-f (Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. 1 LOOKING TOWARD THE PROMISED LAND. THE IMMIGRANT An Asset and a Liability BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN Author of "The American Government" ILLUSTRATED New York Chicago Toronto Fleming H. Revell Company London and Edinburgh Copyright, 1913, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY New York: "158* Fifth Avenue .*/. : j^fticagpVizs & .-Wabash Ave. * Toronto": 25 'Richmond St., W. London: 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street This book is a reproduction of a series of articles which were published in a large list of newspapers throughout the United States. The material was taken largely from the ex- haustive reports on Immigration made by the Federal Government, augmented by the per- sonal observations of the writer on immigra- tion conditions at home and abroad. The articles were put in book form to fill a demand from readers of The Haskin Letter in all parts of the Union. 267408- CONTENTS I. Past Human Migrations . II II. Coming to America . *9 III. The " Old " Immigrant 27 IV. The " New " Immigrant . 34 V. Why the Immigrant Comes 42 m VI. Contract Labour and Induced Immigration .... 50 — VII. Immigrant Races 58 VIII. The Steerage Passenger . 66 IX. Landing at Ellis Island . 74 X. Immigrant Homes and Aid So- cieties 83- XI. Distribution of Immigrants 92 - XII. The Immigration Commission's Investigation .... 100 ^ XIII. General Legislation 108 XIV. The Alien in the Mine US * XV. The Foreigner in the Factory 123 9m XVI. The Foreigner on the Farm • 131 XVII. The Children of Immigrants in School 139 XVIII. Immigrants and Crime XIX. The White Slave Traffic 7 155 CONTENTS XX. The Foreigner's Large Family XXI. Descendants of Immigrants XXII. Padrones and Peons XXIII. The Immigrant Bank XXIV. Immigrant Charity Seekers XXV. Immigrants from Asia XXVI. How the "New" Immigrant Lives .... XXVII. Some Unsolved Problems XXVIII. The Problems of Other Coun tries .... XXIX. Emigration to Canada . XXX. Future Human Migrations 163" 171 179 187 203 211' 219^ 227 235 243 /• ILLUSTRATIONS Looking Toward the Promised Land Frontispiece PAGE Slav Peasants of Bosnia Polish and Slavak Women . A Hungarian Family .... Italian Girls Excluded Immigrants About to Be Deported from Ellis Island .... Roof Garden for Immigrant Children at Ellis Island Mountain Women of Montenegro Roumanians A Finnish Girl Looking for More Liberty and a Better Wage for the Sweat of Their Face . A Greek Peasant .... Immigrants Changing Foreign Money into American Currency Few Arabs Come to the United States Cossacks from the Russian Steppes . Sicilian Boys 19 34 42 58 66 74 92 100 123 131 179 187 203 219 243 I PAST HUMAN MIGRATIONS LONG before Joseph induced his brethren .to return for their father and bring him up into Egypt, and long before Moses afterward led them out from under Egyptian bondage, humanity was unceasingly on the move. After Babel and its confusion of tongues and the dispersion of humanity, we get our next picture of human wanderings from the Bible story when Terah took Abram and Lot and their wives and went forth from Ur of the Chaldees to go into the land of Canaan. They got as far as Haran and Abram's father, Terah, died there. Then came the message to Abram to " get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will show thee." From this land they travelled into Egypt and out again, .and finally the posses- sions of Abram and Lot became so great that they could no longer get along together. So Abram said to Lot that they would separate and he would give him first choice of the direc- 11 12 THE IMMIGRANT tions they could go. And Lot chose the plain of Jordan, while Abram chose Canaan. And so the history of early Israel is full of the wanderings of the shepherd patriarchs, their households, their herds, and their flocks. Called forward by green fields and pleasant watering places ; lured on by the thirst for the peaceful conquests of unoccupied lands, and the martial conquest of alien peoples, they marched here and there, both before and after the exodus from Egypt. The Israelites were a restless people, and their constant seeking of new lands to possess and new opportunities to improve in those days was perhaps no more remarkable than the spirit of the Jew to-day who is willing to pay the price in the coin of suffering and isolation for getting on in the world, and for establishing a home and a com- petence for his children and those who come after them. He willingly wanders through the deserts of difficulty and prejudice if he can see before him the promised land of golden oppor- tunities. And that is why he is the most widely dispersed and yet the most strictly isolated of all the races of humanity. We do not know when man first began his career on the earth. We only know that, vast geologic ages ago, both the climate and the out- line of Europe were very different from what PAST HUMAN MIGRATIONS 13 they are to-day, and that man lived there with animals long since extinct. We do know that when the curtain first rose on the stage of his- tory it revealed in some favoured regions, such as the valley of the Nile, nations and civiliza- tions venerable with age and possessed of lan- guages and arts, and institutions that bear evi- dence of thousands of years of growth and development before the period of written his- tory began. According to the most authentic information gathered by the ethnologists, the earliest inhab- itants of Europe were of the yellow race, which, broadly speaking, not only includes the Chinese and Japanese, but the Slavic peoples as well. They were also the first inhabitants of the New World. In Europe to-day live two small peoples who escaped the common fate of an overwhelming avalanche of civilization that swept up behind them — the Basques sheltered by the Pyrenees, and the Finns and Lapps of the far North. The polished stone implements found in the caves and river gravels of west- ern Europe, the kitchen-middens upon the shores of the Baltic, the Swiss like-habita- tions, and the burial mounds all over Europe confirm the belief that close kinsmen of the Chinese were the first people of Europe. What happened in prehistoric times in the migrations 14 THE IMMIGRANT of humanity into Europe has been witnessed" in the coming of the Hungarians and the Turks into Europe. Although the Aryan race is undoubtedly the youngest of the great classes of humanity, it is, collectively, the most scattered. It includes the ancient Hindu and the modern English- man; the ancient Roman and the modern Ital- ian; the ancient Athenian and the modern Greek. Its descendants have peopled the New World, Europe, and Australia. The original seat of the Aryan race seems to have been in the Hindu-Kush mountain re- gion of northwestern Asia. In the less than five thousand years that have passed since the first pilgrims started out of those mountain valleys to conquer the world as they progressed, they have wandered all over the earth. Some tribes spread over the tablelands of Iran and the plains of India, and became the progeni- tors of the Medes, the Persians, and the Hin- dus. The tribes which entered Europe prob- ably went there by way of the Hellespont, pushing themselves down into the peninsulas and founding the Greek and Roman states. The vanguard of the tribes which swept across middle Europe from Asia to the west were the Celts. After them came the Teutonic tribes, and the hard-crowded Celts were forced PAST HUMAN MIGRATIONS 15 out upon the westernmost edge of Europe, into Gaul and Spain, and across the Channel to the British Isles, where they are represented to this day by the Welsh, the Irish, and the Highland Scots. Behind the Teutons came the Slavs, and they pressed up against the Teutons as hard as the Teutons in their first days had pressed against the Celts. From the time when the first venturesome tribes began to wander westward from the Aryan cradle-home until now, the wanderlust has possessed the Aryan peoples, and perhaps for four or five thousand years they have been moving forward and westward, and the great migration to America is but the continuing flow of the stream that began so many years ago. We find the history of this Aryan migration written in the earliest books of the race. The Rig- Veda, the most ancient of books, is made up chiefly of hymns which were composed by the sweet-singers of the Aryan clans which, during a thousand years, marched steadily forward through the Himalayas and across the Indian peninsula to the Ganges. These hymns are filled with the memories of the long conflict of the fair-faced Aryans and the dark- visaged aborigines. They tell of the terrors of the mountain passes, speaking often of the great dark mountains through whose gloomy 16 THE IMMIGRANT defiles the early immigrants to India wended their way. The people of eastern Asia seem to be the only great exception to the poetic statement that "westward the course of empire takes its way." China was first settled by a band of Turanian emigrants who headed toward the rising in- stead of toward the setting sun, and settled in the basin of the Yellow River, there to become the progenitors of the most populous nation human history has ever known. They found aborigines there just as Columbus found them in America and as the Aryans found them in India. Whence they came is beyond mortal ken. History stands silent and dumb, so re- mote were the days of their advent. Every reader is familiar with the sweep of the tides of humanity to America's shores after the discovery of the Western Hemisphere by Columbus. But far behind that date there were other races which had come to America and which had erected civilizations of their own — civilizations whose few remaining ruins are mutely eloquent witnesses of the high order of intelligence of the people. Perhaps the most mournful diary entry ever made was written by a priest who accompanied Cortez into Mexico, where, in the name of religion, an attempt was made to wipe even the last PAST HUMAN MIGRATIONS 17 reminiscence of the Aztec civilization from the earth. He told of their histories, their litera- ture, their medical science, their astronomical knowledge, and then related with pride and pleasure the joy he felt in seeing all their sacred books of knowledge placed in a huge bonfire and destroyed beyond all hope of resurrection. Since then centuries have come and gone, and archaeologists have been able to gather here and there small threads in the chain of evidence as to the nature of these civilizations. But the calendars of the Aztecs and the Mayas dis- close even a greater knowledge of astronomy than Caesar possessed when he ordained the Julian calendar, with the aid of the Alexan- drian scholars, and greater than was at the dis- posal of Pope Gregory when he revised it. But certain it is that the ruins of Mitla, of Palenque, of Quiragua, of Yucatan, of Casa Grande, and of the Incas, tell of races which in their day could match their best contempo- raries of Asia, Europe, and Africa. That the emigrants who laid the foundations of these civilizations came from across the seas seems certain. We see the Toltecs migrating across the barren plains which stretch almost from the Rio Grande to the vale of Anhuac. Then they disappear, legend says through the 18 THE IMMIGRANT ravages of pulque, and after them come the Chichimec — Mongolian in features, Chinese' in the forms of their civilization. Even to this day we may read on the pyramid of the sun, be- lieved to have been erected by them, the same inscription one most often finds upon the an- cient tombs of China — an inscription which means " longevity." Whence they came or how, there is nothing but circumstantial evi- dence to indicate, but it seems probable from that evidence that it was but a continuation of the eastward movement of humanity that be- gan when the Turanians settled in the valley of the Yellow River and founded the great empire of China. Throughout hundreds of generations human- ity has thus been moving here and there in search of the promised lands of better oppor- tunities, nearly always migrating amid neces- sities and hardships, and often at the risk of life itself. Sometimes it has been the hand of oppression and tyranny that has given im- petus to the tide; at other times it has been religious faith; now it has been a question of staying and starving or of going and enjoying plenty. But whatever the impelling motive, multiplied millions of people have traversed the lands and the seas of the earth in search of peace, happiness, and contentment. (From National Geographic Magazine, Washington, D. C. Copyright, 1913, SLAV PEASANTS OF BOSNIA, II COMING TO AMERICA NO more important or far-reaching ques- tion confronts the American people to- day than the problem of our present immigration. Each year approximately a mil- lion aliens — aliens in speech, aliens in cus- toms, aliens in ideals, though kindred in desire for opportunity to better their conditions, kin- dred in craving for freedom, and kindred in the possession of the spirit of ambition — swarm to our shores. Guided into proper channels, surrounded by proper influences, this alien horde may be transformed into good American' citizens and made to constitute a great political and economic asset to the nation. Fused into our national life in the melting-pot of Ameri- canization, and in the process of leaving be- hind the dross of Old World ways, it may become part and parcel of our body politic, devoted to American traditions, espousing our ideals, and filled with our own best aspirations. On the other hand, left to form itself into colonies which come into contact only with the 19 20 THE IMMIGRANT worst element of our native population, re- moved from the better influences of our na- tional life, never learning our language, never adopting our customs, never sensing our ideals, and never catching the spirit of our civilization, it might become a permanent source of dan- ger to our political well-being and a menace to the very life of the nation. The character of our immigration has changed. Formerly it came from northwestern Europe, and readily fused itself into our national life; to-day it comes largely from southern and eastern Eu- rope, and it holds itself aloof, preferring to colonize rather than to be assimilated. How to overcome this tendency toward per- manent separation is the great problem of American immigration. It is largely this phase of the question which occupied the attention of the United States Immigration Commission during its four years of investigation. It will probably constitute the subject of important legislation during the Wilson administra- tion. Only sixty of the ninety-three millions of our population can boast of a native parent- age. The remainder are foreigners or the chil- dren of foreigners. The immigrant army is received at the rate of a million a year, and assuming, as Congress has assumed, that it re- COMING TO AMERICA 21 quires five years to convert a foreigner into an American, there being sixty million native Americans, it follows that every twelve natives must convert one foreigner into an American. It is easy for twelve native American people to exert the Americanizing influence on one foreigner if they can get at him, but when he c lives in a colony aloof from them it becomes a difficult task. And under such conditions Americanization is not taking place as rapidly as was hoped, so far as the immigrant from southern and eastern Europe is concerned. Uncle Sam long ago said that the alien might become a citizen in five years, and the immigrant from north- western Europe usually goes after his citizen- ship papers as soon as the time limit has ex- pired. But not so with the immigrant from southern and eastern Europe. Precious little he cares about naturalization laws. To begin \ with, he does not come to America to stay. I He wants to make money and then go back | home to live in comparative affluence. And two- I fifths of those who come do go back home. ^ They barely exist while here and when they return home they have money enough to make them Morgans and Rockefellers in their native villages. But of those who stay, a surprisingly large number care nothing for citizenship. %% THE IMMIGRANT Statistics show that fully a third of those who have been here the necessary five years fail to take out citizenship papers. But, although the immigrant constitutes the great American problem, he is also a great American asset. The inquiries of the Immi- gration Commission show what a tremendous factor he is and has been in our industrial life. In the iron and steel industries he and his chil- dren contribute seven-tenths of the labour. In the slaughtering and meat packing industry they give three- fourths of the labour required. They do seventy per cent of the work in the bituminous coal mines, and nearly three-fifths of that of the glass factories. Seven-eighths of the labour in woollen and worsted manufac- turing is contributed by the immigrant and his children, and they produce nearly four-fifths of our silk goods, nearly nine-tenths of the cotton goods, and nearly nineteen-twentieths of the men's and women's clothing of the country. They make more than half of America's shoes, nearly four-fifths of its furniture. Half of the labour in making our collars, cuffs, and shirts is contributed by them, and five-sixths of the work in the leather industry is placed to their credit. They make half of our gloves, refine nearly nine-tenths of our oil, and nearly nineteen-twentieths of our sugar. Also they COMING TO AMERICA 23 manufacture nearly half of our tobacco and cigars. There is room for considerable speculation as to what the effect of the war between the Balkan States and Turkey will be on the im- migration of the immediate future. During the last decade we received nearly half a mil- lion immigrants from the countries affected, 216,000 coming from Greece alone. Will the decimation of the population through the pres- ent war and the expansion of the territory of the several countries through the conquest of the Allies result in a shifting of the tide of immigration from southern Europe to this new field? One may discover in the immigration figures for the years following the conclusion of the several European wars of the last half century a- falling off of immigration in general and of that from affected territory in par- ticular. But changes in America have been even more influential than European fluctuations of economic and other conditions upon the tide of immigration. We may read the story of our panics and our wars, of our hard times and our prosperous eras, in the rise and fall of the immigrant tide. As a sunshine recorder tells of the hours of sunshine and the hours of a clouded sky, so the immigration figures tell the 24 THE IMMIGRANT story of the bright days of peace and pros- perity and the dark days of panic, war, and in- dustrial depression. It was not until after 1840 that our immi- gration gave even a hint of assuming its pres- ent proportions. In that year it was still below the hundred thousand mark. But by 1850, beckoned hither by the great expansion of the opening Middle West, its numbers were swelled to 369,000 in a single year. Then came the panic of 1857 and an era of depression be- fore and after that saw the figures fall from 427,000 in 1854 to 118,000 in 1859. It began to recover in i860, but in the two years that followed it fell to a point as low as that of the early forties. Then it began to recover again, and by the end of the war reached a quarter of a million annually. By 1872 it passed the 400,000 mark again, but the hard times of the middle seventies forced the figures down from 457,000 in 1873 to 138,000 in 1878. By 1880 the stream had reached its high mark again, and then set a new record in 1882, with 786,000. Then it fell off to 338,000 in 1886, rising again to 623,000 in 1892, and once more falling to 229,000 in 1898. Then it rose again by leaps and bounds until it touched the million-mark in 1905. The panic of 1907 forced it down a half million, but in COMING TO AMERICA 25 1910 it recovered one-half of this loss. In 191 1 it slipped back another quarter of a mil- lion, standing then at 878,000. All of this proves that the real impelling motive of the immigrant who comes to America is to better his economic condition. Some say it is his love of liberty and freedom and his desire to escape oppression at home. But lib- erty and freedom were as much with us in 1909, when our immigration brought us only 751,000 souls, as in 1907, when it brought us 1,285,000. Nor is there anything to show that the countries of Europe placed any greater burdens upon the shoulders of their people in 1907 than in 1909, or that their eco- nomic condition was worse in 1907 than in 1909. We know from our own experience how much bigger a salary of a hundred dollars a month looks to the man in the rural districts than to his brother who gets it in the city. To the former it may appear to be all that a man could reasonably desire; to the latter it does not begin to get him the things he got before he came to the city. When the people of south- ern and eastern Europe hear of wages of $1.50 a day it sounds great. We are told that in the Balkan States 50 per cent of the people suffer from want of food in winter. Some see 26 THE IMMIGRANT here a permanent home, but more see an oppor- tunity to gather together enough money to go back and live in comparative affluence in the land of their birth. In many an Italian village the chief person- age is a man who adventured into America and came home with wealth. It is not in hu- man nature that he should tell of the privations he suffered en route to his El Dorado, or of the submerged existence he led while accumu- lating those dollars, so few in America, so many in Italy. It is such successful adven- turers as he that kindle the spirit of the Argonauts in the breasts of young men in southern and eastern Europe. Ill THE "OLD" IMMIGRANT NOTHING is more significant in the his- tory of immigration to America than the change in the character of the stream of humanity that is coming to our shores. The bulk of immigration always has come from Europe, for to date nearly ninety- three out of every hundred immigrants arriv- ing have come from that one continent. Prior to 1883 nineteen-twentieths of all our immigra- tion from Europe came from the United King- dom, Germany, Scandinavia, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Switzerland. As re- cently as 1883, only a little more than one- eighth of the European immigration came from eastern and southern Europe. To-day the immigration from that section has grown until it embraces more than four- fifths of all those who come. Meanwhile the countries which gave us our rich influx of home-builders prior to 1883 are not sending us many immi- grants to-day. The old immigration differed from the new 27 28 THE IMMIGRANT in many essentials. The former was largely a migration of people who came to become citi- zens, to acquire homes here, and to establish their posterity upon the land. They entered practically every line of activity in every part of the country. A large proportion of them were engaged in agriculture before they came and they went out as farm-labourers when they got here. But they were frugal and the la- bourer of yesterday became the farmer of to-day. They formed a very important factor in the development of all the territory west of the Allegheny Mountains. So rapid was the process of assimilation that the racial identity of their children was almost lost and for- gotten. The extent of the decline of immigration from northern Europe is emphasized by the results in various countries. Germany gave us eight times as many immigrants in 1883 as * n 191 1. Ireland gave us 76,000 of her people in 1883 and only 29,000 in 191 1. Sweden's contribution to our immigrant population fell from 64,000 in 1883 to 20,000 in 191 1, and Switzerland's from 10,000 to 3,500. As stated before, the people who come from northwestern Europe come to stay. Among them only sixteen out of every hundred go back to their homes in Europe, while thirty- THE " OLD " IMMIGRANT 29 eight out of every hundred from southern and eastern Europe return. The " old " immigra- tion comes with its families, for more than two- fifths are females. The " new " immigration leaves the women folk behind, for only a little more than one-fourth of the arrivals are fe- males. The better condition of the immigrant from northwestern Europe, as compared with his more unfortunate brother in other parts of the continent, is revealed by the money they were able to show. The average " old " immigrant can exhibit forty dollars to the immigration inspector. The average " new " immigrant has about sixteen dollars when he lands. The educational advantages of the " old " immi- grant are even more marked. There are more than thirteen times as many illiterates coming to us from the " new " immigration as from the " old." The " old " immigration measures up to all the usual tests of good