DISTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS. 175 



bution is intelligently directed, and that the alien colonies which are 

 being formed in our farming districts do not become a menace. As 

 to a reduction in the numbers of our alien arrivals, that is a work in 

 which all who have at heart the best interests of their country, of the 

 immigrants who are now here, and of those who are still to come, 

 should join hands to accomplish. As Mr. Robert Hunter has recently 

 said:* "If we let the steamship companies and the railroads, wanting 

 cheap labor, alone, we shall not decide what immigrants will be better 

 for coming, and what ones the country most needs. They will decide 

 it for us." There are two feasible remedies for reducing immigration 

 now before congress. One, the illiteracy test, which has the support of 

 the great majority of those who have studied the immigration problem 

 carefully, and which has been strongly endorsed by President Roose- 

 velt, the commissioner-general of immigration, and the boards of 

 organized charity throughout the country. The other suggested by 

 Congressman Robert Adams, Jr., of Pennsylvania, which would restrict 

 to 80,000 the number of new immigrants who could come to us from 

 any one foreign country in any one year. In his last Annual Report 

 the Commissioner of Immigration at New York said: 



I believe that at least 200,000 (and probably more) aliens came here (last 

 year), who, although they may be able to earn a living, yet are not wanted, 

 will be of no benefit to the country, and will, on the contrary, be a detriment, 

 because their presence will tend to lower our standards; and .if these 200,000 

 persons could have been induced to stay at home, nobody, not even those 

 clamoring for more labor, would have missed them. Their coming has been 

 of benefit chiefly, if not only, to the transportation companies which brought 

 them here. 



To exclude this surplus of undesirable aliens, and to distribute the 

 others over our farming districts where they can find suitable work 

 and where they are wanted, is one of the most important problems 

 before the people of this country. 



* The Commons, April, 1904, 117. 



