THE EXPLOITATION OF IMMIGRANTS. RELIGION. BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND DEATHS.
RECREATION
There is a group of peculiar economic institutions which have been
developed by the immigrants in this country, and which are especially
characteristic of the new immigration. This group includes the padrone
system, the contract labor system, the immigrant bank, and two or three
similar institutions, particularly the sweating system, which is now
practically dependent on immigrants.
The word “padrone” is adopted from the Italian, and signifies master or
“boss.” In its application to American conditions, it refers to a system
of practical slavery, introduced into this country by the Italians, and
subsequently utilized by a number of other southeastern European races.
When immigration from Italy began to assume considerable proportions,
there were already in the United States a few Italians who had been here
some time, and had acquired a certain familiarity with the language and
customs of the land. They were thereby especially fitted to be of
assistance to their newly arrived fellow-countrymen, and also,
unfortunately, to exploit them. In fact, they did both of these things.
By way of assistance, they put the green immigrants in touch with
employers of labor, helped them to find lodgings, and, in brief, acted
as the go-between in every case of contact between the immigrant and the
life of the people around him. On the other hand, the padrone charged
the newcomer well for every service rendered, and in too many cases
subjected him to various forms of extortion, which his ignorance kept
him from either recognizing or preventing. As certain of the newer
immigrants became familiar with the speech and customs of their new
home, they in turn became padrones, and extended their operations over
the ever increasing numbers of new arrivals. Thus the system spread.
There are certain businesses or occupations which are particularly
adapted to the application of this system, such as railroad labor,
peddling, boot-blacking, etc. The Italians developed it primarily in
respect to the first of these. This race has now practically abandoned
this system in this country, but it has been taken up by others, and is
at present practiced by the Bulgarians, Turks, Macedonians, Greeks, and
Mexicans, and in some cases among Austrians and Italians.[242]
A more concrete idea of the workings of this system may be gained by an
examination of its operation in a single industry, as, for instance, the
shoe-shining industry among the Greeks. This business, in a marked
degree, combines the necessary elements for the successful application
of the system,—small capital, cheap unskilled labor, close supervision,
etc.,—and this race is well adapted to apply it to its extreme extent,
partly from natural aptitude, and partly from custom and training. For
the system, in its main outlines, has long been familiar in Greece,
though some of the most unfortunate aspects do not develop there.
The padrone is a Greek who has been in this country for some time, and
knows the ways of the land. He decides to engage in the boot-blacking
trade, and to secure his necessary helpers contracts for a number of
boys from his native land to come over and work for him for a certain
length of time, for a specified sum. The arrangement is sometimes made
with the boys, sometimes with the parents, but almost always with the
parents’ consent. When these boys arrive, they are taken to a room or
set of rooms, which the padrone has engaged and which thenceforth are
their “home.” They are at once put to work in the shop of the boss, and
kept at work continuously thereafter, with practically no time off which
they can call their own, except the meager allowance made for sleep. The
hours are long—twelve, fourteen, or even more hours per day. The boss
furnishes board and lodging, and pays a small sum in cash, perhaps $200
per year. The rooms are frightfully overcrowded, miserably ventilated,
and wholly unhygienic. The boys do their own cooking, usually in relays
of two, and the noon meal is eaten hurriedly in a room in the rear of
the shop. The boys are prevented from attending night school, and are
forbidden to talk to patrons. In every way the padrone tries to
discourage their acquiring knowledge of American ways, for the system
rests on ignorance. In a majority of cases the padrone takes all the
tips given to the boys, and the boys excuse him on the grounds that
wages are high and expenses great.
