TABLE 4.

PER CENT OF ILLITERACY AMONG THE POPULATION OF RUSSIA, BULGARIA, SERVIA AND GREECE, AND AMONG THE IMMIGRANTS FROM

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. I, p. 99. Report of the Commission of Immigration of the State of New York, 1909, pp. 170 and 171. Perepis Naselenia, 1897, ObshchiSvod, Part 2, pp. 97 and 134. Bulgarie, Récensement de la population, 1900, vol. i., p. 125. Annuaire Statistique du Royaume de Serbie pour 1900, vol. v., pp. 75-80.

This percentage represents the ratio of illiteracy among the Hebrews of all countries, but the bulk of Hebrew immigration comes from Russia. The population statistics of Austria classify Hebrews as Poles, Germans, etc., according to mother tongue. The ratio of illiteracy among the

The Immigration Commission on its trip to Europe sought the opinions of experts respecting the character of emigration to the United States. The conclusions reached by the Commission have none of the pessimistic sound typical of restrictionist literature. Says the Commission:

The present movement is not recruited in the main from the lowest economic and social strata of the population. . . . Neither do the average or typical emigrants of to-day represent the lowest in the economic and social scale even among the classes from which they come, a circumstance attributable to both natural and artificial causes. In the first place, emigrating to a strange and distant country, although less of an undertaking than formerly, is still a serious and relatively difficult matter, requiring a degree of courage and resourcefulness not possessed by weaklings of any class. This natural law in the main regulated the earlier European emigration to the United States, and under its influence the present emigration, whether or not desirable as a whole, nevertheless represents the stronger and better element of the particular class from which it is drawn.'

Roumanian Hebrews 15 years of age and over, according to the census of 1889, was 55.6 per cent. ("Sans protection," meaning mostly Hebrews.) Résultats définitifs du dénombrement de la population de Roumanie, 1899, p. lxii.

I

1 Reports, vol. 4 (in press). From the opinions of Americans who had long resided in Italy and of leading Italians, which are quoted in the Commission's report, a few are selected here by way of illustration.

Rev. N. W. Clark, an American, in charge of the educational work of the Methodist Church of Italy, said: “The class of emigrants who go to the United States are unquestionably the more enterprising, the better element; only those would be able to go who have the money to get tickets; many are too poor to go.

In a report to the Department of State, the American Consul at Palermo quotes the country correspondents of a Sicilian newspaper, concerning the local estimate of the character of emigration from that island. "As these accounts-says he were in no way prepared for the foreign eye, or for any official or political purpose, but only by way of a routine chronicle of the happenings of life in the minor communities, they are spontaneous and unbiased and have an authority that can hardly be impeached." One of the correspondents says of the emigrants that they are not "driven out by dire want and necessity; they are lured rather by the desire to better themselves in the world and make a possible fortune. ... Many are of a class

The social prejudice against the immigrant which it is sought to justify by his alleged inferiority, antedates the influx of the "undesirable aliens from Eastern and Southern Europe." Suffice it to recall the agitation of the KnowNothing days, with its rioting and outbreaks of mob violence against the Irish, the desecration of their churches, the petty persecution of Irish children in the public schools, the denunciation of the Germans, the mobbing of German newspapers and Turner halls,

Probably the most important element in this antipathy was the pure contempt which men usually feel for those whose standards of life seem inferior. This feeling was felt towards all immigrants of the poorer class, irrespective of their race. To the mind of the average American the typical immigrant was a being uncleanly in habits, uncouth in speech, lax in the moralities, ignorant in mind, and unskilled in labor. . . . The immigrant bore a stamp of social inequality."

The manifestations of this social prejudice in the industrial field seventy years ago were much the same as to-day.

About the year 1836 to 1840, very material changes took place among ... the general laboring help in all departments of industry. The profuse immigrations from Ireland. . . crowded into all the fields of labor, and crowded out the former occupants. Under the prejudice of nationality. . . the American element, the daughters of independent farmers, educated in our common schools . . . retired from mill and factory, and all the older establishments, and can no longer be found therein. Their places were taken up in the old, and all the new were filled by the new immigrants.3

...

possessing some little property." Another correspondent speaks of the emigrants as "the enterprising and robust youth . . . confiding in their strength." According to him, "this emigration comprises even people of fairly easy circumstances."

H. J. Desmond: The Know-Nothing Party, pp. 7–105. Louis Dow Scisco: Political Nativism in New York State, pp. 19, 248-249. Herrmann Von Holst: Constitutional History of the United States, vol. v., pp. 188-190. James Schouler: History of the United States, vol. v., pp. 305-306.

Scisco, loc. cit., p. 19.

3 First Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1870, p. 91.

By a strange inconsistency those who object to the coming of the immigrant as strongly object to his going. Why the "bird of passage" should have been the subject of popular censure is from an economic point of view inconceivable. So long as there are variations in business activity from year to year and from season to season, which result in unemployment, the American wage-earners should be the last to object if a class of wage-earners choose to leave the country temporarily while there is no demand for their services, thereby relieving competition for jobs in its acutest shape. From the point of view of the present immigration policy as well, the departure of the "bird of passage" ought to be approved as the best assurance that he would not "become a public charge." Still if an immigrant who comes to this country when there is work to be done and leaves when he is not wanted is to be regarded as an "undesirable alien," it is of interest to know how the "new immigration" compares in this respect with the "old immigration." "The one conclusion to be drawn from the record of departures from the United States," says the Immigration Commission, "is that as a whole the races or peoples composing the old immigration are essentially permanent settlers, and that a large proportion of the newer immigrants are simply transients." I

"The one conclusion" is, however, not the only one, for in another volume the Commission takes a more hopeful view, to wit:

It is inaccurate to speak of the immigrant population as being only temporarily in this country. It is true, no doubt, that most of the recent immigrants hope at first to return some day to their native land, but the whole history of immigration goes to show that with the passing years and the growth of the inevitable ties, whether domestic, financial, or political, binding the immigrant to his new abode, these hopes decline and finally disappear."

Inasmuch as the conclusions of the Commission contradict

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

2 Ibid., vol. 8, p. 657.

each other, we must go back to the facts from which they are drawn. The Immigration Commission in its investigation paid considerable attention to this question. The foreign-born workmen in iron and steel mills are classed by popular belief among the most "undesirable" elements of the "new immigration." The comparative frequency among them of the objectionable characteristic, addiction to the habit of visiting his old home and parents, may accordingly be accepted as typical of the races of the "new immigration." The Commission's data, presented in Table 5, show that the English-speaking races harbor among them a higher proportion of these offenders than all Eastern and Southern European races, except the North Italians and the Slovaks. The former, however, do not differ in this respect from the Scotch, while the Slovaks exceed the Swedes by a fraction of I per cent.

TABLE 5.

VISITS ABROAD MADE BY FOREIGN-BORN EMPLOYEES IN IRON AND STEEL MILLS, BY RACES.1

Northern and Western European Races. Southern and Eastern European Races.

Even the vexed problem of "assimilation" appears to be

as old as immigration itself. Benjamin Franklin, in a

I

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 8, p. 152, Table 110.