The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-02-06
The immigration Question.

The current number of Charities
contains a most interesting discussion
of the question Of restriction of iImnli-
grafton. Both sides, of the question
are ably presented. OF course, the ar
guments are along familiar lines. One
side says that we no longer assimilate
our immigrants and that the further
indiscriminate coming Of millions of
illiterate and backward persons is
adding to the number of our social
and civic problems and increasing the
gravity Of existing ones; that the aliens
make our slurns, occupy the time of
our police, crowd our hospitals and
asy1ums and congest our prisons; de-
grade our electorate, corrupt public
service, overwhelm American ideals.
Speaking on this side Robert C.. De
Ward says: .. .s.s
Southeastern Europe has furnished three
times as many Inhabitants as, northwest
ETH Europe to the slums Of Baltimore,
| nineteen times as many to the slums of
| New York, twenty times as many to the
sluns of Chicago, seventy-one times as
many to the slums of Philadelphia. The
! Little Italys,'' .'I.ittle Syrias,'' Little
Armenias,' ETC., we find increasingly diff
| fcult and burdensome problems of, public
| and private charity. Of police, of educa-
| tion. of religious training, of public health.
| There is no "Know- Nottingham in the
| feeling that the unlimited immigration of
| the races who are now coming to us in
| such large numbers should in some wise
way be regulated. 1t is pretty clear that
| we are not properly assimilating our for
eign population. The life Of our foreign
| born as well as of our native born is made
| harder because of the ever increasing
! competition caused by the newer immi-
| grants.
The other side, of course, contends
| that new blood has ever been the life
of this nation, and that the very exist
ence of our nation demands that the
| foundations Of society shall be con-
| tinually broadened and strengthened
by the incoming of millions willing
and glad to do the hard and dirty
work that the second generation OF
Americans usually shrink from.
Those who argue in this way seem to
think that it is only by continual infu-
| sion of new blood that our societyzis to
be prevented from crystallizing along
the lines of social caste that prevail in
| all the old countries to a greater or
less extent. The following paragraph
from Kate HOLIDAY Claghorn's paper
/ concisely puts the argument in favor
of unrestricted immigration:
The Italians, Russians and Austrians are
almost exclusively of that great body OF
toilers on whose broad and patient Shout
ders rests the towering structure of Eu-
ropean states. Their very presence here
shows a desire for lettering their condi-
ton and the energy to set about it that
is so characteristic a lack in the true
pauper. The pauper population is pre-
dominantly composed of the old and the
1 very young. This immigrant group is
] composed Of young adults, males in the
! ma Ority-a class most likely to take care
! of itself. Considering the volume of i'm
! migration 1t is obvious that the great mass
of our immigrants are absorbed in the
industries of the country with surprising
4 rapidity and completeness. Our foreign
born population furnishes the greater part
/ of our dependent population because the
/ foreigners constitute the greater part OF
I those economic classes from which the de
pendents of any country are drawn, while
the native-born are for the most part
found in those economic classes that dc
4 not furnish dependents.
The advocates of restriction of i'm
migration do not concede that it is
4 only by keeping up sort of social
4 fux by the Importation Of aliens that
4 we can keep our society from crystal
lizing. They maintain that the influx
Of cheap labor simply delays the de-
|velopment of machinery that will dc
away with the necessity for hard and
1 dirty manual work. The man who
runs machine is always step above
8 the man who is a machine. II com
mon labor should become scarce ir
immigration, it is argued. that soor