citizenship in about the same ratio, when compared with the " new." And yet all authorities agree that in the " new " immigrant we have, as a rule, a diamond in the rough, a human being who is just as capable of transformation into a good citizen as his more fortunate brother from northwestern Europe. The process is simply a longer and more tedious one, and one to 4 30 THE IMMIGRANT which the immigrant does not lend himself as readily. Northwestern Europe has responded faith- fully to our demand for people to fill our lands and become a part of the bone and sinew of our country. It has in ninety-two years given us nearly seventeen million immigrants. Draw a line through Grand Forks, Sioux City, Omaha, Kansas City, and Hot Springs, and thence down the Louisiana-Texas boundary to the Gulf of Mexico, and the entire population west thereof is no greater than that contributed to us by northwestern Europe. Germany has given us more immigrants than any other country, with the single exception of Great Britain. Nearly five million Germans have come across the water to become a part of this nation. The pioneers of the great Ger- man migration were the Mennonites, who in 1682 followed the path of the English Quak- ers. They were the first people in America to petition the abolition of slavery. They also were the first people in America to raise their voice against intemperance. They were soon followed by the Scandinavians, of whom it has been said that there is no second generation, since the children become so thoroughly Ameri- cans. The coming of the " new " immigration has THE " OLD " IMMIGRANT 31 caused the members of the " old " to move out of their vocations and residential quarters and on up into a higher sphere. Where once the Irish, the German, and the Scandinavian worked and lived, now the Greek, the Italian, the Pole, the Bohemian, the Austrian, and the Russian Jew are found. The German, the Irishman, the Swede, and the Norwegian have moved into better quarters and have taken up more attractive work. The immigrant from northwestern Europe quickly becomes a citizen. More than nine- tenths of the Swedes and the Swiss entitled to citizenship papers have them, approximately seven-eighths of the Germans, Welsh, Danes, and Norwegians have taken them out, and four-fifths of the Irish, English, Scotch, and Dutch have cast their lot permanently with us. Compare this with the Allies in the Balkan- Turkish War, and the remarkable difference in the character of the aspirations of the two types of immigration will appear. Only one- eighth of the Servian immigrants have taken out citizenship papers, one-fifth of the Greeks, and a little more than a third of the Bulgarians. Seven-tenths of the southern Italians hold aloof from citizenship. When will our affairs reach that situation where there is an economic balance and an 32 THE IMMIGRANT end to immigration to the United States ? The late Professor W. J. McGee once declared that the soil of the United States has a sustaining power of 500 to the square mile. Assuming that one-third of our territory is waste land, we still, upon this basis, would have room for a round billion of people. Dr. McGee esti- mated that in three centuries we can reasonably hope to approach that number. But to reach that high population we would have to make heavier drafts upon Europe than Europe could bear. Assuming that we would need propor- tionately as many immigrants to expand from our present population to the billion mark as we needed to reach our present population, we would have to draw a draft upon Europe for 300,000,000 souls — a million every year for< three centuries. And when we consider that in two generations the foreigner — both of the old immigration and of the new — becomes so thoroughly Americanized that he follows the tendency of the native American toward race suicide, it will be seen that the small-family "inclinations of Americans will prevent as heavy contributions to the swelling population as " a billion in three centuries " would call for. Many economists think the immigration from northwestern Europe has settled down to a basis that is about normal, and that we hence- THE " OLD " IMMIGRANT 33 forth may count upon receiving about a quar- ter of a million of them during the average year. But there are others who say that the disappearance of cheap farming land and the filling of the factories with cheap labour from southern Europe will cut down the figures probably to half their present proportions. They believe that Germany is about the best example of what we may expect of the " old " immigration in the future; and Germany now gives us only one-eighth as many of her good citizens in a year as she did thirty years ago. All students of the immigration problem agree that the passing of the " old " immigra- tion accentuates the problems of the " new," and since it is becoming the latter or nothing, it behooves the nation to try to make the most of it, and to aid it to fill the place in future that the " old " has filled in the past, a The consefvM sus of opinion is that this is not so much a mat- \ ter of the restriction of immigration as it is \ of Americanizing the immigrants.. IV THE " NEW " IMMIGRANT SINCE three out of every four of our pres- ent-day immigrants come from countries where public education is unheard of, where popular participation in the affairs of the government is undreamed of, where dire pov- erty is the rule, it is apparent that the immigra- tion problem is a grav e one. And then, when we consider that two-thirds of this " new " immigration comes from the rural village and is dumped out upon our big centres of popu- lation, where vice surrounds it and fattens upon it, where it feels all of the worst effects of our civilization and none of its better effects, the wonder grows that the problem is not more serious than it is. But that it is a problem serious enough as it stands is recognized by all who have studied our immigration. While the " new " immi- grant, with his willingness to work in the dirt and the filth and the danger that are a con- comitant, has made possible much of America's splendid industrial development, the very fact 84 THE " NEW " IMMIGRANT 35 of his willingness to brave these things and to brave them at scant wages, has made him a £s liability to the nation. The man who will do these things is necessary to the industrial life of a nation; but the man who is content to do them and never to look up and beyond them may be a menace. If they come to America and start at the bottom of the ladder and gradually work up to better things, as the members of the " old " immigration have done, it augurs well for the future, and one of the most serious problems of the immigration situ ation is solved. But if they are content to live their own lives away and to commit their children to similar lives, it is evident that their assimilation must be uncertain and their value to the body politic a doubtful thing. The economic distress that led the pioneers of the southern and eastern European countries to migrate was pressing. The average earning of a Slovak, for instance, during the harvest season was twenty-five cents a day, and in other seasons he was fortunate to get half that much, for work was as scarce as wages were low. If a load of wood were brought to town dozens would apply for the job of sawing it. A strong, muscular servant-girl who could scrub and wash, attend to the garden, and look after the cattle and sheep, besides helping with the 36 THE IMMIGRANT harvest, might get ten dollars a year with a big cake and a pair of shoes thrown in. Hard rye bread and an onion constituted the daily diet. Edward Steiner, himself an immigrant, and now one of the greatest of our authorities on immigration, tells of seeing a pig die of disease and being buried. According to law it was covered with quicklime and coal oil. Hardly had the burial been completed when the carcass mysteriously disappeared — for the peasants were hungry and meat was scarce. And so it has been everywhere. Once the tide starts in a given country it keeps up, grow- ing larger as it comes. A few Joshuas and Calebs travel to this new Canaan and then write back telling of the milk and honey they find here, or else they go back with the grapes of American gold, and after that the trail needs no blazing. The rise of the " new " immigration is as remarkable as the decline of the " old." Thirty years ago there were less than 30,000 Aus- tro-Hungarians coming to America annually; to-day the annual arrivals total about 200,- 000 a year. Thirty years ago 126 Greeks came to America as immigrants; last year 26,- 000 came. Italy's contribution to our popula- tion was six times as great in 19 11 as in 1882, Russia's ten times as great, while Turkey sent THE " NEW " IMMIGRANT 37 us 19,000 in 191 1 as compared with 69 in 1882. The attitude of the governments affected by the " new " immigration depends largely upon the degree of its permanence in America. Italy, for instance, is very glad to see its peo- ple come over, because they have demonstrated that they not only can come back, but do come back. In a recent investigation made by the Italian government into conditions in Sicily, the beneficial effect of the returning of the emigrant was declared in the strongest terms. It was said that greater than the benefit of any laws the government could pass, better than any training the government could give, were the benefits conferred upon the community by the returning emigrant. Not merely did he bring new wealth, a thing the community badly needed, but what was much more im- portant, he brought with him the American spirit of intelligent enterprise which did much for his community. In short, the report in- dicates that the returned emigrant helps his community in Italy about as much as an agri- cultural school graduate helps the farmers of his community in America. And so it is proving throughout southern 1 and eastern Europe. The returning immigrant is carrying back American money, and along I 38 THE IMMIGRANT with it American thought and American cus- toms. Scarcely a village there is now without its returned immigrants. They bring Ameri- can phonographs, American collars and ties, American taste for modern clothes. It is no novelty even in the remote mountain villages to hear an American talking-machine screeching American ragtime. In every country the returning immigrant is somebody in his little community. He has made as much in America in a week as he made at home in several months, and his sav- ings of a thousand dollars make him a nabob. The people believe his stories of American genius and achievement until he gets to tell- ing about a forty-story building, and then their faith breaks down. They can believe that the Americans have a machine into which one can feed iron and wood and a wagon comes out of it finished; they can even believe that we have machines which will cut wheat, thresh it, grind the flour, and then make bread or cake out of it according to which button is pushed; but when it comes to a forty-story building, that is impossible. The pitiful thing about the " new " immi- grant is the fact that he usually hails from a rural village, where he worked on the farms and in the vineyards or herded sheep. Land- THE " NEW " IMMIGRANT 39 ing in a big city, he is immediately beset by those who would exploit him. Off he goes to some industrial centre where he must live in 'places scarcely fit for human habitation, crowded with a dozen others in a shack scarce big enough for two. The work he finds is either filthy or dangerous. He goes into the bituminous coal mine, into the fertilizer fac- tory, into the wood-working plant, into the slaughter house — everywhere that there is work too disagreeable or dangerous for the native American workingman. The toll that is taken from these immigrants is fearful. With few women among them to cast a refining influence over them, they spend their time between working and drinking, as a rule, and saving what they can, with the day in view when they can return to their native land. In the vast majority of cases their con- dition for the time being is worse in America than it was in their native lands. But they sacrifice themselves to-day in America in order that to-morrow at home they may live in com- fort. If they lived according to American standards their wages would barely suffice to keep them going. But they will half starve themselves and live in the worst of surround- ings for the sake of going back home some day. THETM] 40 THE IMMIGRANT Where the women come along they usually keep boarding-houses, and their husbands com- pel them to do so as long as the wives are yet without the American spirit. But manyVthe time when there has been a Declaration of Independence proclaimed in one of these board- ing-houses when the wife concluded no longer to play slave to her lord. The Slav has none of our consideration for his wife. He has a proverb that he is happy twice in his life; once when he marries and once when he buries his wife. His wife sings, " Love me true, and love me quick, pull my hair and use the stick." The Montenegrin says his wife is his mule. The Greek and the Italian, the Austrian and the Magyar treat their wives much better. Three- fourths of all the " new " immigra- tion is made up of men and boys. The Balkan States send only one woman to twenty-five men, and the same ratio exists with the Greeks. The ones who have womenfolk with them usu- ally stay; most of the bachelors return. More than half the Croatians, Italians, Slovaks, and Magyars return to their native homes, and in- quiries show that perhaps two-thirds of all who go never return again. Among those who help to cut down the hig'i percentage of returning immigrants are t . Jews of eastern Europe. They come over KlGR^ THE " NEW " IMMIGRANT 41 great numbers and precious few of them ever go back. They correspond to our " old " im- migration in their desire to make America their home. The immigrant who returns takes his money with him; but he has left much more than value received when he does so. The entire list of Italians who build a tunnel under the Hudson River might trek back to Europe with their savings, but the benefit of that tun- nel will continue throughout the years. With- out their labour the mighty works of which \ we Americans boast so pride fully could not have been accomplished. The comforting thought about the " new " immigration is that it has not much to unlearn. It is often easier to build a new house than to remodel an old one, and likewise it might be easier to make a good citizen of an illiterate villager from the lands of the Slovaks, the Italians, and the Finns than of their better educated brethren who must first unlearn some fixed notions. V WHY THE IMMIGRANT COMES ONE needs look no further than the statistics of the ebb and flow of the immigrant tide to discover that the real basis of American immigration is more eco- nomic than idealistic. At all times in our his- tory immigrants have come to America seeking an asylum from persecution of one kind or another — political or religious. But the vast majority have come because they thought America offered better opportunities to get on in the world. With the returning alien of the " new " immigration this is patent, but it is no less true of the one who comes and stays, else why should the tide rise so high in fat years and fall so low in lean ones ? It always has required some period of un- usual economic distress or of religious perse- cution to start an important movement of im- migrants to the United States. It was the Irish potato famine that caused Irish immigra- tion to double in a single year and to be multi- plied five times in as many years. In the mid- 42 WHY THE IMMIGRANT COMES 43 die forties conditions in Germany began to swell the immigrant tide, and in eight years the number of our German immigrants increased sevenfold. But, as a rule, especially in the case of the " new " immigration, the number coming from any one country is very small at first. In 1870 only twenty Greeks were welcomed to our shores. Not until 1890 did the Greek arrivals reach the thousand mark. But during the suc- ceeding twenty years the stream continued to grow until in 19 10 it was more than a thou- sandfold greater than in 1870, and more than twenty times as great as in 1890. In 1870 fewer than three thousand Italians came to America. But the Italian immigration had in- creased to twelve thousand a year by 1880, fifty thousand a year by 1890, a hundred thousand a year by 1900, and to nearly a quarter of a million by 19 10. Austria-Hungary gave us less than five thousand immigrants in 1870 and more than a quarter of a million in 1910. The Russian immigrant wave had barely started in 1870, and yet it has brought us nearly three million souls since then, while Austria- Hungary and Italy have each sent us more than three million in that time. All European countries except Russia and Turkey recognize the right of their people to 4* THE IMMIGRANT come to America. Under the laws of Russia, citizens are forbidden to leave the country for a permanent residence elsewhere, but the fact that upward of three million of them have come to America in forty years demonstrates that even a despotic nation cannot stay the irresist- ible wanderlust of humanity when economic necessity forces it to move on. Turkey has the same sort of law, but it also is more honoured in its breach than in its keeping. When north- ern Europe bids farewell to its immigrants it knows that when once they reach their Ameri- can port of entry they are lost to Europe for- ever. But with southern and eastern Europe it is different. Here the emigration of their people to America is looked upon as more in the nature of a movement of transient indus- trial workers, a fair percentage of whom will return. It is felt that the ones who return, plus the money and the experience they bring back, are worth more than the larger number who went out. The present-day immigration embraces a comparatively small proportion of inhabitants of the larger cities. Only the Russian Jews form an exception to this rule, but that arises from the fact that they are compelled to live in the cities. The immigrant usually comes, not because he is unable to make a living at WHY THE IMMIGRANT COMES 45 home — for the possession of enough money to get here argues his ability to live at home — but in the hope of making a better living than is possible at home. He is simply a man with labour to sell and he sees a much higher price for it in America. The direct causes of our immigration to-day are the letter writer and the returning immi- grant. It is from them that the European peasant hears of this great land of high wages across the seas. Their messages tell of pros- perity, of earning as much in a day, often, as the peasant earns in a week. There is scarcely a village in all southern and eastern Europe which has not contributed its share to the im- migrant tide, and, in fact, scarcely a man or woman who has not a father, a brother, an uncle, or a cousin over here in America or who has been here. Thirty million dollars a year is sent back in American money orders as mute but indisputable witness of financial success in America. The whole neighbour- hood hears about it when a money order ar- rives. For instance, when the Italian saves a hundred dollars and sends it home — that's five hundred lire in Italy, and five hundred lire buys a home. If some one sent you enough money from across the seas to buy a nice little bungalow, wouldn't your friends soon know * 1 46 THE IMMIGRANT about it? And if your brother were to go to South America and send enough money back to his parents in a single year to buy a home, and with it a letter saying that other members of the family could do just as well and that he had places for them all, wouldn't you want to go ? Well, that's exactly what happens when the u new " immigrant sends his money orders home. In many cases a proud father and mother, when they receive such letters, pass them from hand to hand and let all their neighbours see the great prosperity of their son, until the whole community knows of his success in America. And there is one class that this news particularly appeals to — the boys with budding ambition. They are as eager to try their luck in America as is the American country boy to go to the city. These letters tell little of the hardships and the privations endured to make saving possible. Come closer home. A country boy whose par- ents stand well in his community — his father an elder in the church, a justice of the peace, or a school trustee — goes to the city. At home the boy goes with the best people of his com- munity, has his own horse and buggy, and is otherwise well fixed; but when he gets to the city and becomes a street car conductor or a WHY THE IMMIGRANT COMES 47 factory hand, do you suppose that his pride will let him tell of the little hall-room he sleeps in, of the cheap food he must live on, of the doors that are closed against him socially? No, he works on, hoping eventually to climb the ladder high enough to command in town the things he gave up when he left home. So it is with the new immigrant — at best it is hard to give up the life of the little village with its adjacent poppy fields, its friendships, and all that, but when the immigrant arrives and gets to work, rinding himself " only a Dago " or " only a Hunkey " in the eyes of the native American, fit only to be cursed and cuffed about, handled in the mines and the other places which use unskilled labour as we might handle cattle and horses, it's a situa- tion that the people back home need not be told about. The immigrant will bear it all because he must, denying himself every comfort to hasten the days when he needs bear it no longer. It is a terrible price he pays, but he pays it with a cheerfulness that is pleasant to behold when once you have looked through his rough and forbidding exterior into his heart. When he is killed in the course of his work — and he has a monopoly of the dangerous and extra-hazardous trades — the verdict of the coroner's jury may not be in so many words 48 THE IMMIGRANT that it was " only a wop," but it might as well be — for that is nearly always the effect of it. Perhaps fifty thousand such verdicts are ren- dered annually in the United States, but " they are tough, they don't mind such things/' says many a mine foreman. Next to the advice of relatives and friends who already have emigrated, the propaganda conducted by the steamship lines is the most im- portant immediate cause of immigration from Europe to America. Remember how the rail- roads advertised when new territory was opened up here in the United States? See the appealingly beautiful descriptions of this new land flowing with the milk and honey of plenty ? Here's a sample farm that was bought for ten dollars an acre and now is worth one hundred; and exhibit B is a man who came here with a thousand dollars and now is worth a fortune. That's what is happening to-day in the im- migrant centres of southern and eastern Eu- rope. The immigrant passenger is a profitable animal to carry. Ten steerage passengers can be carried for what it costs to transport one first-class passenger, and the net profit is many times greater. So, in spite of the fact that the promotion of immigration is made unlawful here and of emigration unlawful abroad, what WHY THE IMMIGRANT COMES 49 cannot be done openly is done through local and sub-agents. But let hard times come here. Then it is different. Everybody is admonished to stay at home and wait until it blows over, and the immigration figures show that the advice is heeded. The panics of 1873 and 1893, an d even that of 1907 — which was not generally regarded as an industrial panic — caused an immediate fall- ing off in the stream of immigration that with- out such financial depression gradually rises and rises, promising for 19 13 a record-break- ing tide. Whatever may be the toll of lives exacted by our crushing age of steel, there is not the slightest fact upon which to predicate the prediction that Europe will any time in the near future cease to furnish " wops " in plenty for the sacrifice. VI CONTRACT LABOUR AND INDUCED IMMIGRATION ONE of the classes of immigrants that the government desires to keep out of the United States is made up of la- bourers who come by contract, or who have their passage paid. A law prohibiting the en- try of such immigrants was passed in 1885 and has been strengthened by later amendments. The first weakness was found in the lack of provision, of machinery for the enforcement of the law. The first amendment gave the Sec- retary of the Treasury the right to exclude such immigrants, and the second amendment, in 1888, gave him the right to deport any who were discovered here within a year after their arrival. When the new immigration law was passed in 1907, it contained a broad provision shut- ting the doors of our ports to all who have been induced or solicited to come by offers or promises of employment or in consequence