corded in favor of the reading test showed conclusively that the leaders of this country had come to the decision that restriction on the grounds stated in the previous paragraphs was an absolute necessity for the preservation of American standards. Altho the literacy test is not ideal, it will no doubt serve the purpose of holding in check a considerable amount of undesirable immigration and especially that portion of it which has done most to undermine sound and wholesome industrial conditions. It will undoubtedly do much to keep in check those immigrants who have gone so largely into our large floating labor supply, which every official investigation, including that of the United States Immigration Commission and those subsequent to it, had shown to be much too large for the normal needs of this country. The action of Congress in favor of restriction will go a long way in preventing the overstocking of the unskilled labor market as was present in this country for a number of years and up. to the outbreak of the present war.

XII

EUROPEAN AND MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS ON THE
PACIFIC COAST

'Assimilation

In the discussion of European immigration into the United States, as already pointed out, the chief factor to be taken into account is economic. What is the normal effect of the immigration upon the wages and living conditions of the American? Inasmuch as the races, particularly those of northern Europe, are generally similar to those of the inhabitants of the United States, the question of assimilation is much less difficult than in the case of Orientals. Ordinarily, even if the members of the first generation can not be easily assimilated, those of the second and later generations, under the influence of our public schools and the social circumstances which surround them, are eventually assimilated.

RACE PREJUDICE

On the other hand, when the immigrants are members of races widely different from Americans, as are the Chinese, the Japanese, the Hindus, the question of race and race prejudice becomes an extremely important problem.

The untrained man is likely to assume that those people who differ widely from himself in appearance, in habits of living or of working, are members of a lower and not merely of a different race. He is ac

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customed to speak of the Italian, for example, with contempt, as a "dago." Still more emphatic is he in his denouncement of the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Hindus as members of an inferior race. Of course, the cultivated man, especially one who has traveled widely, knows better. As Professor Steiner has so well reminded us, the first immigrant to America was a dago named Columbus, a man of learning and of the highest cultivation. Moreover, when at the present day Americans go to Europe to study art and architecture they are very likely to go to the land of the great dagoes, Michelangelo, Giotto, Raffael, Leonardo da Vinci, and others of similar rank. Nowhere in the world have we been able to find in centuries past, or do we find in the world to-day, people of higher cultivation than the Italians. Moreover, if instead of turning our eyes to Europe, we go to the Far East, and visit the Chinese and Japanese, we are equally imprest, as we meet members of the wealthier and more cultivated classes in society, with their high degree of intelligence, with their intellectual training, and especially, perhaps, with the personal qualities which have made them the world over models of courtesy and of manners that characterize the gentleman.

ARE OTHER RACES INFERIOR?

It is hardly to be expected, however, that people who have not traveled and who have not read widely should recognize that the ordinary workingmen from the Orient with whom they come into keen competition, and who often underbid them in wages, especially in doing work of the most arduous type, belong to cultivated races; and it is natural that they

should look upon them as inferior people. Moreover, whether they recognize this fact or not, whether or not we ourselves believe that race prejudice is something to be heartily condemned, we must still recognize the actual existence of this feeling as an important political fact.

RACE FEELING ELSEWHERE

The feeling against the negroes has forced us to recognize that race feeling is an extremely important political question and may well become a social question.

Moreover, we should recognize the fact that the feeling on the Pacific Coast against the Chinese, the Japanese and the Hindus is not in itself exceptional. A similar feeling against these same races is found in Canada, in Australia, in South Africa, in every place where these oriental races have come into immediate contact with the white race, and especially when they have come into active competition with it in ordinary labor. We must recognize this feeling, then, as a usual one and one that must be considered when we come to political action.

ORIENTALS NOT EASILY ASSIMILATED

Altho these races may not be considered in any way inferior to ourselves, it is a fact that they are materially different: that they are not so easily assimilated as are the members of the European races; that they do not readily marry with our people nor our people with them. And we should reflect that, short of intermarriage, there is no real amalgamation of races.

FORM A SEPARATE CLASS

On the Pacific Coast they have, as a matter of fact, usually made an entirely separate working class. Generally speaking, when they have entered largely into a business, or when they have undertaken certain classes of work, there has been a rapid separation between them and the American workingmen, they taking the harder kinds of labor and the members of the white races taking types of work entirely different. In this way they have become, to a considerable extent, almost a separate caste. Indeed, there is a feeling on the part of many people who have carefully observed conditions in that region that the Chinese and Hindusnot the Japanese-have almost made a servile caste; and many of the most thoughtful, most cultivated, most kindly people on the Coast have thought that, inasmuch as these are facts, they must be recognized, and that it is wise for us to take action accordingly.

GOVERNMENTAL ACTION OF CHINA AND JAPAN

The Governments of China and Japan have really no reason to object to our wishing not to admit the working people of their races in large numbers. As a matter of fact, Americans are not admitted to China or to Japan on even terms with the natives there. They can go into these countries as residents only in very limited communities; they are not permitted to buy land; and they are not admitted to citizenship in those countries. In truth, our country, as a whole, has treated the members, particularly of the Japanese race, more liberally than the Japanese have treated the Americans. The Japanese have been allowed to buy land, in many instances in large tracts: