UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GTKT OP* Received Accession No. Class No. M MIGRATION ALLACIES BY JOHN CHETWOOD.JR. VOL. H. NO. 1. JUNE, 1896. BEACON LIBRARY SERIES- PUBLISHED MONTHLY. SUBSCRIPTION $3 00 PER ANNUM. Entered at Button fast Office as Second Class Matter. PRICE 25 CENTS. Boston, Mass. Two Books of Social Thought. By B. 0. Flower Just published. CLotk^ extra, $1.00. GERALD MASSEY : Poet, Prophet and Mystic. Mr. Flower in this new book, presents a study of the life and writings of Gerald Massey, an English Poet of the People, who has done great service for the cause of Social Democracy in England, and whose brave words for Freedom and Justice and the Dignity of Labor and Manhood and Womanhood are espe- cially pertinent in the conflict for Social and Political and Legal Justice for all classes and both sexes now beginning in America. Mr. Flower's object is to introduce American readers to a lofty and inspiring spirit in contemporary poetry, who will hearten the struggle of the poor and oppressed for equitable conditions with the highest spiritual aims and hopes. Liberal quotation brings the reader into close touch with the Poet's spirit and pur- poses, and Mr. Flower's commentary, critical and historical, is interesting and suggestive. The parallels he draws are instruct- ive, and should touch all interested in the new social thought. The book is beautifully gotten up and illustrated by Laura Lee. It also contains a fine portrait of Massey. Price, cloth, $/.oo/ paper, 25 cents. THE NEW TIME: A Plea for the Union of the Moral Forces for Practical Progress. This new worlc which has called forth a volume of criticism, both adverse and favorable, is published to meet the wants of those who wish to apply themselves to, and interest their friends in, the various branches of educational and social effort com- prised in the platform of the National Union for Practical Prog- ress; but from its wide sweep of all the factors in the social problem, it will also serve to introduce many readers to a general consideration of the new Renaissance of social thought, and to realize the strength and character of the evolutionary movement for a nobler social science, that is marshaling all the best minds of the day in its ranks. The book deals with prac- tical methods of reform and is not merely a bundle of specula- tions. The New York World says: " It is in every way practical, every day common sense, dealing with facts apd not theories." The Chicago Times says: " Candor is a marked character- istic of the author's treatment of the various economic subjects touched in the course of the book. Mr. Flower is one of the prominent " reform" writers of the day. He has done m^re perhaps than any other one writer for the advancement of his fellow men and tHe improvement of their condition. His plans, if put in practical operation, would be productive of good to all." For sale by all Booksellers, or sent, postpaid, on receipt uf price by the Publishers. THE ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY, Boston, Mass. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES BY JOHN CHETWOOD, JR. BOSTON ARENA PUBLISHING COMPANY COPLEY SQUARE 1896 COPYRIGHTED, 18 JOHN CHETWOOD, JR. A?l Rights Reserved. ARENA PRESS. TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES, NATIVE AND NATURALIZED, THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 1 - ^ *. .. W*iT IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. SYNOPSIS. INTRODUCTORY. PAGE The benefits of immigration more obvious than some of the drawbacks. In chapters following the economic value of immigration is conceded,, for sake of the argument. Economic objec- tions, however, readily suggest themselves even in the fields of manufacture and agriculture. Apparent need to revise estimate of economic value of the immigrant to the manufacturer. With regard to agriculture, the rapid decrease of the public lands has an important bearing, Macaulay's celebrated prophecy. The danger of over-rapid development. The great increase of population in connection with immigration* 13 CHAPTER I. OUR IMMIGRATION POLICY. ITS SOCIAL ASPECTS. Economic value of immigration very great. But what are the effects to the economic gain ? ^ True wealth of a nation not measured by acre- age or money,but by the character of its people. If the effects of immigration are deleterious to that character the economic gain is dearly ac- quired. Moral considerations and influences 7 SYNOPSIS. PAGE predominant in civilization. Every nation, like an individual, has a character of its own, has its obstacles and problems. What influence has immigration on our great national prob- lems, past and present, where the influence can be traced ? Its influence on some perni- cious. Others owe their existence to it. Mor- monism, conflict of labor and capital, munici- pal corruption and misrule 20 CHAPTER IT. IS IT PRACTICABLE TO REGULATE IMMIGRATION, AND WHY HAVE WE THUS FAR FAILED ? Recent discussion has assumed the contrary ; should not experience teach us better? The official records a long chronicle of failure. History of immigration. Origin of phrases " Asylum of the Oppressed " and " Refuge of the Nations. 11 Totally inapplicable to present conditions. Views of Revolutionary fathers. They believed in gradual immigration to pro- mote rapid and complete assimilation. Utter amazement of Washington or Jefferson if landed to-day in one of our large cities. It is commonly assumed that only recent immigra- tion has been injurious. Figures disprove the assumption. Startling disclosures in 1838. Criminals, vagrants, and imbeciles imported from Europe in large numbers. Restrictive measures passed. Yet new investigation in 1845 showed no improvement. Evil grew apace and led to a great outbreak in 1856. But the improvement was only temporary. Again in 1870 the subject required attention. But in- vestigation of 1888-9 found condition of things to be the worst in our history. History shows that the situation has continued virtually un- SYNOPSIS. 9 PAGE affected by all our legislation. And the recent legislation is fatally deficient. Preceding chapter referred to baneful effect of immigra- tion on great social problems, intemperance, Mormonism, relations of labor and capital, pau- perism, insanity, crime, etc. The character of immigration as shown by extracts cited from the record show why influence of immigration in these directions has been so evil. And the the evil must continue till character of immi- gration has radically changed 46 CHAPTER III. IMMIGRATION AND THE RISE OP THE A. P. A. Prevalent confusion of thought about the immi- gration problem. Its real simplicity. Refer- ence to preceding chapter on the repeated failure of reform as apparent from the official records. Can reform be accomplished by any ordinary methods ? Appearance of A. P. A. a tacit assumption that some kind of organization is essential. Is not assumption well founded ? Conditions underlying past failure. Forces for and against reform. Large majority of people for it, and demand growing. Reasons for this. But influential reform element is unorga- nized and has no direct pecuniary interest at stake. The corporations, bosses, etc., are organized and have pecuniary interests of great magnitude at stake. Consequently only their side will be ably presented to Congress. The great moral and patriotic objections to immi- gration do not have a fair hearing. Question pre-eminently patriotic. Affects whole nation. | Republic more dependent on character of its (people than any other form of government. No man introducing improper elements into 10 SYNOPSIS. PAGE any community can be a patriot. The A. P. A. must at least be credited with being strong ad- vocates of reform. Some of the charges against them. A revival of Know-Nothingism. But why these constant revivals of that spirit ? Are they not due to the great neglect of the prob- lems of immigration ? Is not this neglect a plausible reason for the rise of the A. P. A. ? If certain charges against them are well founded they will fail. But if that involves renewal of inaction and neglect, will not the country fare worse than the defeated A. P. A-? Can their failure be greater than the failure of our im- migration policy ? 72 CHAPTER IV. OUR UNNATURAL LAWS OF NATURALIZATION. A flagrant evasion of contract labor law ; 14.000 Italian peasants shipped to the Northwest. Im- portant election a year or two later. Political control of United States Senate apparently de- pendent on that of one district where not a voter could read or write. Were these voters holding balance of power the 14,000 Italians ? Vast influence of newly landed citizens owing to the volume and character of immigration and boundless liberality of naturalization system. Our failure to improve character of immigration. The naturalizing process. Voting " mills " of large cities. Ignorant and venal voters in droves. Wonder and scorn of such a friendly critic as Bryce. Severe arraign- ment of naturalization laws by a Swiss-Italian paper published in the West, Paper declares that great mass of immigrants are unfit for suffrage in five or even ten years. They don't want it and are mere tools of politicians. Hearty SYNOPSIS. 11 PAGE endorsement of this view by an American paper. Cowardice of politicians ; afraid to discuss question. A United States senator quoted in this connection. Theory of naturalization laws admirably adapted to date of passage 1802. No large cities then, no bosses, noun-American- izing influences. These laws now an anachro- nism and great menace. At least ten years' pro- bation should be required. Five now the maximum period. Many states shorten this to two or three or less. Table given showing this. Every voter should be able to read and write English. Views of Tammany Hall and Thomas Jefferson on this point contrasted. Various de- fects of present law. Need of making ceremony of naturalizing far more impressive. Great privilege and dignity of the elective franchise. . 94 CHAPTER V. EUROPEAN RESPONSIBILITY FOR AMERICAN CRIME. The Mafia trials and lynchings at New Orleans. Natural result of social conditions becom- ing prevalent all over country. Criminal im- migration bearing its fruits. Other carnivals of crime likely to recur. This view shifts some of the responsibility from people of New Orleans to people of United States. People of New Orleans seem to consider their act justifiable. This must be on the implied ground that char- acter of populace made execution of law power- less. If this is so similar conditions prevail more or less in all our large cities. Our criminal laws are executed by that Anglo-Saxon institu- tion, trial by jury. Whether it works properly depends almost entirely on character of sur- rounding population. Jury come from people and must have some intelligence, education, 12 SYNOPSIS. PAGE judicial capacity, and training in self-govern- ment. Trial by jury would be impossible in most parts of Europe. Reasons why. In New Orleans it appears that similar reasons made jury trial impossible. Jurymen threatened with death if they convicted accused, and those who threatened had many sympathizers in community. Under circumstances ordinary legal machinery could not work. The inter- national issue. If Italian officials sent large numbers of Mafians to this country, what right has Italy to complain that they were not dealt with according to law ? She never so dealt with them. It was impossible for her, and equally so for us. Extent to which Europe has made us a penal colony for years. Our claim to satis- faction and redress 124 INTRODUCTORY. The benefits of immigration are familiar and obvious, but with the drawbacks and dangers the case is different. Some of the latter are below the surface ; the influence of others is indirect and not easy to trace. So far as this little volume tries to trace them its pages- whatever their other shortcomings ought not to lack interest, but if they do the fault lies with the author and not with the subject. For the influence of the immigrant touches our civilization at every point, and shapes as no other in- fluence can the future of the nation. In the chapters following, the economic value of immigration is conceded for the sake of the argu- 13 14 INTRODUCTORY. ment. The objections to it are placed on other, if not higher, grounds. Not that economic ob- jections are lacking. On the con- trary, they readily suggest them- selves ; but with so few reliable data available it is difficult to de- termine the weight and force of these economic objections. Immigration discussion and re- search, confined as a rule to strictly conventional lines, is based on the assumption that, from a material standpoint at least, the immigrant has always been a great boon to our manufacturing and agricul- tural interests. How far this assumption is well founded, how- ever, is certainly open to question. Three or four years ago a society in a Western town compiled some statistics that proved quite surpris- ing to the investigators. A cir- cular was sent to several hundred employers of labor, mostly leading INTHODUCTORY. 15 merchants and manufacturers in various sections of the country. One question of the circular was whether the immigration of the last few years had advanced or re- tarded development in the various lines of industry referred to. The replies to this question were of a nature to awaken much doubt in the minds of the readers whether manufacturing interests would not on the whole and in the long run be better off without any more labor immigration whatever. This attempt to feel the pulse of indus- try, while not sufficiently extended to be at all conclusive, sufficed to show that estimates of the econo- mic value of the immigrant to the manufacturer might need to be considerably revised. In the field of agriculture we can no longer ignore the relation borne by an immigration of several hun- dred thousand per annum to the 16 INTRODUCTORY. rapid increase of population and still more rapid decrease of the public lands. What little remains of the valuable part of the public lands will very soon be gone. That outlet to surplus energy and allevi- ator of discontent, that great na- tional safety valve, we are already beginning to miss, as witness the increasing congestion in centres of population and the mad rush of the homeless into Oklahoma and the Cherokee Strip. Such conditions recall Macau- lay's prophecy that with the ex- haustion of our lands and the pres- sure of a surplus population will come the real test of our institu- tions.* Those institutions may * This prediction of Macaulay, made in 1857 in a letter to an American friend of his, is sometimes misquoted. Macaulay wrote : " As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land your laboring population will be far more at ease than the laboring populations of the old world. But INTRODUCTORY. 17 prove equal to that or any test in the future as in the past, but is it the part of wisdom, to heedlessly hasten the time of that test or to carefully prepare to meet it ? Looked at in this way the mar- vellous growth of the West has in its rapidity an element of danger to the country at large. It is some- times said that if the great bulk of the immigrants could be diverted from overcrowded cities, mines, and factories to the Western prai- ries all would be well. But the objections to the immi- grants on the score of their char- acter and numbers still hold good the time will come when New England will be thickly populated. . . . Wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Birming- hanis and Manchester^, and in these Bir- minghams and Manchesters hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be some time out of work. Then your institutions will be fairly brought to the test." 2 18 INTRODUCTORY. to a considerable extent. Immi- gration from East to West is highly desirable for both sections, and the best class of foreign immi- gration has great value for the West. But the very large class of low-grade or labor immigration brings no real benefit, and has not done so for many years. Of course progress in some directions would have been per- ceptibly slower without it. The population of the country would be some million smaller, and much good work might not have been done. But, on the other hand, we should still have it to do, and we should also have a great deal more land left to till and occupy. The twentieth century will dawn - upon nearly seventy-five million^ Americans. Their natural in- crease alone will soon raise the population to a hundred million, and some children now living are INTRODUCTORY. 19 likely to be counted in a census of a hundred and fifty million. Such figures plainly indicate that the present agitation for a change of policy cannot die out for any length of time. The demand for restric- tion will continue to grow, and the need of it will soon be imperative. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES, CHAPTER I. OUR IMMIGRATION POLICY ; ITS SOCIAL ASPECTS.* DURING the past few years, public attention has been rather forcibly attracted to the quantity and the quality of our foreign immigra- tion. The searching investigation of the Ford congressional com- mittee of 1888-9 revealed a state of affairs that was far from reassur- ing. Press and pulpit have agi- tated for reform. Indeed, a signifi- cant change is apparent in the attitude of the press. * This chapter first appeared in the Arena, August, 1890. 21 22 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. Until recently the subject receiv- ed little consideration, but leading journals now urge with practical unanimity the need of restrictive legislation, and several periodicals in various parts of the country devote themselves almost exclu- sively to the discussion of immigra- tion and kindred questions. No doubt to a growing feeling of popular discontent with the pres- ent condition of affairs may be attributed the sudden appearance of a new party in the West a party which advocates radical changes in immigration, natural- ization, and the unlimited pur- chase of land by non-resident aliens.* In fact the signs of the times seem to point to a considera- * This reference is to the " American Party," some of whose tenets in a modified form are now advocated by the A. P. A. and other similar societies, and also to some extent by all the political parties. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 23 tion or, more accurately, to a re- consideration of the great problem of immigration. Of course there are various methods in which such a subject may be treated. We may regard it, for instance, from a political standpoint or from a material or economic point of view ; or, as in- dicated by the character of this article, the question may be con- sidered purely in its social aspects. It is somewhat important to bear these distinctions in mind, because in past discussions they have been frequently lost sight of. To refute a social objection to immigration the economic argument has been adduced, or else the latter has been calmly cited as if it covered the entire case and conclusively settled further discussion. But manifest- ly it does not do so. On the con- trary, a distinguished writer re- cently, while conceding the force 24 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. of the economic argument, clearly indicated its inconclusive nature. To quote from a magazine article by Hon. Hugh McCullough, the writer referred to: "It is esti- mated," he says, "that since the foundation of our government more than thirteen millions of im- migrants have come to the United States, and that if each brought with him sixty dollars in money the pecuniary gain has been about eight hundred million, but the gain in this respect has been small in comparison with what the immi- grants were worth as laborers in the various branches of industry. Estimating them to have been equal in value to the slaves in the Southern States, they have added to our national wealth three times as much as our national debt amounted to at the close of the war ! " But the writer goes on most pertinently to remark, the IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 25 italics not being his: " What the offsets may be to this enormous gain is yet to be determined. The true wealth of a nation is not to be measured by acreage or money, but by the quality of its people. If the effects of foreign immigra- tion should prove to be deleterious to the character of the population the gain referred to would have been dearly acquired." These words are most striking and suggestive. The common- weal, which is, after all, but an- other name for Commonwealth, does not depend solely or chiefly on material resources or on the ex- tent of the national domain. Of true national greatness material re- sources, however important an ele- ment, are not the origin or source. The whole history of the human race shows that moral consider- ations, moral influences and ten- dencies are far more permanent 26 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. and lasting. Upon the character of the people has national greatness depended in the past ; upon the character of her people does Ameri- ;can greatness and American civi- lization depend to-day. Such a reflection raises, or should raise, the whole subject of immi- gration above mere partisan con- siderations and place it upon a vastly higher and broader plane. What bearing does immigration have upon the character of our people ? What influence does it have in moulding and developing the character of the nation ? It is not customary to speak of a nation's character in this sense. Yet every nation manifestly has a character of its own as distinct as those of the individuals who compose it. And, to take a step further, we may say without pressing the analogy too far, that as the character of the individual IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 27 is shaped and often strengthened by the very obstacles with which his destiny confronts him, the na- tional character is determined very largely by the success of a nation in removing or overcoming the barriers which lie in the path of its development, or in other words upon the solution of what are called national problems. Our own nation's progress and character, for example, obviously depend upon the temper in which we face our national problems and the resolution we display in grap- pling with them, and a little con- sideration will show that the rela- tions which immigration bears to certain of these problems assume an importance which can scarcely be overestimated towards the at- titude of labor to capital, for in- stance, or to purity of the ballot, towards the liquor traffic, or Mor- monism. IV.IB,;ITYJ 28 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. With regard to Mormonism it might perhaps be hoped that im- migration will act to some extent as a corrective of the evil and ulti- mately aid us in supplanting it. Immigration of the rigKt sort would, no doubt, exert such an influence. Up to the present time, however, it does not appear to have done so. On the contrary, Mormonism, though of native birth, has been nurtured almost entirely upon foreign immigra- tion. The growth and prosperity in this nineteenth century of such an institution, "the twin relic of barbarism," is a phenomenon which has amazed the world and become our national reproach. For many years we employed against it every agency at our command. But Mormonism con- tinued to baffle all the efforts of government and people. We could not suppress it. It was not IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 29 even checked, but continued to expand in various directions, and its adherents increased faster than the "Gentile" population. And why ? Because the supply is, or has be6n, practically inexhausti- ble, being constantly renewed among the nations of Europe. For the Mormons make few con- verts in this country except among immigrants lately landed. Their methods and motives are too well known, and education and intelli- gence are too common. But their agents were for many years busily at work in various quarters of Europe. Thousands of ignorant, unsuspicious foreigners have been inveigled to the West and brought into the fold. The fact is that Mormonism would have yielded to the force of public opinion much sooner than it did but for the constant acces- sions from abroad that recruited, 30 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. yes, and vastly multiplied its ranks. Recent legislation is supposed to have solved the ' ' Mormon Prob- lem," so far, that is, as legislation can accomplish the task. But the social and moral evil already incurred is almost incal- culable. For years to come it will tax all the resources of church and state to counteract the results of Mormon rule. And anyone who has witnessed the recent growth of Mormonism, and its extension into new territories, may well hazard a doubt as to whether the problem can be entirely solved dur- ing the existence of our present system of immigration. The present relations of capital and labor constitute a grave problem to every civilized nation. Time was when we were disposed to imagine that we should escape most of the dangers and perplexi- ties that arise from a conflict be- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 31 tweeii them. But the events of the past few years have made us sadder and wiser. During the ses- sions of the congressional com- mittee in 1888-9, it will be remem- bered, careful computations made by Mr. Powderly and other leaders among the working-men indicated that an enormous number of labor- ing men were living in enforced idleness. A million Americans, many of course men of family, were estimated to be out of em- ployment, seeking work and find- ing none. And the condition of things is not very much better at the present time. Mr. Powderly attributed this state of affairs very largely to the competition of foreign immigrants. But the proof of such an assertion did not depend upon his state- ments. The whole drift of the testimony taken before the com- mittee showed in the clearest man- 32 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ner that multitudes of working- men were being supplanted in various quarters by the hordes of pauper and contract labor. And this iniquitous and unjust competi- tion has been going on for years, with hardly a voice raised till re- cently in behalf of our unfortu- nate countrymen. And yet workingmen have been in many ways such an object of solicitude to our political econo- mists, philanthropists, and states- men ! During the presidential campaign of 1888, both political parties discussed the tariff with special reference to the physical condition of the workingmen. One party urged the advantage of cheap clothes and cheap markets. The other promised high wages to keep Americans from sharing the fate of the underfed laborer of Europe. Meanwhile both parties studiously ignored the rapid in- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 33 crease on our own soil of the un- derfed individual in question ! Among the audiences that faced the campaign speakers were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the ' f unemployed million ! " How the professions of the politicians must have savored of mockery to these men ! To them it was not a question of good clothes or good living, but of work or starvation, of life or death. After listening to the arguments they might bitterly have asked, "Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment f " Meantime the tide shows no signs of ebbing. Though fluctu- ating at intervals it steadily gathers volume with each suc- cessive decade. If it continues to rise, what must be the lot of the laboring classes whose welfare is such an object of concern ? Alas for the mischief that has already 34 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. been wrought ! Dark enough at best appears to be the future of the American working women, many of whom in large cities are already obliged, it seems, to work for wages that barely suffice to keep body and soul together. We look upon slavery as a thing of the past, but does not unrestricted foreign immigration mean virtual slavery to thousands of our coun- trymen and countrywomen ? As for the character and intelli- gence of this swarm of invaders, does it average higher than our own ? It might perhaps be some compensation if we could think so. But it is impossible to take so sanguine a view. To be able to do so would be far from flattering to our self-esteem. The proportion of the undesirable element is too great. So large an infusion of contract and pauper labor is not likely to raise our standard of in- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 35 telligence and morality. Indeed, among certain recent importa- tions, morality seems conspicuously absent. Notwithstanding our ex- perience with polygamy in the West, we are submitting to the introduction of a system of poly- andry in the East, practised by races of men who occupy them selves when opportunity offers in rifling and mutilating the bodies of the dead.* Besides the direct menace to the individual and the state involved in a continuation of our present policy, another consideration is in- volved. We have already within our borders a fair supply of anar- * This was written shortly after the Johns- town flood. From some of the dead vic- tims of that disaster jewelry was torn by bands of savage Hun or Bohemian miners. Large numbers of these people were re- ported to have a regular organized system of polyandry, with five or ten husbands to one wife. 36 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. chists, communists, nihilists, and all that ilk. The Pittsburg and Chicago riots made us painfully aware of their presence and num- bers. We have been disposed to assume, however, that we should never share the experiences of for- eign governments in dealing with these classes. The conditions here were all so different. But ever since these riots anar- chist and communist have con- tinued to come. And much of our pauper and contract labor and criminal immigration affords an excellent field of labor for the en- terprising anarchist or communist. Moreover, a million of unemployed, whether native or foreign, consti- tute of themselves inflammable and dangerous material in any community. The enemies of all law and government are adepts in manipulating such a material. The conditions of society here, in IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 37 fact, no longer differ very widely from those abroad, and each year sees an increasing resemblance between them. In the municipal growth and development of this country, im- migration has always played a most important part. Probably no one deems its influence to have been altogether beneficial. Many of our best and worthiest citizens, judging from their recent utter- ances, are coming to regard it as practically an unmixed evil. A few extracts from the proceedings of a meeting held in New York, in 1889, may serve to illustrate the sentiment which was even then growing. The object of the meet- ing was to promote evangelizing the masses, and the list of mem- bers, clerical and lay, comprised many representative men. The distinguished chairman stated, by way of introduction, 38 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. that the gathering was not secta- rian, but Christian and thoroughly American, and of great importance both to the metropolis and to the nation. Men were being forced to recognize the enormous dispropor- tion of foreigners to natives in the large American cities. No such disproportion existed elsewhere in the civilized world. In London the proportion of foreign population to native was about two per cent. In the city of New York over eighty per cent of the population was of foreign birth or parentage. To this fact the speaker attributed most of the vice, crime, packed primaries, bribery of voters, bossism in poli- tics, and fraudulent and farcical elections. The addresses that fol- lowed were very instructive. It appears that in 1840 the city contained one Protestant church to every 2,000 people ; in 1880, one IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 39 to 3,000 ; in 1888, one to 4,000. In some of the uptown wards, where the best showing was made, one church sufficed for 5,000 people, while there was one saloon to 125 people. The total population of the city was about 1,500,000, and the total membership of the Protes- tant churches only about 100,000. These figures ought to have a deep significance not only for Christianity, but for the whole people. Any investigation would show, as the reports of the meet- ing indicate, that vast amounts of money, time, and labor are ex- pended in ministering to the spir- itual, social, and physical needs of the masses of the city. And it might be difficult for a candid and competent observer to disparage either the motives or the methods of those who are thus engaged in laboring for humanity. For much of the work is well organized and 40 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. also thoroughly earnest and prac- tical. The outlook, however, must be discouraging even to the most ardent philanthropist. Nor is the situation materially im- proved by including in our esti- mates the members of the Eo- man Catholic communion. Sta- tistics show that in the city of New York the proportion of the adherents of Christianity to the total population is constantly and rapidly diminishing. Not only do the churches fail to make head- way, they are rapidly falling be- hind. It is impossible to make much impression on the dense masses of immigrants who are constantly pouring in. The noble aim of the association of churches is to Christianize and to Ameri- canize the foreign element. Under existing circumstances, success in either direction is, humanly speak- ing, impossible. While one immi- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 41 grant is being transformed into an American and a Christian, a dozen of his compatriots have arrived to claim the same kind offices. It is like an attempt to cleanse the Augean stables. Such a comparison does not necessarily involve any disparage- ment of the new-comers. It does not raise the much vexed question as to how many of them are of a desirable class. It might be frank- ly conceded for the purpose of ar- gument that nine-tenths of them would furnish good material for American citizenship under favor- able circumstances. But human nature is very much the same with every race, and few men could withstand the evil in- fluences that surround the immi-. grant landing in one of our large cities. A recent writer who took part in the proceedings of the meeting referred to says : 42 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. " Few men appreciate the ex- tent to which they are indebted to their surroundings for the strength with which they resist or do or suffer. All this strength the im- migrant leaves behind him. He is isolated in a strange land, per- haps doubly so because of a strange speech. ... A considerable part of our American-born population are apparently under the impres- sion that the ten commandments are not binding west of the Mis- souri. Is it strange, then, that those who come from other lands, whose old associations are all broken up, and whose reputations are left behind, should sink to a lower moral level ? Across the seas they suffer many restraints which are here removed. Better wages afford larger means of self- indulgence. Often the back is not strong enough to bear prosperity, and liberty too often lapses into IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 43 license. Our population of foreign extraction is sadly conspicuous in our criminal records. This ele- ment, in 1870, formed twenty per cent of the population of New Eng- land and furnished seventy-five per cent of the criminals. That is, it was twelve times as much dis- posed to crime as the native stock." Yet it appears that these men, whose associations, moral re- straints, and religious ties are all broken up, are in numberless in- stances inaccessible to the influ- ences of either Christianity or phi- lanthropy. They are practically isolated on account of their vast numbers as well as their natural but unfortunate tendency towards aggregation. Their situation concerns the state in its sphere as vitally as it does Christianity itself. The