classes and community gatherings which the visitor has been advising her to attend, some way must be provided whereby her children and her work are cared for during her absence. Unless this is done it is futile to urge the mother of a family of small children, with a burden of work already too great to be carried on healthfully, to leave her home several times a week and attend classes whose worth she may question. The immigrant man can be reached more easily. He is more likely to belong to some association designed to promote the welfare of members of his race and through which he will incidentally gain some idea of American ways. Whether this idea is favorable or unfavorable, whether it encourages loyal citizenship or not, depends on the character of the organization and the treatment its members are accorded in the new world. Business interests may likewise bring the man some practical understanding of American customs and ideals. He may gradually learn the English language through his contact with Americans or through his own efforts stimulated by the necessity of making himself understood and the ambition to advance. These influences will also affect the immigrant woman employed in industry. If immigrant man and woman meet with friendly treatment in their daily work, if they are accepted not only by other immigrants who may be working with them but by native Americans, the trade unions, employers or their representatives, and are treated like fellow human beings the chances are that they will learn to know and appreciate America. They will have a greater interest in participating in the Americanization work carried on for their benefit. If they are scorned and exploited as "hunkies" or "wops," if they are given the hardest and most disagreeable work, if they are neglected by the trade unions or unionized only when their competition is feared-then their chances of an understanding appreciation of this country will be slight and the danger of their becoming the recruits of revolutionary agencies will be increased. SOME OF THE ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION MAL-DISTRIBUTION Our immigration laws do not provide for any intelligent distribution of immigrants coming to this country. Immigrants are permitted to choose their own place of residence and occupation. Little is done by the government to direct this choice. There is no well-defined state or federal land program which will help the peasant immigrant to locate on the land. The result is his concentration in industrial centers and his employment in industrial work. In 1920 over half the urban population was foreign-born or native white of foreign or mixed parentage. Three-fourths of the foreign-born white persons lived in communities of 2,500 inhabitants or over. This was an increase of approximately four per cent over 1910. In the same decade, the number of foreignborn whites had decreased in the rural districts by twelve per cent. On the other hand but slightly over two-fifths of the persons of native stock lived in cities and their proportion in the total city population was greater in the small than in the large cities. While the native-born of native parentage dwell for the most part in the country and the smaller urban centers, the immigrants and persons of foreign stock are concentrated in the large cities. Their proportion to the total population is at a minimum in the rural localities and in the urban becomes increasingly great with the growing size of the city, reaching a maximum in cities of over 500,000. In five of the largest cities of the United States, New York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, and Detroit, persons of foreign stock outnumbered those of native stock in 1920 by approximately four, three, three, two and a half, and two times, respectively. The foreign-born element alone practically equaled or exceeded the native-born of native parentage in each of these cities. Some cities have so many representatives of certain races that they exceed in numbers the population of the great cities in their own home countries. In New York the Italian element, including its children, surpasses in numbers the population of Rome; the German element is greater than that of Cologne; the Irish about. equals that of Dublin and Belfast together; and the Jewish is three times larger than the entire Jewish population of Great Britain.1 This concentration of immigrants and their children in the urban centers makes immigration peculiarly a city problem. Their tendency to locate in the larger cities makes it more especially a question for the great than for the small cities. If immigrants were scattered throughout the country in small numbers, if instead of large communities of immigrants, their groups were small, the question of assimilation would be much easier. Dispersed among native Americans, the old world habits would more rapidly give way to American ideals, the foreign to the English tongue. The evils of an overcrowded city-disease, pauperism, insanity, crime-would be lessened if there was no constant influx of persons largely from the poorer and less educated classes. Transfused throughout the country, the foreign influence on American life would be lessened. Concentrated in the largest and most influential cities, in foreign colonies within these cities, it becomes, for good or bad, great. The mal-distribution of immigrants is evidenced not only by their tendency to gather in the city rather than in the country, but by the preponderance of their number in the eastern as contrasted with the western half of the country. In 1920 out of a total of some 13,700,000 foreign-born whites, 7,100,000 were located in the eastern states and some 3,290,000 in