Speech #550049157

Brazil. Spanish portg. and elsewhere. They charge them exorbitant rates. accept bribes. keep secondhand clothes shops to sell or exchange Oriental for European clothing. keep restaurants and lodging houses. etc.. and the wretched immigrants are impoverished from their very starting point. These evils are so common and so great that volumes might be written of the abuses practiced upon them.* One of our distinguished foreignborn countrymen. whose affections are deeply rooted in his adopted country. says that "foreign criminals. and even destitute and dependent children. are also shipped to the United States and Canada every year by benevolent individuals and associations in Europe." Such unnatural immigration. such forced contribution to our population. is a fraud upon our liberality. degrading to American citizenship. and a menace to our institutions. Immigration which is encouraged by foreign governments. or stimulated by the mercenary agencies which have infested foreign centers of degraded population. is the most undesirable. and we fail in our supreme duty if we do not enact some measure which shall search it out and exclude it. The advocates of a nonrestrictive policy direct attention to the amount of money annually brought into the country by immigrants and which. inferentially. would be lost to us by further exclusion. The discussion of this important subject should proceed upon a much higher plane than this. Whether a diminution of undesirable immigration will reduce our money supply from abroad is a matter which should receive scant consideration in the presence of the far greater question involving the intelligence and morality of our population and citizenship. But from the standpoint of our merely commercial interests. there will be no material loss. if there is not. indeed. an actual gain. The money exhibited by immigrants last year at our ports of entry exceeded $83.500.000. How much of it was immediately returned to aid other immigrants is not known. but that a part was returned and used again for similar purposes there is undoubted proof. Against this apparent gain to our currency from abroad should be set the amount which is annually sent and taken to other countries by our foreign populationsent to bring other impecunious immigrants. or to be invested or spent abroad. The amount can be but roughly approximated. It is estimated. however. that there is annually sent to Italy. through Italian bankers in New York alone. between $25.000.000 and $30.000.000. If we are to take into account the money which the immigrant brings. we must. in fairness. also observe the amount he withdraws from us. The unequal distribution of immigration serves to increase the perils and intensify the demand for some wholesome restrictive measures. During recent years the great mass of the immigration has been but little attracted to the South and West. while it has an increasing tendency to concentrate in the Eastern States and cities. The "birds of passage" can the more cheaply and readily invade the Eastern centers and return. The impecunious and the least enterprising seek the nearest and most available points to the ports of entry. During the last year three out of every four immigrants settled in the East. or. tobe more precise. 75.23 per centlocated in the North Atlantic States. 3.83 per cent in the South Atlantic. 15.16 per cent in the North Central. 2.45 per cent in the Southern Central. and 3.83 per cent in the Western States. The five States of Connecticut. Massachusetts. New Jersey. New York. and Pennsylvania alone received 169.202. or about73 per cent of the aggregate immigration. It has been conclusively demonstrated that much the larger per cent of the undesirable immigrants is deposited on the Atlantic Seaboard. This makes assimilation more difficult and aggravates the dangers to the present population. A general and equitable distribution of the immigration throughout the various sections of the country would materially tend to minimize the evils which are bred by massing the nationalities together. The bill before the Senate offers a partial cure for the evils incident to the present immigration system. it is one which is simple and just. and. honestly administered. will go far toward removing the disquiet prevalent throughout the country. The new classification which it makes will result in debarring a large per cent of the most objectionable elements which now have unrestricted admission. It is not claimed that it will discriminate with absolute justice and that only the worthy will be admitted and the unworthy excluded.