Speech #630387387

All experience shows that where the first colony of a particular race goes there all the rest go. They follow them as sheep follow a bellwether. Take the whole history of immigration and you will find that that is the fact. With the growth of our manufactures more of this modern immigration came from eastern and southern Europe. and where the first colonies from south Italy. or from any of the Balkan States. Russia. or AustriaHungary went. those from the same neighborhood have gone to the same place. and they have followed it right along year after year. and it has been almost impossible to turn them. I was interested to test that matter. I -found by having a record kept In Ellis Island for a whole year that more than 80 per cent of all the Immigrants who came in during that year had in their possession when they landed railroad tickets taking them from New York to the point of their destination in the United States. They had been in correspondence with their brothers. their cousins. their relatives in this country. and they were going where their brothers or other relatives had gone. In 80 per cent of the cases they reported the fact that they were going to join friends.