of either written, printed, or verbal agreements, 50 LABOUR AND IMMIGRATION 51 whether express or implied. It must also be shown that no organization of any kind what- soever paid for the ticket or passage of the immigrant. The law provides for the admission of skilled labour under contract, when such labour unemployed cannot be found here, and for the admission of professional people and personal and domestic servants. A penalty of one thou- sand dollars is imposed for the violation of the act, and it is to be applied to any person or organization prepaying transportation or as- sisting or encouraging immigration. Suit may be instituted by the United States, by any per- son for his own benefit, or by the alien affected. The issuance of circulars or advertisements in foreign countries inviting immigration renders the person or organization doing so liable to the penalties of the law, and the immigrant coming as a result thereof liable to deporta- tion. An exception is made of the states, ter- tories, and the District of Columbia. They may advertise their natural inducements to im- migration. Steamship lines may announce their sailing dates and tell of the facilities they offer, but may not tell of the attractions of the United States. It has been found to be one thing, however, to enact a law shutting out contract labour and 52 THE IMMIGRANT induced immigration, and quite another to se- cure an effective enforcement of it. The Com- missioner-General of Immigration says it is exceedingly difficult to secure evidence that will convict the person or organization that plainly is surreptitiously evading the law. He finds it much easier to find the immigrant and de- port him than to detect the agency that brought him in a specific violation of the statute. The courts have been inclined to be liberal in their construction of the law, but woe betide the immigrant who permits it to leak out that he has a certain, definite job in sight when he lands. On the other hand, it is the almost uni- versal opinion of the immigration authorities that hundreds of thousands of immigrants have a better idea of the jobs they are going to get than the law allows. A still larger number get here under direct and indirect violation of the law against solicitation of immigrants. Large employers of labour have a smooth iway of getting around the law. The prospec- tive immigrant is not particular about having a definite contract for a job when he lands. All he cares for is a reasonable assurance that there is work in sight. All the employer has to do is to let it be known around his plant that he needs more labour and that he will give em- ployment to the relatives and friends of his LABOUR AND IMMIGRATION 53 employees when they come. Letters by the score are sent back to Europe, some containing money for tickets for relatives, and all containing the information that a job is in sight. The next steamer brings a goodly number of immi- grants in response. How can the officials of the government detect or punish such viola- tions of the spirit if not the letter of the law? Then there is the immigrant banker, the im- migrant grocer, the immigrant saloonkeeper, and their like. They want more immigrants to come, for it makes their business better. They are in touch with steamship ticket-agents at home. A plant which needs more labourers only has to tell them, and straightway a stream of letters goes to Europe telling of the inces- sant demand for labour, and enclosing fictitious newspaper articles telling of the fine living conditions, the good wages, and the like. Armed with these, the steamship agent in Eu- ropean labour centres can work just about as successfully as our own American railroad immigration agent worked in days gone by, although he must work surreptitiously. To avoid difficulty with the immigration au- thorities the immigrants who come in this way are furnished with various and mostly fictitious addresses, and only the leader of the group, selected for his superior intelligence, has the 54 THE IMMIGRANT address of the real consignee, who usually is an immigrant banker or saloonkeeper. Of course the people who are determined to evade the law know its ins and outs, and they are always careful to make their offers and promises in such a vague way that they could hardly be held by the courts to be really offers and promises, and the Immigration Commis- sion admits that they are probably not actu- ally violations of the letter of the law. The operations in behalf of emigration in southern and eastern Europe are not carried on for the purpose of assisting the emigrant to establish a home in America nor to supply American employers with labour. Rather, they are simply for the purpose of getting steerage passengers for steamship lines. Nor are they desirous that these people shall come to the United States to stay. They prefer the kind that come back, for that means two steerage fares instead of one. One of the most effective of the promoters of immigration is the travelling labour agent. He is a common labourer himself, and fre- quently travels back and forth between the United States and his native country. He is supposed to be a man who likes America so well that he is making it his permanent home, and who returns to his home country only to LABOUR AND IMMIGRATION 55 see the " old folks." He tells all the natives he meets of the splendid opportunities in America, and draws an idealistic picture of conditions here. If his auditors are interested and would go but for fear of the perils of the trip, he readily assures them that on such and such a day he will be going back himself, and will be glad to look after them en route. When they meet he is elected the leader of the group, each one paying him a certain stipend for his services, all the while ignorant of the fact that the steamship company pays him a commission on each immigrant he gets, and that the labour agents or employers in America will also pay him so much per head for his wards. Another method resorted to by the foreign steamship agents is to scatter circulars of American land companies and labour agents, to inspire the discussion of immigration in the local papers, with a view to arousing the imagi- nation of the potential immigrant. Then there are runners or agitators who go from village to village to stir up emigration enthusiasm and to coach prospective immigrants as to the answers they shall give when they reach the gates of America. They deliver lectures, and in some cases use moving pictures to tell of the wonders of America and the successes of their brethren here. Often prominent citizens, 56 THE IMMIGRANT social leaders, and even lesser government functionaries are sub-agents of the steamship lines at a commission of so much per head for every immigrant started to the New World. The steamship companies, it is charged, also act in collusion with the local money-lenders. An immigrant wants transportation to the United States but has not the money to pay for it; the money-lender furnishes him the ticket on credit and charges him a big price for it and a bigger interest until the debt is satisfied. The steamship company stands be- tween the money-lender and loss. The Commissioner-General of Immigration, ,Daniel Keefe, in his report for 1912, waxes in- dignant in contemplating this traffic in human freight by the steamship companies. He says, to say that the steamship companies are respon- sible for an unnatural immigration is not to state a theory, but a fact — a fact that some- times becomes, indeed, if not always, a crying shame. Contrast this attitude with that of the gov- ernment during the Civil War when President Lincoln came to the conclusion that the only way to supply the need of labour to take the place of the men who had gone into the armies was to establish a contract labour system which would permit the importation of labour under LABOUR AND IMMIGRATION 57 binding contracts to secure the return of the passage money. This law was afterward found to work much injustice and finally was re- pealed. At one time the nations of Europe them- selves took advantage of our hospitality to the incoming tide by using this country as a dumping-ground for their criminals. In 1866 a joint resolution was adopted by Congress stating that it had been ascertained that it was proposed in Switzerland to pardon a murderer on condition that he would emigrate to the United States, and that such action was re- garded by the United States as unfriendly and inconsistent with the comity of nations, and authorizing all diplomatic officers to insist that such acts should not be repeated. VII IMMIGRANT RACES ONE of the most interesting phases of the investigation of the problems of the great movement of humanity from Europe to the United States by the Immigra- tion Commission, was its study of the races which furnish America with its immigrant population. This study shows something of the future possibilities of our immigrant tide, revealing the numbers of each race that have remained behind, the proportion that has come to America, and the probable future arrivals. Upon some races we have made such heavy drafts that there are comparatively few more to come. Upon others we have made like heavy drafts, but their great numbers and their fecundity have prevented any material cutting down of the supply in sight. Under the direction of Dr. Daniel Folkmar, a dictionary of our immigrant races was pre- pared for the Commission. It is the first work that ever has undertaken fully to measure the numerical strength and the geographic distribu- 58 (Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. ITALIAN GIRLS. IMMIGRANT RACES 59 tion of immigrant races in the United States. Having done this it gives us many striking views of our immigration in its effect upon European peoples. We see in some cases, notably in those of the Slovaks and the Hebrews, that the supply is so small and the rate of immigration so large that it may termi- nate ultimately from the exhaustion of the stock. On the other hand, in the case of the Russians, the Germans, and the Italians, the visible sup- ply is so great and its rate of recruitment so high, that we can draw from them indefinitely and in large numbers without seriously affect- ing the general balance. In the preparation of the dictionary of im- migrant races, Dr. Folkmar and his associates called in the best authorities in the country to check up and verify their work. Even then troubles were encountered. For instance, one of the great distinctions which ethnologists make between races of people is the shape of their heads. They are sharply divided between long-headed and broad-headed races, and the ethnologist measures the effect of the com- mingling of races by the changes in the shape of the head. Broad-headed races wear big hats and long-headed ones have long faces in pro- file. It was stated by Dr. Folkmar and his asso- 60 THE IMMIGRANT ciates that some of the Greeks, rubbing up against other races to the north and east of them, had changed somewhat from the " long *' to the " broad " head. Now, if you want to get a rise out of a Greek tell him that the Greek head is not so long as in the days of an- cient Hellas. He prides himself upon his ancient ancestors. He wants to be considered genuinely Hellenic. The official title of his coun- try now is the " kingdom of Hellas," and every subject of the Danish George, no matter how mixed in his race, styles himself a Hellene. When it was stated that the Greeks were more inclined to broad-headedness, it stirred them up, and the Greek legation took up the ques- tion and protested against such a base slander upon the people of Greece. But scientific fact cannot be changed by diplomatic representa- tion, and the dictionary shows the Greek heads have been undergoing a change. Some striking illustrations of the great movement of humanity to American shores are afforded by the investigations of Dr. Folk- mar and his associates. For instance, we find that there are more Irish and their children in the United States than there are in Ireland. There are about five million in America as compared with four and a half million in Ire- land, and they are still coming to us at the rate IMMIGRANT RACES 61 of about thirty thousand a year. No other race of its size has contributed so largely to American immigration as the Irish. During the forty years following 1820 they gave us nearly two-fifths of all our immigrants, and since the beginning of 1900 have sent us ap- proximately half a million of their people. The Irish tongue is rapidly going out of existence as a means of communication. It is said that there are fewer than five thousand people in Ireland who can read books in Irish; that not a single newspaper is published in Irish nor a single church service conducted in it. Only four people out of a thousand in Ireland can- not speak English, and they are mainly in the remote western part of the country. The Jewish immigration to America has been vast in numbers and rich in material. They have come here as Moses led his hosts into Canaan, to found a home for themselves, their children, and their children's children, and all who have studied the immigration problem with profit concede that in the Jew we have secured one of the best elements in our citizenship. New York City alone now has a Jewish population more than ten times as great as that of all Palestine, and the United States as a whole has eight times as many as all Asia 62 THE IMMIGRANT together. New York has a million of them, which is one-half of America's Jewish popu- lation. During a period of fourteen years they have been coming to our shores at the rate of ninety thousand a year. The entire Jewish population of the world is placed at eleven mil- lion. Europe has eight million of these, and it is from them that our Jewish immigration mainly is drawn. The total Czech population of Europe, which includes the Bohemians, the Moravians, and the Slovaks, is less than eight million, but we received nearly 500,000 in a single twelve-year period. Most of this was represented by the surprising incoming tide of Slovaks. Out of less than two million population they have given us nearly 400,000 in twelve years. The wonderful military prowess of the peo- ple of the Balkan States — Servians, Bul- garians, and Montenegrins — during their war with Turkey focussed the attention of the world upon them. The Bulgarians are phys- ically of one stock and linguistically of an- other. They are of Asiatic, or Mongolian, origin, yet speak a Slavic tongue. The Turks form only one-seventh of the population of European Turkey as it stood before the recent outbreak of hostilities, and practically all of central Turkey down to the ^Egean Sea, except IMMIGRANT RACES 63 a little strip along the coast, which was occu- pied by the Greeks, was populated by Bul- garians. In industrial districts in the United States largely peopled by foreigners, one hears much about the Croatians. They are people who have relatives in the war with Turkey, em- bracing the Croatian, the Servian, the Monte- negrin, the Bosnian, and several lesser peoples. They are coming to us at the rate of nearly thirty thousand a year, but the present situa- tion in southern Europe is likely to wipe out the major portion of this immigra- tion. Germany has furnished the United States more immigrants since 1820 than any other single country, although the United Kingdom as a whole has done better than Germany, giv- ing us nearly eight million souls as compared with Germany's six million. But German im- migration has fallen off to a small fraction of its former proportions, and to-day more Ger- man immigrants are coming to the United States from Austria than from Germany itself. During twelve years there came to the United States enough Italians to people five cities like Rome; enough Greeks to people two cities like Athens; more Poles than there are 64 THE IMMIGRANT in Warsaw ; more Scandinavians than there are in Stockholm; more Magyars than in Kron- stadt; and more Finns than in Viborg. Italy's contribution to American immigra- tion of nearly two and a quarter million souls in twelve years, stands out as a marked feature of immigration history. Nearly nine-tenths of this came from southern Italy. The people of northern and southern Italy speak such vary- ing dialects that they scarcely can converse with one another. In some parts of southern Italy more than three-fourths of the people are illiterate. Bosco, the Italian statistician, ad- mits that Italy leads all the nations in the num- ber of crimes against the person. Niceforo, the Italian sociologist, declares that the in- habitants of northern Italy possess all the quali- fications for good citizenship, but that the South Italian is an individualist having little adaptability to highly organized society. Yet Italians from the south who come to this coun- try and who are not colonized with their own people, but who mingle freely with native Americans, rapidly become good citizens. There are a dozen or more linguistic races which send immigrants out of eastern Europe in large numbers. The Poles gave us nearly a million immigrants in twelve years, the Lithu- IMMIGRANT RACES 65 anians 175,000, the Ruthenians 150,000, the Croatians and Slovenians 335,000. All of these races are Slavs except the Lithuanians, who are the only people of the Lettic group in Europe. The future historian, no doubt, will acknowl- edge a great debt to the painstaking students who are compiling from year to year the statis- tics concerning the racial characteristics of the flood of immigration into the United States. A century hence the student of this question will be able to determine with scientific pre- cision exactly what is the result of the fusion of the nations in this republican melting-pot. VIII THE STEERAGE PASSENGER IT is doubtful if anywhere else in the entire civilized world can such vile and disgrace- ful treatment of human beings in masses be found as on the majority of the steamships which carry our immigrants to us. The con- ditions which these people meet beggar descrip- tion, and the official picture that has been painted of it is so startling that it could scarcely be accepted did it not find corroboration in every unofficial picture of the steerage that our best word-artists have painted. One stands amazed that greed for gold could lead men to subject their fellow-beings to such conditions as the steerage passenger endures, according to the revelations of the Immigration Commission. The picture it draws is a careful one. The data were obtained by special agents travelling as steerage passengers on twelve transatlantic liners and from cabin observa- tions of the steerage on two others. This was done in 1908, when the immigration reached a very low ebb. The Commission is careful to 66 THE STEERAGE PASSENGER 67 tell us that the information was obtained at a time when travel was at its lightest and the steerage at its best. Three kinds of steerage are now recognized — the old, the new, and the combination of the two. The old brings the bulk of our immigra- tion from southern and eastern Europe. It is unspeakably bad. The new brings the bulk of the immigrants from northwestern Europe, and it is all that can be desired. Between the two classes of ships are those which are be- ing transformed from the old to the new. On these a difference of $7.50 per ticket is the difference between decency and indecency, be- tween a chamber of horrors like the Black Hole of Calcutta and comfortable quar- ters. Heretofore the steamship companies have apologized for the filthy conditions of the old steerage by saying the immigrants were a piggish lot of people who would render the first cabin as filthy as the steerage if they were per- mitted ; they also asserted that it was impossible to better conditions as long as " such cattle " peopled the steerage. But now we find, in the ship that has part new and part old steerage accommodations, that the immigrant in the steerage is not different from the remainder of humanity — he will be reasonably clean if he 68 THE IMMIGRANT has a reasonable chance. The Commission con- cludes that " there is no reason why the dis- gusting and demoralizing conditions that have generally prevailed in the steerage of immi- grant ships should continue." Let us glance at the Commission's typical picture of the old steerage. The investigator who painted it was a woman, who made the twelve-day voyage in the steerage travelling as a single Bohemian peasant woman. Before sailing all steerage passengers were supposed to be vaccinated. The women and men were vaccinated in separate rooms and an inspec- tion card stamped by the U. S. Consulate, certifying that they had been vaccinated, was given them. In her case not one of the three scratches had punctured the skin. She found that others had fared the same way. The compartment in the steerage for single women she describes as better than those for other steerage passengers. The bunks were arranged in tiers, each having a straw mattress covered with a slip sheet. A small blanket was the only covering provided. There was no pillow; a life-preserver under the head of the mattress was the substitute. It was practically impossible to undress properly for retiring, be- cause of lack of privacy and insufficient cov- ering. When the steerage is full, each pas- THE STEERAGE PASSENGER 69 senger's private space is limited to his bunk alone. It must serve him at once as sleeping quarters, clothes closet, baggage-room, kitchen, pantry, and what not. There is not a hook upon which to hang clothes, not a receptacle for refuse, not a cuspidor, and no convenience for use in times of seasickness. There were two washrooms, used indis- criminately by men and women. One of them was 7 by 9 feet, with ten faucets of cold water along two of the walls. The wash- basins resembled in size and shape the ordinary stationary laundry tub. They had to serve as wash-basins, dishpans, laundry-tubs. In the other room the equipment was identical, except that there was a hot-water spigot that did not work, and a four-foot trough for dish-wash- ing, with sea water, seldom hot, from one spigot. Many of the passengers made heroic efforts to keep clean. It was forbidden to bring water into the sleeping compartments for washing purposes, but even when the women rose early and carried in a little water in the soup-pails, as soon as they were discovered they were brutally driven out by the stewards. The law requires that each immigrant shall be furnished with all the eating utensils neces- sary. They are each furnished with a work- 70 THE IMMIGRANT ingman's dinner-pail, a spoon, and a fork. Each immigrant must care for his own pail, and as a rule has nothing but cold salt water with which to wash it throughout the entire trip. The pails are so cheap that usually the salt water rusts them and makes them unfit to use before port is reached. Again the law requires that tables shall be furnished for the passengers to eat upon, but these are only long single board affairs usually in a part of a steer- age sleeping compartment not used on that voyage for bunks. All of the foul smells from the sleeping compartments come unob- structed into these improvised dining-rooms and drive the passengers to the open deck. The investigator says that one morning she wished to see if it were possible for a woman to rise and dress without the presence of men onlookers. She waited her chance, and al- though the breakfast bell rang at 6.55 and she was ready for a meal at 7.15, the steward warned her not to come so late again, and gave her only a piece of bread. The meals that were served were bad in quality and prepara- tion, and more than half of the food was thrown into the sea. The daily inspection of the immigrants was a farce. They were as- sembled and had their inspection tickets THE STEERAGE PASSENGER 71 punched six times, covering six days. From the time the women went on board until they landed they did not have one moment's privacy. Not one young woman in the steerage escaped attack. The investigator herself was among these, and yet the steerage officials made no effort to punish the offenders. Some resisted for a time and then weakened; some fought with all their physical strength. Two refined Polish girls fought with pins and teeth. The atmosphere is described as one of general law- lessness and total disrespect for women, which naturally demoralized the women after a time. Summing up, the government investigator says that her life during those twelve days was passed in a disorder and in surroundings that offended every sense. The vile language of the men, the screams of the women defending themselves, the crying of the children wretched because of their surroundings, and practically every sound that reached the ear, irritated be- yond endurance. There was no sight before which the eye did not prefer to close. Every impression was offensive. Worse than this was the general air of immorality due almost wholly to the improper, indecent, forced mingling of men and women, who were total strangers and often did not understand a word of the same language. 