CHAPTER VIII
THE CAUSES OF IMMIGRATION
There are two things which the student of sociological problems—like every other scientist—wishes to know about the phenomena which fall within his field. These are the causes and the effects. Hitherto we have said a good deal about the causes of immigration and very little about the effects. In truth, it is much simpler to predicate causes of such a movement than effects. The causes lie in the past; the effects are largely a matter of the future. It is possible to state with a fair degree of certainty what are the causes of the modern immigration to the United States. The reader will have already formed a general idea from the examples of the new immigration which we have given.
In general the causes of our recent and present immigration may be divided into two classes, the natural and the artificial. Most of what has been said thus far refers to the former; the latter has been merely hinted at. Another distinction which is often helpful is that between the permanent or predisposing causes, and the temporary or immediate causes. It frequently happens that in a given country there are conditions of long standing—perhaps inherent in the character of the country itself—which make life hard and disagreeable for the resident. Yet no immigration takes place until some relatively trivial event, of a temporary nature, occurs, which serves as the final impulse to emigration. To the superficial view this temporary event appears as the cause of emigration, when in point of fact its weight in the total amount of dissatisfactions is insignificant.[[121]] The natural causes of immigration at the present time lie primarily in the superiority of the economic conditions in the United States over those in the countries from which the immigrants come. Modern immigration is essentially an economic phenomenon. Religious and political causes have played the leading part in the past, and still enter in as contributory factors in many cases. But the one prevailing reason why the immigrant of to-day leaves his native village is that he is dissatisfied with his economic lot, as compared with what it might be in the new world. The European peasant comes to America because he can—or believes he can—secure a greater return in material welfare for the amount of labor expended in this country than in his home land. This fact is recognized by practically all careful students of the subject, and is frequently emphasized in the recent report of the Immigration Commission. It is worthy of notice, also, that the changes which affect the volume of the immigration current, and cause those repeated fluctuations which we have observed, are changes in the economic situation in this country, rather than in the countries of source. A period of good times in this country attracts large numbers of immigrants by promising large rewards for labor; an industrial depression checks the incoming current, and sends away many of those who are here. This is probably accounted for by the fact that economic conditions in this country are subject to greater oscillations than in European countries which are relatively static, rather than dynamic. An example of the opposite condition is furnished by the Irish emigration of the middle of the nineteenth century, when a great economic disaster in the country of source occasioned a large increase in emigration. This relation between the economic situation in this country and the volume of immigration has been worked out statistically by Professor Commons, and is presented in graphic form in a table in his book, Races and Immigrants in America (opposite page 64). In this table he takes imports as an index of the prosperity of the United States and shows how closely the curve representing immigration follows the curve of imports per capita. If he could have taken account of the departing aliens as well, the showing would probably have been still more striking.
The search for the reasons for this economic superiority of the United States involves an investigation too complicated and extensive to be undertaken in the present connection. There are two factors, however, which may be pointed out, which, at the beginning of our national life, gave us an advantage possessed by no other modern nation. The first of these was the small ratio between men and land, which we have commented on before. The territory of the United States was a vast, newly discovered region, with untold natural resources and every advantage of climate and configuration, inhabited by a mere handful of settlers, at a time when the nations of Europe had long since struck a balance between population and land, on the customary standard of living. The countries of Europe have also profited, it is true, by the opening up of this great new world. But their benefit has been transmitted and indirect, while the American people have been the direct and immediate recipients of this great advantage. The importance of this factor can hardly be overestimated.
The second of these great factors is the character of the American people themselves. We have seen that this was well formed and distinctive at the time of the Revolution. The early settlers of the North American continent were in many respects a picked body, taken from the best of the populations of Europe. Their descendants were also subjected to the stern selective processes of the struggle with, and conquest of, the wilderness, and the establishment of their own economic and political independence. As a result, the American people at the beginning of our national life had certain qualities both of physical and intellectual character,—hardihood, enterprise, daring, independence, love of freedom, perseverance, etc.,—which set them apart from any of their contemporaries.
It has been the combination of these two factors—a unique people in a rich virgin land—which, more than anything else, has accounted for the eminent position attained by the American nation in the economic life of the world. Many other circumstances have doubtless contributed to the result, but they would have been powerless to accomplish the end, without these two essential prerequisites. With the disappearance of these two distinguishing features the United States will begin to lose her position of economic superiority.
The statement made in a previous paragraph, that the immigrant comes to America because he can—or believes he can—better his economic lot by so doing, suggested that great class of causes which we have called the artificial. The advantages of the economic life in the United States all too frequently exist, not in fact, but in the mind of the prospective emigrant. And this belief is equally potent in stirring up emigration, whether it is grounded on fact or not. There are hosts of immigrants passing through the portals of Ellis Island every year whose venture is based on a sad misconception. There are also countless numbers who would never have engaged in the undertaking had not the idea of doing so been forcibly and persistently instilled into their minds by some outside agency. In other words, a very large part of our present immigration is not spontaneous and due to natural causes, but is artificial and stimulated. This stimulation consists in creating the desire and determination to migrate, by inducing dissatisfaction with existing conditions as compared with what the new world has to offer. Its source is in some interested person or agency whose motive may, or may not, be selfish.
There are three principal sources from which this stimulation or encouragement to immigration emanates—the transportation companies, the labor agents, and the previous immigrants. The motive of the first two is an economic and wholly selfish one; that of the latter may or may not be selfish.
The carrying of immigrants from Europe to America is a very vast and lucrative business. The customary charge for steerage passage averages at least $30, and as the large immigrant ships carry 2000 or more steerage passengers there is a possibility of receiving as much as $60,000 from steerage passengers on a single voyage. It is, furthermore, a business which can be almost indefinitely expanded by vigorous pushing. A skillful agent can induce almost any number of the simple and credulous peasants of a backward European country to emigrate, who had scarcely had such an idea in their heads before. Consequently it pays the transportation companies to have an immense army of such agents, continually working over the field, and opening up new territory. The motive is not so much rivalry for a given amount of business between the different companies; a mutual agreement between different lines or groups of lines, dividing up the territory from which they shall draw their steerage passengers, practically precludes this.[[122]] It is rather the possibility of actually creating new business by energetic canvassing.
It is obvious that the activity of these agents may be of the most pernicious nature. The welfare of the immigrant, or the benefit of either country concerned, are of no concern to them. Their sole aim is to get business. So long as the immigrant has the wherewithal to pay his passage, it matters not to them where he got it, nor are they deterred by any doubts as to the fitness of the immigrant for American life, or of the probability of his success there. In fact, it is claimed that the steamship companies prefer a class of immigrants which is likely, eventually, to return to the old country, as this creates a traffic going the other way. The only checks to their operations are such as are imposed by their own scruples, and the possession of too many of these does not help a man to qualify for the position of agent.