Now, in turn, all these look askance at the Jew, the Slav and the Italian; while they, like the rest, are ready to close the doors to the vast hordes about to move onward, and, as they believe, upward. It is also interesting to note, that among these late comers, there are decided ideas as to who are desirable immigrants, and who are not.
The Slav, if he is a Pole, would exclude his cousin, the Slovak, and both are united in thinking that the Ruthenian is a rather inferior being; while the Ruthenian would debar the Jews, Servians and Croatians from the economic benefits of the land of his adoption.
Until now there has been room for all, and they have not presented a serious economic menace, except as they have intensified the general problem of labour. Each group, driven from the lower and coarser tasks, has risen from mine to shop, from shop to store, and from the store into every avenue of business and professional life.
Thus far all have been crowded up and not many have been crowded out. No considerable groups of native Americans are bewailing the fact that they cannot find work in the mines; nor would large numbers desire to go back to them from their safer toiling places.
The Irish are not mourning because they are not working on sections, nor would they be willing to leave their beats and office chairs from which they are ruling, not only those of us who came after them, but a fair share of those who came before them. They do not care to go back to the track, the pickax and the shovel.
Without the Slav, the Italian and the Magyar, that which we call our industrial development would have been impossible. This development does not lessen the economic problem, it intensifies it; but it cannot be proved that no economic problem would exist if, instead of Slav and Latin, the Teutonic races were dominant in this movement. In that case I believe the problem would be more difficult of solution.
Let me again frankly admit that I do not regard most immigrant groups of the present type as a serious menace to the other groups, or to the whole economic life, provided they are needed to do the work for which they seem best fitted. At present this is still a matter of proper distribution and presents no such serious difficulty as is commonly supposed; for the immigrant will go wherever he is wanted and a fair wage is assured him. Nor is he quite so eager to herd in cities as we imagine, and no community need be without an adequate supply of labourers, if they are needed for hard, crude labour. There is no work so hard or so dangerous that the immigrant will not attempt it.
Like their forerunners in the migratory movement of European races, the present immigrants respond quickly to the American higher standards of living, and in many cases much more quickly than some of the older groups responded.
When we speak of the horrors of the East Side of New York, the crowded Ghetto and Mulberry Street with its Italian filth, we forget the days when the Irish possessed the land, “squatting” wherever they could, and living in wretched huts; when the American used to sing:
“The pig was in the parlour, and that was Irish too.”