Society: Its Origin and Development Part 16

Personal degeneracy tends to perpetuate itself in the family. Drunken, depraved, or feeble-minded parents usually produce children with the same inheritances or tendencies; family quarrelling and an utter absence of moral training do not foster the development of character.

A slum environment in the city strengthens the evil tendencies of such a home, as it counterbalances the good effects of a wholesome home environment. Mental and moral degeneracy is always present in society, and if unchecked spreads widely; physical degeneracy is so common as to be alarming, resulting in dangerous forms of disease, imbecility, and insanity. Society is waking to the need of protecting itself against degeneracy in all its forms, and of cutting out the roots of the evil from the social body.

READING REFERENCES

NEARING: _Social Religion_, pages 104-157.

COMMONS: "Is Cla.s.s Conflict in America Growing?" art. in _American Journal of Sociology_, 13: 756-783.

HENDERSON: _Social Elements_, pages 276-283.

NEARING AND WATSON: _Economics_, pages 185-193.

WARNER: _American Charities_, pages 59-117, 276-292.

PATTEN: _Social Basis of Religion_, pages 107-133.

BLACKMAR AND GILLIN: _Outlines of Sociology_, pages 499-512.

CHAPTER x.x.x

THE IMMIGRANT

228. =The Immigrant Problem.=--An increasing proportion of the city's population is foreign born or of foreign parentage. For a hundred years America has been the goal of the European peasant's ambition, the magnet that has drawn him from interior hamlet and ocean port.

Migration has been one of the mighty forces that have been reshaping society. The American people are being altered by it, and it is a question whether America will maintain its national characteristics if the volume of immigration continues unchecked. Europe has been deeply affected, and the people who const.i.tute the migrating ma.s.s have been changed most of all. And the end is not yet.

The immigrant const.i.tutes one of the problems of society. Never has there been in history such a race movement as that which has added to one nation a population of more than twenty million in a half century.

It is a problem that affects the welfare of races and continents outside of America, as well as here, and that affects millions yet unborn, and millions more who might have been born were it not for the unfavorable changes that have taken place because of the shift in population. It is a problem that has to do with all phases of group life--its economic, educational, political, moral, and religious interests. It is a problem that demands the united wisdom of all who care for the welfare of humanity in the days to come. The heart of the problem is first whether the immigrant shall be permitted to crowd into this country unhindered, or whether sterner barriers shall be placed in the way of the increasing mult.i.tude; secondly, if restrictions are decided upon what shall be their nature, and whose interests shall be considered first--those of the immigrant, of the countries involved, or of world progress as a whole?

The problem can be approached best by considering (1) the history of immigration, (2) the present facts about immigration, (3) the tendencies and effects of immigration. Migrations have occurred everywhere in history, and they are progressing in these days in other countries besides the United States. Canada is adding thousands every year, parts of South America are already German or Italian because of immigration, in lesser numbers emigrants are going to the colonies that the European nations, especially the English, have located all over the world. European immigration to North America has been so prolonged and abundant that it const.i.tutes the particular phenomenon that most deserves attention. Other nations have fought wars to secure additional territory for their people; the immigrant occupation of America has been a peaceful conquest.

229. =The Irish.=--Although the early occupation of this continent was by immigration from Europe, after the Revolution the increase of population was almost entirely by natural growth. Large families were the rule and a hardy people was rapidly gaining the mastery of the eastern part of the continent. It was not until 1820 that the new immigration became noticeable and the government took legislative action to regulate it (1819). Between 1840 and 1880 three distinct waves of immigration broke on American sh.o.r.es. The first was Irish.

The Irish peasants were starving from a potato famine that extended over several years in the forties, and they poured by the thousand into America, the women becoming domestic servants and the men the unskilled laborers that were needed in the construction camps. They built roads, dug ca.n.a.ls, and laid the first railways. Complaint was made that they lowered the standards of wages and of living, that their intemperate, improvident ways tended to complicate the problem of poverty, and that their Catholic religion made them dangerous, but they continued to come until the movement reached its climax, in 1851, when 272,000 pa.s.sed through the gates of the Atlantic ports. The Irish-American has become an important element of the population, especially in the Eastern cities, and has shown special apt.i.tude for politics and business.

230. =Germans and Scandinavians.=--The Irishman was followed by the German. He was attracted by-the rich agricultural lands of the Middle West and the opportunities for education and trade in the towns and cities. German political agitators who had failed to propagate democracy in the revolutionary days of 1848 made their way to a place where they could mould the German-American ideas. While the Irish settled down in the seaboard towns, the Germans went West, and const.i.tuted one of the solid groups that was to build the future cosmopolitan nation. The German was followed by the Scandinavian. The people of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were increasing in number, but their rough, cold country could not support them all. As the Nors.e.m.e.n took to the sea in the ninth century, so the Scandinavian did in the nineteenth, but this time in a peaceful migration toward the setting sun. They began coming soon after the Civil War, and by 1882 they numbered thirteen per cent of the total immigration. They were a specially valuable a.s.set, for they were industrious agriculturists and occupied the valuable but unused acres of the Northwest, where they planted the wheat belt of the United States, learned American ways and founded American inst.i.tutions, and have become one of the best strains in the American blood.

