a potential economic
surplus above a single man's wants, which is exploited to the
grave and unmeasured injury of family and community life
among us.

I have reviewed the situation much along the lines in which it
impressed me two years ago, at a time that the immigration report
was first given to the public. What have we done about it in those /
two years — or for that matter, in the last decade ?

What have we Americans done ? I am afraid the cartoonist of j
the future is going to have good cause to draw the present day 1
manufacturer pleading with one hand for federal interference \
against his foreign competitors, and with the other beckoning to I
the police to protect him against strike riots ; but resisting with \
both hands every effort of the public to exert any control what- 1
ever over his own dealings with his work people. Petty magis-
trates and police, state militia and the courts — all these were
brought to bear by the great commonwealth of Massachusetts,
once the Lawrence strikers threatened the public peace. But
what had the great commonwealth of Massachusetts done to
protect the people of Lawrence against the insidious canker of
subnormal wages which were and are blighting family life? Do
not mistake me : The exceptional employer has done courageous
acts in standing out for decent wages in the face of competition
from those who are not squeamish in their treatment of their
help; but employers as a body have quite failed to impose
minimum standards on the whole employing group; and the
exploiters have brought whole trades into obloquy.

Nor have the trade-unions met any large responsibility toward
unskilled labor. Through apprenticeship, skill, organization, they
have endeavored to keep their own heads above the general
level. Common labor has been left as the hindmost for the
devil to take. The mine workers and brewers and some few other
trades are organized industrially from top to bottom, every man
in the industry ; but for the most part common laborers have
had to look elsewhere than to the skilled crafts for succor.

250

EFFECTS

They have had it held out to them by the I. W. W., which
stands for industrial organization, for one big union embracing
every man in the industry, for the mass strike, for benefits to
the rank and file here and now, and not in some far-away political
upheaval. This is what has given the revolutionary industrialists
their popular appeal, so disturbing both to the old craft unions
and the socialist party. We may or may not like the temper of
Mrs. Pankhurst's methods, but we recognize the suffrage cause
as something which transcends the tactics of the militants. In
the same way it can be said for Haywood and his following that
they have sounded the needs of common labor and held up hope
for its rank and file with greater statesmanship, sympathy, and
structural vision than all the employers and craft unions put
together. At such a juncture the ordinary American may well
ask himself if a general upheaval of society is the sole way open
in which the evils of unskilled, low-paid labor can be mastered
by a resourceful people.

The only recent schemes of trade organization which match
the I. W. W. in democratic promise are the protocol agreements
in the women's garment trades in New York. These are open to
all workmen in the trades ; they stand for minimum standards,
and they employ the joint force of organized employers and
organized employees, to whip the black-sheep shop into line.
Yet as I see it, here again the pressure of immigration is a twofold
threat to the permanence of these plans — the competition with
New York by outside garment centers where immigrants can
be exploited without let or hindrance; and the retardation of
wage advances at New York due to the glut of immigrant labor
at the great port.

So much for voluntary action. What has the state done to
throw social control over common labor? Very little. Child
labor legislation staves off a season or two the inflow of immature
workers into the unskilled labor market. Laws prohibiting the
night work of women have eased the sex-competition for jobs
at some few points. As already stated, minimum wage legis-
lation has been limited to date to women and children. When by
indirection the new 54 hour law for women tended to raise pay
for both men and women in the mills of Lawrence, the manu-
facturers risked the great strike rather than raise it. Political

IMMIGRATION AND THE MINIMUM WAGE 251

advantage has led city administrations to pay common labor
more than private employers, but in general the public has done )
nothing to control the wages of common labor.

The measure calculated to affect them most markedly has been
the immigration restriction legislation which passed both houses
of Congress at the last session, but which was vetoed by the
President.

The immigrant commission held that to check the oversupply
of unskilled labor a sufficient number of immigrants should be J
debarred to produce a marked effect. This was their major /
recommendation, and as the most feasible method to carry it out ^
they favored the exclusion of all those unable to read and write
some language.

As a quantitative check this literacy test can be successfully
defended. It will unquestionably shut out large numbers of
immigrants and that reduction in the gross number of job-
hunters could scarcely fail to raise common labor pay and im-
prove conditions of life at the lowest levels.
^ As a selective method the literacy test has been sharply and I
think successfully challenged. The people let in and those shut
out could not be confidently described, the one group as desirable,
the other as not.

As an obstruction to the political and religious refugees, who in
addition to their other oppressions have been deprived of school-
ing, the literacy test arouses the opposition of social and liberty-
loving groups on all hands. On this rock restriction legislation
split on the last Congress, as it has split for years past.

In its failure, in the failure of any other proposal to materially
improve common labor standards I venture to put forward a
plan which has not been combated in any quarter in ways
convincing to me either as to its illogic or its impracticability.

My plea is to apply the principle of child labor legislation to our
industrial immigration — to draft into our immigration law the
provision that no immigrant who arrives here after a specified
date shall be permitted to hire out to a corporate employer for
less than a living wage — say $2.50 or $3 a day — until five years
are elapsed and he has become a naturalized citizen. When he
is a voter, he can sell his American work-right for a song if he
must and will, but until then he shall not barter it away for less

252

EFFECTS

than the minimum cash price, which shall/ be determined as a
subsistence basis for American family livelihood. I would make
this provision apply also to all immigrants now resident in the
United States who have not filed notice of their intention of
becoming citizens by the date specified.

It would not be the intent or result of such legislation to pay
new-coming foreigners $3 a day. No corporation could hire
Angelo Lucca and Alexis Spivak for $3 as long as they could get
John Smith and Michael Murphy and Carl Sneider for less. It
would be the intent and result of such legislation to exclude
Lucca and Spivak and other "greeners" from our congregate
industries, which beckon to them now. It would leave village
and farming country open to them as now. And meanwhile as
the available unskilled labor supply fell off in our factory centers,
the wages paid Smith, Murphy, Sneider and the rest of our resi-
dent unskilled labor would creep up toward the federal minimum.

First a word as to the constitutionality of such a plan. It
would be an interference with the freedom of contract ; but that
contract would lie between an alien and a corporation, between
a non-citizen and a creature of the state. I have the advice of
constitutional lawyers that so far as the alien workman goes, the
plan would hold as an extension of our laws regulating immigra-
tion. On the other hand, the corporation tax laws afford a
precedent for setting off the corporate employer and regulating
his dealings. Recent decisions of the supreme court would
seem to make it clear that such a law could be drafted under the
interstate commerce clause of the constitution.

For three special reasons my belief is that the general enforce-
ment of such a law would be comparatively simple. Sworn state-
ments as to wage payments could be added to the data now
required from corporations under the federal tax law. This would
be an end desirable in itself and of as great public importance
as crop reports. In the second place, every resident worker would
report every violation that affected his self-interest or threatened
his job. For my third reason, I would turn to no less a counsel
than Mark Twain's "Pudd'n Head Wilson," and with employ-
ment report cards and half a dozen clerks in a central office in
Washington, could keep tab on the whole situation by means of
finger prints. Finger prints could be taken of each immigrant

IMMIGRATION AND THE MINIMUM WAGE 253

on entry ; they could be duplicated at mill gate and mine entry
by the employer, filed and compared rapidly at the Washington
bureau.

As compared with joint minimum wage boards affecting men
and women alike, as do those of Australia and England, the
plan would have the disadvantage of not being democratic.
The workers themselves would not take part in its administration.
But such boards might well develop among resident unskilled
labor, once the congestion of immigrant labor was relieved.
And 'the plan would have the signal advantage of being national,
so that progressive commonwealths need not penalize their
manufacturers in competing with laggard states.

As compared with the literacy test the plan would not shut
America off as a haven of refuge and would not, while it was
under discussion, range the racial societies and the international-
ists alongside the steamship companies and the exploiters of
immigrant labor. And it would have an even more profound
influence on our conditions of life and labor.

What then are the positive goods to be expected from such a
program ?

1 . It would, to my mind, gradually but irresistibly cut down
the common labor supply in our industrial centers.

2. Once the unlimited supply of green labor was lessened in
these industrial centers, a new and more normal equilibrium
would be struck between common labor and the wages of com-
mon labor. Now it is like selling potatoes when everybody's
bin is full.

3. It would tend to stave off further congestion in the centers
of industrial employment and give us a breathing spell to conquer
our housing problems and seat our school-children.

4. It should shunt increasing numbers of immigrants to the
rural districts and stimulate patriotic societies to settle their
fellow-countrymen on the land.

5. It would tend to cut down the accident rate in industries
where greeners endanger the lives of their fellows.

6. It would cut down the crowd of men waiting for jobs at
mill gate and street corner, correspondingly spread out rush and
seasonal work, and help along toward that time when a man's
vocation will mean a year-long income for him.

254 EFFECTS

7. It would give resident labor in the cities a chance to
organize at the lower levels and develop the discipline of self-
government instead of mob action.

8. It would put a new and constructive pressure on employers
to cut down by invention the bulk of unskilled occupations, the
most wasteful and humanly destructive of all work.

9. It would bring about a fair living, a household wage, in
such routine and semi-skilled occupations as remained.

10. It would tend to change mining settlements and mill
towns from sleeping and feeding quarters into communities.

IMMIGRATION AND THE LIVING WAGE

JOHN MITCHELL

THE present year has witnessed an immigration to this
country greater than any that has ever occurred in the
history of any nation. During the year ending June 30, 1903,
857,000 people from various parts of the world landed at the
ports of the United States and either settled in the seaboard
cities or made their way into the interior. At no time in the
history of the world has a movement of such stupendous pro-
portions taken place. The immigrants to this country in the
single year 1903 were probably much in excess of the total
number of arrivals in the present territory of the United States
during the two centuries from 1607 to 1820.

The movement of immigrants from Europe to the United
States during the last three generations has dwarfed by com-
parison all former movements of populations. During this period
over twenty million immigrants have landed on these shores.
These men, hailing from all the countries of Europe and of the
world, have peopled the vast territory of the United States,
have intermarried with one another and with the native stock,
and have formed the American nation as it exists to-day. In
the cities of our seaboard, in the Middle West, on the trans-
Mississippi prairies, and throughout the broad expanse of our
Northwest, in almost every state north of Mason and Dixon's
line, and extending from the Atlantic, to the Pacific, large sections
of the population are either foreign-born or the children of
immigrants. In the year 1900 there were over ten million persons
in the United States of foreign birth and over twenty-six million
of foreign birth or foreign parentage. About two fifths of all
the white inhabitants of the United States are the sons or
daughters of parents one or both of whom are foreign-born.
These immigrants and children of immigrants represent some of
the best elements in the American population, and the American

255

256 EFFECTS

citizens of foreign birth and parentage are, on an average, as
patriotic, as loyal, and as valuable citizens as those of native
ancestry.

The tide of immigration to the United States has had many ebbs
and flows. Immigration has steadily increased, reaching a
maximum point in periods of prosperity and falling off greatly
in periods of depression. In the year 1854 immigration reached
a high water mark with the arrival of 428,000, and in 1882
789,000 landed. This point was not again reached until the
present year, 1903, when 857,000 immigrants arrived.

Within the last two decades a change has taken place in the
character of immigration, which in the eyes of many people
portends evil for American workmen. In the early years of
immigration, when it was difficult, if not actually dangerous, to
come to the United States, there was a natural selection of the
best and hardiest inhabitants of the old world, men willing
to risk 'their all in going to a new country. The greater ease and
cheapness of transportation have now given a stimulus to large
classes of persons who in former years could not have come. The
cost of transportation and the time required have, upon the
whole, been reduced, and the sources of immigration have also
shifted. Formerly, the great majority of immigrants came from
England, Ireland, Germany, and the Scandinavian countries,
from countries, in other words, where conditions of life and labor
were, to some extent, comparable to those of the United States.
At the present time, the source of immigration has shifted from
northern and western to eastern and southern Europe, and from
men with a higher to men with a lower standard of living. I
do not desire to state that the moral character and mental
capacity of the new immigrants are lower than, those of the im-
migrants of former days ; but it is quite clear that the standard
of living has been reduced in consequence of the change in the
source of immigration from countries in which wages are high
to countries in which wages are low. The amount of money
which the average immigrant brings with him has steadily de-
creased, and the immigrant from southern and eastern countries
has, at the start, a smaller sum to protect him from starvation
or the sweatshop than has the immigrant from northern or
western Europe. The illiteracy of the immigrant has also become

IMMIGRATION AND THE LIVING WAGE 257

more pronounced. This illiteracy, amounting in some cases
from sixty-five to seventy-five per cent, debars the newly arrived
immigrant from many trades, makes it more difficult for him to
adapt himself to American conditions and American manners of
thought, and renders it almost inevitable that he fall into the
hands of the sweater and exploiter. The efforts made by steam-
ship companies to incite and overstimulate the immigration of
thousands of illiterate peasants tend to inject unnaturally into the
American labor market a body of men unskilled, untrained, and
unable to resist oppression and reduced wages.

The practically unrestricted immigration of the present day
is an injustice both to the American workingman, whether native
or foreign-born, and to the newly landed immigrant himself.
As a result of this practically unrestricted and unregulated
immigration, the congestion of our large cities is so intense as
to create abnormally unhealthy conditions. In New York,
which has at present a foreign-born population of over one and
one quarter millions, the congestion has resulted in the erection of
enormous tenement buildings, in the fearful overcrowding of the
slums, and in the normal presence of an oversupply of unskilled
labor. The arrival in great numbers of immigrants without
knowledge of English, without the ability to read or write the
language of their own country, without money, and sometimes
without friends, renders it inevitable that they accept the first
work offered them. The average immigrant from eastern 'and
southern Europe brings with him from eight to ten dollars,
which is about the railroad fare from New York to Pittsburg and
is hardly sufficient to support him for two weeks. It is inevitable,
also, that he remain where he lands and take the work offered
him on the spot. The result is a supply of labor in the large
cities in excess of a healthy demand, and a consequent lowering
of wages, not only in the cities in which the immigrants remain,
but in those in which the articles are produced that compete with
the sweatshop products.

From the point of view of the great employers of labor there
is an apparent advantage in keeping the doors wide open. The
great manufacturers of the country, while anxious to shut out
the products of the pauper labor of Europe, desire to have as
much cheap labor within their own factories as possible. The

258 . EFFECTS

great mine owners have eagerly taken advantage of the ever
flowing current of low-priced labor, not only to reduce wages,
but to hold this reserve army of unskilled workers as a cTulTOver
the head of the great mass of employees. The immigrant who
comes here in the hope of bettering his condition, is subjected
to the exhausting work of the sweatshop, is forced to toil ex-
cessively long hours under unsanitary conditions, or is compelled
to perform work under the padrone system, and is liable to be
exploited and defrauded in many ways. The apprenticeship of
the newly arrived immigrant is hard indeed, but it could very
well be remedied if the state should so regulate immigration as
to enable the newcomer to protect himself from extortion and
exploitation.

The extent to which immigration, if unrestricted, might go
was foreshadowed by the influx of Chinese which began about a
generation ago. For a number of years the doors of the United
States were thrown wide open to the importation of immigrants,
practically, if not legally, under contract, from a country with a
population of four hundred millions. The result of this immigra-
tion was seen in a reduction of the wages of labor upon the
Pacific coast ; and there can be no doubt that the admission of
Chinese, if unchecked, would have resulted in the creation of
an enormous Mongolian population in our West and the practical
industrial subjugation of that portion of the country by the
Chinese. It is a well-known fact that the cheaper worker, when
he is able to compete tends to drive out the better, just as in the
currency of a nation, bad money will drive out good money.
Through the activity of the trade-unions, however, the Chinese
were, in 1882, excluded and in 1902 this law was reenacted.

The trade-unions also secured, in the year 1885, the enactment
of a law rendering illegal the importation of workmen under
contract. Formerly, in the case of a strike, the employer was
able to contract for the importation of large numbers of foreigners,
who, with lower ideals and without any knowledge of American
trade-unionism, took the places of the strikers and effectually
aided the employer. The trade-unions have also been energetic
in their attempts to secure a further regulation of the conditions
of immigration in such a manner that both the present
inhabitants of the United States and the immigrants who come

IMMIGRATION AND THE LIVING WAGE 259

will be in a better position to resist exploitation by employers
in the sweated or unskilled trades.

The attitude of trade-unionists upon this question favors not *
prohibition, but regulation. The trade-unions do not desire to i
keep out immigrants, but to raise the character and the power of I
resistance of those who do come. There is no racial or religious \
animosity in this attitude of unionists. The American trade-
unionist does not object to the immigration of men of a high
standard of living, whether they be Turks, Russians, or Chinese,
Catholics, Protestants, or Jews, Mohammedans, Buddhists, or
Confucians, whether they be yellow, white, red, brown, or black.
In certain cases, as in that of the Chinese, it was absolutely
essential to the success of the law that it discriminate against
the whole nation, but the attitude of the unionist was not hos-
tility to the Chinaman, but a determination to resist the immi-"
gration of men with a low standard, of living.

The trade-unionist believes that the policy of regulating immi-
gration is justifiable on both ethical and economic grounds.
It is admitted that the immigration of the past has to a large
extent and for a long period benefited the American working-
man. Especially was this true during the period before the
public domain was exhausted, when men could secure a home-
stead for the asking. The trade-unionist also realizes that a large
percentage of the most worthy citizens, and probably a majority
of the white manual laborers of the United States, are either
foreigners or sons of foreigners. The American unionist sym-
pathizes with the oppressed workingmen of foreign countries
and feels that everything should be done to ameliorate their
condition, provided it does not hinder the progress of the nation
and the welfare of the human race. Cosmopolitanism, like
charity, begins at home. The American people should not sacri- 1
fice the future of the working classes in order to improve the con- I
ditions of the inhabitants of Europe, and it is even questionable j
whether an unregulated immigration would improve the condi-
tions of Europe and Asia, although it is certain that it would
injure and degrade the conditions of labor in this country.

This point might be illustrated by the supposition of an
unrestricted immigration from China. That country has a
population of about four hundred millions and a probable birth

V

26o EFFECTS

rate of about twelve millions a year. It is quite conceivable with
unrestricted immigration and with the cheapening of fares from
Hong Kong to San Francisco that within fifty or a hundred years
a third of the people of the United States could be Chinese,
without in any way reducing the population of China. The
creation of an outlet for a million or two millions of Chinese
immigrants each year would merely have the effect of increasing
the birth rate in that country, with the result that within a
century a majority of the working people of this country would
be Chinese, while the congestion of population in the Celestial
empire would be as great and as unrelieved as ever. To a large
extent the progress of nations can best be secured by the~pblTcy
of seclusion and isolation. By means of barriers which regulate,
but do not prohibit, immigration, the various countries of Europe
if and America can individually work out their salvation, and a
\ permanent increase in the efficiency and remuneration of the
workers of the world can thus be obtained. By the maintenance
( of these barriers the best workingmen in each country can rise
I to the top, and the great mass of the workingmen can secure a
I larger sliare of the wealth produced. If, however, it is within the
power of employers to drawTreely upon the labor of the world,
while protecting their products from the competition of foreign
manufacturers, the result will be that the workingmen of the
world will have their wages reduced, or, at all events, will not
have their remuneration increased, as would be possible under a
policy regulating the importation of immigrants.

The trade-union desires to regulate immigration partly in
order to prevent the temporary glutting of the market, but to a
much greater extent in order to raise the character of the men
who enter. The glutting of the labor market through immigra-
tion is, I believe, temporary, and not permanent. It causes a
temporary oversupply of labor in the large cities; a breaking down
of favorable working conditions, a disintegration of trade-unions,
and a widespread deterioration and degradation in large circles
of the community. Gradually, however, the market absorbs the
fresh supply of labor, and the newly arrived immigrants create
a demand for the products of their own work. While this tem-
porary glutting of the market is disadvantageous and may result
in a deterioration of the caliber of the workingman, the injury

IMMIGRATION AND THE LIVING WAGE 261

that comes from permitting the inflow of vast bodies of men with
lower standards of living is infinitely worse. The policy of
trade-unions in this matter of immigration is in perfect harmony
with other features of trade-union government. Trade-unionism/
seeks not to restrict the numbers, but to raise the quality, off
workingmen. Any one may become a bricklayer in New York!
city, whether there be a hundred, a thousand, or five thousand,!
but whosoever enters the trade as a unionist must agree not to)
accept less than a certain rate and must, therefore, be an efficient!
worker with a high standard of life. The American workingmanj
believes that there is ample room in this country for all men who
are able and willing to demand wages commensurate with the
American standard of living.

By a wise policy of restriction of immigration and by a careful
sifting of immigrants according to their ability to earn and
demand high wages, the country would secure annually, let us
say, two or three or four hundred thousand good immigrants,
instead of being forced to absorb, as at present, six or eight or
ten hundred thousand immigrants, many of them undesirable.
The result of this policy might lead eventually even to an actual
increase in the number of immigrants, owing to the fact that if
there were a wise selection of immigrants with a high standard of
living, wages in the United States would rise to a point which
would attract the most capable workmen of all Europe. A con-
tingency of this sort would be looked forward to with hope rather
than with apprehension, since the American nation need never
fear the immigration of Europeans so long as that immigration
does not involve or threaten a reduction in the standard of living.

The competition of the immigrant with a low standard of
living is felt not only in the trade, wherein the immigrant is
employed, but in all the trades of the country. The immigrant,
with his low rate of wages, drives out of his trade men formerly
employed therein, who are either forced down in the scale
of wages or else obliged to compete for work in higher occupa-
tion, where they again reduce wages. Thifc the effect of the
competition of immigrants is felt not only in the unskilled, but
also in the semi-skilled and skilled trades, and even in the pro-
fessions. The immigration of great bodies of unskilled workmen,
moreover, of various races tends to promote and perpetuate racial

262 EFFECTS

antagonisms, and these racial jealousies are played upon by
employers in the attempt to reduce wages, to prevent the forma-
tion of trade-unions, and to keep the workmen apart.

I do not desire in this book to outline what I consider reasonable
measures of regulation for the ever-rising tide of immigration.
The American Federation of Labor has done excellent work in
advocating wise measures, and the work should be continued
along these lines. Restriction, however, should be without
prejudice and without hatred. It should be as much in the
interest of the immigrants as in the interest of the American
citizens of to-day, whether of native or of foreign birth. Re^
slriction should be democratic in its character, and should not
exclude any man capable of earning his livelihood in America
- at the standard union rate of wages. It should not be directed
by racial animosity or religious prejudice, and the laws that are
passed should protect the immigrant from deception by steam-
ship or employment agents, as well as protect the home popu-
lation from undesirable immigrants. The law should be so
arranged as not needlessly to separate members of the same
family. Finally, trade-unionists in their advocacy of immigration
should not be actuated by a short-sighted policy, but by a
consideration of the probable effect that such restriction will have
upon the future prosperity of the working classes or of Americans
in general.

The task which trade-unions have accomplished in securing
and enforcing laws regulating immigration has been hardly
more important than their excellent work in raising the tone and
increasing the efficiency of the immigrant upon his arrival. More
than any other single factor, except the common school, the trade-
union has succeeded in wiping out racial animosities, in uniting
-jf men of different nationalities, languages, and religions, and in
infusing into the newly landed immigrant American ideals and
American aspirations. The United Mine Workers of America,
for instance, has had marvelous success in creating harmony and
good feeling among*its members, irrespective of race, religion, or
nationality. The meetings of the locals are attended by members
of different races and are addressed in two, three, or even more
languages. The constitution and by-laws of the organization are
printed in nine different languages, and by means of interpreters

IMMIGRATION AND THE LIVING WAGE 263

all parts of the body are kept in touch with one another, with
the result that a feeling of mutual respect and confidence is
promoted.

In no other country have trade-unions had to face a problem of
such enormous difficulty as the fusion of the members of these
various nationalities, crude, unformed, and filled with old-world
prejudices and antipathies. No higher tribute can be paid to
American trade-unions than an acknowledgment of the magnifi-
cent work which they have accomplished in this direction in
obliterating the antagonisms bred in past centuries and in creating
out of a heterogeneous population, brought together by the ever-
lasting search for cheap labor, a unified people with American
ideals and American aspirations.

IMMIGRATION AND CRISES1

HENRY PRATT FAIRCHILD, PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE OF SOCIETY,
YALE UNIVERSITY

AMID all the diverse views on the various aspects of the
immigration problem, there is coming to be a practical
unanimity of opinion on one fundamental proposition — namely,
that immigration to-day is essentially an economic phenomenon.
However strongly the desire for political or religious liberty, or
the escape from tyranny, may have operated in the past to
stimulate emigration from foreign countries, the one great motive
of the present immigrant. is the desire to better his economic
situation. Even in cases where political and religious oppression
still persists, it usually expresses itself through economic dis-
abilities. The great attraction of the United States for the
modern immigrant lies in the economic advantages which it
has to offer. The latest authoritative recognition of this fact
is that given by the Immigration Commission, which emphasizes
it in numerous places in its repqrt. If, then, immigration is so
closely bound up with the industrial situation in this country,
it would seem that there should be some relation between immi-
gration and the industrial depressions or crises which are such
a characteristic feature of our economic life. It is the purpose
of this paper to seek to determine what this relation is. One
aspect of the matter is perfectly obvious and has been thoroughly
recognized for a long time, namely, that the volume of the immi-
gration current is regulated by the industrial prosperity of this
| country. A period of good times brings with it a large volume of
immigration, while hard times reduce the current to a minimum.
This has been worked out statistically by Professor John R.
Commons, and is presented in graphic form in a chart in his
book, "Races and Immigrants in America." Imports per capita
are taken as the best indication of prosperity in this country,

1 From The American Economic Review, December, 1911

264

IMMIGRATION AND CRISES 265

and the curve which represents this factor is shown to be almost
exactly similar to the one representing the number of immigrants
per 10,000 population.

Another fact which is equally obvious, and which has been
given much prominence in recent years, is that a period of depres-
sion in this country is followed by a large exodus of aliens. The
popular interpretation of this fact is that this emigration move-
ment serves to mitigate the evils of the crisis by removing a
large part of the surplus laborers, until returning prosperity
creates a demand for them again. The Italian, who displays the
greatest mobility in this regard, has been called the safety valve
of our labor market. Thus the movements of our alien popula-
tion are supposed to be an alleviating force as regards crises.
How well this interpretation fits the facts will appear later.
Professor Commons takes a different view of the matter, and in
another chapter of the book quoted demonstrates how immigra-
tion, instead of helping matters, is really one of the causes of
crises. His conclusion is that "immigration intensifies this
fatal cycle of ' booms*' and ' depressions/ " and " instead of increas-
ing the production of wealth by a steady, healthful growth, joins
with other causes to stimulate the feverish overproduction,
with its inevitable collapse, that has characterized the industry
of America more than that of any other country." The few pages
which Professor Commons devotes to this topic are highly sug-
gestive, and so far as the present writer is aware, contain the best
discussion of the subject which has yet been offered. Professor
Commons, however, at the time this book was written, was handi-
capped by the lack of certain data which have since become
available. Up till 1907 no official records were kept of departing
aliens, and no exact information as to their number was avail-
able. But beginning with July of that year, the reports of the
Commissioner-General of Immigration have furnished these
figures, and the recent reports contain tables almost as complete
for departing as for arriving aliens. Furthermore, within this
period the United States has experienced, and recovered from,
a severe depression, so that the material is at hand for a concrete
study of the matter in question.

Immigrant aliens are those whose last permanent residence
has been in some foreign country and who have come to the

266 EFFECTS

United States with the expressed intention of residing here
permanently. Nonimmigrant aliens are of two classes : those
whose last permanent residence was in the United States, but
who have been abroad for a short time, and those whose last
permanent residence was abroad, but who come to the United
States without the intention of remaining permanently, including
aliens in transit. Emigrant aliens are those whose last permanent
residence has been in the United States and who are going abroad
with the intention of residing there permanently. In all cases,
the expressed intention of the alien is accepted in regard to
residence, and an intended residence of twelve months consti-
tutes a permanent residence either in the past or future. Thus
there are" six distinct classes of aliens, coming and going, and the
way is open for some very complicated comparisons. For our
present purposes, however, it is not necessary to make these
comparisons. As far as aliens in transit are concerned, they
are counted as arrivals at the port of entry, and as departures
at the port of exit, so that they cancel, and do not affect the
net increase or decrease of population. Th'ey do not affect the
labor market, as they are supposed to pass by a direct and
continuous journey through the territory of the United States
within thirty days, otherwise the head tax is not refunded. The
other classes of nonimmigrant and nonemigrant aliens should
rightfully be included in the table for the present study, as they
affect the labor market. Particularly those incoming aliens who
are "nonimmigrant" because their last permanent residence
was in the United States, and those "nonemigrant" aliens who
are such because they are leaving the country only for a short
time include, to a great extent, just those individuals in whom
we are most interested. The tables of arrivals and departures
by months do not differentiate the two classes of nonimmigrant,
and the two classes of nonemigrant, aliens, so that it is impos-
sible to make monthly comparisons of these factors. Fortu-
nately, as stated above, it is not necessary for our present
purpose ; the totals of arrivals and departures of all classes of
aliens are a sufficient general indication of the movements which
we wish to study. A more detailed examination of the make-
up of the stream of arrivals and departures, by years, will be
given later.

IMMIGRATION AND CRISES 267

Turning then to the table, we observe that the monthly aver-
age of arrivals during the first six months of 1907 was a high one.
Following a large immigration during the last six months of the
preceding year, this made the fiscal year ending June 30, 1907,
the record year for immigration in the history of the country.
For the next four months the stream of immigration continued
high, considering the season, and the number of departures was
moderate. Early in October, however, there were signs of dis-
turbance in the New York Stock Exchange. On the sixteenth
there was a crash in the market, and within a week the panic
had become general. It reached its height on October 24, and
continued for many weeks after. The response of the alien
population to this disturbance was almost immediate, and mani-
fested itself first in the emigration movement. In November
the number of departures almost doubled. But the immigrants
who were on the way could not be stopped, and in spite of the
large exodus, there was a net gain of 38,207 during the month.
The next month, December, however, saw a marked decrease
in the stream of arrivals, which, accompanied by a departure
of aliens almost as great as in November, resulted in a net de-
crease in population of 11,325 for the month. During the first
six months of 1908 the number of arrivals was small, and the
departures numerous, so that, with the exception of March,
each month shows a net loss in population. During July the
number of departures began to approach the normal (compare
the months in 1908 with 1907 and 1910), but the arrivals were
so few that there was still a decrease for the months of July and
August. In September, 1908, the balance swung the other way,
and from that time to the present every month has shown a
substantial increase in population through the movement of
aliens.

Thus we see that the period during which the number of alien
laborers in the United States was decreasing was confined to the
months December, 1907, to August, 1908, inclusive. By the end
of July, 1908, the effects of the crisis were practically over as far
as departures are concerned. It is evident, then, that the effects
of the crisis on emigration were immediate, but not of very long
duration. During the months of November and December, 1907, v
when the distress was the keenest, there were still large numbers

268 EFFECTS

of aliens arriving. But when the stream of immigration was once
checked, it remained low for some time, and it was not until
about January, 1909, that it returned to what may be considered
a normal figure. The reasons for this are obvious. The stream
of immigration is a long one, and its sources are remote. It takes
a long time for retarding influences in America to be thoroughly
felt on the other side. The principal agency in checking immigra-
tion at its source is the returning immigrant himself, who brings
personal information of the unfortunate conditions in the United
States. This takes some time. But when the potential immi-
grants are once discouraged as to the outlook across the ocean,
they require some positive assurance of better times before they
will start out again.

Now what catches the public eye in such an epoch as this, is
the large number of departures. We are accustomed to immense
numbers of arrivals and we think little about that side of it. But
heavy emigration is a phenomenon, and accordingly we hear
much about how acceptably our alien population serves to accom-
modate the supply of labor to the demand. But if we stop to add
up the monthly figures, we find that for the entire period after
the crisis of 1907, when emigration exceeded immigration, the
total decrease in alien population was only 124,124 — scarcely
equal to the immigration of a single month during a fairly busy
season. This figure is almost infinitesimal compared to the total
mass of the American working people, or to the amount of unem-
ployment at a normal time, to say nothing of a crisis. It is thus
evident that the importance of our alien population as an alleviat-
ing force at the time of a crisis has been vastly exaggerated.
The most that can be said for it is that it has a very trifling
palliative effect.

The really important relation between immigration and crises
is much less conspicuous but much more far-reaching. It rests
upon the nature and underlying causes of crises in this country.
These are fairly well understood at the present time. A typical
crisis may be said to be caused by speculative overproduction,
or overspeculative production. Some prefer to call the trouble
underconsumption, which is much the same thing looked at
from another point of view. Professor Irving Fisher has furnished
a convenient and logical outline of the ordinary course of affairs.

IMMIGRATION AND CRISES 269

In a normal business period some slight disturbance, such as an
increase in the quantity of gold, causes prices to rise. A rise in
prices is accompanied by increased profits for business men, be-
cause the rate of interest on the borrowed capital which they use
in their business fails to increase at a corresponding ratio. If
prices are rising at the rate of two per cent annually, a nominal
rate of interest of six per cent is equivalent to an actual rate of
only about four per cent. Hence, doing business on borrowed
capital becomes very profitable, and there is an increased demand
for loans.

This results in an increase of the deposit currency, which is
accompanied by a further rise in prices. The nominal rate of
interest rises somewhat, but not sufficiently, and prices tend to
outstrip it still further. Thus the process is repeated, until the
large profits of business lead to a disproportionate production of
goods for anticipated future demand, and a vast overextension
of credit. But this cycle cannot repeat itself indefinitely. Though
the rate of interest rises tardily, it rises progressively, and even-
tually catches up with the rise in prices, owing to the necessity
which banks feel of maintaining a reasonable ratio between loans
and reserves. Other causes operate with this to produce the
same result. The consequence is that business men find them-
selves unable to renew their loans at the old rate, and hence
some of them are unable to meet their obligations, and fail.
The failure of a few firms dispels the atmosphere of public confi-
dence which is essential to extended credit. Creditors begin to
demand cash payment for their loans ; there is a growing demand
for currency; the rate of interest soars; and the old familiar
symptoms of a panic appear. In this entire process the blame
falls, according to Professor Fisher, primarily upon the failure
of the rate of interest to rise promptly in proportion to the rise
in prices. If the forces which give inertia to the rate of interest
were removed, so that the rate of interest would fluctuate readily
with prices, the great temptation to expand business unduly
during a period of rising prices would be removed. It may well
be conceived that there are other factors, besides the discrepancy
between the nominal and real rates of interest, that give to
business a temporary or specious profitableness, and tend to
encourage speculative overproduction. But the influence of the

27o EFFECTS

rate of interest resembles so closely that resulting from immi-
gration, that Professor Fisher's explanation is of especial service
in the present discussion.

The rate of interest represents the payment which the entre-
preneur makes for one of the great factors of production -
capital. The failure of this remuneration to keep pace with the
price of commodities in general leads to excessive profits and
overproduction. The payment which the entrepreneur makes
for one of the other factors of production — labor — is repre-
sented by wages. If wages fail to rise valong with prices the effect
on business, while not strictly analogous, is very similar to that
produced by the slowly rising rate of interest. The entrepreneur
is relieved of the necessity of sharing any of his excessive profits
with labor, just as in the other case he is relieved from sharing
them with capital. It would probably be hard to prove that the
increased demand for labor results in further raising prices in
general, as an increased demand for capital results in raising
prices by increasing the deposit currency. But if the demand
for labor results in increasing the number of laborers in the
country, thereby increasing the demand for commodities, it
may very well result in raising the prices of commodities as
distinguished from labor, which is just as satisfactory to the
entrepreneur. This is exactly what is accomplished when un-
limited immigration is allowed. As soon as the conditions of
business produce an increased demand for labor, this demand
is met by an increased number of laborers, produced by immi-
gration.

In the preceding paragraph it has been assumed that wages
do not rise with prices. The great question is, is this true ? This
is a question very difficult of answer. There is a very general
impression that during the last few years prices have seriously
outstripped wages. Thus Professor Ely says, " Wages do not
usually rise as rapidly as prices in periods of business expansion."
R. B. Brinsmade stated in a discussion at the last meeting of
the American Economic Association that "our recent great rise
of prices is acknowledged to be equivalent to a marked reduction
in general wages." Whether this idea is correct, and if correct,
whether this effect had transpired in the years immediately
previous to 1907, cannot be definitely stated. The index

IMMIGRATION AND CRISES 271

numbers of wages and prices given in the -Statistical Abstract of
the United States, for 1909 (p. 249), seem to show that during
the years 1895 to 1907 money wages increased about pari passu
with the retail prices of food, so that the purchasing power of
the full-time weekly earnings remained nearly constant.

But whether or not money wages rose as fast as prices in the
years from 1900 to 1907, one thing is certain, they did not rise
any faster. That is to say, if real wages did not actually fall,
they assuredly did not rise. But the welfare of the country
requires that, in the years when business is moving toward a
crisis, wages should rise ; not only money wages, but real wages.
What is needed is some check on the unwarranted activity of the
entrepreneurs, which will make them stop and consider whether
the apparently bright business outlook rests on sound and per-
manent conditions, or is illusory and transient. If their large
profits are legitimate and enduring, they should be forced to
share a part of them with the laborer. If not, the fact should
be impressed upon them. We have seen that the rate of interest
fails to act as an efficient check. Then the rate of wages should
do it. And if the entrepreneurs were compelled to rely on the
existing labor supply in their own country, the rate of wages
would do it. Business expands by increasing the amount of labor
utilized, as well as the amount of capital. If the increased labor
supply could be secured only from the people already resident
in the country, the increased demand would have to express itself
in an increased wage, and the entrepreneur would be forced to
pause and reflect. .But in the -United States we have adopted
the opposite policy. In the vast peasant population of Europe
there is an inexhaustible reservoir of labor, only waiting a signal
from this side to enter the labor market — to enter it, not with a
demand for the high wage that the business situation justifies,
but ready to take any wage that will be offered, just so it is a
little higher than the pittance to which they are accustomed at
home. And we allow them to come, without any restrictions
whatever as to numbers. Thus wages are kept from rising, and
immigration becomes a powerful factor, tending to intensify
and augment the unhealthy, oscillatory character of our indus-
trial life. It was not by mere chance that the panic year of
1907 was the record year in immigration.

272

EFFECTS

Against this point of view it may be argued that the legitimate
expansion of business in this country requires the presence of
the immigrant. But if business expansion is legitimate and per-
manent, resting on lasting favorable conditions, it will express
itself in a high wage scale, persisting over a long period of time.
And the demand so expressed will be met by an increase of native
offspring, whose parents are reaping the benefit of the high
standard of living. A permanent shortage of the labor supply
is as abhorrent to Nature as a vacuum. Expansion of any other
kind than this ought to be hampered, not gratified.

There is one other way in which immigration, as it exists at
present, influences crises. In considering this, it will be well to
regard the crisis from the other point of view — as a phenomenon
of underconsumption. Practically all production at the present
day is to supply an anticipated future demand. There can be
no overproduction unless the actual demand fails to equal that
anticipated. This is underconsumption. Now the great mass
of consumers in the United States is composed of wage earners.
Their consuming power depends upon their wages. In s^ far
as immigration lowers wages in the United States, or prevents
them from rising, it reduces consuming power, and hence is
favorable to the recurrence of periods of underconsumption.
It is not probable, to be sure, that a high wage scale in itself
could prevent crises, as the entrepreneurs would base their cal-
culations on the corresponding consuming power, just as they
do at present. But a high wage scale carries with it the possibility
of saving, and an increase of accumulations among the common
people. It is estimated at the present time that half of the
industrial people of the United States are unable to save any-
thing. This increase in saving would almost inevitably have
some effect upon the results of crises, though it must be confessed
that it is very difficult to predict just what this effect would
be. One result that might naturally be expected to follow would
be that the laboring classes would take the opportunity of the
period of low prices immediately following the crisis to invest
some of their savings in luxuries which hitherto they had not
felt able to afford. This would increase the demand for the
goods which manufacturers are eager to dispose of at almost
any price, and would thereby mitigate the evils of the depressed

IMMIGRATION AND CRISES 273

market. It is probably true that the immigrant, under the same
conditions, will save more out of a given wage than the native,
so that it might seem that an alien laboring body would have
more surplus available for use at the time of a crisis than a native
class. But the immigrant sends a very large proportion of his
savings to friends and relatives in the old country, or deposits
it in foreign institutions, so that it is not available at such a
time. Moreover, our laboring class is not as yet wholly foreign,
and the native has to share approximately the same wage as
the alien. Without the immense body of alien labor, we should
have a class of native workers with a considerably higher wage
scale, and a large amount of savings accumulated in this country,
and available when needed.

On the other hand, it may be argued that if the desire to pur-
chase goods in a depressed market should lead to a large with-
drawal of cash from savings banks and similar institutions, it
might tend to augment rather than alleviate the evils of a money
stringency. There seems to be much force to this argument.
Yet Mr. StreightofT tells us that in a period of hard times the
tendency is for the poorer classes to increase their deposits,
rather than diminish them. On the whole, it seems probable
that a large amount of accumulated savings in the hands of the
poorer classes would tend to have a steadying influence on condi-
tions at the time of a crisis, and that by preventing this, as well
as in other ways, immigration tends to increase the evils of crises.

In closing, it may be interesting to note what are the elements
in our alien population which respond most readily to economic
influences in this country, and hence are mainly accountable for
the influences we have been considering. As stated above, the
annual reports of the Commissioner General of Immigration give
very complete data as to the make-up of the incoming and out-
going streams by years. Thus in the fiscal year 1908 there were
782,870 immigrant aliens and 141,825 nonimmigrant aliens
admitted. Of the nonimmigrant aliens, 86,570 were individuals
whose country of last permanent residence and of intended future
residence were both the United States ; that is, they were alien
residents of this country who had been abroad for a brief visit.
These are the birds of passage in the strictest sense, in which we
shall use the term hereafter. In the same year there was a total

274 EFFECTS

exodus of 714,828 aliens, of whom 395,073 were emigrants and
319,755 nonemigrants. The former class includes those who have
made their fortune in this country and are going home to spend
it, and those who have failed and are going home broken and
discouraged — a very large number in this panic year. The
latter class includes aliens who have had a permanent residence
in the United States, but who are going abroad to wait till the
storm blows over, with the expectation of returning again —
true birds of passage outward bound. There were 133,251 of
these. The balance were aliens in transit, and aliens who had
been in this country on a visit, or only for a short time. In 1909
there were 751,786 immigrant aliens and 192,449 nonimmigrant
aliens. Of the nonimmigrants 138,680 were true birds of passage
according to the above distinction — a large number and almost
exactly equal to the number of departing birds of passage in
the previous year. The storm is over, and they have come back.
The departures in that year numbered 225,802 emigrant and
174,590 nonemigrant aliens. These numbers are considerably
smaller than in the previous year, but are still large, showing
that the effects of the crisis were still felt in the early part of
this fiscal year. The number of birds of passage among the non-
emigrant aliens, 80,151, is much smaller than in the previous
year. In 1910 there were 1,041,570 immigrant aliens and 156,467
nonimmigrant aliens. In the latter class, the number of birds
of passage, 94,075, again approximated the corresponding class
among the departures of the previous year. The departures in
1910 were 202,436 emigrant aliens and 177,982 nonemigrant
aliens, of whom 89,754 were birds of passage. This probably
comes near to representing the normal number of this class. A
careful study of these figures confirms the conclusion reached
above. While a crisis in this country does undoubtedly increase
the number of departing aliens, both emigrant and nonemigrant,
and eventually cuts down the number of arrivals, the total effect
is much smaller than is usually supposed, and taken in connection
with the fact that the stream of arrivals is never wholly checked,
the influence of emigration in easing the labor market is abso-
lutely trifling.

Comparing the different races in regard to their readiness to
respond to changes in economic conditions, it appears that the

IMMIGRATION AND CRISES 275

Italians stand easily at the head, and the Slavs come second.
In 1908, in the traffic between the United States and Italy,
there was a net loss in the population of this country of 79,966 ;
in 1909, a net gain of 94,806. In the traffic between this country
and Austria-Hungary there was a loss in 1908 of 5463 ; in 1909
a gain of 48,763. In the traffic with the Russian Empire and
Finland there was a gain of 104,641 in 1908 and a gain of 94,806
in 1909. This shows how unique are the motives and conditions
which control the migration from the two latter countries.
The emigrants from there, particularly the Jews, come to this
country to escape intolerable conditions on the other side, not
merely for the sake of economic betterment. They prefer to
endure anything in this country, rather than to return to their
old home, even if they could.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION

JEREMIAH N. JENKS, LL.D., AND W. JETT LAUCK, OF THE UNITED
STATES IMMIGRATION COMMISSION

MANY persons who have spoken and written of late years
in favor of restriction of immigration have laid great
stress upon the evils to society arising from immigration. They
have claimed that disease, pauperism, crime, and vice have been
greatly increased through the incoming of the immigrants.
Perhaps no other phase of the question has aroused so keen
feeling, and yet perhaps on no other phase of the question has
there been so little accurate information.

It is doubtful whether the increased number of convictions
for crime are found because more crimes are committed, or be-
cause our courts and the police are more active. It is probable
that we hear more of vice and immorality in these late days,
not because they are on the increase, but because people's con-
sciences have become more sensitive, and in consequence greater
efforts are made to suppress them.

It is certain that the injurious effect of most contagious diseases
has been very greatly lessened, and yet it is probable that we
hear more regarding contagious diseases now than ever before
because we have become more watchful.

The data regarding contagious diseases, pauperism, and crime,
in connection with the immigrants, are extremely meager and
unsatisfactory; but the Immigration Commission made the
best use possible of such data as exist, and it was able to institute
a number of inquiries which, though limited in extent, never-
theless have served to throw some light upon the relation of
immigration to these various social problems. Although it
seems probable that the injurious social effects of immigration
have been greatly exaggerated in the minds of many persons,
nevertheless it would be practically impossible to exaggerate
the social importance that might attach to immigration under

276

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 277

certain conditions. History and observation afford numberless
examples.

It is a generally accepted fact that, up to the time of the visita-
tion of the Pacific Islands by diseased sailors from Europe in
the early part of the last century, venereal diseases, as known in
Europe and America, did not exist in those islands, and that
their introduction by only a few sailors was largely responsible
for the ravages of these terrible diseases, unchecked by any
medical knowledge, that swept away in many instances a large
proportion of the entire population.

The entrance of an evil-minded man into a village community,
or one or two foul-minded boys into a school, is often enough to
affect materially the entire tone of the school or community.
It is important, therefore, that as careful consideration as possible
be given to these questions that have been so emphasized, and
that rigid measures be taken to check whatever evils may have
arisen.

LEGISLATION1

In earlier days neither the Federal Government nor State
governments had passed any laws to protect the United States
against the immigration of undesirable persons of whatever
kind. Even the energetic action of those promoting the so-called
"Native American" or "Know-Nothing" movements, from 1835
to 1860, resulted in no protective legislation. Indeed, these
movements were largely based on opposition to the immigration
of Catholics rather than to that of persons undesirable for other
reasons. In 1836 the Secretary of State was requested to collect
information respecting the immigration of foreign paupers and
criminals. In 1838 the Committee on the Judiciary of the House
of Representatives was instructed to consider the expediency
of providing by law against the introduction into the United
States of vagabonds and paupers deported from foreign countries.
Moreover, a bill, presented on the recommendation of the Com-
mittee, proposed a fine of $1000, or imprisonment for from one
to three years, for any master who took on board his vessel,
with the intention of transporting to the United States, any

1 Cf . for details, reports of Immigration Commission, Vol. XXXIX ; also Chap-
ter XVI.

278 EFFECTS

alien passenger who was an idiot, lunatic, one afflicted with any
incurable disease, or one convicted of an infamous crime. The bill,
however, was not considered. The early " Native American"
movement had been local, confined to New York City at first,
afterward spreading to Philadelphia, but in 1852 the secret
oath-bound organization that took the name of the American
Party, the members of which were popularly called the Know-
Nothings, came into national politics, and for a few years exerted
not a little power, carrying nine State elections in 1855. Later,
in something of a reaction against this " Know-No thing " move-
ment, which finally proposed only the exclusion of foreign paupers
and criminals, there was a definite effort made to encourage
immigration.

In 1864, on the recommendation of President Lincoln, a bill
encouraging immigration was passed. In 1866 a joint resolution
condemned the action of Switzerland and other nations in par-
doning persons convicted of murder and other infamous crimes
on condition that they would emigrate to the United States,
and in 1868 the encouraging act .was repealed.

Some of the States had provided for the collection of money
to support immigrants who had become public charges ; but
these laws were finally declared unconstitutional by the United
States Supreme Court, and in 1882 the first Federal Immigra-
tion Law was approved. This forbade convicts, except political
offenders, lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become public
charges, to land. During the following years there was consid-
erable agitation for further restriction or regulation, which
culminated in 1888 in the selection of the "Ford Committee"
by the House of Representatives. In the testimony before the
committee it was shown that sometimes immigrants coming
by steamer to Quebec, within forty-eight hours of their arrival,
applied for shelter in the almshouses of the State of New York,
and like cases of gross abuse existed by the thousands.

No further legislation, however, was enacted until 1891, when a
bill was passed which added to the excluded classes persons suffer-
ing from a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, and polyg-
amists, but from that time on there has been an earnest effort to
protect the United States against such undesirable immigrants.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 279
DISEASED IMMIGRANTS

Our present law provides that in case of aliens who are debarred
for physical or mental reasons and whose disability might have
been detected by the transportation company through a compe-
tent medical examination at the time of embarkation, the trans-
portation company shall pay the sum of $200 and in addition
a sum equal to that paid by such alien for his transportation from
the initial point of departure indicated in his ticket to the port
of arrival, and such sum shall be paid to the alien on whose ac-
count it is assessed. In consequence of these and the precedi
regulations, the transportation of diseased aliens has becom
so unprofitable that the steamship companies have provided, a
the leading foreign ports, a medical inspection similar to tha
made in the United States.1

EFFICIENCY OF INSPECTION IN EUROPE

As a result of this inspection compelled by the rigid enforce-
ment of our laws at our port$ of entry, the number of persons/
debarred at American ports is relatively very small. In the fiscal]
year 1907, 1,285,349 aliens were admitted, while only 4400 were
debarred on account of physical and mental diseases. In 1914,
as against 1,218,480 aliens who entered, 11,068 were debarred.
The increase is due largely to the added efficiency of our medical
service. The fact that a large proportion of the immigrants
arriving in the United States come from countries where
trachoma, favus and other contagious diseases are prevalent
among the classes of the population from whom the immigrants
come, shows how careful the steamship inspection is.

A still further proof is that the persons excluded on account
of diseases from the ports of Italy, where the judgment of Ameri-
can medical officers is accepted as final, is slightly larger than
those rejected from some other countries where the inspection
is made solely by the physicians employed by the steamship
companies.

On the whole, the medical inspection of immigrants at foreign
ports, while not absolutely effective, seems to be reasonably

1 Immigration Act, 1917, Sec. 9.

28o EFFECTS

satisfactory. A considerable time must elapse between embarka-
tion at European ports and arrival in the United States. More-
over, doubtless, in spite of the best efforts that can be made,
there will be occasionally an avoidance of inspection ; but taking
all circumstances into account, the present control of immigrants
as regards contagious diseases seems to be quite satisfactory.

It has frequently been suggested that some system should
be devised by which immigrants may be inspected before leaving
their homes for a port of embarkation. Such an arrangement
would, of course, prevent many hardships now suffered by the
thousands that are annually turned back at foreign ports of
embarkation ; but this is a subject over which our government
has no supervision, the governments of the home countries being
the only ones which could take effective action.

The policy adopted by the United States, of holding steam-
ship companies responsible for bringing to the United States
those physically and mentally diseased, seems to be right, and
\ to have been of increasing effectiveness in late years. Inasmuch,
however, as the circumstances in different cases vary materially,
it seems desirable that the .penalty provided for evasion of the
law either through carelessness or connivance might also be varied
so that under certain circumstances as heavy a fine as $500
might be levied.

HOSPITAL INVESTIGATION

x^In order that a more careful test might be made of the physical
V conditions of the immigrants after their arrival in this country
the Immigration Commission had an accurate record1 kept of
all charity patients entering the Bellevue and Allied Hospitals
I in New York City, during the seven months from August i,
^ 1908, to February 28, 1909, these hospitals being the ones that
most frequently treat charity patients of the immigrant classes.
Records of 23,758 cases were taken, of whom 52.3 per cent were
foreign-born. When any race was represented by 200 or more
patients, the results were tabulated, so that some conclusions
might be reached regarding the liability to certain diseases of
the different classes of immigrants of the various races and na-
tionalities. |

1 Reports of Immigration Commission, Vol. I.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 281

It is a rather striking fact that, so far as one can judge from\
these records kept, the races of the recent immigration, those /
from southern and eastern Europe, are not so subject to diseases C
that seem to be allied with moral weaknesses, as some of those {
of the older immigration races. For example, the largest per-
centage of diseases treated among Italians is 19.6 per cent for
traumatism, burns, etc., these apparently arising from the fact
that the newly arrived Italian immigrant is likely to be employed
in unskilled labor, where he meets with slight accidents. The
Hebrews also suffer most from this cause, a percentage of 13.1
per cent.

The Irish, who are also largely unskilled workmen, show only '
11.7 per cent of their cases coming from this cause, whereas
35.9 per cent of the Irish patients treated were suffering from
alcoholism, acute and chronic. Of the English 27.5 per cent,
and of the German 12.8 per cent, were treated for alcoholism,
and only 7.2 per cent and 12.4 per cent, respectively, for trauma-
tism, burns, etc. Of the Italians only 1.6 per cent were treated
for alcoholism and of the Hebrews only 0.9 of i per cent.

The Swedes with 1.5 per cent, Irish, Italians, Polish, and
Scotch each with 0.9 per cent, show a larger proportion treated
for syphilis than the English, Germans, Hebrews, or Magyars.
The English with 2.1 per cent and the Italians with 1.5 per cent
had a larger proportion treated for gonorrhea than any of the
other races of which a detailed study was made.

Among the native-born negroes only 3.6 per cent were treated
for alcoholism.

THE MENTALLY DEFECTIVE

It is much more difficult, in many instances, to detect the
mentally than the physically defective. Often there is nothing
to indicate to the medical inspector mental disease, unless the
immigrant can be kept under observation for a considerable
period of time, or unless the history of the case is known. Under
the law, "All idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded persons, epileptics,
are excluded, insane persons, and persons who have been insane
within five years previous; and persons who have had two or
more attacks of insanity at any time previously." It is the
custom invariably to hold for observation any patient who shows

282

EFFECTS

any evidence whatever of mental disease ; but despite this care
not a few cases are found of those who have developed insanity
within a comparatively short period after landing. In some
instances this might have been anticipated if the history of the
patient had been known, but otherwise there was no means of
detection. The present law on this point seems to be satisfactory,
and its enforcement generally good under the very difficult
conditions; but it would be desirable to have a larger force of
experts to examine, and also, if it were practicable, to provide
some better means for securing the history of arriving immigrants.

NUMBER AND RATIO OF INSANE IN UNITED STATES AND IN FOREIGN

COUNTRIES x

INSANE IN H

OSPITALS

TOTAL 1

.NSANE

COUNTRY

YEAR

Number

No. per
100,000 of
Popula-
tion

Number

No. per
100,000 of
Popula-
tion

United States .

IQO3

I "\O I ^I

186 2

io6wi8<; 2

1 7O O ^

England and Wales . . . . .
Scotland . . .

1903

IQO2

113,964
16 658

340.1
^62 7

Ireland

TQO2

22 I?8

ouov

Canada

IQOI

12 8lO

2*86

i6«d.o?

•2Q7 O

France

1 004.

60 100

177 5

Germany

IQO3

1 08 004

191 6

Italy

I8OO

•24. 802

IO9 2

Austria ....

IOOI

14. 80?

C7 o

70 YA7

TI7 C

IQO2

2 7l6

O/'V

14. I

J^J)/it4
17 117

88 8

Netherlands

IQQ7

8 o<8

l67 £

Switzerland

IOOI

7 4.34.

224. 2

Norway ....

IOO2

I 8^3

80 c

S2.O7

2^8 4.

Sweden

IQOI

l^OO

e 08^

OU.^J

O7 3

8 OO*

I C4. O

Denmark

IOOI

-} AiQ.

4. IO7

171 3

The tables above, taken from the Special Report of the
United States Census, which some observations by the Immigra-
tion Commission in Bellevue and Allied Hospitals in New York
and reports of the Bureau of Immigration tend to confirm,

^Compiled from United States Census, Special Report,
minded in hospitals and institutions, 1904," pp. 9 and 10. j-
2 Figure for June i, 1890.

Insane and feeble-

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 283

throw some light on the relative tendencies of certain races
toward insanity, and show that certain aliens are more inclined
toward insanity than are native-born Americans.

RACIAL OR NATIONAL TENDENCIES

The high ratio of insanity prevailing among foreign-born""]
persons in the United States may be due, in a measure at least, L^
to racial or national tendencies.

Data showing the number of insane and the ratio of insanil
in the principal European countries and in Canada are afforded
by the Special Report of the Census Bureau. These data, together
with like data for the United States, obtained from the same
source, are presented in the table below.

FOREIGN-BORN WHITE INSANE ENUMERATED IN HOSPITALS IN CONTI-
NENTAL UNITED STATES, DECEMBER 31, 1903, COMPARED WITH THE TOTAL
FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION OF CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES IN 1900, BY
COUNTRY OF BIRTH ; PER CENT DISTRIBUTION *

COUNTRY OF BIRTH

FOREIGN-
BORN WHITE
INSANE
ENUMERATED
IN HOSPITALS

FOREIGN-
BORN
POPULA-
TION:
1900

Ireland

20. 0

i* 6

26.0

2<;.8

England and ^^ales .

7 O

o o

Canada 2

6.<?

II 4

ii. c

IO.7

Scotland . ....

I 7

2 3

Italy .

2.2

47

France

1.2

I.O

Hungary and Bohemia

2 2

2 O

Russia and Poland

4.4.

7 8

Other countries .

7 3

92

Total

IOO.O

IOO O

1 Compiled from United States Census, Special Report,
minded in hospitals and institutions, 1904," pp. 23 and 24.

2 Includes Newfoundland.

' Insane and feeble-

284 EFFECTS

PAUPERS

Although in the earlier days before strict regulation of immi-
gration had been provided by law many poor people came from
Europe, their home countries paying the expenses of their ship-
ment in order to rid themselves of the burden of their support,
our present regulations excluding those who are liable to become
a public charge have practically stopped the immigration of this
undesirable class. The Immigration Commission, with the
assistance of the Associated Charities in forty-three cities,
including practically all the large immigrant centers excepting
New York, reached the conclusion that only a very small per-
centage of the immigrants now arriving applied for relief.

In this statistical investigation,1 covering 31,374 cases actually
receiving assistance and reporting cause, it was found that 28.7
per cent had applied for assistance because of the death or dis-
ability of the breadwinner of the family ; 18.9 per cent on account
of the death or disability of another member of the family ; 59
per cent from lack of employment or insufficient earnings; 18.7
per cent on account of neglect or bad habits of the breadwinner ;
6.2 per cent on account of old age; and 10 per cent from other
causes.

It will be noted that because more than one reason was given
in some cases, this total amounts to more than 100 per cent,
but the relative proportions of the cases under the different classes
.are probably substantially accurate . If we attempt to discriminate
among the different races, it appears that it is among the immi-
grants of the earlier period or those coming from Northern Europe
that we find apparently the largest number of cases of neglect
or bad habits of the breadwinner. For example, among the South
Italians, only 8.7 per cent give this cause, whereas the Irish
give 20.9 per cent, the English 14 per cent, the German 15.7
per cent, the Norwegians 25.9 per cent. The Hebrews, again,
as representatives of the later immigrants, give 12.6 per cent,
L^ but the Lithuanians, by exception, give 25.6 per cent.

In the case of those giving lack of employment as the cause,
the highest percentage is found among the Syrians, 75.4 per
cent; the lowest among the French Canadians, 38.9 per cent

1 Reports of Immigration Commission, Vol. I.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 285

There do not seem to be striking differences in this regard among
the other nationalities ; among the South Italians 67.8 per cent,
the Polish 65,9 per cent, the Irish 54.8 per cent, the English
63.3 per cent, the Germans 58.1 per cent ; the preponderance being
slightly greater among the late arrivals than among the early.
On the other hand, if we note the length of time that those
assisted have been in the United States, we find that 33.9 per
cent of those who have received aid have been here twenty years
or over, whereas only 6 per cent have been here two years ; and
if we take all who have been here under three years, it amounts
to only 10.3 per cent. Apparently, therefore, the newly arrived
immigrants do not soon apply for aid to any large extent. It
should be noted, also, that this investigation was made during
the six months of the winter of 1908-1909, while the effects of
the industrial depression of 1907-1908 were still felt. These last*
facts emphasize strongly the effectiveness of our present immi-
gration laws in excluding those likely to become a public charge,
as compared with the lack of care in ear Her years, when within
forty-eight hours of landing large numbers applied for relief.

CRIME

Probably no other question in connection with immigration
has aroused greater interest than its relation to crime. Probably
more hostility to the immigrant has been aroused by the asser-
tion that their incoming has increased crime in this country than
by any other fact ; and yet it is impossible to produce satisfactory
evidence that immigration has resulted in an increase of crime
out of proportion to the increase in the adult population. Al-
though available statistical material is too small to permit the
drawing of positive conclusions, such material as is available, / ^L
if trustworthy, would seem to indicate that immigrants are rather
less inclined toward criminality, on the whole, than are native
Americans, although these statistics do indicate that the children
of immigrants commit crime more often than the children of
natives.

Any special study of the relation of immigration to crime
should take into consideration not only the number of convictions
for crime but also the nature of the crimes committed and possibly

286 EFFECTS

the relative likelihood of the detection of crime in different locali-
ties or among different classes of the population.

DIFFICULTY OF ADMINISTRATION OF LAW

Although the immigration laws provide for the exclusion of
persons who have been convicted of, or confess to, an infamous
crime, there can be no doubt that many criminals have succeeded
and still succeed in evading this law.

It is, of course, impossible for an immigration inspector to tell
from the appearance of a man whether or not he has been a
criminal. In many cases criminals, especially those who have
committed certain classes of serious crimes, such as forgery or
even burglary, may be well-dressed, intelligent persons, traveling
in first cabin. Unless something is known of their previous
history, if they do not declare that they have been convicted of
crime, they will be admitted without question. Doubtless many
aliens enter the United States contrary to the law after having
been convicted of a crime, and having served out their sentence \
or, having been convicted of crime by foreign courts during
their absence from the place of trial, as is permitted in some
countries, if they have escaped arrest and fled the country.
Moreover, our laws do not exclude persons who have not been
convicted of crime although they may be looked upon as danger-
ous persons or probably criminals and on that account have
been placed by their home courts under police surveillance.

The Immigration Commission,1 in order to make as careful
a study as possible of this most important question within the
means at its disposal, took into careful account the material
collected by the United States Census on the extent of crime,
going through carefully the latest report regarding prisoners and
juvenile delinquents in institutions in 1904. In addition to this,
use was made of the records of the County and Supreme Courts
of New York State, from 1907 to 1908, of the New York City
Magistrates Courts, 1901-1908, and of the New York Court
of General Sessions, October i, 1908 to June 30, 1909, the ma-
terial in this last case having been especially collected by agents
of the Commission.

1 Reports of Immigration Commission, Vol. XXXVI.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 287

Furthermore, the records of commitments to penal institution
in Massachusetts, October i, 1908, and September 30, 1909,
and data relating to alien prisoners in the penal institutions
throughout the United States, in 1908, were utilized, as well as
the police records made in Chicago in the years 1905-1908.

Many of these figures, of course, are not comparable one
with another, but by a careful study certain general conclusions
may be reached.

CLASSES OF CRIME

The tables of the distribution of classes of crime on pages 288
and 289, show that in all of the courts investigated, the proportion
of natives committing gainful offenses is decidedly larger than
that of foreigners, although in offenses of personal violence and
of those against public policy the foreigner predominates. It
should be borne in mind, however, that in the case of offenses
against public policy many are merely the violation of a city
ordinance, such as peddling without a city license, and it may
be that in certain of these cases the newly arrived immigrant
was not aware that he was committing an offense. Even, how-
ever, if he did know that he was violating an ordinance, it could
hardly be assumed that it was such a misdemeanor as would
imply a serious criminal tendency.

When on the other hand we take up the offense of personal
violence, we find that in the City Magistrate's Court of New
York and in the County and Supreme Courts of the same State,
the percentage of offenses of personal_viQ]ence is very much
higher among the Italians than among any other race or national-
ity. This seems a matter of special significance. For example,
of the convictions of Italians in the County and Supreme Courts
of New York State, 39.3 per cent were for offenses of personal
violence ; of the convictions of persons born in Austria-Hungary,
only 1 8. 6 per cent were for offenses of that class; for those
born in Ireland, only 16.5 per cent ; and for native-born citizens,
11.7 per cent. On the other hand, when in the same courts we
find that in the relative frequency of gainful offenses, the United ,
States leads with ^7.8 per cent, and the Italians have the fewest (
offenses with 37.6 per cent, we see the relative inclinations of
the different races brought out in a most striking way.

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SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 289

DISTRIBUTION OF CLASSES OF CRIME1
Convictions: Number

COUNTRY OF BIRTH

TOTAL

GAINFUL
OFFENSES

OFFENSES

OF

PERSONAL
VIOLENCE

OFFENSES

AGAINST

PUBLIC
POLICY

OFFENSES

AGAINST

CHASTITY

UNCLASSI-
FIED
OFFENSES

United States . . .
Austria-Hungary . .
Canada

7,286
419

124.

5,665
280
85

855
78
16

509
31
14.

135
IO

i

122
20

8

England
Germany ....
Ireland
Italy
Poland

161

Si4
278
1,183
06

us

360.
197

445
61

13
67
46

465
17

17

54
24
244
j j

ii
13
3
13

2

5

20

8
16

Russia

646

498

84

35

12

17

Total foreign z .
Grand total . .

3,879
11,165

2,345
8,010

873
1,728

485
994

72
207

104
226

Convictions: Per cent distribution

COUNTRY OF BIRTH

TOTAL

GAINFUL
OFFENSES

OFFENSES

OF

PERSONAL
VIOLENCE

OFFENSES

AGAINST

PUBLIC
POLICY

OFFENSES

AGAINST

CHASTITY

UNCLASSI-
FIED
OFFENSES

United States . . .
Austria-Hungary . .
Canada

IOO.O
100.0
IOO.O

77-8
66.8
68. ?

ii. 7
18.6

12. 0

7.0
7-4

II. 7

1.9

2.4
0.8

1-7
4.8
6 <:

England
Germany ....
Ireland

IOO.O
IOO.O
IOO.O

71.4
70.0
7o.o

8.1
13.0
i6.<?

10.6
10.5
8.6

6.8

2-5
i.i

3-1
3-9

2 O

Italy ./....
Poland

IOO.O
IOO.O

37-6
6s 6

39-3

17 7

2O.6
II <?

i.i

2 I

1-4
31

Russia

IOO.O

77.1

I^.O

C.4

I.Q

2.6

Total foreign 2 .
Grand total . .

IOO.O
IOO.O

60.5

71.7

22.5
15-5

12.5
8.9

I.9

i-9

2.7

2.O

1 New York County and Supreme Courts, 1907-1908.

2 Includes "Other countries."

290 EFFECTS

Among these gainful offenses, however, there seems to be a
wide difference in kinds of crime. Of the convictions of persons
born in the United States, 29.9 per cent were for burglary. In
extortion, the Italians lead with 3.05 per cent; in forgery and
fraud, the Canadian with 4.03 per cent ; in larceny and receiving
stolen property, the Russian leads with 48.5, while in robbery,
the Poles are preeminent with 4.2 per cent.

If a similar analysis is made of the relative frequency of offenses
of personal violence, the Italians seem to show a peculiarly bad
eminence, leading in homicide with 6.3 per cent of all the con-
victions, while the nationality next to them is the Irish with
only 2.2 per cent. In abduction, the Italians also lead with
2.03 per cent, England being second at only 0.62 per cent. In
assault the Italians are first with 28.9 per cent, Austria-Hungary
second at 15 per cent. In all of the offenses of personal violence
the Italians lead, except in the case of rape, where the Germans
and Italians are equal at 2.1 per cent, citizens of the United
States following at 1.6 per cent. In the same court, the Italians
lead in crimes against the public health and safety with 13.8 per
cent, the Poles ranking second with 5.2 per cent. In the case of
violation of excise laws and similar offenses, the Canadian leads
with 10.5 per cent, the English following with only 6.2 per cent.

It is perhaps sufficient to say here that on the whole, in spite
of the inclination apparently shown by certain nationalities to
commit certain classes of crime, it is impossible to show whether
or not the totality of crime has been increased by immigration.

NEW MEASURES NEEDED

There can be no doubt regarding the inadequacy of our laws
for the exclusion of criminals. Many criminals doubtless come
as seamen, or as employees in some capacity on ships, and then
secure entrance to the country by desertion, while, as already
explained, many others escape because the inspecting officials
cannot detect them.

Unless an immigrant has a criminal record abroad, there
seems no way of ridding the country of his presence if he becomes
a criminal here. It seems advisable, that our laws be so amended
kthat an alien who becomes a criminal within a relatively short

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 291

time after his arrival, say from three to five years, should be
deported after he has paid the penalty here. Presumably such
a person has brought with him a tendency to commit crime.

Moreover, it would seem advisable for the United States to
make arrangements with certain foreign countries that keep
police records of all their citizens, so that all persons arriving
from those countries might be required to produce a penal
certificate showing a clear record. Those unable to present such
a record should be excluded. Such an arrangement could not
well be made with all countries, since, first, many countries keep
no such records, but also, second, because such an arrangement
would probably be used by some countries as an additional
means of oppressing political offenders or those suspected of
revolutionary inclinations, however praiseworthy such inclina-
tions might be from the American viewpoint.

The Immigration Commission and, also, at about the same
time, the Police Department of New York City, proved by
experiment in some hundreds of cases that it is possible to secure
in some foreign countries documentary evidence of the conviction
of crime of immigrants who have been admitted through error.
So far as is known, the Bureau of Immigration has never seriously
attempted such work, though it might well be a means of ridding
the country of scores, even hundreds, of dangerous criminals.
Moreover, if the Government were to keep abroad a confidential
force to watch for criminal and immoral persons intending to
enter this country, as it does provide such a force abroad to pre-
vent smuggling of goods, good results could doubtless be obtained.
A smuggled criminal or prostitute is far more injurious to the
country than a smuggled diamond or silk coat. Why not take
equal care regarding them ?

BIRTH RATE AMONG IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR
DESCENDANTS

So much has been said in late years about "race suicide,"
and so much of both the industrial and military strength of a
country depends upon the natural increase of population through
the birth rate, that the relative fecundity of immigrant women
as compared with that of both native-born of foreign parents

292 EFFECTS

and native-born of native parents is of great significance. For-
tunately enough, excellent material was collected by the Twelfth
Census, although not utilized by the Census Bureau, so that the

• Immigration Commission was able from the original data thus
collected to reach accurate results of value. It was not considered

; practicable to make use of the material for all sections of the
/ United States, but the State of Rhode Island, the city of Cleve-
land and forty-eight counties (largely rural) in the State of Ohio,
the city of Minneapolis and twenty-one rural counties in Minne-
sota, were taken as typical of the different sections of the country
and of urban and rural conditions. The detailed figures are of
great interest.1

WOMEN BEARING NO CHILDREN

Some general conclusions may be reached as follows : The
percentage of women under forty-five years of age who had
been married from ten to nineteen years, when classified by
parentage and nativity shows that in all these regions selected
for study 7.4 per cent bore no children. Among the native
whites of native parentage this fact held of 13.1 per cent, while
among the whites of foreign parentage of only 5.7 per cent.
Among the women of foreign parentage the percentage of women
bearing no children was largest among the Scotch — 8.9 per cent
of the first generation and 11.3 per cent of the second generation.

The Polish women were the most fertile; of the women of
the first generation only 2.6 per cent bore no children, and of
those of the second only 1.5 per cent. The Bohemians, Russians,
and Norwegians show likewise relatively few women without
children, while the English, French, Irish, and English Canadian
rank next to the Scotch in the large numbers unfruitful. Speak-
ing generally, also, it may be noted that the percentage of child-
less women is decidedly higher in the second generation of the
white women of foreign parentage, although this difference does
not appear in so marked a degree in rural Minnesota as in the
other areas. Generally speaking, the result would seem to indi-
cate that the second generation, under rural conditions, is almost
as likely to have children as the first. Under urban conditions
this is not so likely to occur, as percentages indicate.

1 Reports of Immigration Commission, Vol. XXVIII.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 293
AVERAGE NUMBER OF CHILDREN

Considering the question from another viewpoint, that of the »
average number of children borne by women of the different races
and nationalities in these different localities, — among the women
of American stock, the average number of children in Cleveland,
Minneapolis, and Rhode Island, which are largely urban, is much
the same, 2.4 and 2.5, while in the rural districts of both Ohio and
Minnesota, the number of children is practically one more, 3.4.

Among the women of foreign stock, the difference between
city and country is not so decidedly marked, but there is also
decided variation among the different races. The average num-
ber of children borne by women under forty-five years of age,
married from ten to nineteen years, was 2.7 for native white
women of native parentage, and 4.4 for the native white women
of foreign parentage. Among those races studied, the highest
birth rate was found among the Eole§ — 6.2 children for the
women of the first generation and 5.1 for those of the second.
Next to these rank the French Canadians with 5.8 for the first
generation and 4.9 for the seconl37~Among the foreigners the low-
est birth rate was found among the English, with 3.7 for the first
generation and 2.9 for the second. The Scotch ranked almost
the same with 3.8 in the first generation and 2.9 in the second.

In practically all of these cases the number of children is
larger in rural districts and smaller in the cities, although in the
case of Poles in Ohio 6.1 was the rate in Cleveland to 5.6 in rural
Ohio. The exception does not appear significant.

RELATION OF YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE TO BIRTH RATE,

BY RACES

Still another indication of the same tendency of the native"
Americans and the second generation of immigrants to have
fewer children is shown by the average number of years married
for each child born to the women enumerated. As is to be ex-
pected from what has preceded, the smallest average number of
years is found among the Poles with 2.3 for the first generation
and 2.6 for the second. The largest number of years is found
among the English with 3.9 of the first generation and 5 of the
second generation. The English Canadian, the Scotch, and the

294 EFFECTS

French all rank high, while the Italians, French Canadians, and
Norwegians rank low.

The general results seem to indicate that fecundity is much
greater among women of foreign parentage than among the
; American women of native parentage and usually greater among
the immigrants than among their descendants. Generally speak-
ing, also, the fecundity is greater in the rural districts than in the
cities. Taking all the totals together, the fecundity seems great-
est in the first generation of Polish women, wEo bore in the
years indicated one child every 2.3 years, while it is least in the
second generation of English women, who bore on the average
one child only every five years.

THE SOCIAL EVIL AND THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC

In many respects the most pitiful as well as the most revolting
phase of the immigration question is that connected with the
social evil or the white slave traffic.

From the nature of the cases, it is, of course, impossible to
get detailed statistics regarding the question.1 From the figures
collected in an investigation of four months in the New York
City Night Court, November 15, 1908, to March. 15, 1909, it
appears that 27.7 per cent of the women arrested and convicted
for keeping disorderly houses and solicitation, were foreign-
born. Of these foreign-born cases in the Night Court, 581 in
all, the Hebrews furnished the largest number, 225, the French
next with 154, followed by the Germans with 69. In cases of
exclusion and deportation the figures are materially different.
A very large proportion of the girls who come to our cities to
engage in this business are from the country districts and are
American-born, although very often they are immigrant girls
who have entered factories of various types or have been engaged
in such lines of activity that they are kept from the benefits of
home influence.

ECONOMIC CAUSES

In very many other cases, however, an important indirect
cause of their downfall seems to be economic, although dependent,
largely, upon the other conditions surrounding their home life.

1 Reports of Immigration Commission, Vol. XXXVH.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 295

In the very crowded districts of the great cities the conditions
of living are such that the normal instincts of modesty and
propriety are, in many cases, almost inevitably deadened, with
the result that yielding to temptation is much easier and more
frequent than would otherwise be the case. Low wages are in
themselves scarcely ever a direct cause.

The investigations of the Immigration Commission seem
to show very clearly that the keepers of disorderly houses and
those most actively engaged in the work of procuring inmates
for these houses, either in this country or abroad, are either aliens
or the children of aliens.

All such figures, however, are likely to be misleading. The
opinions of the agents of the Commission, of the police, and of
others familiar with the situation, lead one to the conclusion that
the largest proportion of prostitutes entering the country are
French ; the Hebrews seem rather to have engaged in the life
after entering the country. The Hebrews seem, on the other
hand, to be more active as procurers and pimps in seducing the
young girls here and persuading them to enter the life.

The report of the Commission of Immigration for 1914 gives
the total number of nationalities debarred for prostitution as
follows : English, 57 ; French, 32 ; German, 37 ; Hebrew, 27 ;
Mexicans, 107. Those debarred as procurers : English, 37 ;
French, 14; Germans, 31; Hebrews, 6; Mexicans, 65. These
figures bring into evil prominence the Mexicans and English.
Deportation after admission shows like results.1

RACES

Of the women who are thus imported for immoral purposes,
either willingly or against their will, certain nationalities seem to
be especially prominent. The numbers of some of the different
races convicted in the night court have been given on page
289 ; but these convictions are, of course, no certain measure of
the numbers or proportions of those imported.

MOTIVES

The motive of business profit has given the impulse which
creates and upholds this traffic, whether carried on in this country
1 Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration, p. 105.

296 EFFECTS

or whether the women are imported. The persons actively en-
gaged in enticing women into the business have only profit in view.

METHODS OF ENTRY AND EXPLOITATION

In securing entry into this country contrary to law, these
women are generally brought in as wives or relatives of the
importers. It is usually very difficult, if not impossible, to
detect these cases ; and after admission it is likewise extremely
difficult to secure such evidence as to justify deportation.

The system of exploitation on the part of the procurers and
other persons engaged in the traffic is extremely brutal and
revolting, resulting almost invariably in absolute poverty and
dependence on the part of the victim and usually within a com-
paratively short time in disease and an early death.

RESULTS OF TRAFFIC

*• It is, of course, impossible to discuss in detail the evil results
of this traffic in immigrants. Suffice it to say that it has materially
heightened the gross evils of prostitution. Unnatural practices
are brought largely from continental Europe ; the fiendish work
of the procurers and pimps is largely done by aliens or immi-
grants ; diseases are spread more widely among guilty and inno-
cent; even the ancient vice of the use of men and boys for
""immoral purposes is coming from abroad.

Fortunately, the investigation of the Commission aroused the
public to action. Their repoft has been followed by others made
by private Commissions, especially in Chicago, Minneapolis,
and New York. The governments and courts seem now to be
doing really effective work.

LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION

Under the recommendation of the Commission new laws have
been passed by Congress, and in a number of our States much
more stringent laws have been passed since the report of the
Immigration Commission, so that at the present time, with a
reasonable degree of effort on the part of well-meaning citizens
and reasonable diligence on the part of the police officials and of
the courts, the worst evils of the traffic may be, and in many

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF RECENT IMMIGRATION 297

instances have already been, decidedly checked and the worst
criminals have in many instances been convicted. The remedy
in this, as in most such matters, is to maintain a sufficient degree
of intelligent knowledge on the part of the thoughtful normal
citizen, and a willingness to deal with such a revolting subject
with frankness, intelligence, conservatism and firmness, unmixed
with fanaticism and prejudice.

IMPORTANCE ATTACHED TO THE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF
IMMIGRATION

In most of the discussions on immigration that have appeared ~
during the last few years, whether the immigrant came from
Europe or from Asia, great importance has been attached to
the social effects of immigration arising from the personal quali-
ties of the immigrants. Many have feared that the physical
standards of the population of the United States would be lowered/
by the incoming of diseased persons ; that the arrival of immi-|
grants and paupers would prove not merely a financial burden
but also a menace to the morals of the community; while the
late discussions over the white slave traffic and other forms of
vice have served still more strongly to accentuate this belief
in the social evils arising from immigration.

The late investigations of the Immigration Commission show
that, vital as the social effects are, relatively speaking, undue
significance has been attached during the past few years to these
social effects as a motive for legislation. While there are still
many improvements to be made in our immigration laws and
in their administration, nevertheless at the present time there
is no serious danger to be apprehended immediately from the
social defects of the immigrants, as has already been shown in
this chapter. The number of persons afflicted with contagious I
diseases or insanity, or the number of paupers or criminals arriv-
ing, taking them as individuals, is very large, but taken as a
percentage of the entire number coming is so small that too much
heed need not be paid to it. Of course, this does not mean th
we ought not to make every effort possible to lessen still further
these evils. Every effort possible should be made, and special
emphasis should be placed upon caring for the immigrants after
their arrival, in order to bring them as soon as possible into

298 EFFECTS

harmony with our best institutions. But these evils should not
blind our eyes to those of more far-reaching import.

The chief danger of immigration lies, not in this direction.
but in the field of industry. When immigrants who are unskilled
laborers arrive in so large numbers that the tendency is for them
to lower the average rate of wages and the standard of living
among the wage earners, the danger is one much more far-reach-
ing, and one to which our statesmen should give earnest atten-
tion. This includes indirectly often social effects as well. A
number of later chapters will serve to show how imminent this
industrial danger is, in what form it appears, and the way in
which it should be met. This, rather than the immediate social
evils, is the most difficult phase of the immigration problem,
and at the moment it is the most important phase. It is this
that calls for prompt legislation.

SOCIAL: IMMIGRATION AND HEALTH1

ALFRED C. REED, M.D., UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH AND
MARINE HOSPITAL SERVICE

T)ERHAPS no question is of more paramount and continuing
-L interest to the American people than immigration in all
its phases and relations to public welfare. The history of the
United States is the history of alien immigration. The earliest
pioneers were themselves alien immigrants. Our institutions,
political, religious, and social, have been founded and supported
by aliens or their near descendants. Our country is indeed a
melting pot, into which have been poured diverse varieties of
peoples, from all nations and races. Yet in the face of this,
these variant elements have been fused into a more or less homo-
geneous nation. A national life and character we have. This
national or American character is not exemplified in those places
where the large streams of immigration are pouring in, but farther
away where the waters have mixed. Such a condition, unique
in the history of nations, is responsible for certain problems
which are also unique in history, and consequently do not admit
of solution according to precedents.

The first rule of national life is self-preservation, and since
immigration has had and still has so important a role in American
national life, it must be carefully scrutinized to determine which
immigrants are desirable, and vice versa, from the standpoint of
the betterment and continuance of the American nation. The
choice between free immigration, restricted immigration, and
absolute exclusion is increasingly difficult to make, and does not
enter our field of inquiry, except to recall a principle which is as
valid from the medical standpoint as from the economic or social.
Only those peoples should be admitted whom experience has
shown will amalgamate quickly and become genuine citizens.
The period of residence necessary for citizenship should be raised

1 From The Popular Science Monthly, April, 1912.
299

3oo

EFFECTS

from three to five years, during which time the immigrant should
be literally on probation, and subject to deportation if found
wanting, or if unable to meet the qualifications of citizenship
at the end of that time. The government should decide where
the immigrant may settle and the immigration current should
be directed to the Western and farming districts, and not allowed
to stagnate in Eastern cities.

The great mass of popular literature on the subject of immi-
gration is singularly deficient in discussion and analysis of its
medical features. It is true, the United States government be-
stows on public health and preventive medicine nowhere near
the attention it finds necessary for the prevention of disease in
stock and for agricultural improvement, but none the less there
are certain well-organized and efficiently operated agencies
which have for their function the improvement of public hygiene
and sanitation, the eradication of preventable disease, and the
study of causation and methods of control of diseases. Most of
these functions are exercised by the Public Health and Marine
Hospital Service, which, strangely enough, constitutes a bureau
under the Treasury Department. Some of this work is done
under the Department of Agriculture, and other minor lines
are scattered elsewhere through the national machinery. It is
easily seen how much more efficient would be the work were all
these agencies for national health protection united under one
administrative head, and their various activities carefully coordi-
nated.

The Public Health and Marine Hospital Service operates all
national quarantine stations where inspection is made for yellow
fever, typhus fever, smallpox, bubonic plague, leprosy, and chol-
era; maintains hospitals throughout the country for sailors of
the American merchant marine ; conducts the Hygienic Labora-
tory at Washington for the study of the causation and treatment
of diseases; exercises numerous minor functions of a national
board of health ; and conducts the medical inspection of immi-
grants. Certain diseases are found so frequently among immi-
grants, and others are so inherently dangerous, as to merit special
mention because of their important relation to public health.
j First among these might be placed trachoma, a disease of the
I eyelids characterized by extreme resistance to treatment, very

SOCIAL: IMMIGRATION AND HEALTH 301

chronic course, and most serious results. Most of the immigrant
cases occur in Russians, Austrians, and Italians, although it is
of common occurrence in oriental and Mediterranean countries.
It causes a large percentage of the blindness in Syria and Egypt.
Its contagious nature, together with the resulting scarring of the
lids and blindness, make its recognition imperative. The hook-
worm (Uncinaria) has received much attention lately since it
has been found so widely distributed through the mountains
of the South, the mines of California, the middle West, etc. It
is a minute parasitic intestinal worm about tjiree fifths of an inch
long, and under the microscope shows relatively enormous and
powerful chitinous jaws by means of which it attaches itself to
the intestinal walls. The saliva of the hookworm has the curious
property of preventing coagulation of blood like leech extract,
and when it is remembered that the worms may vary in number
from several hundred to a thousand or more, and that each worm
moves frequently from place to place on the intestinal wall,
it is apparent how excessive and continuous is the drain on the
blood and lymph juices. The result is an extreme anemia which
brings in its wake a varied multitude of bodily ills, and may
eventuate fatally, meanwhile having incapacitated the victim
for mental or physical work. Infection can spread rapidly from
a single case. Not many hookworm carriers have been discovered
among immigrants, probably because the facilities for their
detection are so meager. But the heavy immigration from coun-
tries where uncinaria is abundant, a%well as the recent suggestive
work of Dr. H. M. Manning at the Ellis Island Immigrant
Hospital, indicates that there is a constant stream of fresh infec-
tion pouring in. Indisputably routine examination for hook-
worms should be instituted. The same can be said of other
intestinal parasites as tapeworms, pinworms, whipworms, eel-
worms and others. One of the tapeworms, the so-called fish
worm (Dibothriocephalus latus) , leads to an anemia fully as severe
as that from the hookworm.

Many other diseases might be mentioned, but these are suffi-
cient to illustrate the importance of careful medical inspection
of immigrants.

The total immigration into the United States through all ports
of entry for the year ending June 30, 1911, was 1,052,649. Of

302 EFFECTS

these 22,349 were debarred for various reasons, leaving a net
increase of 1,030,300. The chief port of entry is, of course, New
York, where 749,642 aliens were examined. Next in order of
importance came Boston, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and at
a greater distance Galveston, Tampa, San Francisco, Honolulu.
Miami, and Portland, Maine. As the laws are uniform and the
methods of inspection the same at all ports, consideration of
methods and results at Ellis Island, New York, will give a clear
idea of the entire subject.

The medical inspecting service at Ellis Island is divided into
three branches, the hospital, the boarding division, and the line,
The hospital division presents an excellently equipped and man-
aged institution, and an isolated set of buildings for contagious
diseases. The hospital service is limited exclusively to immi-
grants, and the patients are those acutely ill upon arrival, those
taken sick during their stay on the island, and cases of. acute
sickness among aliens already landed who for some reason have
been brought to the island for deportation.

The boarding division of the medical inspection on Ellis Island
has for its particular function the inspection of aliens in the first
and second cabins on board the incoming vessels. Those who
require more detailed examination are sent to Ellis Island.

The routine inspection on the line is that part which the visitor
sees, and is the most important feature of the medical sieve
spread to sift out the physically and mentally defective. The
incoming immigrants pass in single file down two lines. Each
of these lines makes a right-angled turn midway in its course.
At this turn stands a medical officer. He sees each person directly
from the front as he approaches, and his glance travels rapidly
from feet to head. In this rapid glance he notes the gait, attitude,
presence of flat feet, lameness, stiffness at ankle, knee, or hip,
malformations of the body, observes the neck for goitre, mus-
cular development, scars, enlarged glands, texture of skin, and
finally as the immigrant comes up face to face, the examiner
notes abnormalities of the features, eruptions, scars, paralysis,
expression, etc. As the immigrant turns, in following the line,
the examiner has a side view, noting the ears, scalp, side of neck,
examining the hands for deformity or paralysis, and if anything
about the individual seems suspicious, he is asked several

SOCIAL: IMMIGRATION AND HEALTH 303

questions. It is surprising how often a mental aberration will
show itself in the reaction of the person to an unexpected question.
As the immigrant passes on, the examiner has a rear view which
may reveal spinal deformity or lameness. In case any positive
or suspicious evidence of defect is observed, the immigrant re-
ceives a chalk mark indicating the nature of the suspicious
circumstance.

At the end of each line stands a second medical officer who does
nothing but inspect eyes. He everts the eyelids of every person
passing the line, looking for signs of trachoma, and also notes
the presence of cataract, blindness, defective vision, acute condi-
tions requiring hospital care, and any other abnormalities. All
cases which have been marked on the line are separated from the
others and sent to the medical examining rooms for careful
examination and diagnosis. When it is remembered that often
5000 immigrants pass in a day, it is clear that the medical
officers not only are kept busy, but that they see an unusually
wide variety of cases.

After careful examination, the nature of the defect or disease
found is put in the form of a medical certificate which must
be signed by at least three of the physicians on duty. It is not
within the province of the medical officers to pass judgment on
the eligibility of the immigrant for admission. The medical
certificate merely states the diagnosis, leaving to the immigra-
tion inspector in the registry division the duty of deciding the
question of admission. In the inspector's consideration are
included not alone the medical report, but all other data con-
cerning the applicant, such as age, money in his possession, previ-
ous record, liability to become a public charge, and his sponsors.

Most cases of trachoma and mental or organic nervous disease
are sent to the hospital and kept under care and observation
to facilitate an accurate diagnosis. Seldom indeed does the alien
suffer from too harsh a medical judgment. He is given the
benefit of a doubt always. For example, if a case of defective
vision is found to be 3/20 normal, it would be certified as perhaps
5/20 normal.

The immigration law as it stands since the legislation of 1907^
divides all defective immigrants into the following classes : Class \
A, aliens whose exclusion is mandatory because of a definite and j

304 EFFECTS

specified defect or disease. Class B, aliens not under Class A,
/but who possess some defect or disease which is likely to inter-
fere with the ability to earn a living. Class C, aliens who present
a defect or disease of still lesser seriousness, not affecting ability
to earn a living, but which none the less must be certified for
the information of the immigration inspectors.

Under Class A, the excluded, are listed idiots, imbeciles, the
feeble-minded; the epileptics, the insane, persons afflicted with
tuberculosis of the respiratory, intestinal, or genito-urinary tracts,
and loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases. By contagious
the law means communicable. Loathsome contagious diseases
include those whose presence excites abhorrence in others, and
which are essentially chronic, such as favus, ringworm of the
scalp, parasitic fungus diseases, Madura foot, leprosy, and venereal
disease. Dangerous contagious diseases are such as trachoma,
filariasis, hookworm infection, amoebic dysentery, and endemic
hematuria.

Under Class B, diseases and defects not in Class A but which
affect ability to earn a living, are such conditions as hernia, or-
ganic heart disease, permanently defective nutrition and muscular
or skeletal development, many deformities, varicosities of the
lower extremities, premature senescence and arterial degenera-
tion, certain nervous diseases, chronic joint inflammations, poor
vision, and tuberculosis of the bones, skin, or glands. The immi-
gration law makes no distinction between cabin and steerage
aliens, and the medical officer has no duty beyond the purely
medical inspection.

Commissioner of Immigration Williams for the Port of New
York in his recent report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1911,
makes some pertinent observations and recommendations regard-
ing the medical phases of the immigration question at Ellis Island.
He finds that the present medical quarters are not large enough
for the proper execution of the laws relating to physical and men-
tal defectives. Expansion to an appropriate size is prevented
by the failure of Congress to appropriate the funds requested.
He notes the large number of feeble-minded children in the schools
of New York City who have passed Ellis Island, and gives as
one reason, lack of time and facilities for thorough examination
as to mental condition. The result is that the law in this

SOCIAL: IMMIGRATION AND HEALTH 305

particular is practically a dead letter. According to the law,
the feeble-minded as well as idiots and imbeciles are absolutely
excluded. It is of vast import that the feeble-minded be detected,
not alone because they are predisposed to become public charges,
but because they and their offspring contribute so largely to
the criminal element. All grades of moral, physical, and social
degeneracy appear in their descendants, and it is apparent
how grave is the social and economic problem involved. The
steamship companies do not exercise proper precautions in receiv-
ing immigrants for passage, and this makes all the more necessary
a rigid inspection at the port of entry into this country.

The report of the Chief Medical Officer on Ellis Island, Dr.
G. W. S toner, shows that during the year ending June 30, 1911,
nearly 17,000 aliens were certified for physical or mental defect
and over 5000 of these were deported (not necessarily for medical
reasons alone) . Among those certified were 209 mental defectives,
of whom 45 per cent were feeble-minded, and 33 per cent in-
sane. Under loathsome and dangerous contagious diseases there
were 1361 cases, of which 85 per cent were trachoma. Over
11,000 aliens had a defect or diseases affecting ability to earn a
living and half of these were due to age and the changes incident
to senescence. More than 4000 certificates were rendered for
conditions not affecting ability to earn a living.

Over 6000 aliens were treated in the immigrant hospital,
beside 720 cases of contagious disease, which were transferred to
the State Quarantine Hospital at the harbor entrance before the
completion of the present contagious-disease hospital on Ellis
Island. Among these 700 there were a hundred deaths, chiefly
from measles, scarlet fever, and meningitis. The medical officers
also examined 168 cases which had become public charges in
surrounding towns of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut,
to determine the nature of the illness and if due to causes existing
prior to landing. Chief among the contagious diseases were
measles, chicken pox, diphtheria, and scarlet fever. The quaran-
tinable diseases, cholera, leprosy, bubonic plague, smallpox,
typhus and yellow fever, are removed at the New York Quaran-
tine Station before the vessels are docked.

Statistics such as these inevitably suggest a brief considera- j
tion of the different sources of immigration and their relative I

3o6 EFFECTS

desirability from the medical standpoint. In general it may be
said that the best class is drawn from northern and western
Europe, and the poorest from the Mediterranean countries and
western Asia. Among the worst are the Greeks, South Italians,
and the Syrians, who emigrate in large numbers. The Greeks
offer a sad contrast to their ancient progenitors, as poor physical
development is the rule among those who reach Ellis Island, and
they have above their share of other defects.

The old question of the desirability of the Hebrew must be
settled on other grounds than those of physical fitness alone,
although even here the medical evidence is decidedly against
him, as Dr. McLaughlin has shown that the proportion of defec-
tives to total landed is greatest among the Syrians, i in 29,
and next greatest among Hebrews, i in 42. Contrary to popular
belief, the Jewish race is far from a pure stock, and has been
colored by various and repeated admixtures with other bloods.
Hence Jews of different nationalities differ considerably in their
physical status and aptitude for American institutions, and for
amalgamation with our body politic. Nojrace is desirable which
does not tend to lose its distinctive traits in the process of blend-
ing with our own social body. It would seem from history that
the Jew only blends inadvertently and against his conscious
endeavor and desire. Hence the process of true assimilation must

be very backward. Moreover, in origin, racial traits, instincts
and point of view, the Hebrew race is essentially oriental, and
altogether there is at least ground for objection to unrestricted
Jewish immigration.

No one can mistake the pressing necessity for a solution of
the immigration problem. The problem of New York City in
this respect is unique and differs from that of the rest of the coun-
try, because, as Walter Laidlaw points out, New York City is
in reality a foreign city, inasmuch as in 1910 the native-born of
native parents numbered only 193 in every 1000 inhabitants.
This preponderating foreign element is due to the concentration
of arrested immigration in New York. For the country as a
whole, great interest attaches to the influence which the Panama
Canal will exert in diverting immigration lines to southern and
- Pacific coast points. New local problems will of course arise,

SOCIAL: IMMIGRATION AND HEALTH 307

but the basic proposition remains always the same. Immigration I
should be restricted absolutely to such races as will amalgamate, /
without lowering the standard of our own national life.

In general, immigrants from the Mediterranean countries
should be excluded, especially those from Greece, South Italy,
and Syria, as well as most Hebrews, Magyars, Armenians, and
Turks. Strict enforcement of the present medical laws will
automatically exclude these races to a sufficient extent, admitting
the few who are fit. This, combined with a strictly enforced
five-year probation period, with deportation as the penalty
for any criminal conviction or for failure to qualify for citizen-
ship afterward, would go far toward relieving the situation. This
need not disqualify aliens from travel in the United States.

The immigrant per se has no moral or social right to enter""
this country against the will of its citizens. An enduring common-
wealth must of necessity guard rigidly the health of its citizens
and protect itself against undesirable additions from without.
There was a time when European immigration was free, and
almost entirely of desirable classes. That time has passed. The
less desirable classes are increasing actually and relatively, and
at the expense of the more desirable. It can truthfully be said
that the dregs and off-scourings of foreign lands, the undesir-
ables of whom their "own nations are- only too eager to purge
themselves, come in hosts to our shores. The policy of those
advocating free immigration would make this country in effect
the dumping ground of the world.

Exclusion of these undesirables works no injustice to the
lands from which they come. A large emigration from a land
usually is followed by an increased birth rate, and the net change
is slightly affected, if at all. Admitting undesirables to this coun-
try will in no wise elevate the world's human standard, because
those undesirables will multiply as fast here as in their original
home, and their stock will only become extinct when it ceases
to perpetuate itself. High requirements for admission to this
country reflexly raise standards of living and education in those
lands from which our immigrants are drawn. This was illustrated
in Italy a few years ago when the higher requirements for admis-
sion caused an enforcement of the primary education laws which

3o8 EFFECTS

were dead letters before. Again, increase of a poorer class of
immigration decreases the number of the better class and also
decreases the chances of those who do come.

The medical phases of immigration blend very quickly into
the subjects of national health protection, national^eugenics^
and even the future existence of the ideals and standard of life
which we are proud to call American. Conservatism and a
carefully maintained medium between absolute exclusion and
free immigration certainly seems the best policy.

IMMIGRATION AND CRIME1

ISAAC A. HOURWICH, PH.D., FORMERLY OF UNITED STATES CENSUS

BUREAU

r I ^HE alarming increase of the number of alien criminals " has

-L come to be the favorite topic for newspaper editorials when-
ever a sensational crime is committed in the foreign section of
some of our large cities. More recently the official statistician has
fallen in line witji the popular sentiment. The Commissioner-
General of Immigration, in his reports for the years 1908 and
1909, dwells upon the increase of the number of aliens in penal
institutions from 1904 to 1908. The superintendent of the state
prisons of the state of New York, in his report for the year 1909,
emphasizing "the recent remarkable increase in prison popula-
tion," gives expression to the view "that the crowded condition
of our prisons is largely due to the influx of immigrants during
the last few years."

" A large proportion of the vicious and ignorant . . . make the
large cities their headquarters. Thus there is forced upon New
York state and upon its charitable and penal institutions more
than their due proportion of the undesirable classes of immigrants,
the lawless, the illiterate, and the defective." As a remedy, he
recommends "the exclusion of this undesirable class of immi-
grants."

Yet the very fact of this sudden increase of the rate of delin-
quency and dependency within so short a period would suggest to
an unbiased student of social phenomena the working of some
extraordinary cause. If it be remembered that the later statistics
for the United States relate to the year 1908, which was a year of
industrial depression, the explanation of this sudden increase
of crime, insanity, and pauperism among aliens will become
obvious.

Conceding, for the sake of argument, the contention of the
superintendent of New York state prisons that the state of New

1 From The American Journal of Sociology, January, 1912.
309

3io

EFFECTS

York bears more than its proportionate share of the burden of
crime, it is instructive to compare the average daily population
of the three state prisons for each of the last ten years.

TABLE I. DAILY AVERAGE PRISON POPULATION

YEAR

NUMBERS OF PRISONERS

PER CENT INCREASE (+) OR
DECREASE (— ), SINCE 1900

•2 ,776

•} 384

I QO2

3*233

— 4

3-21 7

— 2

IQO4

3.4CX

-f i

TOO?

•2 4.64.

4- 1

IOo6

2 ,472

+ 1

IOO7

•2 4^6

+ 2

IQO8

12,817

+13

IQOO

A A.2O

+ 11

We note that between the years 1900 and 1907 the average
daily prison population fluctuated but very slightly from year to
year, falling at times 4 per cent below or rising 3 per cent above
the starting-point. According to the state census of 1905, the
population of the state increased from 1900 to 1905 by n per
I cent; a large share of that increase was due to immigration;
Lihus relatively to the population, crime was decreasing. The
"years 1908 and 1909, however, show a sudden increase of the
prison population ; those were precisely the years when emigra-
tion of aliens from the United States assumed unprecedented
proportions. From the month of December, 1907, to the month
of August, 1908, emigration from the United States exceeded
immigration by 124,124 persons, while from June 3, 1900, to
June 30, 1907, the net addition through immigration to the popu-
lation of the United States was 4,500,000 persons of whom the
i state of New York received a proportionate share. In other
I words, the wave of criminality coincided with the lowest ebb of
\immigration, while the high tide of immigration was contemporaneous
\with a decrease of crime.

This conclusion is fully borne out by the annual statistics of
crime in the state of New York for the period commencing 1830.
Two features stand out conspicuously: first, that taking the

IMMIGRATION AND CRIME

three quarters of a century covered as a whole, the increase of
crime merely keeps pace with the growth of population ; second,
that annual figures are subject to very sharp fluctuations. Any
comparison between two years chosen at random must necessarily
be fallacious. For example, if the years 1878 and 1894 were
chosen for comparison, one might reach the conclusion that the
number of convictions showed a very encouraging decrease of
crime. As that period witnessed the beginning and rapid growth
of immigration from Russia, it might be further argued that the
decrease of crime in the state of New York was due to the moral
influence of Russian immigrants upon the people of the state of
New York. This inference would be precisely on a par with the
conclusions drawn by the Immigration Restriction League from
a comparison of the prosperous year 1904 with the year 1908,
a year of industrial depression. A scientific study of the effects
of immigration upon criminality must cover a long period, em-
bracing years of prosperity and industrial depression, so that
all casual, transitory, and temporary influences may as far as
possible be eliminated.

Do the statistics of crime in the state of New York justify the
fears of the alarmist? Table II shows the relative number of
convictions for every 100,000 population at each census from
1830 to 1905 :

TABLE II. NUMBER OF CONVICTIONS IN COURTS OF RECORD AND THE
POPULATION OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, 1830-1905

CENSUS YEAR

CONVICTIONS

POPULATION
THOUSANDS

CONVICTIONS PER
100,000 POPULATION

1830

I O^O

I OIO

r t

1840

I 34.3

2 4.2Q

*6

18^0

I <ZX2

3 o87

<o

1860 ....

i 601

3 881

4.1

1870

2 I Cl

A 2,83

4.O

1880 . .

2 SAY

C 083

c6

1800

-3 264.

5QO8

*6

IQOO

7 260

e»7

IQ<X

A QA2

8067

61

kit appears from this table that the relative rate of criminality
Q 1890 was the same as in 1840, notwithstanding the change in

3I2

EFFECTS

the racial composition of the population of the state. In the
year 1900 there was just one more conviction for every 100,000
of the population than in 1890, and in 1905 four convictions per
100,000 population in excess of 1900. Certainly, there is no
occasion to go into hysterics.

Still, as stated before, the number of convictions for a single
year may be exceptionally high or low, and a comparison compris-
ing even a number of single years may accordingly be misleading.
In order to eliminate the effect of annual fluctuations of the num-
ber of convictions, the average annual number of convictions for
each period between two census years is compared in Table III
with the average annual increase of the population of the state
of New York, for the same periods.

TABLE III. ANNUAL AVERAGE NUMBER OF CONVICTIONS COMPARED WITH
ANNUAL AVERAGE INCREASE OF POPULATION FROM CENSUS TO CENSUS,

1831-1905

NUMBER OF

CONVICTIONS

ANNUAL AVERAGE

PERIODS

Annual Average

Percentage Increase
( + ), or Decrease (-)

INCREASE OF POPU-
LATION, PER I,OCO

1831-1840

I O^7

1841—1850

I J.7A

1851-1860 •

I 734.

\6y-o

+ 17 7

•*/•;)
2 r •?

1861-1870

+ 28 I

1871-1880

31 r 2

l^.U

1881-1890

2 QOO

— 80

18 o

1891-1900
1901-1905

3,734

4roi

+ 28.8
+ 20 8

21.2
22 O

It is worthy of note that in 1861-1870 the number of convictions
was increasing faster than during the preceding decade 1851-
1860, while the growth of population was slowing down. On the
contrary, a comparison of the decades 1881-1890 and 1871-1880
shows that the number of convictions fell off, while the popula-
tion was increasing faster; the same tendency was manifest
during .the period 1901-1905, as compared with 1891-1900.
This would seem to indicate that the causes which are favorable
to the growth of population tend to reduce crime, and vice versa, the
causes which retard the growth of population are productive of an
increase of crime.

IMMIGRATION AND CRIME

Let us next examine the effect of immigration upon criminality
in the state of New York. The census statistics of foreign-born do
not go farther back than 1850. In Table IV the percentage of
foreign-born at each census is collated with the ratio of the average
annual number of convictions for each decade ending on a census
year to the average population for the same decade ; the average
population is taken to be the arithmetical mean of the totals for
two successive censuses.

From 1850 to 1860 the foreign-born population of New York
increased relatively to the total population of the state, but the
annual average number of convictions during the decade 1851-
1860 fell below the average for 1841-1850. From 1870 to 1880
the number of foreign-born decreased relatively to the total
population ; at the same time the annual rate of convictions in-
creased as compared with the preceding decade. From 1880 to
1890 this movement was reversed : the foreign-born population
went up and the rate of criminality went down. Again from
1890 to 1900 the percentage of foreign-born slightly decreased,
and the rate of criminality showed a small increase. These
tendencies appear still more pronounced, if we compare the in-
crease of the number of convictions with the increase of the
foreign-born and the total population of the state for_the census
years 1850-1900, as shown in Table IV.

TABLE IV. NUMBER OF CONVICTIONS COMPARED WITH TOTAL AND
FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION, 1850-1900

NUMBER

FOREIGN-

TOTAL

PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE

CENSUS YEAR

OF CONVIC-

BORN

POPULATION

TIONS

THOUSAND

THOUSANDS

Convictions

Foreign
Birth

Total
Population

1850 ....

1,552

656

3,097

1860 ....

1, 60 1

,001

3,881

3-2

52.6

25-3

1870 ....

2,151

,138

4,383

34-4

13-7

12.9

1880 ....

2,847

,211

5,083

32.4

6.4

16.0

1890 ....

3,364

,571

5,998

18.1

29.7

18.0

1900 ....

4,116

,900

7,269

22.4

21.0

21.2

In 1860, when th,e rate of increase of the foreign-born population
was at its apex, the rate of criminality was at its bottom. Toward
1870 the rate of increase of the foreign-born dropped, but the

314 EFFECTS

rate of increase of the number of convictions made a big jump.
From 1880 to 1890 the rate of increase of the foreign-born went
up, at the same time the rate of increase of the number of con-
victions went down. From 1890 to 1900 the two movements were
reversed. In short, an increase of the percentage of the foreign-born
population is accompanied by a decrease of criminality, and vice versa.
This fact shows that the same conditions which attract the
immigrant to the United States tend to reduce the rate of crim-
inality.