interests of society imperatively forbid the segregation of multitudes of people 44 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. from the influences and restraints of religion. The most pronounced agnostic or skeptic would hardly hold otherwise. And nothing can be more opposed to the spirit and genius of our institutions than the aggregation of masses of for- eigners upon our soil. Our policy has always been just the reverse. Every consideration demands the speediest possible assimilation, in their interest as well as our own. We stand to-day on the threshold of the second century of our na- tional life. In spite of all draw- backs and mistakes boundless op- portunities are before us,. and the future is largely in our own hands. In Emerson's inspiring words, " We live in a new and exceptional age. America is another name for opportunity. Our whole his- tory appears like a last effort of the Divine Providence in behalf of the human race." IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 45 Some of the nation's problems have already been solved. Various others can and must be solved. For, as Mr. Bryce has recently re- minded us in The American Com- monwealth, our government and our legislation frequently fail, but the people so far have been equal to every emergency in their his- tory. To verify Emerson's prediction, however, to work out our political destiny and develop the highest type of civilization, a radical change in our system of immigra- tion seems absolutely essential. The instincts of self-protection, not to say self-preservation, require such a change. No human insti- tutions can endure indefinitely the strain which our present policy, if persisted in, will inevitably put upon our social and political life. If we cannot sift the immigra- tion which is pouring in upon us 46 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. from every quarter of the globe and every effort to do so hitherto has proved abortive should riot a sense of duty and responsibility to ourselves and our children, as well as to the human race, impel us to close the doors entirely for a time, or at least to make the attempt ? IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 47 CHAPTER II. IS IT PRACTICABLE TO REGULATE IMMIGRATION ? * IN other words, are not the "expellent influences of Europe/' coupled with " the attractive in- fluences of America," too strong for us to resist ? A recent exam- * First published in the Overland Monthly, Feb. 1894. No such thought has been ap- parent in recent discussion. It is generally assumed that immigration evils will be cor- rected, and various remedies are proposed.. But practical men manifest great distrust of the remedies. During a recent debate in Con- gress an experienced member of the House declared that the present immigration laws are of no practical use, and that the exam- ination of arriving immigrants was a mere farce. In short, the remedies do not reach the disease. 48 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ination of certain congressional records and official documents sug- gested the disquieting question. In answer, the appended extracts from that record may or may not appear conclusive, but they cer- tainly warrant the question, which in the light of more than fifty years of experiment and failure cannot well be deemed prema- ture. Great as the evils of unre- stricted immigration are admitted to be, history has yet to record any real restriction. The various bar- riers erected at Castle Garden and elsewhere do not seem to have de- served the name. They have had about as great an influence over the rising tide of immigration as .that which is commonly ascribed to the familiar domestic utensil of Mrs. Partington when applied to . the waves of the Atlantic. The materials for a history of our foreign immigration are IMMIGRATION FALLACIES- 49 abundant and accessible, needing only to be compiled and arranged. Indeed the full significance of the subject can hardly be estimated until we realize that it has a his- tory, that the difficulties of to-day are practically the difficulties of twenty years ago, of thirty and of fifty years ago, and that these diffi- culties and the ultimate peril are foreshadowed in the annals of the eighteenth century. In tracing the record of immi- gration it would be convenient to divide the past century into two periods of nearly equal length. The evils of immigration and its perplexities were first recognized about 1838, and since that time frequent attempts have been made to discover a suitable remedy. The half century of national existence prior to 1838 witnessed no efforts to regulate and no practical ex- perience with the problem. It 50 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. was a period of theory rather than fact, or rather the period when theory preceded fact. But this period of theory should not on that account be ignored, as it had no small influence on subse- quent events. Tradition ascribes to the earlier part of the nine- teenth century, or the close of the eighteenth, the origin of several abstract political maxims which have been thought to indicate our true immigration policy and enable America to fulfil her responsibil- ities to "the human race." Ac- cording to one of these maxims, the country was destined for the "asylum of the oppressed." An- other, still more sweeping in its scope, made it incumbent upon us to be the " refuge of the nations." In this practical age and period of stern fact, it seems odd that these vague generalities should retain much force or vitality, yet they IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 51 are constantly to be encountered in current literature. The age responsible for them, however, was one of protest and revolt. The colonies of Great Britain had furnished a " refuge " and "asylum" for the victims of religious intolerance and political proscription, and such victims America was always to welcome. But to apply to present conditions the terms referred to seems very absurd. And, as has been appar- ent in recent discussion, it involves a very plain matter in a hopeless confusion of thought. A condi- tion confronts us, not a vague and irrelevant theory. We are now affording an asylum to the insane, to criminals, and to paupers, in- stead of to the "oppressed" classes of the old world, The word "ref- uge " has become equally inappro- priate. A paper read before a prominent workingrnen's associa- 52 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. tion some time ago bore the signif- icant title, "The Refuge of the Nations, or the Refuse which ? " Perhaps one reason for the per- ennial recurrence of the phrases in question is the possible association they may have in our minds with the great leaders of 1789, with Jef- ferson, for instance, or Washing- ton himself. No association of the kind could be more misleading, however, or less warranted by facts. While the supposed views of these statesmen may have had considerable weight, their real ideas, although they have a direct bearing upon immigration, have been entirely overlooked. It is most unfortunate as well as singular that such is the case. For to our Revolutionary era and its teachings we may turn with especial confidence. The signers of the Declaration and the f ramers of the Constitution did not confine IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 53 their attention solely to the need of their own generation. The nature of their task compelled them to anticipate its results, and gave them an almost prophetic in- sight into the country's future. And so we find the leaders of 1Y89 debating many questions that have since come to assume great prac- tical importance ; hence the special value of their writings. Prominent among the questions referred to was that of immigra- tion, and the views of our ances- tors on this subject would surprise a generation accustomed to the extreme liberality of the present system. Indeed it is safe to say that in no respect have we made so wide a departure from the prin- ciples and traditions of 1789 as in encouraging and permitting indis- criminate foreign immigration. Not that the problem had then assumed its present proportions. 54 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. A century ago the journey from Europe to America occupied almost as many months as it now requires days, and arrivals were numbered by the hundred instead of by the hundred thousand. But the matter very soon became one of anxiety and apprehension, as the writings of Washington,* Hamilton, f Mad- ison, and others clearly reveal. These statesmen evidently favored a very gradual immigration as best adapted to a rapid and com- plete assimilation. Nor was such a feeling confined by any means to the conservative members of the Federalist party. On the con- trary, Thomas Jefferson, the ora- cle of modern democracy, believed in careful selection and restriction. That great statesman, in fact, * Sparks' Life and Letters of Washington, vol. xi, pp. 2, 392. f Works of Hamilton, published by order of Congress, vol. 7, pp. 774-6. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 55 clearly foresaw and predicted some of the very evils which unrestricted immigration has brought in its train. Perhaps the best way to point the contrast already alluded to be- tween 1789 and 1893 is by aid of the imagination, picturing to our- selves the effect of certain features of our civilization upon the minds of Washington or Jefferson, had they the opportunity to behold them. Were these statesmen to return and visit some of our large cities at the present time they might have reason to think they stood on foreign soil. They could walk for miles through the French quarter, the German quarter, the Italian, Spanish, Bohemian, or Chinese quarters, where a foreign language is actually of more value than their native tongue. Vast " colonies" of these people would appear before their bewildered 56 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. eyes, inevitably taking the color of their surroundings, retarding the progress of assimilation, and complicating in every way the moral, social, and political prob- lems of the surrounding commu- nity. Subsequent to the administra- tions of Washington, and Jeffer- son a considerable period elapsed before immigration claimed or re- ceived much attention. Before the discovery and application of steam it had not assumed much practical importance. Some fifty years ago, however, the interest of the people began to awaken, mindful, per- haps, of the forebodings and warn- ings of a preceding generation. The real history of immigration, as already stated, may be said to date from 1838, a period midway between our own time and the close of the revolution, and we have no trustworthy record of the IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 57 condition of affairs at an earlier date. But in 1838 Congress began a series of examinations into the abuses of immigration and natural- ization, which, renewed from time to time, finally culminated in the labors of the Ford committee of 1888-9. With such a record at our disposal it is easy to ascertain the impressions and experience of those of our predecessors who have at- tempted to grapple with the prob- lem within the period referred to. It seems to be frequently if not generally assumed that only of late years has any considerable portion of our immigration been a positive injury or even a doubtful benefit to the country. Unfortu- nately facts and figures disclose too plainly the fallacy of such an assumption. A few brief extracts from the first report on the sub- ject will serve to disclose the con- dition that prevailed more than 58 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. fifty years ago, and this report may be taken as a type of its class. It bears, in fact, a strong resem- blance to those of a subsequent date, so that only brief portions of the latter need be quoted. On July 2, 1838, there was sub- mitted to the House the result of the researches of a select com- mittee of that body, prefaced by the following remarks: "To en- able the committee to obtain all the information which was acces- sible the following interrogatories (among others) were propounded to the mayors of the respective cities of New York, Boston, Phila- delphia, Charleston, and New Or- leans : . . . What proportion of the immigrants bring with them the means of subsisting themselves and families ? What proportion are paupers ? What proportion of the inmates of poorhouses and penitentiaries are natives ? IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 59 From the replies to these and similar questions the committee state: "It is estimated that more than one-half the pauper popu- lation, and that the most helpless and dependent, are foreign." The proportion of foreign to native population in the whole country at that time was less than five per cent, but of course this estimate does not apply to the urban popu- lation, where, then as now, the foreign element predominated, comprising, however, not more than fifteen per cent of the inhabit- ants. u ln 1838 there were in the almshouse at Philadelphia 1505 Americans and 1266 foreigners ; in that at Boston 596 Americans and 673 foreigners. On the twelfth of June, 1837, there were in the almshouse in the city of New York 3074, of which number three- fourths .were foreigners, and of 1200 admitted at Bellevue 983 were 60 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. aliens;" while in 1838, "by the report of the resident physician, it appears that of 1209 admitted to his department, only 206 were born in America. In the year ending in August, 1836, there were received into the Boston house of refuge 866 paupers, 516 of whom were foreign. ... At a recent date it appears that the number of con- victs confined at Sing Sing, New York, was 800, of whom 603 were foreigners." A prominent of- ficial of New York, who was des- ignated by the mayor to make a report to the commissioners, stated that of the entire number entering the port of New York for the first part of 1838, two-thirds "were without any occupation or even the pretense of one." During the first three quarters of 1838 no less than 38,057 aliens " who had no occupation " (a very large proportion of the whole IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 61 number) "were cast upon the citizens of New York." To the question, How is the expense of the transportation hither of such as are poor defrayed ? the answer is, "It is impossible for us to ascertain what number are actually forced or hired to leave their own country, but the superintendent states to me that he has seen one of the passenger ships filled with paupers alone. When entire car- goes have come out it has been ascertained that the parishes have paid their expenses. An English gentleman recently stated that he had seen the poor marched down in droves from the poorhouses to the ships. It is stated on authority that the passages of more than 30,000 persons have been paid in England, Ireland, and Scotland, to enable them to leave there for America." From the foregoing citations one 62 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. is driven to infer that at the period of the first inquiry a large pro- portion of the immigration was of a highly undesirable class, and that the general prospect was far from pleasing. But despite the agitation which followed and the attempts that were made to im- prove matters, the lapse of a very few years found similar conditions prevailing. During the session of the twenty-eighth Congress a reso- lution was introduced in the Senate directing the Judiciary Committee to inquire into the expediency of immediately modifying the nat- uralization laws to prevent the recurrence of the gross and ex- tensive frauds upon the ballot-box that had recently been perpetrated, and to prohibit the further intro- duction of paupers and convicts into the United States. Some of the speeches made on this occasion indicate the unmistakable need of IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 63 the proposed action. This took place in 1845. In the following year resolutions of a similar pur- port passed by the Massachusetts legislature were introduced in the House by Hon. Robert C. Win- throp, which led to a protracted and at times heated debate. Some ten years later the discus- sion was reopened, and while dif- ferences of opinion were manifest as to the proposed methods of securing relief, the existing abuses were freely admitted and a volu- minous report was submitted on the evils of foreign immigration, and recommending changes in the naturalization laws. Once more, in 1869 and 1870, the question came up, and Senators Davis, ^ Frelinghuysen, Bayard, Thurman, and others took part in the ensu- ing debate. Finally we had the investigation of 1888-9. Its rev- elations are too fresh in the 64 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. public mind to need more than a passing allusion. But anyone who may feel disposed to refresh his recollection or comprehend the serious nature of the present out- look will find interesting infor- mation in the report furnished by his Eepresentative to Congress on the importation of contract labor. As has been already intimated, the most casual acquaintance with the records suffices to disabuse the mind of an impression that only recent immigration has been deleterious in its nature. The statistics to the contrary are too clear and circumstantial. For a long time past very many of the immigrants to this land have been unwelcome, unwholesome, unde- sirable additions to its population. Serious and disturbing, however, as such a conviction must be, there is another consideration involved of vastly greater consequence and IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 66 importance. A noticeable monot- ony pervades the history of im- migration. The earliest and latest reports evince a strong, one might say an ominous similarity. In 1838 we had paupers and ' ' assisted " immigrants ; more recently it has been paupers and " contract laborers " a choice of evils truly ! The real significance of a com- parison, therefore, and the real gravity of the problem consist in the fact that the situation has con- tinued virtually unchanged, so far, at least, as any efforts on our part are concerned. And whatever changes have occurred In the char- acter and volume of immigration from time to time have been for the worse and not for the better. A steady increase in quantity has attended a perceptible deterioration in quality. The committee of 18*38 were justified in stating that their report "presented a combination of 66 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. facts that cannot fail to arrest the attention of the American people and to establish the necessity of immediate legislative action." " Legislative action" was taken repeatedly then and at subsequent times. But so partial and tem- porary has been the relief afforded that the committee of 1888-9 found the condition of affairs to be about the worst in our history. What has been accomplished since that report ? Measures designed to afford some relief were passed by Congress during the session of 1891, although with- out adequate appropriations to en- force them, and various individuals have been debarred from landing. But by this time we are well aware that the undesirable classes are not numbered by units or tens, but by hundreds and by thousands. Will further legislation reach the latter? No question can have a IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 67 more direct and immediate bearing on American civilization. The law lately passed (March, 1893) is open to very serious objec- tions. Some of its provisions have been tried and found want- ing. When the bill in its present form came up for passage in the House all the remarks made, with but a single exception, indicated lack of confidence in the proposed remedy. One speaker lamented that the bill went so short a dis- tance in the direction it professed to go. Another member, thor- oughly familiar with the subject, said, in summing up the defects of the bill, that it was not worth passing. But even were adequate laws passed, the question of vital import to the country is, whether such laws will be enforced and made effective.