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 character addicted 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 1 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

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

personal letter dated Philadelphia, May 9, 1753, characterized the Germans of Pennsylvania in the following terms:

Those who come hither are generally the most stupid of their own nation, and as ignorance is often attended with great credulity, when knavery would mislead it. . . it is almost impossible to remove any prejudice they may entertain. . . . Not being used to liberty they know not how to make modest use of it. . . . I remember when they modestly declined intermeddling with our elections; but now they come in droves and carry all before them, except in one or two counties.

Few of their children know English. They import only books from Germany, and of the six printing houses in the Province, two are entirely German, two half German, half English, and but two are entirely English. They have one German newspaper and one half German. Advertisements intended to be general are now printed in Dutch and English. The signs in our streets (Philadelphia) have inscriptions in both languages, and some places only in German. They begin, of late, to make all their bonds and other legal instruments in their own language, which (though I think it ought not to be) are allowed in our courts, where the German business so increases, that there is continued need of interpreters, and I suppose in a few years they will also be necessary in the Assembly, to tell one half of our legislators what the other half says. In short, unless the stream of importation could be turned from this to other colonies, as you very judiciously propose, they will soon outnumber us, that all the advantages we will have will in my opinion, be not able to preserve our language, and even our government will become precarious.1

Franklin's apprehensions concerning the Legislature of Pennsylvania were all but justified at the convention of the State of Pennsylvania held at Philadelphia from July 15 to September 28, 1776, whose minutes were ordered published weekly in English and German.2 This practice was still continued as late as 1790.3

The conditions in Pennsylvania were by no means exceptional. Says Prof. McMaster of the same period:

Frank Ried Diffenderffer: The German Immigration into Pennsyl vania, 1700 to 1775, Part II, pp. 110-113.

2

P.M.

Pennsylvania House Journal, vol. i, p. 57, Friday, July 26, 1776,

Journal of the Senate of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, vol i, 1790-1791, p. 22, Thursday, December 16, 1790.

Diverse as the inhabitants of the States . .

were in occupations,

they were not less diverse in opinions, in customs, and habits. . . . Differences of race, differences of nationality, of religious opinions, of manners, of tastes, even of speech, were still distinctly marked.

In New York the Dutch element prevailed and the language of Holland was very generally spoken.1

With the great influx of Irish and German immigrants in the middle of the nineteenth century, distinct colonies of those nationalities grew up in the larger cities.

So large are the aggregations of different foreign nationalities [says a report of that day] that they no longer conform to our habits, opinions, and manners, but, on the contrary, create for themselves distinct communities, almost as impervious to American sentiments and influences as are the inhabitants of Dublin or Hamburg. . . . They have their own theaters, recreations, amusements, military and national organizations; to a great extent their own schools, churches, and trade unions; their own newspapers and periodical literature.2

The Irish were accused of "clannishness," like the "immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe" in our day, although "to a large extent this going apart of the Irish was but natural in view of the contemptuous manner in which the 'nativist' Americans treated them."4 It took three generations to raise "the Celts and the Teutons" to a place among the "more desirable immigrants from Northern and Western Europe."

Have the new immigrants given evidence of an assimilability inferior to that exhibited by the Germans? Some evidence on this subject, collected by the Immigration Commission, is given in Table 6 next below, relating to the families of employees in the slaughtering and packing houses of Kansas City:

'John Bach McMaster: History of the People of the United States, vol. i., pp. 10-11.

2 Report of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 455.

Scisco, loc. cit., p. 19.

4 Desmond, loc. cit., p. 9.

TABLE 6.

PER CENT OF POLISH AND GERMAN EMPLOYEES OF PACKING HOUSES IN KANSAS CITY AND THEIR FOREIGN-BORN CHILDREN SIX YEARS

OF AGE OR OVER WHO SPEAK ENGLISH, BY YEARS IN

It can be seen from this table that the Polish workmen and their children born abroad number among them a larger percentage of English-speaking persons than the Germans who have lived in the United States the same length of time. This example need not be the general rule, but it shows that the general classification of the Germans as "English-speaking" and of the Poles as nonEnglish-speaking is purely a matter of prejudice.

It is obviously not the character of the new immigration that is the real cause of the popular feeling. The opposition of organized labor, the main social force behind the present agitation for restriction, originated at a time when the numbers of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe were too small to attract attention. Resolutions in opposition to immigration were adopted by the National Labor Union as early as 1868. The report of the president to the convention of the Cigarmakers' Union held in 1879 discussed immigration among "the evils which affect the trade. "3

The report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics for 1885, in a summary of the testimony taken on the sub

222.

Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 13, Table 256, p. 329. Documentary History of American Industrial Society, vol. ix., pp. 221

3 Cigarmakers' Official Journal, vol. v., No. 1, September 15, 1879, p. 2. Editorial articles against immigration appeared in the official organ of the Cigarmakers' Union before that, in the issues of June 10, 1878, and January 10, 1879.

ject of immigration, records a growing feeling of opposition to foreign labor. Every reason which is urged to-day against the admission of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe is recited in that testimony, although five sixths of the immigration in the fiscal year 1885, and still more during the prior years, came from Canada and Northern and Western Europe. Thirteen years later an inquiry addressed by the New York Bureau of Labor to officers of labor organizations elicited the following reply from the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners No. 382, of New York: "Immigrants from Northern Europe— Danes and Swedes—interfere very much with the keeping up of the wages in the trade. That is the principal thing we find fault with."

The only apparent difference between the old immigration and the new is that of numbers. The reason why the "old immigration" is to-day viewed with greater favor than the new is that there is much less of it. It is so stated in the testimony of the representative of the railway brotherhoods before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization:

A good many people are apt to consider themselves better than some other nationality. It is a matter of opinion, and, for my part, I am not discussing this subject with any such narrow view of the situation. I am not prepared to say that the Italian or the Slav or the Hungarian or the Mexican has not the natural attributes that go to make up good citizenship.... It is not a question of whether or not they possess those qualities. . . . The question is whether or not . . . a foreigner brought into this country is replacing or ruinously competing with some one who is already here.3

This is the question to which the attention of the unpreju

1 Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 1, pp. 63 and 87.

2 XVI Annual Report of New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1898, p. 1047.

'Hearings before Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, H. R. 61st Congress, pp. 251-252.