536 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tions that the work may make some progress. As it is now, the good 

 work done each year by charitable organizations and by philanthropists 

 goes almost for naught. The splendid work of the New York tene- 

 ment house and street cleaning departments is nullified to a large ex- 

 tent by the yearly addition of thousands of these alien tenement dwell- 

 ers, for whom the tedious work of education in sanitary matters must 

 be repeated from the beginning. 



In regard to aliens in general, whether they desire to live in the 

 city or in the country, many believe that something should be done 

 at the port of arrival to educate them in the resources and opportuni- 

 ties which exist in various states. The commissioner general of im- 

 migration, in his annual report for 1903, recommends that Congress 

 appropriate a sufficient sum to establish information bureaus at the 

 various ports of entry, located in suitable buildings where exhibits can 

 be shown and information given to arriving aliens by government or 

 state officers. Such information would enable the immigrant to locate 

 where his labor was needed and where the best opportunities were af- 

 forded for making a home. This plan seems feasible and, coming 

 from such a high source, is worthy of thorough trial. The commis- 

 sioner-general, in the strongest terms, urges legislation to establish 

 these information agencies, with or without the cooperation of the 

 states, not only because of the need of the immigrant's labor in certain 

 sections, but also because of the good effect upon the alien. 



After all, these two problems of exclusion of undesirable immi- 

 grants and distribution of aliens are closely associated. The class that 

 clings most persistently to the crowded city is an undesirable class. 

 And if, because of its poor physique, the majority were excluded, as it 

 would be if we had a definite standard of physique, our problem of 

 distribution would be very greatly simplified. 



It is scarcely necessary to refer again to the baneful influence exerted 

 by the congested tenement areas, both upon the immigrant and upon 

 the body politic. Here the immigrant receives false ideas of personal 

 freedom and political privilege and a distorted impression of our whole 

 political system. Moral deterioration is a certain accompaniment of 

 life in the slums, and physical degeneration is still more marked. His 

 occupation is parasitic in character or at best competitive from a stand- 

 ard far below that compatible with decent living. And while this 

 deadly struggle for existence is being waged by the immigrant in the 

 city, the farmers south and west can not procure enough labor to har- 

 vest their ripened crops. What a different story could be told of these 

 poor aliens of the tenement could they be directed to the proper sphere ! 

 Eemoved from the temptations which surround them in the city, from 

 the depraved examples of slum life which everywhere confront them, 

 they would find in the country the healthy, moral stimulus of contact 



