IMMIGRATION
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IMMIGRATION
A WORLD MOVEMENT AND ITS AMERICAN SIGNIFICANCE
BY
HENRY PRATT FAIRCHILD
=New York=
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1913
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1913,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1913.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
=To=
ALBERT GALLOWAY KELLER
INSPIRING TEACHER
CONSTANT FRIEND
PREFACE
In the preparation of this book the author has endeavored to avoid that
narrowness of treatment which so easily besets the writer on such a
topic as immigration. The effort has been made to regard immigration,
not simply as an “American public problem,” but as a sociological
phenomenon of world-wide significance. While the primary viewpoint is
that of a citizen of the United States, several other viewpoints are
considered, and regarded as equally valid. It is pointed out that there
are a number of interests to be taken into account, aside from those of
the native American workman, or even of the American nation as a whole.
The immigration question is set forth as a part of an inclusive
conservation program for all humanity. The modern situation is placed in
its appropriate historical setting. Particularly, it is demonstrated
that the popular notion that a belief in restriction is inconsistent
with sympathy for the immigrant is false. The restrictionist may be the
truest friend of the alien.
At the same time, this book does not profess to be an exhaustive
treatise on immigration. To deal with this question exhaustively, as Dr.
Leopold Caro has pointed out, is too much of an undertaking for a single
man in a lifetime. This is for two reasons. In the first place, the mass
of data is too great, involving the intimate history of most of the
civilized nations of the world for a period of from half a century to
three centuries. In the second place, the subject is highly dynamic. It
is a present movement, displaying aspects which are continually
changing, and embodying relations which are constantly shifting. The
student is prevented by his human limitations from keeping his
information up-to-date in every particular.
For these reasons the purely descriptive features of such a book must
necessarily be limited in scope and subject to inaccuracy. The writer is
constantly constrained to qualify his general statements in the effort
to avoid dogmatism or positive error. But the purely descriptive
features are, after all, of secondary importance. The fundamental
matters are the laws or principles which underlie the great type of
population movement which we call immigration, and these are relatively
constant and unchanging. It is a knowledge of these principles which
fits one to understand the movement in its ever changing aspects, and to
grapple with it as a problem of practical politics or sociology. To
define and clarify the concepts involved, to set forth clearly the laws
and principles, and to point out the opportunities and responsibilities,
is the chief aim of this book.
These considerations account for the summary treatment of some topics,
and the omission of others. Some aspects of the question may seem to
have received more attention, others less, than their relative
importance would warrant. Thus the section on crises, exhibiting as it
does the intricate relationship between immigration and one of our most
important economic problems, also suggests other equally detailed
analytical studies which might be made; as, for instance, the relation
between immigration and strikes, or child labor, or public education.
The discussion of the effect of emigration on the countries of Europe,
while dealing with a topic of equal importance with the effects on the
United States, is manifestly only suggestive in character. Only such
tables have been included as are necessary for illustration or
demonstration. The statistical matter on immigration is now so
voluminous that it is impracticable to include it in a treatise dealing
with the general aspects of the situation in a narrative manner.
Some portions of this book have already appeared in print. The section
on crises is practically a reprint of an article entitled “Immigration
and Crises,” which appeared in the _American Economic Review_ for
December, 1911. The discussion of the effects of immigration on
population reproduces almost _verbatim_ an article, “The Paradox of
Immigration,” which was printed in the _American Journal of Sociology_
for September, 1911. An article entitled “Some Immigration Differences,”
printed in the _Yale Review_ for May, 1910, contained matter which has
been incorporated in different portions of this book. To the editors of
these three journals the author extends his thanks for permission to use
this material in the present volume.
The author wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to Professor Albert G.
Keller, Professor Roswell C. McCrea, and Professor Allen Johnson, who
have read the manuscript wholly or in part, and have made many helpful
suggestions.
H. P. F.
NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT,
April 9, 1913.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. THE UNITED STATES. COLONIAL PERIOD 26
III. 1783 TO 1820 53
IV. 1820 TO 1860 61
V. 1860 TO 1882 90
VI. MODERN PERIOD. FEDERAL LEGISLATION 106
VII. VOLUME AND RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE IMMIGRATION STREAM 123
VIII. THE CAUSES OF IMMIGRATION 144
IX. THE EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION. CONDITIONS OF EMBARKATION AND
TRANSPORTATION 163
X. INSPECTION. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF ARRIVING
IMMIGRANTS 183
XI. CONDITIONS OF IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES. EFFECTS ON
POPULATION. DISTRIBUTION 213
XII. CONDITIONS (_Continued_). THE STANDARD OF LIVING 233
XIII. THE STANDARD OF LIVING (_Continued_) 258
XIV. THE EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANTS. RELIGION. BIRTHS,
MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS. RECREATION 274
XV. CONDITIONS AFFECTING THE COUNTRY. WAGES. PAUPERISM. CRIME.
INSANITY 301
XVI. INDUSTRIAL EFFECTS. CRISES. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION.
POLITICAL EFFECTS 341
XVII. THE NEW PROBLEM OF IMMIGRATION 369
XVIII. THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM 381
XIX. OTHER POINTS OF VIEW 416
BIBLIOGRAPHY 439
INDEX 451
IMMIGRATION
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The study of immigration is a part of the study of the dispersion of the
human race over the surface of the earth, but only one of the most
recent parts. The most important population movements by which the
habitable portions of the globe became peopled took place long before
there was anything which might accurately be styled immigration. The
dawn of the historical period found the principal sections of the
earth’s surface already inhabited by races not widely different from
those now native to them.
About the early movements by which man was scattered from his original
home to the four corners of the globe we have as yet little definite
information. It seems safe to conclude that they must have resembled the
instinctive movements of animals more closely than the rational
movements of modern man. They must have been gradual, by slow stages,
and in immediate response to the demands of the food supply or of the
changing climate. Such movements, which may be designated by the term
“wandering,” were the necessary precursors of the more recent
developments. They furnish the background for the historic period, and
constitute the original factors in modern relations. They may be taken
for granted, and a detailed knowledge of them is not necessary for an
understanding or investigation of such a historic question as
immigration.
The word “immigration” is one of those terms which are in common use in
everyday speech, and which convey a certain general impression to the
hearer, but which need to be given a limited and specific meaning when
used in a scientific study. Many vague and erroneous notions about
immigration may be traced to the failure of those using the word to form
an exact idea of its connotation. Particularly is it necessary to
distinguish clearly between immigration and certain other forms of
population movements to which the term is frequently applied.
There are three of these forms of movement. They all fall within the
historical period, and consequently we have some definite information
about them. They may be designated as invasion, conquest, and
colonization. These, with immigration, all have this in common, that
they are reasoned movements arising after man had progressed far enough
in the scale of civilization to have a fixed abiding place. That is,
they are definite movements from one place to another. This
distinguishes them from what has been called “wandering,” and justifies
including them in a separate category, to which the general name
“migration” may be given. In using this term for this purpose, however,
we must rid our minds of the association which it has with the movements
of animals and birds. When we speak of the migrations of birds we
customarily refer to seasonal changes of location, occurring regularly
year by year. They are not cases of a change of home, but of having two
homes at the same time.
Man, too, has his seasonal movements. It is a very common practice of
primitive men to move from one location to another at different times in
the year in the pursuit of food, seeking a certain locality at the time
that a particular fruit ripens there, or a certain bird lays its eggs.
“The Haida Indians of British Columbia annually voyage as many as 500
miles southward to Puget Sound to lay in a supply of dried clams and
oysters for their own consumption and for trade.”[1] Many nomadic tribes
follow the pasture from the lowlands to the highlands, and from south to
north, as the seasons change. Even civilized man, in his highest
development, has his seasonal journeyings, from his summer home to his
winter home, and back. But none of these comings and goings deserve to
be included as true movements of peoples, or to be called migrations in
the present sense. Migration involves an actual and permanent change of
residence. It thus becomes evident that migrations can occur only in the
most rudimentary form among people in the hunting stage; more developed
cases may occur among pastoral people, when they change their base of
operation, as when the Israelites moved from Canaan into Egypt, and back
after several generations; but in its most complete form, migration
appears only after man has reached the agricultural stage.
Since man, when he migrates, leaves a fixed home in response to a
rational impulse, there must be some definable cause for the migration.
There are certain general causes which are found to underlie all
migratory movements, and which are worthy of examination. In the first
place we find that the cause of a migratory movement must be a powerful
one. Man inevitably becomes attached to the locality in which he finds
himself placed. Bonds of many kinds arise to tie him to his home. Among
these may be mentioned family connections, sentimental associations,
familiar customs and habits of the community, political and religious
attachments, business interests, property owned, superstitious
veneration for graves. All of these, and others, unite to make the home
ties very strong. The life of man is closely bound up with his
environment, and a change of environment is a momentous event. As a
result, there is a marked inertia, a resistance to pressure, among human
beings, and the presumption is that people will stay where they are,
unless some positive force causes them to move. And no trivial occasion
will suffice.
This force, which results in movement, may be a very complex one, but in
general it must present one of two aspects—it must be either attractive
or repellent. Men are either drawn or driven to break the ties which
bind them to their native locality. The attractive force must, of
course, exist in the country which is the objective point, the repellent
force, in the existing environment. This distinction is well brought out
by Professor Otis T. Mason, who classifies the causes of migration into
“positive”—advantages, satisfactions, etc.—and “negative”—discomforts,
compulsions, etc.[2] In view of the strength of the “home ties,”
however, it is evident that the repellent type of forces must be much
the more important. It would have to be a very alluring prospect indeed
that would lead a man to leave a spot where he was contented. In fact we
can hardly conceive of a man deserting a spot where he was really
contented. There must be some dissatisfaction with existing conditions
to induce him to take the step. Attractions often operate by inducing
dissatisfactions, through comparison. There is no attraction in a
foreign region unless it seems superior to the home surroundings. Then
the home conditions appear inferior, and there is dissatisfaction. This
is what Professor Sumner called a process of idealization.
It may be well, also, to distinguish between the causes and motives of
migration. Motives are subjective feelings existing within the
individual which inspire his actions. They are the immediate forces
which lead to movement, and may be divided into the same two general
classes as causes. Causes are objective forces or conditions existing
outside of the individual, which react upon him. They may exist in the
physical environment or in the human environment, and operate by
arousing motives, which in turn are the immediate springs of conduct.
Since human nature is everywhere enough alike so that similar causes
arouse similar motives, and since motives can hardly arise without some
exterior cause, in our search for the origins of migratory movements it
will ordinarily be sufficient to examine merely the causes. Thus in
almost every case of migration we are justified in looking for some
cause of a repellent nature, some dissatisfaction, disability,
discontent, hardship, or other disturbing condition.[3]
These discomforts may arise in any of the various interests of human
life, and may be classified according to almost any classification which
will include those interests. Probably the most satisfactory is the
familiar one of Economic, Political, Social, and Religious. The economic
causes of migrations are the earliest and by far the most important.
They arise in connection with man’s efforts to make his living, and
concern all interests which are connected with his productive efforts.
They are disabilities or handicaps which affect his pursuit of food,
clothing, and shelter, as well as the less necessary comforts of life.
These are vital interests, and any dissatisfaction connected with them
is of great weight with men.
There is a wide variety of economic causes of migration, of which the
following may be noted. Permanent natural inhospitableness of soil or
climate or scarcity of natural resources may make the struggle for
existence a perpetually hard one. Temporary natural calamities, such as
drought, famine, flood, extreme seasons, etc., may interrupt the course
of an ordinarily tolerable existence. Serious underdevelopment of the
industrial arts may make life difficult in a nation by limiting the
productive power of its citizens or handicapping them in the struggle
for trade. A common economic cause of migration is overpopulation. This
means that the population of a region has increased to the point where,
under the existing industrial conditions, there are too many people for
the supporting power of the soil. In man’s struggle with nature for a
time an increase in numbers is an advantage. But there comes a point
where the ratio between men and land reaches such an equilibrium that
any increase in the number of men means a smaller amount of the
materials of existence for each one.[4] This results in hardship and
dissatisfaction. Many migratory movements, particularly in the case of
primitive men, or men on a low stage of culture, may be very simply
explained by overpopulation.
Political causes are those connected with the organization of government
or the actions of the governing power. In this case the dissatisfaction
arises from the failure of the individual or group to secure what is
believed to be a rightful share in the control of the government, or in
some positive repressive or persecuting measures on the part of the
governing body toward some of its citizens. Hence we may look for
motives of infringed liberty, lack of freedom, or the feeling of
oppression. A bad government may put such handicaps on the entire body
of its citizens as to make life unsatisfactory to them.
Where social causes of migration exist, the dissatisfaction arises from
some fault in the social organization. Some classes or individuals are
subjected to a feeling of inferiority to other classes or individuals. A
caste, or aristocratic, organization of society gives certain classes an
advantage over others, and makes it impossible for the lower classes to
rise to a higher level. In case people living under these conditions
learn of another region where advancement is possible, migration may
easily ensue.
Religious causes include those cases where restrictions are placed on
certain members of the body politic because of their religious beliefs
or practices. There may be actual persecution, though this is coming to
be somewhat rare in modern times. The oppression may manifest itself in
various disadvantages, imposed on other interests of life, but which are
primarily due to religious differences. The great historical example of
this class of causes is found in the case of the Jews.
All of these kinds of causes may overlap, and almost always two or more
of them exist in conjunction. Cases where social causes alone account
for a migration are rare. They are frequently, however, a contributory
factor. The economic causes are by far the most important and universal,
though we need frequently to look for other causes back of them.
Political maladjustments often express themselves through economic or
social disabilities, religious differences through economic and social
limitations, etc. In any actual case of migration it is probable that
the motives of migration will be due to a complication of causes. This
fourfold classification, however, is of great aid in isolating and
understanding the underlying forces.
The effects of migratory movements, involving the transference of bodies
of people from one region to another, are far-reaching and extremely
diversified. They concern both the country of origin and the country of
destination. They differ widely in specific cases, so much so that it is
scarcely possible to lay down any general rules or conclusions which
will be of value. They manifest themselves under three main heads, viz.
the density of population, the physical stock, and the customs and
institutions, or mores. The most obvious effect, and the one which is
commonly assumed to follow any migration, is a decrease in the
population of the country of source, and an increase in that of the
country of destination. But even this, as will appear hereafter, is not
by any means the universal rule. There is commonly some effect on the
physical stock of the country receiving the migrants. This effect may
vary between wide extremes. Whether the customs and institutions shall
be also affected depends upon a variety of circumstances which are
likely to make each instance distinctive. There is scarcely one of the
vital interests of either country concerned which may not be deeply
affected by an important migratory movement. But the factors concerned
are so complicated, and so subject to individual variation, that
movements which bear a general resemblance may have very diverse
effects, and each case must be studied by itself.
As to the routes or channels of migratory movements, it may be said that
in general they follow the lines of least resistance, as determined by
the combination of all the forces involved. The closer the movement is
to a purely natural one, the more it will follow the natural routes
marked out by the configuration of the earth. River valleys, such as the
Danube in Europe and the Ohio in America, have always been favorite
migratory routes. If mountains have to be traversed, the easiest passes
will be chosen, such as the Cumberland Gap in the United States. In
general, water has been a bond and not a barrier between different
lands, and the earliest routes of distant travel were undoubtedly by
water. Greece became the source of numerous migratory movements partly
because of her extended coast line.[5]
Having thus considered some of the essential features of migration as a
whole, it will be well to distinguish further between the four great
types of migrations to which reference has been made. One of the
earliest, simplest, and most natural of migratory movements is the
invasion. This occurs when a rude people, on a low stage of culture, but
with much native physical virility, leaves its location, and overruns
the territory of a more highly developed state. It is a movement _en
masse_, involving the whole, or a large portion, of the tribe. The tribe
acts as a unit, and the end sought is the benefit of the tribe as a
tribe, not of any individuals. The forces back of it approach the
unconscious and irrational, characteristic of wandering, more closely
than in any other form of migration.
The power of the invasion lies in brute force and numbers. It is a case
of a lower civilization temporarily overcoming a higher one—temporarily,
because the rude virility which enables the invaders to maintain their
own customs for a time succumbs eventually to the enervating influence
of a civilization to which it is not trained. Civilization in the end
proves itself more permanent than barbarism. This result is often
furthered by the fact that the physical stock of the higher race is
improved by the infusion of new blood from the very foreigners who are
attacking it. This effect upon the physical stock may be very profound
and lasting, as an invasion customarily involves large numbers of
people. But while the invaders may succeed in checking the progress of
civilization for a time, they seldom leave any permanent monuments of
themselves, either material or institutional. They are not likely to
affect the language, religion, or social customs of the invaded nation
to an important degree. The mores are more enduring than the racial
stock of the people who possess them.
There have been numerous instances of invasions in the history of
Europe. In fact, the barbarian invasions are perhaps the most important
single factor in the history of that continent during the Dark Ages. An
excellent example is furnished by the Goths, particularly by the eastern
division of that people. The original home of this people was in East
Prussia, near the Baltic and the Vistula, where they were known in Roman
days as traders in amber. There were two principal branches, the western
or Visigoths, and the eastern or Ostrogoths. Their physical and mental
characters were well marked and definite. In physique they were tall,
blond, and athletic, in disposition brave and generous, patient under
hardship, chaste and affectionate in their family relations. As to their
habits of life before their migration, we have no very complete picture.
In general, they seem to have been living on the pastoral-agricultural
stage. They had no cities or villages, but lived in scattered dwellings
upon farms, which they cultivated with the aid of slaves descended from
captives. Much of the land was held in common, and upon it were pastured
the vast herds of cattle which constituted their chief subsistence. The
powers of government were centralized in a king, chosen by popular voice
from certain great families. They had progressed far enough in learning
to have an alphabet, but had not developed any written literature.
It is evident, then, that the Goths were a settled people, and while the
ties which bound them to their home land were not very complex, and they
were undoubtedly used to long warlike expeditions, yet there must have
been some powerful motives to induce them to leave a land where they had
become so well established. As to the exact nature of these motives, and
the causes which lay back of them, there is no accurate record. It is
not probable that they were driven out by the pressure of stronger
neighbors. “Most likely it was simply the natural increase of their
population, aided perhaps by the failure of their harvests or the
outbreak of a pestilence, that made them sensible of the poverty of
their country, and led them to cast longing eyes towards the richer and
more genial lands farther to the south, of which they had heard, and
which some of them may have visited.”[6] This explanation is admittedly
largely based on guess. But it has every element of probability and
marks the movement of the Goths as a perfectly typical example of a
migration due to economic causes, natural overpopulation, augmented by
temporary natural calamity, arousing motives of dissatisfaction through
comparison with other seemingly more desirable regions.
Whatever the causes, the Goths determined to move. Uniting with the
Gepids, Herules, and some other kindred peoples, they formed a great
throng, which moved through what is now western Russia to the shores of
the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. Thence they journeyed westward to the
north bank of the Danube. On the way they were joined by other groups of
people, of Slavonic race. Their real history may be said to begin about
245 A.D., when they were living near the mouth of the Danube, under the
rule of the Ostrogoths. For about twenty years they had been the allies
of the Romans, who paid them money to defend their borders from the
attacks of other would-be invaders. The Roman emperor, Philip the Arab,
put an end to this payment, thereby arousing the anger of the
Ostrogoths, who crossed the Danube and plundered the Roman provinces.
This was the beginning of a long series of invasions extending down into
Greece and Asia Minor. Many cities were plundered cruelly and brutally.
Fortunately for civilization, however, the Goths had been converted to
Christianity in the meantime, so that the army which finally entered and
devastated Rome in the year 410 was not the utterly barbarous throng
which had started on the journey from northern Europe. Their leader,
Alaric, was himself a Christian and did what he could to restrain the
natural passions of his followers. Yet in spite of all, the sack of Rome
was a cruel and bloodthirsty affair.
It is characteristic of an invasion that over two centuries were
consumed in the journey from the old home to Rome, so that no single
individual of those who started on the undertaking lived to reach the
final destination. For nearly a century and a half after the fall of
Rome the Ostrogoths lived in or near Italy. Their fortunes in war
fluctuated, and for a time, under Theodoric, they were the masters of
the peninsula. Their kindred, the Visigoths, were in the meantime
settled in Gaul and Spain. Finally, in the year 553, after repeated
reverses, the Ostrogoths retired from Italy to the north, and as a
people disappeared from history, leaving scarcely a trace behind. The
Franks were never driven from Gaul, but eventually lost their native
language and became absorbed in the people whom they had invaded. The
Goths “have bequeathed to the world no treasures of literature, no
masterpieces of art, no splendid buildings. They have left no conscious
impress on the manners or the institutions of any modern European
people.”[7] Even Gothic architecture has no historic connection with the
people whose name it bears.
Other barbarian tribes invaded Europe at about the same time as the
Goths, and during the succeeding centuries. One of the most powerful was
the Huns, a people of rude culture but great virility, belonging
probably to the Mongolic or Tatar stock, who appeared about the fourth
century A.D. They were followed by other races from the same general
region and belonging to the same great stock, the Avars who arrived
about 555, and the Magyars who put in an appearance at the close of the
ninth century. The most recent explanation of the migrations of these
Asiatic tribes is that their habitat suffered a change of climate from
one of those great cycles about which we are beginning to have some
information, which resulted in drying up the region, and furnishing a
much smaller amount of subsistence than the people had been accustomed
to. This is overpopulation, and furnishes another case of that great
economic cause.[8] Another powerful Asiatic invader was Timur or
Tamerlane, who with his Tatar hordes devastated Asia Minor during the
latter part of the fourteenth century.