72 THE IMMIGRANT Contrast this terrible picture of conditions that cry to heaven for remedy, conditions that apply on steamships carrying perhaps two- thirds of our immigrants — contrast it with the picture of the new steerage, where the people are given staterooms, where practically every- thing is on a simplified second-cabin basis, the floors kept scrupulously clean, ample toilet facilities, separate for the sexes, are provided, where clean towels, clean napkins, and clean bed linen are furnished, where satisfactory food is supplied, where the wants of the sick and of the children are looked after, where women travelling alone are safe and not the prey of both crew and male passengers, and the difference is astonishing — and yet the differ- ence in price on ships that are only partially converted from the old to the new steerage is only $7.50. How long the United States will permit the major portion of its prospective citizens to make their voyage to America under such con- ditions as the Immigration Commission says are typical of the old steerage no one can definitely foretell, but the indications are that these disclosures will result in prompt action by Congress. The travels of the agents of the Commission in the steerage seem to have been the first time that the government ever THE STEERAGE PASSENGER 73 has studied the steerage question in a first-hand way. Perhaps ten million American immi- grants have received such treatment as the Immigration Commission found to exist — and millions of them fared worse than that. Of course there is the defence based on the assumption that each immigrant is a free agent; that he comes of his own accord; that he is content because he will cross again and again under the same circumstances. But in this day of enlightenment few persons not wholly blinded by greed will justify on any grounds the cruelty, the indecency, the utter horror of the old steerage. The fact is proved by those steamship lines that are installing the new type of steerage accommodations. IX LANDING AT ELLIS ISLAND NO cabin passenger ever sailed through the Narrows and beheld the Statue of Liberty without feeling a thrill at the sight. If it were not the thrill of patriotic devotion to his native or adopted land, it must be a thrill of pleasure at being safely across and with a chance to set foot on solid ground so soon again. But, if the sight of the god- dess stirs the cabin, what must it mean to the steerage? To the steerage a new world is dawning and a week or more of an earthly purgatory ending. Dr. Steiner, the eminent immigration authority who has carried his gos- pel of kindness into many a steerage, himself acknowledges that often he has tried to over- come the deep despair of the steerage by re- minding its people that though it seems like hell, there is a heaven beyond. He says that it is not easy to travel in the steerage; not be- cause there is not room enough, or air enough, or food enough, although that is all true; but 74 LANDING AT ELLIS ISLAND 75 because it is hard to believe down there that the God of Israel is not dead. To the immigrant Ellis Island is an ordeal. The " man at the gate " is a big giant who can speed him through or crush the life out of his hopes in an instant. A thousand lies, some useful, some useless, and some unnecessary, are prepared in the hope that they will help in the navigation of the tortuous channel of admission to America. Passing quarantine and the customs officials as the ship comes up the bay, it is warped into its dock, and when the last cabin passenger has gone ashore the steerage people are put into barges and towed away to Ellis Island, where final judgment awaits them. Their tickets are fastened in their caps, or pinned to their clothes, and their bills of lading are in their hands. When they enter they are lined up in long rows, with two doctors for each row. They must walk down a narrow lane made by rows of piping, with an interval of twenty feet between them. As they approach, the doctors begin to size up each immigrant. First they survey him as a whole. If the general impression is favourable they cast their eyes at his feet, to see if they are all right. Then come his legs, his body, his hands, his arms, his face, his eyes, and his head. While the immigrant has been walking 76 THE IMMIGRANT the twenty feet the doctors have asked and an- swered in their own minds several hundred questions. If the immigrant reveals any in- timation of any disease, if he has any deform- ity, even down to a crooked finger, the fact is noticed. If he is so evidently a healthy person that the examination reveals no reason why he should be held, he is passed on. But if there is the least suspicion in the minds of the doctors that there is anything at all wrong with him, a chalk mark is placed upon the lapel of his coat. After passing the surgeons who examine their health tickets and their bodies, the immigrants next encounter the one who examines their eyes. With towels and antiseptic solutions by him, the surgeon rolls the eyelids of the im- migrants back on a round stick resembling a pencil. He is looking for trachoma. Those discovered to have it are sent away for de- portation. The line moves on past the female inspector looking for prostitutes, and then past the in- spectors who ask the twenty-two questions re- quired by law. Here is where the lies are told. Most of the immigrants have been coached as to what answers to give. Here is an old woman who says she has three sons in America, when she has but one. The more LANDING AT ELLIS ISLAND 77 she talks the worse she entangles herself. Here is a Russian Jewish girl who has run away to escape persecution. She claims a rela- tive in New York at an address found not to exist; she is straightway in trouble. The surgeons mark about half of the im- migrants with chalk marks as they file by, and those so marked go to another pen for fur- ther examination. Families are torn asunder, and no one has time or opportunity to explain why. Mothers are wild, thinking that their children are lost to them forever; children are frantic, thinking they will see their parents no more. Husbands and wives are separated and for hours they know not why or how. After the immigrants have passed the in- spectors comes the real parting of the ways — the " stairway of separation." Here are three stairways, one leading to the railroad room, another to the New York room, and another to the ferry. To those who have passed muster in this or- deal the way is now open. They are inside the gate and their troubles are over. But here is a room where those go who have been given tickets marked " S. I. — Special Inquiry." This takes them to an iron barred gate behind which sits an official who admits them and has them distributed to the various detention 78 THE IMMIGRANT rooms. Sometimes two thousand may be de- tained at a time. Conditions are admittedly bad in some of these rooms, due to overcrowd- ing and inadequate facilities, but all agree that the officials and those under them do all in their power to ameliorate these conditions. Those detained are given further examina- tions. Such as are able to pass muster under these examinations are permitted to pass through the gates. Those who are temporarily ill are sent to the hospital. Those who are possibly deportable are given further examina- tions by special inquiry boards. Those to whom the gates still are barred after these in- quiries, have the right of further appeal, but reversals are not very frequent. Does the law work hardships at our immi- gration stations ? Yes, everybody admits that. Sometimes men are turned back for trivial causes. Four Greeks were going to Canada, via New York. The Canadian law requires each immigrant to have twenty-five dollars. They had $24.37 eac h- When they found their funds short they wanted to come into the United States, but they could not. A child is taken down with a contagious disease and is carried to the hospital. The mother must wait and cannot even see her child. A man LANDING AT ELLIS ISLAND 79 and his son have had their money stolen from them in the steerage; they lack twenty dollars and must go back. And so the sad tale goes on every day. But could the immigration authorities be vest- ed with discretion in the matter ? Then sixteen thousand debarred aliens a year would lay siege to their sympathies and each would regard his own as a special case, and innumerable difficul- ties would result. All authorities agree that the system in vogue is just about as humane and as free from hardships as any system that might be devised, and that would maintain the interests of the nation as paramount to the interest of the individual immigrant. It is, however, equally agreed that Ellis Island is often overcrowded and needs enlargement and that many minor changes in the immigration laws ought to be enacted. Sixteen thousand immigrants debarred from the United States in a year! Half of these are debarred because they probably would become public charges. Some 2,300 were deported upon surgeons' certificates showing that they possess mental or physical defects which might affect their ability to earn a living. Another 1,800 were sent back because they had loath- some or dangerous contagious diseases, while 80 THE IMMIGRANT i>333 were denied admission because they were contract labourers. Ellis Island receives about two-thirds of all the immigrants that come to America. It is really a plant built on three islands with cause- ways connecting them. Often more than two thousand immigrants must be detained over night, and of course there is much congestion at such times. To shelter and feed two thou- sand people over night is a large task. Some days as many as five thousand immigrants ar- rive, and to dispose of them means only two minutes to each immigrant; consequently, the inspectors must work rapidly and send every doubtful case to detention for further investi- gation. The next day may bring only a few hundred, or it may be a foggy day and none will come; then the detained ones can be given more attention. The " old " immigration is usually easy to inspect. Few of them come who are not eli- gible, for our immigration laws are understood in northwestern Europe much better than in southern and eastern Europe. Five thousand " old " immigrants can be put through easily in a day, while with the " new " immigration such a task would represent very hard work and very long hours. LANDING AT ELLIS ISLAND 81 A contract restaurant is maintained at each important immigrant station, where food can be had during detention, and where it is put up in boxes for those going on railroad jour- neys. These boxes cost from fifty cents to a dollar. Special immigrant trains are made up to handle those who travel in large companies. At other times they are furnished special cars, while often they must travel, men and women, in the smokers of regular trains. The immi- grant gets a slightly cheaper rate than first class, but they usually get a proportionately poor service for their money. Ellis Island, with the tragedies of detention and deportation that must be enacted constantly if the laws are to be executed, is a great theatre where every quality of human nature is at play. Here one beholds a happy reunion — wife has come to join husband after waiting for a year until he could get money to send for her. There is another wife to join her hus- band, but she has trachoma and cannot be ad- mitted. Here is a painted woman trying to lie herself through the gate. There is a boy who gets tangled up in the forty questions put to him, but finally gets through. Here are hundreds who have failed on their first round to 82 THE IMMIGRANT pass muster, and they are gathered in a great room, some hoping and praying, some weeping and fearing, some cursing their fate. But even then, we admitted 838,000 during the fiscal year 19 12 and deported only 16,000. Not at any other place in all the history of nations have been enacted so many silent dramas of the human heart as at Ellis Island. It is the door of hope to millions of European peasants who are saving their copper coins against a chance of entering there. It is the gate of new life to millions of adopted Ameri- cans who remember that there they were freed of countless terrors that their fathers deemed unescapable. And it has been the seat of doom to tens of thousands who have been turned away from its portals. IMMIGRANT HOMES AND AID SOCIETIES IMMIGRANTS arriving in this country usu- ally expect to go to some relative or friend or to have some relative or friend to meet them upon arrival. But it frequently happens that these relatives or friends fail to meet them or to send funds for the continuation of their journey. In such event the letter of the law would require the immigrants to be deported, since, being penniless, they are likely to be- come public charges. But where there are trustworthy persons or organizations who will undertake to care for them until they find em- ployment or are brought into touch with their relatives or friends, the immigrants may be discharged to them after five days' detention. The immigrant, under these conditions, is given his preference of being discharged to the agents of the homes and aid societies or of being deported. Usually he takes the chance to be thus discharged. In order to afford such immigrants the op- 84t THE IMMIGRANT portunity of landing and to assist other immi- grants to avoid the hundred and one dangers of being turned adrift in a big city where no one else tries to protect them from the innu- merable scoundrels who would rob them and lead them into vice, many churches and philan- thropic organizations have established these immigrant aid societies and homes for the care of the immigrants until such time as they can get along themselves. Some of the societies receive annual appro- priations from various European governments for their services to the immigrants from those countries. Others are supported by people of certain races for the benefit of immigrants of their own nationality. In one year nearly fif- teen thousand immigrants were discharged at Ellis Island to homes and aid societies. The law does not recognize the missionaries who represent these organizations, but at each port the Commissioner of Immigration gladly co- operates with those whose places are carefully conducted. Each home or society must file application for the privilege of having immi- grants discharged to it, and its duly accredited agents are given annual passes to the immi- gration station. These societies and homes, when properly conducted, undoubtedly do an infinite amount HOMES AND AID SOCIETIES 85 of good. Particularly are they of immeasur- able benefit to the women and girls who come friendless to America. But the investigation of the Immigration Commission revealed the fact that many of them were not properly con- ducted, and that the very conditions they sought to remedy were promoted by them. The Immigration Commission a few years ago investigated the whole question of these societies and homes with great care. It sent women agents interested in social settlement work into the field, disguised as immigrants and as foreigners seeking work, with some others as applicants for immigrant help of various kinds. The results of their investiga- tions were a revelation to many. At some ports it was found that the commissioners were in- different to the qualifications of the repre- sentatives of the various homes and societies; at others they seldom investigated the char- acter of the homes and societies making appli- cation for permission to do the work; while at a few they were as careful as the limited pow- ers of investigation permitted them to be, and yet at all the ports there were workers whose motive was, " revenue only." There were homes and societies which did not properly safeguard the interests of the immigrants because of carelessness in placing them, and even 86 THE IMMIGRANT " homes " where an absolutely immoral atmos- phere was encountered. Missionaries and home and society agents assist arriving immigrants in various ways. They write letters for them, help them to get into communication with friends and relatives, trace lost baggage, escort them to their desti- nations, send their names and addresses to those who can look after them if they are go- ing to other cities, appear before the boards of special inquiry in their behalf, and make their appeals to the Secretary of Commerce and Labour in the event it appears that the decision of the commissioner ought to be altered. When they do all these things in the true missionary spirit they are rendering an invaluable serv- ice to the immigrant. But, unfortunately, some of them do not. In spite of the watchful- ness of the immigration authorities some of these missionaries disgrace their profession in many ways. Some have been known to come to the stations drunk, some take money for their services and transform themselves into petty attorneys, while others have been known to take advantage of helpless women. But, for the most part, the immigration missionary is upright and worthy. Some of the homes to which the missionaries send immigrants are all that could be desired. HOMES AND AID SOCIETIES 87 The surroundings are clean and wholesome, the moral atmosphere is excellent, the food is good, and the charges are no greater than the pocketbook of the immigrant will allow. Often they charge only sixty cents a day for board and lodging, and even less when it is by the week. But more important, in such places the managers are very careful that the women and girls shall be placed where there is a good moral atmosphere. None of them is allowed to go to places which cannot give satisfactory references, and a card index with a follow-up system keeps the home in close touch with the immigrants placed until they become firmly es- tablished. Other homes are as careful about the con- ditions with which the inmates are surrounded while they remain there, but are distinctly careless in the matter of placing the women. They would not wittingly send a girl out to act as a servant in a disorderly house, and yet by failure to investigate requests for help, fre- quently they do so. Still other homes did not hesitate to send girls to such places, even after it was explained to them that such was the na- ture of the places. Of forty- four homes in- vestigated half of them did not draw the line on sending girls as servants to such houses. The missionaries made little better showing 88 THE IMMIGRANT than the homes in this regard. Twenty-one were asked for servants for disorderly houses; eleven supplied them. Only three refused point-blank to do so. Some of the aid societies refer immigrants to employment agencies. Of twenty-two such agencies that were licensed, only five failed to furnish servants for applicants from dis- orderly houses. Practically every unlicensed employment agency unhesitatingly furnished such help. In some of the homes men connected with their executive staffs were guilty of immoral advances toward the investigators as well as toward other inmates. The method of the in- vestigation usually was for one investigator to get admitted to the home and to stay there for several days. Then another investigator would come and apply for a girl, explaining that she was wanted as a servant to tend the door in a manicure establishment that was en- joying police protection, and which was run in connection with a lodging-house for tran- sients. Then the first investigator would usu- ally be called in and asked if she wanted the job. She was usually admonished that if she took it she should just close her eyes to what went on. It was while the boarding investi- gators were staying at the homes that improper HOMES AND AID SOCIETIES 89 advances were made. In one instance an at- tempt to commit a criminal assault upon one of the investigators was made. Out of a long list of names and addresses of immigrant women who had been placed through eleven homes, the investigators selected 228 for following up. It was found that only 178 of those immigrants had gone to the ad- dresses given. At fifty addresses given no girls had ever been sent for or received, while there were no such addresses in eight cases, and three were the addresses of disorderly houses. The conditions revealed by the investigations of the Immigration Commission's agents were made known to the immigration authorities at the several ports where these abuses were found to occur, and it resulted in the confirma- tion of the results of the investigation and in proof that the investigators had performed their work carefully and conscientiously, and had always tried to stay on the conservative side of the facts in stating the results. The immigration authorities, as a result, communi- cated these findings to the immigration so- cieties and homes, and since then the most dili- gent efforts have been made, both by the im- migration authorities and by the immigrant homes and societies, to weed out the unworthy 90 THE IMMIGRANT and to make sure that hereafter proper care shall be taken that young immigrant girls that are placed by the organizations shall be placed amid wholesome surroundings. In justice to the spirit of helpfulness and philanthropy through which immigrant homes and societies have been established and are maintained, it is to be said that the abuses that have been found have arisen through lax supervision, which has been more the result of confidence in managements which have proved themselves unworthy of it, rather than through any indif- ference to the fate of the immigrant girl. It is to be added that the disclosures that were made when the Immigration Commission made its investigation has resulted in a deter- mination upon the part of the immigrant homes and aid societies which are honestly trying to help the immigrant that the conditions com- plained of shall not occur again. Where lax administration was found there have been house-cleanings, those who abused confidences have been banished from the work, and every- where there has been a commendable deter- mination to co-operate with the immigration authorities in bringing to their just reward those who, whether by laxity of administration, indifference, or criminality, have permitted immigrants whom they should have protected, HOMES AND AID SOCIETIES 91 to be preyed upon by financial or moral vul- tures. The high standards set by those homes which were all that such institutions ought to be, have been laid down as the standards to which all homes and societies and individual workers must measure up, and by a careful card-index follow-up system such as a few homes and societies formerly had, all of these institutions are now accomplishing the pur- poses for which they were founded — the pro- tection of the immigrant from exploitation. XI DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS IT is quite generally agreed among states- men and philanthropists that if the " new " immigration, which is flocking to our shores at the rate of three-quarters of a mil- lion souls a year, is to be a blessing and an economic asset to the. nation, ways and means must be found whereby it may be distributed widely throughout the country — for then only can the digestive juices of American influence reach the entire mass and fit it for assimilation into the body politic. So long as it crowds into colonies and holds itself aloof in com- munities that never feel the touch of American customs and ideas, how can we expect it to be- come like us and a part of us? And yet, that is what is happening right along. Three-fourths of our Russian immi- grants are to be found in cities that have a population of twenty-five thousand and up- ward. More than half of the Italian immi- grants, the Polish, the Bohemian, the Hun- garian, and the Austrian immigrants gravitate 92 DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 93 to such centres of population. On the other hand, less than one-fourth of our native Ameri- cans are to be found in such cities, and the same is true qf our Scandinavian immigrants. More than half of the great population of New York City is of foreign birth, and there are sections of the metropolis that are as foreign to America, as far as influences go, as are Warsaw, Naples, or Vienna. The list of American cities where the foreign population exceeds the native is a large one. There are some fifty cities where the population of foreign birth represents more than two-fifths of the total, and among these are some twenty where the foreign element is in the majority. Every authority agrees that it is desirable to secure as many settlers on the land as pos- sible, but there are some who do not believe in any other sort of distribution of immigrants except such as is created by the natural work- ing of the law of supply and demand. The ground upon which they predicate their belief is that it will tend to reduce that kind of living and wages which they call " the American standard." One of those who