IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
THE annual report of the Department of Commerce and Labor for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 1909, discloses some very interesting facts and figures in regard to the alien immigration to the United States. Efforts are being made by the government to improve the immigration service as much a possible, and in view of the fact that in the absence of regular stations the conditions under which immigrants are landed are usually intolerable, sites for immigration stations have been selected at Boston, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Galveston and Charleston, and the construction of the necessary buildings is waiting upon the perfection of titles or the compliance with certain conditions. At Ellis Island improvements of very great importance have been completed that afford fair facilities for the examination and treatment of immigrants at that point. In spite of the fact that the immigration service is assuming very large proportions and the expense is running into considerable figures, the protection and fair treatment of human beings being one of the purposes of the service, yet it is one of the few departments of the government which is self-supporting, the head tax paid by immigrants themselves exceeding the cost of the entire immigration and naturalization services.
The Commissioner General of Immigration expresses the opinion that the present immigration laws are inadequate to keep out undesirable aliens. The proposed literacy test while possessing considerable merit, is not sufficiently high or exacting to reach the class above mentioned. The increased head tax is also an inadequate barrier to immigration. In the first place, the desirability of an alien cannot always be measured by his ability to read and write, nor can it even be said that the undesirable class is composed wholly of the illiterate; secondly, anything less than a large increase in the head tax will hardly
ope furnished about 67 per cent. of the operate to materially reduce immigration, for the profits of the steerage passenger service are undoubtedly sufficient to enable transportation companies to assume, if necessary, a considerable part of such increase and keep the cost of passage at practically its present rate, or the money lenders could readily increase the amount loaned prospective passengers under the present extensive credit system and incidentally reap an increased profit.
The Commissioner General blames the large influx of the mediocre class of immigrants on the steamship companies. These transportation companies employ without scruple numerous agents throughout Europe who, working on a commission basis and at times joining hands with money lenders and other sharks, exploit immigration by impressing the peasants with the false knowledge that golden opportunities await them in the United States immediately upon their landing. Whatever the outcome, it is a good commercial proposition for them to continue the unlawful practice of inducing artificial immigration. All of the above tends to bring into this country a class of immigrants, many of whom are destitute and likely to become public charges, and hence a burden on the tax payers of this country. Many of them, instead of settling in rural districts and pursuing their former vocations, crowd into our large cities when portions of the west are cying out for out of door labor. To bear out some of the contentions of the Commissioner General, the statistics show that a total of 751,786 immigrants, who left permanent residences outside of the United States, arrived here during the last fiscal year. Of this number 183,218, or 24 per cent. came from Italy; 170,191, or about 23 per cent. from Austro-Hungary; 120,460, or 16 per cent. from Russia; 14,111, or nearly 2 per cent. from Greece, and 11,659, or about 1½ per cent. from Turkey. In other words, southern and eastern Eur-