THE NEW PROBLEM OF IMMIGRATION
It was stated on an earlier page that the immigration situation, in most
of its important characteristics, presents an entirely new aspect to the
men of this generation, and that these changes might be looked for under
six general heads, as follows: race, volume, distribution, economic
condition of the United States, native birth rate and quality of the
immigrants. We are now prepared to consider the truth of this assertion.
In regard to race, nothing further need be said. Sufficient facts are
already before the reader to establish the fact that the racial aspect
of the situation has undergone a sweeping and significant change in the
last thirty years. The change in volume has naturally been one of
degree, not of kind. But the change in degree has been a profound
one—more so than is often admitted. It has been pointed out
occasionally, as a sedative to the fears aroused by the immense
immigration of the twentieth century, that while the positive
immigration has increased tremendously, it has not increased at so great
a rate as the population of the country. The ratio between immigration
and total population was higher in the early fifties and early eighties
than at any subsequent period. The assumption is that if we could
successfully assimilate the immigrants of the earlier period, we
certainly ought to be able to take care of those of to-day. But the
question of assimilation depends not only upon the ratio of immigrants
to total population, but upon the proportion of foreign-born population
already in the country. In this connection the following figures are
significant. The number of foreign-born to 100,000, native-born in the
population of the country at the time of the last seven censuses was as
follows:
1850 10,715
1860 15,157
1870 16,875
1880 15,365
1890 17,314
1900 15,886
1910 17,227
It thus appears that the proportion of foreign-born, even at the time of
the census of 1900, after a decade of very slight immigration, was much
higher than at the time of the beginning of large immigration, while the
last census, after the enormous immigration of the past ten years, shows
a proportion of foreign-born higher than at any previous census, except
that of 1890. Now it is the proportion of foreign-born to native-born
which determines the assimilating power of the nation, so that without
this correction the comparison between immigration and total population
is inadequate and misleading. It is as if a fireman whose steam boiler
lacked a safety valve was warned that his gauge was going up more and
more rapidly all the time, and he replied, “Never mind, the pressure is
not coming in so fast, compared to what I already have, as it was awhile
ago.”
Another circumstance which affects the ability of the country to
assimilate immigrants, and in which there has been a marked change
during the history of immigration, is the ratio of men to land, upon
which much emphasis has already been laid. As the amount of
unappropriated and unsettled land diminishes in any country, the need of
new settlers also diminishes, while the difficulty of assimilation and
the possible evils resulting from foreign population proportionally
increase. In the case of the United States the first and simplest
comparison to make is that between immigration and the total territory
of the nation. In this, as in the subsequent comparisons, it will be
desirable to leave Alaska out of consideration. The enormous extent of
that inhospitable region, to which practically none of our immigrants
ever find their way, if included in the reckoning, would simply confuse
the issue. The gross area of the United States, exclusive of Alaska and
Hawaii, at the time of the different censuses, has been as follows: 1790
and 1800, 827,844 square miles; 1810, 1,999,775 square miles; 1820,
2,059,043 square miles; 1830 and 1840, the same; 1850, 2,980,959 square
miles; 1860 down to the present, 3,025,600 square miles.[340]
Estimating the immigration before 1820 at 10,000 per year, and using the
official figures after that date, we find that the immigration by
decades from 1791 to 1910 was as follows:
1791–1800 100,000
1801–1810 100,000
1811–1820 98,385
1821–1830 143,439
1831–1840 599,125
1841–1850 1,713,251
1851–1860 2,511,060
1861–1870 2,377,279
1871–1880 2,812,191
1881–1890 5,246,613
1891–1900 3,687,564
1900–1910 8,795,386
Combining these two sets of figures, it appears that for each immigrant
coming to this country during the decades specified, there was at the
close of the decade the following number of square miles of territory in
the United States:
1800 8.278
1810 19.998
1820 20.927
1830 14.355
1840 3.437
1850 1.739
1860 1.205
1870 1.273
1880 1.076
1890 .570
1900 .824
1910 .347
This table illustrates forcibly the fact that from the point of view of
the need of new settlers immigration at the present time is a vastly
different matter from what it has ever been before in the history of our
country. This impression is strengthened if we make another comparison,
which is even more significant for our purposes, viz. the relation of
immigration to the public domain, that is, to the land which still
remains unclaimed and open to settlement. If there were still large
tracts of good land lying unutilized, and available for settlement, as
there have been in other periods of our history, we could take comfort
in the thought that as soon as the incoming aliens caused too great a
congestion in any region, the surplus inhabitants would overflow, by a
natural process, into the less thickly settled districts. Let us
consider what the facts have to show in this respect.
In 1860 there were, as nearly as can be estimated, 939,173,057 acres of
land lying unappropriated and unreserved in the public domain. In 1906
there were 424,202,732 acres of such land, representing the leavings,
after all the best land had been chosen. In other words, for each
immigrant entering the country during the decade ending 1860 there were
374 acres in the public domain, at least half of it extremely valuable
farm land. In 1906, for each immigrant entering during the previous ten
years, there were 68.9 acres, almost wholly arid and worthless.