Turning to the statistics of crime among native and foreign-
born, we find them summed up in the following statement of the
census report on "Prisoners." "From these figures [i.e., from
I the number of commitments], as well as from those for prisoners
! enumerated on June 30, 1904, it is evident that the popular
belief that the foreign born are filling the prisons has little founda-
tion in fact."

A comparison of the figures for 1904 with those for 1890 shows
j that the ratio of foreign-born among the white prisoners fell
I from 28.3 to 23.7 per cent, while the percentage of native prisoners
increased from 71.8 to 76.3 per cent (op. cit., p. 18).

Is there any evidence of a change in this respect since 1904?
This question can best be answered by an examination into the
nativity of the persons convicted in 1908 in the courts of record
of the state of New York. The year 1908, as stated, showed a
marked increase of crime, and of all states the state of New York
is alleged to be the greatest sufferer from the influx of foreign
criminals.

The nativity of the persons convicted in courts of record in
1908 was as follows :

Natives of the United States 4,392

Foreign-born 2,687

Nativity unknown 272

Total for the state 7,351

To compare these figures with the distribution of the population
of the state by nativity, it must be noted that of the total number
of prisoners only 38 were under fifteen years of age and only 361,
or 5 per cent, were women. In the foreign-born population,
however, the percentages of children under 15 and of women, who

IMMIGRATION AND CRIME 315

contribute very few criminals, are lower than among the native,
while the percentage of males fifteen years of age and over who
contribute the bulk of criminals is higher in the foreign-born
than in the native population. A fair comparison should con-
sider only the ratio of male offenders fifteen years of age and over
to the total male population of the same age groups.1

Inasmuch as the statistics of the secretary of state of New York
contain no classification of the native and foreign-born offenders
by age and sex, estimates have to be resorted to. The number of
offenders under fifteen years being very small, we may assume that
they were all native boys and deduct their number from that of
native offenders ; we shall thereby reduce the rate of native crimi-
nality and increase relatively the percentage of foreign criminals.
The number of foreign-born male offenders would be further
increased, if we were to follow the same method with regard to
female offenders and charge all women convicted in courts, of
record to the group of native offenders. There is no reason, how-
ever, to assume that the native women numerically predominate
among female offenders. We may accordingly assume that the
percentage of foreign-born among female offenders is the same as
among male offenders.

1 "If the general population of all ages be taken, the basis for the comparison will
not be equitable for several reasons. Inmates of the general prisons are all at least
ten years of age and nearly all over fifteen. For the most part the immigrants
are between fifteen and forty years of age. The number of children under ten
years of age is extremely small among the white immigrants as compared with the
native whites. In view of these facts a comparison of the proportions of each
nativity class in the white prison population with the corresponding proportions of
the general population of all ages would clearly be unfair, for the inclusion of chil-
dren under ten years of age would so increase the proportion of native in the
general population that it would seem as if crime were more prevalent among the
foreign-born as compared with the native white than is actually the case. . . .
Of the whites at least ten years of age in the general population of the United
States in 1900, 19.5 per cent were foreign-born, while of the white prisoners of
known nativity enumerated on June 30, 1904, 23.7 per cent were foreign-born. The
foreign-born element therefore appears to be more prominent in the white population
of prisons than in the general white population. In some respects, however, a
comparison with the total white population ten years of age and over is hardly
fair to the foreign-born. Very few prisoners are under the age of fifteen, and the
great majority of prisoners, 94.5 per cent of the total number, are males. There-
fore it is perhaps more significant when the percentage of foreign-born among white
prisoners is compared with the percentage of foreign-born in the white population
fifteen years of age and over, classified by sex." — " Prisoners and Juvenile Delin-
quents" (Census report), pp. 18-19.

EFFECTS

It is probable that of the 272 convicted persons whose nativity
was unknown very few were foreigners, as their speech and
appearance did not mark them as such. By leaving this group
out of consideration, we again reduce the number of native
offenders relatively to the foreign-born. On the other hand, the
census figures giving the distribution of the population by nativity
relate to the year 1900, whereas the phenomenal immigration of
recent years must have increased the percentage of foreign-born
in the population of the state of New York. In every respect,
therefore, our statistics must be unfavorable to the foreign-born.
Let us now compare the percentages of native and foreign-born
among all offenders fifteen years of age and over, whose nativ-
ity is known, and among the male population of the state in the
same age groups.

TABLE V. NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN OFFENDERS FIFTEEN YEARS OF

AGE AND OVER, COMPARED WITH THE NATIVE AND FOREIGN-BORN

MALE POPULATION OF THE SAME AGES, STATE OF NEW YORK

NATIVITY

CONVICTIONS IN COURTS OF
RECORD

MALE POPULATION, 1900

Number

Percentage

Thousands

Percentage

Native

4,354
2,687

6l.8
38.2

1,648
907

64-5
35-5

Foreign-born ....
Total

7,041

IOO.O

2,555

IOO.O

Thus, with every allowance in favor of the native and against the
foreign-born, the ratio of foreign-born criminals is only 2.7 per
cent in excess of the ratio of foreign-born males to the total
male population of the state. The preceding table does not
include the more numerous class of minor offenders convicted at
Special Sessions. In Table VI the convictions in the minor
courts in 1908 are classified by character of offense separately
for the counties of New York and Kings, comprising the three
most densely settled boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, and Brook-
lyn, and for the rest of the state. The population of these three
boroughs in 1900 contained 1,207,000, i.e. nearly two thirds of
the 1,900,000 foreign-born of the state of New York. The per-
centage of foreign-born in these three boroughs was 37.5, while

IMMIGRATION AND CRIME

317

in the rest of the state of New York it was only 17.1 per cent.
In 1908 the percentage of foreign-born in New York City was
in all probability considerably higher than in 1900. If the foreign-
born furnished a higher percentage of criminals than the native,
this tendency should loom up conspicuous in the comparison
between greater New York and the rest of the state. What are
the facts ?

TABLE VI. NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF CONVICTIONS IN SPECIAL
SESSIONS, CLASSIFIED BY CHARACTER OF OFFENSE; FOR THE THREE PRIN-
CIPAL BOROUGHS OF NEW YORK CITY AND THE REST OF THE STATE, 1908

CHARACTER OF OFFENSE

NUMBER
(In thousands)

PERCENTAGE

Total State
of
New York

New York
and Kings

Other
Counties

New York
and Kings

Other
C ounties

Petit larceny
Assault, third degree . .
All other offenses ....

Population, 1905 ....

6,464
2,788
48,543

2,988

779
8,706

3^76
2,009
39,837

46.2
28.0
17.7

53-8
72.0
82.3

8,067

3,743

4,326

46.4

53-6

The three principal boroughs of New York City in 1905 contained
nearly one half of the population of the state, yet they furnished
only 28 per cent of all convictions for assault and 17.7 per cent
of the most numerous class of minor offenses ; petty larceny
was the only offense whose frequency was proportionate to the
population of the great city. Thus, though the three boroughs
had twice as many foreign-born in proportion to their population
as the rest of the state, New York City had relatively no more
pickpockets than the rest of the state, and the number of all
other minor offenders was in proportion much smaller in the
three boroughs than up state. And that in a year which broke
the record of crime.

The popular opinion that the immigrants furnish a high per-
centage of criminals rests upon the belief that this country is
used as a hiding place by fugitive criminals from all quarters of
the world. There are no statistics relative to the criminal records
of the immigrants previous to their admission to this country.
But the statistics of crime in the state of New York, which is

3i8 EFFECTS

said to hold more than its proportionate share of the lawless
immigrants, warrant only one of the following two conclusions :
Either the new environment enables this invading army of
immigrants with criminal records to keep within the law ; or else
the criminal classes of Europe, contrary to the popular belief,
furnish less than their proportionate quota of immigrants —
which is quite plausible, since the criminals belong to the sub-
merged portion of the population and are kept at home by want
of funds with which to pay for their passage.

THE POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF IMMIGRATION l

EDWARD ALSWORTH Ross, PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY

OF WISCONSIN

ON a single Chicago hoarding, before the spring election of
1912, the writer saw the political placards of candidates
with the following names : Kelly, Cassidy, Slattery, Alschuler,
Pfaelzer, Bartzen, Umbach, Andersen, Romano, Knitckoff,
Deneen, Hogue, Burres, Short. The humor of calling " Anglo-
Saxon" the kind of government these gentlemen will give is.
obvious. At that time, of the eighteen principal personages /
in the city government of Chicago, fourteen had Irish names,
and three had German names. Of the eleven principal officials
in the city government of Boston, nine had Irish names, and of
the forty-nine members of the Lower House from the city of
Boston, forty were obviously of Hibernian extraction. In San
Francisco, the mayor, all the heads of the municipal depart-
ments, and ten out of eighteen members on the board of super-
visors, bore names reminiscent of the Green Isle. As far back as
1871, of 112 chiefs of police from twenty-two States who attended
the national police convention, seventy-seven bore Irish names,
and eleven had German names. In 1881, of the chiefs of police
in forty-eight cities, thirty-three were clearly Irish, and five were
clearly German.

In 1908, on the occasion of a " home-coming " celebration in
Boston, a newspaper told how the returning sons of Boston were
"greeted by Mayor Fitzgerald and the following members
of Congress : O'Connell, Keliher, Sullivan, and McNary -
following in the footsteps of Webster, Sumner, Adams, and
Hoar. They were told of the great work as Mayor of the late
beloved Patrick Collins. At the City Hall they found the sons
of Irish exiles and immigrants administering the affairs of the

1 From The Century Magazine, January, 1914.

320 EFFECTS

metropolis of New England. Besides the Mayor, they were
greeted by John J. Murphy, Chairman of the board of assessors,
Commissioner of Streets Doyle, and Commissioner of Baths
O'Brien. Mr. Coakley is the head of the Park Department, and
Dr. Durgin directs the Health Department ; the Chief of the Fire
Department is John A. Mullen, head of the Municipal Printing
Plant is Mr. Whelan, Superintendent of the Street Cleaning
is Cummings ; Superintendent of Sewers is Leahy ; Superintend-
ent of Buildings is Nolan; City Treasurer, Slattery; Police
Commissioner, O'Meara."

LThe Irish domination of our Northern cities is the broadest
ark immigration has left on American politics ; the immigrants
from Ireland, for the most part excessively poor, never got their
feet upon the land as did the Germans and the Scandinavians,
but remained huddled in cities. United by strong race feelings,
they held together as voters, and, although never a clear majority,
were able in time to capture control of most of the greater mu-
nicipalities. Now, for all their fine Celtic traits, these Irish im-
migrants had neither the temperament nor the training to make
\ a success of popular government. They were totally without
experience of the kind Americans had acquired in the working
of democratic institutions. The ordinary American by this
time had become tinctured with the spirit of legalism. Many
voters were able to look beyond the persons involved in a political
contest and recognize the principles at stake. Such popular
maxims as : "No man should be a judge in his own case," "The
ballot a responsibility," "Patriotism above party," "Measures,
not men," "A public office is a public trust," fostered self-restraint
and helped the voters to take an impersonal, long-range view
of political contests.

Warm-hearted, sociable, clannish, and untrained, the natural-
ized Irish failed to respect the first principles of civics. "What
is the Constitution between friends?" expresses their point of
view. In their eyes, an election is not the decision of a great,
impartial jury, but a struggle between the "ins" and the "outs."
Those who vote the same way are "friends." To scratch or to
bolt is to "go back on your friends." Places and contracts are
"spoils." The official's first duty is to find berths for his sup-
porters. Not fitness, but party work, is one's title to a place on

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF IMMIGRATION 321

the municipal pay roll. The city employee is to serve his party
rather than the public that pays his salary. Even the justice of
courts is to become a matter of "pull" and "stand in," rather
than of inflexible rules.

A genial young Harvard man who has made the Good Govern-
ment movement a power in a certain New England city said
to me : "The Germans want to know which candidate is better
qualified for the office. Among the Irish I have never heard
such a consideration mentioned. They ask, 'Who wants this
candidate?' 'Who is behind him?' I have lined up a good
many Irish in support of Good Government men, but never by
setting forth the merits of a matter or a candidate. I approach
my Irish friends with the personal appeal, 'Do this for me!'
Nearly all the Irish who support our cause do it on a personal
loyalty basis. The best of the Irish in this city have often done
as much harm to the cause of Good Government as the worst.
Mayor C., a high-minded Irishman desiring to do the best he
could for the city, gave us as bad a government as Mayor F.,
who thought of nothing but feathering his own nest. Mayor C.
'stood by his f fiends. ";

The Hibernian domination has given our cities genial officials,
brave policemen, and gallant fire-fighters. It has also given J
them the name of being the worst-governed cities in the civilized '
world. The mismanagement and corruption of the great cities
of America have become a planetary scandal, and have dealt
the principle of manhood suffrage the worst blow it has received
in the last half century. Since the close of the Civil War, hun-
dreds of thousands of city dwellers have languished miserably
or perished prematurely from the bad water, bad housing, poor
sanitation, and rampant vice in American municipalities run
on the principles of the Celtic clan.

On the other hand, it is likely that our British, Teutonic,
Scandinavian, and Jewish naturalized citizens — still more our
English-Canadian voters — have benefited American politics.
In politics men are swayed by passion, prejudice, or reason.
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the average Ameri-
can had come to be on his guard against passion in politics, but
not yet had he reached the plane of reason. This left him the
prey of prejudice. Men inherited their politics, and bragged of

322 EFFECTS

having always " voted straight." They voted Democratic for
Jefferson's sake, or Republican from love of Lincoln. The citi-
zens followed ruts, while the selfish interests "followed the ball."
Now, the intelligent naturalized foreigner, having inherited none
of our prejudices, would not respond to ancient cries or wartime
issues. He inquired pointedly what each party proposed to do
now. The abandonment of " waving the bloody shirt" and the
sudden appearance of the politics of actuality in the North, in
the eighties, came about through the naturalization of Karl and
Ole. The South has few foreign-born voters, and the South is
precisely that part of the country in which the reign of prejudice
in politics has longest delayed the advent of efficient and progres-
sive government.

In 1910 there were certainly three million naturalized citizens
in the United States. In southern New England and New York
they constitute a quarter of all the white voters. The same is
true of Illinois and the Old Northwest. In Providence, Buffalo,
Newark, St. Paul, and Minneapolis, there are two foreign voters
to three native white voters. In Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland,
and Boston, the ratio is about one to two. In Paterson, Chicago,
and New York, the ratio is nearer three to five, and in Fall River
it is three to four. When the foreigners are intelligent and experi-
enced in the use of the "Ballot, their civic worth does not suffer
by comparison with that of the natives. Indianapolis and Kansas
City, in which the natives outnumber the naturalized ten to one,
do not overshadow in civic excellence the Twin Cities of Minne-
sota, with three natives to two naturalized. Cleveland, in which
the naturalized citizens constitute a third, is politically superior
to Cincinnati, in which they are less than a sixth. Chicago, with
thrice the proportion of naturalized citizens Philadelphia has,
was roused and struggling with the python of corruption while
yet the city by the Delaware slept.

The machine in power uses the foreigner to keep in power.
The Italian who opens an ice-cream parlor has to have a victual-
er's license, and he can keep this license only by delivering Italian
votes. The Polish saloon keeper loses his liquor license if he fails
to line up his fellow-countrymen for the local machine. The
politician who can get dispensations for the foreigners who want
their beer on a Sunday picnic is the man who attracts the foreign

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF IMMIGRATION 323

vote. Thus, until they get their eyes open and see how they are
being used, the foreigners constitute an asset of the established
political machine, neutralizing the antimachine ballots of an
equal number of indignant American voters.

The saloon is often an independent sway of the foreign vote.
The saloon keeper is interested in fighting all legal regulation
of his own business, and of other businesses — gambling, dance
halls, and prostitution — which stimulate drinking. If "blue"
laws are on the statute book, these interests may combine to seat
in the mayor's chair a man pledged not to enforce them. Even
if the saloon keeper has no political ax of his own to grind,
his masters, the brewers, will insist that he get out the vote for
the benefit of themselves or their friends. Since liberal plying
with beer is a standard means of getting out the foreign vote, the
immigrant saloon keeper is obliged to become the debaucher
and betrayer of his fellow-countrymen. In Chicago the worthy
Germans and Bohemians are marshaled in the "United Societies,"
ostensibly social organizations along nationality lines, but really
the machinery through which the brewers and liquor dealers
may sway a foreign-born vote not only in defense of liquor, but
also in defense of other corrupt and affiliated interests.

The foreign press is another means of misleading the naturalized
voters. These newspapers, — Polish, Bohemian, Italian, Greek,
Yiddish, etc., — while they have no small influence with their
readers, are poorly supported, and often in financial straits.
Many of them, therefore, can be tempted to sell their political
influence to the highest bidder, which is, of course, the party
representing the special interests. Thus the innocent foreign-
born readers are led like sheep to the shambles, and Privilege
gains another intrenching-tool.

THE LOSS OF POLITICAL LIKE-MINDEDNESS

If the immigrant is neither debauched nor misled, but votes
his opinions, is he then an element of strength to us ?

When a people has reached such a degree of political like-
mindedness that fundamentals are taken for granted, it is free
to tackle new questions as they come up. But if it admits to
citizenship myriads of strangers who have not yet passed the

^

324 EFFECTS

civic kindergarten, questions that were supposed to be settled
are reopened. The citizens are made to thresh over again old
straw — the relation of church to state, of church to school,
of state to parent, of law to the liquor trade. Meanwhile, ripe
sheaves ready to yield the wheat of wisdom under the flails of
discussion lie untouched. Pressing questions — public hygiene,
conservation, the control of monopoly, the protection of labor
V — go to the foot of the docket, and public interests suffer.

Some are quite cheerful about the confusion, cross-purposes,
and delay that come with heterogeneity, because they think
the variety of views introduced by immigration is a fine thing,
"keeps us from getting into a rut." The plain truth is, that
rarely does an immigrant bring in his intellectual baggage any-
thing of use to us. The music of Mascagni and Debussy, the
plays of Ibsen and Maeterlinck, the poetry of Rostand and
Hauptmann, the fiction of Jokai and Sienkiewicz were not brought
to us by way of Ellis Island. What we want is not ideas merely,
but fruitful ideas, fructifying ideas. By debating the ideas of
Nietzsche, Ostwald, Bergson, MetchnikofT, or Ellen Key, Ameri-
can thought is stimulated. But should we gain from the intro-
duction of old Asiatic points of view, which would reopen such
questions as witchcraft, child-marriage, and suttee? The flash-
ings that arise from the presence among us of many voters with
medieval minds are sheer waste of energy. While we Americans
wrangle over the old issues of clericalism, separate schools, and
"personal liberty," the little homogeneous peoples are forging
ahead of us in rational politics and learning to look pityingly
upon us as a chaos rather than a people.

POLITICAL MYSTICISM VS. COMMON SENSE

If you should ask an Englishman whether the tone of political
life in his country would remain unaffected by the admission
to the electorate of a couple of million Cypriotes, Vlachs, and
Bessarabians after five years' residence, he would take you for
a madman. Suggest to the German that the plane of political
intelligence in reading and thinking Germany would not be low-
ered by the access to the ballot box of multitudes of Serbs,
Georgians, and Druses of Lebanon, and he will consign you to

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF IMMIGRATION 325

bedlam. Assure the son of Norway that the vote of the Persian
or Yemenite, of sixty months' residence in Norway, will be as
often wise and right as his own, and he will be insulted. It is
only we Americans who assume that the voting of the Middle
Atlantic States, with their million naturalized citizens, or of the
East North Central States, with their million, is as sane, discrimi-
nating, and forward-looking as it would be without them.

The Italian historian and sociologist Ferrero, after reviewing
our immigration policy, concludes that the Americans, far from
being "practical," are really the mystics of the modern world.

He says :

t

To confer citizenship each year upon great numbers of men
born and educated in foreign countries — men who come with ideas
and sympathies totally out of spirit with the diverse conditions in
the new country ; to grant them political rights they do not want,
and of which they have never thought; to compel them to declare
allegiance to a political constitution which they often do not under-
stand ; to try to transform subjects of old European monarchies into '
free citizens of young American republics over night — is not all
this to do violence to common sense?

VI. IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION
FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

UNITED STATES IMMIGRATION COMMISSION

THIS feature of the Immigration Commission's general report
is a brief review of the sentiment toward immigration as
expressed in legislation, or attempts at legislation, upon the
subject in Congress. For convenience, the review is divided into
four periods, namely : From colonial times to 183*5 > the "Native
American" and "Know-Nothing" period, 1835-1860; end of
state control, 1861-1882 ; period of national control, 1882 to
the present time.

During the period first mentioned immigration was taken as a
matter of course ; the only legislation enacted, and practically all
that was proposed, was the law of 1819 for the regulation of the
carriage of steerage passengers at sea, which law also for the first
time provided that statistics relative to immigration to the United
States be recorded.

THE NATIVE AMERICAN MOVEMENT

The second period, from 1835 to T86o, is sharply defined by the
so-called " Native American" and "Know-Nothing" movement,
which, as is well known, were largely based on opposition to the
immigration of Catholics. The hostility early took the form of a
political movement, and in 1835 there was a Nativist candidate
for Congress in New York City, and in the following year that
party nominated a candidate for mayor of the same city. In
Germantown, Pennsylvania, and in Washington, D. C., Nativist
societies were formed in 1837, while in Louisiana the movement
was organized in 1839 and a state convention was held two years
later. It was at this convention that the Native American party,
under the name of the American Republican party, was established.

In 1845 ^e Nativist movement claimed 48,000 members in
New York, 42,000 in Pennsylvania, 14,000 in Massachusetts,
and 6000 in other States, while in Congress it had six

326

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 327

Representatives from New York and two from Pennsylvania.
The first national convention of Native Americans was held in
Philadelphia in 1845, when 141 delegates were present and a
national platform was adopted. The chief demands of this con-
vention were a repeal of the naturalization laws and the ap-
pointment of native Americans only to office .

While these societies were stronger in local politics than in
national, and were organized chiefly to aid in controlling local
affairs, their few representatives in Congress attempted to make
Nativism a national question. As a result of their efforts, the
United States Senate in 1836 agreed to a resolution directing the
Secretary of State to collect certain information respecting the
immigration of foreign paupers and criminals. In the House of
Representatives on February 19, 1838, a resolution was agreed to
which provided that the Committee on the Judiciary be instructed
to consider the expediency of revising the naturalization laws so
as to require a longer term of residence in the United States, and
also provide greater security against frauds in the process of
obtaining naturalization. The committee was further instructed
to consider the propriety and expediency of providing by law
against the introduction into the United States of vagabonds and
paupers deported from foreign countries. This resolution was
referred to a select committee of seven members, and its report
was the first resulting from a congressional investigation of
any question bearing upon immigration. Four members of the
committee were from New York and Massachusetts, which were
then the chief centers of the antiforeign movement, and its
report recommended immediate legislative action, not only by
Congress, but also by many of the states, so that alleged evils
could be remedied and impending calamities averted. Two
southern members of the committee and the member from Ohio
did not concur in the report. It is interesting to note that a
recommendation to this committee by the Native American
Association of Washington urged that a system of consular
inspection be instituted, a plan that in recent years has been
repeatedly recommended to Congress. The plan was to make
the immigrant, upon receiving his passport from the consul, pay
a tax of $20. The committee, however, did not include this
provision in its recommendations to Congress.

328 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

The bill presented on recommendation of the committee pro-
vided that any master taking on board his vessel with the inten-
tion of transporting to the United States any alien passenger
who was an idiot, lunatic, maniac, or one afflicted with any
incurable disease, or any one convicted of an infamous crime,
should be fined $1000, or be imprisoned not less than one year
nor more than three. It was further provided that the master
should forfeit #1000 for any alien brought in who had not the
ability to maintain himself. Congress did not even consider
this bill, and during the next ten years little attempt was made
to secure legislation against the foreigner.

In the message to Congress on June i, 1841, President Tyler
referred to immigration in part as follows :

We hold out to the people of other countries an invitation to come
and settle among us as members of our rapidly growing family ; and
for the blessings which we offer them, we require of them to look
upon our country as their country, and unite with us in the great task
of preserving our institutions and thereby perpetuating our liberties.

THE "KNOW-NOTHING" MOVEMENT

As a consequence of the sudden and great increase of immigra-
tion from Europe between 1848 and 1850, the old dread of the
foreigner was revived, and in the early fifties the native Americans
again became active. The new, like the earlier movement, was
closely associated with the anti-Catholic propaganda. The new
organization assumed the form of a secret society. It was
organized probably in 1850 in New York City, and in 1852 it
was increased in membership by drawing largely from the old
established Order of United Americans. Its meetings were
secret, its indorsements were never made openly, and even its
name and purpose were said to be known only to those who
reached the highest degree. Consequently the rank and file,
when questioned about their party, was obliged to answer, " I
f don't know" ; so they came to be called " Know-No things."

By 1854 much of the organization's secret character had been
discarded. Its name — Order of the Star Spangled Banner -
and its meeting places were known, and it openly indorsed can-
didates for office and put forth candidates of its own. It is

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 329

recorded that in 1855 in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode
Island, Connecticut, New York, California, and Kentucky the
governors and legislature were "Know-Nothings," while the
party had secured the choice of the land commissioner of Texas
and the legislature and comptroller of Maryland, and had almost
carried the States of Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, Massachusetts,
Louisiana, and Texas.

Encouraged by its success in local affairs, the "Know-Nothing "
party in 1855 began to make plans for the presidential election.
In that year a national council was held at Philadelphia. A plat-
form was adopted which called for a change in the existing natural-
ization laws, the repeal by the legislatures of several States of
laws allowing foreigners not naturalized to vote, and also for a
repeal by Congress of all acts making grants of land to unnatural-
ized foreigners and allowing them to vote in the Territories.

In the following year a national convention of the party was
held in Philadelphia, and 27 States were represented by 227
delegates. Nearly all the delegates from New England, Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Iowa withdrew from the convention
when a motion was made to nominate a candidate for President.
The withdrawing minority wanted an antislavery plank.
Those remaining nominated Millard Fillmore for President.
The principles of the platform adopted at this convention were
that Americans must rule America, and to this end native-born
citizens should be selected for all state, federal, and municipal
government employment in preference to all others. A change
in the laws of naturalization, making continued residence of
twenty-one years an indispensable requisite for citizenship, and
a law excluding all paupers or persons convicted of crime from
landing in the United States, were demanded.

Millard Fillmore was also nominated for the presidency by the
Whig party in a convention held the following September, but
the Whigs did not, however, adopt the platform of the "Know-
Nothings," and even referred to "the peculiar doctrines of the
party which has already selected Mr. Fillmore as a candidate."
At the November election in 1856 Mr. Fillmore received only
874,534 votes, carrying but one State, Maryland; and it is
impossible to say how many of these votes were due to the fact
that he was a candidate of the "Know-Nothing" party.

330 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

"KNOW-NOTHINGS" IN CONGRESS

The " Know-No thing " strength in Congress was said to have
been greatest in the Thirty-fourth Congress, 1854 to 1856. They
had no openly avowed representatives in the Thirty-third Con-
gress, while in the Thirty-fourth they claimed 43 Representatives
and 5 Senators, aside from 70 Republicans who were said to be
members of "Know-Nothing" councils. In the Thirty-fifth
Congress the "Know-Nothings" claimed 5 Senators and 14
Representatives, and about the same number were in the Thirty-
sixth and Thirty-seventh; but in the Thirty-eighth Congress
the party was not represented in either branch.

Being in a minority in Congress, the "Know-Nothings" had
but little influence on national legislation, although they made
several attempts in this regard. In naturalization bills introduced
they proposed to lengthen the period of residence, usually demand-
ing that it be made twenty-one years, but their proposed laws
affecting immigration were, as a rule, only directed against the
immigration of foreign paupers and criminals.

LEGISLATION FAVORABLE TO FOREIGNERS

It has been said that the "Know-Nothings" disappeared with-
out having accomplished anything against immigration, adopted
citizens, or Catholics, but that, as a matter of fact, some national
legislation favorable to foreigners was passed during this period
of agitation. In 1847, and again in 1848, the passenger law of
1819 was amended in order to improve conditions in the steerage
of immigrant ships. The avowed purpose of these laws and
amendments was to protect immigrants from dangers incident
to the travel of that day, and the "Native Americans" and
" Know-No things " were opposed to these laws.

The act organizing the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas,
passed in 1854, was also favorable to foreigners, it being provided
that the right of suffrage in such Territories should be exercised
by those declaring their intentions to become citizens and taking
an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and the
provisions of the act. During the discussion of the homestead
act in 1854, which act, however, was not finally passed until 1862,

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 331

there was considerable reference to immigrants and to whether
they should be allowed to enjoy the advantages of the act. The
" Know-No things" proposed to strike out the section of the bill
permitting the granting of land to foreigners who had filed their
intentions of becoming citizens, but the attempt failed.

THE END OF STATE LEGISLATION

Although the National Government did not assume control of
immigration until 1882, Congress in 1864 passed a law to en-
courage immigration. This law, which was repealed in 1868,
represents the only attempt of the Government to promote
immigration by direct legislation, although the States have
frequently made such attempts. In his annual message to the
first session of the Thirty-seventh Congress President Lincoln
favored a scheme of the Territories for encouraging immigra-
tion, and in a subsequent message, December 8, 1863, he
strongly recommended national legislation of the same nature.

LAW TO ENCOURAGE IMMIGRATION

In the House of Representatives this part of President Lincoln's
message was referred to a select committee of five members, and
the following April this committee brought in a bill to jncourage
immigration. In recommending the passage of the bill the com-
mittee said that the vast number of laboring men, estimated at
one million and a quarter, who had left their peaceful pursuits
and gone forth in defense of the Government had created a
vacuum which was becoming seriously felt in every part of the
United States, and that never before in the history of the country
had there existed such a demand for labor. The conclusion was
that the demand for labor could be supplied only by immigration.
The bill, which became a law July 4, 1864, provided for the
appointment by the President of a Commissioner of Immigration,
to be under the direction of the Department of State, and that
all contracts that should be made in foreign countries by emi-
grants to the United States whereby emigrants pledged the wages
of their labor for a term not exceeding twelve months to repay
the expenses of emigration, should be held to be valid in law
and might be enforced in the courts of the United States or by

332 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

the several States and Territories, and that no such contract
could in any way be considered as creating a condition of slavery
or servitude. An immigration office was to be established in New
York City, in charge of a superintendent of immigration, who was
charged with arranging for the transportation of immigrants to
their final destination and protecting them from imposition and
fraud.

Following the enactment of the law of 1864 several companies
were established to deal in immigrant contract labor, but they
were not satisfied with the law and wanted its scope enlarged.
In 1866 the House of Representatives passed a bill amending
the act of 1864, the principal provision of the bill being to in-
crease the number of commissioners of immigration, the additional
commissioners to be stationed in several cities along the Atlantic
coast. The Senate, however, did not agree to the amendment.
The law itself was even declared impolitic, if not unconstitutional,
and at one time was in danger of repeal. The operations of the
immigration office in New York were attacked, the charge being
made that the commissioner of immigration there had done little
but to cooperate with the American Emigrant Company to
render its work efficient and enable it, through the power of
the Central Government, to enforce the contracts which it made
in foreign countries for the importation of immigrant labor.

About this time one of the first official protests against using
the United States as a dumping ground for criminals by for-
eign governments was entered by Congress, the following joint
resolution being passed and approved by the President on
April 17, 1866 :

Whereas it appears from official correspondence that the authorities
of Baseland, a Canton of Switzerland, have recently undertaken to
pardon a person convicted of murder on the condition that he would
emigrate to the United States, and there is reason to believe that similar
pardons of persons convicted of infamous offenses have been granted
in other countries : Now, therefore,

Resolved by the Senate, etc., That the Congress of the United States
protests against such acts as unfriendly and inconsistent with the
comity of nations, and hereby requests the President of the United
States to cause a copy of this protest to be communicated to the repre-
sentatives of the United States in foreign countries, with instructions

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 333

to present to the governments where they are accredited, respectively,
and to insist that no such acts shall, under any circumstances, be
repeated.

In the Fortieth Congress two bills were introduced providing for
agencies for the promotion of immigration, to be located in Great
Britain, Germany, Sweden, and Norway. For these two bills the
House substituted one which provided that the work to be done
by these special agents be done instead by United States consuls.
No favorable action was taken, however, and the brief period of
national encouragement of immigration was over when, on March
4, 1868, the law of 1864 was repealed by a clause in the consular
and diplomatic act.

OPPOSITION TO CONTRACT LABOR

In the Forty-first Congress the campaign against contracting
for foreign labor first began, a bill being introduced which was the
exact opposite of the law of 1864. This bill, which was not acted
upon, provided that any contract made in foreign countries
whereby immigrants pledged service or labor to be performed
upon arrival in the United States should not be enforced in any
federal or state court.

Proceedings in Congress the next few years, while showing the
general sentiment against the importation of contract labor,
although in favor of the immigration of worthy foreigners, are
interesting chiefly as showing the circumstances which led to the
change of control of immigration from the various States to the
National Government.

On May 31, 1870, an act to enforce the rights of citizens to vote
in the several States and for other purposes was approved. This
act provided that no tax should be imposed or enforced by any
State upon any person immigrating thereto from a foreign country
which was not imposed upon every person immigrating to such
State from any other foreign country. This is interesting here
simply as showing that at this time Congress regarded the levying
of a head tax on foreign immigrants as a legitimate field for state
legislation.

In his annual message to Congress, December 4, 1871, President
Grant suggested congressional action for the protection of

334 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

immigrants, saying that it seemed to him a fair subject of
legislation by Congress. Later, in the same session, he sent a
special message to Congress upon the subject of immigration in
which he urged national control, saying in part :

I do not advise national legislation in affairs that should be regulated
by the States ; but I see no subject more national in its character than
provision for the safety and welfare of the thousands who leave
foreign lands to become citizens of this Republic. When their resi-
dence is chosen they may then look to the laws of their locality for
protection and guidance.

i

At about this period several bills were introduced for the
promotion of immigration and the protection of immigrants, and
the Senate Committee on Commerce reported a bill which pro-
vided for the appointment of a Commissioner of Immigration;
the levying of a head tax of $i on each immigrant passenger
landed in lieu of a head tax imposed by States ; and the exclusion
of criminals. The bill in question did not pass, but in 1875 a
law was enacted which provided for the exclusion of prostitutes.
The law in which this provision was contained, however, was
designed chiefly to regulate Chinese immigration. The messages
of President Grant and the debates in Congress evidently indi-
cated a strong sentiment in favor of national control of immigra-
tion, and in 1876 a decision of the Supreme Court practically left
no alternative.

STATE CONTROL DECLARED UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Before the decision of 1876 above referred to various questions
relating to the subject of immigration had been considered by the
Supreme Court of the United States. The first of these cases was
that of the State of New York v. Miln. This case tested the
constitutionality of a law passed by the legislature of New York
State in 1824, requiring all masters of vessels arriving at the
port of New York to make a report in writing and give the name,
age, and the last legal residence of every person on board during
the voyage, and stating whether any of his passengers had gone
on board any other vessel or had been landed at any place with a
view to proceeding to New York. Another section of the law

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 335

made it lawful for the mayor of the city to require a bond from
every master of a vessel to indemnify the mayor and the overseer
of the poor from any expense incurred for passengers brought
in and not reported. The United States Supreme Court held
that the New York act was not a regulation of commerce, but of
police ; and, being so, it was in exercise of a power which right-
fully belonged to the State.

Justice Story dissented from the decision of the court, declared
the law unconstitutional, and said, in part :

The result of the whole reasoning is that whatever restrains or pre-
vents the introduction or importation of passengers or goods into the
country authorized or allowed by Congress, whether in the shape of
a tax or other charge, or whether before or after their arrival in port,
interferes with the exclusive right to regulate commerce.

This law being held to be constitutional, New York, in 1829, in
providing for the support of the marine and quarantine hospital
established on Staten Island, ordered that the health com-
missioner should collect from the master of every vessel arriving
from a foreign port $1.50 for every cabin passenger ; $i for every
steerage passenger, mate, sailor, or marine; and 25 cents for
every person arriving on coasting vessels. .The money so col-
lected, after deducting 2 per cent, was all to be used for the benefit
of the above-named hospital.

In 1837 Massachusetts enacted a law which provided for an
inspection of arriving alien passengers and required a bond from
the owner of the vessel bringing such aliens as security that such
of these passengers, incompetent in the eyes of the inspectors to
earn a living, should not become a public charge within ten
years. It also provided that $2 be paid for each passenger
landed, the money so collected to be used for the support of for-
eign paupers.

In 1849 these two legislative acts were declared unconstitutional
by the Supreme Court, in what are known as the "Passenger
Cases."

Immediately after the decision of the Supreme Court the New
York statute was modified with a view to avoiding the constitu-
tional objection. As modified the law provided that the master
or owner of every vessel landing passengers from a foreign port

336 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

was bound to make a report similar to the one recited in the
statute declared to be valid in the case of New York v. Miln,
in which report the mayor was to indorse a demand upon the
owner or master that he give a bond for every passenger landed
in the city to indemnify the commissioners of immigration, and
every county, city, and town in the State against any expense
for the relief or support of the person named in the bond for
four years thereafter; but the owner could commute for such
bond and be released from giving it by paying $1.50 for each
passenger landed.

In several other States similar laws were in force. Cases were
brought up to the Supreme Court from New York, California,
and Louisiana, and the laws were declared unconstitutional.
Mr. Justice Miller, who delivered the opinion, said in part :

It is a law in its purpose and effect imposing a tax on the owner of
the vessel for the privilege of landing in New York from foreign coun-
tries. ... A law or rule emanating from any lawful authority which
prescribes terms or conditions on which alone the vessel can discharge
its passengers is a regulation of commerce ; and in the case of vessels
and passengers coming from foreign ports is a regulation of foreign
commerce.

The most interesting part of this decision, however, was that
in which the court recommended that Congress exercise full
authority over immigration, saying :

We are of the opinion that this whole subject has been confided to
Congress by the Constitution ; that Congress can more appropriately
and with more acceptance exercise it than any other body known to
our law, state or national ; that by providing a system of laws in these
matters applicable to all ports and to all vessels, a serious question
which has long been a matter of contest and complaint may be effec-
tively and satisfactorily settled.

THE MOVEMENT FOR NATIONAL CONTROL

By the above decision the States were left without the means,
except by taxing their own citizens, of providing suitable in-
spection of immigrants or of caring for the destitute among those
admitted. The only alternative was the recommendation of the
Supreme Court that Congress assume control of immigration

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 337

legislation, and New York representatives in Congress imme-
diately endeavored to secure the passage of a general immigra-
tion law. The above-quoted case was decided by the Supreme
Court March 20, 1876, and on July 6 following Senator Conkling
and Representative Cox, of New York, introduced bills for the
national regulation of immigration.

These bills provided for a manifest of all alien passengers ; a
head tax of $2 ; the exclusion and deportation of convicts, insane
persons, and paupers, and the reimbursement to the States of
all money paid out by them for the support and maintenance of
any immigrants within four years after their arrival. These bills
were not given favorable consideration, the principal opposition
coming from the commercial organizations of the country. New
York Senators and Representatives, however, continued to intro-
duce bills of like nature, but a national immigration law was not
enacted until 1882.

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1882

In his message of December 6, 1881, President Arthur called
attention to the subject of immigration control and recommended
legislation regarding the supervision and transitory care of the
immigrants at ports of debarkation.

In that session of Congress immigration legislation was given
consideration, and on August 3, 1882, the first general immigra-
tion law was approved. This law provided that a head tax of 50
cents should be levied on all aliens landed at United States
ports, the money thus collected to be used to defray the expenses
of regulating immigration and for the care of immigrants after
landing, no more being expended at any port than was collected
at such port. The Secretary of the Treasury was charged with
executing the provisions of the act, and for that purpose he was
given power to enter into contracts with such state officers as
might be designated by the governor of any State to take charge
of the local affairs of immigration within such State. The
law provided that foreign convicts (except those convicted of
political offenses), lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become
public charges, should not be permitted to land.

338 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

THE FIRST CONTRACT-LABOR LAW

On February 26, 1885, the first law forbidding the importation
of contract labor was approved. This law was defective, in that
no inspection was provided for, nor was any arrangement made
for the general execution of the provisions of the law or for the
deportation of the contract laborer himself. This law was
amended by the act of February 23, 1887, and by this amend-
ment the Secretary of the Treasury was given the same power to
exclude and deport contract laborers that he had been given
under the act of 1882 over criminals, paupers, idiots, and lunatics.
The act of 1885 was again amended on October 9, 1888, by which
amendment the Secretary of the Treasury was given power to
return within the year any immigrant landed contrary to this
law.

From 1882 to 1888, aside from the enactment of the contract-
labor laws referred to, there was little attempt at other immigra-
tion legislation. Numerous bills in amendment of the laws of 1882
were introduced in Congress, but no action was taken upon them.

INVESTIGATIONS OF THE FORD COMMITTEE

During this period, however, there was considerable agitation
for the further restriction or regulation of immigration, and in
1888 the House of Representatives passed a resolution, in which
note was taken of the charges of prominent journals that the
laws prohibiting the importation of contract laborers, convicts,
and paupers were being extensively evaded, owing to the lack of
machinery to enforce them, and this resolution authorized the
appointment of a select committee to investigate the matter.
This select committee, which was known as the "Ford com-
mittee," reported at the following session of Congress. The report
alleged that each year there were thousands of alien paupers,
insane persons, and idiots landed in this country who became a
burden upon the States where they happened to gain a settle-
ment; that many of these were assisted to emigrate oy the
officials of the country from which they came ; that the number of
persons not lawfully entitled to land in the United States who
came in by the way of the Canadian frontier was large, and was

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 339

becoming a serious danger, the testimony showing that in many
instances immigrants coming by steamer to Quebec had within
forty-eight hours after their arrival there been applicants for
shelter in the almshouses of the State of New York. This was
probably the first time that serious attention was called to the
matter of overland immigration. The committee also declared
that the law of 1882, as regards the excluding of convicts, had
been and was being repeatedly violated to such an extent that it
demanded remedial legislation, and that the contract-labor law
was easy to violate and convictions under it hard to secure. To
remedy these defects the committee recommended that the
enforcement of all acts relating to the regulation of immigration
be intrusted solely to the Federal Government rather than to
state authorities, as was provided under the law of 1882. The
committee praised the immigrant of the past, but said that it
could not praise the immigrant then coming. The idea of selection
was emphasized, and it was asserted that "the time had come to
draw the line and to select the good from the bad, because the
country could not properly assimilate them."

Besides excluding idiots, paupers, lunatics, and convicts, the
bill proposed by the Ford committee added to the excluded classes
polygamists, anarchists, and persons afflicted with a loathsome
or dangerous contagious disease. The provisions of the contract-
labor law were also incorporated in the bill, and it was provided
that any person found in the United States having come contrary
to law should be deported within two years at the expense of the
transportation company bringing him. All aliens were also
required to bring a consular certificate of emigration, showing
that they were not among the classes excluded by the United
States law. Congress, however, did not act upon the recommen-
dations of the Ford committee.

IMMIGRATION COMMITTEES ESTABLISHED

The subject of immigration continued to be a matter of interest,
and in 1889 a standing Committee on Immigration in the Senate
and a Select Committee on Immigration and Naturalization in
the House were established. In 1890 these committees were
authorized jointly to make an inquiry relative to immigration and

340 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

to investigate the workings of the various laws of the United
States and of the several States relative to immigration.

Various reports were submitted, and the conclusion of the com-
mittee was that a radical change in the immigration laws was not
advisable, although it had been found that throughout the
country there existed a demand for a stricter enforcement of the
immigration laws. During 1890 one or more political parties in
23 States had demanded additional regulations of immigration.

The investigation of the joint committee showed that large
numbers of immigrants were being landed every year in
violation of the law of 1882, the chief cause of which was the
divided authority provided for the execution of the immigration
act. The contract-labor law was found to be generally evaded.
The bill presented by the committee aimed to correct faults in
existing law. As it was presented it received rather general
favor, the only opposition to it being on the part of ultra-
restrictionists, who tried to have substituted a bill which raised
the head tax from 50 cents to $>i and provided for a thorough
consular examination. The substitute bill was defeated by a
vote of 207 to 41. The bill of the committee passed the House
by a vote of 125 to 48, and after being adopted by the Senate
without discussion it was approved on March 3, 1891.

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1891

This law provided for a head tax of 50 cents, as was also pro-
vided in the law of 1882, the head tax being considered merely as
a means of raising money for the proper administration of the
law. Persons suffering from a loathsome or a dangerous conta-
gious disease, and polygamists, were added to the classes excluded
by the act of 1882, and it was also provided that "assisted persons,
unless affirmatively shown that they did not belong to any
excluded class," should be debarred. The contract-labor law
was strengthened by prohibiting the encouragement of immigra-
tion by promises of employment through advertisements pub-
lished in any foreign country, and transportation companies
were forbidden to solicit or encourage immigration. Under the
law of 1891 the office of the superintendent of immigration was
authorized, and for the first time federal control of immigration

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 341

was completely and definitely established, United States officials ,
exercising the functions which under the law of 1882 had been
delegated to the States. It now became the duty of the command-
ing officer of every vessel bringing alien immigrants to report
to the proper inspection officials the name, nationality, last
residence, and destination of all such aliens ; all decisions of the
inspection officials refusing any alien the right to land were final
unless appeal was taken to the Secretary of the Treasury ; the
medical examination of immigrants at United States ports was
to be made by surgeons of the United States Marine-Hospital
Service and for the first time an inspection of immigrants on the
borders of Canada and Mexico was provided for. Another
provision not found in the law of 1882 was that which allowed
the return within a year after arrival of any alien who had come
into the United States in violation of law, such return being at
the expense of the transportation company or person bringing
such alien into the country.

THE INVESTIGATIONS OF 1892

Notwithstanding the new law, however, the question of
immigration continued to receive attention in Congress. This
law was approved on March 3, 1891, and on January 29, 1892, a
joint committee was charged with investigating the workings of
the various laws of the United States relative to immigration
and the importation of contract laborers. This committee made a
report on July 28 of the same year. The committee found that
many undesirable immigrants were being permitted to land who
under a proper and reasonable construction of the law should
have been refused admission, and that the law permitting the
commissioner of immigration at any port to be the sole arbiter as
to whether an immigrant should land or not, with an appeal in
favor of the immigrant in case he is not permitted to land, and
no appeal in case he is unlawfully permitted to do so, should be
changed. In recommending a more careful inspection of immi-
grants the committee said that what theretofore had been called
examinations appeared to be more of a farce than a reality. To
remedy this it was proposed that whenever an inspector was in
doubt regarding the right of an immigrant to land he might detain

342 . IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

him for a special inquiry conducted by four inspectors, the favor-
able decision of three of them being necessary to admit. Finally
the committee decided that an examination should be made at
foreign ports of embarkation by the captain and surgeon of the
ship bringing him, thus making the steamship and transportation
lines responsible for the character of the persons they bring.
Bills embodying the recommendations' of the committee were
introduced and passed by the Senate without debate, but the
House took no action at that session.

On July 1 6, 1892, the Senate passed a resolution providing that
the Committee on Immigration be empowered to investigate
the workings of the immigration laws and the importation of
contract labor, as well as the laws of the prevailing methods of
naturalization.

The result of this investigation was reported to the next session
of Congress. Accompanying the report were two bills, one
establishing additional regulations concerning immigration and
the other entirely prohibiting immigration for one year. The
reason for the latter bill was the epidemic of cholera then pre-
vailing in Europe. The bill declaring for the total suspension of
immigration for one year, simply to " defeat the arrival of cholera
within our borders," was deemed too severe, and instead the
following provision, which is still in force, was inserted in the
general quarantine act:

That whenever it shall be shown to the satisfaction of the President
that by reason of the existence of cholera or other infectious or con-
tagious disease in a foreign country there is a serious danger of the
introduction of the same into the United States and that notwith-
standing the quarantine defense this danger is so increased by the in-
troduction of persons or property from such country that a suspension
of the right to introduce the same is demanded in the interest of the
public health, the President shall have the power to prohibit, in whole
or in part, the introduction of persons and property from such coun-
tries or places as he shall designate and for such period of time as he
may deem necessary.

The other bill presented by the Senate committee is inter-
esting in that for the first time restriction of immigration by
means of an educational test was recommended by a congres-
sional committee.

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 343

When the committee's report was presented it was argued in
Congress that the law of 1891 had been in force only a brief
period and its operation as yet had been only of an experimental
character, and that instead of passing a new law it would be
better to bring about a proper enforcement of the spirit of the
existing law. The objection to the educational test was that the
demand of the country was not for skilled and educated labor,
but "for a class of brawn and muscle to assist in agriculture and
in the line of their work to aid in the development of the almost
boundless resources of the great West and South." It was
further argued that the country was not demanding the exclusion
of any immigrants but criminals and paupers. While there were
some who favored even a more radical restriction than was
proposed in the committee bill, the idea of promoting a better
enforcement of the existing laws prevailed, and while the_ com-
mit tee's recommendations resulted in a revised immigration law,
which was approved March 3, 1893, it was by no means radical.
One important provision of the law of 1893 was that boards of
special inquiry should pass upon the admissibility of immigrants,
a practice which has since prevailed.

With the exception of an amendment to an appropriation act
in 1894 raising the head tax on immigrants from 50 cents to $i,
no immigration legislation was enacted until 1903. The agitation
of the subject in Congress continued, however, and the period is
interesting chiefly because of the adoption by both houses of
Congress of a bill providing for an educational test for immigrants
and the veto of the bill by President Cleveland.

PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S VETO

As the bill went to the President it provided that persons
physically capable and over 16 years of age who could not read
and write the English language or some other language, parents,
grandparents, wives, and minor children of admissible immigrants
being excepted, were added to the excluded classes.

President Cleveland returned the bill with his veto on March 2,
1897. He objected to the radical departure from the previous
national policy relating to immigration, which welcomed all
who came, the success of which policy was attested by the last

344 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

century's great growth. In referring to the claim that the quality
of recent immigration was undesirable, he said, "The time is
quite within recent memory when the same thing was said of
immigrants who, with their descendants, are now numbered
among our best citizens." The prevailing disturbed labor condi-
tions he attributed to a general business depression, which would
in no way be affected by restricting immigration. In referring to
"the best reason that could be given for this radical restriction
of immigration," the "protecting of our population against de-
generation and saving our national peace and quiet from im-
ported turbulence and disorder," President Cleveland said that
he did not think it would be protected against these evils by
limiting immigration to those who could read and write, for, in
his mind, it was safer "to admit a hundred thousand immi-
grants who, though unable to read and write, seek among
us only a home and opportunity to work, than to admit
one of those unruly agitators who can not only read and
write, but delights in arousing by inflammatory speech the
illiterate and peacefully inclined to discontent." Those classes
which we ought to exclude, he claimed, should be legislated
against directly.

, ' Sections of the bill declaring it a crime for an alien regularly to
come into the United States for the purpose of obtaining work
from private parties, President Cleveland declared, were "illib-
eral, narrow, and un-American," and, besides, he said, the resi-
dents of these border States and Territories "have separate and
especial interests which in many cases make an interchange of
labor between their people and their alien neighbors most
important, frequently with the advantage largely in favor of our
citizens."

On March 3, 1897, tne House passed the bill over the Presi-
dent's veto by a vote of 193 to 37, but no action was taken in the
Senate, and considering the close vote by which the conference
report was adopted by the Senate it is very doubtful whether it
could have been passed over the veto.

In the Fifty-fifth Congress the bill which President Cleveland
vetoed was again introduced and passed the Senate by a vote of
45 to 28, but the House of Representatives refused to consider it
by a vote of 103 to 101.

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 345

INVESTIGATIONS BY THE INDUSTRIAL COMMISSION

By an act of June 18, 1898, the Industrial Commission was
created. Section 2 of this act provided :

That it shall be the duty of this comnu'ssion to investigate ques-
tions pertaining to immigration, and to report to Congress and to
suggest such legislation as it may deem best upon these subjects.

The final report of this commission containing recommen-
dations relative to immigration legislation was submitted to
Congress on February 20, 1902, and shortly afterwards a bill was
introduced in the House which was substantially in accord with
the recommendations made. The principal object of the bill was
to codify in concise form all immigration legislation before
enacted, from the act of March 3, 1875, to the act of 1894, and
to arrange the legislation in regular order and sequence according
to the various specific subjects dealt with in the bill.

When the Industrial Commission bill was before the House, an *
amendment was added providing for the exclusion of all persons
over fifteen who were unable to read the English language or
some other language, excepting the wife, children under 18 years
of age, and parents and grandparents of admissible immigrants.
This amendment was adopted in the House by a vote of 86 to 7.
With the addition of the literacy test provision the bill passed
the House May 27, 1902, practically as introduced, but the Senate
did not act upon it until the following session. Besides eliminating
the educational test and raising the head tax from $i to $2,
the Senate added provisions making it unlawful for any person
to assist in the unlawful entry or naturalization of alien
anarchists. These amendments were accepted by the House.
Before the final passage of the bill a provision was added pro-
viding that no alien, even if belonging in the excluded classes,
should be deported if liable to execution for a religious offense
in the country from which he came, but this provision was
eliminated in conference. The bill was approved by the Presi-
dent March 3, 1903.

From the act of March 3, 1903, until the act of February 20,
1907, no laws of general importance affecting immigration were
enacted by Congress. On February 14, 1903, the Department

346 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

of Commerce and Labor was established and the Commissioner-
General of Immigration was placed under the jurisdiction and
supervision of that department. By the law of June 29, 1906,
providing for a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens, the
designation of the Bureau of Immigration was changed to the
Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and it was charged
with the administration of the new naturalization law.

The agitation of the immigration question was continued, how-
ever, and at each session of Congress several bills proposing
restrictions or a stricter supervision of immigration were intro-
duced. In the Fifty-eighth Congress a bill was introduced which
proposed to limit the number of aliens from any one nation
allowed to enter the United States in any one fiscal year to 80,000,
but no action was taken upon it.

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1907

In the first session of the Fifty-ninth Congress, following the
popular demand for the further regulation of alien immigration,
several bills were introduced and bills were passed by both the
Senate and House, but were not finally enacted into law until the
second session of that Congress.^ A bill introduced by Senator
Dillingham, of Vermont, which provided for some important
administrative changes in the immigration act of 1903, was
reported from the Senate committee March 29, 1906. This bill,
as reported, proposed several changes in the law. The head tax
on immigrants was increased from $2 to $5 ; imbeciles, feeble-
minded persons, iirm.rmmpfl.nieH £hiTHren_jmjer iy years of age ,
is "who are found to be and are certified by the examin-
ing surgeon as being mentally or physically defective, such mental
or physical defect being of a nature which may affect the ability
of such aliens to earn a living," were added to the excluded
classes ; the provision of existing law excluding prostitutes was
amended to also exclude "women or girls coming into the United
States for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral
purpose"; steamship companies were required to furnish lists
of outgoing passengers; and the creation of a division of dis-
tribution in the Bureau of Immigration was authorized.

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 347

In the Senate the bill was amended by the insertion of a literacy
test which provided for the exclusion from the United States of —

all persons over sixteen years of age and physically capable of reading
who cannot read the English language or some other language ; but
an admissible immigrant or a person now in or hereafter admitted to
this country may bring in or send for his wife, his children under
eighteen years of age, and his parents or grandparents over fifty years
of age, if they are otherwise admissible, whether they are so able to
read or not.

The bill as amended passed the Senate May 23, 1906, and in
the House was referred to the Committee on Immigration and
Naturalization. This committee recommended the substitution
of a House bill which, however, did not differ materially from
that of the Senate. The head tax provision was the same and
the additions to the excluded classes practically so ; a literacy
test similar to that of the Senate was also included. The bill as
originally reported by the House committee also provided for
the exclusion of every adult male who had not $25 in his possession
and every female alien and every male alien under 16 years
not possessed of $15, provided that $50 in the possession of
the head of a family would be considered a sufficient amount for
all members of such family, except grown sons.

In a subsequent bill and report, presented June n, 1906, how-
ever, the money qualification feature was omitted. The reports
of the House committee were accompanied by a minority report,
signed by two members of the committee, Mr. Bennet and Mr.
Ruppert, both of New York, in which the increased head tax
and the educational test provisions were disagreed to. In the
House of Representatives the bill was amended by striking out
the increased head-tax provision and the provision for a literacy
test, by inserting a section creating the Immigration Commission,
and by adopting the so-called Littauer amendment, which ""
provided as follows :

That an immigrant who proves that he is seeking admission to this
country solely to avoid prosecution or punishment on religious or
political grounds, for an offense of a political character, or prosecution
involving danger of punishment, or danger to life or limb on account
of religious belief, shall not be deported because of want of means
or the probability of his being unable to earn a livelihood.

348 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

In conference between the two Houses the Senate receded from
its provision relative to a literacy test ; the House receded from
the Littauer amendment; the head-tax provision was com-
promised by fixing the amount at $4, instead of $5 as provided
by the Senate and $2 as provided by the House; the House
amendment creating the Immigration Commission was agreed
to with an amendment, which provided that the Commission
should consist of three Senators, three Members of the House of
Representatives, and three persons to be appointed by the
President of the United States, instead of two Senators, three
Members of the House, and two citizen members, as was pro-
vided in the House amendment. The section creating the Com-
mission was further amended in conference by the addition of the
following provision:

. . . the President of the United States is also authorized, in the
name of the Government of the United States, to call, in his discre-
tion, an international conference, to assemble at such point as may be
agreed upon, or to send special commissioners to any foreign country
for the purpose of regulating by international agreement, subject
to the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States, the im-
migration of aliens to the United States ; of providing for the mental,
moral, and physical examination of such aliens by American consuls
or other officers of the United States Government at the ports of em-
barkation, or elsewhere ; of securing the assistance of foreign govern-
ments in their own territories to prevent the evasion of the laws of
the United States governing immigration to the United States ; of
entering into such international agreements as may be proper to
prevent the immigration of aliens who, under the laws of the United
States, are or may be excluded from entering the United States, and
of regulating any matters pertaining to such immigration.

The conferees also added a new section (sec. 42) to the bill
amending section i of the passenger act of 1882 relative to air
space allotted to steerage passengers, 'and amended section i of
the immigration bill under consideration by inserting the follow-
ing provision :

That whenever the President shall be satisfied that passports is-
sued by any foreign government to its citizens to go to any country
other than the United States or to any insular possession of the United
States or to the Canal Zone are being used for the purpose of enabling

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 349

the holders to come to the continental territory of the United States
to the detriment of labor conditions therein, the President may refuse
to permit such citizens of the country issuing such passports to enter
the continental territory of the United States from such other country
or from such insular possessions or from the Canal Zone.

Later this provision of law was utilized for the purpose of
excluding Japanese and Korean laborers from the United States.
This bill was approved February 20, 1907, and is the present law
upon the subject.

LEGISLATION FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE WHITE-SLAVE

TRAFFIC

By the act of March 26, 1910, sections 2 and 3 of the immigra-~
tion law of February 20, 1907, were amended to more effectively
prevent the importation of women and girls for immoral purposes
and their control by importers and others after admission to the
United States. These amendments followed recommendations
of the Immigration Commission contained in a report of the
Commission on the importation and harboring of women for
immoral purposes.

By the act of March 26 the following were added to the classes
excluded by section 2 of the immigration act : " Persons who are
supported by or receive in full or in part the proceeds of prosti-
tution." Under the terms of the act of 1907 "women or girls
coming into the United States for the purpose of prostitution
or for any other immoral purpose," and also "persons who
procure or attempt to bring in prostitutes or women or girls
for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral pur-
pose," were specifically excluded from the United States. Under
that law, however, there was no specific provision for the ex-
clusion of that particularly reprehensible class of persons referred
to in the act of March 26, 1910. By the amendment of section
3 of the law of 1907 additional means were provided for the
punishment and deportation of aliens who in any way profited
or derived benefit from the proceeds of prostitution.

The agitation of the white-slave traffic in Congress also resulted
in the enactment of a law prohibiting the transportation of
persons from one State to another for purposes of prostitution.

350 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

CHINESE LEGISLATION

In the early fifties, when the Chinese first came to California
in any considerable numbers, it is said that the people of San
Francisco regarded "with admiration and pride" these "pic-
turesque and far- traveling immigrants." The movement devel-
oped rapidly and supplied cheap labor for the construction of
railways. It appears* that there was little objection to their
coming at that time, but later when they entered the mines and
became successful competitors of white men and women in other
lines of work, an opposition to their immigration arose which
has since continued. This opposition was soon expressed in state
laws for the suppression of such immigration. In 1853 a law
taxing all foreign miners was enacted in California, but in prac-
tice such tax was collected only from the Chinese. In 1855
California imposed a tax of $55 upon every Chinese immigrant,
and in 1858 a law was passed prohibiting all Chinese or Mongo-
lians from entering the State, unless driven on shore by weather
or some accident, in which case it was provided they should be
immediately sent out of the country. In 1862 another act was
passed providing for a head tax of $2.50 upon all arriving Mongo-
lians 1 8 years of age or over, unless they were engaged in the
production and manufacture of sugar, rice, coffee, or tea. These
different state laws were declared unconstitutional by the supreme
court of California. In the same manner the cities of the Pacific
coast passed ordinances directly or indirectly affecting the Chinese.
Notwithstanding adverse decisions of the state courts California
persisted in attempts to repress Chinese immigration, but finally
all such attempts were rendered futile by the decision of the United
States Supreme Court that the regulation of immigration was
a subject for national rather than state legislation.

Even before this decision, however, California appealed to
Congress for national legislation to stop Chinese immigration.

The first consideration given to Chinese immigration in Con-
gress resulted in the law of 1862 prohibiting the coolie trade,
which has been referred to as the first attempt of Congress to
regulate immigration. All debates in Congress and reports on
the subject, however, show that the question of the importation
of Chinese coolies into the United States was not considered,

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 351

the only purpose of the act being to prevent American vessels
from carrying on this coolie or slave trade, especially between
China and the West Indies, although to some extent it was also
carried on with South American ports.

THE BURLINGAME TREATY

Although political relations of the United States with China
date back to the year 1844, the first treaty in which emigration
from one country to the other was considered, was the Burlingame
treaty, proclaimed July 28, 1868. Sections 5 and 6 of that treaty
state the position of the United States respecting the rights of
Chinese in this country. The inherent and inalienable right of
man to change his home and allegiance, and also the mutual
advantage of the free migration and emigration of their citizens
and subjects, respectively, from the one country to the other, for
the purpose of curiosity, or trade, or as permanent residents, were
recognized, but "any other than an entirely voluntary emigra-
tion" was reprobated. By the Burlingame treaty the United
States declared that -

Chinese subjects visiting or residing in the United States shall enjoy
the same privileges, immunities, and exemptions in respect to travel
or residence as may there be enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of
the most favored nations.

The right of naturalization was, however, denied them.

The attitude of the United States as expressed in this treaty was
not popular in the Pacific States, and these States continued their
efforts to secure legislation restricting the further immigration of
the Chinese.

In 1872 the legislature of California had instructed their
Representatives in Congress to urge the making of a new treaty
with China providing for the exclusion of certain Chinese
subjects, and the continued agitation finally resulted in the
enactment of the law of March 3, 1875. Besides prohibiting the
importation of women, especially Chinese women, for the purpose
of prostitution, and the immigration of convicts, the principal
provision of the act of 1875 was that the transporting into the
United States of any subject of China, Japan, or any oriental

352

IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

country, without their free and voluntary consent, for the pur-
pose of holding them to a term of service, was to be punished by
imprisonment for not more than one year and by a fine not
exceeding $2000. It further provided that any person attempting
to contract in this manner to supply coolie labor to another should
be guilty of a felony, and should be imprisoned for not more than
one year and pay a fine of not more than $5000.

CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRY OF 1876-1877

On February 27, 1877, the report of the joint special committee
sent to California to study the question was submitted to Con-
gress. The committee as appointed consisted of Messrs. Morton,
of Indiana, Meade, of New York, Wilson, of Massachusetts,
Cooper, of New York, and Sargent and Piper, of California. Be-
cause of sickness and resignations the final report was made
by Mr. Cooper, Mr. Sargent, and Mr. Piper. This report was a
violent denunciation of the Chinese as a class on the part of the
Pacific coast, and finally led to the passage of the Chinese-
exclusion law. Congress took no immediate action on this
report, but from that time on protests and bills looking to the
exclusion of Chinese were constantly being introduced and con-
sidered in Congress.

In 1879 a bill was introduced in Congress limiting to 15 the
number of Chinese who could come into the United States upon
any one vessel. It was argued against this bill that it would
abrogate the provisions of the Burlingame treaty. After being
amended by adding a provision for the abrogation of articles 5
and 6 of that treaty, which gave to the Chinaman all privileges
enjoyed by " citizens or subjects of the most favored nations,"
the bill passed the House January 28, 1879, by a vote of 155 to
72, and on February 15 it passed the Senate by a small majority.
On March i, 1879, President Hayes returned it with his veto,
declaring that history gave no other instance where a treaty had
been abrogated by Congress and that it was not competent to
modify a treaty by cutting out certain sections, and even if it
were constitutional, seeing that China would probably assent
willingly to such a modification, he thought it better policy to
wait for the proper course of diplomatic negotiations.

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 353

THE CHINESE TREATY OF isso

Congress failed to pass the bill over the veto, and negotiations
were almost immediately entered into for a change in the treaty.
On November 17, 1880, a treaty somewhat as desired by the
Pacific coast was concluded, the article relating to the limitation
and suspension of Chinese immigration into the United States
being as follows :

Whenever in the opinion of the Government of the United States
the coming of Chinese laborers to the United States, or their residence
therein, affects or threatens to affect the interests of that country,
or to endanger the good order of the said country, or of any locality
within the territory thereof, the Government of China agrees that the
Government of the United States may regulate, limit, or suspend
such coming or residence, but may not absolutely prohibit it. The
limitation or suspension shall be reasonable, and shall apply only to
Chinese who may go to the United States as laborers, other classes
not being included in the limitations. Legislation taken in regard to
Chinese laborers will be of such a character only as is necessary to
enforce the regulation, limitation, or suspension of immigration, and
immigrants shall not be subject to personal maltreatment or abuse.

THE CHINESE-EXCLUSION LAW OF 1882

After the entry of 1880 was concluded a bill to execute certain
stipulations contained therein was passed by the Senate and
House. As this bill went to the President for approval it provided
that within ninety days after its passage, and until twenty years
thereafter, the coming of Chinese laborers should be suspended.
Exception was made to Chinese laborers who were in the United
States on November 17, 1880, and those who should come before
the act went into effect. Also a complete system of registration,
certification and identification was provided. Skilled Chinese
laborers were specifically among those excluded, and all state or
United States courts were denied the right to admit Chinese to
citizenship. On April 4, 1882, President Arthur returned the bill
with his veto, his principal reason for refusing to sign it being that
the passage of an act prohibiting immigration for twenty years
was an unreasonable suspension of immigration and consequently
a breach of the treaty. The features relating to registration he

354 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

also claimed served no good purpose. Subsequently a modified
bill was passed by Congress, and. although containing some of the
provisions objectionable to the President, he approved it on
May 6, 1882. This law provided that all immigration of Chinese
laborers, skilled or unskilled, should be suspended for a period of
ten years.

THE CHINESE-EXCLUSION LAW OF 1884

In the next Congress there were several bills introduced amend-
ing this act of 1882. One of these, that of Mr. Henley, of Cali-
fornia, was reported favorably by the Committee on Foreign
Affairs.

The law had been intended, by its originators, to exclude
Chinese laborers, but it had failed to do this and required revision
to conform to the intent of its framers. To substantiate this
view, the committee cited the case decided by Justices Lowell
and Nelson, of the United States circuit court in Massachusetts,
where a Chinese laborer, born on the island of Hongkong after its
cession to Great Britain, was held not to be within the provisions
of the act. To avoid a similar situation the act was extended to
all Chinese, subjects of whatever country. To prevent evasions
of the law through the " possible interpretations of words 'mer-
chants' and 'travelers,' together with the notorious capabilities
of the lower classes of Chinese for perjury," the certificates of the
exempt classes were made more elaborate, and the word "mer-
chant" was defined to exclude hucksters, peddlers, and fishermen.
The certificates were made the only evidence admissible to
establish a right to r center. These certificates also had to be
verified by the United States diplomatic officer at the port of
departure.

All attempts to make the bill less severe were futile, and it
passed the House by a vote of 184 to 12 ; not voting, 125. The
Senate passed it by a vote of 43 to 12 ; not voting, 21. It was
approved July 5, 1884.

THE CHINESE TREATY OF 1888

In 1886 China of her own accord proposed to prohibit the
emigration of her laborers to the United States, and also to
prohibit the return of any laborers who had gone back to China.

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 355

She asked that negotiations be entered into for a treaty embody-
ing such provisions. Such a treaty was agreed to and signed by
the representatives of the two countries on March 12, 1888.

The treaty as signed provided that Chinese laborers should be
excluded for twenty years. No Chinese laborer returning to
China was to be allowed to reenter the United States unless he
left a wife, child, or parent, or property to the value of $1000.
To avail himself of this right he had to return within a year.
Chinese subjects other than laborers had to obtain certificates
of identification from consular representatives of the United
States at ports of departure. As in the earlier treaty, the China-
man lawfully residing here was granted all the privileges of
citizens of the most favored nations. Finally the indemnity
fund of $276,619.75 which was asked for losses and injuries
suffered by the Chinese in various anti-Chinese riots in the Pacific
coast States was included. Before ratifying it the Senate changed
two articles of the treaty. By the first, all Chinese laborers
not then in the United States, but who held return certificates
under existing laws, were not to be allowed to enter. The other
required the possession of the certificate of identification to insure
entry.

THE CHINESE-EXCLUSION LAW OF 1888

Expecting an immediate ratification of the treaty by China, the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, on July 15, 1888,
reported a bill to prohibit the coming of Chinese laborers accord-
ing to the stipulations of the treaty just ratified. It was passed
by the Senate on August 8, and by the House August 20, 1888,
and was approved September 13, 1888.

No ratification of the treaty followed, however, and on receipt
of unofficial reports that China had rejected it, Congress passed
a bill prohibiting the coming to the United States of Chinese
laborers. President Cleveland withheld his approval of the bill
for some time, but finally, on the refusal of China to ratify the
treaty unless the term of years was made shorter, and other
conditions were changed, on October i, 1888, he signed it. In
his message accompanying the approval President Cleveland
justified his action, claiming that China's delay was a breach of
the existing treaty, and such a breach as justified Congress in

356 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

legislatively dealing with the matter. He recommended the pay-
ment of the indemnity provided by the terms of the treaty, and
he also recommended that the act should not apply to Chinese
already on their way. The indemnity was paid, but the recom-
mendation respecting those on the way was not heeded.

CHINESE LEGISLATION OF 1892

On December 10, 1891, Senator Dolph, of Oregon, introduced
a bill providing that the act of May 6, 1882, should be continued
in force for another ten years. This bill was passed by the Senate
on February 19, 1892. Representative Geary, of California,
reported a bill absolutely prohibiting the coming of Chinese
persons, except diplomatists, to the United States. All Chinese
in the United States were to be obliged to take out certificates, so
that the authorities could know their whereabouts. Failure to
procure this certificate meant deportation. The Senate bill was
not favored in the House, and the more stringent Geary bill was
passed on April 4, 1892. When it went to the Senate the Dolph
bill was substituted and a conference asked for. The report
of the conference committee was finally adopted and the resulting
bill was approved the day before the expiration of the existing
law. The law of 1892 contained part of the provisions of the
Senate bill and part of those of the House bill. By its terms all
existing laws were continued in force for ten years. All Chinese
laborers within the United States were required to secure certifi-
cates within one year, and if any was found without such certifi-
cate he was to be liable to deportation.

Upon the passage of this act certain Chinese persons employed
three prominent attorneys to render an opinion upon the constitu-
tionality of the law as a whole. Each of these attorneys expressed
the opinion that the law was unconstitutional, but on May 15,
1893, the Supreme Court declared it constitutional. Having
relied upon the opinions of their attorneys, the Chinese did not
register. When the decision of the Supreme Court was rendered
the year provided by the statue for certification was ended,
and there were some 90,000 unregistered Chinamen in the
country, all liable to deportation. After considering the matter
and seeing that it would cost more than $6,000,000 to deport

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 357

them, Congress decided it would be more just and economical
to extend the period for obtaining certificates. Accordingly a
law was passed, and approved on November 3, 1893, granting an
additional six months for the taking out of certificates.

THE CHINESE TREATY OF 1894

Shortly after the passage of these acts China asked for the
opening of negotiations looking to a new treaty. Negotiations
were successful, and on December 8, 1894, a treaty was
proclaimed. This provided for the exclusion of all Chinese
laborers for a term of ten years. Those going back to China were
allowed to return here, providing they had a wife, child, or
parent, or property worth $1000 somewhere in the United States.
Registration was still required. It practically covered the same
grounds as existing legislation, except that the act of October i,
1888, refusing to Chinese laborers the right to return, was
repealed.

After the annexation of Hawaii, on July 7, 1898, Chinese
immigration to these islands was declared to be regulated by the
laws of the United States. On April 30, 1900, provision was made
for the registering of all the Chinese in these islands, and Chinese
living there were forbidden to enter continental United States.

THE CHINESE-EXCLUSION LAW OF 1902

As the time came for the lapse of the period of exclusion pro-
vided by the act of 1892, interest in the exclusion laws again
became intense, especially on the Pacific coast. A convention
held in San Francisco on November 22, 1901, and composed
of more than 1000 representatives of county supervisors, city
councils, and trade, commercial, and civic organizations, declared
for a continuance of the exclusion laws.

The Chinese minister, in a letter to the Secretary of States
dated December 10, 1901, brought the matter to the attention
of the United States, " urging an adjustment of the question,
involved more in harmony with the friendly relations of the two
Governments."

358 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

On the 1 6th of January, 1902, Senator Mitchell, of Oregon, intro-
duced a bill to prohibit the coming of Chinese into the United
States and regulating their residence within her territories. A
similar bill was introduced in the House by Mr. Kahn, of Cali-
fornia. On March 26, 1902, the Committee on Foreign Affairs
reported Mr. Kahn's bill with a substitute. Several provisions
of the bill were stricken out because they were considered un-
constitutional. The committee proposed excluding all Chinese
laborers, but wanted to avoid any discourtesy or annoyance to
any genuine merchants, students, etc., on the ground that this
attitude was necessary in the interests of commerce with China.
It also struck out a clause forbidding the employment of Chinese
on ships carrying the American flag on the Pacific Ocean, because
of the injury that would accrue to American shipping. Following
in the main the committee's recommendations, the bill passed
the House. The clause relating to seamen, however, was restored
and all laws were extended to the insular possessions.

In the Senate the Mitchell and Kahn bills were considered too
severe, and before passing that body they were amended by
providing that all existing laws be reenacted, to continue in
force until a new treaty should be negotiated. As amended the
bill passed by a vote of 76 to i ; not voting, u. Senator Hoar,
of Massachusetts, who cast the single opposing vote, still upheld
his early position that he could not support legislation which
discriminated against race. The House refused to concur in the
amendments of the Senate, but the report of the conference
was adopted in the Senate and the House on April 28. The
President approved it April 29, 1902.

THE CHINESE-EXCLUSION LAW OF 1904

Upon the refusal of China to continue the treaty of 1894 after
1904, on April 27, 1904, Congress again reenacted, extending
and continuing, without modification, limitation, or condition,
all laws then in force in so far as they were not inconsistent with
treaty obligations.

By the act of 1904 all existing legislation was continued in
force until otherwise provided by law. All legislation was ex-
tended to the insular possessions, and Chinese immigration

FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION 359

from these islands to the United States, or from one island group
to another, was prohibited, although moving from island to
island of the same group was allowed. Certificates of residence
were also required in the insular possessions. The law of 1904
is still in force.

During 1906 the question of Japanese immigration became
acute, and the Pacific States demanded exclusion legislation for
the Japanese of the same sort as existed for the Chinese. This
was finally settled in the passport provision inserted in the
immigration law of February 20, 1907. This provision authorized
the President to refuse admission to any aliens making use of
passports to the insular possessions, the Canal Zone, or any
country other than the United States, to gain admission to the
continental United States. The President in his proclamation of
March 14, 1907, availed himself of this provision and excluded
"Japanese or Korean laborers, skilled or unskilled, who have
received passports to go to Mexico, Canada, or Hawaii, and come
therefrom." To give this full force, an understanding with
Japan was reached that the existing policy of discouraging the
emigration of her subjects to this country should be continued.
This agreement, by which the two Governments cooperate to
secure an effective enforcement of the regulation —

contemplates that the Japanese Government shall issue passports to
continental United States only to such of its subjects as are non-
laborers, or are laborers who, in coming to the continent, seek to re-
sume a formerly acquired domicile, to join a parent, wife, or children
residing there, or to assume active control of an already possessed
interest in a farming enterprise in this country.

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION1

GENERAL FRANCIS A. WALKER

A T THEN we speak of the restriction of immigration, at the
V V present time, we have not in mind measures undertaken
1 for the purpose of straining out, from the vast throng of foreign-
ers arriving at our ports, a few hundreds, or possibly thou-
sands, of persons, deaf, dumb, blind, idiotic, insane, pauper,
or criminal who might otherwise become a hopeless burden
upon the country, perhaps even an active source of mischief.
The propriety, and even the necessity, of adopting such
measures is now conceded by men of all shades of opinion con-
cerning the larger subject. There is even noticeable a rather
severe public feeling regarding the admission of persons of
any of the classes named above ; perhaps one might say, a
certain resentment at the attempt of such persons to impose
themselves upon us. We already have laws which cover a
considerable part of this ground ; and so far as further legis-
lation is needed, it will only be necessary for the proper
executive department of the government to call the attention
of Congress to the subject. There is a serious effort on the
part of our immigration officers to enforce the regulations
prescribed, though when it is said that more than five thou-
sand persons have passed through the gates at Ellis Island, in
New York harbor, during the course of a single day, it will be
seen that no very careful scrutiny is practicable.

It is true that in the past there has been gross and scanda-
lous neglect of this matter on the part both of government
and people, here in the United States. For nearly two genera-
tions, great numbers of persons utterly unable to earn their
living, by reason of one or another form of physical or mental
disability, and others who were, from widely different causes,

1 From " Economics and Statistic:?," Vol. II, pp. 437-450. Henry Holt and
Co., 1899.

360

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 361

unfit to be members of any decent community, were admitted
to our ports without challenge or question. It is a matter
of official record that in many cases these persons had been
directly shipped to us by states or municipalities desiring to
rid themselves of a burden and a nuisance; while it could
reasonably be believed that the proportion of such instances
was far greater than could be officially ascertained. But all
this is of the past. The question of the restriction of immigration
to-day does not deal with that phase of the subject. What is
proposed is, not to keep out some hundreds, or possibly thousands,
of persons, against whom lie specific objections like those above
indicated, but to exclude perhaps hundreds of thousands, the
great majority of whom would be subject to no individual objec-
tions; who, on the contrary, might fairly be expected to earn
their living here in this new country, at least up to the standard
known to them at home, and probably much more. The question
to-day is, not of preventing the wards of our almshouses, our
insane asylums, and our jails from being stuffed to repletion by
new arrivals from Europe ; but of protecting the American rate
of wages, the American standard of living, and the quality /
of American citizenship fronTHegradation through the tumultuous [ "-^
access of vast throngs of ignorant and brutalized peasantry from
the countries of eastern and southern Europe.

The first thing to be said respecting any serious proposition. '
importantly to restrict immigration into the United States is,)
that such a proposition necessarily and properly encounters al
high degree of incredulity, arising from the traditions of ourl
country. From the beginning, it has been the policy of the\
United States, both officially and according to the prevailing \
sentiment of our people, to tolerate, to welcome, and to encourage \
immigration, without qualification, and without discrimination. I
For generations it was the settled opinion of our people, which |
found no challenge anywhere, that immigration was a source of
both strength and wealth. Not only was it thought unnecessary
carefully to scrutinize foreign arrivals at our ports, but the
figures of any exceptionally large immigration were greeted
with noisy gratulation. In those days the American people did
not doubt that they derived a great advantage from this source.
It is, therefore, natural to ask, Is it possible that our fathers

362 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

and our grandfathers were so far wrong in this matter? Is
it not, the rather, probable that the present anxiety and ap-
prehension on the subject are due to transient causes or to
distinctly false opinions, prejudicing the public mind? The
challenge which current proposals for the restriction of im-
migration thus encounter is a perfectly legitimate one, and
creates a presumption which their advocates are bound to
deal with. Is it, however, necessarily true that if our fathers
and grandfathers were right in their view of immigration in
their own time, those who advocate the restriction of immi-
gration to-day must be in the wrong? Does it not sometimes
happen, in the course of national development, that great and
permanent changes in condition require corresponding changes
of opinion and of policy ?

We shall best answer this question by referring to an in-
stance in an altogether different department of public interest
and activity. For nearly a hundred years after the peace of
1783 opened to settlement the lands beyond the Alleghanies,
the cutting away of the primeval forest was regarded by our
people not only with toleration, but with the highest ap-
proval. No physical instrument could have been chosen
which was so fairly entitled to be called the emblem of
American civilization as the Axe of the Pioneer. As the
forests of the Ohio valley bowed themselves before the un-
staying enterprise of the adventurous settlers of that region,
all good citizens rejoiced. There are few chapters of human
history which recount a grander story of human achievement.
Yet to-day all intelligent men admit that the cutting down
of our forests, the destruction of the tree-covering of our soil,
has already gone too far; and both individual States and the
nation have united in efforts to undo some of the mischief
which has been wrought to our agriculture and to our climate
from carrying too far the work of denudation. In precisely
the same way, it may be true that our fathers were right in
their view of immigration; while yet the patriotic American
of to-day may properly shrink in terror from the contempla-
tion of the vast hordes of ignorant and brutalized peasantry
thronging to our shores.

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 363

Before inquiring as to general changes in our national con-[
dition which may justify a change of opinion and policy in,
this respect, let us deal briefly, as we must, with two opinions
regarding the immigration of the past, which stand in the
way of any fair consideration of the subject. These two
opinions were, first, that immigration constituted a net re-
enforcement of our population; secondly, that, in addition
to this, or irrespective of this, immigration was necessary, in
order to supply the laborers who should do certain kinds of
work, imperatively demanded for the building up of our in-
dustrial and social structure, which natives of the soil were un-
willing to undertake.

The former of these opinions was, so far as I am aware,
held with absolute unanimity by1 our people ; yet no popular
belief was ever more unfounded. Space would not serve for
the full statistical demonstration of the proposition that im-
migration, during the period from 1830 to 1860, instead of
constituting a net reenforcement to the population, simply
resulted in a replacement of native by foreign elements ; but
I believe it would be practicable to prove this to the satisfaction
of every fair-minded man. Let it suffice to state a few matters
which are beyond controversy.

The population of 1790 was almost wholly a native and
wholly an acclimated population, and for forty years after-
wards immigration remained at so low a rate as to be prac-
tically of no account; yet the people of the United States
increased in numbers more rapidly than has ever elsewhere
been known, in regard to any considerable population, over
any considerable area, through any considerable period of
time. Between 1790 and 1830 the nation grew from less
than 4,000,000 to nearly 13,000,000, — an increase, in fact,
of 227 per cent, a rate unparalleled in history. That increase
was wholly out of the loins of our own people. Each decade
had seen a growth of between 33 and 38 per cent, a doubling
once in twenty-two or twenty-three years. During the thirty

I years which followed 1830, the conditions of life and repro-
duction in the United States were not less, but more, favorable
than in the preceding period. Important changes relating to

364 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

the practice of medicine, the food and clothing of people, the
general habits of living, took place, which were of a nature to
increase the vitality and reproductive capability of the Ameri-
can people. Throughout this period, the standard of height,
of weight, and of chest measurement was steadily rising, with
the result that, of the men of all nationalities in the giant army
formed to suppress the slaveholders' rebellion, the native Ameri-
^:an bore off the palm in respect to physical stature. The
! decline of this rate of increase among Americans began at the
1 very time when foreign immigration first assumed considerable
proportions ; it showed itself first and in the highest degree in
; those regions, in those States, and in the very counties into
Which the foreigners most largely entered. It proceeded for
a long time in such a way as absolutely to offset the foreign
arrivals, so that in 1850, in spite of the incoming of two and a
half millions of foreigners during thirty years, our population
differed by less than ten thousand from the population which
would have existed, according to the previous rate of increase,
without reenforcement from abroad. These three facts, which
might be shown by tables and diagrams, constitute a statistical
demonstration such as is rarely attained in regard to the opera-
tion of any social or economic force.

But it may be asked, Is the proposition that the arrival of
foreigners brought a check to the native increase a reasonable
one? Is the cause thus suggested one which has elsewhere
appeared as competent to produce such an effect? I answer,
Yes. All human history shows that the principle of popula-
tion is intensely sensitive to social and economic changes.
Let social and economic conditions remain as they were, and
population will go on increasing from year to year, and from
decade to decade, with a regularity little short of the marvel-
ous. Let social and economic conditions change, and popu-
lation instantly responds. The arrival in the United States,
between 1830 and 1840, and thereafter increasingly, of large
numbers of degraded peasantry, created for the first time in
this country distinct social classes, and produced an altera-
tion of economic relations which could not fail powerfully to
affect population. The appearance of vast numbers of men,
foreign in birth and often in language, with a poorer standard

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 365

of living, with habits repellent to our native people, of an~~
industrial grade suited only to the lowest kind of manual
labor, was exactly such a cause as by any student of popula-
tion would be expected to affect profoundly the growth of
the native population. Americans shrank alike from the
social contact and the economic competition thus created.
They became increasingly unwilling to bring forth sons and
daughters who should be obliged to compete in the market
for labor and in the walks of life with those whom they did
not recognize as of their own grade and condition. It has
been said by some that during this time habits of luxury were
entering, to reduce both the disposition and the ability to
increase among our own population. In some small degree,
in some restricted localities, this undoubtedly was the case ;
but prior to 1860 there was no such general growth of luxury
in the United States as is competent to account for the effect
seen. Indeed, I believe this was almost wholly due to the cause
which has been indicated, — a cause recognized by every student
of statistics and economics.

The second opinion regarding the immigration of the past,
with which it seems well to deal before proceeding to the
positive argument of the case, is that, whether desirable on
other accounts or not, foreign immigration prior to 1860 was
necessary in order to supply the country with a laboring class
which should be able and willing to perform the lowest kind
of work required in the upbuilding of our industrial and social
structure, especially the making of railroads and canals. The
opinion which has been cited constitutes, perhaps, the best
example known to me of that putting the cart before the
horse which is so commonly seen in sociological inquiry.
When was it that native Americans first refused to do the
lowest kinds of manual labor? I answer, When the foreigner

came. Did the foreigner come because the native American
refused longer to perform any kind of manual labor ? No ;
the American refused because the foreigner came. Through
all our early history, Americans, from Governor Winthrop,
through Jonathan Edwards, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, had
done every sort of work which was required for the comfort
of their families and for the upbuilding of the state, and had

366 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

not been ashamed. They called nothing common or un-
clean, which needed to be done for their own good or for the
good of all. But when the country was flooded with ignorant
and unskilled foreigners, who could do nothing but the lowest
kind of labor, Americans instinctively shrank from the con-
tact and the competition thus offered to them. So long as
manual labor, in whatever field, was to be done by all, each
in his place, there was no revolt at it; but when working on
railroads and canals became the sign of a want of education
and of a low social condition, our own people gave it up, and
left it to those who were able to do that, and nothing better.

We have of late had a very curious demonstration of the
' entire fallacy of the popular mode of reasoning on this sub-
ject, due to the arrival of a still lower laboring class. Within
a few years, Harper's Weekly had an article in which the
editor, after admitting that the Italians who have recently
come in such vast numbers to our shores do not constitute
a desirable element of the population, either socially or po-
litically, yet claimed that it was a highly providential ar-
rangement, since the Irish, who formerly did all the work of
the country in the way of ditching and trenching were now
standing aside. We have only to meet the argument thus in
its second generation, so to speak, to see the complete fallacy
of such reasoning. Does the Italian come because the Irish-
man refuses to work in ditches and trenches, in gangs; or
has the Irishman taken this position because the Italian has
come? The latter is undoubtedly the truth; and if the
administrators of Baron Hirsch's estate send to us 2,000,000
of Russian Jews, we shall soon find the Italians standing on
their dignity, and deeming themselves too good to work on
streets and sewers and railroads. But meanwhile, what of
the Republic? what of the American standard of living? what
of the American rate of wages?

All that sort of reasoning about the necessity of having a
mean kind of man to do a mean kind of work is greatly to be
suspected. It is not possible to have a man who is too good
to do any kind of work which the welfare of his family and
of the community requires to be done. So long as we were left
to increase out of the loins of our people, such a sentiment as

\

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 367

that we are now commenting upon made no appearance in Amer- /
ican life. It is much to be doubted whether any material growth
which is to be secured only by the degradation of our citizenship
is a national gain /even from the most materialistic point of view.

Let us now inquire what are the changes in our general
conditions which seem to demand a revision of the opinion
and policy heretofore held regarding immigration. Three of
these are subjective, affecting our capability of easily and
safely taking care of a large and tumultuous access of foreign-
ers ; the fourth is objective, and concerns the character of the
immigration now directed upon our shores.. Time will serve for
only a rapid characterization.

First, we have the important fact of the complete exhaus-
tion of the free public lands of the United States. Fifty years
ago, thirty years ago, vast tracts of arable land were open to
every person arriving on our shores, under the Preemption Act,
or later, the Homestead Act. A good farm of one hundred and
sixty acres could be had at the minimum price of $1.25 an acre,
or for merely the fees of registration. Under these circumstances
it was a very simple matter to dispose of a large immigration.
To-day there is not a good farm within the limits of the United
States which is to be had under either of these acts. The wild
and tumultuous scenes which attended the opening to settle-
ment of the Territory of Oklahoma, a few years ago, and, a
little later, of the so-called Cherokee Strip, testify eloquently to
the vast change in our national conditions in this respect. This
is not to say that more people cannot and will not, sooner or
later, with more or less of care and pains and effort, be placed
upon the land of the United States ; but it does of itself alone
show how vastly the difficulty of providing for immigration has
increased. The immigrant must now buy his farm from a second |
hand, and he must pay the price which the value of the land for /
agricultural purposes determines. In the case of ninety-five out »
of a hundred immigrants, this necessity puts an immediate occu- \
pation of the soil out of the question.

A second change in our national condition, which importantly
affects our capability of taking care of large numbers of ignorant
and unskilled foreigners, is the fall of agricultural prices which
has gone on steadily since 1873. It is not of the slightest

368 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

consequence to inquire into the causes of this fall, whether we
refer it to the competition of Argentina and of India or to the
appreciation of gold. We are interested only in the fact. There I
has been a great reduction in the cost of producing crops in some
favored regions where steam plows and steam-reaping, steam-/,
threshing, and steam-sacking machines can be employed ; but /
there has been no reduction in the cost of producing crops upon j
the ordinary American farm at all corresponding to the reduction j
in the price of the produce. It is a necessary consequence of this, '
that the ability to employ a large number of uneducated and/I
unskilled hands in agriculture has greatly diminished.

Still a third cause which may be indicated, perhaps more
•important than either of those thus far mentioned, is found
in the fact that we have now a labor problem. We in the United
States have been wont to pride ourselves greatly upon our so
easily maintaining peace and keeping the social order unimpaired.
We have, partly from a reasonable patriotic pride, partly also
from something like Phariseeism, been much given to pointing
at our European cousins, and boasting superiority over them in
this respect. Our self-gratulation has been largely due to over-
looking social differences between us and them. That boasted
superiority has been owing mainly, not to our institutions, but
to our more favorable conditions. There is no country of Europe
which has not for a long time had a labor problem; that is,
which has not so largely exploited its own natural resources,
and which has not a labor supply so nearly meeting the demands
of the market at their fullest, that hard times and periods of
industrial depression have brought a serious strain through
extensive non-employment of labor. From this evil condition
we have, until recently, happily been free. During the last few
years, however, we have ourselves come under the shadow of
this evil, in spite of our magnificent natural resources. We know
what it is to have even intelligent and skilled labor unemployed
through considerable periods of time. This change of conditions
is likely to bring some abatement to our national pride. No
longer is it a matter of course that every, industrious and tem-
perate man can find work in the United States. And it is to be
remembered that, of all nations, we are the one which is least
qualified to deal with a labor problem. We have not the

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 369

machinery, we have not the army, we have not the police, we
have not the traditions and instincts, for dealing with such a
matter, as the great railroad and other strikes of the last few
years have shown.

I have spoken of three changes in the national condition, all
subjective, which greatly affect our capability of dealing with a
large and tumultuous immigration. There is a fourth, which is
objective. It concerns the character of the foreigners now resort-
ing to our shores. Fifty, even thirty, years ago, there was a right-
ful presumption regarding the average immigrant that he was
among the most enterprising, thrifty, alert, adventurous, and
courageous, of the community from which he came. It required
no small energy, prudence, forethought, and pains to conduct
the inquiries relating to his migration, to accumulate the necessary
means, and to find his way across the Atlantic. To-day the
presumption is completely reversed. So thoroughly has the
Continent of Europe been crossed by railways, so effectively has
the business of emigration there been exploited, so much have the
rates of railroad fares and ocean passage been reduced, that it is
now among the least thrifty and prosperous members of any /
European community that the emigration agent finds his best /
recruiting ground. The care and pains required have been I
k reduced to a minimum; while the agent of the Red Star Line
or the White Star Line is everywhere at hand, to suggest migra-
tion to those who are not getting on well at home. The intending
emigrants are looked after from the moment they are locked into
the cars in their native village until they stretch themselves
upon the floors of the buildings on Ellis Island, in New York.
Illustrations of the ease and facility with which this Pipe Line
Immigration is now carried on might be given in profusion.
So broad and smooth is the channel, there is no reason why
every foul and stagnant pool of population in Europe, which no
breath of intellectual or industrial life has stirred for ages, should
not be decanted upon our soil. Hard times here may momentarily
check the flow ; but it will not be permanently stopped so long as
any differw- nf Mov-0**1*''- level exists between our population
and that of the most degraded communities abroad.

But it is not alone that the presumption regarding the immi-
grant of to-day is so widely different from that which existed

370 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

regarding the immigrant of thirty or fifty years ago. The im-
migrant of the former time came almost exclusively from western
or northern Europe. We have now tapped great reservoirs of
population then almost unknown to the passenger lists of our
arriving vessels. Only a short time ago, the immigrants from
southern Italy, Hungary, Austria, and Russia together made up
hardly more than one per cent of our immigration. To-day the
proportion has risen to something like forty per cent, and
^threatens soon to become fifty or sixty per cent, or even more.
The entrance into our political, social, and industrial life of
such vast masses of peasantry, degraded below our utmost
conceptions, is a matter which no intelligent patriot can look
upon without the gravest apprehension and alarm. These
people have no history behind them which is of a nature to give
encouragement. They have none of the inherited instincts and
tendencies which made it comparatively easy to deal with the
immigration of the olden time. They are beaten men from
I beaten races; representing the worst failures in the struggle
for existence. Centuries are against them, as centuries were on
the side of those who formerly came to us. They have none
of the ideas and aptitudes which fit men to take up readily and
jfrf easily the problem of self-care and self-government, such as
belong to those who are descended from the tribes that met under
the oak trees of old Germany to make laws and choose chieftains.
Their habits of life, again, are of the most revolting kind.
Read the description given by Mr. Riis, of the police driving
from the garbage dumps the miserable beings who try to burrow
in those depths of unutterable filth and slime in order that they
may eat and sleep there! Was it in cement like this that the
foundations of our republic were" laid? What effects must be
produced upon our social standards, and upon the ambitions
and aspirations of our people, by a contact so foul and loathsome ?
The influence upon the American rate of wages of a competition
like this cannot fail to be injurious and even disastrous. Already
it has been seriously felt in the tobacco manufacture, in the cloth-
ing trade, and in many forms of mining industry; and unless
this access of vast numbers of unskilled workmen of the lowest
type, in a market already fully supplied with labor, shall be
checked, it cannot fail to go on from bad to worse, in breaking

RESTRICTION OF IMMIGRATION 371

down the standard which has been maintained with so much care
and at so much cost. The competition of paupers is far morel
telling and more killing than the competition of pauper-made/
I goods. Degraded labor in the slums of foreign cities may bel
prejudicial to intelligent, ambitious, self-respecting labor here;
' but it does not threaten half so much evil as does degraded labor
in the garrets of our native cities.

Finally, the present situation is most menacing to our peace
and political safety. In all the social and industrial disorders
of this country since 1877, the foreign elements have proved
themselves the ready tools of demagogues in defying the law,
in destroying property, and in working violence. A learned
clergyman who mingled with the socialistic mob which, two
years ago, threatened the State House and the governor of
Massachusetts, told me that during the entire disturbance he
heard no word spoken in any language which he knew, —
either in English, in German, or in French. There may be
those who can contemplate the addition to our population
of vast numbers of persons having no inherited instincts
of self-government and respect for law; knowing no restraint
upon their own passions but the club of the policeman or the
bayonet of the soldier; forming communities, by the tens of
thousands, in which only foreign tongues are spoken, and into
which can steal no influence from our free institutions and from
popular discussion. But I confess to being far less optimistic.
I have conversed with one of the highest officers of the United
States army and with one of the highest officers of the civil
government regarding the state of affairs which existed during
the summer of 1894 ; and the revelations they made of facts not
generally known, going to show how the ship of state grazed
along its whole side upon the rocks, were enough to appall the
most sanguine American, the most hearty believer in free
government. Have we the right to expose the republic to any
increase of the dangers from this source which now so manifestly
threaten our peace and safety?

For it is never to be forgotten that self-defense is the first
law of nature and of nations. If that man who careth^ not
for his own household is worse than an infidel, the nation which
permits its institutions to be endangered by any cause which

372 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

can fairly be removed is guilty, not less in Christian than in
natural law. Charity begins at home; and while the people
of the United States have gladly offered an asylum to millions
upon millions of the distressed and unfortunate of other lands
and climes, they have no right to carry their hospitality one step
beyond the line where American institutions, the American rate
I of wages, the American standard of living, are brought into
^serious peril. All the good the United States could do by offer-
ring indiscriminate hospitality to a few millions more of European
peasants, whose places at home will, within another generation,
I/ be filled by others as miserable as themselves, would not com-
V^pensate for any permanent injury done to our republic. Our
highest duty to charity and to humanity is to make this great
experiment, here, of free laws and educated labor, the most
triumphant success that can possibly be attained. In this way
we shall do far more for Europe than by allowing its city slums
and its vast stagnant reservoirs of degraded peasantry to be
drained off upon our soil. Within the decade between 1880
and 1890 five and a quarter millions of foreigners entered our
ports ! No nation in human history ever undertook to deal with
such masses of alien population. That man must be a sentimen-
talist and an optimist beyond all bounds of reason who believes
that we can take such a load upon the national stomach without
a failure of assimilation, and without great danger to the healthy
life of the nation. For one, I believe it is time that we should take
a rest, and give our social, political, and industrial system some
chance to recuperate. The problems which so sternly confront us
to-day are serious enough, without being complicated and aggra-
vated by the addition of some millions of Hungarians, Bohemians,
Poles, south Italians, and Russian Jews.

•X

THE SELECTION OF IMMIGRANTS1

EDWARD T. DEVINE, DIRECTOR, NEW YORK SCHOOL OF
PHILANTHROPY

ON THE main subject the Immigration Commission has N.
spoken clearly and its recommendation should become law.
There must be effective restriction and selection for the purpose
of maintaining American standards of living. In reply to the
demand for a more rigorous selection of immigrants we hear two
mutually contradictory assertions. One is that there are not
enough immigrants to do any harm - — after allowance is made
for those who return. The other is that we have no standards
anyway, — at least that there is no one who has a right to speak
for them, as we are all immigrants of a first, or a later, generation.
Both assertions are untenable. There are, in fact, American
standards, transplanted in part by those who founded our
republic, developed in part on our 'own soil, influenced by the
reaction of other standards in other nations, and yet distinctively
American: — standards moral, political, and economic; stand-
ards unique and precious, worth fighting for; worth, if need be,,
dying for; worth preserving at all hazards for ourselves and
our children, and yet not selfishly for our sake and theirs only,
but also as a sacred duty towards mankind ; and these standards
are gravely imperiled by the annual addition of an unsifted
million of newcomers whose standards are different from ours.
We do have a right to assert vigorously the value of our nation
heritage, and, though it may 'seem old-fashioned to say it, we
do have a sacred duty to transmit it unimpaired — which is not
to say unchanged — to our posterity. To some extent this
heritage is one of race. Its creators gave it to us with their blood.
It has been enriched by many crossings of races, but biologists
tell us that mingling within limits is beneficial, beyond those
limits productive only of n mongrel and degenerate breed. Let
no one read into this expression of national responsibility for

1 From The Survey, February 4, 1911.
373

374 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

American standards a shred of bigotry or prejudice against any
of the peoples of the earth. Modern social ideals are neither pro-
vincial nor sectarian. It is precisely because of a passionate
attachment to the true interests of humanity that social workers
may look with profound distrust upon the demand for cheap
immigrant labor. Genuine humane sentiment is not inconsistent
with the maintenance of community and national standards.

Employers of the exploiting type make no mistake, from their
own point of view, when they demand cheap immigrant labor.
. They can figure it out with great precision. They know that as
a rule this labor is less skillful, less intelligent, less efficient, less
inherently desirable, than the native labor or the earlier immi-
grant labor from more closely related peoples. But there are
great compensations. It is the very best labor in one particular.
It can be exploited. That is the whole disagreeable truth in a
nutshell. Lower wages, longer hours, crowded living quarters,
fewer claimants in case of death or injury from accidents, less
trade-union "nonsense," fewer trade disputes, less sympathy
from the disinterested public for the laborer's side when there is
a dispute, less public concern generally as to what is happening
in the mill when the laborers are foreigners. Such are some
of the considerations which turn the balance in favor of immigrant
•labor. The wages demanded are enough lower to give an ample
margin for more effective supervision. The general tendency of
improved machinery is to decrease relatively the demand for
skilled labor, thus permitting the profitable employment of
fresh supplies of entirely unskilled, but physically strong, immi-
grants. Out on the railways of the Northwest the first object
for which immigrants will strike is for the privilege of working
twelve hours instead of ten, and the next is for the privilege of
working on Sunday. In this instance employers, paying by
the hour and not having expensive mills in operation, resist the
demand, for the labor of the eleventh and twelfth hours is rela-
tively unproductive. The men are already exhausted. To
laborers of a higher standard the leisure for physical recuperation
would be worth more than the small addition to their wages.
To these men the money is more important. Here we have a
simple, but perfect, illustration of that conflict of standards to
which the nation as a whole cannot afford to be indifferent.

THE SELECTION OF IMMIGRANTS 375

It is then in the ultimate and in the very immediate interests
of the oppressed and struggling everywhere that America should
maintain her standards. She may give generously from her
surplus. She may enlighten by her example. She may throw her
influence and if necessary exert her might against oppression.
But one thing she may not do : extinguish the light with which
she is to enlighten the world. To lower our own standards is the
only treason. To reduce the position of our workingmen to that
of the communities from which our immigration is coming is to
destroy, perhaps forever, the very power to serve.

There should be no opposition or rivalry between the policy
of selection and the policy of distribution and assimilation by
every practicable device. Both are essential. No restriction
which is at all likely to be adopted will sensibly diminish the
need for such aid both by philanthropy and by government.
Good hard thinking as to how best to assimilate those whom we
already have and those who are certain to come even under a
policy of much more strict selection is of the utmost importance.
Except for the Educational Alliance, the Industrial Removal
Society, and the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants,
there has been almost no instructive experiment and scarcely any
clear thinking on this subject. Let these experiments by all
means.be greatly extended, but let us be modest about calling
any of them as yet a " true solution of the immigration question."
Under the conditions of actual life we shall have to deal in partial
solutions, among which, as we have intimated, the recommenda-
tion of the Immigrant Commission as to restriction deserves
prompt and favorable consideration.

The illiteracy test is crude and unsatisfactory but it is prac-
ticable and humane. As a rule ambitious illiterates desiring to
migrate can overcome this disqualification, and the fact of their
having done so will augur well for their future success in the
land of their adoption.

THE LITERACY TEST: THREE HISTORIC VETOES1
GROVER CLEVELAND

^inO THE HOUSE or REPRESENTATIVES: I hereby return

X without approval House bill No. 7864, entitled "An act to
amend the immigration laws of the United States."

By the first section of this bill it is proposed to amend section
i of the act of March 3, 1891, relating to immigration by adding
to the classes of aliens thereby excluded from admission to the
United States the following :

"All persons physically capable and over 16 years of age who
cannot read and write the English language or some other
language. . . ."

A radical departure from our national policy relating to immi-
grants is here. presented. Heretofore we have welcomed all who
came to us from other lands except these whose moral or physical
condition or history threatened danger to our national welfare
and safety. Relying upon the zealous watchfulness of our people
to prevent injury to our political and social fabric, we have en-
couraged those coming from foreign countries to cast their lot
with us and join in the development of our vast domain, securing
^in return a share in the blessings of American citizenship.

A century's stupendous growth, largely due to the assimilation
and thrift of millions of sturdy and patriotic adopted citizens,
attests the success of this generous and free-handed policy which,
while guarding the people's interests, exacts from our immigrants
only physical and moral soundness and a willingness and ability
to work.

A contemplation of the grand results of this policy cannot fail
to rouse a sentiment in its defense, for however it might have
been regarded as an original proposition and viewed as an
experiment, its accomplishments are such that if it is to be up-
rooted at this late day its disadvantages should be plainly

1 From the Congressional Record, February i, 1917, pp. 2691-2694.

376

THE LITERACY TEST: THREE HISTORIC VETOES 377

apparent and the substitute adopted should be just and adequate,
free from uncertainties, and guarded against difficult or oppressive
administration.

It is not claimed, I believe, that the time has come for the
further restriction of immigration on the ground that an excess
of population overcrowds our land.

It is said, however, that the quality of recent immigration is
undesirable. The time is quite within recent memory when the
same thing was said of immigrants who, with their descendants,
are now numbered among our best citizens.

A careful examination of this bill has convinced me that for the
reasons given and others not specifically stated its provisions are
unnecessarily harsh and oppressive, and that its defects in con-
struction would cause vexation and its operation would result in
harm to our citizens.

THE WHITE HOUSE, MARCH 2, 1897.

WILLIAM H. TAFT
To THE SENATE : I return herewith, without my approval,

s. 3175-

I do this with great reluctance. The bill contains many valu-
able amendments to the present immigration law which will
insure greater certainty in excluding undesirable immigrants.

The bill received strong support in both Houses and was recom-
mended by an able commission after an extended investigation
and carefully drawn conclusions.

But I cannot make up my mind to sign a bill which in its chief
provision violates a principle that ought, in my opinion, to be
upheld in dealing with our immigration. I refer to the literacy
test. For the reasons stated in Secretary Nagel's letter to me, I
cannot approve that test.

THE WHITE HOUSE, FEBRUARY 14, 1913.

WOODROW WILSON

To THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES : It is with unaffected
regret that I find myself constrained by clear conviction to
return this bill (H. R. 6060, "An act to regulate the immigration

378 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

of aliens to and the residence of aliens in the United States")
without my signature. Not only do I feel it to be a very serious
matter to exercise the power of veto in any case, because it in-
volves opposing the single judgment of the President to the judg-
ment of a majority of both the Houses of the Congress, a step
which no man who realizes his own liability to error can take
without great hesitation, but also because this particular bill is
in so many important respects admirable, well conceived, and
desirable. Its enactment into law would undoubtedly enhance
the efficiency and improve the methods of handling the important
branch of the public service to which it relates. But candor and
a sense of duty with regard to the responsibility so clearly im-
posed upon me by the Constitution in matters of legislation leave
me no choice but to dissent.

In two particulars of vital consequence this bill embodies a
radical departure from the traditional and long-established policy
of this country, a policy in which our people have conceived the
very character of their Government to be expressed, the very
mission and spirit of the Nation in respect of its relations to the
peoples of the world outside their borders. It seeks to all but
close entirely the gates of asylum which have always been open
to those who could find nowhere else the right and opportunity of
constitutional agitation for what they conceived to be the natural
and inalienable rights of men ; and it excludes those to whom the
opportunities of elementary education have been denied, without
regard to their character, their purposes, or their natural capacity.

