enlarge the accommodations at our immigration stations. But can there be anything more vital than this if we are to do our duty to the unborn Americans of future generations?

In addition to the steps which we should take at once to accomplish the more effective exclusion of the insane, imbecile, idiot, tuberculous, those afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases, etc., we ought to amend our immigration laws so that it will be possible to exclude more aliens of such low vitality and poor physique that they are eugenically undesirable for parenthood.

Nation. 98: 430-1, April 16, 1914

Problems of Immigration. Henry P. Fairchild

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATION:

Sir: May I be permitted to give expression to my surprise on reading, in your editorial on "The Irish in Our Public Life," in the Nation for March 26, the following sentences: "For example he (Professor Ross) has previously given expression to the serious disquietude which many Americans feel today in connection with the new-comers from South European countries. But their grandfathers were just as acutely concerned over the Irish emigrants. These were, sixty and seventy years ago, as much disliked and even dreaded as are, by some, Slav and Italian today. It may be asked, however, if the large immigration of today will not, half a century hence, look as harmless and even desirable as does now the Irish immigrants of 1845-55."

The argument that it is wrong to object to the "new immigration" because our forefathers objected just as strongly to the "old immigration," which we now regard as innocuous or even desirable, has four distinct weaknesses, any one of which is sufficient to condemn it. The first is a question of fact. Often as we hear this statement repeated, it is not at all certain that our grandfathers disliked and dreaded the Irish as much as we fear the Slavs and Italians. I have had occasion to examine with great care the evidence on this point furnished by the contemporary writings and discussions, and I have failed to find any widespread sentiment against the Irish comparable to the restrictionist agitation of today.

In the second place, such objections to immigration as there

were rested on wholly different grounds from those of the present. The antipathy felt in the middle of the nineteenth century was not against the Irish as such, nor was it against a degrading competition in the economic field. It was against paupers, criminals, diseased persons, and Roman Catholics. To treat the opposition to immigration of the twentieth century as if it were analogous to that of this earlier period misses the point completely. An excellent illustration is furnished by the fact that whereas we fear that our present immigrants will not avail themselves of the blessings of American citizenship and will fail to become naturalized, our grandfathers feared that they would become naturalized too easily, and wanted to extend the period of residence required for citizenship to twenty or twenty-five years, or to refuse naturalization altogether.

In the third place, this argument always assumes that none of the evils which our forebears dreaded in connection with the Irish immigration has, in fact, materialized. This assumption is open to serious question. It is, of course, a difficult and hazardous undertaking to assign any of our present-day problems to any specific foreign race. But there is evidence that the Irish are responsible for more than their share of some of our troubles. On the same day in which I read your editorial, my attention was attracted by an editorial in the New York Times, which spoke thus of the Irish attitude towards the repeal of the tolls exemption law: "The opposition of the Irish-American organizations is characteristically open and vociferous. The motive is far from creditable. . . . [They] have been prompted thereto by their hatred of England. They act on an American question from considerations wholly un-American, which is pretty bad citizenship." The fact that one of our great dailies can speak thus of the Irish after two-thirds of a century of Americanization is at least disquieting. If we turn to more concrete matters, we find that the number of Irish paupers in this country is out of all proportion to their percentage of the total population—46.4 per cent of the total number of foreign-born paupers in the almshouses in 1903, over one-third (including native-born of Irish fathers) of the total number of charity cases of all nationalities in Bellevue and allied hospitals, etc. Among criminals, also, the Irish stand at the head of the foreign-born as regards the total number of offences. Furthermore, it is most significant that in the one aspect of life in which, as your editorial points

out, the Irish have displayed the most marked ability, viz., public affairs, the record which they have made as you also point out-has not been such as wholly to discredit the sagacity of our forefathers when they were uneasy as to the effect of the Irish on American politics.

The fact is that we have become accustomed to those evils of American life which are traceable to the early immigration, and take them for granted. We even go so far as to use them as a means of forestalling unfavorable comparisons between southeastern Europeans and Americans. An excellent illustration of this is afforded by Dr. Peter Roberts in his book, "The New Immigration," when, in an effort to extenuate the drunkenness and lawlessness of the newcomers, or at least to divide the responsibility, he points out that "with very rare exceptions the men on the bench, in the brewery business, and in politics," who help to create these conditions, "are native-born." He does not stop to consider how many of them are the sons of the Irish and German immigrants of the nineteenth century, whom Dr. Roberts, along with others, regards as so desirable.