The fact that the immigrants in this country do not, to any great
extent, take up this unclaimed public land does not destroy the
significance of this comparison. As long as there was a strong movement
of the native population westward, it was not so much a matter of
concern, if large numbers of foreigners were entering the Atlantic
seaboard. And this was exactly the case during the middle of the
nineteenth century. This was the period of the great internal migration
to the new lands of the Middle West. In point of fact also, at this
time, many of these pioneers were actually immigrants. It is scarcely
necessary to say that nothing comparable to this is going on at the
present time. The frontier, which has had such a determining influence
on our national life, is a thing of the past. Of the 424,202,732 acres
remaining in the public domain in 1906, only a very small part consisted
of valuable farm lands, such as existed in great abundance when the
Homestead Act was passed in 1862. Evidence of this fact is furnished by
the act recently passed allowing homesteads of 640 acres to be taken up
in certain sections of Nebraska, where it is impossible for a man to
make a living from less. Not only are the incoming hordes of aliens not
now counterbalanced by an important internal migration, but there is an
actual movement, of noteworthy dimensions, of ambitious young farmers
from the United States to the new and cheaper wheat lands in Canada.
This set of conditions may be stated in another way by saying that the
United States has changed from an agricultural to a manufacturing and
commercial nation.[341] In the early nineteenth century the rural family
was the typical one, to-day it is the urban family. Then the simplicity
and independence of the farm gave character to the national life; to-day
it is the complexity and artificiality of the city which govern. The
nineteenth century was a period of expansion. Particularly in the
earlier part of it was the subduing of new land the fundamental
consideration of national development. This was the period of internal
improvements, the building of roads and canals, and later of railroads.
It was the adolescence of the American people. At such a period the
great demand is for accessions of population, and it is no wonder that
many of the writers of that day were frank in their demands for the
encouragement of immigration. And even in the thirties and forties,
though the miserable shipping conditions and the large number of
incoming paupers aroused a countercurrent of opinion, still the
immigrants found a logical place on the great construction works of the
period, as well as on the vacant arable lands.
This period is past. The labors of the typical alien are not now
expended on the railroad, the canal, or the farm, but in the mines and
foundries, the sweatshops and factories. The immigrants of to-day are
meeting an economic demand radically different from that of a century or
half a century, yes, we may say a quarter of a century ago.[342]
This change is further exemplified by the increased concentration of
population in cities which the United States has witnessed in the past
century. In 1790 there were only 6 cities in the United States with over
8000 population each, containing 3.4 per cent of the total population.
In 1840 the percentage of population in cities of this size was still
only 8.4. But in 1900 there were 545 cities of over 8000, counting among
their inhabitants 33.1 per cent of the total population. In other words,
the ratio between city and country dwellers (taking the city of 8000 as
the dividing line) has changed from one to twenty-eight in 1790 to one
to two in 1900. At the same time the average density of population of
the country as a whole has increased from 3.7 per square mile in 1810 to
10.8 in 1860, 17.3 in 1880, and 25.6 in 1900.
Hand in hand with these changes has come a sweeping change in the scale
of production, which must have an important bearing on the immigration
situation. The early immigrants, to a very large extent, came into more
or less close personal relations with their employers, often working
side by side with them on the farm or in the shop. Now foreigners are
hired by the thousands by employers whom they perhaps never see,
certainly never have any dealings with, the arrangements being made
through some underling, very likely a foreigner himself. Working all day
side by side with others of their own race, or of other races equally
foreign, and going home at night to crowded dwellings, inhabited by
aliens, and with a European atmosphere, the modern immigrants have but
slight commerce with anything that is calculated to inculcate American
ideas or contribute any real Americanizing influence.
Mention of the declining native birth rate in the United States had
already been made (Chapter XI), with some consideration of the causes
thereof. The fact needs to be called attention to in this connection as
another element in the changed aspect of immigration. It is unfortunate
that our census figures do not give us positive data as to the
respective birth rates of the native-born and foreign-born, so that we
have to rely upon estimates. All of these estimates, however, agree that
there has been a marked decline in the rate of native increase, though
the causes assigned vary. The population of the United States in 1810
was 1.84 times as great as in 1790, and that of 1840, 1.77 times as
great as twenty years earlier. Since the immigration during all this
period was relatively slight, this increase may be taken as representing
a very high native birth rate. In 1900, in spite of the large element of
foreign-born with a high birth rate then in the country, and the large
immigration of the previous twenty years, the population of the country
was only 1.52 times as large as in 1880. This must represent a
tremendous fall in the native birth rate. Mr. S. G. Fisher has estimated
that the rate of native increase by decades has fallen from 33.76 per
cent in the decade ending 1820 to 24.53 in the decade ending 1890. Some
eminent authorities, as previously mentioned, are of the opinion that at
the present time the native population of parts, if not the whole, of
New England is not even maintaining itself. Thus our present immigrants
are being received by, and are mingling with, a people, not vigorous and
prolific as in the early days, able to match the crowds of aliens with a
host of native-born offspring, but weak in reproductive power, and
constantly decreasing in the ability to maintain itself. In this
connection it is significant that during the last intercensal decade the
total foreign-born population increased 30.7 per cent, while the
native-born population increased only 19.5 per cent. This fact, in
connection with the high birth rate of our now large foreign-born
population, puts a new face on the question of the elimination of the
native stock.
