TH

CHAPTER XVII

IMMIGRATION

(1880-1907)

HE year 1905 broke all previous records in the history of immigration to the United States, the number of immigrants recorded for the twelve months ending June 30 being 1,026,499. But the numerical strength of the movement was not its most serious aspect: the character of immigration has undergone radical changes in the past few years.1 Prior to 1880 three-fourths of all persons who migrated to America came from the Celtic and Teutonic countries of northern and western Europe, mostly from the United Kingdom and Germany, while less than one per cent. came from Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Poland. About 1880 the numbers from the latter countries began to increase, and assumed larger and larger proportions, until in 1905 the Slavic and Iberian countries of eastern and southern Europe furnished nearly three-fourths of

1 See Sparks, National Development (Am. Nation, XXIII.), chap. i.

the total.' The following table shows the racial elements for 1905:2

The very high rate of illiteracy among immigrants from southeastern Europe, together with racial, social, religious, and political distinctions of a fundamental character, renders them less assimilable, and therefore less desirable, than immigrants from northern Europe.

The stream of immigration always flows towards the relatively prosperous country, and its volume is a fair gauge of economic and industrial conditions.

1 Commissioner-General of Immigration, Report, 1905, p. 110. 'Ibid., p. 11.

The number of immigrants to the United States did not reach the 100,000 mark in any one year until 1842, when 104,565 landed on our shores. By 1854 the number had risen to 427,833; and in that year an anti-foreign agitation became a factor in American politics. The sudden increase was coincident with hard times in Ireland, revolution in Germany, and the development of the western country. The financial depression of 1857 and the outbreak of the Civil War reduced the number by 1862 to 72,183. The year 1873 broke the record again, showing the entry of 459,803 immigrants. The panic of that year and the financial depression that followed reduced the number by 1878 to 138,469. There was a sudden rise in 1880, and in 1882 the number reached 788,992, a figure not equalled again for twenty-one years. The financial crisis of 1893 and the succeeding years of depression caused a drop to 229,299 by 1898. Since that time there has been a rapid increase, until now over 1,000,000 aliens come annually to our shores.1 President Roosevelt has called attention to the startling fact that the number of immigrants in the single year 1905 exceeded the entire number of colonists that came to America during the one hundred and sixty-nine years which elapsed between the first landing at Jamestown and the Declaration of Independence. As compared with the total population of the country, however,

43.

1 Commissioner-General of Immigration, Report, 1905, pp. 42, Foreign Relations, 1905, p. xlvi.

2

the percentage is lower than during the periods 1849-1854 and 1881-1882;' and there is, furthermore, a large emigration from this country of which no official record is kept, but it is considerably in excess of 200,000 a year.2

The general prosperity of America is undoubtedly the most important cause of immigration, for most of the immigrants come at the inducement of friends and relatives who have preceded them. Steamship agents testified in 1901 that from 40 to 55 per cent. of those who come to our shores have their passage prepaid by friends in this country; if to this be added those to whom money is sent from this side for the purchase of tickets abroad, the proportion taking passage at the expense of their friends would amount to about two-thirds of the whole. The facility of transportation and the activity of steamship agents are powerful aids to emigration, but they do not, in the long-run, determine its direction.

Religious persecution, or rather anti-Semitism, which is a compound of religious persecution and race antagonism, is still an active cause of emigration from Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Roumania. These persecutions began in Russia about 1880 and continued for two or three years, when they ceased to some extent, but were renewed in 1891 and have

1 Industrial Commission, Report, XIX., 958. • Commissioner-General of Immigration, Report, 1906, p. 56. Industrial Commission, Report, XV., 95, 115, 118.

continued off and on until 1907. In three months of 1900 more than 20,000 Jews left Roumania, in a most helpless and pitiable condition; and many of them had to be assisted to emigrate by the agents of the Baron Hirsch Fund. There are still over 8,000,000 Jews in Europe, mostly in Russia, Austria, the Balkan States, and Germany, subject to more or less unfavorable discrimination and liable at any time to come in larger numbers to the United States. Some of the Jewish leaders are trying to check this movement for fear of arousing an anti-Semitic agitation here.1

It is frequently charged that criminality is much greater among foreign-born residents than among natives, but the statistics are absurdly misleading: the larger number of crimes are committed by persons between the ages of 20 and 45; and in this country 51 per cent. of the foreign-born are between those ages, as compared with 34 per cent. of the native-born. Then, too, the amount of criminality among males is from three to five times greater than among females, and the proportion of males among the foreign-born is very much higher than among the natives. When, therefore, the same sex and age classes are compared, it is found that the criminality of the foreign-born is only very slightly greater than among the natives."

1 Industrial Commission, Report, XV., 171, 245, 247; Hall, Immigration, 20-22.

'Industrial Commission, Report, XV., 287.

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