Restrictions like these, adopted earlier in our history as a
Nation, would very materially have altered the course and cooled
the humane ardors of our politics. The right of political asylum
has brought to this country many a man of noble character and
elevated purpose who was marked as an outlaw in his own less
fortunate land, and who has yet become an ornament to our
citizenship and to our public councils. The children and the
compatriots of these illustrious Americans must stand amazed
to see the representatives of their Nation now resolved, in the
fullness of our national stregnth and at the maturity of our great
institutions, to risk turning such men back from our shores with-
out test of quality or purpose. It is difficult for me to believe
that the full effect of this feature of the bill was realized when it

THE LITERACY TEST: THREE HISTORIC VETOES 379

was framed and adopted, and it is impossible for me to assent
to it in the form in which it is here cast.

The literacy test and the tests and restrictions which accompany
it constitute an even more radical change in the policy of the
Nation. Hitherto we have generously kept our doors open to all
who were not unfitted by reason of disease or incapacity for
self-support or such personal records and antecedents as were
likely to make them a menace to our peace and order or to the
wholesome and essential relationships of life. In this bill it is
proposed to turn away from tests of character and of quality and
impose tests which exclude and restrict, for the new tests here
embodied are not tests of quality or of character or of personal
fitness, but tests of opportunity. Those who come seeking oppor-
tunity are not to be admitted unless they have already had one
of the chief of the opportunities they seek, the opportunity of
education. The object of such provisions is restriction, not
selection.

If the people of this country have made up their minds to
limit the number of immigrants by arbitrary tests and so reverse
the policy of all the generations of Americans that have gone
before them, it is their right to do so. I am their servant and
have no license to stand in their way. But I do not believe that
they have. I respectfully submit that no one can quote their
mandate to that effect. Has any political party ever avowed a
policy of restriction of this fundamental matter, gone to the
country on it, and been commissioned to control its legislation?
Does this bill rest upon the conscious and universal assent and
desire of the American people ? I doubt it. It is because I doubt
it that I make bold to dissent from it. I am willing to abide by
the verdict, but not until it has been rendered. Let the platforms
of parties speak out upon this policy and the people pronounce
their wish. The matter is too fundamental to be settled otherwise.

I have no pride of opinion in this question. I am not foolish
enough to profess to know the wishes and ideals of America
better than the body of her chosen representatives know them.
I only want instruction direct from those whose fortunes, with
ours and all men's, are involved.

THE WHITE HOUSE, JANUARY 28, 1915.

-

380 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

I very much regret to return this bill without my signature.

In most of the provisions of the bill I should be very glad to
concur, but! cannot rid myself of the conviction that the literacy
test constitutes a radical change in the policy of the nation which
is not justified in principle. It is not a test of character, of quality,
or of personal fitness, but would operate in most cases merely as
a penalty for lack of opportunity in the country from which the
alien seeking admission came. The opportunity to gain an edu-
^cation is in many cases one of the chief opportunities sought by
the immigrant in coming to the United States, and our experience
in the past has not been that the illiterate immigrant is as such an
undesirable immigrant. Tests of quality and of purpose cannot be
objected to on principle, but tests of opportunity surely may be.

Moreover, even if this test might be equitably insisted on, one
of the exceptions proposed to its application involves a provision
which might lead to very delicate and hazardous diplomatic
situations.

The bill exempts from the operation of the literacy test "all
aliens who shall prove to the satisfaction of the proper immigra-
tion officer or to the Secretary of Labor that they are seeking
admission to the United States to avoid religious persecution in
the country of their last permanent residence, whether such
persecution be evidenced by overt acts or by laws or governmental
regulations that discriminate against the alien or the race to
which he belongs because of his religious faith."

Such a provision, so applied and administered, would oblige the
officer concerned in effect to pass judgment upon the laws and
practices of a foreign government, and declare that they did or did
not constitute religious persecutions. This would, to say the least,
be a most invidious function for any administrative officer of this
Government to perform, and it is not only possible, but probable,
that very serious questions of international justice and comity
would arise between this Government and the government or gov-
ernments thus officially condemned, should its exercise be adopted.

I dare say that these consequences were not in the minds of the
proponents of this provision, but the provision separately and in
itself renders it unwise for me to give my assent to this legislation
in its present form.

THE WHITE HOUSE, JANUARY 29, 1917.

s

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917

AN ACT TO REGULATE THE IMMIGRATION OF ALIENS TO, AND THE
RESIDENCE OF ALIENS IN, THE UNITED STATES

BE IT ENACTED BY THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTA-
TIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN CONGRESS
ASSEMBLED, That the word "alien" wherever used in this Act
shall include any person not a native-born or naturalized citizen
of the United States ; but this definition shall not be held to in-
clude Indians of the United States not. taxed or citizens of the
islands under the jurisdiction of the United States. That the- term
" United States" as used in the title as well as in the various
sections of this Act shall be construed to mean the United States,
and any waters, territory, or other place subject to the jurisdic-
tion thereof, except the Isthmian Canal Zone ; but if any alien
shall leave the Canal Zone or any insular possession of the United
States and attempt to enter any other place under the jurisdic-
tion of the United States, nothing contained in this Act shall be
construed as permitting him to enter under any other conditions
than those applicable to all aliens. That the term " seaman" as
used in this Act shall include every person signed on the ship's
articles and employed in any capacity on board any vessel arriv-
ing in the United States from any foreign port or place.

That this Act shall be enforced in the Philippine Islands by
officers of the general government thereof, unless and until it is
superseded by an act passed by the Philippine Legislature and
approved by the President of the United States to regulate
immigration in the Philippine Islands as authorized in the Act
entitled "An Act to declare the purpose of the people of the
United States as to the future political status of the people of the
Philippine Islands, and to provide a more autonomous govern-
ment for those islands," approved August twenty-ninth, nineteen
hundred and sixteen.

SEC. 2. That there shall be levied, collected, and paid a tax of
$8 for every alien, including alien seamen regularly admitted as

381

382 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

provided in this Act, entering the United States : Provided, That
children under sixteen years of age who accompany their father
or their mother shall not be subject to said tax. The said tax
shall be paid to the collector of customs of the port or customs
district to which said alien shall come, or, if there be no collector
at such port or district, then to the collector nearest thereto, by
the master, agent, owner, or consignee of the vessel, trans-
portation line, or other conveyance or vehicle bringing such alien
to the United States, or by the alien himself if he does not come
by a vessel, transportation line, or other conveyance or vehicle
or when collection from the master, agent, owner, or consignee
of the vessel, transportation line, or other conveyance, or vehicle
bringing such alien to the United States is impracticable. The
tax imposed by this section shall be a lien upon the vessel or other
vehicle of carriage or transportation bringing such aliens to the
United States, and shall be a debt in favor of the United States
against the owner or owners of such vessel or other vehicle, and
the payment of such tax may be enforced by any legal or equi-
table remedy. That the said tax shall not be levied on account
of aliens who enter the United States after an uninterrupted
residence of at least one year immediately preceding such entrance
in the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, the Republic of
Cuba, or the Republic of Mexico, for a temporary stay, nor on
account of otherwise admissible residents or citizens of any
possession of the United States, nor on account of aliens in transit
through the United States, nor upon aliens who have been law-
fully admitted to the United States and who later shall go in
transit from one part of the United States to another through
foreign contiguous territory, and the Commissioner General of
Immigration with the approval of the Secretary of Labor shall
issue rules and regulations and prescribe the conditions neces-
sary to prevent abuse of these exceptions : Provided, That the
Commissioner-General of Immigration, under the direction or
with the approval of the Secretary of Labor, by agreement with
transportation lines, as provided in section twenty-three of this
Act, may arrange in some other manner for the payment of the
tax imposed by this section upon any or all aliens seeking ad-
mission from foreign contiguous territory : Provided further,
That said tax, when levied upon aliens entering the Philippine

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 383

Islands, shall be paid into the treasury of said islands, to be
expended for the benefit of such islands : Provided further, That
in the cases of aliens applying for admission from foreign con-
tiguous territory and rejected, the head tax collected shall upon
application, upon a blank which shall be furnished and explained
to him, be refunded to the alien.

SEC. 3. That the following classes of aliens shall be excluded
from admission into the United States: All idiots, imbeciles,
feeble-minded persons, epileptics, insane persons ; persons who
have had one or more attacks of insanity at any time previously ;
persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority ; persons with
chronic alcoholism ; paupers ; professional beggars ; vagrants ;
persons afflicted with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome
or dangerous contagious disease ; persons not comprehended
within any of the foregoing excluded classes who are found to be
and are certified by the examining surgeon as being mentally or
physically defective, such physical defect being of a nature which
may affect the ability of such alien to earn a living ; persons who
have been convicted of or admit having committed a felony or
other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude; po-
lygamists, or persons who practice polygamy or believe in or
advocate the practice of polygamy ; anarchists, or persons who
believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the
Government of the United States, or of all forms of law, or who
disbelieve in or are opposed to organized government, or who
advocate the assassination of public officials, or who advocate
or teach the unlawful destruction of property ; persons who are
members of or affiliated with any organization entertaining and
teaching disbelief in or opposition to organized government, or
who advocate or teach the duty, necessity, or propriety of the
unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers, either of
specific individuals or of officers generally, of the Government of
the United States or of any other organized government, because
of his or their official character, or who advocate or teach the
unlawful destruction of property ; prostitutes, or persons coming
into the United States for the purpose of prostitution or for any
other immoral purpose ; persons who directly or indirectly pro-
cure or attempt to procure or import prostitutes or persons for
the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose;

384 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

persons who are supported by or receive in whole or in part the
proceeds of prostitution; persons hereinafter called contract
laborers, who have been induced, assisted, encouraged, or solicited
to migrate to this country by offers or promises of employment,
whether such offers or promises are true or false, or in consequence
of agreements, oral, written or printed, express or implied, to
perform labor in this country of any kind, skilled or unskilled ;
persons who have come in consequence of advertisements for
laborers printed, published, or distributed in a foreign country;
persons likely to become a public charge ; persons who have been
deported under any of the provisions of this Act, and who may
again seek admission within one year from the date of such
deportation, unless prior to their reembarkation at a foreign
port or their attempt to be admitted from foreign contiguous
territory the Secretary of Labor shall have consented to their
reapplying for admission; persons whose tickets or passage is
paid for with the money of another, or who are assisted by others
to come, unless it is affirmatively and satisfactorily shown that
such persons do not belong to one of the foregoing excluded
classes ; persons whose ticket or passage is paid for by any
corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign Govern-
ment, either directly or indirectly ; stowaways, except that any
such stowaway, if otherwise admissible, may be admitted in the
discretion of the Secretary of Labor ; all children under sixteen
years of age, unaccompanied by or not coming to one or both
of their parents, except that any such children may, in the dis-
cretion of the Secretary of Labor, be admitted if in his opinion
they are not likely to become a public charge and are otherwise
eligible; unless otherwise provided for by existing treaties,
persons who are natives of islands not possessed by the United
States adjacent to the Continent of Asia, situate south of the
twentieth parallel latitude north, west of the one hundred and
sixtieth meridian of longitude east from Greenwich, and north
of the tenth parallel of latitude south, or who are natives of any
country, province, or dependency situate on the Continent of
Asia west of the one hundred and tenth meridian of longitude
east from Greenwich and east of the fiftieth meridian of longitude
east from Greenwich and south of the fiftieth parallel of latitude
north, except that portion of said territory situate between the

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 385

fiftieth and the sixty-fourth meridians of longitude east from
Greenwich and the twenty-fourth and thirty-eighth parallels of
latitude north, and no alien now in any way excluded from, or
prevented from entering, the United States shall be admitted to
the United States. The provision next foregoing, however, shall
not apply to persons of the following status or occupations:
Government officers, ministers or religious teachers, missionaries,
lawyers, physicians, chemists, civil engineers, teachers, students,
authors, artists, merchants, and travelers for curiosity or pleasure
nor to their legal wives or their children under sixteen years of
age who shall accompany them or who subsequently may apply
for admission to the United States, but such persons or their
legal wives or foreign-born children who fail to maintain in the
United States a status or occupation placing them within the
excepted classes shall be deemed to be in the United States
contrary to law, and shall be subject to deportation as provided
in section nineteen of this Act.

That after three months from the passage of this Act, in addi-
tion to the aliens who are by law now excluded from admission
into the United States, the following persons shall also be
excluded from admission thereto, to wit:

All aliens over sixteen years of age, physically capable of read-
ing, who cannot read the English language, or some other lan-
guage or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish : Provided, That
any admissible alien, or any alien heretofore or hereafter legally
admitted, -or any citizen of the United States, may bring in or
send for his father or grandfather over fifty-five years of age,
his wife, his mother, his grandmother, or his unmarried or
widowed daughter, if otherwise admissible, whether such relative
can read or not ; and such relative shall be permitted to enter.
That for the purpose of ascertaining whether aliens can read the
immigrant inspectors shall be furnished with slips of uniform
size, prepared under the direction of the Secretary of Labor, each
containing not less than thirty nor more than forty words in
ordinary use, printed in plainly legible type in some one of the
various languages or dialects of immigrants. Each alien may
designate the particular language or dialect in which he desires
the examination to be made, and shall be required to read the
words printed on the slip in such language or dialect. That the

386 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

following classes of persons shall be exempt from the operation of
the illiteracy test, to wit : All aliens who shall prove to the satis-
faction of the proper immigration officer or to the Secretary of
Labor that they are seeking admission to the United States to
avoid religious persecution in the country of their last permanent
residence, whether such persecution be evidenced by overt acts
or by laws or governmental regulations that discriminate against
the alien or the race to which he belongs because of his religious
faith ; all aliens who have been lawfully admitted to the United
States and who have resided therein continuously for five years
and who return to the United States within six months from the
date of their departure therefrom; all aliens in transit through
the United States; all aliens who have been lawfully admitted
to the United States and who later shall go in transit from one
part of the United States to another through foreign contiguous
territory: Provided, That nothing in this Act shall exclude, if
otherwise admissible, persons convicted, or who admit the com-
mission, or who teach or advocate the commission, of an offense
purely political : Provided further, That the provisions of this
Act, relating to the payments for tickets or passage by any
corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign Govern-
ment shall not apply to the tickets or passage of aliens in imme-
diate and continuous transit through the United States to foreign
contiguous territory : Provided further, That skilled labor, if
otherwise admissible, may be imported if labor of like kind un-
employed cannot be found in this country, and the question of
the necessity of importing such skilled labor in any particular
instance may be determined by the Secretary of Labor upon the
application of any person interested, such application to be made
before such importation, and such determination by the Secretary
of Labor to be reached after a full hearing and an investigation
into the facts of the case : Provided further, That the provisions of
this law applicable to contract labor shall not be held to exclude
professional actors, artists, lecturers, singers, nurses, ministers of
any religious denomination, professors for colleges or seminaries,
persons belonging to any recognized learned profession, or persons
employed as domestic servants : Provided further, That whenever
the President shall be satisfied that passports issued by any
foreign Government to its citizens or subjects to go to any country

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 387

other than the United States, or to any insular possession of the
United States or to the Canal Zone, are being used for the pur-
pose of enabling the holder to come to the continental territory
of the United States to the detriment of labor conditions therein,
the President shall refuse to permit such citizens or subjects of
the country issuing such passports to enter the continental terri-
tory of the United States from such other country or from such
insular possession or from the Canal Zone : Provided further,
That aliens returning after a temporary 'absence to an unrelin-
quished United States domicile of seven consecutive years may
be admitted in the discretion of the Secretary of Labor, and under
such conditions as he may prescribe : Provided further, That noth-
ing in the contract-labor or reading-test provisions of this Act
shall be construed to prevent, hinder, or restrict any alien
exhibitor, or holder of concession or privilege for any fair or
exposition authorized by Act of Congress, from bringing into the
United States, under contract, such otherwise admissible alien
mechanics, artisans, agents, or other employees, natives of his
country as may be necessary for installing or conducting his
exhibit or for preparing for installing or conducting any business
authorized or permitted under any concession or privilege which
may have been or may be granted by any such fair or exposition
in connection therewith, under such rules and regulations as the
Commissioner- General of Immigration, with the approval of the
Secretary of Labor, may prescribe both as to the admission and
return of such persons : Provided further, That the Commissioner-
General of Immigration with the approval of the Secretary of
Labor shall issue rules and prescribe conditions, including
exaction of such bonds as may be necessary, to control and regu-
late the admission and return of otherwise inadmissible aliens
applying for temporary admission : Provided further -, That nothing
in this Act shall be construed to apply to accredited officials of
foreign Governments, nor to their suites, families, or guests.

SEC. 4. That the importation into the United States of any
alien for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other immoral
purpose, is hereby forbidden ; and whoever shall, directly or in-
directly, import, or attempt to import into the United States
any alien for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral
purpose, or shall hold or attempt to hold any alien for any such

388 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

purpose in pursuance of such illegal importation, or shall keep,
maintain, control, support, employ, or harbor in any house or
other place, for the purpose of prostitution or for any other im-
moral purpose, any alien, in pursuance of such illegal importation
shall in every such case be deemed guilty of a felony, and on
conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for a
term of not more than ten years and by a fine of not more than
$5000. Jurisdiction for the trial and punishment of the felonies
hereinbefore set forth shall be in any district to or into which
said alien is brought in pursuance of said importation by the
person or persons accused, or in any .district in which a violation
of any of the foregoing provisions of this section occurs. That
any alien who shall, after he has been excluded and deported or
arrested and deported in pursuance of the provisions of this Act
which relate to prostitutes, procurers, or other like immoral
persons, attempt thereafter to return to or to enter the United
States shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and on con-
viction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of
not more than two years. In all prosecutions under this section
the testimony of a husband or wife shall be admissible and com-
petent evidence against each other.

SEC. 5. That it shall be unlawful for any person, company,
partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever, to pre-
pay the transportation or in any way to induce, assist, encourage,
or solicit, or attempt to induce, assist, encourage, or solicit the
importation or migration of any contract laborer or contract
laborers into the United States, unless such contract laborer or
contract laborers are exempted under the fifth proviso of section
three of this Act, or have been imported with the permission
of the Secretary of Labor in accordance with the fourth proviso
of said section, and for every violation of any of the provisions
of this section the person, partnership, company, or corporation
violating the same shall forfeit and pay for every such offense
the sum of $1000, which may be sued for and recovered by the
United States, as debts of like amount are now recovered in the
courts of the United States. For every violation of the provisions
hereof the person violating the same may be prosecuted in a
criminal action for a misdemeanor, and on conviction thereof
shall be punished by a fine of $1000 or by imprisonment for

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 389

a term of not less than six months nor more than two years;
and under either the civil or the criminal procedure mentioned
separate suits or prosecutions may be brought for each alien
thus offered or promised employment as aforesaid. The Depart-
ment of Justice, with the approval of the Department of Labor,
may from any fines or penalties received pay rewards to persons
other than Government employees who may furnish information
leading to the recovery of any such penalties, or to the arrest and
punishment of any person, as in this section provided.

SEC. 6. That it shall be unlawful and be deemed a violation
of section five of this Act to induce, assist, encourage, or solicit
or attempt to induce, assist, encourage, or solicit any alien to come
into the United States by promise of employment through adver-
tisements printed, published, or distributed in any foreign
country, whether such promise is true or false, and either the
civil or criminal penalty or both imposed by said section shall be
applicable to such a case.

SEC. 7. That it shall be unlawful for any person, association,
society, company, partnership, corporation, or others engaged in
the business of transporting aliens to or within the United States,
including owners, masters, officers, and agents of vessels, directly
or indirectly, by writing, printing, oral representation, payment
of any commissions to an alien coming into the United States,
allowance of any rebates to an alien coming into the United
States, or otherwise to solicit, invite, or encourage or attempt to
solicit, invite, or encourage any alien to come into the United
States, and any one violating any provision hereof shall be subject
to either the civil or the criminal prosecution, or both, prescribed
by section five of this Act ; or if it shall appear to the satisfaction
of the Secretary of Labor that any owner, master, officer, or
agent of a vessel has brought or caused to be brought to a port
of the United States any alien so solicited, invited, or encouraged
to come by such owner, master, officer, or agent, such owner,
master, officer, or agent shall pay to the collector of customs of
the customs district in which the port of arrival is located, or in
which any vessel of the line may be found, the sum of $400
for each and every such violation ; and no vessel shall be granted
clearance pending the determination of the question of the
liability to the payment of such fine, or while the fine imposed

3QO IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

remains unpaid, nor shall such fine be remitted or refunded :
Provided, That clearance may be granted prior to the deter-
mination of such questions upon the deposit with the collector of
customs of a sum sufficient to cover such fine : Provided further,
that whenever it shall be shown to the satisfaction of the
Secretary of Labor that the provisions of this section are per-
sistently violated by or on behalf of any transportation com-
pany, it shall be the duty of said Secretary to deny to such
company the privilege of landing alien immigrant passengers of
any or all classes at United States ports for such a period as in
his judgment may be necessary to insure an observance of such
provisions : Provided further, That this section shall not be held
to prevent transportation companies from issuing letters, circu-
lars, or advertisements, confined strictly to stating the sailing
of their vessels and terms and facilities of transportation therein :
Provided further, That under sections five, six, and seven hereof
it shall be presumed from the fact that any person, company,
partnership, corporation, association, or society induces, assists,
encourages, solicits or invites, or attempts to induce, assist,
encourage, solicit or invite the importation, migration or coming
of an alien from a country foreign to the United States, that the
offender had knowledge of such person's alienage.

SEC. 8. That any person, including the master, agent, owner,
or consignee of any vessel, who shall bring into or land in the
United States, by vessel or otherwise, or shall attempt, by himself
or through another, to bring into or land in the United States,
by vessel or otherwise, or shall conceal or harbor, or attempt to
conceal or harbor, or assist or abet another to conceal or harbor
in any place, including any building, vessel, railway car, convey-
ance, or vehicle, any alien not duly admitted by an immigrant
inspector or not lawfully entitled to enter or to reside within the
United States under the terms of this Act, shall be deemed guilty
of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished
by a fine not exceeding $2000 and by imprisonment for a term not
exceeding five years, for each and every alien so landed or brought
in or attempted to be landed or brought in.

SEC. 9. That it shall be unlawful for any person, including
any transportation company other than railway lines entering the
United States from foreign contiguous territory, or the owner,

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 391

master, agent, or consignee of any vessel to bring to the United
States either from a foreign country or any insular possession
of the United States any alien afflicted with idiocy, insanity, im-
becility, feeble-mindedness, epilepsy, constitutional psychopathic
inferiority, chronic alcoholism, tuberculosis in any form, or a
loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, and if it shall appear
to the satisfaction of the Secretary of Labor that any alien so
brought to the United States was afflicted with any of the said
diseases or disabilities at the time of foreign embarkation, and
that the existence of such disease or disability might have been
detected by means of a competent medical examination at such
time, such person or transportation company, or the master,
agent, owner, or consignee of any such vessel shall pay to the
collector of customs of the customs district in which the port
of arrival is located the sum of $200, a*d in addition a sum
equal to that paid by such alien for his transportation from the
initial point of departure, indicated in his ticket, to the port of
arrival for each and every violation of the provisions of this
section, such latter sum to be delivered by the collector of customs
to the alien on whose account assessed .fit shall also be unlawful k
for any such person to bring to any pofT"of the United States
any alien afflicted with any mental defect other than those
above specifically named, or physical defect of a nature which
may affect his ability to earn a living, as contemplated in sec-
tion three of this Act, and if it shall appear to the satisfaction of
the Secretary of Labor that any alien so brought to the United
States was so afflicted at the time of foreign embarkation, and
that the existence of such mental or physical defect might have
been detected by means of a competent medical examination at
such time, such person shall pay to the collector of customs of the
customs district in which the port of arrival is located the sum
of $25, and in addition a sum equal to that paid by such alien for
his transportation from the initial point of departure, indicated
in his ticket, to the port of arrival, for each and every violation
of this provision, such latter sum to be deli veredj^y the collector
of customs to the alien for whose account assessecOlt shall also
be unlawful for any such person to bring to any port of the
United States any alien who is excluded by the provisions of
section three of this Act because unable to read, or who is

392 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

excluded by the terms of section three of this Act as a native of
that portion of the Continent of Asia and the islands adjacent
thereto described in said section, and if it shall appear to the
satisfaction of the Secretary of Labor that these disabilities might
have been detected by the exercise of reasonable precaution
prior to the departure of such aliens from a foreign port, such
person shall pay to the collector of customs of the customs district
in which the port of arrival is located the sum of $200, and in
addition a sum equal to that paid by such alien for his trans-
portation from the initial point of departure, indicated in his
ticket, to the port of arrival, for each and every violation of
this provision, such latter sum to be delivered by the collector
of customs to the alien on whose account assessed. And no
vessel shall be gran ted clearance papers pending the determination
of the question of the liability to the payment of such fines, or
while the fines remain unpaid, nor shall such fines be remitted
or refunded : Provided, That clearance may be granted prior to
the determination of such questions upon the deposit of a sum
sufficient to cover such fines : Provided further, That nothing
contained in this section shall be construed to subject trans-
portation companies to a fine for bringing to ports of the United
States aliens who are by any of the provisos or exceptions to
section three hereof exempted from the excluding provisions
of said section.

SEC. 10. That it shall be the duty of every person, including
owners, officers, and agents of vessels or transportation lines, or
international bridges or toll roads, other than railway lines
which may enter into a contract as provided in section twenty-
three of this Act, bringing an alien to, or providing a means for
an alien to come to, any seaport or land border port of the United
States, to prevent the landing of such alien in the United States at
any time or place other than as designated by the immigration
officers, and the failure of any such person, owner, officer, or
agent to comply with the foregoing requirements shall be deemed
a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by
a fine in each case of not less than $200 nor more than $1000,
or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or by
both such fine and imprisonment; or, if in the opinion of the
Secretary of Labor it is impracticable or inconvenient to prosecute

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 393

the person, owner, master, officer, or agent of any such vessel, a
penalty of $1000 shall be a lien upon the vessel whose owner,
master, officer, or agent violates the provisions of this section,
and such vessel shall be libeled therefor in the appropriate
United States court.

SEC. ii. That for the purpose of determining whether aliens
arriving at ports of the United States belong to any of the classes
excluded by this Act, either by reason of being afflicted with
any of £he diseases or mental or physical defects or disabilities
mentioned in section three hereof, or otherwise, or whenever
the Secretary of Labor has received information showing that
any aliens are coming from a country or have embarked at a
place where any of said diseases are prevalent or epidemic, the
Commissioner- General of Immigration, with the approval of the
Secretary of Labor, may direct that such aliens shall be detained
on board the vessel bringing them, or in a United States immi-
gration station at the expense of such vessel, as circumstances
may require or justify, a sufficient time to enable the immigra-
tion officers and medical officers stationed at such ports to subject
aliens to an observation and examination sufficient to determine
whether or not they belong to the said excluded classes by reason
of being afflicted in the manner indicated : Provided, That,
with a view to avoid undue delay in landing passengers or inter-
ference with commerce, the Commissioner-General of Immigration
may, with the approval of the Secretary of Labor, issue such
regulations, not inconsistent with law, as may be deemed neces-
sary to effect the purposes of this section : Provided further,
That it shall be the duty of immigrant inspectors to report to
the Commissioner- General of Immigration the condition of all
vessels bringing aliens to United States ports.

SEC. na. That the Secretary of Labor is hereby authorized
and directed to enter into negotiations, through the Department
of State, with countries vessels of which bring aliens to the United
States, with a view to detailing inspectors and matrons of the
United States Immigration Service for duty on vessels carrying
immigrant or emigrant passengers between foreign ports and
ports of the United States. When such inspectors and matrons
are detailed for said duty they shall remain in that part of the
vessel where immigrant passengers are carried ; and it shall be

394 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

their duty to observe such passengers during the voyage and
report to the immigration authorities in charge of the port of
landing any information of value in determining the admissibility
of such passengers that may have become known to them during
the voyage.

SEC. 12. That upon the arrival of any alien by water at any
port within the United States on the North American Continent
from a foreign port or a port of the Philippine Islands, Guam,
Porto Rico, or Hawaii, or at any port of the said insular posses-
sions from any foreign port, from a port in the United States on
the North American Continent, or from a port of another insular
possession of the United States, it shall be the duty of the master
or commanding officer, owners, or consignees of the steamer, sail-
ing, or other vessel having said alien on board to deliver to the
immigration officers at the port of arrival typewritten or printed
lists or manifests made at the time and place of embarkation of
such alien on board such steamer or vessel, which shall, in answer
to questions at the top of said list, contain full and accurate in-
formation as to each alien as follows : Full name, age, and sex ;
whether married or single; calling or occupation; personal
description (including height, complexion, color of hair and eyes,
and marks of identification) ; whether able to read or write ;
nationality ; country of birth ; race ; country of last permanent
residence ; name and address of the nearest relative in the country
from which the alien came ; seaport for landing in the United
States; final destination, if any, beyond the port of landing;
whether having a ticket through to such final destination; by
whom passage was paid ; whether in possession of $50, and if
less, how much ; whether going to join a relative or friend, and,
if so, what relative or friend, and his or her name and complete
address; whether ever before in the United States, and if so,
when and where; whether ever in prison or almshouse or an
institution or hospital for the care and treatment of the insane ;
whether ever supported by charity; whether a polygamist;
whether an anarchist; whether a person who believes in or
advocates the overthrow by force or violence of the Government
of the United States or of all forms of law, or who disbelieves in
or is opposed to organized government, or who advocates the
assassination of public officials, or who advocates or teaches the

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 395

unlawful destruction of property, or is a member of or affiliated
with any organization entertaining and teaching disbelief in or
opposition to organized government, or which teaches the unlaw-
ful destruction of property, or who advocates or teaches the duty,
necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any
officer or officers, either of specific individuals or of officers
generally, of the Government of the United States or of any other
organized government because of his or their official character;
whether coming by reason of any offer, solicitation, promise, or
agreement, express or implied, to perform labor in the United
States; the alien's condition of health, mental and physical;
whether deformed or crippled, and if so, for how long and from
what cause; whether coming with the intent to return to the
country whence such alien comes after temporarily engaging in
laboring pursuits in the United States ; and such other items of
information as will aid in determining whether any such alien
belongs to any of the excluded classes enumerated in section three
hereof ; and such master or commanding officer, owners, or con-
signees shall also furnish information in relation to the sex, age,
class of travel, and the foreign port of embarkation of arriving
passengers who are United States citizens. That it shall further
be the duty of the master or commanding officer of every vessel
taking passengers from any port of the United States on the
North American Continent to a foreign port or a port of the
Philippine Islands, Guam, Porto Rico, or Hawaii, or from any
port of the said insular possessions to any foreign port, to a
port of the United States on the North American Continent, or
to a port of another insular possession of the United States to
file with the immigration officials before departure a list which
shall contain full and accurate information in relation to the
following matters regarding all alien passengers, and all citizens
of the United States or insular possessions of the United States
departing with the stated intent to reside permanently in a foreign
country, taken on board : Name, age, and sex ; whether married
or single ; calling or occupation ; whether able to read or write ;
nationality ; country of birth ; country of which citizen or
subject; race; last permanent residence in the United States
or insular possession thereof; if a citizen of the United States
or of the insular possessions thereof, whether native born or

3Q6 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

naturalized; if native born, the place and date of birth, or if
naturalized the city or town in which naturalization has been
had ; intended future permanent residence ; and time and port
of last arrival in the United States, or insular possessions thereof ;
and such master or commanding officer shall also furnish in-
formation in relation to the sex, age, class of travel, and port
of debarkation of the United States citizens departing who do
not intend to reside permanently in a foreign country, and no
master of any such vessel shall be granted clearance papers for
his vessel until he has deposited such list or lists with the immi-
gration officials at the port of departure and made oath that they
are full and complete as to the name and other information
herein required concerning each person of the classes specified
taken on board his vessel ; and any neglect or omission to comply
with the requirements of this section shall be punishable as
provided in section fourteen of this Act : Provided, That in the
case of vessels making regular trips to ports of the United
States the Commissioner-General of Immigration, with the
approval of the Secretary of Labor, may, when expedient, arrange
for the delivery of such lists of outgoing aliens at a later date :
Provided further, That it shall be the duty of immigration officials
to record the following information regarding every resident alien
and citizen leaving the United States by way of the Canadian or
Mexican borders for permanent residence in a foreign country :
Name, age, and sex; whether married or single; calling or
occupation ; whether able to read or write ; nationality ; country
of birth ; country of which citizen or subject ; race ; last perma-
nent residence in the United States ; intended future permanent
residence ; and time and port of last arrival in the United States ;
and if a United States citizen, whether native born or naturalized.
SEC. 13. That all aliens arriving by water at the ports of the
United States shall be listed in convenient groups, the names of
those coming from the same locality to be assembled so far as prac-
ticable, and no one list or manifest shall contain more than thirty
names. To each alien or head of a family shall be given a ticket on
which shall be written his name, a number or letter designating the
list in which his name, and other items of information required by
this Act, are contained, and his number on said list, for con-
venience of identification on arrival. Each list or manifest shall be

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 397

verified by the signature and the oath or affirmation t)f the master
or commanding officer, or the first or second below him in
command, taken before an immigration officer at the port of
arrival, to the effect that he has caused the surgeon of said vessel
sailing therewith to make a physical and mental examination of
each of said aliens, and that from the report of said surgeon and
from his own investigation he believes that no one of said aliens
is of any of the classes excluded from admission into the United
States by section three of this Act, and that also according to the
best of his knowledge and belief the information in said lists or
manifests concerning each of said aliens named therein is correct
and true in every respect. That the surgeon of said vessel
sailing therewith shall also sign each of said lists or manifests
and make oath or affirmation in like manner before an immigra-
tion officer at the port of arrival, stating his professional expe-
rience and qualifications as a physician and surgeon, and that
he has made a personal examination of each of the said aliens
named therein, and that the said list or manifest, according to the
best of his knowledge and belief, is full, correct, and true in all
particulars relative to the mental and, physical condition of said
aliens. If no surgeon sails with any vessel bringing aliens, the
mental and physical examinations and the verifications of the
lists or manifests shall be made by some competent surgeon
employed by the owners of the said vessels, and the manifests
shall be verified by such surgeon before a United States consular
officer or other officer authorized to administer oaths : Provided,
That if any changes in the condition of such aliens occur or
develop during the voyage of the vessel on which they are
traveling, such changes shall be noted on the manifest before
the verification thereof.

SEC. 14. That it shall be unlawful for the master or command-
ing officer of any vessel bringing aliens into or carrying aliens
out of the United States to refuse or fail to deliver to the immi-
gration officials the accurate and full manifests or statements or
information regarding all aliens on board or taken on board such
vessel required by this Act, and if it shall appear to the satis-
faction of the Secretary of Labor that there has been such a
refusal or failure, or that the lists delivered are not accurate and
full, such master or commanding officer shall pay to the collector

398 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

of customs at the port of arrival or departure the sum of $10 for
each alien concerning whom such accurate and full manifest or
statement or information is not furnished, or concerning whom
the manifest or statement or information is not prepared and
sworn to as prescribed by this Act. No vessel shall be granted
clearance pending the determination of the question of the
liability to the payment of such fine, or while it remains unpaid,
nor shall such fine be remitted or refunded: Provided, That
clearance may be granted prior to the determination of such
question upon the deposit with the collector of customs of a sum
sufficient to cover such fine.

SEC. 15. That upon the arrival at a port of the United States
of any vessel bringing aliens it shall be the duty of the proper
immigration officials to go or to send competent assistants to the
vessel and there inspect all such aliens, or said immigration
officials may order a temporary removal of such aliens for
examination at a designated time and place, but such temporary
removal shall not be considered a landing, nor shall it relieve
vessels, the transportation lines, masters, agents, owners, or
consignees of the vessel upon which said aliens are brought to
any port of the United States from any of the obligations which,
in case such aliens remain on board, would under the provisions
of this Act bind the said vessels, transportation lines, masters,
agents, owners, or consignees : Provided, That where removal is
made to premises owned or controlled by the United States, said
vessels, transportation lines, masters, agents, owners, or con-
signees, and each of them, shall, so long as detention there lasts,
be relieved of responsibility for the safekeeping of such aliens.
Whenever a temporary removal of aliens is made the vessels or
transportation lines which brought them and the masters,
owners, agents, and consignees of the vessel upon which they
arrive shall pay all expenses of such removal and all expenses
arising during subsequent detention, pending decision on the
aliens' eligibility to enter the United States and until they are
either allowed to land or returned to the care of the line or to the
vessel which brought them, such expenses to include those of
maintenance, medical treatment in hospital or elsewhere, burial
in the event of death, and transfer to the vessel in the event of
deportation, excepting only where they arise under the terms of

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 399

any of the provisos of section eighteen hereof. Any refusal or
failure to comply with the provisions hereof shall be punished
in the manner specified in section eighteen of this Act.
. SEC. 16. That the physical and mental examination of all
arriving aliens shall be made by medical officers of the United
States Public Health Service who shall have had at least two
years' experience in the practice of their profession since receiving
the degree of doctor of medicine, and who shall conduct all
medical examinations and shall certify, for the information of the
immigration officers and the boards of special inquiry hereinafter
provided for, any and all physical and mental defects or diseases
observed by said medical officers in any such alien ; or, should
medical officers of the United States Public Health Service be not
available, civil surgeons of not less than four years' professional
experience may be employed in such emergency for such service
upon such terms as may be prescribed by the Commissioner-
General of Immigration, under the direction or with the approval
of the Secretary of Labor. All aliens arriving at ports of the
United States shall be examined by not less than two such
medical officers at the discretion of the Secretary of Labor, and
under such administrative regulations as he may prescribe and
under medical regulations prepared by the Surgeon- General of the
United States Public Health Service. Medical officers of the
United States Public Health Service who have had especial
training in the diagnosis of insanity and mental defects shall be
detailed for duty or employed at all ports of entry designated
by the Secretary of Labor, and such medical officers shall be
provided with suitable facilities for the detention and examination
of all arriving aliens in whom insanity or mental defect is sus-
pected, and the services of interpreters shall be provided for
such examination. Any alien certified for insanity or mental
defect may appeal to the board of medical officers of the United
States Public Health Service, which shall be convened by the
Surgeon-General of the United States Public Health Service, and
said alien may introduce before such board one expert medical
witness at his own cost and expense. That the inspection, other
than the physical and mental examination, of aliens, including
those seeking admission or readmission to or the privilege of
passing through or residing in the United States, and the

400 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

examination of aliens arrested within the United States under
this Act, shall be conducted by immigrant inspectors, except as
hereinafter provided in regard to boards of special inquiry. All
aliens arriving at ports of the United States shall be examined
by at least two immigrant inspectors at the discretion of the Sec-
retary of Labor and under such regulations as he may prescribe.
Immigrant inspectors are hereby authorized and empowered to
board and search for aliens any vessel, railway car, or any other
conveyance, or vehicle in which they believe aliens are being
brought into the United States. Said inspectors shall have power
to administer oaths and to take and consider evidence touching
the right of any alien to enter, reenter, pass through, or reside in
the United States, and, where such action may be necessary, to
make a written record of such evidence ; and any person to whom
such an oath has been administered, under the provisions of this
Act, who shall knowingly or willfully give false evidence or swear
to any false statement in any way affecting or in relation to the
right of any alien to admission, or readmission to, or to pass
through, or to reside in the United States shall be deemed guilty
of perjury and be punished as provided by section one hundred
and twenty-five of the Act approved March fourth, nineteen
hundred and nine, entitled " An Act to codify, revise, and amend
the penal laws of the United States." All aliens coming to the
United States shall be required to state under oath the purposes
for which they come, the length of time they intend to remain in
the United States, whether or not they intend to abide in the
United States permanently and become citizens thereof, and
such other items of information regarding themselves as will aid
the immigration officials in determining whether they belong to
any of the excluded classes enumerated in section three hereof.
Any commissioner of immigration or inspector in charge shall
also have power to require by subpoena the attendance and tes-
timony of witnesses before said inspectors and the production of
books, papers, and documents touching the right of any alien
to enter, reenter, reside in, or pass through the United States,
and to that end may invoke the aid of any court of the United
States ; and any district court within the jurisdiction of which
investigations are being conducted by an immigrant inspector
may, in the event of neglect or refusal to respond to a subpoena

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 . 401

issued by any commissioner of immigration or inspector in
charge or refusal to testify before said immigrant inspector, issue
an order requiring such person to appear before said immigrant
inspector, produce books, papers, and documents if demanded,
and testify ; and any failure to obey such order of the court may
be punished by the court as a contempt thereof. That any
person, including employees, officials, or agents of transportation
companies, who shall assault, resist, prevent, impede, or inter-
fere with any immigration official or employee in the performance
of his duty under this Act shall be deemed guilty of a misde-
meanor, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by imprison-
ment for a term of not more than one year, or by a fine of not
more than $2000, or both ; and any person who shall use any
deadly or dangerous weapon in resisting any immigration official
or employee in the performance of his duty shall be deemed guilty
of a felony and shall, on conviction thereof, be punished by im-
prisonment for not more than ten years. Every alien who may
not appear to the examining immigrant inspector at the port of
arrival to be clearly and beyond a doubt entitled to land shall be
detained for examination in relation thereto by a board of special
inquiry. In the event of rejection by the board of special inquiry,
in all cases where an appeal to the Secretary of Labor is permitted
by this Act, the alien shall be so informed and shall have the
right to be represented by counsel or other adviser on such
appeal. The decision of an immigrant inspector, if favorable
to the admission of any alien, shall be subject to challenge by
any other immigrant inspector, and such challenge shall operate
to take the alien whose right to land is so challenged before a
board of special inquiry for its investigation.

SEC. 17. That boards of special inquiry shall be appointed
by the commissioner of immigration or inspector in charge at
the various ports of arrival as may be necessary for the prompt
determination of all cases of immigrants detained at such ports
under the provisions of the law. Each board shall consist of three
members, who shall be selected from such of the immigrant
officials in the service as the Commissioner General of Immigra-
tion, with the approval of the Secretary of Labor, shall from time
to time designate as qualified to serve on such boards. When in
the opinion of the Secretary of Labor the maintenance of a

402 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

permanent board of special inquiry for service at any sea or land
border port is not warranted, regularly constituted boards may
be detailed from other stations for temporary service at such port,
or, if that be impracticable, the Secretary of Labor shall authorize
the creation of boards of special inquiry by the immigration
officials in charge. of such ports, and shall determine what Gov-
ernment officials or other persons shall be eligible for service on
such boards. Such boards shall have authority to determine
whether an alien who has been duly held shall be allowed to land
or shall be deported. All hearings before such boards shall be
separate and apart from the public, but the immigrant may have
one friend or relative present under such regulations as may be
prescribed by the Secretary of Labor. Such boards shall keep a
complete permanent record of their proceedings and of all such
testimony as may be produced before them ; and the decisions of
any two members of the board shall prevail, but either the alien
or any dissenting member of the said board may appeal through
the commissioner of immigration at the port of arrival and the
Commissioner-General of Immigration to the Secretary of Labor,
and the taking of such appeal shall operate to stay any action in
regard to the final disposal of any alien whose case is so appealed
until the receipt by the commissioner of immigration at the port
of arrival of such decision which shall be rendered solely upon the
evidence adduced before the board of special inquiry. In every
case where an alien is excluded from admission into the United
States, under any law or treaty now existing or hereafter
made, the decision of a board of special inquiry adverse to the
admission of such alien shall be final, unless reversed on appeal
to the Secretary of Labor : Provided, That the decision of a
board of special inquiry shall be based upon the certificate of the
examining medical officer and, except as provided in section
twenty-one hereof, shall be final as to the rejection of aliens
affected with tuberculosis in any form or with a loathsome or
dangerous contagious disease, or with any mental or physical
disability which would bring such aliens within any of the classes
excluded from admission to the United States under section
three of this Act.

SEC. 1 8. That all aliens brought to this country in violation
of law shall be immediately sent back, in accommodations of the

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 403

same class in which they arrived, to the country whence they
respectively came, on the vessels bringing them, unless in the
opinion of the Secretary of Labor immediate deportation is not
practicable or proper. The cost of their maintenance while on
land, as well as the expense of the return of such aliens, shall be
borne by the owner or owners of the vessels on which they re-
spectively came. That it shall be unlawful for any master, purser,
person in charge, agent, owner, or consignee of any such vessel
to refuse to receive back on board thereof, or on board of any
other vessel owned or operated by the same interests, such aliens ;
or to fail to detain them thereon ; or to refuse or fail to return
them in the manner aforesaid to the foreign port from which
they came ; or to fail to pay the cost of their maintenance while
on land ; or to make any charge for the return of any such alien,
or to take any security for the payment of such charge ; or to
take any consideration to be returned in case the alien is landed ;
or knowingly to bring to the United States at any time within
one year from the date of deportation any alien rejected or
arrested and deported under any provision of this Act, unless
prior to reembarkation the Secretary of Labor has consented
that such alien shall reapply for admission, as required by section
three hereof; and if it shall appear to the satisfaction of the
Secretary of Labor that such master, purser, person in charge,
agent, owner, or consignee has violated any of the foregoing
provisions, or any of the provisions of section fifteen hereof,
such master, purser, person in charge, agent, owner, or consignee
shall pay to the collector of customs of the district in which the
port of arrival is located, or in which any vessel of the line may
be found, the sum of $300 for each and every violation of any
provision of said sections; and no vessel shall have clearance
from any port of the United States while any such fine is unpaid,
nor shall such fine be remitted or refunded : Provided, That
clearance may be granted prior to the determination of such
question upon the deposit with the collector of customs of a sum
sufficient to cover such fine. If the vessel by which any alien
ordered deported came has left the United States and it is im-
practicable for any reason to deport the alien within a reasonable
time by another vessel owned by the same interests, the cost of
deportation may be paid by the Government and recovered by

404 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

civil suit from any agent, owner, or consignee of the vessel :
Provided further, That the Commissioner- General of Immigration,
with the approval of the Secretary of Labor, may suspend, upon
conditions to be prescribed by the Commissioner-General of
Immigration, the deportation of any aliens found to have come
in violation of any provision of this Act if, in his judgment, the
testimony of such alien is necessary on behalf of the United States
Government in the prosecution of offenders against any provision
of this Act or other laws of the United States ; and the cost of
maintenance of any person so detained resulting from such sus-
pension of deportation, and a witness fee in the sum of $i per
day for each day such person is so detained, may be paid from
the appropriation for the enforcement of this Act, or such alien
may be released under bond, in the penalty of not less than $500,
with security approved by the Secretary of Labor, conditioned
that such alien shall be produced when required as a witness
and for deportation. No alien certified, as provided in section
sixteen of this Act, to be suffering from tuberculosis in any form,
or from a loathsome or dangerous contagious disease other than
one of quarantinable nature, shall be permitted to land for medical
treatment thereof in any hospital in the United States, unless
the Secretary of Labor is satisfied that to refuse treatment would
be inhumane or cause unusual hardship or suffering, in which
case the alien shall be treated in the hospital under the supervision
of the immigration officials at the expense of the vessel transport-
ing him : Provided further, That upon the certificate of an examin-
ing medical officer to the effect that the health or safety of an
insane alien would be unduly imperiled by immediate deportation,
such alien may, at the expense of the appropriation for the
enforcement of this Act, be held for treatment until such time
as such alien may, in the opinion of such medical officer, be
safely deported : Provided further, That upon the certificate of
an examining medical officer to the effect that a rejected alien is
helpless from sickness, mental or physical disability, or infancy,
if such alien is accompanied by another alien whose protection or
guardianship is required by such rejected alien, such accompany-
ing alien may also be excluded, and the master, agent, owner,
or consignee of the vessel in which such alien and accompanying
alien are brought shall be required to return said alien and

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 405

accompanying alien in the same manner as vessels are required to
return other rejected aliens.

SEC. 19. That at any time within five years after entry, any
alien who at the time of entry was a member of one or more of
the classes excluded by law ; any alien who shall have entered or
who shall be found in the United States in violation of this Act,
or in violation of any other law of the United States ; any alien
who at any time after entry shall be found advocating or teaching
the unlawful destruction of property, or advocating or teaching
anarchy, or the overthrow by force or violence of the Government
of the United States or of all forms of law or the assassination
of public officials ; any alien who within five years after entry
becomes a public charge from causes not affirmatively shown to
have arisen subsequent to landing; except as hereinafter pro-
vided, any alien who is hereafter sentenced to imprisonment for
a term of one year or more because of conviction in this country
of a crime involving moral turpitude, committed within five years
after the entry of the alien to the United States, or who is here-
after sentenced more than once to such a term of imprisonment
because of conviction in this country of any crime involving moral
turpitude, committed at any time after entry; any alien who
shall be found an inmate of or connected with the management
of a house of prostitution or practicing prostitution after such
alien shall have entered the United States, or who shall receive,
share in, or derive benefit from any part of the earnings of any
prostitute ; any alien who manages or is employed by, in, or in
connection with any house of prostitution or music or dance hall
or other place of amusement or resort habitually frequented by
prostitutes, or where prostitutes gather, or who in any way assists
any prostitute or protects or promises to protect from arrest
any prostitute ; any alien who shall import or attempt to import
any person for the purpose of prostitution or for any other
immoral purpose ; any alien who, after being excluded and de-
ported or arrested and deported as a prostitute, or as a procurer,
or as having been connected with the Business of prostitution or
importation for prostitution or other immoral purposes in any
of the ways hereinbefore specified, shall return to and enter the
United States ; any alien convicted and imprisoned for a violation
of any of the provisions of section four hereof ; any alien who was

406 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

convicted, or who admits the commission, prior to entry, of a
felony or other crime or misdemeanor involving moral turpitude ;
at any time within three years after entry, any alien who shall
have entered the United States by water at any time or place other
than as designated by immigration officials, or by land at any
place other than one designated as a port of entry for aliens by
the Commissioner-General of Immigration, or at any time not
designated by immigration officials, or who enters without inspec-
tion, shall, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Labor, be taken
into custody and deported : Provided, That the marriage to an
American citizen of a female of the sexually immoral classes the
exclusion or deportation of which is prescribed by this Act shall
not invest such female with United States citizenship if the
marriage of such alien female shall be solemnized after her arrest
or after the commission of acts which make her liable to deporta-
tion under this Act : Provided further, That the provision of
this section respecting the deportation of aliens convicted of a
crime involving moral turpitude shall not apply to one who has
been pardoned, nor shall such deportation be made or directed
if the court, or judge thereof, sentencing such alien for such
crime shall, at the time of imposing judgment or passing sen-
tence or within thirty days thereafter, due notice having first
been given to representatives of the State, make a recommen-
dation to the Secretary of Labor that such alien shall not be
deported in pursuance of this Act ; nor shall any alien convicted
as aforesaid be deported until after the termination of his im-
prisonment : Provided further, That the provisions of this section,
with the exceptions hereinbefore noted, shall be applicable to the
classes of aliens therein mentioned irrespective of the time of their
entry into the United States : Provided further, That the provi-
sions of this section shall also apply to the cases of aliens who
come to the mainland of the United States from the insular
possessions thereof : Provided further, That any person who
shall be arrested under the provisions of this section, on the
ground that he has entered or been found in the United States in
violation of any other law thereof which imposes on such person
the burden of proving his right to enter or remain, and who shall
fail to establish the existence of the right claimed, shall be
deported to the place specified in such other law. In every case

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 407

where any person is ordered deported from the United States
under the provisions of this Act, or of any law or treaty, the
decision of the Secretary of Labor shall be final.

SEC. 20. That the deportation of aliens provided for in this
Act shall, at the option of the Secretary of Labor, be to the
country whence they came or to the foreign port at which such
aliens embarked for the United States ; or, if such embarkation
was for foreign contiguous territory, to the foreign port at which
they embarked for such territory; or, if such aliens entered
foreign contiguous territory from the United States and later
entered the United States, or if such aliens are held by the
country from which they entered the United States not to be
subjects or citizens of such country, and such country refuses to
permit their reentry, or imposes any condition upon permitting
reentry, then to the country of which such aliens are subjects or
citizens, or to the country in which they resided prior to entering
the country from which they entered the United States. If
deportation proceedings are instituted at any time within five
years after the entry of the alien, such deportation, including one-
half of the entire cost of removal to the port of deportation, shall
be at the expense of the contractor, procurer, or other person by
whom the alien was unlawfully induced to enter the United
States, or, if that cannot be done, then the cost of removal to the
port of deportation shall be at the expense of the appropriation
for the enforcement of this Act, and the deportation from such
port shall be at the expense of the owner or owners of such vessels
or transportation line by which such aliens respectively came, or
if that is not practicable, at the expense of the appropriation for
the enforcement of this Act. If deportation proceedings are
instituted later than five years after the entry of the alien, or,
if the deportation is made by reason of causes arising subsequent
to entry, the cost thereof shall be payable from the appropriation
for the enforcement of this Act. A failure or refusal on the part
of the masters, agents, owners, or consignees of vessels to comply
with the order of the Secretary of Labor to take on board, guard
safely, and transport to the destination specified any alien
ordered to be deported under the provisions of this Act shall be
punished by the imposition of the penalties prescribed in section
eighteen of this Act : Provided, That when in the opinion of the

4o8 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

Secretary of Labor the mental or physical condition of such alien is
such as to require personal care and attendance, the said Secretary
shall when necessary employ a suitable person for that purpose,
who shall accompany such alien to his or her final destination,
and the expense incident to such service shall be defrayed in the
same manner as the expense of deporting the accompanied alien
is defrayed. Pending the final disposal of the case of any alien so
taken into custody, he may be released under a bond in the
penalty of npt less than $500 with security approved by the
Secretary of Labor, conditioned that such alien shall be produced
when required for a hearing or hearings in regard to the charge
upon which he has been taken into custody, and for deportation
if he shall be found to be unlawfully within the United States.

SEC. 21. That any alien liable to be excluded because likely to
become a public charge or because of physical disability other
than tuberculosis in any form or a loathsome or dangerous con-
tagious disease may, if otherwise admissible, nevertheless be
admitted in the discretion of the Secretary of Labor upon the
giving of a suitable and proper bond or undertaking, approved by
said Secretary, in such amount and containing such conditions
as he may prescribe, to the United States and to all States,
Territories, counties, towns, municipalities, and districts thereof,
holding the United States and all States, Territories, counties,
towns, municipalities, and districts thereof harmless against
such alien becoming a public charge. In lieu of such bond, such
alien may deposit in cash with the Secretary of Labor such amount
as the Secretary of Labor may require, which amount shall be
deposited by said Secretary in the United States Postal Savings
Bank, a receipt therefor to be given the person furnishing said
sum, showing the fact and object of its receipt and such other
information as said Secretary may deem advisable. All accru-
ing interest on said deposit during the time same shall be held
in the United States Postal Savings Bank shall be paid to the
person furnishing the sum for deposit. In the event of such alien
becoming a public charge, the Secretary of Labor shall dispose of
said deposit in the same manner as if same had been collected
under a bond as provided in this section. In the event of the
permanent departure from the United States, the naturalization,
or the death of such alien, the said sum shall be returned to the

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 409

person by whom furnished, or to his legal representatives. The
admission of such alien shall be a consideration for the giving of
such bond, undertaking, or cash deposit. Suit may be brought
thereon in the name and by the proper law officers either of the
United States Government or of any State, Territory, District,
county, town, or municipality in which such alien becomes a
public charge.

SEC. 22. That whenever an alien shall have been naturalized
or shall have taken up his permanent residence in this country,
and thereafter shall send for his wife or minor children to join
him, and said wife or any of said minor children shall be found
to be affected with any contagious disorder, such wife or minor
children shall be held, under such regulations as the Secretary
of Labor shall prescribe, until it shall be determined whether the
disorder will be easily curable or whether they can be permitted
to land without danger to other persons ; and they shall not be
either admitted or deported until such facts have been ascer-
tained ; and if it shall be determined that the disorder is easily
curable and the husband or father or other responsible person is
willing to bear the expense of the treatment, they may be accorded
treatment in hospital until cured and then be admitted, or if it
shall be determined that they can be permitted to land without
danger to other persons, they may, if otherwise admissible,
thereupon be admitted : Provided, That if the person sending for
wife or minor children is naturalized, a wife to whom married
or a minor child born subsequent to such husband or father's
naturalization shall be admitted without detention for treatment
in hospital, and with respect to a wife to whom married or a minor
child born prior to such husband or father's naturalization the
provisions of this section shall be observed, even though such
person is unable to pay the expense of treatment, in which case
the expense shall be paid from the appropriation for the enforce-
ment of this Act.

SEC. 23. That the Commissioner- General of Immigration shall
perform all his duties under the direction of the Secretary of
Labor. Under such direction he shall have charge of the adminis-
tration of all laws relating to the immigration of aliens into the
United States, and shall have the control, direction, and super-
vision of all officers, clerks, and employees appointed thereunder ;

4io IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

he shall establish such rules and regulations, prescribe such forms
of bond, reports, entries, and other papers, and shall issue from
time to time such instructions not inconsistent with law, as he
shall deem best calculated for carrying out the provisions of this
Act and for protecting the United States and aliens migrating
thereto from fraud and loss, and shall have authority to enter
into contract for the support and relief of such aliens as may fall
into distress or need public aid, and to remove to their native
country, at any time within three years after entry, at the ex-
pense of the appropriations for the enforcement of this Act, such
as fall into distress or need public aid from causes arising sub-
sequent to their entry and are desirous of being so removed;
he shall prescribe rules for the entry and inspection of aliens
coming to the United States from or through Canada and Mexico,
so as not unnecessarily to delay, impede, or annoy persons in
ordinary travel between the United States and said countries,
and shall have power to enter into contracts with transportation
lines for the said purpose. It shall be the duty of the Com-
missioner-General of Immigration to detail officers of the Immi-
gration Service from time to time as may be necessary, in his
judgment, to secure information as to the number of aliens de-
tained in the penal, reformatory, and charitable institutions
(public and private) of the several States and Territories, the
District of Columbia, and other territory of the United States,
and to inform the officers of such institutions of the provisions
of law in relation to the deportation of aliens who have become
public charges. He may, with the approval of the Secretary of
Labor, whenever in his judgment such action may be necessary
to accomplish the purposes of this Act, detail immigration officers
for service in foreign countries ; and, upon his request, approved
by the Secretary of Labor, the Secretary of the Treasury may
detail medical officers of the United States Public Health Service
for the performance of duties in foreign countries in connection
with the enforcement of this Act. The duties of commissioners of
immigration and other immigration officials in charge of districts,
ports, or stations shall be of an administrative character, to be
prescribed in detail by regulations prepared under the direction
or with the approval of the Secretary of Labor : Provided, That
no person, company, or transportation line engaged in carrying

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 411

alien passengers for hire from Canada or Mexico to the United
States, whether by land or water, shall be allowed to land any
such passengers in the United States without providing suitable
and approved landing stations, conveniently located, at the point
or points of entry. The Commissioner- General of Immigration
is hereby authorized and empowered to prescribe the conditions,
not inconsistent with law, under which the above-mentioned
landing stations shall be deemed suitable within the meaning of
this section. Any person, company, or transportation line landing
an alien passenger in the United States without compliance with
the requirement herein set forth shall be deemed to have violated
section eight of this Act, and upon conviction shall be subject
to the penalty therein prescribed : Provided further, That for
the purpose of making effective the provisions of this section
relating to the protection of aliens from fraud and loss, and also
the provisions of section thirty of this Act, relating to the dis-
tribution of aliens, the Secretary of Labor shall establish and
maintain immigrant stations at such interior places as may be
necessary, and, in the discretion of the said Secretary, aliens in
transit from ports of landing to such interior stations shall be
accompanied by immigrant inspectors : Provided further, That in
prescribing rules and making contracts for the entry and inspec-
tion of aliens applying for admission from or through foreign
contiguous territory, due care shall be exercised to avoid any
discriminatory action in favor of foreign transportation companies
transporting to such territory aliens destined to the United States,
and all such transportation companies shall be required, as a
condition precedent to the inspection or examination under such
fules and contracts at the ports of such contiguous territory of
aliens brought thereto by them, to submit to and comply with
all the requirements of this Act which would apply were they bring-
ing such aliens directly to seaports of the United States, and, from
and after the taking effect of this Act, no alien applying for admis-
sion from foreign contiguous territory shall be permitted to enter
the United States unless upon proving that he was brought to
such territory by a transportation company which had submitted
to and complied with all the requirements of this Act, or that he
entered, or has resided in, such territory more than two years prior
to the date of his application for admission to the United States.

412 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

SEC. 24. That immigrant inspectors and other immigration
officers, clerks, and employees shall hereafter be appointed and
their compensation fixed and raised or decreased from time to
time by the Secretary of Labor, upon the recommendation of the
Commissioner-General of Immigration and in accordance with the
provisions of the civil-service Act of January sixteenth, eighteen
hundred and eighty- three : Provided, That said Secretary, in the
enforcement of that portipn of this Act which excludes contract
laborers and induced and assisted immigrants, may employ,
for such purposes and for detail upon additional service under this
Act' when not so engaged, without reference to the provisions of
the said civil-service Act, or to the various Acts relative to the
compilation of the Official Register, such persons as he may
deem advisable and from time to time fix, raise, or decrease their
compensation. He may draw annually from the appropriation
for the enforcement of this Act $100,000, or as much thereof as
may be necessary, to be expended for the salaries and expenses, of
persons so employed and for expenses incident to such employ-
ment ; and the accounting officers of the Treasury shall pass to
the credit of the proper disbursing officer expenditures from said
sum without itemized account whenever the Secretary of Labor
certifies that an itemized account would not be for the best
interests of the Government : Provided further, That nothing
herein contained shall be construed to alter the mode of appoint-
ing commissioners of immigration at the several ports of the
United States as provided by the sundry civil appropriation Act
approved August eighteenth, eighteen hundred and ninety-
four, or the official status of such commissioners heretofore ap-
pointed.

SEC. 25. That the district courts of the United States are
hereby invested with full jurisdiction of all causes, civil and
criminal, arising under any of the provisions of this Act. That it
shall be the duty of the United States district attorney of the
proper district to prosecute every such suit when brought by the
United States under this Act. Such prosecutions or suits may be
instituted at any place in the United States at which the violation
may occur or at which the person charged with such violation
may be found. That no suit or proceeding for a violation of
the provisions of this Act shall be settled, compromised, or

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 413

discontinued without the consent of the court in which it is
pending, entered of record, with' the reasons therefor.

SEC. 26. That all exclusive privileges of exchanging money,
transporting passengers or baggage, or keeping eating houses,
and all other like privileges in connection with any United States
immigrant station, shall be disposed of to the lowest responsible
and capable bidder, after public competition, notice of such
competitive bidding having been made in two newspapers of
general circulation for a period of two weeks, subject to such
conditions and limitations as the Commissioner General of
Immigration, under the direction or with the approval of the
Secretary of Labor, may prescribe, and all receipts accruing
from the disposal of privileges shall be paid into the Treasury of
the United States. No such contract shall be awarded to an
alien. No intoxicating liquors shall be sold at any such immi-
gration station.

SEC. 27. That for the preservation of the peace and in order
that arrests may be made for crimes under the laws of the States
and Territories of the United States where the various immigrant
stations are located, the officers in charge of such stations, as
occasion may require, shall admit therein the proper State and
municipal officers charged with the enforcement of such laws,
and for the purpose of this section the jurisdiction of such officers
and of the local courts shall extend over such stations.

SEC. 28. That any person who knowingly aids or assists any
anarchist or any person who believes in or advocates the over-
throw by force or violence of the Government of the United
States, or who disbelieves in or is opposed to organized govern-
ment, or all forms of law, or who advocates the assassination of
public officials, or who is a member of or affiliated with any
organization entertaining or teaching disbelief in or opposition to
organized government, or who advocates or teaches the duty,
necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any
officer or officers, either of specific individuals or of officers
generally, of the Government of the United States or of any other
organized government, because of his or their official character,
to enter the United States, or who connives or conspires with
any person or persons to allow, procure, or permit any such
anarchist or person aforesaid to enter therein, shall be deemed

4i4 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

guilty of a felony, and on conviction thereof shall be punished by
a fine of not more than $5000 or by imprisonment for not more
than five years, or both.

Any person who knowingly aids or assists any alien who advo-
cates or teaches the unlawful destruction of property to enter
the United States shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and
on conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine of not more
than $1000, or by imprisonment for not more than six months,
or by both such fine and imprisonment.

SEC. 29. That the President of the United States is authorized,
in the name of the Government of the United States, to call, in
his discretion, an international conference, to assemble at such
point as may be agreed upon, or to send special commissioners to
any foreign country, for the purpose of regulating by international
agreement, subject to the advice and consent of the Senate of the
United States, the immigration of aliens to the United States;
of providing for the mental, moral, and physical examination of
such aliens by American consuls or other officers of the United
States Government at the ports of embarkation, or elsewhere;
of securing the assistance of foreign Governments in their own
territories to prevent the evasion of the laws of the United States
governing immigration to the United States; of entering into
such international agreements as may be proper to prevent the
immigration of aliens who, under the laws of the United States,
are or may be excluded from entering the United States, and of
regulating any matters pertaining to such immigration.

SEC. 30. That there shall be maintained a division of informa-
tion in the Bureau of Immigration ; and the Secretary of Labor
shall provide such clerical and other assistance as may be neces-
sary. It shall be the duty of said division to promote a beneficial
distribution of aliens admitted into the United States among the
several States and Territories desiring immigration. Correspond-
ence shall be had with the proper officials of the States and
Territories, and said division shall gather from all available
sources useful information regarding the resources, products,
and physical characteristics of each State and Territory, and
shall publish such information in different languages and dis-
tribute the publications among all admitted aliens at the immi-
grant stations of the United States and to such other persons as

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 415

may desire the same. When any State or Territory appoints and
maintains an agent or agents to represent it at any of the immi-
grant stations of the United States, such agents shall, under regu-
lations prescribed by the Commissioner General of Immigration,
subject to the approval of the Secretary of Labor, have access to
aliens who have been admitted to the United States for the pur-
pose of presenting, either orally or in writing, the special induce-
ments offered by such State or Territory to aliens to settle therein.
While on duty at any immigrant station such agents shall be
subject to all the regulations prescribed by the Commissioner-
General of Immigration, who, with the approval of the Secretary
of Labor, may, for violation of any such regulations, deny to the
agent guilty of such violation any of the privileges herein granted.

SEC. 31. That any person, including the owner, agent, con-
signee, or master of any vessel arriving in the United States from
any foreign port or place, who shall knowingly sign on the ship's
articles, or bring to the United States as one of the crew of such
vessel, any alien, with intent to permit such alien to land in the
United States in violation of the laws and treaties of the United
States regulating the immigration of aliens, or who shall falsely
and knowingly represent to the immigration authorities at the
port of arrival that any such alien is a bona fide member of the
crew, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding $5000, for which
sum the said vessel shall be liable and may be seized and pro-
ceeded against by way of libel in any district court of the United
States having jurisdiction of the offense.

SEC. 3 2 . That no alien excluded from admission into the United
States by any law, convention, or treaty of the United States
regulating the immigration of aliens, and employed on board
any vessel arriving in the United States from any foreign port or
place, shall be permitted to land in the United States, except
temporarily for medical treatment, or pursuant to regulations
prescribed by the Secretary of Labor providing for the ultimate
removal or deportation of such alien from the United States, and
the negligent failure of the owner, agent, consignee, or master of
such vessel to detain on board any such alien after notice in
writing by the immigration officer in charge at the port of arrival,
and to deport such alien, if required by such immigration officer
or by the Secretary of Labor, shall render such owner, agent,

4i6 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

consignee, or master liable to a penalty not exceeding $1000,
for which sum the said vessel shall be liable, and may be seized
and proceeded against by way of libel in any district Court
of the United States having jurisdiction of the offense.

SEC. 33. That it shall be unlawful and be deemed a violation
of the preceding section to pay off or discharge any alien em-
ployed on board any vessel arriving in the United States from
any foreign port or place, unless duly admitted pursuant to the
laws and treaties of the United States regulating the immigration
of aliens: Provided, That in case any such alien intends to
reship on board any other vessel bound to any foreign port or
place, he shall be allowed to land for the purpose of so reshipping,
under such regulations as the Secretary of Labor may prescribe
to prevent aliens not admissible under any law, convention, or
treaty from remaining permanently in the United States, and
may be paid off, discharged, and permitted to remove his effects,
anything in such laws or treaties or in this Act to the contrary
notwithstanding, provided due notice of such proposed action be
given by the master or the seaman himself to the principal
immigration officer in charge at the port of arrival.

SEC. 34. That any alien seaman who shall land in a port of the
United States contrary to the provisions of this Act shall be
deemed to be unlawfully in the United States, and shall, at
any time within three years thereafter, upon the warrant of the
Secretary of Labor, be taken into custody and brought before a
board of special inquiry for examination as to his qualification
for admission to the United States, and if not admitted said alien
seaman shall be deported at the expense of the appropriation
for this Act as provided in section twenty of this Act.

SEC. 35. That it shall be unlawful for any vessel carrying
passengers between a port of the United States and a port of a
foreign country, upon arrival in the United States, to have on
board employed thereon any alien afflicted with idiocy, imbecility,
insanity, epilepsy, tuberculosis in any form, or a loathsome or
dangerous contagious disease, if it appears to the satisfaction of
the Secretary of Labor, from an examination made by a medical
officer of the United States Public Health Service, and is so
certified by such officer, that any such alien was so afflicted at
the time he was shipped or engaged and taken on board such

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 417

vessel and that the existence of such affliction might have been
detected by means of a competent medical examination at such
time; and for every such alien so afflicted on board any such
vessel at the time of arrival the owner, agent, consignee, or
master thereof shall pay to the collector of customs of the
customs district in which the port of arrival is located the sum of
$50, and pending departure of the vessel the alien shall be detained
and treated in hospital under supervision of immigration officials
at the expense of the vessel; and no vessel shall be granted
clearance pending the determination of the question of the
liability to the payment of such fine and while it remains unpaid :
Provided, That clearance may be granted prior to the deter-
mination of such question upon the deposit of a sum sufficient
to cover such fine : Provided further, That such fine may, in the
discretion of the Secretary of Labor, be mitigated or remitted.

SEC. 36. That upon arrival of any vessel in the United States
from any foreign port or place it shall be the duty of the owner,
agent, consignee, or master thereof to deliver to the principal
immigration officer in charge of the port of arrival lists containing
the names of all aliens employed on such vessel, stating the posi-
tions they respectively hold in the ship's company, when and
where they were respectively shipped or engaged, and specifying
those to be paid off and discharged in the port of arrival ; or lists
containing so much of such information as the Secretary of
Labor shall by regulation prescribe ; and after the arrival of any
such vessel it shall be the duty of such owner, agent, consignee,
or master to report to such immigration officer, in writing, as
soon as discovered, all cases in which any such alien has illegally
landed from the vessel, giving a description of such alien, to-
gether with any information likely to lead to his apprehension ;
and before the departure of any such vessel it shall be the duty of
such owner, agent, consignee, or master to deliver to such immi-
gration officer a further list containing the names of all alien
employees who were not employed thereon at the time of the
arrival but who will leave port thereon at the time of her depar-
ture, and also the names of those, if any, who have been paid off
and discharged, and of those, if any, who have deserted or
landed ; and in case of the failure of such owner, agent, consignee,
or master so to deliver either of the said lists of such aliens arriving

4i8 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

and departing, respectively, or so to report such cases of desertion
or landing, such owner, agent, consignee, or master shall, if re-
quired by the Secretary of Labor, pay to the collector of customs
of the customs district in which the port of arrival is located the
sum of $10 for each alien concerning whom correct lists are not
delivered or a true report is not made as above required ; and
no such vessel shall be granted clearance pending the deter-
mination of the question of the liability to the payment of such
fine, and, in the event such fine is imposed, while it remains
unpaid ; nor shall such fine be remitted or refunded : Provided,
That clearance may be granted prior to the determination of such
question upon deposit of a sum sufficient to cover such fine.

SEC. 37. That the word "person" as used in this Act shall be
construed to import both plural and the singular, as the case
may be, and shall include corporations, companies, and asso-
ciations. When construing and enforcing the provisions of this
Act, the act, omission, or failure of any director, officer, agent, or
employee of any corporation, company, or association acting
within the scope of his employment or office shall in every case
be deemed to be the act, omission, or failure of such corporation,
company, or association, as well as that of the person acting for
or in behalf of such corporation, company, or association.

SEC. 38. That this Act, except as otherwise provided in
section three, shall take effect and be enforced on and after
May first, nineteen hundred and seventeen. The Act of March
twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred and ten, amending the Act of
February twentieth, nineteen hundred and seven, to regulate the
immigration of aliens into the United States; the Act of Feb-
ruary twentieth, nineteen hundred and seven, to regulate the
immigration of aliens into the United States, except section
thirty-four thereof; the Act of March third, nineteen hundred
and three, to regulate the immigration of aliens into the United
States, except section thirty-four thereof; and all other Acts
and parts of Acts inconsistent with this Act are hereby repealed
on and after the taking effect of this Act : Provided, That this
Act shall not be construed to repeal, alter, or amend existing
laws relating to the immigration or exclusion of Chinese persons
or persons of Chinese descent, except as provided in section nine-
teen hereof, nor to repeal, alter, or amend section six, chapter

THE IMMIGRATION LAW OF 1917 419

four hundred and fifty-three, third session Fifty-eighth Congress,
approved February sixth, nineteen hundred and five, nor to
repeal, alter, or amend the Act approved August second, eighteen
hundred and eighty- two, entitled "An Act to regulate the
carriage of passengers by sea," and amendments thereto, except
as provided in section eleven hereof : Provided further ', That noth-
ing contained in this Act shall be construed to affect any prose-
cution, suit, action, or proceedings brought, or any act, thing, or
matter, civil or criminal, done or existing at the time of the
taking effect of this Act, except as mentioned in the third proviso
of section nineteen hereof; but as to all such prosecutions,
suits, actions, proceedings, acts, things, or matters, the laws or
parts of laws repealed or amended by this Act are hereby con-
tinued in force and effect.

I/

FUTURE HUMAN MIGRATIONS
F. J. HASKIN

IT SEEMS reasonable to assume that the end of the migra-
tions of man is still centuries away, and that many a genera-
tion will rise and pass beyond earthly concerns before any approxi-
mate equilibrium of population will be established. Indeed, it
is probable that so long as the world stands economic oppor-
tunity will call peoples, as well as individuals, to move from
country to country, and from continent to continent. A study
of the map of the world reveals how unequally distributed are
the people of the earth, even when measured by the opportunities
of getting a living. For instance, Asia has a population of fifty
per square mile; Europe has a hundred people to the square
mile ; North America has fifteen ; Africa, eleven ; South America,
seven ; and Australia, five.

It must be plain to every person who has a reasonable knowl-
edge of the relative resources of the several continents, that
South America has the latent ability to support fifty people
to the square mile as easily as Europe can support a hundred,
and if that be true there is room on that continent for three
hundred million immigrants and their, descendants. It also
seems to be evident from a comparison of the relative resources
of North America and Asia, that North America, with its up-to-
date western-world system of agriculture, manufacturing, and
commerce, can support a population of a density equal to that
which Asia supports to-day with its out-of-date and antiquated
1 agricultural and industrial methods. If that be true, then North]
I America might yet find room for three hundred million souls.
] Africa is hot for the most part, ancPs^mewhaTlnhospi table
' to civilization, and yet the spread of the science of tropical medi-
cine makes it as available a place for human existence as equa-
torial South America in general, and Panama in particular.
Leaving out the Great Sahara, it might support a population of at

420

FUTURE HUMAN MIGRATIONS 421

least twenty-five to the square mile, and that would mean room
for an increase in population of more than 150,000,000 souls.

Australia, likewise, might accommodate at least twenty-five
to the square mile, and that would mean nearly a hundred million
souls could find room on the smallest continent. In other words,
with South America and North America having a population
half as dense as that of Europe and equally as dense as that of
Asia; and with Australia and Africa having a population only
a fourth as dense as that of Europe and half as dense as that of
Asia to-day, there would be room for an immigration to those
continents of nearly nine hundred million souls. As things
stand to-day, Europe and Asia, with about two-fifths of the
world's area, support four-fifths of the world's population.

It naturally follows that from these two continents must flow
the rivers of humanity which will bring the population of the
earth to a common level, if such a level ever is reached. And as
long as the other continents set up the bars against the Asiatic
as they are doing to-day, not much of the immigration of the
future can come from there. Europe for centuries witnessed one
tide of humanity after another sweeping westward from Asia —
the Celt, the Teuton, the Latin, the Slav — and its population
has grown until it is now four times as dense as the rest of the
world. And this, in spite of the fact that once the Asiatic tides
of humanity ceased to sweep westward, other tides in turn started
out of Europe, whose ends are not yet, and which already have
carried perhaps a hundred million souls across the seas to other
continents.

Perhaps the most interesting probable development in human
migratory matters for the early future is the indicated tide that
gives promise soon to be sweeping through the Panama Canal.
All the world looks for a boom throughout the Americas as a
result of the opening of the great waterway. And especially is
this to be true of the Pacific sides of the two continents. Sud-
denly all this vast region is to be brought five thousand miles
nearer to the immigrant embarking ports of Europe, five hundred
hours sailing closer for the interchange of commerce. Instead
of San Francisco's being as far by water from Liverpool as Sitka
is from New York, the City of the Golden Gate will be brought
as near to Liverpool as New York now is to Bombay.

422 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

When every one believes an era of great development is com-
ing, and squares himself to greet it and to profit by it, nothing
can stop its approach. And what a getting ready for the pros-
perity that is coming is now to be found on the West Coasts
of the two Americas ! These preparations are not in the shape
of such a tremendous rise of values as to discount the future for
a generation, but rather in the shape of a widespread plan to be
ready to open up the latent resources of these regions the minute
conditions are ripe. It gives no indication of being an era of
speculation on things that exist to-day, but rather it promises
to seek its reward in the development of latent wealth. With
such a concerted, united, common-consent plan for reaping the
benefits of the canal, there is going to be almost an unprecedented
demand for labor in western Pan-America. There will be no
bubbles of speculation to burst, but rich tolls of industry to
gather.

Already the big steamship lines are planning to take advantage
of the situation. They will have large fleets of immigrant-carry-
ing ships, equipped with the excellent accommodations which
the "new" steerage provides, ready to carry laborers and their
families to these new fields of abundant opportunities for work
and good pay. The labor centers of Europe are watching with
interest the approaching completion of the Canal, since the tide
of immigration that will set through it will mean not only better
wages for those who go, but likewise for those who stay behind.
The cutting down of the labor supply in Europe has consistently
helped the wage earner who remained behind to get a better
wage than he could command before his brethren answered
the wanderlust begotten of economic conditions which called
upon them to take up their possessions and join the great cara-
van of humanity bound to the New World.

An inkling of what the West Coast of the Americas may be
able ultimately to do in the way of furnishing homes for a new
population is to be gathered from Salvador. This little country,
with an area so small that nineteen countries like it could be
tucked away within the confines of the single state of California,
has a population of 1,707,000 souls. In other words, while Cali-1
fornia to-day has a population of 2,377,000, according to the
Salvadorean standard it could support some forty million people.

FUTURE HUMAN MIGRATIONS 423

Any one who has traveled from La Libertad to San Salvador,
and from San Salvador via Sonsonate to Acajutla and Zacapa,
and who has beheld the hundreds of square miles taken up with
volcanic mountains, knows that Salvador has no greater pro-
portion of arable land than California. Furthermore, having
seen the tropical system of agriculture and industry, he knows
that California can match product with product and resource
with resource. The Salvadoreans are the most prosperous people
of the West Coast, in spite of the remarkable density of popula-
tion found there.

Duplicating the population of Salvador, the other countries
of Central America could find room for upward of thirty million
souls above their present population. Mexico could furnish
an abiding place for nearly 150,000,000 additional people. Meas-
ured according to the Salvadorean standard, the Americas
ultimately could accommodate a total population equivalent
to twice the estimated population of the entire earth to-day.
Of course, such a time may never come and certainly will not
come for many centuries, but it demonstrates the possibilities
of the West Coast.

It seems certain that the opening of the Panama Canal will
give new truth to the saying that westward the course of empire
takes its way. But that age-long tendency of the unceasing drift
of humanity will stop with the Pacific shores of the Americas,
for beyond that lies Asia, where the movement began, and where
there is no room for new immigration. The indications all point
to the Americas and Australia as the regions to which the foot-
steps of the immigrant will lead for at least a century more.
Asia will be shut up within herself,. neither offering her hospitality
to immigrant races, nor being offered that of the other continents.

After all the resistless tides of humanity have swept to and
fro over the bosom of the oceans and over the lands of the earth
in search of new worlds of economic advantage to conquer, there
yet may come a time when they will fold their tents and march
back to the irrigation ditches from which civilization sprang.
Once the earth's supply of coal is exhausted man will be put to
it to find power to turn the wheels of the world's industries.
The capital that old Sol stored up in the earth through millions
of years of shining, exhausted, some means then must be found

424 IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION

to replenish the supply. And only one means thereafter can
science see to-day — the solar engine, driven by the direct rays
of the sun. The solar engine can do its work steadfastly and
efficiently only under a hot sun and permanently cloudless sky.
So industry will be driven to the sunburnt waterfronts of the
earth. There man will irrigate his fields, run his factories, drive
his railroad trains, operate his ships, cool his houses, freeze his
ice, and do all of the thousand things that civilization demands,
with the heat of the sun. He will be independent of the seasons,
for there is but one ; he will not have to bother about the rain-
fall, for he will distill his water and irrigate his fields from the
sea. He will not care about the weather, for he will be largely
indoors and all buildings will be cooled by the same power that
burns the sands of the desert. Fanciful? But none the less
one of the futures to which the drifting tides of humanity may
be sweeping.

IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION
BOOK II. AMERICANIZATION

VII. AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES l
LILLIAN D. WALD

TLLUMINATING anecdotes might be told of the storm and
A stress that often lie beneath the surface of the immigrant's
experience from the time he purchases his ticket in the old coun-
try until the gates at Ellis Island close behind him and the process
of assimilation begins. That he has so often been left rudderless
in strange seas forms a chapter in the history of this "land of
opportunity" that cannot be omitted.

The confusion of the stranger, unable to speak the language
and encountering unfamiliar laws and institutions, often has
tra*gic results. Once in searching for a patient in a large tenement
near the Bowery I knocked at each door in turn. An Italian
woman hesitatingly opened one no wider than to give me a glimpse
of a slight creature obviously stricken with fear. Her face brought
instantly to my mind the famous picture of the sorrowing mother.
"Dolorosa!" I said. The tone and the word sufficed, and she
opened the door wide enough to let me enter. In a corner of
the room lay two children with marks of starvation upon them.

Laying my hat and bag upon the table, to indicate that I
would return, I flew to the nearest grocery for food, taking time,
while my purchases were being made ready, to telephone to a
distinguished Italian upon whose interest and sympathy I could
rely to meet me at the tenement, that we might learn the cause
of this obvious distress.

My friend arrived before I had finished feeding the children,
and to' him the little mother poured forth her tale. She, with

1 From " The House on Henry Street."

427

428 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

three children, had arrived some days before, to meet the hus-
band who had preceded her and had prepared the home for them.
One bambina was ill when they reached port, and it was taken
from her, why she could not explain. She was allowed to land
with the other two and join her husband, and the following day
in answer to their frantic inquiries, they learned that the child
had been taken to a hospital and had died there. Then her hus-
band was arrested, and she, unacquainted with a single human
being in the city, found herself alone with two starving children,
too frightened to open the door or to venture upon the street.
She thought her husband was imprisoned somewhere near by.

My friend and I went together to the Ludlow Street jail,
and here a curious thing occurred. We merely inquired for the
prisoner ; we asked no questions. His cell door was opened and
he was released. Later I learned that he had been arrested
because of failure to make a satisfactory payment on a watch
he was buying on the installment plan. There must have4 been
gross irregularity in the transaction, judging by the willingness
to release him and the fact that his creditor failed to appear
against him. It was hinted, at the time, that there was collusion
between the installment plan dealers and the prison officials.

A pleasanter story is that of the B family. One evening

two neighborhood women, shawls over their heads, called to
ask if I would contribute to a fund they were raising to furnish
quarters for a family just arrived from Ellis Island. When I
expressed wonder that they should have been permitted to land
in a penniless condition the women shrugged their shoulders in
characteristic fashion and said, "Well, they're here, and we must
do something."

Not wishing to refuse, or to participate blindly, I asked for
the whereabouts of the man of the family. I found him in a
basement, a very dignified, gray-haired cobbler, between forty and
forty-five years of age. When I asked how it happened that the
first step of his family in America should be to claim help in this
way he explained the complications in which they had been
involved. He had preceded his family to make a home for them,
and after some years had sent money for steamer tickets for
them. Wh'en they arrived at the frontier, owing to some techni-
cality, they were sent back. He had sent more money to defray

NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES 429

the additional expenses ; then himself had been compelled to
undergo an operation for appendicitis, which took all he had
hoarded to furnish the home. He was just out of the hospital
when wife and children arrived.

Appreciating the importance of having the family begin life in
their new environment with dignity and self-respect, an offer
was made to loan him money if he would recall the women who
were begging for him. Together we figured out the minimum
sum needed, and within an hour the twenty-five dollars was in
his hands and he had recalled the women with joy. He took the
loan without exaggerated protest or gratitude, merely saying:
"As there is a God in heaven you will not regret this."

He was a skillful cobbler and the wife a good housekeeper,
and in six months they brought back the twenty-five dollars.
It was pleasanter not to think of the pinching in the household
that made this prompt repayment possible. Some time later
he brought me forty dollars which the family had saved, saying
he knew it would give me pleasure to start the savings-bank
account which they would need for the education of the children.
The subsequent history of this family, like many another known
to us in Henry Street, shows the real contribution brought into
American life by immigrants of this character.

In discussions throughout the country of the problems of
immigration it is significant that few, if any, of the men and
women who have had extended opportunity for social contact
with the foreigner favor a further restriction of immigration.

The government's policy regarding the immigrant has been
negative, concerned with exclusion and deportation, with the head
tax and the enforcement of treaties and international agree-
ments. By our laws we are protected from the pauper, the sick,
and the vicious ; but only within recent years has a hearing been
given to those who have asked that our government assume an
affirmative policy of protection, distribution, and assimilation.

The need of constructive social measures has long been indi-
cated. The planting of roots in the new soil can best be accom-
plished through an intercourse with the immigrant in which
the dignity of the individual and of the family is recognized.
Heroic measures may be necessary to establish a satisfactory

430 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

system of distribution, and these measures must be based on a
philosophic understanding of democracy. Among them should
be provision for giving instruction to the prospective immigrant
in regard to those laws, customs, or prohibitions with which he
is liable to come in contact, and also in regard to the industrial
opportunities open to him. Then, with competent medical
examination at the port of departure and humane consideration
there and here, the tragedies now so frequent at the port of
arrival might be diminished, or even eliminated altogether.

In turn, the private banker, the employment agent, the ticket
broker, the lawyer, and the notary public have battened upon
the helplessness of the immigrant. Our experience has convinced
us that in the interest of the state itself the future citizens should
be made to feel that protection and fair treatment are accorded
by the state. The greater number of immigrants who come to us
are adults for whose upbringing this country has been at no
expense. It would seem only just to give them special protection
during their first years in the country, to encourage confidence
in our institutions, and to promote assimilation. From an aca-
demic point of view, it might be said that all institutions for the
citizen are available to the immigrant, but the statement carries
with it an implication of equal ability on the part of the latter
to utilize these institutions, and this is not borne out by the experi-
ence of those familiar with actual conditions. Such thoughts as
these lay back of an invitation to Governor Hughes to dine and
spend an evening at the settlement and there meet the colleagues
who could speak with authority on these matters.

The Governor left us armed with maps and documentary
evidence. A few months later the legislature authorized the
creation of a commission to "make full inquiry, examination,
and investigation into the condition, welfare, and industrial
opportunities of aliens in the State of New York." Among its
nine members were two women, Frances Kellor and myself.
Upon the recommendation of that commission the New York
Bureau of Industries and Immigration of the Department of
Labor was created.1 Miss Kellor, the first woman to be head
of a state bureau, became its chief.

1 Report of Commission on Immigration of the State of New York transmitted
to the legislature in April, 1909.

NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES 431

Pending the enactment of legislation, she and I, with a photog-
rapher and a sympathetic companion interested in questions of
labor, motored over the state examining the construction camps
of the barge canal (a state contract), the camps connected with
the city's great new aqueduct, and some of the canning establish-
ments.

In the latter we found ample illustration of indifference on
the part of private employers. In the camps surrounding the
canneries were large numbers of idle children who should have
been in school. The local authorities were, perhaps not unnat-
urally, indisposed to enforce the compulsory education law upon
these children whose stay in the community was to be a transient
one. In the public work the New York City contracts, with few
exceptions, showed carefully thought-out and standardized condi-
tions for the men ; but examination of the state contracts showed
that while elaborate provision had been made for the expert
handling of every other detail connected with the work, even
to the stabling of the mules, nowhere was any mention made of
the men.

In a shack that held three tiers of bunks, occupied alternately
by the day and night shifts, with a cook-stove in a little clearing
in the middle, we found a homesick man, who chanced not to
be on the works, reading a book. When we engaged in conversa-
tion with him he pointed contemptuously to the bunks and their
dirty coverings, and said, "This America! I show you Rome,"
and produced from under his bed a photograph of the Coliseum.

The commission exposed many forms of exploitation of the
immigrant, and subsequent reports have corroborated its find-
ings. Some safeguards have now been established, and the re-
ports of the Bureau of Industries and Immigration in the first
years of its existence bore interesting testimony to its practical
and social value. The significance of the indifference of the state
to its employees, as it appeared to the investigators, was given
publicity at the time, and roused comment and discussion. I
quote from it as follows :

The state, as employer, alone determines the terms upon which
its new canal shall be built. It defines in great detail its standard of
materials and workmanship, but takes no thought for the workmen
who must operate in great transient groups. It does not leave to

432 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

chance the realization of its material standard, but sends inspectors to
make tests and provides a staff of engineers. It does leave to chance
(in the ignorance and cupidity of padroni} the quality and price of
foods and care of the men. It takes great care to prevent the freezing
of cement, but permits any kind of houses to be used for its laborers.
It is wholly indifferent as to how they are ventilated, lighted, or heated,
how many men sleep in them, or whether the sleeping quarters are
also used for cooking and eating and the bunks as cupboards. Neither
does it care whether the men can keep themselves or their clothes clean.

The simplest standards which military history shows are essential
in handling such artificial bodies of people are grossly violated.
Sanitary conveniences are sometimes entirely omitted ; the men drink
any kind of water they can obtain, and filthy grounds are of no evident
concern. The state does not inquire whether there are hospitals or
physicians, medicine, emergency aids, or anything of the kind. Notice
is taken of gambling, drunkenness, and immorality only when they
impair the efficiency of the man. . . . Men left alone in these miser-
able, uninspected shacks, where vermin and dirt prevail . . . must
inevitably deteriorate. The testimony of contractors themselves is
that many of the laborers become nomads, drifting from camp to
camp, drinking, quarreling, and averse to steady work.

We commend this responsibility in all its phases to the various
state departments charged with education, health, letting of contracts,
payment of bills, supervision of highways and waterways, and pro-
tection of laborers. We ask the state as employer to consider its
gain from the men at the most productive periods of their lives ; we
ask the state to measure the influence of this life upon its future
citizens during their first years in the country when they are most
receptive to impression of America.1

Quite recently the Public -Health Council of the New York
State Department of Health has adopted a sanitary code for all
labor camps.

It is impossible to compute the sums that have been lost by
immigrants through fake banks, fake express companies, and '
irresponsible steamship agencies. In New York State these
were practically legislated out of existence through the efforts
of the Commission of Immigration of 1909 just referred to, yet
in the winter of 1914-1915 approximately $12,000,000 was lost

" The Construction Camps of the People," by Lillian D. Wald and Frances
A. Kellor. The Survey, January i, 1910.

NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES 433

on the lower East Side by the failure of private banks, sweeping
away the savings and capital of between 60,000 and 70,000 de-
positors. Happily, the postal savings bank has come, and is
already much used by immigrants, incidentally keeping a large
amount of .money in this country. In important centers the
stations might be socialized to the still greater advantage of the
depositors and the service by having some one assigned to inter-
pret, to write addresses, and give information. These favors
have been the bait held out to the timid stranger by the private
agencies.

Perhaps an even greater loss has come to us through the land
sale deceptions. Farms cultivated in New York State are actually
decreasing, while the population increases. The census of 1900-
1910 shows 4.9 per cent decrease of farms and 25.4 per cent
increase of population. Great numbers of the immigrants are
peasants, and land hungry, and if there was a policy throughout
the states of registration of land for prospective settlers, and if
severe penalties attached to land frauds, I have little doubt that
valuable workers might be directed to the enormous areas that
need cultivation. "I am an agriculturist," said a man who
found his way to the settlement to tell his troubles, "and I pull
out nails in a box factory in New York." His entire family have
followed him to the land that he is now cultivating.

One winter a number of peasants from the Baltic provinces
found themselves stranded in New York. It was a period of
unemployment, and they could find no work. Unaccustomed to
cities, they eagerly seized upon an opportunity to leave New
York. At the settlement, where they were assembled, a state
official told them of woodcutters needed — in Herkimer County,
as I remember it. An advertisement called for forty men, and
the responsibility of the advertiser was vouched for by the local
banker.

"Who can cut trees?" I asked. A shout went up from these
countrymen — "Who cannot cut trees?" Forty to go? Every-
one was ready. So we financed them in their quest for work,
and bade good-by to a radiant, grateful group. Alas! only four
men were needed. The contractor preferred to have a larger
number come, that he might make selection. And this is not
an exceptional instance. Ask the itinerant workers, the tramps

434

AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

even, how much faith can be placed in the advertisements of
" Hands Wanted'' in the East and in the West at the gathering
of the crops.

The possibility of deflecting people to the land has been
demonstrated by Jewish societies in New York, and with proper
support other organizations interested in this phase of the im-
migrant's welfare might repeat their success. Such programs
of distribution, however, cannot be carried out without
effective cooperation from the people in the rural regions, and
assimilative processes will not be wholly successful until the
native-born American is freed from some of his prejudices and
provincialism.

An unsocial attitude in the country naturally drives the
stranger to an intensive colony life which accentuates the dis-
advantages of the barriers he and we build up.

An experience in Westchester County illustrates this very well.
We were seeking lodgings for two intelligent and attractive young
Italians who were working on a dam at one of our settlement
country places. Incidentally, the work they were doing was
quite beyond the powers of any native workers in the vicinity
of whom we could hear. We asked an old native couple, squatters
on some adjacent land, to rent an unoccupied floor of their house
to the two young men. The man, despite their extremely indigent
condition (the wife went to the almshouse a short time after),
absolutely refused, fearing the loss of social prestige if they "lived
in the house with dagoes."

Perhaps, having little else, they were justified in clinging to
their social exclusiveness, but their action in this case illustrates
the almost universal attitude toward the immigrant, particularly
the more recent ones, and perhaps only those who have felt the
isolation and loneliness of the newcomer can comprehend its
cruelty.

An educated Chinese merchant who once called at the settle-
ment apologized for the eagerness with which he accepted an
offer to show him over the house, explaining that although he
had been thirty years in this country ours was the first American
home he had been invited to enter.

We need also to analyze the philosophy of much of the dis-
crimination against aliens in the matter of employment, and it

NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES 435

is not pleasant to remember that until recently a state employ-
ing an enormous number of foreign workers forbade the bringing
of suit by the non-resident family of the alien, although he might
have lost his life in an accident through no fault of his own.

Scorn of the immigrant is not peculiar to our generation. A
search of old newspaper files will show that the arrival of great
numbers of immigrants of any one nationality has always been
considered a problem. In turn each nationality as it became
established in the new country has considered the next comers
a danger. The early history of Pennsylvania records the hostility
to the Germans — "fear dominated the minds of the Colonists"
— despite the fact that the German invaders were landowning
and good farmers.

An Irish boy observed to one of our residents that on Easter
Day he intended to kill his little Jewish classmate. Having had
long experience of the vigorous language and kind heart of the
young Celt, she paid little attention to the threat, but was
more startled when the soft-eyed Francesco chimed in that he
was also going tp destroy him "because he killed my Gawd/'
"But," said the teacher, "Christ was a Jew." "Yes, I know,"
answered the young defender of the faith, "He was then, but
He's an American now."

Despite its absurdity, was not the boy's conception an exag-
gerated illustration of that surface patriotism which is almost
universally stimulated and out of which soul-deadening preju-
dices may grow — may take root even in the public schools ?

Great is our loss when a shallow Americanism is accepted by
the newly arrived immigrant, more particularly by the children,
and their national traditions and heroes are ruthlessly pushed
aside. The young people have usually to be urged by some one
outside their own group to recognize the importance and value
of customs, and even of ethical teaching, when given in a foreign
language, or by old-world people with whom the new American
does not wish to be associated in the minds of his acquaintances.
This does not apply only to the recent immigrant, to whom his
children often hear contemptuous terms applied. I remember
attending a public hearing before the Department of Education
of New York City at which Germans vigorously urged the study

436 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

of their native tongue in the public schools, because of the im-
possibility of persuading their children to learn or use the lan-
guage by any other means than that of having it made a part
of the great American public school system.

It is difficult to find evidence of any serious effort on our part
to comprehend the mental reaction upon the immigrant of the
American institutions he encounters. Indeed, gathering up the
story of the immigrant, I sometimes wonder if he, like the fairies,
does not hold up a magic mirror wherein our social ethics are
reflected, rather than his own visage.

What we are to the immigrant in our civic, social, and ethical
relations is quite as important as what he is to us. We risk
destruction of the spirit — that element of life that makes it
human — when we disregard our neighbor's personality.

Recent discussion of immigration bills focuses attention on
two points deemed of fundamental importance by the settlement
groups.

Three Presidents have vetoed bills for the restriction of immi-
gration by means of a literacy test or by conditions that would
virtually deny the right of asylum for political refugees. Once,
in addressing a committee of the House on such proposed legis-
lation, I protested against a departure from our tradition and
reminded the members of the committee of the splendid Ameri-
cans who would have been lost to this country had the door been
so closed upon them. A young physician of Polish parentage
followed, and his cultured diction and attractive appearance
lent emphasis to his story. "My father," he said, "came an
illiterate to this country because the priest of his parish happened
not to be interested in education, not because my father was
indifferent. He has struggled all his life to give his children what
he himself could never have, and has worshiped the country that
gave us opportunity."

In his veto of the bill President Wilson admirably formulated
his reasons for opposing restriction of this character, and as these
are exactly the arguments upon which social workers have based
their objections, I cannot do better than quote him here :

In two particulars of vital consequence this bill embodies a radical
departure from the traditional and long-established policy of this

NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES 437

country, a policy in which our people have conceived the very char-
acter of their government to be expressed, the very mission and spirit
of the nation in respect of its relations to the peoples of the world
outside their borders. It seeks to all but close entirely the gates of
asylum, which have always been open to those who could find nowhere
else the right and opportunity of constitutional agitation for what they
conceived to be the natural and inalienable rights of men, and it
excludes those to whom the opportunities of elementary education
have been denied without regard to their character, their purposes,
or their natural capacity.

The immigrant brings in a steady stream of new life and new
blood to the nation. The unskilled have made possible the
construction of great engineering works, have helped to build
bridges and road way s^above and under ground. The number of
skilled artisans and craftsmen among immigrants and the
contribution they make to the cultural side of our national life
are too rarely emphasized. Alas for our educational system !
we must still look abroad for the expert cabinetmaker or stone-
carver, the weaver of tapestry, or the artistic worker in metals,
precious or base.

In another place I have spoken of the rise of certain needle
trades from those of sweaters and sweaters' victims to a stand-
ardized industry, with an output estimated at hundreds of
millions yearly. The industry of cloak arid suit making has
been to a large extent developed by the immigrants themselves.
When the stranger looks upon the lofty buildings in other parts
of the city, gigantic beehives with the swarms of workers going
in and out, he seldom comprehends that great wealth has been
created for the community by these humble workers.

The man who now stands at the gates of Ellis Island turns
his socially trained mind toward the development of methods
for the protection and assimilation of the immigrant after the
gates have closed upon him. But the best conceived plans of
this Commissioner of Immigration and others who have long
studied the question will be fruitless unless, throughout the
country, an intelligent and respectful attitude toward the
stranger is sedulously cultivated.

In the early glow of our enthusiasm, when we were first
brought in contact with the immigrant, we dreamed of making

438 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

his coming of age — his admission to citizenship — something of
a rite. Many who come here to escape persecution or the hard-
ships suffered under a militaristic government idealize America.
They bring an enthusiasm for our institutions that would make
it natural to regard admission to the rights and responsibilities
of citizenship with seriousness. Years ago we urged the use
of school buildings, that registration and the casting of the
ballot might be dignified by formal surroundings. This has
been done in several cities, although not yet in New York.

The foreign press, particularly the Yiddish, has a distinct
Americanizing influence. Many adults never learn the new
language and, indeed, acquire here the habit of newspaper
reading. The history of the United States, biographies of George
Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and other* distinguished Ameri-
cans appear in the pages of these papers, and one Italian daily
published serially the Constitution of the United States. Effec-
tive, too, as an educational and assimilating measure have been
the lectures in foreign languages conducted for many years by
the Educational Alliance on East Broadway and by the various
settlements, and included, for some years past, in the evening
courses of the Department of Education.

In our neighborhood the physical changes of the last twenty
years have been great. Since that first disturbing walk with the
little girl to the rear tenement on Ludlow Street asphalt has
replaced unclean, rough pavements; beautiful school buildings
(some the finest in the world) have been erected ; streets have
been altered, and rows of houses demolished to make room for
new bridges and small parks. Subway tubes take the working
population to scattered parts of the greater city; piers have
been built for recreation purposes, and a chain of small free
libraries of beautiful design. A Tenement House Department
has been created, charged with supervision and enforcement
of the laws regulating the housing of 80 per cent of the city's
population, and so far assaults upon this protective legislation
have been repulsed, despite the tireless lobby of the owners year
after year.

As our neighbors have prospered many have moved to quarters
where they find better houses, less congestion, more bathtubs;

NEW AMERICANS AND OUR POLICIES 439

but an enormous . working population still finds occupation in
the lower part of the city. Carfare is an expense, and time
spent in overcrowded cars, which scarcely afford standing-room,
adds to the exhaustion of the long day, and these considerations
keep many near the workshop. Despite the exodus, we still
remain an overcrowded region of overcrowded homes. Through
the tenements there is a stream of inflowing as well as outflowing
life. The newcomer finds a lodging-place most readily in this
vicinity, and the East Side is the shore of the harbor.

The settlements have been before the public long enough
to have lost the glamour of moral adventure that was associated
with their early days. Many who were identified with them
then have steadfastly remained, although realizing, as one of
them has said, that high purpose has often been mocked by
petty achievement.

A characteristic service of the settlement to the public grows
out of its opportunities for creating and informing public opinion.
Its flexibility as an instrument makes it pliant to the essential
demands made upon it ; uncommitted to a fixed program, it
can move with the times.

Out of the enthusiasms and out of the sympathies of those
who come to it, though they be sometimes crude and formless,
a force is created that makes for progress. For these, as well as
for the helpless and ignorant who seek aid and corttfsel, the settle-
ment performs a function.

The visitors who come from all parts of the world and exchange
views and experiences prove how absurd are frontiers between
honest-thinking men and women of different nationalities or
different classes. Human interest and passion for human prog-
ress break down barriers centuries old. They form a tie that
binds closer than any conventional relationship.

"'THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE

A. THE WORK OF THE CALIFORNIA IMMIGRATION
COMMISSION

FOREWORD

DURING the whole period of the war, even when it seemed
far removed from America, the Commission of Immigration
and Housing was in intimate touch with the world conflict. It
knew the changes as they came in the early days in the foreign
quarters, in the camps, in the night schools. It knew when the
first groups drew apart, when the first contingents mobilized,
where the families were left and how. It knew this in many
ways but particularly because the whole story came in scraps
through the interpreters to whom the men and women came for
help in adjusting wage claims, contracts, life insurance, and
tickets. For in those days the war was essentially an unsettler
of the immigrant and his activities — an immigrant problem.

Thus, while America was still but an observer of the whole war,
the commission anticipated the necessities of the state as a whole
as well as those* of the people whom it was created to serve, and
flexed its machinery for that service.

In face of a sweeping sentiment for "the English language
only" and for the suppression of the foreign press, the com-
mission installed more foreign-speaking agents in its various
offices and used the foreign language as a medium of communi-
cation with the immigrant population.

When this country entered the war and the first registration
was ordered, the commission was ready with a foreign language
policy. It knew the uneasiness, the suspicion, the utter helpless-
ness of a great part of the population ignorant of our language —
it knew that no war order in English only would reach these
people, and so it prepared a sign which in sixteen languages
carried a notice explaining the order and its importance.

440

TfitE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 441

These signs were distributed throughout the state wherever
they could reach non-English speaking people..

And in this way, and at this time, began the definite war pro-
gram which finally took possession of the various departments.
As each government order was issued, whether it related to food
or fishing, to baby weighing or naturalization, to education or
Liberty Bonds, to housing or shipbuilding, it became the mission
not only of the foreign-speaking agents, but of every officer of
the commission. And so the commission became a government
messenger and carried the federal orders through the length
and breadth of the state.

This campaign won the interest and cooperation of the immi-
grants of California for each federal order, for each national drive.
In one short year the major part of the citizenry of the state was
welded together for a common cause by cooperation and edu-
cation — vigorous, . persistent, intelligent. Best of all, mutual
understanding was established, and now the commission has a
new vision of its duties and its opportunities. All that it has
learned of service, and cooperation, all that it has learned of
organization for war, must now be used to set in motion the
forces that make for better living and working conditions,
for broader educational opportunities in California.

THE STORY or THE COMMISSION

Five years ago California established her Commission of
Immigration and Housing to protect and aid immigrants within
the state.

This commission was built upon the conviction that all the
problems which touch the immigrant take on a distinct aspect
peculiar to no problem of the native-born. It was built upon the
conviction that the foreign-born suffers great hardships because,
from the moment of his arrival, he is placed at a disadvantage,
and that, in order that he may be placed upon an equal footing
with his native-born neighbor, definite constructive aid must be
given him in overcoming his handicaps. Furthermore, it was
built upon the conviction that as the immigrant suffers from his
shortcomings so does the community in which he lives suffer
with him.

442 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

In establishing the commission, California had no definite
precedent to follow. The experiment was new to herself, new
to America, new even to the world at large. And, as in the case
of all experiments, confidence in its success was not unmixed with
doubts.

And then — came the war, came war work, came the cry for
Americanization. California found herself a Prophet and a
Pioneer, found herself five years in advance of the times, found
the country as a whole frantically organizing for the tasks which
she had undertaken long before. And she had undertaken them
not as a hasty war measure — for the world had not yet
dreamed of war — but as her plain and simple duty to the
immigrant, to herself, and to America.

From the start, in the scheme of the commission, these tasks
outlined themselves, following the belief that before a man
should be asked to become a good American by being worthy
of his surroundings, those surroundings should be made worthy
of a good American.

The immigrant did not understand his rights, did not under-
stand our laws, his ignorance was exploited on every hand ; so
the commission's Bureau of Complaints came into being, to
advise him, to adjust his difficulties, and to remove the causes
for those difficulties.

In the labor camps he worked — for the most part — under
wretched conditions which he could not change, and the remedy
for this was the commission's Bureau of Labor Camp Inspection
which, in five years, has revolutionized the labor camps of the
state.

He lived by his work and little help could be given him if he
were deprived of that work; and the question of unemploy-
ment with the problems leading up to it, the problems arising
from it, and possible solutions, became part of the commission's
undertaking.