It is obvious that the boys are wholly at the mercy of their boss, a
mercy the quality of which is sadly strained. And when a boy does manage
to get a grasp of the English language, and acquire a little
independence, instead of turning traitor to the system, he sets up as a
padrone himself. All investigators, and a number of the better class of
Greeks in this country, agree that this system is a disgrace to the
Greek race, or to any other race that practices it.[243]
The contract labor system is next of kin to the padrone system. The main
differences are that the control of the boss, outside of working hours,
is not so complete, and the relationship is likely to be of shorter
duration. This system arises from the necessity of the capitalistic
employer of labor getting in touch with the alien workman. Differences
of language, ignorance of the sources and the means of communication,
and a variety of other perfectly comprehensible reasons, prevent the
employer from enlisting his workers directly, and the laborer from
applying for work in his own person. The natural and inevitable
intermediary is the immigrant who has been in this country long enough
to know the language and have some influence and acquaintance among
employers. Given this starting point, the process of bringing the
immigrants and the employer together goes along wholly natural channels,
with only minor modifications in the details. In some cases the employer
pays the agent certain specified wages for each laborer furnished, and
the agent pays whatever is necessary—below that figure—to secure the
workers; sometimes the employer pays fixed wages to the laborers, and
allows the agent a stated commission for each worker secured. This is
much the more desirable system of the two. In many cases the agent is
retained as overseer in charge of the men he has secured. The degree of
definiteness in these arrangements varies all the way from cases where
agents go over to foreign countries, definitely charged with securing
laborers for some employer, to those where the employer simply lets it
be known among his employees that there will be work for all their
friends or relatives who wish to come, and leaves the leaven to work. It
is becoming more rare for agents in this country to go abroad in person;
the tendency is for them to work in connection with agents established
on the other side.
The possibilities of abuse in this system are manifestly great. The
agent customarily advances the passage money of those brought from
abroad, taking a mortgage far in excess of his actual expense on
whatever property the immigrant has to offer. Rates of interest are
exorbitant, and the terms of the contract all in favor of the
importer.[244] Sometimes the immigrant agrees to work for him seven or
eight months, in return for an initial outlay of not over $100 or $125.
In extreme cases, when an importer has taken mortgages far in excess of
his actual expenditure, he will discharge an entire set of men, in order
to make room for a new lot brought over on similar terms. The debts of
the original group are still binding, and it is astonishing to note the
faithfulness with which these poor unfortunates, thus thrown on their
own resources, will labor on to pay off these obligations.
Not all of the laborers employed under this system are secured directly
from abroad. Many of the more recent immigrants, who have been in this
country for some time, are almost equally dependent on the contractor
with the absolute “greeners.” Chicago is a great clearing house for the
labor market of the western railroads, and labor agencies, often
connected with a restaurant, or some similar place of business, abound
in the foreign sections.[245]
A great deal of business of this general nature is carried on by aliens
who are not real agents. It is very frequent for an immigrant to tell a
newcomer that if he will pay him a certain sum of money he will secure
him a position in the establishment where he is himself employed. All
that he really does is to take the newcomer around and introduce him to
the foreman, who gives him work, if there is any. But the new arrival
considers himself much in the debt of his “friend,” and more than that,
thereafter regards the job as his own because he has paid for it, and
resents discharge for any reason as an injustice. Conscientious
employers naturally do all they can to discourage such practices, but
are powerless to prevent them. In fact, the eagerness of earlier
immigrants to exploit their newly arrived fellow-countrymen, not only in
this way, but in any other that promises a profit, is one of the most
disheartening features of the whole immigration situation.
It goes without saying that all of these operations, which involve
bringing immigrants into the country under agreement to labor, are in
direct violation of law. The contract labor clause of the immigration
law, if strictly interpreted and enforced, would exclude practically
every immigrant who had the slightest assurance of employment awaiting
him. In fact, however, as has been shown above (page 154), the courts
have so interpreted the act as to include under contract laborers only
those who have a definite contract, or those who come in response to a
specific offer or promise of employment.[246] This kind of a promise or
offer is relatively rare. Nothing so definite is required to induce
unskilled laborers to emigrate. Broad and general assurances of
employment awaiting them are sufficient. The wide discrepancy between
the letter and the interpretation of the law is unfortunate. This
section of the law is the one upon which immigrants are coached more
thoroughly than on any other, and in addition to the large number of
immigrants who violate the most lenient interpretation, there must be
many others whom the courts would not hold guilty, who nevertheless
believe themselves so and suffer a corresponding degradation of
character. A third element in the situation, which complicates it still
further, is the interpretation practically placed on the law by the
immigration authorities, which is apparently more strict than that of
the courts. The whole matter of contract labor needs to be thoroughly
reconsidered.
In addition to the activities of labor agents and employers, state
boards do a good deal to encourage immigration, sometimes keeping within
the spirit of the law, and sometimes exceeding it.