holds this view is Commissioner General of Immigration, Daniel J. Keefe. He asserts that many of the arguments in favour of the distribution of aliens other than 94 THE IMMIGRANT to plant them on the land are fallacious. He says that organizations struggling to solve the problem of putting the alien where he is needed, vary from those moved by purely business im- pulses to those which are " or pretend to be, patriotic or philanthropic in their purposes." They range, he adds, from combinations of ticket-agents, money-lenders, and labour agen- cies to state and municipal organizations " con- ducted bona fide and from high, pure motives.'' He further adds, however, that the latter " often incidentally produce some of the same effects as the selfish organizations." In commenting upon the problem he says if it ever was feasible to devise a complete, effi- cient plan for the general distribution of aliens, it probably is now too late to stem the tide which has set toward certain localities, where alien nucleus colonies have been established, constituting new reasons why aliens are drawn to them; even though a certain number of aliens may be distributed, they will not remain where they are placed unless the arrangement coin- cides with their desires, and unless- they are physically and mentally adapted to their new surroundings, as a large percentage of those who now insist on herding in the cities never will be; and that, viewed from a national standpoint, distribution tends to increase the DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 95 difficulties of immigration rather than to re- duce them. He concludes that distribution will tend to increase immigration, and that this will in turn tend to drive down the wages of American workingmen. There are many students of the problem, however, who take direct issue with Commis- sioner General Keefe, both as to his minor and major conclusions. They point out that the same fear was expressed when his own people began to come and continued to come to America, but that American wages are higher and American workingmen's standards of liv- ing are better than they were before. Like- wise, they point out that nearly ninety per cent of the immigration from many southern and eastern European countries comes to us from the village and the farm, and that to say they are not physically or mentally fitted for any- thing else than to herd in congested communi- ties is not a just statement. It is further pointed out by those who oppose the conclusions of Mr. Keefe that neither Con- gress nor the Immigration Commission has agreed with him, but has taken the opposite view. Congress created a Bureau of Informa- tion for the purpose of collecting information concerning opportunities for immigrants and disseminating it among them with a view to 96 THE IMMIGRANT encouraging a beneficial distribution of immi- grants. The main purpose was to co-operate with the several states in acquainting immi- grants with their advantages. The Immigration Commission likewise con- cludes that the reason the immigrant goes to congested cities is because he knows of no bet- ter opportunities elsewhere. It says that " a large part of the immigrants were agricultural labourers at home, and their immigration is due to a desire to escape the low economic con- ditions which attend agricultural pursuits in the countries from which they come. With no knowledge of other conditions, it is but natural, therefore, that they should seek another line of activity in this country." It is pointed out that the thing to do is to plant the immigrant where he can secure a plot of ground and build a house on it, because there goes on most rapidly the process of Americanization. Go to Brown Park, Omaha, which has been improved by the Bohemians, Poles, and Lithuanians. What was a few years ago a rolling prairie is to-day studded with neat, well-kept homes, schools, and churches, having well-cultivated gardens and flowers, and conforming to the best American standards among wage-earners. Go to the Italian settle- ments in Rockland County, N. Y., Providence, DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 97 R. L, and Rosetta, Penn. There the immi- grants have their gardens, no matter what the soil is, and sometimes in striking contrast with adjacent homes of the neighbouring Ameri- cans. The Poles on the abandoned farms of New England, the Italians on the swamps of New Jersey, and the Portuguese on Cape Cod, have shown what they can do under conditions that have driven out older Americans, have shown that they can rehabilitate worn-out soil and build up a competence in waste places. The lowest wages paid in America go to the foreigner and the highest to the native American, and yet the investigations of the Immigration Commission into home ownership in cities reveal the fact that, while only 4.2 per cent of the native-born Americans of native parentage own their homes, more than 10 per cent of the foreign-born and native-born of foreign parentage own theirs. A striking illustration of the need for some sort of a system of distribution of immigrants is to be had in a map prepared by Peter Roberts. He takes a United States map and draws a line from Atlantic City to the southeastern corner of Illinois. Then he draws another line from that point to the northwestern corner of Minnesota. The little slice of territory in- side of this angle bears about the same rela- 98 THE IMMIGRANT tion to the whole United States as one slice of pie to a whole pie — it represents only a little more than one-sixth of the country's area; and yet, within that comparatively small territory, live nearly five-sixths of all the " new " immi- gration to America. The work of the Division of Information of the Bureau of Immigration affords an in- teresting indication of what may be done in the direction of distributing immigrants, and of the interest immigrants themselves take in the work. More than thirty thousand applicants received information during the year 191 1, and it is estimated by Chief Powderly that these applications represented at least a hundred thousand immigrants. The Division directs no skilled craftsmen, miners, or other underground workers. It simply gave them information as to places where they could settle in villages and towns where they could follow other lines of activity and avail themselves of garden plats and low house rent. The Division does not ar- range contracts for employment, but simply gets a list of reputable employers who need help, and furnishes a medium through which the man who needs work can be brought into touch with the man who needs help. In addition to this the Division gathers and disseminates information concerning the re- DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS 99 sources, products, and physical characteristics of the various states, giving the immigrant the name and address of the state official in each state whose duty it is to encourage and aid immigration into each state. Its work has been highly endorsed by the Southern Com- mercial Congress and by the National Board of Trade, which also strongly endorsed the recommendation of President Taft that immi- grant stations be established at one or more additional Gulf and South Atlantic ports with a view to turning part of the incoming tide away from New York. XII THE IMMIGRATION COMMISSION'S INVESTIGATION THE investigation made by the Immigra- tion Commission into all phases of the subject of immigration represents the most thorough and at the same time the most expensive inquiry into the migration of man- kind that ever has been made. In 1907 Con- gress revised the immigration laws to some degree, but at the same time provided for future legislation by the creation of the Immi- gration Commission, which it directed to gather the facts upon which such new legislation should be based. The Commission was com- posed of three Senators appointed by the Presi- dent of the Senate, three members of the House of Representatives, appointed by the Speaker, and three persons appointed by the President. It was given full power to investi- gate, and at the same time was supplied with unlimited funds, the law creating it providing " that such sums of money as may be necessary 100 (From National Geographic Magazine, Washington, D. C. Copyright TWO ROUMANIANS. IMMIGRATION INVESTIGATION 101 are hereby appropriated and authorized to be paid out of the ' immigration fund.' " The Commission decided to make a first- hand investigation rather than to act merely as a compiler of data already gathered. It in- vestigated every possible phase of the question in Europe and America, going with the utmost care into the whole question of the causes and effects of immigration both at home and abroad. Upward of three years was consumed in the inquiry, and as a result a report cover- ing forty-two volumes, or practically thirty thousand octavo pages, has been published. It is such a monumental work that it is doubtful if anybody will ever read it from A to Z. However, it has a two-volume abstract and index which digest the whole report, although there are many things in the full report that are of course referred to only in the briefest way in the big abstract. The Commission did not finish its work until within a half-hour of the time the law required that the report should be filed. Representative William S. Bennet of New York desired to file a minority report, but declared he was pre- vented from so doing by the fact that the ma- jority report was formulated too late to permit any elaboration as to his views and conclusions. During its life the Commission spent $790,- 102 THE IMMIGRANT ooo in its investigations. There were quite a few criticisms at the time concerning the long- drawn-out character of the investigation and the unusual expense incurred, but, considering the thoroughness with which the work was done, much of this criticism probably was not deserved. When it came to investigating emigration conditions in Europe, six of the nine members, accompanied by a large staff, went to Europe in May and stayed until September. They visited Italy, Austria, Hungary, Finland, Greece, Turkey, and practically all other Eu- ropean countries. Conferring with American diplomatic and consular representatives, hold- ing conferences with European emigration authorities, and going out through the immi- grant-furnishing districts, they studied care- fully the causes of emigration and its effects upon the countries from whence the immi- grants come. In studying the relations between the immi- grant and various American industries use was made of a large corps of investigators. Data were gathered from the individual immigrant, the household of the immigrant, the employers of immigrants, and from local officials, organ- izations, and institutions. For instance, in gathering information concerning immigrants IMMIGRATION INVESTIGATION 103 in iron and steel industries, detailed information was received from 86,000 employes, and an in- tensive study was made of nearly 2,500 house- holds, the heads of which were employed in these industries. The number of immigrants of each nationality, the number of their chil- dren, and the number of native Americans en- gaged in. the industries were ascertained. The occupations of the immigrants engaged in iron and steel manufacturing before they came to America were investigated, while the weekly wages, the lost time, the average annual earn- ings, the family income, rents paid, number of people per sleeping-room, home ownership, citizenship, labour organization affiliations, il- literacy, and many other matters were inquired into. Some of the investigations of the Commis- sion were put to immediate and practical use. Its agents who investigated steerage conditions on transatlantic passenger ships were able to pick up pieces of information which, re- ported to the Bureau of Immigration, took the form of recommendations that abuses within the law could better be remedied by the steam- ship companies. The same was true of its investigation of the immigrant aid societies and homes. With the information placed in the hands of Commissioner Williams, at Ellis 104 THE IMMIGRANT Island, steps were promptly taken to debar a number of workers from the island and to re- quire the immediate correction of conditions complained of in several societies and homes. The Commission's investigation of the white- slave traffic was a very thorough one, and information was put into the hands of the immigration authorities which resulted in the deportation of many engaged in the traffic as well as many of their victims. Many other cases were brought to light which deserved prosecution, and the information obtained was placed in the hands of the United States Dis- trict Attorneys in many cities, with the result that a large number of convictions were secured. Perhaps one of the most interesting phases of the whole investigation had to do with the changes in bodily form of the descendants of immigrants. According to all race authorities the most permanent and stable of all the char- acteristics of human races is the shape of the head. All else usually may alter in a race, but it will continue to wear about the same kind of hats, and have just about the same style of long face or short face that it had before. But when the European is transplanted to American soil he undergoes a change. The round-headed east European Hebrew becomes inclined to IMMIGRATION INVESTIGATION 105 have a long head, while the long-headed south Italian gradually changes to a shorter-headed race. Thus it will be seen that there is a tendency toward a uniform type, and it seems certain that just as soon as immigration in race- affecting quantities ceases to come to our shores we will evolve a true American type, a sort of composite European. Students are trying to solve the problems of type changes, which not only affect the shape of the head, but the colour of the hair, the age of maturity, and many other related characteristics. As a result of its investigations the Com- mission made a number of very important recommendations to Congress, the majority of which have been incorporated in a bill vetoed by President Taft. It recommends that care be taken that immigration shall be such in quantity and quality that the process of assimi- lation will not be made too difficult; that gen- eral legislation on immigration should be based upon economic principles and business con- siderations; and that business expansion ought not to be permitted to lower the American standards of wages and living. It specifically recommends that aliens con- victed of any crime within five years of com- ing to America shall be deported; that no im- 106 THE IMMIGRANT migrant be admitted from any country having adequate police records who cannot produce a satisfactory certificate of character; that any alien who becomes a public charge within three years shall be deported. It says that in order that immigrants may be protected from ex- ploitation, to discourage the sending of savings abroad, to encourage settlers on the land, and to secure a better distribution of immigration, the states ought to provide for the inspection of immigrant banks, regulate labour agencies, and co-operate with the Federal Government in bringing their opportunities to the attention of immigrants. The recommendation is also made that any alien trying to persuade another alien not to become an American citizen shall be immediately deported. With reference to the restriction of immi- gration the Commission concludes that the first restriction should be against those who do not intend to become American citizens. Another restriction recommended by the Commission applies to those who cannot read or write in some language. It concludes that there is to- day an oversupply of unskilled labour in the United States, and that a sufficient number of immigrants should be debarred to produce a marked effect upon the unskilled labour supply. With regard to Asiatic immigration the Com- IMMIGRATION INVESTIGATION 107 mission recommends that the general policy of excluding Chinese labour be continued, that the present understanding concerning Japanese and Korean immigration be permitted to stand without further legislation so long as the re- striction continues to be effective; and that an understanding be reached with the British gov- ernment whereby East Indian labourers would be effectively prevented from entering the United States. XIII GENERAL LEGISLATION THE history of immigration legislation and attempted legislation in the United States affords an interesting sidelight upon our reception of the immigrant from the beginning down to the present time. Prior to 1835 immigration was taken as a matter of course, a welcome was given to every immi- grant who came, and the only legislation that was enacted was the law for the protection of steerage passengers passed in 18 19, and for the gathering of statistical data concerning im- migrants to America. But the great inpouring of foreigners, many of whom were Catholics, after 1835 began to arouse an opposition to immigration on the part of some Protestants. This opposition culminated in the Native American or Know-Nothing movement, and for a while it seemed as if it might accomplish a restriction of immigration. An effort to make nativism a national question was made, and although it gained some little headway, the feeling against foreigners sub- 108 GENERAL LEGISLATION 109 sided somewhat during the forties, but the heavy increase in immigrants just prior to 1850 again stirred up the anti- foreign senti- ment, and this time it found expression in the Know-Nothing movement. It tried to capture the presidency in 1856, nominating Millard Fillmore as its standard-bearer. But Ex- President Fillmore fared worse in 1856 than did President Taft in 19 12, for he carried only one state — Maryland. And it is probable that he carried that state as the Whig nominee rather than as the Know-Nothing nominee. In spite of the Know-Nothings, further legis- lation was enacted in 1847 an ^ 1848, throwing still further protection around the steerage im- migrant, and when the Kansas-Nebraska bill was pending Congress gave the right of partici- pation in local affairs to foreigners who had declared their intention of becoming citi- zens. The Federal Government did not really as- sume control of immigration until 1882, prior to that time it having been regarded as a question for state jurisdiction, but as explained in a preceding chapter, in 1864 President Lin- coln, desiring to keep up the necessary supply of labour, asked Congress to encourage the importation of contract labour. Such a law was promptly enacted and was kept on the 110 THE IMMIGRANT statute books for four years, when it was repealed. President Grant first recommended, in a special message to Congress, that immigration should be put under national rather than state control. But the states continued to hold the subject as one within their jurisdiction until 1876, when the Supreme Court, in an important case, declared that any state law providing for the compulsory inspection of passengers and detention of vessels of foreign countries was restrictive of foreign commerce and therefore unconstitutional. The Court then did an un- usual thing for the Supreme Court, recom- mending that Congress take jurisdiction over these matters, setting forth that it could " more appropriately, and with more acceptance, exer- cise it than any other body known to our law." It further added that if Congress would take control of immigration it would effectively and satisfactorily settle a serious matter which had long given rise to contest and complaint. Congress, six years later, acted upon the recommendations of the Supreme Court by passing a general immigration law. This law imposed a head tax of fifty cents on ^ach im- migrant, and this money was used at the port of collection for the enforcement of the im- migration law and the care of immigrants after GENERAL LEGISLATION 111 their arrival. The law gave the Secretary of the Treasury jurisdiction over immigration matters and authorized him to enter into con- tracts with such state officers as might be de- signated by the governor of any state, to take charge of the local affairs of immigration within such state. The law provided that for- eign convicts (except those convicted of politi- cal offenses), lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become public charges, should not be per- mitted to land. The law of 1882, farming out to the states the control of immigration, failed of its pur- pose, and by 1888 there was such continued assertion that its terms, as well as those of the law prohibiting the immigration of contract labourers enacted in 1885, were being violated and evaded, that a committee was appointed by the House to investigate the matter. This committee recommended that the en- forcement of the immigration law should be entrusted solely to state officers, praised the " old " immigration, condemned the " new," / and announced that the time for restricted im- fc*" migration had arrived. In 1 889 the Senate and House created standing committees on immi- gration, and they jointly made a further in- vestigation. The result was the law of 1891, which added many features still found in the 112 THE IMMIGRANT immigration law. It gave the Federal Govern- ment sole control of immigration, excluded persons suffering from loathsome and danger- ous contagious diseases, and entrusted to the Public Health and Marine Hospital Service the important task of making the necessary health inspections. It strengthened the contract la- bour law, and required the steamship companies bringing deportable aliens to American ports to carry them back at their own expense. In 1892 still another investigation was or- dered, and a joint committee of the two houses of Congress recommended further changes. It reported that inspection up to that time was largely a farce, and based on this the law was amended in 1893, by which the boards of in- quiry were created. The following year the head tax on immigrants was raised to one dollar. In 1897 Congress passed another law, which excluded those aliens over sixteen who were physically able but who could not read or write, exception being made of the parents, grand- parents, minor children, and wives of ad- missible immigrants. President Cleveland vetoed this measure, which was the first liter- acy test ever passed by Congress. He said, in answer to the charge that our immigration was falling off in quality, that the same thing GENERAL LEGISLATION 113 was said of immigrants who, with their de- scendants, are now numbered among Ameri- ca's best citizens. He thought a hundred thousand illiterate immigrants who came to found homes and to work were less dangerous than one unruly agitator. The House passed the bill over Cleveland's veto, but the Senate refused to do so. In 1903, after the investigation by the Indus- trial Commission had been made, the House again passed an immigration law with the lit- eracy test in it. The Senate refused to concur in the establishment of such a test, but added a provision increasing the immigrant head tax from one dollar to two dollars. The immigra- tion and naturalization of anarchists was pro- hibited. This bill finally became a law, and although the immigration question continued in the forefront of legislative interest, no addi- tional legislation was enacted until 1907, when out of a number of bills Congress finally agreed upon a law which raised the head tax to four dollars, created the Immigration Commission, and empowered the President to refuse entrance to the immigrants from any country who hold passports to other countries than the United States, when those passports are being used to enable the holders to come to the United States to the detriment of internal labour conditions. 