A conquest is almost the reverse of an invasion. In this case the people
of higher culture take the aggressive. It is an overflow of
civilization, of manners, of organization, of government,—not to any
great extent, of population. Conquest occurs when a well-developed
state, full of vigor, sends its armies over the territory of less
advanced peoples, imposing its political system upon them, and laying
them under tribute, but not slaying the people or destroying their
wealth any more than is necessary to secure subjection. It is an
enterprise of the state, seeking its own glory and aggrandizement. The
movement of population to the conquered territory may be insignificant,
and in this, conquest differs from all the other forms of migratory
movements. Consequently the effects on the racial stock of the conquered
people may be very slight, and in most cases are. The effect on the
mores, on the other hand, including the language, may be profound and
lasting. Conquest differs from the other forms of migration also in the
fact that the motives belong more nearly to the positive, or attractive,
group than in any of the others. It is energy, ambition, etc., which
lead to conquest rather than fear, cowardice, etc. Many of the
individuals who change their residence under conquest are state
officials, sent out in the pursuit of their duties to the sovereign, not
because of any particular choice of their own.
It scarcely need be said that the great historical example of conquest
is Rome. Her policy was to extend her dominion by making outlying tribes
realize that it was to their advantage to acknowledge her sway and pay
tribute. So long as they did this quietly and regularly, little else was
required of them. As far as possible, the native governmental
organization was continued, and simply grafted on to the great Roman
stock, the native officials being made subordinates in the Roman
organization. Roman traders came and went, carrying culture and
civilization with them, and exerting a powerful influence on the mores
of the provinces, but the permanent movement of people from the central
state was comparatively slight. Alexander the Great was a spreader of
conquest, though his early death destroyed whatever possibility there
may have been of his establishing a permanent empire. The career of the
British government in India has many of the characteristics of conquest.
Native rajahs are, to a great extent, utilized as officials of the
British government, and there is no large migration of people from
England to India, save those connected in some way with the government
service, or persons engaged in commercial pursuits, who maintain their
permanent home in England. But the influence on the mores of the native
inhabitants is great.
The third form of migratory movement, which has a particularly close
connection with immigration, is colonization. This occurs when a
well-established, progressive, and physically vigorous state sends out
bodies of citizens, officially as a rule, to settle in certain specified
localities. The regions chosen are newly discovered or thinly settled
countries, where the native inhabitants are so few, or are on such an
inferior stage of culture that they offer but slight resistance to the
entrance of the colonists. For while the two previous forms of migration
have been warlike, colonization is essentially a peaceful movement. The
rivalry for certain favored localities may involve the colonizing power
in war with other civilized nations who desire the same thing, but as
far as the seizure of the colony itself is concerned, it requires slight
military exertion. Colonization, like conquest, is a state enterprise,
conducted for the benefit of the state, but differs from it in that its
motive is rather the commercial advancement of the state than its
military or political aggrandizement. Colonization has often been
resorted to, also, when a state has believed itself to be overpopulated,
and has aimed directly at improving the condition of its citizens, both
those who go and those who are left,—something that is scarcely dreamed
of under conquest. Several classifications of colonies have been made.
The most satisfactory is that adopted by Professor A. G. Keller, which
makes a twofold division into farm and plantation colonies.[9] These
differ from each other so much in their essential characteristics that
it will be well to examine them separately, before making any further
generalizations regarding colonies as a whole.
This classification is based on the typical form of the industrial
organization in the colony. As colonies are always new and undeveloped
regions, the fundamental industry is always of an extractive nature,
almost universally agriculture in some form, though it may be mining or
fishing. Practically all important colonies in the history of the
movement, however, have been agricultural, so that the above division
serves every purpose. In the first place, it must be noted that
practically all colonizing nations have been situated in the north
temperate zone, and primarily in Europe. Outside of this continent,
Phœnicia and China are the sole important representatives. These, with
Greece and Rome, made up the colonizing powers of the ancient world. As
far as modern colonizing nations are concerned, the question is limited
to the countries of Europe.
A farm colony springs up in a region similar to that held by the
colonizing state, that is to say, in the temperate zone. Colonies of
this class have appeared both north and south of the equator. The
requirements are that the conditions of soil and climate be such as to
make the products of the colony similar to those of the home state, and
to render acclimatization either unnecessary or very easy.
Under these conditions, a large movement of population takes place from
the home state to the colony, and it is a movement of families. Men find
it possible to take their wives and children with them, and a normal
population is established in the new land. Agriculture may be taken up
according to the methods with which the colonists are familiar in the
old country. As land is abundant and cheap, each man will prefer, and
will find it possible, to take up a piece of land of his own, and to
cultivate it independently, rather than to hire out his services to any
other cultivator. Consequently, hired agricultural labor is almost
impossible to secure, and each man is compelled to rely on the labor of
himself and his family to cultivate his land. As a result, the typical
agricultural unit becomes the small holding, occupied and tilled by a
single family. The system is further established by the fact that the
products of such a region are well adapted to this form of culture. This
is the typical “farm” organization which gives its name to this class of
colony.
Plantation colonies, on the other hand, arise in regions different in
climate from the home state, that is, in tropical or subtropical
regions. Here conditions of soil and climate are such that the natural
products are of a kind which cannot be raised under home conditions, and
hence are luxuries rather than staples. Acclimatization is practically
impossible for men, and almost wholly so for women, so that normal
family life is precluded for the colonist. Furthermore, as it is
impossible for natives of the temperate zone to engage in agricultural
labor in the tropics, for physiological reasons, all work of that kind
must be performed by the natives, or by other similar races imported for
the purpose. As a rule, the natives do not wish to work, and wages are
no sufficient inducement. Hence they must be made to work, and slavery,
either openly or in one of its disguised forms, appears. Since a very
small number of Europeans will suffice to direct the activities of a
large number of natives, the movement of population from the home state
is small, and we find agriculture in the tropics developing along the
line of a large unit, producing a single commodity, and operated by
compulsory labor, under conditions of waste and exploitation. This is
the typical “plantation.”
Thus we see that the social and industrial conditions are diametrically
opposed in the two forms of colony. In the farm colony we have a
vigorous population, similar in stock to that of the home state, each
family tilling its own piece of land, and largely self-supporting. Under
such conditions large families are an economic advantage, and population
grows rapidly. In the plantation colony the colonists are few and mostly
males, who superintend the cultivation of large estates, with the
purpose of making as much money as possible and getting back to the home
land at the earliest possible moment. As far as the population of the
colony is affected, it is mainly by the growth of a body of half-breeds,
who are always a troublesome class. Morals are low, and life unhealthy
and artificial. In the political interests of the colonies similar
distinctions exist. Life in a farm colony tends to develop enterprise,
independence, and political and social equality. A feeling of patriotism
toward the colony, as distinguished from the home state, inevitably
develops. The manifest destiny of the farm colony is to become an
independent state, either with a wholly separate government, or with
only the most tenuous ties binding it to the home authority. In the
plantation colony life develops along an aristocratic groove, with
well-defined social and political classes. There is no love on the part
of the colonist for the colony as such, and no body of local feeling
grows up among the colonists. This development is furthered by the
customary action of the central government, which regards the farm
colony as of little importance because of the similarity between its
products and her own, but devotes an enormous attention to the
plantation colony because of the apparent importance of its unique
products. Hence the farm colony is left free to develop along natural
lines, while the plantation colony is subjected to all sorts of
artificial restrictions and limitations which hamper its growth. As a
result of all these factors, the plantation colony seldom achieves its
independence, but remains subject to the home state indefinitely.
Examples of farm colonies are the Thirteen Colonies, Canada, New
Zealand, etc.; of plantation colonies, Java, Jamaica, Brazil under the
Portuguese, etc. As will be seen, the farm colony has a peculiarly
intimate relation with immigration movements.
This preliminary survey of the earlier forms of migration prepares the
way for a clear understanding of the characteristic features of the
fourth form. This is immigration, which in many respects differs from
any other population movement. These distinctions merit emphasis.
In the first place, both of the two states concerned in an immigration
movement are well established, and on approximately the same stage of
civilization. Immigration can take place only over what Professor Sumner
calls a single culture-area. Secondly, immigration is a distinctly
individual undertaking. States may direct, control, regulate, or
encourage immigration, but the motives which lead men into this form of
movement are strictly individual ones, and the causes which arouse these
motives are conditions which react upon the individual alone. The end
sought is neither the advantage of the country of origin, nor of the
country of destination, but the improvement of the condition of the
individual.
The two countries concerned in an immigration movement resemble each
other not only in the stage of culture but in climatic conditions and
circumstances of life. There has never been any immigration between the
temperate zones and the tropics, in either direction, nor have the polar
regions ever figured. In fact, practically all immigration, historically
speaking, has been between different countries in the temperate zone.
But while there are these resemblances between the countries concerned,
there must also always be some differences, otherwise there would be no
motive for movement. The first and primary difference between the two
countries is that the one which receives the stream of immigration is
newer, and therefore much less thickly settled, than the other. Other
things being equal, the chances for a comfortable living are greater in
a country where the ratio between men and land is still low. This ratio
between men and land is of extreme importance, and ought never to be
neglected in the discussion of any sociological or economic problem.[10]
It is especially vital as regards migrations, which are so directly
connected with the shifting of populations.
Other differences which may be looked for between the two countries
concerned in an immigration movement are the following: the country of
destination is more democratic than the other, and its people enjoy
greater social and political equality; there is more of individual
freedom of conduct, and fewer traditional or legal restraints; military
burdens are lighter, and there is greater latitude for religious belief
and practice. On the other hand, life in the new country is likely to be
more arduous, industry more insistent, the demands for personal ability
more urgent. These features at once suggest those typical of the farm
colony, and in point of fact we find that practically all countries
which receive large streams of immigrants are developed farm colonies.
These are, at the present time, the United States, Canada, Argentina,
Australia, South Africa, and to a certain extent parts of Asiatic
Russia.
The requirements, then, for an immigration movement are the following:
two well-developed countries, one old and densely populated, the other
new and thinly settled, the two on friendly, or at least peaceable,
terms with each other. For immigration, even more than colonization, is
a phenomenon of peace. On the part of the people who are to take part in
the movement a high degree of civilization is demanded. They must be
trained to act on individual initiative, and must have sufficient
personal enterprise to undertake a weighty venture without an official
or state backing. They must have sufficient intelligence to know about
the objective point, and sufficient accumulated capital to enable them
to get there. There must be adequate, easy, and inexpensive means of
transportation between the two countries, in order to enable any large
number of people to make the journey. The immigrant is not in any sense
an adventurer or explorer. On the part of the nations concerned there
must be a willingness to allow individuals to come and go at their own
pleasure, without any extreme restrictions or regulations. There must be
nothing of the old idea of the feudal bond between the person and the
land.
From the above it appears that immigration must be distinctly a modern
movement. Scarcely one of the foregoing requirements—not to speak of the
conjunction of all of them—is more than three or four centuries old.
Consequently immigration, in the sense in which we have defined it, has
existed only for a comparatively short time, practically since the
Discoveries Period. Moreover, it seems likely to be a purely temporary
phenomenon. With the disappearance of the conditions which differentiate
the countries which are now receiving immigrants from the older European
countries, it seems probable that immigration will cease, for as far as
the human eye can see, there will be no new lands to be opened up for
the purpose.
In addition to these four chief forms of migration, there are certain
other less important forms of which mention should be made to avoid any
confusion. First among these stands what may be called forced migration.
This occurs when bodies of people, for any reason, without any choice of
their own, are compelled to leave a certain region, and go elsewhere,
either with or without a specific destination. A familiar example is
that presented by the Jews, who were expelled from England in 1290, from
France in 1395, and from Spain and Portugal in 1492 and 1495. The Moors
were also expelled from Spain in 1609, on penalty of death. Another
familiar example is that of the Huguenots, who were expelled from France
at the end of the seventeenth century. Such movements as these have
usually resulted in a nation’s losing the most valuable elements of its
population. The cause has usually been religious.
A different type of forced migration has been exemplified in the slave
trade. In this case the migrants are compelled by actual force to go
from one region to another specified one. The movement of the Africans
to America is a familiar example. The motive is the economic one of
securing a supply of labor at a minimum expense. Still another type is
furnished by the penal colonies, such as have been established in
Australia and elsewhere. All these forms of forced migration are
evidently different in principle and in most of their characteristics
from the great types of migration which have been mentioned. Their study
is a subject by itself.
Still another form of migration is what is known as the internal or
intra-state migration. This is manifestly going on all the time in every
civilized country. It is only when it involves large masses of people,
moving in certain well-defined directions, with a community of motives
and purposes, that it deserves to be classed with the great population
movements. Then it may become of great interest and significance, as in
the case of the great westward movement of the people of the United
States. It is evidently a wholly different matter from the other forms
which have been emphasized.
There is, of course, also a continual passage of individuals between all
the nations of the earth, in every direction. A permanent change of
residence is frequently involved. These movements, obviously, may not
correspond to any of the principles which have been laid down for any
specific form of migration, and, if they were sufficiently numerous,
would constitute exceptions to all that has been said. In point of fact,
they are isolated, scattered, and occasional. They do not rank in any
sense as movements of peoples, nor do they complicate the discussion of
the great sociological phenomena in which we are interested.
CHAPTER II
THE UNITED STATES. COLONIAL PERIOD
In taking up the special study of immigration, it is necessary to bear
in mind at the outset that the word is to be used in a limited and
semitechnical sense. It is not always so used in common speech nor even
in scientific writings, and much confusion and inaccuracy not
infrequently result. Let us state once more exactly what is meant by
immigration. Immigration is a movement of people, individually or in
families, acting on their own personal initiative and responsibility,
without official support or compulsion, passing from one well-developed
country (usually old and thickly settled) to another well-developed[11]
country (usually new and sparsely populated) with the intention of
residing there permanently. The same movement may equally well be
referred to as emigration. It is obviously only a question of the point
of view. The two words may be used interchangeably without danger of
confusion, if the point of view is regarded. There is only one movement,
and one set of people, emigrating from one country and immigrating to
another.[12]
As observed in the foregoing chapter, immigration is a movement which
could not have originated before the Discoveries Period, and did not, in
fact, become a matter of much importance until a century or so later.
The countries which are now the objective points of large streams of
immigration are, without exception, countries which have been opened up
since that epoch. An exhaustive study of immigration should take up each
of these countries in turn, and examine conditions in Canada, Argentina,
South Africa, Australasia, and the United States. The plan of the
present volume does not include so exhaustive a treatment; it is
intended primarily for American readers. The specific study of
immigration will be limited to the United States. This is the more
justifiable, inasmuch as the United States is, beyond comparison, the
foremost country in immigration movements, both in point of numbers and
of world interest. All the fundamental principles of immigration are
exemplified here more fully than in any other country. To the citizen of
the United States it is a matter of the greatest importance and
interest, for it has to do with a unique subject—the make-up of the
American people itself.
The history of immigration into the United States may for convenience be
divided into five periods. The first of these includes the time between
the first settlement of the North American colonies and the year 1783.
This date is chosen for the end of this first period because, as
Professor Mayo-Smith has expressed it, “At that time the state was
established, and any further additions to the population had little
influence in changing its form or the language and customs of the
people.”[13] The second period, from 1783 to 1820, marks the beginning
of national life. It was a period of small immigration, and closes with
the year in which federal statistics were first collected in regard to
the stream of immigration. The third period begins in 1820 and ends
roughly about 1860. This period is marked by the beginning and
culmination of the first great rise in the immigration stream, by a
growing opposition to the immigrant, and by state control of the
admission of aliens. The period from 1860 to 1882 begins with the Civil
War agitation, witnesses the disappearance of state control, and closes
with the year in which the first immigration law was passed by the
federal government. The fifth, or modern, period is from 1882 to the
present. Other features which distinguish and separate these periods
will manifest themselves as the periods are examined more closely.
It is customary with some writers, as, for instance, Professor
Mayo-Smith in the reference above quoted, to include all movements of
people into the North American colonies, previous to the Revolution,
under the head of colonization, and to call everything after the
beginning of national life immigration. The second part of this
classification accords with the definitions given above, but the first
part does not. For it will be remembered that colonization refers to
movements of people from a central state to its dependencies, while
immigration is a movement from the territory of one nation to that of
another. The fact that the receiving region is itself a colony does not
alter the case. Hence, in so far as the people who came to the North
American colonies in the early days came from a state to which the
region where they were going was subject, they were true colonists. They
were simply going from one part of a national territory to another. But
all who came from any European state to a dependency of another
state—and there were a goodly number of them—were immigrants. Thus, even
in colonial days, there were both colonization and immigration.
In establishing this distinction it must be noted that while the
colonies were undeveloped as regards their natural resources, they were
highly developed in respect to their stage of civilization and their
advancement in the arts. In this respect they were the peers of the most
cultivated European states of the period. The factors which gave a
primitive aspect to life in the colonies were due to the newness of the
settlement and the sparseness of the population. These were, in turn,
just the factors which made them desirable to immigrants and colonists
alike.
The truth of this position is further established by the fact that this
distinction was clearly recognized by the early settlers themselves. A
very different attitude was manifested in the colonies toward persons
who came from the home state than toward those from any other country.
The former were generally welcomed; the latter were regarded with
suspicion, if not actual hostility. The history of immigration to the
North American continent reaches far back toward the days of the
earliest settlement, and many of the characteristic problems and
arguments connected with the immigration situation were familiar long
before the Revolution. A familiarity with these early aspects of the
question furnishes many enlightening comparisons and parallels, and is
of great value in correctly estimating the modern situation.
The peopling of the North American continent by persons of north
European stock began with the formation by James I of England of two
companies of settlement in the year 1606. These were known as the London
Company and the Plymouth Company. To the former was granted the
territory on the North American coast between 34 and 38 degrees north
latitude, though these boundaries were somewhat extended in 1609. To the
latter was assigned the region from 41 to 45 degrees. This left a
section of unassigned territory between, extending from the Rappahannock
to the Hudson rivers. This was open to settlement by either company,
with the stipulation that neither was to plant a settlement within one
hundred miles of a previous settlement of the other. Neither of these
companies, however, ever made any very extensive achievements in
colonization, and both gave up their charters in the course of a few
years, the London Company in 1624 and the other in 1635.
Before the charters were surrendered, however, settlements had been
started in both territories. In Virginia, the province of the London
Company, the first shipload of adventurers from London arrived in the
year 1607. But twelve years of hard and painful struggle were required
to establish this settlement as a permanent and self-maintaining colony.
It is interesting to note that at this time, and in this place, one of
the greatest of our national racial problems had its commencement,
through the introduction of a number of African slaves from a Dutch
vessel in 1619. The settlers in this region were, in part, adventurers,
younger sons of noble families, and other members of the aristocracy who
found it advisable to leave England, and in part rather unworthy
representatives of the lower classes. A combination of political,
social, and economic causes was responsible for their coming.
The settlers of the northern colony, in the territory of the Plymouth
Company, were of a different class of the population. Their motives for
coming were also different, being primarily of a religious character.
These colonists were separatists from the Church of England, who fled
first to Holland, and from there came to America in 1620, landing in
what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. In this colony, also, the process
of settlement was slow, and there were very few arrivals for ten years.
In 1630, however, about one thousand colonists, Puritans but not
separatists, came over, and settled in Massachusetts Bay. This was the
real beginning of the history of the Massachusetts colony, which in time
absorbed also the Plymouth colony. Once started, population in this
colony advanced very rapidly, and overflowed into the neighboring
regions, forming the colonies of Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and the
river towns of Connecticut.
In the meantime the Dutch were taking possession of the unassigned
central region. New Netherland was organized under the Dutch West India
Company in 1621, and the city at the mouth of the Hudson was named New
Amsterdam. Sweden, too, was trying to get a foothold in the new country
and sent a party of colonists to Delaware Bay in 1638. This was not
successful, however, and surrendered to the Dutch in 1655, so that
Sweden never achieved prominence as a colonizing power in the New World.
With the growth of the English colonies in the north and south, this
central territory in the hands of a foreign power came to be recognized
as a source of annoyance and danger, and on the occasion of a war with
Holland, England sent over a fleet and took possession of the whole
intervening region, forming the colonies of New York and New Jersey. In
1681 the territory of Pennsylvania was granted for settlement to William
Penn, and thus the whole Atlantic coast from Canada to Florida became a
field of colonization, subject to the English authority.
The study of the formation of the American people as a separate nation
is of peculiar interest, because it has taken place within a recent
historical period, and we can study the original elements from the time
when they first settled in the country. This is not true of any of the
nations of Europe.
The foundation of the new people consisted of colonists from England.
They were the original settlers, and during the entire colonial period
they continued to contribute to the growing population. In addition to
these there was the Dutch element, which became well established when
New York was a Dutch colony. Aside from the colonists, there was a large
and important contribution from other European nations, people from
practically every country on the continent. These were the true
immigrants. The colonies which were most affected by arrivals of this
sort were the central ones, particularly New York and Pennsylvania, and
above all the latter. This was due to their location, the attitude of
their proprietors, and the feeling and conduct of the original settlers.
The attitude of William Penn was decidedly liberal, and Pennsylvania
advanced in population accordingly. Penn advertised his colony widely,
and when he came over in 1682 there were already six thousand Swedish,
Dutch, and English settlers there. Others came rapidly, prominent among
them English Quakers, Scottish and Irish Presbyterians, German
Mennonites, and French Huguenots. These religious designations are
significant of the preponderance of the religious element in the
immigration of the day.
Throughout the colonial period this class of causes was an underlying
factor in most of the important migrations to America, both colonization
and immigration. The Protestant Reformation, and the intellectual and
social movements which went with it, had a profound effect upon the
contentment of large masses of the people of Europe, and made that
continent a very undesirable place of residence for many of them. That
political causes should have been closely combined with the religious
ones was inevitable, on account of the intimate relation between
religion and government, and the practice of using political power to
secure religious ends, and _vice versa_. These two classes of causes
were the prevailing and characteristic ones during this period.
The religious tolerance and freedom which characterized Pennsylvania was
therefore one of the chief factors which drew immigrants of every
nationality to it, and it quickly became the most cosmopolitan of all
the colonies. Penn’s agents were particularly active in Germany, with
the result that in twenty years the Germans numbered nearly one half the
population of the colony.
