Through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
Singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
“Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”
IX
NEIGHBORS TO THE WORLD
Those Who go Back. “Do these immigrants ever go back home?” asks some one. “If I went away from home and made my fortune I would want to go back home to spend it.”
I am glad to hear that question and some of you may be surprised at the answer.
We have all heard of the incoming immigrant army, and small wonder when we know that in some years it numbers over a million human beings. But we have heard little about the returning army. How large is it? How many of our immigrant neighbors prefer to spend their savings at home? How many go home because fortune has not smiled upon them in America, or because their mothers write, “I am getting old and it is very lonesome with my son far across the sea”?
Let us lay on the table nine, bright, new, copper pennies. Now suppose each penny represents one hundred thousand immigrants. Then the nine pennies would represent nine times one hundred thousand, or the nine hundred thousand immigrants that landed in 1911. Since almost three hundred thousand immigrants went back home in 1911 how many of these nine pennies shall we have to remove to show the actual immigrant increase for that year?