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and order, of progress within the lines of our institutions, with good intentions make public announcements and multiply organizations. Even in official efforts there is lack of cooperation. Not that some of the work so done is not valuable and material in carrying on assimilation, but it has not been coordinated in such a way as to accomplish what is needed. The conditions call for a system that will work with the elements we wish to assimilate, moving forward to the goal side by side with the native elements of our population, of whom they are to be a part and with whom they will in the future meet the responsibilities of citizenship. The bureau believes that the basic element to effect this desired result is the public school. Education will cure all evils of the body politic and aid in the dissemination of its benefits to meet the needs of the people. Beginning with the children, we should go as far with adults as may be practicable. We are certain to benefit the former and may help the latter. In alien families the children as they progress materially assist in the effort to assimilate their parents.

As our institutions are based upon the principle of equal rights, we should have equal educational opportunities-not to some but to all, native or foreign. The lack of these opportunities prevents full accomplishment of the duty devolving upon a Government like ours.

Possessing the best school system in existence, we have not reached our ideals, at least not in the sense that there is equal distribution of benefits and opportunities. The children of the poor, and even of those more fortunate who reside in small communities, afford proof of this statement. Thus, in the more populous sections and in cities, a larger percentage approximate their equal share of education and training; but even there there is much lacking in the benefits that should accrue to the rising generation. Through one reason or another the percentage of graduates in our grammar schools is small in comparison with those enrolled; it is even smaller in the secondary schools; and the percentage of those qualified to enter secondary schools is also small when compared with the number entitled to participate. Our manual-training, trade and continuation, and other schools aiming to train for industry only partially meet the demand for an education that will properly equip the worker. To maintain these various school organizations all necessary for the development of our own people and the assimilation of aliens-and to expand them so that their benefits may be felt in both rural and urban communities and thus be of universal service is too costly an undertaking for local government. Even States and large municipalities can not hope to provide all means necessary. What, then, can be expected of the smaller communities?

The Federal Government, by joining the States and local communities in sharing the expense, can supply what is now lacking to fully equalize and develop the system. It should make suitable provision for the universal education and physical training of the youth of the land-a training that will meet the needs not only of the scholar, the professional man, and the new call for service on the farm and in commerce, but of the workers as well.

To make the system of practical benefit it should be based on the same plan that it is proposed to establish for universal military training. This would permit the children of the poor to receive the benefits of the system, thus securing to them the equal opportunity

in life their more fortunate mates enjoy. It should even go further (because it involves the primary duty of government to educate its citizenship); it should, when children of the age permitted by law to follow employment are compelled to forego school attendance in whole or in part on account of the necessity to aid in the support of parents, provide allowances for such support, in order that the children may not be denied the benefits of the training needed. Considered from an economical standpoint alone, it is far better to maintain parents under the circumstances than to perpetuate uneducated and untrained elements (native and foreign) in our body politic, producing the evils that follow in their train.

The Federal Government, without interfering with the right of self-government, can give the assistance to the communities necessary to produce so desirable a condition in the work of education and assimilation. When the time comes for Congress to consider the repeal or reduction of income and inheritance taxes established for war purposes, it is hoped that it may not overlook the desirability of maintaining them in part to provide a fund for the development of a system of industrial education that will eliminate the evils of modern conditions and develop those qualities in American manhood that will maintain and perpetuate inviolate our institutions and add to human happiness.

A CENTURY OF IMMIGRATION.

The two charts accompanying this report serve to direct attention to the interesting fact that our official immigration records now cover a period of 100 years. It is known that there was considerable immigration following the Revolution and that it declined during the second war with England, but prior to 1819 there was no provision for the collection and publication of statistics relative to the movement. After the peace of 1815, immigration increased, and it is recorded that as many as 20,000 came in 1817. The demand for passage brought many unsuitable ships into the traffic, overcrowding was general, and there was much suffering during the long ocean voyages.

