A Social Study of the Russian German ii 
cent. is scattered among 124 different places. This immigration 
has not resulted from solicitation by steamship companies or 
advertising literature, but almost universally from the encourage- 
ment of relatives who preceded the immigrant to America. There 
has been not only the assurance of work and of comfortable living 
conditions, but the receipt from relatives of steamship tickets, the 
money for which is repaid out of the first earnings of the family 
after reaching America. Fathers and mothers, brothers and 
sisters, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins and second 
cousins, and all of their relatives in turn are thus brought to the 
mica of the iree.”’ 
Technically speaking, Russian Germans therefore fall under 
the head of “assisted” immigrants, 7. e., aliens who come on 
tickets bought in this country and sent to them. Such foreigners 
are ordinarily considered an undesirable class and their admission 
is prohibited when they are assisted by a corporation, association, 
society,, municipality, or foreign government. But a distinction 
is made between such aliens and those whose fares are paid by 
relatives or friends, although the government still considers the 
practice unfortunate and not calculated to secure the best results. 
In 1913, 32 per cent. of all the aliens entering the United States 
were prepaids, and from 1910 to 1912 the proportion ranged from 
25 to 36 per cent.2 Of the Russian-born Germans living in 
Lincoln in 1914, however, 65 per cent. had come on prepaid 
tickets and only 35 per cent. had paid their own passage. In 
spite of the unfavorable circumstances suggested by these statis- 
tics, experience with the Russian Germans in Lincoln, who for 
twenty-five years have come “assisted,’ shows that there is no 
relation between the desirableness or the undesirableness of these 
immigrants and the fact that their passage is paid for them. 
Indeed it does not always indicate even their financial condi- 
tion. Not infrequently a young married man of a well-to-do 
family wishes to emigrate, but his father objects and refuses not 
only to give him his portion of the family possessions but even to 
2 Annual Report of the Commissioner General of Immigration, 1913, 18. 
Cf. also, “ Emigration Conditions in Europe” in Report of Immigration 
Commission of 1907, IV, 59-61. 
I4I 