With the beginning of the eighteenth century two currents of immigration
rapidly outdistanced all others in numbers, importance, and the amount
of attention which they attracted. These were the Palatines and the
Scotch-Irish. Throughout the rest of the colonial period they held the
center of the stage in the immigration situation.
The Palatines were so called because their original home was in what was
known as the Palatinate. This was a section of Germany lying on both
sides of the Rhine from Cologne to Mannheim. It was divided into two
parts, the upper and the lower, from the latter of which most of the
immigration came. The position of this country brought it into close
relations with the spirit of the Reformation, and large bodies of the
population became Protestant, both Reformed and Lutheran. The rulers of
the Palatinate, the Electors Palatine, swung back and forth between
Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Roman Catholicism, and since each successive
ruler wished his subjects to conform to his religious views, the
miserable people suffered accordingly. Both of the two great wars
between 1684 and 1713, the War of the Grand Alliance and the War of the
Spanish Succession, had borne heavily on the Palatinate, which had long
been the object of Louis XIV’s most covetous desire. The second ruthless
devastation which the country experienced during the latter of these
wars reduced the people to the lowest pitch of misery and desperation.
Meanwhile their ruler, John William, was trying to force the whole of
the people back into Catholicism. “To the people already suffering from
the intolerable hardships which the cruelest of wars had thrust upon
them, this persecuting spirit of their prince came as the last impulse
to break off their attachment to the fatherland and send them to make
new homes in distant America.” Thus began the great exodus, from a
combination of political and religious causes, in entire harmony with
the spirit of the age.
The Elector Palatine resisted the emigration, and adopted various
measures to check it, among them an edict threatening death to all who
should attempt to emigrate. As usual, such efforts were powerless to
check a natural movement. The first detachment to leave was apparently a
small band which, after many wanderings, settled in New Jersey in 1707.
In 1708 a small company came to London and asked to be sent to America.
They were sent to New York at public expense, and were furnished with
farm implements; nevertheless, they fell into want and had to be aided
by the colonial council. The next year about thirteen thousand Palatines
arrived in London by way of Rotterdam. They were, for the most part,
absolutely penniless, and in rags. England responded nobly to the burden
thus cast upon her. Queen Anne allowed ninepence per day each for their
subsistence, and they were housed in army tents set up in vacant lots,
and in barns and warehouses. This piece of benevolence is said to have
cost England, in public and private expenditures, the sum of £135,000.
Some of these refugees were sent to Ireland, but large numbers of them
eventually found their way to America. A large shipment arrived in the
Carolinas in 1709.
The largest detachment, however, was a body of three thousand who
arrived in New York, from England, in the early summer of 1710. This is
said to have been the largest body of immigrants to have arrived in this
country at one time during the colonial period. They have been
characterized as perhaps the most miserable and most hopeful set of
people ever set down on our shores. In spite of their poverty, they
manifested a stern and determined spirit in their fight for their faith
and home. To the shame of the New York colonists, it is recorded that
they were welcomed with privation, distress, fraud, and cruel
disappointment. They were cheated and oppressed by the heartless and
rapacious settlers, to whom their helplessness made them easy victims.
It was by such practices as these that New York diverted many streams of
immigration from her territory to that of her neighbors, particularly
Pennsylvania.[14]
The second great stream of immigration during the colonial period was
composed of the Scotch-Irish, who were for a long time called merely
“Irish.” Neither name denominates them accurately, as, in the words of
Professor Commons, they “are very little Scotch and much less
Irish.”[15] They are in fact the most composite of all the people of the
British Isles, being a mixture of the primitive Scot and Pict, the
primitive Briton and Irish, and a larger admixture of Norwegian, Dane,
Saxon, and Angle. They were called Scots because they lived originally
in Scotia, and Irish because they moved to Ireland.
James the First resolved to make Catholic Ireland a Protestant country,
and with this in view dispossessed the native chiefs in Ulster, giving
their lands to Scottish and English lords on condition that they settle
the territory with tenants from Scotland and England. Thus about 1610
many people from Scotia moved to Ulster, and from that time on were
called Irish, though there was only a slight trace of Irish blood in
their veins. It was nearly a century later that conditions arose which
began to predispose them to emigration in large numbers. In 1698, on the
complaint, from English manufacturers, of Irish competition, the Irish
Parliament, a tool of the British crown, passed an act totally
forbidding the exportation of Irish woolens, and another act forbidding
the exportation of Irish wool to any country save England. The linen
industry was also discriminated against. These acts nearly destroyed the
industry of Ulster, and aroused great discontent. Next the people were
compelled to take the communion of the established church in order to
hold office, which practically deprived them of self-government, as they
were unwilling to renounce their native Presbyterianism for political
ends. Soon after, their hundred-year leases began to run out, and when
the land was auctioned off the low-living Irish could offer higher rents
than they, and consequently they lost much of their land. The ensuing
large emigration was thus the result of dissatisfaction due to an
interesting combination of economic, political, and religious causes.
It is said that in 1718 forty-two hundred of the Scotch-Irish left for
America, and that after the famine of 1740 there were twelve thousand
who departed annually. In the half century preceding the American
Revolution, one hundred fifty thousand or more came to America. They
were by far the largest contribution of any foreign race to the people
of America during the eighteenth century, and constituted a strong
element in the army at the time of the Revolution.
At the time of the arrival of the Scotch-Irish in America, the lands
along the Atlantic coast were already well occupied, and they were
compelled to move on into the interior. The traditional religious
exclusiveness of Massachusetts and the well-settled character of the
country prevented them from settling in the eastern portions of that
colony. Consequently they chose as their destination New Hampshire,
Vermont, western Massachusetts, and Maine, and most of all Pennsylvania
and the foothill regions of Virginia and the Carolinas. They were by
nature typical pioneers, and gradually pushed their way into western
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee. They were the one race
sufficiently unified, endowed with the spirit of liberty, and scattered
throughout the colonies, to serve as the amalgamating force binding all
the other races into one—the American type.[16]
During the whole of the eighteenth century, up to the time of the
Revolution, representatives of these two races continued to arrive in
increasing numbers. The Palatines, though less numerous than the
Scotch-Irish, seem to have attracted more attention. The general
attitude of the colonists toward these immigrants was one of welcome, or
at the least of toleration. This was natural under the conditions of the
time. It must ever be borne in mind that the distinguishing feature of
the situation in this country during the colonial period was a
superabundance of fertile soil, rich in a variety of natural resources,
and a scarcity of men. That is, the ratio between men and land was low.
Hence there was a great demand for settlers, and newcomers were believed
to be, and were, an asset to the community. A certain degree of rivalry
and jealousy between the colonies, leading them to covet a rapid
increase in population, contributed to this sentiment.
At the same time, there can be no doubt that there was a decided
preference for colonists over immigrants. This was partly due to a
natural race prejudice, but it was augmented by the character of the
immigrants at that time. Considering the nature of the conditions which
led to emigration from both Ireland and Germany, it is not surprising
that a majority of the newcomers were characterized by extreme
destitution. As might also be expected from the frightful shipping
conditions which then existed, many of them arrived in wretched
condition physically. The voyage was long, the ships were small, poorly
ventilated, shockingly overcrowded, and totally unprovided with adequate
provisions for sanitation, cleanliness, and culinary facilities. It
seems to have been the expected thing that a large part of every
shipload of immigrants, particularly of the Palatines, should arrive in
a prostrated condition.
There is a record of one ship which made the voyage in 1731 on which
there was such a scarcity of food provided for the passengers that they
“had to live on rats and mice, which were considered dainties. The price
on board for a rat was eighteen pence, and for a mouse an English
sixpence. The captain was under the impression that the passengers had
considerable money and valuables with them, and, believing that he might
profit by it, he endeavored to reduce them to a state of starvation. He
succeeded too well, for out of the 156 passengers only 48 reached
America.”[17]
These wretched victims were of course thrown upon the mercy of the
citizens of the colony in which they landed; Pennsylvania, and
particularly Philadelphia, were especially subject to visitations of
this kind. The generosity with which these unfortunates were cared for
in this colony is remarkable. Nevertheless, the burden was a heavy one,
and the opposition which arose to the free admission of this class of
persons is not to be wondered at. A new country, struggling to subdue
the wilderness and to establish economic independence, welcomes hardy
and industrious laborers, even though they bring little capital with
them. If the poverty of the immigrant is due to no fault of his own, and
is offset by a sound body and a determined spirit of industry, there is
every hope that the influence of the new environment may set him
permanently on his feet. But an influx of people so deficient in moral
or physical stamina as to promise nothing, save an additional burden on
the already strained resources of the community, is naturally and justly
viewed with alarm. Very many of the immigrants of this period belonged
to this type.
As suggested above, the low physical and economic state of many of the
immigrants was due to the conditions and experiences attending the
passage from the old country to the new. Many an immigrant who was hale
and able-bodied when he started on the voyage was a physical wreck when
he landed. Many others who were relatively well off economically on
leaving home arrived penniless. It was the practice of the “importers”
to compel passengers who had means to settle the accounts of those who
had not, and thus, it is stated, many who had been well-to-do were
reduced to house-to-house beggary.[18] But many other of the immigrants
were hopelessly destitute when they started. Still others were
criminals. It was the practice of European nations at this time to empty
not only their almshouses, but their jails, into their own colonies, or
those of other nations. Thus many of the colonists, as well as of the
immigrants, belonged to the pauper and criminal classes.[19]
This action of European states was naturally bitterly complained of by
the colonies. But as long as they were colonies, and had no independent
standing, it could be little more than a complaint.[20] After the War of
the Revolution it became a matter of international relations, and, as
will appear later, attracted no little attention.
Pennsylvania, being the destination of the largest number of immigrants,
suffered most from troubles of this sort. Consequently, in this colony
we find the most powerful body of opinion contrary to the free admission
of aliens, and the most frequent and stringent measures to control it.
Many of the stock arguments against immigration on the grounds of
pauperism, criminality, and inability for self-support developed during
this period.
One of the earliest Pennsylvania statutes covering this ground was an
act passed in 1722, imposing a tax on every criminal landed, and making
the shipowner responsible for the good conduct of his passengers.[21]
This was followed by numerous other laws designed to help control the
immigration situation. One of the most important of these was the act of
September 21, 1727, which was passed at the suggestion of the colonial
governor, who feared that the peace and security of the province was
endangered by so many foreigners coming in, ignorant of the language,
settling together and making, as it were, a separate people. This is one
of the earliest instances of the use of the nonassimilation argument in
connection with immigration legislation. The act in question provided
that shipmasters bringing immigrants must declare whether they had
permission from the court of Great Britain to do so, and must give lists
of all passengers and their intentions in coming. The immigrants must
take the oath of allegiance to the king, and of fidelity to the
Proprietary of the Province. On the day the act was passed, an agreement
was signed by 109 persons, representing about four hundred immigrants,
who had arrived at the port and were waiting to be landed. A pathetic
touch is given to the incident by the naïve statement, “Sundry of these
forreigners lying sick on board, never came to be qualified.”
This act remained in force for some time, but appears to have been more
or less of a dead letter, for the shipmasters never seem to have had any
license to bring immigrants, and yet the latter were always
admitted.[22] This law was slightly modified in 1729, and a tax of forty
shillings was laid on each immigrant. This is an early instance of the
use of a head tax as a restrictive measure, for among the reasons
assigned for its passage we find mention of the necessity “to discourage
the great importation and coming in of foreigners and of lewd, idle, and
ill-affected persons into this province, as well from parts beyond the
seas as from the neighboring colonies,” whereby the safety and quiet of
the province are endangered, many of them becoming a great burden upon
the community. It was asserted that shipmasters resorted to deceitful
methods in the furtherance of the practice of bringing in convicts.[23]
This accusation was substantiated by an event which occurred a short
time previously, when “a vessel arrived at Annapolis with 66 indentures,
signed by the Mayor of Dublin, and 22 wigs to disguise the convicts when
they landed.”[24] The provision imposing a head tax of forty shillings
was repealed within a very few months.[25]
Through the discussions of this matter can be traced a frequent conflict
of opinion between the colonial governor and the assembly. The former,
representing the interests of the Proprietary, was inclined to welcome
anything which tended to increase the population of the colony at
whatever cost. The latter, representing the people, is concerned for the
character of the settlers and the financial welfare of the colony.[26]
This is well illustrated by the progress of the effort to secure an
immigrant hospital in Philadelphia. The erection of such a building had
been recommended to the assembly by Governor George Thomas as early as
1740, in the interests of humanity. But the house demurred on the ground
of expense, and several years of haggling passed before a pest-house was
finally erected. In the meantime much difficulty was experienced with
“sickly vessels,” and a law was passed requiring all ships to anchor a
mile from the city, until inspected by the port physician. If sick
passengers were found on board, the shipmaster was required to land them
at a suitable distance from the city and convey them at his own expense
to houses in the country prepared for them.[27]
The house, on its part, made vain attempts for a period of fifteen years
or more to get a bill passed which should check the overcrowding of
immigrants in ships. The ostensible reasons urged were mainly those of
humanity, and they rested on an ample basis. The degree of overcrowding
was frightful. It was stated that in many cases the chests of apparel
belonging to immigrants were shipped in other vessels to make more room
for passengers, so that the immigrants had no chance even to change
their clothes during the long voyage of sometimes sixty days.[28] But
underlying this there was undoubtedly the desire to reduce the number of
immigrants. It was represented that whereas the German importations were
at first of good class, people of substance, now they were the refuse of
the country, and that “the very goals [sic] have contributed to the
Supplies we are burdened with.”
In the southern colonies we find much the same attitude of welcome to
respectable settlers, and fear of criminals and paupers, with this
difference, that as immigration was slower into these colonies, more
active measures were occasionally taken by the colonies themselves to
encourage it. Thus in 1669 North Carolina passed a law exempting new
settlers from levies for one year, and from action for debt for five
years. But they were debarred from holding office for three years.[29]
Maryland early experienced difficulties with imported criminals. On
account of the practice, which appears to have been common, of importing
notorious criminals, the general assembly of this province in 1676
passed an act requiring all shipmasters to declare whether they had any
convicts on board. If so, they were not to be allowed to land in the
province. Any person presuming to import such convicts must pay a fine
of 2000 pounds of tobacco, half to go to the Proprietary and half to the
informer.[30] On December 9 of the same year the lieutenant governor
issued a proclamation requiring all shipmasters who had landed convicts
previous to this act going into effect to deposit a bond of £50 for
their good behavior. Any landed without this bond were to be put in
prison until the bond was paid.[31] This is one of the earliest
instances of bonding shippers for the good conduct of their passengers.
On the other hand, settlers of good character were regarded as very
valuable acquisitions, and measures were adopted from time to time to
encourage their immigration.[32]
In New England the immigration question was less pressing than in either
the central or southern colonies. There was less need of passing direct
restrictive measures,[33] because the religious exclusiveness of this
section kept away many who might otherwise have come. And there was
little necessity of encouraging immigration, as the natural increase of
the population was sufficient to maintain an adequate number of
inhabitants. In fact, the influx of population from Europe to New
England was practically over by the middle of the seventeenth century.
It is stated that from 1628 to 1641 about twenty thousand English came
as permanent colonists to New England, and for the next century and a
half more went from there to England than came from England there.[34]
As a result of these conditions, the population of this region was much
less mixed than in the other colonies. Nevertheless, it was a prolific
and growing population, and “overflowed into the other colonies, without
receiving corresponding additions from them.”[35]
In spite of this fact, however, a certain jealousy was felt toward
Pennsylvania, on account of the large number of foreigners who sought
her shores. This feeling was expressed by Dr. Jonathan Mayhew in his
election sermon before the governor and legislature of Massachusetts in
1754. While he surmised that Pennsylvania might in time experience some
inconvenience from too large numbers of unassimilated Germans, yet he
attributed much of her growth and prosperity to their presence. He was
assured that the English element in Massachusetts was already too well
established for there to be any fear of too great an admixture of alien
elements, and expressed the opinion that all measures to encourage the
immigration of foreign Protestants were to be favored.[36]
New York frankly shared this jealousy of Pennsylvania, and, when it was
too late, made efforts to attract immigrants to her territory. Thus in
1736 Governor Clarke caused to be widely circulated in Germany an
advertisement in which he proposed to give 500 acres of land to each of
the first two hundred families who should come to New York from Europe.
The measure met with no great success.[37] Possibly the treatment
accorded to the would-be settlers of a generation earlier still lingered
in the memory of their fellow-countrymen.
In addition to the legislation against paupers and criminals, most of
the colonies had laws designed to prevent the entrance of religious
sects who were not regarded with favor. The class most discriminated
against was the Roman Catholics, and the eighteenth century found harsh
statutes against them in the legislation of most of the colonies.[38]
Virginia, and all the New England colonies except Rhode Island, had laws
designed to prevent the coming in of Quakers.[39] Rhode Island resembled
Pennsylvania in the religious tolerance which prevailed there.[40]
Maryland started on the basis of religious toleration, but did not
maintain this position.[41] A prejudice against Roman Catholics soon
manifested itself, and occasionally found expression in legislation.
Thus in the Maryland statutes for 1699 there is an act entitled, “An act
for Raising a Supply towards the defraying of the Publick Charge of this
Province and to prevent too great a number of Irish Papists being
imported into this Province.” The provisions of the act required
shipmasters to pay twenty shillings per poll for all Irish servants
imported, as well as for negroes.[42] None of these acts, of course, was
absolutely prohibitive.
Among the settlers of this period there was one peculiar class which
requires special mention. They were, for the most part, colonists rather
than immigrants, though some of them came from foreign countries. These
were the indented (or indentured) servants, or redemptioners.[43] There
were two main classes of them—those who were brought under compulsion,
and those who came voluntarily. Of the first class, many were convicted
criminals, who were sent over in great numbers from the mother country,
and on arrival were indented as servants for a term of years. Under the
barbarous legal system of the day many persons were sentenced to death
for insignificant crimes, such as stealing a joint of meat worth over a
shilling, or counterfeiting a lottery ticket. Many humane judges
welcomed exile as an alternative to the death penalty. It is estimated
that possibly as many as fifty thousand criminals were sent to America
from the British Isles, from the year 1717 until the practice was ended
by the War of Independence. Besides the criminals, in this class of
indented servants were many who were kidnaped and sent over to America.
Press gangs were busy in London, Bristol, and other English seaports,
seizing boys and girls, usually, but not always, from the lowest classes
of society, and sending them over to labor as indented servants in the
colonies.
Those who came voluntarily were respectable but destitute persons who,
despairing of success or progress in the old country, sold themselves
into temporary slavery to pay their passage over. Many of these came
from very good classes of society. The southern colonies received a much
larger number of indented servants of all classes than the northern
colonies, as the semiplantation character of the former made a much
larger demand for servile labor than in the farm colonies of the
north.[44]
Shipmasters made an enormous profit from this traffic, adding as much as
100 per cent of the actual cost of transportation to cover risks. Adults
were bound out for a term of three to six years, children from ten to
fifteen years, and smaller children were, without charge, surrendered to
masters who had to rear and board them.[45] As a rule the indented
servants, on the arrival of a ship at an American port, were auctioned
off to the highest bidder at a public auction very like a slave market.
The last sales of this kind reported took place in Philadelphia in 1818
and 1819. These were mostly Germans. Many of the indented servants
became eminent and respected citizens of the colonies, while others
degenerated and became the progenitors of the “poor white trash” of the
south.
As a result of this study of the colonial period the fact stands out
prominently that during these years both colonization and immigration
entered into the peopling of the Thirteen Colonies. The distinction
between the two was clearly recognized by the colonists themselves, and
immigrants were accorded different treatment from colonists. In the
handling of the situation many of the stock arguments against
unrestricted immigration were developed, and some of the important
legislative expedients, such as the head tax, the bonding of shippers,
the exclusion of paupers and criminals, etc., which have had a wide use
in later years, were put into practice. It is very noteworthy, however,
that in all the discussions of this question during this period one
searches in vain for any trace of opposition to immigration on the
grounds of the economic competition of the newcomer with the older
residents. In the unsettled state of the country at this time, such a
thing could hardly be thought of. The idea of any crowding of the
industrial field, or any lack of economic opportunity for an unlimited
number, was almost inconceivable. It is this, more than any other one
thing, which differentiates the immigration situation during the
colonial period from that at the present time.
Two other fundamental facts in reference to the formation of the new
American people should also be noted in this connection. The first is
that the actual transference of people from Europe to America during the
entire colonial period was relatively slight. Benjamin Franklin stated
that in 1741 a population of about one million had been produced from an
immigration (used in the broad sense) of less than 80,000.[46] As an
indication of how much less important this “immigration” was than the
recent immigration into the United States has been, it may be noted that
the ratio between immigrants and total population, at the period that
Franklin mentioned, was one to twelve for a period of 120 years or more,
while the ratio between immigrants since 1820 and population in 1900—a
period of only eighty years—was one to four. “After the first outflow
from Old to New England, in 1630–31, emigration was checked, at first by
the changing circumstances of the struggle between the people and the
king, and, when the struggle was over, by the better-known difficulties
of life in the colonies.”[47]
The second of these facts is that such additions to population as there
were, while containing a number of diverse elements, were predominantly
English, and that those who were not English were almost wholly from
races closely allied to the English. These were principally the Dutch,
Swedes, Germans, and Scotch-Irish, which with the English, as Professor
Commons has pointed out, were, less than two thousand years ago, all one
Germanic race in the forests surrounding the North Sea. “It is the
distinctive fact regarding colonial migration that it was Teutonic in
blood and Protestant in religion.”[48] This Protestantism was important,
not so much because of the superiority of one form of religion over
another, as because of the type of mind and character which
Protestantism at that day represented. It stood for independence of
thought, moral conviction, courage, and hardihood.
The English element, then, was sufficiently preëminent quickly to reduce
all other elements to its type. As a result of the character of the
migration assimilation was easy, quick, and complete. While it was said
that every language of Europe could be found in Pennsylvania, this
diversity was short-lived. “No matter how diverse the small immigration
might have been on its arrival, there was a steady pressure on its
descendants to turn them into Englishmen; and it was very successful....
