can fairly be removed is guilty, not less in Christian than in natural law. Charity begins at home; and while the people of the United States have gladly offered an asylum to millions upon millions of the distressed and unfortunate of other lands and climes, they have no right to carry their hospitality one step beyond the line where American institutions, the American rate of wages, the American standard of living, are brought into serious peril. All the good the United States could do by offering indiscriminate hospitality to a few millions more of European peasants, whose places at home will, within another generation, be filled by others as miserable as themselves, would not compensate for any permanent injury done to our republic. Our highest duty to charity and to humanity is to make this great experiment, here, of free laws and educated labor, the most triumphant success that can possibly be attained. In this way we shall do far more for Europe than by allowing its city slums and its vast stagnant reservoirs of degraded peasantry to be drained off upon our soil. Within the decade between 1880 and 1890 five and a quarter millions of foreigners entered our ports! No nation in human history ever undertook to deal with such masses of alien population. That man must be a sentimentalist and an optimist beyond all bounds of reason who believes that we can take such a load upon the national stomach without a failure of assimilation, and without great danger to the healthy life of the nation. For one, I believe it is time that we should take a rest, and give our social, political, and industrial system some chance to recuperate. The problems which so sternly confront us to-day are serious enough, without being complicated and aggravated by the addition of some millions of Hungarians, Bohemians, Poles, south Italians, and Russian Jews.

THE SELECTION OF IMMIGRANTS1

EDWARD T. DEVINE, DIRECTOR, NEW YORK SCHOOL OF
PHILANTHROPY

ON

N THE main subject the Immigration Commission has spoken clearly and its recommendation should become law. There must be effective restriction and selection for the purpose of maintaining American standards of living. In reply to the demand for a more rigorous selection of immigrants we hear two mutually contradictory assertions. One is that there are not enough immigrants to do any harm after allowance is made. for those who return. The other is that we have no standards anyway, at least that there is no one who has a right to speak for them, as we are all immigrants of a first, or a later, generation. Both assertions are untenable. There are, in fact, American standards, transplanted in part by those who founded our republic, developed in part on our own soil, influenced by the reaction of other standards in other nations, and yet distinctively American: standards moral, political, and economic; standards unique and precious, worth fighting for; worth, if need be, dying for; worth preserving at all hazards for ourselves and our children, and yet not selfishly for our sake and theirs only, but also as a sacred duty towards mankind; and these standards are gravely imperiled by the annual addition of an unsifted million of newcomers whose standards are different from ours.

We do have a right to assert vigorously the value of our nation heritage, and, though it may seem old-fashioned to say it, we do have a sacred duty to transmit it unimpaired — which is not to say unchanged to our posterity. To some extent this heritage is one of race. Its creators gave it to us with their blood. It has been enriched by many crossings of races, but biologists tell us that mingling within limits is beneficial, beyond those limits productive only of a mongrel and degenerate breed. Let no one read into this expression of national responsibility for 1 From The Survey, February 4, 1911.

American standards a shred of bigotry or prejudice against any of the peoples of the earth. Modern social ideals are neither provincial nor sectarian. It is precisely because of a passionate attachment to the true interests of humanity that social workers may look with profound distrust upon the demand for cheap immigrant labor. Genuine humane sentiment is not inconsistent with the maintenance of community and national standards.

Employers of the exploiting type make no mistake, from their own point of view, when they demand cheap immigrant labor. They can figure it out with great precision. They know that as a rule this labor is less skillful, less intelligent, less efficient, less inherently desirable, than the native labor or the earlier immigrant labor from more closely related peoples. But there are great compensations. It is the very best labor in one particular. It can be exploited. That is the whole disagreeable truth in a nutshell. Lower wages, longer hours, crowded living quarters, fewer claimants in case of death or injury from accidents, less trade-union "nonsense," fewer trade disputes, less sympathy from the disinterested public for the laborer's side when there is a dispute, less public concern generally as to what is happening in the mill when the laborers are foreigners. Such are some of the considerations which turn the balance in favor of immigrant labor. The wages demanded are enough lower to give an ample margin for more effective supervision. The general tendency of improved machinery is to decrease relatively the demand for skilled labor, thus permitting the profitable employment of fresh supplies of entirely unskilled, but physically strong, immigrants. Out on the railways of the Northwest the first object for which immigrants will strike is for the privilege of working twelve hours instead of ten, and the next is for the privilege of working on Sunday. In this instance employers, paying by the hour and not having expensive mills in operation, resist the demand, for the labor of the eleventh and twelfth hours is relatively unproductive. The men are already exhausted. To laborers of a higher standard the leisure for physical recuperation would be worth more than the small addition to their wages. To these men the money is more important. Here we have a simple, but perfect, illustration of that conflict of standards to which the nation as a whole cannot afford to be indifferent.

It is then in the ultimate and in the very immediate interests of the oppressed and struggling everywhere that America should maintain her standards. She may give generously from her surplus. She may enlighten by her example. She may throw her influence and if necessary exert her might against oppression. But one thing she may not do: extinguish the light with which she is to enlighten the world. To lower our own standards is the only treason. To reduce the position of our workingmen to that of the communities from which our immigration is coming is to destroy, perhaps forever, the very power to serve.

There should be no opposition or rivalry between the policy of selection and the policy of distribution and assimilation by every practicable device. Both are essential. No restriction which is at all likely to be adopted will sensibly diminish the need for such aid both by philanthropy and by government. Good hard thinking as to how best to assimilate those whom we already have and those who are certain to come even under a policy of much more strict selection is of the utmost importance. Except for the Educational Alliance, the Industrial Removal Society, and the Society for the Protection of Italian Immigrants, there has been almost no instructive experiment and scarcely any clear thinking on this subject. Let these experiments by all means be greatly extended, but let us be modest about calling any of them as yet a "true solution of the immigration question." Under the conditions of actual life we shall have to deal in partial solutions, among which, as we have intimated, the recommendation of the Immigrant Commission as to restriction deserves prompt and favorable consideration.

The illiteracy test is crude and unsatisfactory but it is practicable and humane. As a rule ambitious illiterates desiring to migrate can overcome this disqualification, and the fact of their having done so will augur well for their future success in the land of their adoption.

THE LITERACY TEST: THREE HISTORIC VETOES 1

GROVER CLEVELAND

T

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I hereby return entitled without approval House bill No. 7864, entitled “An act to amend the immigration laws of the United States."

By the first section of this bill it is proposed to amend section I of the act of March 3, 1891, relating to immigration by adding to the classes of aliens thereby excluded from admission to the United States the following:

"All persons physically capable and over 16 years of age who cannot read and write the English language or some other language...

A radical departure from our national policy relating to immigrants is here presented. Heretofore we have welcomed all who came to us from other lands except these whose moral or physical condition or history threatened danger to our national welfare and safety. Relying upon the zealous watchfulness of our people to prevent injury to our political and social fabric, we have encouraged those coming from foreign countries to cast their lot with us and join in the development of our vast domain, securing in return a share in the blessings of American citizenship.

A century's stupendous growth, largely due to the assimilation and thrift of millions of sturdy and patriotic adopted citizens, attests the success of this generous and free-handed policy which, while guarding the people's interests, exacts from our immigrants only physical and moral soundness and a willingness and ability to work.

A contemplation of the grand results of this policy cannot fail to rouse a sentiment in its defense, for however it might have been regarded as an original proposition and viewed as an experiment, its accomplishments are such that if it is to be uprooted at this late day its disadvantages should be plainly

1 From the Congressional Record, February 1, 1917, pp. 2691-2694.