REPORTS OF THE IMMIGRATION COMMISSION. Abstracts of Reports of the Immigration Commission, with Conclusions and Recommendations and Views of the Minority. Emigration Conditions in Europe. Immigrants in Industries: Bituminous Coal Mining. Iron and Steel Manufacturing. Cotton Goods Manufacturing in the North Atlantic States. Woolen and Worsted Goods Manufacturing. Silk Goods Manufacturing and Dyeing. Clothing Manufacturing. Collar, Čuff, and Shirt Manufacturing. Leather Manufacturing. Boot and Shoe Manufacturing. Glove Manufacturing. Slaughtering and Meat Packing. Sugar Refining. Glass Manufacturing. Agricultural Implement and Vehicle Manufacturing. Cigar and Tobacco Manufacturing. Furniture Manufacturing. Copper Mining and Smelting. Iron Ore Mining. Anthracite Coal Mining. Oil refining. Diversified Industries. The Floating Immigrant Labor Supply. Summary Report on Manufacturing and Mining. Recent Immigrants in Agriculture. Japanese and Other Immigrant Races in the Pacific Coast and Rocky Moun tain States. Immigrants in Cities. The Children of Immigrants in Schools. Immigrants as Charity Seekers. Immigration and Crime. Immigration and Insanity. Immigrants in Charity Hospitals. Steerage Conditions. Immigrant Homes and Aid Societies. Importation and Harboring of Women for Immoral Purposes. Contract Labor and Induced and Assisted Immigration. The Greek Padrone System in the United States. Immigrant Banks. Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants. Statistical Review of Immigration to the United States, 1820-1910. Distribution of Immigrants, 1850-1900. Occupations of the First and Second Generations of Immigrants in the United States. Fecundity of Immigrant Women. Digest of Immigration Decisions. Steerage Legislation, 1819-1908. State Immigration and Alien Laws. Dictionary of Races or Peoples. The Immigration Situation in Other Countries: Canada-Australia-New Zealand— Argentina-Brazil. Immigration Conditions in Hawaii. Alien Seamen and Stowaways. Peonage. Statements and Recommendations Submitted by Societies and Organizations Interested in the Subject of Immigration. CONCLUSIONS. While it has been no part of the work of the Commission to enforce the provisions of the immigration laws, it has been thought best to furnish from time to time to the proper authorities such information acquired in the course of the investigation as could further good administration and the enforcement of the law. City, state, and federal officials have officially recognized such assistance in their attempts to control the so-called "white slave traffic," in the proper regulation of the immigrant societies and homes, in securing evidence and penal certificates to accomplish the deportation of criminals, and in the administration of the Chinese-exclusion act. In some instances such information has led to local reorganization of the immigrant service. While mention is made of this matter the real work of the Commission has consisted in the collection and preparation of new material, largely statistical in nature, which might form a basis on which to frame legislation. A very condensed summary of the results on some of the principal questions investigated follows. SOURCES OF IMMIGRATION AND CHARACTER OF IMMIGRANTS. From 1820 to June 30, 1910, 27,918,992 immigrants were admitted to the United States. Of this number 92.3 per cent came from European countries, which countries are the source of about 93.7 per cent of the present immigration movement. From 1820 to 1883 more than 95 per cent of the total immigration from Europe originated in the United Kingdom, Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Switzerland. In what follows the movement from these countries will be referred to as the "old immigration." Following 1883 there was a rapid change in the ethnical character of European immigration, and in recent years more than 70 per cent of the movement has originated in southern and eastern Europe. The change geographically, however, has been somewhat greater than the change in the racial character of the immigration, this being due very largely to the number of Germans who have come from Austria-Hungary and Russia. The movement from southern and eastern Europe will be referred to as the "new immigration." In a single generation Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia have succeeded the United Kingdom and Germany as the chief sources of immigration. In fact, each of the three countries first named furnished more immigrants to the United States in 1907 than came in the same year from the United Kingdom, Germany, Scandinavia, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland combined. • See p. 65. Including Turkey in Asia. See pp. 61-63. The old immigration movement in recent years has rapidly declined, both numerically and relatively, and under present conditions there are no indications that it will materially increase. The new immigration movement is very large, and there are few, if any, indications of its natural abatement. The new immigration, coming in such large numbers, has provoked a widespread feeling of apprehension as to its effect on the economic and social welfare of the country. Because of this the Commission's investigations have been mainly directed toward a study of its general status as part of the population of the country. The old immigration movement was essentially one of permanent settlers. The new immigration is very largely one of individuals a considerable proportion of whom apparently have no intention of permanently changing their residence, their only purpose in coming to America