i 8 The National Geographic Magazine 



OUR GOVERNMENT SHOULD ASSIST 

 THE IMMIGRANTS TO DISTRIBUTE 

 THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY 



' 4 The failure of the government to 

 provide for the distribution of aliens 

 through the United States, and the ex- 

 ertions of foreign countries combine, says 

 Mr Sargent, to maintain alien colonies 

 in this country. Such colonies are open 

 to objection not merely on political 

 grounds, but for social and sanitary rea- 

 sons in a far greater degree. It cannot, 

 in justice to the interests of our coun- 

 try and to the preservation of its insti- 

 tutions, be too urgently or too fre- 

 quently repeated that in confining our 

 treatment of the all-important immigra- 

 tion problem to the exclusion of such 

 of certain enumerated classes as we can 

 detect our policy is superficial. The 

 practical and pressing question is, What 

 shall be done with the annual arrivals of 

 aliens, approximating now i ,000,000 ? ' ' 

 The present immigrants throng to the 

 states which now need them least, to 

 overcrowded cities, and entirely neglect 

 the western states, where there is a 

 scarcity of laborers. 



FOREIGN COLONIES IN THE UNITED 

 STATES 



All the political and social, and occa- 

 sionally religious, resources of some 

 countries are being directed to one end, 

 to maintain colonies of their own peo- 

 ple in this country, instructing them 

 through various channels to maintain 

 their allegiance to the country of their 

 birth, to transmit their earnings hereto 

 the fatherland for the purchase of ulti- 

 mate homes there, and to avoid all in- 

 tercourse with the people of this coun- 

 try that would tend to the permanent 

 adoption of American ideals. Thus 

 emigration from certain foreign coun- 

 tries has become, in a much larger sense 

 than the public imagines, a revenue re- 

 source to those countries, of immediate 

 benefit to them to the extent of the 

 aggregate remittances, of prospective 



benefit to them because it insures the 

 return of the emigrant with his accumu- 

 lated savings. 



ABILITY TO READ AND WRITE 



An examination of the ability of the 

 immigrants to read and write shows sur- 

 prising extremes, of which the following 

 are specially noteworthy : 



Only 3 per cent of 10,077 Finns from 

 Russia were illiterate ; 



4 per cent of 40,526 Germans from the 

 German Empire ; 



4 per cent of 22,507 Germans from 

 Austria-Hungary ; 



1 per cent of 36,486 English ; 



1 per cent of 11,226 Scotch ; 



3 per cent of 36,747 Irish, and 



1 per cent of 59,878 Scandinavians. 



On the other hand, as large a propor- 

 tion as 36 per cent of 32,577 Poles from 

 Russia could not read or write, and the 

 same illiteracy is true for the Poles from 

 Germany and Austria-Hungary; 23 per 

 cent of 77,544 Hebrews from Russia 

 could not read or write and 20,211 He- 

 brews from Austria-Hungary showed 

 the same degree of illiteracy. 



The percentage of illiteracy among 

 the north Italians is only 13, yet it is as 

 high as 48 among the south Italians. 

 We are receiving nearly six times as 

 many south Italians as we are north 

 Italians, and yet the latter are far more 

 desirable immigrants than the former. 



AMBITIONS OF CERTAIN IMMIGRANTS 



One member of a large family from 

 eastern Europe, composed of a father, 

 mother, and six children all under ten 

 years of age, with hardly any money, 

 and bound for the tenement district of 

 New York city, was recently asked at 

 Ellis Island how he intended to provide 

 a competent subsistence for his family if 

 allowed to land. He answered : ' ' What 

 do I care for a big house if I can get one 

 room to sleep in. That is all we want * 

 that is the way we did in Russia." 



This particular family was excluded. 



