Careful Supervision
The officers, who have treated you courteously, in strong contrast to the steamship and dock employees, keep track of you until you are safely on board an immigrant car, bound for the place where your relatives are. Your ideas of great New York are limited, but you have been saved by this official supervision from being swindled by sharpers or enticed into evil. You are practically in charge of the railway company, as you have been of the steamship company, until you are deposited at the station where you expect to make your home. You are ready to believe, by this time, that America is at least a spacious country, with room enough in it for all who want to come. At the same time you will admit, as you recall some of your fellow-passengers in the steerage, that there should not be room in the country for those who ought not to come—not only the diseased and insane, crippled and consumptive, who are shut out by the law, but also the delinquent and depraved, whose presence means added ignorance and crime. You only wish the inspectors could have seen some of those shameless men on shipboard, so that in spite of their smooth answers they might have been sent back whence they came, to prey upon the innocent there instead of here. Now that it is all over, you shudder for a long time at night as memory recalls the steerage scenes, through which your faith in God and your constant prayers preserved you.[18]
The Alien's Chance
In such manner the alien gains his chance to become an American. What he will make of that chance is a matter of grave importance to the land that has opened to him the doors of opportunity and liberty. Having seen how the immigrants get into the United States, let us now see how they are kept out. When we know what the restrictive laws are, and how they are enforced or evaded, we shall be in a position to judge as to their sufficiency, and the need of further legislation.
II. Governmental Regulation
Evasion and Violation
The United States has some excellent immigration laws, the best and most extensive of any nation, as one would expect, since this is the nation to which nearly all immigrants come. The trouble is that every attempt is made to evade these laws, and where they cannot be evaded they are violated. The laws are of two classes: 1. Protective, in favor of the immigrant; and 2. Restrictive, in favor of the country.
Protection for the Immigrant
There is a law against overcrowding on shipboard, going back as far as 1819, but overcrowding has gone on ever since.[19] There seems to be no doubt that even on the best steamships of the best lines there is ready disregard of the law when it interferes with the profits to be made out of the steerage. Strong evidence to this effect is given by Mr. Brandenburg. Here is a condensed leaf from his own experience which shows how much regard is paid to the comfort and health of the steerage passengers:[20]
Steerage Horrors