Another member of this same nefarious family is the peonage system. For
a general description of the system the reader is referred to Professor
Commons, _Races and Immigrants in America_, chapter on Labor. It has
been judicially defined in the following words: “Peonage is a status or
condition of compulsory service based upon the indebtedness of the peon
to the master. The basic fact is indebtedness.”[247] The customary or
typical case is where a laborer receives advances of some sort from his
employer, and then leaves his service before the terms of his engagement
have been fulfilled, certainly before he has repaid his employer for the
advances. His employer then procures his arrest, either under a charge
of obtaining money under false pretenses, or under the labor statutes of
the various states. The employer makes a new agreement with the laborer,
that if he will return to his employment, and work out the balance of
his indebtedness, the criminal procedure will be dropped.
This might seem, on the face of it, a thoroughly just proceeding. The
trouble is that the employer has every advantage. The laborer is
ignorant, and very often the conditions under which he is to work are
grossly misrepresented to him. Lack of forethought, moreover, is one of
the chief characteristics of ignorant and unintelligent men. The money
or goods advanced to them occupy a very disproportionate place in their
minds, compared to the work which they agree to perform in the future.
The employer, on the other hand, knows all about the conditions, and
just how much he can afford to pay, and is able to give himself the best
of the bargain by a broad margin.
The Immigration Commission made a thorough investigation of this
subject, and found evidences of peonage in every state in the Union,
except Oklahoma and Connecticut. In the south, where peonage is supposed
to be most rampant, it was discovered that most of the peons were
supplied by labor agents in New York City, who seriously misrepresented
the conditions under which they were to work, and in many cases sent out
men wholly unfitted for the work which they were to do. In the south,
however, in spite of the existence of many cases, it appears that the
vigorous prosecutions, and the willingness of juries to convict, have
pretty well broken up the tendency toward peonage in connection with
aliens.
In the west and northwest, cases of technical peonage were found in the
shoe-shining industry, and in some lumber and railroad camps. But there
have been practically no attempts at prosecution for peonage in these
states.
The most surprising fact established by the Commission in this respect
is that probably the most complete system of peonage in the whole
country has existed, not in the south, but in Maine. Here the employers
of labor in the lumber camps have been obliged to secure their labor
mostly from other states and in the main from immigrants. Boston is the
great labor market for this industry. The immigrants are given very
misleading accounts of the conditions of their labor, and are engaged to
work for their employers for a specified time. They are then taken into
the forests, sometimes having to walk sixty or seventy miles to their
place of labor, and kept in the forest all winter.
When they learn the extent to which they have been deceived, many of
them are inclined to run away. However, in February, 1907, a law was
passed making it a criminal offense for a person to “enter into an
agreement to labor for any lumbering operation or in driving logs and in
consideration thereof receive any advances of goods, money, or
transportation, and unreasonably and with intent to defraud, fail to
enter into said employment as agreed and labor a sufficient length of
time to reimburse his employer for said advances and expenses.” The
general interpretation of the courts has been to ignore the provision
about intent to defraud, or at least to put the burden of proof on the
defendant, though it is not specifically provided in the law that
failure or refusal to fulfill the terms of the contract shall be _prima
facie_ evidence of an intent to defraud, as is the case in the contract
labor law of Minnesota and other states. Employers in other branches of
industry have sought to secure the same protection, but in vain, so that
this law is iniquitous, not only from the point of view of peonage, but
also because it is class legislation. A considerable amount of peonage
has resulted from this law in Maine.[248]
The basis of all the evils which have just been discussed has been seen
to lie in the ignorance and helplessness of the newly arrived immigrant.
Knowing nothing of the language of the country, or of its methods of
doing business, and having no connections with the industrial system of
the country, he is forced to rely on some one who can supply these
factors. Most naturally he turns to some one of his fellow-countrymen
who has been in this country longer. From that time on, sometimes for
many years, his career is dominated by the older immigrant to a
remarkable degree. Out of this connection has grown up a peculiar set of
institutions, commonly known as immigrant banks, which have the power
for great good or evil to the immigrant, according to the character of
the men who have them in charge. The origin and nature of these banks is
as follows:
The foremost ambition of the average immigrant is the saving of money.