From the moment of his arrival he was crowded into the
badly congested quarters of the city and so the problem of
Housing was accepted as part of the bigger problem of immi-
gration, and the commission set about the task of awakening
the state to its obligation of furnishing proper living conditions
even for those who can pay little rent.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 443

He did not know the English language, and the commission's
Bureau of Immigrant Education turned to this new task of edu-
cation.

Even so, he could not wait to learn the language of America
before assuming some of the duties toward her ; her ideals and
hopes had to be made clear to him in his own tongue ; and the
commission's Foreign-Language Speakers set out upon their
mission of enlightenment.

Now the labor camps of Oregon and Washington are being
inspected under the federal government's program of war
necessity. Housing surveys are now being undertaken as part
of the country-wide Americanization movement, and yet there
was much wondering when, five years ago, California linked the
two. Educators throughout America are realizing that teaching
English to the foreign-born is a new profession for which new
provision has to be made. And the cooperation of the leaders
of these foreign-born is being enlisted in carrying America's
message to their countrymen in their own tongue, a measure
which has long been a vital part of California's plan for assimi-
lation.

It is the hope of the commission that the brief pages which
follow will give a clearer interpretation of its work in these several
departments.

THE BUREAU or COMPLAINTS

The purpose of the commission was clear from the start : to
protect and aid immigrants in California.

The method of prdcedure was not so simple. To protect against
whom and against what? To aid to what end and by what
means ?

There were many books and many reports on the subject of
immigration. And the commission laid them all aside and opened
its Bureau of Complaints.

"Not to theorize concerning the problems and difficulties
met with by newly arrived immigrants, but to find out from the
immigrants themselves what those facts and problems are."
This statement went into the first annual report of the com-
mission, and there has been no occasion, in the years which
followed, to change the words.

444 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

From the start the Bureau of Complaints became the point of
contact between the state and the people whom the commission
was to serve. From the start it became evident that it was to be
the chief protective branch of the commission, and from the
start, its work divided itself into three parts.

In the capacity of clinic, the bureau takes up the work of
research, isolating a given problem as presented by the complaints
brought to its office, and determining the circumstances which
made it possible. Here the causes of the immigrants' difficulties
are sought out.

Then the individual complaints are adjusted. Land frauds,
insurance frauds, wage claims, industrial accidents, bad housing
conditions, insanitary camps, and unnumbered other difficulties
are referred to their proper departments and settled in the best
way possible.

The work of legislation forms the third part of the work and is
the logical end of research. And the commission takes just pride
in the laws which have been enacted for the protection of the
stranger.

THE BUREAU OF COMPLAINTS SOMETIMES BECOMES THE
BUREAU OF INFORMATION

The Bureau of Complaints is a vital branch of the commission's
work. But sometimes the foreign-born come with inquiries
instead of injuries and the Bureau of Complaints becomes the
Bureau of Information.

Work ; always they come for work. Where to apply and how,
and then that question which hides a bitter tragedy: "Where
can I find my work?" It is a ghastly history, the history of the
foreign-born misfit. A decorator working for a plumber, a
cabinetmaker carrying bricks, an engineer digging ditches —
and always the same story — the lack of information, the absence
of self-confidence, the ignorance of English.

Men come to ask concerning laws on land, on wages, on
naturalization, on housing, on bad camps. Men come for help
with money orders, with letters, with loans, with investments.
The commission's agents must know how a divorce is obtained,
where free blankets and free seed samples are to be had, must be

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 445

able to advise on labor unions and pastures, on charities and
dentists — on everything which touches human life.

During the trying months of war the commission spread in-
formation far from its offices. Two thousand eight hundred
letters were sent out to the leaders of foreign-born asking their
cooperation in helping their people to register properly, and to
answer the questionnaires. This appeal was strengthened by
letters sent out by the Governor of California.

The commission itself was kept very busy with these. In the
Los Angeles office alone, more than two thousand questionnaires
were filled. When one considers the difficulties of native-born
Americans with these questionnaires, the state of mind of the
immigrant required to answer the questions can scarcely be
imagined. Knowing how easily mistakes occur, the commission
carried its assistance through the attesting of the signature and
the sealing of the envelope, after which it considered its duty
done. Until one day the commission's agent discovered a man
whose questionnaire he had just filled out, solemnly depositing
that document into a street garbage can. As both the mail box
and the garbage can are made of metal, as both have slots, and
as the man probably never mailed a letter before, the mistake
is not so strange. But it is significant as an example of the ease
with which mistakes and difficulties occur in the case of the un-
protected foreign-born.

"NOT A UNITED STATES MARSHAL, BUT AN INTERPRETER" :

The war has acted upon our international' communities like
the wrong kind of acid dropped into a solution. It has suddenly
started a reverse action. As a Polish teacher expresses it, " People
had begun to forget their feeling for nationality ; and then the
war ! And the differences have all reappeared." Every one is
sensitive about his nationality now. I believe this resharpening
of nationalistic prides is a good thing for all of us, so far. We
can no longer step so blunderingly all over our patient, voiceless
foreign peoples ! If we rise to the challenge of these international
times, this sudden emphasis upon the kinetic life of America will
continue to be good.

1From " Our International Communities and the War."

446 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

~ J

This reverse action has compelled us in spite of ourselves to
know who and what these different peoples are. It has injected
into our international communities the old vivid feelings, and
differences and prejudices which have kept the people of Europe
in a fever of suspicion and hate against each other, but not here-
tofore against America. In a mining camp in California, the
manager began to notice a restlessness among the South Austrians.
They were Croatians, but he did not know that. The unrest
grew. He could discover no real cause for it and began to fear
real trouble. The Immigration Commission office up in San
Francisco heard of the stir and wired to wait, for they would send
down an interpreter who spoke the language of the men. The
interpreter arrived and announced he intended to live among the
men and find out just what all the noise was about. The office
objected on the ground that it was dangerous and his life wouldn't
be worth a cent. He answered, "But you forget these are my
own people. And I understand them." He found a bunk in a
lodging house. At the end of the second day he reported back
to the office that the row was the result of a feverish debate, in
which the whole camp was involved, as to where the new capital
for the new republic of Jugo-Slavia should be located! That
man went about explaining to them the United States' part
in the war. At a mass meeting he spoke of the Red Cross, and
every man present joined. And later he sold $6000 in War
Savings Stamps. The men were eager to give. They bought
Liberty Bonds, too. The management said, "All that we needed
was an interpreter to help us understand the men."

LABOR CAMP INSPECTION

In the first year and a half of its existence the commission
acted merely as an advisory body in the work of labor camp
inspection, with no authority to enforce the improvements which
it recommended. In 1915 the legislature amended the Labor
Camp Sanitation Law, and placed the power of enforcing it in
the hands of the commission. But, where possible, the com-
mission still preferred to act in an advisory capacity. In the
words of one of its inspectors, "We talk and work and fight and
plead, and only as the last resort do we use the law."

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 447

In the last five years the living conditions of California labor
camps have been revolutionized, and during these years no
serious labor disturbances have taken place in California. Slowly
the camp operator has become converted to the commission's
point of view.

One railroad company, which at the beginning of the com-
mission's work could claim some of the worst camps in the state,
has just agreed to put up model car camps for its section and
bridge crews and its extra gangs, and the result of this change will
affect all railroads in California.

Five years ago, one bath was found in all the lumber camps
visited. To-day, practically every lumber camp in the state is
equipped with bathing facilities.

Operators of mines have been ready to make improvements.
All of the larger mines and most of the smaller ones have been
inspected and improved by the commission.

Much progress was made in improving the state's farm
labor camps. These are difficult to handle, as the farm is often
rented and no one considers himself responsible.

The standard of sanitation for the fruit, berry, and mis-
cellaneous camps has been entirely changed in the last five
years. It was in the work with these camps that the commission
has evolved its plans for community camps.

By this plan a number of small holders erect a camp at a
central point and operate it jointly. This plan has been already
tried and will be undertaken on a large scale next summer in the
counties of Fresno, Tulare, and Kern.

Education in the matter of improvements was not confined to
the employers. The commission itself discovered ever new
methods for improving its own plans, as its experience grew.
The advisory pamphlet on the building and maintenance of
camps, published in 1915, no longer meets the commission's
own standards of 1918, and a revised pamphlet is now nearing
completion.

This pamphlet, with its drawings and descriptions, gives the
camp superintendent plans, by which he can make a camp
habitable and up to standard at a minimum of expense. It
considers the employer as well as the laborer. Not only California
has used it, but it has been sent upon request to every state in

448 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

<eir

the union. Recently the Japanese have translated it into their
language for distribution among their countrymen.

Also, out of the commission's experience have come recommen-
dations for strengthening the Camp Sanitation Law. The law
is now adequate for those who stand ready to cooperate with the
commission. For the others (those who still hold that anything
is good enough for labor) more stringent regulations are needed
if the work of camp sanitation is to develop to its fullest capacity.

The past two years have been trying ones, marked by unrest
of labor both in cities and rural districts throughout the United
States. While other states were experiencing strikes and labor
disturbances brought about by unlivable camp conditions, it is
significant that but one minor instance of labor trouble on account
of insanitary camp conditions was recorded in California. When
the labor situation became serious other states had to call on the
federal government for advice and assistance to carry out what
California had accomplished through the Camp Department of
the Commission of Immigration and Housing. During the same
period the War Department found it necessary to detail seven
commissioned officers to devote their time to reconstructing labor
camps in the spruce district of the Pacific Northwest.

LABOR CAMP SANITATION

Unfortunately, in preventive work it is always difficult to
prove results, or to prove that trouble has been prevented.
But it is fairly certain that the movement for labor camp sani-
tation in California during the past few years has done much to
ward off and prevent outbreaks on the part of the 75,000 or
80,000 unskilled, migratory workers in the state. At various
times during that period labor trouble has threatened to reach
the violent stage in different localities, where one of the causes of
complaint has been insanitary and objectionable living conditions.
Inspectors have been rushed to these points and the operators
have been persuaded to furnish proper living conditions without
the threat of legal pressure being brought to bear. With the
granting of these proper demands, the temper and mood of the
workers has always changed and peaceable negotiation concerning
the other matters 'in dispute has been made possible. The com-
mission has had such experiences throughout the state.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 449

Moreover, a recent request from the Lumbermen's Congress of
all the Northwestern states for several hundred copies of the
commission's advisory pamphlet on camp sanitation and housing,
for immediate use, indicates the fact that attention to this matter
is absolutely essential, particularly in the rougher industries of
the far Western states.

The operators have finally come to realize these facts, and
their belated appeal to California is really proof of the fact that
California owes her freedom from trouble in the lumber camps,
partially at least, to the state's foresight in providing better
living accommodations during the past years.

As additional proof of the importance of this particular work
the following unsolicited statement from Dr. Frederick L. Hoff-
man, nationally prominent in sociological work, is presented.
Dr. Hoffman sent us this communication after a personal in-
vestigation of conditions in California lumber camps :

My general conclusions regarding the work of the Commission of
Immigration and Housing were distinctly favorable. I was gratified
to observe in my personal inspection of camps throughout northern
California that a decided improvement of camp conditions has been
secured, through hearty and intelligent cooperation of large employers
of labor with the officials of the commission. What has been done in
this respect in California should be followed without needless delay in
other states. Conditions at labor or construction camps are, as a rule,
throughout the country, unsatisfactory. No other state has made
progress in this respect comparable with California. The model
plans, rules, and regulations promulgated by your commission are
admirable and deserving of nation-wide consideration.

The men who are employed in the woods, or in construction work,
or in seasonal fruit gathering, are entitled to be housed and cared for
in conformity to modern sanitary requirements. What is done for
them as a matter of justice is, however, certain to benefit in the long
run the community as a whole. Proportionate to the results achieved,
the expenses incurred must be considered reasonable. Your success
is primarily to be attributed to the careful selection of your official
staff. I am sure that my views are shared by the large employers
of labor, and the large body of employees, who are much more familiar
with the facts. It is sincerely to be hoped that other states will follow
California in the adoption of corresponding methods of labor and
construction camp supervision and control.

45o AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

In line with the labor camp sanitation work has been the safety
movement under the Industrial Accident Commission whereby the
general working conditions have been made much safer, and better
in other respects. Likewise, the State Labor Commissioner and
the Industrial Welfare Commission have done much to improve
working and sanitary conditions in factories and canneries, etc.

THE MIGRATORY LABOR PROBLEM

One phase of labor problems peculiar to California is the direct
result of our state's specialized crops where thousands of casual
laborers are employed for a brief season of three or four weeks
only. Farm crops are not diversified in California and, as a
result, there are practically no opportunities for steady or all-
year employment of agricultural laborers. The districts where
the few large specialized crops are grown are widely scattered
and, during the harvest season, the workers have to move over
great distances in the course of what is termed their profession
of "following the crops." This system has built up a class of
many thousands of men who have no established residence or
home and who are largely unemployed during from five to six
of the fall, winter, and spring months. It might be said that it is
only by accident that any of these people are enabled to casually
fit themselves into the industrial scheme of things during these
months when there is no opportunity for employment in agri-
cultural pursuits. Those who find no casual employment during
this time either hibernate in cheap lodging houses, living meagerly
on their summer's earnings, or they become public charges.

The evils of the system are obvious :

First, the economic waste entailed in this undirected, more or
less chance wandering about, hunting for casual, seasonal work
during the summer months.

The first obvious step toward a remedy of this particular evil
is the establishment of free labor exchanges or employment
bureaus to direct and control the migration of these workers.
The State Immigration and Housing Commission, in 1915,
initiated a bill to create a system of free state labor exchanges.
The legislature established such state employment offices;
however, the state was not far sighted enough to provide funds

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 451

which would permit of the establishment of this work on a suffi-
ciently large scale. The federal government has also established
a sort of departmental system of free labor exchanges, but these
offices, also, are not yet up jto the requirements of the situation.
Furthermore, besides such bureaus of intelligence and informa-
tion, there must be some arrangement for rapid group movement
of this labor by the railroads at reduced rates, and public employ-
ment offices will always be handicapped until some constitutional
method is devised for abolishing the practice of private offices in
charging fees for securing a man employment.

Second, there is the more fundamental evil of lack of employ-
ment for this class of labor during the winter months. Except
at times when there is a universal shortage of labor which takes
up all the slack, there is a tremendous economic and social loss
involved in such unemployment.

The only complete solution that offers itself for normal times
is a change in methods of farming by diversification of crops,
providing regular employment in all districts of the state for
longer periods of time during each year.

Another possible solution is an interstate systematized inter-
change of labor, supervised by a federal employment bureau.

Third, there is the equally fundamental evil presented by a
large class of labor which can never become established home
builders, or even responsible voting residents of any one com-
munity.

The only possible, final solution of this evil seems to be the
abolishment of the whole system that requires an army of
migratory workers.

Fourth, the fact that these workers are only temporarily
employed makes exploitation more possible. The most important
phase of this evil has already been pointed out under the dis-
cussion of the problem of labor camp sanitation. These roving,
unorganized workers are practically compelled to accept the
deplorable and degrading living conditions provided on most
farms and ranches. Such a life lowers the physical, mental, and
moral standards of the workers and weakens their whole fiber,
besides breeding dangerous discontent and unrest.

452 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

HOUSING

Until recently the conception of housing as a social, as well as
an economic, problem was considered an extravagant theory. But
the work of the commission's Bureau of Housing has, from the
first, been built on the conception that proper housing of any
human being makes for steady employment, for contentment,
for self-respect, for loyalty, and for good citizenship.

The commission's first task, after undertaking the work, was
to educate the state as a whole to its necessity. Few knew how
their neighbor lived, and surveys were made to bring actual condi-
tions to their knowledge. In five years such preliminary investi-
gations have been made in 55 cities — 25 before September, 1917,
and 30 since. These began in the most difficult and congested
districts of San Francisco and were continued until they have
gone all over the state. The laws were so inadequate and the
machinery for their enforcement so meager that little could be
done except to create intelligent public opinion.

In 1915, the commission was given limited powers in the
enforcement of the tenement house law. This did not meet the
needs, so the commission called together representatives, in-
cluding attorneys, physicians, architects, builders, health officers,
and fire inspectors, of the state's 14 largest cities in a Housing
Institute, and these, in cooperation with the commission,
drafted new laws covering hotels, tenements, and single dwellings,
which were passed by the legislature of 1917.

All the laws went into effect September i, 1917.

The tenement house law is a great improvement over the old
law. The hotel law is the most comprehensive in the United
States. The dwelling house act is merely a skeleton bill, but at
least paves the way for a really effective law later on. It applies
only to incorporated cities and towns and it is the commission's
hope that in the future the entire state will come under the
protection of the law. The commission was instrumental in having
a county ordinance passed in Fresno covering the same points as the
state law, and there is a possibility that other counties may adopt
this method of reaching the rural communities.

With this new legislation in effect, the commission began its
tour of cities and towns with the purpose of securing uniform

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 453

enforcement and giving assistance to officials in the interpretation
and explanation of the laws. Twenty-four cities were visited
with this end in view, and inspections made in conjunction with
the city officials. According to reports from fifty-nine cities in
September, 1918, one year after the laws went into effect,
much progress was made in securing changes in buildings.
In seven of the large cities alone, over 2000 inside dark rooms
were removed. On account of the war much of the actual re-
construction work was held up.

The commission prepared a manual for the use of inspectors
and builders, explaining the laws, and their application, and
giving drawings and charts to illustrate. This has done as much
to prevent violations as to clean up existing conditions.

As a result of the department's campaign of education the
University of California started a course in Problems of Housing.
During 1918-1919, the course was conducted by a member of
the staff of the commission.

It is interesting to note that where, five years ago, the housing
work was looked upon as freakish reform, to-day the commission
is constantly being ask ed by cities to make surveys and assist
them in improving their conditions.

Industries likewise are awakened to their responsibility in
providing decent housing accommodations for their workers.
Requests have become numerous for information and definite
plans as how best to house employees.

As was the case with all other departments of the commission,
the housing work was modified to meet war emergencies. The
director was called to federal service, having as his territory
the entire Pacific coast. The state commission cooperated with
the federal plan as far as possible. During December, 1917,
and from January to May, 1918, the housing department devoted
its entire time to war housing. Investigations were made in
Oakland, Alameda, San Pedro and Vallejo to determine the
extent of the housing facilities for shipyard workers. After
the serious shortage of workingmen's homes was discovered, the
commission cooperated with the federal government, cities,
and private organizations to relieve the situation. Effort was
made to induce large employers of labor to take some active
part in providing housing facilities for their workers.

454 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

The war has emphasized the need and value of better housing ;
the years of reconstruction will no doubt give it the greatest
impetus. It is toward education rather than toward laws that
we must look for betterment of conditions. When wages are low,
work irregular, families large, and rents high, it does little good
to talk of enforcing the law against overcrowding. When
families are ignorant of our language, the law alone has small
effect. We must realize the basis of our troubles and assemble
all the means at hand to educate landlords as to the social
obligations, tenants and householders in their rights and duties,
and the public in its responsibility, that California may set the
standard of the whole country for good housing.

In order to achieve the results desired, a coordinated and sys-
tematic campaign of action must be formulated and adhered to.
The heretofore apathetic attitude of some of the municipal and
state officials must be changed. Good results will obtain if
every public official, particularly the health officers, building
and housing inspectors, at once commence an intensive survey
or investigation of conditions in their respective cities and
counties; platting and zoning their communities into districts,
attacking first the district where the worst conditions obtain,
and continuing the work diligently until every building used for
human habitation is made to conform to the California state
housing laws and to the local ordinances of the cities and counties.

Opposition may be encountered, but if traced to its source
will be found only of a selfish sort because no individual or
community has yet advanced a logical reason why bad housing
should prevail ; bad housing will exist only so long as the good-
natured public will tolerate it. So long as the principle is right,
and the laws back it up, consequences are not to be feared. An
educational publicity campaign to get crystallized public sentiment
behind the movement will in itself accomplish half of the task, by
exposing those who stand for bad housing and all its attendant evils.

In the light of experience, and from the use of available in-
formation, the time has arrived when each individual and com-
munity, public official and civic organization, should take a
stand either for or against bad housing.1

1 The commission's three pamphlets, An A-B-C of Housing, A Plan fora Housing
Survey, and a State Housing Manual which contains the state housing laws,
can be had upon application.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 455

BUREAU or IMMIGRANT EDUCATION

FOREWORD

Until May, ±917, there was only one person, the director, in this
bureau. This director, by her personality and genius for hard
work, was able to secure and use much volunteer assistance.
She surveyed her immediate field and by her first report on
"What it Costs to Neglect the Immigrant" was able to enlist
the interest and cooperation of the community. Following this,
she gathered the information and personally prepared Leaflets
1,2,3 and 4 on Education and all pamphlets issued prior to 1918.

She also planned "The Heroes of Freedom" and "A Com-
munity Survey of Los Angeles."

These reports are largely upon Los Angeles for two reasons :
that Los Angeles is an immigrant center and because the director
was held in that city as the head of the branch office.

REPORT

In section 6 of the act creating the Commission of Immigration
and Housing, the commission is charged :

With "bringing to the immigrant the best opportunities for acquir-
ing education and citizenship."

With "ascertaining the necessity and extent to which instruction
should be imparted to immigrants"; and

To "devise methods for the proper instruction of adult and minor
aliens in the English language and other subjects," and

To "put into operation practical devices for training for citizenship,
and for encouraging naturalization."

This program to be carried out by cooperation with existing
agencies rather than by creating new machinery.

Educational Work to Be Cooperation with All Existing Agencies

In compliance with this keynote of cooperation, the com-
mission, through its Department of Education, has endeavored,
not to establish new machinery for carrying on its work, but
to encourage already existing agencies to understand their
local immigration problem and extend their work to meet it.

456 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

For this reason much of the time has necessarily been spent in
propaganda, in interviewing superintendents of schools, directors
of public employment bureaus, of settlements, playgrounds,
libraries, missions, and other agencies, public and private, always
emphasizing the importance of making such modifications in a
regular program as will fit the peculiar needs of the immigrant.
Through its complaint department such questions as child labor
and inattendance at school, among immigrant families, were
reported to the proper authorities.

Compulsory Attendance of School Children

Through its labor camp inspection, the commission has a
record of children of immigrants for whom "the regular schools
are not easily accessible." This has been arranged by urging
the county superintendent to open a school in compliance with
the school law, or where this was not practicable, employers
have been asked to provide instruction. There is much need
for further work in this direction.

Propaganda to Educate Americans

In order to educate the American to a clearer and more
sympathetic understanding of the immigrant, volunteer speakers,
trained by the commission, have been sent out to arouse com-
munities to their responsibilities and to give them a practical
program.

Aside from this more indefinite part of the education program,
which shows results, only in a growing social consciousness that
California has an immigration problem, which it can no longer
neglect, there have been concrete activities which should be
reported upon.

General Study — Home Teacher Legislation

First Year: During the first year of the commission, the
Department of Education confined its activities to studying the
agencies available for immigrant education. It found one great
need. There was no American influence, except an occasional
settlement, which reached the home. The only agency which

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 457

could adequately do this was the school. It alone came with no
prejudice, and it had the widest contact. As teachers already
were too overburdened for this additional service, the com-
mission, after studying the best methods in other states, drafted
a law which created the home teacher. Once the act was passed,
the department devoted itself to explaining the functions of
such a teacher and preparing a manual for her use. For the
sake of having a definite illustration of the advantages of this
appendage to the school system, and to work out standards,
the commission induced a highly trained woman to work as a
volunteer in the Los Angeles City schools for a year and a half.

Mobilization of Women's Clubs throughout the State to Study Immi-
gration in Local Communities

Second Year: The Department of Education devoted most of
its concrete work during the second year to the city of Los
Angeles, because it hoped definite accomplishment in one place
would be the best beginning for a successful state- wide program.

It did, however, mobilize the women's organizations through-
out the state to study this local immigration problem, giving
them a questionnaire and a program to follow :

Survey of the Cost of the Immigrant to Los Angeles Taxpayers

In Los Angeles, it began with a study of the cost of the immi-
grant to the city taxpayer. This convincing proof that education is
cheaper in the end than remedial methods, was made the subject
of an educational campaign. Large colored charts were prepared
and used in speaking before the Board of Education, the Chamber
of Commerce, County Board of Supervisors, women's and other
civic organizations. The school board and county supervisors
were especially urged to increase their budgets and give a larger
proportion for the teaching of English in the night schools and
in afternoon classes for women.

Study of the Neighborhood Schools

A careful study of neighborhood schools (public schools
especially adapted for the local needs of immigrant communities,

458 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

a unique feature of the Los Angeles public school system) was
prepared for the State Conference of Social Agencies in a " Report
on Social and Economic Conditions of the Neighborhood School
Districts."

— " Campaign to Get Foreigners into the Night Schools

Third Year: The third year opened with an intensive cam-
paign to get the adult foreigners into the night schools of Los
Angeles. The commission lent its office temporarily to the Board
of Education for this purpose and mobilized every available
agency in the city for advertising and inviting the foreign-born
to the schools. New schools were opened where there was a
demand, hours were adapted to special needs, and classes were
organized in places outside school buildings, in factories, or
wherever convenient.

In comparison with the tremendous efforts made, the results
were inadequate, and it was necessary to find the reason. The
teaching of English to foreigners, a highly specialized profession,
was being done by teachers who had no training for this highly
specialized work.

Intensive Study of Night School Methods and Attendance

Very few figures have ever been compiled about night school
attendance. Therefore for information and as a basis for future
programs an intensive study was made of all the night school
classes in Los Angeles County.

An effort was made on the part of an investigator in Los
Angeles County to find the causes for the very irregular attend-
ance. The result of this study was published in a report, "A
Discussion of Methods of Teaching English to Adult Foreigners
with a Report on Los Angeles County." It revealed the startling
fact that "141 pupils never came back after the. first night and
that only 322 out of a total of 3448 stayed for sixty nights" This
pamphlet has been widely used by teachers to improve their
method.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 459

Appointment of (i) Instructor in Methods of English Teaching at Los

Angeles State Normal and (2) Supervisor of Immigrant Education in

Los Angeles City Schools.

The next task was to see that the normal school included this
in its curriculum. A splendid teacher, a veritable genius, was
appointed to give two classes every Saturday, to which teachers
as well as students were invited. This was followed up by the
appointment of this same instructor as supervisor of immigration
education in the city schools. The far-reaching results of placing
this work upon the same basis with the same opportunity for
growth and development of other departments, cannot be
estimated. This was not done by the commission directly, but
its urging and the public sentiment it had created were in part
responsible. Too much stress cannot be laid on the fact, however,
that Los Angeles has a school superintendent of great vision and
with unusual experience and knowledge of the foreigner.

Classes for Foreign-born Women

Because the home teacher although employed in a few schools
had never received universal indorsement by boards of education,
the commission tried an experiment in the summer of its third
year. The Los Angeles Normal School was asked to give credit
to such students as would work under supervision during the
summer, teaching classes of foreign-born women. Through the
cooperation and with the supervision of the Normal, the School
Board, the International Institute of the Y. W. C. A., and the
commission's Director of Education, twenty-four classes were
conducted for women of various nationalities. The report of
this was published in " A Summer Experiment in the Americani-
zation of Foreign-born Women."

Immigrant Education Work in Fresno

Fourth Year: The fourth year, the commission planned to
carry its education campaign over the state by doing intensive
work of two or three months in communities where there were
large numbers of foreign-born. It began in Fresno, by making a

460 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

study of conditions and agencies for their amelioration with a
suggested program of constructive work. This was published
in "A Report on Fresno's Immigration Problem."

While in Fresno the director of the Bureau of Education got in
touch with other communities in the San Joaquin Valley and
stimulated them to fresh efforts. The commission was able to
assist the Superintendent of Education of Fresno County to
compile very valuable statistics gathered by the teachers, on
the nationality, and the economic and industrial conditions, of the
parents of school children.

Los Angeles Cooperative Survey of Educational Status and Living
Conditions in Foreign Districts

During the winter, a unique survey was carried on in Los
Angeles with the cooperation and support of the commission,
in which over two hundred social workers and teachers took
part. Most of the organizing and directing of this work was
done by the Children's Librarian of the Los Angeles Public
Library and the director of the Bureau of Education of the
Immigration Commission. This survey is now ready for press.

English Classes in Concentration Camps

Fifth Year: Much of the work of this year was connected
with war service.

In May of 1918 the commission was privileged to send a
normal teacher to Camp Kearny to instruct a class of sergeants
and corporals who were detailed to teach English to foreign-
speaking soldiers. Two representatives of the commission assisted
in the organization and teaching of the class. A report of this
experiment by one of the teachers is given in the National Geo-
graphic Magazine of August, 1918, entitled " Bringing the World
to Our Foreign-Language Soldiers." The government has used
this report in the various cantonments.

The publication "Our Soldiers and the English Language"
is a report of the splendid effort of the San Francisco teachers
in volunteering their services at Camp Scott and the Presidio.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 461

Oakland Normal Class

In order to have all teachers better prepared for their task, a
normal class was held in Oakland under the joint auspices of the
city school department and the commission. This supplemented
a similar course given in the South by the University of California.

Organization of Counties in California for Americanization Work

When the revelations of the draft awoke the country to the
necessity of national unity through education, it undertook in a
large way the organization of public sentiment for the task so
long neglected. At this time the Commission of Immigration
and Housing was chosen as the Americanization Committee of
the state, and much of the summer and fall of 1918 was occupied
in organizing in the counties in California for this work. A
study was made of the foreign-born communities, and their
natural and wise leaders asked to serve on Americanization
committees. County chairmen were appointed. Plans and
programs were prepared for the instruction and direction of these
chairmen. The commission now has three organizers and is
ready to send a representative to visit each county and give
necessary assistance. Various new leaflets have been prepared
which can be used for Americanization work everywhere. They
are " Americanization — The California Plan," "Heroes of
Freedom," "A Plan for Speakers" and a revised "Home Teacher
Manual."

The need for educational work is so great and the number of
employees who can devote themselves to it so small, that the
commission is conscious of tremendous gaps that are left un-
filled. A strong program of county work which is now undertaken
will do much to crystallize American feeling, to give accurate
information and produce far-reaching results.

Such success as has been won in this department is due to

i. The wholehearted cooperation and loyalty of each and every
department of the Commission of Immigration and Housing ;
camp and housing inspectors, officers at the complaint desks,
foreign-speaking agents and Americanization organizers who

462 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

have carried the message of education to every part of the state,
urging men and women to learn our language and our laws ;

2. The cooperation of the social agencies of the state in spreading

the new spirit toward our foreign population ;

3. A speaking propaganda with speakers trained in the policies of

the commission ;

4. The cooperation of the press ;

5. The free use of the educational pamphlets prepared by this com-

mission, which are sought by many states beside California.

AMERICANIZATION

The program of Americanization in the state of California is
in the hands of the commission. By this program the state is
being organized for a closer cooperation between the foreign-born
and the native-born in all that makes for the improvement of
the living conditions of both, and the method of procedure
followed by the commission is based upon the ideals which it
brings to the task.

The commission holds that the foreign-born brings with him to
America many fine traditions and fine traits and fine beliefs which
would be of benefit to his community if he were given the oppor-
tunity to take his place in the advancement of that community.

It holds that an immigrant is at a disadvantage in his new
home until he has overcome certain initial handicaps — ignorance
of language, ignorance of laws and of customs. It holds that a
man is largely made by the conditions under which he lives,
that every man will choose good conditions in preference to bad
if the opportunity of choice is but given him, that every man will
do his part toward bettering his own surroundings if he is but
shown the way in which he can be of use ; that it is unfair to
demand good citizenship of a man who is disheartened and
oppressed by handicaps which he cannot remove.

Good housing, decent working conditions, education, friendly
advice when it is needed, real help when trouble comes — this
is not too much to give to the man whom we ask to become worthy
of America. And he must be helped toward acquiring these
requisites of contentment, or else Americanization remains a
hollow word.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 463

The commission was formed "to protect and aid immigrants
in California" and it has taken upon itself those tasks which
touch the immigrant most closely. Yet a glance over these
pages will show that work for the good of the foreign-born can-
not but reflect upon the welfare of the entire state, just as neglect
of the immigrant hinders the progress of the entire state.

COUNTY COMMITTEES OF AMERICANIZATION

The commission has issued a California plan for Americani-
zation. This program provides for committees in each county of
the state, working on the same general plan, for its successful
carrying out depends upon groups in each county and each unit
of the county — upon the local men and women who give
themselves to community building for national unity. Upon
them depends the making of local plans which shall be in har-
mony with, as well as a part of, the state program.

These committees will cooperate with all existing agencies ;
they may now be of especial service to the foreign-born men who
have served in our army and who will apply to the placement
bureaus. In helping to place these men, there may develop other
opportunities for service.

Under the emergency act of May 9, 1918, foreign-born soldiers
are being naturalized before demobilization. This naturalization,
however, cannot fulfill its full purpose unless these men on returning
home are brought to understand American life and institutions.
Important as it is to find work for every discharged soldier, it is
equally important that the foreign-born soldier be so directed that he
will become an intelligent citizen of the country for which he fought.

Through the courtesy of General Borree, the commission has
obtained many lists of the foreign-born registrants who need to
learn English. These lists will be forwarded to the county com-
mittees as soon as they are ready for action.

The commission now has three Americanization organizers
in the field, two working out from the San Francisco office and
one from the Los Angeles office. The commission and its agents
are at the service of the county committees, and will give careful
attention to all questions submitted to them.

464 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

OUTSTANDING COOPERATION IN THE AMERICANIZATION OF
CALIFORNIA

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

In the summer of 1918 the San Francisco Chamber of Com-
merce made a survey of the industries of its city in order to
determine the number of employees who wished or needed
opportunity to learn to speak and read our language.

On December 27 it made the following appeal to employers :

We are inclosing herewith list of alien employees in your establish-
ment who have signified a desire to attend night school and fit them-
selves for citizenship. They should have your encouragement and
support, for at this time an expression of personal interest from you,
their employer, may be just the thing needed to convince the doubtful
and the wavering.

The San Francisco School Department has provided additional
accommodations for alien students, and each of your employees whose
name appears on the inclosed list has received a letter from this com-
mittee, instructing him when and where to go, to begin his schooling.

One of the chief difficulties is to sustain the interest of the pupil
until he has properly completed his course, and this may be largely
overcome by delegating some one of sympathy and understanding who
will watch the progress of the students and give encouragement and
advice where needed.

This committee is confidently relying on you for the earnest support
and cooperation which the importance of this program amply justifies.

At the same time it sent the following letter to employees :

Dear Friend:

Some months ago you wrote on a card which we sent you that you
would like to go to night school and learn to speak English, so you
could become an American citizen.

Men who speak and understand English can do better work and get
more pay.

If you are going to live and work in America you should become a
naturalized citizen, but you should first learn what American citizen-
ship means by going to school and gaining a knowledge of the rights,
duties, and privileges of a citizen.

San Francisco wants to help you and is giving lessons in citizenship
at several of the evening schools, the names and locations of which
are on inclosed list.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 465

Go to the nearest one to your home any Tuesday or Thursday
evening after January i and join one of the classes. It will cost you
nothing, and you will learn much that will make you happier to live
and work in America.

THE CROATIAN SOCIETY AND SOUTH SLAVONIC ALLIANCE OF

OAKLAND

In a letter expressing the appreciation of the Croatian Society
and the South Slavonic Alliance of Oakland at the appointment
of a foreign-speaking agent, the following statement is made :

The above-mentioned organizations are well known in many lines of
progressive endeavor, nationally and internationally speaking. Now,
we are concentrating our efforts towards the securing of full pro-
tection for all southern Slavs who have the misfortune of still being
Austro-Hungarian subjects, and educating that part of them who
through illiteracy are still loyal to the monarchistic principle, so that
they may come to a full realization of the advantages guaranteed by
the great Constitution of our adopted country, and to instill into them
a love and enthusiasm for those glorious principles for which America
has barkened to the call of Mars even — so that they may be fulfilled,
and thereby tear asunder the bonds which have fettered the southern
Slavs for five hundred years.

THE 'JAPANESE AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA

The Japanese Agricultural Association, during the summer of
1918, translated the commission's Camp Sanitation pamphlet
into Japanese for distribution to Japanese farmers. During the
winter months of 1918-1919, the association has notified the
commission that it will provide lectures by Japanese experts,

for Japanese farmers, at fif ty-six places in California.

«

Object

The object of such lectures will be to explain to the Japanese
farmers :

1. The significance of the great war, and its influence upon the

national ideals of America.

2. The new movement started by the American government and the

American leaders of thought for the Americanization of the
aliens residing in this country.

466 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

3. The necessity and wisdom, on the part of Japanese farmers, of

acting in harmony with American farmers in all their activities,
expecially with regard to economic matters.

4. The necessity of organizing or strengthening growers' associa-

tions in standards of price for farm produce.

5. Farm management and sanitation.

THE GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS

This national organization, representing 2,000,000 women, is
committed to Americanization work, and a member of the Com-
mission of Immigration and Housing of California is its Chairman
of Americanization. At its annual meeting in Hot Springs,
Arkansas, last April, its Chairman of Education, Dr. Mary E.
Parker of the Western Reserve University, said :

Specialists in this work look to women to arouse public interest,
to help in the raising of funds, and to give personal attention to specific
problems. They urge also that no contribution can be of greater value
than the individual and personal service of women who will them-
selves take a course in methods of teaching English to foreigners and
thus make themselves trained teachers. In the opinion of the present
chairman, a club or federation will do well to consider the plan of
placing in the schools in the foreign quarters a "Home Teacher." Such
effort attacks the problem at its point of greatest need and utilizes the
public school, which must be in the last analysis the great instru-
mentality for Americanization. With a view to rendering especially
efficient service in the cause of Americanizing our foreign women and
their homes at a time when such work is not merely desirable but
imperative, the recommendation is made that all state chairmen during
the next biennium inform themselves in regard to California Home Teacher
Act and inaugurate a movement looking toward similar legislation in their
own states.

THE LAND SITUATION

The Commission of Immigration and Housing, in its work of
protecting and caring for the immigrant, has found itself con-
stantly confronted by various phases of the land problem, and
particularly by the difficulties attending the prospective settler
of small means who tries to obtain a secure footing on the soil.
In its second annual report the commission, among other things
relating to the subject, called attention to the fact that "idle

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 467

and unimproved lands seem to constitute one of the safest and
most profitable investments. And, unfortunately for the un-
employed, the investment in land does not need the assistance of
labor or require the payment of wages, nor does it compel owners
of wealth to bid against each other for labor. Wealth may thus
be invested and large gains realized from" it by merely waiting,
without its owners paying out one dollar in wages or contributing
in the slightest degree to the success of any wealth-producing
enterprise, while every improvement in the arts and sciences
and in social relations, as well as increase of population, adds to
its value. By this means we foster unemployment, yet it is
considered legitimate business to purchase land for the avowed
purpose of preventing capital and labor from being employed
upon it until enormous sums can be extracted for this privilege."

In furtherance of the views and purposes expressed in its
previous report the commission has just completed a survey of
large landholdings in southern California. This report is ready
for the printer and should be available for distribution when the
legislature reconvenes in March.

It is scarcely necessary to state that the need of definite infor-
mation on the California land situation is both vital and pressing.

Misinformation is general, and wholly unfounded statements
are made, often without contradiction. As an instance, it may
be noted that during the recent political campaign the statement
was repeatedly made and widely published that twenty million
fertile acres of land in the state are lying idle. As a matter of
fact, there are not twenty million fertile acres of land in the whole
of California. The Conservation Commission, which in 1912
published a report of its survey of the state, gave the estimate
of 21,936,325 acres of what is called " agricultural land," of
which the irrigated portion was only 3,188,541 acres, and of
which only 9,623,300 could, in its judgment, ever be irrigated.
Though the term " agricultural land" is not clearly defined in
that report, an analysis of the detailed figures shows that it was
used in a manner broadly and even extravagantly inclusive.
When one subtracts from this aggregate the areas underlaid
with hardpan, the areas charged with alkali, the sinks and patches
of "hog wallow," and the considerable areas for which there
is an inadequate water supply, or no supply at all, one finds a

468 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

conjectural total which cannot possibly reach twenty million
acres. What proportion of this total lies idle no man can say;
and no guess made on any data now available is of much -value.
: The collecting and classifying of this information is, however,
not an easy task. The contents of assessors' and tax collectors'
books are not arranged for the gleaning of this particular sort of
knowledge ; while in the case of Los Angeles County the enormous
number of entries presents at first sight an unexplorable jungle
which might appall the most ardent investigator. Ownership,
moreover, is in many ways disguised and cannot always be
ascertained from the records. Data on related matters, and from
sources other than the tax records, are sometimes so meager and
again so conflicting that upon certain points the investigator
can express only conjecture instead of substantiated fact. Yet,
it is believed that the findings here assembled may supply
some much-needed information, and that . the accompanying
suggestions may aid in the application of a remedy for a gross
and long-continued evil.

A summary of the findings of fact, or of reasonable approxi-
mation, are as follows :

1. That in the eight counties of southern California there are
279 holdings (reducible by allowing for duplications to about
255 holdings), each of more than 2000 acres, comprising an
aggregate of 4,893,915 acres.

2. That the Southern Pacific grant lands and "lieu lands" in
five of these counties (there are none in the other three counties)
aggregate 2,598,775 acres.

3. That of the total of non-railroad and non-public rural lands
in these counties, roughly approximated by the federal census
figures of "land in farms" (4,587,581 acres), 2,295,140 acres,
or 50 per cent, are owned in about 250 holdings.

4. That apart from the railroad lands, there are at least 32
holdings each of more than 15,000 acres; that seven of these
holdings exceed 50,000 acres each ; that one of them is of 101,000
acres and another of 183,399 acres.

5. That of the 2,295,140 acres mentioned above, at least
666,886 acres, or 29 per cent, are now or potentially tillable.

6. That a considerable part of this tillable land lies idle ; that
another considerable part of it is not devoted to its most

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 469

beneficial use ; that though there are many thousands of persons
eager to get access to this land, much of it is not for sale under
any circumstances, and that such portions as are for sale are held
under prices usually beyond the productive value and on terms
of payment which mean great hazard or ruin to the purchaser.

Some remedial suggestions follow. They include the extension
on a large scale of the plan of the Land Settlement Board. But
they lay the greatest emphasis on the need of making large
landholdings unprofitable, and to this end the recommendation
is made of a graduated land value tax.

RECONSTRUCTION WORK WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PROB-
LEMS AFFECTING THE COMMISSION OF IMMIGRATION AND

HOUSING

I

Action necessary for distribution of immigrants and for getting on
the land those who wish farms.

1. The breaking up of large land holdings by

a. Either a graduated tax on unimproved agricultural land held by one

person, in excess of — — acres.

b. A tax on unimproved agricultural land which is capable of culti-

vation.

2. The creation of a State Land Information Bureau, either under the

State Board of Agriculture or the University Department of
Agriculture, which board shall :

a. Give correct impartial written or oral information to prospective

settlers in California concerning the soil, water supply, and
agricultural possibilities, not only of various sections, but even of
particular tracts of land.

b. Cooperate with prospective farmers in California by finding for

them land suited to their particular needs and assisting them
by advice regarding methods of financing themselves.

c. Assist settlers who are on the land by cooperation of county horti-

cultural agents, county farm advisers, university experiment
stations, and agricultural experts and by local farming associations.

3. By great extension of the California land settlement policy.

NOTE. If this program were put in effect there would be a large amount of
agricultural land thrown on the market ; the prospective farmer, either of
native or foreign birth, could get accurate information regarding its location
and value, would be advised of all available methods of financing himself,
and would be constantly helped in making a success of his venture.

470 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

Land settlement by the state would supplement this opportunity
of getting on the soil.

The Commission of Immigration and Housing could cooperate with
such agencies in assisting immigrants to get land and thus aid in
relieving tenant farming and urban congestion and at the same time
increase food production.

II

The creation of a non-paid Farm Labor Board,1 either under the
Agricultural Department of the University, the State Board of Agri-
culture or the United States Department of Agriculture, this board
to be made up of :

1. Representatives of agencies supplying farm labor, as —

a. The United States Employment Service.

b. The State Employment Bureaus.

c. The Woman's Land Army.

d. The Working Boys' Reserve.

e. Miscellaneous.

2. Representative of farm and camp sanitation agencies :

a. Commission of Immigration and Housing.

b. Bureau Sanitary Engineering (State Board of Health).

3. Representative of Labor Protective Agencies :

a. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

b. Industrial Welfare Commission.

c. Commission of Immigration and Housing.

4. Representatives of farmers and agriculture associations.

The need of such a clearing house was clearly shown at a recent
conference held on the invitation of the State Council of Defense.

Ill

Part to be played by the Commission of Immigration and Housing
in reconstruction of California.

i. Americanization.

a. The commission will act as the Americanization committee for the
entire state and will advise with and cooperate with all state-
wide agencies.

1 This body, which should meet at least once in two months, would form a
clearing house for farm labor problems in California. The farmers could make
known their needs the months and places when needed; the commission could
advise regarding camps, both community and single, and give general advice on
immigrant labor ; the protective agencies could instruct fanners of the laws apply-
ing and the standards required.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 471

The commission must have five field divisions for Americanization, as follows :

(1) Southern — with one field agent working from Los Angeles.

(2) San Joaquin Valley — with field agent working from Fresno.

(3) Bay District — with field agent working from San Francisco.

(4) North mountain region — with field agent working out of San

Francisco or Sacramento.

(5) Sacramento Valley — with field agent working out of Sacramento.

In addition to the field agents the commission's foreign language speaking
representatives, camp inspectors, and housing investigators will aid the
county organizations.

In each of the fifty-eight counties of the state an Americanization Com-
mittee under this commission will supervise Americanization activities and
will cooperate with :

(1) Educational agencies in order that

(a) Foreign-born children of school age attend school.
(6) Evening schools for adult immigrants be established and main-
tained.

(c) Factory classes be opened.

(d) Home teachers for foreign mothers be employed.

(e) Naturalization classes be established in immigrant centers.
(/) Library extension work be carried on in foreign quarters.
(g) Domestic science classes be established in foreign quarters.
(k) Classes in home economics be established in foreign centers.
(i) Neighborhood schools be encouraged.

(2) With employers of foreign-born in order that :

(a) Factory classes in English and citizenship be established.

(b) Welfare work for foreign-born both within and without industries

be provided; this work might embrace (i) safety committees,
(2) health insurance, (3) medical and dental care, (4) recrea-
tional, bands, drill teams, athletic teams, literary societies,
dances, picnics, pageants, etc.

(c) Cooperation with public service corporations, especially railroads,

for better educational and recreational facilities for adults
and children.

(3) With labor to secure just treatment for foreign-born employees and

cooperation in demanding that English be understood.

(4) With social service agencies, such as —
(a} County and city welfare departments.
(6) Settlement houses.

(c} Civic centers.

(d) Community centers.

(e} Playgrounds, parks, and recreation centers.

(5) With local health departments, such as —
(a) Health officers, to enforce

(1) Housing regulations.

(2) Sanitary laws and rules.

472 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

(6) Visiting nurses and school nurses.

(c) Clinics and dispensaries.

(d) County hospitals, to secure

(i) Adequate treatment of needy immigrants.

(e) Nurses' training schools, so that foreign-born girls or daughters of

foreign-born parents be admitted and encouraged to become
nurses.

(6) With civic and patriotic organizations for

(a) The fitting observance of national holidays.
' (b) The encouragement of patriotic celebrations.

(c) The welcoming of newly admitted citizens by a public celebration.

(7) With protective agencies, such as —

(a) State agencies.

(b) Probation officers — juvenile courts, district attorneys, school

attendance officers, etc., for protection of immigrants.

(8) With leaders of foreign-born in each county to get their coopera-

tion in carrying Americanization among their own people. This
will involve the cooperation of the

(a) Foreign language press, foreign language lodges and societies, for-
eign language churches, foreign language business organizations.

(9) With churches and church organizations.

(10) With labor placing agencies and employers of foreign labor to aid in
bringing the man and job together and particularly for finding
suitable work for discharged soldiers of foreign origin.

2. Immigrant education.

a. Cooperation with the State Board of Education.

b. Cooperation with normal schools and teachers' training schools to the

end that teachers for night school and home teaching work be
adequately trained.

c. Surveys of immigrant education facilities in immigrant centers and

advice and assistance to school authorities in getting proper
facilities.

d. Issuance of publications regarding work of

(1) Home teachers.

(2) Night school classes.

(3) Methods of instruction.

(4) Factory c|ass work, etc.

e. Holding seminars in order to supply expert speakers on immigrant

education for teachers' institutes, club conventions and civic
leagues, and training workers for immigration service.

3. Labor camp sanitation.

a. Continuation of work of maintaining the high standards of sanitation

already set in most large camps of California.

b. Extension of work to cover :

(i) Railroad section houses and box car camps. (Arrangements
have already been made with Santa Fe.)

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 473

(2) Mexican labor camp of south. (Cooperation has already been

secured from American-Latin League and many of the Im-
perial Valley employers.)

(3) Cooperation with farmers' organizations for community camps,

such as have been erected for the Woman's Land Army.

(4) Cooperation with the federal and state employment service for

the reporting of insanitary camps to the commission. (The
federal service has just agreed to do this.)

(5) Cooperation of labor organizations and employers for better

mutual feeling as result of better standards of living.

(6) Cooperation with state agencies having field men so that they

will report on all camps covered by them. (This is now done
by the mine inspectors of the Accident Commission.)

4. Housing. With the resumption of building, the housing department

of the commission will make particular efforts to see that local
authorities secure compliance with the housing laws by

a. Surveys of their respective towns and cities.

b. By advice, both oral and written, from the commission's experts.

5. Complaint and information bureau, which will continue to aid and

advise immigrants in California by

a. Personal assistance at main and branch offices in matters relating

to —

(1) Land frauds.

(2) Fraudulent shyster lawyers and medical quacks.

(3) Abuse and fraud of various sorts.

b. Cooperation with State Labor Bureau, Accident, and Industrial

Welfare commissions in protecting immigrants who have claims
under their respective jurisdictions.

c. By receiving complaints entered through county Americanization

committees.

d. By reports sent in by foreign language speaking agents.

e. By investigations to show the presence of

(1) Anti- American foreign organizations.

(2) Anarchistic foreign agitators.

(3) Unpatriotic foreign press.

(4) Disloyal individuals.

474 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

B. MASSACHUSETTS BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION, STATE
HOUSE, BOSTON1

This service department of the Bureau of Immigration
quickly proved an effective means of attracting large num-
bers of immigrants who had problems to solve. Branch offices
were opened at New Bedford and Springfield, July i, 1918.
Through the cooperative spirit of the city authorities of New
Bedford, the bureau has been given free use of a centrally
located building owned by the city. For the use of this office,
which is most conveniently accessible to the foreign born, and
for the liberality shown in thoroughly renovating it, the bureau
extends its thanks to the city of New Bedford and to its mayor,
Honorable Charles M. Ashley. For those in the Boston district
whose occupation prevented their coming to the State House
during day hours, an evening office was opened July 15 at 261
Hanover Street.

While provision has been made for the activities of the bureau
in southeastern and in western Massachusetts, appropriation so
far made has not permitted the opening of a branch office in
one of the great textile centers of the Merrimac Valley, which
we believe to be greatly needed, and we recommend its early
establishment. Such a branch office should be so located as

xThe Commonwealth has created for the service of its residents of foreign
origin, especially those from non-English speaking countries, a State Bureau of
Immigration.

The office of the Bureau is intended to provide contact between the State and
its foreign-born residents, so that each may learn more of the other and how each
may be helpful to the other, and thus, through mutual cooperation, strengthen the
bond of friendship and good will which already exists.

In a strange country, speaking a strange language, meeting strange customs,
and with new experiences in everyday life at home and in employment, residents
of foreign birth often meet problems for which trustworthy explanation, advice,
and guidance would be of great advantage.

This service the Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration is created to perform.
It earnestly desires and proposes to merit the confidence and friendly cooperation
of all those who have come to Massachusetts to find freedom, opportunity, and happi-
ness under the laws and institutions of our common country.

Whatever and whenever questions arise affecting these interests you are invited
to come to the office of the Bureau in the State House. You will there be given
courteous attention, opportunity to state your difficulty, and an honest endeavor
will be made to solve it.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 475

to permit of effective operation in Lowell, Lawrence, Haverhill,
and certain industrial centers in Essex County.

LOCAL CORRESPONDENTS

The bureau has appointed local correspondents in many
cities and towns having a considerable foreign population. These
correspondents have been selected with care, as persons of
good judgment, well known and respected in their respective
communities. They not only act as " first aid" to the immi-
grant in any difficulty which confronts him, but also furnish
the bureau with first-hand accurate information concerning
local conditions as they affect the foreign-born. The bureau
keeps in frequent touch with the local correspondents but has
Jeft the working out of local problems largely to their initia-
tive. Through them, in many cases, active cooperation has
been secured with reliable and competent foreign-born of the
principal nationalities in matters affecting their group, and of
the relation of foreign groups to the Commonwealth. Data
in regard to housing, industrial conditions, educational, social,
and civic opportunities have been placed at the disposal of
the Bureau through the voluntary assistance of these workers.

Through the cooperation of Dr. Ira N. Hollis of the Com-
mittee on Public Safety, the Chamber of Commerce, the mayor
and the school department of Worcester, an active and ener-
getic committee was organized on Americanization, with a
well-charted plan of operation. As a result of its effort the
city of Worcester can be credited with a greater number of
industrial plant classes than any other city in the Common-
wealth,

The Springfield Chamber of Commerce has also been actively
interested in the solution of this problem, and has shown great
energy in bringing together large numbers of manufacturers
throughout the Connecticut Valley, many of whom have intro-
duced classes for the teaching of English and primary civics
within their plants.

The usefulness of these correspondents as well as their num-
ber could be greatly increased if appropriation permitted fre-
quent visits by a competent field agent.

476 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

PROTECTION AT PORT or ENTRY

The preliminary survey of 1914 outlined the need of special
oversight by the State of conditions surrounding the arrival
and release of immigrants, and their journey from port of arrival
to destination. Because of the practical cessation of arrivals
at the port of Boston during the war, and the secrecy surround-
ing the movement of ships, the bureau could not be active in
this direction. Such cases as required attention were handled
by agents of the bureau or in cooperation with existing private
or quasi-public agencies. When normal transportation has
been resumed, the bureau will endeavor to meet the special
needs arising therefrom, and, with the assent of the Commis-
sioner of Immigration, Henry J. Skeffington, who has already
given the bureau his cordial cooperation, will undertake the
supervision of the various agencies, private and semi-public;
participating in this work.

Resumption of immigration on a large scale may be antici-
pated after the signing of the peace treaties unless Congress
passes some additional restrictive measures, — a subject deserv-
ing most careful and statesmanlike consideration. Aggra-
vation of conditions now existing would be most unfortunate.
Where, however, the immigrant intends to remain and become
a citizen, the coming of the wife and children who were left
behind should not be prevented, although adequate means
for their prompt acquirement of our common language should
be adopted and enforced. On the other hand, there is evidence
of heavy, at least temporary, emigration as soon as passports
and transportation are obtainable. Already large numbers
have left their homes in the interior and congregated at the
seaboard in expectation of early ocean passage, a condition
which lends itself to additional exploitation. It is uncertain
whether, under existing laws, many of these emigrants, on
account of their illiteracy, can return to the United States.

EMPLOYMENT

Because the demand for labor during the past year far
exceeded the supply, practically no complaints regarding

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 477

employment agencies have been brought to the attention of
the bureau. There has been little need of recourse to private
employment agencies, and the shifting of employment has
been due to the restlessness of labor and the attraction of
higher wage in some other employment. Industrial conditions
incident to placing production upon a peace basis and the re-
turn to civil life of the men now in military service will, no
doubt, lead to a recurrence of the abuses which were clearly set
forth in the report of 1914. Therefore, attention is again di-
rected to the recommendations of that commission, some of
which have since been acted upon.

HOUSING

Through various channels, including personal visits of its
agents, and through its local correspondents, the bureau has
become acquainted with housing conditions affecting the immi-
grant. Investigations have been made of conditions in the
North and West Ends of Boston and at some war emergency
plants. Individual cases of evident abuses of sanitary laws have
been reported to the proper authorities.

The cessation of building operations because of the war and
the pressure of war needs on industry have necessitated the
continuance in various localities of conditions fatal to proper
standards of living. While constructive plans along the lines
of improved housing are receiving much more general atten-
tion, abnormal building costs are likely to handicap and retard
any adequate provision by private enterprise, and it would
seem that State and municipal credit must be utilized if any
substantial progress is to be made. The increased cost of trans-
portation, as well as of every item of living expense, has tended
to aggravate the congestion in immigrant districts.

In cities and towns where there has been an added congestion
of population because of war industries, there have undoubt-
edly been situations fraught with both moral and physical
danger to the foreign-born. The immigrant is compelled, from
both economic and sociological reasons, to accept housing
accommodations in the most worn-out, most overcrowded
section of our cities. If housing is bad it necessarily presses

478 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

most heavily and most deplorably upon him. The awful toll
of the late influenza epidemic proved this in tragic fashion.

The dangers revealed by the report of the Commission of
Immigration of 1913-1914 in connection with the lodger problem,
both in relation to the housing of unmarried girls and non-
family groups of men, still exist. The observations above re-
garding new construction are also applicable to this problem.

SERVICE IN GENERAL

The bureau has aimed to become a clearing house of informa-
tion useful to the immigrant, whose ignorance of the language
renders him particularly liable to misunderstanding, fraud, and
abuse. He is often ignorant of the civic, social, and philan-
thropic resources of the community. A brief questionnaire
sent to the State boards and commissions to ascertain what
services or particular functions were rendered by each to the
foreign born has been tabulated for ready reference. Private
agencies dealing with the immigrant have also been listed and
the nature of their activities recorded for easily accessible refer-
ence. The value of such information is apparent, not only to
prevent possible duplication, but as cumulative information con-
cerning the facilities afforded by the Commonwealth at the dis-
posal of the immigrant.

In many cases our service has been to personally bring the
applicant coming for advice and assistance into direct contact
with the proper agency. Often additional aid in interpretation
has been given because of ignorance by the applicant of the
English language. In many cases a preliminary investigation
by the bureau assisted in the solution of the problem by the
agency to which it was assigned. From the opening of the
bureau up to December i, 1918, 3905 applications for service
have been made at the bureau on which it has been necessary to
have correspondence. For the same period of time, 2018 ap-
plications for service have been made which needed no corre-
spondence. From the time the naturalization division began work
until December i, 1918, 1450 persons were aided in that depart-
ment. This makes a total of 6373 persons applying for assist-
ance at the Boston office of the Bureau of Immigration. The

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 479

New Bedford office has had 1781 applications and the Spring-
field office 411. This makes a complete total of 8565 persons
applying to the Bureau in its Boston and branch offices.

WAGE CLAIMS

The bureau has received numerous applications for assistance
regarding collection of wages. The bureau in no sense aims
to act as a collection agency, but difficulties due to the migra-
tion of the immigrant from place to place, his inability to speak
English or write for himself concerning money due him, the
uncertain delivery of mail, and the confusion which sometimes
arises from the use of check numbers were often eliminated
by friendly correspondence with the employer, which cleared
up many of the misunderstandings — frequently those of the
employee — in the matter of wage contracts. Such cases as
could not be settled by friendly intermediation were referred
to the State Board of Labor and Industries, if the evidence
warranted such reference, or to the Legal Aid Society, both
of which have been most cordially cooperative.

THE IMMIGRANT AND MONEY TRANSMISSION

Transmission of money by immigrants to their relatives
abroad, especially to countries in the war zone, has been extremely
difficult. The cases brought to the attention of the bureau
involved not only the banks known as " immigrant banks,"
but also those of established reputation and reliability. In
all cases the transmission has been traced to the larger bank
with a foreign office through which the local bank transmitted
the money, and the date of transmission has been verified.
The bulk of the transmissions concerning which information
was sought were those to Russia. The present chaotic condi-
tion in that country made it impossible to carry many of these
investigations to a satisfactory conclusion. In the cases which
involved transmission to Greece or Italy, the usual reason for
the money not being received by payee has seemed to be because
of lack of accuracy in addressing by the transmitting agency.
Where it has been possible to secure proof that money had not
been received by payee, refunds have frequently been secured.

480 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

In some few cases violations of the seven-day transmission
limit of the banking law have been found; in some of these
the persons sending money to dependents in their home country
stated that grave injustice had been done them by the delay
in transmission, claiming that money for the imperative need
of their families was illegally retained by the banker until war
conditions rendered transmission impossible, and that because
of this failure to transmit, their wives and families had suffered
unnecessary hardship and privation. While these persons have
redress in civil action, no refund of money could change the
privation which the delay caused; nor should the immigrant
of little means be forced to expend in such civil suit most if
not all of the money involved, together with his loss of time.
The attention of the Bank Commissioner has been called to
these violations.

In many cases where a misunderstanding existed between
banker and immigrant an amicable settlement was made. In
nurnerous instances refunds, approximating $2300, were made
through the services of the bureau, the smallest being $20 and
the largest $702.52.

The immigrant patronizes the racial or immigrant bank
mainly because his language need is not met by the American
banks. In normal times enormous sums, running into the
hundreds of millions, are annually sent to foreign countries for
saving and investment as well as for support of dependents.
The large contributions which the foreign-born have made in
the different campaigns for the Liberty Loan are conclusive
proof that if approached by their own racial leaders, or by
Americans in the proper fraternal spirit, they will invest their
savings in America rather than in their native country.

There is no advantage, either to the immigrant or to the
community, in permitting a multiplicity of "banks" or "bank-
ers" with little capital and little or no knowledge of the bank-
ing business. Banking functions are of such vital importance
that they should be performed by persons of unquestioned
probity, well trained in the technique of banking, with ample
capital and of undoubted financial responsibility to the full
extent of their obligations, and our banking laws should be
so framed as to exclude those not thus qualified. While it is

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 481

desirable that properly qualified persons of moderate means
shall be permitted to conduct a banking business, there is a
point beyond which the argument in favor of freedom of
personal choice of occupation can be carried to absurdity. Fur-
thermore, it should not be possible for any persons to conduct
a deposit, savings, and money transmission business unless under
State supervision and upon the filing of adequate bonds.

In carrying on investigations in connection with a large
number of complaints regarding the transmission or failure to
transmit money through various immigrant banks, the im-
portance of further amendments to the banking laws of the
Commonwealth, which will increase the protection of the de-
positors in and senders of money to foreign countries through
such banks, has strongly impressed itself upon the bureau,
and to accomplish this purpose it recommends such amend-
ments as it believes to be essential in the public interests.

EXPLOITATION IN FACTORIES

An apparently well-founded impression prevails that foreign-
speaking workmen in many factories, construction camps, etc.,
are compelled to make regular payments to foremen and others
in order to retain their jobs. The prevailing industrial unrest,
together with the difficulty of creating an understanding
between employer and employee, can sometimes be traced to
the fact that those coming in direct contact with the foreign-
born workmen have too often, because of the indifference of
the employers, been able to exploit these foreign-born in mat-
ters of securing and holding their jobs. The elimination of this
type of exploitation will do much to convince the foreign worker
that he can find in America an opportunity for fair play. Unless
Americanization work has this basis of just treatment for one
and all in the Commonwealth, no propaganda work can have
permanent success.

Many non-English speaking employees in a shoe factory in
Massachusetts testified at a public hearing that for over thir-
teen years they had constantly paid money to their foreman for
their jobs and for increases in pay, or for reemployment after
semi-annual stock takings, when, instead of being temporarily

482 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

laid off, if necessary, they were discharged, and had to buy their
job over and over again. The foreman in question was found
guilty by the bureau, resigned his position, and has since been
indicted by the Plymouth grand jury. His case is to come up
during the February, 1919, session of the Superior Court.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE COURTS

The immigrant often receives his first and most lasting im-
pression of American justice in the courts. In his contact
with the law he must frequently use an interpreter, and it is
highly important that such interpreters should be directly
under the supervision of the court and be competent and reli-
able. While the municipal court of Boston now has official
court interpreters, not all of the courts in the Commonwealth,
even in communities with a large immigrant population, are so
supplied. The recommendations of the 1914 Commission on
Immigration that all interpreters should be salaried officers of
the court, appointed after a thorough examination by the Civil
Service Commission, still obtains.

A flagrant abuse of the non-English speaking immigrant has
been through the operation of solicitors — " runners" -who
securing promptly the name, address, and complaint against
persons arrested, often on trivial charges, and occasionally on
charges apparently deliberately framed to secure the arrest of
foreign-speaking peoples, seek them out and undertake to secure
bail and counsel for them. Their plan includes the taking of
security — usually money or a savings bank book — with
signed orders to be held pending disposition of the case, and
returned, if at all, indefinitely thereafter, minus outrageous
charges for legal or fancied service.

Investigations of the bureau disclosed the fact that over
twenty individuals were found daily in the corridors of the
municipal criminal court in Boston soliciting business for at-
torneys and furnishing bail for persons arrested. Many of
these "runners" had criminal records. They dealt mainly with
foreign-born, ignorant of our customs, our language, and legal pro-
cedure. They pretended powerful influence with the police, the
district attorney , and the courts, and they guaranteed to secure the

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 483

discharge of the person, whether innocent or guilty, for a sum of
money to be paid to them or to the attorney in whose interest
they were working. They boasted of political influence and of
the fact that for over fifteen years they were permitted to do
business there, and that not one of them had ever been punished.

Many foreigners who found themselves brought into court for
minor offenses, such as assault and battery, violation of the
sanitary laws, etc., were urged to engage certain attorneys and
threatened with a long prison term if they did otherwise. Ex-
orbitant sums of money were extracted as attorneys' fees.

To abate the evil the matter was taken up with the chief
justice of the municipal criminal court and the chief probation
officer and their active cooperation secured.

The Legislature of 1917 enacted chapter 267 (General), which
reads as follows :

It shall be unlawful for any person, not being an attorney at law, to
solicit for himself or another from a person accused of crime or his
representative, the right to defend the accused person. Violation of
the provisions of this act shall be punished by a fine of not more than
one hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than six months,
for a first offense, and by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars,
or by imprisonment for not more than one year, for any subsequent
offense.

After conferences with several prominent attorneys and the
chief justice of the municipal criminal court it was decided to
prosecute these " runners" for violating the above act. Several
were arrested, convicted, and sentenced to terms ranging from
six to ten months' imprisonment, and in some cases heavy fines
were imposed. In these prosecutions Henry F. Hurlburt, Esq.,
and John P. Feeney, Esq., gave valuable cooperation. The
Boston police department and the inspectors detailed for this
work gave hearty cooperation in the investigation and prepa-
ration of these cases.

As a result of these prosecutions "runners" have practically
disappeared from the corridor of the courthouse. Those who
are there do not solicit business, but claim that they are pro-
fessional bondsmen who are furnishing bail. A sharp watch
for their reappearance is being maintained.

484 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

Any work undertaken with the view to stimulate the assimila-
tion of the immigrant into the body politic, to awaken in him
appreciation of American life and ideals, must necessarily be
fruitless unless it be based on a foundation of confidence in
Aemrican justice. It is of paramount importance that the
courts should not be misrepresented to the foreigner as unfair
or corrupt. Any movement to rid the courts of those who
mislead ignorant foreigners in regard to the working of Ameri-
can justice is a most essential and fundamental step in Ameri-
canization.

Justice Charles E. Hughes has summed up the situation in
the following language :

If our Bar Association could create a sentiment which would
demand that in all our cities the police courts and minor civil courts
should fairly represent the republic as the embodiment of the spirit of
justice, our problem of Americanization would be more than half
solved. A petty tyrant in a police court, refusals of a fair hearing in
minor civil courts, the impatient disregard of an immigrant's igno-
rance of our ways and language, will daily breed Bolshevists who are
beyond the reach of your appeals. Here is work for lawyers. The
Supreme Court of the United States and the Court of Appeals will
take care of themselves. Look after the courts of the poor, who stand
most in need of justice. The security of the Republic will be found
in the treatment of the poor and the ignorant ; in indifference to their
misery and helplessness lies disaster.

NOTARIES PUBLIC

The investigations of the bureau confirm the findings of the
New York Bureau of Immigration in regard to the misunder-
standing current among the foreign born as to the authority
and standing of notaries public. In Europe, especially in
Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy, notaries are men of high
standing, learning, capacity, and professional and legal training.
They are under much stricter control by their respective govern-
ments than those of similar title in the United States. Their
work is strictly supervised, and they enjoy general confidence
and respect.

The foreign-born in America require the services of notaries
public in connection with renunciation of allegiance to the

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 485

country of origin, in securing exemption from military service,
in the matter of legal papers to be sent to Europe, and in
making affidavits which must be sent to countries binding them
to support relatives whom they desire to have join them in
America. To execute these papers properly a knowledge
of the laws of the respective countries involved and of the
United States immigration laws is essential. Advertisements
appearing in the foreign language papers inserted by various
notaries public lead the immigrant to conclude that the person
advertising is an especially appointed governmental agent to
look after the interests of a particular race in America. In
actual practice these notaries are frequently men of little or no
knowledge of either American or foreign law.

It is highly desirable that notaries public be subjected by
the Civil Service Commission to such examination as will deter-
mine their competency, general fitness, and reputable character,
and there should be a more strict definition and limitation of
the authority vested in such officials, so as to prevent their
assumption of functions which require legal training.

DIVISION OF NATURALIZATION

The work of this division includes assistance in the filling
out of both first and second papers, instruction for the better
preparation for citizenship, and assistance in the explanation
and elimination of technical difficulties. Lists of those eligible
for second papers are on file, and letters are sent to declarants
informing them of the assistance available to prospective citi-
zens throughout the Commonwealth. A class was organized in
cooperation with the University Extension Department of the
State Board of Education, under the direction of Mr. Charles
F. Towne, director of immigrant education, for training women
in teaching citizenship to aliens. One hundred and fifty persons
enrolled, and attendance was well maintained during the entire
term. A feature of the class was the "question period," when
questions concerning various phases of citizenship were discussed.
Cases illustrating practical difficulties in the path of the pro-
spective citizen were explained by the naturalization representa-
tive of the bureau. A conference class has been established by

486 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

the bureau for practical training in this work. For the awak-
ening of public interest in this phase of the work the bureau is
greatly indebted to Mrs. Grace H. Bagley of the Advisory
Commission, Council of National Defense, who has been largely
responsible for the organization of this class.

The formal induction of the foreign-born into American citi-
zenship is attended with much difficulty, expense, and incon-
venience, owing to the comparatively few courts of naturalization,
their infrequent sittings, and their distance from various cities and
towns within their jurisdiction. This involves travel and loss of
working time both for the applicant and for his witnesses ; and
not infrequently non-compliance with some technicality results
in postponement and a subsequent trip to the court, provided
the applicant has not been discouraged by his first experience.
The chief naturalization examiner at Boston, Mr. James Farrell,
has been ready to assist the bureau in every possible way, and
has done much to facilitate its group naturalization work.

A fruitless attempt was made to secure, from naturalization
examiners in various parts of the country, suggestions as to
modifications in present practice, but they manifested a singular
reticence in almost every instance, apparently being afraid to
display any individuality or to express any opinion that might
even remotely appear to reflect upon existing methods.

We believe that there should be more frequent opportunities
for naturalization, and that, wherever practicable, night courts
for the induction of new citizens should be held.

THE DIVISION OF WOMEN'S WORK

The services of a specially trained worker in the difficult
problem of the immigrant woman in home and in industry were
donated to the bureau for six months by the War Work Coun-
cil of the Y. W. C. A. in order to demonstrate the necessity of
such work. The Bureau fully realized this necessity, but its
appropriation did not permit the undertaking. Miss Minnie
M. Newman, the special worker among foreign-born women
thus provided, was entirely under the control and direction of
the bureau, the contributing organization merely paying her
salary from its special war fund.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 487

Through this division effort was made to further the interest
of the community, especially of the native-born women, in the
problem of the foreign-born women, and to suggest and stimu-
late methods by which the non-English-speaking women could
be brought into closer neighborhood relations.

This problem involves education and protection for the for-
eign-born women, and education for the native-born woman con-
cerning her foreign-born neighbor. Contacts were made with as
many individuals and organizations as time permitted. The
aims of the bureau and its desire to be helpful to foreign-born
women were explained, and recommendations were made based
upon surveys of various communities.

Among the cities visited were Attleboro, Brockton, Cam-
bridge, Chelsea, Fall River, Fitchburg, Gloucester, Holyoke,
Hyannis, Lawrence, New Bedford, Salem, Somerville, Spring-
field, and Worcester.

In getting this information about communities emphasis was
placed upon personal interviews in both office and field, be-
cause the work of the bureau itself was still comparatively new,
and that of its division of work for women very new, and it was
felt, therefore, that personal contacts were the best means of
putting the bureau into touch with existing activities in behalf
of the foreign-born as well as to extend interest in and effort
for the work of the State in this direction. The following table
is a record of interviews :

Social workers and relief agencies, 60

School superintendents and evening school directors, 25

Representatives of women's organizations, 65

Teachers of immigrant classes, 23

Organizers of method for immigrant classes, 14

Foreign-born representatives, . . 35

Librarians, . 10

Priests, 5

Ministers, 2

Editors and newspaper representatives, 6

Commercial club officers, 6

Food experts, 7

Business men, 8

Miscellaneous, 20

Total. 286

488 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

Supplementing the foregoing, nearly two hundred visits were
made to different agencies or activities intimately connected
with the life of the foreign -born.

The home life of the married non-English-speaking woman is
often peculiarly and tragically isolated, in that the husband
from his industrial contact frequently gets an imperfect smat-
tering of English, the children attending school become more or
less proficient in English, but the mother remains ignorant of
the language, often throughout her entire life. The father and
children manage to converse in English, but the mother is shut
out from the common conversation by reason of her inability to
speak English and the lack of knowledge of her native language
by the children. This too frequently begets a contempt upon
the part of the children for the "ignorance" of the mother, and
largely destroys maternal authority. It creates a gulf within
the home which is pitiful, and alike injurious to the ultimate
welfare of the family, the child, and society. The remedy for
these conditions lies in teaching these women to speak English,
• — a very difficult matter because of their reluctance to enter
classes, as well as the difficulty of giving time to make necessary
changes in dress for attendance at such classes. The first step in
this direction must be the overcoming of their traditional reserve
and the misapprehension of these women as to the motives of
those who seek to secure their confidence. This effort can be
made successful only by women of broad sympathy, of great
tact, and of sound common sense, and, above all, by avoiding
the slightest suspicion as to any religious bias, for it is of funda-
mental importance that the religious affiliations of those women,
as of all the foreign-born, shall be profoundly respected.

It is but recently that the necessity of including these for-
eign-speaking women in the homes in the general plan of Amer-
icanization has begun to receive the attention which it requires.
So far the matter has been left to private initiative, with the
exception of some few places, notably Boston, Fall River, and
Lynn, where women's classes in day hours have been carried
on under public school supervision.

The most comprehensive effort that has been made in this
direction has been in California. The Los Angeles plan
includes supervision by the public schools, although the actual

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 489

teaching may be done wherever and whenever the group of
girls or women can be recruited, — the classes being held in
evening schools, in the rooms of racial societies, in the city
library, in factories, in churches, in labor camps, in day schools
in the afternoon, and in hotels for hotel help.

Like most innovations there is at present a difference of
opinion among experts as to the actual results through this
agency. We believe, however, that it should be tried out on
a modest scale in a few places in this State. Then, if the
experiment justifies itself, it should rapidly be extended. For
obvious reasons all educational work for these women should
be under the supervision of the school authorities of the city
and State.

The visiting nurse affords another excellent means of ap-
proach to the confidence of the foreign-speaking women, and
her influence tends toward a reduction of midwifery, often
ignorant, usually unable to cope with any emergency, and to
increase the desire by those women to secure thoroughly trained
assistance at time of childbirth.

The special worker for foreign women accepted many invi-
tations to address organizations of English-speaking women in
women's clubs, Americanization committees, and church so-
cieties, and an earnest effort was made to interpret through
these talks the foreign-born women to the native-born.

Two programs for club women were prepared, the one on
Americanization being published and the one on immigration
being a proposed publication. These were in no wise put out
as complete guides, but merely as suggestions in the method
of approaching such studies.

It is earnestly hoped that the bureau will be given a sufficient
appropriation next year to carry on the work which has been
voluntarily provided for during the past six months.

FOREIGN-BORN IN INDUSTRY

To learn approximately the number of the foreign-born in
Massachusetts industries, with more or less accurate informa-
tion as to their citizenship, race, and ability to speak English,
a questionnaire was sent out in May, 1918, by the bureau in

490

AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

cooperation with the committee on war efficiency, to all indus-
tries in Massachusetts employing more than fifty persons. The
industries approached, almost without exception, furnished the
desired information, although the task under war-pressure con-
ditions was a most difficult one.

Statistics on these points have been obtained from plants
having 645,785 employees. Of this number of employees there
were 432,637 males and 213,148 females, with a total of
299,269 foreign born, or 46 per cent of the total. More than
half of the foreign-born workers are aliens. Of the foreign
born, 38,113 could speak no English whatever, 65,547 could
speak and understand English but slightly, which practically
means " not at all," and 195,609 could speak English with more
or less facility. Experience has shown that the English language
accomplishment of those said to speak it " slightly" is negli-
gible, not differing materially from those designated "not at all."

FOREIGN BORN IN INDUSTRY IN MASSACHUSETTS1

ALIENS

FIRST
PAPERS

SECOND
PAPERS

TOTAL

Austria

2 884.

<;88

828

4 7.OO

France ...

347 r

745

I 60 5

r 87?

Great Britain and Possessions .
Germany

50,623
I 264.

15,423

661

47,319

3 280

H3,365

57.14

Greece ....

II 366

78^

427

I 2 <76

Italy

20, C77.

4. 624.

7 674.

77 8?.I

Norway

co7

224

C27.

I 2 ?4

Poland (Austrian) .

I 7. 44.5

I 158

I I 7,2

I 5 73t»

Poland (German)
Poland (Russian) .

452

I 7 7T C

59

i 264.

212
I OO6

723
I 5 67?

Portugal

26 5 ^

C77

I 20Q

28 431

Russia .

1 1 7o8

2 tro8

2 22?

l6 4/1 T

Finland

34.O4

C73

<7I

4. ?48

Lithuania

7 661

677

6lQ

8,017,

Sweden ....

2 6^1

i 488

4. 7.34

8 473

Switzerland

141

•77

n6

7.IO

Turkey ....

42OC

106

308

4 8lO

All other

8 2.03

I 33.6

5 O4 7

14,686

191,452

32,983

74,834

299,269

1 This table approximates the number of foreign-born employees in Massa-
chusetts industrial concerns employing more than fifty persons.

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 491

THE FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PRESS

The foreign-language newspapers published in Massachusetts
and New York have shown a most friendly attitude toward
the bureau, and through their cooperation much information
of importance to our foreign-speaking residents has secured
widespread publicity.

Through the cooperation of the foreign-language press the
publication of notices announcing the existence and possibilities
of the bureau have frequently been made. The office of the
Adjutant-General from time to time requested the bureau to
translate statements concerning the selective service law, and
to secure their insertion in the foreign-language press. Such
translation and publication has invariably been secured through
the courtesy of the editors of the Boston foreign-language
papers, although often the work must have involved a consid-
erable sacrifice of time and effort.

A column giving answers to questions concerning the draft,
a series of ten naturalization lessons giving the main points
necessary for the completion of citizenship, and a brief series
of articles on the war — its causes and the ultimate issue —
were also published in the foreign-language papers.

In addition to the publication of the foregoing, articles on
particular phases of the exploitation of the immigrant, including
an explanation of the difference between notaries public here
and abroad, have been published in the foreign-language press,
- for all of which cooperation the bureau expresses its grate-
ful appreciation. Lack of space unfortunately forbids our enu-
meration of the different public-spirited men and women of the
various nationalities who generously translated numerous articles
for the press.

PUBLICATIONS OF THE BUREAU

The bulk of the publications issued by the bureau, either
separately or through the press, has been for the purposes of
acquainting the foreign-born with the existence of the bureau
which the Commonwealth has created for his protection and
assistance, or specific warnings against particular forms of ex-
ploitation, newly launched.

492 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

In addition to these service bulletins and warnings, a series
of leaflets, printed in six languages and containing six different
reasons for the learning of English, has been distributed to
manufacturers for insertion in pay envelopes. These leaflets
have been distributed by the Boston Chamber of Commerce
to industries in Boston. They have been also distributed in
Brockton, Worcester, Haverhill, New Bedford, Gloucester,
Springfield, and elsewhere.

Fliers in different languages, urging attendance at evening
schools, were circulated at foreign churches, clubs, etc.

A brief booklet, " Who is Your Neighbor," told the aims and
functions of the Massachusetts Bureau of Immigration.

A folder giving reasons for the necessity of the enrollment of
the services of trained women for the teaching of civics to pro-
spective citizens was issued for distribution at the Americaniza-
tion Conference, held at the State House, September 19, 1918.

A folder, " Americanization for Club Women," has been
issued for the use of women who have been cooperating with the
division of women's work.

EDUCATION

The fundamental factor in any effective assimilation and
Americanization of the non-English-speaking foreign-born is
education that will include a sound working knowledge of the
English language and at least a comprehensive outline of the
structure and aims of our government. The menace of a poly-
glot nation has now aroused the deep concern of the Federal
and State governments and of thinking men and women through-
out the land. They realize that no such nation ever was or ever
can be permanent, and that until this nation as a whole speaks
the one language, national solidarity and national spirit are
impossible.

The problem is in the main an adult one, as the vast ma-
jority of these non-English-speaking people are more than
twenty-one years of age. There are, however, many children
in Massachusetts who are not acquiring that proficiency in
English which is essential to the welfare, the social and political
safety of the nation. When children of age up to the limit of

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 493

compulsory day school attendance, born and reared in Massa-
chusetts, are illiterate, the need of some more effective means
of insuring to every child an adequate speaking, reading, and
writing training in English is clearly manifest.

That the various attempts at a solution of the adult problem
throughout the country have been more or less a failure is
clearly evident by the nation-wide illiteracy as shown in the
draft. In the past the principal reliance throughout the country
has been upon night schools, which have reached a compara-
tively small number of adult immigrants; the secondary one,
upon semi-public and religious organizations, which have come
in contact with a still smaller number than the night school.
With a full realization of the earnestness of the night school
authorities and teachers, their faithfulness and earnest desire
to accomplish worth-while results, it must yet be stated that,
in proportion to the magnitude of the entire task, night schools
have accomplished but little, and it is evident that, because
of certain inherent difficulties over which the school has no
control, no effective solution of the problem in its entirety can
be secured through night school endeavor.

After a day of strenuous toil the foreigner brings to the task
of learning a new language a mind and body already exhausted
and depressed. Not only is the work of the night schools defi-
nitely restricted physically and psychologically by these condi-
tions, but the family cares of the adult immigrant, the lassitude
which necessarily follows the heaviest meal of the day, the
reluctance of adults to change their dress and go, possibly a
considerable distance, to a night school, and there to adapt
themselves to equipment and material designed for children,
seriously impair the possibility of worth-while results for the
bulk of the adult population.

Religious or semi-religious effort, however free from any
purpose of interference with the spiritual affiliations of the
non-English-speaking peoples, is nevertheless subject to sus-
picion and prejudice. However unfounded these suspicions
and prejudices may be, they nevertheless seriously handicap
the effort of all such organizations.

The remaining and the most promising opportunity for the
successful teaching of English and primary civics to the

494 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

non-English speaking adult is within the industrial plants, during
the day hours, the time being so arranged as to least interfere
with the ordinary operation of the plant. To ascertain with
what success constructive measures to educate the immigrant
have been tried in industries in the United States, a question-
naire was sent to those industries throughout the country
which had tried classes in the plant. The majority of the plants
answering the questionnaire were unanimous in agreement
that classes in industry are a successful solution of the problem
of teaching the adult immigrant English; that such classes
pay in dollars and cents, promote industrial security, lessen
industrial accidents, increase efficiency, lessen spoiled product,
promote plant harmony, and reduce labor turnover. The execu-
tive secretary, Mr. E. V. Hickey, made an extensive trip through
western industrial centers where direct, dramatic methods
of teaching the foreign-born have been successfully adopted.
The results of his investigation were transmitted to the State
Board of Education, with the suggestion that it undertake
the training of teachers in this method. The suggestion was
cordially received by Honorable Payson Smith, Commissioner of
Education, who delegated the immediate supervision of this
new departure to Mr. James A. Moyer, director, University
Extension Department, who fully realized the necessity for this
provision and gave it his energetic cooperation. A director
of immigrant education, Mr. Charles F. Towne, assistant super-
intendent of schools, Providence, Rhode Island, was appointed,
and has been working most successfully throughout the State
during the past several months.

The plan placed in operation by the Massachusetts Board of
Education combines the cooperation of the State, the local
municipality, and the industry. The State Board formulates
the texts and trains teachers in the direct, dramatic method of
teaching the language. It also trains teachers from the public
schools or other school teachers, or trains teachers from within
the industrial organization. In conjunction with the local
school authorities of towns and cities, it organizes the classes
within the plants and makes the teaching program. The local
school authorities frequently provide teachers for the inaugu-
ration of the work or train special teachers for the further

THE IMMIGRANT AND THE STATE 495

carrying on of the work, have direct supervision of the teaching
itself, and of the checking up of the results. The industry
provides the place, opportunity, and such inexpensive equipment
as is necessary. Many industries are now paying employees
during their attendance in these plant classes, others are divid-
ing expense, still others are making no contribution toward em-
ployees' time.

Experience has shown that the first plan is the one produc-
tive of most successful and quickest results, but all effort in
this direction is to be commended and no hard and fast rules
can be laid down. This acquirement of English enables the
foreign-born from an early stage to be told what democracy
really is, — the fundamental need of law and order in the inter-
ests of all, the humble as well as the more fortunate in material
things, — of the readiness with which the will of the people
is enforced through the ballot box, and of the political equality
of every individual who enters the voting booth, of the ease
with which men and policies are thus overturned, and of the
cheerfulness with which the registered will of the majority
is accepted by all. They can also be informed of the ruthless-
ness of mob rule and its utter contempt of life or property of
the individual, whether rich or poor. Such education, given first
hand in the language of the country, would enormously promote
and safeguard the political, industrial and social life of the Com-
monwealth and of the Nation.

In order to secure for communities throughout the State the
advantages of teachers trained in the standard method for
teaching immigrants authorized by the State Board of Educa-
tion, the Bureau has sought the cooperation of school superin-
tendents throughout the State. A series of instruction con-
ferences arranged during November at the State House was
attended by teachers throughout the State for instruction in
this method. There are now at the service of cities a large
number of teachers from the public schools trained to handle
the work in such industries as desire to inaugurate it.

While the bulk of the adult immigrant population can best be
reached through industry, there will probably always be a
sufficient number of persons employed either in such small
numbers in various industries or in occupations at which

496 AMERICANIZATION POLICIES

instruction during working hours would not be feasible, so that
night schools will always have a part in the education of the
adult immigrant. The interest shown by the different com-
munities in having teachers trained in the approved method
of instruction shows a praiseworthy attempt to raise the stand-
ards of immigrant instruction throughout the State. Modifi-
cation of equipment to the needs of adults, greater elasticity
in making out programs, careful arrangement of classes to elim-
inate racial prejudices, modification of hours to accommodate
local needs, — all such adjustments would give additional im-
petus to the work.

There are in this Commonwealth several hundred thousand
illiterate persons. The basic factor in Americanization of the
non-English-speaking foreignfborn is the acquirement of a
working knowledge of the English language. We believe that
the present excellent effort of the State Board of Education,
which is now handicapped by lack of sufficient funds, should
be widely extended. We therefore have recommended a special
appropriation of $100,000 to be devoted to this work through
the University Extension Department of the State Board of
Education.

All important as education is, it will not in itself assure that
national unity which is the ultimate aim of all effort to amal-
gamate the many races which now constitute our population.
It must be accompanied by even-handed justice in everything
that affects their everyday life, by opening wide to merit the
door of opportunity, by higher standards of living, by generous
appreciation of the invaluable contribution these peoples can
make to the enrichment of our national life, and by their in-
variable inclusion in the activities of the communities in which
they live. Such contact will promote human relationships,
broaden mutual understanding, respect, and esteem, thus pro-
viding the surest guarantee of the supremacy of constitutional
government and the perpetuation of our national existence.

VIII. DISTRIBUTION

IMMIGRATION AND DISTRIBUTION1
JOHN E. MILHOLLAND, PUBLICIST

THE present conflict in the Old World finds comparison
with the Napoleonic wars of a hundred years ago. But
these wars were without any impressive effect upon our immi-
gration. The tremendous upheaval throughout Europe subse-
quently, that culminated in the abortive German Revolution in
1848-1849, was not made conspicuous by the immensity, but the
mentality and spiritual force of the exodus from Germany. It j
was the quality,* not the quantity, of that immigration which, /
under the leadership of such men as Carl Schurz, attracted at|
that time so much attention. |

Nor did subsequent conflicts, the Crimea, the war between
Germany and Austria in 1866, nor the terrific Franco-Prussian
War of 1870, impart any large impulse to emigration here. It
was confined mostly to the Germans who came here to escape
militarism, and this, with the natural birth increase, is the real
explanation of our vast Teutonic citizenship, and also of its
peace-loving anti-militarist tendency. Practically little came to
us from France following the peace of Marseilles because almost
every patriotic Frenchman threw himself into the task of re-
habilitating his country. Just as the Belgians passionately
declare they will do for Belgium.

The tremendous immigration of recent years from Russia
was not due to the war with Japan but to that bad system of
government which is at the base of Russia's troubles — a govern-
ment that tries to kill, imprison, or exile to Siberia those of its
people who identify themselves with progressive expression — a
veritable conspiracy against the rights of man. This is also true
of the Turkish Empire which has driven to us the Syrians, the

1 From The American Hebrew, 1916.
497

498 DISTRIBUTION

Armenians, and other unfortunate peoples who cannot possibly
live under such a regime. What else can they do but flee when-
ever they can from a place where life and property, are not only
without security, but with appalling frequency are ruthlessly
destroyed ?

It was not England's wars but England's misrule of Ireland
through generations that caused half the Irish people to emigrate.
Through the Land Bill, the County Councils, and various other
Reform measures Ireland has at last come to enjoy practically
Home Rule and what is the result? Irish immigration has
dwindled precisely as that from England, Scotland, Holland,
Belgium, France, and every other country that is governed with
any degree of decency.

From being one of the worst-ruled countries Italy is rapidly
becoming one of the best-governed nations in the world. In
direct consequence our Italian immigration is seriously falling
off. That will be the case ultimately with Russia, with Turkey,
with every nation in the Old World as soon as each advances; be-
cause a well-governed nation spells opportunity just as much
in Siberia or China as it does in Canada or the United States of
America.

The immigration question is, perhaps, the most misunderstood
of all that press upon us for solution. It is the one over which the
American people seem to go into hysterics at irregular recurring
intervals. Possessed now with the absurd notions that we are
going to be overwhelmed by a tidal wave of foreigners after the
war — whereas there is more need for apprehension that none
will come at all — a condition of panic reigns among those who
reason hastily or from insufficient data ; and the various propo-
sitions that are seriously discussed to offset the imaginary
impending evil would be farcical were they not attended by such
dangerous possibilities in the way of such drastic legislation.

The solution of the immigrant problem is summed up in one
word : Distribution ; the solution of the emigration problem is
summed up in two : Good Government. No other conclusion is
possible from any scientific, comprehensive examination of the
subject.

Why does California have a Japanese or a Chinese problem?
Why is New York troubled with the thought of becoming a Jewish

IMMIGRATION AND DISTRIBUTION 499

community? Why is the south in terror over its Black Belts?
Because distribution in none of these cases has had its perfect
work. A horde of Chinese, mostly of the coolie type, came from
Canton, Peking, and other big Chinese cities more than forty
years ago. They were allowed to settle down and become con-
gested in San Francisco, instead of being sent broadcast so as to
make their Americanization rapid. The nation's digestive powers
are tremendous, but the strongest stomach suffers indigestion in
bolting food whole. This is true of the Japanese, true of the
Russian, Galician, and Polish Jews, true of the Hungarians, as
rwhen the last named were taken by the thousands into the coal
^fields of Pennsylvania and other industrial states and encouraged
by greedy short-sightedness to build up colonies of their own
completely out of touch with their own institution.

For centuries, during the Middle Ages, the gain in population
was so slight that there were less than fifty million people in
Europe even in the twelfth century.

Let me go a bit further in this effort to quiet the nation's
nerves. Italy, the last year before the war, sent us about 284,000
of her 34,000,000 people, but if every Italian, man, woman, and
child, were taken into Texas to-morrow the Lone Star common-
wealth would require the forty million of French people to give
it as many people to the square mile as are now in Italy.

Then there is the wild talk about the " Yellow Peril" and the
possibilities of Oriental populations, such as those of India, for
example, becoming restless. Well, suppose they do. Suppose
the 315,000,000 of people in India — for that is according to
the last reliable statistics I can find in the British official records
- move swiftly and land some night on our Pacific Coast. What
would happen ? Why, the nine Pacific Coast States could absorb
them all without a single East Indian getting beyond the Rocky
Mountains, and even then Washington, Oregon, California,
Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Wyoming
could accommodate them all with just as much land as they have
in India, and there could still be room for the multitude that are
still following Horace Greeley's advice : "Go west, young man,
go west!"

Why, old Missouri could swallow up all the people of Portugal,
and find itself no more crowded than Portugal is at present, and

500 DISTRIBUTION

if 130,000,000 immigrants were to settle down in the South on the
other side of the Mississippi the whole Southern section would
not be half so thickly populated as Massachusetts is at this
moment with a population of 3,666,000, and no end of deserted
farms worthy of occupancy.

Why don't more immigrants go South? For the very reason
that Irish immigrants and Polish immigrants come to the North ;
they don't like the lynchings, such as that last one in Texas. They
have a feeling that life is not so secure as it should be, and that
horrible affair in Georgia did more to keep immigrants away
from that wonderful country than all the stump speeches that
can be made in a year, to bring them there.

But right here let me say with profound satisfaction that the
South is awakening to the importance of this and also to another
matter — popular education. Every candidate for Governor of
Georgia this year is reported to have pledged himself, if elected,
to put down lynching ; and the splendid campaign started in
Alabama to eliminate illiteracy in old and young will be a good
example for the entire South and invite immigrants to the
Southland. . . . We need the representatives of all nations to
give effect to our wonderfully complex development and to the
resources of our country.

Why, if Immigration Commissioner Howe should continue
to receive at Ellis Island 1,000,000 immigrants annually and
half of these should go to the Southern States he would be kept
busy for the next hundred years trying to fill up Dixie, and, even
then, the 10,000,000 colored people would have abundance of
elbow room. The South can take care of 250,000,000 of people
without feeling the strain of excessive population. The United
States can take care of 500,000,000 and yet have room in abun-
dance for baseball fields.

We need every decent immigrant that may come to us. We
are losing precisely in proportion as the other new undeveloped
or misgoverned countries of the world are being roused and re-
formed. The opening up of Siberia I have already mentioned.
But think what it will mean to the Balkan regions, that have been
sending us so many of late, when those big railway trunk lines
are run through Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley to the
Persian Gulf, and the old empires of Nineveh and Babylon are

IMMIGRATION AND DISTRIBUTION 501

being governed and cultivated and built up along the lines of
modern science and experience ! South American nations are
just getting upon their financial feet ; existing stable government
is a recent story with them. But wait a few years and see what
will happen in the way of enticing immigration to Argentine and
Brazil, as well as through Central America, which has taken on a
new meaning since the building of the Panama Canal.

The United States has, however, a tremendous advantage,
because we have, beyond all our shortcomings, the best govern-
ment on earth ; because this country is simply another name for
opportunity and the most free play of human powers. To the
bold, adventurous spirits of the Old World, to noble natures that
sicken under the weight of convention, restraint, and caste, we
afford a chance for them to live up to the highest range of their
abilities, and they have taken it. And they will take it, until
their own home governments are fashioned after ours, and have
become abiding as, for example, Switzerland and the French
Republic.

The Immigration Bill now before the Senate is an anachronism.
It is out of place, out of time. Within twenty-five years we will
be advertising for immigrants just as some States and Territories
are doing now.

I refrain from discussing a single feature of the measure, the
absurd literacy test or anything else. It is bad in toto; it belongs
to the Congressional slag heap.

DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL IMMIGRANTS

ONE of the first problems of the conservation of the agricul-
tural industry is the maintenance of a wholesome, happy
rural population. Upon the character of the rural people — •
their intelligence, morality, ideals, and material well-being —
more than on any other one factor depends the general welfare
of the nation as a whole. A second but less important problem
is the conservation and efficient utilization of natural resources,
the restoration and maintenance of soil fertility. With these
two problems the question of immigrant distribution is very
closely interwoven.

Rightly settled, even on mediocre land, the foreigner from the
agricultural districts of the old world has proved his capacity
for agricultural development as well as for rural citizenship in
a hundred instances. Under present conditions the capable
hard-working foreigner with his family is able to out-compete
the industrious American, with a smaller family, a higher stand-
ard of living, and a stronger desire for the " appurtenances of
leisure." The ultimate settlement of rural New England by
foreign farmers — Italian, Slavic, Hebrew, perhaps Teuton -
seems inevitable. Gradually they are dotting the rural districts
with their farms, slipping quietly but surely into the homes va-
cated by native New England farmers. The movement has up
to the present been sporadic, unorganized, geographically scat-
tered, and officially unrecognized — though it has been going
on in the East for about twenty years.

State departments of agriculture in the East have been
strangely blind to any duty or responsibility in the matter of
immigrant distribution. Maine and New Jersey have taken
occasion in their reports to describe and praise the industry,
thrift, and foresight of certain large colonies settled within their
borders. New York maintains a sort of bureau of immigration.

1 From The Survey, October 7, 1911.
502

DISTRIBUTION OF AGRICULTURAL IMMIGRANTS 503

but so far from rendering any material recognition, aid, or assist-
ance, they have held it no part of their business. The federal
authorities consider their duty well done when they have safely
landed the newcomers in New York city. With very few excep-
tions privately organized colonization companies have been
formed with a single eye to personal gain, regardless of the present
or ultimate well-being of the colonized ; of public colonization
schemes there are none.

The results of this haphazard, devil-may-care method of
settling our worn-out lands may be seen by any one who cares
to investigate — even casually — the scattered foreign farm
communities in New England. Exploitation by real estate
agents, settlement on unprofitable soils, fruitless endeavor to
wrest a living from exhausted acres, discouragement, disappoint-
ment, economic disaster, are the too frequent accompaniments
of this form of settlement.

The essentials of successful immigrant occupation are a fairly
compact settlement in groups large enough to maintain a church
and perhaps a school ; land sufficiently fertile to produce the
staple crops ; capital to purchase a minimum equipment for the
type of agriculture adopted ; day labor or some other imme-
diately available form of income to enable the foreign settler
to support his family until his farm becomes self-supporting.
Let the foreigner pay for his purchase not more than 25 per cent
above its productive value, and nine times out of ten he will
win out on these terms. As long as New England or any other
region permits the exploitation of the rural immigrant for private
gain, the results of immigration will be disastrous both to agri-
culture and to the foreigner.

But beyond assistance in settlement and information concern-
ing the character, uses, and values of farm land which every
State Board of Agriculture should make easily and practically
available to all home-seekers, it seems reasonable that the state
colleges of agriculture and experiment stations should put their
foreign-born farmers and prospective citizens in vital touch with
the best methods and materials of agriculture^ Successful
agriculture in New England is specialized, intensive, and com-
mercial. Careful preparation and tillage of the soil ; selection of
seeds ; selection, mixing, and application of fertilizers ; up-to-date

504 DISTRIBUTION

methods of preparing, packing, handling, and marketing the
products of the farm must be studied carefully and contin-
ually. The colleges have this information ; it is free for the ask-
ing ; but the immigrant knows nothing about experiment stations,
and a bulletin in English is a sealed book. Massachusetts Agri-
cultural College is one of the first, perhaps the only one, of the
state colleges to recognize and make such provision, in a small
way, by inaugurating a Polish-American " Farmers' Day," in
the spring of 1911, for foreigners in the Connecticut Valley
onion and tobacco district. Seventy-five Polish farmers visited
the college, inspected the plant, listened to practical talks deliv-
ered through an interpreter, and asked questions on onion cul-
ture, dairy feeds, and good citizenship. No body of men who
come to that college listened more eagerly or derived more benefit
from a day's instruction than those Polish onion growers. But
this is only a beginning.

Perhaps the nearest approach to an ideal method of supervised
colonization is that of the Carolina Trucking and Development
Company at St. Helena, North Carolina, where the promoters
build the houses ; sell the land on easy terms ; provide work for the
newcomers at fair wages ; buy the timber cut from the individual
clearings, at a remunerative price ; provide expert farmers who
teach the settlers in their own tongue how to clear the land,
prepare it, plant the proper seed, and care for the crop in the
most approved fashion. The company further gives personal
and expert attention to the marketing of the perishable truck
crops raised, and maintains an experiment station for the deter-
mination of practical methods, plants, and fertilizers, the results
of which are at once communicated to the foreign farmers for
whose benefit the station exists. The scheme is elaborate and
detailed, but it seems likely to prove profitable and to result in a
few years in a semi-foreign community of very superior small
landowners, settled on land made valuable by their own intelli-
gently directed industry.

The day is coming when the needs of the south-European
farmer in the Eastern states must be recognized and ministered
to by our federal and state institutions of agriculture in some
such far-reaching, definite, systematic, and intelligent manner.

THE DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS IN THE
UNITED STATES1

WALTER F. WILLCOX, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
CORNELL UNIVERSITY

WTHIN the last fifteen years the statement that recent
immigrants, and above all illiterate immigrants, cling to
the great cities, especially those of the Atlantic seaboard, and
swarm in the slum districts of those cities, has been made and
repeated until it has become accepted. The emphasis laid upon
this aspect of the immigration question has increased rapidly,
and is still increasing. Some writers believe it is the most seri-
ous phase of our immigration problem, many that it is so serious
as to demand the attention, and even the intervention, of the
Federal government or of the State governments.

The object of this paper is to examine the evidence on which
this opinion has been based. I begin with a summary of impor-
tant statements of it which have fallen under my eye. The
quotations have been arranged in chronological order.

The persons of foreign birth in the United States seem to seek the
large cities.

The proportion of foreign-born in the principal cities is very nearly
twice as great as the proportion of foreign-born in the country at large.
If we go a step further, and contrast the proportions of foreign-born
in the principal cities and in the remainder of the country outside
of these 124 cities, it is seen that the proportions are very nearly as
3 to i. ... It appears then from these figures that, taken as a whole,
the element of foreign birth seeks the cities with far greater avidity
than does the element of native birth.

Illiterates largely stagnate near the Atlantic seacoast, while the
more educated nations move on to build up the new States. . . .
The illiterate races, such as the Hungarians, Galicians, and Italians,
remain to lower the standard of the already crowded Atlantic
territory.

1 From The Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1906.
505

5o6 DISTRIBUTION

The need is to devise some system by which undesirable immi-
grants shall be kept out entirely, while desirable immigrants are prop-
erly distributed throughout the country.

The illiterate immigrants congregate chiefly in the slums of our
great cities.

Under present conditions, immigrants are becoming concentrated
in the East, for the most part in the large cities, and especially in
and about the city of New York. This congestion of aliens is very
nearly, if not altogether, the most menacing feature of the present
immigration.

The problem of immigration with us is essentially one of distribu-
tion. The demand for laborers is great outside of the cities, but
the gregarious Italian prefers to increase our menacing urban con-
gestion instead of going to the country.

Since we cannot depend on the immigrants to scatter, means
must be taken to diffuse them throughout the country and to local-
ize them away from the great cities. '

Instead of going to those sections where there is a sore need for
farm labor, they [sc. the immigrants] congregate in the larger cities,
mostly along the Atlantic seaboard, where they constitute a dangerous
and unwholesome element of our population.

Landing in the large cities, they [sc. the average emigrants of to-
day] seldom move on to the greater air spaces of the country.

As much as possible should be done to distribute the immigrants
upon the land, and keep them away from the congested tenement-
house districts of the great cities.

Some pressure must be brought to bear upon the immigrants
to secure distribution, because under the present system they do
not voluntarily distribute themselves.

This opinion bids fair before the present article is printed to
give rise to legislation. The bill to regulate immigration, which
passed the Senate May 24, 1906, contained a new section, of
which the following is the material part :

SECT. 39. That the Commissioner- General of Immigration, under
the direction of the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, be, and he
is hereby, authorized and directed to establish and maintain at
each of the immigrant stations within the United States a bureau
of information. Such bureau shall be properly officered, and shall,
under such rules and regulations as the Commissioner- General of
Immigration may from time to time establish, collect and furnish
to all incoming aliens, who may ask for the same, data as to the

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 507

resources, products, and manufactures of each State, Territory,
and District of the United States ; the prices of land and the char-
acter of the soils therein ; the routes of travel thereto ; the cost of
transportation thereto; the opportunities for employment in the
various skilled and unskilled occupations in each of said States,
Territories, and Districts; the rates of wages paid for such labor,
respectively, in each of said States, Territories, and Districts; the
cost of living therein, and all other information that in the judg-
ment of said Commissioner- General of Immigration might tend to
enlighten the alien immigrants coming to such immigrant stations
as to the inducements to settlement in each of the various States,
Territories, and Districts of the United States : Provided, That
the Bureau provided for in this section may, at the discretion of
the Commissioner- General of Immigration, furnish such other in-
formation to alien immigrants as may be useful and proper.

From the foregoing quotations the following statements of
the prevalent opinion, and, so far as I have noticed, the only
opinion to find frequent expression in the public prints, may be
framed.

I. The foreign-born population of the United States has a
stronger tendency towards cities than the native population.

II. This tendency is much stronger among recent immigrants
than among those who entered the country a generation ago.

III. It is much stronger among illiterate immigrants than it
is among those who are able to write some language.

IV. This tendency is disadvantageous to the immigrants
and an economic and social danger to the United States.

V. The evil results of this tendency are so great as to necessi-
tate the creation of agencies, Federal, State, or private, to coun-
teract or correct it.

I. The evidence in support of the first proposition is stated
clearly and effectively in the Report of the Industrial Commis-
sion, under the heading " Tendency of Foreign-born towards
Cities." The figures for 1890 there presented show that in the
124 cities of the United States, each of which had at least 25,000
inhabitants, the foreign-born were 29.2 per cent, and in the rest
of the country only 10.6 per cent of the population. The figures
for 1900, since published, show that in the 160 cities of like size
the foreign-born were 26.0 per cent, and in the rest of the country

508

DISTRIBUTION

only 9.4 per cent of the population. These figures seem to show
beyond question that in cities the proportion of foreign-born
is almost thrice that in the rest of the country, and consequently
to demonstrate that the immigrant has a tendency towards
cities stronger than that of the native.

To the figures in this form, however, it may be objected
that they include the South as well as the North, and the South
is mainly rural and also comparatively unattractive to the immi-
grant. A fairer measure of the difference between the tendencies
towards cities on the part of the immigrant and the native may
be had by excluding from the figures those for the Southern States
and confining the comparison to the North and West.

The following table shows the results of a comparison in this
form : 1

PER CENT OF POPULATION FOREIGN-BORN

SIZE or PLACE OF RESIDENCE

North Atlantic

North Central

Western

North and

Division

Division

Division

West

Total

22 6

IS 8

2O 7

IO O

All cities

27.8

21.2

24.6

2S.I

Cities of ioo,ooo+ . . .

32.1

27.2

28.0

30.1

Cities of 25,000-100,000 .

25-8

I9.I

26.1

23-7

Cities of 8,000-25,000 . .

23-6

I6.5

22.3

20.4

Cities of 4,000-8,000 . .

IQ.6

13.2

19.8

16.6

Cities of 2,500-4,000 . .

