Anthracite Regions._

    Warne: The Slav Invasion, IV, VII.

    IV. _Factors in Slavic History and Conditions Favoring and
    Hindering the Access of the Gospel._

    McLanahan: Our People of Foreign Speech, 34-58.
    Charities and Commons, issues 1905-06.

    V. _Conditions Among Russian Jews._

    Statements of Jewish authors as to conditions
    among Russian Jews in their native lands and in
    America.

    Bernheimer: The Russian Jew in the United
    States, I (B), IV (A), VI (A).



    _The city is the nerve center of our civilization. It is also the
    storm center. The city has a peculiar attraction for the immigrant.
    Here is heaped the social dynamite; here the dangerous elements are
    multiplied and concentered._--Josiah Strong.




VI

THE FOREIGN PERIL OF THE CITY


The city is the most difficult and perplexing problem of modern
times.--_Francis Lieber._

We must save the city if we would save the nation. Municipal government
and city evangelization together constitute the distinctive problem of
the city, for this generation at least.--_Josiah Strong._

Talk of Dante's Hell, and all the horrors and cruelties of the torture
chamber of the lost! The man who walks with open eyes and bleeding heart
through the shambles of our civilization needs no such fantastic images
of the poet to teach him horror.--_General Booth._

With the influx of a large foreign population into the great cities,
there have come also foreign customs and institutions, laxity and
license--those phases of evil which are the most insidious foes of the
purity and strength of a people. The slums of our large cities are but
the stagnant pools of illiteracy, vice, pauperism, and crime, annually
fed by this floodtide of immigration.--_R. M. Atchison._

You can kill a man with a tenement as easily as with an ax.--_Jacob
Riis._

Our foreign colonies are to a large extent in the cities of our own
country. To live in one of these foreign communities is actually to live
on foreign soil. The thoughts, feelings, and traditions which belong to
the mental life of the colony are often entirely alien to an
American.--_Robert Hunter._

The vastness of the problem of the city slum, and the impossibility,
even with unlimited resources of men and money, of permanently raising
the standards of living of many of our immigrants as long as they are
crowded together, and as long as the stream of newer immigrants pours
into these same slums, has naturally forced itself upon the minds of
thinking persons.--_Robert D. Ward._




VI

THE FOREIGN PERIL OF THE CITY


_I. The Evils of Environment_

[Sidenote: Tendency Toward the Cities]

As is the city, so will the nation be. The tendencies all seem to be
toward steady concentration in great centers. The evils of congestion do
not deter the thronging multitudes. The attractions of the city are
irresistible, even to those who exist in the most wretched conditions.
The tenement districts baffle description, yet nothing is more difficult
than to get their miserable occupants to leave their fetid and squalid
surroundings for the country. To the immigrants the city is a magnet.
Here they find colonies of their own people, and prize companionship
more than comfort. "Folks is more company than stumps," said an old
woman in the slums to Dr. Schauffler. In the great cities the immigrants
are massed, and this constitutes a most perplexing problem. If tens of
thousands of foreigners could somehow be gotten out of New York, Boston,
Chicago, and other cities, and be distributed where they are needed and
could find work and homes, immigration would cause far less anxiety. But
when the immigrant prefers New York or Chicago, what authority shall
remove him to Louisiana or Oklahoma?

[Sidenote: Perils Due to Environment]

The foreigner is in the city; he will chiefly stay there; and the
question is what can be done to improve his city environment; for the
perils to which we refer are primarily due not to the foreigner himself
but to the evil and vice-breeding conditions in which he has to exist.
These imperil him and make him a peril in turn. The overcrowded
tenements and slums, the infection of long-entrenched corruption, the
absence of light, fresh air, and playgrounds for the children, the
unsanitary conditions and exorbitant rents, the political heelers
teaching civic corruption, the saloons with their attendant temptations
to vice and crime, the fraudulent naturalization--these work together
upon the immigrant, for his undoing and thus to the detriment of the
nation. When we permit such an environment to exist, and practically
force the immigrant into it because we do not want him for a next-door
neighbor, we can hardly condemn him for forming foreign colonies which
maintain foreign customs and are impervious to American influences. It
has too long been the common practice to lay everything to the
foreigner. Would it not be fairer and more Christian to distribute the
blame, and assume that part of it which belongs to us. In the study of
the facts contained in this chapter, put yourself persistently in the
place of the immigrant, suddenly introduced into the conditions here
pictured, and ask yourself what you would probably be and become in like
circumstances.

[Sidenote: A Call for Reform]

How the other half lives is not the only mystery. How little the
so-called upper-ten know how the lower-ninety live. And how little you
and I, who are fortunate to count ourselves in the next upper-twenty,
perhaps, know how the under-seventy exist and think and do. If only the
more fortunate thirty per cent. knew of the exact conditions under which
a large proportion of men, women, and children carry on the pitiful
struggle for mere existence, there would be an irresistible demand for
betterment. Every Christian ought to know the wrongs of our
civilization, in order that he may help to right them. This glimpse
beneath the surface of the city should stir us out of comfortable
complacency and give birth in us to the impulse that leads to settlement
and city mission work, and to civic reform movements. The young men and
women of America must create a public sentiment that will demolish the
slums, and erect in their places model tenements; that will tear down
the rookeries, root out the saloons and dens of vice, and provide the
children with playgrounds and breathing space. And this work will be
directly in the line of Americanizing and evangelizing the immigrants,
for they are chiefly the occupants and victims of the tenements and the
slums.

[Sidenote: Vanishing Americanism]

New York is a city in America but is hardly an American city.
Nor is any other of our great cities, except perhaps Philadelphia.
Boston is an Irish city, Chicago is a German-Scandinavian-Polish
city, Saint Louis is a German city, and New York is a
Hebrew-German-Irish-Italian-Bohemian-Hungarian city--a cosmopolitan race
conglomeration. Eighteen languages are spoken in a single block. In
Public School No. 29 no less than twenty-six nationalities are
represented. This indicates the complicated problem.

[Sidenote: A Jewish City]

New York is the chief Jewish capital. Of the 760,000 Jews on Manhattan,
about 450,000 are Russian, and they overcrowd the East Side ghetto. In
that quarter the signs are in Hebrew, the streets are markets, the shops
are European, the men, women, and children speak in Yiddish, and all
faces bear the foreign and Hebrew mark plainly upon them.

[Sidenote: An Italian City]

Go on a little further and you find that you are in Little Italy, quite
distinct from Jewry, but not less foreign. Here the names on the signs
are Italian, and the atmosphere is redolent with the fumes of Italy. The
hurdy-gurdy vies with the push-cart, the streets are full of children
and women, and you are as a stranger in a strange land. You would not be
in a more distinctively Italian section if you were by magic
transplanted to Naples or Genoa.

[Sidenote: A Foreign City]

[Sidenote: Other Foreign Cities]

Nor is it simply the East Side in lower New York that is so manifestly
foreign. Go where you will on Manhattan Island and you will see few
names on business signs that do not betray their foreign derivation. Two
out of every three persons you meet will be foreign. You will see the
Italian gangs cleaning the streets, the Irish will control the motor of
your trolley-car and collect your fares, the policeman will be Irish or
German, the waiters where you dine will be French or German, Italian or
English, the clerks in the vast majority of the shopping places will be
foreign, the people you meet will constantly remind you of the rarity of
the native American stock. You are ready to believe the statement that
there are in New York more persons of German descent than of native
descent, and more Germans than in any city of Germany except Berlin.
Here are nearly twice as many Irish as in Dublin, about as many Jews as
in Warsaw, and more Italians than in Naples or Venice. In government, in
sentiment, in practice, as in population (thirty-seven per cent.
foreign-born and eighty per cent. of foreign birth or parentage), the
metropolis is predominantly foreign, and in elections the foreign vote,
shrewdly manipulated for the most part, controls. Nor is this true of
New York alone. In thirty-three of our largest cities the foreign
population is larger than the native; in Milwaukee and Fall River the
foreign percentage rises as high as eighty-five per cent. In all these
cities the foreign colonies are as distinct and practically as isolated
socially as though they were in Russia or Poland, Italy or Hungary.
Foreign in language, customs, habits, and institutions, these colonies
are separated from each other, as well as from the American population,
by race, customs, and religion.

[Sidenote: Failure in City Government]

To believe that this makes no particular difference so far as the
development of our national life is concerned is to shut one's eyes to
obvious facts. As such an impartial and intelligent student of our
institutions as Mr. James Bryce has pointed out, the conspicuous failure
of democracy in America thus far is seen in the bad government of our
great cities. And it is in these centers that the mass of the immigrants
learn their first and often last lessons of American life.

[Sidenote: Where the Newcomers First Go]

The strong tendency of immigrants is to settle in or near the ports of
entry. Where in the great cities do these newcomers find a dwelling
place? What will their first lessons in American life be? If we deal
largely with New York, it is simply because here are the typical
conditions and here the larger proportion of arrivals. Once admitted at
Ellis Island, the alien is free to go where he will; or rather, where he
can, for his place of residence is restricted, after all. If he is an
Italian, he will naturally and almost of necessity go to one of the
Little Italies; if a Jew, to the ghetto of the East Side; if a Bohemian,
to Little Bohemia; and so on. In other words, he will go, naturally and
almost inevitably, to the colonies which tend to perpetuate race customs
and prejudices, and to prevent assimilation. Worse yet, these colonies
are in the tenement and slum districts, the last environment of all
conceivable in which this raw material of American citizenship should be
placed.


_II. Tenement-House Life_

[Sidenote: Vice-Breeding Conditions]

To those who have not made personal investigation, the present
conditions, in spite of laws and efforts to ameliorate the worst evils,
are well nigh unbelievable. The cellar population, the blind alley
population, the swarming masses in buildings that are little better than
rat-traps, the herding of whole families in single rooms, in which the
miserable beings sleep, eat, cook, and make clothing for contractors, or
cigars that would never go into men's mouths if the men saw where they
were made--these things seem almost impossible in a civilized and
Christian land. It is horrible to be obliged to think of the human
misery and hopelessness and grind to which hundreds of thousands are
subjected in the city of New York day in and out, without rest or
change. It is no wonder that criminals and degenerates come from these
districts; it is a marvel, rather, that so few result, and that so much
of human kindness and goodness exists in spite of crushing conditions.
There is a bright as well as dark side even to the most disgraceful
districts; but there is no denying that the dark vastly predominates,
and that the struggle for righteousness is too hard for the average
human being. Nearly everything is against the peasant immigrant thrust
into the throng which has no welcome for him, no decent room, and yet
from which he has little chance to get away. He is commonly cleaner
morally when he lands than after six months of the life here. Why should
he not be? What has American Christianity done to safeguard or help him?

[Sidenote: Immigrants Not Responsible]

The existence of the tenement-house evils, it must be borne in mind, is
chargeable primarily to the owner and landlord, not to the foreign
occupant. The landlords are especially to blame for the ill
consequences. The immigrant cannot dictate terms or conditions. He has
to go where he can. The prices charged for rent are exorbitant, and
should secure decency and healthful quarters. No property is so
remunerative. This rent money is literally blood money in thousands of
instances, and yet every effort to improve things is bitterly fought.
Why should not socialism and anarchism grow in such environment? Of
course many of the immigrants are familiar with poor surroundings and do
not apparently object to dirt and crowding. But that does not make these
conditions less perilous to American life. Self-respect has a hard
struggle for survival in these sections, and if the immigrant does not
possess or loses that, he is of the undesirable class. Mr. Robert Hunter
makes the statement that no other city in the world has so many dark and
windowless rooms, or so many persons crowded on the acre, or so many
families deprived of light and air as New York. He says there are
360,000 dark rooms in Greater New York. And these are almost entirely
occupied by the foreigners. But unsanitary conditions prevail also in
all the cities, large and small, and especially in the mine and mill and
factory towns, wherever large masses of the poorest workers live.

[Sidenote: Legal Remedies Possible]

Concerning possible legislation to correct these city evils of
environment, Mr. Sargent says: "So far as the overcrowding in city
tenements is concerned, municipal ordinances in our large cities
prescribing the amount of space which rapacious landlords should, under
penalties sufficiently heavy to enforce obedience, be required to give
each tenant, would go far toward attaining the object in view. Whether
such a plan could be brought into existence through the efforts of our
general government, or whether the Congress could itself legislate
directly, upon sanitary and moral grounds, against the notorious
practice of housing aliens with less regard for health and comfort than
is shown in placing brute animals in pens, the Bureau is unprepared to
say.

[Sidenote: Demands Immediate Remedy]

It is, however, convinced that no feature of the immigration question so
insistently demands public attention and effective action. The evil to
be removed is one that is steadily and rapidly on the increase, and its
removal will strike at the root of fraudulent elections, poverty,
disease, and crime in our large cities, and on the other hand largely
supply that increasing demand for labor to develop the natural resources
of our country."[71]

[Sidenote: Little Italy]

Not to draw the picture all in the darker shades, let us look at the
best type of Italian tenement life. We are not left to guesswork in the
matter. Settlement workers and students of social questions are actually
living in the tenement and slum sections, so as to know by experience
and not hearsay. One of these investigators, Mrs. Lillian W. Betts,
author of two enlightening books,[72] has lived for a year in one of the
most crowded tenements in one of the most densely populated sections of
the Italian quarter. We condense some of her statements, which reveal
the foreign life of to-day in New York's Little Italy, with its 400,000
souls.

[Sidenote: Immigrant Isolation]

"A year's residence in an Italian tenement taught me first of all the
isolation of a foreign quarter; how completely cut off one may be from
everything that makes New York New York. The necessities of life can be
bought without leaving the square that is your home. After a little it
occasioned no surprise to meet grandparents whose own children were born
in New York, who had never crossed to the east side of the Bowery, never
seen Broadway, nor ever been south of Houston Street. There was no
reason why they should go. Every interest in their life centered within
four blocks. I went with a neighbor to Saint Vincent's Hospital, where
her husband had been taken. I had to hold her hand in the cars, she was
so terrified. She had lived sixteen years in this ward and never been on
a street-car before. Of a family of five sons and two daughters, besides
the parents, in this country fifteen years, none spoke English but the
youngest, born here, and she indifferently. Little Italy was all of
America they knew, and of curiosity they had none.

[Sidenote: Children American in Spirit]

"The house in which we lived was built for twenty-eight families and
occupied by fifty-six. One man who had been in the country twenty-eight
years could not speak or understand a word of English. Nothing but
compulsion made his children use Italian, and the result was pathetic.
The eldest child was an enthusiastic American, and the two civilizations
were always at war. This boy knew more of American history, its heroes
and poetry, than anyone of his age I ever met. This boy had never been
five blocks from the house in which we lived. He removed his hat and
shoes when he went to bed in winter; in summer he took off his coat. A
brother and two sisters shared the folding bed with him. His father
hired the three rooms and sublet to a man with a wife and three
children. The women quarreled all the time, but worked in the same room,
finishing trousers and earning about forty-five cents a day each.

[Sidenote: Evils of Overcrowding]

"How do they live? One widow, with three in her own family, took nine
men boarders in her three rooms. A nephew and his wife also kept house
there, the rent being $18 a month. Another neighbor, whose family
consisted of four adults and two children, had seven lodgers or boarders
at one time. These men owned mattresses, rolled up by day, spread on the
floor at night. One of them had a bride coming from Italy. Two men with
their mattresses were ejected and space made for the ornate brass and
green bedstead. The wedding was the occasion of great rejoicing. Next
day the bride was put to work sewing 'pants.' At the end of a month I
found she had not left those rooms from the moment she entered them, and
that she worked, Sundays included, fourteen hours a day. She was a mere
child, at that. The Italian woman is not a good housekeeper, but she is
a homemaker; she does not fret; dirt, disorder, noise, company, never
disturb her. She must share everything with those about her. She cooks
one meal a day and that at night. Pot or pan may be placed in the
middle of the table and each may help himself from it, but the food is
what her husband wants.

[Sidenote: Family Coöperation]

"Together they will wash the dishes or he will take the baby out. The
mother, who has sewed all day, will wash till midnight, while the
husband sits dozing, smoking, talking. But he hangs out the clothes.
They work together, these Italian husbands and wives. Their wants are
the barren necessaries of life; shelter, food, clothing to cover
nakedness. The children's clothes are washed when they go to bed. Life
is reduced to its lowest terms. They can move as silently as do the
Arabs and do so in the night watches. But they are rarely penniless;
they have a little fund always in the bank. They put their young
children in institutions from weaning-time until they are old enough to
work, then bring them home to swell the family income. Recently a
father, whose children had thus been cared for by the state, bought a
three-story tenement. This is typical thrift. There was never a day when
all the children of school age were in school. School was a prison house
to most of them. There was not room for them, even if they wanted to go.

[Sidenote: City Neglect]

"The streets in which the Italians live are the most neglected. It is
claimed that cleanliness is impossible where the Italian lives. The
truth is that preparation for cleanliness in our foreign colonies is
wholly inadequate. The police despise the Italian except for his voting
power. He feels the contempt, but with the wisdom of his race he keeps
his crimes foreign, and defies this department more successfully than
the public generally knows. He is a peaceable citizen in spite of the
peculiar race crimes which startle the public. The criminals are as one
to a thousand of these people. On Sundays watch these colonies. The
streets are literally packed with crowds from house line to house line,
as far as the eye can see, but not a policeman in sight, nor occasion
for one. Laughter, song, discussion, exchange of epithet, but no
disturbance. They mind their own business as no other nation, and carry
it to the point of crime when they protect the criminal."[73]

[Sidenote: Possibilities of Uplifting]

This is testimony directly from life and has especial value. It reveals
the difficulties, and at the same time the possibilities, of reaching
and Americanizing these immigrants, who are better than their
surroundings, and promising if properly cared for.

[Sidenote: Sources of Degradation]

The impression that steadily deepens with observation and study is that
of the evil and degrading surroundings. Not only are there the evil
moral influences of overcrowding, but also the contact with elements of
population already deteriorated by a generation of tenement house life.
The fresh arrivals are thrown into contact with the corrupt remnants of
Irish immigration which now make up the beggars, drunkards, thugs, and
thieves of those quarters. The results can easily be predicted. The
Italian laboring population is temperate when it comes to this country;
but under the evil conditions and influences of the tenement district
disorderly resorts have been opened, and drinking and other vices are
spreading. The Hebrews show tendencies to vices from which formerly they
were free. The law does not protect these immigrants, and it is charged
that the city permits every kind of inducement for the extension of
immorality, drunkenness, and crime. Thus the immigrant is likely to
deteriorate and degenerate in the process of Americanization, instead of
becoming better in this new world. He has indeed little chance. If he
does not become a pauper or criminal or drunkard, it will be because he
is superior to his environment.


_III. The Sweat-shop Peril_

[Sidenote: An Awful Peril]

An immigrant peril is the sweat-shop labor which this class performs.
"Sweating" is the system of sub-contract wherein the work is let out to
contractors to be done in small shops or at home. According to the
Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics, "in practice sweating consists of
the farming out by competing manufacturers to competing contractors of
the material for garments, which in turn is distributed among competing
men and women to be made up." This system is opposed to the factory
system, where the manufacturer employs his own workmen, sees the goods
made, and knows the conditions. The sweating system is one of the
iniquities of commercial greed, and the helpless foreigner of certain
classes is its victim. The contractor or sweater in our cities is an
organizer and employer of immigrants. His success depends upon getting
the cheapest help, and life is of no account to him, nor apparently to
the man above him. The clothing may be made in foul and damp and
consumption or fever-infested cellars and tenement-styes, by men, women
and children sick or uncleanly, but the only care of the sweater is that
it be made cheaply and thus his returns be secured. It is a standing
reproach to our Christian civilization that the sweating system and the
slums are still existing sores in American centers of population. So far
the law has been unable to control or check greed, and the plague spots
grow worse. Here is a typical case, taken from the report of the
Industrial Commission:

[Sidenote: A Striking Example]

"A Polish Jew in Chicago, at a time when very few of the Poles were
tailors, opened a shop in a Polish neighborhood. He lost money during
the time he was teaching the people the trade, but finally was a gainer.
Before he opened the shop he studied the neighborhood; he found the
very poorest quarters where most of the immigrant Poles lived. He took
no one to work except the newly arrived Polish women and girls. The more
helpless and dependent they were, the more sure of getting work from
him. In speaking about his plans he said: 'It will take these girls
years to learn English and to learn how to go about and find work. In
that way I will be able to get their labor very cheap.' His theory
turned out to be practical. He has since built several tenement-houses."

[Sidenote: A Foreign Importation]

The cheap tailor business is divided among the Italians, Russians,
Poles, and Swedes, Germans and Bohemians. The women and children are
made to work, and hours are not carefully counted. Long work, poor food,
poor light, foul air, bad sanitation--all make this kind of life far
worse than any life which the immigrants knew in Europe. Better physical
starvation there than the mental and spiritual blight of these modern
conditions here. That so much of hopeful humanity is found in these
unwholesome and congested wards proves the quality worth saving and
elevating.

[Sidenote: Story of a Sweat-shop Girl]

Here is an illustration of the resolute spirit which conditions cannot
crush. A young Polish girl was brought by her widowed mother to America,
in hope of bettering their condition. The mother died soon afterward,
leaving the orphan dependent. Then came the disappointments, one after
another, and finally, the almost inevitable result in such cases, the
fall into the slums and the sweat-shops. By hard work six days in the
week, fourteen or more hours a day, this girl of tender age could make
$4 a week! She had to get up at half past five every morning and make
herself a cup of coffee, which with a bit of bread and sometimes fruit
made her breakfast. Listen to her story:

[Sidenote: Her Own Story]

"The machines go like mad all day, because the faster you work the more
money you get. Sometimes in my haste the finger gets caught and the
needle goes right through it. We all have accidents like that. Sometimes
a finger has to come off.... For the last two winters I have been going
to night school. I have learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. I can
read quite well in English now, and I look at the newspapers every day.
I am going back to night school again this winter. Some of the women in
my class are more than forty years of age. Like me, they did not have a
chance to learn anything in the old country. It is good to have an
education; it makes you feel higher. Ignorant people are all low. People
say now that I am clever and fine in conversation. There is a little
expense for charity, too. If any worker is injured or sick we all give
money to help."[74]

[Sidenote: Possibilities]

Surely this is good material. A changed and Christian environment would
make shining lights out of these poor immigrants, who are kept in the
subways of American life, instead of being given a fair chance out in
the open air and sunlight of decently paid service.

[Sidenote: A Foreign System]

Practically all of the work in tenements is carried on by foreign-born
men and women, and more than that, by the latest arrivals and the lowest
conditioned of the foreign-born. Tenement-house legislation has been
practically forced upon New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, whose
ports of entry receive the first impact of immigration, by two of the
races that have been crowding into the cities--the Italian and Hebrew.
The Italian woman, working in her close tenement, has by her cheap labor
almost driven out all other nationalities from that class of work still
done in the home, the hand sewing on coats and trousers. Of the 20,000
licenses granted by the New York factory inspector for "home finishing"
in New York City, ninety-five per cent. are held by Italians. This work
has to be done because the husband is not making enough to support the
family. These men work mostly as street laborers, hucksters, and
peddlers. To make both ends meet not only the wife but children have to
work.

[Sidenote: A Typical Case]

Here is a typical case of this class of worker and the earnings, from an
inspector's note-book: "Antonia Scarafino, 235 Mulberry Street;
finisher; gets five cents per pair pants, bastes bottoms, puts linings
on; one hour to make; two years at this business; four in this country;
married, with baby; sister works with her; can both together make $4 per
week; husband peddles fish and makes only $1 to $2 a week; got married
here; two rooms, $8.50 rent; kitchen 10 x 12; bedroom 8 x 10; gets all
the work she wants. No sunlight falls into her squalid rooms, and there
is no stopping, from early morning till late at night."