The whole coast, from Nova Scotia to the Spanish possessions in Florida,
was one in all essential circumstances.”[49]
Such, then, was the American people at the time of the Revolution—a
physically homogeneous race, composed almost wholly of native-born
descendants of native-born ancestors, of a decidedly English type, but
with a distinct character of its own. This was the great stock from
which the people of the United States grew, and upon which all
subsequent additions must be regarded as extraneous grafts.
CHAPTER III
1783 TO 1820
With the beginning of the life of the United States as a separate
nation, all strangers arriving at her shores, whencesoever they came,
are to be classed as immigrants. From this time on colonization may be
dropped out of the reckoning, and all increments of population from
foreign sources be considered under the head of immigration.
The first forty-odd years of our national life are included in the
second of the five periods which have been distinguished. During this
period no accurate statistics were kept of the arrival of immigrants.
The federal government took no control of the matter whatever, and the
records of the states, taken mainly at the customhouses, were
fragmentary and unreliable. Consequently there is no certainty as to the
number or source of the arrivals during these years, and we are forced
to rely on estimates. The best known are those of Seybert and Blodgett,
which are generally taken as the basis of other estimates. The Bureau of
Statistics in its pamphlet on “Immigration into the United States”
(1903) says, “The best estimates of the total immigration into the
United States prior to the official count puts [sic] the total number of
arrivals at not to exceed 250,000 in the entire period between 1776 and
1820” (p. 4336). In an unpublished study of this question Mr. J. L.
Leonard of Yale University finds this estimate probably too small, and
thinks that the figure 345,000 would come nearer to representing the
total number of immigrants from 1784 to 1810.
One thing is certain, however, that immigration during this period was
far from being a burning issue, or from attracting any great amount of
attention. An average of ten thousand arrivals a year was not a matter
of great importance, and the young nation had enough more weighty
matters to engage her attention to prevent her devoting much thought to
immigration. It is true that the need of an increasing population was
still felt, as it had been during colonial days, but the native
population was multiplying at an extraordinary rate (doubling about
every twenty-two years) and seemed thoroughly capable of supplying the
entire need.
Yet we find occasional references to the matter in the contemporary
literature, and the subject was evidently one which frequently came up
for discussion. In general, foreigners were not regarded as such
desirable citizens as natives, and it was considered unwise to give
newcomers too much power or responsibility in the government.[50]
Benjamin Franklin, writing in the _American Museum_ for the year 1787,
stated that the only encouragements which this government holds out to
strangers are such as are derived from good laws and liberty. “Strangers
are welcome, because there is room enough for them all, and therefore
the old inhabitants are not jealous of them.... One or two years’
residence give him [the immigrant] all the rights of a citizen; but the
government does not at present, whatever it may have done in former
times, hire people to become settlers, by paying their passage, giving
land, negroes, utensils, stock, or any other kind of emolument
whatsoever.”[51]
A citizen of Pennsylvania, writing to a friend in Great Britain,
enumerated the classes which could profitably come to America as
follows: farmers, mechanics and manufacturers, laborers, indented
servants, followers of the learned professions, and schoolmasters. “The
encouragement held out to European immigrants is not the same in all the
states. New England, New York, and New Jersey, being nearly filled with
cultivators of the earth, afford encouragement chiefly to mechanics and
laborers.” Manufacture is said to be flourishing in these sections.
“European artists, therefore, cannot fail of meeting with encouragement
in each of the above states.” Pennsylvania is said to welcome all people
belonging to the classes mentioned above as needed, and the writer
expresses his belief that the progress of art and science has been
greatly favored by the extreme heterogeneity of population in that
state, where, “we possess the virtues and weaknesses of most of the
sects and nations of Europe.”[52]
On April 20, 1787, a paper was read before the society for political
inquiries at the house of Dr. Franklin. The subject was “An enquiry into
the best means of encouraging emigration from abroad, consistently with
the happiness and safety of the original citizens.” The author admits at
the outset that it is a question how much encouragement ought to be
given to immigration. There seems to be a need for an increase of
population. On the other hand, we have a right to restrict immigration
whenever it appears likely to prove hurtful. Some prudent men have a
well-grounded fear of the harm which may result from admitting
foreigners too freely into participation in the rights of citizenship.
Foreign powers might take advantage of such concessions to accomplish
injury to the nation. The author doubts the validity of these fears,
especially when it is considered that the usual motive for emigration is
dissatisfaction with the old country.
The author reverts to the old question of imported criminals, remarking,
“With a most preposterous policy, the former masters of this country
were accustomed to discharge their jails of the violent part of their
subjects, and to transmit shiploads of wretches, too worthless for the
old world, to taint and corrupt the infancy of the new.” With a somewhat
unwarranted optimism he adds, “It is not now likely that these states
will be insulted with transportations of this sort, directly ordered
from any other sovereign power.” Pennsylvania seems to be the only state
which appears sensible of the danger from the poor quality of citizens.
Referring to acts which have already been noted, the author says that
Pennsylvania requires her naturalized citizens to be of good character,
as far as this can be determined, and also remarks, “Pennsylvania,
swelling hourly with arrivals of honest, industrious Germans and others,
wisely discouraged by a duty, what she dared not openly prohibit.”
The conclusion of the whole matter is that “the best means of
encouraging emigration may therefore be truly said to be the cultivation
of industry and virtue among ourselves, and the establishment of
wholesome laws upon permanent foundations, which may render the comforts
we enjoy objects of desire and pursuit to others.”[53]
The foregoing quotations may be taken as representative of the
prevailing attitude toward immigration among the body of the American
people. It is noteworthy that there is still no fear of the economic
competition of the immigrants, though there is a faint foreshadowing of
such a condition in the preference expressed for “artists” as against
agriculturists, of which there already seemed to be enough in some
states. On the whole, however, immigrants were regarded as assets, and
there existed a vigorous sentiment in favor of encouraging them to come.
This sentiment occasionally found more active expression than that
recommended in the passage quoted. North Carolina, for instance, by an
act of the general assembly, passed in 1790, granted to Henry Emmanuel
Lutterloh the right to raise $6000 per year for five years by lottery,
for the purpose of introducing foreign artisans.[54] _Niles’ Register_
for November 9, 1816, states that “Col. Nicholas Gray, after having
consulted with the governor of the Mississippi territory, is authorized
to invite any number of industrious emigrants into that country, where
they will be provided with lands, _rent free_ for three years, and with
cattle and corn at the usual rates.”
The fear of foreign influence on our politics, to which reference has
been made above, grew stronger during the next decade, and finally led
to the passage of the Alien Bill in 1798, by which the president was
empowered to deport all aliens whom he regarded as dangerous to the
country. This act was a result of transitory unsettled conditions,
particularly the expectation of a war with France, and contained a
proviso that it should expire two years after passage. But it contains
an important permanent principle—that of the right of deportation—which
has been made much of in recent years.
The discussion of the question of naturalization brought out some
decided opinions on both sides of the immigration problem.[55] The
period of residence required for naturalization was set at two years by
the act of 1790, but this was raised to five years in 1795. The war
excitement which marked the closing years of the century led to the
passage of an act in 1798 requiring a residence of fourteen years for
naturalization. This was repealed after four years, and the provisions
of the act of 1795 were again put in force. They have remained unchanged
in their essentials ever since. In addition to the period of residence
required, there was much discussion as to the charge to be made for
naturalization. It was proposed by some to set this at $20, but this was
regarded by others as too high, and the amount was finally fixed at
$5.[56]
There was little change in the attitude toward immigration during the
following years up to 1820. The number of arrivals remained relatively
small. The immigrants, being mainly from Germany and the United Kingdom,
were readily assimilated. In 1809 a French immigrant wrote a letter from
Boston in which he said, “There is in general no enmity to strangers as
such, but the most open, unguarded hospitality.”[57]
Shipping conditions were still very bad. We are told that in 1818 one
ship from Amsterdam embarked about eleven hundred persons for America.
Out of these, about five hundred died, some of them before leaving the
shores of Europe.[58] Some ships seem to have followed the practice of
sailing from Europe with a cargo of passengers, ostensibly for America,
but instead of following this course, stopping at some near-by island,
compelling their passengers to disembark, and then going back to the
mainland for a fresh load. It follows, of course, that a large part of
the immigrants who finally reached America arrived in a most deplorable
condition.
During this period there occurred some important events which had the
effect temporarily of interfering with the stream of immigration, but in
their after results were largely responsible for conditions which gave
to immigration an impetus such as it had never had before. Foremost
among these were the Orders in Council, the Embargo, and the War of
1812. These great events resulted in powerfully stimulating the
manufacturing industries of the United States. Up to this time, shipping
and commerce had been among the most important, if not actually the
leading, forms of enterprise for the citizens of the new nation, aside
from agriculture. The Embargo, with the other restrictive conditions,
struck a severe blow at this branch of industry, and forced great
numbers of Americans to devote their energies to other forms of
enterprise, notably manufacturing.
At the same time the need for such native manufactures was vastly
augmented by the discontinuance of the supplies from England. This
forced the youthful nation to be more self-sufficient and independent
than she had ever been before. At the close of the period of interrupted
communication, England tried to dump the goods which had accumulated in
her warehouses for a number of years upon the American market at cut
prices. At this the Americans rebelled. They had had a taste of
independence and liked it, and in the protection of their infant
industries they inaugurated that long series of protective tariff
measures which have continued to the present day. And whatever may be
said of the utility of these measures at the present time, there can be
no doubt that in the beginning they helped to establish the manufactures
of this country upon a firm basis.
With the growth of manufactures, there arose a great demand for
laborers, particularly skilled laborers, who knew the technique of
industry. There was also a great need for common laborers who would be
willing to go into factories and do the routine work. This supply was
not forthcoming from the native population, who were, by instinct and
training, independent workers, particularly agriculturists. It was
extremely difficult to persuade any great number of them to forego the
possibility of becoming independent landowners and cultivators, in order
to become hired workers in somebody else’s factory. The close of the
second historical period, accordingly, is marked by a keen demand for
foreign artisans, and the beginning of a general demand for immigrant
labor, to which Europe was commencing to respond.
CHAPTER IV
1820 TO 1860
The first act passed by the federal government of the United States
which can in any way be called an immigration law was primarily
designed, not to restrict or control the admission of immigrants into
this country, but to make some provision for their comfort and safety
while on the voyage—matters which had been shockingly neglected in the
past, with the result of untold sufferings and horrors. These evils were
largely due to the intolerable overcrowding on shipboard which was
habitual. The act in question aimed to correct these evils by limiting
the number of passengers which might be carried on any ship to two to
every five tons of the ship’s weight. It furthermore provided that each
ship or vessel leaving an American port was to have on board for each
passenger carried sixty gallons of water, one gallon of vinegar, one
hundred pounds of salted provisions, and one hundred pounds of wholesome
ship bread. It is very doubtful how much good either of these provisions
ever did to the immigrants. The clause in regard to overcrowding, based
as it was merely on the ship’s total weight, was wholly inadequate to
prevent extreme overcrowding in such parts of the vessel as might be
assigned to passengers. And as far as the provision regarding supplies
is concerned, it could have been of no help to the immigrants, as it
applied only to ships leaving an American port. There was one provision
of the law, however, which has been of permanent benefit. This was the
stipulation that at the port of landing a full and complete report or
manifest was to be made by the ship’s officer to the customs
authorities, which was to state the number of passengers carried,
together with the name, sex, age, and occupation of each. This act was
passed on March 2, 1819, and in the year ending September 30, 1820, the
first official statistics of immigration were collected. From this time
to the present we have a continuous record of arrivals, increasing in
detail with subsequent legal requirements. Thus the year 1820 stands as
a fitting beginning for our third period.
The decade of the twenties was one of great industrial activity on the
part of the American people. Manufactures increased. The Erie Canal was
completed, others were commenced, and there was a fever of excitement
about them. The first railroads were projected, and vied with the canals
in arousing public enthusiasm. There was a vast movement of population
westward, and the Ohio River was a busy thoroughfare.
All of these enterprises aroused a demand for labor, which, as we have
seen, the native population would not readily supply. By the middle of
the decade the stream of immigration had begun to respond, so that in
1825 the number of arrivals for the year reached the ten thousand mark
for the first time since statistics had been collected. By the end of
the decade the number had more than doubled. In the fifteen months
ending December 31, 1832, there were over sixty thousand arrivals, and
in the year 1842, 104,565—the first time the hundred thousand mark had
been reached. Such an enormous increase in immigration as this could not
fail to have its effect upon the social life of the nation, and to
attract widespread attention. Coupled with the changing nature of
industry, it brought many new problems before the American
people—congestion, tenement house problems, unemployment, etc.
Pauperism, intemperance, beggary, and prostitution increased.[59] For
many of these evils it began to appear that the immigrants were partly
responsible.
Yet during the twenties it seems that the immigrants were, on the whole,
in good favor. The great economic need which they filled outweighed the
social burden which they imposed, but which, as yet, was only vaguely
felt. The hard manual labor on the construction enterprises of the
period was mainly performed by Irish laborers, who flocked over in great
numbers, constituting the largest single element in the immigration
stream, amounting to probably nearly half of the entire number. It was
believed by many Americans, as well as by foreign travelers and
observers, that the canals and railroads could never have been built
without these sturdy Irishmen. They were a turbulent and reckless lot,
though perhaps not wholly through their own fault. Their miserable wages
were supplemented by copious supplies of whisky, with the result that
the labor camps were frequently the scenes of riotous demonstrations
which shocked the sensibilities of the American community.
By the end of this decade, however, the evils attendant upon unregulated
immigration were beginning to make themselves felt among the native
population. Chief among these was the danger from an increase of
pauperism. The frightful shipping conditions, which had marked previous
periods, continued with practically no amelioration. The records of the
time are full of heartrending tales of crowded, filthy, unventilated
ships, and penniless, starved, diseased immigrants, often landed in a
state of absolute destitution. The sickening details of these accounts
make the most lurid description of present-day steerage conditions seem
absolutely colorless. Under such circumstances it was inevitable that a
very large number of these miserable victims should come immediately, or
in a very short time, upon the public for support. The censuses of the
poorhouses showed an altogether disproportionate number of foreign-born
paupers among the inmates. In Philadelphia, for instance, it appears
that at the beginning of the thirties the foreign-born paupers made up
nearly one third of the total number, and by 1834 this proportion had
increased to practically one half.[60] Such a state of affairs naturally
aroused the consternation of the natives, and the feeling was made more
intense by the belief that many of these paupers were taken directly
from the almshouses of foreign countries, and shipped to this country at
public expense. This matter has been the subject of so much debate that
it will be worth while to examine the truth of these charges in this
connection.
Mrs. Trollope, writing in 1832, said, “I frequently heard vehement
complaints, and constantly met the same in the newspapers, of a practice
stated to be very generally adopted in Britain of sending out cargoes of
parish paupers to the United States. A Baltimore paper heads some such
remarks with the words ‘INFAMOUS CONDUCT’ and then tells us of a cargo
of aged paupers just arrived from England, adding ‘John Bull has
squeezed the orange and now insolently casts the skin in our faces.’”
Mrs. Trollope states that careful investigation on her part failed to
substantiate this charge.[61] The article referred to is one which
appeared in _Niles’ Register_ for July 3, 1830. It gives an account of
the ship _Anacreon_ from Liverpool, which arrived at Norfolk with 168
passengers, three fourths of whom were transported English paupers, cast
on our shores at about four pounds ten shillings per head. Many of them
were very aged. The editor’s vehement protest against such action
contrasts sharply with the complacency with which the same journal had
viewed the advent of a crowd of transported Irish paupers seven years
earlier.[62]
An examination of the evidence on the question tends to support the
statement of the Baltimore editor, rather than the denial of Mrs.
Trollope. Other numbers of _Niles’ Register_ contain frequent accounts
of such practices. A letter written from England, dated February 7,
1823, and published in this journal states, “I was down in the London
docks and there were _twenty-six paupers_ going out in the ship
_Hudson_, to New York, sent by the parish of Eurbarst, in Sussex, in
carriers’ wagons, who paid their passage and gave them money to start
with when they arrived in the U. States.” The editor states that “this
precious cargo has arrived safely.”[63] Other numbers of the _Register_
contain similar instances, some of them quoted from other papers.[64]
So far the evidence consists mostly of newspaper tales, and is perhaps
open to reasonable doubt, though where there was so much smoke there
must have been some fire. But more reliable testimony is available.
Charges of the kind in question finally became so prevalent that the
government ordered an investigation, and on May 15, 1838, Mr. John
Forsyth, then Secretary of State, presented a report on the subject of
pauperism and immigration. This contains a large amount of testimony,
from which it will be sufficient to select a few typical cases.
On June 28, 1831, Mr. R. M. Harrison, United States consul at Kingston,
Jamaica, reported that there was a local law compelling shipmasters who
left that port to carry away paupers, for which they received $10 each
as remuneration. If they refused to take them, they were fined $300. As
various states had laws forbidding the landing of paupers, it was
customary for shipmasters to sign the paupers as seamen. The pauper had
the privilege of choosing his own vessel, and most of them went to the
United States. Mr. Van Buren called the attention of Lord Palmerston,
the British Foreign Secretary, to the affair, and requested a
discontinuance of the practice. Lord Palmerston replied that the law was
to expire December 31, and the governor of Jamaica had been instructed
to withhold his assent to any similar law.[65]
Mr. Albert Davy, United States consul at Kingston-upon-Hull, Leeds,
England, reported that while no reliable lists were kept at
customhouses, distinguishing paupers from others, it was generally known
that paupers emigrated, and several shipmasters admitted that passage
was paid by parish overseers. If a pauper was an exceptionally hard
case, he could demand considerable sums of money in addition to his
passage, refusing to go unless they were paid.[66] Mr. F. List on March
8, 1837, reported from Leipsic that not only paupers, but criminals,
were transported from the interior to seaports, to be embarked for the
United States. A certain Mr. de Stein contracts with the governments to
transport paupers for $75 per head, and several of the governments have
accepted his proposition. There is a plan to empty the jails and
workhouses in this way. It is a common practice in Germany to get rid of
paupers and vicious characters by collecting money to send them to the
United States.[67]
That it was customary to transport criminals as well as paupers is
verified by the fact that during 1837 two lots of convicts arrived in
Baltimore: one a party of fourteen convicts on a ship from Bremen, who
had been embarked in irons, which had not been stricken off until near
the fort; the other a shipload of 200 to 250 Hessian convicts, whose
manacles and fetters remained upon their hands and feet until within the
day of their arrival.[68]
A memorial of the corporation of the city of New York, January 25, 1847,
states that within the last year the ships _Sardinia_ and _Atlas_ from
Liverpool arrived in New York, one with 294 and the other with 314
steerage passengers, all paupers, sent by the parish of Grosszimmern,
Hesse Darmstadt, to which they belonged and by which their expenses were
paid. Two hundred and thirty-four of these immigrants, 117 from each
ship, eventually found their way into the New York almshouse.[69]
On January 19, 1839, _Niles’ Register_ reported a crowd of paupers which
had arrived in New York from England. Their passage had been paid by the
overseers of the poor at Edinburgh, and the majority of them were still
wearing the uniform of the poorhouse. This naturally aroused objections,
and the consignees of the vessel finally agreed to take them back to
Europe, and to repay the city all expense that it had incurred on their
account. The United States consul at Basle, Switzerland, reported in
1846 that it was the practice in that country for congregations or town
authorities to send paupers to America.[70]
Instances of this sort might be multiplied, but these will suffice to
prove that the practice of transporting paupers was a common one during
the period we are considering. Just when it was finally stopped it is
impossible to say.[71] It certainly played a large part in creating the
feeling of hostility to immigrants which manifested itself strongly
during the decade of the thirties.
That the situation was partially, at least, comprehended also in England
is evidenced by a burlesque poem entitled “Immiscible Immigration,”
written in that country, which commences with the following words:
“The tide of emigration still flows fast;
Millions of souls remove their bodies corporate—
Columbia’s shores will be o’erstocked at last,
And Yankees must support them by a pauper rate.
Others,
With their brothers,
Fathers and mothers,
Rush to Australia,” etc.[72]
While the dangers from pauperism and criminality were probably the
leading causes for opposition to immigration, at this time, other
broader and deeper objections were beginning to be felt and to be
expressed in current writings. In the _North American Review_ for April,
1835 (p. 457), there is a very sane, calm and convincing article by Mr.
A. H. Everett, in which the disadvantages of immigration are set forth.
Many of the stock arguments of to-day are well set forth here, among
them, of course, the dangers from pauperism and crime, but also the
dangers of a heterogeneous population, of poor assimilation, congestion
in cities, misuse of political power, and the growth of foreign
colonies. The author questions whether the immigrants are really filling
the demand for labor, and urges the necessity of furnishing the
immigrants with information about different sections of the country, and
advising them about their destination. He also feels the need of much
greater discrimination in the admission of aliens.
In the same magazine, in the issue for January, 1841, there is an
article entitled “The Irish in America,” in which the author names as
one of the great grievances against the immigrants that they do more
work for less money than the native workingmen, and live on a lower
standard, thereby decreasing wages. This is one of the earliest
expressions which we find of this objection, and shows that by this time
the country had passed beyond the primitive stage where there was room
enough for everybody, and no fear of economic competition. It is the
foreshadowing of modern conditions and modern thought.