I8.3

14.0

18.8

16.4

Country districts ....

n-5

12.4

18.0

12.7

These figures show that the smallest proportion of foreign-
born is found in the country districts and the largest proportion
in the largest cities, and that, as a rule, with only one exception
but of fifteen cases, the smaller the population of a place, the
smaller the proportion of foreign-born in its population. They
show, also, that the proportion of foreign-born in the population
of the large cities of the United States is about two and one half
times as great as that in the country districts. These figures
seem to confirm and establish the conclusion that the foreign-
born have a stronger tendency towards cities than the native
population.

1 For the figures from which these percentages are derived and for much fuller
details see Supplementary Analysis and Derivative Tables, Twelfth Census (1906),
Tables X and XII.

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 509

But to draw such a conclusion at once, as has usually been
done, is to overlook an important difference between the points
of arrival of our native and our foreign-born population. The
native arriving by birth usually begins his life in the country, the
foreign-born arriving by immigration usually begins his American
life in a city, and much or all of the difference between the distri-
bution of native and foreign-born might be due to this fact, and
not to any difference in the tendencies of the two classes. The
best clew to the distribution of the native population at the
beginning of life between city and country is found in the dis-
tribution of the children under one year of age, only one in five
hundred of whom was born abroad. In 1900 there were 433,580
such children enumerated in the 160 cities of continental United
States, each having at least 25,000 inhabitants, and 1,483,321
enumerated in the rest of the country.1 But in this case it may
be fairer to exclude the figures for the Southern States. In the
large cities of the North Atlantic, North Central, and Western
divisions 384,473 children under one year of age were enumerated
in 1900, in the country districts 811,451, so that more than two
thirds of the children born in the North and West and more than
three fourths of the children born in any part of the United States
start in life outside of a city.

With immigrant arrivals the facts are very different. In
the ten years ending June 30, 1900, there were 3,562,382 immi-
grants who entered the United States at some known port. This
leaves out of consideration the immigrants who came in from
Europe through Canada between 1893 and 1900, and whose
point of arrival in the United States is unknown. Of these
3,562,382 immigrants, 3,497,009, or 98.2 per cent, came in at
some port having at least 100,000 inhabitants, and 65,373, or
1.8 per cent, came in at some port of less population.

But it is needful, also, to take into account both the immi-
grants who came in through Canada and the unknown number
of natives of Canada and Mexico who entered the United States.
The number of immigrants from Europe landing in Canada
and bound for the United States has been reported only since
1893-1894. During the seven years 1893-1900 they numbered
8 1, 1 1 6, and the per cent they formed of the number landing at
1 Twelfth Census, Vol. II, Tables II and IX.

DISTRIBUTION

known points in the United States in the same year rose steadily
from 2.4 in 1894-1895 to 5.5 in 1899-1900. It is reasonable to
assume from the series of per cents that during the three years
1890-1893 the immigrants landing in Canada for the United
States were about 2.5 per cent of those landing at known Ameri-
can ports during the same period. On this assumption they were
about 38,390, — a number which, added to the 81,116, g.ives
119,506 immigrants through Canada to the United States for
the decade 1890-1900, and 3,681,888 as the total immigration
from all countries except Canada and Mexico during the ten
years 1890-1900.

A rough estimate of the number of immigrants from Canada
and Mexico to the United States during the same decade may
be reached by a resort to the census figures of the foreign-born.
These show what ratio the natives of Canada and Mexico in
the United States bear to the natives of all other foreign countries.
The figures are as follows :

FOREIGN-BORN

PERCENTAGE OF

DATE

CANADIANS AND

Canadians and

All other

MEXICANS

Mexicans

foreign-born '

1900 ....

10,341,276

1,283,200

9,058,076

14.17

1890 ....

9,249,547

1,058,791

8,190,756

12.93

1880 ....

6,679,943

785,556

5,894,387

13-33

1870 ....

5,567,229

535,899

5,031,330

15.61

1860 ....

4,138,697

277,436

3,866,261

7.18

1850 ....

2,244,602

161,028

2,083,574

7-73

From the foregoing figures it seems reasonable to assume
that the immigration from Canada and Mexico, 1890-1900,
amounted to about 14.17 per cent of the immigration from all
other countries. With the aid of this assumption the total
immigration to the United States, classified with reference to
point of arrival, may be given as shown by the table on page 511.

If we assume* that all these 521,300 immigrants from Canada
and Mexico and also all the 119,506 immigrants through Canada
entered the United States at some place having less than 100,000
inhabitants (a most improbable hypothesis), then 706,179 of
the 4,203,188 immigrants who arrived during the decade 1890-
1900, or 1 6.8 per cent, entered outside a large city, and 83.2

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 511

per cent entered at an urban gateway. We have thus fixed a
maximum limit of 98.2 per cent and a minimum limit of 83.2
per cent for the proportion of our immigrants entering at a
large city, and the evidence also warrants the belief that the
true proportion is much nearer the upper than the lower limit.
There seems little doubt that more than nine tenths of the
immigrants enter the United States at a city of at least 100,000
inhabitants.

POINT OF ARRIVAL

IMMIGRATION

1890

1900

New York City

81,116
38,390

2,812,345
684,664

65,373
119,506

521,300
4,203,188

Some other port <
Baltimore
Boston
New Orleans
Philadelphia
San Francisco
Some known poi
inhabitants
Canada

)f ioo,ooo+ inhabitants :

't having less than 100,000

iSo^—IQOO

1890-1893 (estimated)
Unknown :
From Canada and Mexico (estimated) . .
Total - -

If we grant this, we are in a better position for judging the
present distribution of the foreign-born between city and country,
as reported by the census.1 That distribution in 1900 is given
below :

NUMBER

PER CENT

Total foreign-born

10,341,276

IOO.O

Residing in all cities . .

6,859,078

66.3

Residing in cities of ioo,ooo+
Residing in cities of 25,000-100,000 . .• .
Residing in cities of 8,000-25,000 ....
Residing in cities of 4,000-8,000 . . . .
Residing in cities of 2,500-4,000 ....
Residing in country districts

4,008,085
1,122,196
953,827
479,866
295,104
3,482,198

38.8
10.8
9.2
4.6
2.9
•33.7

Twelfth Census, Supplementary Analysis (1906), Tables X and XIV.

5i2 DISTRIBUTION

If nine tenths of these ten million immigrants reached the
United States at some city having at least 100,000 inhabitants
and less than four tenths were residing in such cities in 1900,
then more than half of our immigrants must have dispersed
from the cities where they landed. But this is not all. Of the
4,008,085 foreign-born enumerated in the cities of ioo,ooo+ in
1900, only 1,978,350, or less than half, were in a seaport of that
size. There must have been much migration of the foreign-born
from the seaport of arrival to another seaport of ioo,ooo+;
but, disregarding all such currents, it seems clear that at least
8,362,926 foreign-born, or 80.9 per cent of all those in the country,
had left the port of arrival before the date of the census. The
number of 1,978,350 foreign-born, which is the maximum limit
of the number who had not left the port of arrival, is about equal
to the number of foreign-born who had been in the United States
less than 8.4 years. It seems, therefore, that the number of
immigrants who remain in the port of arrival more than 8.4
years is not greater than the number who leave the port of
arrival for some other part of the country in a shorter time
than that.

The total reported immigration arriving at any known port
in the United States between July i, 1890, and June 30, 1900,
was 3,562,382. Of this 2,812,345, or 78.9 per cent, entered at
the port of New York. Of the total immigration reported and
unreported (4,203,188), 66.8 per cent landed at New York.
Doubtless at least seven in ten of our immigrants arrive there,
but only about one in fourteen of the children born in the North
and West and one in twenty-two of the children born in the
country are born in that city. Under such conditions the swarms
of immigrants found at any time in New York are no more
conclusive evidence of a tendency to remain there than the
clouds hanging around a mountain are proof that there is no wind
at the summit to blow it away.

With regard to the first point the conclusion is that the foreign-
born constitute about two and one half times as great a propor-
tion of the population in the largest cities as they do in the rural
districts, and that, the smaller the size of a city, the smaller, as
a rule, is the proportion of foreign-born in its population. But,
when this fact is considered in relation to the places of arrival

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES

513

of these immigrants, it affords no evidence of a tendency on their
part to cling to or stagnate in the cities of the country.

II. The evidence submitted thus far may be deemed incon-
clusive because the figures for all the foreign-born living in con-
tinental United States in 1900 are combined. The foreign-born
of a generation ago, it may be urged, had a tendency towards
the country districts quite as marked as the tendency of their
successors towards the cities. Millions of survivors of the earlier
currents of migration from foreign countries to the farming dis-
tricts are still living in the North, and especially in the great
agricultural States of the West. Figures for the total foreign-
born population, therefore, if not irrelevant, are at least incon-
clusive. The objection has weight, and is entitled to a patient
examination.

If it be true that recent immigrants have a stronger tendency
towards cities than those who entered the country a generation
ago, we should expect that the change in the decade 1890-1900
would be in the direction of an increased massing of the foreign-
born in the cities. The following table shows the per cent of
foreign-born in each group of cities and in the country districts
in 1890 and 1900 : 1

FOREIGN-BORN

POPULATION

1900

1890

Total

All cities . . .

IOO.O

66.3

IOO.O

61.4

Cities having ioo,ooo+
Cities having 25,000-100,000
Cities having 8,000—25,000

38.8
10.8
9.2

33-4
10.8

9-7

Cities having 4,000-8,000 . .
Cities having 2,500—4,000 .... .

4.6
2.9

4.6
2.9

Country districts •

33-7

38.6

Before considering the meaning of these figures, it may be
well to add those for the Northern and Western States, in which
about seventeen out of eighteen (94.4 per cent) of the foreign-
born live.

1 For figures from which these per cents are obtained and for per cents in greater
detail see Twelfth Census, Supplementary Analysis and Derivative Tables, Tables
X, XI, XIV, and XV.

DISTRIBUTION

FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION

North Atlantic

North Central

Western

1900

1890

1900

1890

1900

1890

Total . . .

IOO.O

83.8
50.8
13-9

II.O

5-3

2.8

16.2

IOO.O

79-9
43-9
iS-S
11.8

5-5
3-2

20.1

IOO.O

57-8
30.8
6.4
7-8
4.1
2.7
48.2

IOO.O

47.1
26.6
5-6
8-3
4.0

2.6

52.9

IOO.O

48.3
IQ.I
I4.O

6-4
4-5
4-3
51-7

IOO.O

46.8
19.7
11.9
6.9
4.4
3-9
53-2

All cities

Cities having ioo,ooo+ . .
Cities having 25,000-100,000
Cities having 8,000-25,000 .
Cities having 4,000-8,000 . .
Cities having 2,500-4,000 . .
Country districts

These figures show both for the country as a whole and for
the North and West that the proportion of the foreign-born liv-
ing in the country has materially decreased, and the proportion
living in cities, especially the large cities, has much increased,
and seem at first a clear confirmation of the increased tendency
of our recent immigrants towards city life.

But the rapid growth of urban population and the slow growth
of rural population are familiar facts. The increased propor-
tion of the foreign-born in large cities may be due partly or
entirely to the increased proportion of the total population in
those cities. A more significant comparison, therefore, is one
showing the proportion of foreign-born to the total population
in the years 1890 and 1900. Such a comparison is made in the
table presented below :

PERCENTAGE OF FOREIGN-BORN IN TOTAL POPULATION

North Atlantic

North Central

Western

1900

1890

1900

1890

1900

1890

Total

22.6
27-8
32.1
25-8
23.6
19.6
i8.3
ii-S

22.3
29.0
34-0
28.6
24.8
20.5
17.6
11.7

15-8
21.2
27.2.
I9.I
16.5
13.2
14.0
12.4

18.1
25-8
33-8
21.6
21.8

17.3
15.5
14-3

20.7
24.6
28.0
26.1
22.3
19.8
18.8
18.0

24.8
31.2

37-5
31.0

25-7
26.6
24 8

21. 1

All cities

Cities having ioo,ooo+ . .
Cities having 25,000-100,000
Cities having 8,000-25,000 .
Cities having 4,000-8,000
Cities having 2,500-4,000
Country districts

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 515

As the proportion of foreign-born to the total population
in the country at large decreased from 14.8 per cent in 1890
to 13.6 per cent in 1900, it would be expected that the propor-
tion in the several classes of cities and in the several divisions
would also be smaller. This expectation is confirmed by the
above figures. But, if the foreign-born population has been mass-
ing disproportionately in the cities, as is generally believed, this
tendency would manifest itself in a smaller decline in the propor-
tion of foreign-born in the great cities. Just the opposite is the
fact. The decline in the proportion of foreign-born to total popu-
lation is greatest, as a rule, in the large cities, and least, as a rule,
in the country districts. Perhaps this difference may be stated
most clearly as follows : in the North Atlantic division the pro-
portion of foreign-born in the population of cities of ioo,ooo+
was 2.9 times as great in 1890 and 2.8 times as great in 1900 as
the proportion in the country districts of the same division at
the same date ; in the North Central division the proportion in
large cities in 1890 was 2.4 and in 1900 2.2 times that in the
country districts; in the Western division the proportion in
large cities in 1890 was 1.8 times and in 1900 was 1.6 times
that in the country districts. In other words, the differences
between the large cities and the country districts in the propor-
tion of foreign-born to total population tended to decrease in the
decade 1890 to 1900.

These figures seem to warrant, if not to compel, the belief,
contrary to the prevailing conviction, that the foreign-born are
showing an increased tendency towards the country districts,
yet I do not so interpret them. They should be judged with
reference to two probabilities : first, that for many foreign-born
the large city is a way station on the journey to a smaller city
or a rural district; and, secondly, that the average length of
residence on the part of our foreign-born population was probably
greater in 1900 than in 1890.

The preceding argument may be thought to have demonstrated
the first point. Confirmatory evidence may be found, however,
in the figures of the Twelfth Census, showing the number of
years spent in the United States by the foreign-born.1

1 The figures from which the numbers and percentages have been derived may
be found in Twelfth Census, Supplementary Analysis (1906), Table XXIX.

DISTRIBUTION

The distribution of the foreign-born population of city and
country according to the duration of residence in the United
States, 1900, is shown by the following table :

NUMBER RESIDING IN

PER CENT OF TOTAL

DURATION or RESIDENCE

Cities having
at least

Smaller cities
and

For cities
having at

For smaller
cities and

25,000
inhabitants

country
districts

least 25,000
inhabitants

country
districts

Total foreign-born

5,130,281

5,210,995

Duration unknown ....

379,980

632,673

Duration known ....

4,750,301

4,578,322

100.0

100.0

Less than 5 years . . .

538,459

465,410

II.4(

IO.2

5 to 9 years . .

774,716

584,515

I6.3

12.8

10 to 14 years . . ...

914,146

682,784

19.2

14.9

15 to 19 years ....

794,867

77i,58i

I6.7

16.8

20 years and over . . .

1,728,113

2,074,035

36.4

45-3

.Median duration in years

15-9

18.6

The preceding figures show" that the foreign-born population
living outside of the 160 cities of continental United States had
resided in this country in 1900 on the average about 2.7 years
longer than the foreign-born population in those cities, an excess
equal to about one sixth of the time the city foreign-born have
been in the country. The argument that the currents have flowed
and are flowing from city to country, although strengthened by
these figures, is still incomplete, because they are consistent
with the hypothesis that we have to do with the results of two
currents of migration, — an earlier current to the country dis-
tricts and a later one to the cities.

That our foreign-born population had been in the United
States, on the average, a longer time in 1900 than in 1890 is
an inference, almost a necessary inference, from the immigra-
tion figures of 1880 to 1900. The reported immigrants 1880
to 1890 numbered 5,246,613 ; those 1890 to 1900 numbered
3,687,564, the number in the earlier decade exceeding that in the
later by more than one and one half million. This fact would
be almost certain to result in a longer average duration of resi-
dence in the United States in 1900 than in 1890. Unfortunately,
the answers to the question, "Number of years in the United
States?" introduced into the Federal census for the first tune

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 517

in 1890, were tabulated at that census only for the aliens, and
consequently no comparison of results for 1890 and 1900 can
be drawn.

In default of anything better the following computation may
throw some light on the question whether the foreign-born popu-
lation had, been longer in the United States in 1900 than in 1890.
Of the foreign-born enumerated in the United States in 1900 the
duration of residence of 90.21 per cent was reported.1 If the
information had been asked and obtained with the same degree
of completeness for the 9,249,547 foreign-born enumerated in
1890, then the duration of residence of about 8,344,000 would
have been ascertained. In 1900 there were 2,363,097 foreign-
born enumerated as having been in the United States less than
ten years.2 This is 64.1 per cent of the immigrants reported as
having come in during the preceding ten years. If we assume
that 64.1 per cent of the 5,246,613 immigrants who came in
between 1880 and 1890 would have been found in the United
States in 1890, and have reported their length of residence as
less than ten years, there would have been about 3,363,200.
On these assumptions the per cent of the foreign-born of known
length of residence who had. been in the country less than ten
years would have been 40.3 in 1890 : it was 25.4 in 1900. This
computation goes far to confirm the theory that the average
duration of residence of the foreign-born was decidedly greater
in 1900 than in 1890.

If the large city is for many immigrants a way station on the
journey to the smaller cities and rural districts, and if the average
duration of residence of immigrants in 1900 was materially greater
than in 1890, this would have afforded time for a larger propor-
tion of the immigrants to have reached their destination by the
later date.

Thus far we have failed to find any evidence that the tendency
of the foreign-born towards urban life is any stronger or any
weaker than the tendency of the natives of this country towards
urban life. All the facts examined have been found consistent
with the theory that the larger proportion of foreign-born in
our cities is due to the fact that nine-tenths of them arrive in

1 Twelfth Census, Abstract, Table X.

2 Twelfth Census, Abstract, Table XL VIII.

518 DISTRIBUTION

cities, and that it takes them a long time to disperse from these
centers.

The Twelfth Census, however, offers further interesting
evidence on this point. The number of years in the United
States is reported for the foreign-born population not only of
continental United States and of the several States and Terri-
tories, but also of the 160 cities each having at least 25,000 inhabit-
ants, and for years under six by each year of residence. These
figures make it possible to study the distribution over the United
States and between city and country of the immigrants who
have been in the United States a short period of time. The last
census reported 201,128 foreign-born on the first day of June,
1900, who had been in the country less than one year. The
Bureau of Immigration reported 431,501 immigrants, other
than immigrants from Canada and Mexico, to have arrived be-
tween June i, 1899, and June i, 1900. If we add 14.2 per cent
to this number for an estimate of the immigrants from Canada
and Mexico in that year, we have an estimated number of 492,600
immigrants during the census year 1899-1900, of whom only
40.8 per cent were found by the census at the end of that time.
To attempt a reconciliation of these figures would involve too
long a digression, but it may be well to mention that the census
found 1,012,653 foreign-born whose length of residence was
unreported, and that probably very many of these were recent
arrivals with whom the enumerators may have found it difficult
to communicate.

The places of arrival of the 448,572 immigrants who reached
the United States during the year ending June 30, 1900, may
fairly be taken as indicative of the places of arrival of the 201,128
foreign-born reported by the census as having been in the country
less than one year on the first day of June, 1900. These immi-
grants reported by the Bureau of Immigration, increased by 14.2
per cent for the Canadian and Mexican immigrants, give a
total of 512,092 for that fiscal year. Assuming that all those
from Canada and Mexico arrived in the United States outside
of a city of 25,000 inhabitants, — a most improbable hypothesis,
the main reason for which is that it is more unfavorable to my
argument than any other which can be suggested, — we have
the following figures :

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES

PLACE OF ARRIVAL

TOTAL IMMIGRANTS
1899-1900

PER CENT
DISTRIBUTION

Total . ....

ej2 OO2

TOO O

New York City

341,712

66 8

Some other city of 25 ooo"*"

71 84.2

Total arriving outside a large city ....
Some place of 0-25,000
Through Canada

98,548
11,828
23 2OO

19.2

2-3

4r

From Canada and Mexico

63,520

12.4

If the 201,128 foreign-born of less than one year's residence
reported by the census be assumed to have arrived at city and
country ports in the same proportions as the immigrants of 1899-
1900, they would have been distributed on arrival as appears
below. Over against the number among these 201,128 estimated
to have arrived at each class of place during the year is set the
number found there by the census at the end of the year :

PLAC

E OF ARRIVAL

ESTIMATED NUMBER
ARRIVING

NUMBER
ENUMERATED

Total

201 128

201 128

New York City .

I ^4 3^O

26 84.3

Some other seaport

of 25,000"*"

28,160

IO.O2O

Some city of 25,000
Rest of country .

+ not a seaport ....

O

38 618

54,204
ioQ.1^2

The above figures show that within a period averaging six
months after their arrival at New York City not less than 107,000
out of 134,000 immigrants, or four fifths of the total number, had
left that city, and dispersed over other parts of the country.
Many of them doubtless went to some one of the other seaports
of at least 25,000 inhabitants, and many arrivals at these other
seaports doubtless removed to New York City. Yet the number
found in all these other seaports by the census was 17,000 less
than the number who landed there ; that is, at least three fifths
of the arrivals at those ports had left them for other parts of
the country. On the other hand, more than a quarter of those
who arrived in the country were found within six months at
some one of the 149 cities having at least 25,000 inhabitants
which were not seaport cities, and which must have been reached,
therefore, by a process of migration and dispersion within the

520

DISTRIBUTION

country. More than half of the total arrivals, also, were found
outside of any city of that size ; that is, in what might be called
the country districts of the United States. These figures prove
with a conclusiveness hitherto unattainable that the congestion
of the foreign-born in our large cities, particularly the seaboard
cities, is in no sense an evidence that the arrivals linger or stag-
nate there. On the contrary, the foreign-born population of
the United States is in a process of incessant and most rapid
migration over the face of the country, following the allure-
ments of economic advantages and opportunities as they present
themselves.

A more detailed study of the distribution of these recent
arrivals may be found illuminating. They were distributed
through the five main divisions and through the cities and coun-
try districts as shown in the following table :

-

NUMBER OF FOREIGN-BORN WHO HAVE
BEEN IN THE UNITED STATES LESS
THAN ONE YEAR

PER CENT LIVING IN
CITIES or 25,000

DIVISION

Total

In Cities
of 25,000+

In Smaller
Cities and
Country
Districts

Among
Total
Population

Among
Foreign-born
in United
States Less
Than One

Year

Continental United States

201,128

91,976

109,152

26.0

45-7

North Atlantic ....

129,665

68,561

61,104

48.0

52.9

North Central ....

4S,o87

16,963

38,124

23.1

37-6

Western

18,093

4.663

13,430

25.2

25-8

South Atlantic ....

3,965

1,291

2,674

12.4

32.6

South Central ....

4,3i8

498

3,820

8.4

u.6

The preceding figures show that four ninths of the recent
immigrants are living in the 160 cities which contain only about
one fourth of the total population. But they suggest, also,
that this difference is due mainly to the region to which they
first come. In the North Atlantic, South Central, and Western
divisions these recent immigrants are distributed between city
and country in almost the same proportions that prevail among
the general population. In the South Atlantic and North Cen-
tral divisions recent immigrants are massed in the cities. There
are 37 States in the Union each of which had in 1900 at least

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 521

one city of 25,000* inhabitants. In 12 of these States the foreign-
born reported as in the country less than one year were more
numerous in the cities than in the rest of the State. In 25 the
recent immigrants were most numerous in the country districts.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the foreign-born who had been
here less than one year and who were residing in 1900 in some
one of its 18 cities of 25,000* population, numbered 12,841.
Those in the rest of the State numbered 20,205.

Additional evidence bearing upon the parts of the country
to which recent immigrants are going may be found by computing
the per cent that the foreign-born who have been in a place less
than one year make of all foreign-born in that place.1 The figures
show that in West Virginia the newly arrived immigrants con-
stitute a larger proportion of the total foreign-born population
than elsewhere, and in Kentucky and Arkansas they constitute
a smaller proportion than elsewhere. In the cities the largest
proportion of recent immigrants is found in the State of Wash-
ington, the smallest in Kentucky. In the country districts the
largest proportion is in West Virginia, the smallest in Kentucky,
Missouri, and Arkansas. Can it be shown that this distribution
of recent immigrants indicates a failure to appreciate the economic
opportunities before them or that it could be materially improved
if guided by any government agency ?

We may pass now to a study of the distribution of certain
nationalities between city and country. In the report of the
Senate Committee on Immigration of 1896 the immigration from
Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia is referred to as undesirable
and as tending to swarm in the cities. In the table below
the nationalities most concentrated in the cities of 25,0.00* in
1900 are indicated.

The table below shows that the Russians, Poles, Italians,
and Irish were most massed in the cities of the country, each
of these four elements having between three fifths and three
fourths of its numbers in the cities. The difficulties in adjusting
the census figures of country of birth to those of the Bureau of
Immigration for Russia and Poland have been found insuper-
able. For some years the Bureau of Immigration assigned the
Polish-speaking immigrants to Poland, for others to the country

1 See Twelfth. Census, Supplementary Analysis, Table XXXIV.

522

DISTRIBUTION

now governing the part of Poland in which the immigrant was
born. Because of this difficulty the distribution of the Italians
has been chosen for special study.

'

FOREIGN-BORN

Total

In cities of 25,000 +

Per cent urban

Russia, ....

42"^ 726

217 708

74 O

Poland

•*8^,4O7

27O.Q46

62.6

Italy . .

484. O2 7

•2Q2 324

62 4

Ireland

I,6l<,4^O

I OOT, 8lO

62.O

Bohemia

156 891

Se 287

<\4 3

Austria . ...»

27 c OO7

147 73O

e-j c

Hungary

14^,714

77 870

r? 4

Germany .

2 66^ 418

I 33O 3^1

CQ 2

To study the distribution of Italians from New York City
between 1890 and 1900, it is important to ascertain the number
living in 1890 within the present limits of Greater New York.
I have determined that number as follows, the figures for Queens
and Westchester being estimates :

New York County 39,95*

Kings County 9,789

Richmond County 262

Queens County 948

Westchester County 184

Total ....'. 5M34

The number of Italians in 1890 within the present limits of
Queens County has been estimated on the assumption that the
part cut off from Queens in 1899 to form Nassau County con-
tained in 1890 the same proportion that it did in 1900 of all
the Italians in the former Queens County at the same date. The
number of Italians in 1890 in the part of Westchester later incor-
porated in New York has been estimated as 10.1 per cent of
the total number of Italians in Westchester in 1890 (namely,
1820) because 10.1 per cent of the population of that county
in 1890 was included in the part transferred to New York.

During the decade between 1890 and 1900 651,893 Italian
immigrants landed in the United States. In the same period

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 523

the number of Italians residing in the United States increased
301,447, a number equal to 46.2 per cent of the current of immi-
gration. During the same decade about 627,736 immigrants
from Italy, or 96.3 per cent of the total current, landed in New
York City.1 Assuming that 46.2 per cent of these immigrants,
or 290,000, remained in the country until 1900, and contributed
to swell its population of Italian birth at that date (the others
either returning or dying or filling gaps caused by deaths among
the Italians in the country in 1890), and assuming, further,
that none of these 290,000 removed from New York City, the
Italian-born population of that city in 1900 would have been
341,134. It was 145,433, indicating that about 196,000, or two
thirds, of the Italian additions to the population of New York
City during the decade had left before its close.

A different method of analysis is made easier by some figures
recently published by the Census Office. The country has been
divided into urban and rural by putting into the urban class for
1890 and 1900 all places which had 25,000 or more inhabitants
in 1890 and into the rural all the rest of the population. The
urban population of Italian birth was 107,337 in 1890 and 296,040
in 1900, showing an increase of 176 per cent in ten years. The
rural population of Italian birth was 75,243 in 1890 and 187,987
in 1900, showing an increase of 150 per cent in ten years. When
one considers that at least nine tenths of the additions to the
foreign-born population are made in the first instance to the
cities, and also that cities, especially in the North, have a much
more^rapid growth than country districts, it is hard to find in
these figures any evidence of a tendency to city life distinguish-
ing the Italians either from the native population or from other
classes of the foreign-born.

With regard to the second point the evidence seems to warrant
the conclusion that neither recent immigrants as a class nor
Italian immigrants who were selected as the most available
national type of recent immigrants show any characteristic
tendency towards or fondness for city life.

1 The figures for Italians landing in New York 1890-1896, inclusive, are in the
published reports of the Bureau of Immigration, those for 1898-1900 have been
kindly furnished me from manuscript records of the Bureau, the non-existent figures
for 1896-1898 have been estimated on the assumption that the average proportion
in the other eight years (96.3 per cent) held true for those.

524 DISTRIBUTION

III. The evidence on the third point, that this tendency
towards urban life is characteristic of illiterate immigrants, is
so slight as to require little analysis. On December 13, 14, and
15, 1895, members of the Executive Committee of the Immigra-
tion Restriction League examined " about 1000 immigrants
over sixteen years" of age concerning their destination and their
ability to read and write. The figures indicate that 865 were
actually examined, of whom 331 were found on a test to be illiter-
ate and 534 able to read. Seventeen per cent of the 534 literates
and ii per cent of the 331 illiterates gave as their destination
some State of the Mississippi Valley.1 The difference is too slight
to be significant, the numerical basis too small to furnish more
than a mere indication, the statements made at landing regard-
ing the intended destination are untrustworthy as evidence of
what residence will be chosen, and the illiterates as a class would
know less of American geography, and be less likely to have
definite plans. The same report recites evidence from the Com-
missioner of Labor's Report that the slum districts of Baltimore,
Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia are largely tenanted by
illiterate foreigners and their children. But this evidence throws
little light upon the real issue.

If we were to admit that illiteracy is more prevalent among
the urban foreign-born, this would not prove a tendency of illit-
erates towards cities. It might be due either to the fact that
the urban foreign-born had been in the country, as already proved,
a shorter time than the rural foreign-born, and in many instances
not long enough to have learned to read and write, or to the fact
that the urban foreign-born are the survivors from a more recent
current of immigration, and that recent immigrants are more
illiterate than those who formerly came to this country.

But first we may ask the question, Is illiteracy more prevalent
among urban immigrants ? The following table gives the figures
for the city and country districts of New York State. The per
cent of illiterates among the foreign-born white population of
the cities of 25,000 and the rest of the State, 1900, is shown by the
table on the next page.

Each of the twelve cities of 25,000+ in New York State, except
Schenectady, has a lower per cent of illiteracy among the

1 Fifty-fourth Congress, First Session, Senate Report No. 290.

DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES

525

immigrants than is found outside these cities. In other States
similar results would be found. As a rule, illiteracy in any class
of the population is more prevalent outside of cities than in
them. Not merely is there a lack of evidence to prove the third
point, there is also direct evidence to disprove it.

CITY

PERCENTAGE OF ILLITERATES AMONG
FOREIGN-BORN WHITES AT LEAST
TEN YEARS OF AGE

Rochester

7 Q

97

Albany ....

IO O

Auburn.

10 6

Yonkers

IO.Q

Buffalo . . .

12 O

Elmira, .

12.4

Binghamton

IT. 8

New York ....

I 2 Q

Trov ,

14 O

Utica

16 o

Schenectady

16 i

Rest of State

16.1

The first three positions being found to lack evidence, the third
and fourth, which assumed their truth, fall to the ground. If
there is no evidence of a disadvantageous or dangerous tendency
towards cities on the part of immigrants as a class, of recent
immigrants, or of illiterate immigrants, the main argument in
favor of, intervention by the government to distribute them
properly falls to the ground.

SCHEMES TO " DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS

SAMUEL GOMPERS, PRESIDENT AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR

WHAT is the meaning of the persistent and widespread
promotion in this country of the scheme for State and
philanthropic employment bureaus? What motive animates
the active promoters of the scheme? Have our philanthropists
who give money to "help the jobless man to the manless job"
any idea of the broader effects on the country of their immediate
local charity? What class of wage earners are chiefly the bene-
ficiaries of either State or philanthropic bureaus in obtaining
work? Are the interests of any capitalists served by such
agencies ?

To these questions we shall indicate at the outset what in our
opinion are the correct replies. But because we put forth that
opinion without labored preliminary it must not be inferred that
it is given hastily, without well weighing the necessary evidence.
The subject has long received our attention. As we proceed we
shall bring to bear on the matter sufficient testimony to establish
good grounds for our judgment.

If the reader will but give due weight to the fact that the
[transatlantic steamship combine is one of the greatest "pools"
in the world, and that it is without cease reaching out for divi-
dends, to be obtained by every business method possible, he
will have a key to the secret of many of the activities of indfviduals
and organizations, and even foreign governments, in relation
to the distribution of laborers in the United States. If the reader
will also bear in mind that the industrial trusts, the employers'
associations in the centers of population, and the mining and rail-
road interests aim at employing the cheapest effective manual
labor, he will find himself taking account of the proportion
of newly arrived non-English-speaking laborers among their
workmen.

526

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 527

The number of immigrants landing in the United States for
the last six years has averaged more than a million a year. That
is: 1905, 1,026,499; 1906, 1,100,735; 1907, 1,285,349; 1908,
782,870; 1909, 751,786; 1910, 1,041,570. Passengers other
than cabin (that is, third-class passengers) who departed from
United States seaports in the last six years averaged about
350,000 a year. The figures are : 1905, 334,943 ; !9o6, 282,068 ;
1907, 334,989; 1908, 637,905; 1909, 341,652; 1910, 177,982.
The total revenue to the steamship companies from coming and
going third-class (steerage) passengers, is to be seen therefore
as running up toward $50,000,000 a year.

At this point the question may be asked : Is it probable that,
to forestall possible decrease in dividends, the steamship combine
would engage in efforts to mitigate the obvious effects of immi-
gration in overstocking the labor market in the congested dis-
tricts of the United States? In reply, in order to estimate such
probabilities, it may be asked : Have the steamship companies
been engaged in any efforts to bring over immigrants, merely for
the dividends arising from their passage money? Here is the
answer from the " Report of the Commissioner-General of Immi-
gration, 1910" :

The reasons for this enormous increase in immigration from south-
ern and southeastern Europe were stated clearly and in some detail
in the report for 1909. // is to a very large extent induced, stimulated,
artificial immigration; and hand in hand with it (as a part, indeed,
of the machinations of the promoters, steerers, runners, subagents,
and usurers, more or less directly connected with steamship lines, the
great beneficiaries of large immigration) run plans for the exploita-
tion of the ignorant classes which often result in placing upon our
shores large numbers of aliens .who, if the facts were only known at the
time, are worse than destitute, are burdened with obligations to which
they and all their relatives are parties, debts secured with mortgages
on such small holdings as they and their relatives possess, and.on which
usurious interest must be paid. Pitiable indeed is their condition,
and pitiable it must remain unless good fortune accompanies the alien
while he is struggling to exist and is denying himself the necessaries
of decent living in order to clear himself of the incubus of accumulated
debt. If he secures and retains employment at fair wages, escapes
the wiles of that large class of aliens living here who prey upon their
ignorant compatriots, and retains his health under often adverse

528 DISTRIBUTION

circumstances, all may terminate well for him and his ; if he does
not, disaster is the result to him and them.

Next in order is the question, To what extent do employers
of labor on a large scale hire newly arrived immigrants ? Sugges-
tions for the answer are to be found in such facts as these :

John A. Fitch, in his volume, "The Steel Workers," describing
working-class conditions at the Carnegie Steel Company's
plants in the year 1907, says that of the 23,337 men m the works,
7479 were foreigners unable to speak English, 14,019 were
unnaturalized, and only 5705 native-born white Americans.

The Survey of April i, 1911, in a careful study of conditions
among the bituminous coal miners and coke workers in western
Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia (by W. Jett Lauck),
says that perhaps the most significant fact of the situation is
f that, as in the other soft-coal fields, as well as in the southern
anthracite region, these miners are not Americans, but as a rule
recent immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. The
writer also says:

Of the employees in the bituminous mines of Pennsylvania in 1909,
only 1 5 per cent were native Americans or born of native father, and
9 per cent native-born of foreign father, while 76 per cent, or
slightly more than three fourths, were of foreign birth. What is
more significant is that less than 8 per cent of the foreign-born mine
. workers were English, Irish, Scotch, German, or Welsh. The majority
were from southern or eastern Europe, with the Italians, Magyars,
Poles, and Slovaks predominating. The term "American miner,"
so far as the western Pennsylvania field is concerned, is largely a
misnomer.

When they work, these miners average, as in the case of the

Roumanians, as low as $1.85 a day, while in the greater number

of cases the range is close to $2 ; more than one tenth of the

'Ruthenians, Roumanians, Poles, and Croatians earn on an

average under $1.50 a day. But unemployment in the course

of the year brings down the general average for heads of families

to $431. The south Italians earn only $399 and the Poles $324.

' The yearly figures reveal the compulsory " lay-off" system of

the mine operators, the same as that which in the anthracite

regions brings down the average earnings to a third less than

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 529

they might be were employment regular. These facts stand as
a refutation of the claim, made by defenders of immigration
as it is, that "we need more labor."

In "Women and Children Who Make Men's Clothes," Mary
Van Kleeck brings out these points from a study of the recent
government report on conditions of working women and chil-
dren : The five cities, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Phila-
delphia, and Rochester, make 68.3 per cent of the total product
of men's ready-made clothing of the United States. In Rochester
61.3 per cent of the workers are women, in Chicago 57.8, in
Baltimore 48.7, in Philadelphia 45.9, and in New York 40.9.
In no city were more than 35 per cent of the total force found
on the pay roll fifty or more weeks in the year. Among the
women, Americans constitute only 7.4 per cent of the force;
62.9 per cent are foreign-born, and 25.5 per cent native-born of
foreign parents. The average weekly earnings of the house
workers with helpers were $3.72 ; without helpers, $3.04. The
manufacture of clothing is carried on in "seasons." During the
short busy periods the employees are overworked ; during the
long dull periods they are underfed. Among the houseworkers
at the occupations, in all the cities, 75.7 per cent cannot speak
English. f

Now, in citing this indisputable evidence that the poorest of
the poor non-English-speaking immigrants have driven out of
the market most of the English-speaking races in several of the
basic occupations of the country, we are brought to- ask several
questions bearing on our subject :

1. Where to-day in America is there not a glut in the unskilled
or less highly skilled "labor market" in any occupation which
yields a living the year through? The demand for steadily en-
gaged rough labor on the farm is to be measured accurately
by the earnings of miners and unskilled laborers in the iron and
steel industries. The day the farm offers a better wage by the
year it will get the surplus labor engaged in these occupations.
The same is to be said in case of the demand for day laborers
on the railroads or on big contract work.

2. What effect on the mobility of labor may be expected from
the established American methods of hiring and being hired in

530 DISTRIBUTION

the labor market? In those trades and other callings which are
organized the prevailing means of rinding employment are the
union labor bureaus and the freemasonry existing between shop-
mates or fellow-craftsmen. Upon his own union employees any
employer of skilled labor can almost invariably depend for a
supply of the best men in his industry who are unemployed.
Next to this, a method more applicable to the lesser skilled, is
newspaper advertising. Nowhere in the world are the "want"
columns of the daily paper so much relied upon as a factor in
hiring and being hired as in the United States. In each occupa-
tion the regular advertisers for "help wanted" get to be known
to the workers, who in a sense supervise the agencies thus adver-
tising, which if they are unfair lose patronage. Employers, also,
in this country answer the "situations wanted" column where
in other countries dependence would be placed almost solely
upon employment agencies. On a certain Sunday the "want"
section of a New York daily paper recently contained twenty-
eight columns of "help wanted, female" and twenty-five columns
of " help jwan ted, male" advertisements, while there were besides
six and a half columns of "situations wanted, female" and seven
and a half of "situations wanted, male." Here is testimony to
the want columns of the newspapers as an American institution
that certainly must have its marked advantages or it could not
flourish as it does. As to the private employment agencies,
being now subject to a stricter regulation than formerly, the
wageworkers who seek places through them have the less cause
for complaint of abuses.

These several American methods, combined, pretty well cover
the field among the English-speaking wage earners, not only for
particular localities, but for the entire country.

Where is the stage reached at which State labor exchanges,
philanthropic employment agencies, or employers' labor bureaus
are, by some public advisers, seen to be necessary? The answer
to this question is clear. The necessity for these forms of help
arises mainly where the stream of immigration is to be directed
to one locality or another to the benefit of the employer. The
employer's profit in this respect may come through replacing
union by non-union employees, through substituting foreign
cheap labor for. unorganized labor which has learned to aspire to

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 531

American standards, or through maintaining a parasitic indus-
try, by means of labor so poorly paid that the wageworkers
are not self-sustaining.

Still keeping in mind the steamship combine, in partnership
with the great industrial employing class in flooding the United
States with foreign cheap labor, we may trace operations satis-
factory to one and the other of these two great social powers
which have been undertaken by public authorities " nudged"
by them and by well-meaning but mistaken philanthropists.

The regulations which the government of Italy has imposed
on the steamships engaged in the transatlantic immigrant traffic
from Italian ports has resulted in enormously increasing the
volume of emigration from that country. It has been a case of
doing good to the steamship companies in spite of themselves.
In the beginnings of the day of regulation their managers fought
it. Not until the Italian government put their ships under a /

ftrict control was any considerable improvement made in steerage I
t onditions. To-day the Italian government takes charge of the
emigrant from the time he quits his home, usually an inland
village or small town — the big cities of Italy send us but few
laborers — and keeps him under its paternal care until he reaches
his job in America in the mines or big works or on the railroads,
in case he comes with a job in view, or, on the other hand, until
he settles among his friends in one of his national " colonies" in a
large city. Even after that, in case he is killed or injured, a vice-
consul or official agent is soon at hand to represent Italian
interests. In New York, near the Battery landing for steerage
passengers, is a large five-story hotel for Italians, at which those
just arriving may get lodging and three meals a day for 50 cents.
It is under the supervision of the Italian government. A free
employment office, in charge of the Italian Emigration Commis-
sion, is in operation in Lafayette street. The latter issues gratis
a weekly " Bulletin of Information," telling where work is to
be found, what wages are offered, what the railroad fares are,
where strikes are on, and where farms are for sale. What is the
consequence of all this fostering care? More than 2,000,000
Italians have come to the United States in the last ten years —
1901-1905, 974,236; 1906-1910, 1,129,975. Here from a single

532 DISTRIBUTION

nationality has been a revenue of $70,000,000 to the steamships.
If a million Italians have gone back, they have paid for trans-
portation thirty to forty million dollars more. The banking for
the earnings of these millions of men, the supplying of their
needs — food, clothing, transportation, amusements, reading
matter, etc. — have given business to thousands of the more
intelligent or venturesome among their co-nationalists here and
in Italy.

The advertisements in the New York daily Italian newspapers,
of which there are no less than six, are a revelation of the financial
interests which are maintained by the Italians in the metropolis
who are not yet sufficiently Americanized to depend on American
newspapers for their daily reading. The revenues of any one of
these newspapers would be reduced by a good percentage, perhaps
below the sustaining point, if the steamship advertisements
were withdrawn. The bankers, the doctors, the transportation
agents, the dealers in Italian food supplies are all enterprising
advertisers. None of these interests, it may be imagined, are
calling for a restricted immigration. On the contrary, one may
look out for them to be well represented wherever measures for
the promotion of immigration are being agitated.

The main factors bearing on immigration and its promotion,
as thus revealed in the case of the Italians, are duplicated in
regard to other nationalities of southern and eastern Europe.
One difference is to be remarked, by the way. The Italian govern-
ment has put an end to various publicity devices for the promo-
tion of immigration common in Italy until the establishment of
its Emigration Commission in 1902. The steamship companies
may yet announce in inland Italy the date of their sailings, but
are forbidden otherwise to drum up trade. Various methods,
bordering on the fraudulent, formerly practiced by agents repre-
senting nearly all the professions, have been suppressed, at least in
their public manifestation. But, on the other hand, with the better
care for its emigrants, Italy is sending out a greater number than
ever to the United States. The steamship companies are satisfied.

With unskilled labor in excess of demand in our mining and
manufacturing districts, and an enormous reserve oi it in our
great cities ready to be called to any needed point, what is to

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 533

be done with the stream of immigrants arriving? Is this not a
problem first of all for the steamship combine to solve in its
own interest? Obviously, it cannot promote every form of
distribution by direct means ; it must depend upon — yes,
upon the patriotism of the American people bent upon keeping
up the policy of making the United States an asylum for the
poor and oppressed of 'all nations, upon the noble impulses of
philanthropy which does not in its efforts recognize differences
of nationality, upon the complaisance of our lawmakers and
other government officials who have recently arrived foreign-
born constituents in balance-of-power number, and upon the
distress of our great employers of labor over the deficiency in
the supply of labor — at one dollar a day.

From two of these four elements the steamship combine has
received invaluable and unflagging public assistance — the
patriots and the philanthropists. A most patriotic organization,
ever in the forefront in advancing the interests of the immigrant,
is the National Liberal Immigration League. Its objects are
"the proper regulation and better distribution of immigration."
What its conception is of "proper" regulation may be seen by
its activities in combating the pitiful efforts of the immigration
officials at Ellis Island to separate and deport the defectives of
all sorts who are swept in with the human tide of arrivals.
Distribution, however, is the strong point of the Liberal League.
It promotes mass meetings in New York to advance the welfare
of immigrants going inland, with such men as the Secretary of
Commerce and Labor as speakers ; assists in getting up excursions
to Washington of editors and proprietors of newspapers printed
in foreign languages, with a call on the President, whose fair
words to the excursionists are duly pamphletized ; takes a part
in conferences and congresses of people of the various nationalities
in America, at which methods of caring for and distributing the
immigrant are discussed ; issues leaflets and letters in which the
cause of the poor immigrant looking for work is eloquently
pleaded. It is on hand whenever correction of the defects of our
naturalization courts is necessary; it recently called attention
to the fact that 150,000 "first papers" are held within the juris-
diction of the Federal District Court sitting in Manhattan, which
issues 50,000 first papers a year.

534 DISTRIBUTION

Patriotic and philanthropic Americans are continually forming
societies to help the' immigrants. To-day the spokesmen for
these societies agree that, the cities being choked up with poverty-
stricken unemployed immigrants, and the mining and great
industrial districts having gotten wages down through them to
a level, all things considered, approximating to the European
standard, the stage of the problem now reached calls for "distri-
bution." This is the most obvious means of putting the immi-
grant next against the American workingman with whom he is
to compete.

"The National American Federation for the Promotion of
Sane and Liberal Immigration Laws " has got down to work in
New York City. Among its well-known American originators
are Marcus Braun, Jacob Schiff, H. M. Goldfogle, Carl Hauser,
Gustav Hartman, and Henry W. Schloss. Mr. Schiff, at its
formation, wrote :

With my associates I am at present actively engaged in getting
the Galveston situation into such shape that the movement toward
and through Galvest'on into the American hinterland can progress
without being thwarted at every step by the representatives of the
Department of Commerce and Labor. ... It is unfortunate that,
contrary to all expectations, the report of the United States Immi-
gration Commission is so unsatisfactory.

Louis Costelak, believing "we have resources second to none
in the world," wants "our Federal Departments of Agriculture
and Interior" to go into "a campaign of judicious advertising " :

First, it would be necessary to secure the services of a broad-
minded man, a student of human nature versed in a number of the
European tongues. He would then gather about him a staff of effi-
cient assistants conversant with the Latin, Teutonic, and Slavonic
languages. Centrally located, he should be in touch with the Federal
Departments in Washington, being actually a part or branch of them,
if you will.

Lajos Steiner has his plan for reaching and distributing the
immigrants. His principal ideas are these :

Print and distribute information by newspapers, circulars, booklets,
correspondence, conferences, etc., in the languages which peasant

SCHEMES TO "-DISTRIBUTE " IMMIGRANTS 535

immigrants understand, of our agricultural opportunities, of our
banking, of our educational facilities, of our methods and institutions,
of how and where to engage in industrial occupations, and of the ways
and means to become Americanized. Show the price of land per acre
here and the value of its product here and in the respective European
countries, point out the taxes here and our facilities, and in the respec-
tive Hungarian, Italian, and Slav countries ; call attention to the fact
that no compulsory military service of years is inflicted here in times
of peace. Furnish information for publication to the press, especially
to the Hungarian, Italian, and Slav newspapers. Inform the right sort
of farm dealers how and where to reach peasant immigrants, so they
can sell them farms. Encourage the establishment of immigrants'
agricultural associations.

Anna Seaburg calls the attention of the New York public
to the methods of help begun last year by the Young Women's
Christian Association for "the 200,000 or more immigrant women
and girls who, come to this land yearly." Among the methods
for immediate work are the establishment in lower New York
of a headquarters for immigrant women, to include a "home,"
a secretary's office, an assembly room, an employment bureau,
and a press bureau. The latter "shall keep our foreign-speaking
peoples informed through their own publications of the advan-
tages open to them in this country." Miss Seaburg believes
that because of its international affiliations the Y. W. C. A.
is peculiarly fitted for this work. J. S. Kana saw to the printing
of advertisements in five languages for the association. Mrs.
Kana spoke to the immigrant girls in seven languages. Miss
Lizzie Strumsky interviewed Russian factory workers.

G. E. di Palma Castiglione, manager of the Labor Information
Office for Italians, wrote to the daily press of New York that the
"Bulletin" of the office is sent free of charge to all the Italian
priests resident in the United States, to the Italian newspapers,
and to the largest Italian societies. He also says :

The Board of Immigration of the State of Missouri and the Commis-
sioners of Agriculture of the States of Illinois and Virginia have in-
serted special notices in the newspapers of their States calling the
attention of farm owners to our publication, and urging them to use
it should they be willing to dispose of their property. We are satis-
fied that disseminating information in the language of the immigrants

536 DISTRIBUTION

in regard to definite opportunities to buy farms may help their dis-
tribution. On the other hand, we do not think that a large number of
Italian immigrants will ever go to work on farms as wage earners as long
as wages on farms are much lower than wages on construction work as it (
is at present.

The Contessa Lisa Cipriani is fostering what one of the maga-
zines calls "a comprehensive and exceedingly ambitious program
to benefit 750,000 Italians in New York City." The Contessa
is a representative of a society intrusted by the Italian govern-
ment with the welfare of Italian women and children abroad.
The program includes : A central bureau of research, investiga-
tion, and translation ; a hygienic station ; trade and industrial
schools ; encouragement of farming villages ; assistance to the
needy in making proper application to local charities. The
magazine giving this information adds :

The City and Suburban Homes Company offers to raise $1,000,000
for model housing accommodations, provided Italians and their
friends will find an equal sum. The intention is to build homes in
the less congested districts. To supplement the model tenements,
gymnasiums, reading rooms and lecture halls are planned.

Among the leading philanthropic agencies of New York send-
ing wageworkers out of the city are : Jewish Agricultural and
Industrial Society, Immigrants' Free Labor Bureau, Industrial
Removal Office, National Employment Exchange, and the
Joint Application Bureau. It is worth noting that these agencies,
together with the Bureau of Labor of the Agricultural .Depart-
ment and the Division of Information, Bureau of Immigration,
in all sent out from New York last year less than 20,000 men,
exclusive of farm laborers, while the private employment agencies
sent out 35,000, not counting farm laborers.

The foregoing denote but a few of the philanthropic plans that
are constantly cropping up in New York with the distribution of
the immigrants as their object.

When we turn to look at the labor bureaus in operation undei
our national and State governments, and the proposals to estab-
lish others, we see again emerging from amid the facts a great
deal of patriotism and philanthropy — and some politics. Of

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 537

course these motives have in view simply the good of the immi-
grant and are wholly indifferent to the incidental aid afforded
the steamship combine and the great employing industries !

O. L. Green, Inspector in charge at the New York branch,
Division of Information, Bureau of Immigration, situated three
minutes from the landing place of immigrants in New York City,
gave a few months ago to a New York daily newspaper some
explanation as to the promotive work carried on by the division.
He said :

As to advertising in local newspapers published in foreign languages,
I beg to inform you that the cooperation of various papers has been
asked, and some have responded to the extent of publishing free of
charge lists of opportunities available to their readers. One German
daily published in New York has been doing this more than two years,
as has also a German monthly published here. A Polish weekly has
also given space to opportunities available to the Slavs. The public-
ity thus given to the work has been productive of good results. . . .

A pamphlet (copy herewith) in twenty-four languages, calling at-
tention to the division, is handed to immigrants landing in New York
City ; this distribution is made at the Barge Office where the immi-
grants land from Ellis Island. The various mission houses, societies,
and organizations of the city have been advised as to the work of this
Federal bureau, inviting cooperation. Ministers have, by request,
announced from their pulpits the fact that the Federal Government
collects information as to where employment may be found, and that
this information may be had free of charge by applying for it. All
applicants who present themselves are requested to inform their
friends of the division.

Much thought has been given to printing and distributing informa-
tion as to specific opportunities for aliens, but when one takes into
consideration the number of languages involved, the enormity of the
task will be appreciated. . . .

In New York the Legislature passed a law in 1909 authorizing
a commission having, among other purposes, the duty of inquir-
ing into "the lack of farm labor." The commission sent abroad
an ex-Assemblyman from Brooklyn, who in September, 1910,
reported on the familiar methods of the various government
bureaus in the principal European countries. He recommended
that the State should set up labor bureaus.

538 DISTRIBUTION

A proposal was brought last winter before the New York
Congestion Commission to establish labor bureaus under the
municipality.

On October i last the law establishing a Bureau of Industry
and Immigration in the New York Department of Labor went
into effect. The mission of this bureau is "to inquire into the
condition of all aliens arriving in New York, to search out the
demand for labor in all parts of the United States, to investigate
all applications for laborers," and "to take a step toward pre-
venting congestion and obviating unemployment." The bureau
will also "act as an investigating agency of all philanthropic
institutions now brought to bear on the immigrant" etc.

It will protect the immigrant at the place of landing, and will exercise
control over the banker, the ticket agency, the padrone, and all those
agencies of fraud, vice, and extortion which have hitherto so pitilessly
exploited the alien.

Tfre Wainwright Commission of New York recommended
April 26 to the Legislature that State employment offices be
established in New York, Buffalo, Syracuse, Albany, Bingham-
ton, Watertown, and Corning, with an appropriation of $100,000
to do the work, which should be supervised by a Deputy Commis-
sion of Labor at $4000 a year.

In a number of other states, legislators and Immigration Com-
missioners have within the last year or two been awakened to
the patriotic and philanthropic duty of distributing immigrants.
In Massachusetts, a 'committee bill was filed March 2 this year
"to provide for a better distribution of immigrants." In Minne-
sota, a bill introduced in March in the legislature authorized a
state board of immigration, and the State Immigration Com-
mission was actively urging merchants of the state to work for
its development through immigration. In Montana, a delegate
meeting of commercial men was held at Great Falls, March 3,
to lay plans for a northwestern development league, which should
have for its object "the diverting of the stream of western immi-
gration" to Minnesota, the two Dakotas, Montana, Idaho,
Washington, and Oregon. In South Dakota, a proposal for a
state immigration bureau was defeated in the House February 23,
but on February 27 the Senate voted a similar bill, which passed

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 539

the House March 2 by a bare majority. The farmers from the
eastern part of the state were solid against the measure as useless
and expensive. The state will "now start in advertising for
immigrants." In Nebraska, a bill for a bureau of publicity and
immigration was introduced early in March. In Oregon, a
"state immigration bill," carrying an appropriation of $25,000,
was passed in February.

An article in the Lincoln, Nebraska, Journal, February 15,
recorded the fact that on the day previous J. L. McGrew, assistant
chief of the Federal Division of Information, Bureau of Immi-
gration, had been in conference with Governor Aldrich and other
state officials to arrange a plan of cooperation between the federal
government and the state governments concerning the distribution
of aliens. "The department," said the Journal, "in which Mr.
McGrew is working has for its particular mission the beneficial
distribution of aliens" "Up to the present time three states have
agents cooperating with the Federal Government under the law
establishing the bureau. They are Missouri, Kentucky, and
New York. A number of the Middle Western States have bills
in their Legislatures which have this for their aim." An article
in the Philadelphia Inquirer, February 14, serves to indicate the
ramifications of these sentiments of patriotism and philanthropy
in regard to the immigrants. Its opening paragraph is :

For the purpose of promoting local interest in the nation-wide
movement to secure better and more equitable immigration laws, a
group of prominent Philadelphians met last night in the home of Ru-
dolph Blankenburg, 214 West Logan Square, and organized the Phila-
delphia Branch of the National Liberal Immigration League.

In the South prevalent sentiment doubts the desirableness of
the immigrants now arriving in America, though two or three of
the states have taken up with "distribution." One of the states
which recently created the office of Commissioner of Immigra-
tion is Alabama. Lee Cowart, the new commissioner, described
in the Birmingham Age-Herald as "familiarizing himself with
the details of his department," found out at once that the place
to locate the State Immigration Bureau was not Montgomery,
the capital, but Birmingham, where the "shortage" of labor
occurs from time to time in the big industrial establishments !

540 DISTRIBUTION

The Age-Herald continues: "Mr. Cowart proposes to begin
with listing all salable untilled lands, and to lay these lists
before German, Italian, and Swedish agriculturists in their homes
across the sea."

In Louisiana, the New Orleans press for the last few months
has been giving much space to the new immigrant station, the
plans for which have been approved by the authorities at Wash-
ington. A Louisiana Immigration and Development League
has been proposed, but, it was announced by the New Orleans
State, it would " probably not take shape until the Hamburg-
American Steamship line definitely announced its purpose to
come to New Orleans." To the New York observer the immigra-
tion at present to the Gulf States seems insignificant. In 1910,
Tampa had 5386 alien arrivals; Miami, 1787; Key West,
2457; Galveston, 4996; and New Orleans, 3604, with only a
few hundreds in all at other ports.

In the other southern states the " nation- wide patriotic and
philanthropic movement for the distribution of immigration "
is not being welcomed. Texas would have to repeal one of the
provisions of its constitution before it could establish a state
immigration bureau. The Missouri Legislature in February
threw out the appropriation for the State Board of Immigration,
and Kansas City, St. Louis, and other cities of the State will
lose $25,000 advanced by them during the last two years for the
support of the board. Georgia, through a convention of its
farmers' union, which has 80,000 members, decided a few months
ago that it wants no immigrants. The attempts to employ
Italian laborers on railroad building in the state and on excava-
tion work in Atlanta developed the fact that the southern em-
ployers prefer the native negroes. In Mississippi the Farmers'
Educational and Cooperative Union passed resolutions in July,
1908, declaring its members "irrevocably opposed to the present
tide of undesirable immigration now pouring into this country."
North Carolina, through its bureau of labor, made a canvass
of its possible need of immigrants, and it found a strong opposi-
tion to the inducement or distribution of foreign cheap labor.
South Carolina five years ago established a state bureau of
immigration, appropriated considerable money to it, and, with
a fund raised among cotton-mill owners, real estate dealers, and

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 541

others pecuniarily interested, its commission went abroad and
brought two shiploads of immigrants from Belgium, and dis-
tributed them to the number of 762 to various places, but in two
years few if any of these induced immigrants were to be found
in the state. Consequently March 4, 1909, a law was passed
forbidding a state official "to attempt directly or indirectly to
bring immigrants into the state of South Carolina." Virginia
and North Carolina, which for a time had been taken in with
South Carolina on the distribution scheme, after a brief experi-
ence suppressed their share in it by refusing to appropriate
any more funds for the purpose.

The sentiments and view of the farmers, the small business
men, and the wageworkers of the South were thus expressed
by T. J. Brooks, representing the Farmers' Educational and
Cooperative Union, before the Congressional Committee on
Immigration and Naturalization, March 8, 1910 :

The only demand for foreign immigration throughout the agricul-
tural districts of the South and West comes really from the transporta-
tion interests, that wish to develop traffic ; real estate boomers, hoping
to sell land thereby; the large employers, always demanding cheap
labor; and certain other financial and gambling interests, anxious
to prevent the farmers properly controlling the production and mar-
keting of their crops sufficiently to secure a fair and reasonable price.

Speaking for Mississippi, the Jackson Farmers' Union Advocate
has this :

If some good people from the northwestern part of the United States
want to come down here, they will come, and we will welcome them if
they take to us, our ideas about local matters such as the negro, but
we do not favor a State movement to get them, nor the expenditure
of State funds to attract them ; because just as sure as that once gets
started it will not only bring in some we don't want, but there will be
a demand on the part of some to turn it to bringing in the foreign
immigrants.

The Baltimore Manufacturers' Record, in a review of the
distribution movement, concludes :

Willingness on the part of a few Southern men here and there
has given ephemeral standing to a variety of undertakings, called
"Southern" congresses, parliaments and conventions, under cover of

542 DISTRIBUTION

which has been sought promotion of the purpose to relieve New York
of its "congestion" at the expense of other parts of the country, and
thereby to allay immediate opposition to the carrying out of alien
European plans to exploit the people of the United States. In view
of the menacing situation the safety of the country lies in opposing
vigorously at every turn any proposition originating in or from New
York turning "philanthropic" desire to help the rest of the country by
supplying it with labor from the metropolis. " Philanthropy" has come
into such bad odor in recent years through the drive made from New
York against the South upon economic, social, or educational lines that
now it is quite the thing to announce that new undertakings are
essentially businesslike and that the "philanthropy" involved is
purely incidental. The rest of the country should do all within its
power to encourage the divers organizations of the kind in New York
to solve their various problems by agitating for greater restrictions upon
immigration, and, to that end, for the abolition of the worse than use-
less Division of Information in -the National Bureau of Immigration.

Several other phases of immigration and of the proposal to
set up State and municipal labor exchanges which may, among
their purposes, " direct the stream of immigrants where they are
needed," and "lessen the congestion of population in our cities,"
ought at least to be glanced at in this article. Were these phases
not mentioned the reader might infer that we had overlooked
them in forming our views on the question.

1. The immigrants send to Europe from the United States
[$275,000,000 a year. If American labor could get it, that money

rould stay in this country. The number of immigrants returning
to Europe yearly is 350,000. If one third of these return with
sufficient means to establish themselves in their home countries,
it shows that a large proportion of the thrifty merely come here
temporarily to " exploit" America. Why should the public
authorities of this country spend money in assisting this class?
Quite a different element, however, makes up a large proportion
of those who remain in our cities. The enormous proportion of
foreigners in the New York prisons, insane asylums, and charity
institutions, upon which subject there are many official reports,
is indicative of the general burden that the community is carry-
ing, brought upon it by unrestricted immigration.

2. The indefinite assertion that "the farmers need help,"
here or there or somewhere, has been sifted a countless number

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 543

of times, with the result of finding one definite comprehensive
fact. This is, that twice in the year, when the farmer sows his
seed and when he reaps his crop, he can employ help ; but as a
rule he can not, or will not, employ labor the year round. On
this point the testimony of John C. Earl, Financial Secretary
of the Bowery Mission, is but a repetition of evidence that has
been given by scores of other social workers who have investi-
gated the subject. On a certain day, according to Mr, Earl,
two Omaha newspapers published a story with flaring headlines
to the effect that the Deputy Commissioner of Agriculture of
Nebraska had said he knew of cases enough of farmers needing
help to give employment to a thousand men from the East if
they could be obtained. The Deputy Commissioner named
twenty-five farmers who, he said, each needed from five to twenty
laborers. A Nebraska newspaper reader sent clippings con-
taining these stories to the Bowery Mission, intimating that the
men of the bread line, if they wanted work, ought to go West
at once. Mr. Earl wrote to the newspapers, to the farmers they
named, and to the Deputy Commissioner of Agriculture, asking
for the addresses of farmers needing men. The newspapers
could give no addresses, the farmers named said they were sup-
plied, and the official quoted replied that there was all the help
needed just then in the State. After the reader has appreciated
the inferences from this story, he will naturally inquire why the
farmers who need laborers, to be steadily employed, do not apply
direct to the many New York philanthropic labor agencies.
The reply is that no doubt the few do who are seeking labor to
be kept all the year.

3. As to the government employment agencies in operation
in various countries of Europe, American readers continually
obtain the results of the observations of newspaper, magazine,
official, and philanthropic investigators. Usually such reports
are no more than undiscriminating transcriptions of official
reports, with superficial descriptions of the functioning of the
establishments. These writings as a rule lack comprehensiveness
of view and they fail to take in the relative influence of all the
employment agencies in operation — trade-union, private,
government, church, and charitable. They do not account for
the existence of each of these forms or for the reasons of the

544 DISTRIBUTION

movements of labor in Europe from point to point and from
country to country. They see no significance in the adaptability
of certain methods to certain countries, nor do they go to the
origins of the various forms of the labor exchanges in each coun-
try. The writers who describe the big central labor bureaus of
Berlin or Munich, for example, omit due weight to the fact that
in Germany there are to-day between 7000 and 8000 private
registry offices ; they do not know how much politics has to do
with the bourses du travail in France ; they have not followed
the criticisms recently made by the trade-unionists of the British
labor exchanges established two years ago under the official
Board of Trade. In the work of the multiplicity of labor bureaus
in Europe, any investigator bent on establishing a priori conclu-
sions may select sufficient facts to back up any project by which
any organization in society, any political party, any capitalistic
combine, may further its selfish interests or its alleged phil-
anthropic objects.

4. The question, "Where would you be but for immigra-
tion?" or, " Where would your parents have been but for immi-
gration?" is snapped off at the immigrants of thirty years ago
or the children of immigrants of that or an earlier period. The
reply is in these facts : Up to 1880 the average arrivals for thirty
years had been less than 250,000 a year. Nine tenths of the
immigrants of that time came from the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland or Germany. They spoke the English
language or a tongue closely allied to it. A large proportion of
them went directly on the land, it being then true that the public
domain needed settlers. A considerable percentage came taught
in the skilled trades. They could not be used as a means to cut
down the American standard of living. They never brought this
country to confront the social problems which now vex and
torment it — problems associated with illiterate, poverty-stricken
masses packed in " colonies," strangers to the American spirit
and American history, working in slave-gangs for an industrial
aristocracy, driven into competition with American labor as
their sole means of gaining a livelihood, the highest hope of many
of the more thrifty being a return to their home land, with
America as nothing to them. The immigration question now is
totally different from that of thirty years ago.

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 545

5. Significant basic facts are to be learned from the reports of
State and philanthropic labor bureaus now in existence in
America :

Massachusetts has three State free-employment offices —
at Boston, Springfield, and Fall River. According to the fourth
annual report of the director, the positions filled from these offices
in 1910 numbered 20,574 ; in three years over 43,000 individuals
were sent to 68,780 positions; cost to tne State more than
$80,000. The offers of positions were 172,129. Query: Why
were only one fourth of the positions offered filled by the appli-
cants, who numbered 195,135? Were the other three fourths
in the class of offers which will not stand investigation by unem-
ployed wageworkers seeking steady work yielding a living?
Were they jobs that were merely casual or seasonal, or that were
underpaid? The classification of occupations for the 20,574
positions filled in 1910 may indicate the reply: Domestic and
personal service, 11,779; agriculture, 2004; trade and trans-
portation, 2770; manufacturing and mechanical pursuits,
3786. A glance at these figures reveals the whole situation.
The State free-employment offices of Massachusetts have for
the most part been merely employed in doing a certain small
percentage of the work of transferring and re- transferring the
household and hotel help that must be moved about with
the seasons and the comings and goings of householders. On the
industries, the influence of these free public agencies — in the
third greatest manufacturing State in the Union it is to be noticed
— has not been as much as a raindrop in a barrel of water.
Among its more than half a million industrial wage earners, of
whom it might be estimated that 20 per cent change places in
a year, only about one half of i per cent obtained positions
through the State free-employment offices.

The National Employment Exchange of the State of New
York was set up in 1909 by nearly thirty millionaire subscribers
to a fund of $100,000. Its first annual report states that from
May 12, 1909, to September 30, 1910, it placed 4120 men. The
operating expenses were $24,793; ^ees> $11,813 (employees,
$10,088; employers, $1725) ; net loss, $10,622. This exchange
has two bureaus, one in State Street near the immigrant landing,

546 DISTRIBUTION

and the other in Grand Street, in the heart of the lower East
Side. Its effect on the movement of labor, as shown by this
report of places filled, was nil. But certain straightforward
statements made by the manager outline typical conditions
under which laborers and office help (the latter presumably mostly
English-speaking) must gain their living in the United States :

On many orders the low salaries offered (for office help) for the work
to be performed makes it impossible to fill them. . . .

The causes of dissatisfaction, where unquestionably good laborers
have been supplied, and who refused to stay on the job, emanate from
the lack of proper housing and subsistence; failure to receive the
amount of wages believed to be due on pay day also leads to disputes
which cause men to seek other employment. The commissary is not
always conducted in the interests of the men, especially when a padrone
or some outsider agrees for the privilege to furnish laborers free of
charge. Complaints have been numerous not only about extortionate
prices being charged for supplies purchased through the commissary,
but short weight also being practiced. . . . Some of the men who
return to the city soon after they were shipped out will tell you that
the foreman was too hard to get along with; others will complain
about the exorbitant prices charged for commissary supplies ; others
will say that there was no provision near at hand for purchasing food ;
others say they quit because of the poor sleeping accommodations in
camp, claiming the shanties leaked and were poorly heated, etc. ;
some object to being vaccinated ; others will say that they were
robbed of their clothing ; others found the work wet when they thought
it would be dry ; others would not work with a pick and shovel when
they supposed they would only chop timber, etc.

Do not these reports, both of State and private agencies, tend
to confirm the evidence we have cited to show the mission of
the " distribution " movement?

These reports, as we read them, show that the final question
with the laborer seeking work anywhere in the United States
- with perhaps the exception of a few remote regions, in which
the circumstances of time-consuming distances, high transporta-
tion charges, sparse settlement, and uncertain duration of em-
ployment are discouraging factors — is not the matter of finding
a job. It is the matter of finding even a casual job, to say nothing
about steady employment which will maintain a human being
at the American standard of living.

SCHEMES TO "DISTRIBUTE" IMMIGRANTS 547

As we have shown, the usual established American methods
for supplying American (or English-speaking) migratory labor
to any point in the country where labor is needed at American
wages are equal to the performance of their task. These methods
are, as we have pointed out, trade-union bureaus and comrade-
ship, advertising, and regulated private agencies. Of course,
they have to be supplemented by individual hustle, horse sense,
courage, and independence of character.

In the light of our survey of the situation, then, the principal
aim and mission of the schemes for immigrant distribution come
plainly into view. It is not to supply our country with any
needed labor. It is not the building up of any American com-
munity. It is not even to assist American labor equally with
foreign labor. It is to promote and assist the coming and going
steerage passenger regardless of the effect on American labor.

English-speaking labor in the United States can find its way
to any job anywhere that will yield a fair living, even if it has to
travel in a "box car." The trouble to-day is that, no matter
how it travels, it finds on the job a previous arrival — a man
speaking a strange tongue, living with a gang of others in a shack,
working at a serf's wages, submitting in a slavish spirit to out-
rages on him as a human being, and in debt to the agencies that
have found the job for him and paid his way to it.

To add to the irony of the situation, the steamship combine,
which is the chief profit-taking interest in this process of debasing
American labor, is a foreign enterprise. Its companies have
foreign charters ; its officers and crews are foreigners ; many of
its ships are under contract to be used by European governments
in case of war. On every transatlantic vessel coming to Ameri-
can ports the official atmosphere is anti-American. The officers
in many cases are commissioned officers of foreign navies, they
and the petty officers and even the serving stewards all sneer at
America. All the world sees through the colossal game that the
European powers and their high financiers are working on the
United States — that is to say, all the world except those Ameri-
cans who are still caught by the balderdash of a patriotism re-
quiring us to admit the poor and oppressed of Europe and the
far East until American labor shall be reduced to the European

548 DISTRIBUTION

level, or who are imposed upon by a mawkish philanthropy
that would finish by substituting for the traditional independence
of the self-maintaining and self-respecting American wageworker
the broken spirit, the semipauper existence, and the slum habits
of the class of European laborers that now mostly make up the
cargoes of the steamships in the combine.

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS

REPORT OF THE CHIEF OF THE DIVISION OF INFORMATION, UNITED
STATES BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION

SIR : The Division of Information herewith submits the report
for the year ended June 30, 1916.

The plan adopted last year of placing such tables as give statis-
tical information concerning the activities of the division at the
end instead of the beginning of the report will be followed this
year, and when necessary they will be referred to by number.
A study of these tables will show that fifty-three races or peoples,
exclusive of Americans, were served during the year by the Divi-
sion of Information. Men and women representing sixty-six
occupations were directed to employment, the range of activities
embracing every State and the Territory of Alaska.

Seventy-five thousand nine hundred and ninety-five were
directed to employment during the year. In this connection it
should be kept in mind that daily jobs, or the directing of a
worker to where he found work for a day or two, were not con-
sidered in the make-up of these tables.

Of the 75,195 persons who found employment through this
division, 58,263 were American citizens, and of this latter num-
ber 57,727 were native-born Americans. Your attention is
directed to the fact that 46,546 of those who found employment
through the division were ordinary laborers. Farm laborers
made up the next highest number. There were 7663 of these,
while 5877 fruit pickers and packers were engaged during the
fruiting season. These latter could not be properly classed as
skilled laborers. It appears, therefore, that 60,086 were directed
to useful and profitable employment as unskilled laborers by
the Division of Information during the year.

A glance at the tables which are not given here shows that
quite a number of skilled mechanics applied to and found work
through the aid of the service. This was made possible by the
action of the Secretary of Labor in issuing the following circular :

549

550 DISTRIBUTION

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT TO INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS,
FARMERS, AND OTHER EMPLOYERS OF LABOR

A SYSTEM OF DISTRIBUTION OF WAGE EARNERS, ESTABLISHED BY THE DE-
PARTMENT OF LABOR OF THE UNITED STATES, is NOW IN OPERATION AND
PREPARED TO RECEIVE APPLICATIONS FOR HELP, SKILLED AND UNSKILLED

To whom it may concern :

The Department of Labor, through the Division of Information
of the Bureau of Immigration, has recently established distribution
branches throughout the country for the purpose on the one hand of
developing the welfare of the wage earners of the United States and
improving their opportunities for profitable employment, and on the
other hand of affording to employers a method whereby they may
make application, for such help as they need, either male or female,
citizens or alien residents, and have their wants supplied through said
distribution branches. No fee is charged employer or employee
for this service.

The Post Office Department and the Department of Agriculture
are cooperating with the Department of Labor in this work. The
plan provides for placing in every post office in the United States the
blanks of the Division of Information, so that persons seeking employ-
ment and employers in need of help may apply at their local post offices
for the appropriate blanks on which to make application.

Realizing that the distribution of these blanks in this way will in
all probability result in the filing of many applications for employ-
ment, it has been deemed advisable to communicate directly with
industrial establishments, farmers, and other employers of labor,
for the purpose of securing profitable employment for applicants.

There is accordingly sent you herewith a form of application which,
in the event of your needing help, may be filled out and returned in
the accompanying envelope without postage. Careful attention will
be given to the selection of applicants with a view to directing to em-
ployers only such help as is specified in the applications received.

If you are not in need of help — skilled or unskilled — at the pres-
ent time, the inclosed blank may be retained for future use.

While this circular was given circulation during the fiscal year
1915 it did not reach its full effect until long after the opening of
the year with which this report deals. In a number of cases
manufacturing establishments have written the division as late
as June, 1916, to ascertain whether the division would direct

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 551

mechanics to them. In this connection it is well to note that
were it not for the fact that the newspapers and magazines give
generous publicity to the aims and purposes of the Division of
Information much of what has been accomplished would have
remained undone. What so far has been done through publicity
but emphasizes the fact that a liberal appropriation for propa-
ganda purposes should be at the disposal of the division.

In Table III, which deals with the "races or people" who are
served by the Division of Information, it will be seen that the
Polish people provided the largest number. Three thousand
three hundred and ninety-seven of these were directed to em-
ployment. There were 2559 Germans, 1561 Russians, 1102
Irish, and 1037 Italians. The remainder was made up of smaller
groups, the largest of which (507) was English.

Of the 58,263 citizens who made use of the division but 536
were naturalized. These, though of foreign birth, are not classed
with the alien -groups shown in Table III. This fact is mentioned
to indicate that though a different course of procedure undoubt-
edly would be followed in Europe at the present time, the serv-
ices of the Division of Information are given as cheerfully to
aliens as to citizens, and that no distinctions were made between
men and women whose kin are warring against each other in the
homelands. A great lesson may be drawn from this fact, but it
has no place here and is merely referred to in passing that readers
of this report may be reminded of it and profit thereby.

The number of applications for the year by races or peoples
and by occupations is tabulated. In this table it will be seen that
the tide has shifted completely from one in which more aliens
sought the aid of the division than citizens to where citizens far
outnumber aliens in seeking information concerning employ-
ment. Out of a total of 184,481 applicants, 132,096 were citi-
zens of the United States. Of this number 118,045 were native-
born and but 14,051 were foreign-born. Of the native-born
citizens 7352 were of the Negro race and 110,693 made up of the
many races of which our native-born white citizenry is composed.
The number who applied for information, as in former years,
may be multiplied by 5, for in the large centers representatives
of groups applied for information and imparted it to those whom
they represented.

552

DISTRIBUTION

NUMBER OF EMPLOYMENT CENTERS

The country is now divided into twenty zones, each zone hav-
ing a central office designated as zone headquarters. Not count-
ing the central offices or zones headquarters, the division now has
sixty-two subbranch offices. The location of each is given below :

ZONE HEADQUARTERS

Boston Norfolk Chicago Helena

New York City Jacksonville Minneapolis Seattle

Newark New Orleans St. Louis Portland

Philadelphia Galveston Kansas City San Francisco

Baltimore Cleveland Denver Los Angeles

SUBBRANCHES

Portland, Maine
Providence, Rhode Island
New Bedford, Massachusetts
Buffalo, New York
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Wilmington, Delaware
Miami, Florida
Mobile, Alabama
Savannah, Georgia
Charleston, South Carolina
Gulfport, Mississippi
Memphis, Tennessee
Houston, Texas
Del Rio, Texas
Eagle Pass, Texas
Big Spring, Texas
Amarillo, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Angelo, Texas
Brownsville, Texas
Laredo, Texas
El Paso, Texas
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Deming, New Mexico
Tucumcari, New Mexico
Detroit, Michigan
Indianapolis, Indiana
Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
Salt Lake City, Utah
Moscow, Idaho
Everett, Washington

Bellingham, Washington
Aberdeen, Washington
Tacoma, Washington
Spokane, Washington
Walla Walla, Washington
North Yakima, Washington
Friday Harbor, Washington
Nooksack, Washington
Lynden, Washington
Custer, Washington
Port Townsend, Washington
Port Angeles, Washington
Astoria, Oregon
Sacramento, California
Fresno, California
Eureka, California
Monterey, California
San Diego, California
Calexico, California
Bakersfield, California
Tucson, Arizona
Santa Barbara, California
San Luis Obispo, California
San Bernardino, California
Santa Ana, California
Indio, California
Yuma, Arizona
Naco, Arizona
Nogales, Arizona
Douglas, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 553

GROWTH OF THE DIVISION

In view of the fact that numerous inquiries come to the division
concerning its work from the beginning, it is deemed advisable to
provide answers through the medium of this report. The follow-
ing table will show the number who secured profitable employ-
ment through the division :

NUMBER OF JOBS SECURED YEARLY FROM 1907 TO DATE

Actually placed, fiscal year —

1908 and 1909 5,oo8

1910 4,283

1911 5,176

1912 5,807

1913 5,025

1914 3,368

1915 11,871

1916 75,195

Total n5,733

NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS FOR JOBS YEARLY TO DATE

Fiscal years —

1908 and 1909 26,477

1910 18,239

1911 30,657

1912 26,213

1913 19,891

1914 19,383

1915 90,119

1916 184,481

Total 415,470

No record of those who applied for workers was kept prior to
May, 1915. For the last two months of that fiscal year there
were 7427 persons applied for by employers, and for the year
just closed, 107,331. The division has no way of ascertaining
what percentage of applications has been filled.

FIRST YEAR OF THE ZONE SYSTEM

June 30, 1916, ended the first full year when anything approxi-
mating a national employment system has existed, and the
results achieved proved the wisdom and benefits of such an

554

DISTRIBUTION

organization. A nation-wide system, with each zone reporting
directly to the division and each cooperating with the other, is
calculated to give up-to-date information concerning labor condi-
tions throughout the United States. Such a plan never was
adopted in the United States before, and naturally delays and
mistakes occurred in getting the system into workable order.
As a matter of fact, this has not been accomplished as yet for
the reason that, although the number of subbranches may appear
large, it is in fact much too small effectually to deal with the
question of unemployment and speedily bring the employer
and the employee together. Up to the present, however, it has
worked satisfactorily, and every day brings its staff of workers
up to a higher plane of efficiency.

The following table will give, in brief, some idea of the work

done in the various zones :
, •

GENERAL SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES OF THE UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT
SERVICE FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 1916

7nwir

OPPORTUNITIES
RECEIVED

APPLICATIONS FOR EMPLOYMENT

AONk

NUM-
BER

ZONE HEADQUARTERS

Applica-
tions for
help

Persons
applied for

Applica-
tions for
employ-
ment

Persons
referred to
employ-
ment

Persons
actually
placed

I

Boston, Mass. . . .

44

2,156

824

155

148

2

New York, N. Y. (in-

cludes Newark)

2,618

16,441

18,933

9,8l9

7,657

3

Philadelphia, Pa. . .

1,026

n,357

10,438

4,675

3,226

4

Baltimore, Md. . .

218

631

3,542

1,904

1,904

5

Norfolk, Va. ...

i55

874

846

428

360

6

Jacksonville, Fla. . .

178

2,461

5,747

1,592

1,421

7

New Orleans, La. . .

76

504

2,891

239

40

8

Galveston, Tex. . .

59

477

1,143

149

61

9

Cleveland, Ohio . .

276

1,505

1,334

593

202

10

Chicago, 111. . . .

2,689

28,147

56,056

26,721

25,892

ii

Minneapolis, Minn. .

701

795

643

380

378

12

St. Louis, Mo. (in-

cludes Kansas City)

1,568

7,216

7,73!

3,420

2,462

13

Denver, Colo. . . .

in

163

500

260

62

14

Helena, Mont. . . .

65

154

194

144

46

15

Seattle, Wash. . . .

7,109

15,885

36,051

14,926

14,585

16

Portland, Oreg. . .

4,458

12,177

10,175

io,533

9,545

17

San Francisco, Cal. .

2,170

3,670

14,659

3,3i2

2,466

18

Los Angeles, Cal. . .

2,119

5,i58

12,692

5,705

4,740

Total ....

25,640

109,771

184,481

84,955

75,195

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 555

A study of that table will disclose the fact that the New York
branch, which was for many years the principal distributing
center and is now zone No. 2, stands fourth in the list, Chicago
being first, while Seattle, Wash., shows up as second, with Port-
land, Oreg., the third. For many years the chief of the division
and the inspector in charge at New York have urged that Chicago
and other points be designated as branch offices for distribution
work. The wisdom of those recommendations becomes apparent
when the foregoing table is carefully scrutinized.

GENERAL INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS

It may not be inappropriate to comment briefly on general
industrial conditions during the fiscal year. When the nation-
wide system of United States employment offices was created
in January, 1915, there was little demand for unskilled laborers,
the applications that came to the division being principally for
farm laborers, domestics, and settlers, for up to that time the
activities of the division were confined to these classes. This
condition did not begin to change until the following March,
and even then but few applications were received for unskilled
laborers, and the maximum wage offered therefor, with very
few exceptions, was $1.75 per day, ranging downward from that
to as low as 1 2-^ cents per hour. The demand for skilled workers
likewise was extremely limited owing to the fact that previously
the division had not been permitted to direct skilled workmen
to places of employment, only an occasional request being
received for men in any of the skilled trades.

By June, 1915, a marked increase was observed in the number
of applications received, not alone for farm laborers and domestics
but for common laborers and skilled workers as well, and coin-
cident with the greater demand there occurred a gradual increase
in the compensation offered. Thus at the commencement of
the current fiscal year — that is, July i, 1915 — there existed
an active demand for farm laborers, unskilled laborers, domestics,
and skilled workers. This demand has continued unabated
throughout the year, and at times it has been necessary to issue,
in addition to the regular bulletins, special bulletins of oppor-
tunities existing in certain sections of the country, in order that

556 DISTRIBUTION

the unemployed in other portions of the United States might
proceed thereto and obtain work. A bulletin of this character
was issued on February n, 1916, calling attention to oppor-
tunities for employment existing in zone 3, comprising the States
of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia, which the offices
of the United States employment service at Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh were unable to fill. This bulletin contained informa-
tion relating to specific opportunities for approximately 2500
miners and mine laborers, 500 skilled workers, and 400 unskilled
laborers. In addition, the statement was made that the Phila-
delphia office advised that first-class machinists were in constant
demand in that vicinity and that female domestic help was very
scarce. The wages offered unskilled laborers ranged from $1.50
to $3 per day, the average being about $2 per day.

Another special bulletin was issued on May 6, 1916, relating
to opportunities remaining unfilled in zone 10, comprising the
States of Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan, of which
Chicago is the headquarters. This special bulletin was issued
for the purpose of securing wide publicity for the fact that there
existed in Chicago and vicinity opportunities for laborers, skilled
and unskilled, with a view to the direction of unemployed men
from other sections of the United States. The bulletin contained
information relating to specific opportunities for 200 skilled
workers, at from 30 to 50 cents per hour, and approximately
900 unskilled laborers on railroads and in factories, at from 17
to .25 cents per hour. The Chicago office reported that the
supply of workers of the classes indicated had been exhausted
in zone 10 and that the applications would have to remain unfilled
unless help could be obtained from other sources. It was stated
further that machinists of all kinds, molders, foundry workers,
and railroad and factory laborers were in constant demand.

The general industrial conditions characterized by the special
bulletins above mentioned are in marked contrast to the situa-
tion that existed when the zone system was established. As the
operations of the plan become known the numbers availing
themselves of its services will increase.

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 557

COOPERATION WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
TO ENFORCE THE SEAMEN'S ACT

On March 16, 1916, the Secretary of the Department of Com-
merce called upon the Secretary of the Department of Labor
for the use of the machinery of the Division of Information to
aid him in enforcing the seamen's act. This was with a view
not only to seeing that the provisions of the law were obeyed
by masters of vessels, but also with a view to facilitating the
clearance of vessels ready to sail. Shortly after the law whereby
a certain proportion of the crews of vessels under United States
registry were required to be certificated seamen went into effect
there was considerable confusion, either because the masters
found it difficult at the outset to adjust themselves to the new
conditions or, as was asserted by some, because of an antagonism
toward the law and an effort to violate its provisions by claiming
an inability to comply therewith.

At a number of the ports of entry vessels were held up for
several days' time because masters would not or claimed they
could not secure a sufficient number of certificated seamen ; that
is, seamen who had passed the required examination in language
tests, experience, physical ability, etc. The masters would
make application to the customs officer at the port for a permit
to sail without compliance with the law. The Department of
Commerce called upon this department to make an investigation
at all nearby ports to ascertain the exact conditions with respect
to the availability of able seamen who had been registered under
the new law. In some instances it was found that sailors in suffi-
cient numbers had not availed themselves of the privilege of being
examined, which resulted in a shortage. However, in most cases
it was found that a thorough canvass by the distribution offi-
cers of the Division of Information enabled the masters to secure
the required number of certificated seamen to supply the demand.

As soon as masters of vessels learned that the law was to be
strictly enforced, and that they would not be granted clearance
upon their mere claim that they were unable to comply with
the law, they ceased to ask a waiver of the law, and toward the
end of the present fiscal year the calls for aid from the Depart-
ment of Commerce had almost ceased.

558 DISTRIBUTION

However, the cooperative plan which was started immedi-
ately for aiding the Department of Commerce is still in force.
Shipping commissioners and collectors of customs have been asked
to refer to the employment service of the Division of Information
at their port any master who claims that he cannot secure a
sufficient number of certificated seamen to comply with the law.
The inspector in charge of such employment service will then
secure from the master his application for seamen and make
every possible effort to secure them for him. If men are unob-
tainable, that fact will be certified to the Department of Labor
as a basis for a recommendation to the Department of Commerce
for a waiver of the law if all the facts in the particular case at
hand warrant such procedure.

WOMEN AND GIRLS' DIVISION

On May i, 1916, there was organized a women and girls'
division. The scope of that division is set forth in the following :

UNITED STATES EMPLOYMENT SERVICE — WOMEN AND GIRLS'

DIVISION

PLAN

The organization of a women and girls' division to supply employ-
ment.

Placement of girls limited to those over 16 years of age.

The establishment of an interchanging and interstate system
between zones and offices of the United States employment service;
also with cooperating and other State and municipal employment
offices, as per instructions.

Cooperation with organizations other than official bodies, as per
instructions.

The organization of committees on cooperation.

The development of efficient wage earners through elementary and
vocational training and dissemination of information concerning vo-
cational selection and training to girls approaching sixteen years of
age and to others.

OBJECTS

In administering this system special attention should be given to
the requests of women wage earners for work and every effort made

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 559

to meet the demand for female help in farming and rural communities
as well as in the cities. Every possible assistance should be extended
to girls and young women to enable them to make suitable vocational
selections with a view to proper vocational training in order to guide
them in desirable industry and avoidance of occupations and places
where evil conditions exist. Information concerning trades and
opportunities to labor in suitable vocations, including amount of wages
paid, length of working day, and hygienic and other conditions pre-
vailing in the various industries should be made available to all as a
guide to useful employment and advancement as well as protection
from exploitation and misdirection. The cooperation of employers
should be invited in developing a plan for a clearing house of informa-
tion with reference to employment ; likewise the aid and assistance of
women's and other organizations should be sought by correspondence
and in such other ways as may be indicated in instructions.

All officers in the service are requested to give equal and consider-
ate attention to applicants and to place at their disposal every facility
in the power of the division.

GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS

General instructions for distribution officers relating to systems of
employment and distribution of wage earners established by the De-
partment of Labor and issued January 29, 1915, so far as they apply
and are not in conflict herewith or with instructions concerning the
women and girls' division hereafter issued are hereby adopted for the
administration of said division.

PLACEMENT OF WOMEN AND GIRLS

Applicants should be classified as to age so that only those over
the age of sixteen years shall be considered for or directed to employ-
ment ; all those approaching, as well as those above the latter age,
shall be given the information on hand in aid of vocational selection
and training.

Opportunities should be classified in accordance with the practice
followed in public employment offices in the vicinity, if any exist ;
if not, then according to the trades and vocations there established,
and should be divided in three classes, as follows : Temporary, seasonal,
and permanent.

Applicants should be given information about opportunities listed
and should be advised for placement according to their abilities and
training, with a view to their advancement to better opportunities
and to their progress in efficiency as wage earners.

560 DISTRIBUTION

When placements are made confirmation thereof from employers
should be secured by mail, telephone, or personal visit when practi-
cable. In addition, it is desirable to ascertain also the probabilities
of continuance of such placement and the progress made by applicant.
When visits are made existing conditions should be observed and noted.

When there are no openings of the kind desired employers should be
called by telephone, if in close proximity to the office, or correspond-
ence initiated and inquiries made as to vacancies. Other offices of the
United States employment service, as well as those of the State and
municipalities, should also be consulted in the effort to secure em-
ployment for all seeking work and help to all patrons applying therefor.

The call, or request of employers, for women and girls should be
recorded, and the report of division investigators and information from
other sources, including statements of .former or present employees,
should be noted as an aid in determining their desirability in filling
requests for help in the future.

No applicant should be advised to leave one locality to find work
elsewhere unless there is definite knowledge of the conditions existing
in places seeking women workers.

Careful records should be kept showing complete industrial his-
tory of each applicant to disclose her experience and capacity.

It is understood that in directing women or girls to employment
extreme care is to be exercised to prevent the sending of wage earners
to localities where labor troubles exist or are threatened, or to places
where labor conditions would be disturbed thereby. .

No woman or girl should be directed to an opportunity unless the
character of the place to which addressed and of the employer has been
established to the satisfaction of the superintendent or other officer
in charge of the division.

GIRLS APPROACHING SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE

Girls approaching sixteen years of age applying for information
should be advised to pursue such a course of elementary and vocational
education as may be calculated to develop their abilities in lines of
industry for which they are best fitted. As their future may depend
upon the choice of vocation made and course followed as a result of a
conference with the officers of a division, the superintendent thereof
must exercise the greatest care in directing this branch of its work.
A friendly interest, more, perhaps, than advice, may influence appli-
cants in reaching their own choice of a career after being supplied
with the information at hand concerning the necessary educational

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 561

foundation therefor in addition to the facts furnished relating to
employment and the various industries.

Knowledge of the educational opportunities, experience, home sur-
roundings, and environment, together with observation as to tend-
encies, capacity, and ambitions of each applicant will aid in deter-
mining the best course to follow in giving beneficial information. The
attitude of parents as well as their cooperation, if obtainable, will be
found useful — in fact, such cooperation should precede, wherever
practicable, any effort made in vocational direction, either in elemen-
tary or vocational training. If the applicant is still at school, she
should be urged to continue ; or if not, then to resume her studies,
and an appeal should be made to parents or guardians in that behalf.

The division, through the superintendent, should provide for the
assembling of information from all available sources for the use of
applicants.

Information provided for women and girls subject to placement set
forth hereinabove should, as aid for vocational selection, be at the
disposal of applicants under this subdivision.

The selection of committees on cooperation composed of representa-
tives of organizations, public and private, whose objects are in har-
mony with the plans of the Department of Labor as administered in
the United States employment service should be encouraged.

Such committees may introduce applicants, submit recommenda-
tions concerning vocational direction and training, and confer on this
and other related matters with the superintendent and other officers
of the service.

INSTRUCTIONS TO DIRECTORS OF EMPLOYMENT AND SUPERINTENDENTS OF
WOMEN AND GIRLS' DIVISION

Interchange of applications for opportunities as well as for help
should be arranged between the various offices of this service and of
the State and municipal bureaus.

Stimulating the use by employers and wage earners generally of the
public employment service of the United States, States, and munici-
palities will demonstrate the economic value thereof in lessening the
causes of unemployment.

Personal visits to organizations and business establishments and
correspondence should not be overlooked.

The committees on cooperation above mentioned also may ma-
terially aid the Department of Labor in its employment service by
establishing systems in the respective organizations represented, for
the purpose of securing information as to opportunities to fill requests
of employers for help and of wage earners, male and female (above

562 DISTRIBUTION

sixteen years of age), for employment. Provision also should be
made, through correspondence or otherwise, for the introduction to
the officers of the United States employment service and cooperating
State and municipal bureaus, by organizations represented on said
committee, of applicants for work and of employers seeking help.

The officers in enforcing these rules should bear in mind that it is
just as essential to keep young untrained girls — not alone those under
sixteen years of age but also such as have passed that limit — in school
as it is to find work for those who have finished their school training.

Each superintendent shall submit monthly, through official chan-
nels, a detailed report of the operations of the division.

The Chief of the Division of Information is hereby authorized and
directed to enforce the foregoing general instructions and supervise,
under the direction of said bureau and department, the new system
providing for the organization and operation of a women and girls
division in the United States employment service. ,

But two months having passed between the establishment of
that division and the end of the fiscal year, no general report
can be made of its operations ; for it requires time and careful
preparation to launch an undertaking of such magnitude. A
start has been made, and those best qualified to carry on the work
are being selected and instructed in their duties.

YOUNG MEN AND BOYS' DIVISION

A young men and boys' division has been established along
like lines and for like purposes as the young women and girls'
division.

DIVISION FOR AGED PEOPLE

While the necessity for a women and girls' division is apparent
it is believed that the inauguration of a plan whereby the indus-
trial needs of aged people may be examined into and their wants
relieved so far as possible, is necessary.

It is a fact that modern industrialism condemns to the human
scrap pile many able-bodied, active-brained men and many
intelligent, educated, and competent women whose chief fault
lies in being over a certain age. Some concerns will not engage
men above forty years of age or women whose appearance would

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 563

indicate that they have passed out of the twenties. Ability and
efficiency count for nothing in such cases. A puzzling feature of
this phase of industrial life is found when one is informed that
many modern industrial concerns retain what are known as
efficiency experts, whose duties are to test the qualifications of
applicants for employment; and no matter how efficient the
applicant may be, if he has passed the dead line of age set by the
employing concern, he or she is not given favorable consideration.

Several cases of this kind may be given, but it is necessary to
cite only one of the many instances that came under the personal
observation of the chief of the division. An American of Italian
birth, aged seventy, applied to the division for help to secure
employment. He became naturalized in 1872. He served in
the navy of the United States and, on receiving an honorable
discharge, took a course in chemistry. He also applied himself
to a study of languages. He speaks English, Italian, French,
German, and Spanish fluently, can interpret, translate, and write
in all these languages. His writing is very good. He is gentle-
manly, courteous, and in appearance neat and dignified. His
eyesight is good, for he does not need the aid of glasses. A con-
cern was in need of such a man. The chief of the division called
on the employing power and was told that the man would be
very acceptable ; when the fact that the applicant had reached
the age of seventy was announced the door was closed to further
negotiation and the man was rejected. The chief of the division
directed a man not guilty of being over thirty-five years of age
to the same firm, went with him, and, although the second man
could speak but two languages, English and Spanish, he was
engaged. This man was under observation for some time, and,
although efficient in most respects, he was obliged frequently to
call on the office force of the firm to assist him in translating
French and German, two languages that are more frequently
used in that office than Spanish.

Jails and poorhouses find as occupants many men and women
capable of filling honorable positions in the ranks of industry but
denied the right to a " pursuit of happiness" through labor
because they were unfortunate enough to be born too long ago
to be now recognized as able or efficient, notwithstanding the
fact that they may be both.

564 DISTRIBUTION

The division, in directing attention to this matter, strongly
recommends that an effort be made by its field officers to bring
this matter to the attention of employers generally, with the
end in view of abolishing the arbitrary distinctions which have
in a few years grown to sinister proportions and now mark a
dead line beyond which capable, willing men and women may not
go because of having passed a certain age.

The Division of Information believes that an effort should
be made to bring the human element into prominence again in
the world of labor.

PUBLICITY AGENT

Fully a fourth of the time of the official staff of the Division
of Information is devoted to personally answering questions, or
preparing written answers to inquiries that come by mail con-
cerning the operations of the employment service. Students,
economists, college officials, magazine and newspaper writers
come under the head of seekers for information for educational
purposes. Another class, having noticed reference to the work
in print, actuated by curiosity, drop in to "see how it is done."
It takes as much time to attend to the latter class as to the former,
and all inquiries should be answered. It is therefore recommended
that an additional clerk be added to the staff of the division
whose first duty should be to prepare tables, statistics, and such
other matter as may be required to answer such inquiries as come
to the division concerning its work.

HARVEST-HAND SITUATION

As the time drew near to harvest the grain crop of 1916 the
department was notified by the labor commissioners of Okla-
homa, Kansas, North Dakota, and South Dakota that 6000,
35,000 to 40,000, 10,000, and 8000 harvesters would be required
in those States, respectively.

The experiences of 1914 and 1915 enabled the division to
guard against the rushing of a great number of men to the grain
fields. Accordingly the inspector in charge of zone No. 2 was
directed to proceed to Kansas City, Missouri, where he opened
headquarters and established an office with a view of intelli-
gently directing applicants for work to the grain fields.

GOVERNMENTAL DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 565

Since the activities of the official in charge of this work extended
beyond the end of the fiscal year, the full report of what was
done to afford help to the farmers of the West and Southwest
may not be incorporated with this, but will be submitted in a
supplementary report later on.

Inasmuch as the inspector in charge submitted a report up to
the 3oth of June, 1916, and since it contains a fund of valuable
information as well as a report of the work done up to that date,
a synopsis of it is incorporated with this. It will be found at
the end of this report.

ZONE REPORTS ON INDUSTRIAL ACTIVITY

As an aid to placing the unemployed in localities where public
improvements were contemplated or where private enterprise
would be likely to require help, it was decided by the division
to conduct an inquiry concerning the starting up or probable
starting up of new work, such as the building of railroads, canals,
wagon roads, the erection of new factories, or the opening of
mines. Accordingly the several zones were notified to obtain
such information as they could gather.

This step was decided on so close to the end of the year that
no progress of importance was made along the lines indicated.

The following is a copy of the instructions issued to the field
officers :

In addition to the duties heretofore assigned to you, you are in-
structed to inquire into, investigate, and report to the division the
labor conditions in your zone as indicated in Form Inf. 32, entitled
"Monthly Report of Labor Conditions," a supply of which will be
sent you under separate cover. All work, whether in progress or
under contemplation, of public or private nature should be reported,
accompanied by such other information of a general character as may
be deemed necessary, the information to be secured through directors
of employment in their respective zones or otherwise in your discretion.

The purpose of these reports is to enable the division to be in a
position to give accurate information as to labor conditions throughout
the country and if necessary to issue bulletins from time to time for
the benefit of employers as well as employees.

It will be impracticable, except in a general way, to effect an inter-
change of the information referred to between widely separated dis-
tricts, in view of which it is hereby directed that one copy of the

566 DISTRIBUTION

monthly report above referred to be forwarded to the division and
extra copies furnished to other zones, as hereinafter set forth. On the
Atlantic coast, zones i, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 will exchange reports. In the
Middle West, zones 7, 8, 9, 10, n, and 12 will effect an interchange of
reports. Zone 13 should also be included in this list for opportunities
in the State of Nebraska only. On the Pacific coast, zones 13, 14, 15,
1 6, 17, and 18 will comprise the third division fcr the purpose herein-
before explained. (Under present conditions it is not believed neces-
sary to exchange reports between the central division and the Atlantic
coast division, but it may be that the conditions will change to such
an extent later on as to render it advisable to revise the above arrange-
ment.) Officers engaged upon this work should take great pains in
obtaining thoroughly reliable data so as to make the reports of interest
as well as of value to employers of labor or their associations.

If the blank spaces provided under the heading " General condi-
tions of employment, etc." pr under the "Remarks" column are not
sufficient, the reverse side of the blank may be used or a supplemental
statement submitted on another page. The work of collecting this
information will begin on July i, thus enabling the officers in charge
to submit reports promptly at the close of the month.

CONCLUSION

A review of the work done by the Division of Information for
the year just ended will show that more was accomplished than
in any previous year. Not only were those who secured employ-
ment materially benefited, but those depending on them and in
large measure many others were aided through the activities of
those who were removed from the ranks of the idle to the field
where workers secured profitable employment.

The results achieved will prove of lasting benefit to the country
at large, for in the main all who were directed by the division
found permanent employment and in turn became distributors
of the prosperity in which they shared.

The Division of Information deems it a pleasure to extend its
thanks to the Secretary of Labor, the Assistant Secretary, and
the Commissioner General for the generous aid and sympathetic
cooperation accorded to it during the year. Without this aid and
cooperation little of lasting good could have been accomplished ;
with these incentives to increased effort it has been a pleasant
duty to all who perform service in the Division of Information.

IX. EDUCATION

EDUCATION OF IMMIGRANTS

BY H. H. WHEATON, SPECIALIST IN IMMIGRANT EDUCATION, BUREAU

OF EDUCATION

I. GENERAL

IN 1914, when the Bureau of Education began a national inves-
tigation of facilities for the education of aliens, chaos existed
in this important phase of education. Few established and well-
approved standards existed, and practically all methods were in
the experimental stage. Policies, except that of Federal non-
interference, were known only to cities and States where evening
schools for immigrants had been long maintained. Public
agencies of various kinds were endeavoring to treat the problem
each in its own way, without definite endeavor to cooperate
with other agencies, and with no fixed policies. Immigrant
education was considered at this time primarily a matter for
local attention and jurisdiction. The spectacle of cities working
out methods independently and adopting fads in immigrant
education without the coordinating influence of even a clearing
house of information was so common as hardly to excite comment.
State supervision, and especially state aid, had not at this time
been seriously considered. Only one State, New Jersey, had
specified financial aid for the encouragement of immigrant
classes. Only one other State, Massachusetts, had legislative pro-
visions requiring the school attendance of illiterates up to 21 years
of age. Federal interest was considered in some quarters both in-
opportune and improper. Establishment and maintenance of
educational facilities had, by established precedent, and con-
stitutional and legislative provisions, been left primarily to
State governments and municipal and district school jurisdic-
tions. The same policy was applied to the education of

567

568 EDUCATION

immigrants. Such Federal interest as existed derived its impetus
largely from the national attempt to remove illiteracy, since the
foreign-born whites contributed in large numbers to the body
of illiterates. The establishment of fundamental principles and
policies in the education of immigrants was, so far as the Federal
Government was concerned, agitated chiefly by reformers and
social workers who came into more direct contact with the
problem than governmental officials.

In contrast to State and Federal agencies, numerous private
agencies and organizations — city, State, and National ; civic,
patriotic, and educational — were exploiting the field of immi-
grant education extensively. Frequently this was due to ulterior
motives, among which may be cited the desire to secure financial
support. Owing to the general, and, in some cases unintelligent,
public interest in the immigrant, appealing instances of his
condition were described for the purpose of securing contribu-
tions. Again, the creation and maintenance of English and
civics classes were utilized as a means of building up the schools
of private agencies, many of which, if investigated, would not
have received full public sanction. The efforts of some private
agencies, furthermore, were well meaning, but directed through
the wrong channels. Types of educational facilities and instruc-
tion were provided wholly unsuited to the immigrant type, need,
and condition, with the result that immigrant men and women
were induced to attend classes of no practical value either to
them in their life in America or to the country as an Americanizing
influence. While the activities of the various private agencies so
far mentioned were excusable, their general intentions being
good, the exploitation of immigrants by political organizations
and fellow countrymen, who maintained classes of instruction
either for the purpose of securing excessive fees or for the purpose
of making partisans politically of the immigrants who were being
trained, was peculiarly harmful and a common occurrence. In
several States, particularly California, through the investigation
of the Commission of Immigration and Housing, instances were
found where immigrants paid from $25 to $50 for a two weeks'
course in English and civil government that they might be
equipped to pass their naturalization examinations. So-called
political clubs were formed in many localities by foreign-born

EDUCATION OF IMMIGRANTS 569

citizens, who were hirelings of petty political leaders, and who,
under the guise of giving civic training, promoted the interests
of such politicians or of some political party.

LACK OF COOPERATION

Further accentuating the chaos existing in immigrant educa-
tion, public agencies failed to cooperate among themselves or
to call for the cooperation of private organizations, while, on the
other hand, private organizations not only failed to cooperate
among themselves, but actually competed with public agencies
in providing facilities and instruction for immigrant residents.
This lack of mutual assistance had three results: First, de-
centralization of all educational work among immigrants ; second,
a positive diminution of public activity; and, third, rivalry
among private agencies both to secure the bulk of financial
support and to build up powerful organizations. Such were the
conditions in immigrant education which confronted school
officials and social workers at the beginning of the national
investigation by the bureau in 1914.

PROGRESS SINCE 1914

Progress in every way has been rapid, definite, and extensive.
Governmental authorities everywhere, city, State, and Federal,
have expressed serious interest in the problem, and have taken
definite steps to provide adequate facilities. Municipalities have
seen that the education of the immigrant, especially through the
provision of evening classes, is to be treated as a fundamental
part of the educational system, rather than as an incident or
adjunct to the day school system to be maintained or not at will,
or according to the amount of money in the school treasury.
Many of the States, such as California, Michigan, and New York,
and particularly the State departments of education, have come
to appreciate the fact that the immigrant is not merely a local
problem. The transitory nature of his employment, and hence
residence, have been increasingly appreciated in their bearing
upon his education. While the primary obligation of the city
has been acknowledged, both officials and citizens have grown to
see that the secondary obligation of the State to assist the city
and the local school district in this particular type of education

570

EDUCATION

is one of such imperative nature as to demand financial assistance
and state supervision and coordination of activities. The Federal
Government, especially the Bureau of Education, as a result of
an investigation of facilities, has come to take the stand that
inasmuch as admission of an immigrant to the United States,
together with his admission to citizenship, are both Federal
matters, then, equally, is interest in his training for life and
citizenship in this country a Federal matter. With immigrants
moving from city to city and from State to State, with different
nationalities in each State, and with the necessity of a clearing
house of information becoming more and more apparent, this
Federal interest has been increasingly directed toward the
establishment of fundamental principles, policies, and standards,
together with approved practices in this form of education.