114 THE IMMIGRANT This is the clause under which Uncle Sam ex- cludes Japanese and Korean labourers from the United States — a sort of diplomatic, sugar- coated exclusion act without any offense to Japan in it. The law of 1907 also set the face of the nation more positively against the international traffic in " white slaves/' and this feature of the law was strengthened by another law en- acted in 19 10. % The Commissioner General of Immigration in 19 1 2 prepared the draft of a law embodying his ideas on immigration. This bill provides some advanced recommendations, which would, if incorporated into law, save many thousands of dollars in charity and prison expenses to the country. It provides that criminals, paupers, violators of the white-slave laws, alien seamen, and others may be deported within five years after their entry into the United States. The Secretary of Commerce and Labour is made the final judge in all these matters. There are many other provisions calculated to strengthen the hands of the immigration authorities in keeping out undesirable immigrants and to compel the steamship companies to aid the United States in carrying out the law rather than aiding immigrants to evade it. XIV THE ALIEN IN THE MINE THE immigrant long has been the main- stay of the American mining industry. For instance, he and his children con- stitute practically three-fourths of the labour force of the bituminous coal mines of the United States. And, generally speaking, the bulk of this immigrant labour found in the mines is but lately arrived and of the " new " immigra- tion. Prior to 1890 the average bituminous coal miner was a native American, a Welsh- man, a Scot, an Irishman, an Englishman, or a German. He wielded a pick, and his work required skill and experience. He undercut the coal, drilled his own holes, fired his own shots, and, together with his helper, loaded his coal on cars at so much per ton for the entire operation. Then came the invention of the mining ma- chine, capable of doing the work of many pick- miners, and thereafter large numbers of help- ers and coal-shovellers were needed. With the coal undercut by machinery, the holes drilled 115 116 THE IMMIGRANT in the same way, and the shots fired by an ex- pert in his line, any immigrant, however il- literate, and however ignorant of mining con- ditions, could do the bulk of the hand-work in the mine. The result was that the husky Slovak, whose only skill was main force and awkward- ness, could do more work than the miner of the " old " immigration. After the Slovak came the Magyar, the Pole, and the Italian. And when they came into the mine their prede- cessors went out. One frequently hears that the " new " im- migrant gets into a certain line of work, drives out the native American and the " old " immi- grant, and then stays there. But this is not a fair statement of conditions. They work there for a while, and soon one discovers many of them searching better fields in the same indus- try, or climbing up a rung of the industrial ladder into work on top of the ground — maybe into a steel plant, a plough factory, or the like. The "new" immigrant, illiterate, inexperi- enced, unable to speak or to understand Eng- lish, makes an excellent mine worker. He can- not talk back to his boss, he is unacquainted with anything that savours of insubordination, and his training in the fields in Europe, where he frequently had to walk four or five miles from his village home to his work and back, THE ALIEN IN THE MINE 117 and work from sun to sun, has made him tractable and willing to work hard. He is usually glad to get work at the wages the opera- tor is willing to pay, for that is a great im- provement over what he got at home. His low standards of living, his ready acceptance of a low wage and existing working conditions, his lack of permanent interest in his occupa- tion, his indifference to labour organizations, his slow progress toward assimilation, have made him the employe the operators want, and the principal obstacle in the way of com- pelling better conditions for the miner. The story of Calumet, in the northern pen- insula of Michigan, illustrates the immigrant's monopoly of the mining industry in America. It is a city of 45,000, and almost as un-Ameri-* can as Naples, Warsaw, or Trieste. It is diffi- cult to find an American in the place. There is a babel of tongues, twenty different races con- stituting its population. Sixteen nationalities are represented in its school-teaching force. Its people are the foreigners and their children who live by the copper mines under Lake Su- perior. The native-born are the ones who have colonized at Calumet, and they have named their settlement, " Houghton.'' The men who mine our coal were not always human moles burrowing in the ground year 118 THE IMMIGRANT in and year out. Only one-fifth of those who mine the soft coal of the country ever worked in a mine before they came to America, and nearly three-fifths of them grew to manhood working in the fields of southern and eastern Europe. Perhaps they were sheep-herders fol- lowing their flocks over the rough hills; may- hap they worked in the bright-hued poppy fields. Whatever they did they lived close to nature, amid bright, health-giving, strength- making surroundings. Now they must work where never a ray of natural light comes. Peter Roberts strikingly tells the story of the miner of to-day. " * Production/ * ton- nage/ " he says, " that is the talisman in the life of so many managers who want to make a record, and they forget the men who ought to count for more than production. In a coal- shaft where the labour force was almost wholly foreign, the man in charge wanted to make a record. ' Get out the coal/ was the order, and the wheels were running at their swiftest. A boy came and said, * There's fire on level three/ The foreman replied, ' It's a mistake, get out the coal.' An hour passed, and another warn- ing came; but the word was passed, 'We are breaking the record, get out the coal.' Then another half -hour of rushing out the coal, and then the cry, ' The third level is full of smoke.' THE ALIEN IN THE MINE 119 The wheels stopped; but it was too late; no word could be sent to the surface. The air current changed, and none of the men on that level could escape. The manager made his record, but it was a record so gruesome that ninety million people felt the shock the next morning. Put the man first and tonnage sec- ond, and many accidents will be prevented. We have kept the wheels of industry running, and also the hearse. We have made records, and so has the recording angel." At the same time it must be remembered that the immigrant's indifference is oftentimes the cause of accidents in mines as well as else- where. Some of them are so reckless and take so many chances that the added risk alone has been sufficient to banish native American and older immigrants from the mines. The Bu- reau of Mines puts some of the burden of responsibility for accidents upon the shoulders of the miners themselves. It says that some of them are inexperienced and do not take proper precautions for their own safety or for the safety of others, and that this becomes a serious menace unless they are restrained by carefully enforced regulations. The average wage paid the miner is not large. The investigation of the Immigration Commission showed that all miners over 18 120 THE IMMIGRANT years of age averaged $2.19 per day, but that they worked only enough days in the year to make their total income per year $443. Only two-fifths of the families investigated showed that they could live on the wages of the head, of the house alone. More than a third of them supplemented the family income by keeping boarders, and some of them had children at work. In this connection it is interesting to* note how other industries, dependent upon the labour of women and children, are affected in their distribution by the mining industry. For instance, cigar and tobacco factories, silk mills, clothing manufacturing establishments, and other small industries gather around the min- ing centres, for here is a cheap supply of woman and child labour, forced out of the home by the necessities of the family ex- chequer. The silk industry is largely concen- * trated in the Pennsylvania anthracite region be- cause of the labour supply there. But the foreigner in the mine seems cheer- • fully to suit his standard of living to his in- come. This is illustrated by the rents paid per person among native- and foreign-born families investigated by the Immigration Commission. The Bulgarians, for instance, were able to crowd themselves so much that the rent of their houses averaged only ninety-seven cents THE ALIEN IN THE MINE 121 a month per person. The Macedonians did better still, their average expense for house rent being seventy-eight cents per person. Nearly all of the " new " immigrants were able to hold the expenditu/e below $1.50 per month. One may find much encouragement for the future by observing how much better the sons and daughters of foreigners live than their parents. The investigation shows that while the average foreigner spends only $1.51 a month for the roof over his head, his native- born children spend $2.50. The native Ameri- cans in the same industries spend $2.58 per month. This difference is due rather to the number of people living in a house than to the rental rates on the house. This shows that the second generation is not willing to live under such crowded and insanitary conditions as their fathers, and that in a single generation they approximate the American standard. The indications are that for many years to come the miners who dig the coal with which we run our railroads, steamships, factories, furnaces, and mills, and with which we heat our homes, will still come from southern and eastern Europe, and they will continue to live as men down in the darkness of the earth rather than as men up in the sunlight of day, but at the same time they will probably join 122 THE IMMIGRANT the races that came before them in giving to America a sturdy yeomanry in their children. They may resist the leaven of Americanization^ but their children will be willing subjects for its processes. It is because of that very fact that it be- hooves Americans who have more than one generation of American ideals behind them to do all in their power to make especial provision for the nurture and care of the children of » our pit-toiling immigrants. They must not only be educated in the three R's, but their bodies must be cared for, they must not too young be offered up to our modern Molochs, they must be saved from that license of un- morality to which unaccustomed liberty so often leads. (From National Geographic Magazine, Washington, D. C. A FINNISH GIRL. Copyright, 1913.) XV THE FOREIGNER IN THE FACTORY MORE than four-fifths of the immi- grants who enter the factories of America are unskilled labourers. In the past ten years not less than six million such unskilled workers have been recruited into the industrial army of the United States. In two generations this movement has transformed the country from a nation almost wholly given to agriculture into one that is in the very van of the industrial nations of the earth, a phenome- non without precedent in history. America boasts of its industrial supremacy, and yet what a vast proportion of this su- premacy it owes to the immigrants who left Europe to come here ! Where would our iron and steel industry be if the seven-tenths of the workers who are foreigners or sons of foreign- ers should walk out? What would become of the so-called beef trust if three-fourths of its workers who are foreigners should suddenly become disgusted with foul Packingtown and throw up their jobs? Where would we get the 123 124 THE IMMIGRANT coal to turn our wheels of industry if the seven- tenths of the miners represented by foreigners and their sons should suddenly decide to work at trades where the light of day may be with them? How would we continue our supply of plate-glass, window-glass, bottles, and glass tableware if the foreign contingent and their sons who constitute three-fifths of the labour force of the glass industry were to eliminate themselves ? What would become of our woollen and worsted mills if the seven-eighths of their wage-earners who are foreigners and their children should walk out? What would be- come of the silk mills if the four-fifths who are foreigners and their children should cease to be wage-earners? And if the nine-tenths of the cotton-mill operatives who are foreigners and their families were to leave their looms, America might have to go back to the clothes made of skins. Were it not for the foreigner a " hand-me-down " suit could scarcely be bought for love or money. And when we re- member that the foreigner and his children make half of our shirts, collars, and cuffs; tan, curry, and finish nearly five-sixths of our leather; make half of our gloves; refine nearly nine-tenths of our oil, and nearly nineteen- twentieths of our sugar; and supply nearly half FOREIGNERS IN THE FACTORY 125 of the labour in the manufacture of our tobacco and cigars, we see that he is, after all, quite an important factor in our industrial supremacy. The foreigner has a monopoly upon the dan- . gerous, the dirty, and the odorous trades. In the slaughtering industry you will find him usually in such places as the hide-curing rooms, where they shake, count, and pack the slimy, slippery hides; in the fertilizer plant where the refuse of the slaughter house is assembled amid un- speakable stenches; in the soap-making de- partment where fats are reduced and the alka- lis mixed, and where unbearable odours persist all the time. And yet you find him a patient, cheerful worker, content with his average wage of $557 a year. Visit a big contract work like the New York aqueduct or v the Barge Canal, and here again you find the foreigner. Go to the lumber camps of the Northwest and he greets you. And yet wherever they are encountered they are found to be the backbone of industry, ready to take the hardest and most unpleasant jobs, and to work under taskmasters who are sometimes not less harsh than the Simon Legree of " Uncle Tom's Cabin.'' One of the peculiar things about the for-.* eigner in the factory is the tendency toward racial monopoly in many lines. The French 126 THE IMMIGRANT Canadian is mainly to be found in cotton fac- tories, copper mining and smelting, %ahd the boot and shoe trade. The Croatian is found in the mine, the steel plant, and the filthy trades. The Danes take to leather, furniture, and collars and cuffs. The Dutch work in fur- niture factories and silk making and dyeing. America's era of greatest expansion has been • coincident with the rise of the " new " immi- gration. In the thirty years since the new tide of humanity began to set in in earnest, the capital of our industries has increased some six- fold and the value of their products about threefold. There are those who regret that the tide from southern and eastern Europe ever set in. One class says that if the " new " im- migrant had not come wages would have con- tinued upon such a high plane that the people of northwestern Europe could not have turned away from such an opportunity, and that we would still be getting the bulk of our immigra-. tion from there. Others declare that the immigrant is largely responsible for the expan- sion that took place. According to this view he was attracted by then existing opportunities, and his presence in large numbers stimulated the capital to devise new ways and means of using him, the end of which stimulation was our great industrial expansion. FOREIGNERS IN THE FACTORY 127 But, perhaps, more to the point is the story i of the inventions which have made it possible for the raw immigrant of the present to do more than the skilled native of the past. Take the cotton factory. Here, after a brief train- ing, the ignorant immigrant is able to operate the automatic looms and ring spinning frames that do the work which formerly required skilled weavers and mule spinners. In the glass fac- tory the unlettered labourer, with the aid of machinery, can now do as good work and vastly more of it, as the best-trained glass- blower could do thirty years ago. The in- . ventor is perhaps the man to whom the credit for our industrial expansion must be given. He devised machines that are able to more than supply the difference between the awkwardness of the ignorant labourer and the ability of the skilled workman. The immigration from eastern and southern* Europe has adversely affected the labourt unions of the communities into which they have gone. In the cotton goods industry, for instance, it is only the fact that the new labour has been controlled by the skilled employes, such as the weavers and tenders of the slashers, that has saved the labour unions from disrup-l tion. It is only at Fall River that the unions are strong enough to enforce their demands, 128 THE IMMIGRANT and at that only 9,000 out of a total of 30,000 employes belong to the unions. The greatest difficulty with which the labour leaders have to contend has been the low standard of living among the workmen of the " new " immigra- tion, and their willingness to accept work under conditions and at wages entirely unsatisfactory to the older employes. They do not like to join, the unions because of the dues, and this pre- vents the labour organizations from accumu- lating the necessary resources for conducting strikes\y In pleasing contrast with conditions that now obtain in such mill centres as Lawrence and Lowell is the story Charles Dickens told of the operatives at Lowell after his return home. He said the girls, who were of sturdy New England parentage, were all well dressed and extremely clean; they were healthy in appear- ance and had the manners of refined young women; the rooms in which they worked were as well-ordered as themselves. In all, he said, there was as much fresh air, cleanliness, and comfort as the nature of the occupation would possibly admit. He further declared they were such a healthy-looking lot that, assuming it was necessary for them to gain their daily bread by the labour of their hands, there was not one he would have removed if he had had FOREIGNERS IN THE FACTORY 129 the power. He thought it a remarkable fact that in many of the operative boarding-houses there were joint-stock pianos, that nearly all of the young women subscribed to circulating li- braries, and that among them they published a periodical. Another writer, herself a mill-girl for years, says that except in rare instances the rights of the early mill-girls were secure. They were subject to no extortion; if they did extra work they were paid in full for it, and their own ac- count of labour done by the piece was accepted. They kept the figures and were paid accord- ingly. The results that may be accomplished by the manufacturer who employs labourers of the " new " immigration are shown by the experi- ence of the superintendent of a large plant in Ohio, which employs several hundred Magyars, i When they first came they had the usual un- desirable qualities of the new immigrant. But the superintendent planned to eliminate these qualities. He became a member of their fra- ternal society, advised them in their invest- ments, put his name down as a charter member of their church, loaned them money at nominal interest, built them a hall, and called in experts to lay out a plan of amusements, educational work, and lectures. He says of the results: 130 THE IMMIGRANT " After twelve years of experience our works have gathered together a splendid force of men. We started out with a small reading-room with a competent instructor in English, and found it necessary to build a larger building. They have succeeded in building two churches, have a number of beneficial societies, and are better citizens and better workmen. I can only add that if it could be made possible for every large concern employing this class of labour to see the splendid results which we have ob- tained, I feel sure they would not hesitate to put forth every effort to extend the work." XVI THE FOREIGNER ON THE FARM EVERYBODY knows that the majority of the immigrants from northwestern Europe have planted themselves on the soil — that they came to America to cast their lot forever with its fortunes. A large per- centage of them are engaged in farming. More than half of the Norwegians in America are on the farm, nearly half of the Swedes are there, and nearly half of the Danes. Two-fifths of the Swiss and a third of the Germans have helped make up our grand totals in crop-raising, stock-raising, dairying, etc. Even the " new " immigration is not wholly given over to mining and manufacturing. Some of the immigrants are going to the land. When the Immigration Commission made its investigation there were some forty Italian agri- cultural colonies and communities. And they have been doing well. Whether upon the muck lands of New York, the sandy barrens of New Jersey, the rock-strewn hills of New England, or the heavy black Brazos cotton lands of 131 132 THE IMMIGRANT Texas, they have been able to make a fair liv- ing, and often by working early and late, with an incredible expenditure of labour, to make productive lands upon which Americans have all but starved. They thrive best in communi- , ties, for the Italian is pre-eminently a social being and likes to have close and sympathetic neighbours as well as lands. In industry, thrift, careful attention to details, crop yields, and other matters he compares well with the other farmers of his vicinity. His patience, un- flagging industry, and capacity for hard, mo- notonous labour make him a good farmer. Where the second generation of Italians! grow up on the little farms of their fathers they develop into a sturdy people, measuring up in the main to all the best standards of second generations of foreigners in America. In the big settlement at Vineland, N. J., whichl is the largest rural Italian settlement in the United States, the second generation is stick- ing to the little truck-farm and making money. Not only are the Italians starting farming communities in many parts of the country, but in the southern cotton fields, notably in the} " delta " region, they are in prime favour as cotton-pickers, and also as labourers on sugar plantations, in many places being regarded as much superior to negro labour. FOREIGNERS ON THE FARM 133 Most of the Italian farm-owners are men who started out as pick-and-shovel men, rail- road section men, and labourers on general construction work. Some of them were fac- tory workers. But once they began farming others followed their example, and soon their relatives and friends in Italy began coming, so . that before long they had established a settle- ment. Where the Hebrews have gone to the land they usually have done fairly well. With them, as with the Italians, their most successful colony . is probably the one near Vineland, N. J. This colony was established amid pine barrens about 1882, and was conducted largely upon a com- munistic basis until 1890, when it seemed to be upon the verge of failure. Then some money r from the Baron Hirsch Fund was made avail- able for the financial rehabilitation of the colony. Since that time it has thrived and to-day stands out as an evidence of what the Hebrew may do when he goes to farming in- stead of to merchandising. Some of them have developed a new sort of agriculture — summer- boarder agriculture it has been called. The Hebrew farmer opens his house to the summer boarder and thus makes his own market for his products. The Jewish Agricultural and In-/ dustrial Aid Society now operates an experi- 134 THE IMMIGRANT mental farm on Long Island and prospective rural colonists are offered a course of instruc- tion in farming. It is the opinion of the Im- migration Commission that as a pioneer farmer/ the Jew might not be a great success, but that, if he has the means to begin with, he will usually make a success where he starts on an' ordinary American farm. The Poles are beginning more and more to turn to agriculture as a means of livelihood, and there are some fifty settlements where they are found in considerable numbers, these settle- ments representing nearly seven thousand fami- lies. Some few settlements were established before the Civil War. But it was not until about 1885 that the Polish communities began- 7 to dot the prairies of the Dakotas and Minne- sota. Some of the settlers were immigrants direct from Europe, but more of them were labourers who had spent several years in American mines and factories, and had saved some money. They usually bought land more with an eye to its cheapness than to its produc- tivity, v The most recent tendency of the Pole is to settle on the abandoned farms of the East, and in the main they are farm labourers who stayed with the native farmers as long as they oper- ated the farms and in the meantime had saved FOREIGNERS ON THE FARM 135 up enough to buy the place when the owner decided to leave it. Most of the recruits are of direct immigration, comparatively few of those working in mines and factories being at- tracted to the farm. Some of the latter class, however, have been settling on the poorer hill farms of New England, attracted thence by enterprising real estate agents and big adver- tisements. They have been especially success- { ful on farms raising specialized crops. In Portage County, Wis., they grow potatoes,/ while in New England they usually grow onions or tobacco and do well with both. The Pole has been called a lover of the land, and he never is quite satisfied when he is not the* owner of a little plat of it. More than a third of all our Bohemian popu-y lation has taken to the farm, and the Bohemian is proving to more southerly sections of the country what the Scandinavian has proved to the Northwest. Texas has an unusually large number of Bohemian farmers, and they make good, just like the German of Pennsylvania and the states on the eastern side of the Miss- issippi valley has made good. Most of them grow cotton, but unlike the native cotton grower, they raise enough of other crops to supply their families and their live stock. The Texas situation affords a present-day picture 130 THE IMMIGRANT of the conditions which led to the great migra- tion from Pennsylvania and northern Virginia into the Middle West — a migration that carried with it the father and mother of Abraham Lincoln. The old settlers, filled with the pioneer spirit, as soon as population began to get a little dense and land values began to rise, sold out at good prices and trekked to the West. To-day the old Bohemian settler in eastern Texas, willing to let others follow the easy life of settled farming, turns his eyes toward the Panhandle, takes his family and goes once more to the frontier to grow up with the coun- try, and to add to wealth through the enhance- ment of land values as well as through the growing of crops. The Bohemian farmer of- Texas has proved a progressive citizen, hard- working, honest, teaching his children a love for the farm, and growing a race of which Texas is proud. The most gratifying result of a study of the members of the " new " immigration who have gone into agriculture is that it reveals a second' generation coming on that is as well American- ized as the Germans of Pennsylvania, the Scandinavians of the Northwest, or the Scotch and the Irish of the Middle West. It demon- strates that the immigrant who settles on the land, whether he be of the " old " or the " new " FOREIGNERS ON THE FARM 137 immigration, will sooner or later enrich the nation with a posterity that is a tower of* strength and a great economic asset. And that lends much encouragement to the efforts of those who are directing the attention of the immigrant away from industrial life and to- ward agricultural life. An interesting type of immigrant in agricul- ture is the one known as the seasonal labourer.