Changing Immigration.— This marks the end of the first great epoch in American life. This definitely altered the source from which immigration came, as well as the economic con ditions of America. The "old immigration' was a home-seeking, land-owning, agricultural immigration. It was primarily Anglo-Saxon, and agricultural as well. The "new so called, comes from south and central Europe. It was primarily agricultural at home; it became almost exclusively indus trial in America. It came in response to economic conditions in. this country, just as had the earlier immigration from the north. But the suction which drew the new immigra tion was high wages in the rapidly expanding industrial and mining centres of the East. It did not go to the land; not because it was un willing to, but because the land was all gone. It was compelled to go to the cities and mining camps, where it congregates in race groups and settlements and remains more or less segregated from American life and institutions. The new immigration created the immigration problem and the movement for restriction, wluth was traceable to several things: 1. Race hostility and the protest of those descended from Anglo-Saxon and Teuton stock to the rapid increase of Italian, Slavic and Oriental peoples.
2. Religious protest against the large Catho lic infusion from central and southern Europe.
3. Economic protest from American labor against the competition of cheap European labor willing to accept — temporarily at least a lower standard of living than that to which American labor was accustomed.
Immigration The passing of free Ian , the economic pressure of vast num bers of unorganized workers, together with racial and religious influences, led to a move ment for the restriction of immigration. Other forces contributed. Mine owners, contractors and employers in the United States sent agents to Europe who brought in great bodies of men who broke strikes or destroyed the solidarity of labor; the steamship companies stimulated im migration; while European countries dumped undesirables of all kinds on America. But the most powerful forces behind the movement for the restriction of immigration were economic and racial.
Early restrictive legislation was not in fact restrictive. It was selective. No attempt was made to limit the number of people who could come to this country; the attempt was to bar out those who were considered undesirable be cause of economic, moral or political reasons. During the fiscal year ending 30 June 1914, 33,041 persons were debarred as feebleminded, tuberculous, afflicted with loathsome contagious disease; as beggars, paupers or likely to become a public charge; as contract laborers, criminals, polygamists, anarchists, prostitutes and those coming for an immoral purpose; or for other reasons. Of this number the great majority were excluded on economic grounds: 15,784 being excluded as paupers or likely to become a public charge; 4,531 as imbeciles or afflicted with some disease; 2,793 as contract laborers; 755 as criminals; 31 as polygamists; 1 an archist; 385 prostitutes; 354 for attempting to bring in prostitutes or females for an immoral purpose, and 322 under the provisions of the Chinese Exclusion Act. There were 6,537 ex chided under surgeons' certificates for defective mentality or physical unfitness to earn a living. The excluded and debarred persons in 1914 constituted 2 per cent of the total immigration for the year.
Restrictive On I May 1917 a new law went into effect, passed 5 Feb. 1917, whose avowed purpose was to limit immigra tion. It was avowedly directed against immi
gration from southern, central and eastern Europe. Immigration was to be limited by the "literacy test,' which excluded all aliens over 16 years of age, physically capable of reading, who cannot read the English language or some other language or dialect, including Hebrew or Yiddish.' There are many exceptions to the literacy test which permit .the admission of otherwise inadmissible aliens, such as a father or grandfather over 55 years of age, wife, mother, grandmother, unmarried or widowed daughter, and children under 16 years of age. The law also mandatorily immigrants from a great part of Asia. In addition the head tax was increased from $4 to $8.
Old and New Up to about 1890, as stated above, the bulk of the immigra tion to the United States came from northern Europe. Since that time immigration has been predominantly from southern and central Europe. In 1914, in which fiscal year the total number of immigrant aliens numbered 1,218,480, the races and principal countries of Europe and Asia contributing to our immigration were the following: Italians (South) 251.612 Italians (North) 44,802 Hebrews 138.051 Polish 122,657 Crotisins and Slovenians 37,284 Lithuanians 21,584 Magyars 44.538 Roumanians 24.070 Russians 44.957 Ruthenian 36,727 Slovaks 25.819 Spaniards 11,064 Syrians 9,023 Bohemians 9,928 Armenians 7.785 Bulgarians. Servians and Montenegrins 15,454 Greeks 45.881 Total 890,669 Immigration from the races of northern Europe was as follows: Dutch and Flemish 12,566 English 51.746 Finnish 12,805 French 18,166 Garman' 79,871 Irish 33.898 Scandinavian 36.053 Scotch 18.997 Walsh 2,558 Total 266,660 At the outbreak of the European War there were nearly 15,000,000 perions of foreign birth in the United States. Of these the great majority were of the new immigration from southern and central Europe. And they were almost exclusively engaged in industry, and especially in the unskilled trades. The new im migration, too, is largely urban. It settled in the great industrial cities and in the mining regions. The population of New York, Cleve land, Chicago, Boston and other industrial cen tres, is from 73 per cent to 78 per cent of per sons of foreign birth or those immediately de scended from persons of foreign birth.
very Illiteracy is in the countries from which the new immigration of recent years has come. Illiteracy of the population over 10 years of age is in Bulgaria, 65.5 per cent; Greece, 57.2 per cent ; Hungary, 33.3 per cent; Italy, 37 per cent; Roumania, 60 per cent; Rus sia, 69 per cent; Servia, 78.9 per cent; Spain, 58.7 per cent. On the other hand illiteracy in Denmark falls to 2 per cent; in England and Wales, 1.8 per cent; Germany, .05 per cent; Sweden, .2 per cent; Switzerland, .3 per cent. The new immigration law will automatically exclude immigration from those countries of southern and central Europe from which immi gration in recent years has been particularly heavy.
Immigration and the The European War has suspended immigration. Whereas im migration in the years immediately preceding the war rose to the high-water mark of an average of 1,200,000 annually, since the out break of the war it has steadily diminished in numbers. The total volume has been as fol lows: In 1915, 326,700; 1916, 298,826; 1917, 295, 403. This immigration has come almost ex chisively from the Scandinavian countries, from Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal and from the other non-belligerent countries of Europe, and from Mexico. FREDERIC C. HOWE, Commissioner of Immigration for the Port of New York.