The significance of the preceding table is in the fact that the Bohemians and Moravians are classed by the Immigration Restriction League among "desirable" immigrants, whereas the Poles belong to the "undesirable aliens from Eastern Europe." A comparison of the figures in the first three columns shows, however, that in each group classified according to length of residence in the United States the Poles show a higher percentage of males, as well as females, able to speak English, than the Bohemians. And yet when the totals are compared for both nationalities, irrespective of length of residence in the United States, it appears that the Bohemians exhibit a larger percentage of persons of either sex able to speak English, than the Poles. The reason for this arithmetical aberration is disclosed only in another part of the volume, where the number of persons in each of the preceding groups is given. It appears that about one-half of all Poles had resided in the United States less than five years and accordingly exhibited a small percentage of persons able to speak English, whereas three fourths of all males and two thirds of all females of Bohemian nationality had resided in the United States over five years and had had more time to learn English.1

The following are the numbers relating to the two nationalities:

The numbers reported permit of no conclusion beyond the bare fact that the Bohemians are an older immigrant race than the Poles, yet the total percentages tend to create the wholly unjustified impression that the Poles are less capable of "assimilation" than the Bohemians.

The defects of the plan and statistical method of the Commission render the bulk of its report on Immigrants in Industries valueless or misleading.

The reports of the Immigration Commission abound with such comparative percentages. A few samples only can be quoted in these pages. To judge by percentages, the migratory spirit reaches its extreme height-60.0 per cent-among the Greeks employed in the packing industry after they have been in the United States over ten years. On closer examination it appears, however, that there were five Greeks all told who had been in the United States more than ten years, and of their number three had visited abroad. (Reports, vol. 13, p. 151, Table 105.) In another place the following comment is made: "The employment of the wife or keeping boarders or lodgers is less frequent among the native-born of foreign father." This conclusion is derived from the reports on just four families whose heads are native-born of foreign father. (Ibid., vol. 11, p. 311.)

CHAPTER III

OLD AND NEW IMMIGRATION

T has come to be accepted as an unquestionable truth so often has it been repeated—that the type of the old immigrant was superior to the recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe:

Fifty, even thirty years ago, [said Gen. F. A. Walker in 1896], there was a rightful presumption regarding the average immigrant, that he was among the most enterprising, thrifty, alert, adventurous, and courageous of the community from which he came. It required no small energy, prudence, forethought, and pains to conduct the inquiries relating to his migration, to accumulate the necessary means, and to find his way across the Atlantic.'

The immigrants of those happy days

did not come because they were assisted by others, they did not come because some one paid their passage to get them out of the old country, but they came because they wanted to be free. ... They came not at the behest of the agents of the steamship lines or the agent of the large American industries, sent over to buy labor as by auction, in the market. . . . No; they came at their own behest, and did not all settle down in the centers of American life to congest it, but struck out into the prairies and forest to build homes for themselves and families."

"Those were skilled artisans or progressive farmers of the thrifty, self-reliant type. "3

1 Francis A. Walker: Discussions in Economics and Statistics, p. 446. * Statement of Rev. M. D. Lichliter, chaplain of the Junior Order American Mechanics before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, Sixty first Congress. Hearings, p. 491.

3 Frank Tracy Carlton: The History and Problems of Organized Labor, p. 328.

It is the old story of the Golden Age in a modern version. The cold facts of history, however, do not bear out this popular myth.

I

The great majority of immigrants to this country were so poor that they could not buy their passage, and in order to meet the obligations incurred by them for passage money and other advances, they were sold, after their arrival, into temporary servitude. . . . The prepayment of the passage was the exception, and its subsequent discharge by compulsory labor the rule. The ship owners and ship merchants derived enormous profits from the sale of bodies of immigrants, as they charged very high rates for the passage, to which they added a heavy percentage -often more than a hundred per cent- for their risks. But the immigrants suffered bitterly from this traffic in human flesh. Old people, widows, and cripples would not sell well, while healthy parents with healthy children and young people of both sexes always found a ready market. If the parents were too old to work, their children had to serve so much longer to make up the difference. When one or both parents died on the voyage, their children had to serve for them. The expenses of the whole family were summed up and charged upon the survivor or survivors. Adults had to serve from three to six years; children from ten to fifteen years, till they became of age; smaller children were, without charge, surrendered to masters, who had to raise and board them. As all servants signed indentures, they were called "indentured servants." Whenever a vessel arrived at Philadelphia or New York its passengers were offered at public sale. The ship was the market-place, and the servants were struck off to the highest bidder. The country people either came themselves or sent agents or friends to procure what they wanted, be it a girl, or a “likely boy, or an old housekeeper, or a whole family. . . . Parents sold their children in order to remain free themselves. When a young man or girl had an opportunity to get married they had to pay their master five or six pounds for each year they had to serve. Yet a steerage passage never cost more than ten pounds. . . . If the master did not want to keep his servant he could sell him for the unexpired time of his term of servitude.1

...

"The newspapers of the time regularly contain advertise

Prof. Commons estimates that probably one half of all the immigrants of the colonial period landed as indentured servants. A. M. Simons: Social Forces in American History, p. 19.

From a paper read before the American Social Science Association in New York City, in 1869, by State Commissioner of Immigration, Friedrich Kapp. XVI. Annual Report of the New York Bureau of Labor Statistics, pp. 964-965.

ments of the arrival of ships with 'indentured servants' to be sold. In case no buyers came to the ship the passengers were sold to agents, who chained them together and peddled them through the towns and villages.'

So great then was the poverty of the early immigrants that for the sum of ten pounds they were willing to sell themselves into peonage. The last sales of immigrants are reported in 1819 in Philadelphia.2

Nearly a century ago, the managers of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in the City of New York spoke of the immigrants "in the language of astonishment and apprehension":

Through this inlet pauperism threatens us with the most overwhelming consequences. The present state of Europe contributes in a thousand ways to foster unceasing immigration to the United States. .. An almost innumerable population beyond the ocean is out of employment. . . . This country is the resort of vast numbers of these needy and wretched beings. . . . They are frequently found destitute in our streets, they seek employment at our doors; they are found in our almshouses and in our hospitals; they are found at the bar of our criminal tribunals, in our bridewell, our penitentiary, and our State prison, and we lament to say that they are too often led by want, by vice, and by habit to form a phalanx of plunder and depredations, rendering our city more liable to increase of crimes and our houses of correction more crowded with convicts and felons.3

Eighteen years later the Mayor of New York City in a communication to the City Council complained that the streets were "filled with wandering crowds" of immigrants "clustering in our city, unacquainted with our climate, without employment, without friends, not speaking our language, and without any dependence for food, or raiment, or fireside, certain of nothing but hardship and a grave."4

'Simons, loc. cit., p. 19.

2 Kapp, loc. cit., p. 965.

3 Second Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the Pre-\ vention of Pauperism in the City of New York, 1819. Quoted from the Reports of the Industrial Commission, vol. xv., p. 449.

H. R., 61st Congress. Hearings before Committee on Immigration, P. 369.