AN IMMIGRATION 
POLICY 
Any Plan for Restriction Must Take Account of Asia as Well as Europe— 
Percentage Basis the Best One for Limitation—Arrangements 
Must be Made to Americanize Those Who Come 
SIDNEY L. GULICK 
Representative, Commission of Relations with Japan; 105 East Twenty-second Street 
New York, N. Y. 
HE need of adequate and wise 
immigration and Americanization 
legislation is imperative. Now, 
while war suspends the tide of 
new-comers to our shores, is the time 
for enacting the new laws to regulate 
the coming of fresh aliens. 
No one can foretell how large or 
small will be the immigration from the 
war-ravaged countries of Europe. One 
factor in the problem that is generally 
overlooked is this: Wages in America 
will be high after the war and demand 
for cheap labor will be urgent. Immi- 
gration companies and steamship lines 
will seek for fresh sources of cheap 
labor to bring to America. What is to 
prevent them from securing hundreds 
of thousands from West and North 
Africa, Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor? 
Present laws afford no method of 
control either of the numbers or of the 
race types that may be admitted, if 
only they pass the physical tests now 
authorized. We have reason to expect 
a large immigration of peoples that will 
prove extremely difficult of Americani- 
zation. 
We need, therefore, a comprehensive 
and constructive policy for the regu- 
lation of all immigration, a policy that 
is based on sound economic, eugenic, 
political and ethical principles, and a 
program worked out in detail for incor- 
porating that policy into practice. 
Such a policy, moreover, must take 
into consideration not merely the rela- 
tions of America with Europe, Africa 
and West Asia, but also with China, 
Japan and India. The world has be- 
come so small and travel so easy that 
economic pressure and opportunity are 
now bringing all the races into inevitable 
546 
contact and increasing intermixture. 
To avoid the disastrous consequences 
of such contacts and intermixtures, and 
to enable the United States not only to 
provide for her own prosperity, but also 
to make to the whole world her best 
contribution for human _ betterment, 
we need policies that are based upon 
justice and good will, no less than upon 
economic and eugenic considerations. 
The following proposals are offered as 
a contribution to the discussion of these 
important matters. 
The need of regulating immigration 
from Europe and West Asia is so well 
recognized that nothing further will be 
said upon it in this brief discussion. It 
is important, however, that Americans 
should realize that the present laws 
dealing with Japanese, Chinese and 
Hindoos are quite obsolete. They are 
not only obsolete; they are positively 
dangerous. 
THE NEW ORIENT 
New Japan has already acquired the 
mechanical instruments, the political, 
economic and industrial methods, and 
the science, education, ideas and ideals 
of occidental civilization. New China 
is rapidly following in the footsteps of 
Japan. Both are increasingly self-con- 
scious and insistent on courteous treat- 
ment and observance of treaties. They 
are asking, with growing earnestness, 
for recognition on a basis of equality 
with nations of the West. 
The great world-problem of the 
twentieth century is undoubtedly the 
problem of the contact of the East and 
the West. Whether it shall bring us 
weal or woe depends largely on the 
United States. Shall our oriental policy 
