presented, very many of our working men look with jealous eyes at
every measure tending toward bringing those of other countries
to take a place side by side with them, believing, as they do,
that the more the supply of labor the lower must certainly become
the price. Nevertheless, could they but be persuaded to study
carefully the facts of even the last twenty years they could not
fail to become impressed with the fact, that growth of wages has
always kept even pace with growth of immigration; the reward of
labor on the contrary declining as immigration has been arrested
or destroyed. At no previous period had the demand for labor, or
its reward, grown so rapidly as in the early years of the great
California one, say from 1850 to 1854, when immigration grew to
400,000. At none, has labor been more in excess of the demand
than in the years that followed the great crisis of 1857, when
immigration declined to figures scarcely greater than had been
attained 20 years before; and when, as in 1860-61, not one out of
five of the skilled workmen of the country was steadily employed.
Here, in Philadelphia, when it was desired to build a street
railroad they advertised for two hundred and fifty hands at but
sixty cents a day, and had more than five thousand offered, a
majority of whom were skilled artisans who were wholly out of work.
In the neighborhood of one great establishment, a rolling mill, the
number of unemployed men was so great that the county authorities,
to save its skilled workmen from open pauperism, determined to
build a turnpike, employing experienced hands at breaking stone,
for fifty cents a day, rather than supporting them as paupers. At
no period of our history has the reward of labor grown so rapidly
as in the last ten years, when the exodus of European working men
has so rapidly increased that the states of Central and Western
Europe now find themselves forced to consideration of the measures
required for retaining their countrymen at home; and when the
highest German authorities admit that the pecuniary loss resulting
from training and educating men for export to this country has
now already more than counterbalanced the French indemnity of
$1,200,000,000. To all appearance the immigration of the present
year will closely approach to half a million; and yet it is at
this moment, in face of so wonderful an addition to our stock of
working men and women, that we have a determined agitation for
bringing about a reduction of time and increase of wages. In the
years prior to the rebellion, when immigration so largely declined,
the agitation was for employment at almost any price. Why is this?
Why is it that, contrary to the rule elsewhere observed, demand for
labor goes ahead of supply when this latter is great, and falls
behind it when the supply is small? To this the answer is, that the
power to compel nature to labor in man's service increases almost
geometrically as numbers increase arithmetically; as employment
becomes diversified; and as men are more enabled to combine their
efforts for attainment of that object."
* * * * *
"As a consequence of the great increase in the power of combination
that has thus been brought about, we find the manufacturing product
of the country to have grown in the period 1860 to 1872, from 1800
to 5000 millions, the mere increase having been almost twice the
total amount to which the country had attained in the centuries
that had preceded the war of the rebellion. Adding to the figures
the foreign manufactures consumed, we obtain for the first--a
period when immigration was rapidly declining--a total consumption
of about $65 per head; whereas in the period which since has
passed, and in which immigration has so greatly grown, it has risen
to more than $130 per head. So far, therefore, is the working man
from having occasion to dread the competition of the immigrant,
that he needs, night and morning, to pray for maintenance of that
policy which is now making demand on Europe for so much of its
half fed and half clothed population, thereby compelling both
landed and manufacturing capitalists to the adoption of measures
tending so to improve the condition of them who are left behind
as to induce them to forego the idea of abandoning their native
land. Never in the world's history has there been furnished
such conclusive evidence of the fact, that measures tending to
benefit the working man anywhere tend toward raising his condition
everywhere; and that, therefore, there is a perfect harmony in the
real and permanent interests of mankind at large."
* * * * *
As still more directly bearing on this subject, I quote from the same
report as follows:
"Less than a dozen years since, our working men looked jealously
upon the negro, believing that any measure tending toward his
emancipation would certainly be followed by such an influx of cheap
labor as must seriously affect themselves. Directly the reverse,
the negro migrates to Texas and there becomes a customer for
manufactured products of a class greatly higher than that of those
which his master had been accustomed to purchase for his slave."
