Vol. XVI, No. i WASHINGTON 



January, 1905 



JPil 



THE 



'ATKONAIL 

 ©(SISAIPimiL© 

 AO AM 



0 



THE CHARACTER OF OUR IMMIGRATION, 

 PAST AND PRESENT* 



By Z. F. McSweeny 

 Formerly Assistant Commissioner of Immigration 



THE subject of our immigration is 

 perhaps the most discussed and 

 least understood public question 

 now before the people. On one side we 

 find a portion of our citizens claiming 

 that all kinds of economic and social 

 evils are to be attributed to immigra- 

 tion. The supporters of the other side 

 are equally positive that the nation's 

 growth and progress are due to these 

 alien races. The arguments pro and 

 con are generally made to prove a special 

 case, and as such are not always to be 

 relied on. On one thing both will agree, 

 that for the poor of Europe, America 

 spells ' ' opportunity. ' ' Previous to the 

 past five decades of emigration the world 

 has never witnessed such prodigious 

 achievements, such wonderful enter- 

 prise and real progress in all the things 

 that contribute to make a nation great. 



WORLD MIGRATIONS 



The causes of migration have been 

 manifold. Now it was famine, again the 

 taste for conquest, that caused a people 



to take up its household goods and push 

 out into unknown lands. Ambition 

 fired the soul of one ; religious persecu- 

 tion or political revolutions inflamed 

 another ; while the love of gold was 

 always a potent factor. 



' ' Emigration ' ' and ' ' immigration, ' ' 

 as we understand them, are phenomena 

 of modern life. In prehistoric and his- 

 toric times, up to the discovery of 

 America, men moved in tribes and on 

 careers that were chiefly of conquest. 

 In vain do we seek, in these migrations, 

 for any parallel to the influx that is 

 now pouring upon us. 



A new kind of migration began with 

 the discovery of America and the new 

 route to India around the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and may be called "coloniza- 

 tion." Those who took part in this 

 movement utilized the newly discovered 

 countries, first, merely for the purpose 

 of booty ; afterward for the establish- 

 ment of trading posts. 



The beginning of this century dis- 

 closed a movement far different from 



*An address to the National Geographic Society. 



