Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-01-30

menus DE tne same mail Whlch are from
altogether different sources and have no
connection in the purpose fur which they
seem to have intimate relation enough to
warrant mention. One of the documents
Is publication by the immigration
Restriction League; the other is an alb
stract of the tenth annual report of the
New York state factory inspectors. The
league proposes an educational qualifica-
ton; that the immigrant, who is between
tie ages of ii and 90 shall be able to read
and write, not the English language, but
his own language. The publication it is
now sending out contains compilation
of statistics collected by the league at
Ellis Island during few days in Dccem-
Der last. The Municipalities of the immi-
grants, their destinations and their educa-
tional qualifications were canvasscd as
well as could be done. While it would be
somewhat hazardous to form conclusive
opinions upon this information which ex-
tends over so brief a period and is prob.
ably incomplete, nevertheless it is seen to
be in practical accord so far as general
characteristics 90 with other and more
reliable Information from official sources.
1t shows that only about II per cent of
the illiterate immigrants went beyond
the Atlantic states that the places where
such immigration could best be absorbed
and utilized are not reached by it. While
the non-Atlantic states gain three fourths
of the Germans aud Scaudinavians, the
| Atlantic states are burdencd with two
thirds of the Russians, Hungarians and
Italians.
| To quote from the circular:
Where the illiterate immigrants do go
is shown by the seventh special report of
the Z. s. commissioner of labor $3.50,
from which it appears Up. 44) that the
proportion of those of foreign birth or
parentage to the total population in the
slums of Baltimore was II per cent, in
Chicago 90 per cent, in New York 95 per
cent. and in Philadelphia 81 per cent
The figures for the foreign born alone are
correspondingly striking. 1t appears from
the same report Up. 1909 that of every
100 aliens, 40 were illiterate in the slums
OF Baltimore, AZ in Chicago, 50 in New
York and 81 in Philadelphia; and that of
every 100 OF these illiterate aliens there
were 81 males of voting age in Baltimore,
~ In Chicago, IS in New York and So IN
Philadelphia
The number in New York City who
would favor the open saloon on Sunday
Is estimated by a conservative authority
to be ST., $50 out of an aggregate OF
1873, 30l, or majority of 119, 1856.
Secretary Marshall of the tenement house
commission of New York says that the
tenement house vote if cast as a unit
would control the commercial emporium
Now of course theras nothing in this
that's alarming any more than there
would be in preponderating apartment
house vote, so long as life in the tenement
house Is wholesome and is not likely to
become congested and deteriorated
While there is just as true civic virtues
and good homes in some of the New York
tenements as can be found in that great
metropolis there is nevertheless a deplor-
able condition of affairs in some of the
tenement house districts, such a condition
that it will be marvel to the people of
the next century that In this enlightened
age human beings were compelled add
permitted, to live amid surroundings cal
culated to deprave and cultivate class of
humanity to seriously menace our institu-
items.
Here people come and by reason of
poverty are herded together under condi
lions such rs breeder of blooded stock
would not allow his animals to live in.
But the rearing of the human race doesn't
seem of so much importance. One who
goes among them wonders not at the
crime and vice there, the disease the
hoplessness of babyhood and old age. the
; wonder is that they are as we'll behaved
as they are. Instead of improving thei,
condition, while We are talking about
: remedies for sweat shops and deplorina
like industrial evils, we are permitting
those to come in from all quarters of the
globe who through poverty and illiteracy
inevitably gravitate into those districts
and enter into the terrible competition
which is already grinding the souls out Of