of astonishment and apprehension.10 Through this inlet pauperism threatens us with the most overwhelming consequences."

In 1835, a paper entitled "Imminent Dangers to the Institutions of the United States of America through Foreign Immigration," after speaking with praise of the immigration of the past, turns to the fear of that day as follows: "Now immigration is the access of weakness from the ignorant victims of the priest ridden slaves of Ireland and Germany, or the outcast tenants of the poor houses and prisons of Europe."

For 1845, these are the words, quoted from a speech at the meeting of the Delegates of the Native American National convention, held in Philadelphia, July 14, 1845:12

It is an incontrovertible truth that the civil institutions of the United States of America have been seriously affected, and that they now stand in imminent peril from the rapid and enormous increase in the body of residents of foreign birth, imbued with foreign feelings, and of an ignorant and immoral character. The almshouses of Europe are emptied upon our coast, and this by our own invitation; not casually or to a trivial extent, but systematically and upon a constantly increasing scale.

These "fears" were referred to on the floor of Congress as having to do with a class of immigrants "which today even the most rabid restrictionists refer to as desirable." This was hardly a fair estimate I should say; for though the cry may have been for "Nordic" races, still "Nordic" almshouses and prisons would hardly stand high in that "most rabid restrictionist's" regard.

However, it surely is true, that as these former fears eventually turned themselves into action and legislation, so the fears of today have made men look about them to find what plans may best be made, what tools may best be used. That a tool which within the last few years had proved its worth on rather a gigantic scale, should be one of those considered, was most natural. If the immigration of the future must be more highly selected than that of the past had been, what had already been successfully used in making a broad differentiation in large groups, was bound to be thought of. The mental testing in our army camps had done this. Could any such procedure be adopted to help us make decisions in regard to the aliens landing on our shores. With this thought came fairly little practical suggestion as to

how such adaptation might be made. There is little reference as to the differences between the two problems to be solved, the one a successful working scheme for allotting the proper men to the proper grade of usefulness in the army, the other, facing the question not merely of evaluating the immigrants, but also of determining what you are evaluating them for.

1 "Race Mixture in the Roman Empire." Tenney Frank. Am. Hist. Rev., July, 1916, pp. 689-708.

* "Immigration." Henry Pratt Fairchild, 1918, p. 183. Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration, 1922, p. 24 for figures.

"Special Report on Immigration." Edward Young, Ph.D., Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, 1871, p. v.

"The Medical Examination of Mentally Defective Aliens." L. L. Williams, M.D. Am. Jour. of Insanity, 71 (October, 1914), no. 2, pp. 257-268.

Op. cit., note 3, p. vi.

"Racial Differences in Mental Tests." R. S. Woodworth. Science, 1910, N. S. 31, pp. 171-186.

7 "Intelligence Testing." Rudolf Pintner, 1923, p. 350.

"Report Commissioner General of Immigration, 1922, p. 108.

• Congressional Record, December 23, 1920, p. 730.

10 Quoted from the Second Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism in New York City (1819).

See note 9. For conditions see Fairchild, "Immigration," p. 64 and following.

12 See note 9.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF CERTAIN ARTICLES BY WRITERS NOT IN

IMMIGRATION WORK

We may look briefly at what some of the writers along this line have said. The first quotation comes from an article entitled "Mental Tests for Immigrants" written in May, 1922. Two sentences are given.

The psychological tests which in the army developed millions of men2 of all grades of intelligence, education, and social qualities into the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen, has furnished us with the necessary yardstick to measure the desirability of the immigrant. The same test will reveal to us, with relative precision those hidden qualities which will demonstrate the fitness of the intending immigrant for citizenship in this country, and will exclude those who are unfit.

Dr. Sweeney, the writer, then goes on to say that these tests are "equally applicable" to immigrants, yet he makes no mention of standards and conditions of admission, of racial traits, of the wide range of difficulties involved in handling a mass of people who are under great stress of excitement, and who represent all ages from babies but a few days old to men and women of such advanced years, that everything seems moving in a haze before their eyes as they struggle toward a supporting son somewhere in these unknown and little understood surroundings.

Dr. Sweeney says further, "the examination of immigrants at the post of embarkation is feasible, inexpensive and simple;" but he does not say whether diplomatic agreements have been reached on the question of examination at a foreign port, or whether they may be reached. He does not touch upon the point as to whether or not such examinations, if possible, would in any way be satisfactory substitutes for the examinations upon our own shores. Nor does he suggest that the army "Beta" examination to which he definitely refers, is after all, a pencil and paper medium, one little known to peasants, whose life may have been primitive beyond all believing. The rest of the article deals with the results of the

8

Army Tests, and the opinion is outspoken against the so called "New Immigration," that is, the immigration coming from countries lying in the south and east of Europe.

Dr. Sweeney's conclusion so based, runs as follows, the figures referring directly to the army statistics:

We cannot seriously be opposed to the immigrants from Great Britain, Holland, Canada, Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia, where the proportion of the higher groups is above 4 per cent, and reaching a maximum of 19 per cent as in the case of England. We can, however, strenuously object to immigration3 from Italy with its proportion at the lower end of the scale of 63.4 per cent, of Russia with 50.4; of Poland with 69.9, of Greece with 43.5 and of Turkey with 41.6 per cent. The Slavic and Latin countries show a marked contrast in intelligence with the western and northern European group. It is largely from this source that the stream

of intelligent citizenship is polluted.

Prof. Robert

This was the cry that began to be heard. DeCourcy Ward, writing in October 1922, voices somewhat the same beliefs. He also emphasizes one or two most interesting and decidedly different points. He shows, for instance, the danger of having public opinion affected by press stories of individual hardship, "fed," as he says, to the press by those wishing unrestricted immigration. In speaking of the need both of numerical restriction and of wise and careful selection, he quotes a resolution of great interest, passed at the "last annual" session of the Farmers' National Congress where delegates were present from over 300 states: "Resolved: That we are unutterably opposed to the proposed diversion and distribution of aliens over the farming districts until immigration is rigidly restricted, numerically or otherwise." The "otherwise," apparently means by some qualitative measure.

In November, 1922, Professor Kimball Young5 published a report on "Intelligence Tests of Immigrant Groups." Three or four studies made during the preceding five years, and having to do with racial stocks in various parts of the United States are here reviewed.

First come the Army Test results, where we find the table by races, showing high and low percentages, again quoted, setting off the North and West of Europe against the South and East.

The second study quoted, is one by V. Dickinson, an unpublished Ph.D. thesis at Stanford University-where the Binet test was given to small numbers of first grade children.

I quote the table as given (table 1). Young adds, that unfortunately the "Probable Errors" of these distributions are not at hand.

The third study, by Mildred Thompson, five years later, an A.M. thesis at Stanford, also unpublished, retested as many as possible of these same children with the results shown in table 2. "A Study of Race Difference, in New York City" by Miss Murdock was the fourth work reviewed. Here the Pressey tests were used and the races were Hebrew, Italian, American and Negro.

Young's own study, made in 1919-1920 completed the list, as the fifth report. Here "Army Alpha" and a modified "Beta" were used, and the children tested were all twelve years old, no attention being paid to school grade. Professor Young adds, however, that aside from mental tests themselves, he found that the actual grade location was the best single criterion of a child's intelligence. In his "South European and Latin" group 90 per cent of the children were born in America, in the "North and West European" ancestry group, practically all were born here. These children. were tested in small groups and at each session all racial stocks were present, a fact which is of special interest to this study, as the