These women and girls are usually brought over second class, and every conceivable artifice is employed to deceive the inspectors. When a girl has been safely introduced into the country, she is completely in the power of the man who controls her. The supposition is that the man furnishes protection and care to the girl in return for her earnings. She is sometimes kept in a disorderly house, sometimes in a hotel or other resort, but always where the man can keep control of her. She is thoroughly frightened, and every device is employed to keep her from communicating with any outside sources of relief, or escaping. She is often deprived of street clothing, so as to make escape impossible. She is kept heavily in debt, so that there may be a legal claim over her. Only a very small part of her earnings is given to her, and she is charged outrageous prices for all the supplies which are furnished her. Her life is one of hopeless and terrible degradation, and she has nothing to look forward to except a wretched and continually descending existence, and an early death.
Alien women are particularly desirable to the promoters of this traffic because their lack of connections in this country, and their ignorance of the language and customs of the country make it more difficult for them to escape or to make trouble for their men than in the case of native girls. In addition to the terrible wrongs wrought upon the women themselves, this practice has resulted in an increase in the number of prostitutes in the United States, in the introduction and dissemination of dangerous diseases, and in the introduction of various forms of unnatural vice, more degrading and terrible than even prostitution itself in its ordinary form.
The great majority of the alien women found by the Immigration Commission engaged in these pursuits, as well as the men who prosecute the traffic, are French and Hebrews. Belgians are largely engaged in it, according to Commissioner Bingham. Germans are numerous, and there are a few Irish and Italians, with of course a scattering of individuals of other races.
A number of these women are detected at the port of entry and returned, and a good many are deported. But it is a practice very difficult of detection, and it is not easy to get at the facts in regard to its extent in this country. It is certain that the class of abandoned women in this country is largely recruited in this way. Commissioner Bingham estimated in 1908 that there were more than 100,000 such women on the Pacific coast and in Mexico, who had come in through New York.
No evidence has been found to justify the suspicion that there was an organization controlling this traffic in this country. But those engaged in the trade naturally are acquainted with each other, and are always ready to help each other against a common enemy. They have various meeting places where they get together for gambling, conference, and divers forms of recreation.
It has been proven that this traffic is slavery in more than name, as girls are sometimes sold directly by one person to another. The new federal law is designed to put a check to all practices of this sort, by making it illegal to transport women or girls from one state to another for immoral purposes. The efforts of the Immigration Commission and other governmental agencies within the last two or three years have accomplished a good deal in breaking up some of the resorts, and deporting or imprisoning the culprits. But while the traffic has received a serious setback, it is by no means killed. This is emphatically one of the things where eternal vigilance is the price of safety. Nothing short of a sweeping change in public opinion and practice will ever put it out of the way beyond the possibility of resurrection.[[302]]
In respect to juvenile delinquency the most unenviable place is held by the native-born children of immigrants. They not only manifest two or three times as great a tendency toward crime as the native-born children of native parents, but they are much more criminal than foreign-born children. Of the juvenile delinquents committed during 1904, according to the census report, 76.7 per cent were native white. This percentage was made up as follows: native parentage, 37.6 per cent; foreign parentage, 24.9 per cent; mixed parentage, 9.7 percent; parentage unknown, 4.5 per cent. An exact comparison of the children of native parents and of foreign parents in this respect would require information as to the total number of the two classes in the country in the year in question, which is not available. But it cannot be supposed that the number of native-born children of foreign parents compared with the number of native-born children of native parents is anything like the ratio shown in the above figures. This high degree of criminality is attributed by Professor Commons and by the Immigration Commission largely to concentration in the cities. Whatever the cause, this tendency toward lawlessness among the second generation of immigrants is indisputable, and is one of the most disturbing elements in the whole situation.[[303]]
Still another way in which the immigrant becomes a burden upon the American public is through insanity. The laws are very strict in regard to the admission of aliens who are liable to be subject to this misfortune. Yet it is impossible to prevent the entrance of large numbers who ultimately appear in the category of the insane. The maladaptation of the immigrant to his environment shows itself in this way perhaps as clearly as in any other.
In the institutions for the insane, both public and private, in the United States, including Alaska, Hawaii, and Porto Rico, in 1908, there were, according to the Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration, 172,185 inmates. Of these 25,066 were aliens, 25,128 naturalized citizens, and 121,451 native-born. Thus the percentages were 70.5 per cent native-born and 29.5 per cent—nearly one third—foreign-born.[[304]]
An even larger percentage of foreign-born appears among the insane persons enumerated in hospitals in continental United States on December 31, 1903—34.3 per cent of the white insane of known nativity[[305]]—while of the persons received at Bellevue and Allied Hospitals for treatment for insanity during the period of the investigation of the Immigration Commission, 63.4 per cent were foreign-born, and 36.6 per cent native-born. Moreover, among the native-born, more than half (20.6 per cent of the total) were native-born of foreign father.