Carey here reaches the very pith of the question. Every newcomer
becomes a customer for those already on the ground, for all that he
needs for his maintenance, just as the new born babe furnishes a new
customer for the dry goods store, the milk man, not to mention the
doctor and sometimes the lawyer. The baby, it is true, does not, as the
phrase goes, "enter into competition" for a living, while the immigrant
does, but in this respect the latter is the more valuable acquisition,
for unless the immigrant is supported by charity, he has to produce
at least as much as he consumes, and thus the community is an
inevitable gainer by his presence. Inasmuch as a very large proportion
of the immigrants produce more than they consume, in other words,
save something of their earnings, it is manifest that the community
gains doubly by their presence. It gains through the increase by the
immigrant of the general social force, in his contribution to the total
of the community's traffic and exchange, and also gains through the
newcomer's addition to the general capital stock.
But, it is urged on the other hand, this may all be true of some kinds
of immigrants, and not be true of others who are low in the scale of
moral worth and of physical and intellectual capacity, and it is
these whose coming should be restricted. Be it so; we may safely admit
this proposition, and proceed thence to the sole remaining problem of
drawing the line.
Where shall this line be drawn? The native American agitation proceeded
on the very ground we have postulated, and grew to the proportions
of carrying a majority in no less than nine states. It grew to these
proportions as the result of an agitation that arose from the influx
of impoverished Irishmen after the famine of 1847, and of their
followers from Scotland and England in the succeeding decade. Has the
agitation been justified by time? Have the prophecies of the Know
Nothings that our people could not possibly assimilate the great mass
of foreigners who were then thronging hither, whose proportion to the
native population was even greater than it is now, who were alien to
our institutions and our laws, in habits and in religion at variance
with the great majority of the citizens, been fulfilled? Of course
not; the facts have but developed what the common sense of the people
soon perceived to be true. These immigrants have all been assimilated.
Those of them that survive, and their children assuredly, have become
thoroughly Americanized and effectually welded into the commonalty of
our republic.
How was it with the Germans who came hither in such swarms under
the allurements of the great gold finds in the West, and the growth
of steam navigation on the ocean after 1850? They too have been
assimilated, notwithstanding that through their variance in language
they were even more differentiated from the native inhabitants than
the immigrants from the British Isles. How about the Scandinavians and
the Holland Dutch, the French and Italians? Has the grafting of these
scions on the rooted stem degenerated the stock? We have ample evidence
to the contrary, sufficiently palpable to need no citation in detail.
Where then shall we draw the line? We have seen that the immigrant,
though he arrives penniless as tens of thousands of them have done and
do, does certainly not impoverish the community. We have seen, on the
contrary, that though he arrives penniless, he enhances the wealth of
the community by bringing with him the germ of all commodities, Labor.
Where then shall we draw the line? Shall we exclude the poor Roman
Catholic Pole, who is driven from his home by the vindictive policy
of his barbarous conquerer? Does he not bring energy and labor? Shall
we exclude the Russian Jew, who is driven from his native soil by the
stupid villany of the same Tartar barbarism? Is his thrift and industry
likely to impoverish our community? The pious fools who, four hundred
years ago, drove three hundred thousand of such people from the Iberian
Peninsula had a bigger majority than the Know Nothings of later date
who wanted to do as much for the Roman Catholics fifty years ago, and
they had their way. They diminished the population according to their
wish, but they wrought the ruin of the then richest nation of Europe, a
ruin from which it has even to this day not yet arisen.
No; let the immigrants come, as they have come. Let us but guard
ourselves against the preventable evils which are likely to attend
their coming, by the careful enforcement of the laws that are enacted
to that end. Let us draw the line so as to exclude the habitual
paupers, the habitual criminals, the incurably insane; the rest will
take care of themselves and add to our well being and our wealth by
filling up the waste stretches of the great expanse behind us; they
will but follow in the way trodden by the immigrants who landed two
hundred and seventy years ago at Plymouth Rock, and will work out their
salvation as did their predecessors by making the desert to blossom as
the rose.
