IMMIGRATION AND THE PUBLIC HEALTH 125 



migrants across the border has been exposed b}- the United 

 States immigration authorities at Montreal; and although the 

 border inspection maintained by the United States immi- 

 gration service is doing splendid work, it is impossible to guard 

 effectively every point of over 3, ()()() miles of frontier. A more 

 perfect system of exclusion is now possible, and consists of a 

 rigid inspection of all aliens landing at Canadian ports under 

 an effective Canadian law similar in character to our owti, 

 which has recently been enacted. 



The real danger to the public health from immigration lies 

 in that class of immigrants whose physique is much below 

 American standards, whose employment is in the sweat shop, 

 and whose residence is the east side tenement in New York 

 city. The Mediterranean races, SjTians, Greeks and southern 

 Italians, who are unused to a cold climate, and who often have 

 insufficient clothing, also establish in their crowded quarters 

 splendid foci for the dissemination of disease. The Hebrews, 

 Syrians, Greeks and southern Italians, invariably crowd the 

 most insanitary quarters of the great centers of population. 

 And the various filthy and infected, though perhaps pictur- 

 esque, foreign quarters constitute to-day the greatest existing 

 menace to the public health. 



There are many view points from which our immigrant 

 problem may be judged. There are extremists who advocate 

 the impossible — the complete exclusion of all immigrants, or the 

 complete exclusion of certain races. There are other extrem- 

 ists who pose as humanitarians and philanthropists and who 

 advocate an act of lunacy — removing all restrictions and ad- 

 mitting all the unfortunate — the lame, the halt, the blind and 

 the morally and physically diseased — without let or hindrance. 

 Neither of these extreme positions is tenable. The debarring 

 of all inamigrants, or the unjust discrimination against any 

 particular race, is illogical, bigoted and un-American. On the 

 other hand, the indiscriminate admission of a horde of diseased, 

 defective and destitute immigrants would be a crime against 

 the body politic which could not be justified b}^ false pretense 

 of humanity or a mistaken spirit of philanthropy. 



The sane, logical position must fall between these two 

 extremes. It is necessary for us to restrict and debar, if pos- 