There was still another ground for opposition to the immigrants which
very possibly at the end of the thirties eclipsed all the others in
positive influence.[73] This was the hatred and fear of the Roman
Catholic religion, to which the great majority of the Irish adhered. The
Protestant bias which had strongly characterized the early settlers
still persisted among the great body of the American people. This motive
was the leading one which led to the formation of the first political
party which was openly based on opposition to immigration. This was the
Native American party which came into prominence as a political movement
about 1835, in which year there was a Nativist candidate for Congress in
New York City. In the following year the party nominated a candidate for
mayor of New York. Nativist societies were formed in Germantown, Pa.,
and in Washington, D.C., in 1837, and two years later the party was
organized in Louisiana, where a state convention was held in 1841. The
adherents of this movement did not confine themselves to peaceful and
orderly methods, but resorted to anti-Catholic riots in 1844. Two
Catholic churches were destroyed in Philadelphia, and a convent in
Boston.[74]
In 1845 the Nativist movement claimed 48,000 members in New York, 42,000
in Pennsylvania, 14,000 in Massachusetts, and 6000 in other states. In
Congress it had six representatives from New York and two from
Pennsylvania. Its first national convention was held in Philadelphia in
1845.[75] A national platform was adopted, the chief demands being the
repeal of the naturalization laws, and the appointment of native
Americans only to office. They succeeded in securing a certain amount of
congressional investigation in 1838, and a bill was presented by a
committee appointed for the purpose, which proposed to fine shipmasters
who tried to bring into the United States aliens who were idiots,
lunatics, maniacs, or afflicted with any incurable disease, in the sum
of $1000, and to require them to forfeit a like sum for every alien
brought in who had not the ability to maintain himself. “Congress did
not even consider this bill, and during the next ten years little
attempt was made to secure legislation against the foreigner,”[76]
though many petitions to extend the period of residence for
naturalization were received. The ever increasing opposition to
unregulated immigration had not yet become sufficiently widespread to
accomplish any positive measures.
During this period the immigrants were almost wholly from the United
Kingdom and Germany, with the Irish in the lead, as we have seen. There
were also considerable numbers of French, who outnumbered the Germans in
some years in the early part of the period, and small contingents from
various other nations, particularly the Scandinavian countries. It was
natural that the ties of relationship, language, etc., should put the
United Kingdom at the head at this time, and conditions in Ireland were
such as to make emigration a very welcome means of relief. The Irish
tended to linger in the cities, where they went into domestic and
personal service, or to go out into the construction camps. The Germans
and Scandinavians, on the other hand, tended to move westward into the
interior, and colonies of these races were becoming numerous in several
of the middle western states. The Germans of this period were mostly
farmers from the thinly settled agricultural sections of the old
country, and the great attraction which the United States had for them
was the ease with which good farm lands might be secured in this
country.[77]
Most of the agitation about immigration, as has been intimated, centered
round the Irish, but there was also some feeling against the Germans.
This was augmented by the decided clannishness of these people. There
were many German societies and newspapers, and a strong and
ill-disguised movement to form an independent German state in Texas, or
elsewhere on the continent, which was not calculated to endear them to
the native American.
Up to the year 1842 the total immigration did not reach one hundred
thousand annually, and for the next three years it fell below that
figure again.[78] During the last half of this decade, however, certain
events occurred in Europe which vastly increased the immigration
current, and brought the matter more forcibly to the notice of the
American people than ever before. These were the potato famine in
Ireland, and the political upheavals of 1848 in various nations of
Europe, particularly in Germany. The result of the latter occurrences
was to leave a large number of middle class liberalists in Germany in a
very undesirable situation, in spite of the partial success of the
revolution. The way out, for them, was emigration. This is one of the
best examples in history of the political cause of emigration, though
even here economic motives were also concerned. A tremendous emigration
followed, reaching its climax in 1854, when 215,009 immigrants from
Germany reached this country. These were mainly persons of good
character and independent spirit, as might be expected from the causes
of their departure. Considerable numbers of Bohemians also emigrated at
this period, similar in character to the Germans, and actuated by
similar motives and conditions.
Conditions in Ireland at about the same time resulted in an emigration
rivaling that from Germany in numbers, but by no means so desirable from
the point of view of the United States. It was almost exclusively an
economic movement. The introduction of the potato into Ireland by
Raleigh in 1610 had seemed at first a blessing to the country. It
furnished an easy and abundant food supply, and its cultivation spread
rapidly. Population increased correspondingly, growing from 2,845,932 in
1785 to 5,356,594 in 1803 and 8,295,061 in 1845. By the latter year most
of the population were dependent for their subsistence upon the potato.
This was a precarious situation, for the potato furnishes the largest
amount of food in proportion to the land used of almost any crop which
is grown in temperate regions. In other words, the Irish were living on
a very low standard as far as food was concerned, with no margin to fall
back on in case of calamity. A people subsisting upon grains and meat
may, in time of distress, resort to cheaper and more easily secured food
materials temporarily. But a land which is densely populated by people
living on the cheapest possible food has no resources when any
misfortune attacks their staple supply. Ireland was in this situation in
the middle forties, and the misfortune came in the shape of the potato
murrain, which attacked the plants in 1845 and caused an almost complete
failure of the crop for that year.
Extreme hardship, privation, and distress followed. From 200,000 to
300,000 died of starvation or of fever caused by insufficient food. All
who could sought relief in flight. Benevolent agencies in England and
Ireland came to their assistance, and enormous numbers of Irish, in one
way or another, found the means for emigration, and embarked for Canada
or the United States. Added to the great numbers of Germans who were
coming at the same time, they caused the first great wave in the
immigration current, reaching a maximum of 427,833 in the year 1854, a
number which was not exceeded until 1873. After 1854 the immigration
current dwindled rapidly, until in 1862 it amounted to only 72,183.
During this entire period, up to the time of the great influx from
Germany and Ireland, immigration had been practically unregulated so far
as the United States government was concerned, the only federal law
bearing on the subject being the ineffective act of 1819. Many of the
individual states, however, had attempted to cope with the evils of the
situation by restrictive or protective measures. New York took the lead
in this matter. In this state there were two sets of laws bearing on the
question. The first of these had to do with the support of the marine
hospital. As early as 1820 New York had passed a law (April 14, 1820,
Chapter 229) levying a tax of $1.50 each for the captain and cabin
passengers, and $1 each for steerage passengers, mates, sailors, and
mariners, payable by the master of every vessel from a foreign port
arriving at a New York port. The proceeds were to be used for the
benefit of the marine hospital. This law was continued and reënacted,
with slight changes in the amount of the tax, at frequent intervals
during the next twenty-five years.[79] It was a real head tax, and may
have had a slight restrictive influence upon immigration.
Much more important than this set of laws, however, was another group,
specifically concerned with the immigration situation. The first[80] of
these was the law of February 11, 1824, which required the master of
every ship coming from any foreign country, or from any other state than
New York, to report to the mayor in writing, within twenty-four hours
after landing, the name, place of birth, last legal settlement, age, and
occupation of all passengers, under a penalty of $75 for each person not
reported, or reported falsely. The mayor might require a bond, not
exceeding $300, for each passenger not a citizen of the United States,
to indemnify the authorities of New York against any expense incurred in
connection with such passengers, or their children born after landing,
for the space of two years. Whenever any passenger, being a citizen of
the United States, was deemed likely to become a public charge to the
city, the master of the ship should at once remove him at his (the
master’s) expense to his place of last settlement, or else defray all
expenses incurred by the city. Non-citizens entering the city with the
intention of residing there must within twenty-four hours report
themselves to the mayor, giving their name, birthplace, etc., the time
and place of landing, the name of the ship and commander, under penalty
of $300.
This law remained in force for twenty-three years. On May 5, 1847, a
more inclusive immigration law was passed of which the most important
provisions were as follows:
SECTION 1. The shipmaster shall report the name, place of birth, last
legal residence, age, and occupation of every person or passenger
arriving in the ship, not being a citizen of the United States. The
report shall further specify whether any of the passengers reported are
lunatic, idiot, deaf and dumb, blind or infirm, and if so, whether they
are accompanied by relatives likely to be able to support them. A report
is to be made of those who have died on the voyage. Penalty for
violation, $75.
SECTION 2. For each person reported, the sum of one dollar is to be paid
by the master within three days after arrival.
SECTION 3. The commissioners of emigration shall go on board of arriving
vessels and examine their passengers. If any of the defective classes
mentioned in Section 1 are found, not members of emigrating families,
and likely to become a public charge, a bond of $300 for five years
shall be required, in place of the commutation fee of one dollar.
SECTION 4. Commissioners of emigration are appointed, to have charge of
the business of immigration.
SECTION 14. The commissioners of emigration are made recipients and
custodians of the marine hospital funds.
SECTION 16. The commissioners are given power to erect buildings for the
handling of the immigration business.
SECTION 18. The act of February 11, 1824, is repealed.
Under this law a special body of officials took charge of the handling
of immigrants for New York State, and a more systematic and effective
method was introduced.
The foregoing law and the corresponding law of Massachusetts were both
declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in
January, 1849,[81] on the ground that the power to levy a head tax was
conferred on Congress by Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution,
being included in the “power to regulate commerce with foreign
nations.”[82]
New York, however, at once (April 11, 1849) passed another law, even
more stringent in its requirements than the foregoing one, but designed
to avoid the constitutional difficulties. A bond of $300 was required
for _all_ alien passengers, which might be commuted for the sum of
$1.50. If any alien passengers are “lunatic, idiot, deaf, dumb, blind,
or infirm persons not members of emigrating families,” or likely to
become a public charge, or have been paupers in any other country, they
are to be bonded in the sum of $500 for ten years, in addition to the
commutation money. On such bonds the authorities were empowered to
collect enough money to defray the expenses incurred in connection with
the immigrants, not exceeding the amount of the bond.
By the act of July 11, 1851, the defective classes were added to by the
inclusion of persons maimed, or above the age of sixty years, or under
thirteen, widows having families, or women without husbands having
families, or any person unable to take care of himself or herself
without becoming a public charge. The bond of $500 for undesirables was
retained, but the time limit was reduced to five years.
Practically all of the other states which received trans-Atlantic
vessels had laws similar to the bonding law of New York, for their
protection against pauper immigration. The Massachusetts law was much
more severe than that of New York, and was believed to keep many
immigrants away from that state. The Massachusetts law passed April 20,
1837, required shipmasters to deposit a bond of $1000 for ten years for
each lunatic, idiot, maimed, aged, or infirm immigrant brought in, and
for those incompetent to maintain themselves, or who have been paupers
in any other country. For each other alien passenger the shipmaster was
to pay the sum of $2.
In all of this legislation the states found themselves in the dilemma of
wishing to frame laws which would keep out undesirable immigrants, and
yet would not operate to discourage aliens of good quality. The desire
for an increase of population by immigration, which was shared by
practically all the states, and the fear of diverting the current from
one state to another, led to a greater laxity in the attitude of each
state than would probably have existed if each could have acted
altogether independently. This made the state regulation of immigration
most unsatisfactory.
It was inevitable, considering the immensity and suddenness of the
immigration movement at this time, and the lack of experience in dealing
with such a problem on the part of the American people, that grievous
evils should arise. The immigrants, particularly the Irish, were a
destitute and helpless lot, and fell an easy prey to the machinations of
the host of exploiters which at once sprang up to take advantage of the
newly presented opportunities. Countless devices were put in practice
for separating the immigrant from whatever valuable goods he brought
with him. New York, in particular, as the center of the traffic, swarmed
with a host of runners, agents, and solicitors of every kind, who
fleeced the newcomers without remorse or pity. These runners were
themselves mostly earlier immigrants, who could more readily gain the
confidence of the aliens. The handling and inspection of these aliens by
the officials was also a weighty problem. It was in the hope of checking
the operations of the runners, as well as to provide suitable
arrangements for the examination of arriving immigrants, that the Board
of Commissioners of Emigration of New York State was created by the act
of 1847. This timely action undoubtedly prevented the various evils
connected with this immense movement from going to the extremes that
they otherwise would have reached, and that they did reach in certain
respects in Canada.[83]
In 1855 commissioners leased an old fort at the foot of Manhattan
Island, known as Castle Garden, to serve as an immigrant station. This
did duty for many years and was considered one of the most interesting
spots in the metropolis. It also proved of great service in restraining
the operations of the immigrant runners.[84] It goes without saying that
it was by no means successful in putting a permanent stop to them.
The bonding provision of the New York State law had one remarkable and
unfortunate result. A class of brokers sprang up who took the
responsibility of bonding the immigrants from the shipowners. It was
obviously to their advantage to keep as many of the immigrants as
possible from coming upon the public for support. To accomplish this,
they established private hospitals and poorhouses on the outskirts of
New York and Brooklyn, in which dependent aliens were placed. The effort
to maintain them here at the least possible expense resulted in extreme
neglect. A committee of the Board of Aldermen of New York City was
appointed to look into this matter, in the year 1846. They found
conditions which were almost unbelievable. In one apartment, fifty feet
square, they discovered one hundred sick and dying immigrants lying on
straw. In their midst were the bodies of two others who had died four or
five days earlier, and had been left there. The worst kind of food was
specially purchased for the consumption of these victims. The conditions
unearthed by this investigation contributed to the sentiment which
brought about the passage of the law of 1847.[85]
The chaotic state of the immigration situation, the inadequacy of state
control, and the increasing obviousness of the resulting evils led to a
growing demand for federal action on the matter. This feeling found
expression in numerous petitions and memorials presented to Congress by
state legislatures, city councils, and private citizens. These began to
appear about 1835, with the rise of the Native American party. With the
increased immigration of the latter forties, the demand became more
insistent. The immediate and crying evil, which attracted the greatest
attention, lay in the unspeakable shipping conditions which still
existed.[86] In 1847 Mr. Rathbun stated on the floor of Congress that
emigrants from abroad were frequently landed in the port of New York in
such a diseased condition, due to overcrowding on the ships which
brought them, that they were unable to walk. They were carried in carts
direct to the almshouse, and sometimes died on the way.[87] In the same
year, out of ninety thousand immigrants who embarked for Canada in
British vessels, fifteen thousand died on the way. This exceeded even
the suffering in vessels bound for the United States.[88] On the whole,
conditions seem to have been the best on the German and American
vessels.
In response to these conditions, and to the growing demand for a remedy,
Congress on February 22, 1847, passed a law, superseding that of 1819,
and designed to remedy the evils of overcrowding. The provisions about
victualing the ships remained the same as before, but the new law
provided for a certain allotment of superficial, or square feet of, deck
space per passenger, and also limited the number of passengers in
proportion to the tonnage of the ship. This law was not satisfactory,
however, and was very soon superseded by the act of May 17, 1848, which
remained in force until 1855. In 1849 the British government passed a
law, designed to secure the same ends as the American laws. It was under
the operation of these three laws that the great flood of Irish
immigration crossed the Atlantic.
The American statutes required that the deck space, unoccupied by stores
or goods, except passengers’ baggage, should average fourteen square
feet for each passenger, man, woman, or child, excepting infants not one
year old. If the space between decks was less than six feet, there must
be sixteen square feet per passenger, and if less than five feet,
twenty-two square feet (a significant commentary on the ship
construction of the day). There were to be not more than two tiers of
berths on any deck, and the berths were to be not less than six feet by
one and one half feet in dimensions. The British statute set a limit of
one passenger (exclusive of cabin) for every two tons registered
tonnage, two children under fourteen years of age being counted as one,
and children under one year not being counted.
Up to this time it had been customary on immigrant ships to require
passengers to provide their own stores, but on account of the lack of
intelligence and foresight on the part of the passengers, both the
American and British statutes required ships to carry a certain amount
and kind of provisions for each passenger, as follows:
──────────────┬────────────┬───────────────────────────────────────────
│AMERICAN ACT│ BRITISH ACT
──────────────┼────────────┼───────────────────────────────────────────
Water │60 gallons │52½ gallons
Ship bread │15 pounds │50 pounds
Wheat flour │10 pounds │20 pounds
Oatmeal │10 pounds │60 pounds
Rice │10 pounds │40 pounds
Salt pork │10 pounds │22½ pounds
Peas and beans│10 pounds │Potatoes may be substituted for meal or
│ │ rice at the ratio of five pounds for one
Potatoes │35 pounds │ „
──────────────┴────────────┴───────────────────────────────────────────
The passengers were still required to do their own cooking, and the
American act provided for the building of cooking ranges for the use of
steerage passengers, in proportion to the number carried.
Most of the Irish passengers were collected at Liverpool, though by 1847
there were also many direct sailings from Ireland. They were mainly
booked through passenger brokers, who often imposed on them, but
apparently not so much as might have been expected. There was a medical
inspection at Liverpool, and emigrants were required to be certified
against contagious diseases. The average length of the passage from
Liverpool to New York in 1849 was about thirty-five days, and from
London about forty-three and one half days. But voyages were often much
prolonged. One ship, the _Speed_ (!), in 1848 had a passage of twelve
weeks, with great ensuing hardship. The British act provided that if
ships had to turn back, the passengers must be transshipped to another
vessel, and in the meantime maintained at the master’s expense. This
often resulted in hardship, instead of benefit, as ships sometimes kept
on the voyage when they were not fitted to sail. In 1849 and 1850 some
ships turned back after having been out seventy days. The British
government tried to induce steamers to take steerage passengers by
allowing them to provide provisions for only forty days, while sailing
vessels had to provide for seventy. Very few immigrants, nevertheless,
were carried on steam vessels during these years. The deaths on these
voyages were mainly due to ship fever, a severe form of Irish
typhus.[89]
Though the German immigrants at this time were at least as numerous as
the Irish, they attracted much less attention. This was partly because
they were less poverty-stricken, and partly because they mostly moved on
to the west, and did not collect in the cities of the Atlantic seaboard.
The Irish, in consequence of their native character, the circumstances
which led to their coming, and the conditions of the voyage, were in a
particularly helpless state when they arrived. They were the most
prominent victims of the runners, and made the largest showing in the
hospitals and almshouses. In spite of the good accomplished by the state
and federal statutes, an extreme amount of destitution and suffering
persisted. The burden of foreign pauperism, in particular, increased
tremendously. In 1850 more than half the paupers wholly or partially
supported in the United States were of foreign birth. In the North
Atlantic coastal states the proportion was much larger.[90]
These considerations, added to the preponderance of Roman Catholics
among the Irish immigrants, led to a renewal of the anti-immigration
agitation, which had been so vigorous ten years earlier. This time the
movement took the form of a secret organization, started probably in New
York City in 1850. This society grew rapidly. Its meetings were held in
secret, and the purpose and even the name of the organization were so
much of a mystery at first that the rank and file of the members, either
from necessity or from choice, were in the habit of answering all
questions regarding it by saying, “I don’t know.” Hence it came to be
known as the “Know Nothing” party, and as such has come down to
history.[91]
The organization did not long maintain its ultra-secret character. This
had mostly disappeared by 1854, and the society openly indorsed
candidates, and put forward candidates of its own. It is recorded that
in 1855 the governors and legislatures in New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, California, and Kentucky were Know
Nothings, and that they had secured many offices in other states. By
1855 they began to mature plans for the presidential election. They
adopted a platform calling for a change in the existing naturalization
laws, for the repeal of the state laws allowing unnaturalized foreigners
to vote, and the repeal by Congress of all acts making land grants to
unnaturalized foreigners and allowing them to vote in the territories.
In 1856 a national convention was held, and Millard Fillmore was
nominated for president. The principles of the platform adopted were
that Americans must rule America, that native-born citizens should be
selected for all state, federal, and municipal government employment in
preference to all others, that the naturalization law should be changed
so as to require twenty-one years’ residence, and that a law should be
passed excluding from the United States all paupers or persons convicted
of crime. This party had its greatest strength in the thirty-fourth
Congress, 1854–1856, and in the discussions of the period many severe
charges were made against the immigrants.
But the Know Nothings were in the minority and consequently had little
real influence on legislation. The immigration laws proposed by them
were, as a rule, confined to the exclusion of foreign paupers and
criminals, and none of these was passed.[92] The diversion of public
interest from immigration affairs to the great questions of slavery, and
the events preliminary to the Civil War, coupled with the decline in the
volume of immigration after 1854, led to the natural decline and final
break-up of the Know Nothing party.
The agitation of the period, however, particularly in regard to steerage
conditions, had its effect on Congress, and in 1853 a select committee
of the Senate was appointed to investigate the conditions of steerage
immigration and, in particular, “the causes and the extent of the
sickness and mortality prevailing on board the emigrant ships on the
voyage to this country,” and to determine what legislation, if any, was
necessary to secure better conditions. This committee reported on August
2, 1854, and on March 3, 1855, a bill was passed which, with slight
modifications, governed the carriage of immigrants up to 1882. The
design of this act was to improve steerage conditions, and
“theoretically the law of 1855 provided for an increased air space,
better ventilation, and improved accommodations in the way of berths,
cooking facilities, the serving of food, free open deck space, and so
forth. Although the evil of overcrowding, which had been attended with
such disastrous results in former years, appears to have been especially
aimed at by the makers of the law, the wording of the act was,
unfortunately, such that the provisions relating to the number of
passengers to be carried were inoperative, and there was practically no
legal restraint in this regard, as far as the United States law was
concerned, between 1855 and 1882.”[93]
Practically the only amendment to the steerage law from 1855 to 1882 was
an act of 1860, designed to secure much-needed protection for female
passengers from immoral conduct on the part of members of the crew. A
fine of $1000 was imposed on any person employed on any ship of the
United States who was found guilty of such conduct, and members of the
crew were forbidden to visit parts of the ship assigned to immigrants,
except under the direction or with the permission of the commanding
officer.
It will be observed that, while the various state laws had a slightly
restrictive effect, all of the federal acts of this period, designed as
they were to secure better accommodations on the voyage, served as an
encouragement, rather than a deterrent, to immigration. And, on the
whole, in spite of the violent anti-immigrant agitation of the
nativistic and Know Nothing movements and the dread of foreign paupers
and criminals, the preponderance of public opinion in the United States
was probably favorable to the immigrant as such. It must be remembered
that during this entire period the United States was still distinctly a
new country. There was an abundance of unoccupied land which might be
secured on easy terms. There was a large westward movement of population
from the Atlantic seaboard, and the growing manufactures and internal
improvements created a large demand for labor. It was, as a whole, a
decidedly thinly settled country. All of these things combined to give
the immigrant every advantage in the mind of the native citizen.
