Curbing A Human Flood of Immigration - A New Law Takes Effect
Introduction
The article "Curbing a Human Flood of Immigration" from July 1907 discusses the implementation of new immigration laws in the United States aimed at controlling the large influx of immigrants. It focuses on the measures taken to regulate and distribute immigrants more evenly across the country, particularly targeting the overcrowded urban centers.
A German Family of One Daughter and Seven Sons. National Geographic Magazine, May 1907. GGA Image ID # 1d9a82ada7
When the powers that make our laws at Washington were recently confronted with the fact that they were admitting aliens through our gateways at the rate of a Philadelphia full per year—or a Boston full plus a Baltimore full, if you would prefer it that way—they "sat up and took notice," as the saying goes.
Frank P. Sargent, the Commissioner General of Immigration, with diagrams and charts as long as your arm, and statistical tables, and sound logic, too, had begged and pleaded and pleaded again for power not only to obtain for us a smaller quantity and better quality of immigrants but to drain and distribute the stagnation of idle aliens which, this generation past, has been accumulating, deeper and blacker, in a few over-populated areas of the land.
He had given proof of how these areas of alien concentration—these foreign "colonies" in certain big cities—were breeding idleness, pauperism, disease, and crime while the vast, broad, sunlit expanse of land to the south and west was standing undeveloped for the lack of men of brawn. As a result, Congress gave us a new immigration law before it shut up shop in the spring.
The new law goes into effect on July 1. It provides the immigration service with machinery for a more equal distribution of aliens among the states and for skimming deeper into the old world scum now floating America ward upon the seas. It excludes classes of weaklings and degenerates admitted hitherto, requires steamship companies better to protect the health of our future citizens en route, and affords the arms of government significantly renewed strength with which to strike a blow at the traffic in immoral alien women.
Registration Room, Ellis Island, NYC. Photo Only Copyright © 1905 by the Rotograph Co. The Rotograph Co, NYC # A 88b. Printed in Germany. Postcard Postally Used 15 March 1908. GG Archives Immigration Postcard Collection. GGA Image ID # 14f580cdbe
On July 11, the Commissioner General of Immigration will open a "division of information" in his bureau in Washington. According to the statute, the division's function will be "to promote a beneficial distribution of aliens among the states and territories desiring immigration."
An official in charge will gather useful information regarding the resources, products, and physical characteristics of each state and territory from all available sources. This information will be published in different languages and distributed at the immigrant stations among all admitted aliens who ask for it.
Properly accredited agents of the states and territories will be admitted to the immigrant stations and given access to newly admitted aliens. These official promoters will point out to the newcomers the special inducements for settlement their respective states offer.
However, to protect the aliens who, particularly at the great Ellis Island station, will run the gantlet of these state boomers, Commissioner General Sargent will frame strict regulations, and agents violating these will be denied the privileges of the stations. Some states, particularly those of the South, already maintain immigration bureaus, and these will appoint the agents sent to the immigration stations.
Other states desiring immigrants are expected to organize their bureaus before July 1. Practically all of this educational campaign will be waged at the Ellis Island station in New York. Last year, 880,000 of the 1,057,000 aliens admitted to our shores passed through its portals.
The great demand for immigrants in many sections of the south and west is disclosed in the urgent appeals Mr. Sargent has been receiving. These come especially from agriculturalists, mine owners, manufacturers, and railroad officials. But despite this demand elsewhere, a majority of our immigrants are still pouring into the sections where they are least wanted and where the least chance of work awaits them.
They are avoiding the sections where they would be welcomed with open arms and given remunerative employment, not only because of the lure of city life and the desire to be near their compatriots but also through ignorance of the real opportunities offered them in the South and far west.
Despite the clamor for immigrants, which has been coming with increasing appeal from the thinly populated regions of the country, over seven-tenths of the aliens who passed through the immigrant stations last year said they would settle in already thickly populated centers.