* Many stringent * Some of the bills before the present Con- gress (1896) are much in advance of those of 68 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. regulations appear in the annals of immigration, but no radical or permanent reform has ever been effected. Agitation, legislation, superficial and temporary improve- ment, recurrence of the evil when public attention is diverted, about describe the situation. Perhaps the exclusion of the Chinese may be instanced as one exception in the long list of fail- ures to regulate immigration. Chinese exclusion is somewhat of a misnomer, as the constant ar- rivals from Mexico and British Columbia plainly bear witness. That the entrance of the Chinese has been greatly checked, how- ever, may freely be conceded. Ee- strictive laws were framed at last that seem to have met the test of constitutionality. But it required the last one. But whether they will become laws and whether they be rigidly enforced is another question. IMMIGRATION FALLAClESo 69 (1) a struggle of years on the part of a whole section of the country that was (2) practically a unit on the Chinese question. And then (3) the Chinamen had no vote. No treatment of the subject would be complete without at least a passing reference to the publish- ed report of the special Treasury commissioners who were detailed to investigate abroad the mysteri- ous influences that underlie the present criminal and pauper im- migration from Europe. The same papers that published some time ago outlines of this report contained also accounts of the united efforts of press and pulpit in New York City to reform and purify the social and political atmosphere. Much stress is laid in the commissioners' report upon the organized system and combination to transport beg- 70 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. gars, criminals, and imbeciles to this country, in which foreign officials are largely implicated. This, however, is no new thing. The "friendly " governments of ' Europe have engaged for years in this work, and are responsible in no small degree for the social con- dition of our large cities, although when these social conditions pre- cipitate an outbreak like that at New Orleans, the same gov- ernments manifest much surprise as well as horror at the occur- rence. This commissioners' report does not contain any especially novel features, though it indicates the persistence and deep-rooted nature of the evil. It is referred to here because in the columns of the press it stood in such striking antithesis, to the accounts of the union of press and pulpit to promote muni cipal reform. In an article pub- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 71 lished three or four years * ago the writer endeavored to show that many of the greatest indus- trial and social problems of our generation intemperance, Mor- monism, etc. are traceable large- ly, in some cases almost entirely, to unrestricted immigration. The past and present character of that immigration, revealed in the of- ficial record and in this latest re- port, shows too plainly why its influence on intemperance, polyg- afriy, the relations of capital and labor, has been so profound and so pernicious, to say nothing of the more obvious effects upon pauper- ism, insanit}^ and crime. And the injury will continue and increase until the character of our immigration is radically changed. The municipal reform of our large cities, in particular, * The article is reprinted as chapter I of the present work. 72 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. recently advocated so earnestly, cannot make much headway while thousands of criminals, paupers, and contract or unskilled laborers continue to pour in. As was sug- gested in the former article re- ferred to, the undertaking of vari- ous proposed municipal reforms, without reckoning with the chief cause of the trouble, resembles an attempt to cleanse the stables of Augeas, with the difference, it may be added, that while the stables were cleaned by turning on the stream, our cities may be cleaned when it is turned off. Is it practicable to regulate im- migration, and if so, why have we thus far failed ? IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 73 CHAPTER III. IMMIGRATION AND THE RISE OF THE A. P. A.* THE late Matthew Arnold, cer- tainly no partial critic, was once pleased to say, that in political affairs, as a rule, we Americans possessed the faculty of " thinking clear and seeing straight." If there has been any exception to this rule from the tendency of a certain school of thought to obliq- uity of mental vision the subject of this paper will suggest the ex- ception. * This chapter might also be entitled " Why we Fail to Regulate Immigration," in answer to the question of last chapter : " Why have we thus far failed ? " fom Of TH I7BR ^ 74 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. Not that the question of im- migration, broadly considered, is necessarily intricate. In complex- ity it does not compare with the tariff, nor, in perplexity, to the average male mind, with the " woman question " and the atti- tude of some of its exponents. But much has been said and writ- ten having a direct tendency to confuse the real issue. Of this tendency recent discussion affords abundant illustration. Those vague abstractions, for example, which refer to America as the " refuge of the nations," "the asylum of the oppressed," etc., enjoy a charmed life. It seems vain to point out that such venerable maxims apply to condi- tions that have wholly passed away. To invoke them now is to try to transform a question of statesmanship into one of senti- ment. But even on sentimental IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 75 grounds they are singularly un- suited to present conditions. When earnest and sincere philanthropists urge the claims of the immigrant to hospitality and charity, they do so oftentimes at the expense of those having prior and much stronger claims that is, if charity is to begin at home. They plead, these philanthropists, that immi- gration is a law of nature, not pausing to reflect that self-preser- vation is the first of nature's laws. The persistent treatment of im- migration as simply or chiefly an economic factor in our civilization, is likewise to be noted. It is only now coming to be recognized as primarily a political and social question having intimate relations not only with pauperism, anarchy, crime, etc., but with Mormonism, the social evil, intemperance, labor agitation, municipal evils, ecclesi- astical misconceptions, etc., etc. 76 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. Perhaps we may ultimately come to feel that immigration is the problem of problems, concerning nearly all of these other questions generally, many closely, not a few vitally. Attention has also been drawn recently to the fact that no per- manent reform of immigration is on record, a fact which indicates that its practical difficulty has been and still is greatly underesti- mated and that the teachings of history have been forgotten. Ex- tracts from the official records re- cently cited * show how attempted reforms have failed, and how in spite of them all a constant in- crease in the quantity of immigra- tion has kept pace with a constant decrease in the quality. * In an article entitled, " Is it Practicable to Regulate Immigration ? " in the Overland Monthly for February, 1894. See Chapter II, ante, p. 46. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 77 For years of effort to regulate immigration to end in virtual fail- ure is a very serious fact. The fact is here referred to, however, not because of its gravity, but because this failure, or rather series of failures, naturally sug- gests the question, whether regu- lation is possible by any ordinary methods, or by methods that have hitherto proved so inadequate, and whether, in assuming the contrary, there is no liability of further error. What gives so much inter- est to the question at this juncture is the rise and sudden growth of that singular order, which is at- tracting attention on all sides and evoking such varied comment, the American Protective Association. This Association may or may not have an answer to the inquiry, whether regulation is possible by ordinary methods, and on this point the writer, not being a mem- 78 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ber of the order, cannot speak with certainty. But it is fair to pre- sume that it has a negative an- swer, that its very existence is an assumption that ordinary meas- ures will not suffice, and that ex- traordinary ones are essential. Whether all the objects of this and similar associations are com- mendable, all their methods legit- imate, is nothing to the present purpose. The special significance of the movement consists in the evident belief of a large number of people that real reform is impossi- ble under existing conditions with- out some form of organization. Let us see if this belief is not well founded. The conditions which have thwarted all previous efforts to stem the tide of immigration, or to control it, seem to be partly politicial, partly social. It is of course impossible to enlarge upon IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 79 them or treat them separately. To do so would involve considering, among other things, our extraor- dinary naturalization laws and their influence on immigration. But, roughly speaking, the effects of both political and social con- ditions are readily traceable, work- ing together among the various forces arrayed for or against re- form. The strength of the opposi- tion is better appreciated if the numerical superiority of the re- formers is taken into account. On the side of reform is doubtless ranged a large majority of the American people, who favor a change, and their sentiment is growing more and more out- spoken. For it is becoming keenly felt that the pressure of population into our chief cities, so largely due to immigration, is driving masses of people into the most abject 80 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. poverty, the borderland of beggary and crime. In many sections East and West a blight has fallen on the mining regions, lower and lower strata of humanity taking the places of higher ones, a signal instance of the survival of the un- fittest, according to our notions of government and social welfare. And some of the mining riots and outbreaks of the past three years in various parts of the land have brought to the surface wondrous types of savagery. All this is felt to be wholly wrong. It runs directly counter to the instincts of the race those practical instincts which so im- pressed Matthew Arnold. In im- porting horses, cattle, and even poultry, we legislate to some effect, sparing no pains to strengthen and improve the native breeds. Why should we deal so differently with the breed oil which the future IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 81 hangs ? Why weaken or con- taminate the breed of men ? Discontent with the existing order of things is by no means confined to the members of the A. P. A.* But unhappily the general * The platform of the Republican party in California, adopted at Sacramento, June 20, 1894, contains these provisions among its planks : ' ' The public schools should be non- sectarian in their character and conduct. We are opposed to any division of the school money for any purpose or to any sect." " We are in favor of amending our natural- ization laws so that no one can become a citizen who is not of good repute," etc. * * We recognize that the present naturalization laws are weak in their provisions and de- fective in their administration, and should be changed by appropriate legislation so as to place additional and better safeguards around American citizenship. We believe the time has come when the nation must take a firm and decided stand against the incursion of the underpaid and ignorant laborers of the old world that are flocking here now in such numbers as to drive the American laborer from his work, with the increasing result, as seen at the present 6 o^ IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. sentiment in favor of a change is or has been unorganized; and furthermore, the majority of the reform element have no direct per- sonal or pecuniary interest at stake. On the contrary, the corporations, syndicates, trusts, and other forces working against reform are in many cases organized, and have pecuniary interests of great mag- nitude at stake. The great lines of transportation, both to and through this country, are totally indifferent to the quality of their human freight. With them it is solely a question of quantity, so long as they keep within the letter of the law and do not have to sup- port or deport their passengers. time, of causing disturbances in the man- ufacturing centres of the country, reducing the price of labor," etc. " We demand the enactment and strict enforcement of such laws as will absolutely and effectually pro- hibit the immigration of all labor, both skilled and unskilled. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. & As to the multitude of steamship orimmigrationsociety agents whom a recent Congressional committee unearthed in Europe, these gentry actually prefer a poor quality of immigration. For, of course, the lower the object of their solicita- tion is in the scale of intelligence, the easier it is to hoodwink and cozen him, or at least inveigle him into buying a ticket. The pressure of the times just now interferes with this business, but if past ex- perience be a guide, we may expect other committees to find the agents at work again, industriously plying their avocation in every quarter of Europe. In the same class with the agents are the "padrones" and bosses of the large cities. A self-respect- ing, intelligent, or independent immigrant is just the man they do not want. Anything that will pass for a man and be speedily 84 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. convertible into a voter is much to be preferred. From his helpless- ness tribute is easily levied, and once a voter he becomes part of the foreign machine vote, raising his master, the padrone, to a full- fledged boss. The character and strength of the opposition to a change of the present system is not, cannot be, realized by the people. If it were, there would be fewer suggestions of reform based on legislation alone. We know something of the difficulty of effecting any re- form, even when it is demanded by public opinion and a dominant political party as well, when pitted against great aggregations of wealth. Many a reform has been worsted in the encounter. Eecent congressional proceedings furnish at least one striking illustration.* * When these words were written the failure of Congress to enact radical tariff IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 85 How then can we expect that im- migration reform, favored by pub- lic opinion only, will achieve any great or lasting victory in the halls of national legislation ? Only one side of the question will be ably presented to Congress, the side of the transportation and man- ufacturing companies that wish unlimited immigration or cheap labor the side also of the agent, the padrone, and the municipal boss, whose machine, were immi- gration to cease for a time, would surely become unmanageable. When occasion calls, represent- atives of these interests appear before congressional committees, as they have a constitutional right to do. They seize the opportunity reform, though elected for that express purpose, had just occurred. Public sen- timent seems to have since changed, but it was none the less disobeyed by the last Con- gress. 86 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. to point out through the ablest agents and counsel the defects of this proposed measure, the hard- ships of that ; and they descant on the great exaggeration of immi- gration abuses.