Expatriate

“ I approach any allusion to the causes which led to the practical expatriation of five people—in the prime of youth, it is true, but inexperienced—and their subjection to a manner of existence such as they had never imagined could be real. ”

“ Some countries, as France and England, disclaim their subjects if they become naturalized in another country, others, again, passively permit expatriation whether a new nationality has been acquired or not ”

“ The emigrant breaks with his past, closes the volume of his British birth, with all of pride, honour, and love that it includes, and puts it from him altogether, or retains it only as the goal which he may hope to attain again for the comfort of his declining years. The emigrant, in a word, if he be a man of ordinary patriotism and good feeling, is to be pitied. ”

“ The true test of fitness in this case is the possession, on the part of each individual133 concerned, of the will and ability to emigrate; and the probability of helpless multitudes being sent forth, who, both for their own sakes and for that of the colony, ought to have remained at home, is increased in proportion as other motives and other interests besides those of the emigrant himself influence his act of expatriation. ”

“ It is remarkable, how you, as a people, have been preserved to each other, without having your own hands stained with blood. But as to expatriation, the very thought of it is foolish. You have been brought to America, not emigrated to it, and who on earth has any possible right to send you away? Some of us are almost as much displeased with the North, for talking of this, as with the South for holding you in Slavery. ”

“ In one’s own country it is not difficult to draw from a fellow-traveller’s dress and bearing correct inferences as to his character and profession; but in a foreign land, and especially in America, it requires a residence of more than a few days to enable one do to so. ”

“ Valuable emigration field in these colonies.It is far from my purpose, in laying these facts before Your Majesty, to discourage emigration to Your North American colonies. On the contrary, I am satisfied that the chief value of those colonies to the mother country consists in their presenting a field where millions even, of those who are distressed at home, might be established in plenty and happiness. All the gentlemen whose evidence I have last quoted, are warm advocates of systematic emigration. ”

“ For mere expatriation is not in these days an object of considerable terror. The intercourse which it breaks is readily re-established; and the mystery which used to hang over the tale of those condemned to it can never long exist. ”

“ Nothing now remained for me but to return to my country. In crossing the frontier, at the end of the second emigration, I could not avoid thinking of the circumstances of my return after the first, and what a difference of sentiment distinguished them! ”

“ Let them pay up the arrears first Molly, before they think of establishing any claim of the kind on your humble servant. But the fact is, my dear, the longer you live abroad, the more you like it; and going back to the strict rules and habits of England, after it, is for all the world like putting on a strait-waistcoat. If you only heard foreigners the way they talk of us, and we all the while thinking ourselves the very pink of the creation! ”

“ But this should be understood, not to relate to such people, who by migrating to, and settling in other countries, make themselves members of other states, in which case, the duty they owe to the country where they reside, and are protected, ought to prevail over the affection they bear to the country in which they were born ”

“ They brush against you as though you were a camel or a horse, and had four legs on which to stand instead of two. Sometimes a foreigner forgets that these men from the desert, where the foreign element has not come, are following out the religious training of a lifetime, and strikes at one of them with his riding-whip, and then takes refuge in a consulate and leaves on the next boat. ”

“ In early days our increase used to be made up, in a great measure, by emigrants from foreign nations. The past few years our emigration has attained to some three or four thousand, annually, from the various countries in which missions are established, while it has increased many times that number from the great and glorious presence of God our Father, who sends the spirits to this world to dwell. ”

“ The very thought that speeds the emigrant pulls at the heart-strings of the immigrant; drawing home one son from the outposts, while thrusting out another toward the outposts, there to learn what England means, and to earn and deserve the glory of his birthright. ”

“ But who is to remedy this unfornate susceptibility on the part of foreigners? The foreign employé has his work to do—diplomatic, professional, or commercial; the native is in no particular hurry to court the esteem of outsiders, being quite contented with his own high estimate of himself. Must it always be an officer "on short leave," or a journalist in a hurry, who undertakes to record superficial impressions of a passing spectacle? ”

“ I confess that I have great sympathy with those who object to emigration as carried on hitherto, and if it be a consolation to any of my critics I may say at once that so far from compulsorily expatriating any Englishman I shall refuse to have any part or lot in emigrating any man or woman who does not voluntarily wish to be sent out. ”

“ As emigration comprises the voluntary removal of an individual from his home State with the intention of residing abroad, but not necessarily with the intention of renouncing his nationality, it is obvious that emigrants may well retain their nationality. Emigration is in fact entirely a matter of internal legislation of the different States. ”

“ Emigrants, being for the most part drawn from among dry-land-living populations, are apt to be daunted by the idea of a long voyage. People would be more ready, perhaps, to contemplate becoming colonists, were it not for that dreaded crossing of the sea which must necessarily be their first step. Their terrors may be natural enough, but they are more fanciful than real; and once overcome, the emigrant smiles at his former self. ”

“ The immigration problem, which I have been discussing in previous numbers of The Arena, cannot be unravelled without considering one important thread which adds to the entanglement. I shall apply to it the term "Inter-migration," a word not found in the dictionary, because it is freshly coined for the purpose. Let me try to define its meaning.
A person is said to migrate when he leaves his native land, seeking a new home in some other country. Around the word emigrant or immigrant hovers always the idea of an exchange of habits, customs, and language of one country with those of another. ”

“ The great tides of immigration which have since made it the most cosmopolitan of countries, had not set in. Foreigners among us were so few that they were regarded with a great deal of curiosity, some contempt, and not a little pity. ”

“ Unfortunately, there are always too few of him. He is hampered by having no residents in the British colony that he can consult. The first years of a diplomatist’s life in a foreign country are occupied in learning the lie of the land. ”

