i 2 The National Geographic Magazine 



been realized. Since 1870 wages have 

 steadily risen, the conditions of employ- 

 ment have been improved, and the hours 

 of labor reduced. The purchasing power 

 of every dollar earned has been increased 

 by 60 per cent, and this during the pe- 

 riod of heaviest immigration. It would 

 be unfair to claim that immigration had 

 any influence in this connection; rather 

 we should attribute it to the organiza- 

 tion of labor ; and, broadly speaking, 

 labor organizations have been supported 

 by and have found their best members 

 among the immigrants. Whatever dan- 

 ger there may be is in the undue pre- 

 ponderance of criminals, insane, and 

 those becoming public charges. There 

 is no means of accurately determining 

 how much damage has been done in this 

 direction, or whether the undoubted 

 beneficial effects, which have been dem- 

 onstrated in a thousand directions, can 

 be offset. Immigrants come here at the 

 age when people are most liable to com- 

 mit crimes. They are freed from moral 

 restraint and all fear of loss of caste, 

 which, even in the lowest order of so- 

 ciety, is, next to religion, the strongest 

 deterrent to crime. Some day we may 

 hope to see both sides fairly weighed 

 and an exact judgment rendered, which, 

 with our defective sources of informa- 

 tion, is not possible today. 



When we consider this question it 

 compels us to pause in wonder as to 

 what its effect will be on the future of 

 the American people. If, in spite of 

 our institutions and forms of govern- 

 ment, the alien races that have already 

 come and are still coming can succeed 

 in undermining our religious, political, 

 and economic foundations, it will be 

 because we willingly succumb, through 

 inertia, to their influences. Rome, 

 Babylon, and all the nations of the 

 world that have fallen have done so 

 because they abandoned their moral, 

 religious, and social ideals, their de- 

 cline in most cases being contemporane- 

 ous with the introduction of alien races. 



If such is to be the result in this coun- 

 try, it will simply be history repeating 

 itself ; but I have confidence enough in 

 the morals and character of the Ameri- 

 can people to believe that the races in- 

 troduced among us will take from us 

 only that which is good, and through 

 education we will give them stability 

 and the power to become thoroughly 

 assimilated. 



The privilege of intercourse with na- 

 tive children and school instruction lifts 

 up the immigrant in the second gener- 

 ation to the level of his fellows. 



The children of the ignorant, illiter- 

 ate, and once despised German and Irish 

 have grown up to match the native 

 American of several generations in 

 brawn and brain, wit and culture, and 

 are today working with them, side by 

 side, in every line of social, scientific, 

 intellectual, political, and mechanical 

 endeavor. 



This is easily understood when we 

 watch the avidity with which foreign 

 children embrace the educational ad- 

 vantages of our schools, and especially 

 note their docility and amenability to 

 discipline. They have a practical idea 

 of the value of education and regard it 

 as an asset to increase their earning ca- 

 pacity. During the past few years in 

 New York the end of each school term 

 shows that the Jewish children have 

 obtained more honors than all the others 

 put together. 



CONTRACT-LABOR LAW 



I have not the time to take up in de- 

 tail the question of the violation of the 

 alien contract-labor law by aliens, but 

 it is a most important matter and is de- 

 serving of attention. For a number of 

 years after its passage but little effort 

 was made in the direction of its en- 

 forcement. Subsequently, after the 

 service passed under federal control, a 

 vigorous attempt was made to show re- 

 sults that afterward were found by the 

 labor organizations to be worthless, 