* But who is at hand to speak for the people at large, or to plead the grave eco- nomic, political, social, moral, and patriotic objections to the present system ? For this question is pre-eminently patriotic, and it affects the whole nation. It is sometimes assumed that a republic is better fitted to * And the difficulty of enforcing stringent laws seem even greater than the difficulty of passing them. In every Congressional debate allusion is made to the laws which remain dead letters. And every investiga- tion, like that of the Knights of Labor two or three years ago, points to the same con- clusion. On every ship and at every port there are many whose pecuniary interests are to evade restrictions and smooth the landing of the unfit, and none at hand whose interests are to oppose them. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 87 absorb and assimilate heteroge- neous elements of population than a monarchy or an empire. But the important point is not so much what can be absorbed, as what the result of the absorption will be. In the long run a republic is more nearly affected by the character of its population than any other form of government, for the reason that it is or aims to be a government of and by, as well as for, the people. Consequently its character depends as much on the character of the people as the character of the people can possibly depend on a republican form of government. To few if any other nations can it be so important to have the right material for citizenship as it is to the United States. And every immigrant steamer landing at our docks to-day, as for years past, tends to lower our standards of intelligence, industry, and moral- 88 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ity. To hold otherwise, in view of the character of immigration as dis- closed by the records, would not be flattering to self-esteem. In view of the moral principle underlying the whole matter, the mill-owner of New England, the manufacturer of Pennsylvania, or the mine-owner of the West who will not scruple to import a swarm of ignorant, degraded, and perhaps utterly vicious human beings into any community can be no real lover of his race or country. Pauper, contract, coolie, low-grade, or even indiscriminate immigration ought to have no place on our soil ; certainly no American should aid, abet, or connive at it. It is a con- test of mammonism against phi- lanthropy and patriotism, analo- gous in that respect to the slavery issue as viewed from the Northern standpoint. Whoever imports labor to pauperize or supplant his IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 89 own countrymen by birth or adop- tion, or who brings an element into any community without regard to its grade of intelligence and civil- ization, does the greatest wrong, not merely to the community im- mediately concerned, but to the whole people. Nor is there any undoing of the mischief. When defective armor is placed on a vessel built for na- tional defense and honor, it can be removed on detection. That great wrong is at least remediable. But the dangerous classes can never be removed. They must stay and spread and multiply in the country of their adoption. So far as the American Protec- tive Association is concerned, it must in justice be credited with standing for rigid laws of im- migration and a strict enforcement of them, and this applies to other kindred or somewhat similar or 90 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ders. As much may not be said of any of the great political parties. They cannot " point with pride" to their immigration records. And it is safe to say that, left to them- selves, they never will be able to. History negatives the hope, and so do the conditions. Reasoning in- ductively, therefore, or deduct- ively, we reach the same conclu- sion. Some compact organization of sufficient strength and fixity of purpose to mould public opinion, to shape legislation, and to help enforce it, seems essential. But a great many people who might accept this reasoning will perhaps be inclined to eye askance these reform organizations on ac- count of their alleged bigotry, in- tolerance, etc. It is urged that the remedy is worse than the dis- ease, and that the A. P. A. is merely a disguised form of Know- Nothingism. Here we touch de- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 91 batable ground. This, in fact, is a vital point in the present dispute, but so much controversy hinges on it that a passing reference might not seem out of place, even if it involve a slight digression. In the first place, it is pertinent to point out that Know-Nothing- ism is a very elastic term. It is applied in reproach to those whose views on immigration, naturaliza- tion, etc., are fanatic, and whose methods of enforcing them are proscriptive. As one result of the reaction against the extreme opin- ions of the old Know -Nothing party, every speaker or writer who drew attention to abuses of natu- ralization, immigration, or the public-school system assumed an apologetic attitude. He feared to be called a Know-Nothing. Recent agitation, however, has brought about a change. Very plain lan- guage can now be used without 92 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. opening the door to this charge. In this respect it seems generally conceded that, however erroneous the views of the last generation, the men of this one have some- what similar and by no means un- founded grounds for complaint and apprehension. But even if the American Pro- tective Association is in effect a revival of Know-Nothingism in the old form, such repeating of history cannot be causeless. These peri- odic outbreaks of Americanism or Know-Nothingism, as they may be differently regarded, must have some reason for being. In view of the number and char- acter of their sympathizers, how- ever, they would be unaccount- able, had the great questions that underlie them ever received firm and judicious treatment. Would there be no plausibility in a claim in behalf of the American Protect- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 93 ive Association that its existence to-day is due solely to the super- ficial treatment accorded immigra- tion and kindred evils during the last thirty years, to the fallacies, some of them herein referred to, that have obscured the issue, and to the efforts in various quarters to make light of the in jury and the peril to the country ? These ques- tions certainly are pertinent, if in the heat of controversy they can be asked and anwered in the right spirit. Of course it is perfectly clear that any excesses, whether caused or induced by existing societies, will provoke the inevitable reaction. That should go without saying. But if this reaction comes, and involves a return to another long term of inaction or half-hearted measures, it might well be asked whether in the end the country will not suffer more than the de- 94 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. feated reformers. The old Know- Nothing movement was indeed a failure, but has it been a more conspicuous failure than our sub- sequent policy of immigration ? IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 95 CHAPTER IV. OUR UNNATURAL LAWS OF NATU- RALIZATION. SOME years ago a flagrant eva- sion of the law forbidding importa- tion of contract labor was drawn to the writer's attention. That law had been in force for several years, and the press was daily ex- posing the abuses of immigration. It was at the height of this agita- tion that a Northwestern railway happened to need additional labor to extend the lines of its system. The manager of a line of European steamers was interviewed in the interest of the road, and a proposal was made for the transport of for- eign workmen under contract. The rates asked, however, were a 96 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. little too high, being, it is, said, eight dollars per head. But the rate was afterwards adjusted with a rival line, and fourteen thousand peasants of sunny Italy were ship- ped to the Western prairies. In the third year after this coup, the important fall elections of 1890 were held. Returns from Montana were delayed. So closely divided between the two old parties did the United States Senate appear, that Montana was thought to hold the balance of power, and the result of her vote was awaited with the gravest interest. After quite an interval the expectant country learned the cause of the delay. The vote of the state depended on the result in certain precincts of Silver Bow district. In that lo- cality, according to the dispatches, not one of the voters could read or write, and wholesale fraud had reigned though under the cir- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 97 cumstances this latter piece of in- formation might be deemed some- what gratuitous. The foregoing incident made such a stir at the time as to merit fuller details than those supplied by the Associated Press. It would have been gratifying to know some things about those illiterate voters, their nationality, for instance, and how long they had been domiciled among us. Were they of the four- teen thousand Italians landed in 1888, and, in 1890, shaping the destiny of the republic ; socially, serfs in all but the name ; politi- cally, American sovereigns ? But whether they hailed from Italy, Hungary, Slavonia, or else- where does not affect the principle involved. Owing to the lax en- forcement of the law in some states, and in many others to the reckless shortening of the time of probation, bands of European peasantry, land- 98 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ing to-day and remaining for many years as ignorant of our language and institutions as of the meaning of self-government, may yet decide the vote of a pivotal state in a pres- idential year or determine the political complexion of Congress, and all this within two or three years of their landing. The Mon- tana case is not exceptional, but typical on account of the volume and character of immigration- restrained of late by economic, not legislative barriers and of the unbounded liberality with which we bestow the elective franchise. So far as immigration is con- cerned, and its persistent abuses, our experience with contract labor is a striking illustration. That particular form of the evil was singled out as the object of special legislation. Men of all parties and the most opposite views have con- demned it. Yet what has been IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 99 accomplished in the way of reform ? The contract labor laws date from 1882 and 1885, yet as late as the summer of 1894 the hapless condi- tion of the contract laborer pro- voked a great indignation meeting in Boston. In May, 1893, in a re- port to the Treasury Department on this same class of labor, the Immigration Inspector made use of the following vigorous language : " The padrone system is the most outrageous and injurious to Ameri- can workingmen of any system that ever was practised in the United States. And there is no denying the fact that it exists in almost every city in this country where there is an Italian colony. " In this report is a description of the way in which laborers are coached on shipboard and so prepared on land- ing to baffle our inspectors by judicious perjury. Just at pres- ent, it seems, the railroad contract- 100 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ors do not require as close watch- ing as " bankers and padroiies," " who between them supply labor- ers in hundreds to work on our railroads to the exclusion of Ameri- can workmen." With regard to the exclusion of various other undesirable classes, the laws passed in response to the popular agitation of the past eight years have been fitly characterized on the floors of Congress as falling so far short of the mark as to be of very little value. And this out- come in the light of history should not be surprising. From a recent article reviewing experimental legislation of more than half a century, a chronicle of failure is unfolded by which it appears that despite all barriers the immigra- tion tide has steadily increased in quantity and decreased in quality/'' * " Is it Practicable to Regulate Im- migration ? " ending with the question, IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 101 As to the naturalizing process, for an illustration only too familiar, witness the scenes in our large cities on the eve of an important election. Under the stress of party competi- tion the machinery of the courts is quickened to the utmost extent, and turns out new citizens by thou- sands after the most perfunctory examination. And in the heat of a campaign the press often ap- plauds this menace to civilization. The author of "The American Commonwealth/'' reputed a most " Why have we thus far failed ? " Overland Monthly, February, 1894 ; Chapter II, ante. Nobody has ever tried to answer this ques- tion, but is not a prime cause of the failure traceable to the fact, as set forth in Chapter II, that the general sentiment in favor of reform is comparatively unorganized and has no direct personal or pecuniary interest at stake, while the great corporations, syn- dicates, trusts, and other forces arrayed against reform are organized, and have pecuniary interests of great magnitude at stake ? 102 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. competent as well as friendly authority, remarks : "The immigrants vote after three or four years' residence at most, and often less, but they are not fit for the suffrage. They know nothing of the institutions of the country, of its statesmen, of its political issues. . . . Incompe- tent to give an intelligent vote, but soon finding that their vote has a value, they fall into the hands of party organizations whose officers enroll them in the lists and under- take to fetch them to the polls. I was taken to watch the process of admitting to citizenship in New York. Droves of squalid men who looked as if they had just emerged from an emigrant ship, and had per- haps only done so a few weeks be- fore, for the law prescribing a cer- tain term of residence is frequently violated, were brought up to the magistrate by the ward agent of IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 103 the party which had captured them, declared their allegiance to the United States, and were forth- with placed on the roll. Such a sac- rifice of common sense to abstract principles has seldom been made by any country. Nobody pretends that such persons are fit for civic duty or will be dangerous if kept for a time in pupilage, but neither party will incur the odium of pro- posing to exclude them. "* * A prominent senator of the United States is of record in Congress as saying : " Of two portentous perils that threaten the safety, if they do not endanger the existence of the republic, one is ignorant, debased, degraded suffrage, suffrage contaminated by the sewerage of foreign nations." Within the last two years the same statesman has publicly declared : " Many of our economic and social difficulties arise from the presence of undesirable elements among our people that should have been excluded. The bulk of our anarchists, socialists, and malcon- tents," etc., " are foreigners who should have remained at home. And yet such is 104 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. What a spectacle these scenes in New York, what an object-lesson to the native-born voter attaining manhood ! Why preach to him so constantly the duty of citizen- ship, why extol the dignity and privilege of American suffrage, when he can see in any large city that suffrage so unutterably cheap- ened and degraded, and oftentimes thrust upon the very dregs of society ? The contrast between our theory and our practice is en- tirely too glaring. But on this topic far more tell- ing than any personal opinion may be the words of the men trans- formed so summarily into Amer- the pusillanimity of our politics that, not- withstanding the admitted dangers of unre- stricted immigration, all parties forbear to deal with the question and shrink from rad- ical and drastic measures for fear of the foreign vote. That makes cowards of us all ! " If this applies to immigration, it of course holds equally good of naturalization. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 106 ican voters. At the time of the Mafia tragedy in New Orleans, UElvezia, a Swiss-Italian paper in a large Western city, contained the following striking indictment of the naturalization laws. After alluding to the general outcry of Italians in this country as perfectly natural, it is pointed out, as a sin- gular feature in the case, ' ' that per- sons who had voluntarily adopted American citizenship have brought themselves forward to ask the in- tervention of the government they had renounced against the people and the authority of the country of their adoption. " This raises the question, "whether it would not be proper for the United States to modify its laws of naturalization." This question is answered in this wise : "For our part, we do not hesi- tate to declare emphatically that they ought to be modified. Any- 106 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. one who examines even superfi- cially the mode in which natural- ization takes place, easily convinces himself that the great majority of those who acquire American citi- zenship do not comprehend the gravity of the act they accomplish. At the moment of their arrival in the United States the immigrants are taken in hand by professional politicians who persuade them that it is to their greatest inter- est to make themselves citizens. Very many of the new arrivals are illiterate people who come direct from their villages in Europe, who know nothing of the customs, nor of the laws, nor of the institu- tions of this country, and who in perfect good faith believe all that persons interested in the creating of voters tell them. And so they become citizens. "Well now, tell these persons that with the declaration they have IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 107 made they have renounced their own government and belong no longer to the land of their birth, and they will laugh in your face. They have never intended to re- nounce their native country, and they never will do so. But how they can reconcile the contradic- tion of being at the same time citizens of two nations, God alone may be able to divine. Naturally there are those who become Amer- ican citizens comprehending per- fectly the nature of the step,"- enumerating various classes. But 4 ' these are the great minority. We intend to speak of the others. These are not and cannot become good American citizens. Inter- rogate them and you will find that all, if they succeed in obtaining a modest competency, intend to re- turn to their natal land. Speak to them in the language of the land of their adoption and they will 108 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. stammer unintelligible words. Seek to discover whether they know anything of the institutions of the United States, and, even though they may have remained here for five, ten, or twenty years, they will show themselves ignorant of the most elementary things. Political aspirations they cannot have, because they are illiterate. What kind of citizens can they be ? For the most part they are honest people ; they are excellent workers ; they obey the laws ; but as citizens they are simple tools in the hands of those who establish their in- fluence over them to obtain their votes. " This is sufficient to demon- strate that a law that admits such a class of citizens needs to be amended. It is not only five years' residence that we should like to see required, but ten, if not a greater number, and further- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 109 more upon the express condition that the aspirant should know how to read and write, and should know the fundamental principles upon which is based the political edifice of the country he intends to adopt. This is not a question that relates to one nationality rather than another. It regards all immi- grants, and if EElvezia shall have been able to throw any light upon it, contributing even in the slightest manner to bring about a remedy for a state of affairs so abnormal as not to be found in any other nation, it will feel that it has per- formed something not entirely useless for this country." The foregoing extract was trans- lated into English and published in a leading paper of the Pacific coast, which added, editorially, that its words might well put to sharne some of our native-born politicians. The editorial com- 110 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ment of this latter paper is also quoted, because, as a pronounced partisan organ, it is not likely to magnify naturalization abuses, while its outspoken arraignment of the law foreshadows a change in public sentiment that gives the best promise of reform : "We recently called attention to the insufficiency of a five-year probation to give the present im- migration a sense of American nationality, or remove from the immigrants their feeling of loyalty to and dependence upon the flag they have renounced. Our views startled the timid, who are afraid of votes for the sake of office and power, but we struck a responsive chord in the hearts of all true American citizens, native and alien born. It is strange that the cowards and time-servers fail to understand that every immigrant who came here from proper mo- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. Ill tives agrees that indiscriminate immigration, with no intelligent conception of the dignities of citi- zenship in a free country, is the surest means of destroying liberty, ruining its institutions, and de- grading the nation that was in- tended to be the theatre on which the greatest free society on earth should perpetually exploit its genius and uphold the rights of man. The American may take les- sons from many an old immigrant who came to seek freedom as more precious than bread. The time has come to make more difficult the road to American citizenship. That citizenship cost lives and fortunes. It was wrought out in battle, colored with the blood of patriots, and fashioned by hands that were hardened by the use of the sword drawn in combat for human rights. Yet this prize so hard-won is bestowed upon men 112 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. who did not earn it, and who do not appreciate it, with no more ceremony than is lavished on tak- ing a glass of wine. The ceremony of naturalization should be so impressive and the approach to it so difficult that the man who comes as a candidate for this gift we offer to him will feel as if he were being born again. We print from an Italian paper an editorial on this subject which may well put many a native politician to shame. We commend its calm reasoning and indisputable statement of facts to the timid and cowardly who are afraid to discuss naturalization reform. No other nation, free or not, squanders its privileges as does ours. They are nowhere else bestowed upon those who don't ask for them as they are here, and nowhere else are they permitted to those unfit for them as they are here." IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 113 From widely different quarters have the foregoing selections been presented, and in view of their source the opinions expressed can- not be termed radical or extreme. In fact, exaggeration would be difficult. From change of condi- tions our naturalization laws have become an absurdity and an enormity. And the first and best hope of reform lies in realizing the imperative need of it. Obviously this topic, if it is to be discussed at all, cannot be fingered delicately, after the manner of politicians on the eve of election. On the con- trary, it must be taken out of and above the plane of "practical poli- tics," and one feature of the law should make that removal its ob- ject. The theory upon which the naturalization laws are based was well suited to the condition of affairs in this country, A. D. 8 114 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 1802. That is the date of the law prescribing five years' residence for the alien who would be a voter. At that time not only was the character of immigration much higher than now, but its volume was comparatively insig- nificant. We had no large cities, no bosses, no colonies, and no pro- cess by which the immigrant could be kept from any Americanizing influence. Taken as a unit into the current of political and social life, he ceased to be a foreigner in five years, and a " foreign vote 5 ' was unheard of. In short, the naturalization laws of 1802 were originally as wise as they were liberal, a proof of the political genius of their day and genera- tion. To-day those same laws are not only an anachronism, but a source of great and growing peril. At IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 115 least ten years after his landing should expire before the present immigrant can be entitled to the ballot, for legislation must al- ways be for masses, not for individuals. As things now are, however, there is no uniformity in the law, and five years is the max- imum limit of restriction, A great many states actually lessen this scant period of probation. This is accomplished by state legislation providing that all persons who are citizens of the United States or have declared their intention to become citizens, may vote at all elections after the brief re- sidence set forth in the following table. So far as the declaration of in- tention is concerned, Section 2165, United States Revised Statutes, the law of the case, prescribes a five years' residence for citizen- 116 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ship, and that the applicant shall declare on oath before a court of record "two years prior to his admission that it is bona fide his intention to become a citizen." "Two years at least prior to his admission," is decidedly elastic. It may equally well be three, four, or five years prior to admission. In fact, there is no reason why an immigrant should not declare his intention the day he lands, or the day he reaches any of the following list of states, or why he should not make the declaration at any time during the brief period of residence that the laws of these states have enacted. Consequent- ly, the alien in such states is en- titled to the full privileges of citi- zenship at the end of the times respectively indicated below : IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 117 STATES GIVING POWER TO VOTE IN ONE YEAR OR LESS.* RESIDENCE. Qualification of Voters. _ 6 tj ja 1 I I 02 o Alabama . . Declaration of Arkansas . Intenti on.. 1 year. 3 mos. 6 " 30 days. 30 Colorado.. 6 mos. 90 days. 10 Florida... 1 year. 6 mos. Indiana .. . Kansas... . 6 mos.t 6 mos. 30 days. 30 Louisiana. 1 year. 6 mos. 30 Minnesota Missouri . . 4 mos.t 1 year. 10 days. 60 " 10 Nebraska . N. Dakota 6 mos. 1 year. 40 " 6 mos. 10 days. 90 " Oregon... . 6 mos.t S. Dakota. 6 mos. 6 mos. 30 days'.' Texas..... 1 year. 6 " ^Vlsconsin 1 " 10 days. Wyoming 1 " J 30 days. The time of residence in the foregoing states is, of course, grossly inadequate. It is well adapted to bring the law into con- tempt. As for allowing aliens to * Compiled from the " Economist and Statistician 1 ' for 1895-6, with two or three minor corrections. t One year's residence in the United States is like- wise required. tin the State of Wyoming this provision only remains operative 5 years. 118 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. vote within six months of their arrival, why not arrange to hand certificates of naturalization to them on entering the state or even at the Atlantic seaboard, to take effect on entering the state ? Such a method would be a little more expeditious than the one now in vogue and not much more indefensible. Besides requiring a residence of at least ten years before conferring the right to vote, the law should prohibit naturalization within one year of any election, even if this provision had the effect of extend- ing the ten-year period of restric- tion. The advantage of such a pro- vision is obvious. The voting 4 'mills," which under the present law are run under full pressure almost up to the election, would proceed in a more deliberate and far more orderly manner. Temp- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 119 tation to wholesale and indiscrimi- nate admission would be decidedly less. And though party agents and managers might not be entire- ly free from such temptation they would feel the wholesome restraint of public opinion. This potent influence is of course relaxed dur- ing the stress and turmoil of a heated campaign, but once it re- sumes its sway our feelings of patriotism so far outweigh those of mere partisanship that the court scenes which mark the close of a great political contest would not be tolerated a year before the elec- tion. Another indispensable safeguard to a pure and intelligent ballot is a requirement that every voter should be able to read and write the language of his adopted, coun- try. This is a moot point, but the general drift of recent discussion inclines to such a limited educa- 120 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. tional test ; one that is in com- plete accord with our theory of government, and has been adopted in several states. The wide ex- tension of the Australian ballot, itself a test of illiteracy, in face of strong opposition, shows the trend of reaction from the idea of uni- versal suffrage, so-called.* * It may be interesting to compare a re- cent expression on this subject of an edu- cational requirement for the suffrage with one recorded many years ago, but both from a democratic source. *' This organization has always been and is now ready to co-operate in the enactment of any law which will reduce the expenses of elections and promote the purity of the ballot, but it is unalterably opposed to any legislation which, under the specious pre- text of reform, seeks to impose any qualifi- cation on suffrages, either of property or of education. . . . We pledge our hearty support to any bill which will provide for the isolation of the voter while preparing his ballot . . . but we protest against any change in our electoral system which would disfranchise a single honest man by discour- IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 121 There are various defects in the present statute, by which fraud and deception are practised. Al- though one section provides that a declaration of intention to become a citizen must precede the applica- tion for citizenship itself, there is no sure way of identifying the appli- cant as the man who has declared aging the exercise of the suffrage by the illiterate or the infirm." TAMMANY HALL, by resolution unanimously adopted Jan. 26, 1890. " In the constitution of Spain, as proposed by the late Cortez, there was a principle en- tirely new to me, and not noticed in yours, that no person born after that day should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant reliance on the principles of the constitution . . . it is the most effectual. Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will van- ish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."- THOMAS JEFFERSON, in a letter to Dupont de Nemours dated April 16, 1816. 122 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. his intention, though the old law of 1802 secured this identification. But it is not the purpose nor within the scope of this paper to dwell on minor blemishes, but to advocate a fundamental change of policy. One important alteration in our present system, and the last to be suggested, concerns the method of bestowing the gift of the suffrage. While the regulations for examin- ing applicants ought to be in no way oppressive, it should be the policy of the law to make them impressive and even imposing,. The time required to pass upon the merits of each case, including proof of identity, residence, character, and general qualification, need not be long, and very seldom would be if the applicant could answer for himself without the aid of an in- terpreter. But the country owes to itself as well as the applicant that an appearance of solemnity IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 123 mark the proceedings commensu- rate in some degree with the great value and dignity of the privilege sought and conferred. Instead of the utterly undignified and helter skelter procedure so much in vogue, all the surroundings, as well as the language and demeanor of the judge and court officials, should indicate the interest and importance of the occasion. Per- haps it would assist in produc- ing the effect desired, and enhance in the eyes of the new-comers the great duty and privilege of Ameri- can citizenship, were the follow- ing words of an American states- man more familiar to us than to them posted conspicuously on the walls in full view of every aspirant: li The boastful assever- ation of the Roman, ' Civis Ro- manus sum,' is tame and unmean- ing when contrasted with the full meaning of the declaration, ' I am 124 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. an American citizen.' To possess a title to that distinction, the more precious because enjoyed and to be enjoyed by countless millions, is the most priceless tem- poral gift of God to man. You must spend days in reflection ; you must call to your aid the annals of history through long cycles of time ; you must hear the cry of the oppressed for ages ; you must listen to the tumult of a thousand battles ending in a deeper degra- dation, before you can estimate the worth of American citizenship, with its immunities from thral- dom, its elevating rights and priv- ileges, and its opportunities for dignity and usefulness." IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 125 CHAPTER V. EUROPEAN RESPONSIBILITY FOR AMERICAN CRIME.* THE following chapter treats mainly of the episode of the Mafia outbreak and lynchings in New Orleans. It is added, however, because it illustrates one of the ap- palling features of immigration, the persistent policy of foreign of- ficials to unload on our devoted * By this is meant responsibility of Euro- pean governments for American crime, which is largely due to the vast criminal immigration aided or abetted by those governments. A good deal of this chapter was first published in the San Francisco Alia California some years ago, under the title, "Italy vs. America, A Plea in Justi- fication." 