The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-07-30

Exclusive service the surbey Press Bureau.
 Not long ago sanitary engineer stated that most typhoid epidemics start among our foreign colonies and spread to other sections. This, he explained, IS because the foreigner has been accustomed to a pure water supply and is therefore much more susceptible to typhoid than the American Instead of urging this as an additional reason for giving us all decen- water he concluded that some new basis for exclusion must be adopted.
 In this way most discussions of the inn migrant leave the fundamental problem quite untouched. Even if We adopt literacy and physique test and increase the head tax, thousands of immigrants will come every year. The legal control of immigration belongs to the national government but the great economic ana socal questions resulting are local prob lens. Our cities have become great labor markets supplying for very wide area, quite unscientidcaly. the additional men needed as one industry after another passes from dull to a rush season. In the future even more than now economic necessity will add the immigrant to our urban rather than to our rural popula- tion.
 Though the immigrants. because of the entrance tests and the fact that only the more ambitious undertake the jour- ney are d rather selected group, their simple honesty and thrift are not an ade- Quate protection for the conditions they encounter in our cities If during his first days in this country the immigrant is 1rleked and defrauded his future useful ness is much impaired. With the women there is always the danger of moral as well as financial exploitation. From the beginning the Immigrants Protective league has received from the various ports of entry the names and addresses of the girls and women bound for Chicago.
 At present it is practically impossible tC trace the girls who leave New York anC never reach their friends in this city Two Polish girls were coming to the cousin, who lived back of the stock yard in Chicago. When a visitor called at tn house she found the cousin much alarmed because the girls had not arrived. B! inquirins of others who came on the sam Luat found that the girls had be oome acquainted with man from Koch ester on the way over. and that he wa Hooking out for them" The only in formation the commissioner at klli Island could give was that they hat left there, and that one ticket had beer sold to Rochester and two to Chicago haC Teen used as far as Rochester The girls had completely disappeared and nc one was responsible. Usually the girls find are the ones to whom nothing did happen. One 11-Year-old girl was put eff the train al South Chicago by mistake and wandered about for several hours al night Finally a man offered to take hei to her friends. He proved worthy of con- fdence.
 National and even international atten- tlon has been drawn to the prosecution of so-caled white slavers in Chicago. But in prosecutions. must of necessity
 g,l no fine or penitentiary sentence can undo the damage. Preventive measures should re undertaken. First should be the guar al tee to every immigrant girl of a safe arrival at her destination, even if il can be done only by making inland cities like Chicago ports of arrival for immigrants just as they are ports ot entry for imported merchandise.
 At the railroad stations there is need CT the greatest caution. Friends and rel aiiNeg often find it impossible to meet them because immigrant trains are side tracked for other traffic. Upon their ar rival they have been turned over to pri. vatc eNpressmen and cabmen who over. charged and misdellvered them. I remem. her one little Irish girl who started or wagon with a group of other imm grants for the South Side. After goin, some distance the congressman discov eeod she had d North Side address. Afte Charging her $l he put her off the wagon and left her We have several cases O Htan and women who were abandoned b! drivers and the addresses of their friend net returned 10 them, so that they wer absolutely stranded.
 In order 10 prevent this the Immigrants Protective league, in cooperation witt the Chicago and Western Indiana rail road, maintains a building across tn, street from the Dearborn street station where more than three times as man Immigrants arrive than at any other sta tion in Chicago. Here the name and ad dress of arriving immigrants, the numbe