The purposes of this saving are many—to guarantee his own future
prosperity, to ease the lot of friends and relatives at home, to pay off
mortgages and other debts, and, perhaps the most important of all, to
provide the means whereby friends and relatives on the other side may
join him in the new world. The prepaid ticket is the final end of much
of the saving of aliens. These accumulations naturally come in small
amounts. Out of a month’s earnings, the immigrant may save $10 or $15 or
even as high as $30. The living conditions of many of the immigrants
make it unsafe for them to try to keep this money in their lodgings;
they are unfamiliar with, and distrustful of, American banks. The
disposition of their savings which seems to them the wisest and safest
is to intrust them to a fellow-countryman who is familiar with the ways
of the country and has some means of keeping them safe. This individual
may be the padrone or boss, the lodging-house keeper, a saloon keeper or
grocer, or the steamship agent from whom the immigrant expects
eventually to purchase the prepaid ticket. In time, immigrants in these
positions get into the habit of receiving small sums from their
fellow-countrymen for safe keeping or on deposit against some future
purchase. As these amounts accumulate, they become of considerable value
to the holder, who may deposit them in a regular savings bank at
interest, to his own profit, or may invest them in his business, or may
make other speculative investments with them. To attract such deposits,
and increase their amount, he adds the term “bank” to the name of his
business, so that he now becomes a “Grocer and Banker,” a “Ticket Agent
and Banker,” etc. This adds a dignity to his position and increases the
confidence of the people in his integrity.
It has been intimated in the preceding paragraph that the immigrant
“banker” makes no distinction between the funds deposited with him and
his own property. This is generally the case. Occasionally the banker
will keep the deposits in his safe, in the original wallets in which
they were delivered to him,[249] or deposit them in a bank in his wife’s
name,[250] but these are exceptional instances. Ordinarily all the money
in the banker’s possession is lumped together, so that the assets of the
“bank” are identical with the general resources of the proprietor.
Furthermore, there is a great amount of laxity in the giving of receipts
to depositors. Sometimes no written acknowledgment whatever is given;
from this point the character of the receipt varies all the way up to a
regular pass book, and a thorough system of bookkeeping.
From such a beginning as this, these banks have developed a variety of
forms, varying in functions and in stability. They have been classified
by the Immigration Commission into three main groups, as follows:
“I. State and incorporated banks or highly organized private
institutions thoroughly responsible and operated in a regular manner
almost exclusively as a bank. There are comparatively few of these
institutions.
“II. Privately owned steamship agencies, and real-estate offices which
masquerade under the name of a bank, but which are not legally
authorized as such. To this class should be added groceries and saloons
in which the banking functions are clearly defined as apart from other
business. The majority of the banks investigated are of this class.
“III. Banks which may or may not be known as such, but in which the
functions of caring for deposits and receiving money for transmission
abroad are extended more as an accommodation or as incidental to the
main business of the concern. Saloon keepers, grocers, boarding houses,
barbers, and men engaged in similar occupations usually conduct this
class of banks. It has been claimed by some that every immigrant saloon
keeper will be found doing a banking business of this character. This is
the largest, as it also is the most irresponsible, class. It is
undoubtedly the hardest class to regulate, as it is the one about which
it is the most difficult to obtain accurate information.”[251]
The hold which these bankers have over their patrons is due in the first
instance to the ignorance of the latter, and the feeling of security
which they have in dealing with people of their own race. It is
increased by the familiarity which the banker has with business methods
in this country, and names, places, and methods in the old country. The
immigrant banker assumes a decidedly paternalistic attitude toward his
patrons, and renders them many services not ordinarily associated with a
banking business, such as writing and translating letters, securing
employment, giving legal advice, etc. The greater the hold thus secured,
the wider are the opportunities for exploitation. In the absence of
proper control, and of the ordinary safeguards of such businesses, the
immigrant depositor is made to suffer extortion and loss in countless
cases. In many cases this is due to the ignorance of the banker, and his
total unfitness for the assumption of such responsibilities; in many
others, it is due to dishonesty, greed, and willful intent to defraud.