NOTE:--Various movements for the relief of the Russian refugees
have been organized independently from 1882 on by the Jewish
communities throughout the country and especially in the seabord
cities. The renewed severity of the Russian persecutions in 1890
called forth a general movement for the relief of the sufferers
which was focused at a convention held in Philadelphia, February
16, 1891, and which resulted in the formation of the "Jewish
Alliance of America."[125] This organization was composed in the
main of Russian Jews already settled in this country, but the
increasing demand on the Jewish people by the extraordinarily large
influx of the refugees during 1891 necessitated a more general
organization of the measures for their relief. To that end the
Trustees of the Baron de Hirsch Fund issued a call[126] for a
general convention of representatives of the Jewish organizations
throughout the country, which accordingly met in New York City
on September 23, 1891. This convention[127] resolved itself into
"The American Committee for Ameliorating the Condition of Russian
Refugees," and elected an Executive Committee[128] to carry out its
plans. With this organization the Jewish Alliance of America was
merged in February, 1892, but with the diminution of the influx
in the course of that year the united organization devolved its
functions on a "Central Committee" composed of members of the
American Committee, the Baron de Hirsch Trust and the United Hebrew
Charities of New York.
* * * * *
The several organized movements above noted elicited earnest
expressions of sympathy from many leading men in our community. A
number of these are so pointed and relevant to our present subject
matter as to dictate their citation in this connection.
On the occasion of the movement for the formation of the Jewish
Alliance, CARDINAL GIBBONS wrote as follows, under date of Baltimore,
Dec. 15th, 1890.
"Every friend of humanity must deplore the systematic persecution
of the Jews in Russia.
"For my part, I cannot well conceive how Christians can entertain
other than kind sentiments towards the Hebrew race, when I consider
how much we are indebted to them. We have from them the inspired
volume of the Old Testament, which has been a consolation in
all ages to devout souls. Christ, our Lord, the Founder of our
religion, His blessed mother, as well as the Apostles, were all
Jews according to the flesh. These facts attach me strongly to the
Jewish race."
* * * * *
The call for the convention which resulted in the organization of the
American Committee for Ameliorating the Condition of Russian Refugees,
elicited the following letter from Judge DILLON to Mr. Seligman:
Dear Sir: Coming to this place (Saratoga) on the train from New
York, I saw in the _Evening Post_ a statement that prominent
Hebrews in all parts of the United States have been invited by
the Trustees of the Baron de Hirsch fund to meet in this city on
Wednesday, September 23rd in the building of the Hebrew Educational
Alliance at East Broadway and Jefferson streets, for the purpose
of co-operating in the formation of an American Relief Committee
to make the best possible disposition of the exiled Russian Jews
coming to this country.
The persecution of your people with mediæval cruelty, whereby
they are exiled without cause, suddenly and _en masse_, with all
the multiplied and nameless hardships and sufferings which must
necessarily attend such an exodus, from a country in which they
had lived for generations and had the right to peacefully remain,
has awakened among all right-thinking persons sympathy for the
victims and indignation against their oppressors. This is not a
matter that appeals alone to the people of your race. It appeals
to every man with a heart of flesh in his bosom. There remains no
longer any place for prejudice or selfishness. Reports are made
that some Jewish refugees have already been sent back from this
country for fear that they may become a public charge. This must
not be. Without shame we cannot remain idle and cold spectators and
see this done under our very eyes. Ever since the establishment of
our nation, it has been its just boast that it was the asylum of
the toiling and oppressed people of all other countries, who in
good faith sought our shores with a view of permanent residence and
citizenship. I am not criticising necessary or provident defensive
modification of this policy, but the former considerations have
a rightful application to your fugitive people, who in their
necessity come from preference to this land of freedom to find and
make themselves homes.
I would as soon shut my door against a benighted wanderer seeking
refuge from the merciless blizzard as to shut our national ports
against those of your people, who, stricken like wild beasts, are
driven here in the stress of the raging storm which threatens their
destruction. Let us receive them with welcome and hospitality. Let
us show to the nations of the world that there is one spot on God's
earth where these unfortunate exiles may rest their tired feet, set
up again their household goods, reconstruct their ruined homes and
worship in peace the God of their fathers.
I notice in the article referred to that it is proposed "to appeal
to the Jews of the United States to unite in a co-operative plan
to find homes and employment for Russian immigrants." I beg to
suggest that this concerns not your people alone. It quite as
deeply concerns the good name of the American people to see that no
refugee shall be returned for poverty, or for any cause, save for
crime, or shall be allowed to suffer until he can find work.