A Dutch Maiden -- A Good Type of the Thrifty Hollander. Tenchical World Magazine, July 1907. GGA Image ID # 218ef130fc
Over one-third of them said they would make their abodes in New York state, more than one-sixth in Pennsylvania, one-twelfth in Illinois, and almost as many in Massachusetts, while next ranked those bound for New Jersey.
In other words, last year, more than enough newly arrived aliens (374,708) were set out for New York to populate a second Buffalo; for Pennsylvania, more than enough (198,084) to fill another Providence or two Scrantons; for Illinois, sufficient (86,539) to duplicate Richmond, Va.; for Massachusetts, an ample number (73,863) to fill Trenton, N.J.; and for New Jersey, enough (58,415) to fill another Hoboken.
Ninety percent of all arrivals were destined for the north—the North Atlantic and South Central States. Only 9 percent were bound for the West—beyond the Mississippi—and only 4.1 percent for the South. Ohio alone received more of these aliens than the West or South. Such is the state of affairs against which Mr. Sargent's new information office, reinforced by the states and territories, will wage its educational campaign.
This clamor for more immigrants is louder in the South than in the West. But there was a day, not so long ago, when our Southrons—despite their traditional hospitality toward their own countrymen and their own caste—held out to the immigrant but a cold hand of welcome.
The South's change of sentiment on this subject has been both recent and marked. It now offers a splendid field for the newcomer with brawn and energy. It has millions of acres of cotton, cane, rice, and tobacco lands that have never been cultivated. Indeed, Louisiana alone has 19,000,000 acres of vacant land out of a total of 26,000,000, and it is estimated that not more than one-eighth of the cotton lands of the whole South are under cultivation.
There are more than a hundred immigration societies in Louisiana, and there are still more in Maryland. However, neither these nor similar organizations in other southern states have been looking for the Hungarians and Russians who are now flocking to the north in great numbers.
Typical Immigrants at the Immigration Station at Ellis Island, New York. Blandt Udvandrede Nordmænd/Among Expatriate Norwegians, 1904. GGA Image ID # 14f0190885
The South has been calling for the good old Teutonic and Keltic stock that settled the country in its first days—the English, Irish, Welsh, Scotch, and Germans, in particular. Climatically speaking, the Italians are, of all our immigrants, those best suited to the South, and they now constitute the largest racial class of our immigrants.
The supply far exceeds the demand in the north. They proved to be successful farmers when they settled in the southern cotton and sugar plantations. The tremendous lumbering companies of the South are commencing to employ them, and it is estimated that more than 100,000 are working in the southern Mississippi Valley.
They have begun to purchase little farms, build good homes, and put money in the bank. They are reported to be prompt in paying debts and to have improved morally and financially since arriving. The younger of these Italians do not wish to return to Italy. This longing common to the older ones has caused their race to be generally disliked in America.
Somewhat of a setback to the immigration plans of a part of the South will, however, be given by the contract labor exclusion clause of the new law. Some months ago, the state of South Carolina made arrangements by which an immigrant ship was run directly from Bremen to Charleston, and the state paid for the tickets of many of the immigrants who undertook the voyage in consequence of more or less specific promises of employment.
Certain labor unions protested that this method of enticing aliens to our shores would violate the new law's contract labor clause, and the Attorney General has ruled that they are correct. However, other southern states have since sent representatives abroad to endeavor to arrange for direct steamship lines to our big southern ports.
A wise reform provided by the new immigration law is the requirement that more and better steerage space per immigrant be given by vessels. One of the first acts of Oscar Straits, after assuming office as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, was to look into this question. He has been abroad many times—is of foreign birth—and has taken a personal interest in the condition of the poor immigrants en voyage.
He immediately appointed a commission to examine the question carefully. The old laws were not especially considerate of the comfort of the hordes of immigrants pouring in from the countries of the old world. They were made largely from the viewpoint of this country's welfare. Of course, all present-day alien legislation is enacted on a similar basis, but wherever possible, the physical well-being of the immigrant is more strictly attended to.