126 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. shores their most worthless and dangerous classes. It is astonish- ing how little attention this phase of the problem has received. And this experience at New Orleans and the international complication that ensued show that entire neglect of the history of immigration re- ferred to in a preceding chapter. If that history had been at all familiar the probable complicity of Italy in the Mafia immigration would have been known, and it surely would have been dwelt on when the discussion was rife. But hardly an allusion to Italian re- sponsibility appeared at the time. If the department of state were posted in this matter it might not come amiss in the next inter- national crisis. Justification to ourselves, to our children, to civilization is im- possible for such an outbreak IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 127 as recently occurred at New Orleans. For it was the natural development and outgrowth of the social conditions which more and more are coming to prevail in all the large cities of the country. We have long permitted an indis- criminate immigration of an- archist, communist, nihilist, pau- per, criminal, contract laborer, Chinese highbinder, and Italian brigand, and the results of the ex- periment are becoming apparent. Class and race conflicts of growing magnitude will ensue, alternating with an occasional carnival of crime such as we have just wit- nessed. These considerations certainly merit more careful attention than we have been wont to bestow on them. Although perhaps not touching directly the international issue, they have yet a bearing upon it. Moreover, the Louisiana affair, 128 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. viewed from this aspect, alters the meaning of the facts and sheds a new light on the situation there, tending to shift a considerable part of the responsibility for what has happened from the people of New Orleans to the people of the United States. Of course opinions will differ as to whether a community is ever justified in taking the law into its own hands during times of peace. We may not feel disposed to ex- onerate the people of New Orleans or even to extenuate their action. But there is no reason why we should not try to look at the matter from a New Orleans standpoint, and to do so might afford us a better insight into the conditions and circumstances that led to the tragedy. It is quite evident that the people of the Southern city regard all that has happened as a calamity rather IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 129 than as a crime, so far as they themselves are concerned. On no other hypothesis is it possible to account for the deliberate action of the mob and the determined, per- sistent attitude of the populace after the occurrence. To justify the step taken the claim was made that in no other way was it possible to mete out justice, or what was deemed justice, which implies that the general social conditions and the character of a portion of the population rendered the law power- less. Herein lies the real interest and gravity of the case, for what is true of the social conditions of New Orleans and of the character of her population is true to a greater or less extent of every large city in the United States. In the administration of justice under our laws the only recognized or authorized punishment of crime is by means of that eminently 130 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. Anglo-Saxon institution, trial by jury. Whether trial by jury can accomplish the purpose for which it was designed depends almost entirely upon the character and disposition of the population of a country. The people from whom the jury are drawn need to have a certain amount of intelligence, education, judicial capacity, and training in self-government. And then the general sentiment of the community must be one of law and order, a sentiment that may criticise the law, but will only under the most exceptional circum- stances fail to guard and uphold it. We can really best appreciate this peculiar feature of Anglo- Saxon civilization by reflecting how obviously impracticable any- thing like a general extension of trial by jury would be in certain parts of Europe. There are some IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 131 sections of their native country in which, were members of the Mafia to be indicted for crime, no one would think of claiming for them the right of jury trial. The political and social conditions which obtain would render it im- possible to accord them that privi- lege. In various parts of Italy it might not be feasible to find a jury of the neighborhood possessing the requisite qualifications derived from training and experience. Nor could the surrounding population be relied upon to uphold the verdict of a jury. Those who might en- deavor to influence the jurymen or to interfere with the execution of their decree would conceive that in so doing they were striking a blow not at the people or at the country, but merely at the state as an in- strument of government, a view likely to be shared by a consider- able part of the people, and strik- 132 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. ingly illustrative of the difference in the theory of government be- tween the Anglo-Saxon and Con- tinental systems. Until a people become thor- oughly imbued with the English or American idea of administrating justice, trial by jury cannot be relied upon. Its most conspicuous failures in this country now and for years past have been in our large cities, where the population is only partially Americanized. Bribery is the usual and familiar means of defeating or baffling justice. That bribery and intimidation sometimes succeed and frequently remain un- detected is due partly to the char- acter of the jury, and largely to the character of the surrounding population, certain classes of which seem to have no adequate apprecia- tion of the enormity of the offense. Criminals themselves and their immediate friends may be expected IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 133 in any country to attempt unlaw- ful methods of influencing a judge or jury. But wherever the jury system prevails it is presumed that, as a measure of self-defense, the community will be ever on the alert to detect and punish bribery. In a republic like ours jury bribing and intimidation are the greatest of crimes, aimed not merely at gov- ernment, but at the very founda- tions of society, at the people them- selves ; for here, in a fuller sense than elsewhere, the people are the state. At the New Orleans trial, bri- bery, it appears, was not the only influence brought to bear. If we are to credit the reports the jury and their families were threatened with death in case of conviction. Under the circumstances this could have been no vague or empty threat. It would make a vivid impression on the minds of men 134 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. having before their eyes the fate of a prominent official who had fallen by the same hands which menaced them, assassinated openly in the public streets. If an armed and courageous officer of the law had suffered death, what prospect had a private citizen of escaping that fate ? If the foregoing description pictures truly the condition of affairs, it might be said that the final catastrophe, the climax, was inevitable. The collision between the officers of the law and the Mafia may have been its occasion, but the settlement in the com- munity of large numbers of bandits and assassins was the real cause. Associations of men secretly or- ganized for the purpose of black- mail, and resorting toassassination, whether to accomplish the purpose or to punish their foes, are modern Ishmaelites destined to come in IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 185 conflict with the law in any com- munity. Criminals at home, criminals they remain. Coelum non animam mutant. Louisiana does not afford the only illustration of their peculiar traits. The daily press for years past has chronicled the doings and misdoings of the Mafia in various parts of the country. The ordinary methods and measures of law would not be ap- plied to them in their native land, and experience has shown that in a republic such methods and measures are even less effective than in a monarchy. These con- siderations should induce leniency of judgment towards our country- men of the South, and might well give pause to some of their critics. Instead of putting the entire bur- den of responsibility on the people of New Orleans, who have nothing whatever to do with foreign im- 136 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. migration, it would be more just and more generous to hold our- selves accountable. Such a course also might prove more politic in treating with the government of Italy. Nothing that has so far been said could avail us much as an argument in the international dispute, except in conjunction with oilier circum- stances and considerations. To urge, for instance, that the New Orleans victims were confirmed law-breakers, incapable of being dealt with like ordinary criminals, and to point to Italy's own ex- perience in confirmation, seems perhaps to invite the question, Why, then, did the government of the United States admit them ? But that is precisely the ques- tion which Italy is not likely to put. It might be an awkward query for Italy. Such an inquiry would lead naturally to questions IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 137 on our part, and the result of a thorough examination would per- haps show that the Italian govern- ment was directly concerned in the immigration of the Mafia, and therefore like the government of the United States to some extent a particeps criminis. This New Orleans incident ap- pears to have caused the world as much surprise as horror. But the governments of the world have no occasion for surprise at anything that has occurred. Our official and diplomatic records disclose the fact that for many years we have at- tributed largely to governmental influence the pauper and criminal element of our foreign immigra- tion, and have addressed repeated but futile remonstrances on the subject to various foreign govern- ments. More than fifty years ago Con- gress began to investigate the 138 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. matter, and in 1838 reported : " The fact is unquestionable that large numbers of foreigners are annually brought to our country by the authority and at the expense of foreign governments and landed upon our shores in a state of ab- solute destitution and dependence, many of them of the most idle and vicious class. Many of them " ( the emigrants) " are outcasts, paupers, vagrants, and malefactors from the poorhouses and penitentiaries of Europe sent hither at the ex- pense of foreign governments." Despite our protests and the remedial legislation of 1838, the committee of foreign affairs made a report to the House again in 1856 on " foreign criminals and paupers," the statistics in which amply justify this statement of the committee: " Crime and pauper- ism are the bane of a republic . . . That these evils have of late years IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 139 grown far beyond the ratio of the increase of population is an ad- mitted fact. . . . Thousands have come hither " (within the ten years preceding the report) 4 ' to fill our streets as beggars or to become the inmates of our almshouses and other charitable institutions. Un- desirable as such a population may be, we are yet afflicted with one of a still worse character derived from the same source. Our coun- try has been converted into a sort of penal colony to which foreign governments ship their criminals. It is not only the thriftless poor who come hither, but inmates of the prisons of Europe are sent hither by their governments to prey upon society and to contam- inate our people with their vices." But the evil complained of was not even abated until the rigorous legislation of 1882, and nothing like a cure has ever been effected. 140 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. For the report on the importation of contract labor (1889) discloses the agreeable fact that the govern- ments of England, Ireland, Ger- many, and Switzerland were and probably are still offering various inducements to their worthless and criminal classes to take up their abode with us. So far as Italian subjects are concerned, the testimony elicited by the committee of 1889 was in- conclusive. In this connection, however, there are several facts of significance. The superintendent of the immigrant landing-depot in New York testified that every Italian who comes here is provided with a passport by his government, a rule which is by no means uni- versal among other nationalities. In response to a question whether it would not therefore be impos- sible for an Italian criminal to land, the answer was : " We have sent IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 141 them back " Italian criminals, be it noted " within ten days, and they had their passports. Q. Noth- ing was mentioned in the passport that they had been convicted of a crime ? A. Nothing, sir. Q. Your opinion is based upon your knowl- edge that it is just as easy for a convict, for a criminal, to obtain a passport as for any other person ? A. So far as I know, that is so." Such testimony assumes special importance in view of the recent admissions of Italian papers that the Mafia and other Sicilian bandits and assassins have been uprooted by the authorities and driven out of their native country. But what is the land of their exile ? As large numbers have recently appeared among us it seems natural to con- clude that, unless Italy has de- parted from the general European custom, they were destined for these United States. The compar- 142 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. atively recent influx of Italian im- migration also has an important bearing upon the question of Italy's responsibility for the pres- ence here of the Mafia. And the continued arrival of such an un- desirable element illustrates the efficacy of the latest and most rigid of our laws that were designed to bar its entrance. These laws were passed in 1882, and are presumed to have checked undesirable im- migration. It is since that date, however, that the bulk of the Italian, including the Sicilian and Mafian, immigration has reached us. Now, if it is a fact that the Italian government is responsible for the presence here of the Mafia organizations, were we accountable to Italy for the New Orleans affair under the code of international or moral law ? If Italy, like other nations, has been making us " a IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 143 sort of penal colony " for the Mafia and kindred societies, is she not the real cause of the late catastro- phe, or, at least, has she not con- tributed to it, to use a legal phrase, in such sense as to bar all claims to reparation ? If her claims are not barred, by all means let us make every amend in our power and add in no way to the load of responsibility the responsibility already alluded to and admitted which rests upon our shoulders. But why not seize the opportu- nity to assert claims of our own, claims to immunity from the in- juries we so long have suffered from the nations of Europe ? Our government has protested and leg- islated to little effect, it would seem, and now it might be well for the voice of the people to be heard. Whether or not the people of New Orleans were justifiable is open to question. But if the people of the 144 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. United States should assert them- selves in an unmistakable manner at this time, there can be little doubt of the beneficial effect of such action. Let us request the government of the United States to ascertain whether Italy induced the Mafia to emigrate to this country. If that responsibility rests on Italy, we also are surely entitled to ask redress. When the subjects of one nation are unjustly treated by those of another, the offended nation de- mands satisfaction, and satisfac- tion refused is deemed a casns belli. Such was Italy's position, ordinarily an unassailable one. But if maltreatment of individual subjects is a casus belli, why not make the future shipment of large numbers of paupers and criminals to the shores of a friendly nation a casus belli f What deeper, dead- lier injury can one nation inflict on IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 145 another ? An attempted invasion by the armies of Europe would in reality be far less menacing to our institutions, to our civilization, than the invasion we actually en- ;dure. Whatever the wrongs of Italy in the recent controversy, those of America were at least as great, and they fail to obtain the slightest recognition. If we owe reparation, let us discharge the debt, asserting, however, our own rights in un- mistakable language, so that some good may grow out of this evil.* * At the time of the New Orleans out- break the following vigorous resolutions were passed by a patriotic society and published in Western papers : " Resolution One. " Whereas the recent tragedy at the city of New Orleans has surprised and horrified the world, and has called forth general criticism and condemnation, and, whereas, we believe that the presence in large numbers in any community of the class 10 146 IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. known as the Mafia may render the ordi- nary operation of justice impossible " Resolved, that as American citizens we sympathize with the citizens of New Orleans in the experience they have recently under- gone, and desire to express our conviction that the circumstances of the case may have justified the people the ultimate source of law in taking into their own hands the execution of the law. " Resolution Two. " Whereas the governments of Europe have long been directly instrumental in shipping pauper and criminal immigration to America against our repeated protests, and, whereas, there is strong reason to be- lieve that the government of Italy has proved no exception to the general rule, Resolved, that we deem it a fitting time to urge the government of the United States to investigate Italian immigration to ascer- tain whether the Italian government has been aiding or abetting pauper and criminal immigration to our country ; and, ''Whereas, the government of Italy has claimed indemnity and satisfaction from the government of the United States for the death or maltreatment of certain alleged Italian citizens at New Orleans, " Resolved, that we favor granting such satisfaction to the Italian government as IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. 147 international law or the peculiar circum- stances of the case may require, but in case the Italian government is responsible for the presence here of certain criminal classes, we urge upon our government our right and our duty to claim redress. Resolved, that we favor making the future shipment of paupers and criminals to this country by foreign governments a casus belli. 11 THE END. Some Admirable Novels by Southern Writers, Depicting Southern Life. Born in the Whirlwind. By Rev. William Adams, D.D. The plan of the work is admirable, sometimes even bold and striking, its plot ingenious and well sustained, its tone lofty Mnd pure, its motive and moral suited to stimul ite lotty aspirations and to make duplicity and revenge hateful in our eyes. The style, moreover, is verv fine. Christian Observer, Louisville, Ky. Cloth, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. Redbank. By M. L,. Cowles. This book abounds in delightful de- scriptions of old Soutnern ' dining-days." of free, joyous ridis through the pines, of child-life on the plant tion of all things, in short, that make up the real South, known only to the > v outherner and never portrayed more faithfully, more grapnically, more charmingly, th -n by Mrs. Cowles. Mrs. Cowh s is a fairer representative of Southern culture, a far better exponent of Southern ieel* ing and customs, than some other writers of that section. All Southerners who feel an interest in the authors of the South, all Northerners who desire to obtain an insiyht into real Southern life, should read this valuable and thoroughly delightful novel. Public Opinion, New York. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. A Mute Confessor. By Will N. Harben. A stirring romance of a Southern town. Full of beauty and strength combined; an ideal union. Boston Ideas. If knowledge and insight and the flawless taste of the artist can make a popular novel, " A Mute Confessor" will be one of the season's literary successes. New York Home Journal. Cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. David and Abigail. By B. F. Sawyer. "David and Abigail" is, notwith- standing its biblical title, a story of modern da>~s. It is a wholesome story; it will be read around the evening lamp. Men will smile, women may cry; all will be better for the reading. Cloth, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. ARENA PUBLISHING CO. Pierce Building. Copley Square, BOSTON, Mass. A NEW STORY PAINTING THE ROMANCE HISTORY OF THE COLONIZATION OF AMERICA AS IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. KRISTOPIM. A HISTORY IN ROMANCE. BY CASTELLO N. HOLFORD. One of the most strikingly original romances issued from the press in recent years. It is founded on a perfectly novel idea, never be- fore utilized in fiction, and gives an imaginative picture of what this country and its history "might have been" had its foundations been laid and its beginnings moulded under the fostering care of a man of thoroughly enlightened views, animated by the single desire of benefiting his fellow-creatures to the utmost. Aristopia is the name of a colony founded by a young English- man in Virginia in the seventeenth century, under a charter obtained from King James. The name, like that of Sir Thomas M ore's famous social vision, is derived from the Greek and means *' the best place." The author's purpose in telling this facinating story of colonization in the seventeenth century, is not to look forward to some impossible millennial society, such as that pictured in More's " Utopia," or Bellamy's" Looking Backward/' but to show the lost opportunities of the past. A glowing picture is given of the uni- versal prosperity, peace, contentment, and happiness which would have been the lot of the people under such favoring circumstances, and of the earthly paradise which the country would by this time have become, in place of the spectacle of social and political unrest which it now presents. Aside from the interest of the story, the book will provide much food for thought for reformers and others who are seeking a sure pathway out of our present bemuddlement. Price, Cloth, $1.25; Paper, So Cents. For sale by all Booksellers or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers. THE ARENA PUBLISHING CO., Copley Square, Boston, Mass. IMMIGRATION FALLACIES. The ONLY Recent Book on Immigration. WHAT THE THINKERS THINK OF IT. A most admirable presentation of a most important subject. I beg you will feel free to say that I think no more important subject can possibly engage the minds of American citizens at this time, and no better presentation of the argument can be found than is contained in your book. Kt Rev. W. C. Doane, D. D.,LL.D., Bishop of Al- bany. " Admirably written and extremely well calculated for its purpose. It should be widely circulated, and I think the Immigration Restriction League should have ten or twenty thousand copies distributed all over the country." Sydney G. Fisher, Author of Evolution oi United States Constitution, etc., etc. " I have read it with great interest and I think it an ad- mirable statement of the question from your point of view." Abram S. Hewitt, ex-Congressman and ex- Mayor of New York. " Very interesting and valuable. A powerful contribu- tion to one of the most momentous questions affecting American civilization." John J. Ingails, ex-Senator of the United States. "It seems to me your argument is unanswerable. Un" doubtedly the stability of our government is seriously en' dangered by indiscriminate immigration." Joseph Le Conte, LL. D. Sc., etc., Professor in Geology in the Uni- versity of California. " I have read your little book with much interest. Its ideas seem to me sound and well expressed. Very few people realize how much of the poverty of our great cities is due to the inherited inefficiency from the slums of Europe, producing a type of degenerate men who can be free under no government and whose life no social condi- tions can make effective." David S. Jordan, LL. D., etc., etc., President of Stanford University. " I heartily agree with you in your conclusions as to the results and effects of indiscriminate immigration. I wish every citizen of the United States, native or foreign born, might read your little book." Frank Soule, Ph. D., etc., Prof. Civil Engineering University of California. " I read the book with great interest. I am glad you have given your thought to a question of such vital impor- tance to our people." John G. Hibben, Ph.i D., Prof, of Logic ia Princeton University. WHAT THE CRITICS SAY. "A very clear and convincing statement of the enormous evils resulting from immigration. The author has strong convictions and the great gift of putting them in clear language and with force .that compels attention. The joint evils" (of unrestricted immigration and a too pre- cipitate bestowal of the suffrage), "are pointed out in a way that ought to rouse the people of this land. The two points argued in this book are as worthy of attention as the silver issue, which is in everybody's mouth." Pacific Churchman, S. F. "We go fur * her, and say these points are superior in im- portance to all others." Guardian, (Oroville, Gal.) "A very excellent little book on a very important sub- ject." Buffalo Courier. " The danger to American institutions is ably and ciearly discussed." Burlington Hawkeye. V 'A clever and valuable little volume,.' Toledo Blade. "A very full and interesting discussion of the immigra- tion problem." Minneapolis Times. The author declares, and this will show the boldness of the book, that " the Italian Government, being directly connected with the immigration of the Mafia, is there- fore like the Government of the United States a particeps criminis to some extent in the New Orleans outbreak." Cincinnati Commercial Tribune. " Most ably written and forceful in argument." Phila- delphia Item. "A plain, fair, honest study of the value of immigration. The reader will not have to agree with all the ideas of the author to be profoundly interested in his chapters." Chi- cago Inter-Ocean. "So real have been the abuses of our hospitality these many years that a multitude of people, and they the clos- est observers and truest patriots/will find Mr. Chetwood's statements and conclusions none too strong." Overland Monthly. "An elaborate study of the growing evil of indiscrimi- nate immigration," Baltimore American. "The writer deals earnestly and manfully with the sub- ject. His discussion of the problem and of the attempts hitherto made at its solution is thorough going. The book merits a wide circulation and careful reading." Chicago Interior. "The subject has become one of vital importance. Mr. Chetwood makes out a very strong case and calls for more stringent legislation." Richmond Dispatch. "Every American who has the welfare of his country at heart should read it." American Protestant (Cincinnati). "Some of these days the nation is going to wake up to the dangers of our lax immigration laws. It is a question both parties prefer to leave alone during a campaign, but Immigration Fallacies will attract attention anew to this really important subject. The book is most compre- hensi^e, and yet the subject matter is contained in less than 150 pages." New York Press. "Mr. Chetwood presents a stong and able array of facts against immigration. It appears that many of our great national problems, mormonism, pauperism, anarchy, in- temperance, conflict of labor and capital, municipal cor- ruption and misrule, owe their existence wholly or largely to the character and bulk of immigration. The 'friendly' Governments of Europe have for years assisted their crimi- nal classes to our shores, and the Mafian troubles at New Orleans are instanced as an example of the results. Mr. Chetwood arraigns in no measured terms " our unnatural laws of naturalization." Their theory "was admirably adapted to the date of passage, 1802, but owing to changed conditions they have become an absurdity and an enor- mity." Detroit Free Press. 11 The author deals with the whole question in a very thorough manner, taking into consideration not only its political, but also its economic and social aspects; and he justly contends that even if the economic value of immi- gration is all it is claimed the true wealth of a nation is measured not by acreage or money, but by the character of its people. He also deals with the history of the ques- tkm, and shows that the views expressed by Washington, Jefferson and other Revolutionary fathers, are utterly op- posed to unrestricted immigration. The author also shows that the evils of the present system have been in- vestigated and made manifest on several occasions in the past, especially in 1838, 1845, 1856, 1870 and 1888-9, but that all attempts to apply a remedy have been lamentable fail- ures. The work is undoubtedly the most thoroughgoing and complete that has yet been published on the subject! and as the question is of vital moment not only to the nation as a whole, but to every class of the community, it is one well deserving of attentive study by every voter in the land. And anyone, whether voter or non-voter, who wishes to obtain a thorough knowledge of one of the most important and vital questions of the day cannot do better than study the admirable summary of it given in the pres- ent work." San Francisco Examiner. In similar vein to the paper last quoted are notices of the "San Francisco Call," ' Boston Journal," "Boston Transcript," "Brooklyn Standard," "New Orleans Pica- yune," " New York Voice," while the book is strongly en- dorsed by the "Oakland, Cal., Enquirer," "Philadelphia Church Standard " (Epis.), "Boston Pilot " (B. C.), etc., etc. flfeanila, ot flfoonroe Doctvtne? BY JOHN CHETWOOD AUTHOR OF IMMIGRATION FALLACIES" TABLE OF CONTENTS FAGB INTRODUCTION, IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION . ... 5 CHAPTER I. WHAT THE MONROE DOCTRINE MEANS AND INVOLVES 9 " II. SOME THINGS THE MONROE DOCTRINE ix>i?s NOT MEAN 16 * III. EUROPE AS A FACTOR AT MANILA . ... 25 IV. VITAL AND GROWING IMPORTANCE OK TDK MONROE DOCTRINE 35 V. THE QUESTIONS OF DUTY AT MANILA ... 38 vi. THE OPPORTUNITIES AT MANILA 45 PRICE 1O CENTS 1C < Manila, or flfeonroe Doctrine? BY JOHN CHETWOOD AUTHOR OF " IMMIGRATION FALLACIES OF THB UNIVERSITY PUBLISHERS ROBERT LEWIS WEED COMPANY 63 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK /.Sf* Copyrighted, 1898, by ROBERT LFAVIS WEED COMPANY . resent in arras the at- tempt of any European power to occupy any part of the American continents. But . . . it is not impossible that there will be a combination of Europe to smash our policy." Precisely so. And if we changed our disliked policy from a defensive to an offensive one the possibility is pretty sure to become a certainty. And a deplorable certainty. For the impulse which the war has given the Monroe Doctrine is obvious. With the acquisition of Porto Rico and Hawaii, to say nothing of Cuba, control of the Nicaragua Canal becomes a necessity. In that our interest is paramount. England on guard at Suez, claims that the canal there links the mother-country to her colonies. The Nic- aragua. Canal will do even more for us. fiy it wiTl 2i-nk i -11 i i i / our east and west coasts wni ee b^eugm to- gether, ad--ttf-6yftte^-defene will It -is-40- be In time of war it should be open to our navy and closed to the navies of our enemies. Dis- pute over our control of this waterway by any European power would be most repugnant to the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, far more re- pugnant than any foreign aggression or exten- sion in this Hemisphere could have been before 37 we shall hav-e booomc possessed of so vulnerable a point of attack. As it is, we are even now more open not merely to attack but to invasion than we have ever been before. From such ports and stations as Europe owns in South America or the West Indies, fleets could^liar-ry our coasts or bombard them. ny invading force would speedily be confronted with five or tenfold its number of Anglo-Saxons, and would advance to its own destruction. A suppose, in the future, twenty-five or fifty thousand Germans or Frenchmen were to hold command of the sea long enough to effect a landing in Cuba or Porto Rico, how difficult and dangerous an un- dertaking it would be for us first to regain con- trol of the sea, A then to transport thousands of troops, start>Hr~kh#a^3rii4~iHa^ to dislodge the entrenched invaders. At such a perfectly supposable crisis, if we should be unlucky enough to own the Philippines, which are 7,000 miles away from us, and only a few hundred miles distant from strong and heavily garrisoned French and German colonies, what, -f -ask, would be the advantage of having Manila ? / --, , eonstrueted^ the Nicaragua Canal A witt- 38 the neighboring lands and seas will acquire new value and strategic importance. Then more than one power will covet ownership of West Indian islands. For example, Den- mark is willing to sell St. Thomas, which would be a great prize for Germany. Even now, there are indications that guardianship of the Nica- ragua Canal, and preservation of the integrity of the Western Hemisphere may eventually tax our national strength and resources to their fullest extent without the further burden of Manila <* f r7J Mo-r L gr?Xl:af.SixS&*c Manila.;^, totnrtt'&orZrim ilT*f * In-^Jj 6 P as t the Monroe Doctrine has the greatest importance to our national peace and welfare; standing upon the jtfereshold of the swiftly advancing filing are we prepared to abandon a Doctrine of such surpassing value that its makers, and even we, ourselves^ cannot measure its precious significance to millions yet CHAPTER V The Questions of Duty at Manila o P K TW z'sr ty #/ IN the realm of nature and of law, anc^of con- 1 science, the higher duty always governs^/ff When higher and lesser duties present their claims, and the conflict between them cannot 39 be adjusted, the high or -ditties take precedence and the bNer anMiot & to be discharge^^. What are our^highesMuties at Manila ?.A In point of time, those we took there with us, A tne ones discussed in the preceding chapters, the ones we hav-e assumed to our own race, to 'our own hemisphere, and to the powers of the East- ern World, when we planted our feet in the paths marked out by Waohingftoft-in-hia- fare- well- atMregs-ftit4-^3^Mo4iroe Ad-ams- Jefferson- & Madison iw^he-Mmrro^J^ootime. These duties are and should ever be paramount. Nc^ wiser or finer counsel for Americans at this. time can be found than the wa'rningTfiePwe^*fe*v6-'nnes of James Russell Lowell: u O, my friends thank your God, if you have one, that He 'Twixt the Old World and yon set the gulf of a sea. Be strong-handed, brown-backed, upright as your pines, By the scale of a hemisphere shape your designs." As to the various minor obligations imposed on us or assumed by us at Manila, some of them are imaginary; while others may be discharged without annexing Asiatic soil and thus without conflicting with our higher duties. Any prom- ises to the insurgents based on theoretical assumptions of annexation by us, are utterly opposed to the spirit and genius of our in- stitutions, and to our traditional and declared 40 policy for seventy -five years, and should riot be recognized by our government. Bu|. promises of protection from Spanish oppression or mis- rule, whether made to the insurgents in the field or to the limited number of the natives with whom our forces have come in contact, must be fulfilled. The fulfilling of these obligations does not entail annexation. They can be dis- charged, whatever nation may hold Manila, and be enforced by making it a condition of peace, especially if we retain a coaling and docking station on the islands. There is another imaginary dutj-, of the sen- timental order. It is said, when once the Stars and Stripes goes up there rises with the emblem of freedom our obligation to it and to ourselves never to strike or furl it. We are new to colo- nial wars and colonial conquests, and this is very new duty. Will its advocates kindly point out how many wars there have been in which more or less conquered territory was not surrendered at the close of the conflict, or traded for some other territory? There is hardly a war in his- tory in which the winning flag has not come down somewhere. And it is often clearly to the victor's interest that it should. If it is not for the best interests of the United States to stay at Manila, is she obliged to do so merely because her standards have been planted 41 there? We have recently been amused by the punctilios and quixotic notions of Spain and of certain Spaniards, and a keen sense of humor might serve to check the display on our own part of sentiments that are quite as high-flown and fantastic. These sentiments might seem less absurd if we had not gone to Manila solely to destroy the enemj^s fleet and to obtain a base of supplies. It was a measure forced upon us by the necessities of war and leaves us free on the return of peace to depart from Manila unhampered by any feeling of false or foolish pride. But it is urged there are duties to the seven or eight million Filipinos, beyond the suburbs of Manila, who must not only be rescued from the Spanish }*oke but Christianized and civilized as well. The vagueness and the vastness of the suggestion almost benumb the faculties. In what species of crusade or knight errantry have we embarked at the close of this nine- teenth^century, and how far will it conduct us? Untold millions of the African race are to day living under the sway of foreign powers with whom at some future time we may have the misfortune to be .at war.^ (A few million -erf trkese A&4ea- a*er