In the panic year of 1907 large numbers of these banks failed, and sums
of money were lost to immigrants, the importance of which is to be
judged, not so much by the total amounts, as by the fact that they
represented the savings of a large number of individuals in meager
circumstances. In normal years, there is a steady loss, due to failures,
defalcations, and abscondings on the part of bankers, and also to the
continual petty frauds, habitually practiced by many of these men. The
trustfulness of the immigrants towards men of this character is
surprising. Instances are known where men have come into a community,
advertised a bank, and in a few weeks accumulated large sums of money
from the foreigners, with which they promptly decamped, leaving
absolutely no means of redress to their creditors.
The primary functions of these banks are the safe keeping of money and
the transmission of remittances abroad. Only in exceptional cases do the
other banking functions play an important part. It is estimated that in
1907 approximately $137,500,000 in foreign remittances passed through
the hands of immigrant bankers, in sums averaging about $35.[252]
These banks are mostly in the hands of the recently immigrating races.
The reasons for their existence—ignorance of language and customs,
illiteracy, inconvenient hours kept by American banks, and their
luxurious appearance and requirements of cleanliness—appeal much less
strongly to the immigrants from northwestern Europe.
Another functionary who exercises an extensive, and often baleful,
influence over the immigrant is the notary public. The position of
dignity and influence held by corresponding officials in foreign
countries leads the immigrant to accord too much confidence and trust to
such persons in the United States, who are often ignorant and in many
cases dishonest men. The nature of the cases in which the immigrant has
recourse to them gives them a large amount of power over the foreigner,
and opens the way to many petty extortions.
All of these exploiting agencies become inextricably mingled in actual
life. The functions of the padrone, the labor contractor, the employment
agent, the steamship agent, the boarding boss, the saloon keeper, the
grocer, the banker, the notary public—any two or more of these may be
combined in the person of a given individual, who exercises a
corresponding control over the destiny of those who are dependent on
him. His hold over them rests upon the fact that they are not
Americanized, and it is wholly to his interest to keep them so.[253]
The sweat shop is manifestly an institution of the same general
character as those which have just been discussed, and while it may not
owe its origin to the immigrants, it is now practically dependent on
them for its existence. The main features of this system are familiar.
Its distinctive characteristic is the giving out of work by
manufacturers to contractors, in order that certain processes may be
carried on in the homes of the workers. It finds its fullest development
in the clothing trade, which at the present time is almost wholly in the
hands of the Jews.
The chief evils of the system are the unsanitary conditions of labor,
the long hours, the extensive employment of women and children, the
difficulty of proper supervision, the low wages, and the complete
subjection of the workers to the control of the boss. The contractor
himself is often in a precarious financial situation, being himself a
victim of the system. Like the foregoing institutions, it results from
the ignorance and lack of connection of the workers. Its persistence and
wide spread in this country are due to the constant accessions of
low-grade workers, unassimilated to the conditions of the country, which
immigration furnishes. These supply the raw material upon which the
system feeds. By so doing they have blocked the efforts of the cities of
the United States to control or abolish this evil.[254]
There is another class of institutions which rests upon the helplessness
of the newly arrived immigrant, which is, however, an alleviating,
rather than an exploiting agency, and which belongs to the social rather
than to the economic life. This is the immigrant home or aid society.
These institutions are numerous in the seaport cities where immigrants
arrive; there are said to be not less than sixteen in operation in New
York City.[255] They are for the most part benevolent or philanthropic
organizations (at least nominally), and many of them are under the
control of some religious organization. Many of them work primarily with
a single race or people. Their functions are looking after newly arrived
immigrants who are not met by friends, and forwarding them to their
destinations, furnishing them board and lodging while in the port of
arrival, helping them to find work or to locate missing acquaintances,
and in general safeguarding them while they are establishing a
connection with some responsible party in this country.