On the other hand, private agencies have seen the futility of
competition among themselves and with public agencies and
institutions. Hence they have increasingly adopted the practice
of establishing facilities only where they do not exist, or where
public facilities cannot, for financial reasons, be made to meet
the local problem. The practice has become more and more
established of placing private facilities under the supervision
of appropriate public school officials, and of turning over to the
latter such facilities as rapidly as financial and other reasons
will permit. The result is to-day that, while conditions are far
from satisfactory, the evolution of education has forced a larger
measure of cooperation on the part of all agencies and individuals
interested in the training of immigrants for citizenship in America.
Although this is the transition period, yet principles, policies,
standards, and methods are now more clearly delineated than
ever before, while the most effective procedure of all — coopera-
tion — is daily teaching those interested its potency in the
Americanization movement.

II. CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL STANDARDS

Some of the standards virtually established by State con-
stitutions are unfortunate. In effect, the provisions in many
State constitutions operate against the establishment and exten-
sion of evening school facilities, through which, primarily, the

EDUCATION OF IMMIGRANTS 571

non-English-speaking foreigner must be reached. Such is the
case in the States of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado,
Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi,
Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North
Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota,
and Wyoming. In these States the constitutions, in most in-
stances, authorize the legislature to provide for establishment
and organization of free schools only for children within the
ages of 6 and 21 years. Some of these States restrict the division
of State school funds so that only children 21 years of age or
under are the beneficiaries. In only one constitution, that of
California, are evening schools specifically mentioned by name,
and their establishment authorized. While it is true that, under
existing rules of legal construction, constitutional provisions in
the other States enumerated do not prohibit legislatures appro-
priating money from general State funds for the support of
evening schools and do not make impossible the maintenance of
evening schools by local communities, yet the fact that State
school moneys cannot be used except for children below the
ages of 1 8 or 21 years discourages legislatures from separate
appropriation for evening-school purposes, and operates to dis-
courage local communities from maintaining such facilities on
their own financial responsibility without State aid.

EVENING SCHOOL LEGISLATION

Most legislative provisions applicable to evening schools are
permissive in nature so far as establishment of evening schools
by local communities is concerned. Massachusetts and Connect-
icut are exceptions to the rule. They require, under certain
conditions, that evening schools must be maintained. In Massa-
chusetts, every city or town in which labor certificates are granted
within the year to 20 or more persons to whom the literacy law
applies must main tain an evening school during the following year.
In Connecticut, every town having a population of 10,000 or
more is required to establish and maintain such schools for the
instruction of persons over 14 years of age. In other States,
evening schools must be established by local communities, pro-
vided a stipulated number of residents present a formal petition.

572 EDUCATION

This is the case in Indiana, where night schools must be estab-
lished in cities of over 3000 inhabitants upon the petition of
20 or more inhabitants having children between the ages of 14
and 21 years, necessarily employed during the day, who will
attend such evening schools. Practically the same requirement
affects Baltimore County, Maryland, except that the petition
must be signed by 20 persons over 1 2 years of age who desire to
attend evening school. In Pennsylvania, the provision is manda-
tory in second, third, and fourth class school districts upon the
application of 25 parents of pupils above the age of 14 years
who are residents of the school district.

On the other hand, legislative provisions making the establish-
ment of evening schools entirely optional on the part of local
boards of education have been passed in several of the principal
immigration States, such as California, New Jersey, New York,
Ohio, and Wisconsin. In fact, this seems to be the standard
adopted by most legislatures. The result is that evening school
facilities are not maintained in a large number of communities
where a genuine demand and need exists. Even in those cities
were facilities are established they are usually considered merely
adjuncts to the day school system, rather than an integral part
of the educational system. Thus in the principal immigration
States above specifically mentioned the number of communities
maintaining evening schools is surprisingly low. In New York,
with a foreign-born white population of 2,729,272, the largest in
the entire country, a State having 148 urban centers with over
2500 inhabitants, and 71 urban centers with over 1000 foreign-
born whites, the number of cities maintaining evening schools is
only 41. In Pennsylvania, the number is slightly higher, 42, but
is really lower when taken in connection with the fact that this
State has 263 urban centers with 2500 inhabitants and 127 such
centers with 1000 foreign-born whites. New Jersey has only
30 communities with evening schools, as against 61 urban centers
with over 1000 foreign-born whites; Ohio, 20 as against 40;
California, 9 as against 30 ; Wisconsin, 19 as against 38. On the
other hand, Massachusetts, owing to the operation of its manda-
tory evening school law, has 65 communities with evening schools,
as against 117 communities with over 1000 foreign-born whites.
In Connecticut, every city over 10,000, with the exception of

EDUCATION OF IMMIGRANTS 573

one, a wealthy suburban community which has no reason to
comply with the State law, maintains evening schools pursuant
to the mandatory provision above referred to. No State during
the past two years has passed any legislation making the estab-
lishment of evening schools mandatory.

In commenting upon legislative standards, mention should be
made of the fact that during the last year a method of securing
the establishment of evening schools has come into common use
although not required by law in any considerable number of
States ; namely, petition by immigrants desiring evening school
instruction in English and civics. The Bureau of Education
is in receipt of a number of such petitions requesting it to use its
influence with local boards of education in securing evening
school facilities. It was also advised of several instances where
similar petitions have been made directly to local school authori-
ties as a means of securing action by them. This suggests a very
definite scheme of securing evening schools in States where these
facilities are authorized by law, but are not required to be
maintained. As interest in acquiring the common language of
the country develops among the foreign-born whites, the ten-
dency seems more and more to be in the direction of making
formal petitions for instruction through evening schools. This
is quite likely to be adopted by legislatures as a standard condition
precedent to requiring evening schools, for the purpose of
ascertaining the desire on the part of immigrant residents for
training in English and civics.

A most significant law was passed by the California Legislature
last year, setting a high standard for other States. This legis-
lation provides for the appointment of "domestic educators" by
local boards of education, upon the basis of one appointee to each
500 units of attendance in the day schools. These educators are
to go from house to house, especially in the foreign sections, for
the purpose of training the mothers and children in the rules of
health, sanitation, and hygiene, the principles of buying food
and clothing, the English language and civics, and other appro-
priate subjects. The Commission of Immigration and Housing
of California, the Federation of Women's Clubs, and the Daugh-
ters of the American Revolution have united in developing
facilities authorized by this new law.

574 EDUCATION

STATE AID

Eleven States grant State aid benefiting evening schools:
California, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, New
Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington,
and Wisconsin. The amount of State aid, together with the
conditions under which it is granted, however, is not standardized
in these S.tates. Under certain limitations, Pennsylvania, to
promote vocational instruction, grants to a school district two
thirds of the sum which has been expended during the previous
school year for such instruction. Evening schools for foreigners
are thus indirectly benefited if vocational instruction is given
therein. In Maine two thirds of the amount expended for the
salaries of teachers is allowed for evening schools in which certain
vocational subjects are taught. One half the cost of maintenance
or of actual expenditure for evening school instruction is the
standard most frequently adopted. This practice obtains in New
Jersey under a special law to promote immigrant classes, and
in Rhode Island and Wisconsin under certain restrictions as to the
total amount receivable by a community. Divers other methods
of apportionment obtain in the remaining States, as in California,
where it is based upon average daily attendance in evening
schools ; in Connecticut, where a fixed rate of $2.25 per pupil in
average attendance is paid ; in Minnesota, where also obtains a
per capita basis for evening school pupils between the ages of 5
and 21 years ; in New Jersey, where a fixed amount per teacher
is paid, together with a per capita allowance based upon attend-
ance ; in New York, where the basis is the number of teachers
and the days taught by each ; and in Washington, where aid is
given according to the actual number of units of attendance of
all pupils. In the two States where aid is granted upon the
basis of attendance an evening attended is credited as half a
day provided the session is two hours in length.

It would seem, therefore, that some very high standards have
been set in the apportionment of State aid, yet none of them has
received such general adoption as to warrant the statement that
it is an approved standard. While the principle of State aid for
evening school maintenance is firmly established, the conditions
under which it is granted still need standardization.

EDUCATION OF IMMIGRANTS 575

STANDARDS IN ADMINISTRATION

Supervision of evening schools ought to be as definite and as
extensive as supervision of day schools. It is not upon a satis-
factory basis in most communities. The general practice seems
to be to leave supervision to the superintendent. Only about
one third of the 150 cities reporting during the last year employ
a director of evening school work. Many large communities
report no such school official. Only one city, Rochester, New
York, reports a director of immigrant education, whose duties
are exclusively limited to this particular phase of education.
It is needless to remark that this city has made rapid strides in
its Americanization work, due largely to this specialized super-
vision. A very few other cities report the detailing of a principal
to supervise the immigrant work in addition to his other duties,
but in these cities Americanization work has not progressed so
extensively or along such definite lines. Detroit has announced
for the coming year the appointment of a supervisor of immigrant
education for the purpose of training teachers in methods,
selecting appropriate courses and texts, coordinating the work
of the various schools and classes, and working out appropriate
entertainment on " social" evenings.

In the appointment of evening school teachers it seems to be
the general practice to select teachers most capable from the day
school staff. Superintendents who follow this method from
choice do so feeling that a day school teacher is most competent
and has training in educational methods. Those who follow the
practice from necessity, not being able to secure suitable teachers
from other sources, do not approve of the practice, feeling that
the double work, physically and mentally, placed upon teachers
reduces the efficiency of both day and evening school instruction.
Until adequate means of training teachers for the instruction of
immigrants in English and civics are devised, coupled with in-
creased salaries, it is quite likely that this custom will obtain
generally.

Methods of appointing teachers are quite diverse. While the
ideal method would be recommendation by the supervisor of
immigrant education, after proper professional determination of
fitness, nomination by the superintendent, and appointment by

576 EDUCATION

the board of education, yet local whim seems to have determined
the particular method. Some communities report appointment
by superintendents, others by boards of education, others by
committees of the board of education, others by principals, others
by directors of evening schools, others by supervisors of extension
work, or by the board of industrial education.

The qualifications considered in the determination of fitness
have gravitated toward the following tests, the order set forth
indicating the commonness of the method : first, general teaching
ability, training, and experience ; second, known ability to teach
immigrants ; third, experience in teaching immigrants. Training
in the teaching of immigrants has been given slight consideration,
due to the fact that few cities have given definite training in this
particular line of work. Knowledge and appreciation of the
immigrant and sympathy with him and with his national and
racial characteristics have not come to be regarded as important.
Ability to speak the foreign language is a requirement in some
places, and personality receives consideration in a number of
cities, but no standard test or definition of personality prevails.

In training teachers of foreigners, some progress has been made
during the past year. In Rochester, New York, a high standard
has been established, the teachers being brought together in
meetings frequently, and training given them in their own
classrooms by the supervisor of immigrant education. Small
groups of teachers are taken about from school to school by the
supervisor for the purpose of watching the work of the most
competent instructors. Similar methods have been utilized in
other cities, but the training is not so highly specialized. Several
teachers' institutes have been held during the past year in order
to develop an interest in this type of education and to point out
some of the most effective methods utilized. Boston has con-
ducted a teachers' training course over a considerable period of
time. At the close of the school year a course was given in the
city of Detroit, two specialists from outside of the city giving
two lectures each day to about 300 persons. A similar course was
given in Buffalo at the close of the evening school term, while
several courses have been given in teachers' colleges and even
in universities where teachers were in attendance. The most
notable of such courses were the ones given in the State Teachers'

EDUCATION OF IMMIGRANTS 577

College at Albany, New York, and in the summer school of
Columbia University. This particular method of training prob-
ably marks the beginning of great advance in the equipment and
qualification of teachers for the type of instruction under con-
sideration. Several other cities have also announced such courses
for the coming school year. Special conferences and meetings
of teachers have been held in Harris Teachers' College at St.
Louis, Missouri; Wilmerding, Pennsylvania; Rockford and
East Chicago, Illinois; Franklin, Massachusetts; Hibbing,
Minnesota ; Garwood, New Jersey ; Hudson Falls and Yonkers,
New York; Milwaukee and Superior, Wisconsin. About 35
cities report lectures on immigrant-education problems.

Lack of standards in training, of course, is due in part to lack
of standard in methods of teaching English and civics. As
progress is made in the latter direction, so equally will advance
be made in competent training of teachers.

Salaries of both teachers and principals in the evening schools
are generally paid upon the evening basis. Of 354 communities
reporting upon the basis of payment, 271 pay at a fixed rate per
evening ; 41 at a fixed rate per hour or period ; 31 on the monthly
basis ; 6 upon the yearly basis ; and 5 upon the weekly basis.
While payment upon the evening basis is the standard usually
adopted, yet distinct advance has been made during the last
year or two toward payment upon the monthly basis. The
whole question of payment is involved in the schedule of hours
and sessions. As long as teachers are taken from the day school
staff and evening schools are conducted on only three or four
evenings per week, payment must by necessity in most cities
be made upon the evening basis. Where evening schools are
conducted four or five evenings per week, and where adult classes
are also held during the day, the tendency is toward' payment
upon a monthly basis. The extension of evening school facilities
and the combination of adult day classes with evening school
instruction will enable an increasingly large number of communi-
ties to make payment upon that basis. The professional side of
instructing adult immigrants will never be developed until a
teacher is placed in a position to specialize in this form of work
to the exclusion of day school instruction of children and other
vocations. Principals are usually paid upon the same basis as

578 EDUCATION

teachers, although in 14 instances a different arrangement
prevails.

Salaries of teachers and principals show the greatest diversity.
The most frequent salary in cities of over 100,000 population is
$2 per evening. This obtains in 10 out of 36 cities reporting,
although the range of salaries in these cities is $i to $3, while the
average is $2.20 per evening. The most frequent salary in cities
ranging from 25,000 to 100,000 population is also $2 per evening,
as well as in cities from 10,000 to 25,000. Twenty-five out of the
8 1 cities in the second-mentioned group and 26 cities out of 82
in the third group pay this amount. The range of salaries,
however, in both of these last-mentioned groups is greater even
than in the first, mentioned, being from $i to $3.50. The average-
in both, however, is below the first-mentioned group. The
general tendency seems to be to raise the rate per evening as
interest and appreciation of the Americanization movement
develops in each community.

TERMS, SESSIONS, AND HOURS

The greatest diversity exists in the number of evenings taught
during the term. In Traverse City, Michigan, the term runs
through 20 sessions, one evening per week, while in Los Angeles
and Oakland, California, the term extends throughout 187
sessions of five evenings per week. It must be remarked, how-
ever, that the length of the terms in the two California cities
mentioned is due to the requirement of State law, it having been
made a standard by legislative enactment that evening school
facilities shall be coextensive with those provided in the day
schools. In the 43 cities of over 100,000 inhabitants reporting,
in which the range of sessions is from 46 to 187, the average
number of sessions is 83. This, however, does not mean that the
average is by any means a standard. Only 9 of these cities report
over 90 sessions ; 24 report from 70 to 90 sessions ; and 10, less
than 70. Again, of the 102 cities of 25,000 to 100,000 population
reporting, with a range of -sessions from 40 to 185, the average
number of sessions is 79. In 22 the term runs over 90 sessions;
in 59 from 60 to 90 sessions ; and in 21, less than 60. Out of the
113 cities of 10,000 to 25,000 inhabitants reporting, with a

EDUCATION OF IMMIGRANTS 579

range of sessions from 20 to 177, the average number of sessions
is 59. Thirteen cities report over 80 sessions in a term ; 78 report
from 40 to 80 ; and 22 report less than 40.

State aid is the most powerful factor in standardizing the
number of sessions in a term. In New Jersey, under the provision
of the general aid law, a community may not receive State aid
unless it maintains night schools on at least 64 evenings. In
Connecticut, the minimum is fixed at 75. In Minnesota, State
aid is not available unless the pupils attend on 40 nights or more.

The number of sessions per week ranges from one to six. The
standard seems to be three nights per week on alternate evenings.
Of 376 cities reporting, 175 had three evenings per week, and 102
had four evenings per week. Monday is selected by 335 cities,
and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings constitute the
most frequent combination in 86 cities, although classes are
conducted on the first four evenings of the week in 80 cities.
The tendency during the past year or two has been toward the
first standard mentioned — three alternate evenings per week
— Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. At the close of the last
evening school year, the school officials of Detroit announced
that the four-evening combination would be abolished and a
three-evening combination would be substituted during the
coming school year.

The length of a session is unusually well standardized; 323
out of 428 cities reporting use a two-hour session. Nevertheless,
74 cities have sessions of one hour and a half. Although 122
cities use the 7 to 9 o'clock period, the most common hours of
conducting classes are from 7.30 to 9.30. One hundred and forty-
six communities have adopted this as a standard period.

REGULARIZING ATTENDANCE

Although cities have used several methods of regularizing
attendance of immigrant pupils, the most common practice is
to require a deposit returnable upon regularity of attendance.
At least 159 communities require deposits conditioned upon two
thirds to four fifths of the evenings taught. The amount of the
deposits varies widely. The most common amount required is
$i. Out of 429 cities 77 report an actual fee charged. This
operates to discourage attendance rather than to regularize it.

580 EDUCATION

PUBLICITY AND COOPERATION

In bringing evening school facilities to the attention of prospec-
tive pupils, the most common methods used by school authorities
are announcements in the foreign-language newspapers, posters,
placards, and handbills. In seven cities slides are shown in
moving-picture theaters. In a few cities circular letters are sent
to employers, labor organizations, foreigners' societies, and civic
clubs.

The greatest contribution to publicity methods has been made
by the city of Detroit, where the board of education and the
board of commerce united in a city-wide publicity campaign to
induce foreigners to attend night school. Several hundred
industrial establishments cooperated in having their non-English-
speaking employees enroll. Posters and handbills were dissemi-
nated broadcast and notices were placed in pay envelopes.
Priests, foreigners' societies, foreign language newspapers,
patriotic societies, civic clubs, and fraternal organizations co-
operated in bringing the value of night schools to the attention
of foreign-born residents. As a result enrollment was increased
in excess of 1 50 per cent beyond the year preceding.

For the sake of stimulating an appreciation of the value of
publicity as a means of getting foreigners into the night schools,
the Bureau of Education caused the distribution of over 150,000
"America First" posters. These set forth in English and seven
foreign languages the advantages of attending night school and
learning the English language. The response was definite and
conclusive. Not only was a perceptible increase in attendance
noted, but a positive demand for night schools came from many
sections where such facilities had never been maintained. A
considerable number of communities established night schools
as a result, and a keen interest in the Americanization movement
was developed among American citizens.

Another method of publicity was devised by the United States
Bureau of Naturalization in the Department of Labor. The
names of declarants and petitioners for naturalization were
entered upon cards and sent to the respective school authorities
in those communities where these aliens resided. Through the
contact developed in this way between naturalization courts and

EDUCATION OF IMMIGRANTS 581

school officials a considerable number of classes in citizenship for
those preparing for naturalization have been established.

In December, 1914, the Bureau of Education suggested to the
United States Bureau of Immigration in the Department of
Labor that the names of alien children of school age be sent to
the proper school authorities in those communities to which such
children were destined upon arriving at the ports of entry.
The names of a limited number prior to that time had been sent
to certain cities upon request. The plan was extended to all
communities at the beginning of the school term of 1915-1916.
A great number of enthusiastic letters were received from superin-
tendents setting forth the value of the plan in enabling them to
locate newly arrived immigrant children before they become un-
lawfully employed.

Americanization through education has been denoted, in 1915-
1916, by greater tendency toward cooperation. Private agencies
especially have shown more desire to unite with governmental
authorities in dealing with the problem of immigrant education.
Chambers of commerce, industrial establishments, patriotic
societies, philanthropic organizations, newspapers, women's
clubs, labor unions, and public-spirited citizens, alike, have put
sincere endeavor into the Americanization movement. In many
instances privately maintained schools have been transferred
to the supervision of the constituted school authorities. This
indicates a healthy tendency toward centralizing work for immi-
grants.

THE SCHOOL AS THE INSTRUMENT FOR NATIONAL-
IZATION HERE, AND ELSEWHERE

FRANK V. THOMPSON, SUPERINTENDENT BOSTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

A MERICA is looking forward with anxious hope to the
*~X- school as the chief instrument for Americanization. It
may be proper for one whose thesis is favorable to the importance
of the school as an agent for Americanization to point to the
danger of regarding the school as the sole factor or as an isolated
instrument apart from other forces. As the result of the appli-
cation of scientific tests for determining and testing the abilities
of school children, we are recognizing and even measuring the
influence of outside school experiences in the attainment of
school standards. Children often make better scores in arith-
metic at the end of the summer vacation than at the end of the
preceding school term. The child grows in the power to perform
arithmetical operations by making purchases at the store, by
handling change, by buying war savings stamps. Ability to
read, that is, ability to interpret ideas from printed words, is
often obtained from the disapproved paper covered tale of
adventure as well as from the carefully expurgated models of
literature proffered by the school. We no longer doubt the forces,
good and bad, of the moving-picture show. The graduate of the
elementary school at fourteen who has followed the customary
school procedure has an accumulation of ideas, habits, and
impulses which are the result of quite complex forces. One would
hesitate to say definitely how much of the good should be credited
to the school or how much of the good and bad to outside school
influences. We are assuming too much, consequently, when we
conclude that the formal schooling of the immigrant will auto-
matically solve the problem of Americanization. Not only the
school, but the home, the church, the street, the playground, the
moving picture, the job, are factors which determine the char-
acter and tendencies of the citizen.

582

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 583

An analysis of the figures of the ability to speak our tongue
among foreign-born will indicate that the school has not been
the controlling factor. Of the 13,345,000 immigrants in our
country in 1910, 3,000,000 were found to be non-English-speak-
ing. Of the whole number of immigrants 9,981,000 were not
acquainted with English at the time of arrival. Only a small
proportion (729,000) of the 9,981,000 were young enough to come
under the compulsory school attendance laws of the various States.
About 7,000,000 non-English-speaking immigrants had learned
our language sufficiently well to be recorded as English speaking
in the census of 1910 and must have acquired this knowledge
largely outside the schools, for we may not conclude that the
knowledge of English was acquired in the evening schools, as
the figures of attendance at this agency are quite negligible. Let
us recognize the fact that the majority of our immigrants of
non-English-speaking origin have learned to speak English, but
have acquired this accomplishment outside the schools. It is
also true that there were three million immigrants, a minority,
who had failed to learn English either in or outside the schools,
and this latter fact is one of the significant reasons for the sub-
sequent discussion.

In spite of the seeming deprecation of the influence of the
school upon the immigrant, it remains true that the school can
be the most important force in reducing materially the large
amount of failure among the foreign-born to speak our tongue.
Progressive nations and states are able to reduce illiteracy among
the native born and children of foreign parentage to a fraction
of one per cent. Extension of compulsory attendance to include
higher ages for non-English-speaking immigrants necessarily
would reduce the comparatively high figures of illiteracy of this
group. The school is always an effective agent when its re-
sources are used, and is an institution under public control and,
consequently, the most effective means for exercising definite
influence. The objection may be raised that the conscious control
of the school extends only to public schools and that the numerous
pupils attending private institutions may miss the intended
ends. The spirit of democratic institutions always has given
freedom of action respecting the education of the young, and
very likely will continue to maintain this freedom with probably

584 EDUCATION

some greater assurances that certain matters respecting the
integrity of a common citizenship will be the uniform result of all
private school instruction. To illustrate : Private schools with
instruction given solely or in too large a measure in a foreign
tongue will probably be required by law to teach sufficient
English to guarantee a competent knowledge of English.

To many the guarantees respecting freedom of religious wor-
ship have been involved in the educational process. Many
native-born Americans fail to understand the close connection
between language and religion in the alien's mind. There is a
close connection between these forces even for English-speaking
peoples; founders, leaders and authorities of English religious
sects were uniformly English in blood and taught and wrote their
convictions in that tongue. The English Bible is in effect a
particular covenant for the majority of the English-speaking
peoples. With the foreigner, however, the connection is even
more intimate ; religious devotion and feeling are inextricably
bound up with the native lahguage, so that in spite of any lack
of intention on our part, when we begin to propose compulsion
about language we probably seem to the foreigner to infringe
upon religious rights. This fact is what has caused religious
leaders of foreign peoples to oppose language compulsions.
We may have assumed that these religious leaders were opponents
of loyalty when in effect they were striving primarily to conserve
religious rights and heritages.

It should be remembered that education in this country has
uniformly been held, in theory at least, to be, in part, a State
function. This theory maintains that when education is in-
trusted to a private institution the institution is commissioned
by the State to perform in some degree a State function, and that
certain requirements, educational and civic, deemed essential to
the welfare of the State as the equipment of the common citizen-
ship are to be met efficiently. There are communities and perhaps
States where this procedure is "more honored in the breach
than in the observance," but we may expect that our former in-
difference to this condition will disappear. Many States now
require in private elementary schools the teaching of all funda-
mental subjects found in the curriculum s of public schools.
Some States, such as Massachusetts and Connecticut, require

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 585

that approved subjects of study be taught in the English lan-
guage. The prediction may be made that many States will
adopt similar requirements and enforce these regulations. The
nation itself, through Federal channels, may well require of the
several States guarantees respecting the acquisition of the English
language. Thus, in theory at least, all elementary schools, public
and private, are definitely controlled agencies with an important
aim, that of preparation for citizenship. The criticism may not
be directed so justly as to the fundamental theory as to the
failure of its operation. The school, both public and private,
may and we hope will become a powerful influence for a pro-
\gressive unification in our continually renewed diversity of
citizenship.

We may pass on to the consideration of the other countries in
dealing with the problem of nationalization through the medium
of education. We are not the only or even the most heteroge-
neous nation ; Austro-Hungary was likewise many-peopled, but
yet very different in the conditions of her heterogeneity. In
this country we find the different races living in more or less
segregated provinces where they have lived for long periods.
Austro-Hungary was a union or, more properly, a loose confeder-
ation of states and provinces which had been brought perforce
into an unwilling union, and now have become again autonomous.
No serious attempt was made to nationalize the distinct peoples
through the schools by means of learning a common language,1
or by other means such as acquiring a common mode of living,
thought, or custom. On the contrary each racial element cher-
ished its own schools with its distinct language, habits, and culture.
Austro-Hungary was at best a turbulent and jarring confederacy,
not a nation. Few will assume, however, that the reason for
disunity was so simple a matter as the lack of a common language.

Switzerland, made up of three racial elements, German, French,
and Italian, shows a great national solidarity. The cementing
force of democratic institutions has brought a toleration and
sympathy among the varied racial groups not found in Austro-
Hungary. But in Switzerland we find in the schools no common

1 An exception to this statement existed in the case of Austrian subjects, Italian
in nationality, living in regions formerly known as unredeemed Italy. These
Italians were forbidden the use of their tongue in schools.

586 EDUCATION

language nor a definite program for attaining homogeneity with
a common language as the instrument. In one part of Switzer-
land, German is the language of the schools ; in another section,
French is the official language of the schools ; and in yet another
area Italian is the medium of instruction. In the Swiss Parlia-
ment all three languages are officially recognized. Germany,
too, has had her language problem, particularly in the Polish
and French provinces. Germany, contrary to the example of
Austro-Hungary and Switzerland, has attempted to Germanize
her subject peoples by means of enforcing a common language,
instanced in her dealings with Alsace-Lorraine and German-
Poland. While Germany may have successfully imposed her,
language, she has not achieved the intended result of nationali-
zation. The German procedure shows conclusively that the
mere imposition of language cannot bring about automatically
nationalization, a fact which uncompromising advocates of
compulsion in this country should note.

We are counseled that history contains nothing but warnings.
There is apparently' no successful precedent of nationalization
either by means of a common language taught in the schools
or by other devices for us to follow in our contemplated program
for Americanization. There are two reasons, however, why we
hope for success where others may have failed. First, is the
fact that we have already achieved some measure of success
with our inadequate program. As has been stated, the census
of 1910 reports about thirteen million foreign-born in our land,
and of this number, about three million who were unable to speak
English. From figures given above it is evident that the majority
of non-English-speaking immigrants in some degree learn our
common tongue. These figures relating to non-English-speaking
immigrants who become citizens show that a considerable portion
obtain sufficient knowledge of English to meet the qualifications
for naturalization.1 We have seen that our non-English-speaking
immigrants have not acquired English as the result of formal
school procedure, for statistics show that in one scholastic year

1 Census of 1910 — 5,000,000 non-English-speaking immigrants had become
naturalized — about three fifths of the whole number who had learned to speak
English. Naturalization tests differ in quality in various sections of the United
States, and may not be relied upon as evidences of knowledge of English.

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 587

(1910) only a small percentage of adult immigrants are found
in our evening schools (approximately 1.3). There are agencies
other than evening schools for learning English, but it is certain
that the sum total of immigrants reached by private agencies is
less than the number attending public evening schools. Never-
theless, without compulsion, usually without encouragement, our
non-English speaking immigrants have acquired in some degree
our language from associations with the native-born, from
newspapers, from labor unions, and from like agencies. If so
much has been achieved in the way of learning English with so
little organized attention to the process we may conclude that
with more effort and more competent organized attention to the
process much more can be accomplished. We may consequently
be hopeful for the success of a program of Americanization,
properly conceived and wisely administered.

The fact that the problem of nationalization which confronts
us is essentially different from that of all other nations is a
second reason for our confidence. No lengthy array of arguments
is necessary to demonstrate the truth of this assertion. As has
been pointed out, older countries in attempting to nationalize
their foreign members usually found conquered, or subject
peoples, who resided in provinces and districts once autonomous.
To these subject peoples nationalization or conformity to the
wishes or to the might of the controlling group meant denationali-
zation of their own cherished order, which was naturally a cause
for resentment and opposition. Language, perhaps more po-
tently than religion, is the symbol of racial personality exalted
as the right which even might may not take away, or, in other
words, in the minds of these subject races language has been
held a fundamental right which no constitution of men may
remove.

Another situation is presented when the immigrant seeks
our shores. He comes to our land as a place of opportunity
and is not driven by the sword of conquest. He does not come
under our jurisdiction as the result of compulsion or the ruthless
exercise of power. There is a moral and easily recognized obli-
gation on the part of those who seek our land as a haven or as a
place of opportunity. This obligation implies that the one seek-
ing admittance should make reasonable effort to conform to the

588 EDUCATION

customs and become acquainted with the language of the nation
receiving him. In this country we may expect, consequently, a
different mental attitude towards nationalization on the part of
the immigrant than that found in older countries where the
problem has proved unsolvable.

In a contemplated program of Americanization, the important
decision that confronts us is whether or not we shall proceed
by means of a policy of compulsion or by one of persuasion.
Shall we insist that the stranger who has joined our membership
shall by law and compulsion acquire our language, conform to
our major customs, become naturalized, renounce all prior
allegiance, or shall we attempt to persuade him to adopt American
customs and to use our language, by pointing out the moral
obligation, by furnishing convenient means in the way of free
instruction, and perhaps by granting privileges which may be
withheld from the non-citizen ? A no less important question may
be raised as to whether or not compulsion, if adopted, shall be
employed in the case of those who are already here or only in the
case of those who may come in the future:

Compelling reasons are not wanting for the champions of
either side of the two alternative courses. The compulsionist
will point out the futility of intrusting so important a matter
as Americanization to the uncertainties of a volunteer system.
Figures can be given to show the shortcomings of our present
procedure which may hardly be dignified as a volunteer system.
We may be frank in admitting that there are large discrepancies
between the actual numbers of non-English-speaking immigrants
who volunteer and those who do not, where the best and most
complete facilities are offered. On the other hand, the advocate
of persuasion will point out the danger that compulsion may
defeat the ends sought, that the spirit of democracy is antag-
onistic to compulsion, that those who need Americanization are
largely those who have fled a state of compulsion centering
sometimes on language in the lands from which they come, that
the untutored minds of those to be compelled cannot discriminate
between compulsion for a bad cause and compulsion for a good
cause. The contender for persuasion may further adduce that
compulsion applied to nationalization has ever been the hand-
maiden of autocracy and never of democracy.

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 589

Those who would limit compulsion to immigrants who are to
come and who may be duly notified of the new condition make a
stronger case than the compulsionist who would resort to an
ex post facto procedure and require those who are here already to
conform to a regulation not obtaining at the time of coming.
The recent literacy amendment (May, 1917) to our immigration
laws imposes nothing retroactive in nature. The imposition of
an additional amendment requiring literacy in the English lan-
guage for those who wish to enter our country, a literacy to be
acquired within a limited number of years subsequent to en-
trance, would have the virtue of a contract known in advance, i

It is desirable at this point merely to raise these issues and
not to attempt a committal. Americanization is one of the
issues raised by the war. Compulsion is fashionable in a time of
war, and policies coming up for settlement may be colored by
the temporary viewpoint. Emergencies are usually met by
compulsory measure, and the recent war emergency has increased
the tendency to meet all situations by compulsory measures.
A realization of past shortcomings is keen in time of war and we
hasten to make amends. The situation has its dangers as well
as its advantages, and there may be a danger in formulating our
program of Americanization, at this moment, as we may incline to
extreme measures. Having gone too slowly, we may now be
tempted to go too fast; having undertaken too little, we may
undertake too much ; from no regulation we may jump to over-
regulation ; from a policy of laissez-faire and individualism, to
ordinance and autocracy. We are beginning to realize that the
spirit of autocracy is not peculiar to any one race or country, and
is potential at least in the freest of governments and present
somewhere in the instincts of all of us. It is only when this spirit
controls and dominates that the resulting government is de-
nominated an autocracy and the individual designated an auto-
crat. Democracy is always making decisions on the theory that
there are two sides to every question and some good on each side.
Autocracy and anarchy agree in method, at least, in that they
both make decisions from but one point of view, not admitting
that there can be an opposite side.

We may suspect the so-called one hundred per cent Americans
of holding autocratic views with regard to a proper program of

590 EDUCATION

Americanization. With undoubted zeal and single-minded
purpose they would compel within a brief period of time all
non-English-speaking foreigners, those here as well as those to
come, to acquire the English language ; they would compel the
taking out of citizenship papers, the conformity in dress, manners,
mode of living, to the standard of native Americans. They
would by edict abolish the little Italics, the little Hungaries, and
the Ghettoes. They would have the recent comers abandon
former dreams, hopes, and aspirations, and feel, act, and live in
the ways that are natural, not acquired, to themselves who have
been fortunate in environment and circumstances. They demand,
in fact, a revolution in the life of the foreign individual; the
native who makes this demand is unconscious of the evolution
which several generations have produced in himself. If Ameri-
canism is primarily a mode of thinking and feeling, the com-
pulsionist is forced to maintain the theory that habits of think-
ing and feeling can be manufactured by force and decree.

Opposed to the compulsionist is the advocate of volunteer
procedure. At the present time he is little less embarrassed than
is the compulsionist. His system has never gotten anywhere.
Most of our communities have not set up provisions for the
education of the immigrant, and where communities have done
so there is always the disappointing discrepancy between the
number of those who are attracted and those whom we wish
might be. A curious paradox seems involved in estimating the
advantages of either method of procedure; to democratize our
newer brethren we must resort to autocratic procedure; the
democratic method does not democratize. But the democratic
method at least has permitted the foreigner to Americanize
himself. There has been going on an automatic process of
Americanization which our democratic method has permitted and
encouraged. While it is regrettable that there is so large a
number of non-English-speaking immigrants among us, it is also
surprising and pleasing that the greater proportion of our foreign-
born have sought and acquired that which we have not forced
upon them.

All the above discussion concerns the procedure adopted or
proposed for adult immigrants, those who might resort to eve-
ning schools, factory classes, home instruction, or to other forms

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 591

of part-time schooling. Immigrant children and the children of
immigrants come under the compulsory education law, a compul-
sion of another nature than that discussed for the adult. If some
degree of amalgamation has taken place in this country, if the
kind of Americanism we now find may be likened to a stream with
varying and unequal currents and not to a series of parallel water-
courses, then the school must be given credit for a considerable
part in the achievement. An astonishing fact in the procedure
of the common schools is that Americanization has scarcely been
a conscious motive. Americanization has taken place through
the schools, but it has been an unconscious by-product. Amer-
icanization as an objective has been in the background of the
teachers' efforts, but specifically the teacher has been more
concerned in furnishing instruction in the fundamental proc-
esses of education and in the fine and industrial arts. There is
nowhere designated in the weekly program of fifteen hundred
minutes in elementary schools a subject under the caption of
citizenship. The study of civics is often assigned a place in the
program in the upper grades, but the study of civics we know may
not be interpreted as an equivalent to a training in citizenship.
The teacher is entirely familiar with such terms as promotion,
standards, retardation, physical training, treatment of atypical
pupils. The training of teachers and the promotion of teachers
involve familiarity with a multitude of requirements, but no-
where in them is there a test of acquaintanceship with the
problem of Americanization. And yet Americanization and
citizenship are usual resultants of all school training. The child
receives impressions, inspirations, and impulses from the pictures
he sees in the classroom, from the stories he reads in his history,
from the exercises he attends in the assembly hall, from the
celebration of patriotic anniversaries, and the salute to the flag.
We furnish special classes sometimes for non-English-speaking
children, but we do so merely for the purpose of enabling these
children to enter without delay the regular grades. We have no
special course of study (except in rare instances) or exceptional
provision for immigrant children designed for the purposes of
Americanization. We do not have them even when immigrant
children constitute the major portion, or, as sometimes happens,
comprise entirely the school group. Perhaps this condition is

592 EDUCATION

not defensible, but as yet no one has called attention to a condi-
tion of neglect.

Unlike the day school, our evening schools as now established,
and likewise the proposed extensions of evening schools on some
more comprehensive basis, strive to secure results in Amer-
icanization as the result of specific effort. The subject of citizen-
ship is much more emphasized than in the day schools and in
fact is largely required in all classes in evening school courses of
study. Material for reading is quite generally patriotic in char-
acter and the instruction in the rights and duties of citizenship
is made very specific. With the adult citizenship is an immediate
goal. There are quasi standards of citizenship set up by the
naturalization process. Citizenship is an immediate and pressing
problem with the adult immigrant and may properly be made a
motivating principle for attending classes in the evening school.
A similar objective is too mature and too remote to make as
strong an appeal to the children in the day school.

Turning our attention again to the practice of other nations in
using the school, more particularly the day school, as an instru-
ment for nationalization we may refer to some of the conditions
found in England, France, Germany, and Japan. England, like
ourselves, has made no effort to set up nationalization as a con-
scious objective. In common with us, England has had the ideal
of educating the individual child primarily for his own welfare,
and secondarily for the welfare of the state. English education
has emphasized conventional knowledge which enables the
individual child to deal with other individuals, has endeavored
to give the child some power of aesthetic appreciation of his
own personal pleasure, and more recently has begun to give
vocational training, again primarily for the well-being of the
child in his after career as a producer. England, as well as
America, has placed its hope in an educational procedure which
is the reverse of the German system, namely, that collectively
strong individuals may constitute a strong state, rather than the
German idea, that the strong state shall be composed of efficient
individuals.

German programs of study show that the principle of nationali-
zation is in no way incidental. Whereas English and American
courses of study are based on the hope that the well-trained

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 593

individual may fit somewhere in economic and political society,
the German courses of study take care that the end will be
attained. The individual in Germany has been regarded as
valuable only as an economic or military unit. It has been pre-
viously pointed out that the background of American school
influence is nationalistic and the courses of study not. In
Germany both the background and the formal courses of study
are nationalistic. In all German courses of study, whether de-
signed for higher or lower classes of society, is found a substantial
amount of time devoted to religion. While the study of religion
would seem to have little to do with nationalization all experience
has shown that religion and nationality are closely interwoven.
The experience in this country with private religious schools
maintained by racial groups other than English-speaking has
aroused the suspicion that the emphasis upon religious teaching
combined with the foreign tongue has tended, not towards
nationalization, but towards intro-nationalization. Besides reli-
gion as a formal nationalizing principle, we find in German
elementary courses of study the mother tongue, geography
primarily of Germany and of her colonies and dependencies, and
history chiefly of Germany. On the surface it may not appear
that the common school education is more nationalistic than
that of most other countries. The difference is largely that of
spirit, not of form. The viciousness of the spirit of the German
school system has tended to the inculcation of the superior race
obsession, together with the notion that Germany was beset
by enemies seeking her destruction. No one has doubted either
the intensely nationalistic spirit of Germany nor the part that
the German school system has had in effecting this achievement.
French programs of study, quite strangely enough, are quite
similar in form to those found in Germany. In place of religion,
however, we find the term " morale, " which means an ethical
code not associated with the teaching of any one form of religion.
In French schools, the emphasis upon nationalization is marked,
especially since religious control of education has been displaced
by state preeminence. We may all admit that France in building
up a strong state has not had in view the domination of other
states, but has had the aim of a state strong enough to resist the
domination of strong enemy states.

594

EDUCATION

Japanese programs of study have frequently been thought
to be imitative of German practice. They may be more accurately
associated with the French prototype in that "morale " is featured
instead of religious teaching. The Japanese school is designedly
nationalistic in character, and educational forces and instru-
ments are used formally and specifically to produce this result.

The English and American viewpoint and procedure in educa-
tion has been international in tendency. The fancied national
security of the two nations has made the idea easy. It is prob-
able, however, that we have never clearly analyzed our motives
with respect to nationalization, and that our practice has been
instinctive, our tendencies native, unconscious virtues, if virtues
be the fact. It is likewise probable that America would have
continued to go on indefinitely, heedless of nationalizing principle
in education, had not the war revealed some of the dangers of the
situation. The issues of the war threatened the continuance of
the freedom of thought and action which had made us heedless
of the need of nationalization. We suddenly found ourselves
in the situation which France has long faced, that we must
nationalize, not to dominate, but to escape domination. It
seems clear that the principle of nationalization can be good
or bad in accordance with the motives behind the program. No
nation can be secure in peace or competent in war without
guarantees as to the loyalty and unity of its citizens, and these
matters cannot be taken for granted as we have done in the past.
Even with its greater homogeneity of population, England in the
future may be expected to do much more through her schools for
the principle of nationalization. America with its diversified
population will surely be alert to the need of nationalization
through the schools as perhaps the strongest lesson which the
war has taught us.

After this war we may hope that no nation will teach in
her schools a narrow nationalism, illustrated best perhaps
by the example of the nation encouraging her children to sing,
"Deutschland iiber Alles." While we may reject a narrow
nationalism, we must not neglect a broad one. The principle
which teaches us to love our neighbor as ourselves also permits
self-love, self-esteem, self-respect. We propose a league of nations
as the bulwark erected against the recurrence of unjust wars, but

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 595

this device assumes that the constituent states be distinct, in-
dividualistic, and, in some degree, homogeneous units. From all
human experience we may believe that a pure internationalism
is as visionary as anarchy and Bolshevism have proven to be. The
new world federation is made up of independent states which like
families must be integral, unified, and individual. America, while
somewhat international in toleration and sympathy, has yet an
individual destiny. Until all the world shall safely stand for
the principles and purposes which gave us birth and for which we
have sacrificed so much, then we stand endangered or compromised
if we lapse into internationalism and become indifferent to the
character of our nationalism. For the preservation, therefore,
of those principles which we hold sacred because of their con-
nection with fundamental conditions of human rights and
happiness we must cherish our nationalism. This is what is
involved, primarily, in the process of Americanization, which
may be defined here as the problem of making all our people,
whether native or foreign born, appreciative of the principles
upon which our government was founded, these principles which
must be defended in war and promoted in peace. The school, as
an instrument most nearly under public control, has a large
responsibility in creating and maintaining standards of citizenship
worthy of our nation with its splendid traditions, standards effec-
tive in the strain of war and secure in the perplexities of peace.
The schooling of the immigrant can no longer be left to casual
influences or to automatic processes. Never again ought it be
said that it has taken a world war to awaken us to a fitting sense
of responsibility. Never again should we await the occurrence
of acts of destructive disloyalty before taking action. Nor shall
we intrust this important matter to the care solely of the human-
itarianism of social organizations. We cannot allow industry
to formulate a program largely for the purposes of increasing
human efficiency. We cannot relegate the task to sectarian
organizations with the possible motive of proselytizing, nor to
political machines and parties with the risk of debasing our
citizenship. The instrumentality of the school is needed if
the immigrant is to be "effectively Americanized. No other
agency can be intrusted in a matter of such transcending im-
portance. There is no reason why we should longer draw a line

596

EDUCATION

between the education of the minor and the mature. While we
may compel the child, we must at least invite and encourage the
adult. There is at present no general and effective volunteer
system of education for the adult. Citizenship is the objective
in each case. It is as important that the adult immigrant be
transformed, where possible, into a good citizen as that the child
should grow into one. While we have noted the automatic
processes which have done much towards Americanizing the
foreigner, we must not on account of the existence of automatic
forces refuse to set up competent deliberate agencies for hastening
and doing more perfectly that which in part has taken place
without designed help. The human race existed before the
ministration of modern surgery and medical help, but human life
has been prolonged and suffering alleviated as the result of
conscious and careful attempts to strengthen and supplement
natural forces.

In a peculiar way the problem of immigrant education is
essentially Federal in nature. While the States and communities
may actually carry out the program of education, it is the busi-
ness of the Federal government to see that the work is done,
furnishing the means if necessary that the work be done. The
Federal government sets up the conditions under which the
immigrant may enter the country and assumes a guardianship,
in theory, over the immigrant after he is here. The Federal
government sets up the standards for naturalization, tests
applicants, and admits to citizenship those deemed wrorthy. We
may assume that the Federal government admits the immigrant
primarily for the purposes of citizenship, and not purely for the
purposes of securing cheap labor for our industries. If we are
sincere in our purposes of citizenship, then the educational
obligation is manifest. Our accumulating experience with the
problems of self-government shows that democracy is conditioned
by the extent of the education, enlightenment, and virtue of the
people. We will not admit that we deliberately court a large
non-participating group of members, non-citizens, aliens in
tongue, habit, and aspiration. There is enough in the history of
our indifference to the education of the immigrant to justify the
accusation that we have sought workers, not citizens. Let us
trust that it will not take another war in recurrence of national

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 597

menace to arouse us to a proper sense of obligation toward the
education of the immigrant.

It may prove of interest to review the influences which have
awakened us to the present sense of duty. The first steps may
not be said to have been taken purely from a feeling of altruism.
Industry began to be appreciative of the need of doing something
about the condition of the foreign-tongued alien by reason of the
difficulties encountered in the safety-first campaigns, and like-
wise in the problems connected with labor overturn. The non-
English-speaking immigrant was an industrial risk. New State
compulsory compensation laws were making the employer
liable for the results of accidents. The long-standing immunity
from costs and damages based upon the common law procedure
involving the principle of contributory negligence had given
away to unavoidable payments as the consequence of the growing
sense of justice influencing legislation. Under the new order
the inability of the foreign workman to read signs or to under-
stand instructions made his employment costly. The knowledge
of English on the part of the foreign laborers became an economic
asset to the employer. At the same period industrial engineers
began to give attention to the cost of labor overturn and it was
apparent that the customary method of " hiring " and " firing "
workmen was uneconomic. Investigation showed that non-
English-speaking employees were unstable, shifting, and irre-
sponsible, with the inevitable conclusion that the proper correc-
tive was to teach English to secure better workmen. The
procedure has not always been so gross or so unblushingly
economic. Industrial engineers began to talk about giving
attention to the human factor in the productive process, assert-
ing that too little attention was given to the operator and too
much to the operation. Much of the history of welfare work in
business and industry may be said to begin at this point. Even
at the present welfare work has not risen much above the plane
of the phrase, "it pays !"

Nor did public attention to the education of the immigrant
grow out of the promptings of spontaneous altruism; rather
was it fear. The world war from its inception and before our
participation caused us apprehension. Evidences of unsuspected
attitudes on the part of certain groups of our alien population

598 EDUCATION

made us doubt whether these non-citizens would prove an asset
or a liability in case we were drawn into the struggle. The plots,
the sabotage, the bitterness of feeling, the disloyalty, covert
and overt, presented situations never before encountered in the
history of our institutions. More recent and correct information
as to the extent of disloyal activity shows that earlier reports
had much exaggerated what actually happened. The Department
of Justice now reports that the whole number of suspected
individuals during the war did not exceed six thousand. The
public responded, however, to what was thought to be good
evidence, and the program of Americanization was promoted as
a specific corrective for the supposed as well as actual condition
of disloyalty. The campaign for Americanization began (1915),
and it was at this time that our official bureaus began to for-
mulate programs and to seek funds and authority. The Bureau
of Naturalization, as well as the Bureau of Education, gave
vigorous attention to the problem. The Bureau of Naturalization
before 1915 was not conspicuous for aggressive action looking
towards the creation of new citizens from our immigrant popu-
lation.

It must be confessed that in spite of our official pride in our
democratic institutions, our conditions of freedom and oppor-
tunity for the oppressed, we have needed gross and utilitarian
incentives like those of fear, safety first, " it pays," to start us
toward the paths of justice and humanity with respect to the
immigrant. Now that our fears have been allayed, and we have
escaped those dangers which we believed imminent, shall we
lapse into our former attitude of indifference ? It is unthinkable
that we shall do so. The war itself has generated and univer-
salized higher and nobler motives. That which we have begun
to do from fear we shall continue and enlarge from motives of
justice and humanity. We shall not be so much concerned
that through a knowledge of our tongue the immigrant will be
able to avoid accidents and be content to remain at his work or
even to be able to read food regulations. Rather we will be
concerned that he may be able to share our citizenship, learn our
ideals, contribute his share to the thinking and action of the
nation. At least the opportunity for all immigrants to learn our
language will be provided by competent public agencies, whether

THE SCHOOLS AND NATIONALIZATION 599

primarily from Federal, State, or community funds may be re-
served for subsequent discussion. The opportunity will not, as
heretofore, be provided, if at all, largely by employer, settle-
ment house, religious and political organizations, or by in-
adequate evening school facilities.

As in the case of the native-born, we place our greatest hope
for the improvement of the race in the education of the children,
so we must believe and base our plans with respect to the immi-
grant. Educational compulsion for the mature cannot overcome
the laws of nature. The change or reformation of the mature
has its limitations both for native- and foreign-born. There are
those who seem to expect that the foreigner can be made over,
although it is recognized that the attempt is futile with the
native, — a high compliment to the foreigner, but an undeserved
one. We may expect consequently that results in Americani-
zation will be possible in proportion to the maturity or immaturity
of the immigrant at the time of his arrival. For the mature we
should not neglect the development of any potentiality for read-
justment to American thought and customs. The freest oppor-
tunity should be furnished all immigrants, however mature, but
our surest hope of uniform and competent results must be in the
children of the immigrant, who must be provided with better
facilities than those now obtaining. We should commend and
strive to have adopted universally the State legislation that
requires part time school attendance for illiterates under twenty-
one years of age, and there are good arguments for some extension
of this limit. We need comprehensive legislation and more ade-
quate funds. The present period of interest, agitation, and prop-
aganda should be superseded by positive action. At present
we are proceeding to do by communities unassisted what should
be done by communities assisted by States and aided by Federal
agencies. What we are now doing is comparatively inconsiderable.
The immigrant has climbed without our helping hand. Where-
ever the immigrant is found should be the extended hand.
Americanization should not be the result of fortunate accident.
Democracy cannot be achieved or made safe by accident.

X. NATURALIZATION AND
CITIZENSHIP

THE NATURALIZATION OF FOREIGNERS1

R. E. COLE, COUNSEL ON NATURALIZATION FOR COMMITTEE FOR
IMMIGRANTS IN AMERICA

INSTRUCTION FOR NATURALIZATION

FOR the past few years a number of successful endeavors have
been made in conducting citizenship classes in the City of
Cleveland. The settlement houses and especially the Young
Men's Christian Association undertook this important field of
service. Although much was accomplished, the efforts were not
united and no definite program of instruction was outlined.

In the fall of 1913 a committee of the Cleveland Immigration
League approached the school authorities in regard to a more
systematic effort for instruction in citizenship. The result of the
conference was that the superintendent of schools authorized
the supervisor of elementary public night schools to establish
night citizenship classes in all centers where there was an evident
need. The city immigration bureau was then requested to co-
operate in organizing and supervising these classes.

The first proceeding, therefore, was to select and train a group
of enthusiastic teachers. This was accomplished by arranging
for a preliminary meeting at which the purpose and method of
instruction were explained. Further, every two weeks these
citizenship teachers met for luncheon at noon in a private dining
room to talk over their problems and receive practical sugges-
tions. Arrangements were always made to have a special speaker.

These classes are now located in public schools, public libraries,
and settlement houses. An unique and practical method of

1 Reprinted from Bulletin, "The School and the Immigrant," Division of Refer-
ence and Research, Board of Education, New York City.

600

THE NATURALIZATION OF FOREIGNERS 601

instruction is used. A " Teacher's Manual on Citizenship," with
blackboard outlines and suggestions, was prepared by the city
immigration bureau to meet the particular needs of such classes
in Cleveland. A special student's text entitled, ''Citizenship
Manual for Cleveland, Ohio," was printed. It is a citizenship
manual, adapted to local use, with many illustrations, and con-
tains, for instance, an outline of the city government under the
new city charter. City, county, state, and national government
are considered in logical order.

Many trips by the evening classes are regularly made to public
buildings such as the city hall, county courthouse, and post office
for the purpose of increasing the interest and demonstrating
government activities in actual operation. The buildings are
kept open for such visits. Several sets of stereopticon slides on
various phases of governmental work have been prepared and
secured by the city immigration bureau for use in these classes.
" Seeing America," "Our State Capitol," "Columbus," and
"Naturalization" are a few of the suggestive subjects of these
sets of slides. They have also been shown in the various night
English classes and several of the city institutions. Mock trials
and courts are continually used to teach our form of government.
Many public officials and prominent men have addressed these
classes. For every lesson, there are also simple pamphlets
which are placed in the hands of the students of each class at
appropriate times.

For the purpose of instilling patriotism and arousing great
interest, all the citizenship classes have joined an organization
called the "American Club." Its motto is "Citizenship and
Character." Once every month a patriotic program with special
speakers and music is arranged in a conveniently located audi-
torium. These monthly mass meetings have given opportunity
to create in the hearts of these "Coming Americans" a real
pride in citizenship.

CITIZENSHIP PAPERS AND RECEPTIONS

Not only the men enrolled in these citizenship classes, but
those in the elementary English classes of the public night schools
as well, have been aroused to the need and value of securing

602 NATURALIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP

citizenship papers. The city immigration bureau, in cooperation
with the county and federal clerks of naturalization, furnishes
the teachers with application blanks and instructions. The
teachers in turn tell their classes how they could become citizens
and assist in filling out the required forms. Then the men are
brought in groups to especially arranged night sessions of the
clerk's offices of naturalization. Thus 1260 men in the school
year ending June 30, 1914, were induced to plan definitely for
citizenship and personally to make the legal application with-
out the loss of a day's wages either to the applicant or his two
witnesses.

One of the most important and most impressive services
rendered by the city immigration bureau has been the in-
auguration of "citizenship receptions." In the past, after the
granting of citizenship to the applicant by the judge, each newly
made citizen was personally required to call at the clerk's office
during the day for his certificate. Now a new method has
been devised. The issuing of certificates has been made the
occasion of a citizenship reception similar to a graduation
exercise. An appropriate patriotic program is given one evening
each month, which the successful applicants with their wives,
relatives, and friends attend. As the citizenship certificate is
conferred upon each applicant, he is impressed with the impor-
tance of the ceremony, for he has heard his name publicly
announced as the proud recipient of a great public privilege.

When we shall succeed in bringing the fact home to the citizens
of America that cooperation and coordinating in Americanizing
the immigrant is a community obligation for all local agencies,
additional methods of solving the problem of assimilation will be
devised, and more efficient service will be rendered in assisting
the immigrant to solve his own problems.

THE STEPS IN NATURALIZATION

Every alien must have two papers before he can become a
naturalized citizen. The first is a declaration of intention ; and
the second is the securing of the rights of the franchise.

The Courts. The courts issuing these papers may be the county
courts, the superior court, or the Federal court.

THE NATURALIZATION OF FOREIGNERS 603

The First Paper. This is simply a declaration of intention.
The applicant is not examined. No witnesses are needed. He
must be able to sign his name. The clerk of the court will give
each applicant a blank form which he can fill out at his con-
venience. The form has some twenty questions, which must
be answered. Care should be taken to answer them correctly,
for an error in the first paper may defeat the purpose of the
alien when he applies for his second.

For a group of ten or more foreign-born men who want their
first papers, arrangements can be made with the clerk of the
court to appoint an evening on which the men may declare their
intention and secure the blank forms. This will save them the
loss of a day's work. The men may be helped to fill in their
forms, which should be later returned to the clerk for the purpose
of filing.

The Second Papers. There are two stages in this process.
First : The alien must file his petition for second papers, and
bring two witnesses who are citizens of the United States with
him, who will testify to his character and to the length of his
continuous stay in the country. This petition is entered on the
docket, and ninety days later the applicant is examined in open
court as to his knowledge of our government, and his qualifi-
cations to exercise the franchise. If the secretary has a group of
ten or more men, having their first papers and fairly well qualified
to take out their second, the clerk of the court will issue the
blank forms, which ought to be carefully filled. When ready, an
evening session may be arranged for and the petitions of the
applicants properly entered. In the following ninety days
special training can be given these men to prepare them for
the examination they must pass before the second papers are
issued.

In addition to the group of men who, under guidance, have
petitioned for second papers, others will prepare for the
examination. Their names are entered on the naturalization
docket, and are hung up for public inspection on the bulletin
of the office of the clerk of the court. To such men a letter may
be written inviting them to join the class so that they too may be
prepared for the examination in naturalization. In teaching the
men, the question and answer form will be found useful. They

6o4 NATURALIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP

should be helped to understand and answer the questions.
Special instruction may be needed for the backward. The main
facts of American government should be perfectly clear in their
minds.

A SUGGESTIVE COURSE IN CIVIC TRAINING FOR NATU-
RALIZATION AND AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP

INTRODUCTION

Citizenship is not a political privilege alone. It affects the
immigrant in his standing before the law, in the opportunities it
gives him for work. It affects not less the interest of the nation.

The Federal government sets forth in its naturalization laws
two main educational requirements for citizenship : first, a
knowledge of the English language; and, second, a familiarity
with the fundamental principles of American government. The
Evening Schools for Immigrants must bear the responsibility
for this.

The need for greater educational effort is obvious. More
than 25 per cent (6,646,817) of the males of voting age in
the United States are foreign-born and only 45 per cent are
naturalized; the remaining fifty-five per cent (3,612,700) give
us concretely the "naturalization problem" of our country.
These facts measure the problem.

The purpose of this course of study and syllabus in "civics
and naturalization " is to train our foreign-born population for
good efficient and devoted American citizenship ; not merely to
prepare them to answer in a perfunctory manner questions asked
at a Naturalization Hearing. Good citizenship means adjust-
ment in the best sense ; absorption into community life without
surrender of individual initiative. In contributing to the wel-
fare of his community, the good citizen realizes his own. He
will work honestly and vote intelligently. He will care for his
family, but will not forget the larger family of his city.

Therefore instruction in citizenship logically means instruction
in hygiene, in sanitation, in health, and in character. No syllabus
can secure all these things, for much depends on the character
of the teacher. The following is the outline of a suggested
course :

THE NATURALIZATION OF FOREIGNERS 605

PURPOSE : The purpose of this course is :

1. To suggest means and methods of instruction in Naturalization
through concrete civic training.

2. To prepare our foreign-born population for efficient citizenship.
DEFINITION: " Civic Training for Naturalization and American

Citizenship" is vitalized instruction in the following :

1. Organization and machinery of our government with emphasis
upon its operations and functions.

2. Method of becoming a citizen.

3. Duties and responsibilities of citizenship compared with rights
and privileges, setting forth the reciprocal and cooperative relation-
ship of the principles of democracy.

ORGANIZATION: Organization for this work includes three co-
related factors : (i) Selection and training of teachers, (2) Classifi-
cation of Pupils, and (3) Types of Classes :

1. The most important element for the success of this course is the
proper selection and training of teachers.

The following qualifications are suggested: (a) Experience in
teaching, preferably English to immigrants, (b) Sympathy for the
immigrant and intimate knowledge of his life, and (c) Legal training
or specific instruction in the political and social sciences.

The special training for this sort of teaching should consist of:

(a) "Training Course for Civic and Naturalization Instruction," and

(b) Conferences of teachers for discussion of work once a month, if
feasible.

2. A classification of students is essential to securing the best
results, based upon the general principles of : (a) Congeniality of
nationality, (b) Previous education, and (c) An understanding and
speaking knowledge of simple English.

3. Two types of classes are suggested : (a) " Community Classes,"
and (b) "Naturalization Applicants' Classes" for those who have
made application for their citizenship papers and are waiting three
months as required by law for their naturalization hearing.

SUBJECT MATERIAL : The subject material may be classified into
these divisions :

1. Organization of our government; (a) Federal, (b) State,

(c) County, and (d) City.

2. Functions of our government ; (a) Legislative, (b) Executive,
and (c) Judicial.

3. Naturalization law and proceedings.

4. Facts about our law ; (a) Why we have laws, (b) What they are,
(c) How they are enforced, (d) Who makes them, and (e) Obedience
to law.

6o6 NATURALIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP

5. Reciprocal relationship of the social and civic forces of a com-
munity to its citizens ; (a) Family and home, (b) Educational facilities
and the neighborhood, and (c) Health and recreation.

6. " Syllabus for Teachers," — outlining subject and methods of
instruction with bibilography.

7. Text for students, — "Manual of Civic Training for Citizen-
ship."

PRESENTATION : The method of instruction should be varied by
these practical and concrete means :

1. Informal talks and discussions, laying stress upon questions
and answers in civic subjects.

2. Diagrams and illustrative drawings on the blackboard.

3. Outline of American history by brief study of famous biog-
raphies.

4. Map study with location of important places.

5. Distribution of pamphlets and circulars.

6. Patriotic songs, stories, poetry, and flag salutes.

7. Utilization of holidays and anniversaries for celebrations.

8. Prize or medal for best essay on patriotic subjects.

9. Stereopticon lecture on civic topics.

10. Classroom or school organization.

11. Classroom or school organization as practical demonstration
of the principles of democracy — "American Club."

12. Dramatization: (a) Mock Naturalization Hearing, (b) Mock
Trial, City Council, etc.

13. Speakers : (a) prominent men, and (b) public officials.

14. Trips to public buildings : (a) Visit to City Council, (b) Public
Library, (c) Museums, etc.

15. Night sessions of the Courts of Naturalization for " Citizenship
Applicants."

16. Graduation Exercise, "Citizenship Reception," Diploma,
"Citizenship Certificate."

THE AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL COLLEGES FOR

IMMIGRANTS

HENRY M. BOWDEN, PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, AMERICAN INTERNA-
TIONAL COLLEGE FOR IMMIGRANTS, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.

THE American International College grew out of the recog-
nition by the Rev. Calvin E. Amaron, then of Lowell,
and others, of the educational needs of the French Canadian
population which came into New England with the return of
business prosperity in 1878. The rapidly changing character of
the foreign population and the ambitions of Italians and Arme-
nians to take advantage of the opportunities of the school rapidly
broadened the scope of the work, and after several changes of
name to correspond with the broadened scope, the school has
become what it is to-day : an institution given specifically to
meeting the needs of the foreigner in America, offering definitely
the instruction and training required to fit the stranger for life
here, at a price within the reach of those who must live by work.
In its present location for more than thirty years, and under its
present name for more than ten, it has gone about its business of
aiding in making Americans.

It often has representatives of twenty or more distinct races
or nations within its walls at one time, though the proportion
of the various elements changes from year to year. Certain
well-defined groups, however, always have prominent repre-
sentatives. The larger groups are usually among the Greeks,
Italians, Poles, and Armenians; there are always Russians,
and Hebrews, and usually a considerable number from Latin
America, with some from Spain as well ; the various Balkan
states send students, and no country in Europe ever remains
long unrepresented. Usually there are Chinese students, some-
times Japanese, frequently Turkish. Religious statistics are
kept, and attendance at chapel exercises is required; but no
religious discrimination is practiced, and Confucianist, Christian,
Jew, and Mohammedan live in peace.

607

608 NATURALIZATION AND CITIZENSHIP

The school owns property which gives it about eighty rooms
for boys and twenty for girls, and some students live away from
the campus ; the schoolroom accommodation allows the attend-
ance of approximately one hundred and thirty students. There
are always applicants waiting for admission, and were the
accommodations doubled there would still be a waiting list.

The classroom work divides itself into departments growing
naturally out of actual conditions. There are many students
who wish to gain familiarity with the English language and with
the fundamental conditions and ideas of American life, in order
to gain a higher position in the business world. Such students
may stay a few months, perhaps a year or two years. The intro-
ductory work is planned to give an early command of the lan-
guage and a knowledge of American government and trade.
Then there are students who wish to enter upon a more extended
course, who are planning for college or university work. Some
of these have perhaps had a good deal of training in European
gymnasia ; some have only their ambitions, as yet undeveloped.
A complete academic course is offered, of such value as to be
recognized by the College Entrance Examination Board; and
students are admitted to most of the New England colleges on the
certificate of this school. Within the last few years the school
has sent students to Bates, Dartmouth, Middlebury, Tufts,
Boston University, Yale, and others in New England, and to
many prominent colleges and universities elsewhere.

The school has the right under its charter to grant all the cus-
tomary degrees given by colleges in Massachusetts. For the most
part, it confines itself to the B.A. degree in course, though it
confers also B.S. It grants no degrees without residence, but it
recognizes work done in other schools when properly evidenced,
and substantiated by the actual classroom work of the resident
student. Frequently there are students who need but a year or
two of preparation to fit them for entrance upon the work of some
professional school, and the ideal college student here is one who
wishes to fit for such a school.

From the beginning the ideal of the school, in common with the
original ideals of all schools, has been training for public service.
It would seem, at least on a cursory examination of the work
of those formerly connected with its classes, that an unusual

.

proportion were now engag^, -d

with community service. Proi. ,arious

universities and schools, officials !„ .vace, secre-

taries and agents of public and private social agencies, physicians
and nurses, ministers and lawyers, they are found from Massa-
chusetts to California, from Nova Scotia and Quebec to Texas.
They are also guarding trenches " somewhere in France" and,
clad in Greek uniforms, are' watching the Allies from the side
lines in Macedonia.

But the alien in this land, from the very fact that he is an
alien, is capable of a peculiar service to the state. The large
foreign population of the United States, amounting in some large
districts to more than half the total number of inhabitants and in
many to more than one fourth of this total, can be brought into
a common social and political consciousness with the older
elements only through the mediation of such as are both alien
and American. The college has from the start recognized the
demand for intelligent work toward the Americanization of alien
groups. It is now working more directly to meet this need through
a course of training for social service among foreign populations.
This course includes a study of the facts of immigration, the
conditions of immigrant communities, the relation of the alien
to the law, the agencies for social betterment now in operation,
methods of teaching English and civics, and methods of investi-
gating social conditions and classifying social material. It is
accompanied by actual work in investigating and teaching, and
the certificate for the course will imply adequate qualification
in civics, history, sociology, economics, and educational philos-
ophy. The work of the course covers two years, and may be
counted on the requirements for the B.A. degree. All of the
students who are now taking the course are engaged in practical
teaching in day or evening classes.

Not only in this formal work does the school engage in meeting
the social needs of the immigrant population, but great service
has been rendered through the activities of students who have
been active in various societies and organizations of their fellow
countrymen in the vicinity. There are many societies with an
educational tendency among aliens in America, most of them
being specially interested in the teaching of history and civics,
or in the discussion of historic or political questions ; some of them

IP

wic. .c^ons, some of them partic-

ularly . ocs. The events of the last two

years have'^ ^lear to every one that there is no

divorcing American irbm European problems, however much
any one may desire such a divorce. The problem is to present
and interpret these problems in such a way as to strengthen
American idealism and unify American life. In this work, aside
from any school exercises, the students have frequently met, in
classes, lectures, addresses, and more or less formal discussion,
as many as fifteen hundred of their people in a single week ; the
total amount of such work is not capable of any exact definition,
but it is very large. No day passes that does not see some
contribution to its total. This brings the school through its
students into the most vital contact with the most essential
problems connected with immigration and with alien life, espe-
cially in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.

It is quite the fashion to say that the immigration problems
are economic, and to think that in saying this a real contribution
has been made to the solution of some of these problems. In
truth, in common with all questions of social life, the immigration
problems have their economic basis, and are to be understood
and met only as this basis is recognized; but, here also, in
common with all of the real questions of life, immigration is to
be truly estimated only by a consideration of social values, and
its problems are to be solved only by adjustments of society
which recognize all the ways of reaction of human life, and not
simply the economic reactions. It is with this conception of
immigration as a social phenomenon, a conception which makes
economics a department of sociology rather than sociology a
department of economics, that these courses of study in immi-
gration and in practical work among immigrants are guided.
The definite work of the school in this connection is extending
and defining itself; the recognized needs of the communities
surrounding the school give scope for the application of laboratory
methods in developing the theoretical study of the problems;
and the large number of organizations among the foreign popu-
lations offers opportunities for many enterprises in the way of
courses of lectures, addresses, classes and discussions which are
hardly limited by anything except the individual desire and
initiative of the one who is interested to work.

XL AMERICANISM

ADDRESS AT CONVENTION HALL, PHILADELPHIA,
MAY 10, 1915

WOODROW WILSON

MR. MAYOR, FELLOW CITIZENS: It warms my heart
that you should give me such a reception ; but it is not
of myself that I wish to think to-night, but of those who have
just become citizens of the United States.

This is the only country in the world which experiences this
constant and repeated rebirth. Other countries depend upon
the multiplication of their own native people. This country is
constantly drinking strength out of new sources by the voluntary
association with it of great bodies of strong men and forward-
looking women out of other lands. And so by the gift of the
free will of independent people it is being constantly renewed
from generation to generation by the same process by which it
was originally created. It is as if humanity had determined to
see to it that this great Nation, founded for the benefit of human-
ity, should not lack for the allegiance of the people of the world.

You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States.
Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be
God — certainly not of allegiance to those who temporarily
represent this great Government. You have taken an oath of
allegiance to a great ideal, to a great body of principles, to a
great hope of the human race. You have said, "We are going
to America, not only to earn a living, not only to seek the things
which it was more difficult to obtain where we were born, but
to help forward the great enterprises of the human spirit — to
let men know that everywhere in the world there are men who
will cross strange oceans and go where a speech is spoken which
is alien to them if they can but satisfy their quest for what their
spirits crave; knowing that whatever the speech there is but

611

6i2 AMERICANISM

one longing and utterance of the human heart, and that is for
liberty and justice." And while you bring all countries with
you, you come with a purpose of leaving all other countries behind
you — bringing what is best of their spirit, but not looking over
your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate what you intended to
leave behind in them. I certainly would not be one even to sug-
gest that a man cease to love the home of his birth and the nation
of his origin — these things are very sacred and ought not to be
put out of our hearts — but it is one thing to love the place where
you were born and it is another thing to dedicate yourself
to the place to which you go. You cannot dedicate yourself to
America unless you become in every respect and with every
purpose of your will thorough Americans. You cannot become
thorough Americans if you think of yourselves in groups.
America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of him-
self as belonging to a particular national group in America has
not yet become an American, and the man who goes among you
to trade upon your nationality is no worthy son to live under
the Stars and Stripes.

My urgent advice to you would be, not only always to think
first of America, but always, also, to think first of humanity.
You do not love humanity if you seek to divide humanity into
jealous camps. Humanity can be welded together only by love,
by sympathy, by justice, not by jealousy and hatred. I am sorry
for the man who seeks to make personal capital out of the pas-
sions of his fellow-men. . He has lost the touch and ideal of
America, for America was created to unite mankind by those
passions which lift, and not by the passions which separate and
debase. We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons
of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see
finer things than they had seen before to get rid of the things
that divide and to make sure of the things that unite. It was but
an historical accident no doubt that that great country was
called the " United States " ; yet I am very thankful that it has
that word "United" in its title, and the man who seeks to divide
man from man, group from group, interest from interest, in this
great Union is striking at its very heart.

It is a very interesting circumstance to me, in thinking of those
of you who have just sworn allegiance to this great Government,

ALLEGIANCE TO AMERICA 613

that you were drawn across the ocean by some beckoning finger
of hope, by some belief, by some vision of a new kind of justice,
by some expectation of a better kind of life. No doubt you have
been disappointed in some of us. Some of us are very disappoint-
ing. No doubt you have found that justice in the United States
goes only with a pure heart and a right purpose as it does every-
where else in the world. No doubt what you found here did not
seem touched for you, after all, with the complete beauty of
the ideal which you had conceived beforehand. But remember
this : If we had grown at all poor in the ideal, you brought some
of it with you. A man does not go out to seek the thing that is
not in him. A man does not hope for the thing that he does
not believe in, and if some of us have forgotten what America
believed in, you, at any rate, imported in your own hearts a
renewal of the belief. That is the reason that I, for one, make
you welcome. If I have in any degree forgotten what America
was intended for, I will thank God if you will remind me. I was
born in America. You dreamed dreams of what America was
to be, and I hope you brought the dreams with you. No man
that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or under-
take any high enterprise. Just because you brought dreams with
you, America is more likely to realize dreams such as you brought.
You are enriching us if you came expecting us to be better than
we are.

See, my friends, what that means. It means that Americans
must have a consciousness different from the consciousness of
every other nation in the world. I am not saying this with even
the slightest thought of criticism of other nations. You know
how it is with a family. A family gets centered on itself if it
is not careful and is less interested in the neighbors than it is
in its own members. So a nation that is not constantly renewed
out of new sources is apt to have the narrowness and prejudice
of a family; whereas, America must have this consciousness,
that on all sides it touches elbows and touches hearts with all
the nations of mankind. The example of America must be a
special example. The example of America must be the example
not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because
peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and
strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to

6i4 AMERICANISM

fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it
does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

You have come into this great Nation voluntarily seeking
something that we have to give, and all that we have to give is
this : We cannot exempt you from work. No man is exempt
from work anywhere in the world. We cannot exempt you from
the strife and the heartbreaking burden of the struggle of the
day — that is common to mankind everywhere ; we cannot
exempt you from the loads that you must carry. We can only
make them light by the spirit in which they are carried. That is
the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of liberty, it is the spirit of justice.

When I was asked, therefore, by the Mayor and the committee
that accompanied him to come up from Washington to meet
this great company of newly admitted citizens, I could not
decline the invitation. I ought not to be away from Washington,
and yet I feel that it has renewed my spirit as an American to
be here. In Washington men tell you so many things every day
that are not so, and I like to come and stand in the presence of
a great body of my fellow-citizens, whether they have been my
fellow-citizens a long time or a short time, and drink, as it were,
out of the common fountains with them and go back feeling
what you have so generously given me — the sense of your
support and of the living vitality in your hearts of the great
ideals which have made America the hope of the world.

WHAT AMERICA MEANS

ADDRESS or THE SECRETARY or THE INTERIOR, THE HONORABLE
FRANKLIN K. LANE, NEW YORK, JANUARY n, 1919

% T SHOULD take it that this gathering, representing so many
A sections of the country and so many of its elements, is
itself a community council. If we could have such meetings
in all our cities and in all quarters of our cities the matter of
Americanization would soon cease to concern us.

To meet men from Armenia and Italy, from Greece and from
Persia, from Russia and from all the nations of Europe, to the
very edge of the Atlantic — to look into their eyes, to learn their
conception of America, to hear what they believe America offers
them, to help them to their understanding, to spread our goods
before them — our ideals, our traditions, our opportunities;
this is the very first step in weaving them into our flag — the
very first step in the process of Americanization.

This is an especially appropriate time to meet, because to-night
I can announce to the country that whatever previous differences
have existed between the Federal departments in their relations
to the foreign-born are now composed and the larger problems
of the melting pot, in so far as they lead up to the moment when
an alien has determined to become a citizen and has declared
himself of that mind, unquestionably and very properly rest
with the Department of the Interior, upon which Congress long
since conferred the responsibility of supervising public instruc-
tion through the Federal Bureau of Education.

But there is another reason that makes this an auspicious
moment to prepare for a more intensive campaign against in-
sulating and disorganizing influences in the Republic. The people
of the United States have been engaged for two years and more
in a task that has given them a new sense of glory — a sense of
glory sprung from the consciousness that they were useful to
America — and it has not been limited to the boys in khaki

615

6i6 AMERICANISM

across seas. Those who are here represent that spirit — the
artisans, the merchants, the business men, the women — all
have sacrificed as one, have wrought with heart and hand and
purse that they might make the name of America eternal — by
making America a synonym for liberty and generosity and
knightliness to the ends of the earth.

It has never seemed to me that it was difficult to define Amer-
icanization or Americanism : "I appreciate something, I admire
something, I love something; I want you, my friends, my
neighbors, to appreciate and admire and love that thing, too. •
That something is America."

The process is not one of science; the process is one of hu-
manity. But just as there is no way by which the breath of
life can be put into a man's body, once it has gone out, so there
is no manner by which, with all our wills, we can make an Ameri-
can out of a man who is not inspired by our ideals, and there is
no way by which we can make any one feel that it is a blessed
and splendid thing to be an American, unless we are ourselves
aglow with the sacred fire, unless we interpret Americanism by
our tolerance, our fairness, our thoroughbred qualities, our
liberality, our valor, and our kindness.

We have made stintless sacrifices during this war; sacrifices
of money and blood sacrifices ; sacrifices in our industries ; sacri-
fices of time and effort and preferment and prejudice. Much
of that sacrifice shall be found vain if we do not prepare to draw
to ourselves those later comers who are at once our opportunity
and our responsibility, and such responsibilities invoke and fortify
the noblest qualities of national character.

There is in every one of us, however educated and polished,
a secret, selfish, arrogant ego, and there is in every one of us an
infinite capacity for nobility. In this war I could see that there
came out immediately the finer man, and, pray God, the better
self in us all — the man who came to the front at the call to arms
remains captain forever after.

We expect that man to search out his immigrant neighbor and
say, "I am your friend. Be mine as well. Let me share in the
wisdom and instruct me in the arts and crafts you have brought
from strange and ancient countries, and I shall help you suc-
ceed here."

WHAT AMERICA MEANS 617

There is no difficulty in this, if our attitude is right. Amer-
icanism is entirely an attitude of mind; it is the way we look
at things that makes us Americans.

If I could have my way I would say to the man in New York,
"Come with me and I will show you America," and I would
say to the man in San Francisco, "Come with me and I will
show you America."

I would give to the man whom I wished to Americanize (after
he had learned the language of this land) a knowledge of the
physical America, so as to get an admiration, not only of its
strength, of its resources, of what it could do against the world,
but that he might have pride in this as a land of hope and a land
in which men had won out. I would take him across the continent.

I would show him the good and the bad. I would show him
the struggle that we are making to improve the bad conditions.
I would tell him not that America is perfect, that America is
a finished country, but I would say to him : "America is an un-
finished land. Its possibilities shall never end, and your chance
here and the chances of your children shall always be in ratio to
your zeal and ambition."

America, we dare believe, will ever remain unfinished. This
must be if there is anything to Americanism.

Let us push our horizons before us ; let us so dare and do that
no imagination can find a discouraging to-morrow.

It is beyond estimate when we shall reclaim all our lands or
find all our minerals or make all our people as happy as they
might be. But out of our beneficent, political institutions, out
of the warmth of our hearts, out of our yearnings for higher
intellectual accomplishment there shall be ample space and
means for the fulfillment of dreams, for further growth, for
constant improvement.

That conviction is at once our inspiration and our aspiration.

I would try to show to him the tremendous things that have
been accomplished by the United States — 250,000 miles of
railroad, 240,000 schools, colleges, water powers, mines, furnaces,
factories, the industrial life of America, the club life of America,
the sports of America, the baseball game in all its glory.

And I would give to that man a knowledge of America that
would make him ask the question, "How did this come to be?"

618 AMERICANISM

And then he would discover that there was something more to
our country than its material strength.

It has a history. It has a tradition. I would take that man
to Plymouth Rock and I would ask, "What does that rock say
to you?" I would take him down on the James River, to its
ruined church, and I would ask/' What does that little church
say to you?" And I would take him to Valley Forge and point
out the huts in which Washington's men lived, 3,000 of them,
struggling for the independence of our country. And I would
ask, "What does this example spell to you? What caused them,
what induced those colonists to suffer as they did — willingly?"

And then I would take him to the field of Gettysburg and
lead him to the spot where Lincoln delivered his immortal ad-
dress and I would ask him, "What does that speech mean to
you ; not how beautiful it is, but what word does it speak to
your heart? How much of it do you believe?"

And then I would take him to Santiago and I would ask,
"What does that bay mean to you?"

And I would take him over to the Philippines where 10,000
native teachers every day teach 800,000 native children the Eng-
lish language.

And then I would bring him back to this country and say,
"Grasp the meaning of what I have shown you and you will
know then what Americanism is." It is not 110,000,000 people
alone, it is 110,000,000 people who have lived through struggle,
and who have arrived through struggle, who have won through
work. Let us never forget that we are what we are because we
have accomplished. There is a sentimentality which would
make it appear that in some millennial day man will not work.
If some such calamity ever blights us, then man will fail and fall
back. God is great. His first and His greatest gift to man was
the obligation cast upon him to labor.

The march of civilization is the epic of man as a workingman,
and that is the reason why labor must be held high always.

We have nothing precious that does not represent struggle.
We have nothing of worth which does not represent effort.
We have nothing of lasting value that does not represent deter-
mination. We have nothing admirable which does not represent
self-sacrifice. We have no philosophy except the philosophy

WHAT AMERICA MEANS . 619

of confidence, of optimism and faith and the righteousness of
the contest we make against nature.

We are to conquer this land in that spirit, and in our spirit
we are to conquer other lands because our spirit is one that,
like a living flame, goes abroad.

And again it is like some blessed wind — some soft, sweet
wind that carries a benison across the Pacific and the Atlantic,
and we must keep alive in ourselves that this spirit is Amer-
icanism — that it is robust and dauntless and kindly and hearty
and fertile and irresistible, and through it men win out against
all adversity. That is what made us great.

It is sympathetic. It is compelling. It is revealing. It is
just. The one peculiar quality in our institutions is that, not
alone in our hearts, but out of our hearts, has grown a means
by which man can acquire justice for himself.

That is the reason, my Russian friend, my American friend,
why this is a haven to you. Bring your music, bring your art,
bring all your soulfulness, your ancient experience, to the melting
pot and let it enrich our mettle. We welcome every spiritual
influence, every cultural urge, and in turn we want you to love
America as we love it because it is holy ground — because it
serves the world.

Our boys went across the water. Never cease to venerate the
years of their glory. Our boys went across the water because
they were filled with the spirit that made America; a spirit
that meets challenge; a spirit that wants to help. Combine
these two qualities and you have the essence of Americanism —
a spirit symbolized by the Washington Monument ; that clean,
straight arm lifting to God in eternal pledge that our land shall
always be independent and free.

To-night in Paris the President of this country, called by duty
— your President and my President — out of his knowledge
of what war can do, out of a sense of its futility, out of a sense of
its barbarity, is working that a better day may be brought
about. He has invoked the genius of Europe to devise with him
the machinery by which this curse may at least be minimized.

If you will visualize Woodrow Wilson at the council chamber
striving for the happiness of mankind, together with the boy in
khaki, whose love of righteousness alone carried him into the

620 . AMERICANISM

Argonne Forest there to perish for the might of law and the
salvation of mankind, you have a picture of the spirit of
the Americanism that you must exemplar too — a spirit which
the traditions and the history of our country demand of you.

How best may be spread that spirit through the land — how
best can we explain our purposes and interpret our systems ?

Through the community council, through the school. I am
making an appeal to Congress on behalf of an appropriation
which will permit us to deliver from bondage thousands, tens
of thousands, millions of children and men and women in these
United States — to liberate them from the blinders of ignorance,
that all the wealth and beauties of literature and the knowledge
that comes through the printed word can be revealed to them.

Congress will be asked to help all States willing to cooperate
in banishing illiteracy.

And I want you to help. We want to interpret America in
terms of fair play, in terms of the square deal. We want to
interpret America in healthier babies that have enough milk
to drink. We want to interpret America in boys and girls and
men and women that can read and write. We want to interpret
America in better housing conditions and decent wages, in hours
that will allow a father to know his own family and to support
his household like a man.

That is Americanization in the concrete — reduced to a practi-
cal, uplifting force.

I bring you the promise of unceasing betterments when I so
give you the word. It is spoken for us, for Europe, for Asia.
I bring you the spirit of the Declaration of Independence put
into terms that are social and economic and ask you to help us.

AMERICANIZATION
P. P. CLAXTON, COMMISSIONER or EDUCATION

TI^XCEPT for a quarter million North American Indians,
Is descendants of the natives whom the white settlers found
here, the people of the United States are all foreign-born or the
descendants of foreign-born ancestors. All are immigrants or
the offspring of immigrants. The oldest American families are
so new in this country that they have hardly forgotten the tradi-
tions and the home ties of the countries from which they came.
Though we are now more than a hundred millions of people
between our double oceans, we have yet to celebrate the 3ooth
anniversary of the founding of the second of the colonies out of
which the nation has grown; one hundred and fifty years ago
there were less than three millions of us.

From all the world we have come, mostly sons of the poor, all
striving to better our condition in some way, all looking for a
larger measure of freedom than was possible for us in the coun-
tries from which we came. Here, free from the domination of
autocratic government and from the poisoning influences of
decadent aristocracies, forgetting our fears and servile habits,
we have elevated the best from all countries into a common
possession, transfused and transformed it by our highest and
best ideals and called it Americanism. A new thing this is in
the world, and the most precious possession the world has.
Though incomplete and still in the formative stage, growing
richer and grander as the years go by, constantly clearing and
purifying itself, its form and spirit are quite well determined.

To enter into this common heritage of the best of all, to be
inspired with these ideals, to learn to understand the insti-
tutions which guarantee our freedom and rights and enable us
to work together for the common good, to resolve to forget all
purely selfish means for the work of the highest welfare of our
country and of the world, is to become Americanized. To give

621

622 AMERICANISM

to the foreign-born population in the United States and all others
the fullest and freest opportunity for this is what we in the
Bureau of Education mean by Americanization. Every part of
our program is directed to this end.

Americanization is a process of education, of winning the mind
and heart through instruction and enlightenment. From the
very nature of the thing it can make little or no use of force.
It must depend rather on the attractive power and the sweet
reasonableness of the thing itself. Were it to resort to force,
by that very act it would destroy its spirit and cease to be Amer-
ican. It would also cease to be American if it should become
narrow and fixed and exclusive, losing its faith in humanity and
rejecting vital and enriching elements from any source whatever.

Our program of education does not compel but invites and
allures. It may, therefore, probably must, in the beginning be
slow ; but in the end it will be swift and sure.

Americanization is not something which the Government
or a group of individuals may do for the foreign-born or others.
It is what these persons do for themselves when the opportunity
is offered and they are shown the way; what they do for the
country and the thing called democracy. The function of the
Government and all other agencies interested in Americanization
is to offer the opportunity, make the appeal, and inspire the desire.
They can and should attempt nothing more than to reveal in
all their fullness the profit and the joy of working together for
the common good and the attainment of our high ideals to create
the desire to have a part in the inspiring task, to show the way
by which each may do his part best, and to help him set his feet
squarely on the way.

IX

WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION1
FRANCES A. KELLOR

THERE are accepted definitions of Americanism. There
is none of Americanization. The reason is not hard to
find. There is in America a national impulse called Ameri-
canization, which was understood as a war necessity before
it had developed in time of peace. It acquired a generalization
before it had become specific. It was subjected to organiza-
tion and committed to the achievement of results before it
was a branch of knowledge fairly evolved and reduced to practice.

There is no science of race assimilation. No nation has had
a sufficiently free opportunity with many diverse races to estab-
lish its enduring principles and certain procedure. America
has this opportunity in her thirty-five different races speak-
ing fifty-four languages, of whom 13,000,000 are foreign-born.
One third of her total population has its roots in other soils
and in diverse cultures. She has the laboratory for the experi-
ment in her wide expanse of territory, much of it still unsettled ;
in the elasticity of her institutions ; and in the still formative
state of her cultural life.

The old world is engaged in a struggle to find a way by which
each race living on its own soil, separated by definite national
boundaries, can be assured freedom and peace in the full devel-
opment of its national life and in the realization of international
opportunities. The task of America is different. It is for her
to find the way by which these races, living on one soil, under
one form of government, with no territorial lines, can be assimi-
lated and become a part of her integral national life.

Admittedly America has not fully succeeded. The absence
of definition, of principles, and of methods of Americanization
shows her success thus far to have been rather a happy acci-
dent, an outcome which cannot be expected in a more exacting

1 Reprinted from the Yale Review, January, 1919.
623

624 AMERICANISM

future. Has it been regarded as a war necessity to be dealt
with expeditiously and then dropped, or will it become a science,
thereby progressing from emotion to reason, from impulse to
logic, and from chaos to order? With the war ended, there is
danger that we will turn aside to new interests, unless a founda-
tion of science can be laid and a philosophy evolved.

When the country first tried in 1915 to Americanize its for-
eign-born people, Americanization was thought of quite simply
as the task of bringing native and foreign-born Americans to-
gether, and it was believed that the rest would take, care of
itself. It was thought that if all of us could talk together in a
common language unity would be assured, and that if all were
citizens under one flag no force could separate them. Then
the war came, intensifying the native nationalistic sense of
every race in the world. We found alien enemies in spirit among
the native-born children of the foreign-born in America; we
found old stirrings in the hearts of men, even when they were
naturalized citizens, and a desire to take part in the world
struggle, not as Americans, but as Jugo-Slavs or Czecho-Slovaks.
We found belts and stockings stuffed with gold to be taken home,
when peace should be declared, by men who will go back to work
out their destinies in a land they thought never to see again.
We found strong racial groups in America split into factions and
bitterly arraigned against one another. We found races oppos-
ing one another because of prejudices and hatreds born hundreds
of years ago thousands of miles away. We awoke to the fact
that old-world physical and psychological characteristics per-
sisted under American clothes and manners, and that native
economic conditions and political institutions and the influences
of early cultural life were enduring forces to* be reckoned with
in assimilation. We discovered that while a common language
and citizenship may be portals to a new nation, men do not
necessarily enter thereby, nor do they assume more than an
outer likeness when they pass through.

We disagree about who should be Americanized. The im-
migrant, working in some of the industries, and set apart from
American life, thinks the native-born needs it most ; the Amer-
ican, visiting the crowded quarters of his city, thinks the im-
migrant needs it more ; and there is as yet no common meeting

WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION 625

ground of men's minds upon whom to Americanize and espe-
cially upon how to go about it. Despite the great contributive
value of the Liberty Loan, the Red Cross, the war camp com-
munities, the Councils of Defense, and other activities that are
helping to unite the many peoples, the fusion of a youthful
race with those wise races of the old world, which have with-
stood many an enthusiasm and many a peril, cannot be achieved
by a popular movement or by sporadic specialized campaigns.
Without specific knowledge of points of differentiation and
without sympathetic points of contact, anything like real fusion
becomes impossible.

Much of the present unpopularity of the theory of Ameri-
canization is due to confusion in men's minds. It has grown
with such rapidity that this has been inevitable. One thinks
it is summed up in learning the English language; another
thinks it is achieved by becoming an American citizen ; a third,
that it is adopting American clothes and manners and associ-
ating with native Americans ; and a fourth, that it means that
everybody should be able to sing " The Star Spangled Banner."
The means of Americanization are still confused with its es-
sence. While the necessary things were being done each day
to help win the war, people were asking : Can we work intelli-
gently and effectively together in a national effort, without
agreement as to the definition, the substance, and the form
of Americanization? What are the probabilities of success
if these matters are left to the individual determination of the
thousands of persons and of agencies now at work American-
izing the 2400 or more communities having foreign-born res-
idents? They are beginning to ask what will be the final inde-
structible definitions and principles of Americanization and
what are to be its finally approved methods. So early in the
experiment the answers can only be postulated.

Americanization is the science of racial relations in America,
dealing with the assimilation and amalgamation of diverse
races in equity into an integral part of its national life. By
" assimilation" is meant the indistinguishable incorporation
of the races into the substance of American life. By "amalga-
mation" is meant so perfect a blend that the absence or imper-
fection of any of the vital racial elements available will impair

626 AMERICANISM

the compound. By "an integral part" is meant that, once
fused, separation of units is thereafter impossible. By "in
equity" is meant impartiality among the races accepted for
the blend, with no imputations of inferiority and no bestowal
of favors. With anything less than this in mind, America
will fall short of a science and of giving the world anything of
lasting value for its racial problems. Nation building is to
be in the future a deliberate formative process, not an acci-
dental, dynastic, geographical, and economic arrangement. It
is to consider the rights and desires and hopes of races. It is
to be a deliberative process, and as such must be selective. If
the Allies succeed in freeing the small nations, as now seems
certain, the world will witness the most interesting and dra-
matic re-assemblage of races that has ever taken place in history.

In America, where many peoples are held together largely
by their sense of opportunities and their hope of reward, the
subject is of the gravest concern. The attitude and reactions
of the native-born American who believes in Americanization,
and the one who does not, with all shades of opinion and of
feeling lying between the two extremes, are to be considered.
There is the man who comes here to stay and the one who in-
tends to return. There is the racial solidarist bent upon re-
establishing his own race here with as few changes as possible.
There is the race which hates another, and for its own inde-
pendent reasons tries to block its progress in the new land.
We have to reckon with a situation created by men who are repre-
sentatives of powerful foreign corporations, who will spend
their lives here, make their homes here, and who never intend
to become part of America. There are leaders who manipulate
their people in the interest of the country of their origin, as
well as those genuinely interested in serving America. In
addition, there are factions in each race having no desire to
unite with one another; there are races opposed to healing
their own differences of centuries ago ; and there are groups
passionately devoted to their own culture and ideals, to which
in their opinion nothing can compare.

This is a bird's-eye view of the substance with which Amer-
icanization deals. The burden of Americanization to-day lies
as much among the various races as between the native-born

WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION 627

and any given race. It is often easier for native- and foreign-
born to fuse than it is for diverse races, and the native-born is
often an indispensable element of fusion among the new-
comers. Americanization is also essentially a problem of men,
since the women of old races in America still follow the leader-
ship of their men.

It is obvious that, with the best intentions in the world,
Americanization cannot be established by propaganda. It is
evident that, valuable as are the campaigns and parades and
crusades of one kind or another, so long as they are without
coherent form and interrelation they reach only the mass and
may often add to rather than decrease the confusion. To reach
the thousand subtle strains running through these old races,
so highly organized and yet so intensely personal, American-
ization must be simplified. It must find a way of reaching and
holding the individual. We face the indisputable fact that al-
most without exception every foreign-born male adult is a
member of some racial organization which takes precedence in
his mind over every other form of association, of which he is
a significant part, and in which he is recognized as an indi-
vidual of worth and standing.

Americanization to-day is little more than an impulse, and its
context, as popularly conceived, is both narrow and super-
ficial. As French has been the language of diplomacy in the
past, so English is to be the language of the reconstruction of
the world. English is the language of 90,000,000 people living
in America. The English language is a highway of loyalty;
it is a medium of exchange ; it is the open door to opportunity ;
it is a means of common defense. It is an implement of Amer-
icanization, but it is not necessarily Americanization. The
American who thinks that America is united and safe when
all men- speak one language has only to look at Austria and
to study the Jugo-Slav and Czecho-Slovak nationalistic move-
ments. The imposition of a language is not the creation of
nationalism. A common language is essential to a common
understanding, and by all means let America open such a line
of communication. The traffic that goes over this line is, how-
ever, the vital thing, and what that shall be and how it is to
be prepared are matters to which but little thought has been

628 AMERICANISM

given. Even those who urge the abolition of all other languages
are indefinite about the restriction. Shall a man after he has
learned English be allowed to get news in a foreign language
paper and to worship in his native tongue; and if not, what
becomes of the liberty which he is urged to learn English in
order to appreciate? Are foreign languages to be encouraged
as an expression of culture and to be denied as a means of eco-
nomic and political expression? The English language cam-
paigns in America have failed because they have not secured
the support of the foreign-born. Men must have reasons for
learning new languages, and America has never presented
the case conclusively or satisfactorily. Furthermore, wher-
ever the case has been presented, it has not been done with
the proper facilities and under favorable conditions. The
working day must not be so long that men cannot study.

Americanization is a common citizenship. Does it make
any difference what kind of citizenship, and over what road
a man travels mentally, spiritually, and economically to citi-
zenship? If every man in America were to be made into a
citizen to-morrow by any of the prevailing superficial methods,
America basically would be unchanged, and most of the new
citizens would not be greatly affected. Would the examination
of any ten newly naturalized citizens give a common denom-
inator of Americanization? How can it when several thousand
judges who apply the tests vary in their own concept so widely
that of two men equally qualified one gets the coveted paper
and the other fails? And what of women, who become citizens
automatically with their husbands, and who in three of the
greatest immigration States in the union have equal citizenship
powers? Are we really any nearer Americanization with each
new citizen admitted by inadequate naturalization law require-
ments and through superficial judicial examinations?

Beyond the slogans of "a common language and a common
citizenship" a program of Americanization has not been
accepted. America, the greatest immigration country in the
world, has no national domestic policy whatsoever and no
organization as a government for dealing with race assimila-
tion, its most delicate and fundamental problem. Americans
like to think hi a crude way of this country as a melting pot,

WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION 629

with peasants from Ellis Island going in at the top and citi-
zens in American clothes going out at the bottom. We now
know there has been little real change accomplished, and we
are beginning to wonder whether the new arrival needs as
much change as we thought he did to become one of us.

There is but one way to Americanize — for each and every
American to understand the ideals of America and to be able
to interpret them in every act of his daily life. But this alone
is not enough. Groups of men, from the humblest unit to the
greatest political entity in the country, must be able to do
this in combination ; and there must be agreement. There are
certain things that men go all over the world to find. Where
those things exist men stay ; when they fail men leave. These
things are basic. They are opportunities to better conditions,
to be equal to other men, to have the right to be heard, freedom
of thought, worship, and speech, and to enjoy life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. It is for this that men desert their
home countries, and it is for this that they may desert America
if their native lands in Europe offer the same great adventure
and reward.

Americanization is the process, then, of guaranteeing these
fundamental requisites to each man, native and foreign-born
alike, and just in proportion as the English language and citi-
zenship interpret these requisites, they are Americanization
agencies. The failure of Americanization in the past years
is identical with the failure of these guarantees. It is in the
home, the shop, the neighborhood, the church, and the court
that Americanization is wrought, and the mutual relations of
races in America as expressed in them will give the eternal
principles of race assimilation that we seek. To-day these basic
points are disregarded and it is thought that committees and
community councils piled high upon one another will do the
work. The chief value of most of such organizations is in edu-
cating the native-born American; there is abundant evidence
that the foreign -born adult is not greatly drawn to this country
as a result of them.

How can America be in a position to assimilate its many
races and to select intelligently its future immigrants unless
it has a clear understanding of each race, a clear comprehension

630 AMERICANISM

of its ideals and achievements and of its contributive rela-
tion to its own development? We have tried the haphazard
method. We concentrated races indiscriminately in cities,
and the result was colonies and ghettos. We dumped them into
industries, and got immigrant slums and " dagos" and "hunk-
ies" and " kikes." We tried to shut them out, and could think
of nothing better to accomplish this than a literacy test. We set
the beauty-loving Italian digging ditches and put the Greek in
factories, and in our negligence we wasted both.

On the reverse side, we have failed to give the immigrant
accessibility to American traditions, beliefs, art, and literature.
He has had little cooperative participation in the creation,
maintenance, and management of our economic forces. He has
not been permitted to incorporate into the processes of American
invention and research the processes of his own genius.

America is to-day without the necessary information upon
which to proceed intelligently. Much of the propaganda es-
sential to winning the war has made the ground look like a
battlefield after a tank has passed over it — ploughed deep but
unfit for culture for some time to come. Nowhere is there a
clear authoritative statement of the contribution of the vari-
ous races as such to America. Nowhere is there, an analysis
of what they have brought or can bring, and of all that material
which we have not used. Nowhere is there information as to
what they take or of what they want most from America. Tons
of literature are printed and sent out daily by all kinds of agencies,
with seldom a consultation with the foreigner as to how it fits
the needs of his race. We ignore in most racial meetings the
knowledge which is there outlined, and violate very nearly every
sound principle of race psychology. We get as a result the minds
of the newcomers but not their hearts ; their respectful attention
but not their conversion. We get their cash contributions for
American war activities and charities, but we do not succeed
in creating in them the desire to stay here permanently.

America must be voluntarily chosen by its new citizens, or
it will not represent their aspirations or satisfy their needs.
The greater the freedom given for creative impulse and varia-
tion in expression, the richer will be the resultant American
life. And in the future American ideals will have to be both

WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION 631

more exalted and more practical than in the past, and its life
will have to square more generally with them, because the
lands from which these peoples come will be free from the yoke
of oppression. Democracy being free for the world, they may
then realize in many lands the dreams which to them once
made America the only land where such dreams could come
true. j

The first principle in race fusion is the opportunity to es-
tablish a home base in a country and a genuine love for that
home. The home sense in the many peoples that have come
to America is inseparable from the sense of the soil itself. Many
immigrants have lived close to it, dug their hands into it, planted
in it, watched their crops grow, and had a home stake around
which cluster a thousand associations. Whatever there is of
poetry in their lives is associated with the soil, and their worship
is inseparable from it. Whatever there is heroic in their mem-
ories comes to them through it. In America it is not so. The
majority of immigrants, with this land allegiance strong within
them, find their way into crowded cities and unsightly industrial
towns. They have little chance to plant and to harvest and to
acquire a home stake ; and when they do acquire it they cling
to America. What do these men know, until perhaps it is too
late, of the beauty of the expanse of America, and of the citi-
zenship which gives them a partnership in national parks ? What
do they know of the traditions and achievements of Americans,
inseparably linked with American soil? That allegiance of
America which is part of real Americanization must somehow
find a way of establishing affection for the soil.

When we think of the crowded tenements, with^hard as-
phalt pavements and never a blade of grass or a tree; of the
ghettos and colonies in cities ; of the unsightly industrial towns ;
of the labor shacks along our great construction works ; of the
derailed box cars ; of the immigrant section across the railroad
track; of the small towns without parks or playgrounds or
music or books ; and then turn to the villages from which most
of the immigrants come — friendly in their associations and
restful in their relationship to the wider life outside — the long-
ing of the immigrant to return is understood. Even the crowded
cities of their native countries have places where one may rest

632 AMERICANISM

the spirit and satisfy the hunger for beauty, by the expenditure
of a carfare or the effort of a short walk. The grim beauty of
our cities, their vitality, their ambition and determination, and
that crude joy of living through which many currents of our
life flow, will not always keep the immigrants from returning
even to the poverty of some of their native towns.

The man with a job to offer or land to sell has been America's
land interpreter. On him has fallen the burden of presenting
its romance, adventure, and beauty. He has failed so often
because the land was not enriched by that cultural develop-
ment and by those associations which satisfy the immigrant's
need. The method has been to build a good industrial plant
and to let the village grow up about it, with little thought of
satisfying the longings of men for religion, knowledge, recre-
ation, or even so simple a thing as gardens. Some time ago a
factory having some idle land wondered what it could do for
Mr. Hoover and started factory gardens, giving each man a
small plot. The management made a discovery. The gardens
cut down labor turnover. The crops were worth very little
money, but the men did not want to leave until they had their
potatoes in.

A first proposition, therefore, in Americanization is to find
a way to satisfy the creative instinct in men and their sense
of home, by giving them and their native-born sons the widest
possible knowledge of America, including a pictorial geography,
a simple history of the United States, the stories of successful
Americans including those of foreign-born origin; a knowledge
of American literature, of our political ideals and institutions,
and of oiy: free educational opportunities. A systematic effort
should be made to give them a land interest and a home stake
and to get them close to the soil, not alone in the day's work
but also in their cultural life. The men most likely to desert
America at the close of the war will be workers with job stakes
and wage rates, and not those with a home stake and invest-
ments. I would carry this campaign of information into every
foreign language publication, every newspaper, every shop, and
every racial center in America. The land interpreter of the
future will be the government, and Franklin K. Lane, Secretary
of the Interior, has foreseen this in his appeal for the use of the

WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION 633

land for the rehabilitation of men returning from the front.
It is the land that will make the life of the maimed livable and
will connect the past with the future. This will not be achieved
by forced " back-to-the-land movements" and colonization.
Each individual American who interprets the beauty of America
and its meaning, and who, wherever he can, personally puts
the foreign-born in touch with the soil and helps him to a plot
of ground which he can call his own, is doing effective Ameri-
canization. Loyalty and efficiency are inherent in this land sense,
and they are the strength of a nation.

A second principle of Americanization is identity of eco-
nomic interest. At this time, after all America has united to
win the war, one hesitates to turn a page so shameful in Amer-
ican history. And yet, if America reverts to its former indus-
trial brutality and indifference, Americanization will fail. Iden-
tity of economic interest, generally speaking, has meant to the
American getting the immigrant to work for him at as low a
wage as possible, for as long hours as possible, and scrapping him
at the end of the game, with as little compunction as he did an
old machine. And the immigrant's successful fellow-country-
man, elevated to be a private banker, a padrone, or a notary
public, has shared the practices of the native American. Always
the immigrant has been in positions of the greatest danger, and
with less safeguards for his care. He has been called by number
and nicknamed and ridiculed. Frequently trades-unions have
excluded him from their benefits, compensation laws have dis-
criminated against him, trades have been closed to him, until
he has wondered in the bitterness of his spirit what American
opportunity was and how he could pursue life, liberty, and happi-
ness at his work. Whenever he has been discontented, the popu-
lar remedy has been higher wages or shorter hours, and rarely
the expansion of personal relationships. Very little self-deter-
mination has been given to him ; on the contrary he has been
made a cog in a highly organized industrial machine. His spirit
has been imprisoned in the hum of machinery. His special gifts
have been lost, even as his lack of skill in mechanical work has
injured delicate processes and priceless materials. His pride has
been humiliated and his initiative stifled because he has been
given little of the artisan's pleasure in seeing his finished product.

634 AMERICANISM

Let us face the inevitable truth. There can be no American-
ization from the top down or in the mass. It will not come
from the court that grants a citizenship certificate; nor from
the school that teaches English; nor from the speakers that
talk patriotism; nor from the patriotic society that prints
platitudes. It will' come from basic conditions being right,
and none is more vital than industrial relations. It will live
as we shorten the distance between the Constitution and the
shop. It will be believed in as we square every act in the shops
of America with every utterance in public print.

Industrial Americanization is not, as we sometimes think,
welfare work, or the introduction of a few makeshifts to keep
men at work. It is the practical operation of the American
spirit in management. The man who comes here expecting
opportunity, fair remuneration for his day's work, fair work-
ing conditions, friendly personal relations, and that the utmost
will be made of his abilities, cannot be met with limitations
and discriminations and still become Americanized. He comes
to escape the brutality of the military system, and he finds the
brutality of the industrial system, ruthless in its destruction of
life and property and morality.

Americanization, which is the achievement of identity of
economic interest, is the granting to men of a fair share of the
returns of their labor, with sufficient leisure to use these re-
turns. It is the satisfaction of the impulse to create things
for use and for beauty rather than for profit alone. It is the
establishment of just relationships and equitable dealing with
all men of all races, including respect and consideration. It
is a share in the management of business, giving men enduring
incentives and a permanent interest and voice in determining
their own working conditions.

Every man lives in his neighborhood, and beyond his home
and his job. To most men, except in the largest cities, the
municipality is interpreted in terms of his neighborhood. Few
men get beyond this except through occasional excursions into
the larger world. America is a country of parallel neighbor-
hoods — the native American in one section and the immigrant
in another. Americanization is the elimination of the parallel
line. So long as the American thinks that a house in his street

WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION 635

is too good for his immigrant neighbor and tolerates discrimi-
nations in sanitation, housing, and enforcement of municipal
laws, he can serve on all Americanization Committees that
exist and still fail in his efforts. The immigrant neighborhood
is often made up of people who have come from one province
in the old country. Inevitably the culture of that neighbor-
hood will be that of the old country; its language will persist
and its traditions will flourish. It is not that we undervalue
these, or desire to discredit them. But separated from the
land and surroundings that gave them birth, from the history
that cherishes them, they do not remain the strong, beautiful
things they were on the other side. These aliens may retain
some of the form of culture of the land of their birth long after
its spirit has departed or has lost its savor in a new atmos-
phere. New opportunities, strange conditions, unforeseen ad-
justments, necessary sacrifices, and forces unseen and not
understood affect the immigrant and his life here, and unless
this culture is connected and fused with that of the new world,
it loses its vitality or becomes corrupt.

