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diff --git a/40535-8.txt b/40535-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 4c29f6e..0000000 --- a/40535-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2580 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of They Who Knock at Our Gates, by Mary Antin - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: They Who Knock at Our Gates - A Complete Gospel of Immigration - -Author: Mary Antin - -Illustrator: Joseph Stella - -Release Date: August 19, 2012 [EBook #40535] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEY WHO KNOCK AT OUR GATES *** - - - - -Produced by Jana Srna and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - [ Transcriber's Notes: - - Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully - as possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation. - Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made. They - are listed at the end of the text. - - Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. - ] - - - - - By Mary Antin - - THEY WHO KNOCK AT OUR GATES. Illustrated. - - THE PROMISED LAND. Illustrated. - - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - Boston and New York - - - - -THEY WHO KNOCK AT OUR GATES - - - - -[Illustration: THE SINEW AND BONE OF ALL THE NATIONS] - - - - - THEY WHO KNOCK - AT OUR GATES - - A COMPLETE - GOSPEL OF IMMIGRATION - - BY - MARY ANTIN - - WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY - JOSEPH STELLA - - BOSTON AND NEW YORK - HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - The Riverside Press Cambridge - 1914 - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY THE PHILLIPS PUBLISHING COMPANY - COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY - - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED - - Published May 1914 - - - - -CONTENTS - - - Introduction ix - - I. The Law of the Fathers 1 - - II. Judges in the Gate 31 - - III. The Fiery Furnace 99 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - The sinew and bone of all the nations (page 63) Frontispiece - - Rough work and low wages for the immigrant 64 - - The ungroomed mother of the East Side 72 - - A fresh infusion of pioneer blood 108 - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -Three main questions may be asked with reference to immigration-- - -_First:_ A question of principle: Have we any right to regulate -immigration? - -_Second:_ A question of fact: What is the nature of our present -immigration? - -_Third:_ A question of interpretation: Is immigration good for us? - -The difficulty with the first question is to get its existence -recognized. In a matter that has such obvious material aspects as -the immigration problem the abstract principles involved are likely -to be overlooked. But as there can be no sound conclusions without a -foundation in underlying principles, this discussion must begin by -seeking an answer to the ethical question involved. - -The second question is not easy to answer for the reason that men are -always poor judges of their contemporaries, especially of those whose -interests appear to clash with their own. We suffer here, too, from -a bewildering multiplicity of testimony. Every sort of expert whose -specialty in any way touches the immigrant has diagnosed the subject -according to the formulæ of his own special science--and our doctors -disagree! One is forced to give up the luxury of a second-hand opinion -on this subject, and to attempt a little investigation of one's own, -checking off the dicta of the specialists as well as an amateur may. - -The third question, while not wholly separable from the second, is -nevertheless an inquiry of another sort. Whether immigration is good for -us depends partly on the intrinsic nature of the immigrant and partly -on our reactions to his presence. The effects of immigration, produced -by the immigrant in partnership with ourselves, some men will approve -and some deplore, according to their notions of good and bad. That thing -is good for me which leads to my ultimate happiness; and we do not all -delight in the same things. The third question, therefore, more than -either of the others, each man has to answer for himself. - - - - -THEY WHO KNOCK AT OUR GATES - - - - -I - -THE LAW OF THE FATHERS - -And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: -and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children. . . . And -thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates. - -Deut. vi, 6, 7, 9. - - -If I ask an American what is the fundamental American law, and he does -not answer me promptly, "That which is contained in the Declaration of -Independence," I put him down for a poor citizen. He who is ignorant of -the law is likely to disobey it. And there cannot be two minds about -the position of the Declaration among our documents of state. What the -Mosaic Law is to the Jews, the Declaration is to the American people. It -affords us a starting-point in history and defines our mission among the -nations. Without it, we should not differ greatly from other nations who -have achieved a constitutional form of government and various democratic -institutions. What marks us out from other advanced nations is the -origin of our liberties in one supreme act of political innovation, -prompted by a conscious sense of the dignity of manhood. In other -countries advances have been made by favor of hereditary rulers and -aristocratic parliaments, each successive reform being grudgingly handed -down to the people from above. Not so in America. At one bold stroke we -shattered the monarchical tradition, and installed the people in the -seats of government, substituting the gospel of the sovereignty of the -masses for the superstition of the divine right of kings. - -And even more notable than the boldness of the act was the dignity with -which it was entered upon. In terms befitting a philosophical discourse, -we gave notice to the world that what we were about to do, we would do -in the name of humanity, in the conviction that as justice is the end of -government so should manhood be its source. - -It is this insistence on the philosophic sanction of our revolt that -gives the sublime touch to our political performance. Up to the moment -of our declaration of independence, our struggle with our English -rulers did not differ from other popular struggles against despotic -governments. Again and again we respectfully petitioned for redress -of specific grievances, as the governed, from time immemorial, have -petitioned their governors. But one day we abandoned our suit for -petty damages, and instituted a suit for the recovery of our entire -human heritage of freedom; and by basing our claim on the fundamental -principles of the brotherhood of man and the sovereignty of the masses, -we assumed the championship of the oppressed against their oppressors, -wherever found. - -It was thus, by sinking our particular quarrel with George of England -in the universal quarrel of humanity with injustice, that we emerged a -distinct nation, with a unique mission in the world. And we revealed -ourselves to the world in the Declaration of Independence, even as -the Israelites revealed themselves in the Law of Moses. From the -Declaration flows our race consciousness, our sense of what is and -what is not American. Our laws, our policies, the successive steps of -our progress--all must conform to the spirit of the Declaration of -Independence, the source of our national being. - -The American confession of faith, therefore, is a recital of the -doctrines of liberty and equality. A faithful American is one who -understands these doctrines and applies them in his life. - -It should be easy to pick out the true Americans--the spiritual heirs -of the founders of our Republic--by this simple test of loyalty to -the principles of the Declaration. To such a test we are put, both as -a nation and as individuals, every time we are asked to define our -attitude on immigration. Having set up a government on a declaration -of the rights of man, it should be our first business to reaffirm that -declaration every time we meet a case involving human rights. Now -every immigrant who emerges from the steerage presents such a case. -For the alien, whatever ethnic or geographic label he carries, in a -primary classification of the creatures of the earth, falls in the human -family. The fundamental fact of his humanity established, we need only -rehearse the articles of our political faith to know what to do with the -immigrant. It is written in our basic law that he is entitled to life, -liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. There is nothing left for us to -do but to open wide our gates and set him on his way to happiness. - -That is what we did for a while, when our simple law was fresh in our -minds, and the habit of applying it instinctive. Then there arose -a fashion of spelling immigration with a capital initial, which -so confused the national eye that we began to see a PROBLEM where -formerly we had seen a familiar phenomenon of American life; and as a -problem requires skillful handling, we called an army of experts in -consultation, and the din of their elaborate discussions has filled our -ears ever since. - -The effect on the nation has been disastrous. In a matter involving -our faith as Americans, we have ceased to consult our fundamental -law, and have suffered ourselves to be guided by the conflicting -reports of commissions and committees, anthropologists, economists, and -statisticians, policy-mongers, calamity-howlers, and self-announced -prophets. Matters irrelevant to the interests of liberty have taken the -first place in the discussion; lobbyists, not patriots, have had the -last word. Our American sensibility has become dulled, so that sometimes -the cries of the oppressed have not reached our ears unless carried by -formal deputations. In a department of government which brings us into -daily touch with the nations of the world, we have failed to live up to -our national gospel and have not been aware of our backsliding. - -What have the experts and statisticians done so to pervert our minds? -They have filled volumes with facts and figures, comparing the -immigrants of to-day with the immigrants of other days, classifying them -as to race, nationality, and culture, tabulating their occupations, -analyzing their savings, probing their motives, prophesying their -ultimate destiny. But what is there in all this that bears on the right -of free men to choose their place of residence? Granted that Sicilians -are not Scotchmen, how does that affect the right of a Sicilian to -travel in pursuit of happiness? Strip the alien down to his anatomy, -you still find a _man_, a creature made in the image of God; and -concerning such a one we have definite instructions from the founders -of the Republic. And what purpose was served by the bloody tide of the -Civil War if it did not wash away the last lingering doubts as to the -brotherhood of men of different races? - -There is no impropriety in gathering together a mass of scientific and -sociological data concerning the newcomers, as long as we understand -that the knowledge so gained is merely the technical answer to a number -of technical questions. Where we have gone wrong is in applying the -testimony of our experts to the moral side of the question. By all means -register the cephalic index of the alien,--the anthropologist will make -something of it at his leisure,--but do not let it determine his right -to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. - -I do not ask that we remove all restrictions and let the flood of -immigration sweep in unchecked. I do ask that such restrictions as we -impose shall accord with the loftiest interpretation of our duty as -Americans. Now our first duty is to live up to the gospel of liberty, -through the political practices devised by our forefathers and modified -by their successors, as democratic ideas developed. But political -practices require a territory wherein to operate--democracy must have -standing-room--so it becomes our next duty to guard our frontiers. For -that purpose we maintain two forms of defense: the barbaric devices -of army and navy, to ward off hostile mass invasions; and the humane -devices of the immigration service, to regulate the influx of peaceable -individuals. - -We have plenty of examples to copy in our military defenses, but when -it comes to the civil branch of our national guard, we dare not borrow -foreign models. What our neighbors are doing in the matter of regulating -immigration may or may not be right for us. Other nations may be guided -chiefly by economic considerations, while we are under spiritual bonds -to give first consideration to the moral principles involved. For -this, our peculiar American problem, we must seek a characteristically -American solution. - -What terms of entry may we impose on the immigrant without infringing on -his inalienable rights, as defined in our national charter? Just such -as we would impose on our own citizens if they proposed to move about -the country in companies numbering thousands, with their families and -portable belongings. And what would these conditions be? They would be -such as are required by public safety, public health, public order. -Whatever limits to our personal liberty we are ourselves willing to -endure for the sake of the public welfare, we have a right to impose on -the stranger from abroad; these, and no others. - -Has, then, the newest arrival the same rights as the established -citizen? According to the Declaration, yes; the same right to live, to -move, to try his luck. More than this he does not claim at the gate of -entrance; with less than this we are not authorized to put him off. -We do not question the right of an individual foreigner to enter our -country on any peaceable errand; why, then, question the rights of a -shipload of foreigners? Lumping a thousand men together under the title -of immigrants does not deprive them of their humanity and the rights -inherent in humanity; or can it be demonstrated that the sum of the -rights of a million men is less than the rights of one individual? - -The Declaration of Independence, like the Ten Commandments, must be -taken literally and applied universally. What would have been the -civilizing power of the Mosaic Code if the Children of Israel had -repudiated it after a few generations? As little virtue is there in -the Declaration of Independence if we limit its operation to any -geographical sphere or historical period or material situation. How do -we belittle the works of our Fathers when we talk as though they wrought -for their contemporaries only! It was no great matter to shake off the -rule of an absent tyrant, if that is all that the War of the Revolution -did. So much had been done many times over, long before the first tree -fell under the axe of a New England settler. Emmaus was fought before -Yorktown, and Thermopylæ before Emmaus. It is only as we dwell on the -words of Jefferson and Franklin that the deeds of Washington shine out -among the deeds of heroes. In the chronicles of the Jews, Moses has a -far higher place than the Maccabæan brothers. And notice that Moses -owes his immortality to the unbroken succession of generations who -were willing to rule their lives by the Law that fell from his lips. -The glory of the Jews is not that they received the Law, but that they -kept the Law. The glory of the American people must be that the vision -vouchsafed to their fathers they in their turn hold up undimmed to the -eyes of successive generations. - -To maintain our own independence is only to hug that vision to our own -bosoms. If we sincerely believe in the elevating power of liberty, we -should hasten to extend the reign of liberty over all mankind. The -disciples of Jesus did not sit down in Jerusalem and congratulate each -other on having found the Saviour. They scattered over the world to -spread the tidings far and wide. We Americans, disciples of the goddess -Liberty, are saved the trouble of carrying our gospel to the nations, -because the nations come to us. - -Right royally have we welcomed them, and lavishly entertained them at -the feast of freedom, whenever our genuine national impulses have shaped -our immigration policy. But from time to time the national impulse has -been clogged by selfish fears and foolish alarms parading under the -guise of civic prudence. Ignoring entirely the _rights_ of the case, -the immigration debate has raged about questions of expediency, as if -convenience and not justice were our first concern. At times the debate -has been led by men on whom the responsibilities of American citizenship -sat lightly, who treated immigration as a question of the division of -spoils. - -A little attention to the principles involved would have convinced us -long ago that an American citizen who preaches wholesale restriction -of immigration is guilty of political heresy. The Declaration of -Independence accords to _all_ men an equal share in the inherent rights -of humanity. When we go contrary to that principle, we are not acting -as Americans; for, by definition, an American is one who lives by the -principles of the Declaration. And we surely violate the Declaration -when we attempt to exclude aliens on account of race, nationality, or -economic status. "All men" means yellow men as well as white men, men -from the South of Europe as well as men from the North of Europe, men -who hold kingdoms in pawn, and men who owe for their dinner. We shall -have to recall officially the Declaration of Independence before we can -lawfully limit the application of its principles to this or that group -of men. - -Americans of refined civic conscience have always accepted our -national gospel in its literal sense. "What becomes of the rights of -the excluded?" demanded the younger Garrison, in a noble scolding -administered to the restrictionists in 1896. - - If a nation has a right to keep out aliens, tell us how many people - constitute a nation, and what geographical area they have a right - to claim. In the United States, where a thousand millions can live - in peace and plenty under just conditions, who gives to seventy - millions the right to monopolize the territory? How few can justly - own the earth, and deprive those who are landless of the right to - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? And what becomes of the - rights of the excluded? - -If we took our mission seriously,--as seriously, say, as the Jews take -theirs,--we should live with a copy of our law at our side, and oblige -every man who opened his mouth to teach us, to square his doctrine with -the gospel of liberty; and him should we follow to the end who spoke to -us in the name of our duties, rather than in the name of our privileges. - -The sins we have been guilty of in our conduct of the immigration debate -have had their roots in a misconception of our own position in the -land. We have argued the matter as though we owned the land, and were, -therefore, at liberty to receive or reject the unbidden guests who came -to us by thousands. Let any man who lays claim to any portion of the -territory of the United States produce his title deed. Are not most of -us squatters here, and squatters of recent date at that? The rights of -a squatter are limited to the plot he actually occupies and cultivates. -The portion of the United States territory that is covered by squatters' -claims is only a fraction, albeit a respectable fraction, of the land we -govern. In the name of what moral law do we wield a watchman's club over -the vast regions that are still waiting to be staked out? The number of -American citizens who can boast of ancestral acres is not sufficient -to swing a presidential election. For that matter, those whose claims -are founded on ancestral tenure should be the very ones to dread an -examination of titles. For it would be shown that these few got their -lands by stepping into dead men's shoes, while the majority wrenched -their estates from the wilderness by the labor of their own hands. In -the face of the sturdy American preference for an aristocracy of brain -and brawn, the wisest thing the man with a pedigree can do is to scrape -the lichens off his family tree. Think of having it shown that he owes -the ancestral farmhouse to the deathbed favoritism of some grouchy -uncle! Or, worse still, think of tracing the family title to some canny -deal with a band of unsophisticated Indians! - -No, it will not do to lay claim to the land on the ground of priority -of occupation, as long as there is a red man left on the Indian -reservations. If it comes to calling names, usurper is an uglier name -than alien. And a squatter is a tenant who doesn't pay any rent, -while an immigrant who occupies a tenement in the slums pays his rent -regularly or gets out. - -We may soothe our pride with the reflection that our title to the land -does not depend on the moral validity of individual claims, but on the -collective right of the nation to control the land we govern. We came -into our land as other nations came into theirs: we took it as a prize -of war. Until humanity has devised a less brutal method of political -acquisition, we must pass our national claim as entirely sound. We own -the land because we were strong enough to take it from England. But -the moment we hark back to the War of the Revolution, our sense of -possession is profoundly modified. We did not quarrel with the English -about the possession of the colonies, but about their treatment of the -colonists. It was not a land-grab that was plotted in Independence -Hall in 1776, but a pattern of human freedom. We entered upon the war -in pursuit of ideals, not in pursuit of homesteads. We had to take the -homesteads, too, because, as we have already noted, a political ideal -has to have territory wherein to operate. But we must never forget that -the shining prize of that war was an immaterial thing,--the triumph of -an idea. Not the Treaty of Paris, but the Declaration of Independence, -converted the thirteen colonies into a nation. - -Having taken half a continent in the name of humanity, shall we hold it -in the name of a few millions? Not as jealous lords of a rich domain, -but as priests of a noble cult shall we best acquit ourselves of the -task our Fathers set us. And it is the duty of a priest to minister to -as many souls as he can reach. The most revered of our living teachers -has passed this word:-- - - It is the mission of the United States to spread freedom throughout - the world by teaching as many men and women as possible in freedom's - largest home how to use freedom rightly through practice in liberty - under law. - -And our ardor shall not be dampened by the reflection that perhaps -the Fathers builded better than they knew. "Do you really think they -looked so far ahead?" it is often asked. "Did the founders of the -Republic foresee the time when foreign hordes would alight on our -shores, demanding a share in this goodly land that was ransomed with the -blood of heroes?" Fearful questions, these, to make us pause in the work -of redeeming mankind! If our Fathers did not foresee the whole future, -shall we therefore be blind to the light of our own day? If they had -left us a mere sketch of their idea, could we do less than fill in the -outlines? Since they left us not a sketch, but a finished model, the -least we can do is to go on copying it on an ever larger scale. Neither -shall we falter because the execution of the enlarged copy entails much -labor on us and on our children. When Moses told the Egyptian exiles -that they should have no god but the One God, he may not have guessed -that their children would be brought to the stake for refusing other -gods; and yet nineteen centuries of Jewish martyrdom go to show that -the followers of Moses did not make his lack of foresight an excuse for -abandoning his Law. - -Let the children be brought up to know that we are a people with a -mission, and that mission, in the words of Dr. Eliot, to teach the uses -of freedom to as many men as possible "in freedom's largest home." -Let it be taught in the public schools that the most precious piece -of real estate in the whole United States is that which supports the -pedestal of the Statue of Liberty; that we need not greatly care how -the three million square miles remaining is divided among the people of -the earth, as long as we retain that little island. Let it further be -repeated in the schools that the Liberty at our gates is the handiwork -of a Frenchman; that the mountain-weight of copper in her sides and the -granite mass beneath her feet were bought with the pennies of the poor; -that the verses graven on a tablet within the base are the inspiration -of a poetess descended from Portuguese Jews; and all these things shall -be interpreted to mean that the love of liberty unites all races and -all classes of men into one close brotherhood, and that we Americans, -therefore, who have the utmost of liberty that has yet been attained, -owe the alien a brother's share. - - * * * * * - -To this position we are brought by a construction of the Declaration of -Independence which makes of it the law of the land, binding on American -citizens individually and collectively, and in all circumstances -whatever. Out of this position there is one avenue of escape, and only -one. We may refuse to read in the Declaration a sincere expression of -the faith of 1776, and construe it instead as a bombastic political -manifesto, advanced by the leaders of the rebellion as an excuse for a -gigantic land-grab. - -Let the descendants of the Puritans take their choice of these two -interpretations. For my part, I have chosen. I have chosen to read the -story of '76 as a chapter in sacred history; to set Thomas Jefferson in -a class with Moses, and Washington with Joshua; to regard the American -nation as the custodian of a sacred trust, and American citizenship as a -holy order, with laws and duties derived from the Declaration. - -For very pride in my country I must choose thus, for the alternate -view takes the meaning out of American history, reduces the War of -Independence to a war of plunder, and the Colonial heroes to a band of -pious hypocrites. What, indeed, shall we teach our children to be proud -of if we reject the higher interpretation of the deeds of the Fathers? -The American Revolution as a campaign of conquest is not unique in -history; on the contrary, it has been more than once surpassed, both in -respect to the prowess of the conquerors and to the magnificence of the -prize. Outside the physical realm, where our inventions and discoveries -and the material development of a continent belong, this country has -contributed nothing of moment to the world's progress, unless it is -that political adaptation of the Golden Rule which is indicated in -the Declaration and elaborated in the Constitution. In the arts and -sciences we sit, for the most part, at the feet of foreign masters; -in jurisprudence we have borrowed from the Romans, and the elements -of liberal government we have from our next of kin, the English. The -notion of the dignity of man, which is the foundation of the gospel -of democracy, is derived from Hebrew sources, as the Psalm-singing -founders of New England would be the first to acknowledge. It was -not entirely due to accident nor to the exigencies of pioneer life -that the meeting-house and the town hall were one in the New England -settlements. The influence of the Bible is plainly stamped on the works -of the Puritans. What, then, shall we claim as the great American -achievement, our peculiar treasure in the midst of so much borrowed -glory? A magnificent espousal of humanity--that or nothing can we call -our own. - -Seeing that they brought nothing into the world that was all their -own, our glorious dead are not glorious unless we make them so, by -imputing to them the noblest motives that their case will permit, and -rating their works at not less than face value. Pride demands it, and, -fortunately for our country's honor, justice supports the claims of -pride. Neither the cynics nor the enthusiasts shall have the last word -in the matter. In the writings of their contemporaries, in the casual -sayings of their intimates, in the critical comments of those who -came next after them, we find convincing evidence that in the minds -of the leaders of '76 the most advanced political thought of the age -crystallized into a mighty conviction--the conviction of the inherent -nobility of humankind, which makes it treason for any man to enslave his -neighbor. - -That is the thought that was sent out into the world on July 4, 1776, -and because that thought has shaped our history, we call it the -basic law of our land, and the Declaration of Independence our final -authority. If under that authority the immigrant appears to have rights -in our land parallel to our own rights, we shall not lightly deny his -claims, lest we forfeit our only title to national glory. - - - - -II - -JUDGES IN THE GATE - -Judges and officers shalt thou make thee in all thy gates . . . and -they shall judge the people with just judgment. - -Deut. xvi, 18. - - -There is nothing so potent in a public debate as the picturesque -catchwords in which leaders of thought sum up their convictions. Logic -makes fewer converts in a year than a taking phrase makes in a week. -For catchwords are the popular substitute for logic, and the man in the -street is reduced to silence by a good round phrase of the kind that -sticks. - -Two classes of citizens are especially prone to fall under the tyranny -of phrases: those whose horizon, through no fault of their own, is -limited by the rim of an empty dinner-pail; and those whose view of -the universe is obstructed by the kitchen-middens of too many dinners. -There is no clear thinking on an empty stomach, and equally muddled are -the thoughts of the over-full. When I hear of a public measure that is -largely supported by these two classes of citizens, I know at once that -the measure appeals to human prejudices rather than to divine reason. - -Thus I became suspicious of the restrictionist movement when I realized -that it was in greatest favor among the thoughtless poor and the -thoughtless rich. I am well aware that the high-priests of the cult -include some of the most conscientious thinkers that ever helped to make -history, and their earnestness is attested by a considerable body of -doctrine, in support of which they quote statistics and special studies -and scientific investigations. But I notice that the rank and file of -restrictionists do not know as much as the titles of these documents. -They have not followed the argument at all; they have only caught the -catchwords of restrictionism. And these catchwords are the sort that -appeal to the mean spots in human nature,--the distrust of the stranger, -the jealousy of possession, the cowardice of the stomach. Nothing else -is expressed by such phrases as "the scum of Europe," "the exploitation -of America's wealth," or "taking the bread from the mouth of the -American workingman." - -Even the least venomous formula of restrictionism, "immigration isn't -what it used to be," raises such a familiar echo of foolish human nature -that I am bound to challenge its veracity. Does not every generation cry -that the weather isn't what it used to be, children are not what they -used to be, society is not what it used to be? "The good old times" and -"the old immigration" may be twin illusions of limited human vision. - -If it is true that immigration is