Most of the immigrants who come to this country come to join relatives
or friends, who generally meet them at the port of arrival, or send
money or transportation to take them to their destination. But it
frequently happens that the friends or relatives fail to put in an
appearance. In that case the immigration authorities are unwilling to
turn the immigrant adrift unprotected, especially in the case of
unaccompanied women or girls. Consequently the government has allowed
representatives of homes and aid societies to visit the immigrant
stations, and offer their aid to the immigrants. At Ellis Island,
immigrants whose relatives or friends fail to call for them are detained
five days, and then given the choice of being sent back to Europe or of
leaving the station in company with some representative of a home or aid
society, often called a “missionary.” If the latter alternative is
chosen, the immigrant is said to be “discharged” to the given person,
who is thereupon held theoretically responsible that the immigrant shall
not become a public charge. There are three general classes of
immigrants who are thus discharged: (1) Immigrants whose friends or
relatives fail to meet them, and whom the authorities do not deem it
wise to land unless some one becomes responsible for them. (2)
Immigrants who are without sufficient money to take them to their
destination, and who must be cared for until the necessary funds are
forthcoming. (3) Immigrants, particularly girls and women, who have no
friends or relatives in this country, and need a home until they can
secure employment. These homes and aid societies necessarily have
something of the nature of employment agencies, and do a good deal of
work of that kind.
The amount of work done by these organizations is very great. In the
calendar year 1907, over 14,800 immigrants were discharged to such
representatives at Ellis Island by the New York discharging division.
This does not include the total number discharged, as the boards of
special inquiry and the commissioners of immigration also discharge
immigrants.[256] Six homes in New York City cared for a total of 48,275
immigrants in 1908.[257]
It will be seen at once that these homes and societies have great power
over the immigrants, and are in positions of immense advantage and
responsibility, inasmuch as the authorities give their representatives a
semiofficial standing, and intrust immigrants to them without reserve.
Unscrupulous and grasping persons, once admitted to the stations as
missionaries, have large opportunities and every advantage to exploit
the immigrants at will. This is especially true of the homes, where the
immigrants can be charged—and over-charged—for every possible kind of
service.
It might appear at first sight that the authorities would exercise every
caution, not only in regard to the character of the representatives, but
as to the character and conduct of the homes. The investigations of the
Immigration Commission, however, revealed that this has not always been
the case. Not only have many of the authorities used very little care or
discretion in granting privileges to representatives in their stations,
but they exercised practically no supervision over the homes themselves,
and when the immigrant had once been discharged to the representative,
they paid no more attention to him or his welfare. The Commission
investigated carefully 102 immigrant homes and aid societies, in
addition to twenty-five employment agencies, most of which had some
connection with an immigrant home or aid society. A large amount of
misconduct on the part of representatives was discovered, as well as
undesirable conditions in the homes themselves. Many of the homes were
found to be purely money-making institutions, where the immigrant was
fleeced to the limit of his resources. The sanitary conditions in some
of them were terrible. Some of the representatives seemed to care for
nothing but to have as many immigrants as possible discharged to them,
and were little more than runners for their respective homes. “It was
the testimony of some of the leading officials at Ellis Island that the
majority of missionaries and representatives there care only to secure
the discharge of immigrants who have money and can pay for food and
lodging.”[258] Some of the representatives were instrumental in securing
the admission of contract laborers. “About two thirds of the homes
investigated were clean, comfortable, and sanitary, and about one third
were overcrowded, badly ventilated, filthy and insanitary.”[259] Many of
the homes where bad conditions were found were supported by honest
conscientious people, who had been duped and betrayed by their
representatives and managers; others were intentionally nothing but
money-making schemes.
These conditions are bad enough in themselves, but the most serious
feature of the situation is the lack of responsibility and care in
placing women and girls out in employment. The majority of the homes
investigated showed absolutely no sense of their duty and responsibility
in this matter. Only one sixth of them refused to place girls in
situations where their morals would be seriously endangered. Many of
them were perfectly willing to supply girls to work in houses of immoral
character.[260] There was also a great deal of carelessness in the
investigation of addresses to which girls were sent. Many of the
addresses reported by the societies were found to be fictitious, many
were false, that is, the girls had never been there, and some of them
were admittedly immoral resorts. It is encouraging to note that since
the investigation of the Commission vigorous measures have been employed
in correcting these evils, and conditions have greatly improved.
The case of the immigrant homes and aid societies is a remarkable
illustration of the eternal vigilance which is necessary to prevent
exploitation and corruption from flourishing, even in connection with
professedly benevolent agencies, when plastic material is furnished in
such abundance as exists in the immigrant body.[261]
The effects of immigration upon the religious life of the immigrants and
of the United States constitute a great field of research which has been
surprisingly neglected, perhaps because of the difficulty of securing
reliable data and establishing definite conclusions, perhaps because it
has not seemed of sufficient importance to warrant exhaustive study.
