Immigrants

“ The American people should itself do these things for the immigrants. If we leave the immigrant to be helped by representatives of foreign governments, by foreign societies, by a press and institutions conducted in a foreign language and in the interest of foreign governments, and if we permit the immigrants to exist as alien groups, each group sundered from the rest of the citizens of the country, we shall store up for ourselves bitter trouble in the future. ”

“ The only way of filling up the gaps in the population of the ravaged land was to invite foreign immigrants of a superior class, chapmen and handicrafts men, not only given to peaceful pursuits and accustomed to law and Foreign Immigrants. ”

“ The question of the effects of immigration upon the immigrants is perhaps the most difficult of all to determine. It is manifest that it must affect all of their life interests, in their own generation and for many generations to come. ”

“ What counts here, of course, is not the value the immigrants may have acquired by education or experience, but that fundamental worth which does not depend on opportunity, and which may be transmitted to one's descendants. Now, in the present state of our knowledge, it is perhaps risky to make a comparison in ability between the races which contributed the old immigration and those which [297] are supplying the new immigration. ”

“ The question of the desirability of immigration from the point of view of humanity as a whole, as previously stated, is a summation of the aspects of the problem from the point of view of the United States, the countries of source, and the immigrants. This balance must be struck by every student for himself. ”

“ They have filled volumes with facts and figures, comparing the immigrants of to-day with the immigrants of other days, classifying them as to race, nationality, and culture, tabulating their occupations, analyzing their savings, probing their motives, prophesying their ultimate destiny. ”

“ That has always been true, for immigrants have enriched the United States beyond measure, bringing many contributions to our society along with the unique customs and traditions of their ancestral homeland. ”

“ With the beginning of the national era—1783—all peoples subsequently coming to the United States must be classed as immigrants. During the first years of our national life, no accurate statistics of immigration were kept. ”

“ And what is true of the leaders of that great act of national transmigration is true also of the men of less note who followed in it. The first American immigrants were reading immigrants—immigrants who brought in their hands not only axes and shovels, but books. ”

“ The importance of immigration and emigration is firstly, the addition or subtraction thereby made to or from the supply of labor, and, secondly, the influence of the immigrants upon those habits of the community, which in turn affect the supply of labor. ”

“ Some observers see a great advantage accruing to European countries from the better habits of life, the more advanced knowledge of agricultural and other industrial methods, and the more independent and self-reliant spirit, which the returned immigrants bring back with them. ”

“ IV. What agencies can you name and describe that are trying to receive the immigrants in a humane and Christian spirit? For example, the United States Government, American Tract Society, New York Bible Society, Society for Italian Immigrants, and other organizations and agencies. Study especially any that work in your own neighborhood.
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As for immigrants, we cannot have too many of the right kind, and we should have none of the wrong kind. ”

“ Italians, Slavs, Poles, Magyars, East European Hebrews, Finns, Portuguese, Greeks, Roumanians and representatives of many other small nationalities began to seek fortunes in America. The earlier immigration had been made up largely of those who sought escape from religious or political tyranny and came to settle permanent homes. The newer immigration was made up, on the whole, of those who frankly sought wealth. The difference in the reason for coming could not fail to mean a difference in selection of the immigrants, quite apart from the change in the races. ”

“ THE EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANTS. RELIGION. BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS. RECREATION There is a group of peculiar economic institutions which have been developed by the immigrants in this country, and which are especially characteristic of the new immigration. This group includes the padrone system, the contract labor system, the immigrant bank, and two or three similar institutions, particularly the sweating system, which is now practically dependent on immigrants.
The word “padrone” is adopted from the Italian, and signifies master or “boss.” ”

“ We found that the tendency, reprehensible and paradoxical as it might be, has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous, to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. ”

“ History of Immigration into the United States.—The great economic opportunities offered by the settlement of the vast territory of the United States, together with a combination of causes in Europe, partly political, partly religious, and partly economic, have caused, during the last century, a flood of immigrants from practically all European countries, to invade the United States, greater in number of individuals than any recorded migration in history. ”

“ On the other hand, the United States and our Australian and American colonies, looking at the same set of facts from an opposite stand-point, have been engaged in an examination of the influence which various classes of immigrants must necessarily exercise on their earlier inhabitants, and have even in some degree proposed to deal in a practical manner with the problem. ”

“ The main source of the immigrant current has shifted away from northern and western Europe, to the southern and eastern portions of the continent, whose people are by no means so closely related in physique or so similar in mental characteristics to the people of the United States as the immigrants of earlier periods. ”

“ As to the quality of such immigration, something has already been said. There is evidently nothing about the immigrants themselves, or the way in which they are secured, that serves as a guarantee of their serviceability or value to this country ”

“ The emigration agent is often himself a returned immigrant; if not, he utilizes all the influences which arise from the letters, visits, and remittances of actual immigrants to further his ends. The letters from America are often misleading or spurious, used by labor agents in this country to entice others to come. ”

“ The positive arguments for, and the negative arguments against, immigration center around the question whether the United States needs the immigrants. The positive arguments against, and the negative arguments for, immigration have to do with the claim that immigration injures the United States. ”

