There are two things which the student of sociological problems—like every other scientist—wishes to know about the phenomena which fall within his field. These are the causes and the effects. Hitherto we have said a good deal about the causes of immigration and very little about the effects. In truth, it is much simpler to predicate causes of such a movement than effects. The causes lie in the past; the effects are largely a matter of the future. It is possible to state with a fair degree of certainty what are the causes of the modern immigration to the United States. The reader will have already formed a general idea from the examples of the new immigration which we have given.

In general the causes of our recent and present immigration may be divided into two classes, the natural and the artificial. Most of what has been said thus far refers to the former; the latter has been merely hinted at. Another distinction which is often helpful is that between the permanent or predisposing causes, and the temporary or immediate causes. It frequently happens that in a given country there are conditions of long standing—perhaps inherent in the character of the country itself—which make life hard and disagreeable for the resident. Yet no immigration takes place until some relatively trivial event, of a temporary nature, occurs, which serves as the final impulse to emigration. To the superficial view this temporary event appears as the cause of emigration, when in point of fact its weight in the total amount of dissatisfactions is insignificant.^[121] The natural causes of immigration at the present time lie primarily in the superiority of the economic conditions in the United States over those in the countries from which the immigrants come. Modern immigration is essentially an economic phenomenon. Religious and political causes have played the leading part in the past, and still enter in as contributory factors in many cases. But the one prevailing reason why the immigrant of to-day leaves his native village is that he is dissatisfied with his economic lot, as compared with what it might be in the new world. The European peasant comes to America because he can—or believes he can—secure a greater return in material welfare for the amount of labor expended in this country than in his home land. This fact is recognized by practically all careful students of the subject, and is frequently emphasized in the recent report of the Immigration Commission. It is worthy of notice, also, that the changes which affect the volume of the immigration current, and cause those repeated fluctuations which we have observed, are changes in the economic situation in this country, rather than in the countries of source. A period of good times in this country attracts large numbers of immigrants by promising large rewards for labor; an industrial depression checks the incoming current, and sends away many of those who are here. This is probably accounted for by the fact that economic conditions in this country are subject to greater oscillations than in European countries which are relatively static, rather than dynamic. An example of the opposite condition is furnished by the Irish emigration of the middle of the nineteenth century, when a great economic disaster in the country of source occasioned a large increase in emigration. This relation between the economic situation in this country and the volume of immigration has been worked out statistically by Professor Commons, and is presented in graphic form in a table in his book, Races and Immigrants in America (opposite page 64). In this table he takes imports as an index of the prosperity of the United States and shows how closely the curve representing immigration follows the curve of imports per capita. If he could have taken account of the departing aliens as well, the showing would probably have been still more striking.

The search for the reasons for this economic superiority of the United States involves an investigation too complicated and extensive to be undertaken in the present connection. There are two factors, however, which may be pointed out, which, at the beginning of our national life, gave us an advantage possessed by no other modern nation. The first of these was the small ratio between men and land, which we have commented on before. The territory of the United States was a vast, newly discovered region, with untold natural resources and every advantage of climate and configuration, inhabited by a mere handful of settlers, at a time when the nations of Europe had long since struck a balance between population and land, on the customary standard of living. The countries of Europe have also profited, it is true, by the opening up of this great new world. But their benefit has been transmitted and indirect, while the American people have been the direct and immediate recipients of this great advantage. The importance of this factor can hardly be overestimated.

The second of these great factors is the character of the American people themselves. We have seen that this was well formed and distinctive at the time of the Revolution. The early settlers of the North American continent were in many respects a picked body, taken from the best of the populations of Europe. Their descendants were also subjected to the stern selective processes of the struggle with, and conquest of, the wilderness, and the establishment of their own economic and political independence. As a result, the American people at the beginning of our national life had certain qualities both of physical and intellectual character,—hardihood, enterprise, daring, independence, love of freedom, perseverance, etc.,—which set them apart from any of their contemporaries.

It has been the combination of these two factors—a unique people in a rich virgin land—which, more than anything else, has accounted for the eminent position attained by the American nation in the economic life of the world. Many other circumstances have doubtless contributed to the result, but they would have been powerless to accomplish the end, without these two essential prerequisites. With the disappearance of these two distinguishing features the United States will begin to lose her position of economic superiority.

The statement made in a previous paragraph, that the immigrant comes to America because he can—or believes he can—better his economic lot by so doing, suggested that great class of causes which we have called the artificial. The advantages of the economic life in the United States all too frequently exist, not in fact, but in the mind of the prospective emigrant. And this belief is equally potent in stirring up emigration, whether it is grounded on fact or not. There are hosts of immigrants passing through the portals of Ellis Island every year whose venture is based on a sad misconception. There are also countless numbers who would never have engaged in the undertaking had not the idea of doing so been forcibly and persistently instilled into their minds by some outside agency. In other words, a very large part of our present immigration is not spontaneous and due to natural causes, but is artificial and stimulated. This stimulation consists in creating the desire and determination to migrate, by inducing dissatisfaction with existing conditions as compared with what the new world has to offer. Its source is in some interested person or agency whose motive may, or may not, be selfish.

There are three principal sources from which this stimulation or encouragement to immigration emanates—the transportation companies, the labor agents, and the previous immigrants. The motive of the first two is an economic and wholly selfish one; that of the latter may or may not be selfish.