One result which has certainly followed the immigration of the
nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth is a vast increase
in the number of denominations and sects organized in this country. The
position of the Roman Catholic Church as a product of immigration is too
obvious to be dwelt upon. The predominance of this form of belief among
the Irish of the first half of the nineteenth century, which more than
anything else motived the Native American and Know Nothing movements,
has been maintained to a certain extent among the Germans, and in later
days among the Italians and Slavs.[262]
The census reports on religious bodies unfortunately give no information
as to the nationality of members and communicants, so that it is
impossible to distribute the adherents of the various sects among the
constituent races. However, out of the list of denominations given we
can pick a number of manifestly foreign origin which indicate the
tremendous diversity of religious forms which are represented in this
country. Among them are the following: Armenian Church; Buddhists,
Chinese and Japanese; Dunkers; Eastern Orthodox churches, Russian,
Servian, Syrian, and Greek; various German Evangelical bodies; various
Scandinavian Lutheran bodies; Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Synod;
Moravian bodies; Jewish congregations; Polish national church; Swedish
Evangelical bodies; Hungarian Reformed Church; Bahais, etc.
The total number of organizations covered by the report of the census
for 1906 is 212,230 as reported by 186 denominations. One hundred and
fourteen of these denominations reported the use of some foreign
language in some of their organizations. Of the denominations so
reporting 12.5 per cent of their organizations, with 26.3 per cent of
their membership, report the use of foreign languages, either alone or
with English. There are forty-one individual languages included in the
report.
These facts indicate that, whatever changes the removal to a new
environment involves, and however much of American life the immigrants
adopt, a large percentage of our foreign population brings its religion
with it, and keeps it. This is not to be wondered at, as we know that
men hold on to their traditional religion more tenaciously than to
almost any other of their mores and resent interference here most of
all. More than this, it is probably well that it is so. For religion is
the great conserving force of morality, the principal bulwark of
traditional conduct. The perils of the moral nature of the immigrant in
his new home are many. Trained to repression, restriction, and control,
he finds himself suddenly endowed with liberty and opportunity. This
liberty he is all too likely to interpret as license. Finding people all
around him doing things which have hitherto seemed to him sinful or
immoral, he adopts the practices, without having acquired the principles
and restraints which safeguard them, and make them innocuous for
Americans. If, along with this shifting of ethical standards, he loses
also his religious sanctions, his moral danger is great indeed.[263]
This process has been particularly observed among the second generation
of Hebrews. In the light of American civilization and public thought,
they find the religion of their fathers discredited. It appears to them
antiquated and unworthy. They throw it over unreservedly, and with it
goes the whole body of admirable moral precepts and guides, and the
remarkable ethical standards, which have been indissolubly associated
with religious belief in their minds. The unfortunate part of the
process is that nothing takes the place, either of the religious faith,
or of the moral code. The old, which was good, is forsaken without
adopting the new, which is perhaps better. As a result, juvenile crime
is very prevalent among the Jews, and a large proportion of those
concerned in the white slave traffic, both men and women, are
Hebrews.[264] It would be difficult to say to what extent the bad record
of the second generation of immigrants in regard to criminality and
general lawlessness may be due to similar causes.
While the majority of our immigrants are nominally Christians, there is
nevertheless a sufficient demand for religious guidance to constitute a
tremendous foreign missionary problem within the borders of our own
land—the more so when it is remembered that a large part of the efforts
of some of our foreign missionary boards is directed toward people who
are already nominally Christians, in their home lands. Many of the
religious denominations are beginning to feel this call, and are
responding to it by special services or organizations, planned to meet
the needs of foreign residents. As stated above, many religious bodies
support missionaries on Ellis Island. The Young Men’s Christian
Association devotes especial attention to the foreign-born. Many foreign
groups have societies of a religious character, aside from their regular
church organizations.