_IV. Three Constant Perils_

[Sidenote: The Naturalization Evil]

Illegal and fraudulent naturalization is another evil to which the
foreigner in the city becomes a party, although the blame belongs
chiefly to the ward politicians who make him a _particeps criminis_. The
recognized managers of the foreign vote of various nationalities--almost
always saloonkeepers--hold citizenship cheap, perjury undiscovered as
good as truth, and every vote a clear gain for the party and themselves.
So the naturalization mills are kept running night and day preceding a
national or municipal election. Describing this process, ex-United
States Senator Chandler says that in New York during a single month just
before election about seven thousand naturalization papers were issued,
nearly all by one judge, who examined each applicant and witnesses to
his satisfaction, and signed his orders at the rate of two per minute,
and as many as 618 in one day. Many classes of frauds were committed.
Witnesses were professional perjurers, each swearing in hundreds of
cases, testifying to a five years' residence when they had first met the
applicants only a few hours before. During the past year some of these
professional perjurers and political manipulators were tried and sent to
the penitentiary; but the frauds will go on. Here is an illustration:

[Sidenote: Making Citizens]

"Patrick Hefferman, of a given street in New York, was twenty-one years
old September 2, 1891, and came to this country August 1, 1888. He was
naturalized October 20, 1891. On that day he was introduced by Thomas
Keeler to a stranger, who went with him to court and signed a paper;
they both went before the judge, who asked the stranger something.
Hefferman signed nothing, said nothing, but kissed a book and came out a
citizen, having taken no oath except that of renunciation and
allegiance."

[Sidenote: Fraud Abundant]

Thus are the sacred rights of citizenship obtained by thousands upon
thousands, not in New York alone, but in all our cities. More than that,
fraudulent use is freely made of naturalization papers. The Italian
immigrant, for example, finds his vote is wanted, and obtains a false
paper. He returns to Italy to spend his earnings, and there is offered a
sum of money for the use of his papers. These are given to an emigrant
who probably could not pass the examination at Ellis Island, but who as
a naturalized citizen, if he is not detected in the fraud, cannot be
shut out. Then he sends the papers back to Italy. It is admitted that
there is a regular traffic in naturalization papers. In every way the
alien is put on the wrong track, and his American experiences are such
as would naturally make him lawless and criminal rather than a good
citizen. He needs nothing more than protection against corrupting and
venal agencies, which find their origin in politics and the saloon.

[Sidenote: The Saloon and the Immigrant]

The foreign element furnishes the saloons with victims. In his graphic
book describing tenement life in New York Mr. Riis shows the rapid
multiplication of the saloons in the slums where the foreigners are
crowded into tenements, nine per cent. more densely packed than the most
densely populated districts of London. In the chapter, "The Reign of
Rum,"[75] he says:

[Sidenote: Testimony of Riis]

"'Where God builds a church the devil builds next door a saloon' is an
old saying that has lost its point in New York. Either the devil was on
the ground first, or he has been doing a good deal more in the way of
building. I tried once to find out how the account stood, and counted to
111 Protestant churches, chapels, and places of worship of every kind
below Fourteenth Street, 4,065 saloons. The worst half of the tenement
population lives down there, and it has to this day the worst half of
the saloons. Up town the account stands a little better, but there are
easily ten saloons to every church to-day.

[Sidenote: Hunting for an American]

"As to the motley character of the tenement population, when I asked the
agent of a notorious Fourth Ward alley how many people might be living
in it, I was told: One hundred and forty families--one hundred Irish,
thirty-eight Italian, and two that spoke the German tongue. Barring the
agent herself, there was not a native-born individual in the court. The
answer was characteristic of the cosmopolitan character of lower New
York, very nearly so of the whole of it, wherever it runs to alleys and
courts. One may find for the asking an Italian, German, French, African,
Spanish, Bohemian, Russian, Scandinavian, Jewish, and Chinese colony.
The one thing you shall ask for in vain in the chief city of America is
a distinctively American community."

[Sidenote: The Peril of Poverty]

The immigrant is nearly always poor, and is thrust into the poverty of
the city. We must distinguish between pauperism and poverty. As Mr.
Hunter points out, in his stirring chapter on this subject,[76]
"pauperism is dependence without shame, poverty is to live miserable we
know not why, to have the dread of hunger, to work sore and yet gain
nothing." Fear of pauperism, of the necessity of accepting charity,
drives the self-respecting poor insane and to suicide. It is to be said
that the majority of the immigrants are not paupers, but self-respecting
poor. Moreover, the new immigration is not nearly so ready to accept
pauperism as are the Irish, who make up the largest percentage of this
class, as already shown. But the poor immigrants are compelled, by
circumstances, to come in contact with, if not to dwell directly among
this pauper element, lost to sense of degradation. The paupers make up
the slums. And because the rents are cheaper in the miserable old
rookeries that still defy public decency, the Italians especially crowd
into these pestilential quarters, which are the hotbeds of disease,
physical and moral filth, drunkenness, and crime. Thus pauperism and
poverty dwell too closely together.

[Sidenote: Some Causes of Poverty]

Upon the unskilled masses the weight of want is constantly pressing.
Unemployment, sickness, the least stoppage of the scant income, means
distress. It is estimated that in our country not less than 4,000,000
persons are dependents or paupers, and not less than 10,000,000 are in
poverty. This means that they cannot earn enough regularly to maintain
the standard of life that means the highest efficiency, and that at some
time they are liable to need aid. Mr. Riis has shown that about one
third of the people of New York City were dependent upon charity at
some time during the eight years previous to 1890. The report of the
United Hebrew Charities for 1901 shows similar conditions existing among
the Jewish population of New York. Pauperism is a peril, and poverty is
a source of apathy and despair. The unskilled immigrant tends to
increase the poverty by creating a surplus of cheap labor, and also
falls under the blight of the evil he increases.

[Sidenote: Pauperism and Immigration]

Treating of this subject, the Charities Association of Boston reports
that it is hopeless to attempt to relieve pauperism so long as its ranks
are increased by the great hosts coming into the country, with only a
few dollars to depend upon, and no certain work. The statistics of the
public almshouses show that the proportion of foreign-born is greatly in
excess of the native-born. The pathetic feature of this condition is
that what is wanted is not charity but employment at living wages.
Greatly is it to the credit of the immigrants from southeastern Europe
that they are eager for work and reluctant to accept charity. The danger
is that, if allowed to come and then left without opportunity to work,
they will of necessity fall into the careless, shiftless, vicious class,
already so large and dangerous.

[Sidenote: Peril of the "Great White Plague"]

The immigrants in the city tenements are especially exposed to
consumption, that "Great White Plague" which yearly kills its tens of
thousands. In New York City alone ten thousand die annually of
tuberculosis; and this is the result largely of tenement conditions.
Statisticians estimate that the annual money loss in the United States
from tuberculosis, counting the cost of nursing, food, medicines, and
attendance, as well as the loss of productive labor, is $330,000,000.
Mr. Hunter instances a case where an entire family was wiped out by this
disease within two years and a half. In spite of his efforts to get the
father, who was the first one infected with the disease, to go to a
hospital, he refused, saying that as he had to die, he was going to die
with his family. The Health Board said it had no authority forcibly to
compel the man to go to a hospital; and the result was that the whole
family died with him. This plague "is the result of our weakness, our
ignorance, our selfishness, and our vices; there is no need of its
existence, and it is the duty of the state to stamp it out." That is Mr.
Hunter's conclusion, with which we heartily agree.


_V. The Cry of the Children_

[Sidenote: Peril of Child Neglect]

Another peril of the city, and of the entire country as well, that comes
through the foreigners is child neglect and labor; which means
illiteracy, stunted body and mind, and often wreckage of life. Every
foreign neighborhood is full of children, and sad enough is the average
child of poverty. What makes the tenement district of the great city so
terrible to you as you go into it is the sight of the throngs of
children, who know little of home as you know it, have irregular and
scanty meals, and surroundings of intemperance, dirt, foul atmosphere
and speech, disease and vice. No wonder the police in these districts
say that their worst trouble arises from the boys and the gangs of young
"toughs." There is every reason for this unwholesome product. Mr. Hunter
says there are not less than half a million children in Greater New York
whose only playground is the street. Result, the street gang; and this
gang is the really vital influence in the life of most boys in the large
cities. It is this life, which develops, as Mr. Riis says, "dislike of
regular work, physical incapability of sustained effort, gambling
propensities, absence of energy, and carelessness of the happiness of
others." The great homeless, yardless tenement, where the children of
the immigrants are condemned to live, is the nursery of sickness and
crime. The child is left for good influence to the school, the
settlement, or the mission. For the enormous amount of juvenile crime in
the city, which it requires a special court to deal with, the conditions
are more responsible than the children, or even than the parents, who
are unable to maintain home life, and who, through the pinch of poverty
or the impulse of avarice, give over the education of the children to
school or street. Here is a picture of the life on its darker side:

[Sidenote: Street Life of Children]

"Crowded in the tenements where the bedrooms are small and often dark,
where the living room is also a kitchen, a laundry, and often a
garment-making shop, are the growing children whose bodies cry out for
exercise and play. They are often an irritant to the busy mother, and
likely as not the object of her carping and scolding. The teeming
tenements open their doors, and out into the dark passageways and
courts, through foul alleys and over broken sidewalks, flow ever renewed
streams of playing children. Under the feet of passing horses, under the
wheels of passing street-cars, jostled about by the pedestrian, driven
on by the policeman, they annoy everyone. They crowd about the music or
drunken brawls in the saloons, they play hide-and-seek about the garbage
boxes, they shoot 'craps' in the alleys, they seek always and everywhere
activity, movement, life."[77]

[Sidenote: Imprisoned Childhood]

But worse than this picture is that of childhood in the sweat-shop, the
factory, the mine, and other places of employment. Mr. Hunter has
written a chapter on "The Child"[78] that should be studied by every
lover of humanity. Its facts ring out a clarion call for reform. This
touches our subject most closely because, as he says, "These evils of
child life are doubly dangerous and serious because the mass of people
in poverty in our cities are immigrants. The children of immigrants are
a remarkable race of little ones."

[Sidenote: Happy Childhood]

Indeed they are, and they give you the bright side of the picture, in
spite of all the evil conditions in which they live. The present writer
stood recently opposite the entrance to a public school in the congested
East Side, where not one of all the thousand or more of scholars was of
native stock. As the crowds of little girls poured out at noontime their
faces made a fascinating study. The conspicuous thing about them was the
smile and fun and brightness. The dress was of every description, and
one of the merriest-faced of all had on one shoe and one rubber in place
of the second shoe; but from the faces you would never suspect into what
kind of places these children were about to go for all they know of
home. The hope lies in the children, and the schools are their great
blessing and outlet, even if as Mrs. Betts says, many of them of certain
classes do not think so. Mr. Hunter says:

[Sidenote: What Kind of Americans?]

"They are to become Americans, and through them, more than through any
other agency, their own parents are being led into a knowledge of
American ways and customs. All the statistics available prove that vice
and crime are far more common among the children of immigrants than
among the children of native parentage, and this is due no less to the
yardless tenement and street playground than to widespread poverty. In a
mass of cases the father and mother both work in that feverish, restless
way of the new arrival, ambitious to get ahead. To overcome poverty they
must neglect their children. Turned out of the small tenement into the
street, the child learns the street. Nothing escapes his sharp eyes, and
almost in the briefest conceivable time, he is an American ready to make
his way by every known means, good and bad. To the child everything
American is good and right. There comes a time when the parents cannot
guide him or instruct him; he knows more than they; he looks upon their
advice as of no value. If ever there was a self-made man, that man is
the son of the immigrant. But the street and the street gang have a
great responsibility; they are making the children of a hundred various
languages from every part of the world into American citizens."

[Sidenote: A Plain Duty]

How long will American Christianity allow this process of degeneracy to
go on, before realizing the peril of it, and providing the counteracting
agencies of good? That is the question the young people ought to
consider and help answer.

[Sidenote: Child Labor]

But far worse than all else, "the nation is engaged in a traffic for the
labor of children." In this country over 1,700,000 children under
fifteen are compelled to work in the factories, mines, workshops, and
fields. These figures may mean little, for as Margaret McMillan has
said, "You cannot put tired eyes, pallid cheeks, and languid little
limbs into statistics." But we believe that if our Christian people
could be brought for one moment to realize what the inhumanity of this
child labor is, there would be such an avalanche of public opinion as
would put a stop to it. This evil is a new one in America, begotten of
greed for money. This greed is shared jointly by the capitalist employer
and the parents, but the greater responsibility rests upon the former,
who creates the possibility and fosters the evil.

[Sidenote: Alien Victims]

The immigrants furnish the parents willing to sell their children into
child slavery in the factory, or the worse mill or mine--prisons all,
and for the innocent. Into these prisons gather "tens of thousands of
children, strong and happy, or weak, underfed, and miserable. Stop their
play once for all, and put them out to labor for so many cents a day or
night, and pace them with a tireless, lifeless piece of mechanism, for
ten or twelve hours at a stretch, and you will have a present-day
picture of child labor." But there is yet one thing which must be added
to the picture. Give the child-slave worker a tenement for a home in the
filthy streets of an ordinary factory city, with open spaces covered
with tin cans, bottles, old shoes, garbage, and other waste, the gutters
running sewers, and the air foul with odors and black with factory
smoke, and the picture is fairly complete. It is a dark picture, but
hardly so dark as the reality, and if one were to describe "back of the
yards" in Chicago, or certain mill towns or mining districts, the
picture would be even darker than the one given.

[Sidenote: The Shame of the Century]

Think of it, young people of Christian America! In the twentieth
century, in the country we like to think the most enlightened in the
world, after all our boasted advancements in civilization, child
slavery--more pitiful in some respects than African slavery ever
was--has its grip on the nation's childhood.

[Sidenote: An Appalling Record]

The record is amazing to one who has never thought about this subject.
Easily a hundred thousand children at work in New York, in all sorts of
employments unsuitable and injurious. Try to realize these totals, taken
from Mr. Hunter, of children under fifteen, compelled to work in
employments generally recognized as injurious: Over 7,000 in this
country in laundries; nearly 2,000 in bakeshops; 367 in saloons as
bartenders and other ways; over 138,000 at work as waiters and servants
in hotels and restaurants, with long hours and conditions morally bad;
42,000 employed as messengers, with work hours often unlimited and
temptations leading to immorality and vice; 20,000 in stores; 2,500 on
the railroads; over 24,000 in mines and quarries; over 5,000 in glass
factories; about 10,000 in sawmills and the wood-working industries;
over 7,500 in iron and steel mills; over 11,000 in cigar and tobacco
factories; and over 80,000 in the silk and cotton and other textile
mills.

[Sidenote: Soul Murder for Money]

Now, all of these industries are physically injurious to childhood. But
more than this, schooling has been made impossible, and immorality,
disease, and death reap a rich harvest from this seed-sowing. And why
are these helpless children thus engaged and enslaved, stunted,
crippled, and corrupted, deprived of education and a fair chance in
life? Simply because their labor is cheap. Mr. Hunter speaks none too
strongly when he calls this "murder, cannibalism, destruction of soul
and body." And it is the children of the immigrants who are thus
sacrificed to Mammon, the pitiless god of greed. Shall our Christian
young people have no voice in righting this wrong? Within a generation
they can put an end to it, if they will. Here is home missionary work at
hand, calling for highest endeavors.


QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VI

AIM: TO SEE CLEARLY THE DANGERS ARISING FROM CONGESTION OF
FOREIGNERS IN OUR CITIES, AND THE BEST WAYS OF GUARDING AGAINST
THEM

I. _Foreigners in Cities._

     1. What are the chief causes of the following: (1) the rapid growth
     of great cities; (2) the existence of slums; (3) the settling of
     immigrants in colonies?

     2. Is your knowledge of the lives of the poor sufficient to move
     you to work for their redemption? Are any of those persons, about
     whom we have studied, your neighbors?

     3. Is the prevailing tone of New York and other cities American or
     Foreign? Give illustrations.

     4. What is the prevailing tone in city government? Is there any
     connection between the answers of these last two questions?


II. _Tenement-House Evils._

     5. Where do most of the foreigners settle first in the United
     States? Of what races is the mass chiefly composed?

     6. Describe the conditions under which they live. Do they find them
     so or make them so?

     7. What remedies can be applied to tenement-house conditions? What
     do the workers among them think of the needs and prospects?

     8. What can be done toward improvement by the family? the school?
     the city government?


III. _Prevalent Abuses._

     9. Do the slum conditions tend to contaminate new arrivals? Do they
     actually deteriorate?

     10. What is the worst industrial feature of the tenement-house
     districts? Describe its workings. Tell of some typical sweat-shop
     workers.

     11. What political evils flourish in the congested districts?

     12. What moral and social evils flourish in the congested
     districts?


     IV. _Effects upon the Poor and the Children._

     13. What relation does immigration hold to pauperism and poverty?
     To conditions of health?

     14. Name some of the principal authorities for the preceding
     answers? How would you answer those who disputed their statements?

     15. Can you give any facts as to child labor? What do you think of
     the policy of employing children?

     16. * Does this chapter convince you that Christians have a duty in
     these matters, and if so, what is it?

REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY.--CHAPTER VI

    I. _New York Slums and Foreign Quarters._

    Study especially the Ghetto, Little Italy, Little Hungary, et al. and
    find out whether similar conditions exist in cities of your section.

    For New York, consult
    University Settlement Studies, Vol. I, Nos. 3 and 4.
    Riis: How the Other Half Lives, X, XII.

    For Chicago, consult
    Hull House Papers.

    For Boston, consult
    Wood: Americans in Process, III, IV.


    II. _Measures for Relief of Slum Population._

    Riis: The Battle With the Slum, V-XV.
    Riis: How the Other Half Lives, VI, VII, XXIV.


    III. _Connection between a Dense Foreign Population and Corruption in
    Politics._

    Wood: Americans in Process, VI.


    IV. _Checks Put upon Industrial Oppression and Poverty._

    Riis: The Peril and the Preservation of the Home.


    V. _Problems of Poverty and Childhood as Affected by Immigration._

    Hunter: Poverty, I, V, VI.
    Riis: How the Other Half Lives, XV, XVII, XXI.


    _"To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely," said
    Burke. If there is to be patriotism, it must be a matter of pride to
    say, "Americanus sum"--I am an American._--Professor Mayo-Smith.




VII

IMMIGRATION AND THE NATIONAL CHARACTER


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 that 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 of wages, the American standard of
living are brought into serious peril. _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 slums and its vast stagnant reservoirs of degraded peasantry to be
drained off upon our soil.--_General Francis A. Walker._

If the hope which this country holds out to the human race of permanent
and stable government is to be impaired by the enormous and unregulated
inroad of poverty and ignorance, which changed conditions of
transportation have brought upon us, then for the sake of Europe, as
well as for the sake of America, the coming of these people should be
checked and regulated until we can handle the problems that are already
facing us.--_Phillips Brooks._

There are certain fundamentals in every system, to destroy which
destroys the system itself. Our institutions have grown up with us and
are adapted to our national character and needs. To change them at the
demand of agitators knowing nothing of that character and those needs
would be absurd and destructive.--_Professor Mayo-Smith._




VII

IMMIGRATION AND THE NATIONAL CHARACTER


_I. Two Points of View_

[Sidenote: The Larger Race Problem]

Immigration is a radically different problem from that of slavery, but
not less vital to the Republic. It is a marvelous opportunity for a
Christian nation, awake; but an unarmed invasion signifying destruction
to the ideals and institutions of a free and nominally Christian nation,
asleep. "The wise man's eyes are in his head," says Solomon, "but the
fool walketh in darkness." In other words, the difference between the
wise and otherwise is one of sight. While Americans are walking in the
darkness of indifferentism and of an optimism born not of faith but
ignorance, immigration is steadily changing the character of our
civilization. We are face to face with the larger race problem--that of
assimilating sixty nationalities and races. The problem will never be
solved by minimizing or deriding or misunderstanding it.

[Sidenote: The Two Sides]

All through this study we have sought to remember that there are two
sides to every question, and two to every phase of this great
immigration question. Especially is this true when we come to estimating
effects upon character, for here we are in the domain of inference and
of reasoning from necessarily limited knowledge. Here, too, temperament
and bias play their part. One person learns that of every five persons
you meet in New York four are of foreign birth or parentage, notes the
change in personality, customs, and manners, and wonders how long our
free institutions can stand this test of unrestricted immigration.
Another answers that the foreigners are not so bad as they are often
painted, and that the immorality in the most foreign parts of New York
is less than in other parts.

[Sidenote: Different Opinions]

A third says it is not fair to count the children of foreign-born
parents as foreign; that they are in fact much stronger Americans in
general than the native children of native parentage; and instances the
flag-drills in the schools, in which the foreign children take the
keenest delight, as they do in the study of American history. But a
fourth says, with Professor Boyesen, that it takes generations of
intelligent, self-restrained, and self-respecting persons to make a man
fit to govern himself, and that if the ordinary tests of intelligence
and morality amount to anything, it certainly would take three or four
generations to educate these newcomers up to the level of American
citizenship.

[Sidenote: Conflicting Views]

One observer of present conditions says there is a lowered moral and
political tone by reason of immigration; and another agrees with a
leader in settlement work who recently said to the writer that he sees
no reason to restrict immigration, that wages will take care of
themselves and the foreigner steadily improve, and that there is in the
younger foreign element a needed dynamic, a consciousness of
Americanism, an interest in everything American in refreshing contrast
to the _laissez-faire_ type of native young person now so common. His
conclusion, from contact with both types, is that the intenseness and
enthusiasm of the foreign element will make the native element bestir
itself or go under.

[Sidenote: Mean between Extremes]

So opinions run, pro and con. There must be a mean between the two
extremes--the one, that God is in a peculiar sense responsible for the
future of the United States, and cannot afford to let our experiment of
self-government fail, however foolish and reckless the people may be;
and the other, that unless Congress speedily passes restrictive laws the
destiny of our country will be imperiled beyond remedy. We find such a
mean in that Americanization which includes evangelization as an
essential part of the assimilating process.

[Sidenote: Foreigners Everywhere]

As to the ubiquity of the foreigner all will agree. "Any foreigners in
your neighborhood?" asked the writer of a friend in a remote country
hamlet. "O, yes," was the reply, "we have a colony of Italians." Of all
such questions asked during months past not one has been answered in the
negative. Go where you will, from Atlantic to Pacific Coast, the
immigrant is there. In nineteen of the northern states of our Republic
the number of the foreign-born and their immediate descendants exceeds
the number of the native-born. In the largest cities the number is two
thirds, and even three quarters. There are more Cohens than Smiths in
the New York directory. Two thirds of the laborers in our factories are
foreign-born or of foreign parentage. New England is no longer Puritan
but foreign. So is it in the Middle and the Central West, and not only
in city and town but hamlet and valley. The farms sanctified by many a
Puritan prayer are occupied to-day by French-Canadian and Italian
aliens. Foreigners are running our factories, working our mines,
building our railways, boring our tunnels, doing the hard manual labor
in all the great constructive enterprises of the nation. They are also
entering all the avenues of trade, and few other than foreign names can
be seen on the business signs in our cities large or small.

[Sidenote: Foreignism Preserved]

Not only do you find the foreigner, of one race or another, everywhere,
but wherever you find him in any numbers you note that the most
distinctive feature is the foreignism. The immigrant readily catches
the spirit of independence and makes the most of liberty. He is
insistent upon his rights, but not always so careful about the rights of
others. He is imitative, and absorbs the spirit of selfishness as
quickly as do the native-born. He is often unkempt, uncultured, dirty,
and disagreeable. He is also impressionable and changeable, responsive
to kindness as he is resentful of contempt. He follows his own customs
both on Sundays and week days. He knows as little about American ideas
as Americans know about him. He is commonly apt to learn, and very much
depends upon the kind of teaching he falls under. Much of it,
unfortunately, has not been of the kind to make the American ideas and
ways seem preferable to his own. Made to feel like an alien, he is
likely to remain at heart an alien; whereas the very safety and welfare
and Christian civilization of our country depend in no small degree upon
transforming him into a true American. For upon this change hangs the
answer to the question, which influence is to be strongest--ours upon
the foreigner or the foreigner's upon us.