Reviewing the third period, we see that it was a period of rapidly
increasing immigration, responding to the expanding industry and
exceptionally favorable agricultural situation in this country. The
movement culminated in the enormous immigration of the late forties and
early fifties. These were mainly Germans, who left their home primarily
for political reasons, and took up farm lands in the west, and Irish,
who emigrated because of economic disaster, and tended to linger in the
eastern cities, or to go out into the construction camps. Both of these
races were closely allied to the American people, and easily
assimilated. At the beginning of the period, the attitude of the
American people was almost wholly one of welcome, but with the increase
of the current, bringing as it did enormous numbers of destitute and
helpless aliens, there arose a distinct feeling of opposition to
unregulated immigration, based primarily upon the dislike of foreign
paupers and criminals, and aided by the undeniable practice of foreign
countries of emptying their poorhouses, and even their jails, upon our
shores. This feeling later came to be intensified by a strong antipathy
to Roman Catholics and the restriction of immigration was made a party
policy. Nevertheless, the opposition to immigration did not, during this
period, attain sufficient strength to secure any important legislation.
Many of the states had laws designed to indemnify the communities
against expense on account of foreign paupers, which may have had a
slight restrictive effect. But such federal legislation as there was,
was directed to the improvement of the conditions of the voyage, and
hence had an encouraging rather than a restrictive tendency. With the
approach of the Civil War immigration fell off, and public attention was
diverted to other matters.
CHAPTER V
1860 TO 1882
The disturbances connected with the Civil War, following the industrial
depression of 1857, naturally produced a diminution in the immigration
current, which in the year 1862 fell to 72,183, the lowest point it had
reached for more than twenty years, and one which has never been reached
since. This condition, which tended to allay the excessive fear of
immigration which had marked the previous decade, was augmented by
certain other factors. Foremost among these was the enormous internal
migration of people from the east to the middle and farther west,
encouraged by the liberal homestead act of 1862. This movement, in
connection with the loss of life occasioned by the war, seemed to leave
great gaps in the population of the eastern states, and put the
foreigners who came to fill them in much better favor. Many of the
immigrants themselves also moved on to the west and took up new land,
where they crowded nobody and rendered a real service in the building up
of the country.
These facts explain what would otherwise seem an extraordinary
circumstance—namely, that the first federal law passed with the avowed
intent of regulating the volume of immigration was an act to encourage
immigration. This was the act of July 4, 1864, which provided for the
appointment by the President of a Commissioner of Immigration, to be
under the direction of the Department of State, and further provided
that all contracts made in foreign countries by immigrants pledging the
wages of their labor for a term not exceeding twelve months should be
valid. An immigration office was to be established in New York City, in
charge of a Superintendent of Immigration, to look after the
transporting of immigrants to their final destination, and protecting
them from imposition and fraud. Several companies, in pursuance of this
act, were formed for the purpose of dealing in contract labor. But
protests against the character of immigrants continued strong, and the
law was repealed in 1868. The feeling of opposition to contract labor in
general was also beginning to assert itself at this time, and continued
to grow, so that the next federal legislation touching on contract labor
was of a wholly different character.
This period witnessed another important change in the immigration
situation—the transition from the sailing vessel to the steamship as the
prevailing type of immigrant carrier. “Writers on the history of sail
and steam navigation agree that steamships played no part prior to 1850
in the transportation of other than cabin passengers. In that year the
Inman Line of steamships, then recently established, began to compete
with sailing vessels by providing third class, or steerage,
accommodation.... Once established in the emigrant carrying trade,
steamships quickly monopolized the greater part of the business.”[94] In
1856, of the passengers landed at Castle Garden, New York, 96.4 per cent
were carried on sailing vessels, and 3.6 per cent on steamships. In 1873
the proportions were almost exactly reversed—3.2 per cent on sailing
vessels, and 96.8 per cent on steamships. The turn of the balance came
between the years 1864 and 1865; in the first of these years the sailing
vessels carried 55.7 per cent of the passengers, and in the second, 41.7
per cent. “No consistent data are available to show the relative number
of passengers carried on sailing vessels and steamships after 1873, but
it was not long until steamships had practically a complete monopoly of
the business.”[95] This change did more to alleviate the conditions of
the steerage than anything which had transpired previously.
The change from sail to steam was accompanied by the loss of the primary
position in the immigrant-carrying field by the United States. In the
rivalry for the steamship business she was quickly outstripped by
England. Chance played a part in this outcome through the loss of two of
the largest ships of the Collins Line, but the conscious policy of the
United States contributed to the result. The available capital of the
country was diverted to manufactures and railroad building by the
artificial stimulus given to these industries—by the tariff on the one
hand, and the land grants on the other.
With the return of prosperity after the war, the volume of immigration
began to increase again, and in 1873 culminated in the record figure of
459,803. The industrial depression of that year cut down the influx, and
the next record was not reached until 1882, the year that inaugurates
the modern period. During the entire period under discussion the two
main elements in the immigration stream were the Irish and the Germans.
The climax of the immigration from the United Kingdom (mostly Irish) had
been reached in 1851, with a total of 272,240, a figure which has never
been equaled since. The immigration from Germany in the year 1854 had
reached 215,009, a number which has been exceeded only once since then
(in 1882). In 1854, 87.7 per cent of the entire immigration came from
these two sources. In 1873, 68.8 per cent still showed the same origin.
During the closing years of this period people of Scandinavian origin
occupied a noteworthy place in the immigration field. Small parties of
Norwegians, Danes, and Swedes had appeared early in the nineteenth
century, and had been followed by others from time to time. These early
immigrants had formed settlements, for the most part agricultural, in
various parts of the country, particularly in the middle west and
northwest. But they were an inconsiderable part of the total immigration
until after the Civil War. In 1873 they amounted to 7.7 per cent of the
total immigration, and in 1882 to 13.4 per cent. The underlying causes
which predisposed the natives of the Scandinavian countries to
emigration were found in the rugged and inhospitable character of the
soil, and the severe and uncertain climate. Only a small part of the
total land area was available for cultivation, and there was little room
for an expanding population. Thus the fundamental causes of emigration
were economic. Religious differences and the demands of military service
played minor parts. Political oppression entered in somewhat in the case
of the Danes.
The more immediate causes are found in a period of financial depression
between 1866 and 1870, the Dano-Prussian War of 1864, the activities of
steamship agents, and more particularly the letters and visits from the
earlier emigrants and adventurers, who told in person of the advantages
and opportunities of life in America. These, as always, had a profound
effect in stirring up enthusiasm for emigration.
The Scandinavian emigrants came mainly from rural regions and rural
occupations, and naturally tended to follow out the same bent in their
new home, resembling in this respect their kinsmen, the Germans. Like
them, too, they were easily assimilated, and aroused little opposition
on the part of the Americans.[96]
It was in connection with one of these leading groups of immigrants—the
Irish—that there developed one of the most unfortunate, and at the same
time interesting, series of events that have occurred in connection with
the immigrant situation during our entire history—one that had much to
do with arousing antipathy toward foreigners, and was among the
influences that led to the introduction of new races from southeastern
Europe.[97] This was the Molly Maguire disturbance in the anthracite
region of Pennsylvania.
When the anthracite coal districts of Pennsylvania were opened up, early
in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the social conditions
in the new settlements resembled those of a gold mining region, in the
prevalence of lawlessness, excitability, and turbulence. The country was
still rough and thinly settled, and between the mining settlements were
wide stretches of virgin wilds which furnished ideal hiding places for
criminals and refugees. As the knowledge of mining was largely confined
to foreigners, they came to occupy a large place in the colliery towns,
and prominent among them were the Irish. As the numbers of Irish
increased, Irish customs and ideas came to practically dominate many
places. Other foreign races represented were the Germans, English,
Welsh, Scotch, and Poles. The immigrants from Ireland during the forties
and fifties were not all worthy representatives of the race, as many of
the more turbulent characters were practically compelled by the
landlords to join the general exodus.
As early as 1854 there appeared among the Irish miners an organization
known as the Molly Maguires—a name long known in Ireland, though there
was no organic connection between the societies in the old and new
world. Its members were all Irish and all professed adherents to the
Roman Catholic Church, though both the church and the better elements of
the race absolutely repudiated them and their acts. Also, practically
all the Molly Maguires were members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians,
and were able so to control this organization, legally chartered for
beneficial purposes, as to use it as a cloak for their nefarious
enterprises.
The power of the Molly Maguires was used primarily to further the ends
of its members in their relations with the colliery owners and bosses;
whenever a dispute arose between an employee and a boss, the latter
would be served with a notice, frequently decorated with rude pictures
of coffins, death’s heads, and the like, warning him to desist in his
course or to leave the region. If he failed to obey, he was almost sure
soon after to be waylaid and cruelly beaten, as well as to suffer social
ostracism. The perpetrators of the deed of violence always escaped, and
thus confidence and a sense of power grew in the organization.
Soon after the breaking out of the Civil War, conditions in the
anthracite region became such as to improve the situation of the miners
and add to the power of the Molly Maguires. They became more and more
insolent in their demands, and ambitious in their purposes. They tried
to gain control of the Miners’ Union, and also, with a measure of
success, sought to dominate local politics, with their eye primarily
upon the township funds. They succeeded in making the lives of the small
mine owners such a burden that they were glad to sell out to the large
combinations; thus the growth of large units and monopolies was
fostered, as they alone could deal with the Molly Maguires on anything
like terms of equality. In the meantime, the methods of the society
increased in harshness and barbarity. Arson and murder took the place of
beating. There arose a rivalry among the Mollies as to who should gain
the greatest reputation for deeds of reckless savagery. Murder after
murder was committed, without a conviction. The victims were often men
of the highest repute and usefulness in their respective communities.
The motives for the outrages increased in variety, including almost any
injury, real or fancied, or any personal grudge on the part of a member
of the society, though rarely were they committed for robbery. A general
reign of terror settled down over the region, and vigilance committees
were being formed for purposes of reprisal.
At this juncture, in 1873, Mr. Franklin B. Gowen, president of the
Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company, and a man of remarkable
character, enlisted the services of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in
the effort to stamp out the organization. A young Irish detective, James
McParlan, was chosen for the dangerous and difficult work. He was
instructed to go to the anthracite region, join the Molly Maguires, and
get as high in their counsels as possible, in order that he might reveal
their secrets to the authorities, thereby preventing outrages when
possible and securing convictions where he could not prevent. He was
successful in both efforts. After many months of work and peril he
finally succeeded in securing sufficient evidence to accomplish the
conviction of a large number of the members of the society, breaking
down completely their customary defense of an alibi. In all, nineteen
Molly Maguires were hanged, and a larger number imprisoned, and the
power of the organization was completely shattered.
This series of events is a remarkable illustration of the way in which
customs, and habits of thought, and standards of conduct, which have
grown up by a natural process, and are comprehensible if not excusable
in one land, may develop most alarming and disgraceful features when
transplanted to a new environment. The essential strength of the Molly
Maguires lay in that deep-seated hatred of an informer which has become
a pronounced feature of the Irish character, as a result of the
conditions to which they have been subjected at home. Thus, while the
great mass of the Irish settlers of the anthracite region abhorred the
principles and deeds of the Molly Maguires, it was almost impossible to
secure witnesses against criminals whose identity was a matter of
general knowledge, because of the greater repugnance to the character of
an informer. The traditional hatred of the Irish peasant towards the
landlord was, in this country, diverted to the capitalist class in a
wholly unreasonable but efficient manner.
There is here, also, a striking demonstration of the capacity of a
relatively small group of turbulent and unassimilated foreigners so to
conduct themselves as to bring an undeserved disrepute upon their whole
group, and foster economic and social changes in society which will last
on long after they are all dead.[98]
While the Irish and Germans were dominating the immigration situation on
the Atlantic coast, the Chinese were occupying the center of the stage
in the west. The stream of Chinese immigration became considerable at
about the same time that the great increase in European immigration was
taking place on the other side of the continent. As to its causes, Mrs.
Mary Roberts Coolidge speaks as follows: “The first effective contact of
China with Western nations was through the Opium War of 1840, which
resulted in an increase of Chinese taxes, a general disturbance of the
laboring classes, and the penetration of some slight knowledge of
European ideas into the maritime provinces. Although this prepared the
way for the emigration to the West, its precipitating cause lay in ‘the
Golden Romance’ that had filled the world,”—that is, the news of the
discovery of gold in California. “Masters of foreign vessels afforded
every facility to emigration, distributing placards, maps, and pamphlets
with highly colored accounts of the Golden Hills.... But behind the
opportunity afforded by foreign shipping and the enticement of the
discovery of gold lay deeper causes for emigration—the poverty and ruin
in which the inhabitants of Southeastern China were involved by the
great Taiping rebellion which began in the summer of 1850. The terrors
of war, famine, and plundering paralyzed all industry and trade, and the
agricultural classes of the maritime districts especially were driven to
Hong Kong and Macao.”[99] By the end of 1852 there were in the
neighborhood of 25,000 Chinese on the Pacific coast, almost all of them
in California.
During the first few years of their coming, the Chinese in California
were welcomed, and were looked upon with favor. They were industrious,
tractable, and inoffensive, and were willing to undertake the hard,
menial, and disagreeable forms of labor—partly work generally done by
women—for which native labor was not available under existing
conditions. Their strange manners and customs aroused nothing more than
feelings of curiosity. But gradually a feeling of opposition to them
began to grow up, fomented by the jealousy and race prejudice of the
miners. Their peculiar appearance and strange customs began to make them
the objects of suspicion and hatred. This feeling was intensified by the
presence of a large element of southerners in California, who classed
all people of dark skin—“South Americans, South Europeans, Kanakas,
Malays, or Chinese”—together as colored. Wild stories of their character
and habits began to circulate, and with each repetition gained strength
until they passed current as facts. Among these were the assertions that
the Chinese were practically all coolies, or labor slaves, that they
were highly immoral and vicious, that they had secret tribunals which
inflicted the death penalty without due process of law, that they
displaced native labor, that they could not be Christianized, that they
had no intention of remaining as permanent residents of the country and
would not assimilate with the natives, that they sent money out of the
country, etc. Most of these charges have been proven to be either wholly
false or highly exaggerated by recent investigations, and were so
recognized by the more sober and fair-minded students of the subject at
the time. But for the mass of the people of the Pacific coast, and for
many in other parts of the country, they acquired all the force of
established dogma, and their reiteration passed for argument.
The Chinaman became the scapegoat for all the ills that afflicted the
youthful community, from whatever cause they really arose, and in time
an anti-Chinese declaration came to be essential for the success of any
political party or candidate. In such a state of public opinion it was
inevitable that their lot should be a hard one. They were robbed,
beaten, murdered, and persecuted in a variety of ways. The foreign
miners’ license tax was used against them in a discriminating way which
amounted to quasi legal plunder.
In 1876 the California State Legislature appointed a committee to look
into the matter of Chinese immigration and to make a report. This was
done in 1877, and although the resulting Address and Memorial to
Congress have had a large influence in forming public opinion, and in
shaping legislation, it appears that it was in fact a purely political
document, and that everything was arranged in advance to secure a report
which should accomplish a certain definite result—the satisfaction of
the workingmen of the state, and the emphasizing of the necessity of
federal legislation. The need of this was strongly felt, because nearly
all the acts passed by the coast states against the Chinese had been
declared either unconstitutional or a violation of treaty.
In response to the repeated demands of the coast states for some federal
action, Congress in 1876 appointed a special committee on Chinese
immigration, which made what purported to be a thorough investigation of
the matter, and reported thereupon. The report was wholly anti-Chinese.
But this was inevitable, as it is apparent from a careful study of the
testimony, that the committee “came to its task committed to an
anti-Chinese conclusion and that it had no judicial character
whatever.”[100] The evidence was willfully distorted to produce the
desired result.
During all this time our relations with China had been nominally subject
to a series of treaties, beginning with that of 1844, and including the
famous Burlingame treaty of 1868. While the earlier agreements did not
specifically mention the rights of Chinese to reside and trade in the
United States, they were in fact allowed the same privileges in these
respects as the citizens of other nations. By the treaty of 1868,
however, the right of voluntary emigration was definitely recognized as
between the two countries on the basis of the most favored nation; but
the Chinese were not given the right of naturalization. From this
privilege they were definitely excluded by the law of 1870.
It became evident in time that no federal legislation, satisfactory to
the politicians of the western states, could be secured under the
existing treaties. There arose accordingly a demand for a new treaty
which would allow the passage of laws which would include the points
desired by the western representatives, practically the exclusion of all
Chinese not belonging to the merchant class. In response to this demand
there was negotiated, after much conference between the representatives
of the two nations, a new treaty in 1880. The most important feature of
this new instrument was the right conferred upon the government of the
United States reasonably to regulate, limit, or suspend, but not to
prohibit, the coming or residence of Chinese laborers, whenever it
deemed that the interests of the country demanded such action. It is
under this treaty that the various Chinese exclusion acts have been
passed.
The first of these acts was passed in 1882, and provided for the
exclusion of Chinese laborers for a period of ten years. This was not to
apply to Chinese who were already in the country, or who should enter
within ninety days after the passage of the act. Such persons, who
desired to leave the country and return, were required to secure a
certificate, which by an amendatory act of 1884 was made the sole
evidence of the right of a Chinaman to return. This act also required a
certificate of the exempt classes, to be issued by the Chinese
government or such other foreign governments as they might be subject
to. The deportation of Chinese unlawfully in the country was also
provided for by these acts.
These laws were in many respects carelessly drawn and extremely
difficult of execution. In their application they entailed great expense
upon the United States government, and worked extreme hardship and
injustice to many Chinese. They were, nevertheless, effective as regards
their main purpose, for the volume of Chinese immigration at once
diminished exceedingly. The strictness of the exclusion was increased by
the act of 1888, which refused return to any Chinese laborer unless he
had a lawful wife, child, or parent in the United States, or owned
property of the value of $1000 or had debts due him of like amount. The
acts in force were extended for another ten years by the act of 1892,
and again indefinitely in 1902, in each case with relatively unimportant
modifications in detail.
This history of Chinese immigration is not a matter in which the citizen
of the United States can take much pride. Race prejudice, bigotry,
ignorance, and political ambition have played a prominent part in the
agitation, and have been instrumental in securing much of the
legislation. The attitude and conduct of the United States contrasts
unfavorably with the position of China, which has been one of patient,
courteous, dignified, but emphatic protest, and willingness to coöperate
in securing reasonable and beneficial regulation. The boycott of 1905
has been her principal active reprisal. In spite of these facts,
however, it would be rash to assert that the exclusion of Chinese
laborers, by whatever unfortunate means accomplished, has not been of
actual benefit to the United States. The assertion that the failure of
the Chinese to assimilate has been due more to race prejudice and
exclusiveness on the part of Americans than to unwillingness to be
Americanized on the part of the Chinese, does not do away with the fact
of nonassimilation. Until Americans are willing to fraternize on terms
of social equality with members of any race, there is great danger to
national institutions in the presence of large numbers of that race
within the country.[101] And when we reflect how enormous Chinese
immigration might easily have become in these recent years of quick and
easy transportation, and excessive activity of steamship agents,
contract labor agents, and others of their kind, it is apparent that if
free immigration had been allowed to these people of a widely diverse
race, we might now be facing a Chinese problem in this country second in
gravity only to the negro question.[102]
By the end of this period the conditions of life in America had so
changed as to diminish the general feeling of complacency toward
unlimited immigration. There was in particular a growing opposition to
contract labor, and an increased demand for federal control of the
immigration situation, especially as all state laws in regard to the
regulation of foreign immigration had been declared unconstitutional in
1876. There was a conviction in the minds of some thinkers that the
United States no longer stood in need of an increased labor force. These
views were clearly expressed in an article by Mr. A. B. Mason, published
in 1874. Some of his statements have a new ring. “The conditions that
have hitherto greatly favored immigration no longer exist in their full
force.” “The labour market, _especially for agricultural labour_, is
overstocked.” “The especial disadvantages of American labour more than
counterbalance its especial advantages.” “English labour is in the main
as well off as American labour.”[103] It is evident that the time was at
hand when the competition of the foreigner in the American labor market
could no longer be regarded with equanimity.
This sentiment did not bear fruit, however, until the year 1882. The
only federal legislation bearing on immigration after the repeal of the
favorable contract labor law in 1868 up to this date, was the act of
March 3, 1875, prohibiting the importation or immigration into the
United States of women for the purpose of prostitution, and also
prohibiting the immigration of criminals, convicted of other than
political offenses. This law, while couched in general terms, was an
outcome of the anti-Chinese agitation, and was passed with this race
particularly in mind.
CHAPTER VI
MODERN PERIOD. FEDERAL LEGISLATION
The year 1882 stands as a prominent landmark in the history of
immigration into the United States. In that year the total immigration
reached the figure of 788,992, a point which had never been reached
before and was not reached again until 1903. It witnessed the climax of
the movement from the Scandinavian countries, and from Germany; only
once since then has the immigration from the United Kingdom reached the
amount of that year. It coincides almost exactly with the appearance of
the streams of immigration from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia of
sufficient volume to command attention. In that year the first Chinese
exclusion act and the first inclusive federal immigration law were
passed. Consequently the year 1882 stands as a natural and logical
beginning of the modern period of immigration, a period during which the
immigration movement has been marked by characteristics so peculiarly
new and definite as to distinguish it sharply from anything which went
before. The discussion of immigration during this period is in all its
essentials the discussion of a present-day problem.
One of the most distinctive and obvious characteristics of this period
has been the growth of a complicated body of federal immigration laws.
These have put the whole immigration question on a new basis, and
deserve to be considered in some detail. In the following review, only
those sections of the successive laws which contain matter that is of
general importance have been included. All merely technical details and
many of the provisions regarding penalties and the practical
administration of the laws have been omitted.
Act of August 3, 1882. SECTION 1. A duty (commonly known as a head tax)
of fifty cents is to be levied for every passenger not a citizen of the
United States, who comes from any foreign port to any port of the United
States by steam or sail vessel. This duty is to be paid to the collector
of customs of the port, by the master, owner, agent, or consignee of the
vessel within twenty-four hours after entry. The money so collected is
to constitute an Immigrant Fund, to be used to defray the expenses of
regulating immigration, for the care of immigrants, and the relief of
such as are in distress, and in general for carrying out the provisions
of the act. This duty is to constitute a lien upon the vessel until
paid.