not what it used to be, the fact -will appear from a detailed comparison of the "old" and the "new" -immigration. But which of the immigrant stocks of the good old times -shall be taken as a standard? Woman's wisdom urges me to go right back -to the original pattern, just as I would do if I went to the shops to -match samples. And the original pattern was brought to this country in -the year 1620. Surely comparison with the Mayflower stock is the most -searching test of the quality of our immigration that any one could -propose. - -The predominant virtue of the Pilgrims was idealism. The things of the -spirit were more to them than the things of the flesh. May we say the -like of our present immigrants? Of very many of them, yes; a thousand -times yes. Of the 8,213,000 foreigners landed between the years 1899 -and 1909, 990,000 were of that race which for nineteen centuries has -sacrificed its flesh in the service of the spirit. It takes a hundred -times as much steadfastness and endurance for a Russian Jew of to-day -to remain a Jew as it took for an English Protestant in the seventeenth -century to defy the established Church. - -Those who think that with the Spanish Inquisition Jewish martyrdom came -to an end are asked to remember that the Kishinieff affair is only -eight years behind us, and that Bielostock has been heard from since -Kishinieff, and Mohileff since Bielostock. And more terrible than the -recurrent _pogrom_, which hacks and burns and tortures a few hundreds -now and then, is the continuous bloodless martyrdom of the six million -Jews in Russia through the operation of the anti-Semitic laws of that -country. Thirty minutes spent in looking over a summary of these laws -recently compiled by an English historian(1) will convince any reader -with a spark of imagination that every Russian Jewish immigrant to-day -is a fugitive from religious persecution, even as were the English -immigrants of 1620. - - (1) Lucien Wolf, _Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia_. - -But while nobody questions the idealism of the Jew in religion, the -world has been very slow to credit him with any degree of civic -devotion. The world did not stop to think that a man has to have a -country before he can prove himself a good citizen. But happily in -recent times he has been put to the test of civic opportunity, notably -in America; with the result that he was found to possess a fair share of -the civic virtues, from the generosity displayed in the town meeting, -when citizens vote away their substance to support a public cause, to -the brute heroism of the battle-field, where mangled flesh gives proof -of valiant spirit.(2) And what the Jews of West European stock proved -in the American wars for freedom the Jews of Eastern Europe have proved -more recently, by their forwardness in the Russian revolution of 1905. - - (2) See _The Jews in America_, by Rev. Madison C. Peters. - -No group of people of all the heterogeneous mass that constitutes the -Russian nation were half so prominent as the Jews in that abortive -attempt at freedom. Witness the police records of the revolutionary -period, which show that sixty-five out of every hundred political -offenders were Jews, in districts where the population was fifteen parts -Jewish and eighty-five parts Gentile. When I visited my native town in -the Pale, several years after the revolution, it was hard to find, among -the young men and women I talked with, one in a dozen who had not shared -in the dangers of 1905. If we really want to know how heartily the -Jews played their part in the revolution, we need only ask the Russian -Government why the anti-Semitic laws have been so vengefully enforced -since a certain crimson year within the present decade. And the whole -significance of these things, in the present study, lies in the fact -that precisely that spirit which prompts to rebellion in despotic Russia -rallies in free America to the support of existing institutions. - -If it was a merit in 1620 to flee from religious persecution, and in -1776 to fight against political oppression, then many of the Russian -refugees of to-day are a little ahead of the Mayflower troop, because -they have in their own lifetime sustained the double ordeal of fight and -flight, with all their attendant risks and shocks. - -To obtain a nice balance between the relative merits of these two -groups of rebels, we remind ourselves that, for sheer adventurousness, -migration to America to-day is not to be mentioned on the same page with -the magnificent exploit of 1620, and we reflect that the moral glory of -the revolution of 1776 is infinitely greater than that of any subsequent -revolt; because that, too, was a path-finding adventure, with no compass -but faith, no chart but philosophical invention. On the other hand, it -is plain that the Russian revolutionists moved against greater odds -than the American colonists had to face. The Russians had to plot in -secret, assemble in the dark, and strike with bare fists; all this under -the very nose of the Czar, with the benighted condition of the Russian -masses hanging like a cloud over their enterprise. The colonists were -able to lay the train of revolution in the most public manner, they had -the local government in their hands, a considerable militia obedient -to their own captains, and the advantage of distance from the enemy's -resources, with a populace advanced in civic experience promising -support to the leaders. - -And what a test of heroism was that which the harsh nature of the -Russian Government afforded! The American rebels risked their charters -and their property; for some of them dungeons waited, and for the -leaders dangled a rope, no doubt. But confiscation is not so bitter as -Siberian exile, and a halter is less painful than the barbed whip of the -Cossacks. The Minutemen at Concord Bridge defied a bully; the rioters -in St. Petersburg challenged a tiger. And first of all to be thrust -into the cage would be the rebels of Jewish faith, and nobody knew that -better than the Jews themselves. - -The superior zeal and high degree of self-sacrifice displayed by the -Jewish revolutionists would naturally be explained by the fact that, -of all the peoples held in chains by the Russian Government, the Jews -are the ones who have suffered the cruelest oppression. But there is -proof, proof that will go down with the stream of history, that the -Jewish participants in the Russian revolution of 1905 were actuated by -the highest patriotism, their peculiar grievances being forgotten in the -grievances of the nation as a whole. The sinking of the Jewish question -in the national question was an important article of the revolutionary -propaganda among the Jews; so much so, that when a prominent Jewish -leader attempted to demonstrate, on philosophical grounds, that that was -a false position to take, he was hotly repudiated, although up to that -time he had stood high in the councils of the leaders.(3) - - (3) See Article by Achad Ha'am, _American Hebrew_, June 21, 1907. - -If we find such a high degree of civic responsiveness in what we have -been trained to think the most unlikely quarter, shall we not look -hopefully in other corners of our world of immigrants? If the Jewish -spirit of freedom leaps from the grave of Barkochla to the hovels of -the Russian ghetto, half across the world and half across the civilized -era, shall we not look for similar prodigies from the more recent graves -of Kosciuszko and Garibaldi? If the hook-nosed tailor can turn hero on -occasion, why not the grinning organ-grinder, and the surly miner, and -the husky lumber-jack? We experienced a shock of surprise, a little -while ago, when troops of our Greek immigrants deserted the bootblacking -parlors and fruit-stands and tumbled aboard anything that happened to -sail for the Mediterranean, in their eagerness--it's hard to bring it -out, in connection with a "Dago" bootblack!--in their eagerness to -strike a blow for their country in her need. - -But that's the worst of calling names: it deceives those who do so. -The little bootblacks would not have fooled us as they did if we -had not recklessly summed up the Greek character in a contemptuous -epithet. It is quite proper for street urchins to invent nicknames for -everybody--that is what street urchins are for; but let us not hand down -the judgment of the gutter where the judgment of the senate is called -for. Between Leonidas at the pass and little Metro under the saloon -window, fawning for our nickels, is indeed a dismal gap; and yet Metro, -when occasion demanded, reached out his grimy hand and touched the tunic -of the Spartan hero. - -From these unexpected exploits of the craven Jew and the degenerate -Greek, it would seem as if the different elements of the despised "new" -immigration only await a spectacular opportunity to prove themselves -equal to the "old" in civic valor. But if contemporary history fails -to provide a war or revolution for each of our foreign nationalities, -we are still not without the means of gauging the idealistic capacity -of the aliens. Next after liberty, the Puritans loved education; and -to-day, if you examine the registers of the schools and colleges they -founded, you will find the names of recent immigrants thickly sprinkled -from A to Z, and topping the honor ranks nine times out of ten. All -readers of newspapers know the bare facts,--each commencement season, -the prize-winners are announced in a string of unpronounceable foreign -names; and every school-teacher in the immigrant section of the larger -cities has a collection of picturesque anecdotes to contribute: of -heroic sacrifices for the sake of a little reading and writing; of young -girls stitching away their youth to keep a brother in college; of whole -families cheerfully starving together to save one gifted child from the -factory. - -Go from the public school to the public library, from the library to -the social settlement, and you will carry away the same story in a -hundred different forms. The good people behind the desks in these -public places are fond of repeating that they can hardly keep up with -the intellectual demands of their immigrant neighbors. In the experience -of the librarians it is the veriest commonplace that the classics have -the greatest circulation in the immigrant quarters of the city; and -the most touching proof of reverence for learning often comes from the -illiterate among the aliens. On the East Side of New York, "Teacher" -is a being adored. Said a bedraggled Jewish mother to her little boy -who had affronted his teacher, "Don't you know that teachers is holy?" -Perhaps these are the things the teachers have in mind when they speak -with a tremor of the immense reward of work in the public schools. - -That way of speaking is the fashion among workers of all sorts in the -educational institutions where foreigners attend in numbers. Get a -group of settlement people swapping anecdotes about their immigrant -neighbors, and there is apt to develop an epidemic of moist eyes. Out -of the fullness of their knowledge these social missionaries pay the -tribute of respect and affection to the strangers among whom they toil. -For they know them as we know our brothers and sisters, from living and -working and rejoicing and sorrowing together. - -The testimony of everyday experience is borne out by the sudden -revelations of catastrophic circumstances, as reported by a librarian -from Dayton, Ohio. In Dayton they had branch libraries located in -different parts of the city, not in separate library buildings, but -in convenient shops or dwelling-houses, where they were left in the -care of some responsible person in the neighborhood. After the recent -flood,(4) when the panic was over and the people began to dig for their -belongings underneath the accumulated slime and wreckage, the librarian -tried to collect at the central library whatever was recovered of the -scattered collection. Crumpled, mutilated, slimy with the filth of the -disemboweled city, the books came back--all but one collection, which -had been housed in the midst of the Hungarian quarter. These came back -neatly packed, scraped clean of mud, their leaves smoothed, dried,--as -presentable as loving care could make them. - - (4) March, 1913. - -If that was not a manifestation of pure idealism, then is human conduct -void of symbolism, and our public squares are cumbered in vain with -monuments erected in commemoration of human deeds. But we read men's -souls in their actions, and we know that they who flock to the schools -are the spiritual kindred of those who founded them; they who cherish -a book are passing along the torch kindled by him who wrote it. They -pay the highest tribute to an inventor who show the most eagerness to -adopt his invention. The great New England invention of compulsory -education is more eagerly appropriated by the majority of our immigrants -than by native Americans of the corresponding level. That is what the -school-teachers say, and I suppose they know. They also say,--they and -all public educators in chorus,--that while one foreign nationality -excels in the love of letters, another excels in the love of music, and -a third in the love of science; and all of them together constitute an -army whose feet keep time with the noble rhythms of culture. - -Let a New Yorker on Friday night watch the crowd pushing out of a -concert hall after one of Ysaye's recitals, and on Saturday afternoon -let him take the subway uptown, and get out where the crowd gets out, -and buy a ticket for the baseball game. If he can keep cool enough for -a little study, let him compare the distorted faces in the bleachers -with the shining faces of the crowd of the night before; and let him -say which crowd responded to the nobler inspiration, and then let him -declare in which group the foreigners outnumbered the Americans. - -The American devotion to sport is no reproach to the descendants of the -Puritans, since it can be demonstrated from various angles that the -baseball diamond may supplement the schoolroom and the pulpit in the -training of American citizens. Indeed, it is not difficult to accept -that interpretation of the national sport which reduces a good game of -baseball to an epitome of all that is best in the lives of the best -Americans. At the same time we need to remember that the love of art -is more generally accepted as a mark of grace than the love of sport. -Thus, when we speak of the glory of old Athens we have in mind not the -Olympian games, noble as they were, but the poets and sculptors and -philosophers who uttered her thoughts. The original of the Discobolus -must have been a winner,--I can imagine Athenian mothers lifting up -their beautiful bare babies to see the hero over the heads of the -throng,--but who can tell me his name to-day? Meanwhile the name of -Myron has been guarded as a talisman of civilization. - -We shall not look in the sporting columns, then, for the names of -contemporary Americans who are likely to secure us a place of honor -on the scrolls of history. We look under the current book reviews, -in theatre programmes, in the announcements of art galleries. As -a by-product of such a search we announce the discovery that the -prizefighters seem to be near cousins of certain Americans of turbulent -notoriety in politics, themselves derived from one of the approved -immigrant stocks of the "old" dispensation; while the singer and painter -and writer folk very often hail from those parts of Europe at present -labeled "undesirable" as a source of immigration. Nay, is it not a good -joke on the restrictionists that an American singer who aspires to be -a prima donna must trick herself out with a name borrowed from the -steerage lists of recent arrivals at Ellis Island? - -If it is the scum