“ In all this discussion it has been assumed, for purposes of argument, that our imaginary European immigrants will be able to spread and establish themselves everywhere. No one can seriously expect this. ”

“ In a comparative isolation from the disturbing currents of modern life, they have preserved the habits and customs of the eighteenth century. The immigrants spread themselves abroad among those bayous, made their homes wide apart, and the traveller will nowhere find—at least I did not—large and compact communities of them, unalloyed with the American and other elements. ”

“ And when immigrants come to America legally, their culture and contribution must be treated with respect. They have an equal place in the American story, a story written in many hands and told in many languages. ”

“ It is manifest that the United States, the countries of source, the immigrants, and humanity in general all have interests which may be 388affected by immigration, that these interests are not always harmonious or correlative, but that they may be, and in some cases must be, in direct opposition to each other. ”

“ The immigrants that come to us annually, together with the young men and women that annually reach their majority here, are enough to supply the places of all the people of this coast were they to go away. ”

“ During twenty years the immigration of the Western races most nearly related to those which have fashioned American institutions declined more than 75 per cent, while the immigrants of Eastern and Southern races, untrained in self-government, increased nearly sixfold. ”

“ The New Immigrants.—If the United States could have continued to receive mainly such people as these from northern Europe, there would be little cause to complain of the volume of immigration, but since 1880 the tide has been setting in from southern and eastern Europe and even from Asia, bringing in large numbers of persons who are not of allied stock, have been little educated, and do not understand or fully sympathize with American principles and ideals, and for the most part are unskilled workmen. ”

“ Again, we are told that the immigrant comes here ignorant and without ideals and standards of life which would make him a safe member of a democracy. Of course, like most broad generalizations, this has a grain of truth when applied to some of the present influx from southern Europe. But when applied to immigrants generally, and especially to the class we have here described, the above judgment is just about the exact opposite of the truth. ”

“ The inclination of the immigrants themselves to stick so closely to the great centers of population must be overcome. If the great crowds of foreigners that inundate these shores every year could be distributed in a sensible and logical way over all the vast uncultivated territory in which this [Pg 103] nation is so rich, we should never hear any complaint of too much immigration. No better farmers can be found anywhere than among the foreign peoples who seek America. ”

“ Hi everybody. Today, I’m at Del Sol High School, in Las Vegas, to talk with students and families about immigration.
We are a nation of immigrants. It has always given America a big advantage over other nations. ”

“ The great majority of our people are either European immigrants, or the descendants of European immigrants who came to this country within the last century and a half. With reference to European immigration we distinguish three groups: the foreign-born, the native-born children of the foreign-born, and natives. Natives include those whose ancestors have been in this country two or more generations. On the basis of this classification, about one seventh of our population is foreign-born while over one third is either foreign-born or the native-born children of foreign-born parents. ”

“ Many of the immigrants, of course, forge ahead, either because of unusual ability or exceptional good fortune, and attain a position of advancement in every way which would have been utterly inconceivable in their old home. There are countless instances of prosperous business men, eminent and respected citizens, invaluable servants of society in this country, who could never have been anything but humble peasants in their home land. ”

“ Therefore, the earlier immigrants came to remain, to make homes here for themselves and their children. The Irish, the Germans, [23] the early Bohemians, the Scandinavians, and in fact all the early comers brought their families and their “household goods”, ready to settle down for all time and to become citizens of their adopted country.
A large number of the alien arrivals of recent years come here initially with only a vague intention of remaining permanently, and these make up the large emigration streaming constantly from our ports. ”

“ Although immigrants have come by millions into the United States, and have been the main contributing cause of its wonderful national expansion, yet opposition to their coming has manifested itself strongly at different times. ”

“ At the same time it may be said that there is no proof that the class of emigrants ever reached a high standard. An analysis of the occupations of immigrants to the United States during the decade 1877-86, as given in Table XII., will clearly show that unskilled labourers formed the largest proportion of the immigrants. ”

“ The immigrants, arriving from time to time, might have disabused them, but these would naturally fall into the ways and sentiments of the people, and were their tastes ever so ambitious, probably had not the means to gratify them. ”

“ The steamers mentioned were to have been paid a liberal bonus for bringing immigrants into the country. Little can be chronicled on that head. Immigration, in the popular acceptance, has not yet been attracted. ”

“ These figures sustain what can be observed in many large cities, that the races of immigrants who came to this country twenty-five or more years ago are shrinking from competition with the new races from Southern Europe. ”

“ These uprisings have besides stimulated to an encouraging degree the forming of an intelligent public opinion upon the problem of the immigrant, and a wholesomely increased sense of responsibility towards the immigrant. And indeed it was time. Miss Grace Abbott, director of the Chicago League for the Protection of Immigrants, tells a story, illustrating how very unintelligent an educated professional man can be in relation to immigrant problems. ”

“ In order that these people may get a fair start in this new and, to them, strange country, and that they may become familiar as soon as possible with our laws, habits, and customs, help and instruction of various kinds must be given them. To furnish these either freely or at the lowest possible cost, is the object of The Society for Italian Immigrants. ”