Secretary Straus could sympathize with the stranger in his crowded steamer quarters. He believed that the advantages should be shared with the poor immigrants since modern steel vents now have so much more room than the old-time vessels. The framers of our immigration law, at the instigation of the commission mentioned, have made provision, in substance, as follows :
Each adult immigrant will be assured 126 or 140 cubic feet, depending on whether he is on the upper or lower steerage decks. Those on the upper deck must have at least eighteen square feet of deck surface, and those below at least twenty, and there must be seven feet from deck to ceiling, so to speak.
On the lower steerage decks, less than seven feet from floor to ceiling may be allowed if there is thirty square feet of floor space per passenger. This same extra allowance of floor space must also be made if light and air are admitted to the steerage through apertures averaging less than three square feet to every one hundred square feet of deck surface.
Sailing vessels must allow at least one hundred and ten cubic feet per immigrant. They will be forbidden to carry passengers in any "between-decks" or any space less than six feet from floor to ceiling.
That vessel owners may have ample time in which to make these alterations, this wise reform will not go into effect until January 1, 1909, after which all ships bringing immigrants or other steerage passengers to our ports will have to comply or pay $50 fine for each passenger not given the required space and fresh air.
Of course, if we are to breed a healthier race, we must import healthier parents for that race, and the new law considers this. The former law closed our gates to certain mental, moral, and physical defectives. Still, the new law increased the number of excluded classes.
It bars consumptives—all "persons afflicted with tuberculosis." Thus, the White Plague is specifically mentioned for the first time in an immigration law. The fact that this grim disease claims about 146,000 of our population per year, which is more than the annual mortality average of both armies in our Civil War, sufficed to move the framers of the new law to this reform.
Science has lately pointed to the fact that consumption is particularly prevalent in this country among foreign-born inhabitants who have settled in localities differing in climate from those to which they became habituated in youth at their old home.
And then there are added to the list of excluded classes all imbeciles, feebleminded persons, and those so defective mentally and physically that their ability to make a living is affected. During last year, in particular, there was noted by the examining surgeons of the immigration service an increased number of weak-minded or imbecile aliens, whose cases were not so marked as to justify the diagnosis of idiocy or insanity required by the old law but who nevertheless threw severe doubts on their ability to support themselves.
That immigration has by now nearly skimmed off the cream of the old world's peasantry must indeed appear to anyone who compares the medical reports made by our immigrant inspectors in recent years. Lately, there has been a significant increase in the number of persons who, under the old law, have had to be passed by immigration surgeons but have been marked as having a "poor physique."
An Appeal from the Special Inqury Board to Commissioner Watchorn at Ellis Island. Aliens or Americans?, 1906. GGA Image ID # 1464cbebce
This marking has implied that the subject has been undersized or poorly developed, has feeble heart action, arteries below the standard size, etc.; in other words, as one of the surgeons explains, he has become physically degenerate and, hence, is especially undesirable as a citizen.
"That the physical and mental quality of the aliens we are now receiving is much below that of those who have come in former years is evident," says Commissioner General Sargent. He recently instituted an investigation of the charitable institutions of the country. He found 30,000 alien paupers, including lunatics, in our public institutions, besides 5,000 more in private institutions. Then he found about 10,000 alien criminals in our penal institutions, making a total of 45,000 aliens in institutions altogether, all but 5,000 of them supported at public expense.
In addition, he found about 65,000 naturalized foreigners in these institutions. New York state was found to be supporting 12,440 insane criminal and pauper aliens; Pennsylvania, 5,000; Massachusetts, 5,400; and Illinois, 3,350. But the most striking fact gathered by the Commissioner General was that while in the United States there are seventy-five citizens to each alien, there are only six citizens to each alien in our insane asylums and poorhouses.
The new law further provides that any alien woman or girl found to be living the life of a prostitute at any time within three years after entering the country shall be deported. This provision will give the government a powerful weapon with which to attack the "white slave" octopus, which has become so formidable of late in New York and other large cities.
But in the hands of the unscrupulous police of some cities and of other subordinates in the machinery of government, it would be a powerful instrument for exacting blackmail from the innocent.