For this reason neighborhoods should be American and a
combination of the best of all the races that live in them. It is
here that the school can become the conference center and the
council chamber. It is the one American institution to be
found in every town — free, neutral, and powerful. During the
daytime it has the children who can interpret it; during the
evening it may have the parents who need it for their commu-
nity expression. From the schoolhouse come the beliefs that
living conditions should be decent, that laws should be enforced
for all alike, that there should be no racial discriminations.
From participation in neighborhood activities and in govern-
ing their own communities, the immigrant will grow into the
larger responsibilities of State and nation. In order that Ameri-
can political ideals should be understood by him, they must
be lived within his consciousness, in the small radius of his
neighborhood, and in that way he must see exemplified what-
ever American literature, art, music, and science have to give.

So long as colonies and immigrant sections exist, with their
inferior housing, sanitation, and care, Americanization will
fail. It matters not at all that we satisfy our conscience by

636 AMERICANISM

saying that immigrants prefer to live this way or that they
lived this way in their own country. To say this is to forget
that the crowded dwelling in Italy through which permeated
the beauty and art, the religion, tradition, and association of
the old country, is vastly different from the huts across the
railroad track filled with strangers to whom the shop and saloon
are the centers of gravity.

The immigrant looks to us to exemplify our Constitution
and our ideals, and in his heart he respects us less for not main-
taining our own standards for all people alike. So long as we
fail to realize that the desire for education, for the opportunity
to worship, for fellowship, and for community service are big
factors in men's lives, we shall not reach the basis of Americani-
zation, especially in the small industrial towns now coming into
new life throughout the country by the rearrangement of indus-
tries through government contracts. Neighborhood Ameri-
canization means the opportunity of each individual citizen
to establish personal sympathetic relations. It is mutual co-
operation in neighborhood affairs. It is the development of
the school. as a community center. It is the neutral ground upon
which men meet in recreation, in social relationships, and in
intellectual debate.

The sources of authority in America are the final interpret-
ers of Americanism. These are the legislature and the court.
Every other Americanization achievement stands or falls
finajly according to the way equity is maintained among men.
The administration of justice is the determining factor in men's
lives, whether they turn to or from America. It is for the court
to make clear the difference between liberty and license, and
at the same time assure to each man alike the right to free
speech. Let inequalities appear and Americanization is defeated.
It is for the court to impose duties while it makes clear the
opportunities, and to see that duties and privileges are alike
the heritage of all free men. Free education is placed at the
disposal of all people in America, but it is the duty of all to main-
tain and extend its benefits. It is well to set the immigrant in
the pursuit of liberty and happiness when he lands here, but
without safeguards against exploitation he can scarcely be blamed
if he concludes that such liberty is a delusion of American minds.

WHAT IS AMERICANIZATION 637

The most moving appeal from the greatest of orators, the most
beautifully written declaration of rights, the finest interpretation
of American ideals by any living American finds the immigrant
unresponsive if he has suffered injustice, if he has been denied
a hearing, or if he has failed to see realized in the land of his
dreams the things for which he left his native land. He forgives
the man who has wronged him; he never forgets the govern-
ment that has failed him. The law which was passed in one of
the States prohibiting an alien from owning a dog, the enforce-
ment of which resulted in deception and lying, has done much
to imperil the immigrant's faith in the justice of American
ideals. It reached his heart and his home, and he has never
understood a country whose highest authority — the court —
sanctioned such discriminations.

Americanization having its roots in political ideals cannot
be achieved so long as these ideals, as interpreted by the sources
of authority in America, mean one thing for the native-born
and another thing for the foreign-born ; one thing for men anc
another for women; one thing for employers and another for
employees; one thing for the rich and another for the poor;
one thing in one State and another thing in an adjoining State.
No American who hopes for national unity can spend too much
time insisting upon the most painstaking interpretation of the
guarantees of American law, even though it takes him into such
technical matters as interpreter service, cost of appeals, dis-
criminatory laws, and race prejudices. Every support of a sound
Americanism is strong or weak according as justice is done or
not done.

America is no longer afraid of the word culture. In fact, it is
considering quite seriously in some quarters having a culture of
its own and calling it by that name. This makes it possible to
consider as Americanization a recognition of the cultural forces
in the various races as expressed in their literature and insti-
tutions. There is a growing appreciation of the fraternal and
religious forces in the lives of the various races and their indis-
pensable value in race fusion. In the old world, the cultural life
of a race is so inextricably associated with their religious life
that its first vital contact with American cultural life would seem
to proceed along the lines of religious and fraternal development.

638 AMERICANISM

For this reason, in any cultural development in which the
immigrant shares and is a real contributive factor, a way
must be found to make his religious beliefs and experience of
use. This means more than to permit him to worship in his
own way. It means more than toleration. It means the use for
America of the finest aspirations and traditions of these men.
It means an appreciation of their literature and of the art which
has come out of these beliefs.

Americanization, finally, is not any one of these things alone.
There may be a home stake, and in the absence of identity of
economic interest, it may fail. All other elements may be
present, but if the court fails, the immigrant turns away. Ameri-
canization is the bringing to bear in the life of every stranger
who enters the country, the sum total of American ideals in
his home, in the shop, in the neighborhood, and in the legisla-
tures and courts. The native-born American is the keeper of
these ideals. His is the spirit that will maintain the free and
strong institutions of America. His reception of the immigrant
and the contacts he makes with him in large measure determine
the immigrant's understanding of America and his reaction
towards it. It is here that we enter the field of the science of
racial relations. No effective program can be made until
we set our own house in order, until we attain the right attitude
individually, and until we equip ourselves with the necessary
information to give us the right approach to the many races
who are among us but not of us, whose faces, regardless of the
high wages, the luxuries, and the freedom of America, are set
towards the east.

"TRUE AMERICANISM 1

Louis D. BRANDEIS, JUSTICE or SUPREME COURT

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN : E pluribus unum — out of
many one — was the motto adopted by the founders of the
Republic when they formed a union of the thirteen States. To
these we have added, from time to time, thirty-five more. The
founders were convinced, as we are, that a strong nation could
be built through federation. They were also convinced, as
we are, that in America, under a free government, many peoples
would make one nation. Throughout all these years we have
admitted to our country and to citizenship immigrants from the
diverse lands of Europe. We had faith that thereby we could
best serve ourselves and mankind. This faith has been justified.
The United States has grown great. The immigrants and their
immediate descendants have proved themselves as loyal as
any citizens of the country. Liberty has knit us closely together
as Americans. Note the common devotion to our country's
emblem expressed at the recent Flag Day celebration in New
York by boys and girls representing more than twenty different
nationalities warring abroad.

On the nation's birthday it is customary for us to gather to-
gether for the purpose of considering how we may better serve
our country. This year we are asked to address ourselves to
the newcoihers and to make this Fourth of July what has been
termed Americanization Day.

AMERICANIZATION

What is Americanization? It manifests itself, in a superficial
way, when the immigrant adopts the clothes, the manners, and
the customs generally prevailing here. Far more important is the
manifestation presented when he substitutes for his mother tongue
the English language as the common medium of speech. But the
adoption of our language, manners, and customs is only a small

1 An oration delivered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, July 5, 1915 ; printed in Boston
City Record, July 10, 1915.

639

640 AMERICANISM

part of the process. To become Americanized the change wrought
must be fundamental. However great his outward conformity,
the immigrant is not Americanized unless his interests and affec-
tions have become deeply rooted here. And we properly demand
of the immigrant even more than this. He must be brought
into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and coop-
erate with us for their attainment. Only when this has been
done will he possess the national consciousness of an American.

I say "He must be brought into complete harmony." But
let us not forget that many a poor immigrant comes to us from
distant lands, ignorant of our language, strange in tattered
clothes and with jarring manners, who is already truly American
in this most important sense ; who has long shared our ideals
and who, oppressed and persecuted abroad, has yearned for our
land of liberty and for the opportunity of aiding in the realization
of its aims.

AMERICAN IDEALS

What are the American ideals? They are the development of
the individual for his own and the common good ; the develop-
ment of the individual through liberty, and the attainment of
the common good through democracy and social justice.

Our form of government, as well as humanity, compels us to
strive for the development of the individual man. Under
universal suffrage (soon to be extended to women) every voter is
a part ruler of the state. Unless the rulers have, in the main,
education and character, and are free men, our great^ experiment
in democracy must fail. It devolves upon the state, therefore,
to fit its rulers for their task. It must provide not only facilities
for development, but the opportunity of using them. It must not
only provide opportunity; it must stimulate the desire to
avail of it. Thus we are compelled to insist upon observance of
what we somewhat vaguely term the American standard of
living ; we become necessarily our brothers' keepers.

THE AMERICAN STANDARD OF LIVING

What does this standard imply? In substance, the exercise
of those rights which our Constitution guarantees — the right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Life, in this connection,

TRUE AMERICANISM 641

means living, not existing ; liberty, freedom in things indus-
trial as well as political ; happiness includes, among other things,
that satisfaction which can come only through the full develop-
ment and utilization of one's faculties. In order that men may
live and not merely exist, in order that men may develop their
faculties, they must have a reasonable income ; they must have
health and leisure. High wages will not meet the worker's
need unless employment be regular. The best of wages will not
compensate for excessively long working hours which undermine
health. And working conditions may be so bad as to nullify
the good effects of high wages and short hours. The essentials
of American citizenship are not satisfied by supplying merely the
material needs or even the wants of the worker.

Every citizen must have education — broad and continuous.
This essential of citizenship is not met by an education which
ends at the age of fourteen, or even at eighteen or twenty-two.
Education must continue throughout life. A country cannot be
governed well by rulers whose education and mental development
is limited to their attendance at the common school. Whether
the education of the citizen in later years is to be given in classes
or from the public platform, or is to be supplied through dis-
cussion in the lodges and the trade-unions, or is to be gained from
the reading of papers, periodicals, and books, in any case freshness
of mind is indispensable to its attainment. And to the pres-
ervation of freshness of mind a short workday is as essential
as adequate food and proper conditions of working and of living.
The worker must, in other words, have leisure. But leisure
does not imply idleness. It means ability to work, not less, but
more, ability to work at something besides breadwinning, ability
to work harder while working at breadwinning, and ability to
work more years at breadwinning. Leisure, so defined, is an
essential of successful democracy.

Furthermore, the citizen in a successful democracy must not
only have education; he must be free. Men are not free if
dependent industrially upon the arbitrary will of another.
Industrial liberty on the part of the worker cannot, therefore,
exist if there be overweening industrial power. Some curb
must be placed upon capitalistic combination. Nor will
even this curb be effective unless the workers cooperate, as

642 AMERICANISM

in trade-unions. Control and cooperation are both essential to
industrial liberty.

And if the American is to be fitted for his task as ruler, he
must have besides education and industrial liberty also some
degree of financial independence. Our existing industrial system
is converting an ever increasing percentage of the population
into wage earners, and experience teaches us that a large part
of these become at some time financial dependents, by reason
of sickness, accident, invalidity, superannuation, unemploy-
ment or premature death of the breadwinner of the family.
Contingencies like these, which are generally referred to in the
individual case as misfortunes, are now recognized as ordinary
incidents in the life of the wage earner. The need of providing
indemnity against financial losses from such ordinary contin-
gencies in the workingman's life has become apparent and is
already being supplied in other countries. The standard worthy
to be called American implies some system of social insurance.

And since the child is the father of the man, we must bear
constantly in mind that the American standard of living cannot
be attained or preserved unless the child is not only well fed but
well born; unless he lives under conditions wholesome morally
as well as physically; unless he is given education adequate
both in quantity and in character to fit him for life's work.

THE DISTINCTLY AMERICAN

Such are our ideals and the standard of living we have erected
for ourselves. But what is there in these ideals which is peculiarly
American? Many nations seek to develop the individual man
for himself and for the common good. Some are as liberty-
loving as we. Some pride themselves upon institutions more
democratic than our own. Still others, less conspicuous for
liberty or democracy, claim to be more successful in attaining
social justice. And we are not the only nation which combines
love of liberty with the practice of democracy and a longing for
social justice. But there is one feature in our ideals and prac-
tices which is peculiarly American. It is inclusive brotherhood.

Other countries, while developing the individual man, have
assumed that their common good would be attained only if the

TRUE AMERICANISM 643

privileges of citizenship in them should be limited practically to
natives or to persons of a particular nationality. America, on
the other hand, has always declared herself for equality of nation-
alities as well as for equality of individuals. It recognizes racial
equality as an essential of full human liberty and true brother-
hood, and that it is the complement of democracy. It has,
therefore, given like welcome to all the peoples of Europe.

Democracy rests upon two pillars : one, the principle that all
men are equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness ; and the other, the conviction that such equal opportunity
will most advance civilization. Aristocracy, on the other hand,
denies both these postulates. It rests upon the principle of the
superman. It willingly subordinates the many to the few, and
seeks to justify sacrificing the individual by insisting that
civilization will be advanced by such sacrifices.

The struggles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries both
in peace and in war were devoted largely to overcoming the aris-
tocratic position as applied to individuals. In establishing the
equal right of every person to development it became clear that
equal opportunity for all involves this necessary limitation:
each man may develop himself so far, but only so far, as his
doing so will not interfere with the exercise of a like right by
all others. Thus liberty came to mean the right to enjoy life,
to acquire property, to pursue happiness in such manner and to
such extent only as the exercise of the right in each is consistent
with the exercise of a like right by every other of our fellow-
citizens. Liberty thus defined underlies twentieth century
democracy. Liberty thus defined exists in a large part of the
western world. And even where this equal right of each individ-
ual has not yet been accepted as a political right, its ethical
claim is gaining recognition.

America, dedicated to liberty and the brotherhood of man,
rejected the aristocratic principle of the superman as applied
to peoples as it rejected it as applied to individuals. America has
believed that each race had something of peculiar values which
it can contribute to the attainment of those high ideals for which
it is striving. America has believed that we must not only give
to the immigrant the best that we have, but must preserve for
America the good that is in the immigrant and develop in him

644 AMERICANISM

the best of which he is capable. America has believed that in
differentiation, npt in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It
acted on this belief ; it has advanced human happiness, and it
has prospered.

WAR AND PEACE

On the other hand, the aristocratic theory as applied to peoples
survived generally throughout Europe. It was there assumed by
the stronger countries that the full development of one people
necessarily involved its domination over another, and that
only by such domination would civilization advance. Strong
nationalities, assuming their own superiority, came to believe
that they possessed the divine right to subject other peoples to
their sway ; and the belief in the existence of such a right ripened
into a conviction that there was also a duty to exercise it. The
Russianizing of Finland, the Prussianizing of Poland and Alsace,
the Magyarizing of Croatia, the persecution of the Jews in Russia
and Rumania, are the fruits of this arrogant claim of superiority,
and that claim is also the underlying cause of the present war.

The movements of the last century have proved that whole
peoples have individuality no less marked than that of the single
person; that the individuality of a people is irrepressible, and
that the misnamed internationalism which seeks the oblitera-
tion of nationalities or peoples is unattainable. The new nation-
alism adopted by America proclaims that each race or people, like
each individual, has the right and duty to develop, and that only
through such differentiated development will high civilization
be attained. Not until these principles of nationalism, like
those of democracy, are generally accepted will liberty be fully
attained and minorities be secure in their rights. Not until then
can the foundation be laid for a lasting peace among the nations.

The world longs for an end of this war, and even more for a
peace that will endure. It turns anxiously to the United States,
the one great neutral country, and bids us point the way. And
may we not answer: Go the way of liberty and justice — led
by democracy and the new nationalism. Without these, inter-
national congresses and supreme courts will prove vain and
disarmament "The Great Illusion."

AMERICANISM 1
THEODORE ROOSEVELT, LL.D.

FOUR centuries and a quarter have gone by since Columbus
by discovering America opened the greatest era in world
history. Four centuries have passed since the Spaniards began
that colonization on the main land which has resulted in the
growth of the nations of Latin-America. Three centuries have
passed since, with the settlements on the coasts of Virginia and
Massachusetts, the real history of what is now the United States
began. All this we ultimately owe to the action of an Italian
seaman in the service of a Spanish King and a Spanish Queen.
It is eminently fitting that one of the largest and most influential
social organizations of this great Republic, — a Republic in which
the tongue is English, and the blood derived from many
sources, — should, in its name, commemorate the great Italian.
It is eminently fitting to make an address on Americanism
before this society. t

DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES

We of the United States need above all things to remember
that, while we are by blood and culture kin to each of the nations
of Europe, we are also separate from each of them. We are a new
and -distinct nationality. We are developing our own distinctive
culture and civilization, and the worth of this civilization will
largely depend upon our determination to keep it distinctively
our own. -Our sons and daughters should be educated here and
not abroad. We should freely take from every other nation
whatever we can make of use, but we should adopt and develop
to our own peculiar needs what we thus take, and never be
content merely to copy.

Our nation was founded to perpetuate democratic principles.
These principles are that each man is to be treated on his worth

1 An address delivered before the Knights of Columbus, Carnegie Hall, New
York, October 12, 1915.

645

646 AMERICANISM

as a man without regard to the land from which his forefathers
came and without regard to the creed which he professes. If
the United States proves false to these principles of civil and
religious liberty, it will have inflicted the greatest blow on the
system of free popular government that has ever been inflicted.
Here we have had a virgin continent on which to try the experi-
ment of making out of divers race stocks a new nation and of
treating all the citizens of that nation in such a fashion as to
preserve them equality of opportunity in industrial, civil, and/
political life. Our duty is to secure each man against any in-
justice by his fellows.

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

One of the most important things to secure for him is the right
to hold and to express the religious views that best meet his own
soul needs. Any political movement directed against any body
of our fellow- citizens because of their religious creed is a grave
offense against American principles and American institutions.
It is a wicked thing either to support or to oppose a man because
of the creed he professes. This applies to Jew and Gentile, to
Catholic and Protestant, and to the man^who would be regarded
as unorthodox by all of them alike. Political movements directed
against men because of their religious belief, and intended to
prevent men of that creed from holding office, have never accom-
plished anything but harm. This was true in the days of the
" Know-No thing " and Native-American parties in the middle
of the last century ; and it is just as true to-day. Such a movement
directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself. Wash-
ington and his associates believed that it was essential to the
existence of this Republic that there should never be. any union
of Church and State ; and such union is partially accomplished
wherever a given creed is aided by the State or when any public
servant is elected or defeated because of his creed. The Con-
stitution explicitly forbids the requiring of any religious test as
a qualification for holding office. To impose such a test by
popular vote is as bad as to impose it by law. To vote either for
or against a man because of his creed is to impose upon him a
religious test and is a clear violation of the spirit of the Con-
stitution.

ROOSEVELT'S AMERICANISM 647

Moreover, it is well to remember that these movements never
achieve the end they nominally have in view. They do nothing
whatsoever except to increase among the men of the various
churches the spirit of sectarian intolerance which is base and
unlovely in any civilization, but which is utterly revolting among
a free people that profess tl\e principles we profess. No such
movement can ever permanently succeed here. All that it does
is for a decade or so to greatly increase the spirit of theological
animosity, both among the people to whom it appeals and among
the people whom it assails. Furthermore, it has in the past in-
variably resulted, in so far as it was successful at all, in putting
unworthy men into office; for there is no thing ^ that a man
of loose principles and of evil practices in public life so desires
as the chance to distract attention from his own shortcomings
and misdeeds by exciting and inflaming theological and sectarian
prejudice.

We must recognize that it is a cardinal sin against democracy
to support a man for public office because he belongs to a given
creed or to oppose him because he belongs to a given creed.
It is just as evil as to draw the line between class and class,
between occupation and occupation in political life. No man
who tries to draw either line is a good American. True American-
ism demands that we judge each man on his conduct, that we so
judge him in private life and that we so judge him in public life.
The line of cleavage drawn on principle and conduct in public
affairs is never in any healthy community identical with the line
of cleavage -between creed and creed or between class and class.
On the contrary, where the community life is healthy, these lines
of cleavage almost always run nearly at right angles to one
another. It is eminently necessary to all of us that we should
have able and honest public officials in the nation, in the city,
in the state. If we make a serious and resolute effort to get such
officials of the right kind, men who shall not only be honest
but shall be able and shall take the right view of public questions,
we will find as a matter of fact that the men we thus choose will
be drawn from the professors of every creed and from among
men who do not adhere to any creed.

For thirty-five years I have been more or less actively engaged
in public life, in the performance of my political duties, now in

648 AMERICANISM

a public position, now in a private position. I have fought with
all the fervor I possessed for the various causes in which with all
my heart I believed ; and in every fight I thus made I have had
with me and against me Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. There
have been times when I have had to make the fight for or against
some man of each creed on ground^ of plain public morality, un-
connected with questions of public policy. There were other
times when I have made such a fight for or against a given man,
not on grounds of public morality, for he may have been morally
a good man, but on account of his attitude on questions of public
policy, of governmental principle. In both cases, I have always
found myself 4 fighting beside, and fighting against, men of every
creed. The one sure way to have secured the defeat of every good
principle worth fighting for would have been to have permitted
the fight to be changed into one along sectarian lines and inspired
by the spirit of sectarian bitterness, either for the purpose of
putting into public life or of keeping out of public life the be-
lievers in any given creed. Such conduct represents an assault
upon Americanism. The man guilty of it is not a good American.
I hold that in this country there must be complete severance
of Church and State ; that public moneys shall not be used for the
purpose of advancing any particular creed ; and therefore that
the public schools shall be non-sectarian. As a necessary corollary
to this, not only the pupils but the members of the teaching
force and the school officials of all kinds must be treated exactly
on a par, no matter what their creed ; and there must be no more
discrimination against Jew or Catholic or Protestant than dis-
crimination in favor of Jew, Catholic or Protestant. Whoever
makes such discrimination is an enemy of the public schools.

HYPHENATED AMERICANS

What is true of creed is no less true of nationality. There is
no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I
refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized
Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known
were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a
hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as
true of the man who puts " native" before the hyphen as of the

ROOSEVELT'S AMERICANISM 649

man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the
hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul.
Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must
unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance.
But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no
matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as
any one else.

The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to
ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation
at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling
nationalities, an intricate knot- of German-Americans, Irish-
Americans, English-Americans, French- Americans, Scandinavian-
Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate
nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans
of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American
Republic. The men who do not become Americans and nothing
else are hyphenated Americans ; and there ought to be no room
for them in this country. The man who calls himself an American
citizen and who yet shows by his actions that he is primarily the
citizen of a foreign land, plays a thoroughly mischievous part
in the life of our body politic. He has no place here ; and the
sooner he returns to the land to which he feels his real heart-
allegiance, the better it will be for every good American. There
is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good
American. The only man who is a good American is the man who
is an American and nothing else.

I appeal to history. Among the generals of Washington in the
Revolutionary War were Greene, Putnam, and Lee, who were of
English descent ; Wayne and Sullivan, who were of Irish descent ;
Marion, who was of French descent ; Schuyler, who was of Dutch
descent, and Muhlenberg and Herkimer, who were of German
descent. But they were all of them Americans and nothing else,
just as much as Washington. Carroll of Carroll ton was a
Catholic ; Hancock a Protestant ; Jefferson was heterodox from
the standpoint of any orthodox creed ; but these and all the other
signers of the Declaration of Independence stood on an equal-
ity of duty and right and liberty, as Americans an.d nothing else.

So it was in the Civil War. Farragut's father was born in
Spain and Sheridan's father in Ireland ; Sherman and Thomas

650 AMERICANISM

were of English and Custer of German descent ; and Grant came
of a long line of American ancestors whose original home had
been Scotland. But the Admiral was not a Spanish-American;
and the Generals were not Scotch-Americans or Irish-Americans
or English-Americans or German-Americans. They were all
Americans and nothing else. This was just as true of Lee and
of Stonewall Jackson and of Beauregard.

When in 1909 our battlefleet returned from its voyage around
the world, Admirals Wainwright and Schroeder represented the
best traditions and the most effective action in our navy ; one
was of old American blood and of English descent.; the other
was the son of German immigrants. But one was not a native-
American and the other a German-American. Each was an
American pure and simple. Each bore allegiance only to the flag
of the United States. Each would have been incapable of con-
sidering the interests of Germany or of England or of any other
country except the United States.

To take charge of the most important work under my adminis-
tration, the building of the Panama Canal, I chose General
Goethals. Both of his parents were born in Holland. But he
was just plain United States. He wasn't a Dutch- American ; if
he had been I wouldn't have appointed him. So it was with such
men, among those who served under me, as Admiral Osterhaus
and General Barry. The father of one was born in Germany,
the father of the other in Ireland. But they were both Americans,
pure and simple, and first-rate fighting men in addition.

In my Cabinet at the time there were men of English and
French, German, Irish, and Dutch blood, men born on this side
and men born in Germany and Scotland; but they were all
Americans and nothing else; and every one of them was in-
capable of thinking of himself or of his fellow-countrymen,
excepting in terms of American citizenship. If any one of them
had anything in the nature of a dual or divided allegiance in his
soul, he never would have been appointed to serve under me, and
he would have been instantly removed when the discovery was
made. There wasn't one of them who was capable of desiring
that the policy of the United States should be shaped with refer-
ence to the interests of any foreign country or with consideration
for anything, outside of the general welfare of humanity, save the

ROOSEVELT'S AMERICANISM 651

honor and interest of the United States, and each was incapable
of making any discrimination whatsoever .among the citizens
of the country he served, of our common country, save dis-
crimination based on conduct and on conduct alone.

For an American citizen to vote as a German- American, an
Irish- American, or an English-American, is to be a traitor to
American institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who
terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote are
engaged in treason to the American Republic.

PRINCIPLES OF AMERICANISM

Now this is a declaration of principles. How are we in prac-
tical fashion to secure the making of these principles part of the
very fiber of our national life? First and foremost let us all
resolve that in this country hereafter we shall place far less
emphasis upon the question of right and much greater emphasis
upon the matter of duty. A republic can't succeed and won't
succeed in the tremendous international stress of the modern
world unless its citizens possess that form of high-minded
patriotism which consists in putting devotion to duty before the
question of individual rights. This must be done in our family
relations or the family will go to pieces ; and no better tract for
family life in this country can be imagined than the little story
called " Mother," written by an American woman, Kathleen
Norris, who happens to be a member of your own church.

What is true of the family, the foundation stone of our national
life, is not less true of the entire superstructure. I am, as you
know, a most ardent believer in national preparedness against
war as a means of securing that honorable and self-respecting
peace which is the only peace desired by all high-spirited people.
But it is an absolute impossibility to secure such preparedness
in full and proper form if it is an isolated feature of our policy.
The lamentable fate of Belgium has shown that no justice in
legislation or success in business will be of the slightest avail if
the nation has not prepared in advance the strength to protect
its rights. But it is equally true that there cannot be this prep-
aration in advance for military strength unless there is a social
basis of civil and social life behind it. There must be social,

652 AMERICANISM

economic, and military preparedness all alike, all harmoniously
developed ; and above all there must be spiritual and mental
preparedness.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC PREPAREDNESS •

There must be not merely preparedness in things material;
there must be preparedness in soul and mind. To prepare a great
army and navy without preparing a proper national spirit
would avail nothing. And if there is not only a proper national
spirit, but proper national intelligence, we shall realize that even
from the standpoint of the army and navy some civil prepared-
ness is indispensable. For example, a plan for national defense
which does not include the most far-reaching use and cooperation
of our railroads must prove largely futile. These railroads are
organized in time of peace. But we must have the most care-
fully thought out organization from the national and centralized
standpoint in order to use them in time of war. This means
first that those in charge of them from the highest to the lowest
must understand their duty in time of war, must be permeated
with the spirit of geniune patriotism ; and second, that they and
we shall understand that efficiency is as essential as patriotism ;
one is useless without the other.

Again : every citizen should be trained sedulously by every
activity at our command to realize his duty to the nation. In
France at this moment the workingmen who are not at the front
are spending all their energies with the single thought of helping
their brethren at the front by what they do in the munition plant,
on the railroads, in the factories. It is a shocking, a lamentable
thing that many of the trade-unions of England have taken a
directly opposite view. I am not concerned with whether it be
true, as they assert, that their employers are trying to exploit
them, or, as these employers assert, that the labor men are trying
to gain profit for those who stay at home at the cost of their
brethren who fight in the trenches. The thing for us Americans
to realize is that we must do our best to prevent similar conditions
from growing up here. Business men, professional men, and
wage workers alike must understand that there should be no
question of their enjoying any rights whatsoever unless in the
fullest way they recognize and live up to the duties that go with

ROOSEVELT'S AMERICANISM 653

those rights. This is just as true of the corporation as of the
trade-union, and if either corporation or trade-union fails heartily
to acknowledge this truth, then its activities are necessarily
anti-social and detrimental to the welfare of the body politic as a
whole. In war time, when the welfare of the nation is at stake,
it should be accepted as axiomatic that the employer is to make
no profit out of the war save that which is necessary to the effi-
cient running of the business and to the living expenses of himself
and family, and that the wageworker is to treat his wage from
exactly the same standpoint and is to see to it that the labor
organization to which he belongs is, in all its activities, sub-
ordinated to the service of the nation.

Now there must be some application of this spirit in times of
peace or we cannot suddenly develop it in time of war. The
strike situation in the United States at this time is a scandal
to the country as a whole and discreditable alike to employer
and employee. Any employer who fails to recognize that human
rights come first and that the friendly relationship between him-
self and those working for him should be one of partnership and
comradeship in mutual help no less than self-help is recreant to
his duty as an American citizen, and it is to his interest, having
in view the enormous destruction of life in the present war, to
conserve, and to train to higher efficiency, alike for his benefit
and for its, the labor supply. In return any employee who acts
along the lines publicly advocated by the men who profess to
speak for the I. W. W. is not merely an open enemy of business,
but of this entire country and is out of place in our government.

You, Knights of Columbus, are particularly fitted to play a
great part in the movement for national solidarity, without which
there can be no real efficiency in either peace or war. During
the last year and a quarter it has been brought home to us in
startling fashion that many of the elements of our nation are not
yet properly fused. It ought to be a literally appalling fact that
members of two of the foreign embassies in this country have been
discovered to be implicated in inciting their fellow-countrymen,
whether naturalized American citizens or not, to the destruction
of property and the crippling of American industries that are
operating in accordance with internal law and international agree-
ment. The malign activity of one of these embassies has been

654 AMERICANISM

brought home directly to the ambassador in such shape that his
recall has been forced. The activities of the other have been set
forth in detail by the publication in the press of its letters in such
fashion as to make it perfectly clear that they were of the same
general character. Of course, the two embassies were merely
carrying out the instructions of their home governments.

Nor is it only the Germans and Austrians who take the view
that as a matter of right they can treat their countrymen resident
in America, even if naturalized citizens of the United States,
as their allies and subjects, to be used in keeping alive separate
national groups profoundly anti-American in sentiment, if the
contest comes between American interests and those of foreign
lands in question. It has recently been announced that the Rus-
sian government is to rent a house in New York as a national
center to be Russian in faith and patriotism, to foster the Russian
language and keep alive the national feeling in immigrants who
come hither. All of this is utterly antagonistic to proper Ameri-
can sentiment, whether perpetrated in the name of Germany, of
Austria, of Russia, of England, or France or any other country.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF CITIZENS

We should meet this situation by on the one hand seeing that
these immigrants get all their rights as American citizens, and
on the other hand insisting that they live up to their duties as
American citizens. Any discrimination against aliens is a wrong,
for it tends to put the immigrant at a disadvantage and to cause
him to feel bitterness and resentment during the very years when
he should be preparing himself for American citizenship. If an
immigrant is not fit to become a citizen, he should not be allowed
to come here. If he is fit, he should be given all the rights to earn
his own livelihood, and to better himself, that any man can have.
Take such a matter as the illiteracy test ; I entirely agree with
those who feel that many very excellent possible citizens would be
barred improperly by an illiteracy test. But why do you not
admit aliens under a bond to learn to read and write within a
certain time? It would then be a duty to see that they were
given ample opportunity to learn to read and write and that they
were deported if they failed to take advantage of the opportunity.

ROOSEVELT'S AMERICANISM 655

No man can be a good citizen if he is not at least in process of
learning to speak the language of his fellow-citizens. And an
alien who remains here without learning to speak English for more
than a certain number of years should at the end of that time be
treated as having refused to take the preliminary steps neces-
sary to complete Americanization and should be deported. But
there should be no denial or limitation of the alien's opportunity
to work, to own property, and to take advantage of civic oppor-
tunities. Special legislation should deal with the aliens who do
not come here to be made citizens. But the alien who comes here
intending to become a citizen should be helped in every way
to advance himself, should be removed from every possible
disadvantage, and in return should be required under penalty of
being sent back to the country from which he came, to prove
that he is in good faith fitting himself to be an American citizen.

PREPARATIVES TO PREPAREDNESS

Therefore, we should devote ourselves as a preparative to
preparedness, alike in peace and war, to secure the three elemental
things : one, a common language, the English language ; two,
the increase in our social loyalty — citizenship absolutely undi-
vided, a citizenship which acknowledges no flag except the flag
of the United States and which emphatically repudiates all
duality of intention or national loyalty ; and third, an intelligent
and resolute effort for the removal of industrial and social unrest,
an effort which shall aim equally at securing every man his rights
and to make every man understand that unless he in good faith
performs his duties he is not entitled to any rights at all.

The American people should itself do these things for the
immigrants. If we leave the immigrant to be helped by repre-
sentatives of foreign governments, by foreign societies, by a
press and institutions conducted in a foreign language and in
the interest of foreign governments, and if we permit the immi-
grants to exist as alien groups, each group sundered from the
rest of the citizens of the country, we shall store up for ourselves
bitter trouble in the future.

656 AMERICANISM

MILITARY PREPAREDNESS

I am certain that the only permanently safe attitude for this
country as regards national preparedness for self-defense is along
its lines of universal service on the Swiss model. Switzerland is
the most democratic of nations. Its army is the most democratic
army in the world. There isn't a touch of militarism or
aggressiveness about Switzerland. It has been found as a
matter of actual practical experience in Switzerland that the
universal military training has made a very marked increase
in social efficiency and in the ability of the man thus trained to
do well for himself in industry. The man who has received the
training is a better citizen, is more self-respecting, more orderly,
better able to hold his own, and more willing to respect the
rights of others and at the same time he is a more valuable
and better paid man in his business. We need that the navy and
the army should be greatly increased and that their efficiency as
units and in the aggregate should be increased to an even greater
degree than their numbers. An adequate regular reserve should
be established. Economy should be insisted on, and first of all
in the abolition of useless army posts and navy yards. The
National Guard should be supervised and controlled by the
Federal War Department. Training camps such as at Plattsburg
should be provided on a nation-wide basis and the government
should pay the expenses. Foreign-born as well as native-born
citizens should be brought together in those camps; and each
man at the camp should take the oath of allegiance as un-
reservedly and unqualifiedly as the men of its regular army and
navy now take it. Not only should battleships, battle cruisers,
submarines, ample coast and field artillery be provided and a
greater ammunition supply system, but there should be a
utilization of those engaged in such professions as the ownership
and management of motor cars, in aviation, and in the profession
of engineering. Map-making and road improvement should be
attended to, and, as I have already said, the railroads brought
into intimate touch with the War Department. Moreover, the
government should deal with conservation of all necessary war
supplies such as mine products, potash, oil lands, and the like.
Furthermore, all munition plants should be carefully surveyed

ROOSEVELT'S AMERICANISM 657

with special reference to their geographic distribution and for
the possibility of increased munition and supply factories.
Finally, remember that the men must be sedulously trained in
peace to use this material or we shall merely prepare our ships,
guns, and products as gifts to the enemy. All of these things
should be done in any event, but let us never forget that the most
important of all things is to introduce universal military service.
But let me repeat that this preparedness against war must be
based upon efficiency and justice in the handling of ourselves in
/time of peace. If belligerent governments, while we are not
hostile to them but merely neutral, strive nevertheless to make
of this nation many nations, each hostile to the others and none
of them loyal to the central government, then it may be accepted
as certain that they would do far worse to us in time of war.
If they encourage strikes and sabotage in our munition plants
while we are neutral, it may be accepted as axiomatic that they
would do far worse to us if we were hostile. It is our duty from
the standpoint of self-defense to secure the complete Americani-
zation of our people, — to make of the many peoples of this country
a united nation, one in speech and feeling, and all, so far as
possible, sharers in the best that each has brought to our shores.

AMERICANIZATION

The foreign-born population of this country must be an Amer-
icanized population — no other kind can fight the battles of
America either in war or peace. It must talk the language of its
native-born fellow-citizens, it must possess American citizenship
and American ideals. It must stand firm by its oath of allegiance
in word and deed and must show that in very fact it has renounced
allegiance to every prince, potentate, or foreign government.
It must be maintained on an American standard of living so as to
prevent labor disturbances in important plants and at critical
times. None of these objects can be secured as long as we have
immigrant colonies, ghettos, and immigrant sections, and above
all they cannot be assured so long as we consider the immigrant
only as an industrial asset. The immigrant must not be allowed
to drift or to be put at the mercy of the exploiter. Our object
is not to imitate one of the older racial types, but to maintain a

658 AMERICANISM

new American type and then to secure loyalty to this type. We
cannot secure such loyalty unless we make this a country where
men shall feel that they have justice and also where they shall
feel that they are required to perform the duties imposed upon
them. The policy of "Let alone" which we have hitherto pur-
sued is thoroughly vicious from two standpoints. By this policy
we have permitted the immigrants, and too often the native-born
laborers as well, to suffer injustice. Moreover, by this policy
we have failed to impress upon the immigrant and upon the
native-born as well that they are expected to do justice as well as
to receive justice, that they are expected to be heartily and
actively and single-mindedly loyal to the flag no less than to
benefit by living under it.

We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands
of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain
social outcasts and menaces any more than fifty years ago we
could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset
and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big indus-
trial plant and herd men and women about it without care for
their welfare. We cannot afford to permit squalid overcrowding
or the kind of living system which makes impossible the decencies
and necessities of life. We cannot afford the low wage rates and
the merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both
individual and family life and morals to the industrial machinery.
We cannot afford to leave American mines, munitions plants, and
general resources in the hands of alien workmen, alien to America
and even likely to be made hostile to America by machinations
such as have recently been provided in the case of the two foreign
embassies in Washington. We cannot afford to run the risk of
having in time of war men working on our railways or working
in our munition plants who would in the name of duty to their
own foreign countries bring destruction to us. Recent events
have shown us that incitements to sabotage and strikes are in
the view of at least two of the great foreign powers of Europe
within their definition of neutral practices. What would be
done to us in the name of war if these things are done to us in the
name of neutrality ?

Justice Bowling in his speech has described the excellent fourth
degree of your order, of how in it you dwell upon duties rather

ROOSEVELT'S AMERICANISM 659

than rights, upon the great duties of patriotism and of national
spirit. It is a fine thing to have a society that holds up such a
standard of duty. I ask you to make a special effort to deal with
Americanization, the fusing into one nation, a nation necessarily
different from all other nations, of all who come to our shores.
Pay heed to the three principal essentials: (i) the need of a
common language, with a minimum amount of illiteracy; (2)
the need of a common civil standard, similar ideals, beliefs, and
customs symbolized by the oath of allegiance to America ; and
(3) the need of a high standard of living, of reasonable equality
of opportunity and of social and industrial justice. In every great
crisis in our history, in the Revolution and in the Civil War,
and in the lesser crises, like the Spanish war, all factions and
races have been forgotten in the common spirit of Americanism.
Protestant and Catholic, men of English or of French, of Irish
or of German, descent have joined with a single-minded purpose
to secure for the country what only can be achieved by the
resultant union of all patriotic citizens. You of this organization
have done a great service by. your insistence that citizens should
pay heed first of all to their duties. Hitherto undue prominence
has been given to the question of rights. Your organization is a
splendid engine for giving to the stranger within our gates a high
conception of American citizenship. Strive for unity. We suffer
at present from a lack of leadership in these matters.

Even in the matter of national defense there is such a labyrinth
of committees and counsels and advisors that there is a tendency
on the part of the average citizen to become confused and do
nothing. I ask you to help strike the note that shall unite our
people. As a people we must be united. If we are not united we
shall slip into the gulf of measureless disaster. We must be
strong in purpose for our own defense and bent on securing justice
within our borders. If as a nation we are split into warring
camps, if we teach our citizens not to look upon one another as
brothers but as enemies divided by the hatred of creed for creed
or of those of one race against those of another race, surely we
shall fail and our great democratic experiment on this continent
will go down in crushing overthrow. I ask you here to-night and
those like you to take a foremost part in the movement — a
young men's movement — for a greater and better America
in the future.

66o AMERICANISM

ONE AMERICA

All of us, no matter from what land our parents came, no
matter in what way we may severally worship our Creator, must
stand shoulder to shoulder in a united America for the elimination
of race and religious prejudice. We must stand for a reign of
equal justice to both big and small. We must insist on the
maintenance of the American standard of living. We must
stand for an adequate national control which shall secure a better
training of our young men in time of peace, both for the work of
peace and for the work of war. We must direct every national
resource, material and spiritual, to the task not of shirking diffi-
culties, but of training our people to overcome difficulties. Our
aim must be, not to make life easy and soft, not to soften soul
and body, but to fit us in virile fashion to do a great work for all
mankind. This great work can only be done by a mighty democ-
racy, with these qualities of soul, guided by those qualities of
mind, which will both make it refuse to do injustice to any other
nation, and also enable it to hold its own against aggression by
any other nation. In our relations with the outside world, we
must abhor wrongdoing, and disdain to commit it, and we must
no less disdain the baseness of spirit which lamely submits to
wrongdoing. Finally and most important of all, we must strive
for the establishment within our own borders of that stern and
lofty standard of personal and public neutrality which shall
guarantee to each man his rights, and which shall insist in return
upon the full performance by each man of his duties both to his
neighbor and to the great nation whose flag must symbolize in
the future as it has symbolized in the past the highest hopes of
all mankind.

V

WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO THE IMMIGRANT

PHILIP DAVIS, LECTURER ON IMMIGRATION AND AMERICANIZATION
AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

WHAT AMERICA MEANS
THE " SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY"

TO OUR annual million of newcomers, this country is still
the "sweet land of liberty." Fundamentally, it is this idea
of America which fired the imagination of, and gave birth to the
migrating impulse among, the millions of diverse peoples who
knocked at our gates. A recent newcomer, now a drygoods
peddler, was asked to state his reason for coming to America.

" When I was home," he wrote, " I always thought that
America got in it the eternal desires of Man : Liberty, Brother-
hood, and Respect to Men. Of these reasons, I often thought
to come to the land which the great Columbus discovered."

How came this peddler to think that America "got in it the
eternal desires of man " ? Examine the contents of our enormous
foreign mail, written in a babel of tongues and forwarded, post-
haste, to the four corners of the earth. Its chief message to the
whole world is this : "America is a free country." This message
travels with lightning speed from land to land, from hamlet to
hamlet, from man to man.

"America is a free country." As the bugle call rouses the
sleeping hosts at break of day, so have these words roused the
Old World peasantry from its slumber of centuries. They started
the whole of Europe on the march. The European children of
to-day are the American immigrants of to-morrow. For even as
children they learn all about America being a "free country."

"Many years ago," writes a young working girl, "I heard
about America. Those who returned to the Fatherland all said

661

662 AMERICANISM

that America is a free country. I was a child then and I had no
idea of the meaning of it."

But the words stuck to her, apparently. Later their meaning
dawned upon her. Hence she is here now.

The fact that America is not merely a free country, but a
democracy, that is, frankly experimenting in freedom along demo-
cratic lines, all the more strongly appeals to the imagination of
the European masses, especially of the more politically oppressed
peoples. A young man of eighteen, now working in a tobacco
store, illiterate upon his arrival, naively wrote these words
after eight months of study in the Civic Service House :

While in Russia, I read much about the United States and its
government. At that time I could not understand how people can
govern themselves. Now that I have spent nearly eight months in this
country, I came to the conclusion that a democratic government is
more advantageous than a monarchial.

His "conclusion" is based upon the fact that here the people
can "freely express their thoughts and ideas," which he values
greatly, having been tongue-tied in his own country. Free
speech and a free press mean as much to them as they meant
to our forefathers.

Moreover, the immigrant learns early that our democratic
form of government is not merely a passing phase, subject to the
will of a despot, enlightened or unenlightened, but is guaranteed
to us by the Constitution of the United States. An immigrant
girl of fifteen was asked to write a letter about America. This is
what she wrote :

July 12, 1907.

I am only in this country two months. Therefore I cannot write.
But I will write a little about America. This country is for sure a
free country, forever. In March 4, 1789, the Constitution go into
effect. This country became guarantee at liberty of conscience,
free press and free speech. Therefore the Russian people are coming
here because they haven't this in their country. g R

Note the impersonal ending. She does not speak for herself.
She confidently ascribes her reason for coming here to the entire
"Russian People."

WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO IMMIGRANTS 663

It is obvious from these simple statements of these latter-day
pilgrims that the freedom which they have in mind is chiefly
political. The freedom our pilgrim forefathers sought was
mainly religious. But the common love of freedom is still, as
it always has been, the great moving force.

Current literature on immigration refuses to recognize this
common denominator — this world hunger for freedom. It
insists on pointing out differences. The immigrant of yesterday
is lauded ; the immigrant of to-day is tolerated ; the immigrant
of to-morrow is dreaded. The English in America dreaded the
coming of the Irish. The immigrants of Northwestern Europe
dreaded the coming of the Southeastern Europeans. Strangely
enough, the prejudice against the unwelcome stranger is said to
be grounded in the fear of his undermining American liberty,
or, as often plausibly put, his mistaking " liberty for license."
Yet every immigrant, even the humblest peasant, insists that
Liberty is the very thing for which he came.

THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

But there is another side to this story. The immigrant,
shortly after his landing, changes his mind about at least one
phase of American Liberty. He finds here, to be sure, free
speech and a free press. American religious freedom he cannot
gainsay; American political freedom he gravely suspects;
American economic freedom he presently repudiates.

"I am not at all so satisfied from this country," wrote Jennie,
a young white-goods worker, but a few months after her landing.
"It is very hard to gib away alletime to the work and even then
we are not able to make a living because the Bosses are always
explotationists and we must work for them for nothing. Yes,
the American politic liberty don't makes me happy when I see
that the economic liberty is in a bed position."

Another working girl, a skirt finisher, puts the case somewhat
differently : " When I was in ole country, "she writes, "I thought
that America is a free country for everybody. Now I see America
is only for the capitalist but not for the working people. I know
for a fact, I am striking now and when I was going picketing
this morning to the shop, the politzman said to me : ' You must
go away because I can arrest you !' "

664 AMERICANISM

A very intelligent Greek, proficient in a half dozen languages,
ready and willing to do everything, was recommended, as a last
resort, as a waiter in a French restaurant. He came back, as
usual, a disappointed man and sighing said to me by way of
comment :

My country 'tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty.

Not for me ! Not for me !

He was particularly grieved to find that a knowledge of six
languages did not help him to get a "jomb." His feeling about
America is fairly representative of the large body of immigrant
students, who constitute an important element of our immigrant
population.

It is this system of work and wages which recognizes neither
training nor talent, which disregards the physical interest as well
as the spiritual welfare of the producer, devoting itself solely to
the dumb product, which makes "hands" out.of men, tools of
apprentices, wage-slaves of aM, that is responsible for the sudden
change in feeling on the part of the immigrant shortly after
landing. A land which tolerates wage slavery is not a " sweet
land of liberty." The immigrant, somehow, cannot bring himself
to reconcile the phrase with the fact ; and the patriotism which
that phrase was calculated to arouse remains, in face of the fact,
stillborn.

FREE EDUCATION

Having at last found work, the immigrant recovers from these
sadder and wiser economic experiences and enters upon his third
stage of appreciation of America as the "land of free education."

The immigrant's enthusiasm wells up, fountain-like, whenever
he thinks of our free system of education. A newcomer writes :

I have always had a great, desire for education, but in the ole
countre I didn't have no opportunity. But in the contre United
States of America we all have the privilege to learn and educate
ourselves as far as our ability allows us to. Therefore, I have all the
reasons to like this contre, America, for all this from the bottom of
my heart. I thank the American people for their kindness in taking
an interest in educating us, strangers, and making men of us.

WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO IMMIGRANTS 665

Joseph Rinaldo, an Italian boy of twelve, is even more effusive.
He writes :

When I was a small boy, I said to myself I wish I could come and
see the new world.

Comes across oceans, seas and rivers to the new world, America.
One day I did come to America. When I arrived the boys on the
street seemed good to me. Some said come and play; some said
lets go in, the school bell rang. Thats how I started to go to school.
I started to learn more and more each day. You can study more,
better and harder in America than in any other continent in the world.
There are more schools in America than in Europe or Asia. America
also has more libraries, public buildings, where to spend the time and
become true citizens and not old loafers on the street.

I didn't know a thing when I came from Italy but now I know as
much as any boy of my age. I know enough. I will learn more by
and by. Because when we become men we must not work with a
pick and shovel but as cashier or bookkeeper or some other good job
like teachers.

AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP

Next to American education, the immigrant glories in the
promise of American citizenship. What does American citizen-
ship mean to him? A class in citizenship, consisting of a score of
young men, all of them of voting age, but few having even their
" first papers," were asked to define American citizenship. They
nearly all agreed upon the following :

"Knowing the laws of the country and keeping them; also
being faithful to the country."

They were next asked to mention some of the things a good
citizen was expected to do for his country. The following
answers were suggestive :

He must be honest and truly.

He must vote for the right officers.

He must study the history from the United States.

He must be - willing to pay taxes.

He must stand for his rights.

He must send his children to school.

A good citizen should try and change bad laws.

These sentiments indicate a regard for American citizenship
which is akin to patriotism. I have for years gathered letters

666 AMERICANISM

and compositions written by immigrants on the subject of pa-
triotism. These will show, on examination, a true love of country
and a sincere regard for its welfare. I quote from a composition
entitled "My Impressions of America," written by John Flon,
nine months after his landing.

It is human nature for every brave man to love his country and I
would love America anyway because I live here and have no other
country, but indeed America made a good impression upon me from
the very beginning.

I will never forget my feelings of pleasure of the first day of my
coming here. It was the day of election of our President Roosevelt.
I could not understand what kind election it was. We Finns only
know the Russian Czar. He is not elected by the people of his
country. He rules because his father did. Therefore I was so glad
and wonder-full to see all that was going on here on election day with
my own eyes and like Columbus I felt like kneeling and kissing the
soil .and with tears give thanks to God for having brought me here.

To be sure, America does not mean all these things to all
immigrants, but does it mean more to the average American?
Certainly not.- On the contrary, many a newcomer is thrilled
by the oath of allegiance as the climax of the process of becoming
a naturalized citizen far more than is the native-born American
who automatically enters upon citizenship at the age of twenty-
one. Witness the wonderful enthusiasm which made memorable
the recent reception to four thousand newly naturalized voters
under the auspices of the city of Philadelphia. The first words
President Wilson said to them were : "It warms my heart that
you should give me such a reception. "

AMERICAN DECALOGUE

Last year, after the New Voters' Festival held in Boston testify-
ing to the annual rebirth of this nation, an informal group of
newly naturalized were asked to tell what expressions of America
best appealed to them. The following are well worth considering
as a basis for an American Decalogue :

1. The Land of Liberty.

2. The Land of Opportunity.

3. The Land of Peace and Plenty.

WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO IMMIGRANTS 667

4. The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

5. The Land where Free Education Flows like Milk and Honey.

6. A Haven of Refuge.

7. . Many United Nationalities — One Nation.

8. Where Right makes Might. — LINCOLN.

9. Guarantees Inalienable Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit
of Happiness.

10. A Government of the People, by the People, and for the
People.

Some one suggested the preamble to the Constitution. We
read it and agreed that it is still the best expression in
literature of what America really means. We quote it here,
italicizing the key words occurring in at least a half dozen of
the expressions quoted above.

PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more per-
fect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for
the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the bless-
ings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America.

CONCLUSION

A finer interpretation of not only the Preamble but of the
Constitution itself as well as the Declaration of Independence will
also help us forget apparent differences of dress and manners, race
and language. "E Pluribus Unum." Out of many nationalities
one nation : one in heart, mind, and spirit. The thing that
counts is this oneness in spirit, remembering that this oneness
potentially exists in all of us and may be fully as dynamic,
whether it is the result of birth or of definite choice, not only
on the Fourth of July but every day on the calendar. .

"WHAT AMERICA MEANS": PRESIDENT WILSON

This in essence was President Wilson's appeal in his now
memorable Philadelphia speech. It sums up " the great body of
principles " to which he urged the new Americans' allegiance. It is
positive in its appeal to " the passions which lift." This oneness

668 AMERICANISM

is especially urgent this year — a year of divided loyalties. One-
ness in spirit does not mean mere homogeneity. It means "like-
mindedness," or as the President insisted, " national conscious-
ness," arising from a common aspiration to become a free nation
— a world democracy.

HOW TO AMERICANIZE THE , IMMIGRANT
DEFINITION OF AMERICANISM

Americanization is the process of assimilating on the part
of the immigrants these basic principles of American Democracy
enriched by the national and racial qualifications and tradi-
tions which the immigrants bring with them. A good way to
begin is to stop calling immigrants names ; such as, " aliens" or
" foreigners." Even the word " immigrant r' sets them apart from
the community instead of identifying them with the community.
I suggest that we begin calling them instead ''Americanists."
The Century Dictionary defines an Americanist (as distinguished
from an American), "a person of any nation who prominently
interests himself in the study of subjects relating to America."
To this study thousands of immigrants are already devoted and
all of them should dedicate themselves.

Start them early with English on shipboard and during the
detention period. As soon as they have landed, eager and en-
thusiastic, offer them a complete course from steerage to citizen-
ship with public school facilities to reach 100 per cent of them.
The writer believes that any Reader on civics for new Americans,
in order to meet the demands of such course, must be so written
as to set forth in simple English "What America Means," and
"How The Immigrant Can Best Americanize Himself."

Not unmindful what the right kind of civic education can
do for the immigrant and what he can do for himself, the
writer nevertheless is convinced that the indirect methods of
Americanizing the immigrant through a living wage, a stand-
ard home, clean streets, a square deal, the daily newspapers,
the use of the ballot and abundant opportunities for social
intercourse are vastly more important in any scheme of Ameri-
canizing 100 per cent of them than any textbook, however
ideal.

WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO IMMIGRANTS 669

SAMPLE PROGRAM FOR FOURTH OF JULY CITIZENSHIP
CELEBRATION

1. Patriotic selections Band

2. Songs from all nations Phonograph Records

3. "America" Chorus and audience

4. Prayer (specially written; the Rauschenbusch

type)

5. Welcome to the new citizens The Mayor

6. "Oath of Allegiance" Naturalization Judge

7. Selected folk songs Phonograph records

8. Address, "The State and the New America". . State representative

9. "Star Spangled Banner" Chorus and audience

10. Five minute speeches or papers The prize winners

11. Awarding of prizes The Mayor

12. "Hail Columbia" Chorus and audience

13. Trip through America Moving pictures

14. Patriotic selections Band

1. CHORUS: The chorus should be made up of representatives of
the choirs of the prominent nationality groups.

2. PRIZES : The municipality should offer simple prizes to all appli-
cants registered in the school for citizenship for a short paper or speech
on one of these topics, "What America Means to Me," "How to
Americanize Immigrants," "How to Celebrate Americanization Day."

3. ORGANIZATION : The committee in charge of Americanization
Day should always be headed by the mayor, as honorary chairman,
and by leading citizens as active chairman and secretary, and small
working committees on prizes, on invitations, on program, on
reception. The committee on arrangements should be as represent-
ative a body as possible, including the various branches of the
government of the city, state, and nation as well as representatives
of the various nationalities and prominent public organizations.

4. CAUTION: The administration should not be too prominent
in the celebration. It should be willing tto keep in the background,
yet cooperate in every way with the committee.

SUGGESTIONS

1. All songs on the program should be printed in full, also the oath
of allegiance and committees in charge. Insert loose leaf in program
with list of textbooks on America.

2. The celebration must not be a detached affair, but the final
step in the process of naturalization.

670 AMERICANISM

3. In all communities where the attendance is not too large,
CERTIFICATES OF CITIZENSHIP should be given out on this occasion
on presentation by the immigrant of a certificate of fitness issued by
the local School for Citizenship. The school should be regarded
by the municipality as an integral part of the Americanization process.

4. The invitation should include the wives, and children over six-
teen years of age, also all native-born persons who have just reached
the twenty-first birthday.

5. Invite the leading employers, to cooperate, preferably through
the Chamber of Commerce or Board of Trade.

6. If possible, plan a banquet.

7. Wherever circumstances and weather permit, have celebration
outdoors in a park, followed by a little pageant, or song fest or carni-
val, or a play like "At the Gates of the Young World." This plan
would have the advantage of bringing out the children as well as the
grown-ups. In small communities, plan refreshments.

8. Where the celebration takes place in a hall, decorate it with
the flags of all nations.

9. Place registration cards, printed beforehand, on every seat,
inviting all to join the New American Club, which should be organized
immediately after the celebration.

10. Plan mock naturalization court to prepare candidates for
Americanization Day.

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE TRANSLATED INTO A
DECLARATION OF CITIZENSHIP FOR THE NEWLY-NATURALIZED

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for
certain persons to dissolve the political bands which have connected
them with another country and to assume the separate and equal
station to which the laws of their adopted country entitle them, a
decent respect to the opinions of the people of that country requires
that they should openly declare their belief in the basic principles of
the land of their adoption.

They must hold, as these United States hold, these truths to be self-
evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; that to secure these rights
governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed ; that whenever any form of govern-
ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people
to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its
foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form,

WHAT AMERICA MEANS TO IMMIGRANTS 671

as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happi-
ness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes ; and, accordingly,
all experience hath shown, that menkind are more disposed to suffer
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by serving their
affiliations with the government to which they are accustomed. But
when a long train of circumstances compel them to sever their
connections with one country and affiliate themselves with another
country, it is their right, it is their duty, to swear allegiance to the new
government of which they are to be a part.

We, therefore, the new citizens of these United States of America,
assembled this Fourth of July . . ., appealing to the Supreme Judg-
ment of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, do in the name
and by the authority of the good people of these United States of
America, solemnly publish and declare our allegiance to them and we
accordingly forswear allegiance to any king or crown ; that all politi-
cal connections between us and any king or crown is and ought to be
totally dissolved. As free and independent citizens we solemnly
declare our allegiance to these United States whether in war or peace
and to do only those acts and things which independent citizens may
of right do. For the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance
on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to
these United States our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

APPENDIX

AMERICANIZATION l
RICHARD K. CAMPBELL

THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS AS PARTICIPANTS IN FEDERAL
ADMINISTRATION

IN PRESENTING this the first review of this new activity of the
bureau, it is eminently desirable to refer to the fact that while
this report deals with the achievements during the year it also refers
to the preliminary steps in a work which has been in process of develop-
ment and actual growth for over two years. When its full potentiality
has been exerted it is possibly safe to assume that it will rank among
the most far-reaching fundamental administrative activities ever
launched by any department of the Government, dealing directly, as
it does, individually with the citizenship of the entire body politic.

It presents the first linking together of the American public school
with the Federal Government for the definite object of elevating the
average of understanding of the most neglected of all professions —
the profession of self-government — a profession most vital to the per-
petuation of those principles enunciated in the American Declaration
of Independence that "All men are created equal and endowed with
certain inalienable rights." Only by an intelligent appreciation of
that sovereignty embraced in self-government can the spirit of these
words, uttered when "our fathers brought forth upon this continent
a new Nation," be comprehended.

Heretofore the only attention given by the public school authori-
ties directly to candidates for citizenship had been to the petitioners
for naturalization. The petitioners in all instances have passed
through the declarant stage for at least two years and have com-
pleted the five years' residence. They are eligible for a hearing and ad-
mission to citizenship 90 days after the petition has been made. It is
the candidate for citizenship at this stage for whom the citizenship
classes heretofore had been organized. Their period of probation has
all but expired, they are about to be invested with citizenship, and
become a part of the body politic. They represent the smaller,

1 From the Annual Report of the Commissioner of Naturalization, 1916.

673

674 APPENDIX

numerically, of the two classes — about 100,000 aliens a year. The
bureau, however, presented an entirely new subject to the school
authorities for their consideration and enrollment when it brought
the declarant and his wife and the wife of the petitioner to their
attention, and also when it brought the public schools to the atten-
tion of these hundreds of thousands of seekers after the " priceless
heritage." During the year preceding this report 247,815 alien
friends declared under solemn oath their intention to become citizens
of the United States and to reside permanently in this country.
Each one of these candidates for citizenship must wait at least two
years and ninety days before taking the final step. It is during this
two-year period he is most receptive of influences for his Americaniza-
tion. The wives of the declarants and petitioners represent a full
quarter of a million of the immigrant body never previously ap-
proached directly by our Government as prospective citizens. This
enterprise therefore is distinctly novel, unconceived before by either
the public or the public school authorities and at the present time
only comprehended in a very slight way by the general public.

DEPARTMENTAL DIRECTION

In that portion of the report of the Secretary of Labor for the
fiscal year 1915 which was devoted to a review of the work of the
Bureau of Naturalization, an extended commendation was made of
the development of the plans of the Bureau of Naturalization for
linking the public schools of the United States with the bureau in a
campaign for that great objective of the act of June 29, 1906 — the
actual elevation of the standard of and regard for American citizen-
ship. In his reference to this work as "constructive work" the Sec-
retary said :

The organic act of this bureau does not limit its operations to checking
improper naturalization. By that act the bureau, operating under the
direction and control of the Secretary of Labor, has "charge of all matters
concerning the naturalization of aliens." Evidently constructive work with
reference to citizenship was contemplated by Congress, and such work has
been initiated by the bureau.

After reviewing the number of foreigners applying for admission
to citizenship, those admitted and those denied, the Secretary ad-
verted to the fact that " individuals, associations, and public schools
organized citizenship classes to teach petitioners for naturalization"
as —

the direct result of resistance by naturalization examiners to the admission
to citizenship of applicants ignorant of our form of government.

AMERICANIZATION 675

Continuing, the Secretary said :

But during the year of this report [1915] the bureau, after conferences with
public school authorities, has perfected a plan by which all public schools
may cooperate with it in educating citizenship candidates.

After briefly describing the method by which the public schools
and the Bureau of Naturalization had carried on this national co-
operative work, the Secretary, following an allusion to the million
aliens who during the preceding three years had taken steps to be-
come citizens, said :

Probably 75 per cent of these range all the way from fairly admissible to
unfit candidiates, but nearly all can be transformed through attendance at
the public schools into desirable citizenship material. The value, therefore,
of such a national movement is manifest. It benefits not only the individual
candidate for citizenship but native-born citizens also and reacts desirably
upon the entire civic interests of the country. That approximately three
fourths of our resident aliens retain foreign allegiance appears from the
census returns and only 25 per cent of those admitted to citizenship annually
are the most desirable. The condition, therefore, which confronted the
Bureau of Naturalization was whether or not to confine itself to negative
work or to endeavor to improve the citizenship qualities of applicants.
The latter is the course preferred and now pursued. For this purpose
the bureau has developed its plans for linking with it the public schools of
the United States.

These plans contemplate active support of each teacher in every class
formed for the teaching of adults. During the first school year teachers will
be requested to make notes of the subjects and courses of instruction and
of their effect upon the pupil and to submit the results of their observations
to the Bureau of Naturalization. When the results have been received the
bureau will arrange .them in systematic order and then call a conference
at Washington for the purpose of formulating appropriate courses of in-
struction based upon experience.

BUREAU FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES

In the volume of Regulations of the Department of Labor, pro-
mulgated October 15, 1915, the functions and duties of the Bureau of
Naturalization as clearly set forth, in part, are as follows :

The Bureau of Naturalization has administrative control, under the
direction of the Secretary, of all matters relating to the naturalization of
aliens and the administration of the naturalization laws. By the organic
act of March 4, 1913, the administrative officer in charge of the Bureau of
Naturalization and of the administration of the naturalization law is the
Commissioner of Naturalization and in his absence the Deputy Commissioner
of Naturalization.

676 APPENDIX

In its administration of the naturalization law the bureau obtains the co-
operation of the public school authorities throughout the United States. It
furnishes them the names and addresses of the declarants for citizenship and
petitioners for naturalization for the purpose of bringing these prospective
citizens injto contact at the earliest moment with the Americanizing in-
fluences of the public school system and thereby contributing to the ele-
vation of citizenship standards. By insuring comprehension of the true
spirit of our institutions on the part of aliens admitted to citizenship the
bureau may hope to make their acquisition serve as a strengthening influence
upon the moral, social, political, and industrial qualities of those institutions.

Through reports from various public schools where courses in citizenship
have been taken by aliens seeking naturalization the bureau aims to dissem-
inate information throughout the public school system. It thereby acts
as a clearing house of information on civic instruction. Without relaxing
its efforts at excluding unfit aliens from citizenship, it is endeavoring to
stimulate preparation. Its ideal in this respect is to promote the attainment
by aliens of such qualifications for the citizenship they seek as will better
fit them for its duties.

The bureau has in its archives the duplicate of all naturalization papers
issued by all of the courts exercising naturalization jurisdiction throughout
the United States since the Federal supervision of the naturalization law
was undertaken. These embrace the declaration of intention, the petition
for naturalization, and the certificate of naturalization.

These references to the lawful functions and activities of the
Bureau of Naturalization by the Secretary in his annual report and
in the fiscal regulations of the department find their origin in the
plan formulated in the bureau on April 20, 1914. This plan was based
upon the authority conferred by Congress upon this bureau by the
acts of June 29, 1906, and March 4, 1913. In the first act Congress
provided a uniform rule for the naturalization of aliens throughout
the United States, and, to accomplish this uniformity, created a
Federal administrative bureau charged with the administration of
this law. By the act of March 4, 1913, it declared the Commissioner
of Naturalization or in his absence the Deputy Commissioner of Nat-
uralization to be the Federal officer in charge of the administration of
the naturalization laws, under the direction of the Secretary of Labor,
and placed with the Bureau of Naturalization the charge of all matters
concerning the naturalization of aliens.

EARLY ACTIVITIES

Within this broad field of authority resistance to the admission to
citizenship of candidates wholly unfit for that high estate was one of
the prominent activities of the bureau in the initiation of its adminis-
trative authority. This activity aroused public attention to such a

AMERICANIZATION 677

degree on behalf of the disappointed applicants that conferences in
their behalf were held by the bureau's field representatives with
public-spirited individuals, public school authorities, and members of
the Federal and State judiciary, with the result that as early as in
1909 citizenship classes were organized. Some correspondence was
carried on between the bureau and individuals interested in the well-
being of the immigrant, but no definite action was taken by the
bureau.

The first of these classes reported to the bureau was organized in
Hartford, Connecticut, through the conferences of the naturalization
examiners, Judge James P. Platt, of the district court of the United
States, and the public school authorities of that city. Classes were
organized later in other parts of New England, and the spirit of
this activity extended gradually to other parts of. the country, Rock
Island, Illinois, being one of the earliest places where citizenship classes
were formed.

BROADENING OF POLICY

Discussions of this activity were held in the bureau from time to
time, particularly in the latter part of 1913 and in the early part of
1914, with the result that on April 20, 1914, a plan was submitted
for dignifying in the eyes of the public the proceeding of admission
to citizenship and placing it upon that high plane which it has al-
ways held in the minds of those who thoroughly appreciate and value
citizenship. The results accomplished locally through conferences
and the formation of citizenship classes and the benefits derived
therefrom were cited as accomplishments possible throughout the en-
tire nation. The elimination of the known evils attending some of
the private organizations seeking, under the guise of instruction, to
exploit the ignorance of the candidates for citizenship as an easy
means for the acquisition of a lucrative income, was referred to as
one of the reforms that would follow a cooperative activity between
the public schools, the public generally, and the Bureau of Naturali-
zation.

The expressions of the Executive in recognition of the highest
principles and ideals of government both nationally and internation-
ally and the peculiar relationship of the Bureau of Naturalization
to these in its direct dealing with the citizenry and citizenship ideals
were dwelt upon as justifying the inauguration of such a policy.
It was seen that the influence of the bureau for the betterment of
citizenship could be extended to every hamlet in the United States
through the expansion and extension of the influence of the

678 APPENDIX

naturalization laws. This plan proposed the organization of the public
schools with the Bureau of Naturalization into an active unit for the
development of American ideals of citizenship in the student body;
the assembling together on stated occasions, in the different metro-
politan and other centers, of naturalized citizens and candidates for
citizenship; the conduct of patriotic exercises, including addresses,
and singing national anthems ; and a public conferring of citizenship.

BROADENING OF ACTIVITIES
CONFERENCES WITH SCHOOL OFFICIALS

After conferences with the Assistant Secretary of Labor upon this
project and at his instance a representative of the bureau visited the
cities of Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Phila-
delphia, and New York in the summer of 1914 and the following
winter, held discussions and conferences with the public school au-
thorities, representatives of the judiciary, Government officials, busi-
ness organizations, and others upon this proposed nation-wide plan
for citizenship preparedness through the Americanization of the
resident alien body and the consequent reaction upon and stimulation
of the interest of the native-born American in the benefits to be de-
rived by him from that citizenship which is his by the right of birth.

The proposition of a cooperative movement on the part of the
public schools with the Bureau of Naturalization was not only heart-
ily indorsed, but the bureau was urged by these educators to take the
lead in this educational work so vital to citizenship and to formulate
a course of instruction adaptable to the candidates for citizenship.
In the conferences with the judges of the courts the presentation of
the educational plan brought forth their unanimous indorsement and
assurances that they would recognize the cooperation of the school
authorities with the Bureau of Naturalization at the time the peti-
tions for naturalization were heard by the courts for the admission
to citizenship of the candidates.

Concurrently with this, with the object of organizing civic classes,
the bureau carried on correspondence directly with the authorities
of different cities and with those interested in the subject of nat-
uralization. Among these places where civic classes were organized
the city of Los Angeles attained greatest prominence.

SURVEYS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Following the conferences referred to, steps were perfected in
March, 1915, for a survey of the entire country by correspondence
and through the field officers of the bureau to ascertain the efforts

AMERICANIZATION 679

and accomplishments of the public school authorities in the direc-
tion of educating foreigners over 18 years of age ; what percentage
of the foreigners were candidates for citizenship in these classes ; the
scope of instruction offered by the public schools ; and what other
organizations were interested in the preparation of the foreigner for
citizenship. This survey was carefully carried on throughout the
United States by the entire Naturalization Service and continued
uninterrupted until the inauguration of this national cooperative
work with the opening of the school term in 1915.

The reports disclosed many interesting situations. An isolated one
from the superintendent of schools at Green Bay, Wisconsin, follows :

We have been conducting night school classes for foreigners for the
past three years. The first year we had about 12 foreigners enrolled,
the second year about 32, this year the total number for the year in
the foreign classes was about 71. Out of this enrollment of 71 about 12
are women. These classes have been meeting twice a week for two hours
on each night since last October, and are to continue until May 13. Of
those enrolled all are over 18 years of age, with the majority ranging from
1 8 to 32 years. About 10 of this enrollment are taking this work with a
view to making application for citizenship. Most of them, however, will
make use of it for that purpose, even though such is not their intention
at the present time. We find the attendance in the foreign classes better
than most night school classes. These people evince a decided interest in
the work and show a determined spirit to learn the English language,
especially as regards our customs and laws. These classes have been a
source of great satisfaction to us.

This report is characteristic of many of those received and indi-
cates fairly well the interest on the part of the school authorities and
the appreciation of the foreigners in this much-needed instruction.
The reports also showed that the larger cities had been devoting their
attention to the education of the foreigner, probably the greatest
activity being reported from New York City with its 1000 classes
comprising approximately 40,000 adult foreigners. The bureau
learned of the existence of classes for instructing foreigners in many
other places where, taken collectively, the instruction embraced vir-
tually everything taught in the grammar schools and in some in-
stances in high schools, but the actual instruction in citizenship was
found only in approximately a score of places and in these in but its
earliest stage of development. It was also disclosed that in many
places classes had been organized, nourished, waned, and finally died
for lack of sufficient support. In these places the establishment and
maintenance of schools were assured by those connected with them if
the Bureau of Naturalization would lend its needed Federal support.

68o APPENDIX

PHILADELPHIA RECEPTION — EXECUTIVE RECOGNITION

As a means of centralizing the interest of the public upon this pro-
posed novel national cooperative movement, the bureau, in December,

1914, proposed to the mayor of Philadelphia to hold the reception to
the newly naturalized citizens in that city, which occurred May 10,

1915, and which was honored by the presence of the President of the
United States. Immediately preceding this reception the bureau,
with the approval of the Secretary, announced in the columns of the
press the launching of the nation-wide cooperative educational cam-
paign for the betterment and strengthening of the citizenship of the
entire nation, through the aid of the public schools, thus consummat-
ing the first stage of the plans for the great Americanization under-
taking to which end direct preparations had been going on for over a
year. The public response and indorsement given to this reception
and educational announcement were beyond all expectations of the
bureau.

AMERICANIZATION DAY, 1915

As a direct result of the address of the President, the newspaper
publicity, and discussions by representatives of the bureau, a wave
of patriotic sentiment was aroused which extended throughout the
country. Immediately thereafter, in the month of May, patriotic
and enterprising individuals proceeded to associate themselves to-
gether in the organization of committees whose main objects were
to maintain this newly aroused interest. Some looked to a national
recognition of the naturalization proceedings ; others by celebrations,
and all in various ways, strove to make impressive in the eyes of the
public the steps attendant upon naturalization. Those occupying
positions of official responsibility, as well as others prominent in the
industrial, religious, social, and political world, responded to the
influence of this national wave of interest in citizenship created by
the reception at Philadelphia. Americanization committees, led by
the mayors or other officials, were formed in cities throughout the
land to take some cognizance of the naturalization proceedings,
and on the Fourth of July and from time to time thereafter, on the
admission to citizenship of numbers of aliens in their cities, to hold
Americanization Day receptions for the newly naturalized similar
to the one held in Philadelphia. From the reports received by the
bureau it is evident that these committees were thoroughly equipped
and enthusiastic in their support of its work and carried on extensive
campaigns of publicity.

AMERICANIZATION 681

Posters and circular letters were sent broadcast throughout the
country by private and Federal agencies, syndicated news articles
were prepared by those whose interest in naturalization matters had
been stimulated by the Philadelphia reception and published from
time to time in the press throughout the country. Senators. Con-
gressmen, mayors, governors, captains of industry, and patriotic,
labor, social, civic, and other organizations were appealed to. In-
dividuals of the greatest prominence were enlisted in this cause both
in speaking and writing upon this work of the bureau ; prizes were
offered for the best presentation of literary or artistic effort ; in short,
during the period immediately following upon the reception which
was proposed by this bureau and organized by the city of Phila-
delphia in cooperation with the members of the bureau, the interest
of the whole nation was aroused in citizenship as possibly never
before in so short a space of time in any governmental activity.

The inspiration which the Philadelphia reception and the speech
of the President inspired is shown by the following quotations from
the correspondence files of the bureau :

America does not consist of groups. A man who thinks of himself as
belonging to a particular national group in America has not yet become an
American. And the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality
ic no worthy son to live under the Stars and Stripes.

You dreamed dreams of what America was to be and I hope you have
brought the dreams with you. No man who does not see visions will ever
realize any high hope or undertaking ; any high enterprise ; and just be-
cause you brought the dreams with you, America is more likely to realize
the dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you come expect-
ing us to be better than we are.

Continuing, the correspondence showed these celebrations were
intended to be occasions to invite the newly naturalized citizens to
be the guests of the municipalities, with public ceremonies dignifying
naturalization generally for the first time in the history of the nation,
and to make July 4, 1915, a day upon which to interpret America to
the many peoples in our land, to welcome our new citizens, translate
to them the meaning of America, and suggest ways by which they
can give their best to America and receive from her the guaranty of
true American citizenship.

The Secretary of Labor, in the discussions of the purposes of this
plan of cooperation, expressed his indorsement of them as realizing
some of the hopes and ideals entertained by him for the Department
of Labor at the time of its creation.

682 APPENDIX

NATION-WIDE CONFERENCES

So well had these efforts of the bureau yielded results that at the
direction of the Secretary of Labor the Deputy Commissioner of Natu-
ralization made a tour of the United States to present its plans, address
gatherings of educators, and confer with public school authorities and
other prominent citizens upon the details necessary to this unified
action. Among the cities visited were Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh,
Kansas City, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, Oak-
land, San Francisco, Portland (Oregon), Seattle, Tacoma, Spokane,
Cceur d'Alene, Bismarck, Duluth, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Albany,
Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other smaller places. In these
cities, as a result of these conferences, definite plans were matured
which were approved by the Secretary, and the nation-wide cooper-
ative work announced through the columns of the public press in
May, 1915, became a reality with the opening of the new school year.

SCHOOL PROBLEMS

It was early learned that the greatest difficulty had been ex-
perienced in securing the enrollment of adults other than those who
voluntarily came. Publication of notices in the press in all tongues
inviting the alien population, posting of notices in public places, and
appeals to racial organizations, employers of labor, labor organiza-
tions, and others were included in the field of endeavor to secure the
desired attendance.

Under the wave of awakened interest renewed activity was again
shown in these methods by many agencies, including some govern-
mental participation. Most prominent among these were colored
posters in many languages sent out by the Bureau of Education of the
Department of the Interior, announcing these citizenship classes and
advising foreigners to attend night school in order to learn English,
become better citizens, be able to make a better living, and live better.
While this support to the work of this bureau was sincere and patriotic,
it was known that some more practical plan having the personal
touch was needed to bring in the vast numbers not responding.

The bureau therefore undertook, first, to call upon each alien can-
didate for citizenship, through letters personally addressed to him
and his wife, to go to these public schools ; second, it requested the
teachers to secure the aid of the student body in the classes for adult
foreigners to prevail upon their fellow-countrymen and friends to
enroll ; and, third, that the names and addresses of the foreign-born
parents of the children in the public schools be availed of to send

AMERICANIZATION 683

personal invitations «to those who would be benefited by the public
schools to attend them. It is believed that with the full development
of these avenues of activity every alien in every community in time
will be approached and invited to attend the public schools.

It was reported also that the greatest difficulty, next to securing
the enrollment of adult students, was to .secure regular and continued
attendance until some material betterment should result beyond a
more or less crude ability to speak and write our tongue. The average
attendance as compared with the enrollment was found to have been
very low, especially in the largest centers. The bureau, therefore,
advocated in its correspondence with the supporting organizations
that prizes be offered for papers and debates upon different Ameri-
can subjects by these students; that public recognition of citizen-
ship be given with the presentation of certificates of graduation and
naturalization and the award of the prizes. These were believed to
be legitimate inducements to be offered by the public schools and the
public generally to secure higher proficiency and larger attendance.
It is gratifying that a very general support has been given these
projects.

STANDARDIZATION or CITIZENSHIP INSTRUCTION

The need of a standard course of instruction to occupy a certain
period of time in its mastery by foreigners, including the illiterate,
was emphasized by all, and the preparation of such a course by this
bureau, to be printed in but one language — English — was urged by
reason of its position of authority in all matters concerning natu-
ralization.

The bureau, in response to the numerous calls upon it, agreed
to serve the public schools in meeting the public need for a stand-
ard course of citizenship instruction. It was furnished by many
schools with the material used in this plan of instruction, and there-
from compiled, in small pamphlet form, as a preliminary step in
the advance toward standardization, an Outline Course in Citizen-
ship. Thousands of copies of this pamphlet were distributed for
use in the citizenship classes. At their request large numbers of
the pamphlet also were furnished for use in the day schools, in accord-
ance with the recommendation of the bureau that the subject matter
be taught in the upper graded and high schools to the young American
boy and girl coming into citizenship responsibilities. In undertaking
this duty the bureau regards the entire public school system of the
United States as a vast national committee working with it in the
standarization of this special branch of instruction.

684 APPENDIX

This pamphlet deals elementally with the duties of citizenship in
the city, county, State, and nation, and has been uniformly spoken
of as a timely publication. A prominent Federal judge, commenting
upon the course, while recognizing the elemental character, expressed
the belief, after some considerable questioning outside of the court
room, that "not 50 per cent of the native-born adult male population
of the United States could get a 50 per cent mark on the topics sug-
gested in the Outline Course." The belief has been expressed that the
use of the Outline Course would be beneficial to the schools as well as
to the students. Referring to the young people going through the
public schools, particularly those in attendance upon the day schools,
one jurist said :

They have gone to the public schools and left them without the
slightest knowledge of the framework or method of administration of
either the National or State Governments. They sometimes know the
practical workings of the city government, but not by reason of anything
that the schools taught.

The need undoubtedly exists for a more intimate sense of respon-
sibility in the native-born citizen for our Government, and adequate
instruction in citizenship responsibility should be established in every
public school of the United States. If less than 50 per cent of the
native-born adult male population of the United States can manifest
a 50 per cent knowledge on the elements of our Government, surely
such a uniform course should be established.

In addition to the recognition of the demands of the public school
authorities for a standard course in citizenship, recommendation was
made that there be embodied in this course some practical means by
which the actual performance of citizenship responsibilities and
duties might be undertaken by the prospective candidate for citizen-
ship, and that this be carried on in such manner as to cause the public
schools to be used as community centers ; that a syllabus of the natu-
ralization law be prepared and placed in the hands of the public
school teachers, together with the preliminary forms supplied by the
bureau to foreigners to aid them in furnishing the facts necessary to
the filing of a declaration of intention and a petition for naturalization.

The requests for the preparation of a textbook by the bureau
received during the past two years were renewed after the receipt
by the public school authorities of the Outline Course in Citizenship
instruction. Accordingly requests were forwarded during March
and April to all the superintendents of the schools engaged in this
work to send in copies of the courses of instruction they were giving
and any matter they were using. From the material received a course

AMERICANIZATION 685

was partially prepared and discussed with approval at the citizen-
ship convention. Its completion at an early time is being under-
taken. At the convention the necessity for such a standard course
of instruction was repeatedly asserted, and the opportunity which
the bureau offered for the accomplishment through it by the public
schools of a standardization of citizenship instruction was heartily
applauded. It is hoped to have this book, together with the Outline
Course amplified, ready for distribution to the students as a text-
book, and to the teachers as a manual, respectively, with the opening
of the new school year.

Copies of the Outline Course were forwarded by the secretary of
this department to the War and Navy Departments shortly after it
was published, with the suggestion that the course in citizenship
might with benefit be added to the other educational work done by
those departments. Both departments promptly expressed interest
in the subject as desirable for the instruction of enlisted men of the
Army and Navy, and called for hundreds of copies of the pamphlet
for distribution to their various schools for enlisted men. Later
many additional hundreds of copies were furnished these depart-
ments, upon request, for distribution to the various departments of
the Army, Army posts, naval stations, and on shipboard.

SYLLABUS or THE NATURALIZATION LAW

The bureau also has prepared a syllabus of the naturalization law,
making it available for the public school teachers to give advice to
those of the school members desiring to seek naturalization, and
placed in their hands the preliminary forms heretofore given only
to the clerks of the naturalization courts and the individual candi-
date for citizenship. Many thousands of these documents have been
furnished the public school authorities, and their free use by them
in the classroom will work a greater individual saving of unneces-
sary expense to the alien friend than any one other service that the
teacher may render the prospective citizen. Notwithstanding the
limitation previously observed in the distribution of these forms to
the clerks of courts, large numbers of them have been constantly
obtained by unscrupulous individuals, their main objective being to
exact a fee, toll, or petty graft from the ignorant and unsuspecting
foreigners for the small amount of advice which any public school
teacher or disinterested American citizen would be only too glad
to render without charge. These trifling services have been charged
for in amounts reported to range from 25 cents to $50, which the
uninformed and unsuspecting alien must pay if he embarks upon

686

APPENDIX

the road to citizenship under the auspices of these self-serving
individuals. It is urged, therefore, that the public school teachers avail
themselves not only of the forms, but of the slight knowledge of the
law afforded by the syllabus, and make an active use of the knowl-
edge thus acquired in behalf of their students, and, through them, of
their friends not enrolled in the schools. Each teacher should become
in this manner an assistant naturalization examiner. The preparation
and distribution of these documents in this manner was approved by
the secretary.

SCHOOL RECORD CARDS

In order to carry into action the details of the approved plan,
individual cards were prepared and printed for the declarants, the
petitioners, and their wives, respectively, and one for the transferree,
or foreigner moving from place to place, a color scheme being adopted
to distinguish these records. These cards were furnished for use as
the school record, and from the subject matter contained it will be
possible to show the transformation brought about by the public
schools. The card for the declarant is shown below.

NATURALIZATION EDUCATIONAL RECORD

Form Nat. Ed. i •

(City.)
U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

BUREAU OF NATURALIZATION

(Name of school)

Name Age

Residence Arrived in U. S

Occupation Nationality Decln. of Int

SCHOOL RECORD

f ist year. ... f ist year, . . nights

Date of school entrance <j Length of attendance I

[ 26. year [ad year, . . . nights

Name of wife •

EDUCATIONAL RATING OF DECLARANT

End of End of

At entrance . Igt year ad year

At entrance —

Illiterate. . . . . Yes Speaks English

• No (See note)

Reads in native language . Yes Reads English

No (See note)

Writes in native language . Yes Writes English
No (See note)

Previous education

Note. — Show Well = W., Fair=F., Poor=P., None = N

AMERICANIZATION 687

The card for the petitioner differs only in subject matter by indi-
cating that the alien is a petitioner for naturalization.

The purpose of these cards in the plan proposed and used by the
public school authorities during the year was to show the name of
every foreigner who had spoken for citizenship and also to provide
a record of attendance at the school. With this record the illiterates
can be shown upon entering the school and the progress toward the
eradication of illiteracy among the foreigners recorded. When these
cards were sent out to the superintendents of schools they were re-
quested to maintain the records and return the cards at the end of
the school year, to enable the bureau to tabulate the information
shown by them at that time. This was carefully done as far as the
school facilities admitted, but the force at the disposal of the bureau
has been insufficient to enable it to tabulate the information con-
tained. It is hoped with the increase in the personnel requested in
the estimates submitted to the department that the very valuable
information which may come from these cards may be tabulated and
shown in the next annual report.

AID or ORGANIZATIONS REQUESTED

The plan also proposed sending letters to each candidate for citi-
zenship and his wife inviting them to the schools, obtaining the
services of various organizations in arousing interest in this work
and in supporting the public schools in their endeavors to form these
classes. These organizations included all churches, Sons and Daugh-
ters of the American Revolution, Grand Army of the Republic,
Spanish- American War Veterans, labor organizations, women's
clubs, singing societies, community-center organizations, the National
Education Association, chambers of commerce, and commercial 'and
various racial or national organizations. It was believed they would
stimulate the interest of those engaged in this work by presenting
flags to the school and court rooms, causing libraries to open in the
evening, providing special departments in the libraries with books
dealing with civics and citizenship in simple language and making
the presence of these books known, providing entertainments in
public libraries, public schools, and elsewhere, arousing interest in
the national anthems, illustrating governmental activities — Federal,
State, and municipal — through motion pictures, lantern slides, and
lectures, providing joint graduation exercises of the adult foreigners
in the public schools and ceremonies at their admission to citizenship,
and in other ways dignifying citizenship as it should be.

688 APPENDIX

PUBLIC RECOGNITION OF CITIZENSHIP

A certificate of graduation was recommended for adoption by the
bureau for distribution to the successful candidates for citizenship
hi attendance upon the public schools, which might be presented at
a ceremonial of graduation from the public schools at the time the
certificate of naturalization is granted; this certificate to bear the
signatures of officials in Washington and in the naturalization field
service, together with those of the school authorities, as an evidence
of distinction and honor.

As a result of the discussions with the school authorities and mem-
bers of the judiciary the proposition of a joint representation of the
public schools and the Bureau of Naturalization upon the certificate
of graduation issued by the public schools took definite form. It
was both approved and urged upon the bureau that it perfect a
certificate of graduation to be issued in the name of the candidate
for citizenship by the school authorities upon his admission to citizen-
ship and at the same time that his certificate of naturalization is
delivered to him. In a few places the certificate of the public schools
was being urged as final evidence of the admissibility of a candidate
for citizenship, but upon a consideration of the requirements of the
law, as well as of the evils that undoubtedly would result from such
a practice, it was seen that a certificate of graduation could serve no
such purpose. Congress having placed the administrative super-
vision of the naturalization law with this Federal agency, it cannot
delegate its authority ; nor can its authority be delegated to the edu-
cational institutions of this country. The public schools are not
sufficiently in touch with the candidate for citizenship, throughout
the- five-year period — except in the rarest instances — to warrant the
issuance of a certificate carrying with it such responsibilities. Few
of the candidates for citizenship ever attend the night schools, and a
smaller number the day schools, while the period of attendance
almost invariably fails to extend over the five years of residence dur-
ing which good moral character must be established. In some cities
certificates of graduation have been prepared by the school authori-
ties for issuance to the adult foreign students in the night classes.
Ceremonies and formal exercises have been observed on the occasion
of their presentation. These exercises have been participated in by
the judiciary, municipal officials, and public-spirited individuals and
organizations, with the result that the naturalization proceeding has
been correspondingly enhanced in the minds of the general public.

AMERICANIZATION 689

CITIZENSHIP SUNDAY

An observance of a national citizenship Sunday by the churches
was recommended, and a convention of the public school authorities
with the bureau also was embraced in the plan. Every item con-
tained hi the program had received the strongest indorsements and
approval of the Federal and State judges having naturalization
jurisdiction, public school authorities, and organizations of every
character interested in the welfare of the alien and the nation, and
this plan as here outlined was given departmental approval. Virtu-
ally all of the propositions have become realities since and have
taken their place as administrative activities of this bureau in con-
formity with the authority conferred upon it by Congress. That the
preparations had been made wisely and that there is substantial
merit to this national enterprise are attested by the extent of territory
in which in so short a time it has been undertaken and supported by
the school authorities.

In addition to the personal conferences referred to, and the pub-
licity through the press, letters were sent to the superintendents of
schools of every city and town of 4000 inhabitants and over, inviting
their attention to this great national need and asking their coopera-
tion. Similar letters were sent later to all places of 2500 population.
Favorable responses were received from the public schools in every
State of the Union. When it is considered that all of this work was
of a pioneer character, both on -the part of the public schools and of
this bureau, the progress toward a unified system has been nothing
short of marvelous.

In some of the large cities the plan proposed by the bureau for
securing the attendance upon the public schools of the citizenship
candidates failed of full realization, while in cities of smaller popu-
lation the success was complete. The greatest favor was found in
places with a relatively small foreign community, or where the entire
population was not so great as to lose the sense of personal guardian-
ship of their foreign-born friends, while in others a less interested
spirit was manifest and in still others an indifference to their pres-
ence, well-being, and wants was found. In every community, how-
ever, it was possible to find some sympathizers among the citizenry
who would be willing to put their shoulders to the wheel to move
forward the cause.

In the larger cities and, indeed, throughout the entire country, one
well-known condition has been again emphasized — the inadequacy of
the financial support given by the local communities to the public
schools. They should be more liberally provided with the necessary

690 APPENDIX

funds. In many communities where no provision for maintaining
the night schools had been made, the bureau, through the activities
of its own officers, secured the financial support necessary by arous-
ing public-spirited individuals to contribute to the public school
funds sufficient to admit of the establishment and maintenance of
these classes. In others individual school-teachers and public-
spirited men and women in various walks of life constituted a vol-
unteer force to carry on this work of higher ideals. In the States
where the general funds could not be availed of for this purpose,
patriotic individuals aided the municipalities to meet the situation,
personally provided funds to insure the opening of these classes.

Not all of the appeals for the support of this bureau in aid of the
public schools were from American citizens. Many came from for-
eigners seeking an opportunity to fit themselves through education
for citizenship responsibilities.

The responses from churches of all denominations received by the
bureau to its call for a national observance by them of good citizen-
ship Sunday on July 2, 1916, are filled with expressions of gratifica-
tion and indorsement of the efforts to engraft the spiritual'dement
upon this work. The material advantages have been generally rec-
ognized by the public as shown by the expressions of approval and
encouragement conveyed in the resolutions adopted by many com-
mercial bodies through the country.

LARGE PERCENTAGE or NON-CITIZEN STUDENTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

As a result of inquiries made of various public school superintend-
ents in the largest cities it has been disclosed that about 80 per cent
of the adult foreigners in the night schools have taken no steps to-
ward securing American citizenship. Approximately 18 per cent
among those remaining represent those who have taken out their
first papers and 2 per cent those who have secured their certificates
of naturalization. These proportions vary in some cities, so that 83
per cent, and even as high as 94 per cent, were reported as non-citi-
zens. This would seem to call for some attention on the part of the
local authorities, and emphasizes more clearly than any other one ele-
ment the desirability of teaching in these classes the true spirit of
our institutions of government. The subject of American citizenship
should be kept constantly in the foreground in these classes, so that
all it signifies may be brought to the attention of this too-large per-
centage of non-citizen membership of the student body. It is fair
to assume that by following a wise and intelligent treatment of this

AMERICANIZATION 691

subject among this larger number of foreigners a regard for Ameri-
can ideals of government will be inspired in their minds even greater
than that heretofore felt by their declarant and petitioner classmates.
Virtually every immigrant landing upon these shores is a prospec-
tive candidate for American citizenship and may be legitimately so
regarded. He has left the ties of family, sovereignty, and nativity
in the old country and cast his lot amongst us. His immediate wel-
fare is being cared for under our institutions of government, with
no immediate sense of the form of government entering into his daily
round of activities. Those who come to the public schools are of the
most ambitious and energetic of the alien friends. They come for
just what their intelligence tells them they can get — the means for
securing a better livelihood. They are ready to receive everything
that the teacher has to give them for their betterment. They are
ready recipients of instruction in every feature relating to America
and American institutions.

JUDICIAL SUPPORT ASSURED

Among the assurances to the bureau of support in this entire edu-
cational propaganda, those received from the judiciary were exceed-
ingly inspiring. Throughout the extent of the land the judges have
realized their inability to settle upon any standard of admissibility,
either nationally or locally. There never has been any concerted
action heretofore made for the establishment of such a standard.
Every judge sitting in naturalization cases with whom the matter
has been discussed, either directly or by correspondence, has given
his unqualified assurance of support to this undertaking. They have
expressed uniformly their sense of regret at the necessity for the
dismissal of petitions because of lack of knowledge on the part of
the petitioners. In many courts petitioners are no longer dismissed
if that be the sole ground, but the petitions are deferred and the
candidates directed to secure the aid of the public schools in advanc-
ing their understanding of our institutions.

As shown by the statements of the various chief examiners, these
continuances of petitions for naturalization to later dates at the
original hearings by the courts are increasing. This is a most sig-
nificant recognition by the courts of the higher standard which in
various localities the public schools are aiding the candidates to
attain.

This already has become the practice in cities where the public
schools are in cooperation with the bureau and is extending rapidly
as the adequacy of their facilities are known. In many courts the

692 APPENDIX

merest rudimentary knowledge has been accepted as the best that
can be manifested. This is so, especially where individuals and cer-
tain private organizations have collected together a few facts, and
after discussing these with the candidates have drilled them in
making set responses to certain stereotyped questions. Yet no judge
believes that such an acquisition of information actually equips an
otherwise uninformed alien to discharge the duties of American citi-
zenship. In some localities this represents the height of develop-
ment of public thought regarding citizenship preparation.

PREVAILING EVILS TO OVERCOME

There appear to be actual combinations in some places in restraint
of the opening of the public school for teaching the adult foreigner.
Non-action by the public schools tends to strengthen and perpetuate
just such organizations, whose sole objective is private individual gain.
The bureau has in its files at least one instance where a practice
appears to have grown up by which at one naturalization hearing a
single attorney had 99 petitioners on his list. This hearing was no
variation from the general rule, except that the number of foreign-
ers under his control who were candidates for citizenship might have
been less or more on that hearing day than at some others. He has
stated that he receives from $10 to $25 from each of these foreigners,
and it is generally known that the net pick-up of this attorney at a
naturalization hearing ranges anywhere from $900 to $1500, and
yet in this community where he flourishes the public schools have not,
for some inscrutable reason, organized classes for these foreigners.
One particularly impressive feature of this traffic in this community
should be mentioned — that most, if not all, of the foreigners who
come under his influence are engaged in the mining industry. If
these hard-working foreigners were engaged in a lucrative vocation,
the tax of from $10 to $25 to insure their admission to citizenship
might not be individually excessive. Such action not only does not
inspire these individuals to apply for American citizenship, but is a
decided deterrent upon the exercise of the desire to do so, as it is
generally understood that the runners of this individual make state-
ments which are calculated to discourage the application for citizen-
ship excepting through this particular route.

It was this particular activity to which reference was made in the
plan originally proposing this unification of effort between the public
schools and the Bureau of Naturalization. Its elimination was be-
lieved possible by this means ; but, as stated, up to the present time
the bureau has not been able to secure the opening of the public

AMERICAN IZATION 693

schools of that community, notwithstanding constant correspondence
and conferences by the field examiners of the bureau. The bureau
believes, however, that the time is very near when its efforts will
result in the complete breaking up of this most extensive trafficking
on the ignorance of the foreigners, as it is much encouraged, by re-
ports to it, in the belief that the public schools will organize during
the present scholastic year classes for real and actual instruction
to displace the specious " question-and-answer " drill to enable the
candidate to "get by."

WIVES OF CANDIDATES FOR CITIZENSHIP

During the year, for the purpose of including the wife in this
citizenship-betterment campaign by the public schools, the bureau
wrote a special letter personally addressed to the wives of 49,094
petitioners and declarants, telling them of the advantages which
would result from their attendance upon the public schools. The
name of each wife was also sent, upon an individual card, to the
public school in the community where the candidate lived. This
inclusion of the wife in the scope of this activity was to enable her
to get some conception of the meaning of an American home and aid
her in establishing it for her family. In many cities throughout the
country the public night schools now teach home care, sewing, cook-
ing, and other domestic arts and sciences to the foreign-born women
in their communities. Intense interest is manifested upon the part
of these wives and mothers, as in many instances they bring their
babies to the schoolroom, and while they sleep the mothers devote
their time to learning to read, speak, and write in our tongue in ad-
dition to receiving instruction in the more domestic subjects. In
order to insure extending this influence to the wife of every declarant
the bureau, with the approval of the department, changed the form
of the declaration of intention so as to require the inclusion of the
name of the wife therein, no provision having been made for her
name in the form as originally prepared. Approximately a quarter
of a million women of foreign allegiance will be thus brought within
the province of the Bureau of Naturalization through the filing of
declarations of intention and petitions for naturalization by their
husbands. There is a large number of the foreign element repre-
sented by the children of the immigrants, but all of the educational
facilities which the schools of this country afford are offered to these
children, and the bureau understands this work is being furthered
by the Immigration Bureau of this department. This report, there-
fore, does not deal with the children of the immigrant in any sense.

694 APPENDIX

Many women's clubs and various women's organizations have ap-
plied to the bureau to participate in furthering this work. The
bureau has accepted all proffers of aid and in turn appealed to many
other organizations to lend their cooperation in the extension of this
national movement. The bureau believes that the influences which
have been set in motion will be felt by all of the women of the resi-
dent foreign body, as it has received the assurances of heartiest co-
operation from all of these organizations. An appeal is therefore being
made to the wife of every foreigner who is a candidate for citizen-
ship — through all of these agencies working in common with the
bureau — to avail herself of the public schools, and to the public
schools to open their doors to a wider and broader contact with the
wife of the candidate for citizenship, and to aid in elevating her
condition from that produced by the European environment under
which she was born to the high plane of American intellectual equality
in the home.

STATE GOVERNMENTAL COOPERATION

Many local State agencies have been authorized to carry on this
work, and in some instances are in direct cooperation with the bureau
in a greater extension of the influence of the public schools. Nota-
ble among these may be mentioned the California Department of
Home Education, which is working in support of this movement to
further the education of the wives of the candidates for citizenship,
sending its representatives to the very homes of the candidates and
taking the message of the American home to the wives of the coming
Americans.

FIELD or POSSIBLE ACTIVITY

Since July i, 1910, there has been a net additiojnt to the foreign
population in this country of approximately 3,000,000, as shown by
the immigrants remaining and becoming annual additions to the
population. In this entire number scarcely any naturalizations could
occur, because of the necessity for five years' continuous residence
within the United States required by law. Only those among this
number could be naturalized who acted promptly in filing their
petitions for naturalization upon the expiration of the five-year
period during the course of the year under review. While the table
shows a population, therefore, of 29,990,947 in the communities co-
operating with this bureau, undoubtedly in these communities reside
the majority of the 3,000,000 additions to the foreign population of
the country. The four States not included in the table had only

AMERICANIZATION 695

84,680 foreigners at the last census, and the bureau has been assured
that they will participate in this Americanizing activity at the open-
ing of the new school year.

In many of the States the foreign population is out of proportion
to the facilities afforded by the public schools. Assurances have
been received, however, of the extension of this cooperative move-
ment, so that virtually all of the resident foreign population will
be reached. The plans of the bureau which are in process of develop-
ment for invading isolated mining camps, logging camps, construc-
tion camps, rural communities, and wherever else the foreign-born
candidate may be found, will insure carrying into the remotest
corners of our land the opportunity for a realization of the dreams
of those who have come amongst us from the lands beyond the seas.
As stated by the secretary in the quoted portion of the last annual
report of the department, this educational work "benefits not only
the individual candidate for citizenship but the native-born citizens
also, and reacts desirably upon the entire civic interests of the
country."

There are approximately 3000 counties in the States throughout
the entire country, including Alaska and Hawaii. In 2136 counties
the naturalization law is in active administrative operation, as shown
by the State courts exercising naturalization jurisdiction therein.
In all of the counties where the State courts are not exercising juris-
diction the applicants resident therein apply to the appropriate
district court of the United States. It probably is safe to assume,
in view of the extension of the field from year to year, that naturali-
zation may be conferred at some time upon residents in every county
in the United States in which foreigners are found. From this it
will be seen that the scope and influence of the naturalization law
will be exerted in every city, village, town, cross roads hamlet, and
rural and backwoods section in the United States.

RENEWED OPPORTUNITY FOR ALIEN FRIENDS

This cooperation between the public schools and the bureau means
the extension to the alien friend of the helping hand and a nation-
wide movement going into the colonized groups of foreign-born
residents with the direct purpose on the part of the Federal Govern-
ment of carrying into these centers that greatest of all American
boons — opportunity : the opportunity to realize the ideals which
inspired the alien to leave the country of his nativity and cast his
lot among us ; the opportunity to secure his position in society upon

696 APPENDIX

a higher plane; the opportunity to obtain a better job for himself
and advance the interests and welfare of his family ; the opportunity
for them to be placed in the atmosphere of that greatest of all
Americanizing influences — the American public school — and there
to have implanted in their hearts and souls the true spirit of our
institutions of government, for which every candidate for citizenship
has a higher and sacred ambition.

From this it should be seen that the old order of things in nat-
uralization has completely ceased to exist as even tolerable. The
time has passed when the alien could secure the title to American
citizenship whether he wanted it or not and at the behest of the
politician whose sole purpose was to make him available for the one
act on election day. This order has been succeeded by an observance
of the law by the courts with as much thoroughness as conditions
have permitted, so that about 25 per cent of the admissions to citi-
zenship are fully justified. The other 75 per cent have now been
brought to the attention of the public schools. The schools have
seen their opportunity to inaugurate a fundamental course of in-
struction in citizenship, patriotism, governmental institutions, self-
government, and all that pertains to our institutions and to carry on
this work in that most productive field of labor which is to be found
in this nation — the alien adult population. The phenomenal prog-
ress that has been made during the past year justifies the prediction
that the public schools in every community where the alien friend
is to be found will open their doors for his instruction and make this
work of citizenship preparation a hundred per cent reality through-
out the entire country.

The brightest and most encouraging phase of this work has been
found in the ready response of the Chief Executive of the Nation to
lend the presence of his office in honor of this function of the bureau.
The first occasion, as mentioned, was the Philadelphia reception ; the
second was at the citizenship convention held in the city of Washing-
ton during the week of July 10, 1916, Raymond F. Crist, Deputy
Commissioner of Naturalization, presiding, of which the following is
the official program :

CITIZENSHIP CONVENTION

Monday, July 10.— Address, "Welcome to the City," Hon. Oliver P.
Newman, Commissioner of the District of Columbia; "Americanism,"
Hon. Louis F. Post, Assistant Secretary of Labor; address of welcome,
Ernest L. Thurston, superintendent of schools, Washington, D. C. ; "Even-
ing schools for foreigners in the Northwest," Robert S. Coleman, chief

AMERICANIZATION 697

naturalization examiner, St. Paul, Minnesota; "The public schools in the
Philippine Islands and Hawaii " (illustrated), Hon. Clarence B. Miller, Rep-
resentative in Congress.

Tuesday, July u. — Address, Hon. Josephus Daniels, Secretary of the
Navy; "The schools of the United States Army," Lieut. E. Z. Steever,
United States Army; address, Samuel Gompers, president of American
Federation of Labor; "Americanizing a community" (illustrated), J.
Henri Wagner, chief clerk Bureau of Naturalization; "Rural night schools
for aliens in northern Minnesota," E. A. Freeman, district superintendent of
schools, Grand Rapids, Minnesota; "Preparation for American citizenship
and life," Hon. Philander P. Claxton, Commissioner United States Bureau
of Education.

Wednesday, July 12. — "Methods of reaching and teaching illiterates,"
Mrs. Cora Wilson Stewart, president of Kentucky Illiteracy Commission,
Frankfort, Kentucky ; " Outdoor school work in Tacoma, Washington " (illus-
trated), Hon. Albert Johnson, Representative in Congress; discussion of
textbooks by the convention ; "An American in the making " (illustrated) .

Thursday, July 13. — Selection, the Marine Band ; " Civic preparedness
and Americanization," J. M. Berkey, director of special schools and exten-
sion work, ^Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; "Some of the problems of getting
aliens into the night schools," W. M. Ragsdale, chief naturalization examiner,
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ; address, the President of the United States ;
selection, the Marine Band; "The immigrant in America" (illustrated);
"What Portland, Oregon, is doing to Americanize foreigners," L. R. Alder-
man, superintendent of schools, Portland, Oregon ; address, Hon. William
B. Wilson, Secretary of Labor.

Friday, July 14. — Address, Hon. Frederick L. Siddons, associate justice
of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia: "The man he might
have been" (illustrated) ; "What Boston is doing in immigrant education,"
M. J. Downey, assistant director evening and continuation schools, Boston,
Massachusetts; "The business man's point of view," I. Walton Schmidt,
Industrial Welfare Department, Board of Commerce, Detroit, Michigan ;
"The industrial plan of education in Wisconsin," Andrew H. Melville,
member State conference board on industrial education and chief of the
bureau of civic, commercial, and community development, University of
Wisconsin Extension Division; "A resume," Raymond F. Crist, Deputy
Commissioner of Naturalization.

Saturday, July 15. — Miscellaneous.

