Even when these remittances are not in the form of prepaid tickets, nor are even intended to pay passage in any way, they exert a powerful influence in stirring up immigration, through the tangible evidence which they furnish of American possibilities. There could be no stronger proof of the success of immigrants in the United States than the constant stream of gold which is flowing from this country to Europe.

For the sake of clearness, these different forms of stimulation have been discussed separately. In practice, they overlap and combine in a variety of complicated relations. The emigration agent is often himself a returned immigrant; if not, he utilizes all the influences which arise from the letters, visits, and remittances of actual immigrants to further his ends. The letters from America are often misleading or spurious, used by labor agents in this country to entice others to come. The prepaid ticket is susceptible of a wide variety of uses. Assistance to emigrants is often furnished, not by well-disposed friends and relatives, but by loan-sharks, whose motives are wholly selfish, and whose sole aim is to secure usurious rates of interest for sums advanced, which are amply protected by mortgages.

As a result of this complex of motives and forces, America has become a household word even to the remote corners of Europe, and he who wishes, for any reason, to stir up emigration from any region finds a fertile field already prepared for him. It is amazing to find how much an ignorant Greek peasant knows about conditions in America. The economic situation is, of course, the prime interest. But there is also a good fund of information about social and political subjects. There are of course many misconceptions and errors, but it is evident that the lines of communication between the European village and the American city are very well established. Similar conditions prevail in all the immigrant-furnishing countries.

It is impossible to say to just what extent our present immigration ought to be classified as induced. It is probable that only a very small part of the total immigration is wholly free from stimulation to some degree. Certain it is that a very large proportion of it is thoroughly artificial and induced. The getting of immigrants is now a thoroughly developed system, planned to serve the needs of every form of interest which might profit thereby.[[130]] As to the quality of such immigration, something has already been said. There is evidently nothing about the immigrants themselves, or the way in which they are secured, that serves as a guarantee of their serviceability or value to this country; as to their own prospects, we can do no better in closing this chapter than to quote the words of the Commissioner General; these various operations “often result in placing upon our shores large numbers of aliens who, if the facts were only known at the time, are worse than destitute, are burdened with obligations to which they and all their relatives are parties,—debts secured with mortgages on such small holdings as they and their relatives possess, and on which usurious interest must be paid. Pitiable indeed is their condition, and pitiable it must remain unless good fortune accompanies the alien while he is struggling to exist and is denying himself the necessaries of decent living in order to clear himself of the incubus of accumulated debt. If he secures and retains employment at fair wages, escapes the wiles of that large class of aliens living here who prey upon their ignorant compatriots, and retains his health under often adverse circumstances, all may terminate well for him and his; if he does not, disaster is the result to him and them.”[[131]]

CHAPTER IX
THE EFFECTS OF IMMIGRATION. CONDITIONS OF EMBARKATION AND TRANSPORTATION

It was remarked in an earlier paragraph that the effects of immigration were largely a matter of the future. This may have seemed like too sweeping a statement. Yet it will prove true upon consideration. In the case of the old immigration there are, to be sure, certain immediate and superficial effects which may be postulated with a fair degree of certainty. As an example, we may be reasonably sure that the old immigration has increased the proportion of Irish, German, and Scandinavian blood in the composite American people. But as to the ultimate effects of this movement upon the social, religious, moral, and economic aspects of our national life, we can, at best, hazard only a forecast. The reason is that the effects have not transpired as yet.

“One of the commonest errors of writers on sociological topics is to allow too little time for the action of social forces. We are inclined to think that the effects of a certain social phenomenon, which we are able to detect in our lifetime, are the permanent and final effects. We forget that these matters may require many generations to work themselves out. No better illustration of this could be asked for than that furnished by the case of the negroes in the United States. The importation of these people began many generations ago. To our ancestors it undoubtedly seemed a perfectly natural thing to do, and for centuries it did not occur to anybody to even question its rightfulness or its expediency. When objections began to be raised, they were feeble and easily put aside. But at last the presence of this peculiar class of people in the country involved the nation in a terrible and bloody conflict, which worked irreparable injury to the American stock by the annihilation of the flower of southern manhood, and left us a problem which is probably the greatest one before the American people to-day—one which we have hardly begun to solve. There is much of similarity between the case of the negroes and that of the modern immigrants. To be sure, the newcomers of to-day are for the most part white-skinned, instead of colored, which gives a different aspect to the matter. Yet in the mind of the average American, the modern immigrants are generally regarded as inferior peoples—races which he looks down on, and with which he does not wish to associate on terms of social equality. Like the negroes, they are brought in for economic reasons, to do the hard and menial work to which an American does not wish to stoop.”[[132]]

Even in the case of the old immigration, then, the effects are largely in the future; in the case of the new immigration they are almost wholly so. We have seen that in regard to racial stock the new immigration has been predominant for scarcely half a generation. There are a number of circumstances besides this which make the immigration problem practically a new one. Certain of the most important factors which condition it, and many of the aspects which it presents to the public mind, are new to the men of this generation. The verification of this statement is to be found in the following pages; in the present connection it must suffice merely to suggest the circumstances in which these differences may be looked for. These may be grouped under six main heads, as follows: (1) the racial stock of the immigrants; (2) the volume of the immigration current; (3) the distribution of immigrants in the United States; (4) the economic conditions of this country; (5) the native birth rate; (6) the quality of the immigrants.

If the effects of immigration are mainly in the future, the discussion of them must be, for the most part, theoretical. It is a discussion of something which is going to happen, or which is likely to happen, not of something that has happened. This gives it an element of uncertainty and speculation which is not wholly desirable in a scientific study. Yet this is the phase of the subject which is by far the most interesting and important to the average American citizen who wants to know how this great sociological phenomenon is going to affect him, and his country, and his relatives and friends. His attitude toward the question will depend upon what he believes these effects will be. If it appears to him that immigration will benefit himself, his country, the immigrants, or humanity in general, he will favor it; if his belief is to the contrary, his attitude will be one of opposition. Since there is no certainty as to what the effects will be, the arguments about immigration are largely composed of attempts to prove that certain effects have transpired, or to demonstrate that they will transpire. As a consequence, it comes about that the discussion of the effects of immigration practically resolves itself into a consideration of the arguments for and against immigration, and it will be so treated, for the most part, in the following chapters.

There are three classes of effects of immigration which may be clearly distinguished, and which will interest different persons in different degrees. These are the effects upon the United States, the effects upon the countries of source, and the effects upon the immigrants themselves. The second and third of these interest the American citizen only as he is open to broad humanitarian considerations; the first touches him directly, and may have an intimate bearing on his personal and selfish interests and pursuits. If a seemingly disproportionate space is given in this volume to effects in general, and effects upon the United States in particular, it is because this is the vital and imperative part of the whole subject to the people of this nation.