“ There was a moment when it seemed that ones inmost thoughts had to have that unobtainable visa—to obtain which, more fruitless hours must be lived on grimy stairways between perspiring layers of fellow-aliens. ”

“ She was on her way to the great western world, and on her deck stood many pale-faced emigrants, whom the mild pleasant day had brought up from their close dark berths, and who cast mournful looks in the direction of the land they had left a thousand miles behind them. ”

“ Congress has provided that 'any alien who, at any time after entering the United States, is found to have been at the time of entry, or to have become thereafter, a member of any one of the classes of aliens enumerated in this section' shall be deported. ”

“ The number of emigrants from fashion or caprice is probably not great; and whom shall we now dare to include under this description, when the humble artizan, the laborious peasant, and the village priest, have ensanguined the scaffold destined for the prince or the prelate?—But if the emigrants be justifiable, the refugees are yet more so. ”

“ Certain ones were not counted, such as foreign government officials and their families and employees, aliens in transit through the United States, tourists, aliens from countries having immigration treaties with the United States, aliens who have lived for one year previous to their admission in Canada, Newfoundland, Mexico, Central America, or South America, and aliens under eighteen who have parents who are American citizens. ”

“ Do not take immigration at its worst, but rather at its best, or at least above the average conditions. Assume that you belong to the more intelligent and desirable class, finding a legitimate reason for leaving your home in Europe, because of hard conditions and poor outlook there and bright visions of fortune in the land of liberty, whither relatives have preceded you. Your steamship ticket is bought in your native town, and you have no care concerning fare or baggage. A number of people of your race and neighborhood are on the way, so that you are not alone. ”

“ I would not recommend emigrants to carry out with them overseers, or indentured servants of any description, as I have never yet seen, nor heard of, such engagements terminating satisfactorily: on the contrary, they have invariably proved a source of great annoyance, expense, and inconvenience. The emigrant can be at no loss for servants in the colony, either free or assigned ”

“ People will tell you, "Foreigners do this"; "Foreigners do that"; "Foreigners smoke so much"; "Foreigners always take coffee for breakfast." "Indeed," I love to answer; "I've never observed it myself in Central Asia." 'Tis Parson Adams and the Christian religion. Nine English people out of ten, when they talk of Abroad, mean what they call the Continent; and when they talk of the Continent, they mean France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy; in short, the places most visited by Englishmen when they consent now and again to go Abroad for a holiday. ”

“ Had you come on the Continent to be abroad what you were well contented to be at home,—had you abstained from the mockery of a class you never belonged to,—had you settled down amidst those your equals in rank, and often much more than your equals in knowledge and acquirement,—your journey would not have been a series of disappointments. ”

“ We may, without impropriety, suggest all fair and honourable arguments, to convince the emigrants from the eastern states, and from Europe, that it is their interest to establish themselves here, rather than seek a residence in a distant country, to the west or the south. ”

“ All motive for the expatriation of our robustest youth would, for a long time yet, be removed, and the country might be enormously enriched, not in an upper stratum of great fortunes, but down to the bottom of the community. ”

“ As we know, from a long experience, that the passengers of emigrant ships, with a very few exceptions, are in the habit of claiming more than they are entitled to, we are far from putting implicit faith in all their statements. ”

“ Here you've been telling me how Europe is an education and a delight, and in the next breath you deliberately deprive your little daughter, whom you pretend to love, of the advantages she might gain by a trip abroad! ”

“ I went to the Allied Passport Bureau, British Section, where a tippable man was keeping a queue of all the rabble of the East, and I was to come tomorrow morning. When the British section had given the visa I went to the French, then to the Italians. One loses one's patience, being kept waiting so long, and one breaks into a room sometimes before one is asked. ”

“ Many of them find their level in clerical and professional occupations, but they escape the manual toil which to them is the token of subordination. These manual portions are the peculiar province of the foreign immigrant, and foreign immigration is mainly a movement from the farms of Europe to the cities of America. ”

“ The privileges arising from exterritoriality are extended particularly to sovereigns, diplomatic agents, especially ambassadors and their suites, family, and servants, and to public armed vessels and armies in permitted transit. The person of a sovereign traveling in a foreign country is inviolate, and he is exempt from the law of the land ”

“ Immigrant aliens are those whose place of last permanent residence was in some foreign country, and who are coming here with the intention of residing permanently. Nonimmigrant aliens are of two classes: those whose place of last permanent residence was the United States, but who have been abroad for a short period of time, and those whose place of last permanent residence was in a foreign country, and who are coming to the United States without the intention of residing permanently, including aliens in transit. ”

“ By what acts expatriation may be assumed to have been accomplished, how long an American citizen may reside abroad and receive the protection of our passport, whether any degree of protection should be extended to one who has made the declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States but has not secured naturalization, are questions of serious import, involving personal rights and often producing friction between this Government and foreign governments. ”

“ If the same people who engage our attention on their landing here crossed our path in their native country while in their old accustomed track of life, the task would be comparatively easy, for in that case they would much more readily understand their interest and advantage ”

“ Why they should then be free to transgress until they trip and are caught it is difficult to see. If an alien seeks citizenship here he must satisfy the authorities that he has lived for at least five years in the country and during that period has been a reputable citizen. ”

“ Our intercourse with the natives of the interior should be frequent and intimate: these people (beyond where I am acquainted with them) are represented as very numerous, hospitable, and industrious; and a friendly intercourse would develop the resources of their country, draw its produce to our markets, and give the natives a taste for British [314] manufactures. This intercourse, however, must be prudently introduced and carefully advanced; for to bring these wild people into contact with ignorant and arrogant Europeans would produce bloodshed and confusion in a month. ”