of Europe that we are getting in our present -immigration, it seems to be a scum rich in pearls. Pearl-fishing, of -course, is accompanied by labor and danger and expense, but it is -reckoned a paying industry, or practical men would not invest their -capital in it. The brunt of the business falls on the divers, however. -Have we divers willing to go down into our human sea and risk an -encounter with sharks and grope in the ooze at the bottom? We have our -school teachers and librarians and social missionaries, whose zest -for their work should shame us out of counting the cost of our human -fishery. As to the accumulations of empty shells, we are told that in -the pearl fisheries of South America about one oyster in a thousand -yields a pearl; and yet the industry goes on. - -The lesson of the oyster bank goes further still. We know that the -nine hundred and ninety-nine empty shells have a lining, at least, -of mother-of-pearl. We are thus encouraged to look for the generic -opalescence of humanity in the undistinguished mass of our immigrants. -What do the aliens show of the specific traits of manhood that go to -the making of good citizens? Immersed in the tide of American life, do -their spiritual secretions give off that fine lustre of manhood that -distinguished the noble Pilgrims of the first immigration? The genius of -the few is obvious; the group virtue of the mass on exalted occasions, -such as popular uprisings, has been sufficiently demonstrated. What -we want to know now is whether the ordinary immigrant under ordinary -circumstances comes anywhere near the type we have taken as a model. - -There can be no effective comparison between the makers of history -of a most romantic epoch and the venders of bananas on our own -thrice-commonplace streets. But the Pilgrims were not always engaged -in signing momentous compacts or in effecting a historic landing. In a -secondary capacity they were immigrants--strangers come to establish -themselves in a strange land--and as such they may profitably be used as -a model by which to measure other immigrants. - -The historic merit of their enterprise aside, the virtue of the Pilgrim -Fathers was that they came not to despoil, but to build; that they -resolutely turned their backs on conditions of life that galled them, -and set out to make their own conditions in a strange and untried world, -at great hazard to life and limb and fortune; that they asked no favors -of God, but paid in advance for His miracles, by hewing and digging and -ploughing and fighting against odds; that they respected humankind, -believed in themselves, and pushed the business of the moment as if the -universe hung on the result. - -The average immigrant of to-day, like the immigrant of 1620, comes to -build--to build a civilized home under a civilized government, which -diminishes the amount of barbarity in the world. He, too, like that -earlier newcomer, has rebelled against the conditions of his life, -and adventured halfway across the world in search of more acceptable -conditions, facing exile and uncertainty and the terrors of the untried. -He also pays as he goes along, and in very much the same coin as -did the Pilgrims; awaiting God's miracle of human happiness in the -grisly darkness of the mine, in the fierce glare of the prairie ranch, -in the shrivelling heat of coke-ovens, beside roaring cotton-gins, -beside blinding silk-looms, in stifling tailor-shops, in nerve-racking -engine-rooms,--in all those places where the assurance and pride of -the State come to rest upon the courage and patience of the individual -citizen. - -There is enough of peril left in the adventure of emigration to mark him -who undertakes it as a man of some daring and resource. Has civilization -smoothed the sea, or have not steamships been known to founder as well -as sailing vessels? Does not the modern immigrant also venture among -strangers, who know not his ways nor speak his tongue nor worship his -God? If his landing is not threatened by savages in ambush, he has -to run the gauntlet of exacting laws that serve not his immediate -interests. The early New England farmer used to carry his rifle with him -in the fields, to be ready for prowling Indians, and the gutter-merchant -of New York to-day is obliged to carry about the whole armory of his -wits, to avert the tomahawk of competition. No less cruel than Indian -chiefs to their white captives is the greedy industrial boss to the -laborers whom poverty puts at his mercy; and how could you better match -the wolves and foxes that prowled about the forest clearings of our -ancestors than by the pack of sharpers and misinformers who infest the -immigrant quarters of our cities? - -Measured by the exertions necessary to overcome them, the difficulties -that beset the modern immigrant are no less formidable than those -which the Pilgrims had to face. There has never been a time when it -was more difficult to get something for nothing than it is to-day, but -the unromantic setting of modern enterprises leads us to underestimate -the moral qualities that make success possible to-day. Undoubtedly the -pioneer with an axe over his shoulder is a more picturesque figure -than the clerk with a pencil behind his ear, but we who have stood up -against the shocks of modern life should know better than to confuse the -picturesque with the heroic. Do we not know that it takes a _man_ to -beat circumstances, to-day as in the days of the pioneers? And manliness -is always the same mixture of courage, self-reliance, perseverance, and -faith. - -Inventions have multiplied since the days of the Pilgrims, but which -of our mechanical devices takes the place of the old-fashioned quality -of determination where obstacles are to be overcome? The New England -wilderness retreated not before the axe, but before the diligence -of the men who wielded the axe; and diligence it is which to-day -transmutes the city's refuse into a loaf for the ragpicker's children. -Resourcefulness--the ability to adjust the means to the end--enters -equally in the subtle enterprises of the business man and in the -hardy exploits of the settler; and it takes as much patience to wait -for returns on a petty investment of capital as it does to watch the -sprouting of an acre of corn. - -Hardiness and muscle and physical courage were the seventeenth-century -manifestations of the same moral qualities which to-day are expressed -as intensity and nerve and commercial daring. Our country being in part -cultivated, in part savage, we need citizens with the endowment of the -twentieth century, and citizens with the pioneer endowment. The "new" -immigration, however interpreted, consists in the main of these two -types. Whether we get these elements in the proportion best suited to -our needs is another question, to be answered in its place. At this -point it is only necessary to admit that the immigrant possesses an -abundance of the homely virtues of the useful citizen in times of peace. - -We arrived at this conclusion by a theoretical analysis of the qualities -that carry a man through life to-day; and that was fair reasoning, -since the great majority of aliens are known to make good, if not in -the first generation, then in the second or the third. Any sociologist, -any settlement worker, any census clerk will tell you that the history -of the average immigrant family of the "new" period is represented by -an ascending curve. The descending curves are furnished by degenerate -families of what was once prime American stock. I want no better -proof of these facts than I find in the respective vocabularies of -the missionary in the slums of New York and the missionary in the New -England hills. At the settlement on Eldridge Street they talk about -hastening the process of Americanization of the immigrant; the country -minister in the Berkshires talks about the rehabilitation of the Yankee -farmer. That is, the one assists at an upward process, the other seeks -to reverse a downward process. - -Right here, in these opposite tendencies of the poor of the foreign -quarters and the poor of the Yankee fastnesses, I read the most -convincing proof that what we get in the steerage is not the refuse, but -the sinew and bone of all the nations. If rural New England to-day shows -signs of degeneracy, it is because much of her sinew and bone departed -from her long ago. Some of the best blood of New England answered to the -call of "Westward ho!" when the empty lands beyond the Alleghanies gaped -for population, while on the spent farms of the Puritan settlements too -many sons awaited the division of the father's property. Of those who -were left behind, many, of course, were detained by habit and sentiment, -love of the old home being stronger in them than the lure of adventure. -Of the aristocracy of New England that portion stayed at home which -was fortified by wealth, and so did not feel the economic pressure of -increased population; of the proletariat remained, on the whole, the -less robust, the less venturesome, the men and women of conservative -imagination. - -It was bound to be so, because, wherever the population is set in -motion by internal pressure, the emigrant train is composed of the -stoutest, the most resourceful of those who are not held back by the -roots of wealth or sentiment. Voluntary emigration always calls for -the highest combination of the physical and moral virtues. The law of -analogy, therefore, might suffice to teach us that with every shipload -of immigrants we get a fresh infusion of pioneer blood. But theory is -a tight-rope on which every monkey of a logician can balance himself. -We practical Americans of the twentieth century like to feel the broad -platform of tested facts beneath our feet. - -[Illustration: ROUGH WORK AND LOW WAGES FOR THE IMMIGRANT] - -The fact about the modern immigrant is that he is everywhere continuing -the work begun by our pioneer ancestors. So much we may learn from a -bare recital of the occupations of aliens. They supply most of the -animal strength and primitive patience that are at the bottom of our -civilization. In California they gather the harvest, in Arizona they dig -irrigation ditches, in Oregon they fell forests, in West Virginia they -tunnel coal, in Massachusetts they plant the tedious crops suitable to -an exhausted soil. In the cities they build subways and skyscrapers and -railroad terminals that are the wonder of the world. Wherever rough work -and low wages go together, we have a job for the immigrant. - -The prouder we grow, the more we lean on the immigrant. The Wall Street -magnate would be about as effective as a puppet were it not for the army -of foreigners who execute his schemes. The magic of stocks and bonds -lies in railroad ties and in quarried stone and in axle grease applied -at the right time. A Harriman might sit till doomsday gibbering at the -telephone and the stock exchange would take no notice of him if a band -of nameless "Dagos" a thousand miles away failed to repair a telegraph -pole. New York City is building an aqueduct that will surpass the works -of the Romans, and the average New Yorker will know nothing about it -until he reads in the newspapers the mayor's speech at the inauguration -of the new water supply. - -Our brains, our wealth, our ambitions flow in channels dug by the hands -of immigrants. Alien hands erect our offices, rivet our bridges, and -pile up the proud masonry of our monuments. Ignoring in this connection -the fact that the engineer as well as the laborer is often of alien -race, we owe to mere muscle a measure of recognition proportionate to -our need of muscle in our boasted material progress. An imaginative -schoolboy left to himself must presently catch the resemblance between -the pick-and-shovel men toiling at our aqueducts and the heroes of -the axe and rifle extolled in his textbooks as the "sturdy pioneers." -Considered without prejudice, the chief difference between these two -types is the difference between jean overalls and fringed buckskins. -Contemporaneousness takes the romance out of everything; otherwise we -might be rubbing elbows with heroes. Whatever merit there was in hewing -and digging and hauling in the days of the first settlers still inheres -in the same operations to-day. Yes, and a little extra; for a stick -of dynamite is more dangerous to handle than a crowbar, and the steam -engine makes more widows in a year than ever the Indian did with bloody -tomahawk and stealthy arrow. - -There is no contention here that every fellow who successfully passes -the entrance ordeals at Ellis Island is necessarily a hero. That there -are weaklings in the train of the sturdy throng of foreigners nobody -knows better than I. I have witnessed the pitiful struggles of the -unfit, and have seen the failures drop all around me. But no bold army -ever marched to the field of action without a fringe of camp-followers -on its flanks. The moral vortex created by the enterprises of the -resolute sucks in a certain number of the weak-hearted; and this is -especially true in mass movements, where the enthusiasm of the crowd -ekes out the courage of the individual. If it is not too impious -to suggest it, may there not have been among the passengers of the -Mayflower two or three or half a dozen who came over because their -cousins did, not because they had any zest for the adventure? - -When we remember that the Pilgrim Fathers came with their families, we -may be very sure that that was the case, because the different members -of a family are seldom of the same moral fibre. No doubt the austere -ambitions of the voyagers of the Mayflower made them stern recruiting -masters, but our knowledge of men in the mass forbids the assumption -that they were all heroes of the first rank who stepped ashore on -Plymouth Rock. - - I have little sympathy with declaimers about the Pilgrim Fathers, - who look upon them all as men of grand conceptions and superhuman - foresight. An entire ship's company of Columbuses is what the world - never saw. - -It takes a wizard critic like Lowell to chip away the crust of historic -sentiment and show us our forefathers in the flesh. Lowell would agree -with me that the Pilgrims were a picked troop in the sense that there -was an immense preponderance of virtue among them. And that is exactly -what we must say of our modern immigrants, if we judge them by the sum -total of their effect on our country. - -Not a little of the glory of the Pilgrim Fathers rests on their own -testimony. Our opinion of them is greatly enhanced by the expression we -find, in the public and private documents they have left us, of their -ideals, their aims, their expectations in the New World. Let us judge -our immigrants also out of their own mouths, as future generations will -be sure to judge them. And in seeking this testimony let us remember -that humanity in general does not produce one oracle in a decade. Very -few men know their own hearts, or can give an account of the impulses -that drive them in a particular direction. We put our ears to the lips -of the eloquent when we want to know what the world is thinking. And -what do we get when we sift down the sayings of the spokesmen among -the foreign folk? An anthem in praise of American ideals, a passionate -glorification of the principles of democracy. - -Let it be understood that the men and women of exceptional intellect, -who have surveyed the situation from philosophical heights, are not -trumpeting forth their own high dreams alone. If they have won the ear -of the American nation and shamed the indifferent and silenced the -cynical, it is because they voiced the feeling of the inarticulate mob -that welters in the foreign quarters of our cities. I am never so clear -as to the basis of my faith in America as when I have been talking with -the ungroomed mothers