Finally, the most significant fact of all is that the one reason why the evil effects of the Irish and German immigration of the forties and fifties are not much more widespread and prominent than they are, is that this very agitation of our forefathers, which we deride, had its effect. To be sure, some of it, particularly that based on religious prejudice, was misguided and unjustifiable according to our lights. But the great agitation against the indiscriminate dumping of foreign paupers and criminals on our shores, and against the horrible shipping conditions which landed swarms of miserable wretches on our docks who had to be hauled away in carts to the hospitals and almshouses, rested on a solid foundation. For decades the wiser spirits of the time fought for laws which would protect the communities of this country against an intolerable burden of expense in the support of indigent foreigners. We of today are reaping the benefit of this agitation, and it ill becomes us to ridicule it from the vantage point of our security. It is doubtful if a half or even a quarter of the Irish immigrants who made up the great migration of 1845-55 would be allowed even to embark from the shores of Ireland, to say nothing of being admitted to the United States, in the year 1914. If we were confronted with an immigration of the sort that our grandfathers had to deal with

we should be much more vociferous in our protests than they

were.

The immigration problem of the twentieth century is in many ways a wholly new one. No arguments concerning it are more fallacious than those which compare it, without discrimination, with that of the middle of the nineteenth century, and draw conclusions from parallels. And there is no more complete justification for a sober and well-considered protest against the immigration of the present than that afforded by a contemplation of the debt we owe to the agitators of an earlier period.

Charities. 12: 129-33. February 6, 1904

Immigration as a Relief Problem. Edward T. Devine

The relief problem of the American seaboard cities is greatly affected by immigration. The immigrant of the twentieth century offers little resemblance to the colonist of the early days of the republic. The colonist was establishing new outposts of civilization; he was one who was capable of making his way in the face of adverse circumstances; he was influenced by some strong religious or political or economic motive, and felt within himself a daring and strength of character sufficient to overcome the dangers, the loneliness, and the privations of the frontier. Colonization is, in short, one of those differentiating agencies leading to the selection and survival of those who have initiative and exceptional capacity. Immigration, on the other hand, is a comparatively easy escape from hard conditions. The immigrant is one who follows in a path already made easy. He goes where his friends or relatives have gone, and settles in the spot where they have settled. He yields to the artifices of transportation agents, or may even be assisted by the public authorities of his own community to emigrate for his country's good. Until legal interference is interposed he comes under a contract to work at occupations and under industrial conditions about which he may be entirely ignorant, thus lending himself readily to a lowering of the standard both of living and of wages. He is scarcely conscious even of the handicap of speaking a foreign language, since he is worked and lodged with others of his own nationality, and under foremen who can speak to him in his own language.

The immigrant who goes under tempting circumstances to a

place literally prepared for his arrival, has therefore rather less than the average initiative, independence and courage, the qualities which are so predominant in the original settlers of a new country. This is, of course, by no means a correct description of all immigrants. There may be little difference between the best immigrant and the best colonist, or even between the majority of immigrants and the majority of colonists. The description applies rather to the marginal colonist and immigrant respectively—to the least efficient class who are nevertheless represented in each in considerable numbers. In the frontier colony the minimum wageearning capacity and industrial efficiency is necessarily high, in the immigrant it may be very low, and it is with these marginal immigrants that relief agencies have chiefly to deal.

Recognition of the family, even in its collateral branches, and the placing of burdens upon those who are their blood kindred is one of the first principles of organized relief. When, however, all inquiries run quickly to the ocean's edge, the chances of any effective recognition of family responsibility are greatly lessened. A vague statement that one's parents or other kindred in Syria, in Poland, in Southern Italy or in Ireland have all that they can do to support themselves, is not easily disproved, even if it is not always true. Correspondence with relief agencies throughout the European continent is difficult, and even when it has been established, is often inconclusive because of the different points of view and the differences in language, customs and standards. When one has lost employment and has but a few acquaintances, and these perhaps hastily formed, it is, of course, more difficult for him to give those evidences of character and fitness which would be available in his native land, but which are not readily imported among the immigrant's assets. It is beyond reasonable expectation also, that when one has through old age or infirmity become a public charge, there should be quite the same degree of tenderness and consideration for an immigrant as the same individual might have experienced in a similar adverse fate in the home of his ancestors.

I am not apologizing for any indifference to the necessities of those who are in distress, but pointing out that absence from those upon whom they have the strongest claim for the offices prompted by ties of kindred and of intimate association through generations, is a deprivation of that for which there is no ready substitute. This, however, increases rather than lessens the re