among the Irish is the result of their "displacement by the Southern and Eastern Europeans." It was shown, however, by the Industrial Commission that in pauperism the Irish had always been in the lead. The demonstration of this fact is given in Table 107, which shows that in 1885-1895, when the Italians and Hebrews from Russia and Austria were but a small fraction of the population of New York City, and even as far back as 1854-1860, when there were practically none at all, the preponderance of the Irish among the recipients of charity was as great as in more recent years.

TABLE 107.

PER CENT DISTRIBUTION, BY NATIVITY, OF FOREIGN-BORN RECIPIENTS OF CHARITY, 1854-1860, AND 1885-1895, AND OF THE POPULATION OF NEW YORK CITY, 1855 AND 1890.1

The proportion of English and Irish paupers in Boston in the '30's and '40's was about the same as in New York City half a century later:

TABLE 108.

COMPARATIVE PERCENTAGE OF ENGLISH AND IRISH PAUPERS IN BOSTON, 1837-1845, AND IN NEW YORK CITY, 1885-1895.2

I

1 Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., pp. 460, 480.

2 Census of Boston, 1845, pp. 110-111. Report of the Industrial

Commission, vol. xv., p. 480.

It is evident from the preceding figures that recent immigration is not responsible for the high percentage of pauperism among the old English-speaking immigrants. Dr. Kate H. Claghorn, after an exhaustive statistical study of immigration in its relation to pauperism, comes to the conclusion that pauperism "is the result of a considerable period of life and experiences here." It is not the ablebodied workmen and their families, but the industrial invalids that make up the lists of applicants for charity." Unemployment is responsible for but a minority of the cases of pauperism, as appears from Table 109, based upon a classification of 7225 Charity Organization Society cases in New York City:

TABLE 109.

PER CENT DISTRIBUTION OF CHARITY CASES IN NEW YORK CITY, BY NATIVITY AND CAUSES OF NEED (YEAR).2

"The census of 1890 showed that 92 per cent of the foreign-born male almshouse paupers had been in this country ten years or more. . . Overwork, poor food, and life in the airless, sunless, and crowded tenements of the city, or in the equally crowded and even more unsanitary dwellings of the mill or the mining town-the conditions accompanying the early stages of the immigrant's progress-tend strongly to break down the physical health of the sturdy Italian or Austrian peasants, or even of the Jews, more accustomed to the unsanitary conditions of city life." -Kate H. Claghorn: Immigration in its Relation to Pauperism. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July, 1904, pp. 187-200. 2 Ibid., p. 199.

C. Crime

One of the favorite arguments against immigration since the days of the Know-Nothings has been the assertion that "the foreigner in proportion to his numbers furnishes by far the greater part of crime." In the middle of the nineteenth century the Irish immigrant was the object of popular odium as of a potential criminal.2 Fifty years later the suspicion turned upon "the undesirable immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe." Although the latest statistics of prisoners, published by the Bureau of the Census simultaneously with the creation of the Immigration Commission, showed "that the popular belief that the foreignborn are filling the prisons has little foundation in fact, "3 yet the Immigration Commission approached the subject under the influence of the popular prejudice. In its report on Emigration Conditions in Europe the Commission lends its support to "the not unfounded belief that certain kinds of criminality are inherent in the Italian race.' Accompanying this inherent criminal tendency, in the opinion of the Commission, "is also a seemingly inherent ability to avoid arrest and conviction." The evidence in support

of this indictment of the whole Italian race is merely circumstantial. There has been a "remarkable decrease in the number of murders and homicides in Italy," and, it is alleged, there has been a "startling growth of Italian criminality of the same nature in the United States." Although it "obviously cannot be mathematically determined". . . "to what extent emigration is responsible for the decrease of crime in

Sydney G. Fisher: "Immigration and Crime," Popular Science Monthly, September, 1896, p. 625.

"The newspapers and pamphlets of that time published statistics which showed that, although the foreign population was only an eighth of the whole, yet it furnished . . . 1000 more criminals than all the remaining seven eighths of the people. -Every one-hundred and fiftyfour of them produced a criminal."-Ibid. These early statistics were discredited by later criticism. Cf. Roland P. Falkner: Statistics of Crime in United States. 3 Prisoners, 1904, p. 41.

Italy," yet "in view of the fact that the decrease has been coincident with the emigration movement, and also with the" supposed "growth of Italian criminality in the United States, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that these

results... had been due in large part to the emigration to this country of criminals and the criminally inclined." The Commission concedes that "there are of course other elements which should be taken into consideration, such as the advance of civilization and the better enforcement of law in parts of Italy," but these considerations are of little weight. To be sure, according to Italian statistics of crime, "Sicily, which has a large emigration, and Liguria, which has much the smallest emigration in proportion to population, show nearly the same per cent of decrease," in murders and homicides. But these facts are of no consequence. The homicidal tendency of the Italian immigrant is proved, on the one hand, by the fact that in certain provinces which "furnish the greatest number of transoceanic emigrants according to the population, there has been an exceptionally large decrease in the number of murders and homicides committed," and, on the other hand, by the fact, "that the prevalence of murder and homicide is as a rule much greater in Compartimenti which furnish the largest number of transoceanic emigrants, and consequently are the source of the greater part of the Italian movement to the United States."

This criminological theory is significant in so far only as it betrays the bias of the Commission against the immigrant. Yet, notwithstanding its strong prejudice, which no evidence. could overcome, the results of its investigation prove to the satisfaction of its own interpreters, that, "undue significance has been attached" to the supposed effects of immigration upon criminality.

taken as a

"The number of . . . criminals arriving percentage of the whole coming is so small that little heed need be paid to it."

"Although available statistical material is too small to

'Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 4 (in press).

draw positive conclusions, such material as is available would indicate that immigrants are no more inclined toward criminality on the whole than are native Americans."

"It is impossible to produce satisfactory evidence that immigration has resulted in an increase of crime out of proportion to the increase in the adult population.”1

The State of New York, which is more affected by immigration than any other State in the Union, has compiled annual statistics of crime commencing with the year 1830. The results of an analysis of these statistics, by the writer, are briefly summed up in the following paragraphs.2

Surveying the general trend for the seventy-five year period 1830-1905, we find that the increase of crime has merely kept pace with the growth of population. The relative rate of criminality in 1890 was the same as in 1840, notwithstanding the change in the racial composition of the population of the State. In the year 1900 there was just one more conviction for every 100,000 of the population than in 1890, and in 1905 four convictions per 100,000 people in excess of 1900. The fluctuations of the movement of population and of the rate of criminality indicate that the causes. which are favorable to the growth of population tend to reduce crime, and vice versa, the causes which retard the growth of population are productive of an increase of crime.

The effects of immigration upon criminality can be traced from 1850 when the census inquiries for the first time took notice of nativity. The statistics for the half-century following show that an increase of the percentage of the foreign-born population is accompanied by a decrease of criminality, and vice versa. During the latest ten-year period, 1900-1909, the wave of criminality rose when immigration was at its lowest ebb, while the high-tide of immigration was contemporaneous with a decrease of crime.

'Jenks and Lauck, loc. cit., pp. 51, 52, 65.

2 For a detailed statistical analysis of the data upon which these conclusions are based, the reader is referred to an article by the present writer on "Immigration and Crime," in The American Journal of Sociology, January, 1912.