I do not rest these sentiments upon the unfeigned respect I
feel for the immemorial traditions and glorious history of your
people, who in theology, ethics, philosophy, arts, literature,
jurisprudence and legislation have either led the thought of the
world or kept abreast with it. I prefer to rest them upon the
broader, higher and truer ground, that these exiles are men, with
all the inprescriptable rights that belong to men because they are
men, irrespective of religion, race or nationality, rights which
governments do not create or confer, so they cannot rightfully deny
or destroy. I enclose my check for the cause (would it were more),
and in doing so, I could not refrain, before resting my head upon
my pillow, to thus state the reasons why I did it.
With great respect, I am as ever,
Very truly yours,
JOHN F. DILLON.
TO JESSE SELIGMAN, Esq.
* * * * *
On the same occasion as that noted above, HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
expressed himself as follows:
"We behold to-day in Russia with horror the amazing spectacle in
the nineteenth century of the whole power of the government brought
to bear upon three millions of Hebrews to treat them as aliens and
enemies. They have been for three hundred years the subjects and
the citizens of the Russian Empire, and yet the whole power of
the state, of its army, of its civil force, is brought to bear to
deprive them of the opportunities of employment and to refuse them,
except within certain limits, the right to live in the country
where their ancestors have lived for ten to twenty generations.
It is because monarchical institutions, autocratic institutions,
class institutions do not possess the power of assimilation and of
homogeneity.
"In the past fifty years, fifteen millions of people have come to
this country from abroad. They belonged to every race, they spoke
every language but our own. They worshipped in every form, under
every symbol and in every creed. But American liberty solved the
problem. These people did not know about our institutions, or
understand them. They had been taught to believe that liberty was
license, and yet the solvent power of American liberty made them
citizens and gave to the immigrants of a few years ago, the same
rights before the law and in making the law that is possessed by
the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers. These fifteen millions
of people, under the operation of this glorious principle, have
become bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. They have aided in
the development of the country; they have assisted in increasing
its wealth, its power and its glory, and have marched with equal
step and equal love under the old flag for the preservation of the
glorious Republic which had made them free."
* * * * *
Following is an extract from a letter written to Hon. Simon Wolf by
Father Sylvester Malone, of St. Peter and Paul Church, Brooklyn:
I have listened to St. Patrick's Day discussions in time past
in which your co-religionists were likened to the Irish. Both
suffered because of their holding with such tenacity to what was
their belief. This was true in the case of the Hebrew in his own
native land and in every other land whither tyranny forced him to
emigrate. The Irish have been the victims of cruel persecution
in their own native land. Here, however, they are free, and are
always successful when they do not by some fault of their own mar
their best hopes of success. The Jewish people too have had great
success in America, but the later emigration, directly from Russia,
has not been acceptable to many of our citizens. They have run the
gauntlet, as my countrymen had to do some fifty years ago. They
must learn wisdom and patience."
* * * * *
As an instructive conclusion to our present subject we add the
following extract from the New York _Sun_ of September 1st, 1894. It
needs no further comment:
"In the Jews, Judaism is deeply ingrained. As many as 10,000 or
12,000 of the Jewish tailors of this city were on a strike for
higher wages all last week; and day after day they loitered in
the streets, or congregated in their hall, or sat down any where
to talk in their jargon. But upon the forenoon of Saturday last
the strikers, who had been highly excited the day before, were
not to be found at their usual places of rendezvous. Nearly all
of them had gone to their synagogues. They were engaged in Divine
worship. They were at prayer. They were listening to the voice of
the rabbi. They were following a custom established by Moses, and
kept up through all the ages ever since his time. In the hundreds
of garrets, rear halls, and rickety old edifices which are used
as synagogues in what is called the "ghetto," on the east side of
New York, the Jews on strike celebrated the everlasting name of
"JAHVEH" last Saturday forenoon, the holy Sabbath.
"This is Judaism in New York and the world over.
"Lots of workingmen, who are called Christians, go on a strike from
time to time, but who is there that ever heard of any body of
strikers other than Jews, giving heed to the ceremonies of their
religion during the heat of a strike? We are told that nearly all
of these Jewish strikers are orthodox, and all wore their hats in
the synagogues. Many of them, we are assured, are familiar with the
Torah and the Talmud, and can quote Ben Ezra and Maimonides....