_II. American Ideals_

[Sidenote: A Question for Patriots]

Surely this is a question to engage the attention of Christian
patriots--the influence of this vast mass of undigested if not
indigestible immigration upon the national character and life. A most
scholarly and valuable treatment of this subject is found in the
discriminating work by Professor Mayo-Smith, one of the very best books
written on the subject. The figures are out of date, but the principles
so clearly enunciated are permanent, and the conclusions sane and sound.
This is the way he opens up the subject we are now considering:

[Sidenote: The Marks of a High Civilization]

"The whole life of a nation is not covered by its politics and its
economics. Civilization does not consist merely of free political
institutions and material prosperity. The morality of a community, its
observance of law and order, its freedom from vice, its intelligence,
its rate of mortality and morbidity, its thrift, cleanliness, and
freedom from a degrading pauperism, its observance of family ties and
obligations, its humanitarian disposition and charity, and finally its
social ideals and habits are just as much indices of its civilization as
the trial by jury or a high rate of wages. These things are, in fact,
the flower and fruit of civilization--in them consists the successful
'pursuit of happiness' which our ancestors coupled with life and liberty
as the inalienable rights of a man worthy of the name.

"In order that we may take a pride in our nationality and be willing to
make sacrifices for our country, it is necessary that it should satisfy
in some measure our ideal of what a nation ought to be. What now are the
characteristics of American state and social life which we desire to
see preserved? Among the most obvious are the following:

[Sidenote: American Ideals]

     "(1) The free political constitution and the ability to govern
     ourselves in the ordinary affairs of life, which we have inherited
     from England and so surprisingly developed in our own history;

     "(2) The social morality of the Puritan settlers of New England,
     which the spirit of equality and the absence of privileged classes
     have enabled us to maintain;

     "(3) The economic well-being of the mass of the community, which
     affords our working classes a degree of comfort distinguishing them
     sharply from the artisans and peasants of Europe;

     "(4) Certain social habits which are distinctively American or are,
     at least, present in greater degree among our people than elsewhere
     in the world. Such are love of law and order, ready acquiescence in
     the will of the majority, a generally humane spirit, displaying
     itself in respect for women and care for children and helpless
     persons, a willingness to help others, a sense of humor, a good
     nature and a kindly manner, a national patriotism, and confidence
     in the future of the country.

"All these are desirable traits; and as we look forward to the future of
our commonwealth we should wish to see them preserved, and should
deprecate influences tending to destroy the conditions under which they
exist. Any such phenomenon as immigration, exerting wide and lasting
influence, should be examined with great care to see what its effect on
these things will be."[79]

[Sidenote: Protestant Religion Vital]

We should add to this thoughtful statement a clause concerning religion.
A vital thing to be maintained and extended is the Protestant faith
which formed the basis of our colonial and national life. No part of the
subject should receive more careful scrutiny than the effect of
immigration upon Protestant America. Whatever would make this country
less distinctively Protestant in religion tends to destroy all the other
social and civil characteristics which, it is well said, we wish to
preserve.

[Sidenote: American Life Changing]

When immigration began in the early years of the nineteenth century, the
American people possessed a distinctive life and character of their own,
differing in many respects from that of any other people. The easy
amalgamation of the races that formed the colonial stock--English,
Huguenot, Scotch, Dutch--had produced an American stock distinct from
any in the Old World. The nation was practically homogeneous, and its
social, religious, and political ideals and aims were distinct. That
great changes have taken place in the past century no one will deny. The
material expansion and development have not been more marked than the
changes social and religious.

[Sidenote: Influence of Immigration]

Just what part immigration has played in producing these changes it is
of course difficult to say with exactness, but unquestionably the part
has been very great. The twenty-three millions of aliens admitted into
the United States since 1820 brought their habits and customs and
standards of living with them; brought also their religion or want of
it; and it would be absurd to imagine that all of these millions had
been Americanized, or, in other words, had given up their old ways for
our ways of thinking and living. On the contrary, they have transported
all sorts of political notions from monarchial countries to our soil.
"The continental ideas of the Sabbath, the nihilist's ideas of
government, the communist's ideas of property, the pagan's ideas of
religion--all these mingle in our air with the ideas that shaped the men
at Plymouth Rock and Valley Forge," that adorned hill, dale and prairie
with Christian church and Christian school, and made possible the
building of free America.

[Sidenote: The Grade of the Aliens]

As we have seen, the immigrants have mostly represented the peasant or
lower classes of the countries whence they came. This is noted, not in
the way of prejudice, but because it is always true that mortality is
greater, and crime, illiteracy, and pauperism are more prevalent among
the lower classes. Of course it is also true that if the higher classes
had come from foreign lands they would have made an addition to the
social life quite different from that which did come. The average
character of the immigration, however favorable, required raising in
order to meet the American level. In the new environment it was to be
expected that large numbers of individuals among the immigrants would
rise to prominence and influence, and this has been the case. The
country owes large debt to the immigrants of earlier days. Their
children and descendants are loyal Americans. It is true, on the other
hand, that many have come from unfortunate conditions in the Old World
only to fall into quite as unfortunate ones in the New; and they and
their descendants have swollen the pauper and criminal class. The
statistics prove that a large proportion of our criminals and convicts
are of foreign birth. It is still more significant to note that, in the
opinion of expert observers, the first generation of foreign-born
parentage, in the cities at least, make a worse record than the
migrating parents.

[Sidenote: Bad Effects of New Environments]

If this be so, the new environment is producing deterioration and
degeneracy instead of improvement. An Italian of education, working
among his people, told the writer that the Italian boys and girls born
here, or coming at a very early age, were much more lawless and
disorderly and difficult to deal with than their fathers and mothers.
They had imbibed all the worst features of our life, its independence,
its defiance of parental authority, its selfishness, rudeness, and
vices, while they lacked the reverence, courtesy, and spirit of
obedience native to the Italian-born. This is substantiated by many
witnesses who have labored among the foreign element. The
Americanization these children are getting is largely of the worst
type--the type that we should like to see emigrate to European
countries. And it is confined to no one race, but common to all.
Professor Boyesen, for instance, a Norwegian-American, who blamed the
ideas gained in the public schools for some of the results seen in the
young hoodlums and roughs of foreign parentage, said that worthy German
and Scandinavian fathers complained bitterly that they could not govern
their children in this country. Their sons took to the streets, and if
disciplined left home entirely; and they attributed this to the spirit
of irresponsible independence in the air. This is perhaps one of the
inevitable penalties of individual liberty.


_III. Various Effects of Immigration_

[Sidenote: Making Life too Cheap]

The introduction through immigration of a lower standard of living has
been shown in preceding chapters. The point to be appreciated is that in
this matter we are not dealing with the immigration of individual
paupers and cheap workingmen, but with the influx of whole classes that
threaten to degrade our material civilization. There are in America
entire communities which live on a different plane, and form colonies
as foreign to American ideas and life as anything in Europe can show.
They have organized their own social life and fixed their own standards,
instead of rising to ours. The results are plain all over the country.
Immigration has cheapened more than wages in certain lines, it has
cheapened life, until the coal barons could say, "It is cheaper to store
men than coal." But men may be too cheap.

[Sidenote: Good Qualities Bad if Abused]

Some of the best qualities in the immigrants are liable to abuse.
Thrift, for instance, is commendable, but not when it is exercised at
the expense of decent living. Economy is an admirable trait, but not
when practiced at the expense of manhood and decent conditions. A
distinct deterioration of the masses displaced by the cheaper labor has
marked the advent of the new immigration. While some of the workingmen
thrown out of employment by immigration rise with the increase in the
number of superior positions, the great mass are obliged to accept the
lower standard or are forced out of the industry into misery, pauperism,
and crime. The greater tendency of immigrants, by reason of their
poverty, to permit or encourage the employment of their wives or
children, still further increases the intensity of the competition for
employment. In view of all the facts, a recent writer argues that the
limitation or restriction which would reduce the volume and improve the
economic quality of immigration would greatly improve labor conditions
in this country.

[Sidenote: Deterioration a Result of too Large Immigration]

Under the present free inflow, says this writer, "the condition of the
great mass of the working classes of this country is being permanently
depressed, and the difference between the industrial condition of the
unskilled workers in our country and of other countries is being
steadily lessened to our permanent and great detriment."[80]

[Sidenote: False Reasoning]

As to the economic effects of unrestricted immigration, the stock
argument that it costs a foreign country a thousand dollars to raise a
man, and that, therefore, every immigrant is that much clear money gain
to this country, simply begs the question of the usefulness of the
immigrant and the country's need of him. Many immigrants are not worth
what it cost to raise them, to their native land or any other; and at
any rate, a man is only of value where he can fit into the community
life and do something it needs to have done. Another naïve claim is that
every mouth that comes into the country brings with it two hands, the
assumption being that there is necessarily work for the two hands. If
not, then there is an extra mouth to be fed at somebody else's expense.
The real question is one of demand and quality.

[Sidenote: Effects upon Education]

What effect has immigration had, and what is it likely to have, upon our
national educational policy? The parochial school is opposed to the
public school; the parochial school is Roman, the public school
American. The parochial schools could not secure scholars but for
immigration. The Roman Catholic Church is persistently trying to get
appropriations of public money for parochial schools, although well
aware that this is directly contrary to the fundamental American
principle of absolute separation of Church and State; and is relying
upon the foreign vote to accomplish this un-American purpose. Here is an
illustration of the conditions made possible through unchecked
immigration and the wielding of this immigration by priestly influence:

[Sidenote: Baneful Results in Illinois]

In Illinois the foreign element outnumbers the native in voting power.
In consequence compulsory education in the public schools of that state
was voted down by a legislature pledged to obey the dictum of the
foreign element. Where the priests wield the foreign element in favor of
the parochial schools, it is not possible to pass a bill for compulsory
education in the English language.

[Sidenote: Parochial Schools in Pennsylvania]

The striking fact is given by Dr. Warne[81] that in parochial schools
for the Slav children in Pennsylvania, English is not taught, and the
children are growing up as thoroughly foreign and under priestly
control as though they were in Bohemia or Galicia.

[Sidenote: A Real Menace to the Republic]

A student of this subject[82] says that all the facts indicate that the
time will come when, if compulsory education in English is not
maintained by the states, this important matter will have to be made one
of national legislation. "The supine bowing of the native element in our
political parties to this foreign, domineering, un-American and
denationalizing opposition to the state control of the education of the
child for citizenship is in itself a menace. When we hear of public
schools in America taught in German and Polish, instead of the language
of Emerson and Longfellow, Lincoln and Grant, one feels like taking, not
Diogenes' lantern, but an Edison searchlight, and going about our
streets to see if there be in all our cities a patriot." More evil in
results than this, and most insidious of all the attempts of the Roman
Catholic hierarchy to undermine American principles, is the system of
so-called compromise by which some of the public schools are taught by
nuns, sisters, and priests, who wear their Church garb, and use the
school buildings during certain hours for sectarian instruction. The
mere statement of the facts ought to be sufficient to bring about
drastic remedies, but the easy-going Protestants apparently do not
realize what is being done.

[Sidenote: Schools the Sure Way to Americanism]

American patriotism must steadily and resolutely resist every Roman
Catholic attack, open or covert, upon our public schools, every attempt
to divert public moneys to sectarian purposes. This is vital to the
preservation of our civil and religious liberty. For the immigrant
children the public schools are the sluiceways into Americanism. When
the stream of alien childhood flows through them, it will issue into the
reservoirs of national life with the Old World taints filtered out, and
the qualities retained that make for loyalty and good citizenship. We
shall have to look to our school boards, elevate them above party
politics and the reach of graft, and elect upon them men and women
instinct with the spirit of true Americanism, or see this mightiest
agency of modern civilization diverted from its high mission to produce
for the Republic an enlightened and noble manhood and womanhood.

[Sidenote: Effects upon Political Conditions]

What is the effect of the addition of so many thousands of men of voting
age upon our political conditions? Undoubtedly demoralizing and
dangerous. Professor Mayo-Smith says: "We are thus conferring the
privilege of citizenship, including the right to vote, without any test
of the man's fitness for it. The German vote in many localities controls
the action of political leaders on the liquor question, oftentimes in
opposition to the sentiment of the native community. The bad influence
of a purely ignorant vote is seen in the degradation of our municipal
administrations in America."[83] The foreign-born congregate in the
large cities, especially the mass of unskilled laborers. There they
easily come under control of leaders of their own race, who use them to
further selfish ends. Fraudulent naturalization is another evil result.
There is no more dangerous element in the Republic than a foreign vote,
wielded by unscrupulous partisans and grafters. The immigrant is not so
much to blame as are those who corrupt him, but if he were not here they
would have no opportunity. In order to wield a bludgeon a bully must
have the bludgeon.

[Sidenote: A Voter Should be Able to Read his Ballot]

There is an unquestioned and increasing evil and peril in a German vote,
an Irish vote, a Scandinavian vote, an Italian vote, and a Hebrew vote.
Out in South Dakota a Russian vote also has to be reckoned with, and in
New England a French-Canadian vote. All this is undemocratic and
unwholesome in the highest degree. Our government is based upon the
intelligent and responsible use of the ballot. How can such use be
possible in the case of the naturalized alien who cannot read or write
our language or any other? No one can declare it unreasonable that a
reading test as a qualification for voting should be required of all. On
the brighter side of the political phase, it is asserted that it was the
foreign element of the East Side in New York that made possible the
election of a reform candidate in a recent election, and that this
element can be relied upon for reform and independent voting quite as
much as the American society element, which is frequently too
indifferent to vote at all. There is too much truth in this. At the same
time, one who is familiar with the discussions at the People's Forum in
Cooper Institute, New York, or similar meeting places of the foreign
element in other large cities, knows how essentially un-American are the
point of view and the theories most advocated.


_IV. The Religious Problem_

[Sidenote: Effects upon Religious Conditions]

What is the effect of immigration upon the religious life of the
country? This is an exceedingly difficult matter upon which to
generalize. There is no doubt that great changes have taken place in the
religious views and practices of the people, but how far these can be
attributed to foreign influence is something upon which agreement will
be rare and judgment difficult. It will be instructive, first of all, to
study this table, which gives the results of questions asked the
immigrants in 1900 concerning their religious connections. This was the
last inquiry of the kind officially made, and will indicate what
religious elements in immigration must be taken into consideration:

RELIGIOUS STATISTICS OF THE IMMIGRATION FOR 1900

  -------------------------------------------------------
                 |Total
                 |       | Protestants
   Countries     |       |       |  Roman Catholics
                 |       |       |       |Greek Catholics
  -------------------------------------------------------
  Austria-Hungary|64,835 | 5,009 | 39,694| 7,699
  Belgium        | 1,728 |    94 |    967|     2
  Denmark        | 3,253 | 2,629 |     44|    --
  France         | 4,902 |   165 |  1,736|     3
  German Empire  |25,904 |10,258 |  6,758|    18
  Greece         | 2,450 |    14 |     14| 2,350
  Italy          |79,664 |    50 | 78,306|    26
  Netherlands    | 1,994 |   839 |    190|    --
  Norway         | 7,113 | 6,674 |      2|    --
  Portugal       | 2,269 |     2 |  2,056|    --
  Roumania       | 1,655 |   160 |     60|    31
  Russian Empire |       |       |       |
   and Finland   |62,537 |13,295 | 22,462| 1,470
  Servia,        |       |       |       |
   Bulgaria      |    59 |    -- |      4|    47
  Spain          | 1,428 |    15 |    704|    --
  Sweden         |13,541 |12,708 |      9|    --
  Switzerland    | 2,294 |   710 |    608|     7
  Turkey in      |       |       |       |
    Europe       |   137 |     5 |      5|    33
  United Kingdom |65,390 | 12,611| 31,216|     4
  Not specified  |     8 |     --|    -- |     5
  Total Europe   |341,161| 65,238|184,835|11,695
  Total Asia     |  9,726|    452|  1,390| 2,833
  Africa         |    109|     13|      9|    --
  All other      |       |       |       |
    countries    | 10,440|  1,274|  2,178|    11
                 ---------------------------------
 Grand Total[84] |361,436| 66,977|188,412|14,539
                 ---------------------------------
  Percentage in  |       |       |       |
    each religion|    100|  18.54|  52.14|  4.03
  -------------------------------------------------------



  --------------------------------------------------------
                  |Israelites
                  |       | Brahmans
   Countries      |       |       | Mohammedans
                  |       |       |       |Miscellaneous
  --------------------------------------------------------
  Austria-Hungary |11,082 |   --  |    -- |  1,351
  Belgium         |     4 |   --  |    -- |    661
  Denmark         |     2 |   --  |    -- |    578
  France          |    12 |   --  |     2 |  2,984
  German Empire   |   401 |   --  |    -- |  8,469
  Greece          |    -- |   --  |    -- |     72
  Italy           |     1 |   --  |    -- |  1,281
  Netherlands     |     8 |   --  |    -- |    957
  Norway          |    -- |   --  |    -- |    437
  Portugal        |    -- |   --  |    -- |    211
  Roumania        | 1,350 |   --  |    -- |     54
  Russian Empire  |       |       |       |
   and Finland    |24,351 |   --  |     1 |    958
  Servia,         |       |       |       |
   Bulgaria       |     1 |   --  |    -- |      7
  Spain           |    -- |   --  |    -- |    709
  Sweden          |    -- |   --  |    -- |    824
  Switzerland     |     6 |   --  |    -- |    963
  Turkey in       |       |       |       |
    Europe        |    27 |   --  |    13 |     54
  United Kingdom  |   197 |   --  |     1 | 21,361
  Not specified   |    -- |   --  |    -- |      3
  Total Europe    | 37,442|   --  |    17 | 41,934
  Total Asia      |     48|  3,373|    77 |  1,553
  Africa          |      5|   --  |    16 |     66
  All other       |       |       |       |
    countries     |     28|    228|    -- |  6,721
                  ---------------------------------
  Grand Total[84] | 37,523|  3,601|    110| 50,274
                  ---------------------------------
  Percentage in   |       |       |       |
    each religion |  10.39|    .99|    -- |  13.91
  -------------------------------------------------------


[Sidenote: Eighty Per Cent. Non-Protestant]

In analyzing these figures, it will be noted that the Roman Catholics
had fifty-two per cent. in a year when the total immigration of 361,436
(not much over one third that of the present time) was about the same in
the proportion of aliens from southeastern Europe as now. The Jews would
make a larger showing at present, as the immigrants from Russia are
almost wholly Jews. The Protestant strength certainly would not be any
greater proportionately. The large number put down as miscellaneous is
significant. What a task is laid upon American Protestantism--nothing
less than the evangelization of nearly eighty-two per cent. of the vast
immigration. It is easy to say that the fifty-two per cent. is nominally
Christian, but in fact that nominal Christianity is in many respects as
much out of sympathy with American religious ideals, with democracy and
the pure gospel, as is heathenism; and it is in many cases as difficult
to reach, and as great an obstacle to the assimilation of the aliens.

[Sidenote: Sunday Observance]

Looking at various results of this incoming host, in regard to reverence
for Sunday and observance of it, it is fair to assume that the millions
of Germans, with their continental Sunday, were leaders in breaking in
upon our Sunday customs. While they have as a people observed the
laws--although seeking to have the laws changed so as to permit here the
home customs of open concert halls and beer gardens on Sunday afternoon
and evening--their influence has been strongly felt in favor of loose
Sunday observance, and this has been sufficient to stimulate the natural
tendency of the American element to make the day one of amusement and
recreation, regardless of laws. The result is that now we have a lawless
American Sunday quite different from and more objectionable than the
continental Sunday.

[Sidenote: Disregard of Law]

In the larger cities throughout the country the encroachments of the
money-makers have been steady. Performances of all kinds are permitted,
theaters run either openly or with thinly veiled programs, saloons are
open to those who know where the proper entrances are, and many forms of
business and labor are carried on seven days in the week. The Jews
claimed that it was a hardship to have to close on Sunday, when their
religious observances came on Saturday, with result that a good many
manage to keep shops and factories open all the year around. Pleas of
necessity have been put forward where contractors desired to push jobs
and profits. Sunday excursions are universal, and in order to gain their
Sunday pleasure-outings several millions of people of all races keep
several other millions hard at work on the day of rest. All places are
crowded on Sunday except the churches. Go among the foreign elements in
the city and you would never know it was Sunday. Holiday has supplanted
holy-day. Observe the trolley-cars or subway or elevated trains on
Sunday and you will see nine foreigners out of every ten persons. Go
into the suburbs and you will find springing up in out-of-the-way
places, where land can be secured cheap, little recreation parks, with
games and dancing platforms; and here there will be throngs of Italians
and other foreigners all day.

[Sidenote: Loss of the American Sunday]

Let us be just in this matter. The loss of the American Sunday is
undoubtedly due in great measure to immigration; due in part to the
weakness and dereliction of American professing Christians who have
surrendered to the foreign elements and fallen in with their ideas
instead of maintaining public worship and insisting upon respect for law
at least. Let the blame fall where it belongs, and let the Church
members recreant to duty take their share. When the sea threatened
Holland her resolute people built the dykes and maintained them;
American Christians have failed to stop the leaks in the church dykes,
and we have had a Sunday submergence in consequence. The effect of it
upon our national development is already evident and is most disastrous
to our highest interests. Sabbath-breaking and progress-making never go
together. Sunday work and pleasure combined form the peril alike of the
American workingman and of Christian civilization.

[Sidenote: General Deterioration]

Along with this inflow of alien ideas in religion goes a lowered
morality and a lower tone generally. Not that the sins of those in high
places are to be charged upon the poor immigrant, for he rarely if ever
belongs to that class. The statement may be true that the great rascals
are of native stock. But that only increases the peril. The masses that
come to us from southern Europe certainly will not raise the moral or
commercial, any more than they will the political or intellectual,
level. If we do not raise them they will tend to lower us; and much of
what they see and hear can have nothing less than a demoralizing effect.

[Sidenote: The Only Safeguard of Liberty]

Where shall we find the zealous and consistent Christians who by
sympathetic contact will represent the true spirit of Christianity, and
make the elevation of the aliens possible? The supreme truth to be
realized is that nothing but Christianity, as incarnated in American
Protestantism, can preserve America's free institutions.

[Sidenote: Spread of Socialism]

Ex-President Seelye, of Amherst, said that socialism is the question of
the time, and this is more apparent with every passing year. Socialism
has its source in the foreign element. It is not native to America. Its
swelling hosts are composed almost entirely of immigrants of recent
coming. It is found not only in the great cities but is spreading
through the farming sections. Now, there is a truth in socialism that
must be intelligently dealt with; and there is a Christian socialism
that should become dominant. And this is the only force that can check
and counteract the foreign socialism that would sweep away foundations
instead of ameliorating conditions and remedying evils.