of the East Side. A widow down on Division Street -was complaining bitterly of the hardships of her lot, alone in an alien -world with four children to bring up. In the midst of her complaints -the children came in from school. "Well," said the hard-pressed widow, -"bread isn't easy to get in America, but the children can go to school, -and that's more than bread. Rich man, poor man, it's all the same: the -children can go to school." - -The poor widow had never heard of a document called the Declaration of -Independence, but evidently she had discovered in American practice -something corresponding to one of the great American principles,--the -principle of equality of opportunity,--and she valued it more than the -necessaries of animal life. Even so was it valued by the Fathers of the -Republic, when they deliberately incurred the dangers of a war with -mighty England in defense of that and similar principles. - -[Illustration: THE UNGROOMED MOTHER OF THE EAST SIDE] - -The widow's sentiment was finely echoed by another Russian immigrant, -a man who drives an ice-wagon for a living. His case is the more -impressive from the fact that he left a position of comparative opulence -in the old country, under the protection of a wealthy uncle who employed -him as steward of his estates. He had had servants to wait on him and -money enough to buy some of the privileges of citizenship which the -Russian Government doles out to the favored few. "But what good was -it to me?" he asked. "My property was not my own if the police wanted -to take it away. I could spend thousands to push my boy through the -Gymnasium, and he might get a little education as a favor, and still -nothing out of it, if he isn't allowed to be anything. Here I work like -a slave, and my wife she works like a slave, too,--in the old country -she had servants in the house,--but what do I care, as long as I know -what I earn I got it for my own? I got to furnish my house one chair at -a time, in America, but nobody can take it away from me, the little that -I got. And it costs me nothing to educate my family. Maybe they can, -maybe they can't go to college, but all can go through grammar school, -and high school, too, the smart ones. And all go together! Rich and -poor, all are equal, and I don't get it as a favor." - -Better a hard bed in the shelter of justice than a stuffed couch under -the black canopy of despotism. Better a crust of the bread of the -intellect freely given him as his right than the whole loaf grudgingly -handed him as a favor. What nobler insistence on the rights of manhood -do we find in the writings of the Puritans? - -Volumes might be filled with the broken sayings of the humblest among -the immigrants which, translated into the sounding terms of the -universal, would give us the precious documents of American history over -again. Never was the bread of freedom more keenly relished than it is -to-day, by the very people of whom it is said that they covet only the -golden platter on which it is served up. We may not say that immigration -to our country has ceased to be a quest of the ideal as long as the -immigrants lay so much stress on the spiritual accompaniment of economic -elevation in America. Nobly built upon the dreams of the Fathers, the -house of our Republic is nobly tenanted by those who cherish similar -dreams. - -But dreams cannot be brought before a court of inquiry. A diligent -immigration commission with an appropriation to spend has little time to -listen to Joseph. A digest of its report is expected to yield statistics -rather than rhapsodies. The taxpayers want their money's worth of hard -facts. - -But when the facts are raked together and boiled down to a summary that -the business man may scan on his way to the office, behold! we are -no wiser than before. For a host of interpreters jump into the seats -vacated by the extinct commission and harangue us in learned terms on -the merits and demerits of the immigrant, _as they conceive them_, after -studying the voluminous report. That is, the question is still what it -was before: a matter of personal opinion! The man with the vote realizes -that _he_ has to make up _his_ mind what instructions to send to his -representative in Congress on the subject of immigration. And where -shall he, a plain, practical man, unaccustomed to interpret dreams or -analyze statistics, find an index of the alien's worth that he can read -through the spectacles of common sense? - -There is a phrase in the American vocabulary of approval that sums up -our national ideal of manhood. That phrase is "a self-made man." To -such we pay the tribute of our highest admiration, justly regarding our -self-made men as the noblest product of our democratic institutions. -Now let any one compile a biographical dictionary of our self-made men, -from the romantic age of our history down to the prosaic year 1914, and -see how the smell of the steerage pervades the volume! _There_ is a sign -that the practical man finds it easy to interpret. Like fruits grow -from like seeds. Those who can produce under American conditions the -indigenous type of manhood must be working with the same elements as the -native American who starts out a yokel and ends up a senator. - -Focused under the microscope of theoretical analysis, or viewed through -the spectacles of common sense, the average immigrant of to-day still -shows the markings of virtue that have distinguished the best Americans -from the time of the landing at Plymouth to the opening of the Panama -Canal. But popular judgment is seldom based on a study of the norm, -especially in this age of the newspaper. The newspaper is devoted to the -portrayal of the abnormal--the shining example and the horrible example; -and most men think they have done justice when they have balanced the -one against the other, leaving out of account entirely the great mass -that lies between the two extremes. And even of the two extremes, it is -the horrible example that is more frequently brought to the attention -of the public. Half a dozen Italians draw knives in a brawl on a given -evening, and the morning newspapers are full of the story. On the -same evening hundreds of Italians were studying civics in the night -schools, inquiring for classics at the public library, rehearsing for a -historical pageant at the settlement--and not a word about them in the -newspapers. One Jewish gangster makes more "copy" than a hundred Jewish -boys and girls who win honors in college. So also it is the business of -the police to record the fact that a Greek was arrested for peddling -without a license, while it is nobody's business to report that a dozen -other Greeks chipped in their spare change to pay his fine. The reader -of newspapers is convinced that the foreigners as a whole are a violent, -vicious, lawless crowd, and the fewer we have of them the better. - -Could the annual reports of libraries and settlements be circulated as -widely as the newspapers, the American public would not be guilty of -such errors of judgment. But who reads annual reports? The very name -of them is forbidding! It becomes necessary, therefore, to explain -the newspaper types that jump to the fore in every discussion of the -immigrant. - -First of all we must get a good grip on our sense of proportion. To -speak of the immigrants as undesirable because a few of them throw bombs -or live by gambling is about as fair as it would be for the world to -call us Americans a nation of dissolute millionaires and industrial -pirates because a Harry Thaw drank himself into an insane asylum and a -Rockefeller swept a host of competitors to ruin. - -But the bomb-thrower and the gambler are extremely undesirable. Look at -the Black Hand outrages, look at the Rosenthal case! - -Aye, I have looked, and I see plainly that these horrible examples are -due to the same causes as any shining example that could be named. Each -is the product of the qualities the immigrant brought with him and the -opportunities he found here to exercise them. The law-abiding, ambitious -immigrant who came here a beggar and worked himself into the ranks -of the princes found his opportunity in our laws and customs, which -enable the common man to make the most of himself. The blackmailer's -opportunity was provided by the operation of corrupt politics, which -removes police commissioners and impeaches governors for trying to -enforce the law. The Rosenthal case brought forth Lieutenant Becker, -and an investigation of the spread of the Black Hand terror discovers -political bosses behind the scenes.(5) We have laws providing for the -deportation of alien criminals. Why are they not always enforced? When -we have found the broom that will sweep the political vermin from our -legislatures, we shan't need to look around for a shovel to keep back -the scum of Europe. The two will go together. - - (5) See _The Outlook_, August 16, 1913; article by Frank Marshall - White. - -In the whole catalogue of sins with which the modern immigrant is -charged, it is not easy to find one in which we Americans are not -partners,--we who can make and unmake our world by means of the ballot. -The immigrant is blamed for the unsanitary conditions of the slums, when -sanitary experts cry shame on our methods of municipal house-cleaning. -You might dump the whole of the East Side into the German capital and -there would be no slums there, because the municipal authorities of -Berlin know how to enforce building regulations, how to plant trees, and -how to clean the streets. The very existence of the slum is laid at the -door of the immigrant, but the truth is that the slums were here before -the immigrants. Most of the foreigners hate the slums, and all but the -few who have no backbone get out of them as fast as they rise in the -economic scale. To "move uptown" is the dearest ambition of the average -immigrant family. - -If the slums were due to the influx of foreigners, why should London -have slums, and more hideous slums than New York? No, the slum is not -a by-product of the steerage. It is a sore on the social body in many -civilized countries, due to internal disorders of the economic system. A -generous dose of social reformation would do more to effect a cure than -repeated doses of restriction of immigration. - -A whole group of phenomena due to social and economic causes have -been falsely traced, in this country, to the quantity and quality of -immigration. Among these are the labor troubles, such as non-employment, -strikes, riots, etc. England has no such immigration as the United -States, and yet Englishmen suffer from non-employment, from riots and -bitter strikes. Whom does the English workingman blame for his misery? -Let the American workingman quarrel with the same enemy. If wage-cutting -is a sin more justly laid at the door of the immigrant, a minimum wage -law might put a stop to that. - -The immigrant undoubtedly contributes to the congestion of population -in the cities, but not as a chief cause. Congestion is characteristic -of city life the world over, and the remedy will be found in improved -conditions of country life. Moreover, the immigrant has shown himself -responsive to direction away from the city when a systematic attempt -is made to help him find his place in the country. There is the -experience of the Industrial Removal Office of the Baron de Hirsch -Foundation as a hint of what the Government might accomplish if it took -a hand in the intelligent distribution of immigration. The records -of this organization, dealing with a group of immigrants supposed -to be especially addicted to city life, kill two immigrant myths at -one stroke. They prove that it is possible to direct the stream of -immigration in desired channels and that the Jew is not altogether -averse to contact with the soil; both facts contrary to popular notions. - -A good deal of anti-immigration feeling has been based on the vile -conditions observed in labor camps, by another turn of that logic which -puts the blame on the victims. A labor camp at its worst is not an -argument against immigration, but an indictment of the brutality of the -contractor who cares only to force a maximum of work out of the workmen, -and cares nothing for their lives; an indictment also of the Government -that allows such shameful exploitation of the laborers to go on. That -a labor camp does not have to be a plague spot has been gloriously -demonstrated by Goethals at Panama. What Goethals did was to emphasize -the _man_ in workingman, with the result that Panama during the vast -operations of digging the Canal was a healthier, happier, more inspiring -place to live in than many of our proudest cities; the workmen came away -from the job better men and better citizens; and the work was better -done and with more dispatch and at less expense than any such work was -ever done by the old-fashioned method, where the workers are treated not -as men but as tools. - -There may not be another Goethals in the country, but what a great -man devises little men may copy. The labor camp must never again be -mentioned as a reproach to the immigrant who suffers degradation in it, -or the world will think that we do not know the meaning of the medals -which we ourselves have hung on Goethals's breast. - -Immigrants are accused of civic indifference if they do not become -naturalized, but when we look into the conditions affecting -naturalization we wonder at the numbers who do become citizens. -Facilities for civic education of the adult are very scant, -and dependent mostly on the fluctuating enthusiasm of private -philanthropies. The administration of the naturalization laws differs -from State to State and is accompanied by serious material hindrances; -while the community is so indifferent to the civic progress of its alien -members that it is possible for a foreigner to live in this country -for _sixteen years_, coming in contact with all classes of Americans, -without getting the bare information that he may become a citizen of -the United States if he wants to. Such a case, as reported by a charity -worker of New Britain, Connecticut, makes a sensitive American choke -with mortification. If we were ourselves as patriotic as we expect the -immigrant to be, we would employ Salvation Army methods to draw the -foreigner into the civic fold. Instead of that, we leave his citizenship -to chance--or to the most corrupt political agencies. - -I would rather not review the blackest of all charges against the -immigrant, that he has a baleful effect on municipal politics: I am -so ashamed of the implications. But sensible citizens will talk and -talk about the immigrant selling his vote, and not know whom they are -accusing. Votes cannot be sold unless there is a market for them. Who -creates the market for votes? The ward politician, behind whom stands -the party boss, alert, and powerful; and behind him--the indifferent -electorate who allow him to flourish. - -Among immigrants of the "new" order, the wholesale prostitution of -the ballot is confined to those groups which are largely subjected to -the industrial slavery of mining and manufacturing communities and -construction camps. These helpless creatures, in their very act of -sinning, bear twofold witness against us who accuse them. The foreman -who disposes of their solid vote acquires his power under an economic -system which delivers them up, body and soul, to the man who pays them -wages, and turns it to account under a political system which makes the -legislature subservient to the stock exchange. But let it be definitely -noted that to admit that groups of immigrants under economic control -fall an easy prey to political corruptionists is very far from proving -any inherent viciousness in the immigrants themselves. - -Neither does the immigrant's civic reputation depend