V Solicitation an Evil
Evils of Solicitation
If immigration were left to the natural causes, there would be little reason for apprehension. It is in the solicited and assisted immigration that the worst element is found. Commercial greed lies at the root of this, as of most of the evils which afflict us as a nation. The great steamship lines have made it cheaper to emigrate than to stay at home, in many cases; and every kind of illegal inducement and deceit and allurement has been employed to secure a full steerage. The ramifications of this transportation system are wonderful. It has a direct bearing, too, upon the character of the immigrants. Easy and cheap transportation involves deterioration in quality. In the days when a journey across the Atlantic was a matter of weeks or months and of considerable outlay, only the most enterprising, thrifty, and venturesome were ready to try an uncertain future in an unknown land. The immigrant of those days was likely, therefore, to be of the sturdiest and best type, and his coming increased the general prosperity without lowering the moral tone. Now that the ocean has become little more than a ferry, and the rates of railway and steamship have been so reduced, it is the least thrifty and prosperous members of their communities that fall readiest prey to the emigration agent.
Assisted Immigration
Assisted immigration is the term used to cover cases where a foreign government has eased itself of part of the burden of its paupers, insane, dependents, and delinquents by shipping them to the United States. This was not uncommon in the nineteenth century, especially in the case of local and municipal governments. Our laws were lax, and for a time nearly everybody, sane or insane, sound or diseased, was passed. The financial gain to the exporting government can be seen in the fact that it costs about $150 per head a year to support dependents and delinquents in this country, while it would not cost the foreign authorities more than $50 to transport them hither. This policy seems scarcely credible, but Switzerland, Great Britain, and Ireland followed it thriftily until our laws put a stop to it, in large part, by returning these undesirable persons whence they came, at the expense of the steamship companies bringing them. It was not until 1882, however, that our government passed laws for self-protection, and in 1891 another law made “assisted” immigrants a special class not to be admitted.
Other Causes
Other and incidental causes there are, such as the influence of new machinery, opening the way for more unskilled labor, such as the ordinary immigrant has to sell; the protective tariff, which shuts out foreign goods and brings in the foreign producers of the excluded goods; the thorough advertising abroad of American advantages by boards of agriculture and railway companies interested in building up communities; and a fear of restrictive legislation. But undoubtedly, ever back of all other reasons is the conviction that America is the land of plenty and of liberty—a word which each interprets according to his light or his liking.
The Christian Attitude
Colonists and Immigrants Distinguished
Having thus considered the remarkable proportions of immigration, and the causes of it, it will be well at this point to say a cautionary word as to the attitude of mind and heart in which this subject should be approached. Impartiality is necessary but difficult. There is a natural prejudice against the immigrant. A Christian woman, of ordinarily gentle and sweet temper, was heard to say recently, while this very subject of Christian duty to the immigrant was under discussion at a missionary conference: “I hate these disgusting foreigners; they are spoiling our country.” Doubtless many would sympathize with her. This is not uncommon prejudice or feeling, and argument against it is of little avail. Nevertheless, as Christians we must endeavor to divest ourselves of it. We must recognize the brotherhood of man and the value of the individual soul as taught by Jesus. It may aid us, perhaps, if we remember that we are all—with the exception of the Indians, who may lay claim to aboriginal heritage—in a sense descendants of immigrants. At the same time, it is essential to draw a clear distinction between colonists and immigrants. Colonization, with its attendant hardships and heroisms, steadily advanced from its beginnings in New England, New Amsterdam, and Virginia, until there resulted the founding of a free and independent nation, with popular government and fixed religious principles, including the vital ones of religious liberty and the right of the individual conscience. In other words, colonization created a nation; and there had to be a nation before there could be immigration to it. “In discussing the immigration question,” says Mr. Hall, “this distinction is important,” for it does not follow that, because, as against the native Indians, all comers might be considered as intruders and equally without claim of right, those who have built up a complicated framework of nationality have no rights as against others who seek to enjoy the benefits of national life without having contributed to its creation.”12
Colonist and National Rights
It ought clearly to be recognized that the colonists and their descendants have sacred rights, civil and religious, with which aliens should not be permitted to interfere; and that these rights include all proper and necessary legislation for the preservation of the liberties, laws, institutions, and principles established by the founders of the Republic and those rights of citizenship guaranteed under the constitution. If restriction of immigration becomes necessary in order to safeguard America, the American people have a clear right to pass restrictive or even prohibitory laws. In other words, America does not belong equally to everybody. The American has rights which the alien must become American to acquire.
