A

PART II.

TOPICAL ANALYSIS

CHAPTER I

STATEMENT OF THE QUESTION

STUDY of the immigration question involves an examination of every important phase of American economic, political, and social life. There is scarcely an ailment of our body politic that is not diagnosed—in prose and in verse as the effect of unrestricted immigration. The immigrants are blamed for unemployment, female and child labor, the introduction of machinery, unsafe coal mines, lack of organization among wage-earners, congestion in great cities, industrial crises, inability to gain a controlling interest in stock corporations, pauperism, crime, insanity, race suicide, gambling, the continental Sunday, parochial schools, atheism, political corruption, municipal misrule. The latest count in this long indictment is the McNamara conspiracy, which a noted sociologist has somehow connected with unrestricted immigration. Not only has immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe" lowered the American standard of living, but it threatens to lower "the average stature of the American."3

I

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 16, p. 655.

Prof. E. A. Ross, in The Survey, December 30, 1911, p. 1425. 3 Robert Hunter: Poverty, p. 269.

It is conceded that in the past immigration has been a material factor in the economic development of the United States. It is claimed, however, that the new immigrant races are of a different social type lacking the sturdy qualities of the old immigration. "In the early years of immigration, when it was difficult, if not actually dangerous, to come to the United States, there was a natural selection of the best and hardiest inhabitants of the old world, men willing to risk their all in going to a new country." The pioneers

of those days were eager for an opportunity to develop the untouched resources of a new land and to advance the march of civilization into the wilderness. The new immigrant, on the contrary, is attracted by the glamor of the city. To be sure, a large percentage of the new immigration comes from the farming sections of Europe; but brought up, as they are, amidst the congestion of the small agricultural towns of the old world, these new immigrants recoil at the isolation of the American farm and prefer to crowd in the congested districts of the large manufacturing cities.

The cure for the evils of immigration upon which all seem to be agreed is some method of selection which would admit all desirable immigrants and keep out the "undesirable." There is, however, no authoritative definition of a "desirable" and an "undesirable" immigrant. Mr. Prescott F. Hall, Secretary of the Immigration Restriction League, regards as "undesirable immigration" that "which is ignorant of a trade," while another writer maintains that the races having the highest percentages of unskilled laborers are the most desirable, because they do not compete with American mechanics, but men who are "skilled in tailoring, shoemaking, baking, or other trades which do not require much physical strength . . . are undesirable immigrants," because "they enter into direct competition with

...

'John Mitchell: Organized Labor, p. 177.

Prescott F. Hall: "Selection of Immigration." Annols of the American Academy of Social and Political Science, July, 1904, p. 175.

the American mechanic." Again Mr. Hall would treat as "undesirable immigration" that "which is averse to country life and tends to congregate in the slums of large cities," though "if our recent immigrants were able and willing to go to the West and South, these States do not want them." Along with the Southeastern European immigrant who is accordingly not wanted either in the large cities, or in the agricultural West and South, the same author would class as "undesirable" all immigration "which fails to assimilate in a reasonable time."3

Prof. Mayo-Smith is more specific in his definition and favors the selection of immigrants with a view, among other things, to the preservation of the "social morality of the Puritans."4

With respect to assimilation, conditions are said to have undergone a material change. The old immigrants, scattered amidst the native American population, were quickly assimilated. Moreover, they were practically all of Teuton and Celtic stock and came from countries with a representative form of government. The recent immigrants, on the other hand, have had no training in self-government at home, and being herded together in foreign colonies, out of touch with native Americans, they are incapable of assimilation and present a growing danger to the integrity of American democratic institutions.5

According to some students, this country is facing a new

Dr. Allan McLaughlin: "Distrust of the Immigrant." Popular Science Monthly, January, 1903, p. 232.

• Prescott F. Hall, loc. cit., pp. 175, 179.

3 Ibid., p. 175.

♦ Richmond Mayo-Smith: Emigration and Immigration, p. 5.

A writer, discussing the "perils" of "un-American immigration" in 1894, gave warning that "if foreign immigration continues at the present rate and such immigration continues to come from Middle, Southern, and Northeastern Europe, in 1900 the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Saxon institutions will no longer be the dominant powers in moulding American life and legislation."-Rena M. Atchison, UnAmerican Immigration: Its Present and Future Perils, p. 148. (Chicago

race problem, similar to the negro problem. In the opinion of a member of the Immigration Commission the Southern Italian is not "a white man," nor is the Syrian.' The presence of these races in large numbers among the working forces of our mines and mills has attached a social stigma to certain occupations; as a result of this race prejudice the native American workmen have withdrawn from those employments where they must work side by side with recent arrivals and overcrowd the less remunerative, but more respectable occupations."

Still the fact is that while the root of all evil is sought in the racial make-up of the new immigration, as contrasted with the old, every complaint against the immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe is but an echo of the complaints which were made at an earlier day against the then new immigration from Ireland, Germany, and even from England. As observed by the Industrial Commission a decade ago, "on the whole, it does not seem that the newer immigration offers any greater or more serious problems than the old, except in so far as they add to the total numbers." A retrospective view of immigration will show the problems presented by a polyglot population to be by no means peculiar to our own day. If "assimilation" is taken to mean the substitution of the English language in daily intercourse for the mother tongue of the immigrant, then a century of experience proves it to be an unattainable ideal. But, if "assimilation" means an understanding of

'Hearings before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. 61st Congress. Testimony of Hon. John L. Burnett, of Alabama, p. 407. In 1885, in reply to inquiries sent out by the Iowa Bureau of Labor Statistics, a laboring man complained that "the Bohemians . . . will get a job in preference to a white man." (VI. Biennial Report, Iowa Bureau of Labor Statistics, p. 189.) Since that time the Bohemians have been advanced in the publications of the Immigration Restriction League to a place among the "desirable" immigrants from Northern and Western Europe.

'Jenks and Lauck: The Immigration Problem, pp. 75–76. 3 Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 491.

American institutions, it will readily occur to the student that one of the standard works on the constitutional history of the United States was written in German by von Holst, an alumnus of a Russian university, and another standard book on the organization of American political parties was written in French by Ostrogorsky, a Russian Jew. The politician who comes in closest personal contact with the mass of citizenship has long since adjusted himself to the conditions created by immigration and finds no difficulty in presenting the issues and the candidates of his party to a mixed constituency in a variety of languages. Moreover, a deeper insight into the social life of the immigrant will discover powerful forces making for social assimilation, in those very institutions which are popularly frowned upon as tending to perpetuate the isolation of the foreigner from American influences. The newspaper printed in a foreign language is virtually a sign of Americanization; the Lithuanian peasant at home had no newspaper in his own language; the demand for a newspaper has grown on American soil. That it apparently serves its purpose, is conceded by prominent advocates of restriction.1 The theater where the immigrant sees a play produced in his mother tongue is likewise the outgrowth of the democratic spirit of American social life; the theater in Eastern Europe caters only to the upper classes. The numerous foreignspeaking organizations owe their existence to the political freedom of the United States. It is through all these social agencies using his native tongue as a medium of communication, that the immigrant who is not a scholar is enabled to partake of the advantages of American civilization.

It is realized by the clear-sighted advocates of restriction that "too much emphasis, in the discussion of immigration, within recent years, has been placed upon the social and political results of recent immigration. The problem at

"So large a number of periodicals are published in various foreign tongues that it is by no means essential that the immigrant read English."-Jenks and Lauck, loc. cit., p. 32.