There yet remains to be considered the matter of the quality of
immigrants to-day as compared with those of past generations. In regard
to this but little can be said in the way of positive declarations.
Quality in an immigrant is a very uncertain matter, and differs
according to the individual point of view and prejudices. What may seem
to an employer of labor high quality in an immigrant may appear quite
the reverse in the eyes of a minister. With the facts of immigration in
mind, each student of the question must determine for himself whether
the quality of our present immigrants compares favorably with that of
earlier groups. There is, however, one consideration to which attention
should be directed when examining changes, which has materially altered
the character of immigration. This is the selective influence of the act
of immigration itself, upon those who are to come. It used to be the
prevailing idea that the immigrant represented the better individuals of
his race or class, that he was more daring, energetic, or enterprising.
Traces of this notion are still very common.[343] There was, moreover, a
great amount of truth in this view during earlier periods of
immigration. Many of the migrations of two or three centuries ago were
inspired by religious or political motives, or very often by a
combination of the two. Such was the exodus of the Huguenots from
France, of the Palatines from Germany, the Puritans from England, the
Scotch-Irish from Ireland. In such cases as these, emigration implies
strength of character, independence, firmness of conviction, moral
courage, bravery, hatred of oppression, etc. Motives such as these
played no small part in immigration movements even as late as the middle
of the nineteenth century.
More than this, it is doubtless true that the earliest immigration from
any region at any time involves a certain degree of ambition,
independence, courage, energy, forethought, all of those characteristics
which are required in the individual who forsakes the known for the
unknown, the familiar for the untried, the stable for the unstable, the
certain though hopeless present for the hopeful but uncertain future.
Such were the early immigrants to this country from every land—not north
European alone, but south European. They possessed something of the
intrepidity and daring of pioneers. They had the strength of character
to break the shackles of age-long tradition and custom, and, taking
their destiny in their hand, seek their fortune in a new and unknown
land. In this respect all new immigration differs from all established
immigration.
But all this is now a thing of the past. Not only have the religious and
political motives almost wholly disappeared in favor of the economic in
modern immigration, but the European immigrant of to-day is in no sense
going to a new or unknown land, when he embarks for the United States.
American life and conditions, particularly economic conditions, are well
known in those sections of Europe which furnish our large contingents of
immigration. The presidential election, the panic, the state of the
crops in the United States, are familiar topics of conversation.[344]
Almost every individual in the established currents of immigration has
at least one friend in this country. Many of them know exactly where
they are going and what they are going to do. To a host of them the
change is no greater than to go to the next village in their native
land, perhaps less so. For as likely as not, just as many of their
friends and relatives are awaiting them in the new country as are
lamenting them in the old.
Neither is the voyage to-day, bad as it is, beset with the
uncertainties, hardships, and perils which used to characterize it. The
way is cleared for the travelers at every step. If their ticket is not
actually supplied to them from America, probably all or part of the
money with which it is purchased came from America. At least they may
now secure a ticket direct from a European center to their ultimate
destination in America, and every stage of the journey is facilitated by
the ingenuity of financially interested agents. Induced immigration has
always existed since the days when the press gangs in the coast towns of
England carried inducement to the point of abduction. But probably never
in the history of our country has artificially stimulated immigration
formed so large a part of the whole as now. There is nothing, therefore,
in the modern conditions of immigration which serves as a guaranty of
high quality in the immigrants.
One other element which concerns the quality of the immigrant, and
therefore should be mentioned in this connection, is the immense
increase in what may be designated temporary or seasonal immigration.
The prominence of this type of movement in recent years has radically
modified the industrial aspect of the situation.[345]
It is possible that some of the changes reviewed above may be of a
beneficial character. However that may be, there can be no question
that, taken together, they indicate so complete an alteration in the
circumstances surrounding the admission of aliens to this country as to
require that the entire immigration situation be considered in the light
of present conditions, rather than of past history. The old stock
arguments, _pro_ and _con_, which seem to have stood the test of time,
need to be thoroughly reviewed. The modern immigrant must be viewed in
the setting of to-day. Especially must it be borne in mind that the
fact—if such it be—that immigration in the past has worked no injury to
the nation, and has resulted in good to the immigrants, by no means
indicates that a continuance of past policy and practice in the matter
will entail no serious evil consequences, nor bring about disaster in
the future.