THE IMMIGRANT WOMAN 1

KATE WALLER BARRETT, M. D., SPECIAL Agent, United STATES IMMIGRATION SERVICE

HE consideration of the subject of immigration is not new.

Ever since the days of the Athenian Republic, nations have

had the subject to deal with in some form.

The United States has passed through several stages in its attitude on the subject. In early colonial days immigration was so earnestly desired that enforced immigration was resorted to and unwilling lawbreakers were deported from England to this country and shiploads of slaves were brought from Africa. Let us not forget that one of the most conspicuous problems that this country has to face in regard to aliens dates from this latter

source.

One of the charges made against King George in the Declaration of Independence was that he interfered with immigration, and yet as early as 1780, Benjamin Franklin declared that unless the immigration from the continent is stopped the English language will cease to be the language of the country. Also in spite of the fact that William Penn showed himself to be an able forerunner of the present day immigration agent in the manner in which he advertised the advantages of Pennsylvania, we find that at that early day others were deploring the fact that those who were coming were very inferior to those who had come with the first ships. It is remarkable what virtues priority seems to give in the eyes of many!

After the country became fairly well populated there was a period of indifference to the subject and it was only in 1882 that any effort towards regulating immigration was undertaken by the government.

1 Printed by The American Sociological Society and The Committee of One Hundred, Federal Council of Churches in America, August, 1915.

At the present time I might characterize the attitude of most of our citizens as one of questionings if not of hostility, toward unrestricted immigration.

In spite of the attention which has been directed to the subject in the past ten years when we have been receiving annually over one million aliens, most legislation has been abortive and unrelated to the crux of the matter. The cause of this confusion in legislative enactment is due largely to the fact that none of the political parties and no candidates for election have had the courage to define their position upon this subject for fear of losing the naturalized vote. To my mind the hyphenated American citizen is as much interested in a sane and intelligent solution of this question as the native-born. He has sought this country for larger social or economic opportunities and frequently has a greater appreciation of American institutions than those born under the Stars and Stripes. A pertinent question for every native son of the United States to ask himself, especially those of colonial descent, whose fathers' blood made possible this government and who with bloodless effort availed themselves of the treasures that nature had stored up in geological periods, is: If I had not been born to this heritage of freedom would I have had the courage to claim it? Upon his ability to answer this subject in the affirmative rests their position as the leaders of the future destinies of this republic; if answered in the negative, no adventitious circumstances, no pride of birth, no unjust laws can build a fortress around them sufficient to protect them for long against the onward and irresistible march of progress. I never see an alien woman in the street, in her peasant costume, with the look of anxiety and often fear on her face, that I do not mentally make obeisance to her, for I question if I would have the bravery to do what she

has done.

What she has done, it did not matter how circumstance pressed. And so we pay, one way or another, for all that we have, it does not matter in what form it comes. Now that Nature has been tamed, the only way that we can hope to keep alive the splendid pioneer spirit of our ancestors is to stand on the frontiers of moral reform and to be the adventurous bowman for civil economic and religious liberty.

Easy living, easy dying is as true of the national as of the physical body.

While there is nothing startlingly new in the general subject of immigration the problem of the unattached alien woman is new in its present form.

We who trace our ancestry back to the colonial days, rather resent having our attention called to the fact that large numbers of women who were deported from Great Britain to the colonies and whose progeny were doubtless absorbed into some of the first families for eligible females were rather scarce in those days. A picture of what the inhumanity of man caused some of those first alien women to suffer has come down to us in that wonderful classic "Manon Lescaut." If you want to know what our civilization has cost alien women, read some of the official manuscripts preserved in the Library at Paris, of the settlement of Louisiana. A young friend of mine went to Paris to prepare a thesis upon the settlement of Alabama, and she told me the horrors that were revealed to her in those musty documents were unbelievable.

Let us not forget that much of the civilization of America was built upon the sufferings of alien women and that the ties which bound together the thirteen colonies were cemented with their blood.