Sympathetic and Open Mind
At the same time, our attitude toward the alien should be sympathetic, and our minds should be open and inquiring as we study the incoming multitudes. We do not wish to raise the Russian cry, “Russia for the Russians,” or the Chinese shibboleth, “China for the Chinese.” The Christian spirit has been compressed into the epigram, “Not America for Americans, but Americans for America.” We must see to it that the immigrants do not remain aliens, but are transformed into Christian Americans. That is the true missionary end for which we are to work; and it is in order that we may work intelligently and effectively that we seek to familiarize ourselves with the facts.
The Personal Responsibility
The facts already brought out are surely sufficient to arrest attention. Suppose this million-a-year rate should continue for a decade—and there is every reason to believe it will, unless unusual and unlikely restrictive measures are taken by our government. That would mean ten millions more added, and probably seventy per cent. of them from southeastern Europe. Add the natural increase, and estimate what the result of these millions would be upon the national digestion. Politically, the foreign element would naturally and inevitably assume the place which a majority can claim in a democracy, and not only claim but maintain, by the use of votes—a use which the immigrant learns full soon from the manipulators of parties. Religiously, unless a great change should come over the spirit of American Protestantism, and the work of evangelization among foreigners be conducted along quite different lines from the present, is it not plain that our country would cease to be Christian America, as we understand the term? There is enough in these questions to set and keep the patriotic American thinking.
The personal inquiry for each one to make is, “As an American and a Christian, have these facts and queries any special message for me, and have I any direct responsibility in relation to them?”
Suggestions for Using the Questions
These questions have been prepared to suggest to the leader and student the most important points in the chapter, and to stimulate further meditation and thought. Those marked * should encourage discussion. The leader is not expected to use all of these questions, and should use his judgment in eliminating or adding others that are in harmony with the aim of the lesson. For helps for conducting each class session, the leader should not fail to write to the Secretary of his Home Missionary Board.
Chapter I
Questions for
Aim: To Realize Our Responsibility in Receiving One Million Aliens a Year
I. To Learn by Comparison the Magnitude of a Million Aliens.
1. At what rate per annum is our population now being increased by immigration?
2. What are the sources of this invasion? Its principal gateway?
3. What comparison helps you most to realize the number of immigrants?
4. What are some of the largest groups in the mass, as classified by nationality? By race? By knowledge or ignorance? By fitness for labor?
5. What states may be compared with last year’s arrivals?
II. To Realise the Proportion of Our Population that has Immigrated since 1820.
6. How does the total number of our immigrants compare with the population of Germany? England? Canada?
7. Has the number of immigrants been increasing steadily? Will it tend to increase?
8. Has the present rate been long continued? What proportion of the population of the United States is derived from immigration subsequent to the American Revolution?
9. * Do you think there is any serious menace in such large numbers of immigrants? Why?
III. Why do Aliens Come?
10. Name the principal causes of immigration. The principal classes.
11. What American ideals have the greatest attractive power? What opportunities?
12. Give some typical instances of immigrants’ stories. * Would you have wished to come under the same circumstances?
13. What other forces stimulate immigration to the United States? What agencies?
IV. What Should be our Attitude toward Aliens, and What is our Individual Responsibility for Them?
14. * What is the Christian attitude toward these newcomers? How can we remove prejudice?
15. * What is our personal responsibility as Christians in improving the condition of aliens?
Chapter I
References for Advanced Study —
I. Compare modern immigration with the migration of peoples in earlier times; for example, those of the Hebrews, Aryans, Goths, Huns, Saracens, and other races.
Any good Encyclopedia or General History.
II. What resemblances and what differences between the Colonial settlement of America, and the later immigration, say, during the Nineteenth Century?
III. The Causes of Immigration.
Hall: Immigration, II.
Lord, et al: The Italian in America, III, VIII.
Warne: The Slav Invasion, III, IV; 78, 83.
Holt: Undistinguished Americans, 35, 244-250.
IV. What agencies can you name and describe that are trying to receive the immigrants in a humane and Christian spirit? For example, the United States Government, American Tract Society, New York Bible Society, Society for Italian Immigrants, and other organizations and agencies. Study especially any that work in your own neighborhood.
As for immigrants, we cannot have too many of the right kind, and we should have none of the wrong kind. I will go as far as any in regard to restricting undesirable immigration. I do not think that any immigrant who will lower the standard of life among our people should be admitted.—President Roosevelt.