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IMMIGRATION

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

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TORONTO

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

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:

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.