But it is with the alien woman of to-day that I have to deal. The movement of unattached women of every nationality is a significant feature of the day. It is an unmistakable sign of her unrest and dissatisfaction of the old order. Even our own daughters prefer occupation far from their home in the majority of cases. This practice on the part of American women has affected European women. Formerly men of the family came first. Now it is not at all unusual to find women coming first and sending back for the men of the family. Many have said to me that American women do not have to have a home. Why should they? A boarding house answers every purpose.

In considering the alien woman it is safe to say that if you multiply the injustices which alien men are subjected to it will not exaggerate her plight. All that he suffers she suffers also and added to it the burden incident to her sex.

If the injustice is economic and he is a married man, the woman must stretch the family purse to meet the demands of the family,

and if any member must go without, it is always the mother. Is it any wonder that foreign children are so often ashamed of their mothers because they are so different from other children's mothers and because of this drift away from her wholesome influence? If we believe that in a well-ordered American home, the mother should be the center, is it not time we took some forward step which will lead to some permanent constructive measures that will dignify the alien mother who is often an uncrowned heroine? Something has been done at Hull House by establishing a museum of hand industries, but every locality should perfect some machinery where the alien mother might have just recognition without having to wait to get to heaven to receive it.

The economic injustice to which the self-supporting alien woman is subjected is well known. Usually unskilled and incapable of initiative, there are practically no labor unions which are open to her and she has practically no redress from greedy employers. Frequently I have had in my charge, in New York, girls who had been employed in a private family for several months and then have been taken out on the street and left, in order that they might not be forced to pay them their earnings. Sometimes it has taken weeks to find where the parties lived, for as strange as it may seem, these girls often stay for months in a house and never learn the name of the street. The number of girls thus cheated must be enormous for their fear of the invisible government often makes them afraid to make complaints, and it is only the few cases that fall into the hands of some philanthropic organization that are ever heard of.

Social injustice is the alien woman's reward at every turn. Even the legislation which is passed to protect her often becomes a boomerang. The deportation acts of the Federal Department of Immigration cover the punishment of those who contribute to her delinquency as much as they punish her. In spite of this fact and although the sympathy of the heads of the department has always been with the friendless woman, minor officials have seen in this law an opportunity to magnify their importance and to swell the amount of work they have accomplished, have been indefatigable in arresting women, but strange to say are very unsuccessful in finding the guilty male partner. A well-merited rebuke was administered by a federal judge in San Francisco

lately when he declined to hold the woman until her partner in crime was also arrested.

Nothing is more in keeping with the wishes of man when he has gotten a woman in trouble than to have her deported and thus put the ocean between them, thus ridding him of his incumbrance. But I am glad to say that the recent order of the secretary of labor and Commissioner-General Camineti, placing all women held for deportation in the hands of a woman officer and in the custody of some private society, preferably of her own nationality and religion, assures every woman of having friends who will see that justice is done her.

The difficulty of alien women getting in touch with the best class of her countrymen is another source of social injustice and often sheer loneliness and the desire to talk to someone who speaks her own language will cause her to seek companionship among those, who, if other avenues were open to her, would not attract her. In every city there are groups of those of the same nationality, segregated into clubs, with different objects, all giving opportunities for social companionship and development, but these organizations are all for men. I know of none such for women. True, there are national organizations for women but they are invariably exclusive and the woman who needs them most is not eligible for membership. If they are not exclusive the best women of that race don't go to them. But it does not matter how democratic a man's club may be you will find the leading citizens of that nationality in the city belonging to them.

The importance of reaching the alien woman is paramount if we are going to Americanize our foreign population. She is the crux of the whole subject. It is she who selects the neighborhood and the house in which the family live and the church which they attend. She has the opportunity to supplement the lessons at school and her attitude towards the problems of daily life unconsciously are reflected in the other members of the family. In the states in which women have the ballot she will be sought for by the ward politician and her ideals of the ballot will reflect the attitude of her teacher.

As some practical suggestions as to the means, I would recommend that every state pass a law similar to the California law whereby teachers may be sent into the home to instruct the