"Judaism is in the bones of the Jews, and of all Jews, from the
equator to the poles.
"Was there ever any crowd of Presbyterian strikers, or of Baptist,
Methodist, or Unitarian strikers, or of Roman Catholic strikers,
who made it their business to go to church in a body, for the
purpose of engaging in worship and prayer, during a strike? Let
us ask Rev. Dr. John Hall, or Bishop Simpson, or that learned and
mirthful priest, Father Flattery, not to speak of the eminent
Dominican, Father O'Neil, or our three Universalist preachers.
"The Jews of New York, like the Jews of all the rest of the world,
believe in Judaism, and are rooted and grounded in it.
"Oh, that we could say that the people who call themselves
Christians believe in Christianity and practise it, either at work
or when on strike!"
FOOTNOTES:
[122] Page 15.
[123] See page 51.
[124] See note, p. 559.
[125] The officers of this organization were as follows:
_President_: Simon Muhr, Philadelphia.
_Vice Presidents_: Hon. Ferdinand Levy, New York; Rev. Dr. H. W.
Schneeberger, Baltimore; Dr. Chas. D. Spivak, Philadelphia.
_Secretary_: Bernard Harris, Philadelphia.
_Treasurer_: Hon. Simon Wolf, Washington, D. C.
_Board of Directors--Philadelphia_: Louis E. Levy, Chas. Hoffman, Dr.
Solomon Solis-Cohen; _Baltimore_: Jacob J. H. Mitnick, Joseph Eisner,
S. L. Auerbach; _New York_: Daniel P. Hays, Dr. Henry M. Leipziger;
_Chicago_: Dr. A. P. Kadison, A. Bernstein; _Boston_: David Blaustein;
_Pittsburg, Pa._: Wm. Hoffman; _Albany, N. Y._: Louis Aronowitch;
_Troy, N. Y._: H. Kuschevsky; _Omaha, Neb._: B. Kohn.
[126] The call was signed by the officers of the Baron de
Hirsch Fund as follows:
_President_: Myer S. Isaacs.
_Vice President_: Jacob H. Schiff.
_Treasurer_: Jesse Seligman.
_Honorary Secretary_: Julius Goldman.
_Trustees_: Oscar S. Straus, Henry Rice, and James H. Hoffman, of New
York; Mayer Sulzberger, and Wm. B. Hackenburg, of Philadelphia.
_General Agent_: Adolphus S. Solomons, Washington, D. C.
[127] The convention was organized with the following named
officers:
_President_: Lewis Seasongood, Cincinnati; _Vice Presidents_: Lazarus
Silverman, Chicago, Joseph Fox, New York; _Secretaries_: Adolphus S.
Solomon, Washington, and Bernard Harris, Philadelphia.
[128] The Executive Committee thus elected, in addition to
the general officers, was composed of representatives of various
organizations in different sections of the country, as follows:
_New York_: Henry Rice, Julius Bien, Jacob H. Schiff, Morris Tuska,
Ferdinand Levy, Isaac Hamburger, M. Warley Platzek; _Philadelphia_:
Simon Muhr, Louis E. Levy; _Baltimore_: Aaron Friedenwald; _Boston_:
Jacob Hecht; _Cincinnati_: Julius Freiburg; _Chicago_: Adolph Loeb,
Julius Rosenthal; _Peoria, Ill._: Samuel Woolner; _Washington, D.
C._: Simon Wolf; _Milwaukee_: Bernard Gross; _St. Louis, Mo._: Marcus
Bernheimer; _Portland, Or._: David Solis-Cohen; _Detroit, Mich._:
Martin Butzel; _Minneapolis, Minn._: Emanuel Cohen; _Atlanta, Ga._:
Aaron Haas; _Galveston, Tex._: Leo. N. Levi; _Memphis, Tenn._: Elias
Loewenstein; _Ex-Officio_, Myer S. Isaacs, _New York_.
The Committee organized by electing as Chairman, M. Warley Platzek, of
New York, and as Vice Chairman, Julius Freiburg, of Cincinnati, the
Secretaries of the General Committee acting in the same capacity on the
Executive Committee.
CONCLUSION.