An attempt to remedy these conditions was made in the passenger act of March 2, 1819, which limited according to ships' tonnage the number of passengers who could be transported and provided that certain supplies of food and water must be carried. The act further directed that the sex, age, and occupation of each passenger should be reported to customs officials at ports of arrival, and this provision marked the beginning of official statistics of immigration to the United States. Detailed information concerning our earlier immigration seems very meagre compared with the present elaborate records, but there were no laws regulating immigration in those days, and the simple statistics which resulted from the act of 1819 presumably met the requirements of the time. In any event they afford an interesting record of the extent to which various alien peoples contributed to a century of population development.

Chart 1 presents a graphic picture of the wave of immigration from all countries during the past 100 years. It will be seen that in the first 25 years covered by the record, or from 1820 to 1845, the wave gradually increased but did not fluctuate greatly. From

1845 to the present time, however, the crest line shows remarkable fluctuations, peaks and depressions following each other in bewildering fashion, but in every instance the cause of the rise or fall is easily traced to economic or other conditions in foreign countries, which frequently forced masses of people to leave their homelands, or to conditions in the United States which in turn invited or discouraged immigration.

The first really notable influx was in the decade from 1845 to 1854 when the tide rose from about 114,000 in the former year to nearly 428,000 in the latter, due largely to famine in Ireland and revolution in Germany. Then follows the very pronounced depression covering the period of the war between the States. After peace there was a large increase, but the movement declined during our economic depression of the seventies, and then increased suddenly from about 179,000 in 1879 to nearly 789,000 in 1882. Several causes contributed to this unprecedented influx. Prosperity was returning in the United States; Germany was undergoing an economic depression and contributed more than 250,000 immigrants in the single year 1882; the movement from the Scandinavian countries reached its greatest height, and finally the subsequent great movement from Italy and Austria-Hungary was already developing.

Then comes a 20 years' period of peaks and depressions due very largely to varying economic conditions in the United States, including the hard times of 1893; but this period is particularly interesting from an immigration viewpoint because it witnessed the rapid shifting of the principal sources of our immigration from northern and western Europe-which furnished 71 per cent of the immigrants in 1882 and only 21 per cent in 1902-to southern and eastern Europe, which furnished 11 per cent of the total in 1882 and 75 per cent in 1902. Following this, the wave increased until it reached the total of 1,285,349 immigrants in 1907; receded during the disturbed economic conditions of the following years, and rose again to 1,218,480 in 1914, the second highest pinnacle. Then came the World War, which practically closed the floodgates in Europe, until in 1918 immigration reached the lowest level since 1862.

Chart 2 shows the trend of immigration from various countries during the last 100 years. It will be noted that in the beginning the great bulk of our immigrants came from the United Kingdom. Germany sent less than 1,000 in 1820, but later the movement from that country increased rapidly, and during the 50 years following 1840 there is a somewhat striking uniformity in the columns representing these two sources, although the tide from the United Kingdom actually reached its highest point in 1851 and that from Germany not until 1882. During the 25 years before the outbreak of the World War German immigration was small and practically uniform, while that from the United Kingdom has varied considerably from year to year and on the whole has been much larger than that coming from Germany. Immigration from Scandinavia was a much slower development, but from 1880 to 1900 and even later the column representing it is not greatly unlike those representing Germany and the United Kingdom, although the movement was very much smaller.

An interesting feature of chart 2 is found in the columns representing Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. These begin at about the same period and follow very similar outlines until since about 1900 they overshadow all other countries. The columns representing Greece, Turkey, and Mexico show somewhat similar outlines but on a much smaller scale, and the same is true of British North America.

The following figures will afford a convenient means of comparing immigration from the six principal sources represented on the chart during the 100-year period under discussion.