entirely on -negative evidence. New York City has the largest foreign population -in the United States, and precisely in that city the politicians -have learned that they cannot count on the foreign vote, because -it is not for sale. A student of New York politics speaks of the -"uncontrollable and unapproachable vote of the Ghetto." Repeated -analyses of the election returns of the Eighth District, which has -the largest foreign population of all, show that "politically it is -one of the most uncertain sections" in the city. Many generations of -campaign managers have discovered to their sorrow that the usual party -blandishments are wasted on the East Side masses. Hester Street follows -leaders and causes rather than party emblems. Nowhere is the art of -splitting a ticket better understood. The only time you can predict the -East Side vote is when there is a sharp alignment of the better citizens -against the boss-ridden. Then you will find the naturalized citizens in -the same camp with men like Jacob Riis and women like Lillian Wald. And -the experience of New York is duplicated in Chicago and in Philadelphia -and in every center of immigration. Ask the reformers. - -How often we demand more civic virtue of the stranger than we ourselves -possess! A little more time spent in weeding our own garden will relieve -us of the necessity of counting the tin cans in the immigrant's back -yard. - -As to tin cans, the immigrants are not the only ones who scatter -them broadcast. How can we talk about the foreigners defacing public -property, when our own bill-boards disfigure every open space that God -tries to make beautiful for us? It is true that the East Side crowds -litter the parks with papers and fruit-skins and peanut shells, but they -would not be able to do so if the park regulations were persistently -enforced. And in the mean time the East Side children, in their pageants -and dance festivals, make the most beautiful use of the parks that a -poet could desire. - -There exists a society in the United States the object of which is to -protect the natural beauties and historical landmarks of our country. -Who are the marauders who have called such a society into being? Who is -it that threatens to demolish the Palisades and drain off Niagara? Who -are the vulgar folk who scrawl their initials on trees and monuments, -who chip off bits from historic tombstones, who profane the holy echoes -of the mountains by calling foolish phrases through a megaphone? The -officers of the Scenic and Historic Preservation Society are not -watching Ellis Island. On the contrary, it was the son of an immigrant -whose expert testimony, given before a legislative committee at Albany, -helped the Society to save the Falls of the Genesee from devastation by -a power company. This same immigrant's son, on another occasion, spent -two mortal hours tearing off visiting-cards from a poet's grave--cards -bearing the names of American vacationists. - -Some of the things we say against the immigrants sound very strange from -American lips. We speak of the corruption of our children's manners -through contact with immigrant children in the public schools, when -all the world is scolding us for our children's rude deportment. Finer -manners are grown on a tiny farm in Italy than in the roaring subways of -New York; and contrast our lunch-counter manners with the table-manners -of the Polish ghetto, where bread must not be touched with unwashed -hands, where a pause for prayer begins and ends each meal, and on -festival occasions parents and children join in folk-songs between -courses! - -If there is a corruption of manners, it may be that it works in the -opposite direction from what we suppose. At any rate, we ourselves admit -that the children of foreigners, before they are Americanized, have a -greater respect than our children for the Fifth Commandment. - -We say that immigrants nowadays come only to exploit our country, -because some of them go back after a few years, taking their savings -with them. The real exploiters of our country's wealth are not the -foreign laborers, but the capitalists who pay them wages. The laborer -who returns home with his savings leaves us an equivalent in the -products of labor; a day's service rendered for every day's wages. -The capitalists take away our forests and water-courses and mineral -treasures and give us watered stock in return. - -Of the class of aliens who do not come to make their homes here, but -only to earn a few hundred dollars to invest in a farm or a cottage -in their native village, a greater number than we imagine are brought -over by industrial agents in violation of the contract labor law. Put -an end to the stimulation of immigration, and we shall see very few of -the class who do not come to stay. And even as it is, not all of those -who return to Europe do so in order to spend their American fortune. -Some go back to recover from ruin encountered at the hands of American -land swindlers. Some go back to be buried beside their fathers, having -lost their health in unsanitary American factories. And some are helped -aboard on crutches, having lost a limb in a mine explosion that could -have been prevented. When we watch the procession of cripples hobbling -back to their native villages, it looks more as if America is exploiting -Europe. - -O that the American people would learn where their enemies lurk! Not -the immigrant is ruining our country, but the venal politicians who try -to make the immigrant the scapegoat for all the sins of untrammeled -capitalism--these and their masters. Find me the agent who obstructs the -movement for the abolition of child labor, and I will show you who it -is that condemns able-bodied men to eat their hearts out in idleness; -who brutalizes our mothers and tortures tender babies; who fills the -morgues with the emaciated bodies of young girls, and the infirmaries -with little white cots; who fastens the shame of illiteracy on our -enlightened land, and causes American boys to grow up too ignorant to -mark a ballot; who sucks the blood of the nation, fattens on its brains, -and throws its heart to the wolves of the money market. - -The stench of the slums is nothing to the stench of the child-labor -iniquity. If the foreigners are taking the bread out of the mouth of -the American workingman, it is by the maimed fingers of their fainting -little ones. - -And if we want to know whether the immigrant parents are the promoters -or the victims of the child labor system, we turn to the cotton mills, -where forty thousand native American children between seven and sixteen -years of age toil between ten and twelve hours a day, while the fathers -rot in the degradation of idleness. - -From all this does it follow that we should let down the bars and -dispense with the guard at Ellis Island? Only in so far as the policy -of restriction is based on the theory that the present immigration is -derived from the scum of humanity. But the immigrants may be desirable -and immigration undesirable. We sometimes have to deny ourselves to the -most congenial friends who knock at our door. At this point, however, -we are not trying to answer the question whether immigration is good -for us. We are concerned only with the reputation of the immigrant--and -incidentally with the reputation of those who have sought to degrade -him in our eyes. If statecraft bids us lock the gate, and our national -code of ethics ratifies the order, lock it we must, but we need not call -names through the keyhole. - -Mount guard in the name of the Republic if the health of the Republic -requires it, but let no such order be issued until her statesmen and -philosophers and patriots have consulted together. Above all, let the -voice of prejudice be stilled, let not self-interest chew the cud -of envy in full sight of the nation, and let no syllable of willful -defamation mar the oracles of state. For those who are excluded when our -bars are down are exiles from Egypt, whose feet stumble in the desert -of political and social slavery, whose hearts hunger for the bread of -freedom. The ghost of the Mayflower pilots every immigrant ship, and -Ellis Island is another name for Plymouth Rock. - - - - -III - -THE FIERY FURNACE - -Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, . . . Now if ye be ready that -at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet . . . ye fall down and -worship the image that I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye -shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; -and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? - -Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O, -Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it -be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning -fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if -not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor -worship the golden image which thou hast set up. - -Dan. iii, 14-18. - - -In the discussion of the third question,--whether immigration is good -for us,--more honest Americans have gone astray than in the other two -divisions. Let it be said at the outset that those who have erred have -been about equally distributed between the ayes and the nays. For the -answer to this question is neither aye nor nay, but something that -cannot be put into a single syllable. If we steer our way cautiously -between the opposing ranks, the light of the true answer will presently -shine on us. - -The arguments they severally advance in defense of their respective -positions reveal an appalling number of citizens on each side of the -house who have entirely disregarded the principles involved. Those -who, like the labor-union lobbyists, point to the empty dinner-pails -of American workingmen as a reason for keeping out foreign labor, are -no more at fault than the lobbyists of the opposite side, who offer in -support of the open-door policy statistics showing the need of rough -laborers in various branches of our current material development. All of -them are wrong in that they would treat our foreign brothers as pawns -on the chessboard of our selfish needs. Show me a million American -workingmen out of work, and I fail to see a justification for the -exclusion of a million men from other lands who are also looking for a -job. Does the mother of an impoverished family strangle half her brood -in order that the other half may have enough to eat? No; she divides the -last crust equally among her starvelings, and the laws of nature do the -rest. - -This analogy, of course, is a vessel without a bottom unless the gospel -of the brotherhood of man is accepted as a premise of our debate. The -only logic it will hold is the logic of a practical incarnation of -the theories we loudly applaud on occasions of patriotic excitement. -That ought to be acceptable both to the poor men who like to parade -the streets with the Stars and Stripes at the head of the column and -the _Marseillaise_ on their lips, and to the rich men who subscribe -generously to soldiers' and sailors' monument funds, and who ransack -ancient chronicles to establish their connection with the heroes of the -Revolution. Let the paraders and the ancestor-worshipers unite in a -practical recognition of the rights of their belated brothers who are -seeking to enter the kingdom of liberty and justice, and they will have -given a living shape to the sentiment they symbolically honor, each in -his own way. - -I am not content if the labor leaders retire from the lobby when all the -mills are running full time and shop foremen are scouring the streets -for "hands." It is no proof of our sincerity that we are indifferent in -times of plenty as to who it is that picks up the crumbs after we have -fed. They only are true Americans who, remembering that this country was -wrested from the English in the name of the common rights of humanity, -resist the temptation to insure their own soup-kettles by patrolling the -national pastures and granaries against the hungry from other lands. -Share and share alike is the motto of brotherhood. - -But who will venture to preach such devotion to principle to the starved -and naked and oppressed? Why, I, even I, who refuse to believe that the -American workingman is past answering the call of a difficult ideal, -no matter what privations are gnawing at his vitals. I have read in -the history books that when Lincoln issued his call for volunteers, -they came from mills and factories and little shops as promptly as from -counting-rooms and college halls. Fathers of large families that looked -to him for bread kissed their babies and marched off to the war, taking -an elder son or two with them. Were they all aristocrats whose names -are preserved on four thousand gravestones at Gettysburg? And who were -they who went barefoot in the snow and starved with Washington in Valley -Forge? The common people, most of them, the toilers for daily bread, -they who give all when they give aught, because they have not enough to -divide. - -They only mark themselves as calumniators of the poor who protest that -times and men have changed since Washington's and Lincoln's day; who -think that the breed of heroes died out with the passing of the Yankee -farmer and the provincial townsman of the earlier periods. Shall not the -testimony of a daughter of the slums be heard when the poor are being -judged? I was reared in a tenement district of a New England metropolis, -where the poor of many nations contended with each other for a scant -living; and the only reason I am no longer of the slums is because a -hundred heroes and heroines among my neighbors fought for my release. -Not only the members of my family, but mere acquaintances put their -little all at my disposal. Merely that a dreamer among them might come -to the fulfillment of her dream, they fed and sheltered and nursed me -and cheered me on, again and again facing the wolves of want for my -sake, giving me the whole cloak if the half did not suffice to save the -spark of life in my puny body. - -If my knowledge of the slums counts for anything, it counts for a -positive assurance that the personal devotion which is daily manifested -in the life of the tenements in repeated acts of self-denial, from the -sharing of a delicacy with a sick neighbor to the education of a gifted -child by the year-long sacrifices of the entire family, is a spark from -the smouldering embers of idealism that lie buried in the ashes of -sordid existence, and await but the fanning of a great purpose to leap -up into a flame of abstract devotion. - -Times have changed, indeed, since the days of Washington. His was a time -of beginnings, ours is a time ripe for accomplishment. And yet the seed -the Fathers sowed we shall not reap, unless we consecrate ourselves to -our purpose as they did,--all of us, the whole people, no man presuming -to insult his neighbor by exempting him on account of apparent weakness. -The common people in Washington's time, and again in Lincoln's time, -stood up like men, because they were called as men, not as weaklings who -must be coddled and spared the shock of robust moral enterprise. Not a -full belly but a brimming soul made heroes out of ploughboys in '76. -The common man of to-day is capable of a like transformation if pricked -with the electric needle of a lofty appeal. Those who are teaching -the American workingman to demand the protection of his job against -legitimate alien competition are trampling out the embers of popular -idealism, instead of fanning it into a blaze that should transfigure the -life of the nation. - -[Illustration: A FRESH INFUSION OF PIONEER BLOOD] - -Idealism of the finest, heroism unsurpassed, are frequently displayed in -the familiar episodes of the class war that is going on before our eyes, -under unionistic leadership. But