[Sidenote: Migration a Severe Test]

In the same way, Protestant Christianity is the only agency that can
save us from the moral degeneracy involved in migration, even if the
immigrants were of our moral grade before coming. As Dr. Strong says,
the very act of migration is demoralizing. All the strength that comes
from associations, surroundings, relations, the emigrant leaves behind
him, and becomes isolated in a strange land. Is it strange, then, that
those who come from other lands, whose old associations are all broken
and whose reputations are left behind, should sink to a lower moral
level? Across the sea they suffered restraints which are here removed.
Better wages afford larger means of self-indulgence; often the back is
not strong enough to bear prosperity, and liberty too often lapses into
license.[85]

[Sidenote: Why Foreign Colonies are Perpetuated]

This result of migration is at once an evil and an opportunity. Breaking
away from the old associations leaves room and necessity for new ones.
Upon the character of these the future of the immigrant will largely
depend. Here is the Christian opportunity. See to it that the new
associations make for righteousness and patriotism. If the immigrant is
evangelized, assimilation is easy and sure. It is recognition of this
fact that leads the Roman Catholic Church to keep foreign colonies in
America as isolated and permanent as possible. The ecclesiastics realize
that children must be held in the parochial schools, so as to avoid the
Americanization that comes through the public schools, with the
probable loss of loyalty to the Church. The parents equally must be
kept away from the influences that would broaden and enlighten them. Dr.
Strong tells of large colonies in the West, settled by foreigners of one
nationality and religion; "thus building up states within a state,
having different languages, different antecedents, different religions,
different ideas and habits, preparing mutual jealousies, and
perpetuating race antipathies. In New England conventions are held to
which only French-Canadian Roman Catholics are admitted. At such a
convention in Nashua, New Hampshire, attended by eighty priests, the
following mottoes were displayed: 'Our tongue, our nationality, our
religion,' 'Before everything else, let us remain French!'" And it is
well said: "If our noble domain were tenfold larger than it is, it would
still be too small to embrace with safety to our national future, little
Germanies here, little Scandinavias there, and little Irelands yonder."
To-day there are also little Italies and little Hungaries, and a long
list of other races.


_V. The Hopeful Side_

[Sidenote: A Brighter Picture]

Turning to the pleasanter and brighter side of this great question, we
give the encouraging view of one who has spent years among the immigrant
population, studying their environment, conditions, and character, with
view to improving their chances. She says:

"The writer will risk just one generalization which, it is hoped, the
ultimate facts will bear out, that in the case of the new immigration we
shall see a repetition of the story of the old immigrant we are so
familiar with. First comes the ignorant and poor but industrious
peasant, the young man, alone, without wife or family. For a few years
he works and saves, living according to a 'standard of life' which
shocks his older established neighbors, and we may guess would often
shock his people at home. At first he makes plans for going back, sends
his savings home, and perhaps goes back himself. But he usually returns
to this country, with a wife. America has now become his home, savings
are invested here, land is bought, and a little house built. The growing
children are educated in American schools, learn American ways, and
forcibly elevate the 'standard of life' of the family. The second
generation, in the fervor of its enthusiasm for change and progress
becomes turbulent, unruly, and is despaired of.

[Sidenote: The Open Door]

"But out of the chaos emerges a third generation, of creditable
character, from whom much may be expected. Our Austrian, Hungarian, and
Russian newcomers are still in the first and second stages, and there
seems no good reason why they should not pull through successfully to
the third. But in that endeavor we can either help or materially hinder
them, according to our treatment of them, as employees, as producers,
as fellow citizens. America, for her own sake, owes to the immigrant not
only the opportunities for 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'
that she promises to every man, but a sympathetic appreciation of his
humanity, and an intelligent assistance in developing it."[86]

[Sidenote: How the Children Lead]

This is a picture of progress in assimilation to be remembered, and the
conclusion is admirably expressed. Assimilation is made easy when the
wheels of contact are oiled by kindness and sympathy. The children lead
the way to Americanization. Mr. Brandenburg gives this report of a
conversation overheard in an Italian tenement in New York, the parties
being a mother, father, and the oldest of three daughters: "Said the
mother in very forcible Tuscan: 'You shall speak Italian and nothing
else, if I must kill you; for what will your grandmother say when you go
back to the old country, if you talk this pig's English?' 'Aw, g'wan!
Youse tink I'm goin' to talk dago 'n' be called a guinea! Not on your
life. I'm 'n American, I am, 'n you go 'way back an' sit down,' The
mother evidently understood the reply well enough, for she poured forth
a torrent of Italian, and then the father ended matters by saying in
mixed Italian and English: 'Shut up, both of you. I wish I spoke English
like the children do,' Many parents have learned good English in order
to escape being laughed at or despised by their children."[87]

[Sidenote: The Young American]

The language is not classic, but it is that of real life such as these
children have to endure. The rapidity with which foreigners become
Americanized is illustrated, said Dr. Charles B. Spahr, by the
experience of a gentleman in Boston. In his philanthropic work he had
gotten quite a hold on the Italian population. A small boy once asked
him: "Are you a Protestant?" He said "Yes," and the boy seemed
disappointed. But presently he brightened up and said, "You are an
American, aren't you?" "Yes." "So am I!" with satisfaction. Children
become American to the extent that they do not like to have it known
that they have foreign parents. One little girl of German parentage said
of her teacher: "She's a lady--she can't speak German at all." Where
assimilation is slow, it is quite as likely to be the fault of the
natives as of the immigrants, much more likely, indeed. How can he learn
American ways who is carefully and rudely excluded from them? We build a
Chinese wall of exclusiveness around ourselves, our churches, and
communities, and then blame the foreigner for not forcing his way
within.

In a thoughtful treatment of this whole subject, Mr. Sidney Sampson
says:[88]

[Sidenote: The Real Question]

"It has become a pressing and anxious question whether American
institutions, with all their flexibility and their facility of
application to new social conditions, will continue to endure the strain
put upon them by the rapid and ceaseless introduction of foreign
elements, unused, and wholly unused in great measure, to a system of
government radically differing from that under which they have been
educated. Can these diverse elements be brought to work in harmony with
the American Idea? The centuries of subjection to absolutism, or even
despotism, to which the ancestors of many of the immigrant classes have
been accustomed, has formed a type of political character which cannot,
except after long training, be brought into an understanding of, and
sympathy with, republican principles. This is by far the most important
aspect of the question, much more so than questions of industrial
competition."

If the republic will not ultimately endure harm, he believes industrial
questions will slowly but surely right themselves; if otherwise, none
even of the wisest can foresee the result. We give his conclusion:

[Sidenote: Optimism the True View]

"What is to be the outcome of this movement of the nations upon American
political and industrial life is a question which confronts us with a
problem never before presented in the world's history. Upon a review of
the entire situation I think we may be optimists. Notwithstanding all
unfavorable features, there are antagonizing elements constantly at
work, not the less potent because they work silently. We may attach
undue importance to statistics merely.

[Sidenote: Assimilating Agencies]

"Students of the immigration problem do not sufficiently observe the
influences--in fact, the immigrant may not himself be conscious of
them--which year after year tend to adjust his habits of thought and his
political views and actions to his new environment. Freedom of suffrage,
educational advantages, improved industrial conditions, the dignity of
citizenship, equal laws, protection of property--all these nourish in
him an increasing respect for the American system; and we have reason to
believe that, under proper legislation, the combined influence of all
these will in the long run fully neutralize the distinctly unfavorable
results of future immigration."

[Sidenote: Solution by Combined Forces]

With this we are in accord, provided the Christian people of America can
be brought to see and do their whole duty by the aliens. The solution of
the problem demands the combined forces of our educational, social,
political, and evangelical life. In that solution is involved the
destiny of ultimate America.


QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VII

AIM: TO REALIZE THE EFFECT OF IMMIGRATION UPON THE NATIONAL
CHARACTER AND OUR INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR IMPROVING
CONDITIONS

I. _Reasons for Concern._

     I. * Do you think that immigration makes a very serious problem for
     the United States? Why? Mention others who think differently. Why
     do you not agree with them?

     2. * Are there any foreigners in your neighborhood? What are they
     and what can you do for them?

     3. Do these immigrants long retain their foreign aspect and ways?
     In what respects do they change most quickly?

     4. What does Professor Mayo-Smith say about keeping American ideals
     intact? Must Protestant Christianity be guarded?


II. _Threatening Changes._

     5. In what respects has immigration since 1820 introduced
     un-American standards?

     6. * Have the average character and the plane of living of the
     immigrants been raised or lowered by their coming here? Same as to
     wages? As to intelligence?

     7. * How are our public schools affected? Is there any menace to
     our school system? Can we provide compulsory education for all the
     children?


III. _Other Effects._

     8. Do these new Americans learn to use the ballot rightly? Can they
     learn?

     9. Does their coming make genuine Christianity more or less
     prominent in the national life? What effect does it have on Sunday
     observance? Does it lessen or increase lawbreaking?


     IV. _National Bulwarks._

     10. What are the safeguards pointed out by Professor Boyesen? By
     ex-President Seelye?

     11. How can Socialism be met?

     12. * Will anything but Christianity effectively guard our
     institutions?

     13. How far will material improvements help to uplift and
     assimilate the newcomers?

     14. Do the children learn patriotism from their new country? Do
     they keep it when grown up?

     15. * Is there good reason for being optimistic? Upon what
     condition may we be hopeful?


REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY.--CHAPTER VII

    I. Study further some of the specific effects of the immigrants'
    presence.

    Warne: The Slav Invasion, V, VI.
    Wood: Americans in Process, VII, VIII.
    Riis: How the Other Half Lives, XVIII, XXI.


    II. What can you learn about the present status of the parochial school
    movement, especially in your own vicinity?

    Refer to local periodicals and daily papers.


    III. Is assimilation of foreigners taking place everywhere, or only in
    certain places?

    McLanahan: Our People of Foreign Speech, I.
    Hall: Immigration, 172, 182.
    Wood: Americans in Process, XII.
    Strong: The Twentieth Century City, IV.


    IV. Are our school facilities, actual or prospective, likely to prove
    sufficient for the demands made upon them?

    Riis: How the Other Half Lives, XV, XVI.
    Wood: Americans in Process, X.
    Hunter: Poverty, V.


    _The Christian Churches in America stand face to face with a
    tremendous task. It is a challenge to their faith, their devotion,
    their zeal. The accomplishment of it will mean not only the
    ascendancy of Christianity in the homeland, but also the gaining of
    a position of vantage for world-wide evangelization._--E. E.
    Chivers, D.D.




VIII

THE HOME MISSION OPPORTUNITY


The question of supreme interest to us is the religious question. What
share shall the Church have in making Christian Americans of these
immigrants? How may Church and State work together for the solution of
the problem, on the solution of which very largely the future prosperity
of the State and the Church depends.--_Charles L. Thompson, D.D._


The future success of missions will be largely affected by the success
of the Church in dealing with problems that lie at her very door. The
connection between home and foreign missionary work is living. The
conversion of the world is bound up with the national character of
professedly Christian lands. --_Rev. Herbert Anderson, English
Missionary in India._

  "The blood of the people! changeless tide through century, creed, and
  race, Still one, as the sweet salt sea is one, though tempered by sun
  and place, The same in ocean currents and the same in sheltered seas:
  Forever the fountain of common hopes and kindly sympathies.
  Indian and Negro, Saxon and Celt, Teuton and Latin and Gaul,
  Mere surface shadow and sunshine, while the sounding unifies all!
  One love, one hope, one duty theirs! no matter the time or kin,
  There never was a separate heart-beat in all the races of men."




VIII

THE HOME MISSION OPPORTUNITY


_I. Alien Accessibility_

[Sidenote: A Unique Mission Field]

"Save America and you save the world." Through immigration the United
States is in a unique sense the most foreign country and the greatest
mission field on the globe. "All peoples that on earth do dwell" have
here their representatives, gathered by a divine ordering within easy
reach of the gospel. Through them the world may be reached in turn.
Every foreigner converted in America becomes directly or indirectly a
missionary agent abroad, spreading knowledge of the truth among his
kindred and tribe.[89] The greatness of the opportunity is the measure
of obligation. God's message to this nation has been thus interpreted:
"Here are all these people; I have taken them from the overcrowded
countries where they were living and sent them to you, that you may mass
your forces and lend a hand to save them." No such opportunity ever came
to a nation before. The Christian church must seize it or sink into
deserved decadence and decay. Only a missionary church can save the
world or justify its own existence. The manner in which American
Christianity deals with the religious problems of immigration will
decide what part America is to play in the evangelization of the nations
abroad.

[Sidenote: The Gospel the Chief Factor]

We have now reached the vital part of our subject. We have learned to
discriminate between peoples and find the good in all of them. We have
seen that assimilation is essential to national soundness and strength.
But we have yet to realize that the most potential factor in
assimilation is not legislation or education but evangelization. There
is no power like the gospel to destroy race antipathies, break down the
bars of prejudice, and draw all peoples into unity, brotherhood, and
liberty--that spiritual freedom wherewith Christ makes free. When
American Protestantism sees in immigration a divine mission none will
discover in it thenceforth a human menace.

[Sidenote: Shall America be kept Christian]

Marvelous mission, involving the destiny of free America. A writer asks,
"Will New England be kept Christian?" and answers, "That depends.
Population is greatly changing. Immigrants from all parts of the world
are here. They will continue to come. Unless they are molded according
to the principles of our religion, they will greatly increase the
irreligious elements of New England, already too large. There is a
religious basis in those who come, but it will require an application of
religious agencies to make them truly Christian citizens."[90] Put
America in place of New England, and the question and answer will be as
pertinent. Shall America be kept Christian? That depends. It depends
upon what American Christians do.

[Sidenote: Immigrants not Evangelical]

Few of the immigrants are evangelical in religion. They know nothing of
our gospel, and little or nothing of the Bible. The religious principles
they have been taught are totally opposed to the spirit of our free
institutions of religion. They know priestly sovereignty but not soul
liberty. They are the creatures of a system, and the system is
thoroughly un-American and inimical to freedom of conscience and
worship. But thousands and tens of thousands of them are out of sorts
with the system and are ready for something better.[91] They have lost
faith in their Church and will lose it in religion unless we teach them
the gospel. To accomplish this result two persons must be changed--the
immigrant and the American. Alien assimilation depends largely upon
American attitude.

[Sidenote: Two Timely Questions]

Two questions confront us squarely as we approach this subject. First,
the common one, What do we think of the immigrant? And second, the less
common but not less important one, What does the immigrant think of us?
It will do us good, as Americans and as Christians, to consider both of
these frankly. Honestly, what is your attitude toward the ordinary
immigrant? Do you want him and his family, if he has one, in your
church? Do you not prefer to have him in a mission by himself? Would you
not rather work for him by proxy than with him in person? Do you not
pull away from him as far as possible if he takes a seat next to you in
the car? Actual contact is apt to mean contamination, germs, physical
ills. He is ignorant and uncultured. You desire his conversion--in the
mission. You wish him well--at a convenient distance. You would much
more quickly help send a missionary to the Chinese in China than be a
missionary to a Chinaman in America, would you not? Think it over,
Christian, and determine your personal relation to the immigrant. Is he
a brother man, or a necessary evil? Will you establish a friendly
relation with him, or hold aloof from him? Does your attitude need to be
changed?

[Sidenote: The Alien Point of View]

What, now, do you suppose this "undesirable" immigrant thinks of America
and Protestant Christianity? What has he reason to think, in the light
of his previous dreams and present realizations? What does Protestant
Christianity do for him from the time he reaches America? What will he
learn of our free institutions--in the tenement slums or labor camps or
from the "bosses" who treat him as cattle--that will teach him to prize
American citizenship, desire religious liberty, or lead a sober,
respectable life? If we are in earnest about the evangelization of the
immigrant we must put ourselves in his place occasionally and get his
point of view. When we think fairly and rightly of the immigrant, and
treat him in real Christian wise, he will soon come to think of us that
our religion is real, and this will be a long step toward the change we
desire him to undergo. We shall never accomplish anything until we
realize that the coming of these alien millions is not accidental but
providential.


_II. Missionary Beginnings_

[Sidenote: Alien Accessibility is Home Mission Possibility]

The first human touch put upon the immigrant in the new environment is
vastly important in its effects. He is easily approachable, if rightly
approached. Alien accessibility makes home mission possibility. The
approach may not at first be on the distinctively religious side, but
there is a way of access on some side. A living gospel incarnated in a
living, loving man or woman is the "open sesame" to confidence first and
conversion afterward. Make the foreigner feel that you are interested
in him as a man, and the door is open beyond the power of priestcraft to
shut it. The priest may for a time keep the Catholic immigrant away from
the Protestant church but not from the Protestant cordiality and
sympathy; and if these be shown it will not be long before the
immigrant, learning rapidly to think for himself, will settle the
church-going according to his own notion. A kind word has more
attractive power than a cathedral. You will never win an Italian as long
as you call him or think of him as "dago," nor a Jew while you nickname
him "sheeny." The immigrant wants neither charity nor contempt, but a
man's recognition and rights, and when American Christians give him
these he will believe in their Christianity and be apt to accept it for
himself.

[Sidenote: The First Touch]

Home mission work of a distinctive character should and does begin at
the point of landing in the New World. At Ellis Island, for example,
there are now some thirty missionaries, representing the leading
Christian denominations. This gives proof of the partial awakening of
the Churches to the importance of this work. It is only of late years
that any special attention has been paid to the welfare of the incomers,
either by State or Church. Now both are seeking to throw safeguards
around the immigrants and secure them a fair start. A large room is set
apart for the missionaries in the receiving building at Ellis Island,
and they perform a service of great good both to the aliens and the
country. First impressions count tremendously, and happy is it for the
immigrant who gets this initial impression from contact with a Christian
missionary instead of a street sharper. Once put the touch of human
kindness upon the immigrant and he is not likely to forget it. The hour
of homesickness, of strangeness in a strange land, of perplexity and
trouble, is the hour of hours when sympathy and help come most
gratefully. The missionaries are on hand at this critical juncture.
Thousands of immigrants are saved from falling into bad hands and evil
associations through their zealous efforts. Thousands are supplied with
copies of the Testament, the sick and sorrowful are comforted, the
rejected are tenderly ministered to in their distress, and the gospel is
preached in the practical way that makes it a living remembrance. This
is one way in which a true and enduring assimilation is begun.

[Sidenote: The Fruit of Kindness]

Here is a single illustration of the unexpected results of this first
Christian touch in the new world. One of the women missionaries was very
kind to a Bohemian family, helping the father find his destination and
get settled. At parting, the missionary gave him a Testament and asked
him to read it when in trouble. He thanked her for all her kindness to
him and his family, and said he would keep the book for her sake. He
put it away and forgot all about it. One day his little girl got the
book and tore a leaf out. When he learned what she had done he was very
angry, and punished her for tearing the book, saying that the kind lady
at Ellis Island had given it to him, and he had promised to keep it. He
threatened the child with severe punishment if she touched it again.
"What is the book, papa?" she asked. He said he did not know what it
was, but the lady gave it to him, and that was enough.

[Sidenote: The Gospel's Power]

The little girl kept asking about it until at length his curiosity was
aroused, and he took the Testament to find out for himself. As he began
to read the story of Jesus he became interested, and presently had his
wife reading it also. Such wonderful things he had never heard of
before, and he thought he would tell the priest about it, for if the
priest knew about it he would surely tell the people. The priest forbade
him to look into the book again, saying that it was a bad book and would
cost him his soul if he read it. This only ended the influence of the
priest, for the immigrant said such a good person as Jesus could not do
anybody any harm, he was sure of that. He decided to go back to Ellis
Island and ask the kind lady about it. The light came, and he and his
family are earnest members of a Christian church, showing their
gratitude by trying with true missionary spirit to bring others of
their race to the Master.[92]

[Sidenote: Immigrant Headquarters]

This missionary work, coming at the critical time, needs to be extended
and dignified. It should be so enlarged that it would be possible to
reach in some way the great mass of the newcomers, where now it touches
comparatively few. There should be a great interdenominational
headquarters building, thoroughly equipped for every kind of helpful
service. A large force of trained workers of different nationalities
should be employed, so that all kinds of needs might be met. It is
entirely possible to establish a center that would powerfully impress
the immigrants with the worth and importance of the Christian religion.
But no small affair will do. Our great denominations have the money in
plenty, and certainly have the talent to organize such a work as the
world has never yet seen. And what a chance for personal service such an
institution would afford. This would be a living object lesson of
Christianity helping the world, that might fitly stand beside the statue
of "Liberty enlightening the world."


_III. Protestantism and the Alien_

[Sidenote: Present Work for the Foreigners]

How are the evangelical denominations meeting their imperative
obligation to evangelize the multitudes brought to their very doors?
When the immigrant has passed through the gates, what attention is paid
to him? Take it in the centers of population, where the mass of the
immigrants go, and the showing is not very imposing as yet.

[Sidenote: Abandoned Fields]

The truth is that as the foreigners have moved into down-town New York
the old-time Protestant churches have moved out, in great measure
abandoning the field, on the assumption that there was no constituency
to maintain an American church. It did not seem to dawn upon the rich
churches which moved up town that the new population needed
evangelization and could be evangelized. The result is that the
immigrant accustomed to imposing churches and splendid architecture and
impressive ritual, sees little to impress him with the existence of
Protestant Christianity. Go through that teeming East Side in New York,
and here and there you will find a mission supported in desultory
fashion by some church or city mission society or mission board, and in
quarters conducive to anything but worship or respect. There is nothing
to make the new arrival feel the presence and power of the religious
faith that created this free Republic and still predominates in its best
life. So it is wherever you go. The home mission work is in its
beginnings, and these are manifestly feeble and inadequate.

[Sidenote: An Example]

The Roman Catholics teach us some practical lessons. They build large
and impressive churches for the immigrants. They abandon no fields, and
immediately occupy those left by Protestants. They expend money where it
will go furthest. The Protestants of New York should have been
far-sighted enough to plant strong evangelistic and philanthropic
institutions in the fields from which they withdrew their churches.
Valuable ground has been lost for want of this missionary insight and
impulse.

[Sidenote: Need of an Awakening]

The conditions in New York are symptomatic of those obtaining generally,
in country as well as city. The Protestant churches, not recognizing the
supreme home mission opportunity to Christianize the immigrants, have in
many cases become weak where a zealous evangelism would have kept them
strong. Too many of the American Churches have been satisfied with their
own prosperity and unmindful of the growing need of the gospel all
around them. As a missionary worker says:[93] "There are plenty of
Christians who believe that the gospel is the power of God unto
salvation in a vague and general way; but there are not enough people
who clearly believe that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation
to the Italian working on the railroad, or the Hungarian in the shops,
or the German on the farm. Too many of us have no faith at all in
foreign missions at home."

[Sidenote: Reasons for Present Conditions]

It is impossible to enter into details of what has been undertaken by
the different evangelical denominations. Reference to the tables
furnished by various Home Mission Boards[94] will indicate, as far as
bald figures can do so, the extent of the work among the various
peoples. The statistics show that in the country, especially in the
West, missions among the earlier type of immigrants--the German and
Scandinavian--have long been maintained with success. There are hundreds
of strong and prosperous churches among these peoples. For the later
immigrants less has been done, although the need is far greater. Some of
the reasons for the small proportions of this work are manifest. In
order to reach the Slavs and Italians there must be native missionaries,
and these cannot be found offhand. After converts are made, those who
are fitted to preach and teach must be trained, and schools must be
provided for the training.[95] The difficulties of language must first
be overcome. The process requires time and patience and large resources.
Missions cannot be imposed upon these foreign peoples from without.
Force cannot be used. Access must be found, and the gospel seed be sown
as opportunity occurs. There must be a natural development in a work
like this, which deals with individuals, and that by persuasion. The
present work must not be judged too harshly, therefore, as reflecting
upon the churches. Only of late has the need been recognized by the
leaders in Christian effort. Dr. Thompson puts the situation in true
light, when he says:

[Sidenote: The Point for a New Departure]

"It goes without saying that the church has not so far taken its full
share of the responsibility. She has not realized the gravity of the
situation. Indeed, only in late years has it emerged in its full
significance. Consequently the work of the various Christian bodies has
been sporadic, rather than systematic and persistent. There has been no
serious endeavor to deal with it as a problem and to try to compass it.
All the Churches have worked among the foreigners, but it has been
determined by local conditions and needs which have appealed to
Christian people here and there; that, however, is very different from
an intelligent view of the whole situation and a campaign intended and
adapted to solve the whole problem. We have reached a point in the
immigration problem where it must be solved broadly, philosophically,
and by the combination of all forces--civic, social, moral, and
religious--to bring about the healthy assimilation of all foreign
elements into the life of the body politic."[96]

[Sidenote: Success of Earnest Effort]

We have said the foreigner is accessible. How true this is, when earnest
and genuine effort is made, is shown by the tent work in many cities.
Take it among the Italians in New York, for example. A tent worker tells
the results:[97]

"New York City within a year will hold a half million Italians. What is
the Church of America to do with them? Will they listen to the gospel?
Who has tried to reach them?

