The work of this society has been referred to a number of times, and
its methods and special objects should perhaps be briefly summarized.
Its organization in 1907 grew out of a desire to assist the immigrant
girls coming into Chicago, with special reference to their industrial
relations. The objects described in the charter of incorporation are,
however, much wider than this. They were:
... to apply the civic, social, and philanthropic resources
of the city to the needs of foreigners in Chicago, to protect
them from exploitation, to co-operate with the Federal,
state, and local authorities, and with similar organizations
in other localities, and to protect the right of asylum in
all proper cases. (By-Laws, Art. II.)
The services of the organization have been taken advantage of by
members of all the national groups in Chicago, and these services have
included meeting immigrant trains and distributing arriving immigrants
to their destination in the city, prosecuting the agencies from which
the immigrant suffered especial exploitation, visiting immigrant
girls, securing appropriate legislation, and in general making known
to the community the special needs of the newly arrived immigrants.
The League has from the beginning made use of the services of
foreign-speaking visitors, and the volume and success of its work has
varied with the number of these visitors, the extent to which they
represented groups in need of special aid, and their skill as social
workers. At the time of the publication of the last report, the
following languages besides English were spoken by these visitors:
German, Bohemian, Italian, Lettish, Lithuanian, Magyar, Polish,
Russian, Slovak, and Yiddish. Many aspects of its work do not bear on
this discussion, but the following brief passages from the annual
reports indicate the way in which the work in behalf of unaccompanied
girls developed.
During the past year and a half the League has received from
the various ports of arrival the names and addresses of the
girls and women destined for Chicago. All of these newly
arrived girls and women have been visited by representatives
of the League able to speak the language of the immigrant.
Four, and part of the time five, women speaking the Slavic
languages--German, French, Italian, and Greek--have been
employed for this work. In these visits information has been
accumulated in regard to the journey to Chicago, the depot
situation, the past industrial experience of the girls, their
occupation in Chicago, wages, hours of work, their living
conditions, the price they pay for board, and whether they
are contributing to the support of some one at home. On this
basis the League's work for girls has been planned. (_Annual
Report, 1909-10_, p. 13.)
In these visits many girls needing assistance are found. The
most difficult ones to help are those for whom the visitor
sees a danger which the girl is unable to anticipate. Often a
girl is a pioneer, who comes in advance of her family, and
the friend or acquaintance whom she knows in Chicago
undertakes to help her in finding her first job and a place
to live, and then leaves her to solve the future for herself.
If she should be out of work or in trouble she has no one
whom she can ask for advice or help. In cases of this sort
all that the visitor can do is to establish a connection
which will make the girl feel that she has some one she can
turn to in case of trouble or unemployment. (_Annual Report,
1909-10_, p. 15.)
Sometimes the League's visitor can do little more than offer
the encouragement which the girl so much needs during the
first few years in America. Usually she tries to persuade the
girl to attend the nearest night school; sometimes she helps
her in finding work, or a proper boarding place; sometimes,
when the immigrant is educated, she has to quite sternly
insist that any kind of work must be accepted until English
has been learned. Some girls are discovered only after it is
too late to prevent a tragedy. In the cases of two girls, one
Polish and the other Bohemian, who had been betrayed by the
uncles who had brought them to this country, the results were
especially discouraging because the efforts to punish the men
failed and one of the girls who had suffered so much from the
uncle whom she thought she could trust was deported. (_Annual
Report for the Year Ending January 1, 1914_, p. 11.)
It is clear that such a plan involved the distribution of information
from the ports of entry to the places of destination,[54] and the
development of instrumentalities through which the immigrant on
arrival at his destination can be placed in contact with those from
whom help of the kind needed could be expected. A nation-wide network
of agencies for such hospitality, with headquarters at the ports of
entry, is seen to be necessary from the descriptions of the services
to be rendered. The development of such machinery by the Federal
Immigration Service, as at present organized, may be unthinkable; but
with a change in personnel and with a wider understanding of the
nature of the problem, the apparently impossible might be realized.
In the meantime, the service need not wholly wait on this remote
possibility. There are agencies, both public and private, which with
enlarged resources might undertake a considerable portion of this task
and develop more completely both the methods of approach and a body of
persons skilled in this particular kind of service. Such work as that
done on a small scale by the Immigrants' Protective League is
especially instructive. The resources of that organization for all its
tasks have been limited, so that visitors have been only to a slight
extent specialized, except in the matter of language. But with
enlarged resources, so that a larger number and better trained
visitors might be employed, this gracious and important hospitality
might be widely exercised.