it is a narrowing of the vision that -makes a great mass of the people adopt as the unit of human salvation -the class instead of the nation. The struggle which has for its object -the putting of the rapacious rich in their place does not constitute a -full programme of national progress. If labor leaders think they are -leading in a holy war, they should be the last to encourage disrespect -of the principles of righteousness for which they are fighting. It -is inconsistent, to put it mildly, to lead a demonstration against -entrenched capital on one day, and the next day to head a delegation in -Congress in favor of entrenched labor. Is there anything brotherly about -a monopolization of the labor market? Substituting the selfishness of -the poor for the selfishness of the rich will bring us no nearer the day -of universal justice. - -Though I should not hesitate to insist on a generous attitude toward -the foreigner even if it imposed on our own people all the hardships -which are alleged to be the result of immigration, I do not disdain to -point out the fact that, when all is said and done, there is enough of -America to go around for many a year to come. It is hard to know whether -to take the restrictionists seriously when they tell us that the country -is becoming overcrowded. The population of the United States is less -than three times that of England, and England is only a dot on our map. -In Texas alone there is room for the population of the whole world, with -a homestead of half an acre for every family of five, and a patch the -size of Maryland left over for a public park. A schoolboy's geography -will supply the figures for this pretty sum. - -The over-supply of labor is another myth of the restrictionist -imagination that vanishes at one glance around the country, which -shows us crops spoiling for want of harvesters, and women running to -the legislature for permission to extend their legal working-day in -the fields; such is the scarcity of men. Said ex-Secretary Nagel, -commenting upon the immigration bill which was so strenuously pushed by -the restrictionists in the Sixty-third Congress, only to be vetoed by -President Taft:-- - - In my judgment no sufficiently earnest and intelligent effort has - been made to bring our wants and our supply together, and so far - the same forces that give the chief support to this provision of - the new bill [a literacy test, intended to check the influx of - cheap labor] have stubbornly resisted any effort looking to an - intelligent distribution of new immigration to meet the needs of our - vast country. [And] no such drastic measure [as the literacy test] - should be adopted until we have at least exhausted the possibilities - of a rational distribution of these new forces. - -Distribution--geographical, seasonal, occupational; that should be our -next watch-word, if we are bent on applying our vast resources to our -needs. It cannot be too often pointed out that a nation of our political -confession is bound to try every other possible solution of her problems -before resorting to a measure that encroaches on the rights of humanity. -And so far are we from exhausting the possibilities of internal reform -that even the most obvious economic errors have not been corrected. -It is not good sense nor good morals to keep men at work twelve and -thirteen hours a day, seven days in the week, as they do, for example, -in the paper-mills. It is bad policy to use women in the mills; it is -heinous to use the children. Every one of those over-long jobs should -be cut in two; the women should be sent back to the nursery, and the -children put to school, and able-bodied men set in their places. - -If such a programme, consistently carried out throughout the country, -still left considerable numbers unemployed, there is one more remedy -we might apply. We might chain to the benches in the city parks, where -involuntary idlers now pass the day, all the agents and runners who move -around Europe at the expense of steamship companies, labor contractors, -and mill-owners. We must _stop_ the importation of labor, not talk about -stopping it. - -To refrain from soliciting immigration is a very different thing from -imposing an arbitrary check on voluntary immigration, and gives very -different results. The class of men who are lured across the ocean by -the golden promises of labor agents are not of the same moral order as -those who are spurred to the great adventure by a desire to share in our -American civilization. When we restrain the runners, we rid ourselves -automatically of the least desirable element of immigration,--the -hordes of irresponsible job-hunters without family who do not ask to -be steered into the current of American life, and whose mission here -is accomplished when they have saved up a petty fortune with which -to dazzle the eyes of peasant sweethearts at home. It is this class -that contributes, through its ignorance and aloofness, the bulk of the -deplorable phenomena which are quoted by restrictionists as arguments -against immigration in general. But we must go after them by the direct -method, applying the force of the law to the agents who rout them out of -their native villages. When we attempt to weed out this one element by -indirect methods, such as the oft-proposed literacy test, we are guilty -of the folly of discharging a cannon into the midst of the sheepfold -with the object of killing the wolf. - -If through such a measure as the literacy test the desired results -could be insured, we should still be loath to adopt it until every -other possible method had been tried. To hit at labor competition -through a pretended fear of illiteracy is a tricky policy, and trickery -is incompatible with the moral dignity of the American nation. Are -we bankrupt in statesmanship that we must pawn the jewel of national -righteousness? It required no small amount of ingenuity to find a -connection between the immigrant's ability to earn a wage and his -inability to read. If the resourceful gentlemen who invented the -literacy test would concentrate their talents on the problem of stopping -the stimulation of immigration, we should soon hear the last of the -over-supply of cheap labor. Where there's a will there's a way, in -statecraft as in other things. - -It is not enough for the integrity of our principles to scrutinize the -ethical nature of proposed legislation. It must be understood in general -that whoever asks for restrictive measures as a means of improving -American labor conditions must prove beyond a doubt, first, that the -evils complained of are not the result of our own sins, and next, -that the foreign laborer on coming to America has not exchanged worse -conditions for better. The gospel of brotherhood will not let us define -our own good in terms of indifference to the good of others. - -Preaching selfishness in the name of the American workingman is an -insidious way of shutting him out from participation in the national -mission. If it is good for the nation to live up to its highest -traditions, it cannot be bad for any part of the nation to contribute -its share toward the furtherance of the common ideal. For we are not -a nation of high and low, where the aristocracy acts and the populace -applauds. If America is going to do anything in the world, every man and -woman among us will have a share in it. - -Objection to the influx of foreign labor is sometimes based on a -theory the very opposite of the scarcity of work. Some say that there -is altogether too much work being done in this country--that we are -developing our natural resources and multiplying industries at a rate -too rapid for wholesome growth; and to check this feverish activity it -is proposed to cut off the supply of labor which makes it possible. - -I doubt, in the first place, if it is reasonable to expect a young -nation with half a continent to explore to restrain its activity, as -long as there are herculean tasks in sight, any more than we would -expect a boy to walk off the diamond in the middle of the game. Or if it -is thought best to slacken the speed of material progress, the brakes -should be applied at Wall Street, not at Ellis Island. The foreign -laborer is merely the tool in the hands of the promoter, indispensable -to, but not responsible for, his activities. The workmen come in _after_ -the promoter has launched his scheme. At least, I have never heard -of a development company or industrial corporation organized for the -purpose of providing jobs for a shipload of immigrants. That species of -philanthropy our benevolent millionaires have not hit on as yet. - -It is because the brutal method is the easiest that we are advised to -confiscate the tools of industry in order to check the rate of material -development. The more dignified way would be to restrain the captains of -industry, by asserting our authority over our own citizens in matters -affecting the welfare of the nation. An up-to-date mother, desiring -that her little boy should not play with the scissors, would be ashamed -to put them on a high shelf: she would train the boy not to touch them -though they lay within his reach. Why should the assemblage of mothers -and fathers who constitute the nation show less pride about their -methods than a lone woman in the nursery? - - * * * * * - -Outside the economic field, fear of the immigrant is perhaps oftenest -expressed in the sociological anxiety concerning assimilation. The -question is raised whether so many different races, products of a great -variety of physical and moral environments, can possibly fuse into a -harmonious nation, obedient to one law, devoted to one flag. Some people -see no indication of the future in the fact that race-blending has been -going on here from the beginning of our history, because the elements we -now get are said to differ from us more radically than the elements we -assimilated in the past. - -To allay our anxiety on this point, we have only to remind ourselves -that none of the great nations of Europe that present such a homogeneous -front to-day arose from a single stock; and the differences between -peoples in the times of the political beginnings of Europe were vastly -greater than the differences between East and West, North and South, -to-day. Moreover, the European nations were assorted at the point of -the sword, while in America the nations are coming together of their -own free will; and who can doubt that the spiritual forces of common -education, common interests and associations are more effective welding -agents than brute force? - -Doubts as to the assimilative qualities of current immigration do -not exist in the minds of the workers in settlements, libraries, and -schools. These people have a faith in the future of the strangers that -is based on long and intimate experience with foreigners from many -lands. When they are dealing with the normal product of immigration, the -people who come here following some dim star of higher destiny for their -children, the social missionaries are jubilantly sure of the result; and -face to face with the less promising material of the labor camps, where -thousands are brought together by the lure of the dollar and are kept -together by the devices of economic exploitation, the missionaries are -still undaunted. They have discovered that sanitation is a remedy for -the filth of the camp; that a spelling-book will make inroads on the -ignorance of the mob; that a lecture hall will diminish the business -of the saloon and the brothel; that substituting neighborly kindness -for brutal neglect will fan to a glow the divine spark in the coarsest -natures. And then there is the Goethals way of managing a labor camp. - -The remedy for the moral indigestion which unchecked immigration is said -to induce is in enlarging the organs of digestion. More evening classes, -more civic centers, more missionaries in the field, and above all more -neighborly interest on the part of the whole people. If immigration -were a green apple that we might take or leave, we might choose between -letting the apple alone or eating it and following it up with a dose of -our favorite household remedy. But immigration consists of masses of our -fellow men moving upon our country in pursuit of their share of human -happiness. Where human rights are involved, we have no choice. We have -to eat this green apple,--the Law of the Fathers enjoins it on us,--but -we have only ourselves to blame if we suffer from colic afterwards, -knowing the sure remedy. - -There is no lack of resources, material or spiritual, for carrying out -our half of the assimilation programme. We have money enough, brains -enough, inspiration enough. The only reason the mill is grinding so -slowly is that the miller is overworked and the hopper is choked. We -are letting a few do the work we should all be helping in. At the -settlements, devoted young men and women are struggling with classes -that are too large, or turning away scores of eager children, and their -fathers and mothers, too, because there are not enough helpers; and -between classes they spend their energies in running down subscribers, -getting up exhibitions to entice the rich men of the community to come -and have a look at their mission and drop something in the plate. - -But why should there be a shortage of helpers at the settlement? Have -not the rich men sons and daughters, as well as check-books? What are -those young people doing, dancing the nights away in ballrooms and -roof-gardens, season after season, year after year? They should be -down on their knees washing the feet of the pilgrims to the shrine of -liberty, binding up the wounds of the victims of European despotism, -teaching their little foreign brothers and sisters the first steps of -civilized life. - -Is it preposterous to ask that those who have leisure and wealth should -give of these stores when they are needed in the chief enterprise of -the nation? In what does patriotism consist if not in helping our -country succeed in her particular mission? Our mission--the elevation -of humanity--is one in which every citizen should have a share, or he -is not an American citizen in the spiritual sense. The poor must give -of their little--the workingman must not seek to monopolize the labor -market; and the rich must give of their plenty--their time, their -culture, their wealth. - -Certain texts in the restrictionist teachings are as insulting to our -well-to-do citizens as is the labor-monopoly preachment to the classes -who struggle for a living. The one assumes that the American workingman -puts his family before his country; the other--the cry that we cannot -assimilate so many strangers--implies that the country's reservoirs of -wealth and learning and unspent energy are monopolized by the well-to-do -for their own selfish uses. We know what schools and lectures and -neighborhood activities can do to promote assimilation. We cannot fail -if we multiply these agencies as fast as the social workers call for -them. The means for such extension of service are in the hands of the -rich. Whoever doubts our ability to assimilate immigration doubts the -devotion of our favored classes to the country's cause. - -Upon the rich and the poor alike rests the burden of the fulfillment -of the dream of the Fathers, and they are poor patriots who seek to -lift that burden from our shoulders instead of teaching us how to bear -it nobly. Fresh from the press, there lies on my table, as I write, a -review of an important work on immigration, in which the reviewer refers -to the "sincere idealists who still cling to the superstition that it is -opposition to some predestined divine purpose to suggest the rejection -of the 'poor and oppressed.'" It is just such teaching as that, which -discards as so much sentimental junk the ideas