* He may be a cranberry picker in the bogs of New England, a sugar-beet worker of Wiscon- sin, or a strawberry picker of Delaware and New Jersey. Gradually one sees the older races of immigrants giving way to the newer ones in these fields of cheap labour as well as in other places. The native Americans and the Germans gave way to the South Italians in the Jersey berryfields, while in the Massachusetts cranberry bogs, the Poles, Finns, and Italians are gradually yielding to the Black Portuguese or " Bravas." Near Geneva, N. Y., the South Italians are gradually giving way to the Greeks, and in the vicinity of Oneida, N. Y., the Syrians are getting a foothold as labourers on truck- farms.V On the whole, the showing that the immi- grant of the present day is able to make when he goes on the land is not a bad one. One out of every five of all the foreign-born popula- 138 THE IMMIGRANT tion in the United States lives by agriculture, but this large ratio is due to the " old " immi- gration in years gone by. The number of the " new " immigration on the land is compara- tively small, but the conditions are good enough) to warrant the hope that it eventually will grow. But at present the drift is plainly to the industrial centres and to city pursuits and somewhat away from the farm. However, it is the hope of many of the states which have vacant land that they can make it easy for an immigrant with ordinary qualifications to get securely settled on a farm, be it large or small, and thus turn the tide back to the land. XVII THE CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANTS IN SCHOOL THE investigation into the status of the children of immigrants in schools was one of the most extensive planned and carried out by the Immigration Commission. Inquiries were made which reached more than two million school-children, approximately a quarter of a million of them in parochial, schools. It also reached some fifty thousand teachers and upward of thirty thousand stu- dents in the higher educational institutions of the country. The purpose was to ascertain to what extent the children of foreign parentage make use of our educational system and what progress they make in school work. In the main the survey of the subject was a general one, but in a number of cities hav- ing a large percentage of children of foreign parentage, the examination was made more in detail. More than half of all the school children in the public schools of the thirty- seven cities investigated were of foreign par- 139 140 THE IMMIGRANT entage. In fact, fifty-seven out of every hun- dred of the children were of foreign parentage. Some of the cities showed a remarkable propor- tion of such children. In Chelsea and Duluth it was nearly three- fourths, while in New York, New Bedford, Chicago, Fall River, and Shenandoah, upward of two out of three were of foreign parentage. The children of the races who do not speak English have rather a hard time getting started. There are a few exceptions. For instance, in the case of the Swedes, there are only a little more than half as many of their children be- hind in their studies as there are among the native American children. The little Dutch boys and girls show about the same amount of precocity. But when it comes to some of the other nationalities there is a different story. Two-thirds of the Polish Jew children have an unequal struggle in their work, while nearly two-thirds of the children from sunny south- ern Italy are unable to keep up with their American fellow-pupils. More than half of the Slovaks, Magyars, Poles, North Italians, and Jews are behind the normal qualifications of their years. And yet with all the difficulties experienced by the children of the non-English-speaking foreigner, they show a better percentage of pu- IMMIGRANT SCHOOL CHILDREN 141 pils measuring up to the average school stand- ards than is shown by the American negro. Whereas, taking them as a whole, the non- English-speaking foreigner's children show only 43 retarded pupils out of a hundred, the negro children show 69. These figures are the most extensive ever brought out concern- ing the relative mentality of white and negro children, and have added interest because they come from thirty-seven cities, only one of which is south of the Mason and Dixon line. The teachers in the schools of the cities in- vestigated ought to be able to sympathize with the struggles of the children of immigrants, for it is shown that one-half of them were either immigrants themselves or the children of immi- grants. The majority of these teachers, of course, came from northwestern Europe, al- though other races were not without repre- sentation. The Irish furnish more than twice as many teachers in the schools investigated as any other race. In fact, they furnish about two-fifths of all the school teachers of foreign parentage in those cities — more than the Ger- mans, English, and Scotch-Irish together. In the parochial schools covered by the in- 1 vestigation it was found that children of for- eign parentage largely predominate, nearly 142 THE IMMIGRANT two-thirds answering this description. One- fourth of them are of Irish parentage. One can scarcely overestimate the assimila- tion force of the public schools as disclosed by the investigation. It shows that the immi- grants do not fail to put their children into the* schools, and that once there they are certain to become genuine Americans by the time they leave school. We discover the Americaniza- tion process in nearly all lines of inquiry which might indicate it. We see them emulating our bad traits as well as good ones. It is true, however, that some of the races from southern and eastern Europe are not in- clined to keep their children in school as longi as would be best for them and for the country. While one out of eleven of our native American children are to be found in the high schools, only one out of a hundred of the average of the " new " immigrant's children will be found there. The Immigration Commission finds much cause for congratulation on the way the for- eigner, generally speaking, takes an interest in the schools and is ambitious that his children should learn to read and write. While in the congested districts this tendency is not as marked as it is in communities having only a normal foreign population, even in those dis- IMMIGRANT SCHOOL CHILDREN 143 tricts the children are given at least an ele- mentary education. And where they have grown up and become the fathers and mothers of children of their own, they have made as good a record as the native Americans in the education of their children. The children of foreigners in the smaller industrial centres do not, as a rule, fare so/ well in school as those in the cities. The aver- age school in the mining village or camp is poor. Usually it is not in session more than five or six months in the year, and when it is in ses- sion, the teaching is often of a decidedly in- ferior quality. And then there are no attend- ance officers to look to keeping the children in school. A mother, burdened with a house full of little children, and perhaps keeping a half- dozen boarders, very naturally is inclined to keep her girl of ten home to help her. Like- wise, the father, desiring to supplement his own meagre wages, puts his boy to work as soon as he is big enough to pick the slate out of coal. The child of the immigrant usually starts out in life with a valuable asset — the will to overcome the obstacles in his pathway. The father came to America because he was not/ satisfied. He bravely bore up under the hard- ships and privations of his new sphere in order 144* THE IMMIGRANT that he and his family might be better off in the end. He worked hard, and placed every- thing else secondary to his desire for a com- petence, measured by his standard. This qual- ity is inherited by the children. They sing the songs of the street more earnestly, play craps more recklessly, swear more outrage- ously, and do almost everything else with a more evident ambition to excel than their native American companions. In the cities the children of the immigrant usually come to school from a crowded tene- ment. The Immigration Commission could not find a single tenement block occupied by Ameri-i cans of native parentage. Those apologies for human habitations are occupied by the immi- grant and his children. They are not there be- cause they prefer it, but because sheer neces- sity forces them to be there. With no place to play except in a slum alley, it must be re- freshing to the children to go to school where for at least a part of the day they may live amid decent surroundings and have a good place to play during recess. Sometimes teachers have found the children of immigrants eager to play but very reluctant to wash. One teacher encountering this dispo- sition told the boys that they could play in the gymnasium on condition that they first used its IMMIGRANT SCHOOL CHILDREN 145 shower-baths. The desire to play overbalanced the disinclination to wash, and a clean lot of boys was the result. In one of the New York schools there was a boy who would frequently jump out of his seat, make funny gestures, and go through other puzzling performances. The teacher tried to break him of his habit, but without success. Later the mother told her the boy was crazy for gymnastic exer- cises. The problem of the working boy is one of* the hardest with which those who would edu- cate the child of the immigrant have to contend. Thousands of these boys come to America when they are too old to enter the primary grades. If he does try to enter those grades he is so big that he is laughed at and drops out rather than continue to be the butt of the children's laughter. So he gets no education. The same is largely true of the boys born here but forced to work as soon as they are old enough. The investigations that have been made by various agencies tend to show that there is a markedly greater tendency to crime among the children of foreign parentage than among, those of native parentage. The experience of the secretary of the Playground Association of Maiden, Mass., perhaps explains why this is 146 THE IMMIGRANT so. He found that as soon as the playground was opened and the boys of foreign parentage brought out of the alleys and given healthy amusements, the number of petty crimes com- mitted by them fell off fully fifty per cent. It is clear, then, that the problem of correct- ing the criminal tendencies among certain of our immigrant classes cannot be left to any test that may be imposed at Ellis Island — nor can it be solved by devising punishments! We must Americanize their children, and to do that we must give them their share of the American boy's rightful heritage — a due pro- portion of healthy fun. XVIII IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME THE American people have heard so much about the criminal tendencies of the " new " immigration that they have come generally to accept as gospel truth the oft-repeated statement that the aliens coming to America are distinguished for their criminal tendencies. And yet every investigation that has been made points to the conclusion that if there is any difference between the immigrant and the native American in this regard it is in favour of the foreigner rather than against him. » The statistics do indicate, however, that thei American-born children of immigrants show a greater tendency to crime than do the chil- dren of native parentage. It also appears that juvenile delinquency is greater among the chil- dren of immigrants than among those of native parents. The Immigration Commission con- cludes from its investigations that, upon the whole broad question as to whether or not im- migration increases crime, there is not sufficient 147 148 THE IMMIGRANT evidence upon which to predicate a conclusion. On the other hand, it has found enough evi- dence to justify the assertion that immigration does change the character of crime in this country, and says that to measure this change was the chief aim of the investigation of crime records. A marked increase in the number of crimes of personal violence, such as abduction, kid- napping, assault, homicide, and rape, is noted, and the number of cases of disorderly conduct, drunkenness, vagrancy, and like offenses has increased largely as a result of the presence of the immigrant. The same is true of offences against chastity, and also of the prevalence of blackmail, extortion, and the receiving of stolen property. On the other hand, in the majority of the gainful offences the native American has a worse record than the immigrant. Some of these changes in the nature of American crime are traceable largely to certain nationalities of immigrants. For instance, the Commission concludes that the increase in the number of offenses of personal violence in this country is due to the immigration from south- ern Europe in general, and from Italy in par- ticular. The Irish and Scotch are notable for their penal records for intoxication, the Italian for his number of attempted homicides, and IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME 149 the Greeks and Russians for their contempt of public ordinances in the big cities. - But a much larger proportion of the offences committed by native Americans are of a serious nature than among those committed by the im- migrants. For instance, the census inquiry shows that seven out of every ten crimes com- mitted by native American prisoners are " ma- jor " offences, while less than six out of ten committed by immigrant prisoners belonged to that category. . Perhaps the most interesting tendency dis- closed by the investigation is the inclination of^ the children of foreigners to cease to commit the crimes which characterize their parents and to commit the kinds of crimes which character- ize the native American population — showing that they imitate Americans with a vengeance. In the records of the Court of General Sessions of New York it was found that whereas the percentage of gainful offences committed by Irish immigrants was only 60.5 per cent, the second generation shows 78 per cent, and the native Americans 79.7 per cent. On the other hand, the children of Irish immigrants commit less than half as many offences of personal vio- lence as did their fathers. — There are some thirteen thousand alien pris- oners in the penal institutions of the United 150 THE IMMIGRANT States. Assuming that it costs only $200 a year to maintain each of them, the country must spend over two and a half million dollars annually to keep them. One-fourth of their crimes were committed within three years after their arrival in the United States. It is inter- esting to note the tendency of certain nationali- ' ties to commit certain forms of crime. Half of the crimes committed by Italians were of per- sonal violence, while crimes of this class were committed by only one-sixteenth of the Jewish prisoners. On the other hand, the Jews com- mitted nearly twice as many gainful offences as did the Italians. Two-thirds of the offences of which Irish prisoners were convicted were against public policy, while the Germans com- mitted much less than half as many such crimes. On the other hand, the Germans committed more than twice as many gainful offences as the Irish. And so go the proportions all down the line. One nationality makes but few mur- derers, yet it has many forgers, burglars, and thieves. Another nationality has many men who commit or attempt to commit murder, and yet is possessed of only a few forgers, thieves, and burglars. The distorted idea of the average American citizen concerning the criminal tendencies of immigrants is probably explained by the fact IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME 151 that such a large number of them are convicted of petty offences. The New York State Com- mission of Immigration says they violate the corporation ordinances and the sanitary code to a much larger extent than the native Ameri- can. For instance, a majority of the criminal- ity of the Greeks of New York is found to be a violation of the law against peddling with- out license. Much of the crime among immigrants is the direct result of drunkenness, and this particu- larly explains why the number of crimes of personal violence among the immigrants from southern and eastern Europe is so large. Withf such a large percentage of them unmarried and living in boarding-houses where often from four to ten sleep in a single room, it is little wonder that they often drink to excess, and of course they drink cheap liquor calculated to arouse all the worst that is in them. The for- eigner often attempts to hide the crime of his own people, although it may have been com--' mitted against himself. It has been estimated that not more than three per cent of all those who commit murder are brought to justice. The Immigration Commission investigated the tendency of foreign criminals to come to the United States in order to escape punishment, and the results show the inadequacy of the 152 THE IMMIGRANT present law to debar them. Italy was selected as the country upon whose subjects the in- vestigation was to be made, largely because of the general belief that more Italian criminals come to the United States than from any other country. The investigation was made in New York for the reason that it could be carried on to better advantage there, both because of the Italians in the city and because suspicions would not be as likely to be aroused. To conduct the investigation it was necessary to secure a corps of special agents who were familiar with the Italian quarter. It was then further neces- sary to check up the accuracy of their work by securing the official records of the criminals they had run down and reported upon. The closeness with which the reports of the investi- gators tallied with the facts disclosed by the official records sent over from Italy, proved conclusively the carefulness of the investiga- tors in ascertaining and reporting their facts. It was found that there are many Italian criminals in the United States who served out their sentences before coming; many others who were tried and convicted in their absence and are fugitives from justice; many who were acquitted, but against whom there was strong evidence ; and still others who never have been tried for any crime but whose reputations at IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME 153 home were notorious. The law shuts out only I the one class — those who have been tried and convicted before their arrival in the United States. There have been instances where the Italian courts have convicted a criminal after his landing in the United States, but the courts have held that the law does not require the de- portation of such persons. Furthermore, no matter how clear the evidence that a criminal got into the United States in defiance of the immigration laws, the courts have held that if he has been here three years he is not subject to deportation. It has been urged in many quarters that every person who has committed a criminal offence abroad should be liable to deportation at any time within a period of five years, and also that any immigrant committing a criminal offence within five years after coming here shall be deported immediately. Some have sug- gested that every person who lands ought to be required to present a certificate of good standing from his home country. As it is, the immigration authorities have very little ground upon which to work in trying to prevent the entrance of criminals. Unless there are pecu- liar circumstances the criminal is usually shrewd enough to hide any indications of his criminalities, and so he comes in. 154 THE IMMIGRANT General Theodore A. Bingham said, when Police Commissioner of New York, that he believed there were fully three thousand desperadoes from southern Italy alone in *that city, and that among them there were some as ferocious and desperate as ever gathered in a modern city in time of peace — mediaeval crimi- nals who must be dealt with under modern laws. That this condition greatly complicates the difficulties of police supervision in the metropo- lis cannot be denied. It is, therefore, the more unfortunate that so many criminals of foreign extraction have found not opposition but en- couragement from those whose duty it is to keep order. The " Black Hand " outrages among the Italians, the Tong wars among the Chinese, the " razor parties " among the ne- groes of San Juan Hill, when considered with the " gang " wars of the native Americans may be taken as showing that crime is neither geographical nor racial. id K *' H XIX THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC THE importation and harbouring of alien women and girls for immoral purposes, is pronounced by the Immigration Com- mission the most pitiful and the most revolting phase of the immigration question. It was found that the business had assumed such large proportions and was exerting so evil an influ- ence upon the country that the Commission decided to make it the subject of a thorough investigation. Since the subject is one espe- cially liable to sensational exploitation, the Commission decided that it would carefully state only the undeniable facts calculated to form the basis of reasonable legislative and administrative action looking to its suppression. The Commission made its report to Congress just before Christmas, 1909. The showing made was so startling that Congress in a little more than three months after the filing of the report, sent a law upon the subject to the President for his signature. This law added to the list of deportable aliens persons who are sup- 155 156 THE IMMIGRANT ported by, or who receive in whole or in part, the proceeds of prostitution. This was in- tended especially to break up the infamous cadet system, whereby human vampires in the guise of men force women and girls to deliver to them the profits of their shame. The law of 1907 already had placed the ban upon aliens who procure or attempt to bring women and girls into the United States for immoral pur- poses, but it was not extended to the repre- hensible cadet. The investigation of the white slave traffic began in 1907, under the active supervision of a special committee of the Immigration Com- mission. The work was conducted by a special agent with numerous assistants, and the Com- mission says that too much credit cannot be given to the agents who independently planned details, and with cheerful courage, even at the risk of their lives at times, secured information relative to the traffic. Several of them had to associate, under one pretext or another, with the criminal procurers, importers, cadets, and their unfortunate or degraded victims when the discovery of the agent's purposes might have resulted in his murder. One woman agent was attacked and beaten, escaping seri- ous injury, if not death, only with the greatest difficulty, and yet the next day she went cheer- THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC 157 fully back to her work, though, of course, in another locality. Information was secured from men who formerly had been keepers of disorderly houses; from women who were managers of such houses; from physicians who practised among such women; from women who had formerly been white slaves; and also from some of the women and girls who had been