[Sidenote: Tent Work Results in a Church]

"During the past summer a company of earnest workers for God and man
tested the problem of saving men to save New York. They started an
open-air and tent campaign. They proceeded on the simple hypothesis that
'Nothing will elevate the man, no matter how good he is morally, except
the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it alone is the power of God to change
the whole man and save him eternally.' They drove their tent-stakes into
the ground in an Italian quarter and began to preach and to sing the
gospel of grace triumphant into the ears and hearts of Roman Catholic
Italians. Except when the weather was exceptionally bad, from five to
six hundred persons were there nightly. They were met just as the
foreign missionary would meet them. Not one among them, perhaps,
Christian from a purely evangelistic standpoint, and yet, what was the
result? In less than one year they expect to have a permanent church
building to cost $60,000; something like two hundred are ready to enter
and form a Protestant church."

[Sidenote: An Ingenious Italian Expedient]

Is this a hopeful work, this effort to evangelize the foreigners? Let
the following unique instance give its answer, and illustrate also the
intertwinings of the home and foreign work. In a quarry at Monson,
Massachusetts, where over three hundred Italians are employed, there was
among the number a man who had been converted in Italy, through the
faithful efforts of an American missionary. When this convert reached
the Massachusetts quarry, his heart burned within him as he realized the
spiritual condition of his countrymen, who were living without any
religious services. He labored so effectively for their salvation that
in a few months seventeen of the workmen were converted, and they held
regular meetings for prayer and study of the Bible. At length they sent
a message, signed by every convert, to a state missionary society: "In
God's name, send us a missionary." A missionary was sent to organize
them into a church. They had no meeting-place, and in this emergency
one of the converts proposed that a room be built on the roof of his
cottage. This was done by the little band, and there they worshiped
until the place was too small. Then the first story was extended in the
rear, giving space for a comfortable chapel, and the family occupied the
second story or roof-room. This indicates the ingenuity as well as the
generous and self-sacrificing spirit of these Italian Christians, who
maintain a regular pastor and full services. How many of our American
churches, with much larger resources, could show a better record? What
American Christian would have thought of building a meeting-house on his
home roof, or would have been willing to do it if he had thought of it?
In devotion and liberality the converted aliens often set noble examples
for American Christians.[98]


_IV. The Call to Great Things_

[Sidenote: How to Save Our American Churches]

[Sidenote: Missionary Effort the Solution]

Missionaries have been surprised at the eagerness with which they were
received by the Italians, Bohemians, Poles, Slovaks, and Lithuanians,
and others commonly regarded as most hopeless. The Bohemians have a
large number of freethinkers--over 300 societies of them--who have
sought to draw their people away from Christianity or any form of
religion; but they also have a large number of earnest and devoted
Christian converts, who know the power of the gospel to save, and are
preaching and teaching it. In Pennsylvania, among the Slav peoples,
simple-hearted native workers who have found the way of life are making
that way known to others, and local churches in many places are becoming
revived through their active work for these foreigners. Many churches
now extinct would be alive if they had seen their opportunity. If those
churches that have lost most of their old-time membership could be
filled with missionary zeal, and be sustained as evangelistic centers,
the church life of the mining regions would become a different thing
once more. The only way to save these American churches is for them to
save the immigrants. The same thing is true in all country sections
where the foreigners have become numerous. The need everywhere is for
money to plant and equip thoroughly, and maintain efficiently, these
evangelizing churches in every community. These institutions must be
more than meeting-houses, open a few times a week.

[Sidenote: A Great Mission Enterprise]

The institutional church always open, with something to meet every
legitimate need of old and young, so that the evangelical center shall
be the center of community life, can alone meet the requirement. A great
force of workers must be raised up, and this means training schools. No
more important educational work can be done in our country in the
present emergency. These schools might be interdenominational, with
special classes where required for the specific denominational training,
and thus a united Protestantism could be rallied to their support, and
make them of size sufficient to impress all with the real consequence of
the work.

[Sidenote: Church Federation for Service]

In this work the interdenominational comity and coöperation represented
in the federation of evangelical churches would secure the best covering
of the whole field, in the true fraternal and Christian spirit. What all
desire supremely is the salvation of the immigrants. And only a united
Protestantism can present such a massive front as to impress the world.
This work must be large enough to be self-respecting. At present it is
extremely doubtful if there is enough of it to make individual members
of the churches feel its worth and importance. There should be a mighty
advance movement, calling for millions of money and thousands of
missionaries, and reaching into a multitude of places now destitute of
gospel influences. Then the alien in America would realize the American
spirit and purpose and interest in him, and the birth of a new
citizenship would begin.

[Sidenote: Planning Large Things]

This is the day of large enterprises. The home mission movement for the
evangelization of the foreign peoples in America ought to be in the
forefront of the great enterprises. The real hope of America lies in the
success of this work. The best brain of the Christian laity should be
engaged in this business.

[Sidenote: A Million a Year in New York]

In New York City alone the Christian denominations ought to raise and
expend at least a million dollars a year for the next ten years for city
foreign evangelization, and this would be only a start in a work bound
to extend indefinitely. The demand is imperative. The fields are ripe
for harvest. We have seen that the old religious ties are not only
weakened by the Atlantic voyage, but often broken altogether. In some
nationalities this tie is strong, in most of them not very binding. The
great bulk of the new immigration is Roman or Greek Catholic. Thousands
of these nominal church members drift into open infidelity or schools of
atheism, or else into nothingism. Their former Church does not keep
them, and Protestantism does not get them. It is a question whether
their new condition is better or worse, religiously, than it was in the
old country. We should remove that question by surrounding them with
such Christian influences and institutions as will make it impossible
for them to escape the Americanizing and evangelizing environment. Why
should not Christian philanthropy, for instance, build a block of model
tenement-houses in the Italian district, and give the income from
rentals as a permanent endowment for Italian mission work? This would be
a double blessing.

[Sidenote: How to Use Wealth for Country]

There is a magnificent opportunity, an opportunity to fire the heart of
the men who have means to carry out whatever they devise. The
evangelical denominations should establish in the heart of the East
Side, where are gathered a dozen little nationalities, not simply one
great establishment of distinctively religious and educational
character, but a number of such institutional churches, costing anywhere
from a million to a million and a half each, and sustained in a
thoroughly business-like way. Christianity should permeate the entire
work. We ought to be working for to-day and for the future. The Home
Mission Boards in coöperation should be asked to lead forward in this,
the greatest task of the twentieth century. There is nothing sentimental
or impracticable about these suggestions.

[Sidenote: A Work for United Protestantism]

Here is a work that demands the moral strength of Protestant union. Let
us seek to make the foreigners Christian, give them the Bible, and set
them an example of the brotherhood of believers. Then the immigrants
will become believers and join the brotherhood.

[Sidenote: What the Local Church Can Do]

In addition to this organized work done through the missionary bodies,
there is a large work for local churches to do. In some denominations,
which report little organized effort, there is much mission work done by
local parishes. And in all denominations there are many churches that
study their community and apply themselves to its needs. The Chinese
Sunday-school work has been chiefly done by the local churches, and
therefore it is not easy to learn the extent of the work, since reports
are not made to central boards. This form of service is especially
desirable when it draws the members of the churches to any extent into
personal contact with the foreign element, and it should be fostered.


_V. The Individual Duty_

[Sidenote: What You Can Do]

This brings us to the heart of the whole matter--the personal equation.
The trouble is that the alien and the American do not know each other.
Aversion on the one side is met by suspicion on the other. Shut away
from intercourse, the alien becomes more alienated, and the American
more opinionated, with results that may easily breed trouble. The
antidote for prejudice is knowledge. Immigration has made it
possible--and in this case possibility is duty--for the consecrated
Christian, in this day and land of marvelous opportunity, to be a
missionary--not by proxy but in person.

[Sidenote: Be a Home Missionary]

Here is the foreigner in every community. You meet him in a hundred
places where the personal contact is possible. Did it ever occur to you
that you could do something directly for the evangelization of the Greek
or Italian fruit vender or bootblack or laborer? Have you ever felt any
responsibility for the salvation of these commonly despised foreigners?
Have you laughed at them, or shown your contempt and dislike for them as
they have crowded the public places? The evangelization of the
foreigners in America must be effected by the direct missionary effort
of the masses of American Christians. That is the foundation truth. The
work cannot be delegated to Home Mission Boards or any other agencies,
no matter how good and strong in their place.

[Sidenote: A Personal Service]

Hence, let all emphasis be put here upon personal responsibility and
opportunity. Be a missionary yourself. Reach and teach some one of these
newcomers, and you will do your part. Do not begin with talking about
religion. Make the chance to get acquainted; then after you have shown
genuine human interest, and won confidence, the way will be open for the
gospel that has already been felt in human helpfulness. As a result of
this study, which has taught you to discriminate and to be charitable to
all peoples, the new attitude and sympathy will enable you to approach
those who have been brought within your sphere of influence. There is a
field of magnificent breadth open to our young people. Once engaged in
this personal service, and aware of its blessed effects, there will be
no lack of a missionary zeal that will embrace the world-wide kingdom.

[Sidenote: A Shining Example of Personal Effort]

At a conference in New York, in the Home Mission study class a young
colored man from the West Indies gave a practical illustration of
individual missionary effort of the kind that would evangelize the
foreigners, if it were generally practiced. He said that every Thursday,
when the steamer from the West Indies arrives, he arranges his work so
as to be at the wharf, ready to welcome immigrants, especially young
people, and to advise them, if they are strangers without settled
destination. He was led to do this by his own experience. For three
years after he came to New York, he went from church to church without
ever receiving a word of welcome or invitation to come again. Finally he
found a church home; but the homesickness and loneliness of those years
made him feel that so far as he could help it, no one else from the West
Indies should have a similar experience. So he made himself free to
speak to the young men, and always invited them to church. He had been
the means of aiding many to establish themselves, and had saved many
immigrants from being lured away into evil. He said the place to get the
heart of the foreigner was when he first landed. It was a simple story,
told without any false modesty. Plainly his heart was in the work. He
was a home missionary, doing a definite service of importance, and
setting an example that inspired that company. They could not help the
round of applause that followed his statement. It was spontaneous. This
is the personal touch that must be put in some way upon the stranger
that is within our gates. If the alien can be brought under this
gracious Christian influence, the chances are many that he will soon
cease to be alien and become Christian. Blessed is he who makes any soul
welcome to country and church.

[Sidenote: A Call for Sacrifice]

A call to home mission service is thus presented by Dr. Goodchild, who
would carry religion more fully into the settlement idea: "We need for
the solution of this problem that young men and women who go to the
great cities from the strong churches of the smaller towns and villages
should identify themselves with mission churches rather than to seek
ease and honor in wealthy churches where unused talent is already
congested.

[Sidenote: The Living Example]

"We need young men and young women to go down among these people and
live Christian lives in the midst of them. I do not believe that any
one should take his children there to rear them. But young men in
groups, or young women in groups, or young couples without children, who
are able to earn their own living could contribute greatly to the
solution of these problems if they would live among these foreigners and
help in the process of digestion and assimilation. And there is nothing
that can do that work so quickly and effectually as for Christian men
and women to dwell among these people, as Christ once left his home on
high to dwell among the sinful ones of earth. And if there are young men
and young women who are willing to give themselves wholly to work for
these people, and will live among them, and seek by the power of divine
grace to lift them up, it surely is very little for you and me to
sustain them while they toil."

[Sidenote: How the Work Grows]

Wherever earnest effort has been put forth, the progress of the work has
been most encouraging. As an illustration of this, when Dr. H. A.
Schauffler some twenty years ago began his pioneer missionary work among
the 25,000 Bohemians of Cleveland, he could not learn of any
fellow-laborers in the Slavic field except a Bohemian theological
student in New York, a Bohemian Reformed Church pastor in Iowa,
and another in Texas. But in 1905 there met in Chicago an
Interdenominational Conference of Slavic missionaries and pastors, and
that gathering comprised no less than 103 Slavic workers, of whom
sixty-four were pastors and preachers, fourteen women missionaries, and
twenty-five missionary students; while the conference represented
forty-nine churches in thirteen states, and five evangelical
denominations. Mr. Ives says truly: "It has been forever established
that foreigners are as convertible as our own people, that in many
instances their faith is more pure and evangelical than the American
type, that their lives are transformed by its power to an extent that
sometimes puts the American Christian to shame, that their children are
easily gathered into Sunday-schools, their young people into Endeavor
Societies, and their men and women into prayer-meetings, where in many
different tongues they yet speak and pray in the language of Canaan. The
immigration problem is not the same menace that it was. A mighty solvent
has been found."

[Sidenote: Inspiring Difficulties]

There is no escaping the fact that a prodigious amount of difficult
lifting must be done in order to elevate the aliens to the American
social and religious level. But the very vastness of the home mission
task is inspiring rather than discouraging to heroic souls. As someone
says, "The American loves a tough job." Difficulties will not hinder him
a moment when once he is moved with the divine impulse, sees the thing
to be done, and sets himself with God's help to do it. Present
conditions call to mind that passage in "Alice in Wonderland," where by
the seashore

  The walrus and the carpenter were walking hand in hand,
  And wept like anything to see such quantities of sand.
  "If seven maids with seven mops, swept it for half a year,
  Do you suppose," the walrus said, "that they could get it clear?"
  "I doubt it," said the carpenter, and shed a bitter tear.

[Sidenote: A Hopeful, not Hopeless Task]

It must be confessed that what has been done, in comparison with what
has to be done, would not be unfairly represented by the seven maids,
and that some people think the conversion of the foreigner as hopeless
as the carpenter did the sand-sweeping job. But seven mops are better
than none, and the pessimists are few. Souls are different material to
work upon from sand. By and by the Christian denominations will stop
sweeping around the edges of this great missionary enterprise, and take
hold of it with full force. This will come to pass when the real
conditions and needs and perils are widely known; and in making them
known the young people have their opportunity to render signal service
to foreigner, country, Church, and Christ.


_VI. Basal Grounds for Optimism_

[Sidenote: The Outlook]

Now that we have completed our study of immigration, necessarily limited
by time and space, we are in position to draw some conclusions with
regard to the outlook. Our study shows that there is plenty in the
character and extent of present day immigration to make the Christian
and patriot thoughtful, prayerful, and purposeful. On the surface there
is enough that is appalling and threatening to excuse if not justify the
use of the word "peril." The writer confesses that when he lived, years
ago, in western Pennsylvania, and came close to the inferior grades of
immigrants, and witnessed the changes wrought by the displacement of the
earlier day mining class, he bordered for a time on the pessimistic
plane. Nor was his condition much improved during residence in New
England, where the changing of the old order and the passing of the
Puritan are of vast significance to our country. But closer study of the
broad subject has led to a positively optimistic view concerning
immigration, and some of the grounds of this optimism may properly close
this chapter and volume.

[Sidenote: Two Great Factors--Democracy and Religion]

The basal ground is the universal tendency toward democracy and the
universal necessity for religion. These are sufficiently axiomatic. The
appeal to the history of the nineteenth century is sufficient to
establish the first, and the appeal to the heart of humanity will
establish the second. Democracy is the dominant spirit in the world's
life to-day. It is the vital air of America. Whatever is in its nature
inimical to democracy cannot permanently endure on this continent, and
certainly cannot control, whether it be in the sphere of ecclesiasticism
or commercialism. This, then, is the sure ground for optimism. Religion
is a necessity in a nation. What shall the type of religion be in
America? The answer is clear, for Protestantism is democratic, while
Romanism is autocratic.

[Sidenote: Influence of the New Environment]

The hope of America's evangelization is increased by the fact that the
pure religion of Jesus Christ is so essentially democratic in its
fundamental teachings of the brotherhood of man, of spiritual liberty
and unity. The immigrant comes into a new environment, created alike by
civil and religious liberty, and cannot escape its influence. Political
liberty teaches the meaning of soul liberty, and leads the way slowly
but surely to it. A man cannot come into rights of one kind without
awakening to rights of every kind; and once awakened, soon he insists
upon having them all for himself. Freedom is infectious and contagious,
and the disease is speedily caught by the old-world arrival, who
breathes in its germs almost before the ship-motion wears off. The peril
of this is that to him the main idea of liberty is license. The true
meaning of the word he must be taught by the Christian missionary, for
certainly he will not learn it from the Church to which he commonly
belongs. Here, then, is the opportunity for the pure gospel and for the
Christian missionary.

[Sidenote: The Testing "If"]

Adding the natural appeal of the gospel in its simplicity to this
favoring democratic environment, there is every reason for optimism
concerning immigration, if only American Protestantism prove true to its
opportunity and duty. "Ah, but that is a tremendous IF," said a widely
known Christian worker to whom this statement was made. "I agree with
you as to the favoring conditions, and my only doubt is whether our
Christian Churches can be brought to see their duty and do it. So far
there are only signs of promise. Our home mission societies are
doubtless doing all they can with the slender means furnished by the
contributing churches, but they are only playing at the evangelization
of these inpouring millions." What could be said in reply? One could not
deny present apathy on the part of Protestants at large, whether the
cause be ignorance or indifference or want of missionary spirit. One
could but declare faith in the prevailing power of Protestantism when
the crisis comes. We believe the day is not distant when American
Protestantism will present a united front and press forward
irresistibly. For the hastening of this day let us pray and work.

[Sidenote: The Task of the Ages]

Thus the problem always resolves itself to this at last: God has set for
American Protestant Christianity the gigantic task of the ages--the
home-foreign-mission task--nothing less than the assimilation of all
these foreign peoples who find a home on this continent into a common
Americanism so that they shall form a composite American
nation--Christian, united, free, and great. What could be more glorious
than to have part in the solution of this problem? To this supreme
service, young men and women of America, you are called of God. What say
you: shall it be Alien or American?


QUESTIONS FOR CHAPTER VIII

AIM: TO MAKE HOPEFUL BEGINNINGS A STRONG INCENTIVE TO GREAT
EXPANSION OF CHRISTIAN WORK FOR FOREIGNERS

I. _Faults on Both Sides._

     1. What issues hang upon our work for the incoming foreigners?

     2. * What barriers must be broken down in order to approach them
     successfully?

     3. What do these immigrants (speaking of them in general terms)
     possess, and what do they lack, spiritually?

     4. Is there a lack in our own personal attitude and feelings toward
     them? What is it?

     5. * If you had come as an average immigrant, what would you be
     likely to think of "America" and the "Americans"?

II. _Missionary Beginnings._

     6. When and where is it most easy to approach the foreigner? What
     will a "lurking prejudice" do?

     7. What Christian workers are there at the ports of entry? Give
     instances of the results of their labors.

     8. Can we possibly rest content with what is now being done on
     these lines? Why not?

     9. * Should all denominations unite in an effort to meet the
     situation? Will you strive for it?

     10. What has been the history of evangelical churches down town in
     New York City? What centers of Christian work may be found there?
     What form would a more adequate provision be likely to take?

     11. Among what classes of immigrants has the most successful
     Christian work been done?

     12. Among what classes has it been thus far sporadic and
     experimental? Give instances of successful work for Italians.


III. _Expansion Needed and Possible._

     13. * Are those who are ordinarily neglected responsive to the
     right sort of effort? How may there be sent forth "more laborers
     into the harvest"?

     14. When and how may the scattered forces be joined for more
     effective work?

     15. * Shall we "dare to brave the perils of an unprecedented
     advance"?[99] Have we such faith that God will move his people to
     furnish the funds?


IV. _Local and Individual Efforts._

     16. Are there many Sunday-schools for Chinese in local churches?
     Why not as many for other needy races?

     17. * How can every Christian be a Home Missionary? Describe some
     example. Compare our Lord's parable of the leaven.

     18. Will the "day of small things" lead to greater? On what
     conditions? Give instances.

     19. * Is the task great enough to challenge our Christian faith,
     courage, and perseverance?


V. _A Hopeful Outlook for the Christian._

     20. Is there any reason for inactivity and despair? Why not?

     21. Will Christian democracy help to solve the problem?

     22. Where lies the element of uncertainty and how can it be
     removed?

     23. * Will you deliberately give yourself to be used of God in
     helping to remove it?

     "Immigration Means Obligation."


REFERENCES FOR ADVANCED STUDY.--CHAPTER VIII

    I. Study the various forms of work undertaken for foreigners by
    denominational Home Mission Boards.

    Tables and statements in the appendixes of this book.

    Missionary periodicals.

    Reports and papers of different Societies.

    II. Investigate and report upon efforts made in your own locality.

    III. Frame an argument, or plea, for the great enlargement of all
    Christian activities on behalf of foreigners.

    McLanahan: Our People of Foreign Speech, X, XI.