being to temporarily take advantage of the greater wages paid for industrial labor in this country. This, of course, is not true of all the new immigrants, but the practice is sufficiently common to warrant referring to it as a characteristic of them as a class. From all data that are available it appears that nearly 40 per cent of the new immigration movement returns to Europe and that about twothirds of those who go remain there. This does not mean that all of these immigrants have acquired a competence and returned to live on it. Among the immigrants who return permanently are those who have failed, as well as those who have succeeded. Thousands of those returning have, under unusual conditions of climate, work, and food, contracted tuberculosis and other diseases; others are injured in our industries; still others are the widows and children of aliens dying here. These, with the aged and temperamentally unfit, make up a large part of the aliens who return to their former homes to remain. The old immigration came to the United States during a period of general development and was an important factor in that development, while the new immigration has come during a period of great industrial expansion and has furnished a practically unlimited supply of labor to that expansion. As a class the new immigrants are largely unskilled laborers coming from countries where their highest wage is small compared with the lowest wage in the United States. Nearly 75 per cent of them are males. About 83 per cent are between the ages of 14 and 45 years, and consequently are producers rather than dependents. They bring little money into the country and send or take a considerable part of their earnings out. More than 35 per cent are illiterate, as compared with less than 3 per cent of the old immigrant class. Immigration prior to 1882 was practically unregulated, and consequently many were not self-supporting, so that the care of alien paupers in several States was a serious problem. The new immigration has for the most part been carefully regulated so far as health and likelihood of pauperism are concerned, and, although drawn from classes low in the economic scale, the new immigrants as a rule are the strongest, the most enterprising, and the best of their class. @ See p. 182. © See p. 171. в See p. 176. d See p. 172. CAUSES OF THE MOVEMENT. While social conditions affect the situation in some countries, the present immigration from Europe to the United States is in the largest measure due to economic causes. It should be stated, however, that emigration from Europe is not now an absolute economic necessity, and as a rule those who emigrate to the United States are impelled by a desire for betterment rather than by the necessity of escaping intolerable conditions. This fact should largely modify the natural incentive to treat the immigration movement from the standpoint of sentiment and permit its consideration primarily as an economic problem. In other words, the economic and social welfare of the United States should now ordinarily be the determining factor in the immigration policy of the Government. Unlike Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, and other immigrant-receiving countries, the United States makes no effort to induce immigration. A law for the encouragement of immigration by guaranteeing in this country labor contracts made abroad was enacted in 1864 but repealed in 1868. Later legislation has tended to prevent the introduction of contract laborers and assisted or induced immigration, the purpose of the Government being that the movement should be a natural one. The law respecting assisted immigration, however, does not deny the right of a person already in this country to send for an otherwise admissible relative or friend, and a large part of the present movement, especially from southern and eastern Europe, is made possible through such assistance. The immediate incentive of the great bulk of present-day immigration is the letters of persons in this country to relatives or friends at home. Comparatively few immigrants come without some reasonably definite assurance that employment awaits them, and it is probable that as a rule they know the nature of that employment and the rate of wages. A large number of immigrants are induced to come by quasi labor agents in this country, who combine the business of supplying laborers to large employers and contractors with the so-called immigrant banking business and the selling of steamship tickets. Another important agency in promoting emigration from Europe to the United States is the many thousands of steamship-ticket agents and subagents operating in the emigrant-furnishing districts of southern and eastern Europe. Under the terms of the United States immigration law, as well as the laws of most European countries, the promotion of emigration is forbidden, but nevertheless the steamship-agent propaganda flourishes everywhere. It does not appear that the steamship lines as a rule openly direct the operations of these agents, but the existence of the propaganda is a matter of common knowledge in the emigrant-furnishing countries and, it is fair to assume, is acquiesced in, if not stimulated, by the steamship lines as well. With the steamship lines the transportation of steerage passengers is purely a commercial matter; moreover, the steerage business which originates in southern and eastern Europe is peculiarly attractive to the companies, as many of the immigrants travel back and forth, thus insuring east-bound as well as west-bound traffic. 72289-VOL 1-11-3 |