lured to America under false pretences. After its investigation, the Commission esti- mated that the number of women imported for immoral purposes was running into the thou- sand every year. But the real work was to get data as to the methods of the white slave traffic so that the remedial legislation could be adopted. The action of the Supreme Court in the Keller case, in which that part of the law under which persons were prosecuted for " har- bouring " alien women for immoral purposes was declared unconstitutional, has made it harder to enforce the intent of the law, since it is much more difficult to weave a chain of evidence about an importer or procurer than to convict a person of " harbouring " such women. Some idea of the prevalence of " white slav- ery " in New York City may be gathered from an investigation of the night court records for a period of four months. During that time ) 158 THE IMMIGRANT there were 2,093 cases of soliciting on the streets and being inmates of disorderly houses brought in, upon which convictions were se- ^* cured, and of these 581 were women of alien birth. Nearly half of the foreigners were Jewish, while half of the remainder were French. The opinions of the agents of the Commission, however, were that the majority of the Jewish women found in white slavery had reached there at the hands of professional seducers. The motive of business profit is wholly re- sponsible for the existence of the traffic. The Commission states that the procurers who en- tice the women to leave their foreign homes, the importers who assist them in evading the law or who bring them here for sale to the keepers of disorderly houses, and cadets who exploit them body and soul, have only profit in view. Although very many of the girls are brought here innocent, betrayed into a slavery rigid in its strictness and barbarous in its nature, there are others who come with their eyes open, lured by stories that the profits of such a life are often ten times as great in America as in Europe. The Commission says that of far greater significance than facts showing that the law has been violated, are the other facts which THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC 159 show the method employed and the inadequacy of the law to protect the country against such importations. Recruiting is carried on sys- tematically at home and abroad. The men who recruit the majority of the victims are in the business for the dollars and cents they can get out of it. With a cunning knowledge of human nature, they play upon the weaknesses of van- ity and pride, upon the laudable thrift and desire to secure a better livelihood, upon the praiseworthy trust and affection which inno- cent girls have for those they love. They even prey upon their sentiments of religion, and once in their toils, they capitalize them with a cruelty at times fiendish in its calculating coldness and brutality. If the prospective victim is young and affectionate, the procurer makes her ac- quaintance, treats her kindly, offers to assist her in getting a better position. Her confi- dence won, she is within his power, and is cal- culatingly led into a life of shame. Women procurers offer girls good positions at better pay than they have ever been able to make, and then carry them off to some brothel. Correspondence captured in raids instituted by the agents of the Commission constitute remarkable human documents. The slavers write to one another in polite terms, express affection for their families, talk tenderly of 160 THE IMMIGRANT the mothers and other relatives, and yet when they come to discuss their victims it is with the same coolness with which they would name the good points of a thoroughbred horse or a blooded dog which they were offering for sale. A Seattle case reveals something of the methods of the slavers. The girl was German. She served four years as a trained nurse and then went to France for a year as governess, after which she spent a year at home. Finally she decided to come to America. En route she met another German woman, who told her she lived in Los Angeles, and who wanted to en- gage her as governess. Finally they wound up in Seattle, where she was taken, at night, to a disorderly house whose address she did not know, where her clothes were taken from her and where she was denied paper to write. She threatened to kill herself if she were not re- leased, and finally she was taken to a hotel, by the husband of the woman who had enticed her, and was there bound, gagged, and as- saulted. The law finally came to her rescue and the woman who betrayed her was deported. Her husband got two years in the penitentiary, but under the Supreme Court decision pro- nouncing unconstitutional the law against har- bouring, he is not liable to any punishment for his unspeakably brutal treatment of his vicl THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC 161 Those who recruit women for immoral pur- poses frequent employment agencies, immi- grant homes, moving-picture shows, dance- halls, railroad stations. Often as much as a thousand dollars is paid for an exceptionally attractive girl, and the prices range on down to two hundred dollars. The imported girls usually come as the wives or relatives of the men accompanying them, as maids or relatives of women accompanying them, or as women entering alone and booked to some home or friend. The Japanese have a custom whereby a woman in Japan may marry a man in America by proxy, and often they come over ostensibly to meet their proxy husbands, but in reality to go into " white slavery." It has been found difficult to apprehend the violators of the white slave law at the ports, and the danger of detaining innocent women is so great that the inspectors would rather pass a dozen they are not certain about than to hold up one innocent one upon such a charge. The system of exploitation is such that the poor white slave victim, whether she has been trapped into the life or has entered it willingly, gets only a small share of the profit. In a raid in Chicago a big Irish girl was taken. She was asked why she didn't get out. She replied: " Get out ! I can't. They make us buy the 162 THE IMMIGRANT cheapest rags, and they are charged against us at fabulous prices; they make us change outfits every two or three weeks, until we are so deeply in debt we can never hope to get out. We seldom get an accounting, but when we do it is always to find ourselves deeper in debt than before. ,, One depressing fact about this unhappy busi- ness is that so many honest immigrant girls who actually seek and find employment in domestic service subsequently become the prey of the " white slaver." The changed conditions of life that they find in America, the abso- lute extinction in many instances of the so- cial opportunities, make them only too ready for the wiles of the miserable creatures who ever stalk the defenceless and the weak. XX THE FOREIGNER'S LARGE FAMILY MUCH has been written in recent years about race suicide, but most of it with only superficial facts at hand upon which to base conclusions. Next to noth- ing was known of the conditions which produce it, of its relative extent in urban and rural life, and of its existence among different na- tionalities of people. Fortunately, when the Twelfth Census was taken, data were gathered as to the number of years wives had been mar- ried and the number of children they had borne. But these figures were never tabulated by the Census authorities with a view to showing the bearing immigration has upon the tendency of the American people toward a lower birth-rate. That task was undertaken by the Immigration Commission with data taken from the state of Rhode Island as representing a compactly popu- lated state of the old East where nearly all the people are urban dwellers; from the city of Cleveland as being a typical American city; from the rural counties of Ohio representing 163 164 THE IMMIGRANT typical rural conditions among the native popu- lation; from the city of Minneapolis represent- ing the old immigration under urban condi- tions ; and from the rural districts of Minnesota as typical of the Northwest. The results of these tabulations demonstrate beyond question that if America is to continue to grow and wax more powerful it will have to look to the country districts and to the im- migrants for the supply of children who will make this growth possible. The story told by the figures is one of very small families among women of native parentage who live under urban conditions. As a matter of fact, such families scarcely have enough children to re- place themselves. It is probable that out of every three children born not more than two grow to adult estate and have children of their own. In fact, the probability is that this state- ment is far on the side of conservatism, as is shown by the fact that out of 100,000 children born, about 40,000 die before they reach the age of twenty- four. And when it is further considered that out of every hundred marriages in the country about seven are childless, it will appear very conservative to say that the family which does not have three children stands little show of directly adding to the permanent population of the country. A FOREIGNER'S LARGE FAMILY 165 And yet the investigations of the Immigra- tion Commission disclose the fact that the aver- age American wife whose parents are both native-born Americans, and who lives in the city, has only 2.4 children. Her sister in the rural districts has 3.4 children, or one more child than her city sister. To put it another way, where city women of native parentage have twenty-four children, their country sis- ters have thirty-four. But although the country woman of native parentage has one more child in her family than her city sister, the immigrant mother shows even a larger family than the country woman. The immigrant woman in the city has a larger number of children than the native parentage woman in the country, but fewer children than the immigrant woman in the country. The latter class of women has the largest number of children of any of the classes of women investigated. In rural Minnesota we find her with an average of five and a half children. In nearly every case women of foreign birth show a much higher percentage of children than women who are the children of native Americans. For all the territory studied the immigrant women had an average of two chil- dren more than the native women of native 166 THE IMMIGRANT parentage. The French Canadian women in Rhode Island had families more than twice as large as the women of native American par- entage, and very few of the immigrant women of the different nationalities failed to show at least two children more than the average American woman could claim. The English and Scotch came nearer to approximating the American standard than any other immigrant races, and yet average English and Scotch mothers had one more child than the American- parentage mothers. The Polish women embraced in the enumera- tion, had the champion anti-race suicide fami- lies in the United States, with more than six children to the family. The Bohemian women had more than five children in the average family, and the same is true of the French Canadians, the Finnish, and the Russian women. The Austrian, Danish, German, Irish, Italian, Norwegian, and Swiss women who were immigrants, averaged more than four and a half children each. But the children of the immigrant women are not the possessors of as big families as their mothers. While the immigrant women themselves average 4.7 children, their daugh- ters who have been married the same length of time average only 3.9 children. The A FOREIGNER'S LARGE FAMILY 167 tendency of the daughters of immigrant women toward smaller families applies to every na- tionality. While among none of the nationali- ties investigated did the daughters of immigrant women have as many children as the mother, on the other hand, in not a single nationality did the average number of children among women of immigrant parentage fall as low as that among women of native parentage. Usu- ally the family of the immigrant woman's daughter was a medium between the big family of the immigrant woman and the small one of the woman of native parentage. These figures are all based upon women who are less than forty-five years old and who have been married from ten to nineteen years. No matter whether the figures are taken from populous Rhode Island, from rural Minnesota, rural Ohio, Cleveland, or Minneapolis, they all show the same relative tendencies of large families among the women of foreign birth, medium families among women who are the daughters of immigrants, and smaller families among women of native parentage'. The aver- age city-living daughter of an immigrant woman has about the same-sized family as the average country-living woman of native par- entage. 168 THE IMMIGRANT No matter among what class or what nation- ality of women the investigation leads, the uniform lesson it teaches is that urban condi- tions tend to restrict the size of families. They affect the woman of native parentage most of all, then the women of native birth but im- migrant parentage, and least of all the immi- grant woman herself. Not only do city conditions tend to cut down the size of the average family, but they tend to produce a large number of childless mar- riages. For instance, in Rhode Island one married woman out of every six who has been married more than ten years and whose parents are native born, has had no children. In Cleve- land the ratio is about one out of seven, and in Minneapolis it is about one out of eight. On the other hand, the women of native par- entage in the rural districts of Ohio and Minne- sota show only one marriage out of twenty without children. Here again the immigrant woman excels her daughters and the daughters of native Ameri- can parents. In Rhode Island only one mar- ried immigrant woman in fifteen has had no children, in Cleveland one in nineteen, in Minneapolis one in sixteen, and in the rural districts it is about one in twenty. And here again the daughters of the immigrant women A FOREIGNER'S LARGE FAMILY 169 fall between their mothers and the women of native American parentage. It is also interesting to note how much less is the average difference of the ages of the children of immigrant parentage than of native Ameri- can stock. The native American woman of na- tive parentage has had a child for every five years and four months of her married life, while the immigrant woman has had one for every three years she has been married. Here again the native-parentage, city-living wife shows the greatest tendency to race suicide, while her country-living sister, though not receiving as frequent visits from the stork as the immigrant woman and her daughter, does have more children than her sister in the city. A careful study of the figures presented by the Immigration Commission, taken in con- junction with the statistics of birth- and death- rates available in the United States, indicates that if America were dependent for her future population upon the American woman who lives in the city and whose parents were native born, there would be a decline in population from decade to decade. It also indicates that if immigration should cease and the birth-rate of all American women of native parentage should be continued, we would just a little more than hold our own in population. On the other 170 THE IMMIGRANT hand, with the large number of immigrant women coming to America and the partiality of the stork for their homes and the homes of their daughters, it seems certain that the coun- try will continue to expand in population from decade to decade. XXI DESCENDANTS OF IMMIGRANTS ik S has been indicated in previous chapters, AA once the immigrant gets settled in America and carves out a home for him- self and his posterity, marked changes come over him, and in many respects the after- generations become unlike their progenitors. Not only is this true in such ephemeral and fleeting qualities as customs, language, dress, and the like, but it affects the more permanent characteristics such as stature, shape of the head, fecundity, and disposition. In dress the transition from European peasant to American citizen sometimes does not take place with the immigrant, but certainly does not wait longer than the first generation before taking place. One is reminded of the little scrap of doggerel about Mary, the immigrant's daughter, who " had a little hat no bigger than a stopper, ,, but who soon "got rid of that, and now she wears a whopper." The great majority of the children of immi- grants learn to speak English and soon use 171 172 THE IMMIGRANT it as their regular tongue. Very few of the grandchildren of immigrants adhere to the tongue of their fathers in Europe. But there are cases where the mother tongue persists through long generations. Terence V. Pow- derly, the efficient chief of the Division of Information of the Bureau of Immigration, tells of an experience he had in Lancaster County, Penn., which illustrates the tendency of some people to hold to the customs of the fatherland. He was out on immigration busi- ness and went to a livery stable to hire a horse and buggy. The owner of the stable was a Pennsylvania Dutchman. All of the horses were out except the family driving horse. This nag was hitched up and Powderly started on his journey, but he soon found that the horse could not understand English, and so, since he could not speak German, he had to adopt horse language Esperanto and lead the steed back to the stable. That liveryman's ancestors had been in Pennsylvania for a century and a half, and yet his driving horse did not understand "Whoa" or " Giddap." While it has been demonstrated that there is a remarkable amount of insanity among immigrants, and while insanity is usually regarded as an inheritable disease, there is nothing to indicate that the percentage of in- DESCENDANTS OF IMMIGRANTS 173 sane among the descendants of immigrants is any greater than that among people of pure American stock with American ancestry run- ning back a century. How much more fre- quently the thread of reason is broken in the alien mind is illustrated by the investigations of the Census Bureau into insanity and feeble- mindedness in hospitals and institutions. This investigation shows that while twenty out of every hundred people ten years old and over in the United States were of foreign birth, thirty- four out of every every hundred inmates of hospitals and institutions for the insane and feeble-minded were of foreign birth. In other I words, while the foreign-born element ten years old and over, constitutes one-fifth of our popu- lation, it makes up one-third of our insane and • feeble-minded charges. That this tendency toward insanity and, feeble-mindedness is not communicated to the' descendants of immigrants is revealed by the L* inquiry of the Census Bureau into the parent- age of the native-born inmates of these insti- tutions. This shows that 273 out of each thousand inmates are the children of foreign- born parents, while 277 out of each thousand in the population of the country are the children of immigrants. In other words, the figures show that the children of immigrants are just 174 THE IMMIGRANT a shade less inclined to insanity and feeble- mindedness than the children of native Ameri- cans. There has been much speculation as to the causes of insanity among immigrants. The freedom from undue inclination toward insan- ity displayed by their children would seem to show that it is more a matter of environment than inherited taint. Those who controvert this idea declare that the reason the children of immigrants show as great freedom from insan- ity as the native American population lies in the fact that they are still too young to make a different showing. They point to other Cen- sus figures which indicate that when native- born and immigrant-born people of the same ages are considered, the native born have some advantage. Yet this advantage is narrowed down to a beggarly three per cent, whereas, ii a comparison between the immigrant and the native, it amounts to fifteen per cent. Some of the high rate of insanity among aliens is accounted for by the great difficulty of inspecting immigrants thoroughly enough to keep out every person of diseased mind. When, on rush days, only two minutes can be given to each immigrant at Ellis Island, it will be seen how hard it would be for doctors to detect every person showing mental unbalance. DESCENDANTS OF IMMIGRANTS 175 This accounts for a large number coming in who already have had attacks of insanity. Ther most highly civilized nations show a larger number of insane than those not so high up in the scale of civilization. For instance, while there were in institutions 88 Bohemians per 100,000 of Bohemian population, when the Census Bureau made its investigations, there were 307 Canadians and 238 Norwegians. But more than all this, according to some of the doctors who have had long experience in immigration inspection work, is the great change in environment which the immigrant undergoes. Instead of his peaceful little cot- tage home back in some quiet village, he sud- denly finds himself in a very maelstrom of humanity, commerce, and industry, calculated to shatter even the nerves of those who live amid pleasant surroundings and in happy homes. Such conditions are more likely to send to the madhouse the lonely foreigner who ekes out a living in some sweatshop by day and spends his nights in miserable tenements where comfort and peace have always yielded place to filth and misery. When the immigrant un- der such conditions contrasts his little cottage home he left behind with his new surround- ings, what wonder homesickness overcomes him and is often succeeded by a wrecked mind ? 176 THE IMMIGRANT But, fortunately, his children escape such a heavy toll. We have seen how the bodily form of the immigrant's descendants changes, and this is one of the most remarkable phases of the whole immigration question. Anthropologists have been much surprised to see the most fixed of all the racial characteristics change under the influence of American conditions. Of course a race which has lived for generations under tropical suns will have the mark thereof burnt into their faces, and residence in colder climates tends to obliterate these marks. But when the very bones themselves undergo changes, changes that cannot be attributed to heavy work or other like conditions, anthropologists become puzzled to account for them. What makes the skull of the round-headed immigrant turn long- faced in his children? And what makes the long face of other classes of immigrants tend to round-headedness in their posterity ? These are questions to which no acceptable answers have been given. Again, what makes the descendants of immigrants mature earlier than the immigrants themselves matured, and what makes the descendants of some races of immigrants grow shorter in stature while the descendants of other races of immigrants grow taller? For instance, the DESCENDANTS OF IMMIGRANTS 177 Bohemians lose stature, but their faces grow longer and their heads wider. On the other hand, the Sicilians gain in stature and in the width of their faces, but lose in the width of their heads. Why does America have one ef- fect on one race and diametrically the oppo- site effect upon other people in practically the same surroundings? Some one suggested that all this was due to the fact that there was a similar change among these races going on in their European homes. But when this matter was investi- gated it was found that the Sicilian who came over as an immigrant thirty years ago bore practically the same measurements as the one who comes to-day. And the same was true of the Bohemian, and of the other races investi- gated. If, then, Americanization is an influence powerful and far-reaching enough to change the most permanent of all the characteristics of a race, to make man over a different physical mould, what must be its influence on his tastes, his ambitions, his manner of thinking? What wonder is it that we see tens of thousands of men who were born in other countries gazing upon the flag of their fatherlands with a quiet indifference, but cheering to the echo when the Star Spangled Banner is unfurled to the 178 THE IMMIGRANT breeze? What wonder that there are twenty million children of immigrants in the United States in whose hearts there exists a patriotic fire that is thoroughly American ? What won- der that there are some two-score millions more Americans, grandchildren of immigrants, who are as thoroughly American as those whose ancestry goes back to Jamestown and Plymouth Rock? That most of them remember with affection their ancestral home is no more to be charged against their devoted Americanism than is the pride of a Massachusetts man who traces his line back to Plymouth, or that of the South Carolinian whose forefathers were French Huguenots. They all are Americans and America is theirs. I tv, .«