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In this connection it may be of interest to review briefly Federal laws for the regulation of immigration. Prior to 1882, when the Federal Government first assumed definite control of immigration, the movement was practically unregulated, although at times, particularly during the great influx of the forties and early fifties, there was a strong demand for legislation, and while Congress gave some consideration to the subject it took no action. Some of the seaboard States repeatedly attempted to assume some degree of control over the influx which poured through their ports, but in most if not all of these cases their laws were rendered of no avail by adverse court decisions, and the plan was finally nullified by a decision of the United States Supreme Court which declared in effect that the States were without power under the Constitution to tax or otherwise to regulate the coming of passengers into the country. In the same decision the court pointedly suggested that Congress ought to assume and exercise full control over the subject. Previous to this, in 1875, Congress had enacted a law prohibiting the immigration of prostitutes and convicts, but this was especially aimed at the importation of Chinese prostitutes, and it was not until 1882 that the first general immigration law was enacted.

The act of 1882 imposed a head tax of 50 cents on each alien, and excluded idiots, lunatics, persons likely to become a public charge and convicts, except those convicted of political offenses. The Secretary of the Treasury was charged with executing the act, but immediate control was delegated to State boards. The importation of laborers under contract was forbidden in the law of 1885. A general immigration law, enacted in 1891, added somewhat to the excluded classes and provided for inspection and control by United States officers rather than by boards made up of State officials. This law was amended in some particulars in 1893, and the acts of 1903, 1907, and that of 1917, which is now in force, were all general revisions which added to the excluded classes, increased the head tax, extended control over the admission of immigrants and the deportation of undesirable aliens after their landing in the United States, until under the present law the list of those who are inadmissible includes about 30 more or less distinct classes.

It should be pointed out that, fundamentally, the United States immigration law is based on the theory of selection rather than restriction. It is true that the new law of 1917 increased somewhat the number of excluded classes and took a long step by denying admission to illiterates, but it is still selective in theory, and the fact that illiterates may not come will not prevent others from taking their places.

The new law, however, provides safeguards of another nature which it is hoped will prove effective. For one thing, it seeks to prevent the promotion of immigration by steamship companies, by imposing fines on the guilty and even denying them the right to bring any immigrants to United States ports. It also aims to protect immigrants by requiring carriers to return passage money paid by certain classes of inadmissible aliens, not to the immigrant but to United States officials for the immigrant. These are not directly restrictive provisions, but they should prove highly beneficial in helping to insure that immigration shall be normal and natural rather than stimulated, and also to insure that at least some immigrants who can not meet the test of our laws shall be saved the disappointment and cost of a fruitless voyage across the ocean.

Beginning with the fiscal year 1899, arriving aliens have been classified by races or peoples as well as by countries of origin, thus affording a valuable record of the ethnological status of the foreign elements which are added to our population, and since 1908 a detailed record has been made of all aliens leaving the country, so that it is now possible to determine to what extent the various races or peoples. contribute to the permanent population.

The policy of excluding Chinese immigration was adopted in 1882 and is still in force, with the result that our population of that race has steadly declined; and in 1908 the passport agreement with Japan, the purpose of which was to prevent the coming of laborers from that country, was concluded. In enacting the law of 1917 Congress extended the policy of excluding oriental labor by means of a provision which in effect bars immigration of this nature from India and other parts of the Orient not already covered by the Chinese-exclusion laws or the agreement with Japan. This subject is discussed at some length elsewhere in this report.

REVIEW OF WORLD IMMIGRATION.

The ending of armed hostilities in Europe and the promised return. of normal conditions in the world have naturally aroused much interest in the question of future immigration, and perhaps no one of the many international activities which have been affected by the great struggle presents a more complicated or important situation. The war has created new immigration problems, as it has also afforded an opportunity to view old problems from a new angle, and accordingly it is believed that the present is an appropriate time for reviewing, in the light of the bureau's experience, the world situation, so far as it may concern immigration to the United States.

The discussion which follows deals largely with the probabilities of future immigration from Europe, and the possible influence the

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