SECTION 2. The Secretary of the Treasury is charged with the execution
of this act, and with supervision over the business of immigration into
the United States. He is authorized to make contracts with state boards
and commissions, which are still charged with the duty of examining
ships arriving at ports of the state. Any convict, lunatic, idiot, or
any person unable to take care of himself or herself without becoming a
public charge shall not be permitted to land.
SECTION 3. The Secretary of the Treasury is empowered to make provisions
to protect immigrants from fraud and loss, and to carry out the law.
SECTION 4. All foreign convicts, except those convicted of political
offenses, shall be returned to the nations to which they belong and from
which they came. The expense of returning all persons not permitted to
land is to be borne by the owners of the vessel in which they came.
SECTION 5. This act shall take effect immediately.
The salient points of this law are the imposition of a federal head tax,
the beginning of a list of excluded classes, the return of excluded
aliens, at the expense of the shipowners, and the assignment of the
immigration business to the Secretary of the Treasury, the actual work
of examination, however, still being done by the state boards.
The next act bearing on immigration was Section 22 of the act of June
26, 1884, and was designed to correct a discrimination in favor of land
transportation contained in Section 1 of the act of 1882. It provided
that until the provisions of this section should be made applicable to
passengers coming into the United States by land carriage, they should
not apply to passengers coming in vessels trading exclusively between
ports of the United States and Canada and Mexico.
Act of February 26, 1885. SECTION 1. It shall be “unlawful for any
person, company, partnership, or corporation, in any manner whatsoever,
to prepay the transportation, or in any way to assist or encourage the
importation or migration of any alien or aliens, any foreigner or
foreigners, into the United States, its Territories, or the District of
Columbia, under contract or agreement, parol or special, express or
implied, made previously to the importation or migration of such alien
or aliens, foreigner or foreigners, to perform labor or service of any
kind in the United States, its Territories, or the District of
Columbia.”
SECTION 2. All contracts of the above nature shall be void.
SECTION 3. Provides for a fine of $1000 for every violation of the above
provision, payable for each alien being party to such a contract.
SECTION 4. The master of any vessel who knowingly brings in contract
laborers shall be fined not more than $500, and may also be imprisoned
for not more than six months.
SECTION 5. The following classes shall be excepted from the provisions
of the above sections: secretaries, servants, and domestics of
foreigners temporarily residing in the United States; skilled workmen
for any industry not now established in the United States, provided that
such labor cannot be otherwise obtained; actors, artists, lecturers or
singers, or persons employed strictly as personal or domestic servants.
This act shall not prevent any individual from assisting any member of
his family or any relative or personal friend to come in for the purpose
of settlement.
On February 23, 1887, there was an amendatory act passed to the above
act, specifically intrusting the Secretary of the Treasury with the
carrying out of its provisions, and providing for the return of contract
laborers in a manner similar to other excluded classes.
On October 19, 1888, the law of 1887 was amended, providing that a
person who has entered the country contrary to the contract labor law,
may be deported within one year at the expense of the owner of the
importing vessel, or if he came by land, of the person contracting for
his services.
The section containing the provision for excluding contract laborers has
been quoted verbatim to emphasize its extremely strict and inclusive
wording. It would be very difficult for any person who had the slightest
idea of what he was going to do in this country to prove himself outside
the letter of that law. The softening clauses of the law are put in the
form of exceptions, thus throwing the burden of the proof upon the
immigrant. The last amendment quoted is of especial interest as
introducing the principle of deportation after landing.[104]
Act of March 3, 1891. SECTION 1. The following additions are made to the
excluded classes: paupers or persons likely to become a public charge,
persons suffering from a loathsome or a contagious disease, polygamists,
and any person whose ticket or passage is paid for with the money of
another, or who is assisted by others to come, unless it is specifically
proved that he does not belong to one of the excluded classes, including
contract laborers.
SECTION 3. Assisting or encouraging immigration by promise of employment
through advertising in a foreign country is declared illegal, with the
exception of the advertisements of state agencies.
SECTION 4. Encouragement or solicitation of immigration by steamship or
transportation companies, except by means of regular advertisements
giving an account of sailings, facilities, and terms is declared
illegal.
SECTION 5. The following are added to the excepted classes under the
contract labor law: ministers of any religious denomination, persons
belonging to any recognized profession, professors of colleges and
seminaries. Relatives and friends of persons in this country are not
hereafter to be excepted.
SECTION 6. Persons bringing in aliens not legally entitled to enter are
made liable to a fine of not more than $1000, or imprisonment for not
more than one year, or both.
SECTION 7. The office of Superintendent of Immigration is created, to be
under the Secretary of the Treasury.
SECTION 8. Shipmasters shall file with the proper officers a manifest,
giving the name, nationality, last residence, and destination of each
alien passenger. Inspection is to be made by inspection officers before
landing, or a temporary landing may be made at a specified place. The
medical examination is to be made by surgeons of the Marine Hospital
Service. During the temporary landing, aliens are to be properly fed and
cared for. Right of appeal granted. Landing, or allowing to land, alien
passengers at any other time or place than that specified by the
inspectors is made an offense punishable by a (maximum) fine of $1000,
or imprisonment for one year, or both. The Secretary of the Treasury is
empowered to prescribe rules for the inspection of immigrants along the
borders of Canada, British Columbia, and Mexico. The duties and powers
previously vested in the state boards are now to go to the regular
inspection officers of the United States.
SECTION 10. All aliens who unlawfully come to the United States are to
be immediately sent back on the vessel in which they came, all expenses
in the meantime to be borne by the shipowner.
SECTION 11. Any alien who comes into the United States in violation of
law may be deported within one year, and any alien who becomes a public
charge within one year after landing, from causes existing prior to this
landing, may be deported. The expenses of all deportations are to be
borne by the transportation agency responsible for bringing in the
immigrant, if that is possible, and if not, by the United States.
The items in this act particularly worthy of notice are the following:
extension of the excluded classes; prohibition of encouraging
immigration by advertising or solicitation, an attempt to cure two
serious evils, the success of which we shall have occasion to note
later; relatives and personal friends in this country no longer excepted
from the contract labor clause (this exception had almost vitiated the
former law); requirement of manifests; the complete assumption of the
work of inspection by the federal government; extension of the principle
of deportation to public charges.
Act of March 3, 1893. SECTION 1. Manifests greatly enlarged in detail.
SECTION 2. Alien passengers are to be listed in convenient groups of not
more than thirty each, and given tickets corresponding to their numbers
on the manifests. The master of the vessel must certify that he and the
ship’s surgeon have made an examination of all the immigrants before
sailing, and believe none of them to belong to the excluded classes.
SECTION 3. If the ship has no surgeon, examination must be made by a
competent surgeon hired by the transportation company.
SECTION 5. Immigrants who are not beyond any doubt entitled to land are
to be held for special inquiry by a board of not less than four
inspectors.
The noteworthy features in this law are examination at the expense of
the company at the port of embarkation, listing the immigrants in groups
of thirty, the institution of the boards of special inquiry.
August 18, 1894. Head tax is raised to $1.
March 2, 1895. The Superintendent of Immigration is hereafter to be
designated the Commissioner General of Immigration.
June 6, 1900. The Commissioner General of Immigration is made
responsible for the administration of the Chinese Exclusion Acts.
March 3, 1903. _Section 1._ The head tax is raised to $2, and is not to
apply to citizens of Canada, Cuba, or Mexico.
SECTION 2. The following are added to the debarred classes: epileptics,
persons who have been insane within five years previous, persons who
have had two or more attacks of insanity at any time previously;
professional beggars, anarchists, or persons who believe in or advocate
the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the United
States, or of all government or of all forms of law, or the
assassination of public officials; prostitutes, and persons who procure
or attempt to bring in prostitutes or women for the purpose of
prostitution; those who, within one year, have been deported under the
contract labor clause.
SECTION 3. The importation of prostitutes is forbidden under a (maximum)
penalty of five years’ imprisonment and a fine of $5000.
SECTION 9. The bringing in of any person afflicted with a loathsome or a
dangerous contagious disease by any person or company, except railway
lines, is forbidden. A fine of $100 is attached if it appears that the
disease might have been detected at the time of embarkation.
SECTION 11. If a rejected alien is helpless from sickness, physical
disability, or infancy, and is accompanied by an alien whose protection
is required, both shall be returned in the usual way.
SECTION 20. The period of deportation for aliens who have come into this
country in violation of law, including those who have become public
charges within two years after landing, is raised to two years.
SECTION 21. A similar provision for deportation within three years is
made for the above classes of aliens, with the exception of public
charges.
SECTION 24. The appointment of immigration inspectors and other
employees is put under the Civil Service rules.
SECTION 25. The boards of special inquiry are to consist of three
members. Either the alien or any dissenting member of the board may
appeal.
SECTION 39. Anarchists, etc., are not to be naturalized.
The important features of this act are the further extension of the
excluded classes; special attention and penalties with respect to
prostitutes; the period of deportation raised to two and three years.
Act of February 14, 1903. The Department of Commerce and Labor is
created, and the Commissioner General of Immigration is transferred to
it from the Treasury Department.
March 22, 1904. Newfoundland is added to the countries exempt from the
head tax.
June 29, 1906. The Bureau of Immigration is henceforth to be called the
Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization, and is to have charge of the
business of naturalization. A register is to be kept at immigration
stations, giving full information in regard to all aliens arriving in
the United States.
On February 20, 1907, there was passed an inclusive immigration law,
designed to include all of the previous laws, and repealing such
provisions of earlier laws as are not consistent with the present law.
The principal changes introduced by the new law are as follows:
SECTION 1. The head tax is raised to $4. It is not to be levied on
aliens who have resided for at least one year immediately preceding, in
Canada, Newfoundland, Cuba, or Mexico, nor on aliens in transit through
the United States.
SECTION 2. To the excluded classes are added imbeciles, feeble-minded
persons, persons afflicted with tuberculosis, persons not included in
any of the specifically excluded classes who have a mental or physical
deficiency which may affect their ability to earn a living, persons who
admit having committed a crime involving moral turpitude, persons who
admit their belief in the practice of polygamy, women or girls coming
into the United States for the purpose of prostitution, or for any other
immoral purpose, or persons who attempt to bring in such women or girls,
and all children under the age of sixteen unaccompanied by one or both
of their parents, at the discretion of the Secretary of Commerce and
Labor. Persons whose tickets are paid for with the money of another must
show affirmatively that they were not paid for by any corporation,
society, association, municipality, or foreign government, either
directly or indirectly. This is not to apply to aliens in continuous
transit through the United States to foreign contiguous territory.
SECTION 3. The harboring of immoral women and girls in houses of
prostitution, or any other place for purposes of prostitution, within a
period of three years after their arrival, is made an offense punishable
in the same manner as importing them. Such women are liable to
deportation within three years.
SECTION 9. A fine of $100 is imposed on any person bringing in aliens
subject to any of the following disabilities: idiots, imbeciles,
epileptics, or persons afflicted with tuberculosis (or with a loathsome
or dangerous contagious disease), if these existed and might have been
detected previous to embarkation.
SECTION 12. It is made the duty of shipmasters taking alien passengers
out of the United States to furnish a report, before sailing, giving the
name, age, sex, nationality, residence in the United States, occupation,
and time of last arrival in the United States of each such alien
passenger.
SECTION 20. All deportations may be within three years.[105]
SECTION 25. Appeal from a decision of a board of special inquiry may be
made by the rejected alien or by any member of the board, through the
commissioner of the port and the Commissioner General of Immigration to
the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, except in cases of tuberculosis,
loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, or mental or physical
disability, as previously provided for, in which case the decision of
the board is final.
SECTION 26. Any alien who is not admissible because likely to become a
public charge, or because of physical disability other than tuberculosis
or loathsome or dangerous contagious disease, may be admitted on a
suitable bond against becoming a public charge.
SECTION 39. An Immigration Commission is to be appointed.
SECTION 40. The establishment of a Division of Information is
authorized. Its duty is to promote a beneficial distribution of aliens
admitted into the United States.
SECTION 42. Provisions regarding steerage accommodations.[106]
The especially noteworthy features of this act are the following:
further extension of the excluded classes; more stringent provisions
regarding immoral women, and their managers; the fine for bringing in
inadmissible aliens extended to other classes; the beginning of
statistics of departing aliens; appeal not allowed from the decision of
a board of special inquiry in case of mental or physical disability;
Immigration Commission authorized; Division of Information established.
The only important addition to immigration legislation since this act is
the act of March 26, 1910, by which there were added to the excluded and
deportable classes “persons who are supported by or receive in full or
in part the proceeds of prostitution.” The three-year limit for
deportation was removed as regards sexually immoral aliens. Closely
connected with this phase of the immigration statutes is a recent act
prohibiting the importation from one state to another of persons for the
purpose of prostitution. In accordance with an act just passed (1913)
the business of immigration and naturalization passes over to the newly
created Department of Labor.
We have seen that up to 1882 practically all the federal acts relating
to immigration had to do with the regulation of steerage conditions.
Until the year 1907 these acts, which were encouraging in tendency, were
always considered as a separate body of legislation from the real
immigration laws, which were primarily restrictive in character. In the
act of that year, however, the control of the steerage was included in
the immigration law, where it logically belonged. There had been one or
two important pieces of steerage legislation passed previous to this
time which we have not as yet noticed.
The last important steerage act which has been noted was the act of
1855. The principal law between that date and 1907 was the act of 1882.
“Viewed from the standpoint of its predecessors the passenger act of
1882 was an excellent measure. Its framers had profited by observing the
results of the legislative experiments of about sixty-two years. This
advantage, together with the marvelous development and progress in the
methods of passenger traffic, enabled the lawmakers to draft an
intelligent and comprehensive bill. By its provisions the safety and
comfort of emigrants were, theoretically at least, assured. No deck less
than 6 feet in height on any vessel was allowed to be used for
passengers. On the main deck and the deck next below 100 cubic feet of
air space was allowed each passenger, and on the second deck below the
main deck 120 cubic feet was allowed each person. Decks other than the
three above mentioned were under no circumstances to be used for
passengers. With the development of shipbuilding, however, other decks
were added to ships, and this provision soon became obsolete. Sufficient
berths for all passengers were to be provided, the dimensions of each
berth to be not less than 2 feet in width and 6 feet in length, with
suitable partitions dividing them. The sexes were to be properly
separated. The steerage was to be amply supplied with fresh air by means
of modern approved ventilators. Three cooked meals, consisting of
wholesome food, were to be served regularly each day. Each ship was to
have a fully equipped modern hospital for the use of sick passengers. A
competent physician was to be in attendance and suitable medicines were
to be carried. The ship’s master was authorized to enforce such rules
and regulations as would promote habits of cleanliness and good health.
Dangerous articles, such as highly explosive substances and powerful
acids, were forbidden on board.”[107]
The above act remained in force until 1907, when it was superseded by
Section 42 of the immigration act of that year. By this law the cubic
air space system of the act of 1882 was abandoned in favor of the
superficial area system of preventing overcrowding. Eighteen clear feet
of deck space on the main deck or the deck next below were to be
provided for each passenger, and 20 feet on the second deck below. If
the height between the lower passenger deck and the one next above was
less than 7 feet, there must be 30 clear feet of deck space per
passenger. There was also provision for light and ventilation. No
passengers were to be carried on any other decks than those mentioned.
This act was unsatisfactory, as there was much uncertainty as to which
was the main deck, inasmuch as ships with as many as eight decks were
carrying immigrants. The British law was superior in this respect. It
specified the lowest passenger deck as the one next below the water
line. All above this were denominated passenger decks. This law required
18 clear superficial feet for each passenger carried on the lowest
passenger deck, and 15 feet for each passenger on passenger decks. If
the height of the lowest passenger deck was less than 7 feet, or if it
was not properly lighted and ventilated, there must be 25 feet per
passenger, and under similar conditions on passenger decks, 18 feet.
There must be 5 feet of superficial open deck space for each passenger.
In reckoning the space on the lowest passenger deck and passenger decks
the space occupied by the baggage of passengers, public rooms,
lavatories, and bathrooms used exclusively by steerage passengers might
be counted, provided the actual sleeping space was not less than 15 feet
on the lowest and 12 feet on the others. On December 19, 1908, the
United States passed a law making our steerage provisions correspond
with the British act, except that the last provisions are 18 feet and 15
feet respectively in the United States law.
In the practical application of such a complicated set of laws as these
it is inevitable that many questions and uncertainties should arise. For
the guidance of immigration officials in the performance of their
duties, a long list of rules and regulations are prescribed by the
Commissioner General. A few of these, which have an immediate bearing on
the admission of aliens must be noted. Stowaways are considered _ipso
facto_ inadmissible, and as a rule are not even examined. Certain border
ports are specified on the Canadian and Mexican borders, and any alien
entering at any other port is assumed to have entered in violation of
law. All aliens arriving in Canada, destined to the United States, are
inspected at one of the following ports: Halifax, Nova Scotia; Quebec
and Point Levi, Quebec; St. John, New Brunswick; Vancouver and Victoria,
British Columbia. The United States maintains inspection stations at
these points, and aliens examined there are given a certificate stating
that the alien has been inspected and is admissible, accompanied by a
personal description for purposes of identification. Special boards of
inquiry are also established in other border cities for the examination
of aliens, originally destined for Canada, but who later desire to be
admitted to the United States within one year after their arrival in
Canada. Aliens entering the United States by Mexican border ports are,
in general, subject to the same inspection as if arriving by a seaport.
Aliens in transit are examined in the same manner as if desiring to
remain in the United States, and if they are found to belong to the
debarred classes they are refused permission to land. The head tax is
charged on their account, as for other aliens, but it is refunded to the
transportation company if the latter furnishes satisfactory proof that
the alien has passed by a continuous journey through the territory of
the United States, within thirty days, such proof to be furnished within
sixty days after the arrival of the alien.
Throughout the development of this body of laws certain well-marked
tendencies can be traced. In the first place, the criteria of admission
have steadily increased in severity, until now the law provides for the
exclusion of practically every class of applicants who might fairly be
considered undesirable, with the exception, perhaps, of illiterates.
Secondly, we may note a tendency to concentrate all business, connected
with the admission of aliens into this country or into membership in the
nation, in the hands of a single branch of the federal government, and
the increasing power and importance of this branch. Thirdly, there is
manifest an increasing recognition of the right of this country to
protect itself against unwelcome additions to its population, not only
by refusing them admission, but by expelling them from the country, if
their subsequent conduct proves them unworthy of retention.
CHAPTER VII
VOLUME AND RACIAL COMPOSITION OF THE IMMIGRATION STREAM
As regards the volume of the immigration current the modern period has
witnessed a continuation of the same general process which has been
going on since 1820. The same succession of crests and depressions in
the great wave has continued, the only difference being that the apex
reached a much higher point than ever before. And, as in other periods,
the great determining factor in the volume of immigration has been the
economic situation in this country. Prosperity has always been attended
by large immigration, hard times by the reverse. As already remarked,
the year 1882 was marked by the largest annual immigration which had
hitherto been recorded. The next low-water mark was reached in the
middle nineties, following the depression of 1893. As the country
recovered from this, immigration began to increase again, and rose
almost steadily until in 1907 it reached the highest record which it has
ever attained, a grand total of 1,285,349 immigrants in one year.[108]
The crisis of that year interrupted the course of affairs, and
immigration fell off sharply, and has not since completely recovered.
There is one matter connected with the volume of immigration which marks
the last few years of the modern period and is of the greatest
importance. This is the provision for estimating the exact net gain or
loss in population each year through immigration movements. Until very
recently the only immigration figures which were considered worth while
were those of arriving aliens. It was tacitly assumed that our immigrant
traffic was a wholly one-sided one. But gradually people began to
realize that there was a large countercurrent of departing aliens. In
the Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration for 1906 (p. 56)
an effort is made to supply as far as possible these data for the years
1890 to 1906. But in the absence of any legislation requiring
shipmasters to furnish lists of departing passengers, these figures are
admittedly incomplete, and no attempt is made to distinguish aliens from
citizens of the United States. The nearest approach that can be made to
ascertaining the number of departing aliens is to assume that all the
passengers other than cabin belonged to this class. This is probably not
very far from the truth, and taking these figures as a guide, we can get
some idea of how large the outward movement has been at certain times,
particularly during the period of commercial depression which marked the
middle nineties. Thus in 1895 while there were 258,536 arrivals of
immigrant aliens, there were 216,665 departures of the class mentioned,
making a total gain of only 41,871; in 1898 the net gain was only 98,442
against a total immigration of 229,299. Unfortunately, figures are not
available for 1896–1897. The importance of this phase of the subject
eventually became so evident that in the immigration law of 1907 a
provision was included requiring masters of departing vessels to file
accurate and detailed lists of their alien passengers, giving certain
important facts concerning them. Accordingly, in the fiscal year 1908 we
have for the first time complete and accurate data regarding departing
aliens.
In that year another important distinction is made, that between
immigrant and nonimmigrant aliens on the inward passage, and emigrant
and nonemigrant aliens on the outward passage. 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. Departing aliens are classified in a corresponding
way. Emigrant aliens are those whose place of last permanent residence
was the United States, and who are going abroad with the intention of
residing there permanently. Nonemigrant aliens are of two classes: those
whose place of last permanent residence was the United States, and who
are going abroad for a short visit only, and those whose place of last
permanent residence was abroad, but who have been in the United States
for a short time, including aliens in transit. In all cases the
expressed intention of the alien is regarded as final concerning
residence, and an intended future residence of twelve months is
considered a permanent residence. The recent reports of the Commissioner
General contain tables almost as detailed for departing as for arriving
aliens.