231. =The New Immigrants.=--If the United States could have continued to receive mainly such people as these from northern Europe, there would be little cause to complain of the volume of immigration, but since 1880 the tide has been setting in from southern and eastern Europe and even from Asia, bringing in large numbers of persons who are not of allied stock, have been little educated, and do not understand or fully sympathize with American principles and ideals, and for the most part are unskilled workmen. These have come in such enormous numbers as to const.i.tute a real menace and to compel attention.

TABLE OF IMMIGRATION FOR THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 30, 1914

(Races numbering less than 10,000 each are not included)

+--------------------------------------------------------+ | South Italians 251,612 | | Jews 138,051 | | Poles 122,657 | | Germans 79,871 | | English 51,746 | | Greeks 45,881 | | Russians 44,957 | | North Italians 44,802 | | Hungarians 44,538 | | Croatians and Slovenians 37,284 | | Ruthenians 36,727 | | Scandinavians 36,053 | | Irish 33,898 | | Slovaks 25,819 | | Roumanians 24,070 | | Lithuanians 21,584 | | Scotch 18,997 | | French 18,166 | | Bulgarians, Servians, and Montenegrins 15,084 | | Mexicans 13,089 | | Finns 12,805 | | Dutch and Flemings 12,566 | | Spanish 11,064 | +--------------------------------------------------------+

232. =Italians and Slavs.=--Most numerous of these are the Italians.

At home they feel the pressure of population, the pinch of small income, and heavy taxation. Here it costs less to be a citizen and there are more opportunities for a livelihood. Gangs of Italian laborers have taken the place of the Irish. Italians have established themselves in the small trades, and some of them find a place in the factory. Two-thirds of them are from the country, and they find opportunity to use their agricultural knowledge as farm laborers. In California and Louisiana they have established settlements of their own, and in the East they make a foreign fringe on the outskirts of suburban towns. North Italy is more progressive than the south and the qualities of the people are of higher grade, but the bulk of emigration is from the region of Naples and Sicily. Among the southern Italians the percentage of illiteracy is high, they have the reputation of being slippery in business relations, and not a few anarchists and criminals are found among them. It is not reasonable to expect that these people will measure up to the level of the steady, reliable, and hard-working American or north European, especially as large numbers of them are birds of pa.s.sage spending the winter in Italy or going home for a time when business in America is depressed.

Yet the great majority of those who settle here are peaceable, ambitious, and hard-working men and women.

Alongside the Italian is the Slav. There are so many varieties of him that he is confusing. He comes from the various provinces of Russia, from the conglomerate empire of Austro-Hungary, and from the Balkan states. In physique he is st.u.r.dier than the Italian and mentally he is less excitable and nervous, but he drinks heavily and is often murderous when not sober. The Slav has come to America to find a place in the sun. At home he has suffered from political oppression and poverty; he has had little education of body or mind; he is subject to his primitive impulses as the west European long ago ceased to be. It is not easy for America to a.s.similate large numbers of such backward peoples, but the Slav is coming at the rate of three hundred thousand a year. The Slav is depended upon for the hard labor of mine and foundry, of sugar and oil refineries, and of meat-packing establishments. Hundreds and thousands are in the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and West Virginia. The Bohemians and Poles more frequently than the others bring their families with them, and to some extent settle in the rural districts, but the bulk of the Slavs are men who herd in congested boarding-houses, move frequently from one industrial centre to another, and naturally are very slow to become a.s.similated.

233. =The Jews.=--Of all the races that have found asylum in America none have felt abroad the heavy hand of oppression more than the Jew.

He has been the world's outcast through nineteen centuries, but in America he has found freedom to expand. One-fifth of all the Jews are already in America, and the rate of immigration is not far from 140,000 a year. The immigrant Jews are of different grades, some are educated and well-to-do, but the ma.s.ses are poor, and the most recent immigrants have low ideals of living. Few of those who come settle in the country districts; the large majority herd in the city tenements and engage in small trades and manufacturing. Jewish masters are unmerciful as sweaters, unprincipled as landlords, and disreputable as white slavers, but no man rises above limitations that others have set for him like the Jew, and with ambition, ability, and persistence the race is pushing its way to the front. The young people are eager for an education, and are often among the keenest pupils in their cla.s.ses.

Later they make their mark in the professions as well as in business.

The Jew has found a new Canaan in the West.

234. =The Lesser Peoples.=--Besides these great groups that const.i.tute the bulk of the incoming millions, there are representatives from all the nations and tribes of Europe. All parts of Great Britain have sent their people, and from Canada so many have come as almost to impoverish certain sections. French-Canadians are numerous in the mill cities of New England. From the Netherlands there has always been a small contingent. Portugal has sent islanders from the Azores and Cape Verde. The Finns are here, the Lithuanians from Russia, the Magyars from Hungary. The Greeks are pouring in from their sunny hills and valleys; they rival the Italians in the fruit trade, and monopolize the bootblack industry in certain cities. With the twentieth century have come the Turks and their Asiatic subjects, the Syrians and the Armenians. All these peoples have race peculiarities, prejudices, and superst.i.tions. Most of their members belong in the lower grades of society and their coming is a distinct danger to the nation's future.