APPENDIXES

APPENDIX A


TABLE I

NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS ARRIVED IN THE UNITED STATES EACH YEAR FROM
1820 TO 1905, BOTH INCLUSIVE[100]

  -----------------------------------------
  Period                        |Number   |
  ------------------------------|---------|
  Year ending September 30--    |         |
    1820                        |    8,385|
    1821                        |    9,127|
    1822                        |    6,911|
    1823                        |    6,354|
    1824                        |    7,912|
    1825                        |   10,199|
    1826                        |   10,837|
    1827                        |   18,875|
    1828                        |   27,382|
    1829                        |   22,520|
    1830                        |   23,322|
    1831                        |   22,633|
  Oct. 1, 1831, to Dec. 31, 1832|   60,482|
  Year ending December 31--     |         |
    1833                        |   58,640|
    1834                        |   65,365|
    1835                        |   45,374|
    1836                        |   76,242|
    1837                        |   79,340|
    1838                        |   38,914|
    1839                        |   68,069|
    1840                        |   84,066|
    1841                        |   80,289|
    1842                        |  104,565|
  Jan. 1 to Sept. 30, 1843      |   52,496|
  Year ending September 30--    |         |
    1844                        |   78,615|
    1845                        |  114,371|
    1846                        |  154,416|
    1847                        |  234,968|
    1848                        |  226,527|
    1849                        |  297,024|
    1850                        |  310,004|
  Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 1850       |   59,976|
  Year ending December 31--     |         |
    1851                        |  379,466|
    1852                        |  371,603|
    1853                        |  368,645|
    1854                        |  427,833|
    1855                        |  200,877|
    1856                        |  195,857|
  Jan. 1 to June 30, 1857       |  112,123|
  Year ending June 30--         |         |
    1858                        |  191,942|
    1859                        |  129,571|
    1860                        |  133,143|
  Year ending June 30--         |         |
    1861                        |  142,877|
    1862                        |   72,183|
    1863                        |  132,925|
    1864                        |  191,114|
    1865                        |  180,339|
    1866                        |  332,577|
    1867                        |  303,104|
    1868                        |  282,189|
    1869                        |  352,768|
    1870                        |  387,203|
    1871                        |  321,350|
    1872                        |  404,806|
    1873                        |  459,803|
    1874                        |  313,339|
    1875                        |  227,498|
    1876                        |  169,986|
    1877                        |  141,857|
    1878                        |  138,469|
    1879                        |  177,826|
    1880                        |  457,257|
    1881                        |  669,431|
    1882                        |  788,992|
    1883                        |  603,322|
    1884                        |  518,592|
    1885                        |  395,346|
    1886                        |  334,203|
    1887                        |  490,109|
    1888                        |  546,889|
    1889                        |  444,427|
    1890                        |  455,302|
    1891                        |  560,319|
    1892                        |  579,663|
    1893                        |  439,730|
    1894                        |  285,631|
    1895                        |  258,536|
    1896                        |  343,267|
    1897                        |  230,832|
    1898                        |  229,299|
    1899                        |  311,715|
    1900                        |  448,572|
    1901                        |  487,918|
    1902                        |  648,743|
    1903                        |  857,046|
    1904                        |  812,870|
    1905                        |1,026,499|
    1906[101]                   |1,100,735|
  -----------------------------------------


TABLE II RACE, SEX, AND AGE OF IMMIGRANTS ADMITTED IN 1905

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------
                      |       |       |         | Under | 14 to |45 yrs.
  Race or people      | Male  | Female| Total   |  14   |  44   | and
                      |       |       |         | years | years | over
  --------------------|-------|-------|---------|-------|-------|-------
  African (black)     |  2,325|  1,273|    3,598|    433|  2,974|    191
  Armenian            |  1,339|    539|    1,878|    246|  1,529|    103
  Bohemian and        |       |       |         |       |       |
    Moravian          |  6,662|  5,095|   11,757|  2,620|  8,442|    695
  Bulgarian, Servian, |       |       |         |       |       |
    and Montenegrin   |  5,562|    261|    5,823|     97|  5,529|    197
  Chinese             |  1,883|     88|    1,971|     28|  1,666|    277
  Croatian and        |       |       |         |       |       |
    Slovenian         | 30,253|  4,851|   35,104|  1,383| 32,470|  1,251
  Cuban               |  4,925|  2,334|    7,259|  1,346|  5,225|    688
  Dalmatian, Bosnian, |       |       |         |       |       |
    and Herzegovinian |  2,489|    150|    2,639|     62|  2,450|    127
  Dutch and Flemish   |  5,693|  2,805|    8,498|  1,699|  6,085|    714
  East Indian         |    137|      8|      145|      3|    122|     20
  English             | 31,965| 18,900|   50,865|  6,956| 36,726|  7,183
  Filipino            |      4|      1|        5|       |      4|      1
  Finnish             | 11,907|  5,105|   17,012|  1,483| 15,047|    482
  French              |  6,705|  4,642|   11,347|  1,121|  8,825|  1,401
  German              | 49,647| 32,713|   82,360| 11,469| 64,441|  6,450
  Greek               | 11,586|    558|   12,144|    446| 11,523|    175
  Hebrew              | 82,076| 47,834|  129,910| 28,553| 95,964|  5,393
  Irish               | 24,640| 29,626|   54,266|  2,580| 48,562|  3,124
  Italian (north)     | 31,695|  8,235|   39,930|  3,569| 34,561|  1,800
  Italian (south)     |155,007| 31,383|  186,390| 16,915|159,024| 10,451
  Japanese            |  9,810|  1,211|   11,021|    124| 10,588|    309
  Korean              |  4,506|    423|    4,929|    325|  4,557|     47
  Lithuanian          | 13,842|  4,762|   18,604|  1,474| 16,875|    255
  Magyar              | 34,242| 11,788|   46,030|  3,864| 39,926|  2,240
  Mexican             |    152|     75|      227|     29|    169|     29
  Pacific Islander    |     13|      4|       17|      1|     15|      1
  Polish              | 72,452| 29,985|  102,437|  9,867| 89,914|  2,656
  Portuguese          |  2,992|  1,863|    4,855|  1,035|  3,381|    439
  Roumanian           |  7,244|    574|    7,818|    153|  7,293|    372
  Russian             |  2,700|  1,046|    3,746|    591|  2,988|    167
  Ruthenian (Russniak)| 10,820|  3,653|   14,473|    661| 13,321|    491
  Scandinavian        |       |       |         |       |       |
    (Norwegians,      |       |       |         |       |       |
    Danes, and Swedes)| 37,202| 25,082|   62,284|  6,597| 52,226|  3,461
  Scotch              | 10,472|  5,672|   16,144|  2,270| 12,109|  1,765
  Slovak              | 38,038| 14,330|   52,368|  4,582| 45,882|  1,904
  Spanish             |  4,724|    866|    5,590|    403|  4,612|    575
  Spanish-American    |  1,146|    512|    1,658|    223|  1,232|    203
  Syrian              |  3,248|  1,574|    4,822|    742|  3,843|    237
  Turkish             |  2,082|     63|    2,145|     45|  2,073|     27
  Welsh               |  1,549|    982|    2,531|    464|  1,726|    341
  West Indian (except |       |       |         |       |       |
    Cuban)            |    892|    656|    1,548|    187|  1,209|    152
  All other peoples   |    288|     63|      351|     22|    311|     18
                      |       |       |         |       |       |
      Total           |724,914|301,585|1,026,499|114,668|855,419| 56,412
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Here we have forty-four races or nationalities differentiated. Surely
this is a medley of peoples to be harmonized. Note the vast proportion
of working age.


TABLE III

DEBARRED IN 1905, FOR REASONS GIVEN

  ---------------------+------+------+----------+----------+--------+--------+
  Race or People       |Idiots|Insane|Paupers or|Loathsome |Contract|Relieved|
                       |      |      |likely to |or        |laborers|in      |
                       |      |      |be public |contagious|        |hospital|
                       |      |      |charges   |diseases  |        |        |
  ---------------------+------+------+----------+----------+--------+--------+
  African (black)      |  ..  |  ..  |    107   |      ..  |    13  |     3  |
  Armenian             |  ..  |  ..  |     25   |      50  |     5  |    78  |
  Bohemian and         |      |      |          |          |        |        |
    Moravian           |  ..  |   1  |     38   |      8   |     5  |   104  |
  Bulgarian, Servian,  |      |      |          |          |        |        |
    and Montenegrin    |  ..  |  ..  |    314   |      19  |    62  |    37  |
  Chinese              |  ..  |   1  |      9   |      74  |     3  |     2  |
  Croatian and         |      |      |          |          |        |        |
    Slovenian          |  ..  |  ..  |    263   |      88  |    32  |   128  |
  Cuban                |  ..  |   1  |     22   |       4  |    11  |    ..  |
  Dalmatian, Bosnian,  |      |      |          |          |        |        |
    and Herzegovinian  |  ..  |  ..  |     41   |       3  |    13  |    18  |
  Dutch and Flemish    |   2  |   1  |     51   |       7  |     5  |    41  |
  East Indian          |  ..  |  ..  |     12   |      ..  |     1  |     3  |
  English              |   4  |   9  |    328   |      28  |    58  |   144  |
  Finnish              |   2  |   1  |     33   |      46  |     4  |    89  |
  French               |  ..  |   2  |     94   |       9  |    23  |    48  |
  German               |   5  |   8  |    420   |     100  |    60  |   747  |
  Greek                |  ..  |  ..  |    193   |      22  |    60  |    70  |
  Hebrew               |  10  |  10  |  1,208   |     353  |    33  | 1,534  |
  Irish                |   4  |  13  |    175   |      28  |    15  |   243  |
  Italian (north)      |  ..  |   2  |    169   |      41  |    42  |   158  |
  Italian (south)      |   6  |  19  |  1,578   |     247  |   205  | 1,290  |
  Japanese             |  ..  |   1  |    238   |     285  |    13  |     2  |
  Korean               |  ..  |  ..  |      4   |      18  |    ..  |     1  |
  Lithuanian           |   2  |   1  |     48   |      92  |     8  |   269  |
  Magyar               |  ..  |  ..  |    427   |     103  |    18  |   363  |
  Mexican              |  ..  |  ..  |      7   |       8  |    ..  |     2  |
  Polish               |  ..  |   4  |    444   |     204  |   125  |   991  |
  Portuguese           |  ..  |  ..  |     50   |       7  |     1  |    26  |
  Roumanian            |  ..  |  ..  |    388   |      14  |   111  |    47  |
  Russian              |  ..  |   3  |     66   |      27  |     1  |    59  |
  Ruthenian (Russniak) |   1  |   1  |    186   |      14  |    13  |   115  |
  Scandinavian         |      |      |          |          |        |        |
    (Norwegians, Danes,|      |      |          |          |        |        |
    and Swedes)        |   2  |   9  |    152   |      43  |    14  |   253  |
  Scotch               |  ..  |   2  |     77   |      10  |    21  |    75  |
  Slovak               |  ..  |  ..  |    275   |      66  |    47  |   491  |
  Spanish              |  ..  |   1  |     66   |       6  |    63  |    23  |
  Spanish American     |  ..  |  ..  |     13   |       4  |     1  |     6  |
  Syrian               |  ..  |  ..  |    124   |     155  |    59  |   200  |
  Turkish              |  ..  |  ..  |     46   |       9  |     5  |    17  |
  Welsh                |  ..  |   1  |     12   |       1  |    13  |     8  |
  West Indian          |      |      |          |          |        |        |
    (except Cuban)     |  ..  |   1  |     20   |      ..  |    ..  |    17  |
  All other peoples    |  ..  |  ..  |    195   |       5  |    ..  |    74  |
  ---------------------+------+------+----------+----------+--------+--------+
    Grand total        |  38  |  92  |  7,898   |   2,198  | 1,164  | 7,776  |
  ---------------------+------+------+----------+----------+--------+--------+

[Illustration: WAVE OF IMMIGRATION into the United States FROM ALL
COUNTRIES during 87 Years.

ESTIMATED ARRIVALS 1776 TO 1820 250,000 ARRIVALS 1820 TO 1906
24,032,718]




APPENDIX B

TABLE OF ACTS OF CONGRESS CONCERNING IMMIGRATION


1862. Act of February 19, prohibiting building, equipping, loading, or
preparing any vessel licensed, enrolled or registered in the United
States for procuring coolies from any Oriental country to be held for
service or labor.

1875. Act of March 3, providing that any person contracting or
attempting to contract to supply coolie labor to another be guilty of
felony. Excluding convicts, and women imported for immoral purposes,
making this traffic felony.

1882. General Immigration Act of August 3; enlarging excluded list and
establishing head tax.

1885. Contract Labor Act of February 26, to prevent importation of labor
under the padrone or other similar system.

1891. Act of March 3, which codified and strengthened the previous
statutes. Excluded classes increased; encouraging of contract labor to
emigrate by advertisements forbidden; scope of Immigration Bureau
enlarged by establishing office of Superintendent of Immigration (now
Commissioner-General), providing for return of debarred aliens, and
making decision of immigration officers as to landing or debarment
final.

1893. Act of March 3; requiring manifests and their verification;
providing boards of special inquiry; and compelling steamship companies
to post in the offices of their agents copies of the United States
immigration laws, and to call the attention of purchasers of tickets to
them.

1894. Act of August 18; making the decision of the appropriate
immigration officials final as to admission of aliens, unless reversed
by the Secretary of the Treasury on appeal.

1903. Immigration Restriction Act of March 3. (For its main provisions
see p. 70 of this book, footnote 23.)


THE PRINCIPAL EXCLUDED CLASSES

(1) Idiots; (2) insane persons; (3) epileptics; (4) prostitutes; (5)
paupers; (6) persons likely to become public charge; (7) professional
beggars; (8) persons afflicted with a loathsome or contagious disease;
(9) persons who have been convicted of a felony or other crime or
misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, not including those convicted of
purely political offences; (10) polygamists; (11) anarchists (or persons
who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the
government of the United States or of all government or forms of laws,
or the assassination of public officials); (12) those deported within a
year from date of application for admission as being under offers,
solicitation, promises or agreements to perform labor or service of some
kind therein; (13) any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with
the money of another, or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is
shown that such person does not belong to one of the excluded classes;
but any person in the United States may send for a relative or friend
without thereby putting the burden of this proof upon the immigrant.


CRIMES UNDER THE ACT OF 1903

In order to enforce these provisions twelve violations were made crimes,
with penalties of both fine and imprisonment: (1) Importing any person
for immoral purposes; (2) prepaying the transportation or encouraging
the migration of aliens under any offer, solicitation, promise or
agreement, parol or special, expressed or implied, made previous to the
importation of aliens, to perform labor in the United States; (3)
encouraging the migration of aliens by promise of employment through
advertisements in foreign countries; (4) encouraging immigration on the
part of owners of vessels and transportation companies by any means
other than communications giving the sailing of vessels and terms of
transportation; (5) bringing in or attempting to bring in any alien not
duly admitted by an immigrant inspector or not lawfully entitled to
enter the United States; (6) bringing in by any person other than
railway lines of any person afflicted with a loathsome or dangerous
contagious disease; (7) allowing an alien to land from a vessel at any
other time and place than that designated by the immigration officer;
(8) refusing or neglecting to return rejected aliens to the port from
which they came or to pay their maintenance while on land; (9) refusing
or neglecting to return aliens arrested within three years after entry
as being unlawfully in the United States; (10) knowingly or willfully
giving false testimony or swearing to any false statement affecting the
right of an alien to land is made perjury; (11) assisting any anarchist
to enter the United States, or conspiring to allow, procure or permit
any such person to enter; (12) failing to deliver manifests.


LAWS TO PROTECT THE IMMIGRANT

Act of 1819, providing that a vessel should not carry more than two
passengers for every five tons, and that a specified quantity of certain
provisions should be carried for every passenger; requiring the master
to deliver sworn manifests showing age, sex, occupation, nativity, and
destination of passengers.

Act of 1855, limited number to one for every two tons, and provided
that each passenger on main and poop decks should have sixteen feet of
floor space, and on lower decks eighteen feet.

Act of 1882, providing that in a steamship the unobstructed spaces shall
be sufficient to allow one hundred cubic feet per passenger on main and
next deck, and 120 on second deck below main deck, and forbidding
carrying of passengers on any other decks, or in any space having
vertical height less than six feet; other provisions regulate the
occupancy of berths, light and air, ventilation, toilet rooms, food, and
hospital facilities. Explosives and other dangerous articles are not to
be carried, nor animals with or below passengers. Lists of passengers
are to be delivered to the boarding officer of customs.

Act of 1884, provision that no keeper of a sailors' boarding house or
hotel, and no runner or person interested in one, could board an
incoming vessel until after it reached its dock. This to protect aliens
from imposition and knavery.


LEGISLATION RECOMMENDED IN 1905 BY THE COMMISSIONER-GENERAL OF
IMMIGRATION

1. In regard to diseased aliens: that competent medical officers be
located at the principal ports of embarkation; that all aliens seeking
passage secure as a prerequisite from such officer a certificate of good
health, mental and physical; and that the bringing of any alien
unprovided with such certificate shall subject the vessel by which he is
brought to summary fine. 2. That the penalty of $100 now prescribed for
carrying diseased persons be increased to $500, as a means of making the
transportation lines more careful. 3. Such further legislation as will
enable the government to punish those who induce aliens to come to this
country under promise or assurance of employment. Less exacting rules
of evidence and a summary mode of trial are needed to make the law
effective. 4. That Congress provide means for distributing arriving
aliens who now congregate in the large cities. 5. That as a means of
those incapable of self-support through age or feebleness; those who
have not brought sufficient money to maintain them for a reasonable time
in event of sickness or lack of employment. 6. That adequate means be
adopted, enforced by sufficient penalties, to compel steamship companies
to observe in good faith the law which forbids them to encourage or
solicit immigration. If other means fail, a limitation apportioning the
number of passengers in direct ratio to tonnage is suggested. 7. That
masters of vessels be required to furnish manifests of outgoing aliens,
similar to those of arriving aliens, so that the net annual increase of
alien population may be ascertained.

In addition two special recommendations are made, with view to control
immigration and lessen the hardships of the debarred: (1) To enlighten
aliens as to the provisions of our laws, so that they may not in
ignorance sever their home ties and sacrifice their small possessions in
an ineffectual attempt to enter the United States. To this end the laws
and regulations should be translated into the various tongues and
distributed widely. This might not prevail as against the influence and
promises of transportation agents, but it would relieve this country of
responsibility for needless distress and suffering. (2) An international
conference of immigration experts.




APPENDIX C

WORK OF LEADING DENOMINATIONS FOR THE FOREIGN POPULATION


The following facts and figures, received from the leading Home Mission
Boards, give some idea of the work which is now being done for the
evangelization of the foreign peoples in the United States. We should be
glad if the reports were more complete. They do not represent all of the
work that is being done, because a considerable part of this work is
carried on by the local churches in all of the denominations, and this
work is seldom reported and does not enter into the statistics of the
Home Mission Boards.

It is hoped that each Board will provide a supplementary chapter,
setting forth in detail its work among the foreign population--a work
abounding in incident and hopefulness. There is no more encouraging home
mission work, and wherever earnest effort has been made, the response
has been most gratifying. Write to your Home Mission Board for full
information. Where a special chapter is not furnished for a supplemental
study, the Boards will send the information and literature that will
enable the leader of the study class to show what is being done, with a
detail impossible in the general treatment of the subject.

It is significant, in this connection, that all the Boards are calling
especial attention to the needs of this work among the foreign peoples
and urging large advance in plans for evangelization.


MISSION WORK OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN 1906 AMONG THE FOREIGN
POPULATION

  ----------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------
                        |   No.  of charges     |  Members and probationers
                        |   receiving           |  in charge receiving
  Nationality           |   missionary aid      | missionary aid
  ----------------------+-----------------------+--------------------------
  Welsh                                 4                      185
  Swedish                             135                   12,076
  Norwegian and Danish                 85                    4,236
  German                              265                   19,184
  French                                8                      350
  Chinese                              11                      298
  Japanese                             30                    1,666
  Bohemian and Hungarian               11                    1,666
  Italian                              18                    1,014
  Portuguese                            3                       86
  Finnish                               9                       93
  Foreign Populations                   3                     ....
                                      ---                   ------
                                      582                   39,557

Including the charges not now receiving missionary aid, the total number
of missions, or charges, among the foreign peoples was 971, not
including Spanish work, and the total membership, including
probationers, was 92,082 in 1906. The work is extended all over the
country.

The Woman's Home Missionary Society supports Immigrant Homes in New York
City, and in Boston, Mass., in which immigrants may find protection and
counsel as well as a safe lodging. In Philadelphia, Pa., work is also
done for incoming strangers, and lodgings provided in case of need.
Missionaries are stationed at each of these points. Much work is done
for foreigners by this Society through its three large city missions,
and its numerous Deaconess Homes.


MISSION WORK OF THE PRESBYTERIAN HOME MISSION BOARD IN 1906 AMONG THE
FOREIGN POPULATION

  Nationality           No. of Churches and Stations     Membership

  Armenian                3                                 183
  Bohemian               30                               1,529
  Chinese                10                                 438
  Danes and Norwegians    1                                 101
  Dutch                  12                               1,365
  French                  9                                 508
  German                156                              13,446
  Hungarian (Magyar)     15                               1,035
                        ---                              ------
  Total                 236                              18,605

  Italian                32                                 955
  Japanese                3                                  50
  Korean                  1                                  40
  Russian                 1                                ....
  Slavic                  8                                 337
  Syrian                  2                                  15
  Welsh                   7                                 414
                        ---                              ------
  Total                 290                              20,415

The Annual Report for 1906 says: In addition to the above it is
doubtless true that there are many churches, and even individuals,
carrying on religious work among foreigners which has not been reported
to the Board. Two facts warrant special attention. One is that the
proper carrying on of the work of giving the gospel to these
foreign-speaking peoples necessarily includes and is closely allied with
other needs--such as schools; literature in their own tongue, including
tracts, papers, and the Bible; colporteur visitation; Bible reading, and
so forth. It is not sufficient simply to open a church or hall where a
meeting can be held and expect the people to come. A great deal of
preparatory work must be done.


MISSION WORK OF THE AMERICAN BAPTIST HOME MISSION SOCIETY IN 1906, AMONG
THE FOREIGN POPULATION

  Nationality        No. of Field   Members of Mission Fields

  Bohemians            6               196
  Chinese             12               209
  Danes               20               484
  Finns               13               175
  French Canadian     29               650
  Germans            148             5,196
  Hungarians           3                42
  Italians            25               391
  Japanese             2                68
  Jews                 2              ....
                     ---            ------
                     260             7,411

  Lettish              2                31
  Mexicans in U. S    18               113
  Norwegians          50             1,095
  Poles                6                82
  Portuguese           2                42
  Russians             2                71
  Slavs                5                77
  Swedes             205             7,623
  Syrians              1              ....
                     ---            ------
                     551            16,545


FOREIGN PEOPLES IN BAPTIST CHURCHES, THE RESULTS OF HOME MISSION WORK

                                               Churches Memb'ship

  Germans, 1906                                   266    26,274
  Dane-Norwegian, 1903                             90     5,530
  Swedes, 1903                                    331    22,625

The number of missionaries among the foreign populations was 312. The
Women's Societies maintained a number of workers, including the
efficient missionaries at Ellis Island. The Home Mission Society is
supporting Italian missionaries in twenty cities. Aside from organized
effort, Chinese Sunday-schools are conducted by many local churches,
which do not report to any central organization. There is a considerable
work done also by the city mission societies, which work independently
in part. In some places, local churches also maintain missions among the
Italians, Hungarians, and Slavs.


MISSION WORK OF THE CONGREGATIONAL HOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN 1906

  Total number of Missionaries    215
  German Missions                  73
  Scandinavian Missions            89
  Bohemian        "                20
  Polish          "                 5
  French          "                 7
  Spanish Missions                 10
  Finnish    "                      6
  Danish     "                      2
  Armenian   "                      6
  Greek      "                      1
  Chinese and Japanese             22


STATEMENTS SHOWING NUMBER OF CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHES FOR FOREIGN
SPEAKING PEOPLES, WITH THEIR TOTAL MEMBERSHIP

                                 Churches    Members  Average to a Church

  Germans                          170        8,000           47
  Scandinavians                     95        7,495           79
  Slavs                             12          636           58
  All other Nationalities,
  (including Italians, French,
  Greek, Armenian, Chinese,
  Welsh, etc)                      102        8,222           78
                                   ---       ------          ---
                                   379       24,353          262


WORK OF THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH AMONG THE FOREIGN
POPULATION

The Domestic Section of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States carries on work to
a limited extent among the Swedes. There is a general missionary in the
East, who has charge of this work in the three dioceses of Rhode Island,
New York, and Massachusetts, and one in the northwest. In the eastern
dioceses named there were in 1906 fifteen Swedish missions and parishes,
with 1,897 communicants, ministered to by five clergymen. The western
general missionary visited Sweden during the past year for the purpose
of finding suitable university students for the ministry in this
country. There are missions in Duluth and at other points. The Annual
Report says: "Of all the work under the care of the general missionary,
none is more important than the mission to Scandinavian immigrants
arriving at Ellis Island, New York, for it acts as a special feeder to
the church. The Scandinavian immigrants outnumber those from any other
Protestant country."

What further work is done for the foreign peoples is carried on by the
local parishes, such as Grace Church, Trinity, Saint George's, and Saint
Bartholomew's in New York, which work among the Italians and other
nationalities, and equip their missions in a manner worthy of imitation.


LUTHERAN WORK IN THE UNITED STATES

Large numbers of the immigrants are Lutherans. The resources of the
Lutheran church in America to care for her people are thus stated by the
Rev. J. N. Lenker, D.D., in the _Lutheran World_, the church organ:

For the Germans, 5,000 pastors, 8,000 churches, and 1,200,000
communicant members.

For the Scandinavians, 1,800 pastors, 14,300 churches, and 500,000
communicant members.

For the Finns, three synods, 58 pastors, 187 churches, and 22,149
communicant members.

For the Slovaks, about 200 organizations with a growing number of
pastors and a very loyal constituency.

For the Letts and Esthonians, 21 organized congregations and preaching
stations, divided into the eastern and western districts.

For the Icelanders, one synod, 10 pastors, 37 organized congregations,
3,785 communicant members.

For the Poles, Bohemians, and Magyars, work is done by the various
German synods, the late statistics of which are not at hand. Besides
congregations in these languages, many understand German and are served
by German pastors.

The whole Lutheran Church of America, including the Swedish Mission
Friends with 33,000 members and the German Evangelical Synod with
222,000 members, the constituents of which are nearly all Lutherans,
making in all 8,956 pastors, 15,135 churches, and 2,123,639 communicant
members are the results of immigrant mission work or mission work in
foreign languages or languages other than English.