the east central states, making a total of about 10,390,000 odd in the eastern half of the United States; and leaving but approximately 3,300,000 for the western half of which 1,800,000 were located in the west central states and 1,500,000 in the far western states. It is evident that there are over three times as many foreign-born whites in the eastern half of the country, the half nearest the ports of debarkation, than there are in the western half. Over 1,800,000 immigrants or about one-seventh of this number are in the New England states alone, which comprise about two per cent of the total area of the United States; and over one-fourth are in the middle Atlantic states. The states having the greatest number of immigrants are industrial. They are Massachusetts, 1 Speek, P. A., "A Stake in the Land," p. 130. MAL-DISTRIBUTION 85 Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan. Consideration of these factors shows that immigration is not only the problem of the city but is also especially the problem of the great industrial and eastern states. This does not mean that the effects of immigration do not reach throughout the country, but rather that certain places and certain sections of the country are more directly, immediately, and intensively affected than others. It is the eastern states which receive the inexperienced newcomers. On them the task of Americanization and assimilation falls most heavily. The western states, particularly the states of the far west, get the greater part of their European immigration from persons who have been in the United States a few years, for on arrival the majority of immigrants tend to remain near the port of entry. It is not until they acquire sufficient money to migrate that they gradually disperse throughout the country, the great bulk remaining however in the eastern states. INDUSTRY Partially responsible for this geographical mal-distribution of immigrants is their concentration in industry. Lack of land is not to blame for this situation, for there are millions of acres uncultivated in the United States which could be reclaimed or cleared for agricultural purposes. Yet with all this available land, even the peasant immigrant, who might be expected to have a preference for agriculture, in the majority of instances, is determined by social and economic forces to enter an industrial employment. His financial inability to purchase a farm on first arriving in the United States, his objections to the occupation of farm laborer, his desire to locate with friends have been pointed out. Even if he wished to become an agricultural laborer, the native farmer might have a preference for native help and a prejudice against the foreigner. The immigrant is less likely to encounter any such feeling in the employer engaged in industry. In any event industry offers him a more assured and better paid occupation. If he saves enough money to become a farm owner, he is handicapped in securing land by his lack of knowledge concerning the farming areas of the United States and his liability to encounter the unscrupulous rather than the reliable land agency. For these reasons he and others like him become in the majority of instances industrial workers, and European immigration assumes the aspect not only of a problem peculiar to the city and the east but a problem affecting particularly the industrial worker. Ideas of Native Worker Concerning Immigration. The native worker has several well-defined ideas concerning the immigrant. He thinks that the constant influx of low-priced, ignorant immigrant labor tends to keep down wages, to displace the American worker, to retard industrial reforms, to increase the hazards of work, to render unionization difficult, to prevent workers' solidarity and the development of progressive unionism, to enlarge the chances of unemployment. He thinks that as long as there is any substantial amount of immigration, even should the government be successful in deflecting a part of it from industry to the farm, a larger part would still seek industry. Capital could still count on its cheap outside labor supply, and the standards of the American worker would be endangered. Reasons Why Immigrant Can Underbid Native. The European laborer comes to this country hoping to better his economic status. Often he has been accustomed to the most primitive living conditions and has been driven forth by poverty to seek new opportunities in America. The standards of living, especially of certain races, are lower than those of the native American. Their members can live on less because they are used to less. Sometimes their wives and older children work and add to the family income. In this way they can manage to exist on wages often below the minimum standards in the United States; but they are not living in the healthful or comfortable surroundings which ought to be within the range of every person doing a full day's work. If single such immigrants can reduce their living costs to a minimum by a coöperative boarding and lodging arrangement. Under such an arrangement, a group of men live together in quarters resembling a barracks. Sometimes they do the work themselves or coöperatively hire a housekeeper to do it for them. Sometimes they live in a family where the woman, for an insignificant sum, does all or part of their housekeeping. These living conditions are unsatisfactory at best. They involve a sacrifice which the immigrant is willing to make because he wants his money for other purposes. He may be saving to bring his family to America. He may be desirous of returning with his money to the home country. Accustomed to community life and to lower standards, his sacrifice is less than that of the American would |