Yet in spite of all that can be said on this side of the question, there
remains an astonishing apathy on the part of the body of American
Protestant churches toward the religious and moral needs and dangers of
the foreign population, and of the opportunities for service which it
offers. This service might be made of incalculable benefit not only to
the immigrants themselves, but to their adopted country, whose destiny
hangs in the same balance as theirs. It is true that a group of
ignorant, stolid, perhaps dirty, European peasants on the streets of
one’s own city does not make the same appeal to his emotions and
sympathies as the half-clad savages which he reads of in the missionary
journals. Yet the spiritual needs of the immigrant group are probably
the greater of the two—at least they are more immediate—and the
receptive attitude of the newly arrived immigrant toward all elevating
influences makes him a uniquely promising subject for missionary work.
The unwillingness on the part of many wealthy and fashionable churches
to accept this responsibility in the spirit of the founder of the
Christian religion may be attributed to ignorance of actual conditions,
to fastidiousness, or to race prejudice, if not to actual indifference.
But if the church is to fulfill its mission in twentieth century
America, the efforts toward serving the spiritual needs of the alien
must be immensely widened and strengthened. Reverend Charles Stelzle
gives an ironical epitome of the situation in the story of the church in
New York City which sold its fine building because there were too many
foreigners in the neighborhood, and sent the proceeds to the Board of
Foreign Missions.[265]
In regard to that set of social conditions which are represented by
statistics of births, marriages, and deaths, no definite statistical
data for the country at large are available. The census reports do not
make the necessary distinctions between native and foreign-born to serve
as a basis of comparison. Such a comparison is, in fact, practically
impossible, for the composition of the foreign-born element of the
population in respect to sex, age, and conjugal condition differs so
widely from that of a normal population that any comparative rates,
based on general statistics, would be meaningless. Thus a foreign-born
death rate, based simply on total deaths and total population, would
probably be remarkably low. For, as has been shown, the foreign-born
population is largely in the middle age groups. They have passed the
dangerous period of childhood, and many of them, with advancing age, go
home to die. But if compared with a selected group of native-born, of
the same sex and age, the foreign-born would probably show a high death
rate, on account of the prevalence of industrial accidents and diseases,
and unhygienic living conditions.
Similar considerations hold true as regards the birth rate and marriage
rate. In respect to the former, it has been observed in another
connection that the birth rate of the foreign-born is extraordinarily
high for the first generation. As the length of residence of any foreign
group in this country increases, its birth rate tends to approach that
of the native-born until, as has been said, “the probability is that
when immigrants have lived with us so long that their grandparents were
born in the land, there is little more difference between the two stocks
in reproductivity than between any other equally extensive groups taken
at random.”[266] The study made by the Immigration Commission of the
fecundity of immigrant women shows that women born of foreign parents
have a much greater fecundity than those born of native parents.
In respect to marriages, comparative rates would have little meaning
unless they could be very carefully refined. The relative number of
foreign-born women is so small, and the number of men who have left
wives on the other side so large, and the temporary character of the
residence of many aliens so marked, as to put the entire question of
marriage among the foreign-born into an abnormal status. Many obstacles
prevent the free intermarriage of foreigners with natives. Marriages
between the foreign-born in this country are probably much more
infrequent than would be the case in a normal population of the same
size. Even in the case of the second generation of immigrants Professor
Commons finds that the proportion of marriages is smaller than among the
native-born.[267] The effect of this is to increase the tendency,
already noticed, to augment the population of this country by new
immigration, rather than by the reproduction of elements already here.
For recreation the foreign-born are limited to virtually the same
resources as the natives of the working class. The dance hall, the
moving picture show, the cheap theater, and the recreation park hold the
prominent places. For the men of some races the saloon, and for others
the imported coffeehouse, furnish a place for meeting and social
relaxation. The need of recreational facilities for the working classes,
so long neglected in this country, is beginning to be recognized and met
in every up-to-date American city. In all such advantages the
foreign-born will have their share. There are also other efforts, such
as the revival of folk dancing among foreign groups, and the giving of
dramas which appeal to the immigrants, which have the foreigner directly
in view. These merit hearty commendation. Yet much remains to be done.
The problem of recreation can be solved only in connection with the
problem of general industrial conditions. The average adult worker in
many of our industries is too much exhausted at the close of his day’s
work to take much interest in recreation of any kind. All too often,
also, the time and the pecuniary means are alike lacking for forms of
recreation which would be of great value. There needs to be more
recognition of the fact that the workman, though a foreigner, must have
relaxation and diversion to promote his highest welfare, just as truly
as those in higher stations.[268]