Volume Vi Part 18 (2/2)

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A German family of ten considered desirable and qualified to enter.

GROUPS OF IMMIGRANTS UPON THEIR ARRIVAL AT ELLIS ISLAND

These swarms of foreigners who come to us each year are causing uneasiness in the minds of the thinking people. Can our foreign population be growing more rapidly than our power to a.s.similate it? Is this element as dangerous to our civilization as we think? Has criminality increased as a result of increased immigration? Has this element increased labor agitations during the past decade? Some contend that we are rapidly approaching the limit of our power of a.s.similation and that we are in constant danger of losing the traits which we call American. The immigrants from southern Europe are in too many cases deficient in education. This lack of education may or may not prove a danger. So far it seems to have been the rule that in the second generation these foreigners have shown themselves extremely anxious to take advantage of the opportunities offered by our free schools.

One of the most serious charges made against the Americanized foreigner has been that through him there has developed in our political system a strain of corruption which endangers our inst.i.tutions. Political corruption did not come with the immigrants: it was known in all its forms years ago. This much can be said, however: the worst cla.s.s of foreign-born citizens has ever proved to be a support of corrupt political bosses. Our city governments have been notoriously corrupt and the cities harbor the great ma.s.ses of foreigners. The high cost of living in the cities and the relatively low wages force the aliens into poor and crowded quarters which tend to weaken them physically and degrade them morally and socially. Among the Italians of the cities there appears to be a vicious element composed of social parasites who found gambling dens, organize schemes of black-mail, and are the agents of the dreaded Black Hand. It is the cla.s.s which furnishes aids for the lowest political bosses and furnishes the bad reputation for the Italians.

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Group of Cossack immigrants considered desirable and qualified to enter.

An investigation of the nationalities in the city of Chicago has been made by Professor Ripley, of Harvard. The results ill.u.s.trate the wonderful dimensions of the problem which the cities confront in the a.s.similation of the foreign element. In the case of Chicago, were the foreigners (those not American beyond the third generation) to be eliminated, the population would dwindle from 2,000,000 to about 100,00.

In this city fourteen languages are spoken by groups of not less than 10,000 persons each. Newspapers are regularly published in ten different languages and church services conducted in twenty different tongues.

Measured by the size of its foreign colonies, Chicago is the second Bohemian city in the world, the third Swedish, the fourth Polish, and the fifth German. There is one large factory employing over 4,000 people representing twenty-four nationalities. Here the rules of the establishment are printed in eight languages. So it is with the other cities. New York, for example, has a larger Italian population than Rome, and is the greatest Jewish city, for there are in the city some 800,000 Jews. In all eighty per cent of the population of New York are foreigners or the children of foreigners. In Boston the per cent reaches seventy and in Milwaukee about eighty-six.

The charge that criminality has increased rapidly with the increased immigration from southern Europe seems to be substantiated by statistics. From 1904 to 1908 the number of aliens charged with committing grave crimes nearly doubled. While this fact will not prove the point, it suggests thought on the question.

It has been truthfully said that the fundamental problem in this question of immigration is most frequently overlooked. Back of the statistics of illiteracy, pauperism, criminality, and the economic value of immigrants lies another one of great proportions. What has been the effect upon our native stock? What has been the expense, to our native stock, of this increase of population and wealth through immigration?

The decreasing birth rate of our native population some contend is due to the industrial compet.i.tion caused by the foreign element. If this be true, the foreigners have supplanted not supplemented the American, and the question arises, how long can the a.s.similation go on before we lose our American characteristics?

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Swedish immigrant family considered desirable and qualified to enter.

The number of Europeans who return to their native lands after living a time in the United States is comparatively small and the loss is not great. The emigration of our farmers to Canada is a more serious thing.

Since 1897 the Dominion Government has fostered high-cla.s.s immigration.

Canadian agencies have been established in many of our Western cities with the avowed object of attracting farmers to the Provinces. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company has taken up the pioneering business.

It sells the land, builds the home and the necessary buildings, breaks the fields, plants the first crop, and hands over to the prospective settler a farm under cultivation. In return the railway demands high-cla.s.s immigrants and, to insure this, no settler can take possession of a railway farm unless he can show $2,000 in his own right.

Between 1897 and the close of 1910 Canada gained by immigration nearly 2,000,000 inhabitants. Of these, 630,000 were from the United States, and it is estimated that those who went from the United States during the past five years took with them $267,000,000 in cash and settlers'

effects. The end of the movement has not come, for the railway companies have now gone into the reclamation of arid lands. Since 1908 over 1,000,000 acres of arid land in Alberta have been placed under irrigation, and the work of reclaiming another equally large section has begun. The American farmers who are taking advantage of this opportunity form a cla.s.s which we cannot afford to lose.

CHAPTER XII

NOTABLE SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

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