Imported Americans / The Story of the Experiences of a Disguised American and His Wife Studying the Immigration Question

by Broughton Brandenburg

Representative Simmons has introduced a bill which would establish a system of State bureaus which should set forth to arriving immigrants the advantages of each particular portion of the country. If all or even a large portion of the immigrants came with unsettled plans or uncertain destinations, this would be an excellent plan, providing that Italian farmers, who are accustomed to farming with a spade, were not deflected to agricultural districts where sulky plows and three-horse teams are necessary, and Scandinavian agriculturists, learning of the wealth of the valley of the Red River, did not go there expecting to maintain their health in a climate entirely different in the mean from that to which they have been accustomed.

There is a great amount of wisdom in portions of the following extracts from Commissioner Sargent’s last Report, selected from under the titles of “Distribution and Naturalization” and “New Legislation,” and each recommendation would undoubtedly serve to increase the efficiency of our present system and bring about a betterment of the condition of immigrants at present in the country as well as to assist those who might arrive in future; but their great drawback is that they are patches on a system which is fundamentally wrong in itself.

It is impossible for any but the most reckless or foolishly optimistic to consider the figures presented in this report without realizing their serious bearing upon our well-being. It is not alone that virtually 1,000,000 aliens have been added to our population within the brief space of one year, although that fact is one of large dimensions. The constituent elements of this great army of invasion are to be considered, their individual character and capacity for useful work, their respect for law and order, their ability to stand the strain—morally, physically, mentally—of the life of their new surroundings; in other words, the power to assimilate with the people of this country and thus become a source of strength for the support of American institutions and civilization instead of a danger in periods of strain and trial. To doubt that they possess such ability is to discredit unvarying human experience. Human beings vary not so much because of any inherent difference of nature as because of difference in the molding influences of which at every stage of development they are the product. All instruction of mind and training of body constitute a practical recognition of this fact. The problem presented, therefore, to enlightened intelligence for solution, is how may the possibility—nay, probability—of danger from an enormous and miscellaneous influx of aliens be converted, by a wise prevision and provision, into a power for stability and security? If such a solution can be obtained, it seems the part of foolhardiness to make no effort to that end, to trust fatuously to the circumstance that, though numerically immigration was years ago nearly as large in proportion to our population as it now is, no very serious ill resulted from the failure to take any especial care in reference to it other than an inspection at the time of arrival.

In my judgment the smallest part of the duty to be discharged in successfully handling alien immigrants with a view to the protection of the people and institutions of this country is that part now provided for by law. Its importance, though undeniable, is relatively of secondary moment. It cannot, for example, compare in practical value with, nor can it take the place of, measures to ensure the distribution of the many thousands who come in ignorance of the industrial needs and opportunities of this country, and, by a more potent law than that of supply and demand, which speaks to them here in an unknown tongue, colonizes alien communities in our great cities. Such colonies are a menace to the physical, social, moral, and political security of the country. They are hotbeds for the propagation and growth of those false ideas of political and personal freedom whose germs have been vitalized by ages of oppression under unequal and partial laws, which find their first concrete expression in resistance to constituted authority, even occasionally in the assassination of the lawful agents of that authority. They are the breeding-grounds also of moral depravity; the centres of propagation of physical disease. Above all, they are the congested places in the industrial body which check the free circulation of labor to those parts where it is most needed and where it can be most benefited. Do away with them, and the greatest peril of immigration will be removed.

Removed from the sweat-shops and slums of the great cities, and given the opportunity to acquire a home, every alien, however radical his theories of government and individual right may have been, will become a conservative—a supporter in theory and practice of those institutions under whose benign protection he has acquired and can defend his household goods. Suitable legislation is therefore strongly urged to establish agencies by means of which, either with or without the co-operation of the States, aliens shall be made acquainted with the resources of the country at large, the industrial needs of the various sections in both skilled and unskilled labor, the cost of living, the wages paid, the price and capabilities of the lands, the character of the climates, the duration of the seasons,—in short, all of that information furnished by some of the great railway lines through whose efforts the territory tributary thereto has been transformed from a wilderness within a few years to the abiding-place of a happy and prosperous population.

Another means of obviating danger from our growing immigration is the enactment of legislation to prevent the degrading of the electorate through the unlawful naturalization of aliens. Undoubtedly such naturalization is now often granted upon very insufficient evidence of the statutory period of residence, a looseness in the practice of the courts which is fostered by the heat and zeal of partisanship in political contests. It rests with Congress to prevent such abuses, and the consequent distrust in the popular mind of the purity of elections, by establishing additional requirements to be complied with by aliens seeking the privilege of citizenship.

Within the past year the Bureau has established at the various ports of entry a card-index system, by reference to which the date of the arrival and personal identity can be readily verified. To require every alien applicant for naturalization to produce a certified copy of such record, attested by the signature and seal of the custodian thereof, would substitute for the oral testimony of professional witnesses written evidence of an entirely reliable character.

In addition to the new legislation recommended, I have to suggest that Congress be urged to strike out from section 1 of the act approved March 3, 1903, the words which exempt transportation companies from the payment of the head tax for aliens brought by them, respectively, who profess to be merely transits to foreign territory. It is believed that that provision was retained in the act through a clerical error, and its elimination is recommended because of the embarrassments, both to the transportation lines and to the Bureau, in its enforcement. The amount saved to the passenger carriers is too trivial to justify the labor and delay involved in ascertaining who are actually transits, and under the law not properly subject to the head tax, and who are merely professing to be such.

The new law referred to above has not been in operation long enough to enable the Bureau to point out specific defects other than that one just cited; but it was so carefully drawn and so aptly embodies the results of the Bureau’s experience in the ten years of the latter’s existence, that the best results are anticipated.

Irrespective of the effect in diminishing the number of alien arrivals, now approximating 1,000,000 annually, I am impressed with the importance of still further measures to improve the quality of those admitted. Such measures would be merely additional steps in the same direction already taken in dealing with the question of immigration to this country. They would involve no new departure from a policy which has been pursued for years, and which therefore may now be assumed to be a fixed principle of the United States in dealing with this subject. From this point of view it seems not unjust to require of aliens seeking admission to this country at least so much mental training as is evidenced by the ability to read and write. This requirement, whatever arguments or illustrations may be used to establish the contrary position, will furnish alien residents of a character less likely to become burdens on public or private charity. Otherwise it must follow that rudimentary education is a handicap in the struggle for existence, a proposition that few would attempt to maintain. It would also, in a measure, relieve the American people of the burden now sustained by them of educating in the free schools the ignorant of other countries.