This convention was the first of its kind ever held in the United
States and was attended by a number of representative public school
superintendents, principals, and teachers from various parts of the
country. These members came from the cities and towns where the
public schools are in cooperation with the Bureau of Naturalization
in the preparation for citizenship of the candidates for that estate
by naturalization. The convention was participated in also by

698 APPENDIX

Government officials representing the legislative, executive, and judicial
branches of the Government and the staff of field officers of the
Bureau of Naturalization, by whom speeches and addresses were
made. At the opening of the convention, after referring to the
initiation of this work as taking place since the organization of the
Department of Labor and as one of its activities, the presiding officer
stated the twofold object of the convention to be to consider the prob-
lems and advancement during the past year in the education of the
candidate for citizenship by the public schools and to discuss the
textbook for each candidate for citizenship who enters the public
schools which the bureau has in course of preparation, in direct re-
sponse to the calls upon it from the public schools of the country and
the many organizations interested in Americanization work of these
two governmental agencies. Space does not admit in this report
setting forth the speeches, as they are to be printed in their entirety.
It is most fitting, however, to give the following quotation from the
forceful address of the President :

It is not fair to the great multitudes of hopeful men and women who press
into this country from other countries that we should leave them without
that friendly and intimate instruction which will enable them very soon after
they come to find out what America is like at heart and what America is in-
tended for among the nations of the world. I believe that the chief school
that these people must attend after they get here is the school which all of
us attend, which is furnished by the life of the communities in which we live
and the nation to which we belong.

It is easy, my fellow-citizens, to communicate physical lessons, but it is
very difficult to communicate spiritual lessons. America was intended to be
a spirit among the nations of the world, and it is the purpose of conferences
like this to find out the best way to introduce the newcomers to this spirit,
and by that very interest in them to enhance and purify in ourselves the thing
that ought to make America great, and not only ought to make her great,
but ought to make her exhibit a spirit unlike any other nation in the world.

So my interest in this movement is as much an interest in ourselves as in
those whom we are trying to Americanize, because if we are genuine Ameri-
cans they cannot avoid the infection ; whereas if we are not genuine Ameri-
cans there will be nothing to infect them with, and no amount of teaching,
no amount of exposition of the Constitution — which I find very few per-
sons understand — no amount of dwelling upon the idea of liberty and of
justice will accomplish the object we have in view, unless we ourselves illus-
trate the idea of justice and of liberty.

This was the crowning event of the year and of the two and one
half years of preparation leading to the achievement of the unifica-
tion of the State public schools with the Federal Government. It
is hoped that this citizenship convention may be the first of a

AMERICANIZATION 699

series where annually the feast of reason may be partaken with profit
by an increasing number and mark a steady annual development
toward the national standardization of the subject matter and method
of instruction, the broadening of the potentiality of effort, a draw-
ing closer together of the candidates for citizenship with the pro-
spective candidates for citizenship and the public schools of the
country in this nation-wide Americanizing undertaking. Out of
this closer contact the bureau entertains the great hope that the door
of the public schoolhouses will be maintained open throughout the
year for the instruction of these millions, as it either must furnish
their names monthly to the public schools with unfailing regularity
or see many thousands denied during the period when the school-
houses are closed. None should be denied this opportunity, but all,
regardless of age, should be induced to undertake the course of in-
struction leading at least to the ability to speak in our tongue. Re-
gardless of age illiterates in their own tongue and with no knowl-
edge of ours, though upwards of 50 years of age, both men and
women, have, within the short period of a twelvemonth, been equipped
with a creditable mastery of American English through the educational
agencies which this country affords.

APPRECIATION

The bureau desires to extend its heartiest thanks and appreciation
to the many organizations which have lent such unselfish, unstinted,
and patriotic aid in the various localities in implanting this national
work of elevating the standard of citizenship. The local press in
every community appeared to perceive the great advantage of this
governmental aid to their public schools, as shown by the most lib-
eral attention in their columns given to the opening of these schools
and to the patriotic favorable editorial notices of the subject from
time to time. Unquestionably the daily and weekly periodicals had
much to do with arousing a wide interest in their communities and
throughout the territory of their circulation. Especial praise is
extended to the newspapers of the smaller cities and towns and the
more rural communities. The metropolitan press was no less pro-
nounced in its support, but in these centers of population its influ-
ence was not so readily discernible. The field officers of the bureau
and the personnel in the bureau engaged in this work have prose-
cuted it with an interest and enthusiasm which insures complete
ultimate success. By all of these participating in this work of hu-
manity, as they have for years, the necessity for this instruction of
our prospective citizens was most pronouncedly felt. It has been

700

APPENDIX

only through their persistent, loyal, intelligent, and patriotic efforts
that this great Americanizing force, once perceived, was made possi-
ble of being set into motion and being brought to a definite reality.
By their personal contact and correspondence with the public they
have started up interest on the part of the school authorities, com-
mercial organizations, the press, churches, the resident alien body,
and the native citizenry to such an extent that the highest achieve-
ments possible have crowned their efforts during this one brief year
of combined effort.

The greatest evidences of unselfish patriotism have been demon-
strated by those primarily interested in the educational organizations
of a private nature in the relinquishment of their desires to engage,
or to continue to engage, in pursuit of this work independently of
the public schools. In one of the most active of these organizations
expressions have been made by those immediately engaged in citizen-
ship instruction of a willingness not only to see the work taken over
entirely by the public schools but to lend their aid to its accom-
plishment.

NEW LEGISLATION

As the bureau has gained in experience, its belief in the efficacy or
desirability of further legislative action upon the rule for the natu-
ralization of aliens has diminished. The law as it stands in a
large measure has justified itself, in actual practice, as wisely con-
ceived. The chief obstructions to its successful operation, apart
from administrative features, have been the special enactments
made from time to time to meet exceptional cases of assumed hard-
ship to aliens who otherwise would be barred from citizenship or
delayed in securing it except at the sacrifice of their personal con-
venience to a greater or less extent. Such special legislation, even
when carefully prepared, is too much the subject of hasty amend-
ment during the process of consideration in the committees or on the
floor of the two Houses of Congress to be regarded as a desirable
means of perfecting the law.

If there is any exception to this view, it would be the enactment
of a law making the establishment of every alien's individual fitness,
whether seeking citizenship directly or obtaining derivatively through
a naturalized parent, a prerequisite to full participation in the rights
of American citizenship. Upon this point the bureau can only advert
to what has been said repeatedly in its annual reports, where it called
attention to the fact that even if such derivative citizens should be
personally qualified, they neither have the chance to exercise their

AMERICANIZATION 701

own volition as to assuming our citizenship nor do they openly assume
any of the obligations of allegiance to our laws and form of govern-
ment.

There is, furthermore, the so-called dual-citizenship question to
be considered, by which those who have been naturalized obtain a
citizenship that ceases when they return to the country of their
origin. A citizenship so limited is in conflict with the elementary
principles of our form of government, which recognizes the inherent
right of a human being, as of one born "free," to expatriate himself
and freely choose the country of his allegiance.

This, of course, is not a matter that can be controlled by legisla-
tion, but is dependent upon international agreement, which it is
urged should again be inaugurated by negotiation with those coun-
tries with which, as yet, the United States has not effected satis-
factory treaty settlement of this point.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE

DIGEST OF PROGRAM ADDRESSES MADE BEFORE CONFERENCE OF
AMERICANIZATION SPECIALISTS AND WORKERS HELD IN WASHING-
TON, MAY 12-15, 1919

PURPOSES OF THE CONFERENCE
FRED C. BUTLER, DIRECTOR OF AMERICANIZATION

WE NOW find ourselves facing the future with a nation fully
aroused to the importance of a real Americanization and
eager to undertake the work. Calls are now coming to the Amer-
icanization Division saying, "We are ready for work. Just how shall
we go about it?" It was to answer this question that this conference
was called. No man is wise enough to lay out a program for Ameri-
canization and set forth the exact ways in which this great task can
be done. We felt that this must come out of the valuable lessons you
men and women have learned who have been doing this work for
many years past.

The opinions crystallized here will be made the basis of our plans
and subjects for special bulletins. The proceedings may possibly be
issued in full and made available to you at once for such help as you
can get from them.

The war has left us no greater task than that of bringing into full
fellowship those who among us were born in other lands. That this
must be done sympathetically and with a broad and tolerant under-
standing goes without saying. It is everywhere recognized that any
real program of Americanization must take into consideration the
shortcomings of us of native birth if we are to build a true and enduring
democracy. We can succeed only if we approach our task with
hearts beating in sympathy with the needs of our fellow-men, with a
vision unclouded by the hates and passions of war, "with charity
toward all and malice toward none. " Unless we are ourselves convinced
that these people from other lands are desirable, potential Americans,
that we need them here, that they come not with empty hands but
with arts, crafts, sciences, music, and ideals which will add to the
wealth of our common heritage, unless we feel that to us is given not
so much a duty as a great opportunity, we shall fail. For ours is the
first of all a human problem.

702

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 703

To those who g,ave up their hearthstones, their homeland, the ties
of love and consanguinity, to begin life anew in a strange land, speaking
a strange tongue, we are to interpret America.

EDUCATION IN AMERICANIZATION
PHILANDER P. CLAXTON, COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION

Education is the fundamental thing in Americanization, and of the
elements comprising this fundamental, the first is instruction in the
English language. . This tongue is the common means of expression —
the literature, the statutes, State and national constitutions, the news-
papers, the very signs of instruction and warning, being printed in
English. Without a knowledge of the language no one can ever begin
to know the American people and American ideals.

It is not a part of my duty here at this conference to indicate
just how this should be done, but first it must be done for the children
who come from other countries. We compel parents and guardians to
send their children to school that the children may not be deprived
of the opportunity offered by the State and that the State may not
be cheated out of the product of good citizenship. We must require
that the schools to which children are permitted to go in lieu of attend-
ance on the public schools shall teach the things which the public
schools are teaching. They shall all teach English. There is the
problem of teaching the grown-up man and woman who have reached
the age when it is not easy for them to learn a new language.

The second element of the fundamental is giving the newcomers a
knowledge of this country. The growth of the United States has
been dramatic and phenomenal. This is a story worth knowing, and in
some way we must get it into the minds and hearts and into the ways
of these people who have come from other shores that they may know
what America means and that ideal of freedom for which we have been
willing to fight.

These new people are coming now with much the same spirit that
brought our earliest settlers to America, from the great middle classes
as we are, all of us, and we have confidence in their ability and in the
strength of their good right arms. In making them into Americans,
we shall ourselves learn more of the spirit of America and broaden
our own ideals and enrich our own material and aesthetic lives. It
is in this spirit that we shall enter with your cooperation on this pro-
gram of the education of the ten or twelve million people who need our
help in this regard.

704 APPENDIX

BEST TECHNICAL METHODS OF TEACHING ENGLISH TO THE
FOREIGN-BORN

CHARLES F. TOWNE, DIRECTOR OF IMMIGRANT EDUCATION, MASSACHUSETTS

There is a natural tendency on the part of both teachers and pupils
to rely on the printed page as the instrument by which to teach
language.

Experience has demonstrated that this is a fallacy. Spoken lan-
guage is not learned through the eye. Consequently our teaching
procedure should place oral instruction and practice, in speaking ahead
of instruction in reading. Pupils should first be taught the meaning of
the theme through the devices of action, gesture, play of features,
inflection of the voice, together with the use of objects and pictures.
They should learn to voice each sentence through imitation and
repetition until they are able to repeat the complete theme or that
portion of the theme that serves for the lesson. The teacher should
then print or write the first sentence on the board, where there should
be more drill in associating the symbols with the sounds and their
meanings. The remaining sentence should also be treated in this way,
and only after the pupils are able to understand and speak the com-
plete theme and to read it from the board should they be permitted to
practice reading from printed page.

A comprehensive, direct method emphasizes the use of language in
understanding and speaking as the features of most practical value
to the foreign-born. It aims to make English the language of the
classroom because of its value in the training of the ear of the pupil.
It holds to the sentence as the unit of thought and discounts the learn-
ing of disconnected word lists. By the arrangement of the sentences
according to time sequence it assists the memory of the pupil, and
by the orderly introduction of the variants it covers the field
of grammar in practical fashion without resort to abstract rules and
definitions. By concert work it relieves bashful pupils from embarrass-
ment and keeps each one interested and alert. By separating the
phonic drills from the reading period it maintains the continuity of
the reading exercise. It can be used by any teacher with any class,
and by thoroughness of organization it can be made effective in the
hands of the inexperienced and relatively unskilled as well as in the
hands of the well-trained and experienced. By choice of material
every lesson may not only be made a lesson in English, but also a
lesson in Americanization and so aid in advancing the pupil one more
step along the road toward loyal American citizenship.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 705

THE PHONOGRAPH IN AMERICANIZATION

W. A. WILLSON, EDUCATIONAL DEPARTMENT, COLUMBIA GRAPHOPHONE

COMPANY

If we are to transform our foreign communities into American com-
munities we must create in them and around them an American atmos-
phere. In the accomplishment of this the influence of the phonograph
is second to none. We have in the phonograph a means of spreading
American ideals and standards in every home. In connection with
keeping vivid the impressions made upon the child of foreign-born
parentage at the public school, the phonograph plays a real part,
as the child accustomed to it at school will usually find a way to have
the instrument brought into the home, where the process of making
real Americans is continued.

The phonograph system of language instruction enables the student
to learn the language in his home in spare moments and without the
presence of a living teacher. A lesson may be reviewed a hundred
times and correct pronunciation is mastered by hearing the teacher's
voice repeat the sound again and again. The benefits to be conferred
upon the non-English speaking population of the country through
widespread introduction of this new method of teaching cannot be
overestimated. This method not only gives ability to speak and under-
stand a language through a trained organ of hearing and mind, but
also gives ability to read and write, for while the student is listening
to the English record he is also reading the sentences in his textbook
and becoming familiar with the general structure of the language.

USING THE STEREOPTICON FOR TEACHING ENGLISH TO
THE FOREIGN-BORN

H. D. RICKARD, PUTNAM SCHOOL, SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

If a teacher could apply individual instruction methods to each
pupil in a class of 40, all at the same time, his work is inexpensive,
efficient, and practical. We try to keep all the pupils in the rooms
working all the time instead of working with one individual out of a
class of 40, by the use of the stereopticon slide. It has been found that
three fourths of the foreign-born who begin the study of English need
objective work at the start. The slides take the place of the real
object, such as the table, the door, or the girl, and provide the con-
necting link between the written word and the object.

7o6 APPENDIX

As a device for keeping up the interest, the stereopticon has unlimited
possibilities. It affords a rest period both from the glare of the room
lights and the pupils' posture. From an economical standpoint it
would be cheaper to use the slide all the time the lesson is going on,
for when the one bulb in the lantern is burning the other dozen are
not ; and instead of being scattered, the attention of the entire class is
concentrated upon the slide.

It seems to me that a very economical use of public money could
be made in preparing a series of slides suitable for Americanization
work and then loan them to the schools having such classes. Then,
if a book could be prepared to be put in the hands of the pupils with
illustrations and lessons, numbered to correspond with the lessons
on the slides, the work would be put on a convenient, compact, and
permanent basis for review and future reference. Civil government
could be taugjit in this way, too.

USING PERIODICALS IN SCHOOLS

WILLIAM MCANDREWS, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS,

NEW YORK CITY

What changed 13 colonies from British people to the American
Nation ? If you will look back into history you will see that the means
used to arouse the country was the periodical press. If this was the
means effective in 1760 and in 1860, it bids fair to be the means used
in 1960, and will be the channel through which ideals and ideas of
Americanism are to be spread and perpetuated.

Last week, in response to an inquiry addressed to 246 school
superintendents as to what they were doing to take advantage of the
great awakening that has come from the war, it was learned that 226
of them are using periodical literature as a school exercise. This 91
per cent use the periodicals for i period a week. In view of the fact
that they have from 19 to 25 periods of other studies, 5 periods devoted
to Latin and 5 periods devoted to algebra, this is a small percentage of
time allotted for such work. Can you tell me any subject which,
minute for minute, is more productive of thought in regard to the
problems of Americanism than the study of the problems as they are
presented by the weekly textbooks which everybody out of school is
using ?

When the magazine comes in I do not hold it and prepare a lesson,
but everybody takes his lesson home and spends an hour reading
articles of his own selection preparatory to discussing them hi class

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 707

next day. The pupil is then in the position of being ready to serve
those who have not read those particular articles, with what knowl-
edge he has gained and his own opinions.

REORGANIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL FACILITIES FOR
AMERICANIZATION

F. V. THOMPSON, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

I want to begin by emphasizing the thing which I wish to conclude
with, namely, that we need more adequate legislation and increased
funds. We might just as well cease talking about the problem of
Americanization unless we 'are disposed to face this issue. This
period of stimulation, general interest and propaganda needs to be
capitalized now before reaction sets in.

Education for citizenship is a public matter. It is undignified for a
great nation or a great State to depend upon private enterprise for this
most important matter before the Nation. Knowing as I do from my
experience with night schools, the limitations of the evening schools, I
would like to set up an institution to be known as a daytime im-
migrant school. It would be a sort of holding corporation for the
various devices which our recent experience has shown are proper and
effective. It would have an organization set up for full-time perform-
ance with a director and expert at the head of it. It can be the
parent school for the factory-class teacher — and I am one who be-
lieves the factory class should be under the supervision of the public
school system. There would be evening classes for those who wished
them, also.

In this problem of education there are three partners, the nation,
the State, and the community. Each should bear the expense equally.
The community has to operate the scheme, the State cooperating
with it, and the nation cooperating with the State. In none of our
communities where public moneys are being expended for evening-
school instruction — using that term as synonymous with Ameri-
canization — is the amount expended more than i per cent of the
school budget. We are spending in less than half of the communities,
less than i per cent of the public moneys for the immigrant at this
moment. The education of immigrants has been thrown consequently
into all sorts of private agencies, all of them well meaning and some
of them very dangerous from the viewpoint of public expediency.

7o8 APPENDIX

THE SOCIAL UNIT EXPERIMENT

WILBUR C. PHILLIPS, EXECUTIVE, SOCIAL UNIT ORGANIZATION, CINCINNATI,

OHIO

The Social Unit experiment is being carried out in Cincinnati be-
cause that city was successful out of 16 which competed with each
other, in offering the most hearty backing and support for the idea of
socializing a community. It is staged in a district of 15,000 people,
which of several competing districts evinced the most sincere interest.
About 3200 people and 26 organizations signed the petition to the
National Social Unit organization to enter the district. An organi-
zation of 205 local people, who had banded together of their own
initiative, undertook the organization extension. In each of the 31
blocks composing the district, a temporary committee of citizens was
named with a temporary block executive having about 100 families in
charge.

This year, in January, these temporary appointees were duly
elected on the preferential ballot system. These block executives,
who are mainly women because they have the daytime in which to
become acquainted with their blocks, make up the popular chamber
of the neighborhood legislature. We have a skilled chamber which is
made up of representatives of the occupational groups. All occupations
have not been organized, the experiments having been made with the
doctors, nurses, and professional men. The 31 executives from the
blocks have elected an executive of their own and they in turn rep-
resent 31 block councils. The nine skilled executives have elected
an executive of their own. One of the features of this plan is the
responsible executive, there being three who make a sort of commission
form of government. The job of the executive is to keep in close accord
with members of his committee, getting their viewpoints and opinions
and after a program is once decided upon, setting to work to execute it.

INDUSTRIAL COOPERATION

MRS. J. E. OWEN PHILLIPS, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, KALAMAZOO,

MICHIGAN

Kalamazoo's plan as it is being broadened from the local industries
to the whole community is purely a tentative one, an experiment in
fact. We do not know whether or not it is going to succeed, for we
find that the great educational process of Americanization is needed

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 709

for the manufacturer, for the employer,- and for the citizens as a whole,
as well as for the foreign-born worker. We wish to draw all of these
together in a wide educational propaganda.

Some few months ago a group of manufacturers in the chamber of
commerce at Kalamazoo decided to try to work out a plan along
democratic American lines to make the people realize that in this
country we are all brothers in a practical, definite way. My husband
and I went up there to put into practice a plan we had thought
out for such a purpose. We formed in each of the ip factories a good-
fellowship league, with a shop committee in each one of them. These
are composed of seven persons of both sexes and were to be the point of
contact between the central Good- Fellowship League and the in-
dividual factories. They were elected by the workers and represented
the managerial end as well as the workers' element. We are hoping
to form a central industrial board in Kalamazoo and to include on
it representatives of the general public, because in the industrial
troubles the public is the sufferer. Efficiency talks have been given
at the weekly factory meeting. We have used the auditorium in the
chamber of commerce for activities and we have had dances, smokes,
and gatherings of all kinds. We now have a shop paper, which has
grown rapidly.

COORDINATING A COMMUNITY
MRS. MARGARET LONG, NATIONAL CATHOLIC WAR COUNCIL

Can a modern American city suffering from the grave maladies
normally induced by sudden and critical industrial expansion and
congestion outgrow its growing pains and recover robust health?
If coordination of all the forces within the command of a sick com-
munity is a remedy in one city suffering as East St. Louis has suffered,
it should prove a remedy in most if not all cities.

The first field selected by the Federal Government as a demon-
stration project of the force of concentrated effort in the big drive
for higher citizenship was East St. Louis. It was chosen because over-
night it sprang from a normal city into a great industrial center with
peoples pouring in from every section of this country and I£urope.

The key to the coordination plan is the War Civics Committee.'
It was originally headed up in the community organization branch of
the Industrial Service Section of the Ordnance Department. It is
now headed in the office of Dean Keppel, Third Assistant Secretary
of War, with joint responsibility to Fred C. Butler, Director of

7io

APPENDIX

Americanization, Bureau of Education. A paid staff of workers and
specialists execute the plans ; and the committee counts for counsel on
a general committee of 50, an executive committee of 9, and subcom-
mittees chosen from local representative men and women who give a
great amount of volunteer service. The total membership of the sub-
committee is about 300.

The function of the Civic Committee is to be compared with that
of a central planning division in a business concern. It promotes,
stimulates, develops, and coordinates social agencies. A fund of
$184,000 was subscribed by the industries and businesses of the city
to cover overhead expenses for three years.

TRAINED TEACHERS GREATEST NEED

W. C. SMITH, STATE SUPERVISOR OF IMMIGRANT EDUCATION FOR

NEW YORK

Americanization's supreme task in the field of education is the raising
up of a body of trained teachers and workers who know the needs of
the foreign-born students and how to meet these needs in ^nethod,
technique, and measurable results. Until the State and Nation places
the work of properly trained teachers upon such a professional basis
that it will command sufficient financial returns to induce the gifted
to enter the work the results must suffer.

Any course for the training of teachers for English must furnish to
the worker :

1. A background of the histories, causes of immigration, distribution
in this country, and effect on Americans of the foreign-born people.

2. Actual contact with the foreign-born student or some other
effective means for gaining a sympathetic attitude.

3. Latest information concerning best methods and texts available
from Americanization workers everywhere.

4. Formation of a workable program.

5. Comparison of texts as to various points of strength and weak-
ness.

6. Knowledge of the immigrants' needs in civics and citizenship.
The New York State policy of trained teachers was enacted into

law in 1918, and courses embodying the points maintained in this
paper were carried on in various parts of the State, training 2700
teachers at a cost of about $20,000. About 60 per cent of these courses
were made up of teachers engaged in the work and the remaining
were volunteers and social workers. Thirty hours' work was required ;
credits and preferences were given by many cities, notably New York,

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 711

Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo. Definite research on a wide range
of subjects, from the problems of the evening school to a comparative
study of the alien woman in America, was required, and an examination
on the covered subjects given at the close.

TRAINING TEACHERS FOR THE INDUSTRIES
C. C. DE WITT, FORD MOTOR COMPANY, DETROIT, MICHIGAN

When industries wake up to the fact that their plants are full of
potential teachers and are willing to give recognition to their talent
then our Americanization problem will practically have been solved,
for it takes only a short time to teach the American language with a
broad knowledge of civil government, which is one of the many by-
products given with a well-outlined course. I most vigorously hold
to the principle of a laid-down course and the teacher trained to follow
it. There are several advantages in using the industrial teacher be-
cause teacher and student have so many things in common. He works
for the same employer, the same hours, and has the same environ-
ment. Then, too, he comes in contact with his students in the shop
when the class is not in session.

Once industry discovers how easy it is, every plant in the country
will have its Americanization school, furnished with its own equipment
and taught by leaders found under the roof of its own concern. The
Ford English School uses the volunteer teacher system, and I have
found that it is not necessary to have such teachers work overtime.
They can be taken from their place of work at regular periods for
classes, thus giving them a change and raising their prestige with
the departments. These teachers are recruited from men who are
natural-born leaders of other men, and they are trained in Ameri-
canization before being assigned to a class.

TRAINING PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS FOR THE WORK

JOHN J. MAHONEY, STATE NORMAL COLLEGE, LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS

About six months ago the Americanization study of the Carnegie
Foundation found that only 34 per cent of all teachers in Ameri-
canization work were trained and that 78 per cent of this number
were in New England States. This did not include cities such as
New York, Boston, Cleveland, and Buffalo, who did not report in
the questionnaire, and 75 per cent of these superintendents who re-
plied expressed a preference for properly trained teachers.

7i2 APPENDIX.

We are barely beginning to break ground in the important task of
training teachers for Americanization work as a life vocation or the
retraining of public school instructors for this work. Generally
speaking, normal schools which train for all work below the high school
grades are not yet training teachers for Americanization work. The
situation is improving, but considering the size of the task, our
attempts to prepare for it through teacher training are as yet pitifully
inadequate. There is grave danger that some of the institutions will
offer courses conducted by people who never taught immigrants
or had first-hand contact with them. No teacher can be a first-class
instructor without that knowledge. Sociology, with all its connections,
should be a part of the training of Americanization teachers, for this
work is a highly specialized one.

The most important thought that I can give you here is that persons
training to be Americanization teachers should have a course of lec-
tures, reports, and discussions intended to put Americanism into
Americanization. Teachers must know the social, political, and indus-
trial aspects of American democracy before they can aid others to
become real Americans, and in my experience all teachers did not
give evidence of knowing these things. They must understand that
this is a Government of the people, by the people, for the people;
that this country has no aristocracy save that of worth and fineness
of spirit ; and that the doctrine of the economic " square deal "
points the way to the enduring happiness of society as a whole.

USING THE SCHOOLS AT SCRANTON
S. E. WEBER, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, SCRANTON, PENNSYLVANIA

Scranton conducted a survey of its local non-English-speaking
industrial workers and learned that 6 out of every 10 of these men had
made no attempt to become citizens, that more than 70 per cent of
this unnaturalized element had been in this country for 12 years,
and that over one half of them were wholly illiterate in any language.
In view of this situation the board of education gave the superinten-
dent of schools full authority to open as many classes as the demand
warranted. Every coal operator and mine superintendent in the
district was invited to cooperate and every employer of non-English-
speaking labor did so. Classes were begun at once, and after the men
are once enrolled, the question of holding their interests rests jointly
on the school authorities and the employer. An entrance fee of $i
is charged each man, this being refunded if he attends 70 per cent of
the session.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 713

Our teachers are carefully selected from our regular teaching force
and are kept on the job as long as they demonstrate their ability to
hold their students. Employers take cognizance of the efforts of
their employees to study. Classes were opened for the women, and
active assistance has been given by the Catholic priests.

TRAINING HOME TEACHERS

Miss HARRIET P. Dow, YORKVILLE NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION, NEW

YORK CITY

Much must be made over the work that individuals can do in
Americanization through volunteer service, because just now work in
the homes of foreign-born women is altogether an individual effort.
Club women throughout the land who are busy making up their
programs for the next winter's study can be urged to put into these
programs more of the vital need of women to work with foreign women
until they feel the appeal and volunteer to do it. Having recruited
volunteers, how will we train them? We should train them through
definite instruction. They should be taught all the materials at hand
available for use in their work in the homes, and this can best be taught
by people who have traveled the road before.

These instructors need to know the environment of the foreign
people among whom they are to send the volunteers. They need to
know more of the foreign-born woman's church, more of the practical
help that the foreign-born man can give to the work. The foreign
store where the woman trades is one of the greatest sources of help in
knowing the real foreign situation. The doctors and nurses have the
straight road to the foreign-born woman's heart. There should ever be
an attitude of trying to get the foreign woman's viewpoint. We have
all heard of the woman who sewed on her children's underwear in the
fall and did not take them off until spring. But did we stop to think
that coming from Italy, this woman did the most natural thing she
could think of to protect the bodies of her children against what to
her is an unusually rigorous winter ? Every worker should be required
to make one actual contact with a foreign-born woman before she is
qualified to be a home teacher, and she should make this through her
own efforts.

APPENDIX
USING THE SCHOOLHOUSES

H. H. GOLDBERGER, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK ClTY

Only by living with Americans, by establishing a variety of con-
tacts — social, industrial, economic, and political — can the foreigner
become Americanized. Such contacts may easily be established in the
school. Night schools can become efficient community centers,
laboratories for mixing the various elements of the citizenship.

Instead of teaching civics as it has in the past, the school may put
these principles into practice by organizing democratic groups whereby
the foreign-born man knows first-hand what constitutes democratic
organization.

One result of the socializing of the school is the discovery through
experience, rather than by the imagination of the teacher, what
instruction in the English language is needed by the foreign-born
pupils under his natural living conditions, outside the artificial status
of the schoolroom. I wish to emphasize that social work of all kinds
appeals to me not so much because of its attractiveness and adver-
tising value but because of the new incentive it gives to the students
to learn the language more adequately. In one New York City school,
where such socializing has gone forward, the school found, after trying
the idea, that the number of classes at the close of the school year
for the first time in its history was larger than when the fall session
had opened. So popular have these extra school activities become
among the foreign-born that, I understand, participation in them is
restricted to those who are enrolled also in the English classes.

PROMOTION OF EDUCATION IN INDUSTRY
W. M. ROBERTS, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, CHICAGO

If the employers representing the dominant industries in any
industrial city remain indifferent as to whether or not the foreign-
born men in their employ know the English language, it requires
extraordinary effort on the part of other agencies of the community to
get them started to learning English. The experiences growing out of
the war have shown that the foreign-born men would like to be called
Americans; that they would prefer to speak English in the shop
and on the street, and that they have not learned largely because it
was not required of them in the factory, was not necessary at home,
and they could get all the news they wanted out of the foreign

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 715

language newspaper. If an opportunity is given them to learn the lan-
guage during the day, they usually accept it with much satisfaction,
particularly the man who is too indifferent to go to evening school.

I am convinced that the vigorous community " drive," with its
great publicity and reflection by implication upon the foreign-born, is
not the way to begin such a work. A better way is to have one or more
industry begin quietly and quite as a matter between the management
and the employees. One forceful personality or a small working
committee engaged in "selling" this proposition to one establishment
after another is to be preferred to a regiment of copy writers and
speakers. If the quiet method does not bring results, there may be
need for a drive and much jumping on those who are blocking the
game. One detail should be emphasized — there must be some one
delegated by the factory management to see that all obligations
assumed by the plant are fully carried out and that this person is
always on the job.

EDUCATION FOR THE RURAL FOREIGN-BORN

PETER A. SPEEK, SLAVIC SECTION, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Education for the adult foreign-born settler in the rural sections
of the country should be extended through home teachers, especially
trained and equipped for the work. High schools and colleges should
specifically train their immigrant girl students to become teachers in
the colonies of their respective nationalities that the immigrant women
might be reached.

The problem of education is acutest in the large colonies of immi-
grant settlers, especially in the States where the foreign-born settlers,
including the un- Americanized third and fourth generations, consti-
tute a large majority of the rural population. In many of these, entire
populations of foreign-born of the same nationality elect their own
local public officials, put up their own country towns, with their own
bankers, newspapers, and schools. From these places came a con-
siderable number of the American-born drafted men who could not
write, speak, or even understand English.

Schools must be consolidated, school administration must be
bettered, and the rural course must give the children of the farmer
practical education. Rural school teachers, who show qualifications
for this Americanization work, must be adequately paid throughout
the calendar year. A pension for old age and health and accident
insurance are calculated to win a more contented body of teachers.

7i6 APPENDIX

At the schoolhouses, teacherages must be established with small
experimental farms for the family of the teacher.

The school year must be changed to meet the calendar year as one
means of increasing attendance at the rural school. Short vacations
could be given during the special farming seasons, the work the children
do for their parents at that time being considered part of their school
curriculum.

EDUCATION IN THE LUMBER CAMPS

FRED H. RINDGE, JR., INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE, Y. M. C. A., NEW

YORK CITY

As we Y. M. C. A. men have gone about the country from one
lumber camp to another it has been increasingly evident that educa-
tional Americanization, religious and social agencies ought to greatly
extend their service in cooperation with both employers and employees.
During the war the Y. M. C. A. served over 200 of the 300 camps
of spruce loggers who were getting out spruce for aeroplanes in Wash-
ington, Oregon, and California. About 30,000 soldiers and 110,000
civilians were engaged in the spruce-production division.

Any program for meeting the educational needs among loggers
and lumbermen should embrace classes in English for foreign-born
and illiterates, entertainment features, physical hygiene, instruction
in thrift, and opportunities for the personal human touch in character
building. It is important that the students in forestry and engineering
schools of the country should be reached with fundamental Ameri-
canization principles, for in their hands will largely lie the future
course of such work in the camps. They should hear lectures on the
human problem of the lumber camp and should be given the chance,
as undergraduates, to work and serve in the lumber camps during the
summer, at any rate, for their actual contact. They should be en-
couraged to volunteer during their college course to teach foreign-born
students the English language, that they may know some of the
difficulties the newcomer has with the language.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 717

AMERICANIZATION METHODS IN INDUSTRY OTHER THAN

EDUCATION

E. E. BACH, AMERICANIZATION BUREAU, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA *

Americanization in industry is an attempt to restore the old-time
relationship which once existed between an employer and an employee
before industrial life became so complex. Satisfactory working
conditions are among the most potent factors in the building of Ameri-
cans. Without word or action the employer thus shows that his work-
men mean more to him than so much man power. Pure air, good light,
pure drinking water, ample washing facilities, sanitary conditions,
safety, first aid, hospital facilities, workmen's relief funds, and co-
operative activities of whatever sort are all available for Americanizing
the foreign-born employee. When industry once fully appreciates its
responsibility for providing the American standard of living as being
obligatory upon it, then the workmen will be given comfortable
homes, wholesome milk, sanitary conditions, ample gardens, recreation
and church facilities.

Another effective method of Americanization is a protection of the
workmen against exploitation. Possibly the most important industrial
phase in this process of Americanization as touching the workman is
the American or un-American attitude of his foreman. As the per-
sonal contact is such an important element in teaching the foreign-
born those things which we value in America, this is a very vital point
in industrial life. The employment manager can give the foreign-
born applicant a favorable or unfavorable impression of the industry
by the kind of treatment he accords him at the time of seeking a job.

AMERICANIZATION THROUGH INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYMENT
WILLIAM LAMKIE, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS SERVICE NEW YORK CITY

An Americanization standard of living cannot be maintained among
foreign-born workers until a minimum wage based on the requirements
of modern civilization be established. We must have health and
employment insurance, old-age pensions, child-labor laws, and the
regulation of employment to safeguard the future motherhood and
protect the rights of these mothers. Up to the present we have
approached the foreign-born through his physical forces and we have
neglected to appraise and utilize his spiritual faculties. After all, the
employees of an establishment are its best customers and only by

1 Presented by F. H. Cody, assistant superintendent of schools, Detroit, Michigan.

7lg APPENDIX

stimulating the desires of the foreign-born workman for the better
things of life, through advertising and other means, will industry find
a market for its greatest production.

To make the employment service an Americanizing force there must
be a better means for distributing the alien workers who usually
settle in the congested centers of ports of entry. There must be
labor exchanges performing for labor the service the Federal reserve
banks render the money market. The vestibule school idea developed
during the war offers one of the greatest incentives for the Ameri-
canization of the foreign-born worker as it enables him to break into the
class of skilled labor. The foreign-born worker who becomes American-
ized should receive a higher wage than one who has not, and the wage
scale should be graduated to cover each step in the process of citizen-
ship.

English and citizenship can best be taught the foreign-born work-
man by his fellow-workmen, the study following the routine of the
day's work and pay.

RELATION OF AMERICANIZATION TO SAFETY IN INDUSTRIES
JOHN A. OARTEL, CARNEGIE STEEL COMPANY, PITTSBURGH

I sometimes wonder if we Americans who have been accustomed
to our environment all our lives can appreciate the mental attitude of
the foreign-born workman in our industries. The man from any of
the countries of southern Europe has been transported within a
few weeks from the quiet life of a country village, where the hazard
to life and limb is unknown, to the busy life of the mill or factory.
Shifting locomotives, molten metal, and moving machinery confront
him at every turn. Is there any wonder he sometimes becomes con-
fused and pays the price with his life or limb ?

We as Americans are becoming awakened to the fact that it is
not right that 30,000 lives should be sacrified annually and 100,000
maimed workmen should be the by-product of American industry.
The words trade risk will no more suffice as a reason for the taking
of a life. We are looking to you who are fostering this Americanism
project to furnish us the means by which we can get the message of
safety to our workmen. With the understanding of our language and
an appreciation of our ideals, he will be led and taught to observe
that personal thoughtfulness and carefulness of his own safety which
we feel is the only thing lacking to-day.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 719

INDUSTRIAL HEALTH

BERNARD J. NEWMAN, SANITARIAN, UNITED STATES PUBLIC HEALTH

SERVICE

Numerous as are the losses through accidents due to ignorance of
hazards and inability to understand English, they are but a minor
percentage of the losses of man power in industry resulting from sick-
ness due to preventable causes. It matters not whether the foreign-
born come to these shores in search of gold or personal liberty or to
escape from Old World autocracies, if the grind into which they are
thrown turns their days into prolonged toil and subjects them to un-
due exposure they will lack the leisure and strength to cultivate
Americanism. Such hazards as are present in industry can be removed
by the simple program of plant hygiene, personal hygiene, and the
engineering and medical skill and organization that necessarily attends
both. Managers of industry do not deliberately want to maintain
conditions which thus bear heavily on their employees. The great
difficulty has been the definite lack of knowledge of the hazards and
the means to keep them under control.

Industry should study the two fields fruitful of hazards to her
workers — the industrial plant and the industrial zone surrounding
such a plant. It is in this latter field that more self-evident causes of
diseases commonly known can be found and against which prophy-
lactic measures may readily be adopted. In this zone the responsibility
is a dual one, resting alike on the community and the plant manage-
ment. No plant should be allowed to operate which does not have
some form of organization for medical and surgical care. It does not
follow that such organization should be uniform, as different conditions
call for different forms of organization.

INDUSTRIAL RECREATION AND AMERICANIZATION

A. W. COFFIN, WAR Civics COMMITTEE, EAST ST. Louis, ILLINOIS

One of the greatest needs of the foreign-born industrial workers is
not a plaything but a playfellow. The Human Engineer has just
recently been recognized by employers as a necessary adjunct of
plant organization. Too often the superintendent, the foreman, the
employer, and the native-born workman miss a great opportunity to
be the foreign-born workman's hero or his general or corporal instead
of his taskmaster, through neglect to form a playfellowship with the
newcomer.

720

APPENDIX

The program of recreational activities of any plant must be the
result of fostered growth, this being particularly true where the foreign-
born employee is present in the majority. The director of these
play times becomes at once a chemist, bringing together the best
contributions from ' many nationalities and throwing out the slag
and dross.

I would suggest that the first step toward planning to give the foreign
employee directed recreation is to ascertain what nationalities are rep-
resented in the working personnel. If the Italians are present, provide
some baccio balls and see what happens. If the Slavs are enrolled,
make some parallel bars, and watch who uses them most during the
noon hour. If there are English, Scotchmen, or Canadians to be
considered, have facilities for soccer and cricket.

For longer periods of time than the noon hour, there are the field
sports, track meets, and organized hikes. Music will always find an
immediate response from the foreign-born man or woman as a source
of recreation. Teaching domestic science and home making to the
foreign-born woman and girl in industry as part of the industrial
recreational program cannot be overlooked by any company. A
majority of these girls will marry men of their own race in the com-
pany's employ. Properly selected food, a cheerful home, intelligent
care of the children, and knowledge of thrift are . fundamentals of
these men's efficiency.

SECURING INTEREST OF RACIAL ORGANIZATIONS

FELIX J. STREYCKMANS, FOREIGN LANGUAGE DIVISION, LIBERTY LOAN,

CHICAGO

In the fourth Liberty loan, the Chicago district led in the percentage
of the population that subscribed. The average percentage of popu-
lation subscribing in the United States was 21.9 — in Chicago proper,
it was over 43 per cent, or double that of the country as a whole.

In local communities, where only one or two racial groups exist,
they should be made a part of the community Americanization com-
mittee, and when so recognized, they will, as volunteers, do all the
work that is asked of them.

The success of our organization depended upon the fact that it
recognized only two classes of citizens — there were no German-
Americans, or French- Americans, or Italian- Americans — there were
only the loyal and the disloyal. Every one strove to be in the loyal
class. The place of one's birth is no guaranty of one's loyalty. No
distinction was made between people who sprang from enemy, neutral,

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 721

or allied countries. It was found that love of country could be and
was expressed in the 33 different tongues that were spoken by the
members of the organization. The American of German descent vied
with the others to show his patriotism, and some of the members
of German extraction were the hardest workers.

Let us hope that the work done by the foreign-born among the
foreign-born during the pendency of the war will be carried on after
the dawn of peace. But in order to do this, the American-born and
the foreign-born, capital and labor, the society leaders and those in
the lowlier walks of life, must join hands with the same democratic
spirit which they displayed while the great world's conflict was raging.

COOPERATION OF FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PRESS
HARRY LIPSKY, DAILY JEWISH COURIER, CHICAGO

For all purposes, the foreign-language press is the one sympathetic,
intelligent, and trusted medium through which the foreign-born, old
and young, may be approached and through which the Americanization
work can best be carried on. Official recognition of these facts by the
proper governmental agency will hearten the foreign-language press
and give it renewed faith in our country and its institutions, while
silencing forever the attack made upon it and secure it against the
threats of annihilation.

The Government should have a news service instituted for the special
purpose of conveying to the foreign-language press such news as may
be of special interest to the foreign-language press readers. This
press must be given the opportunity to cooperate with the Govern-
ment, being invited to assist, on a basis of equality, those agencies
engaged in Americanization.

The most important point of all to remember is that most foreign-
language communities are no longer large inarticulate masses of
human beings, but are organized to carry on propaganda through
press, pulpit, and pamphlet. So the press cannot go at the matter of
Americanization in the spirit of adventure, just hitting about blindly
at what may be considered un-American attitudes or disloyal prop-
aganda. Campaigns that tell ns of the advantages of becoming citizens
or of learning English or acquiring the American "social graces" can
be carried on with good results.

722

APPENDIX

SECURING COOPERATION OF FOREIGN-BORN PEOPLE:
FROM VIEWPOINT OF THE FOREIGN-BORN

ALBERT MAMATY, SLOVAK LEAGUE OF AMERICA, PITTSBURGH,
PENNSYLVANIA

That indifference and contempt which native Americans have
evinced in the past years toward the foreign-born newcomer should be
replaced by sympathy and active interest if this country is to become
the great homogeneous nation we all hope it will be. This sympathy
can be awakened only by a greater knowledge concerning these various
races immigrating to this country, for they, too, have their glorious
history, their patriotic struggles, and their great men of literature,
art, science, and every line of human endeavor.

Until recently the foreign-born woman has been an almost entirely
neglected factor in American civilization. Think of the millions of
boys and girls these women are bringing up and who will be part of
the next generation of American citizens, and think of how these
women are given any place in the development of American com-
munities. American-born women can do much to educate public
sentiment, through their organizations, to remedy this, to influence
boards of health, housing, and other municipal effort to give attention
to this defect.

Workers in the Americanization movement must realize that they
cannot hasten the change they wish in the foreign-born. A man or
woman born in Europe cannot ever be completely transformed into
just the American the native-born is found to be. But it is unnecessary
to hasten the process. Natural evolution will do the work and the
transformation will be complete in the second generation.

SECURING COOPERATION OF FOREIGN-BORN PEOPLE:
FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIVE-BORN

NATHAN PEYSER, EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE, NEW YORK CITY

If the whole-hearted and dynamic interest of the immigrant popu-
lation is to be gained, our aim must be held sharply in view and a
rational approach made. What should be particularly appreciated
is the injurious effect upon possible cooperation liable to be made
by the point of view that the foreign-born element in the United
States is a menace. We cannot hope to have the loyalty and support
of an individual upon whom we are continually casting animadversions

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 723

and whose inner worth we are ever aspersing. The immigrant group
is an asset and a promise for the future. The newcomer is not to be
looked on with distrust and suspicion as a possible criminal, but rather
as our guest. He remains our guest during good behavior until he
becomes a citizen and then he becomes one of us. As both guest and
citizen, he is a member of the community and should be protected
against unjust attacks.

The gaining of cooperation depends upon the securing of interest
in the thing to be achieved. Unless this motive be developed, the
active participation of the foreign-born in Americanization need not
be expected. Give the foreign-born the opportunity to learn English.
There are more communities without facilities for this than there are
municipalities having them. Do not attack his native tongue and
compel him to sacrifice his individuality or his wages to gain this
knowledge. Do not keep him from contact with those who speak
English. Show him the best side of citizenship. The community
movement looms large as an excellent device for democratic co-
operative action.

THE FOREIGN-BORN AND AMERICA
HERBERT A. MILLER, OBERLIN COLLEGE, OBERLLN, OHIO

The immigrant has instincts and emotions common to all mankind,
with limitations and prejudices such as all people have. By studying
ourselves carefully we can explain many problems of the alien.

Each nationality is absolutely unique. The common language,
common geographical origin, and common religion have developed
characteristics that are persistent and definite. However much
alike these traits may seem to an outsider, in the consciousness of each
group they are most highly differentiated.

Far more than is generally appreciated, the immigrant has come
here to get free from political, religious, and cultural oppression. It is
not without significance that practically no Roumanians or Serbs
come here from Roumania or Serbia, but from Austria-Hungary.
Most of the recent immigrants have lived where the ruling power was
trying to kill the national individuality of its subject peoples.

The most outstanding contribution of the immigrant to America is
the object lesson in political science he presents in every industrial
city of the country, an illustration of the history and results of Euro-
pean oppression.

Understanding of these forces is the first need of the immigrant
America must reach. There will be a hold over of psychosis until

724 APPENDIX

long after the European cause is removed, and America must act
as a physician seeking to heal the wounds for which she has no respon-
sibility.

The peace conference is the best Americanization agency. The
foreign-born will never forget the land of his birth so long as in-
justice prevails there ; he will always be longing to help those of his
racial brothers left behind.

NATURALIZATION'S PART IN THE MOVEMENT
RAYMOND F. CRIST, DIRECTOR OF CITIZENSHIP, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

At the present time those of foreign birth represent about 17,000,000
of our population. Approximately 4,000,000 of these 17,000,000 have
come into contact with the Federal Government through the Bureau of
Naturalization of the Department of Labor. With the increase in the
public attention in the general subject of Americanization there has
been an increase in the number of foreigners who are applying for
citizenship. In the fiscal year 1910 there were 222,264 applicants for
first and second papers. In 1913 there were 276,818 applicants.

In 1915 there were 354,132 applicants. In 1917 there were 571,068,
while in 1918 there were 509,478. In the present fiscal year, com-
mencing July i, 1918, 528,273 naturalization papers were filed during
the first nine months, and the indications are that there will be in the
neighborhood of 650,000 original applicants for first and final papers
for the entire fiscal year.

There has been an average of more than one person born abroad
who derives citizenship from the act of the husband or father. This
average has been found to be constant through year^ of observation,
so that we may say that 1,156,546 members of the foreign-born popu-
lation of the United States came forward during the first nine months
of the present fiscal year and took steps necessary to have citizenship
conferred upon them. With the close of the year this amount should
exceed 1,250,000.

During April, May, and June in 1917 more applications were
filed than during-any entire year with the exception of one.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 725

ELIMINATION OF EXPLOITATION

REGINALD HEBER SMITH, FORMER COUNSEL IN CHIEF, BOSTON
LEGAL AID SOCIETY

Exploitation of the foreign bom can be prevented only through
the law. This is the only democratic, American way to do it. The
only way to make an American out of a foreign-born man is to treat
him as an American.

Protection through the law for elimination of exploitation includes
three distinct elements. The first of these is a sensitive social mech-
anism that will detect bad practices as rapidly as they are practiced.
This may be an immigration commission or a legal aid society or a
social service organization, but it must act because sharp practices
have a new edge on them every day. The second thing is to have a
sufficient body of well-drafted laws against exploitation. You will
find 92 per cent of these laws already on the statute books, the other 5
per cent being those needed to be enacted to bring legislation up to
current development. The law on the books is one thing, the law in
action is another.

The third essential is the existence of an administration of justice
which shall be accessible to all and which shall be workable by all
and which will grant equal chances to all before the law. This problem
on the administration of justice in the courts is the heart of the whole
Americanization movement. You can work as hard as you like to
teach the foreign-born resident to love American institutions, but
if he doesn't get fair treatment when he comes in contact with those
institutions, he will think they do not deserve his respect.

NEIGHBORHOOD WORK AMONG FOREIGN-BORN

MRS. MARY KINGSBURY SIMKHOVITCH, DIRECTOR OF GREENWICH HOUSE,

NEW YORK CITY

To fit the foreign-born's home life and neighborhood life into
American traditions and ideals we should drop the attempt to secure
uniformity of customs and try to get unity of purpose. Freedom for
the woman and the child is what we should be working for in Ameri-
canizing the home life of the newcomer. We do this somewhat
through insisting on education for all children. We free the woman
to a certain extent by opening the doors of factories, shops, and offices

726 APPENDIX

to her. We must more adequately free them by a social program which
will protect the home against disease, against the encroachment of
industry, and against congested living quarters occasioned by high
rentals.

To engage the interest of the newcomer in this kind of a social
program is the only real way to Americanize him. He must be taken
into fellowship, and he must Americanize himself. We in the settle-
ments believe that as long as he lives apart, he will not change. We
need humility, because we have given him so cold a welcome; a
determination to share his life more fully and to give him the oppor-
tunity to share ours; a desire to serve him, to prove our sincerity,
and an invitation to him to assume the joint responsibility of creating
the new era.

THE FOREIGN-BORN IN THE COMMUNITY
ALLEN T. BURNS, CARNEGIE CORPORATION, NEW YORK CITY

What will it profit the foreign-born if he gains the whole English
language but loses the life of America r* This conference marks a high-
water mark as to Americanization because there has been given so
large a place to the discussion of how the foreign and native born
Americans can enter into mutual and vital relationships. We must
not slip back into the old thought that language is the foremost factor
in the problem.

It seems to me that the first .thing we need to realize is that foreign-
born persons participate largely in American life only through their
national active groupings. Whether we like it or not, we really partici-
pate in American life effectively largely and only as we are organized.
This is especially true of those who have not learned our language and
they must share in American life through grouping action if they are to
share at all. It is not until we find some way of making groups
feel, through insistent organization of themselves, that they register
somewhere in American life that we can expect to make them feel
truly American.

The immigrant is going to Americanize himself and all we can do is
to help him form such natural, normal, and vital group organizations.
It is for us to see that these natural and normal processes remain true
to type with only such adjustments as will leave base enough for the
new American to develop these most essential features of Americanism
— self-reliance, enterprise, self-direction, self-sufficiency — that these
fundamental things may be preserved. Any process which tends to
destroy these fundamentals will be a travesty upon the fair name of
America itself.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 727

AMERICA'S HERITAGE
FRANKLIN K. LANE, SECRETARY or THE INTERIOR

The right of revolution does not exist in America. We had a
revolution 140 years ago which made it unnecessary to have any other
revolution in this country, because it was fundamental. One of the
many meanings of democracy is that it is a form of government in
which the right of revolution has been lost by giving the Government
wholly to the people. Revolution means revolt. Against whom are
we to revolt in the United States excepting the people of the United
States?

If we Americans do not like officials, programs, policies, measures,
systems, we can try others, but in Europe the right of self-
determination as to domestic concerns has been denied, and therefore
the right of revolution has been preached.

No man can be a sound and sterling American who believes that
force is necessary to effectuate the popular will. As we have taken
from the duelist his pistol and compelled him to seek redress in the
law, so in the larger affairs of the Nation we have said : "This is your
country. Make it what you will; but you must not use force, for
when you came here and became a citizen you gave over the right to
resort to anything but public opinion and the methods of the law in
the determination of national policies. If you are in a minority you
must wait until you become a majority, and as a majority you must
be content to prevail by processes which respect the rights of the
minority."

Americanism does not mean that any one economic system is
right, or that the United States is a perfected land ; it does not mean
that any one social philosophy must be accepted as the final expres-
sion of truth ; but Americanism does mean that we have evolved for
ourselves machinery by which revolution, as a method of changing our
life, is outgrown and outlawed.

AMERICA A NATION OF FOREIGN-BORN

WILLIAM C. REDFIELD, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

AND LABOR

There is none of us who can afford to be so far remote from this
problem in our thought as to forget our own particular relation to it,
if we look far enough back. We have not far to go in this country
before we run across such names as Eauclaire and Fond du Lac and La

728 APPENDIX

Crosse, and we must not forget what we owe to the Frenchmen who
trod our land before our ancestors even knew they could walk on it.
And so with the Spaniards who invaded our country in the South before
a European settler ever placed his foot here.

We are in a sense, every one of us, foreigners. We are a blend, as
Secretary Lane has said. In this conference we are but transmitting
to our own shoulders and to the shoulders of our children the job that
somebody once did for us, or else we should not have been so comfort-
able as we are here to-day. It is something that has gone on from the
beginning, but I am afraid that we have, at least some of us, reached
a place where we have been taking it, until lately, too much for
granted. I cannot remember that anybody ever taught me very much
about the value of American citizenship. I used to wonder at the
pride with which a Roman was said to proclaim, "I am a Roman
citizen." I did not quite understand what it meant. I rather thought
it was funny for Paul to say that he was a citizen of no mean city, in
his Acts of the Apostles. What it meant I had no very distinct idea,
but I have it now, however. I do not know just how, but I suppose it
came unconsciously to me. I have an example or two in recent months
that has made me realize it. I wish we could teach those who come
over here that we do not want to impose something on them, but that
we want to help them to think in citizenship terms.

MAKING A PERMANENT PENTECOST

JOHN H. FINLEY, STATE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, NEW YORK

To make here in America a permanent Pentecost that all the people
of the land may understand one another, we must begin with a common
language. I know that this is not the sufficient thing, but we must
begin with words, for all the good and bad that gets done in the world
is done through words. I appreciate that it is not simply the method
that is the important thing, and lam very glad to bring you a message
from my own State.

You will recall that last year at your conference the three bills
which have been proposed in the New York Legislature for Ameri-
canization were submitted for your consideration. These bills were
unanimously ratified by your conference, and that action was respon-
sible, I think, in a large measure, for the passage of the bills by the
legislature a week or two later. Yesterday I went to the governor's
office to ask whether or not he had signed an appropriation bill for
$100,000 for carrying forward Americanization work in our State. We

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 729

started a few years ago with $2500. Last year we had $20,000 and
this year we have $36,000 in our department, and then this $100,000
bill was drawn. I found that the bill had not been signed. But to-day,
when I called at the governor's office, I learned that the bill has been
signed and I am happy that we can make this contribution to the
national program for making this land dear to all of us.

On the 1 2th of February I was in the Holy Land as commissioner
for the Red Cross and I stood where- Abram is said to have been born.
I was observing the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and I was very glad
that Father Abram had migrated so that the land of Abraham Lincoln
was made possible.

COMMUNITY GATHERINGS AND RECREATION

THOMAS WOOD STEVENS, CARNEGIE TECHNICAL SCHOOL, PITTSBURGH,

PENNSYLVANIA

Granting at once the value of participation by the foreign-born in
festivals common to the whole community, the question which usually
arises is how to do it. The kirmess has been tried, but its limits are
narrow, the sequence of dances making a monotonous show. The
method to be followed in new work must be more frankly dramatic.
In any case, the festival should be the work of the whole community,
the foreign-born groups bearing only their proportionate share of it
and thus contributing the traditions of their history and ideals rather
than conserving them apart for festivals of their own presentation.

The chief language of such a performance should be English if the
audience is to be held and the occasion attain its purposes. Pan-
tomime must be a large factor, with folk dances entering in but not
dominating the whole performance. The most workable device has
been found to be the herald, who is obviously of the same nationality
as the group presented, to interpret the situations of the various scenes
to the audience. These heralds' speeches are a vital factor in the im-
pressiveness of the pantomime, and I have never found a foreign-
born group that suggested a trifling or uninteresting subject to be
presented as its contribution.

While foreign-born people take readily to festivals, the native Amer-
icans need to learn more of the play spirit. The pageant and festival
have done something toward making a beginning; the community
drama must meet with encouragement and serious study on the part
of the nation's artists.

730

APPENDIX

THRIFT AND PROTECTION OF SAVINGS

C. J. KEENAN, DEPUTY APPRAISER or THE PORT OF NEW YORK

To my mind, there arises the grave question of whether or not the
foreign-born element of our population is in greater need of this
propaganda than the native-born, for I believe that the former is
more likely to present an exposition of the practice of thrift in its
daily living than is the latter. A movement of this kind need not
confine itself to any one element of the citizenship, for thrift directs
itself more toward the conservation of materials than the mere saving
of money.

The people of foreign countries generally look upon a bank as a
Government institution, which accounts for the practice so prevalent
among them of patrionizing private banking insitutions after they
come to this country. An enterprising foreign-born citizen will
oftentimes, after reaching a certain stage of prosperity, open a bank
with the legend "State Bank" over the door. I will not say he
deliberately misrepresents the character of his bank, but certainly he
accomplishes t,he purpose of making the public, at least some part of
it, believe it is connected with the Government.

The very best plan to protect the savings of the public is to encourage
one of the many forms of cooperative banking. Cooperative banking
has been in operation in Europe for many years and recently it has
been introduced into New York State by the credit union law. This
union is also designed to meet the need of the citizen who wished to
borrow and has not sufficient security with which to effect the loan,
for he becomes a borrower of his own funds to the extent that he is
owner of paid-up shares in the union.

IMPROVING HOUSING CONDITIONS AMONG THE
FOREIGN-BORN

JOHN IHLDER, SECRETARY PHILADELPHIA HOUSING ASSOCIATION

Good management of houses leased to foreign-born tenants can be
made a powerful agent for bringing the slum dwelling up to American
standards. The relationship of landlord and tenant has been com-
mercialized hi this country, so far as the foreign-born resident is con-
cerned.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 731

We consider the American standard of housing an essential in
Americanization, for there is no one thing that sets a family or group
apart so surely as living in a dwelling which public opinion in the com-
munity holds in contempt. This public opinion is not based on cost-
liness. The grapevine which adorns the Italian truck gardener's
farmhouse and distinguishes it from the Anglo-Saxon's home attracts.
It is the squalid, overflowing tenement which prevents the casual
neighborliness between the native and the foreign born. Until we
can throw down this barrier of the repellent dwelling we shall not go
far in mingling with our alien fellow townsmen. This change can be
brought about, first, by the enforcement of laws requiring not only the
proper design and construction of all dwellings but their proper up-
keep, and, secondly, by the house owners taking American standards
of living into the home of the foreign-born tenant. The first change
is fundamental, for by no other means can every dwelling be made to
conform to the American ideals. This method means sewer and water
main extension to parts of towns now neglected, the enforcement of
house connection, and regular and frequent collection of garbage.

More than 20 years ago the Octavia Hill Association was formed to
buy old houses in neglected sections of Philadelphia, or act as agent
for owners of such property, and put such dwellings in good condition.
It manages these dwellings to the best interest of the tenant, not only
responding to his desire for improvement, but stimulating these desires.
The rent collector takes an interest in the family problems, having
information of civic and social organizations which can aid the foreign-
born to become Americanized.

COORDINATION OF AMERICANIZATION AGENCIES
C. H. PAULL, BUREAU OF VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

In Americanization work we must make every effort to avoid a
tendency to monopolize from a purely selfish standpoint. No single
agency is in a position to contribute all that is implied in the term
" Americanization." When agencies in a community attempt to carry
on this work without any mutual understanding or sympathy, the
results are duplication of work, overlooking of essential work which
each agency leaves for the other to do, distrust on the part of the new
American of the agencies which he soon discovers are failing to work
with a common motive, and a loss of the enthusiasm which group action
develops.

732

APPENDIX

A community about to interest itself in Americanization should first
make a survey or study in which both the existing facilities and the
possible facilities for work are determined as accurately as possible.
The next step is to bring these resources together under a single
purpose with a willingness to pool their interests for the common
good.

For an agency to entertain anxiety about not having enough to do
is as far fetched as worrying about what we shall do when the world
is wholly reformed. In both cases we can well conserve our powers for
effective endeavor and leave the rest for some future generation to
work out. There are a great number of functions which are in the
nature of an overload to the schools and the industry which these
agencies can assist materially in carrying. Regardless of the failures
of the schoolman of the past, the perspective of the educator is essen-
tial to Americanization work.

Y. M. C, A. IN AMERICANIZATION
PETER ROBERTS, INDUSTRIAL DEPARTMENT, INTERNATIONAL Y. M. C. A.

Men and boys of foreign parentage are the field of the Y. M. C. A.,
and the work to be done there is very definitely outlined in our own
minds, as including basicly the teaching of English without asking
that any man forget his native tongue. We emphasize the advantage
of having citizenship in the United States, not asking, either, that a
man forget entirely his native hearthstone. Then we provide lectures
on everything pertaining to American life, the plan of the American
Government, and the makers of America. We provide entertain-
ments to bring before the American public the gifts brought to this
country by the foreign-born newcomers.

Another thing we stress is recreational activity. I am sorry that
more attention has not been given here in this conference to the
problem of the son of foreign-born parentage. We hope to reach him
through recreational activity. In our organization we have the ad-
visory councils where the foreign-born man may go for advice to pro-
tect himself against exploitation and other evils. This advice is free.
Americanization is a group of men and women enthused by the spirit
of service who are interpreting the spirit of America and not a little
English, a little lecture course, or an advisory council, or naturalization,
but everybody working together.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 733

THE Y. W. C. A. PART IN THE MOVEMENT

Miss EDITH JARDINE, INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE, Y. W. C. A.,
NEW YORK CITY

Realizing the need for immediate action, the Y. W. C. A. organized
the International Institute as its machinery for work among foreign-
born women and girls in 1 9 1 2 . Such work is to-day being extended into
communities under the same designation. Now there are 40 of these
institutes embracing the New England States, California, New Jersey,
Honolulu, Texas, and New York. Over 22,000 foreign-born women
have been reached through the New York center alone during the past
six years.

We have been successful in reaching the hearts of the foreign-born
women and girls because we have touched the women of their own
respective races. We believe that we have made our best contribution
to the movement in stressing the importance of using the best type of
the foreign-born woman leader to help the people of her own
nationality. Among the offshoots of the institute work are the
Mother's Clubs, which are designed to reach the stay-at-home women.
Parental clinics, cooking classes, food demonstrations, and English
classes are taught in these clubs. The hospitality of the International
Institutes are always extended to the masculine relatives of the
women. We hope that our place is to act as a link and an interpreter
between our foreign-born and native-born people to draw them a little
nearer together in that community of spirit which constitutes real
Americanization.

THE CATHOLICS IN THE WORK
JOHN O'GRADY, NATIONAL CATHOLIC WAR COUNCIL

If you desire to understand our attitude in regard to democracy,
read the reconstruction program of the National Catholic War Council.
We are interested in cooperating with all agencies for the promotion of
citizenship and the teaching of English. We are willing to cooperate
with them provided we have a say in the plans that are formulated. We
are endeavoring at the present time to interest all Catholic societies
in America in the promotion of citizenship and the teaching of Eng-
lish. We are endeavoring particularly to interest the various racial
groups. It is impossible to outline in detail in such brief time what is

734

APPENDIX

being done, but we are having published a textbook on civics for
immigrants that will be translated into all the important languages.
This conference ought to keep in mind that the two great immediate
objectives in this Americanization work before us are the teaching of
English and the promotion of instruction in citizenship. We ought
to get together and find out what additional machinery we need to
put these great objectives into reality. We ought to have some say in
any form of legislation that is proposed, for we are in closer touch with
the immigrants than any other institution. We are willing to do our
best for the making of a better America.

JEWISH WOMEN AID IMMIGRANTS
Miss HELEN WINKLER, COUNCIL or JEWISH WOMEN

Less than 16 per cent of the girls employed in factories drawing
their workers from a large foreign settlement take advantage of the
night school facilities, and under i per cent of the mothers attend such
classes. This was learned in the industrial survey made by Council
of Jewish Women.

The reasons given by the girls of, the factories for not attending
night schools were mainly these : Long working hours and consequent
fatigue ; need for wholesome recreation which could be had at night
only ; natural discouragement in ungraded classes made up of aliens
of both sexes and all ages ; poor teaching standards. Mothers could
attend daytime classes, but these are available only in very few
localities.

The council has about 28,000 women representing 106 local branches
in as many cities throughout this country and Canada, each organiza-
tion having its immigrant aid committee, which protects the immi-
grant woman and girl until her destination is reached.

CIVIC ORGANIZATION AS ONE OF THE AGENCIES

T. A. LEVY, AMERICANIZATION LEAGUE, SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

The Americanization committee of the chamber of commerce found
the social gathering the highest type of activity for assimilating the
foreign-born. After having the leaders brought together, the com-
mittee advanced to the point of having a group of native-born enter-
tain a foreign-born group. This was followed by the foreign-born
group playing host in turn to the native-born group. The University
Club, the Rotary Club, and like societies have been asked to also
engage in this program.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 735

Although the chamber of commerce initiated the work of Ameri-
canization in Syracuse, in a broad-minded way, it worked itself out of
a job and turned over the control of the problem to the municipality,
believing that the city was less likely to incur any suspicion of a parti-
san basis. It thus changed its position from being the parent of the
movement to that of becoming a distant relative.

The foreign-born employee spends more time in the factory, shop,
or store than in any other place. His health and even his life to some
extent is in the hands of the manager of the plant in which he is at
work. The ethical and economical part of Americanization should
not be sundered. There remains a vast field for correlation of these
forces by the chamber of commerce and other civic agencies.

USING THE WOMEN'S CLUBS

MRS. PERCY V. PENNYPACKER, HONORARY PRESIDENT
GENERAL FEDERATION OF WOMEN'S CLUBS

I fully believe that there is no greater duty before this conference
than to present a sane, practical, comprehensive plan of work to the
organized womanhood of the country. Such a plan must be scientific
without being too technical and must be presented to the club women
sympathetically, dramatically, and persistently. It must be pre-
sented sympathetically because the trained worker does not always
realize the power of the volunteer force represented in an organized
body of club women.

The trained worker should not expect from the volunteer worker
just what she would from the person who has had all the advantages
of training; but, on the other hand, she should not undervalue
what the volunteer can give. The volunteer has learned lessons in
the school of life that some experts have not; she has a certain
practical contact with the community life about her that renders her
invaluable. We have preached year in and year out that there is
nothing so dangerous as ignorance at work, and we would like to
make every woman's organization do this, too.

Women have proved, during the war, that they like to work under
the Government's direction, so if we have the Government at the
head of this movement it will be a tremendous incentive to women all
over the land to do their best work.

736 APPENDIX

LIBRARIES: THE FRIEND OF THE FOREIGN BORN
PREPARED BY JOHN FOSTER CARR; READ BY Miss THERESA HITCHLER

In some respects the library has a far greater opportunity to be
an aid to the foreign-born than do the schools, because being friendly
and helpful its aid is oftentimes less formal and more inviting. It
is open throughout the year, it makes no strenuous demands on a
man after a hard day's work, and it welcomes those who think them-
selves too old to go to school. The library brings the immigrant
in effective touch with American democracy and American ideals
and helps destroy the impression of heartless commercialism that many
of our immigrants continually assert is the main characteristic of our
civilization.

Nearly 800 public libraries are taking part in the movement to
aid the foreign-born. In New York City, with its 43 branches, those
branches having the largest so-called immigrant membership lead
all others hi circulation. The use of books in foreign languages has
increased so rapidly that their circulation now reaches nearly 700,000
a year. The results have been so pleasing that the supply of foreign-
language books has been increased 30 per cent in the last two years.
Once the foreign-born reader enters the library he needs personal
attention to have the simple rules given him in his own language, to
have the different rooms explained. He can not use the index cards nor
understand the mysteries of registration. They may be brought in by
various devices, publicity and service to classrooms being handy ones.

PUBLIC-HEALTH NURSE IN AMERICANIZATION

MRS. BESSIE HAASIS, EDUCATIONAL SECRETARY NATIONAL ORGANIZATION
FOR PUBLIC-HEALTH NURSING

The public-health nurse enters the home of the foreign-born at a
time when there is trouble. Service is needed and needed badly. Her
uniform proclaims her as a worker, and to the men and women who
have toiled in workshop or field this is a passport to confidence.
Those who come from countries where ministry to the sick is the
function of the church recognize in the uniform the added sanction
and beneficence of religious service. It is their thought trlat the
priest might have sent her.

Nine times out of ten her visits bring immediate and tangible benefit.
A few simple dressings for the burned hand and the father is able

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 737

to return to work in three or four days. Once the gratitude of the
family and its confidence is gained there is no subject on which they
will not ask and accept advice. Herein lies the opportunity of the
public-health nurse to win the family over to such American standards
and habits as are better than their own. There is no reason why the
public-health nurse's advice should be limited to matters of health.
Her aim is to remedy not only the case of illness, but whatever is
wrong with the family. The nurse can get greater results and sooner
through the children. The amount of time it takes to teach one
foreign-born mother how to properly care for her baby will teach a
class of 20 little girls the same knowledge. The children can con-
vince the mother, especially when the nurse works with both.

BOYS' AND GIRLS' ORGANIZATIONS

BURDETTE G. LEWIS, COMMISSIONER OF INSTITUTIONS, NEW JERSEY

We should welcome boys' gangs and function them for the pur-
pose of Americanization. Some of the things we may do are : Select
the best out of all cultures and use it as a basis of our educational
work; link up our educational and recreational systems; see to it
that the schools teach our boys and girls how to make a living, as
well as how to read and speak English ; recognize juvenile delinquency
as a family affair and turn our children's court into domestic relations'
courts.

We should take the finger prints of all offenders, whether they be
young or old, so that no one may make a joke of the laws of the land
by falsifying about their identity. We should utilize the boys who
organize the bottle-fight gangs and the girls who form peculiar cliques
to bring home to their parents the benefits provided at the child-
welfare stations in our cities. We can use the country boy and girl's
desire to associate as a great force for revivifying American rural life.
We can have the boys and girls bring their parents to school to see the
motion pictures which we now use in teaching history, geography,
and other studies. The boys and girls can be used to renew on Amer-
ican soil that association of child and parent in recreational activities
so characteristic of many European nations.

We can introduce these foreign-born boys and girls to their own
traditional games, such as Italian dancing, Japanese kite flying, and
Bohemian wrestling. There are the Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire
Girls ^to be used for instruction in personal hygiene.

738 APPENDIX

DEMONSTRATION AGENT'S ROLE IN MOVEMENT

Miss GERTRUDE VAN HOESEN, EXTENSION WORK WITH WOMEN,
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

District organizations in the cities and community organizations in
the rural sections have made it possible for the home demonstration
agents of the Department of Agriculture to reach the foreign-born
woman. In many places each racial group is represented on the com-
munity or district committee by intelligent leaders of that group, who
are able to articulate the needs of the non-English-speaking mother
and housekeeper. The foreign clergy, the social workers, the visiting
nurses, and the public school officials all offer opportunities for making
such contacts in behalf of demonstration agents.

In many States the leaflets of the Food Administration during the
war were translated in various languages. While there has been some
criticism of this move, in numerous cases the very sight of the con-
servation receipts printed in her native tongue has been the entering
wedge for developing the woman's confidence in the home demon-
stration agent. One of the most important things accomplished by the
demonstration worker has been the closer understanding given the
old American of the habits and needs of the new American, thereby
inspiring enthusiasm and friendliness instead of apathy and antag-
onism. Social community leadership is absolutely essential to the
success of any organization seeking to back up the home demonstration
agent, and there is a wide field for the development of the home
demonstration project leader. The highest function of the home
demonstration agent is to solve problems, that the women may not
only learn how to feed their families, but feed them accordingly.

CONGRESS OF MOTHERS AND PARENT-TEACHER BODIES

PREPARED BY MRS. FREDERIC SCHOFF, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL
ASSOCIATIONS OF THESE BODIES l

There are obstacles which must be overcome in order to secure the
mothers. The first one is the lack of encouragement of their hus-
bands in regard to attending meetings. There seems to be a prejudice
among foreign people against women going out or joining in club work.
An important means we have found has been the placing of leaflets

1 Presented by Mrs. Joseph P. Munford, Vice President.

NATIONAL AMERICANIZATION CONFERENCE 739

in schools where the fathers are learning English showing them the
necessity of having their wives learn also.

The women feel that in their own countries they have brought up
children successfully and that they do not need to Be told every-
thing. By learning the good things that our foreign-born people
know, and showing them that they have some things to teach us, their
attitude is entirely changed. We consider this is a very important
part of the success in Americanization work.

The Parent-teacher Association, because it takes in all children in
our public schools, has been a splendid medium for organizing foreign
mothers.

The Americanization department of the Bureau of Education can
do nothing better than to emphasize among the foreign men of this
country the absolute necessity of keeping mothers up to the rest of the
family in knowledge of our language and our customs.

WHAT THE STATE AND NATION CAN DO TO HELP THE

COMMUNITY

GEORGE H. BELL, FORMER SECRETARY CALIFORNIA IMMIGRANT AND
HOUSING COMMISSION

To our way of thinking, the efforts of the communities are largely
wasted if they are not based on uniform standards which have been so
correlated that each community is doing its share in developing a
unified State and Nation. Organization is the first step that the
State and Nation must take to help the community. Each State must
establish a central commission with the responsibility for developing
and executing a State program of Americanization, properly co-
ordinated with the national program. Secondly, the National Govern-
ment must establish a central agency charged with the full power of a
broad national Americanization program carried on in cooperation
with the State. I am authorized to present this plan as the suggestion
of the California Immigration and Housing Commission.

One has only to point to the lack of a clear, definite, authorized
Americanization program during the past two years as proof of the
need for one. A State commission which is to cooperate with an
official central Americanization headquarters should be democratic
and made up of citizens who have had actual experience with immi-
grants and who would represent various viewpoints in connection with
the problem. The State can afford to keep experts on the various
lines, even if the communities cannot do so, and make them available

740 APPENDIX

for survey and consultation work to these committees. The State
must assume the initiative, although it is not obligatory that it main-
tain a staff large enough to do all the direct field work. The more pro-
gressive communities should aid the backward ones.

WHAT THE CHURCHES CAN DO IN AMERICANIZATION

REVEREND WORTH TIPPY, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF THE COMMISSION ON

CHURCH SOCIAL SERVICE, FEDERAL COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF

CHRIST IN AMERICA

The churches have long been an important factor in Americani-
zation. They have homes and agencies for meeting and caring for
immigrants at every port in the United States where immigrants are
admitted. They have special schools and colleges for the various
language groups, special seminaries for the training of ministers,
and in every city where the foreign-born congregate the leading
denominations spend large amounts of money and have many in-
fluential centers of activity. This work is wholly Americanization in
the broadest sense of that term. In addition to the teaching of English,
there is the care of the family, especially of the children, in the atmos-
phere of the spiritual ideals of America. All these missions and
churches to the foreign-born are intensely patriotic. I can think
of no better or more powerful agency for Americanization than the
right kind of a church for immigrants. It should be known also that
the great women's boards of home missions of the churches spend
several millions of dollars in this work every year.

The Americanization problem of the church is not so much to do
new work, or new kinds of work, as to do more powerfully what it has
been doing for generations ; and that it is preparing to do.

HUMAN DOCUMENTS : FIVE POLISH PEASANT LETTERS l

DEAREST Olejniczka:
I greet you from my heart, and wish you health and happiness.
God grant that this little letter reaches you well, and as happy as
the birdies in May. This I wish you from my heart, dear Olejniczka.

The rain is falling ; it falls beneath my slipping feet.
I do not mind ; the post office is near.
When I write my little letter
I will flit with it there,
And then, dearest Olejniczka,
My heart will be light, from giving you a pleasure.
In no grove do the birds sing so sweetly
As my heart, dearest Olejniczka, for you.
Go, little letter, across the broad sea, for I cannot come to you.

When I arose in the morning, I looked up to the heavens and
thought to myself that to you, dearest Okejniczka, a little letter
I must send.

Dearest Olejniczka, I left papa, I left sister and brother and you to
start out in the wide world, and to-day I am yearning and fading
away like the world without the sun.

If I shall ever see you again, then, like a little child, of great joy I
shall cry. To your feet I shall bow low, and your hands I shall kiss.
Then you shall know how I love you, dearest Olejniczka.

I went up on a high hill and looked in that far direction, but I see
you not, and I hear you not.

Dearest Olejniczka, only a few words will I write. As many sand-
grains as there are in the field, as many drops of water in the sea, so
many sweet years of life I, Walercia, wish you for the Easter holi-
days. I wish you all good, a hundred years of life, health and
happiness. And loveliness I wish you. I greet you through the white
lilies, I think of you every night, dearest Olejniczka.

Are you not in Bielice any more, or what ? Answer, as I sent you a
letter and there is no answer. Is there no one to write for you ?

1 From Immigrants in America Review, April, 1916.

74i

742 APPENDIX

And now I write you how I am getting along. I am getting along
well, very well. I have worked in a factory and I am now working in
a hotel. I receive 18 (in our money 32) dollars a month, and that is
very good.

If you would like it we could bring Wladzio over some day. We
eat here every day what we get only for Easter in our country. We
are bringing over Helena and brother now. I had $120 and I sent
back $90.

I have no more to write, only we greet you from my heart, dearest
Olejniczka. And the Olejniks and their children ; and Wladislaw we
greet ; and the Szases with their children ; and the Zwolyneks with
their children; and the Grotas with their children, and the Gyrlas
with their children; and all our acquaintances we greet.
My address :

North America [etc.]

Good-by. For the present, sweet good-by.

My dear Stas :

You ask me for my opinion about marriage, and you ask about
[Miss] Swatowna. My brother, my Stas, I don't know what lot
awaits me. About this Swatowna, as you know, I tried so hard to
gain her favor, I took so many hard steps, and all this brought me
nothing. I should have come out all right there for, as this Miss
Swatowna told me, she "gave a basket" to Rudkowski because she
loved me. But finally, when I expected to end the business, then my
family began to find fault with it, particularly mother. Well, I gave
up the game, I stopped calling on her. How they must talk about me
there now ! Swatowna is still a girl.

I don't know now what will be the end of the hopes with which I
still deceive myself about the Kowalczyks in Czyzew. If God helped
me, it would be the best there. All this is in the hands of God. But
it is a hard nut to bite, for there is a crowd of various men around, and
the Kowalczyks themselves look upon this business from several sides.
I hear that they prefer me, but there was a time when things were so
bad that I said to myself that I wouldn't go there again. I was there
a few times and I never found her; evidently she hid herself. And
she hid herself not because she hated me, but because different
marriage-brokers laughed at her for receiving attention from me.
Worse still, I noticed that the Kowalczyks began to treat me in-
differently, particularly Mrs. Kowalczyk. This observation pained me
much, but what could I do ?

If I am to be successful with the Kowalczyks this money which you
speak of sending from America would be a great help. It would be

FIVE POLISH PEASANT LETTERS 743

necessary to show at least 2000 roubles there, so if you sent your
money I would be that much bolder, because no stranger would know
that it is borrowed money. I say at least 2000. It would be well to
show I have 5000 cash of my own. I don't know, dear Stas, whether
my efforts will bring me happiness or irretrievable loss. O, my great
God ! I implore you to help me wiktof Markiewicz.

Zazdzierz, November ist, [1910].
Dear Son :

Walenty in Dobrzykow, built a small mill upon his water in com-
petition with us, but he grinds only three-quarters of once-ground flour
a-day. Well, we don't know how it will be further. As to Elzbietka,
she has a boy, a butcher from Lubien ; I don't know whether she will
marry him or not, but she says that this winter she will surely decide ;
if not this one, then another. I have trouble enough now for my sins.
Always new guests, always some new fashion, always these new things,
so that my income does not suffice. And you know that your father
always says: "When anything is not there, we can do without it."
But sometimes it must be had, even if it must be cut out from under
the palm of the hand ! So, dear son, I beg you very much, if you can,
send me a little money, but for my own needs. Elzbietka is grown up,
Polcia is bigger still, Zonia begins to pvertake them, and they all
need to be dressed, while it is useless to speak to your father about it.
If you can, send it as soon as possible, because if I sell some cow, or
hog, or grain, it must be put aside. Your father says that it cannot be
spent. We gave Pecia 100 roubles [when married] and 200, but we
must still give 200 more. Bicia also [must have money], so we must
put money aside. Well, we have nice hogs, nice cattle and a nice horse,
but I must work conscientiously for all this. Your father just excuses
himself with his old age, and I may work with the children so that
my bones crack. He says: "Then don't keep so much farm-stock,
don't work! Do I order you to do all this?" But when he wants
anything, he has to have it. As to the crops, everything is not bad
. . . only we must work so much.

Everywhere only work and work, so that my bones lap over one
another. But what can be done? Unfortunately my teeth decline
absolutely to work any longer and I must have some new ones put in,
rjut I have not money enough for it, for I have other things to spend it
on. So if it is not a great detriment to you I beg you for a few roubles
for my teeth. But if not, it cannot be helped. Well, grandmother
wants to move to us now, but your father is honey and sugar and your

744 APPENDIX

grandmother is gall and pepper. Whoever has tried it knows the taste.
Oh, all my life I have enjoyed this honey and this sugar ! I have it
often under every nail. But what can be done? It is the will of

God. . . .

Your loving mother,

Anna Markiewicz.

Warsaw, May 12, 1909.
My dear, my beloved Uncle :

I received your letter this week. It was so sad that it frightened me
and therefore I write directly in order to share my thoughts with you.
I regret that I caused you pain without even knowing it. It is true
that lately I did not give you any sign of life, but believe me, I was so
ill that I could not take a pen in hand, and brother Walio is as afraid
of writing as a Jew of water, and moreover nobody can write for me
as I write myself ; therefore I did not ask either my other brother or
my parents. I believed that I should die and then my parents would
write to you. Meanwhile it has turned out otherwise. I am still
alive, I don't know for how long a time. In any case every letter
that I write seems to me the last which I can write. Therefore you
see, dear uncle, in what a position I am ; please don't wonder, if I
am late in writing, although I will try to avoid it as much as possible.
You don't write whether you are in good health. How are auntie
and my cousins doing? I know only that they are working but
that is not enough for me. With us there is no news. My parents
and brothers are in good health and in the best of spirits ; it is
always so, only sometimes it changes under the influence of higher
forces, but everything ends happily.

I had lately the honor of getting acquainted with our countryman
from Lipsk. Perhaps you remember him, Mr. Adam Chomiczewski.
He deigned to come to us because his cousin, Skokowska, who is in
Warsaw for treatment, lives with us. You have no idea what a man
he is, you cannot remember all the benefits he has done to people, all
the wealth and relationships he has ! He is a friend of the first persons
in Warsaw and in the whole country ! He poses egregiously, but he
evidently does not know that whoever listened to him, says, "Stupid
man ! " I like people from my country, but this one does not please me.

I will write to-day about no general questions, because to tell the
truth, I am very sleepy, it is late already, and during the day I have
no time to write because I am preparing to go away next week, or in
some days. Then, there is nothing of importance. About personal
questions also much cannot be said. I shall write you at length after

FIVE POLISH PEASANT LETTERS 745

getting to Wyzarne, I shall have more time there and my thoughts
will be freer. I hope to live for those few weeks, and if it happens
otherwise, well, then my parents will inform you that your corre-
spondent has removed from here to eternity. But I confess that, if
formerly I wished to die, now such an ending is distasteful to me. I
want to live. It seems that I perceived too late that life is beautiful
in spite of all. I am curious whether in dying we have all our presence
of mind, whether we understand what is going on at this moment with
us and around us. If so, excuse me, please. I don't wish to die in full
consciousness. I cannot imagine what occurs in the head, in the
thoughts of the dying person, what he feels and thinks. Do you
know, I have the intention of dying with a pen in my hand, namely to
write what I feel in those last moments. Of course if it is possible to do
it and if regret for the flying life does not oppress me.

I write as if I were already with one foot in the grave, but it is not
so, because I don't even lie in bed, but I walk, I even sew sometimes
with the sewing machine. Only this "death" persecutes me, and I
cannot write more to-day, because all my faculties are covered with

mourning-crepe.

[Greetings and kisses.]

Zocha.

Lipsk, June 20, 1909.
My dear Uncle :

Two weeks have passed already since I left Warsaw, and not until
to-day have I found time to write to you, dear uncle. I had to renew
my old acquaintanceships, and had other obligations also, which did
not permit me to do until now what I should have begun with. How
is your health, dear uncle and auntie ? Are my little cousins in good
health, do they play or work? I am curious how the weather is and
the temperature in America, because here it is bad, not wet, but very
cold. Do you know, not all the potatoes have yet come up? The
summer will be very late.

I feel worse than bad in my health. It has come so far that, while
five years ago I weighed 148 pounds, now I weigh scarcely 112;
it is perhaps the smallest weight that a grown-up person can have. I
have little hope of living for a long time, and still less of having the
health and strength which I need so much for work. That is the reason
I cannot carry out your advice, dear uncle, about long walks. From
Wyzarne to Lipsk is 6 versts, to Peolyki 4 times as much. It is not
for my strength to walk so long a way, since if I walk a little through
the forest I feel terribly tired. Corsets and narrow shoes I don't

746 APPENDIX

wear even in Warsaw, the more so in the country. I eat as much soured
and sweet milk as I can and everything made from milk, I also eat all
vegetables, but what is the use of all this? In the country indeed I
get better during the summer and some pounds are added to my weight,
but the winter takes all this away and more still. How long will it
last, and what kind of illness is it? No doctor can know it. The
home remedies, the so-called old women's remedies, don't bring the
desired results either. I try everything that anybody advises me to
do, and in vain. Now somebody got the idea that it is a tape-worm,
and they gave me some poison ; but I fear to use it lest I may poison
myself in truth. Death does not let us wait very long for itself. Why
should I hasten its visit ?

In Lipsk I found everything as it has been from old ; no changes
reach these retired places. If there were not the frequent, too frequent
immigration to America and back, people here could remain for a long
time "as in God's house behind the stove" [Proverb: happy and
calm], without knowing that there exists a world besides Suwalki,
Grodno, Warsaw and Czestochowa, and that in this world people are
more intelligent, richer and better prepared to live. Here those who
have money enough sit every day in the tavern — no, it is not a tavern,
these belong to the past — but a " restaurant" ! Lipsk has been able
to do this much for the comfort of its citizens, and those who have not
so much money work the whole week in order that they may at least
on Sunday "be equal to men" and sit at the same table, or under the
same table. Not everybody is like this, but an enormous majority.
The cause of all this is the lack of schools, and therefore people who are
a little more intelligent cry "enlightenment," but their voice is a voice
calling in the wilderness. The rich and noble are abroad, and only
they could do something if they would. And in general people grow
indifferent to everything that is Polish and for Poland — not in-
different to the brilliant and splendid Poland which clinks with its
thousands of roubles, but to this poor, gray, vulgar, and stupid Poland.
What do they care if the children of hired workmen remain poor hired
workmen ? That for a long time still they will believe that by charms
and curses, illness and different other troubles are chased away. On
the contrary, they endeavor to maintain as long as possible this un-
natural state, because they know that when there is not a single illit-
erate, from this moment the thousands will no more flow so easily
as now to their bottomless pockets.

Thence comes this indifference for all exhibits which have the local
industry in view. The rich industrial does not care for such an
exhibit, because he will always find a sale for his products, if not here
then elsewhere; and then, his clients are rich people who imitate

FIVE POLISH PEASANT LETTERS 747

what they see abroad. What do they care for local industry? And
we poor people, we disregard this, and do you know why? Because
such expositions have no practical importance. In America perhaps
they are as they ought to be, but with us it is simply a " turning of
the head."

Such a "turning of the head" is, for instance, our "Association for
Knowledge of the Country" to which you wrote once, asking, what
is the object of this Association. If you thought that it occupies
itself with the question of enriching of the country, you erred greatly.
They travel through the land, it is true, but for the pleasure of it,
not in order to study what is done in this part or the other and what
could be done in a given place. They care only for a nice locality,
for old ruins of castles, palaces, churches, and nothing more. All this
is very nice, but in my opinion it is not the time to do it now ; we
have so many questions of more importance, concerning the present
and the future, that it is impossible to occupy ourselves with the past.
So our peasants' reason tells us, which is contrary to the "fine reason
of the lords" as the Jews say. In America people are more practical,
therefore it is better there than here.

Staying in the country annoys me very much, not because I am
without occupation — I have enough for my strength — but much
time remains which in Warsaw I spent in reading books, and here I
have none. I am robbed of this only pleasure that remained, because
I like books better than all amusements and play in society, all
visits, etc. In Warsaw I surrounded myself with books like a true
bookworm ; here I cannot borrow them anywhere, and I am sad.

[Greetings and kisses.]

Zocha.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHIES, BRIEFS AND DEBATES
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GRIFFIN, A. P. C., List of Books with References to Periodicals on Im-

migration, 3d issue, Library of Congress, 1907.
RAY, MARY K., The Immigration Problem; Bibliography, Wisconsin

Free Library Commission, 1909.
RING WALT, R. C., Restriction of Immigration, in Briefs on Public Ques-

tions, pp. 31-41, iQI3-
ROBBINS, E. C., Immigration, Further Restrictions of; Brief and Bib-

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SHURTER, E. D., and TAYLOR, C. C., Immigration; Brief and Bibliog-

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Constructive and Rebuttal Speeches of the Representatives of the

State University of Iowa in the Inter-coilegiate Debates, 1913-1914.

University of Iowa.

Restriction of Immigration, in Debating and Public Discussion, pp.

36-39, University of Kansas, 1910.
The Educational Test ; Minnesota High School Debating League.

Bibliography, in University Extension Bulletin, pp. 20-3, University of

Montana, 1914.
University of Texas. The Educational Test for Immigrants : Bibliogra-

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University of Washington. Immigration: Brief and Bibliography.

University of Wisconsin. Restriction of Immigration: Brief and Bib-
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LIST OF BIBLIOGRAPHIES ON RACIAL RELATIONS

See pages 9 and 10 of Americanization Bulletin, January i, 1919.

MAGAZINE ARTICLES

ABBOTT, GRACE, Adjustment — not Restriction, Survey, Vol. XXV,
PP- 527-529, January 7, 1911.

The Bulgarians of Chicago, Charities, Vol. XXI, p. 653, 1909.

749

750 BIBLIOGRAPHY

ADAMS, SAMUEL HOPKINS, Making over the Alien, Everybody's Magazine,

1918.

ADDAMS, JANE, Immigration, a Field Neglected by Scliolars, Commons,
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January 4, 1913.

Recent Immigration, Educational Review, Vol. XXIX, pp. 245-263,

March, 1905.
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Vol. XII, p. 134, 1904.
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AUSTIN, O.P., Is the New Immigration Dangerous to the Country?

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BAILEY, WILLIAM B., The Bird of Passage, American Journal of Sociol-
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BARROWS, W., Immigration; Its Evils and their Remedies, New Eng-

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BARTHOLDT, RICHARD, Immigration, Congressional Record, Vol. XLIX,

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BINGHAM, T. A., Foreign Criminals in New York, North American Review,

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BLOOMFIELD, MEYER, Some Problems of the New Americans, Government,

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BRANDEIS, Louis D., True Americanism, City Record, Boston, July 10, 1915.
BRANDENBURG, BROUGHTON, The Tragedy of the Rejected Immigrant,

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BRECKINRIDGE, SOPHONISBA, and ABBOTT, EDITH, Housing Conditions

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BROOKS, JOHN GRAHAM, Human Side of Immigration, Century, Vol.

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BRYCE, JAMES, Migrations of the Races of Men Considered Historically,

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BURNETT, JOHN L., Brief in Favor of the Illiteracy Test, Congressional

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BUSHEE, F. A., The Declining Birth Rate and its Cause, Popular Science

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BIBLIOGRAPHY 751

CANCE, ALEXANDER E., Immigrant Rural Communities, The Survey,
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1911.

CARR, JOHN FOSTER, The Coming of the Italian, Outlook, February 24,
1906.

The Library and the Immigrant, Bulletin, American Library

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CHAMBERS, W., Emigrant Entrappers, Chambers' Journal, Vol. XXIII,
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- The Emigrant Ship Washington, Chambers' Journal, Vol. XVI, p.
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Warning to Emigrants, Chambers' Journal, Vol. L, p. 644, 1873.

CHAPIN, ROBERT C., Living Costs: A World Problem, The Survey,
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CHURCH, D. S., The President's Veto of the Immigration Bill, Con-
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CHUTE, CHARLES L., The Cost of the Cranberry Sauce, The Survey,
December 2, 1911.

CLAGHORN, KATE H., Immigration in its relation to Pauperism, Im-
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Our Immigrants and Ourselves, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. LXXXVI.

PP- 535-548, October, 1900.

Alien and Sedition Bills Up-to-Date, The Survey, July 19, 1919.

CLAXTON, P. P., What is Americanization? Americanization Bulletin,

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XXXVIII, p. 118, 1903.
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COUDERT, FREDERIC R., The American Protective Association, Forum,

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COULTER, JOHN L., Influence of Immigration on Agricultural Develop-
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CROSBY, ERNEST, The Immigration Bugbear, Arena, Vol. XXXII, pp.

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752 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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DAVENPORT, CHARLES B., The Origin and Control of Mental Defective-
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DAVIS, PHILIP, Making Americans of Russian Jews, Outlook, Vol. LXXX,
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DAYTON, T. S., Importing Our Insane, Harper's Weekly, Vol. LVI, p. 9,
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DEVINE, EDWARD T., Immigration as a Relief Problem, Charities, Vol.
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DOSCH, ARNO, Our Expensive Cheap Labor, World's Work, Vol. XXVI,
pp. 699-703, October, 1913.

DUNRAVEN, EARL OF, The Invasion of Destitute Aliens, Nineteenth
Century, Vol. XXXI, p. 985, 1892.

EVERETT, A. H., Immigration to the United States, North American

Review, Vol. XL, p. 457, 1835.
EVERETT, E., German Immigration to the United States, North American

Review, Vol. XI, p. 1820.

FAIRCHILD, HENRY P., Distribution of Immigrants, Yale Review, Vol.

XVI, p. 296, 1907.

Immigration and Crises, American Economic Review, Vol. I, pp.

735-765, December, 1911.
The Paradox of Immigration, American Journal of Sociology, Vol.

XVII, pp. 254-267, September, 1911.

Problems of Immigration, Nation, Vol. XCVIII, pp. 430-431, April

16, 1914.

— Restriction of Immigration, American Economic Review, Vol. II,
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Some Immigration Differences, Yale Review, Vol. XIX, pp. 70-97,

May, 1910.
FALKNER, R. P., Some Aspects of the Immigration Problem, Political

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League, New York, 1916.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY 753

FLEMING, WALTER L., Immigration into the Southern St?tes, Political

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FOLKMAR, DANIEL, Results of the First Census of European Races in

the United States, Science, Vol. XXXIX, pp. 147-148, January 23,

1914.

GALLAGHER, THOMAS, Immigration, Congressional Record, Vol. XLIX, pp.

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Review, Vol. CXCV, pp. 513-525, April, 1912.

HALL, PRESCOTT F., Controlling Immigration by Number Limitation,

The Survey, Vol. XXX, pp. 370-371, June 14, 1913.
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754 BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Address, 95 Madison Avenue, New York.
. - The National Conference on Immigration and Americanization,

April, 1916.
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JENKS, ALBERT E., Assimilation in the Philippines as Interpreted in

Terms of Assimilation in America, American Journal of Sociology, Vol.

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JENKS, JEREMIAH W., The Urgent Immigration Problem, World's Work,

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UNITED STATES, IMMIGRATION COMMISSION, Abstracts of Report, 2 vols.
1911.

UNITED STATES, BUREAU OF IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION, Natural-
ization Laws, 1911.

WALD, D. LILLIAN, The House on Henry Street, 1915.

WALKER, FRANCIS A., Restriction of Immigration, in Economics and
Statistics, Vol. II, pp. 437-450, 1899. (Immigration Restriction
League, Publication No. 33.)

WARNE, F. J., The Immigrant Invasion, 1913.

The Slav Invasion and the Mine Workers, 1904.

The Tide of Immigration, 1916.

WATSON, JOHN F., Annals of Philadelphia, 1830.

WELLS, H. G., The Immigrant, in The Future in America, pp. 133-151,
1906.

WHEATON, H. H., The Education of the Immigrant. Report of Com-
missioners of Education, June 30, 1916.

WHELPLEY, J. D., The Problem of the Immigrant, 1905.

WHITE, ARNOLD, The Destitute Alien in Great Britain, 1892.

WILKINS, WILLIAM H., The Alien Invasion, 1892.

WOODS, ROBERT A., Americans in Process, 1902.
- The City Wilderness, 1898.

Wu TING FANG, America and China, in America through the Spectacles of
an Oriental Diplomat, pp. 40-53, 1914.

NOTE. For specialized material on Americanization, consult pamphlet
entitled "Americanization" — list compiled by Marie Thomas, issued by
St. Louis Public Library, 1919.

INDEX

Accident legislation, 242

Agricultural Association of Japanese,

463; wage in England, 41; average

wage, 71
Aid societies, German, 132; Japanese,

Aliens, congestion of, 504; departures

of, 168; friends of, 692
Allegiance, oath of, 609
Alliance Israelite Universalle, 138
Alpine race, 232

American Federation of Labor, 262
American ideals, 638 ; industrial liberty,

639; education, 639; social insur-

ance, 640; inclusive brotherhood,

640; differentiation, 642
"Americanists," 666
Americanization, plan, 461 ; committee,

469

Americanization Day, 677
Anarchists, 405, 413; tools of

gogues, 371
Anthracite fields, 158
Artificial immigration, 525
Asia Minor, 54

Assimilation of immigrants, 54, 63, 207
Assisted immigration, 79, 340, 388
Austrian immigration, 72
Austria-Hungary, 71, 166
Average wage, 244
Aztec, 28

440; Bureau of Education, 453;
Bureau of Information, 444; labor
camp sanitation laws, 446; classes
for foreign-born women, 457; co-
operation of San Francisco Chamber
of Commerce, 462; Department of
Home Education, 691 ; domestic
educators, 571 ; home teacher legis-
lation, 454; housing institution, 450;
labor camps inspection, 445; labor
exchanges, 448, 540; Los Angeles
Survey, 445 ; lumber camps, 447 ;
migratory labor, 448; neighborhood
campaign, 456; plan for American-
ization, 461 ; publicity for evening
schools, 578; regularizing attendance
in, 537; training teachers of for-
eigners, 574; war program, 439

Catholic immigration, opposition to,

326-330
dema- Celtic exodus, 436

Celtic race, 46-62

Children, Italian, 152; Jewish, 140

Child labor legislation, 251

Chinese, exclusion, 231 ; law, 196, 200,
352-359; Chinese gold rush, 192;
unskilled labor, 194

Citizenship, 663; certificates of, 668;
convention, 693 ; papers, 600

City versus country, distribution in,

Civics, study of, 589
Civil War, 156
Claxton, 700

Cleveland Immigration League, 598
Cleveland's veto, 343
Clothing industry, 140
Colonies and immigration, 665

California, Americanization Committee, " Colonial descent," 236
459; appropriation for evening Colonization,
schools, 569; state aid for evening

Balkans, 71
Baltic race, 232
Birth rate, 291-294
Bohemian immigration, 166
Bulgarian immigration, 166

502; of Irish, 320; of
Italian, 54; Burlingame Treaty, 351

schools, 572; supervision of evening Columbus, 643
schools, 573; Bureau of Complaints, Common language, 653

767

768

INDEX

Community councils, 618, 677

Compulsion and religion, 582 ; compul-
sion and persuasion, 586

Congestion, 216, 219-220

Contessa Lisa Cipriani, 534

Contract labor, 332-333; law regard-
ing, 338

Conversion or extermination, 29

Convicts, 233

Courts of naturalization, 484

Croatian, Magyarizing, 642

Crusades, 29

Czecho-Slovaks, 622, 625

Decalogue, American, 664
Declaration of citizenship, 658
Defectives, exclusion of, 346
Descendants of foreign-born, 619
Disabilities of aliens, 391-393
Discrimination against aliens. 652
Diseases of immigrants, 301

Employers, 374

Employment centres, 550

English language, 53, 62, 400, 494; Eng-
lish an economic asset, 595 ; language
of reconstruction, 625

Exclusion of Mediterraneans, 307

Exiles, 126

Exploitation of immigrants, 722; in
factories, 479; of emigration, 369;
by employers, 374; of women, 296

Extension of territory, 27; Spain and
Portugal, 30; France, 31; England,
32

Family wage, 246

Famine in Ireland, 42

Farm labor board of California, 468

Federal problem of education, 564

Ferrero, 325

Finley, J. H., 725

Finnish immigration, 72

Fisher, Professor Irving, 268

Ford committee, 338

Foreign-born in industry, statistics, 488

Foreign press, 436, 489 ; cooperation of,

718

Fourth of July, 637, 667
Franklin, Benjamin, 36, 224

Free education, 662

French immigration, 52; Canadians,
54 ; Huguenot, 62

German, 128-131
Goethals, 648
Government policy, 427
Greek immigration, 671
Gulick's plan, 181

Harvest hand situation, 562

Head tax, 337, 340, 346, 348, 381

Health inspection, 86

Home education, 691

Home stake, chance for, 629; need of,

630
Home teachers, California, 228-229;

legislation regarding, 454
Hospital, immigrants', 305
Housing Institute, 450
Hungary, 54
Hyphenated Americans, 646

Illiteracy, 257, 503, 523; to reduce, 581

Immorality, 387, 405

Imperial conference, 1 23

Indentured servants, 233

Induced immigration, 157

Industrial health, 716

Industrial recreation, 716

Industrial Workers of the World, 250,

651

Industry, classes, in, 492
Information office for immigrants, 117-

120

Inspection at port of entry, 279
Internationalization, danger of, 593
Irish, in cities, 320; in politics, 320-
321; exclusion, 309; illiterates, 309;
emigration from Ireland, 353; Irish
versus Italian paupers, 147; un-
employment of skilled labor, 368;
unskilled labor, 366 ; intensive colony
life, 432

Italians, differences between, 142; dis-
tribution of, 520; illiterates, 145;
civic sense, 150; emigrants, inspec-
tion of, 89; unskilled labor, 146;
mobility of labor, 145 ; average wage
of, 144 ; regulation of, on steamships,
529

INDEX

769

Japanese, agricultural associations, 463 ;
agricultural work of, 172; assimila-
tion of, 184-188; conflict of eco-
nomic standards, 171-178; land
owners, 175; law regarding natural-
ization, 1 86; political disabilities of,
185; reclamation of raw land by,
176; restriction of, 171-182; shop-
keepers, 176; tenant farmers, 173-
176; women, 189

Jewish immigration, Alliance Israelite
Universalle, 138; antisemitic, 138;
emigration, 136; international af-
filiations, 155 ; migration, 139; "May
Law," 64; occupational distribution,
139; permanency of settlement, 139;
physical fitness of, 306 ; skilled labor,
136-138; unskilled labor, 172

Joint minimum wage boards, 253

Jugo-Slavs, 622-625

Knights of Columbus, 651
Kulturpolitik, 128-131

Labor, camp inspection, 445 ; exchange,
448-540 ; migratory, 448

Lafayette, 136

"Land of promise," 40

Land sales, 431, 501

Land stake, 367

Lane, Secretary, 734

Law of nations, 27-28

"Let alone " policy, 656

Letters of immigrants, 72-73

Lincoln, 278; his message, 331

Literacy tests, 342; of industrial com-
mission bill, 345; bill of 1907, 347;
exemption from, 386

Local correspondents, 473

Los Angeles Survey, 445

Loyalist settlers, 104

Lumber camps, education in, 713

Machine and foreign vote, 322-323
Mandatory exclusion, 303
Manon Lescant, 226
McAndrews, William, 703
Medical certificates, 303
Mediterranean races, 232
Melting pot, 132; larger problems of,
613; contributions to, 617; not a, 626

Migration and dispersion, 5^7.

Mobility of labor, 527

Money, transmission of, for immigrants,

477

National Liberal Immigration League,

53i

Naturalization law, syllabus of, 682

Negro, non-assimilation of, 231 ; forced
immigration, 231

New York Bureau of Industry and Im-
migration, 428; National Employ-
ment Exchange, 543

Night citizenship classes, 598

Night-school campaign, 456

Non-citizenship schooling, 687

Opportunity, the land of, 661

Parallel neighborhoods, 632

Part-tune attendance, 597

Patriotism, 21

Paull, C. H., 728

Pauper immigration, 47; paupers, 284

Penn, William, 125

Peruvian immigration, 28

Physicians, 86

Polish immigration, 54, 72, 159, 166

Population, alien, 372; of the United
States, 42

Ports of embarkation, 82-90

Portuguese immigration, 62

Preparedness, economic, 650; military,
654; preparatives, 653

Principles of Americanism, 649

Private banks, 431

Propaganda, Americanization, 625 ;
steamship agents, 76-78; educa-
tional, judicial support of, 688

Prostitutes, exclusion of, 346; no
Italian, 150

Prussian immigration, 72

Public service, training for, 606

Race assimilation, 621-623

Race comparison in crises, 274-275

Redfield, Secretary, 724

Regulated immigration, 259-260

Replacement by 'immigration stock,

237 ; by new arrivals, 239
Residence, duration of, 515

INDEX

Restrictive legislation, 58, 299
Revolutions, in Europe, 41;
38 ; Revolutionary War, 36
Right of conquest, 28
Roberts, Peter, 729
Roman civilization, 55
Roman Wars, 43
Roumanian Hebrews, 72
"Runners," 480
Rural foreign-born, 712
Russian immigration, 54, 64, 155-156

San Francisco Chamber of Commerce

and immigration education, 462
Scandinavian immigration, 54, 91
Schools, certificates of graduation, 685 ;

day-time immigrant schools, 704;

record cards, 683
Seaman's Act, 555
Seasonal industries, 656
Sectarian bitterness, 646, 658
Selective laws, 56, 60
Selkirk's colonization, 102-104
Serbian immigration, 155, 166
Sicilian immigration, 73
Slovaks, 1 66

Slovenian immigration, 156, 166
Social phenomena of immigration, 608
Solicited immigration, 389
South and foreign-born, 322
Spanish immigration, 54
Spanish- American War, 131
Special inquiry boards, 401
Special protection, 428, 474
Standard of living, 714; economic level,

369

State aid for evening schools, 572
Statistics of immigration, 50, 65, 163
Steerage ticket, 75

Strike situation, 651 ; commission, 20
Sunday, Citizenship, 686
Suspended deportation, 404
Swedish immigration, 62

Talbot's colonization, 103
French, Temperance, Irish and Italian, 147
Towne, C. F., 701
Trade-unions and immigration, 259
Transient laborers, South European, 191
Treaty of Paris, 95
Turkish immigration, 71, 167

United States, Bureau of Information,
505 ; distribution branches of the
Department of Labor, 548; Bureau
of Nationalization, 721; cooperation
of schools, 672; survey of schools,
675; executive recognization, 677;
nation-wide conferences, 679; Em-
ployment Survey, Division for Aged
People, 560; Division for Women
and Girls, 556 ; quarantine law, 81

Unskilled labor and machinery, 248;
and trade-unions, 249; debarring, 251

Vote, of Italians, 154; and foreign
language press, 323

War Civics Committee, 706

Washington, George, 36

White slave traffic, 294 ; suppression of,

349

Wilson, President, 665

Wives of candidates for citizenship, 690

Women's clubs, California, and immigra-
tion, 464

Women, alien mothers, 227; classes for
foreign-born, 457; Japanese, 189;
economic injustice toward, 227 ; social
injustice, 228; earnings, 248

World War program, 439

"Yellow peril," 497

Zone reports, in industrial activities, 563
Zone system of employment, 551

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