, 1922-08-28
Projecting Our National Household

STRANGERS, or even friends who ere visitors in
- a household are welcome under some conditions.
But no housewife wants company unless she has
had time to prepare for them, and is sure that their
presence will not embarrass her own family or her
neighbors.
1t is exactly the same with our national home.
After the war we we're threatened with n deluge
of immigrants from Europe, fleeing from that war
stricken impoverished section of the globe where
there was not future except unremitting toll at the
lowest wage possible consistent with human exist
ence, coupled with bsck-breaking debts for genera
tons to come.
In our country there was a period for readjust-
ment for business and for industry. Although we
were the best prepared of any to meet the prob
lens, the situation WIS by no means an easy one to
handle. The war activities had thrown hundreds
of Thousands of wage carners out of their usual
channels of occupation, had established a false
standard of wages and living conditions. Further
more, We had over a million soldier boys coming
back from France to whom we had promised jobs
upon their return. This meant a displacement of
those already at work.
To have added to this intricate problem by per
hitting a million or more foreigners TO land in this
country would have brought about a most serious
condition. The unemployment situation even at the
best was critical enough. To have added a million
or more to the ranks of those who were idle dur
ing the period of business reimbursement would have
brought a crisis upon the country that might have
been very difficult for it to have solved.
Before the war we were getting nearly 100000
immigrants each year. Knowing the sentiment in
the stricken countries of Europe, there was every
reason to believe this number would have been ire
mendously augmented had not the Republican con-
zress enacted the restrictive immigration law. This
Law did not shut the door to immigrants from Eu-
rope; it merely pushed it more nearly shut than it
had ever been before. In other words, 1t pushed it
so nearly shut that they had to come in single file.
The law provided that immigrants from any
country must be limited to three per cent of the
total number Of that nationality in the United
States who were here in 1910 according to the cen
sus of that year. Some idea of how the law has OPP
Grated is furnished in immigration figures for the
fiscal year ending June so last, which have just
been published. During the entire year the three
per cent restrictive immigration law was in effect
while immigrants from some countries were denied
admission because of the operations of the law i'm
migrants from other countries we're admitted freely
because their country had not exhausted its quota
under the law. -,
In fact, the year closed with many countries still
at liberty to send great numbers of their people to
the United States and still be within the three per
cent quota. The most conspicuous of these coun'
tries are Germany, who sent only 20 per cent OF its
quota, Sweden 40 per cent, Norway 40 per cent, Hoi
land sc per cent, and France 70 per cent
The countries which exhausted their quota were
Greece. Hungary, Italy, Poland, Roumania, Jugo
slavia, Belgium, Palestine, Turkey, Australia, New
Zealand and miscellaneous smaller countries in
Asia and Far Eastern Europe. The following coun'
tries came within three or four per cent of filling
their quotas: Bulgaria, Czecho-Slovakia, Portugal
Spain, Switzerland and Armenia.