that made our great men -great, that is pushing us inch by inch into the quagmire of materialism. -If it is true that our rich care for nothing but their ease, and our -poor have no thought beyond their daily needs, it is due to the fact -that the canker of selfishness is gnawing at the heart of the nation. -The love of self, absorption in the immediate moment, are vices of the -flesh which fastened on us during the centuries of our agonized struggle -for brute survival. The remedy that God appointed for these evils, the -vision of our insignificant selves as a part of a great whole, whose -lifetime is commensurate with eternity, the materialists would shatter -and throw on the dump of human illusions. - -Who talks of superstition in a world built on superstition? Civilization -is the triumph of one superstition after another. At the very foundation -of our world is the huge superstition of the Fatherhood of God. In a -time when the peoples of the earth bowed down to gods of stone, gods of -wood, gods of brass and of gold, what more incomprehensible superstition -could have been invented than that of an invisible, omnipresent Creator -who made and ruled and disciplined the entire universe? One nation -ventured to adopt this superstition, and that nation is regarded as the -liberator of humanity from the slavery of bestial ignorance. Out of that -initial superstition followed, in logical sequence, the superstition of -the Brotherhood of Man, spread abroad by a son of the venturesome race; -succeeded by a refinement of the same notion, the idea that the Father -has no favorite children, but allots to each an equal portion of the -goods of His house. That is democracy, the latest superstition of them -all, the cornerstone of our Republic, and the model after which all the -nations are striving to pattern themselves. - - * * * * * - -Side by side in our public schools sit the children of many races, ours -and others. Week by week, month by month, year by year, the teachers -pick out the brightest pupils and fasten the medals of honor on their -breasts; and a startling discovery brings a cry to their lips: the -children of the foreigners outclass our own! They who begin handicapped, -and labor against obstacles, leave our own children far behind on the -road to scholarly achievement. In the business world the same strange -phenomenon is observed: conditions of life and work that would prostrate -our own boys and girls, these others use as a block from which to vault -to the back of prancing Fortune. In private enterprises or public, in -practical or visionary movements, these outsiders exhibit an intensity -of purpose, a passion of devotion that do not mark the normal progress -of our own well-cared-for children. - -What is the galvanizing force that impels these stranger children to -overmaster circumstances and bestride the top of the world? Is there -a special virtue in their blood that enables them to sweep over our -country and take what they want? It is a special virtue, yes: the virtue -of great purpose. The fathers and mothers of these children have not -weaned them from the habit of contemplating a Vision. They teach them -that, in pursuit of the Vision, bleeding feet do not count. They tell -them that many morrows will roll out of the lap of to-day, and they must -prepare themselves for a long and arduous march. - -That is the reading of the riddle, and if we do not want to be shamed by -the newcomers in our midst, we must silence those sophisticated teachers -of the people who ridicule or pass over with a smile the idea that we, -as a nation, are in pursuit of a Vision, and that those things are good -for us which further our quest, and the rest--even to bleeding feet--do -not count with us. It is the obliteration of the Vision that causes the -emptiness in the lives of our children which they are driven to fill -up with tinsel pleasures and meaningless activities of all sorts. The -best blood in the world is in their veins,--the blood of heroes and -martyrs, of dreamers and doers,--filtered through less than half a dozen -generations. If they do not arise and do great deeds all around us, -it is because their noble blood is clogged in their veins through the -infiltrations of materialism in the teachings of the day. - -For such an inconsequential whim as that men should be free to pray -in any way they choose, the Pilgrim Fathers betook themselves to a -wilderness peopled with savages, preferring to die by the tomahawk -rather than submit to clerical authority. The free admission of -immigrants is not half so rash an adventure, and the thing to be gained -by it is a more obvious good than that of freedom of worship. Even -a child can understand that it is better for human beings, be they -Russians or Italians or Greeks, to get into a country where there is -enough to eat and enough to wear, where nobody is permitted to abuse -anybody else, and where story-books are given away, than it is to -live in countries where starvation and cruel treatment is the lot of -multitudes. - -No man worthy of the name will deny that moral paralysis is a worse -evil than congestion of the labor market, and moral paralysis creeps -on us whenever we throw down the burden of duty to recline in the lap -of comfort. We shall see no prodigies in the ranks of our children -as long as we are ruled by the calculating commercial spirit which -takes nothing on faith, which spurns as impracticable whatever is not -easily negotiable, and repudiates our debt to the past as something -too fantastic for serious consideration. Before the present era of -prosperity set in, a scoffer who would brand as superstition the -ideas for which our forefathers died would not have spoken with the -expectation of being applauded, as he does to-day. Worldly things, like -comfort, position, security, and what is called success, have absorbed -our attention to such a degree that some of us have forgotten that there -is any good save the good of the flesh. Possessions have crowded out -aspirations, the applause of the world has become more necessary than -the inner satisfactions, and the whole horizon of life is filled with -the glaring bulk of an overwhelming prosperity. - -No wonder a prophet like Edward Everett Hale was moved to pray before -his assembled congregation, "Deliver us, O Lord! from our terrible -prosperity." He saw what the worship of fleshly good did to our -children: how it stripped from them the wings of higher ambition, and -shackled their feet, that should be marching on to the conquest of -spiritual worlds, with the weight of false successes. "Deliver us, O -Lord! from our terrible prosperity," that our children may have burdens -to lift, that they may learn to clutch at things afar, and their sight -grow strong with gazing after visions. "Deliver us, O Lord! from our -terrible prosperity," that simplicity of life may strip from us all -sophistication, till we learn to honor the dreamers in our midst, and -our prophets have a place in the councils of the nation. - - * * * * * - -Not the good of the flesh, but that of the spirit is the good we seek. -If it is good for the soul of this nation that we should walk in the -difficult path our Fathers trod, harkening only to the inner voice, -never pausing to hear the counsels of cold prudence, then assuredly it -is good for us to lift up the burdens of welcoming and caring for our -brothers from other lands, thus putting into fuller use the instrument -of democracy the Fathers invented,--our Republic, founded to promote -liberty and justice among men. - -Or if we despise the omens, refuse to take up the difficult task where -our predecessors left off, what awaits us? If we persist in pampering -ourselves as favorite children, and bedeck ourselves with prosperity's -coat of many colors, how long will it be before the less favored -brethren, covetous of our superabundance, will strip us and sell us -into the bondage of decadence? Immigration on a large scale into every -country as thinly populated as ours must go on, will go on, as long as -there are other countries with denser populations and scantier resources -for sustaining them. Right through history, the needy peoples have gone -in and taken possession of the fat lands of their neighbors. Formerly -these invasions were effected by force; nowadays they are largely -effected by treaties, laws, international understandings. But always -the tide flows from the lands of want to the lands of plenty. Nature -is behind this movement; man has no power to check it permanently. We -in America may, if we choose, shut ourselves up in the midst of our -plenty and gorge till we are suffocated, but that will only postpone -the day of a fair division of our country's riches. We shall grow inert -from fullness, drunk with the wine of prosperity, and presently some -culminating folly, such as every degenerate nation sooner or later -commits, will leave us at the mercy of the first comers, and our spoils -will be divided among the watchers outside our gates. - -These things will not happen in a day, nor in a generation, nor in a -century, but have we no care for the days that will follow ours? When -we talk about providing for to-morrow, let us, in the name of all the -wisdom that science has so laboriously amassed, think of that distant -to-morrow when the things we now do will have passed into history, to -stand for the children of that time either as a glorious example or a -fearful warning. If we settle the immigration question selfishly, we -shall surely pay the penalty for selfishness. And the rod will smite -not our own shoulders, but the shoulders of countless innocents of our -begetting. - -The law that the hungry shall feed where there is plenty is not the only -one which we defy when we turn away the strangers now at our gates. -A narrow immigration policy is in opposition also to a primary law -of evolution, the law of continuous development along a given line -until a climax is reached. Now the evolution of society has been from -small isolated groups to larger intermingling ones. In the beginning -of political history, every city was a world unto itself, and labored -at its own salvation behind fortified walls that shut out the rest of -the world. Presently cities were merged into states, states united into -confederacies, confederacies into empires. Peoples at first unknown -to each other even by name came to pass in and out of each other's -territories, merging their interests, their cultures, their bloods. - -This process of the removal of barriers, begun through conquests, -commerce, and travels, is approaching completion in our own era, through -the influences of science and invention. "The world is my country" is a -word in many a mouth to-day. East and West hold hands; North and South -salute each other. There remain a few ancient prejudices to overcome, a -few stumps of ignorance to uproot, before all the nations of the earth -shall forget their boundaries, and move about the surface of the earth -as congenial guests at a public feast. - -This, indeed, will be the proof of the ancient saying, "He hath made -of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the -earth." It is coming, inevitably it is coming. We in America are in a -position to hasten the climax of the drama of unification. If, instead -of hastening it, we seek to delay it, we step aside from the path of the -world's progress. - -America is not God's last stand. That which is to be is conditioned by -what has been. Sometime, somewhere, the Plan that the centuries have -brooded over will come perfect out of the shell of Time. I am not afraid -that humanity will stop short of its inevitable climax, but I am so -jealous for the glory of my country that I long to have America retain -the leadership which she has held so nobly for a while. I desire that -the mantle of the New England prophets should rest on the shoulders of -our own children. - -Of the many convincing arguments that have been advanced in support of -the proposition that immigration is good for us, I shall quote only one, -in the words of Grace Abbott, of Chicago, when she sums up a study of -eleven immigrant nationalities from southern and eastern Europe. "It -was the faith in America and not the occasional criticism that touched -me most," she writes, referring to the sayings of the foreigners. "I -felt then, as I have felt many times when I have met some newcomer -who has expected a literal fulfillment of our democratic ideals, that -fortunately for America we had great numbers who were coming to remind -us of the 'promise of American life,' and insisting that it should not -be forgotten." - -All the rest of the arguments--utilitarian, humanitarian, and -scientific--I willingly omit. For I do not want the immigrant to be -admitted because he can help us dig ditches and build cities and fight -our battles in general. I beg that we make this a question of principle -first, and of utility afterwards. Whether immigration is good for us or -not, I am very certain that the decadence of idealism is bad for us, and -that is what I fear more than the restrictionist fears the immigrant. - -It should strengthen us in our resolution to abide by the Law of the -Fathers--the law of each for all, and all for each--if we find that the -movement of democracy to which they imparted such a powerful impulse -appears to be in the direct path of social evolution. But even if -such omens were lacking I should still pray for strength to cling to -the ideal which is defined in the opening words of the Declaration -of Independence. For I perceive that here, in the trial at Ellis -Island, we are put to the test of the fiery furnace. It was easy to -preach democracy when the privileges we claimed for ourselves no alien -hordes sought to divide with us. But to-day, when humanity asks us -to render up again that which we took from the English in the name -of humanity, do we dare to stand by our confession of faith? Those -who honor the golden images of self-interest and materialism threaten -us with fearful penalties in case we persist in our championship of -universal brotherhood. They are binding our hands and feet with the -bonds of selfish human fears. The fiery glow of the furnace is on our -faces--and the world holds its breath. - - * * * * * - -Once the thunders of God were heard on Mount Sinai, and a certain people -heard, and the blackness of idolatry was lifted from the world. Again -the voice of God, the Father, shook the air above Bunker Hill, and the -grip of despotism was loosened from the throat of panting humanity. - -Let the children of the later saviors of the world be as faithful as the -children of the earlier saviors, and perhaps God will speak again in -times to come. - - -THE END - - - The Riverside Press - CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS - U . S . A - - - - - [ Transcriber's Note: - - The following is a list of corrections made to the original. - The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one. - - Introduction vii - Introduction ix - - III. The Fiery Furnace 101 - III. The Fiery Furnace 99 - - (6) See Article by Achad Ha'am, _American Hebrew_, June, 21, 1907. - (7) See Article by Achad Ha'am, _American Hebrew_, June 21, 1907. - - flesh which fastened on us during the centuries of our agonzied struggle - flesh which fastened on us during the centuries of our agonized struggle - - ] - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's They Who Knock at Our Gates, by Mary Antin - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THEY WHO KNOCK AT OUR GATES *** - -***** This file should be named 40535-8.txt or 40535-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/5/3/40535/ - -Produced by Jana Srna and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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