ANALYSIS OF THE IMMIGRATION FOR 1905, WITH REGARD TO RELIGIOUS
AFFILIATIONS AND EASE OF ASSIMILATION[102]

First class and the easiest to assimilate are

  English                            50,865 Reformed
  Scotch                             16,144 Reformed
  Germans                            82,360 Luth. and Cath.
  Scandinavians                      62,284 Lutheran
  Irish                              54,266 Catholic.
  Finns                              17,012 Lutheran
  Letts, et al.                      18,604 Lutheran
  Slovaks                            52,368 Lutheran
                                    -------
  Total                             353,903

Second class and the second easiest to assimilate:

  Magyars                           46,030 Ref. and Cath.
  Bohemians, etc                    11,757 Ref. and Cath.
  French                            11,021 Ref. and Cath.
  Ruthenians                        14,473 Catholic
                                    ------
  Total                             83,281

Third class and the most difficult to evangelize and Americanize and the
class that makes the new problem difficult:

  Poles                            102,137 Catholic
  Italians                         226,320 Catholic
  Hebrews                          129,910 Israelites
                                   -------
  Total                            458,367




APPENDIX D


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bernheimer, Charles S., Editor. The Russian Jew in the United States. B.
F. Buck & Co., New York $1.50. Written mostly by Jews; replete with
facts gathered in the various centers--New York, Philadelphia, Chicago,
Boston. Should be read by those who would understand this remarkable
people.

Brandenburg, Broughton. Imported Americans. F. A. Stokes, New York.
$1.60. Description of experiences while making personal investigations
in New York, Italy, and the steerage, of immigration problems.

Crowell, Katherine R. Coming Americans. Willett Press, New York. Paper,
25 cents; Cloth, 35 cents. A book for Juniors, putting in attractive
form for children and teachers of children the leading features of
immigration.

Gordon, W. Evans. The Alien Immigrant. Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York. $1.50. Describes the Hebrews in European countries, with chapter
on situation in the United States.

Hall, Prescott F. Immigration. Henry Holt & Co., New York. $1.50. The
latest volume of comprehensive character, taking the restrictive
position. The author is secretary of the Immigration Restriction League.

Holt, Hamilton. Undistinguished Americans. James Pott & Co., New York.
$1.50. Biographical and readable.

Lord, Eliot, et al. The Italian in America. B. F. Buck & Co., New York.
$1.50. Makes an exceedingly favorable showing for the Italians; somewhat
one-sided but valuable.

Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Emigration and Immigration. Charles Scribner's
Sons, New York. $1.50. An exceedingly valuable and scholarly work.

McLanahan, Samuel. Our People of Foreign Speech. Fleming H. Revell
Company, New York. 50 cents, net. A handbook containing many valuable
facts in compact form.

Riis, Jacob. How the Other Half Lives. Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York. $1.25, net. Descriptive of the conditions in which the foreign
population struggles for existence.

Roberts, Peter. Anthracite Coal Communities. The Macmillan Company, New
York. $3.50. A study of the anthracite regions and the Slavs, similar in
character to Dr. Warne's book.

Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Doubleday, Page & Co., New York. $1.50. A
work based on personal investigation and living among the Slavs who
labor in the stockyards in Chicago; vivid narrative. This book discloses
the treatment of the alien that makes him a menace to America.

Strong, Josiah. Our Country. Baker & Taylor Company, New York. 60 cents.
The points made in the chapter on Immigration are as pertinent now as
when the book was issued in 1881.

Strong, Josiah. The Twentieth Century City. Baker & Taylor Company, New
York. Paper, 25 cents; Cloth, 50 cents. Has the breadth of view and
effectiveness which belong to the author.

Warne, F. Julian. The Slav Invasion. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia,
Pa. $1.00, net. Study at first hand of conditions in Pennsylvania mining
regions and the Slav population.

Whelpley, J. D. The Problem of the Immigrant. Charles Scribner's Sons,
New York. $4.20. Dealing with the emigration and immigration laws of all
nations.

Wood, Robert A. Americans in Process. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
$1.50. A series of papers by Robert A. Wood, and other workers in the
South End House in Boston, Mass.




INDEX


  Abuses, of immigration privileges and laws, 42, 43, 63-69, 78-84, 92, 93

  Adams, Representative, of  Pennsylvania, 74, 97

  Admission, see _Immigrants_

  Africans, 124

  Alabama, 113

  Albany, New York, 22

  Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, 3

  Alien, admission, 53-64;
    advance in numbers and distribution, 15-50, 102-117;
    characterized, 236, 237, 258;
    ideas imported, 241;
    loss of religious faith, 271;
    opinion of America, 272;
    protection, 65-68;
    restriction, 68-84

  Aliens, classes excluded, 77, 78;
    total since American Revolution, 28

  America, duty to guard its own genius, 232;
    mission, 10, 269;
    must be kept Christian, 271;
    unique mission field, 269

  American, Christians, duty of, 10, 11, 44-47;
    fair play, 73;
    ideals to be preserved, 11, 46, 47, 91, 238, 239, 262;
    institutions, 232, 261;
    liberty, 117;
    Protestantism, 16, 47, 254, 255, 288;
    teacher in Syria, 39;
    Tract Society, 50;
    type of nationality, 11, 45, 46, 92, 238, 240

  Americanization of immigrants, 10, 14, 46, 113, 126, 176, 242;
    children promoting, 205, 223, 259, 260

  Anderson, Herbert, 268

  Antwerp, 99

  Appeal, right of, by excluded, 77, 78

  Ardan, Ivan, 181, 182

  Armenians, 124

  Asia, immigrants from, 20, 21, 113

  Assimilation of foreign peoples, 270, 271;
    aid to, 293

  Assisted immigration, 43, 77, 93, 101

  Associated Charities of Boston, 96

  Atchison, Rena M., 194, 247

  Attila, 27

  Australians, as immigrants, 22

  Austria, 81, 82

  Austria-Hungary, 92, 165;
    immigrants from, 21, 25, 72


  Baldwin, Mrs. S. L., 72, 73

  Baltimore, 53

  Barrows, Dr. S. J., 142

  Battery, the, 54, 62, 108

  Belgians, as immigrants, 21

  Belgium, 29

  Berlin, 199

  Betts, Mrs. Lillian W., 151, 152, 204

  Bible, 34, 167, 174, 283, 288

  "Birds of passage," 71, 135

  Blackwell's Island, 139

  Board of Special Inquiry, 62

  Bohemians, as immigrants, 21, 165-170;
    city centers, 166;
    freethinking tendencies, 168, 169;
    Protestant in spirit, 165-168;
    religious work among, 285

  Booth, General William, 194

  Bosnians, 183

  Boston, 24, 53, 83, 198;
    Italian Society, 111

  Boyesen, Professor, 28, 89, 90, 234

  Brandenburg, Broughton, 41, 65-68, 82, 97, 98, 101

  Bremen, 82, 99

  Brooklyn, 148

  Brooks, Phillips, 232

  Bryce, James, 200

  Buffalo, 172

  Bulgarians, as immigrants, 21, 183

  Bureau of Information, 110

  Burlington, Iowa, 20


  Calvin, 172

  Cambridge, Massachusetts, 24

  Canada, 27;
    ingress from, 53, 77, 92

  Canadians, as immigrants, 21

  Carr, Mr. 138

  Carroll, Dr. H. K., 174

  Castle Garden, 28

  Celtic peoples, 123

  Chandler, ex-Senator, 214

  Chattanooga, Immigration Bureau in, 113

  Chicago, 36, 166-172, 176, 187, 198

  Childhood, the blighting of, 225, 226

  Children, condition of, in great cities, 221, 222;
    number of, at work, 224, 226

  Chinese, as immigrants, 21, 40, 72, 73;
    converts, 73, 89, 269;
    exclusion act, 70, 73;
    Sunday-schools for, 289

  Chivers, Dr. E. E., 267

  Chopin, 172

  Christ, 44, 277

  Christian attitude toward immigrants, 44-47, 270;
    coöperation and federation, 286;
    optimism, 8, 117, 262

  Christianity, converts to, 73;
    its first impression for newcomers, 277, 278

  Churches, duty and opportunity of, 270, 282, 286;
    abandoning lower New York, 278;
    must be missionary, 270;
    saving themselves through saving immigrants, 285;
    work for foreigners, 289

  Cincinnati, 23

  Citizenship, how degraded, 214

  City, the, bad government of, 200;
    conditions of tenement-house life in, 201, 210;
    demoralizing influences, 209, 214;
    environment offered immigrants, 196, 201-206;
    foreignization of, 198, 199, 217;
    isolation of foreigners in, 205;
  nerve and storm center, 193;
    overcrowding, 203, 206;
    political evils, 214

  City College, many Jewish pupils in, 189

  Civil War, effect on immigration, 26, 31

  Claghorn, Kate H., 97, 259

  Cleveland, Ohio, 24, 166, 169, 172

  Cleveland, President, 96

  Colonies, foreign, in America, 196, 198, 200, 217

  Colonists distinguished from immigrants, 45, 46

  Columbia University, 13

  Columbus, Christopher, 188

  Commissioner-General of Immigration, 25, 76-78, 83, 92, 93;
    of the Port, 77

  Coney Island, 150

  Congestion of foreign elements in cities, 195

  Congress, acts of, 70

  Connecticut, 173, 174, 180

  Consumption, statistics of, 220;
    foreign element largely its victims, 220

  Contract labor exclusion, 77, 82, 92;
    violation, 82, 83

  Convicts, excluded, 77

  Cook, Joseph, 52

  Coolies, Chinese, excluded, 70

  Coöperation, interdenominational, 286;
    of Home Mission Boards, 288

  Copernicus, 172

  Crime, conditions favorable to increase of, 209, 224;
    foreigners led into by environment and example, 209

  Croatians, 124, 183

  Czechs, see _Bohemians_


  Dalmatians, as immigrants, 183

  Danes, as immigrants, 21

  Debarred, see _Excluded_

  Democracy, influence of upon aliens, 296, 298

  Denmark, immigrants from, 23

  Detroit, 21, 172

  Discrimination needed as to immigrants, 127

  Diseases guarded against, 57, 59, 60, 74, 77, 78, 93

  Distribution of immigrants, 102-117;
    New York state, 105, 107;
    New Zealand methods, 116;
    North Atlantic section, 105;
    Ohio, 107;
    Pennsylvania, 105, 107;
    railroads assisting, 116;
    societies aiding, 107-113;
    South Central states, 105;
    West Virginia, 107;
    Western section, 105

  Dublin, 199

  Dutch, as immigrants, 21


  Eastern invasion, the, 157-192

  Edison, Thomas A., 247

  Educational policy affected by immigration, 246

  Ellis Island, 18, 19, 35, 37, 54, 55, 59-62, 74, 83, 99, 100, 108;
    missionary  workers at, 274;
    results of personal efforts at, 275

  Emerson, Ralph W., 247

  English, as immigrants, 19, 21, 126;
    language, influence of, 259, 260

  Environment, evil effects of upon children, 243

  Europe, American ideas working in, 33, 34;
    immigrants from, 20, 23, 98, 123-192

  Evangelization of immigrants, 10, 16, 46, 47;
    accessibility, 294;
    illustration of, 283;
    most potent factor in Americanizing, 270;
    need for extension of, 277;
    personal responsibility for, 290;
    sporadic, not systematic, 281

  Evasion of immigration laws, 78-83

  Excluded classes, 74-78, 100, 101


  Federation of Jewish Charities, 102

  Financial panics, effect on immigration, 26, 31

  Finns, as immigrants, 21

  Fiume, 82, 99

  Forbes, James, 139

  Foreign-born, distribution of, 107

  Four State Immigration League, 113

  France, 34

  Franklin, Benjamin, 69

  Freethinkers, their societies among immigrants, 168, 169, 180, 285

  French-American College, the, 280

  French, as immigrants, 21

  French-Canadians, Roman Catholic convention of, 257

  Fung Yuet Mow, 269


  Gardner, Representative, of Massachusetts, 95

  Genoa, 99, 132

  Germans, as immigrants, 19, 21, 35, 126

  Germany, immigrants from, 25, 33, 81

  Goodchild, Rev. F. M., 33, 292

  Grant, Ulysses S., 247

  Great Britain, immigrants from, 25, 43, 128

  Greece, 92

  Greek Catholic Church, 182, 184;
    Orthodox or Russian State Church, 182

  Greeks, as immigrants, 21, 37, 41


  Hall, Prescott F., 45, 70, 129

  Hamburg, 82, 99

  Havre, 99

  Hebrew, see _Jewish_, _Jews_

  Herzegovinians, as immigrants, 183

  Hewes, F. W., 107

  Home Missions, at Ellis Island, 274;
    demand for extension of in New York, 287;
    opportunities of, for local churches, 279;
    personal work, 274, 290, 291;
    results of abroad, 269;
    settlement influences by residence, 292, 293

  Honolulu, 53

  Huguenot colonial stock, 240

  Hungarians, as immigrants, 33, 128, 177-179;
    cafés, as social centers, 178, 179;
    fair degree of education, 177;
  open to mission work, 178

  Hungary, 19, 128

  Huns, 27, 165

  Hunter, Robert, 194, 200

  Huss, John, 166, 170


  Iberic peoples, 123

  Idiots, excluded, 77, 78

  Illiteracy, amount of among immigrants, 22, 24, 125;
    test proposed, 95, 96

  Immigrants, admission, 53-64;
    "assisted," 43, 93;
    approachable, 273, 282;
    attracted to the city, 195;
    debarred, 70, 71, 77, 78;
    diseased, 57, 60, 74, 77, 78, 93, 94;
    illiteracy among, 22, 23, see also _Illiteracy_;
    "manifest," 55, 56, 61;
    nationality, 21, 22;
    "natural," 31-42;
    ports and routes of entry, 53, 77;
    "solicited," 42, 43, 80-82, 93;
    smuggling of, 81, 92;
    religious census and conditions, 251, 271;
    value of first impression upon, 273;
    views of America, 272;
    women among, 18, 61, 76

  Immigration, annual volume, 17-22;
    Bureau of, 76, 77, 92, 104;
    causes of, 29-31;
    Christian view of, 8;
    classes, 31-43;
    Conference of 1905, 90, 91;
    divine mission in, 270;
    economic fallacies of, 245;
    effect upon educational policy, 246;
    inspectors and officers, 59-61, 76, 77;
    laws, see _Laws, immigration_;
    new development of, 121-155;
    numbers since 1820, 25-27;
    process by the steerage and Ellis Island described, 55-62;
    Restrictive League, 96;
    "runner," 80-82;
    steamship and railroad arrangements, 55, 57, 62

  Indianapolis, 22

  Indians, North American, 45

  Industrial Commission, 31

  Insane, excluded, 77, 78

  Insanity, low proportion among Italians and Jews, 140

  Institutional church, need of, 286, 288

  Ireland, 27, 43,
    immigrants from, 25, 31, 72, 128;
    potato famine, 25

  Irish, as immigrants, 19, 21, 38, 39, 89, 126;
    compared with the Italians, 136, 137

  Italian, Benevolent Institute, 147;
    Chamber of Commerce, 145;
    Hospital, 147;
    Immigration Department, 138;
    Savings Bank, 147

  Italians, as immigrants, 19, 34, 36, 37, 110, 130;
    distribution, 135, 136;
    family coöperation, 207;
    generally peaceable character, 141, 142, 208;
    illiteracy, 22, 134;
    in New York, 139, 145, 206;
    number entering, 19, 134, 135;
    parallel drawn with Irish, 136, 137;
    societies for mutual aid, 50, 110, 145, 147;
    spirit of converts, 284;
    thrift, 139-147, 207;
    women homemakers, 206;

  Italy, 92, 131-133;
    government action and aid, 79, 111;
    immigrants from, 25, 31, 72, 79, 107;
    Royal Department of Emigration, 111;
    sections compared, 131-134

  Ives, Mr., 294


  Japanese, as immigrants, 40;
    Robinson Crusoe, 40

  Jefferson, President, 68

  Jerome of Prague, 166

  Jersey City, 22

  Jewish children as pupils, 189

  Jews, as immigrants, 21, 95, 96, 113, 128, 185-190;
    Austria-Hungarian, 21, 186;
    German, 185;
    good qualities, 190;
    number of in New York, 186, 198;
    Roumanian, 186;
    Russian, 11, 12, 21, 185-190

  _John G. Carlisle_, ferryboat,  53

  Joseph II, Emperor, of Austria, 167

  Juvenile Court, Jewish children in, 190


  Kansas City, 22

  Kosciusko, 172

  Kossuth, a Slovak, 175


  Labor, immigration of skilled and unskilled, 23, 24

  Latin races, as immigrants, 113, 131

  Lawrence, Kansas, 20

  Laws, immigration, 58, 64;
    Bill of 1906, 95;
    problems,  87-119;
    protective, 65-68;
    restrictive, 68-84;
    summaries and recommendations, 309-313

  Lee, Dr. S. H., 136, 152

  Legislation, see _Laws, immigration_

  Letts, the, as immigrants, 179, 180

  Liberty, American, as a working leaven, 33, 34;
    statue of, 57, 278

  Lieber, Francis, 194

  Lincoln, Abraham, 247

  Lithuanians, as immigrants, 23, 36, 179, 180;
    illiteracy, 23

  Liverpool, 99

  Lodge, Senator, 96

  London, 99

  Long Island, as a field for Italians, 149

  Longfellow, 247

  Louisiana, 113

  Louisville, 23

  Luther, 172

  Lynn, Massachusetts, 24


  Machinery, effect on immigration, 43

  Madison, President, 68

  Mafia, the, 130, 141

  Magna Charta, 34

  Magyars, as immigrants, 21, 177-179;
    illiteracy, 23;
    see also _Hungarians_

  "Manifest" for immigrant, 55, 56, 61

  Marine Hospital Service, 59

  Marseilles, 99

  Mashek, Nan, 166

  Massachusetts, 142, 173

  Mayo-Smith, Richmond, 52, 231, 238, 248

  McLanahan, Samuel, 121

  McMillan, Margaret, 225

  Mexicans, as immigrants, 21

  Mexico, ingress through, 92, 93

  Michigan, 172

  Milwaukee, 170, 172

  Minneapolis, 21

  Mission workers for immigrants, 274

  Mississippi, 113, 183

  Mitchell, Max, 102

  Mongolic peoples, 124

  Montenegrins, as immigrants, 21, 183

  Moravians, as immigrants, 164

  Music, love of by Bohemians, 169;
    by Italians, 144


  Naples, 99, 199

  National Civic Federation, 90;
    Slavonic Society, 176

  Naturalization, illegal methods, 93, 196, 214-215;
    reading test desirable, 249

  New Amsterdam, 45

  New England, 45, 148, 173, 179;
    how it can remain Christian, 270, 271

  New Haven, 23

  New Jersey, 148, 173, 178

  New Orleans, 183

  New York, Bible Society, 50;
    State, 69, 70, 105, 107, 178, 213

  New York City, 30-39, 53, 54, 62, 63, 110, 112, 139, 145, 165,
        166, 169, 172, 176-189, 198, 200, 220;
    chief port of entry for immigrants, 53;
    child life and labor in, 220, 221;
    consumption in, 220;
    cosmopolitan character, 198, 199;
    foreign peoples in, 139, 145, 150, 166, 172, 178, 179, 186-189, 195-226

  Norway, 27;
    immigrants from, 23, 25, 126


  Occupations,  of various races, 23, 24

  Odessa, 99

  Ogg, Frederick A., 92, 93, 99, 100

  Ohio, 172

  Optimism, 8, 29, 262

  Ottawa, Illinois, 20


  Padrones, 82, 92, 111

  Parochial schools among aliens, 246, 256

  Pauperism in the United States, 218;
    contrasted with poverty, 217;
    foreign percentage of, 219;
    increased by immigration, 219

  Pennsylvania, 160-163, 172, 175, 177, 179, 181, 183, 213

  People's Forum in Cooper Institute, 250

  Persecution, affecting immigration, 29, 30, 91

  Philadelphia, 38, 53, 172, 176, 179, 187

  Pittsburg, 82, 172, 174, 176

  Poles, as immigrants, 22, 35, 75, 76, 170-174;
    clannish, 173;
    illiteracy, 22, 173;
    independence, 173

  Polish, Catholics, 174;
    girl, story of, 212;
    Jew, "sweater," 210;
    National Alliance, 170

  Ports, for examination abroad, 98, 99;
    of entry, 53

  Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 20

  Poughkeepsie, New York, 20

  Poverty in the United States, 218;
    defined, 217

  Presbyterian Slavistic Union, 176

  Protestantism, as related to immigrants, 9, 39, 47, 202, 166-174,
       177-188, 216, 224, 251;
    could change conditions as to child labor, 225, 226;
    ought to save immigrants from moral degeneracy, 255;
    vast opportunity to evangelize and Americanize,  267-299

  Providence, Rhode Island, 21

  Public Schools, attacks upon to be resisted, 248;
    duty to elevate, 248;
    foreign children in, 198, 223, 248;
    power to Americanize, 234, 248, 256

  Publicity, value of, 83, 90


  Quarantine, 56, 62


  Railroads and immigrants, 62, 63

  Reich, Emil, 131

  Religious census of immigrants in 1900, 251

  Removal Bureau, for directing Jewish emigrants, 111

  Reports, Commissioner-General, 25, 143

  Riis, Jacob, 194, 216

  Roman Catholic Church, as related to immigrants, 133, 151, 152, 167,
       168, 172-174, 177-184, 247, 248, 251, 256, 257, 271, 297;
    efforts to get public money for parochial schools, 246;
    some lessons to be learned from, 279

  Roosevelt, President, 51, 73, 88, 92, 96, 179

  Rossi, Adolpho, 138, 147

  Rotterdam, 99

  Roumanians, as immigrants, 19, 21;
    see also _Jews_

  Rovinanek, Mr., 174, 175

  Russia, 34, 128;
    immigrants from, 25, 81, 217

  Russian empire, 19;
    Jews, 11, 19, 112;
    persecution, 29, 30


  Saint Louis, 145, 198

  Saint Nazaire, 99

  Saloon, evil effects of, 216, 217

  Sampson, Sidney, 260

  San Francisco, 41, 53, 73, 148

  Saratoga Springs, New York, 20

  Sargent, Commissioner-General, 28, 103, 158, 203

  Scandinavians, 27;
    agricultural tendency, 127;
    useful immigrants, 19, 21, 126, 217;
    small illiteracy, 23

  Schauffler, Dr. A. F, 30, 195

  Schauffler, Dr. H. A., 293

  Scotch, as immigrants, 21, 126;
    small illiteracy, 23

  Scotland, 27

  Secretary of Commerce and Labor, 77, 78

  Seelye,  ex-President of Amherst, 255

  Servian immigrants, 21

  Settlement service by religion and residence, 292, 293

  Sioux Falls, Iowa, 20

  Slavic home missionaries, 293, 294;
    peoples, 124

  Slavs, as immigrants, 21, 79, 107, 113, 127, 128, 157-192;
    defined, 159, 160;
    displacing other peoples, 160, 162;
    illiteracy, 23, 164;
    largely unskilled, 164;
    migration of recent date, 160;
    mostly mine and factory workers, 164;
    native workers among, 285

  Slovaks, as immigrants, 174-176;
    from agricultural class, 175;
    organizations among, 176;
    tinware workers, 176

