The Project Gutenberg eBook of Races and Immigrants in America, by John R. Commons.

[16] Hugh M. Browne, A.M.E., Zion Church Quarterly, April, 1894, quoted by Tillinghast, p. 186.

[23] Willcox, “Census Statistics of the Negro,” Yale Review, 13:279 (1904).

[42] This is the number according to race; the table gives the number according to last place of residence.

[62] Lalor’s “Cyclopedia of Political Economy, Political Science, and United States History,” article on “Chinese Immigration.”

[64] Computed from Table VIII, p. 28 et seq., Report of Commissioner-General of Immigration, 1906. “Commercial” includes agents, bankers, hotel-keepers, manufacturers, merchants, and dealers, and other miscellaneous. “Unskilled” includes draymen, hackmen, and teamsters, farm laborers, farmers, fishermen, laborers, and servants.

[65] Two hundred and eighty-five thousand four hundred and sixty immigrants set down as “no occupation,” including mainly women and children, are omitted from this computation.

[70] “If I were asked what one factor makes most for the amicable relations between the races in the Delta, I should say, without hesitation, the absence of a white laboring class, particularly of field laborers.”—Stone, “The Negro in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta,” p. 241. “There is comparatively little crime in the Black Belt and in the White Belt. It is in the counties where the races meet on something like numerical equality and in economic competition that the maximum of crime is charged against negroes.”—Atlanta University Publications, No. 9, p. 48.

[71] In 1905, after losing a strike in New York, the General Executive Board of the United Garment Workers of America, consisting with one exception of Russian Jews, adopted the following resolutions:—

Resolved, That the unprecedented movement of the very poor in America from Europe in the last three years has resulted in wholly changing the previous social, political, and economic aspects of the immigration question. The enormous accessions to the ranks of our competing wage-workers, being to a great extent unemployed, or only partly employed at uncertain wages, are lowering the standard of living among the masses of the working people of this country, without giving promise to uplift the great body of immigrants themselves. The overstocking of the labor market has become a menace to many trade-unions, especially those of the lesser skilled workers. Little or no benefit can possibly accrue to an increasing proportion of the great numbers yet coming; they are unfitted to battle intelligently for their rights in this republic, to whose present burdens they but add others still greater. The fate of the majority of the foreign wage-workers now here has served to demonstrate on the largest possible scale that immigration is no solution of the world-wide problem of poverty.

Resolved, That we call on American trade unionists to oppose emphatically the proposed scheme of government distribution of immigrants, since it would be an obvious means of directly and cheaply furnishing strike breakers to the combined capitalists now seeking destruction of the trade-unions.

Resolved, That we condemn all forms of assisted immigration, through charitable agencies or otherwise.

Resolved, That we warn the poor of the earth against coming to America with false hopes; it is our duty to inform them that the economic situation in this country is changing with the same rapidity as the methods of industry and commerce.

Resolved, That with respect to immigration we call on the government of the United States for a righteous relief of the wage-workers now in America. We desire that Congress should either (1) suspend immigration totally for a term of years; or (2) put into force such an illiteracy test as will exclude the ignorant, and also impose such a head tax as will compel immigrants to pay their full footing here and be sufficient to send back all those who within a stated period should become public dependants.

[81] The Nation, 83:379 (1906); Durand, Herbert, “Peonage in America,” Cosmopolitan, 39:423 (1905).

[90] Where two years are given, the first is for Immigration and the second for Imports.

[96] Prisoners having one parent foreign are apportioned in the ratio of native and foreign parentage.

[98] Offenders having one parent foreign are apportioned in the ratio of native and foreign parentage.

[100] John B. McMaster, “The Riotous Career of the Knownothings,” Forum, July, 1894, p. 524.

[101] Cutler, “Lynch Law”; Bishop, “Lynching,” International Quarterly, September, 1903.

[102] Bureau of the Census, Special Reports, “Paupers in Almshouses, 1904,” “Benevolent Institutions, 1904,” “Insane and Feeble-minded in Hospitals and Institutions, 1904.”

[106] See description of the Belgium system by the author, Review of Reviews, May, 1900; also, “Representation of Interests,” Independent, June, 1900; “Proportional Representation.”

[107] Commons, “Proportional Representation,” Appendix. Publications of the Federation for Majority Rule, Washington, D.C.

[108] Hunt, Gaillard, “Federal Control of Naturalization,” World’s Work, 11:7095 (1906).

[110] “Naturalization Laws and Regulations of October, 1906,” published by the Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization.

[115] Phillips, J. B., “Educational Qualifications of Voters,” University of Colorado Studies, Vol. III, No. 2 (1906).

[116] Caffey, Francis G., “Suffrage Limitations at the South,” Political Science Quarterly, 20:53 (1905). Report on Political Reform, Union League Club, New York, 1903.

[117] Williams v. Mississippi, 170 U.S., 213; Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S., 475; Giles v. Teasley, 193 U.S., 146.

[118] This does not apply to the “understanding” clause in Mississippi, which is permanent.

[123] Forum, 11:634-743 (1891). Reprinted in “Discussions,” etc., pp. 417-426.

[124] Professor Smith, for the year 1888, estimated the colonial element at 29,000,000 and the immigrant element at 26,000,000, applying to the immigrants the average rate of increase from births. “Emigration and Immigration,” pp. 60-61.

[129] Kuczynski concludes from his study of Massachusetts statistics that “the native population cannot hold its own. It seems to be dying out.” Could he have separated the two elements of the native population, he would have found that the immigrant element is dying out faster than the older native element. “The Fecundity of the Native and Foreign Born Population in Massachusetts,” p. 186.

[144] Tosti, Gustavo, “The Agricultural Possibilities of Italian Immigration,” Charities, May 5, 1904, p. 472.

[145] “Immigration to the Southern States,” Political Science Quarterly, 20:276 (1905).

[148] Kellor, “Out of Work,” pp. 17, 50-53, 70; Charities, Feb. 6, 1904, p. 151.

[155] The National Immigration Conference, December 8, 1905, adopted the following resolution: “That the penalty of $100, now imposed on the steamship companies for bringing diseased persons to the United States, be also imposed for bringing in any person excluded by law.” National Civic Federation Review, January, 1906, p. 19.

POVERTY

By ROBERT HUNTER

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“A book that should be read by every one who has the promotion of social betterment at heart.”

—Milwaukee Sentinel.

“A most interesting, a most startling, and a most instructive book.”

—Los Angeles Times.

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