There can be no question, of course, that individuals among them possess ability and even talent, and that certain groups like those from Great Britain and the Netherlands are exceptions to the general rule, but there is a strong conviction among social workers and students that those who are here should be a.s.similated before many more arrive. Definite measures are advocated by which it is expected that the government or private agencies may be able to make over these latest aliens into reputable, useful American citizens.

235. =Public Att.i.tude toward Immigration.=--Although interest in national and immigrant welfare is far less keen than it well might be, the tremendous consequences of the wide-spread movement have not pa.s.sed unnoticed. Wage-earners already here have felt the effects of low-grade compet.i.tion and have clamored for restrictive legislation.

On race rather than economic grounds Asiatics have been excluded except for the few already here. Federal regulation has been increased with reference to all immigrant traffic. This has been based increasingly on investigation by private effort and government commission, and governments and churches have established bureaus on immigration. Aid a.s.sociations maintain agents to safeguard the newcomer from exploitation, both on the journey and in port. From all these sources a body of information has been gathered that throws light on the causes and effects of immigration.

236. =Causes and Effects.=--The primary cause is industrial. The desire of the people to improve their economic and social condition is the compelling motive that drives them, in spite of homesickness and ignorance, to venture into an unknown country and to face dangers and difficulties that could not be foreseen. Three out of four who come are males, pioneers oftentimes of a family that looks forward to a larger migration later on. Friends on this side encourage others and commonly supply the necessary funds. Eighty per cent of all who come into Ma.s.sachusetts make the venture in hope of finding better industrial conditions or to join relatives or friends. In some countries, like Russia, religious and political oppression are expelling causes, and the military service required by the European Powers drives young men away. It has been demonstrated that forty per cent of the immigration is not permanent, but that for various reasons individuals return for a season, some permanently.

Immigration has its good and bad effects. There are certain good qualities in many of the immigrant strains that are valuable to American character, and it cannot be denied that the exploitation of national resources and the execution of public works could not have been accomplished so rapidly without the immigrant. But the bad effects furnish a problem that is not easily solved. Immigrants come now in such large numbers that they tend to form alien groups of increasing proportions in the midst of the great cities. There is danger that the city will become a collection of districts--little Italy, little Hungary, and little Syria--and the sense of civic unity be destroyed. Even more significant is the high birth-rate of the foreigner. Statistics show that with the greater birth-rate of the immigrants there is a corresponding decline in the native birth-rate, so that the alien is supplanting the native American stock. Along with race degeneracy goes lack of industrial skill and declining wages, for the foreigner is ignorant, often unorganized, and willing to work and live under worse conditions than the native American. Among the disastrous social effects are increasing poverty and crime, lack of sanitation, and an increase of diseases that thrive in filth.

Illiteracy and slow mentality lower the general level of intelligence.

Lack of training in democracy renders the average immigrant a poor citizen, though some State laws give him the ballot without delay. In morals and religion there is more loss than gain by immigration.

American liberty tends to become license, scores of thousands lose all interest in the church, and moral restraint is thrown off with the ecclesiastical yoke. Plainly when the immigrant population is predominant in a great city the problem of immigration becomes vital not only to the local munic.i.p.ality but also to the nation, which is fast becoming urban.

237. =Americanizing the Alien.=--After all is said, the immigrant problem is not insoluble. There is much in the situation to make one optimistic. Thus far the native stock has been able to survive and to give its best to the newcomer. The immigrant himself has no desire to destroy American inst.i.tutions. He comes longing to share in their benefits. America is to him an Eldorado, a promised land flowing with milk and honey. His children, through the schools and other contacts, learn the language that his tongue is slow to acquire, and absorb the ideas and ideals that are typically American. After all, it is the spirit rather than the form of the inst.i.tutions that make them valuable. The upper-cla.s.s American, who is too indifferent to go to the polls on election day, is less patriotic and more harmful to American inst.i.tutions than the Italian who is too ignorant to vote, but would die on the battle-field for the defense of his adopted country. Many agencies are at work to help the alien adjust himself to American ways and to make him into a good citizen. In the last resort the Americanization of the foreigner rests with the att.i.tude of the native American toward him rather than with the immigrant himself.

READING REFERENCES

ROSS: _The Old World in the New_, pages 24-304.

FAIRCHILD: _Immigration_, pages 213-368.

COMMONS: _Races and Immigrants in America_, pages 198-238.

ROBERTS: _The New Immigration._

JENKS AND LAUCK: _Immigration._

WOODS: _Americans in Process._

WILLIS: "Findings of the Immigration Commission," art. in _The Survey_, 25: 571-578.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

HOW THE WORKING PEOPLE LIVE