  Slovenians, as immigrants, 183

  Slums, peril of the children in, 220-224;
    poverty and pauperism of, 217-219

  Socialism, bred in the slums, 202

  Societies in aid of immigrants by races, 110-112

  Society for Italian immigrants, 50, 110, 111

  Solicitation, as affecting immigration, 42, 43, 80-82, 93

  South American immigrants, 21

  South Carolina, 113

  South, the New, as a field for immigrants, 113

  Southampton, 99

  Spahr, Dr. Charles B., 260

  Spanish immigrants, 21, 217

  Special Inquiry Board, 77

  Speranza, Gino C., 88, 145

  "Stairs of Separation," 62, 63

  Standards of living, lowered through immigration, 244

  States and countries as a scale of immigration, 24, 25, 27, 28

  Statistics of immigration, aliens since Revolution, 28;
    arrivals by years from 1820 to 1905, 305;
    child labor in New York City, and in United States, 226, 227;
    countries by totals, 127-129;
    debarred during fourteen years, and by race or people, 77, 303;
    distribution by states, 105-107;
    entries at ports and through Canada, 53;
    estimated immigration for 1905-6, 20;
    illiteracy, 21-23, 134, 164;
    increase of immigrants for 1905, 25;
    inflow since 1820, 25-27;
    insanity, 140;
    Italians, by years, locality, and occupation, 134, 135, 143;
    Jews, chiefly Russian, 185, 186, 198;
    labor skilled and unskilled, 23, 24, 134, 164;
    mendicancy, 140;
    money sent from United States to aid immigrants, 31;
    present annual race totals illustrated, 20-23;
    race, sex, and age of immigrants for 1905, 306;
    religious divisions for 1900, 251;
    savings and investments of Italians, 145, 146;
    Slavs for 1905, 159,
      see also, for distribution and occupation, 165-183;
    tendency among Italians to forsake Roman Catholic Church, 271

  Steamships for immigrants, 55, 57;
    overcrowding, 65;
    rate cutting, 79;
    steerage abuses and reforms, 65-68;
    unkind treatment, 57, 58, 67;
    unsanitary arrangements, 65-67;
    violation of laws, 78-84

  Stettin, 99

  Strong, Dr. Josiah, 9-16, 193, 194, 256, 257

  Sunday laws and observance, as affected by immigration, 72, 237,
       241, 252-254;
    Sunday-schools, among immigrants, 284, 294

  Sweat-shop, description of system, 209, 210;
    reproach to Christian civilization, 210;
    victims of, 210-213

  Sweden, 27;
    immigrants from, 23, 25, 33, 37, 38, 126

  Swiss, as immigrants, 21, 28

  Switzerland, 27, 43

  Syrian immigrants, 23, 39


  Tariff, effect on immigration, 44

  Temperance, large measure of, among Chinese, Italians, and Jews, 73,
       141, 190

  Tenement-houses, description of life in, 204-208;
    evils of, 201;
    exorbitant rents, 202;
    model block of suggested, 288;
    responsibility of landlords, 202;
    unsanitary conditions of, 211

  Tent campaign, winning Italians, 282

  Teutonic peoples, 123

  Texas, 113

  Thompson, Dr. Charles L., 117, 268

  Training schools, needed in work among aliens, 286

  Trieste, 99

  Tuoti, Mr. G., 145

  Turks, as immigrants, 21;
    illiteracy, 23

  Tymkevich, Paul, 158


  United Hebrew Charities, 111, 219, 277

  United Kingdom, see _Great Britain_

  United States, agencies of helpful to immigrants, 50, 54, 57-63,
       111, 274;
    "assisted" immigration to, 43, 93;
    attraction of, 29-42;
    Immigration Investigating Commission, 112, 113;
    Industrial Commission on Immigration, 141;
    legislation as to immigrants, see _Laws, immigration_;
    money from relatives in, to aid immigrants, 31;
    national songs, 34;
    Post-office, an immigration agency, 33;
    see also _Commissioner-General of Immigration, Ports of entry_


  Venice, 199

  Vincennes, Indiana, 20

  Virginia, 45, 175

  Vote, foreign, peril of, 249


  Walker, General Francis A., 232

  Ward, Robert D., 194

  Warne, F. J., 157, 158, 162, 246

  Warsaw, 199

  Washington, city of, 24;
    President, 68

  Watchorn, Commissioner Robert, 30, 82

  Welsh, as immigrants, 21, 126

  Whelpley, J. D., 16, 70, 79, 94, 101

  Wisconsin, 167

  Women immigrants, 18, 35, 38, 39, 57, 61, 67, 75, 76, 304;
    special inspection for, 61, 76

  Work of leading denominations for foreign population, 314-320


  Yiddish language, 198

  Young people, as creators of public sentiment, 197;
    opportunity of for Christian service, 10

  Ziska, General, 166


       *       *       *       *       *


~The Forward Mission Study Courses~

       *       *       *       *       *

"Anywhere, _provided it be_ FORWARD."--_David Livingstone_

       *       *       *       *       *

_Prepared under the auspices of the

YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT_

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:--Harry Wade Hicks, S. Earl Taylor, John W.
Wood, F. P. Haggard, T. H. P. Sailer.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Forward Mission Study Courses are an outgrowth of a conference of
leaders in Young People's Mission Work, held in New York City, December,
1901. To meet the need that was manifested at that conference for
Mission Study Text-books suitable for young people, two of the
delegates, Professor Amos R. Wells, of the United Society of Christian
Endeavor, and Mr. S. Earl Taylor, Chairman of the General Missionary
Committee of the Epworth League, projected the Forward Mission Study
Courses. These courses have been officially adopted by the Young
People's Missionary Movement, and are now under the immediate direction
of the Executive Committee of the Movement, which consists of the young
people's secretaries, or other official representatives of twelve of the
leading missionary boards of the United States and Canada.

The aim is to publish a series of text-books covering the various home
and foreign mission fields, and written by leading authorities with
special reference to the needs of young people. The entire series when
completed will comprise perhaps as many as twenty text-books. A general
account will be given of some of the smaller countries, such as Japan,
Korea, and Turkey; but, for the larger fields, as China, Africa, and
India, the general account will be supplemented by a series of
biographies of the principal missionaries connected with the country.
The various home mission fields will also be treated both biographically
and historically.

The following text-books have been published:--

     ~1. The Price of Africa.~ (Biographical.) By S. Earl Taylor.

     ~2. Into All the World.~ A General Survey of Missions. By Amos R.
     Wells.

     ~3. Princely Men in the Heavenly Kingdom.~ (Biographical.) By
     Harlan P. Beach, M.A., F.R.G.S.

     ~4. Child Life in Mission Lands.~ A Course of Study for Junior
     Societies. By Ralph E. Diffendorfer.

     ~5. Sunrise in the Sunrise Kingdom.~ A Study of Japan. By the Rev.
     John H. De Forest, D.D.

     ~6. Heroes of the Cross in America.~ Home Missions. (Biographical.)
     By Don O. Shelton.

     ~7. Daybreak in the Dark Continent.~ A Study of Africa. By Wilson
     S. Naylor.

     ~8. The Christian Conquest of India.~ A Study of India. By Bishop
     James M. Thoburn.

     ~9. Aliens or Americans?~ A Study of Immigration. By Rev. Howard B.
     Grose, Ph.D.

These books are published by mutual arrangement among the denominational
publishing houses, to whom all orders should be addressed. They are
bound uniformly, and are sold for 50 cents, in cloth, and 35 cents, in
paper, postage extra.

       *       *       *       *       *

Study classes desiring more advanced text-books are referred to the
admirable series published by the Interdenominational Committee of the
Woman's Boards. The volumes already published are:--

     ~Via Christi.~ A Study of Missions before Carey. By Louise Manning
     Hodgkins.

     ~Lux Christi.~ A Study of Missions in India. By Caroline Atwater
     Mason.

     ~Rex Christus.~ A Study of Missions in China. By Rev. Arthur H.
     Smith, D.D.

     ~Dux Christus.~ A Study of Missions in Japan. By Rev. W. E.
     Griffis, D.D.

     ~Christus Liberator.~ A Study of Missions in Africa. By Ellen C.
     Parsons.

     ~Christus Redemptor.~ A Study of the Island World. By Helen Barrett
     Montgomery.


       *       *       *       *       *


[Illustration: AN ITALIAN SUNDAY SCHOOL IN NEW ENGLAND]

[Illustration: PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH CHILDREN

Portuguese Boy and Girl

Spanish Boys]

[Illustration: FOUR NATIONALITIES

  Jewish Girl        Polack Girl
  Italian Boy        Spanish Boy
]

[Illustration: AN ITALIAN FAMILY CROWDED IN A NEW YORK
TENEMENT]

[Illustration: A GROUP OF IMMIGRANTS JUST ARRIVED AT ELLIS
ISLAND]

[Illustration: THREE TYPES OF IMMIGRANTS

Alsace-Lorraine Girl    Ruthenian Woman    Holland Dame
]

[Illustration: A GROUP OF TWELVE DIFFERENT NATIONALITIES

Taken on the Roof Garden at Ellis Island]

[Illustration: AN APPEAL FROM THE SPECIAL INQUIRY BOARD TO
COMMISSIONER WATCHORN]

[Illustration: ITALIAN AND SWISS GIRLS

Italian Girl    Swiss Girl
]

[Illustration: ELLIS ISLAND IMMIGRANT STATION

The Chief Port of Entry in New York Harbor]

[Illustration: DETAINED FOR SPECIAL EXAMINATION]

[Illustration: A GERMAN FAMILY

"Seven soldiers lost to the Kaiser." (German Consul's remark on seeing
this picture)]

[Illustration: RECEIVING ROOM AT ELLIS ISLAND

(A) Entrance stairs; (B) Examination of health ticket; (C) Surgeon's
examination; (D) Second surgeon's examination; (E) Group compartments;
(F) Waiting for inspection; (G) Passage to the stairway; (H) Detention
room; (I) The Inspectors' desks; (K) Outward passage to barge, ferry, or
detention room.]

[Illustration: THE LANDING AT THE BATTERY IN NEW YORK]

[Illustration: _From copyright stereograph, 1907, by Underwood &
Underwood, New York_

THE INFLOWING TIDE]

[Illustration: RACES OF IMMIGRANTS FISCAL YEAR 1905

FIGURES ON THE MAP REPRESENT THE NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS OF THE RACES NAMED
COMING FROM EACH COUNTRY INDICATED, WHILE THE FIGURES ON THE BARS
REPRESENT THE TOTAL NUMBER OF IMMIGRANTS OF THE RACES NAMED COMING FROM
ALL COUNTRIES.

THE COLOR ON MAP INDICATES APPROXIMATELY REGIONS OF THE RACIAL GRAND
DIVISIONS

WHERE THE TERMS "BOHEMIAN," "BULGARIAN," "CROATIAN," AND "DALMATIAN" ARE
USED, THEY REFER TO "BOHEMIAN AND MORAVIAN," "BULGARIAN, SERVIAN, AND
MONTENEGRIN," "CROATIAN AND SLOVENIAN," AND "DALMATIAN, BOSNIAN, AND
HERZEGOVINIAN."]


       *       *       *       *       *


FOOTNOTES:

[1] J. D. Whelpley, _The Problem of the Immigrant_, 2.

[2] Entrance Port for Immigrants at New York.

[3] The total immigration into the United States for the fiscal year
ending June 30, 1906, was 1,100,735.

[4] For table showing immigration for each year from 1820 to 1905, see
Appendix A.

[5] Now known as the Battery. See footnote 1, p. 54.

[6] _City Mission Monthly_, April, 1902.

[7] Those who are interested in this feature can trace--by examining the
table in the Appendix which gives the immigration by years since
1820--the relation between prosperity and immigration. The effect of the
panics of 1837, 1843, 1873, 1893, and the depression caused by the Civil
War, will be seen clearly in the immigration totals. This subject is
treated in _Immigration_, 17 ff.

[8] Published in _Baptist Home Mission Monthly_ for July, 1906.

[9] Hamilton Holt, _Undistinguished Americans._

[10] The Swedish _krone_ (kro-ne) has a value of about 27 cents.

[11] Broughton Brandenburg, _Imported Americans_, 37.

[12] Prescott F. Hall, _Immigration_, 3, 4.

[13] The park and piers at the southern end of New York City, formerly
known as Castle Garden.

[14] Samuel E. Moffett, _Review of Reviews_, July, 1903.

[15] It is good to know that the reception conditions, so far as the
Government is concerned, have been made as favorable as present
accommodations will allow, and enlargement is already projected. Since
the Federal Government finally took charge of immigration in 1882, great
improvement has been made in method and administration. The inspection
is humane, prompt, and on the whole kindly, although entrance
examinations are as much dreaded by the average immigrant as by the
average student. Commissioner Watchorn, an admirable man for his place,
insists upon kindness, and want of it in an employee is cause for
dismissal. Ellis Island affords an excellent example of carefully
adjusted details and thorough system, whereby with least possible
friction thousands of aliens are examined in a day, and pronounced fit
or unfit to enter the country. The process is too rapid, however, to
give each case the attention which the best interests of the country
demand.

[16] Under the Act of 1903, this manifest has to state: The full name,
age and sex; whether married or single; the calling or occupation;
whether able to read or write; the nationality; the race; the last
residence; the seaport landing in the United States; the final
destination, if any, beyond the port of landing; whether having a ticket
through to such final destination; whether the alien has paid his own
passage or whether it has been paid by any other person or by any
corporation, society, municipality, or government, and if so, by whom;
whether in possession of thirty dollars, and if less, how much; whether
going to join a relative or friend and if so, what relative or friend,
and his 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
or supported by charity; whether a polygamist; whether an anarchist;
whether coming by reason of any offer, solicitation, promise, or
agreement, expressed or implied, to perform labor in the United States,
and what is the alien's condition of health, mental and physical, and
whether deformed or crippled, and if so, for how long and from what
cause.

[17] Broughton Brandenburg, _Imported Americans_, 208.

[18] This imaginary sketch adheres in every detail to the facts. The
medical examiners and inspectors become exceedingly expert in detecting
disease, disability, or deception. If an overcoat is carried over the
shoulder, they look for a false or stiff arm. The gait and general
appearance indicate health or want of it to them, and all who do not
appear normal are turned aside for further examination, which is
thorough. The women have a special inspection by the matrons, who have
to be both expert and alert to detect and reject the unworthy. The chief
difficulty lies in too small a force to handle such large numbers, which
have reached as high as 45,000 in five days.

[19] The present regulations were passed in 1882, and if lived up to, as
by trustworthy testimony they are not, would prevent serious
overcrowding, although the conditions as to air, sanitation, and morals
would still be most unsatisfactory. For protective laws, see Appendix B.

[20] Broughton Brandenburg, _Imported Americans_, chap. XIV.

[21] This Act of 1824 required of vessel-masters a report giving name,
birthplace, age, and occupation of each immigrant, and a bond to secure
the city against public charges.

[22] _Immigration_, chap. X.

[23] The main provisions are: 1. Head tax of $2. 2. Excluded classes
numbering 17. 3. Criminal offenses against the Immigration Acts,
enumerating 12 crimes. 4. Rejection of the diseased aliens. 5. Manifest,
required of vessel-masters, with answers to 19 questions. 6. Examination
of immigrants. 7. Detention and return of aliens. 8. Bonds and
guaranties. The law may be found in full in the Appendix to
_Immigration_, and in _The Problem of the Immigrant_, chap. VI., where
the rules and regulations for its enforcement are also given. A list of
the excluded classes and criminal offenses will be found in Appendix B
of this volume.

[24] Joseph H. Adams, in _Home Missionary_, for April, 1905.

[25] The Immigration Bureau has 1,214 inspectors and special agents. The
Commissioner-General says of them: They are spread throughout the
country from Maine to southern California. They are

[26] thoroughly organized under competent chiefs, many of them working
regardless of hours, whether breaking the seals of freight cars on the
southern border to prevent the smuggling of Chinese, or watching the
countless routes of ingress from Canada, ever alert and willing, equally
efficient in detecting the inadmissible alien and the pretended citizen.
The Bureau asserts with confidence that, excepting a very few, the
government of this country has no more able and faithful servants in its
employ, either civil or military, than the immigration officers.

[27] Commissioner-General's Report for 1905, p. 41.

[28] _Immigration Report_ for 1905, p.56.

[29] Broughton Brandenburg, _Imported Americans_, 33.

[30] _Immigration Report_ for 1905, p. 48.

[31] Prof. H. H. Boyesen.

[32] Frederick Austin Ogg, in _Outlook_ for May 5, 1906.

[33] A synopsis of these recommendations will be found in Appendix B.

[34] Sec. 38. That no alien immigrant over sixteen years of age
physically capable of reading shall be admitted to the United States
until he has proved to the satisfaction of the proper inspection
officers that he can read English or some other tongue ... provided that
an admissible alien over sixteen, or a person now or hereafter in the
United States of like age, may bring in or send for his wife, mother,
affianced wife, or father over fifty-five, if they are otherwise
admissible, whether able to read or write or not.

[35] Sec. 39. That every male alien immigrant over sixteen shall be
deemed likely to become a public charge unless he shows to the proper
immigration officials that he has in his possession at the time of
inspection money to the equivalent of $25, or that the head of his
family entering with him so holds that amount to his account. Every
female alien must have $15.

[36] The Bill, as amended, left the head tax at $2, and the reading test
was omitted. Great opposition to the Bill came from the foreign element,
especially the Jews.

[37] Dr. Goodchild.

[38] Broughton Brandenburg, _Imported Americans_, 302.

[39] _Outlook_ for May 5, 1906.

[40] J. D. Whelpley, _The Problem of the Immigrant_, 13.

[41] _Annual Report for_ 1903, p. 60.

[42] _Annual Report for_ 1905, p. 58.

[43] Idem, opposite p. 34.

[44] This bureau shall collect and furnish to all incoming aliens, data
as to the resources, products, and manufactures of each state, territory
and district of the United States; the prices of land and character of
soils; routes of travel and fares; opportunities of employment in the
skilled and unskilled occupations, rates of wages, cost of living, and
all other information that in the judgment of the Commissioner-General
might tend to enlighten the aliens as to the inducements to settlement
in the various sections.

[45] Bernheimer, _The Russian Jew in the United States_, 370.

[46] Prescott F. Hall, _Immigration_, 303.

[47] Eliot Lord, in _The Italian in America_, 177 ff.

[48] "The Problem of Immigration," Presbyterian Board of Publication.

[49] For a condensed characterization of the north of Europe immigrants
read the chapter on Racial Conditions in _Immigration_ (chap. III.) The
leading traits of the various immigrant peoples are set forth with
fairness and discrimination, although probably none of those described
would see themselves exactly as Mr. Hall sees them.

[50] _The Italian in America._

[51] John Foster Carr in _Outlook_.

[52] See page 146.

[53] Dr. S. H. Lee in _Baptist Home Mission Monthly_, for May, 1905.

[54] Location of various public institutions of New York City.

[55] Industrial Commission Report to Congress, Dec. 5, 1901.

[56] _The Italian in America_, 215, 216.

[57] G. Tuoti, in _The Italian in America_, 78.

[58] A remarkable showing of what the Italians have accomplished through
these farming colonies in various parts of the country is given in the
chapter "On Farm and Plantation", in _The Italian in America_.

[59] Rev. E. P. Farnham, D.D., in New York _Examiner_, June 22, 1906.

[60] _University Settlement Studies_, December, 1905.

[61] While the Magyars (or Hungarians) are not Slavs, they have lived in
close contact with them, and for convenience may be classed in the
Slavic division; and the same thing is true of the Roumanian and Russian
Jews. All these peoples come from Russia, Austria-Hungary, or the Balkan
States, and represent similar customs and ideas, although they differ
materially in character, as we shall see.

[62] Samuel McLanahan, _Our People of Foreign Speech_, 34 ff.

[63] F. J. Warne, _The Slav Invasion_, chap. VI.

[64] Miss Kate H. Claghorn, in _Charities_, for December, 1904.

[65] _Charities_, for December, 1904.

[66] Samuel McLanahan, _Our People of Foreign Speech_, 45.

[67] Louis H. Pick, in _Charities_, for December, 1904.

[68] Miss Emily Balch, "The Slavs at Home," in _Charities and Commons_.

[69] Lee Frankel, in _The Russian Jew in the United States_, 63.

[70] Julius H. Greenstone, in _The Russian Jew in the United States_,
158.

[71] Commissioner-General's Report for 1905, p. 58.

[72] _The Leaven of a Great City_, and _The Story of an East Side
Family_.

[73] _University Settlement Studies_, January, 1906.

[74] Hamilton Holt, _Undistinguished Americans_, 43 ff.

[75] Jacob Riis, _How the Other Half Lives_, chap. XVIII.

[76] Robert Hunter, _Poverty_, chap. I. This is a book that every
American should read. The author is indebted to it for much of the
material in this chapter.

[77] Robert Hunter, _Poverty_, 196.

[78] Idem, chap. V.

[79] Richmond Mayo-Smith, _Emigration and Immigration_, 5 ff.

[80] Walter E. Heyl, in _University Settlement Studies_.

[81] F. J. Warne, _The Slav Invasion_, 103.

[82] Rena M. Atchison, _Un-American Immigration_, 82.

[83] Richmond Mayo-Smith, _Emigration and Immigration_, 84 ff.

[84] Represents the recapitulation of totals of Europe, Asia, Africa and
all other countries.

[85] Josiah Strong, _Our Country_, 56.

[86] Kate H. Claghorn, in _Charities_ for December, 1904.

[87] Broughton Brandenburg, _Imported Americans_, 19.

[88] Sidney Sampson, pamphlet, "The Immigration Problem."

[89] Fung Yuet Mow, Chinese missionary in New York, says that at a
missionary Conference which he attended in Canton there were fifty
missionaries present, native Chinese, and half of them were converted in
our missions in America, and returned home to seek the conversion of
their people. Everywhere he met the influence of Chinese who found
Christ in this country.

[90] Henry H. Hamilton in the _Home Missionary_.

[91] In one city in Massachusetts, where there are 1,700 Italians only
fifty or sixty attend the Roman Catholic Church; and in another, of
6,000 Italians, only about 300 go to that church. They declare that they
are tired of the Romish Church and have lost faith in its priests.
Similar reports come from all parts of the country.

[92] There are numerous instances equally remarkable. Many young people
express their desire to lead true lives and the missionaries often learn
how well the resolutions made at Ellis Island have been kept. One
missionary says: "I meet one here and another there, who tell me that I
met them first three or four years ago, when they first reached this
country, strangers to Christ as well as to me; but now they say, 'We
love to tell the story of Jesus and his love.' Some of the denominations
have houses fitted up for the temporary entertainment of immigrants who
need a safe place while waiting to hear from friends or secure
employment. This missionary work admirably supplements the excellent
service rendered by the protective organizations, of which the United
Hebrews Charities is perhaps the most influential, dispensing funds
amounting to $270,000 a year, including the Baron Hirsch fund. There is
also an Immigrant Girls' Home which saves many from temptation while
they are seeking employment, and helps them secure places in Christian
families."

[93] Rev. Joel S. Ives, pamphlet, "The Foreigner in New England."

[94] Appendix C.

[95] Some denominations already have theological training departments
for foreign people. The French-American College at Springfield,
Massachusetts, is the first distinctive training school for foreigners.

[96] "The Foreign Problem." Published by the Presbyterian Board of Home
Missions.

[97] Rev. F. H. Allen, in _Home Missionary_ for January, 1906.

[98] Rev. C. W. Shelton reports typical cases, that could be duplicated
by every secretary of a Home Missionary Society and every missionary. In
one mission church a young Swede girl gave $25 a month, out of her
earnings as cook, toward the pastor's support. In a Finnish church,
another young woman pledged $30 a month out a salary of $50. A Chinese
mission in California supports three native workers in China. A Slav
Mission Sunday-school in Braddock, Pennsylvania, with thirty members,
gave out of its poverty, as one year's record, $6 for home missions,
$1.25 for windows in a new Bohemian church, $1 for missionary schools,
$6.35 for maps, and $6 for a foreign missionary ship. Nearly fifty cents
a member these Slavs gave; and that amount per member from all Christian
Churches and Sunday-schools would make the missionary treasuries much
fuller than at present.

[99] Words used by Dr. A. L. Phillips, of Richmond, Va., at the
Asheville Conference, July, 1906.

[100] From Annual Report of Commissioner-General of Immigration for
1905.

[101] Statement from Commissioner-General F. P. Sargent.

[102] From the Lutheran World.