Thus it is now possible to make an exact reckoning of the net gain or
loss in population each year through immigration movements. The classes
in which we are particularly interested are naturally the immigrant and
emigrant aliens, for they are the only participants in true immigration
movements, according to our definition. The others are merely travelers.
Yet they are important and interesting travelers, and the modern
problems of immigration cannot be thoroughly understood without taking
some consideration of them. As for the aliens in transit, they can be
quickly disposed of. They are counted as nonimmigrant aliens on their
arrival, and nonemigrant aliens at their departure, which is supposed to
occur within a period of thirty days. Thus they cancel, and do not in
any important way affect the life of the United States. The other class
of nonimmigrants and nonemigrants is much more important, for they
include a group of aliens who have attracted considerable attention of
late—the so-called “birds of passage.” These are, in the strictest
sense, aliens who have chosen the United States as their place of
permanent residence, but who go back to the old country for brief
sojourns on certain occasions. In a broader sense, the birds of passage
may also be taken to include aliens whose permanent residence is abroad,
but who come to this country for a brief stay.[109]
As an illustration of the method of reckoning the gain or loss in
population, let us take the year 1910. In that year there were 1,041,570
immigrant aliens, and 156,467 nonimmigrant aliens admitted, making a
total of 1,198,037. There were 202,436 departures of emigrant aliens and
177,982 of nonemigrant aliens, making a total of 380,418. Thus there was
a net gain in the year of 817,619 aliens all together. But not all of
these were permanent residents. To get an idea of the actual increase of
permanent residents we need to add together two classes,—the immigrant
aliens, who come here for the first time with the intention of residing
permanently, and those nonimmigrant aliens who are such, not because
they do not expect to reside here permanently, but because their
permanent residence has already been established here and who have been
abroad for a brief period. Of the former class, the immigrant aliens,
there were 1,041,570; of the second class, nonimmigrants whose places of
last permanent residence and of intended future residence were both the
United States, there were 94,075. This makes a total of 1,135,645
permanent alien residents who came into the United States in the year in
question. The actual decrease in permanent residents may be computed in
a similar way. In the year in question there were 202,436 emigrant
aliens who departed, and 89,754 nonemigrant aliens whose places of last
permanent residence and intended future residence were both the United
States,—that is, permanent residents of this country who left for a
brief period only. This makes a total of 292,190 permanent residents of
this country who left it in the year in question. Subtracting this
number from the total of permanent residents who arrived, we have a
remainder of 843,455. This represents the actual gain in permanent alien
residents during the year in question. This figure, in the year in
question, happens to come very near to the gross gain estimated in the
simplest way. But it is not necessarily so, and in the year 1908 there
was considerable difference between the two figures. It is not always
necessary to make this somewhat involved calculation. In many cases, the
mere comparison of the figures for immigrant and emigrant aliens is
sufficient for the purpose. But there are many other instances in which
accuracy and consistency require this exact calculation to be made, and
it is a decided acquisition to the study of immigration to have these
data available.[110] Thus in the year 1909 the net gain in permanent
alien residents was 584,513, while in 1908 it was only 341,075; yet
there were more immigrant aliens admitted in 1908 than in 1909.
In respect to the composition of this great current, the period in
question has witnessed a profound and most significant change. We have
seen that prior to 1882 practically the entire body of immigrants was
made up of individuals from Germany, the United Kingdom, and the
Scandinavian countries. From that year on, these have steadily decreased
in importance, and their places have been taken by contingents from
Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and other south European countries. This
change has been so pronounced as to lead to a separation of immigrants
into the “old immigration” and the “new immigration,” a distinction
which has become familiar to every casual student of the subject. The
Immigration Commission has recently given its official sanction to this
classification, and in its reports follows this scheme: the old
immigration includes those from England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales,
Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and
Switzerland; the new immigration, those from Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria,
Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Servia,
Spain, Syria, and Turkey. This schedule refers only to European
countries (with the exception of Syria and Turkey, which ethnically
belong to Europe), without reference to non-European sources. But
immigration to the United States is as yet almost wholly a European
movement, so that other countries may be neglected in any general
consideration. In so far as there are any immigrants from non-European
sources they would naturally be classed with the new immigration.
Roughly speaking, the old immigration came from the north and west of
Europe, the new immigration comes from the south and east of that
continent.
The sweeping nature of this change can be comprehended only through the
comparison of figures. The immigration from the United Kingdom and
Germany, which up to 1882 had made up so nearly all of the total, never
again reached the same figure, and gradually dwindled, both relatively
and positively, until in 1907 it amounted to only 11.8 per cent of the
total immigration for the year. On the other hand the currents from
Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia, all of which, as we have seen, began
to attain prominence approximately in 1882, grew steadily until in the
year 1907 they amounted respectively to 26.3 per cent, 22.2 per cent,
and 20.1 per cent of the total. Putting them together, we have a total
for these three countries of 68.6 per cent of the total immigration, and
adding to them the immigration from the other countries belonging to the
new movement, we have a total of 81 per cent of the European immigrants
admitted to the United States in 1907. In the years from 1819 to 1883
the old immigration had furnished about 95 per cent of the total
movement from Europe to the United States. Comparing the two years 1882
and 1907, it appears that the old immigration made up 87.1 per cent of
the total immigration in the first year, and 19 per cent in the latter,
and the new immigration 12.9 per cent in the former and 81 per cent in
the latter.[111]
This is a most radical change, the importance of which can hardly be
overestimated. The old immigrants, as we have before observed, were of a
racial stock very closely related to the early settlers of the country,
and to the original type of the American people. Their language was the
same or similar, and their national traditions wholly harmonious.
Consequently assimilation was a comparatively simple matter. It was
practically a reforming, on American soil, of the English race, from the
same component elements which had gone into it from the beginning in
England. The new immigration is made up from people of a very different
racial stock, representing the Slavic and Mediterranean branches of the
Caucasian race rather than the Teutonic. With the difference in race go
differences in mental characteristics, traditions, and habits of life.
As a result, the problem of assimilation in this country has taken on a
completely different aspect. Moreover, this change is a very recent one.
It was not until the year 1896 that the three currents from
Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia exceeded in volume the contributions
of the United Kingdom, Germany, and Scandinavia. The real dilution of
the original American stock is a matter of scarcely half a generation.
These facts will become clearer by glancing at the following table:
PER CENT OF TOTAL IMMIGRATION COMING FROM SPECIFIED COUNTRIES BY
DECADES, FROM 1861 TO 1910.
═══════════════════════════╤════════════════════════════════════════════
COUNTRY │ YEARS
───────────────────────────┼────────┬────────┬────────┬────────┬────────
„ │1861–70 │1871–80 │1881–90 │1891–00 │1901–10
───────────────────────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────┼────────
Austria-Hungary │ 0.33│ 2.6│ 6.7│ 16│ 24.4
German Empire │ 35│ 25.5│ 28│ 14│ 3.9
Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia│ 0.51│ 2│ 5.9│ 18│ 23.3
Russian Empire and Finland │ 0.2│ 1.9│ 4.4│ 14│ 18.2
United Kingdom: │ 38│ │ │ │
England │ │ 15.6│ 12│ 6│ 4.4
Ireland │ │ 15.5│ 12│ 10│ 3.9
═══════════════════════════╧════════╧════════╧════════╧════════╧════════
In seeking to determine the causes of this change it will be well to
note first certain general causes which have underlain the whole
movement, and then to consider the specific causes which have operated
to stimulate immigration in certain of the more important countries.
Among the general causes may be mentioned first of all the great
development of transportation during the last thirty years. As has been
previously observed, emigration movements are very dependent upon easy
and cheap transportation facilities. One great reason why there were so
many more immigrants from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the
Scandinavian countries, during the first three quarters of the
nineteenth century, was that communication between those countries and
the United States was so much easier than with southeastern Europe. The
latter part of this century saw the establishment of many direct
steamship lines from Mediterranean ports to the United States, which
served to open up this new territory. There was also a great improvement
in internal transportation in the more backward countries of Europe,
which completed the line of access from the United States to the more
remote interior districts of Europe.
With the establishment of these new lines of communication, it followed
inevitably that the transportation companies should put forth every
effort to attract as much business as possible to them. So we find the
activities of transportation and emigration agents extending farther and
farther into Europe, with the growth of lines that demanded their
services. The importance of these agents in stimulating emigration will
be discussed in another connection. Along with these changes, and
incident to the beginnings of emigration from some of these new sources,
there grew up in these countries a better knowledge of the United
States, its attractions, and the means of getting there. This knowledge
was very meager and faulty at first, and willfully distorted by the
agents, but it served to awaken the people to the possibilities of
emigration, and to stimulate them to take the step. This influence was
abetted by a growing sense of independence and ambition on the part of
the people of these regions, which made it more possible for them to act
on their own initiative. They could never have emigrated under the
conditions of difficulty, uncertainty, and hardship which marked the
earlier movement, and which the more hardy, adventurous, and daring
northern races faced without hesitation.
There are two further causes of this shifting of the sources of
immigration from northern to southern Europe, which are even more
significant than the foregoing. The first of these is that, with the
filling up of the United States, and the industrial improvements of
northern Europe, the economic situation in this country no longer
presents the same marked advantages over the older nations that it did
during most of the nineteenth century. The immigrant from England,
Ireland, Germany, or Sweden no longer finds his lot so much easier here
than at home. The United States has now its own problems of congestion,
pauperism, and competition of labor. Consequently it is much less worth
while for the northern immigrant to come. But as compared with the more
backward countries of Europe, there is still a sufficient margin of
advantage in the United States to make it well worth while for the
peasant to make the change. The comparison of the conditions which
exist, or which he believes to exist, in the United States, with those
in his own land has still sufficient power to arouse those feelings of
discontent which are necessary to migration.
The second of these causes is that when the representatives of more
backward countries, representing a lower standard of living and of
industrial demands, have once begun to come, the members of more
advanced races cease coming. They are unwilling to take up residence in
a country where they must enter into competition with their inferiors,
and where all will be classed together by the natives. Our immigration
started from the most advanced nations of Europe. Each inferior
reservoir which we have successively tapped, and allowed to drain freely
into our nation, has tended to check the flow from the earlier sources.
This will continue to be true to the end. Canada recognizes this fact
frankly, and while making every effort to attract immigrants from the
United Kingdom and northwestern Europe places serious obstacles in the
way of immigrants from the other half of the continent.[112]
In considering the specific causes of the rise of the new immigration we
will confine our attention primarily to the countries of
Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia, which send us the great bulk of the
immigrants, and in which conditions are sufficiently representative to
give a satisfactory idea of the nature of the new movement in general.
Let us first consider Austria-Hungary.
The early immigration from Bohemia in the middle of the nineteenth
century belongs in every way rather to the old than to the new
immigration, and need not be considered here. As for the recent
immigration from Austria-Hungary, it may be said that the underlying,
fundamental factor is the racial diversity which characterizes that
country. Austria-Hungary is not in any sense a nation, but a mixture of
diverse and hostile races, held together primarily by the outside
pressure of Russia, Germany, Italy, and Turkey. The attempt to get a
clear and definite understanding of the racial composition of the empire
is baffling to one who has not had the opportunity to make an exhaustive
study of the situation at first hand, and even the authorities do not
wholly agree as to the racial classification. The following sketch,
taken from Professor Commons,[113] will give a sufficient idea of the
complicated conditions which exist. In the territory of Austria-Hungary
may be found considerable numbers of five important sections of the
human family, as follows:
German.
Slav: Czechs or Bohemians, Moravians, Slovaks, Poles, and Ruthenians in
the northern part; Croatians, Servians, Dalmatians, and Slovenians in
the southern part.
Magyar.
Latin: Italians and Roumanians (Latinized Slavs).
Jewish.
From such a conglomeration of races it is impossible that political and
social entanglements and difficulties should not arise. In the words of
Miss Balch, “Politically, the dual monarchy is nothing short of a
monstrosity.”[114]
In general, the Germans and Magyars are the ruling element, and the
Slavs are held in subjection. The former races constitute the nobility,
and own the land; the latter are the peasants and laborers. The
management of public and private financial affairs has largely been
monopolized by the Jews, who have been more liberally treated here than
in any other country of modern Europe. Along with this political
inequality there has gone a pronounced economic inequality, and while
universal manhood suffrage has recently been granted by the emperor, it
yet remains to be seen whether it will bring about an improvement of the
economic conditions, which are the great immediate stimulus to
emigration.
One of the greatest blights of Austria-Hungary is the system of
landlordism, and the antiquated system of landholding and agriculture,
which still persists, and seriously handicaps the country in competition
with more advanced nations. These economic disabilities are accompanied
by various social and political disturbances. Taxes are high and fall
unequally upon different classes of the population, exempting the great
landowners from their fair share of the burden. The terms of military
service are severe. The birth rate and death rate are both high, and the
poverty, ignorance, inequality, and helplessness of the people make the
overpopulation seem greater than it is. The emigration is almost wholly
from the peasant class, which does not, however, represent the lowest
section of the population. Below the peasant in the social scale are the
cottager, the laborer, and the farm servant.
We thus have, in the case of Austria-Hungary, an interesting combination
of economic, political, and social causes, all resting upon racial
heterogeneity.[115]
Turning to Italy, we find somewhat the same combination of economic and
political causes, without, however, a corresponding basis of racial
diversity. It is true that the population of Italy is divided into two
distinct groups, but these are also geographically separated, and the
result is a dual stream of immigration, rather than a single outflow due
to racial antagonism. The inhabitants of northern Italy, the “north
Italians” as they are called, are Teutonic in blood and in appearance.
Their home is in a relatively well-developed manufacturing section, and
a large proportion of the emigrants are skilled artisans, and come from
the cities. The southern Italians belong to the Mediterranean branch of
the Caucasian race, are shorter in stature and more swarthy, and on the
whole much inferior in intelligence to their northern compatriots. The
majority of the emigrants are peasants from the great landed estates,
accustomed to wages about one third of those in the north. Naturally the
conditions which lead to emigration are somewhat different in the north
and the south, and it is in the latter region that we are particularly
interested, for, unfortunately from our point of view, the great
majority of our Italian immigrants belong to the southern branch. The
distinction between these two groups is so marked that for years the
immigration authorities of the United States have recognized it, and
have listed them separately in the statistics. In 1910 there were
192,673 south Italian immigrants to this country, and only 30,780 north
Italians. The north Italians go to Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil in
about the same numbers that the south Italians come to us.
In southern Italy and Sicily the power of the landlord, which as in
Austria-Hungary is one of the great curses of Italy, is greatest. The
land is divided up into large estates held by the nobility, and let out
to tenant farmers at enormously high rents. As much as $160 per year per
acre is paid for an orange garden. The leases are short. The wages of
all classes are very low. An agricultural laborer earns from 8 cents to
38 cents per day, an unskilled laborer from 25 cents to 50 cents, and a
skilled laborer, such as a mason or carpenter, from 27 cents to
$1.40.[116]
It is true that prices are lower than in the United States, so that
these wages are not so extremely inadequate as might at first appear.
Nevertheless, the difference between prices in this country and in Italy
is not nearly so great as the difference in wages, so that the wage
scale is in fact much lower there. Living expenses are seriously
increased by an exaggerated system of indirect taxes, which are so
severe in the case of food as to make food alone cost the peasants about
85 per cent of their wages. These taxes are so arranged as to fall with
undue weight upon the poor and working classes, forcing them to pay over
one half of the entire amount of taxes. The amount thus paid, exclusive
of the tax on wine, amounts to from 10 to 20 per cent of their wages.
Moreover, this is an increasing burden. Since 1870 the wealth of the
country has increased 17 per cent and taxes 30 per cent.
The army and navy are a tremendous drain upon the people, in two ways.
First, they vastly increase the national expenditures. The money spent
for this purpose amounts to one fourth more of the national income than
is spent by France or Germany, and nearly three times as much as by the
United States. Secondly, they interfere with production, as every
able-bodied peasant is required to serve in the army for a term of two
years.
Another, and more profound, cause of economic distress is found in the
rapid increase of population. This is both a cause and a result of
poverty, and the birth rate is highest in the poorest districts. While
this high birth rate is accompanied by a high death rate, there is still
difference enough between the two to bring about an extreme density of
population, exceeded only by the islands of Great Britain and Japan, and
the states of Rhode Island and Massachusetts, and the little country of
Belgium. In such a densely populated country, where both the birth rate
and death rate are high, we are almost always sure to find economic
pressure and distress.[117]
As a result of the foregoing conditions, the annual emigration from
Italy is very heavy. In addition to the true emigration, where there is
a permanent change of residence, there is a large amount of temporary or
periodic migration, in which case the individual leaves his home only
for a short space of time, with the fixed intention of returning. Much
of this temporary emigration is directed to France and Germany, where
work is obtainable during the summer season. Some of it turns toward
North America, and a large amount to South America. Many Italians take
advantage of the difference in seasons, and put in two seasons of summer
work in each year, one on each side of the equator. It is estimated that
about one third of the total migration from Italy is of this temporary
or periodic character.[118]
Of the total number of immigrants to the United States from Russia,
somewhat less than one tenth are Russians. The balance are Poles,
Lithuanians, Finns, Germans, and Jews. Agricultural, social, and
political conditions in Russia are sufficiently well understood to make
it no cause for wonder that almost any of its common citizens should be
glad to leave. The Russian peasant is said to be the most oppressed in
Europe, but he is also probably the most ignorant and degraded, and as
yet is only beginning to learn to emigrate. There is a great reservoir
there which will be ready to furnish us untold millions when the current
gets well started. But so far the great stream from Russia is made up
principally of other races. Of these, we are particularly interested in
the Jews, partly because they are the most numerous, partly because they
are a unique and striking people, partly because the reasons for their
coming are more definite and easily comprehended.
We have seen that during the Middle Ages the Jews were expelled from
almost every country of Europe. Almost the only region where they were
allowed a settlement was in Poland, and hence they gathered there in
large numbers. Under Russian domination this has been made the “Pale of
Settlement” for the Jews, and now contains about one third of the
11,000,000 people of that race in the world. Life in any other part of
the Empire is made practically impossible for them, and it is far from
easy there. Among the other restrictions put upon the Jews during the
Middle Ages was a prohibition of engaging in agriculture. But they were
allowed to take usury, which was forbidden to Christians. The natural
result was that they were driven almost entirely into trade, and
particularly into money lending, so that those pursuits which seem to be
so well adapted to the natural proclivities of the Jews were in a sense
thrust upon them. As a result the Jews in Russia are engaged primarily
in the two businesses of lending money and selling liquor. When the
Russian serfs were liberated in 1861, and left in a most helpless state
without either capital or land, the Jews became their merchants,
middlemen, and usurers. It was perfectly natural that the ignorant
peasant should come to blame the money lender and the saloon keeper for
evils which were really due to the wretched political, social, and
economic organization, but of which they seemed to be the immediate
agents. There is reason to believe that the government encouraged this
popular antipathy toward an unpopular race for the sake of diverting the
indignation of the masses from itself. Certain it is that the attitude
of the government has been most hostile to the Jews. In 1881 this
antagonism culminated in a series of terrible anti-Semitic riots, and
then began the exodus to America.
In the next year, 1882, were passed a set of laws, known as the May
Laws, which, with other subsequent ones of a similar nature, have made
existence for the Jews almost intolerable in the Russian Empire. These
laws, inspired largely by the Greek Orthodox Church, have made it
impossible for the Jew “to foreclose a mortgage or to lease or
purchase land; he cannot do business on Sundays or Christian holidays;
he cannot hold office; he cannot worship or assemble without police
permit; he must serve in the army, but cannot become an officer; he is
excluded from schools and universities; he is fined for conducting
manufactures and commerce; he is almost prohibited from the learned
professions.”[119] The press is against them. Here in America we hear
of only the climaxes of this persecution, but the oppression is
constant and untiring. Is it any wonder that the Jews seek relief in
flight?
It will become evident from time to time that our Jewish immigration is
in many respects unique, and stands as an exception to many of the
general principles which one might lay down concerning immigration. So
in respect to the causes of their emigration it is not surprising to
find a situation somewhat different from other branches of the new
immigration, or from any other immigration, in fact. The Jews have
always been a “peculiar people,” and religion has played a larger part
in their history than in the case of probably any other modern people.
The persecutions to which they have been subjected from age to age have
had religious diversity as their ostensible and obvious, if not always
their only, motive. And in the modern emigration from Russia, while the
oppression under which they suffer touches almost every phase of their
life, and imposes numberless economic handicaps, it rests ultimately
upon religious grounds. Russia is the only modern country from which
numerous emigrants are driven by actual persecution, though it is said
that Roumania has within the last ten years passed anti-Jewish laws more
stringent than those of Russia.
Conditions in Austria-Hungary and Italy, and to a less extent in Russia,
may be taken as typical of the circumstances which prevail in other
countries of southern and eastern Europe, and Asia Minor, from which our
new immigrants come. In Bulgaria the following four particular reasons
have been assigned for emigration:
(1) Bulgaria is distinctively an agricultural country, and while a large
per cent of the people own their farms, the holdings are too small to
enable them to make a sufficient living, and the methods of cultivation
are poor.
(2) There is a great dearth of manufacturing industry. In 1907 there
were only 166 factories of any size, with 6149 workers.
(3) Taxes are very heavy, amounting to one fifth, one fourth, or even
one third of the earnings of families.
(4) There is much dissatisfaction with the government among the peasants
on the grounds of expense, and of the very oppressive terms of military
service.[120]
Summing up the facts regarding the volume and racial character of
immigration during this period, it appears that, as regards the former,
the series of waves has been continued, responding to the economic
conditions, but reaching a much higher culmination than ever before. As
regards the latter, there has been a most distinct and profound change.
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. The causes of this change
lie primarily in altered conditions in the United States which make it
less attractive to the residents of the more advanced nations of Europe
than formerly. In the more backward countries the political and economic
situation is still so inferior to the United States that an ample motive
for emigration exists. All that was needed to start a large movement was
a knowledge of the possibilities across the Atlantic, and the means of
getting there. Both of these have been provided within the period in
question.