Women constitute only a tiny minority of our immigrants. It has always been so. Last year, with the 764,463 men admitted to our land, there came only 336,272 women. The artist can search the whole world in his quest for picturesque human types. Still, no single spot can offer such a variety of womankind as is to be found at Ellis Island—the funnel-neck through which the old world pours into the new.
Lacking only the background of their home environment, he finds passing through this labyrinth of mysterious aisles and entryways, the Dutch maiden in her quaint white cap, the bareheaded girl of Southern Italy with her gold-hooped ears, the olive-skinned Arab beauty with black eyes flashing the fire of the East, the broad-lipped maid of Russia, the broad-browed miss of Switzerland, the freckled colleen of old Erin, and the bonny Scotch lassie with her sandy hair.
There is scarce a hat in a whole shipload of this raw material, which is to be molded our future Venuses. There are head scarves and shawls of all kinds, colors, and materials; they are from all countries, climes, and points of the compass. Today, they enter the land of promise, bag upon back and all their worldly goods therein. But what a metamorphosis within only a season or even a month! Nowhere on the continent whence they came would such a transformation be possible. A peasant passing from Russia into Germany, France, Italy, Spain, or from any of these lands into the other would remain a peasant.
The vast majority of our newly welcomed alien women are good and pure. But there are webs drawn across the very portals of our immigrant stations—webs whose meshes are fashioned to catch them. Dire punishment is also to be meted out to these spiders, which prey upon the innocent maidenhood of the old world's peasantry.
Werth, John Elfreth, "A Case on Appeal: Two Immigrants Marked for Deportation before Commissioner of Immigration, Ellis Island, " Technical World Magazine, Volume VIII, No. 5, July 1907
Conclusion
The new immigration laws introduced in 1907 were a significant step towards managing the influx of immigrants more effectively. By enforcing stricter regulations and encouraging distribution to less populated areas, the U.S. government sought to alleviate the concentration of immigrants in major cities and address issues related to public health and economic integration.
Key Points
- 📉 Immigration Control: New laws aimed to reduce the number of immigrants and improve their quality.
- 🌐 Distribution Strategy: Encouraged immigrants to settle in less populated states and territories.
- 🚫 Exclusion of Undesirables: Increased restrictions on the entry of individuals with diseases or criminal backgrounds.
- 💰 Economic Considerations: Focused on steering immigrants towards areas with labor shortages.
- 🏠 Urban Overcrowding: Addressed the issue of overcrowded immigrant neighborhoods in major cities.
- 🔍 Health and Legal Checks: Stricter inspection processes to filter out unfit immigrants.
- 🚜 Agricultural Settlement: Promoted agricultural opportunities in the South and West.
- 🛡️ Protective Measures: Implemented regulations to prevent exploitation and abuse of immigrants.
- 💼 Employment and Integration: Efforts to ensure immigrants found suitable employment and integrated into society.
- 🌎 Cultural Impact: The laws reflected broader societal concerns about the changing demographic landscape.
Summary
- Regulating Immigration: The article outlines new laws to curb the high rate of immigration, focusing on quality over quantity.
- Even Distribution: Efforts were made to encourage immigrants to move to underpopulated areas, rather than congested cities.
- Exclusion Criteria: Stricter criteria were established to prevent the entry of individuals considered undesirable.
- Addressing Urban Issues: The laws aimed to reduce the pressure on urban infrastructures due to immigrant concentration.
- Health and Safety: Enhanced health inspections were implemented to prevent the spread of diseases.
- Labor Distribution: The article highlights the importance of directing immigrants to regions with labor shortages, particularly in agriculture.
- Government Oversight: Increased governmental oversight was introduced to protect immigrants from exploitation.
- Economic and Social Integration: The new regulations aimed to ensure that immigrants could find work and assimilate into American society.
- Long-term Impact: The article reflects on the potential long-term effects of these changes on American demographics.
- Cultural Shifts: The new policies also aimed to manage the cultural impact of large-scale immigration.
