WHAT NEXT IN IMMIGRATION By Professor ROBERT DE C. WARD HARVARD UNIVERSITY THE IMPERATIVE NECESSITY OF FURTHER "PERMANENT" HE present 3 per cent. immigration restriction law will ex THE pire on June 30, 1924. What shall take its place? The conditions which led to its adoption will still exist. We are facing a permanent tendency toward rapidly increasing and steadily deteriorating immigration, and millions of prospective immigrants overseas are impatiently waiting for the thirtieth of June, 1924, when they will rush in, in a seething chaotic mob, unless Congress takes steps to stop them. THE OPPOSITION TO RESTRICTION To any program for restriction there is certain to be active, well-organized and heavily financed opposition. This opposition is centered in (1) certain racial groups which are interested, not in the future of America, but in the increase of their own race in America; (2) employers who want foreign labor so cheap that it is dear at any price; who put pocketbook above patriotism; (3) the steamship companies, who believe themselves to have vested rights in the United States as a dumping-ground for their human cargoes, and (4) those who have been well termed "the incurable sentimentalists." Every effort is now being made to misconstrue our present laws; to distort and misrepresent their effects; to make them unworkable and unpopular. These laws are being subjected to organized attack by "interested" individuals, alien racial groups and hyphenated societies, and certain influential newspapers which carry heavy steamship advertising. All of these are bent on making any restriction whatever appear unreasonable, unjust and inhumane. It is very important that the character, the motives and the tactics of this opposition should be known. OUR GENERAL IMMIGRATION LAW MUST BE MAINTAINED AND ENFORCED There can be no question that our general immigration law of 1917 must be maintained. This law names some thirty classes of Vol. XV.-36. aliens who are excludable on mental, physical, moral or economic grounds. These include the insane, the idiot and the feebleminded; those who have loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases; criminals; prostitutes; persons physically incapacitated from earning a living, illiterates, etc. In fact the enumeration of the undesirable classes is so complete that, if the law had been and were always rigidly enforced, our immigration "problem" would give us far less trouble than it does. Our law bars criminals, but our court and institution records show a large excess of foreignborn. Our law bars the insane, but our insane hospitals, especially in the northeastern States, are filled with aliens. Our law bars those suffering from loathsome and dangerous contagious diseases, and those suffering from physical disability that may affect ability to earn a living, but political "pull" often suffices to admit over the doctor's certificate, against the express provision for exclusion. Our law debars paupers; yet an insignificant number of aliens is debarred on these grounds, although the majority of those now arriving come without money, and are not productive laborers. In a recent paper on the deportation system of several States, Dr. H. H. Laughlin, of the Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, N. Y., brought together some startling facts. A recent survey shows that in 1916 the several states expended on an average of 17.3 per cent. of their total governmental expenditures in maintaining custodial and charitable institutions. This percentage varied from 5.4 in Alabama to 30.5 in Massachusetts. A survey of 460 state institutions for the several types of the socially inadequate, with a total of 210,835 inmates, recently (1922) completed by the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization of the House of Representatives, found 21.14 per cent. of these fifth of a million inmates to be of foreign birth and 44.09 per cent. to be of foreign stock-that is, of foreign birth or who have at least one parent foreign born. Thus if, on the average, it costs the same in the institutions to maintain native-born and foreign-born inmates, then currently the several states are expending approximately 7.62 per cent. of their total revenues in caring for degenerate and dependent human foreign stock. This is the logical outgrowth of the asylum idea which has pervaded the American immigration policy. The proper enforcement of our general immigration law involves not only a very careful and deliberate scrutiny of all arriving aliens, but also a systematic and thorough round-up of all aliens already in this country who are deportable because they have become public charges, or who have been found to belong to certain other specified classes of undesirables which are by law subject to deportation. Never yet since the law of 1917 has been on our statute books has it been strictly enforced. It is to the credit of the present administration that a distinct improvement in this respect was made during the past year. And it should be remembered that strict enforcement leads to a certain extent to selfenforcement, for the more aliens are debarred as undesirable, the fewer such attempt to get in. THE PERCENTAGE LIMITATION MUST BE MADE PERMANENT The present 3 per cent. law is not perfect, but it has on the whole worked successfully, and has fully justified its enactment. It is reasonably generous in permitting the reuniting of families; in allowing unrestricted entry to tourists and other excepted classes, and it has kept our ports open to a fairly considerable inflow of newcomers, for it should be remembered that it permits an annual immigration of over 350,000. It has undoubtedly worked hardships in some cases, but most of the newspaper stories of such hardships have either been intentionally exaggerated, or have been untrue. Public sympathy is easily aroused by a single instance of real or fictitious hardship. The far more vital problem of how the present character of immigration is to affect the American race of the future is more remote, and attracts less attention. The administration of the law is fortunately in the hands of officials who are enforcing it with justice and humanity. There is one point in connection with the 3 per cent. law which is often lost sight of. For a good many years before the war, aliens from southern and eastern Europe largely outnumbered those from northern and western Europe. Under the new law these numbers are nearly equalized, so that if all nationalities fill their allotted quotas, the so-called "newer" immigration can not contribute more than about one half of our annual inflow. This fact is biologically of great significance. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1922, deducting emigrants from immigrants, we gained in Nordic stock, and lost in the natives of southern and eastern Europe. Those who attribute solely to the present percentage restriction the need of labor in certain industries are either wholly ignorant of the facts, or are intentionally trying to mislead the public in the effort to break down all restrictions and to flood the country with cheap labor. In this connection it should be realized that (1) there has been a very considerable emigration of alien labor during the recent period of business depression and unemployment; (2) if all countries filled up their quotas, which they have not been doing during the past year, there would be an annual inflow of over 350,000; (3) the countries of northern Europe have fallen much farther below the quotas than those of southern and eastern Europe, most of the latter having exhausted their quotas, thus showing that the intelligent and skilled labor of northern Europe has not been disposed to emigrate to the United States; (4) the immigration of aliens who are natives of any countries of the New World is not subject to the provisions of the law; (5) a considerable proportion of our immigration under the 3 per cent. law has been made up of sweat-shop workers, peddlers and small shop-keepers, not of strong, sturdy, intelligent laborers. This is clearly not the fault of the law, but results from the present tendencies of immigration. Thus the "need of labor" is by no means to be attributed solely, or even largely, to the percentage law. Furthermore, there is little doubt that northern and western Europe will fill up its quotas during the coming year, as immigration from those countries is increasing. The relation of immigration restriction to the rising scale of wages was so clearly stated by Honorable Albert Johnson during the closing days of the session of Congress recently ended that we can not do better than to quote from his remarks on this point. Every good American sympathizes with workingmen in their effort to obtain decent wages and decent conditions. . . . Restriction is an absolutely necessary supplement to a protective tariff. Immigration must be curtailed until all workers, native and foreign-born, whether in the basic or other industries, get wages and have conditions commensurate with American standards and ideals if we are to maintain those standards, ideals, and, in fact, our very civilization. Just as soon as wages in those industries rise to the point where the breadwinner can rear and support his family in keeping with American standards, the native-born will reinvade those industries from which they have been driven by the ruinous competition of imported cheap labor, often inducted into conditions amounting to slavery, and when wages do rise to that level the native supply will quite meet the demand, just as native labor does in every other country. This is the situation in a nut-shell. As a result of the awakening on the part of our people to the effects of the practically unrestricted new immigration from southern and eastern Europe and Asia, for the first time, and against bitter opposition, the principle of numerical limitation has been established by overwhelming majorities in Congress in a manner which gives equal treatment to all the nationalities which make up our population as far as is consistent with the maintenance of what we know as America. This principle, which has been long and strongly advocated by leading authorities on immigration, should be made our permanent immigration policy. Our own country, foreign countries, the steamship companies-all have become more or less adjusted to a definite numerical limitation of our alien immigrants. The machinery is in operation, and works remarkably smoothly, as much so as any restrictive legislation ever works. In reenacting a percentage law, whether it be the present 3 per cent., or the 2 per cent. which has been suggested in certain bills lately introduced into Congress; and whether the percentage quotas be based on the census of 1910 or an earlier census, it would be wise to make the law somewhat more elastic. Reasonable provision should be made to prevent the breaking up of families. This could readily be accomplished by treating the immediate members of a family as a unit whenever some members could be admitted without exceeding the quota while the remaining ones would otherwise be excluded because exceeding the quota. Exceptions in favor of bona-fide tourists, of students and of professional classes are necessary. Further, a maximum number of 500 or 600 could wisely be set for the admissible aliens from certain countries whose quotas are very small under the 3 per cent. provision, and from which we receive highly desirable immigrants. The quota from Australia, for example, in the present fiscal year is only 279 and that from New Zealand and Pacific Islands is only 80. With these changes, a percentage law such as the present one would involve very few hardships. At the same time if the exceptions were carefully drawn, there would be no danger of our being swamped by any such flood of aliens as swept in upon us before the war, and as will, in even greater volume come in again unless we take steps to prevent it. It can not be too strongly emphasized that, while the original argument in favor of the 3 per cent. law was economic, the real, fundamental, lasting reason for its continuance is biological. This side of the matter was so clearly and forcibly presented in an editorial note in the October number of the World's Work that we can not do better than to quote that statement here: If America is to realize its fullest possibilities, it must exercise the principle of selection. Up to the present time it has ignored this method. Our policy of opening our gates to all comers has really meant that we have recognized no distinctions among peoples, that we have refused to admit that one presented better material for citizenship than another, and that we have pinned our faith on the existence of some wonder-working alchemy in the American atmosphere which could transmute an inferior race into a superior But the teaching of all history, as well as the experiments of the biological laboratory, show the absurdity of any such easy-going philosophy, and the nation has reached the point where it should base its future upon scientific and historical fact. one. This is really the argument in favor of the three per cent. immigration law. It does not directly apply this principle of selection, it is true; that is, it does not in so many words limit immigration in future to particular races and particular nations. Yet indirectly it does accomplish a result which is not dissimilar. It takes the population of 1910 as representing the proportions of different peoples which, under the practical limitations of the problem, may be regarded as furnishing the desirable racial composition of the future United States. The great majority of that population came from the countries of northwestern Europe-Germany, Scandinavia, Great Britain and Ireland. There are few who have studied the matter who do not regard these |