The carrying of immigrants from Europe to America is a very vast and lucrative business. The customary charge for steerage passage averages at least $30, and as the large immigrant ships carry 2000 or more steerage passengers there is a possibility of receiving as much as $60,000 from steerage passengers on a single voyage. It is, furthermore, a business which can be almost indefinitely expanded by vigorous pushing. A skillful agent can induce almost any number of the simple and credulous peasants of a backward European country to emigrate, who had scarcely had such an idea in their heads before. Consequently it pays the transportation companies to have an immense army of such agents, continually working over the field, and opening up new territory. The motive is not so much rivalry for a given amount of business between the different companies; a mutual agreement between different lines or groups of lines, dividing up the territory from which they shall draw their steerage passengers, practically precludes this.^[122] It is rather the possibility of actually creating new business by energetic canvassing.

It is obvious that the activity of these agents may be of the most pernicious nature. The welfare of the immigrant, or the benefit of either country concerned, are of no concern to them. Their sole aim is to get business. So long as the immigrant has the wherewithal to pay his passage, it matters not to them where he got it, nor are they deterred by any doubts as to the fitness of the immigrant for American life, or of the probability of his success there. In fact, it is claimed that the steamship companies prefer a class of immigrants which is likely, eventually, to return to the old country, as this creates a traffic going the other way. The only checks to their operations are such as are imposed by their own scruples, and the possession of too many of these does not help a man to qualify for the position of agent.

The methods used by these agents to encourage emigration are most ingenious and insidious. Every possible means is used to make the peasant dissatisfied with his present lot, and to impress him with the glories and joys of life in America. Many, perhaps the majority, of the agents are themselves returned immigrants, who give glittering accounts of their experiences in America, and display gold watches, diamond pins, and various other proofs of their prosperity. The methods of to-day are not quite so crude and bizarre as they used to be. The stories of the richness of America and the ease of life there which used to be current were so overdrawn as to undeceive any but the most ignorant and gullible. Immigrants have left for America expecting to be able to pick up unlimited dollars lying loose in the streets, and stories are told of steerage passengers who threw away the cooking utensils they had brought with them, as the vessel neared New York, supposing that they could get a new lot for nothing as soon as they landed. A better knowledge of actual conditions in America, which now prevails in most European countries, has precluded the continued circulation of such fictions as these. In fact, if there were not real advantages in the United States, and many cases of successful emigrants, the agents would not be able to operate successfully for an indefinite time. But as yet there does exist a sufficient difference between conditions in the new world and in the old to give them a basis of truth, which they may embellish as occasion demands. Many of these agents make a practice of advancing money to the emigrants to pay for their passage, taking a mortgage on their property for an amount far in advance of that actually furnished. These debts are met with a strange faithfulness by the immigrants, even when they have been woefully deceived and cheated. In Greece it is asserted that the agents work through the priests, and thus largely increase their influence.^[123]

Immigration which is inspired by such stimulation as this is far from being so desirable as that which is natural and spontaneous. It follows no natural laws, and responds to no economic demand in this country. It is likely to be of injury rather than of benefit to the United States, and works untold injustice to the immigrants. It is regarded as pernicious by all fair-minded observers, and the United States government has made serious efforts to check it. This is the purpose of the clause in the immigration law limiting the nature of solicitation that may be done by transportation lines. The solicitation of immigration is no new thing. Hale, in his Letters on Irish Immigration, written in 1851–1852, said that competition between the different lines of packets and different shipping houses had made the means of emigration familiar in the remotest corners of Ireland, and that advertising was fully utilized. Professor Mayo-Smith in 1892 wrote that the Inman Steamship Company had 3500 agents in Europe and an equal number in the United States selling prepaid tickets. In Switzerland in 1885 there were 400 licensed emigration agents.^[124] The laws passed since then have forced the agents to proceed more cautiously, and conceal their activities. They have not put a stop to their operations.

These emigration agents are by no means all accredited representatives of the steamship lines over which they send their recruits. There are, to be sure, plenty of official agents of the various transportation companies, who are openly acknowledged as such. The region around the harbor, in many of the Mediterranean seaports, is thronged with steamship ticket offices, often flying the American flag, and with emigration agencies, and the line between the two is frequently very difficult to draw. But the traveling agents, or “runners,” are often free lances as far as appearances go. It is very hard to establish any connection between them and any transportation company. Yet all who have investigated the subject are convinced that there is a close understanding and coöperation between the two, even if there is no official relation. It is contrary to human nature, when so much money is to be made by such canvassing, and there are plenty of people ready to do it, that the transportation companies should neglect the opportunity. On this subject the Immigration Commission says, “It does not appear that the steamship lines as a rule openly direct the operations of these agents, but the existence of the propaganda is a matter of common knowledge in the emigrant-furnishing countries, and, it is fair to assume, is acquiesced in, if not stimulated, by the steamship lines as well.”^[125]

The Commissioner General of Immigration is much more emphatic in his statements. The report for 1909 contains the following passages (p. 112): “The promoter is usually a steamship ticket agent, employed on a commission basis, or a professional money lender, or a combination of the two.... He is employed by the steamship lines, large and small, without scruple, and to the enormous profit of such lines.... To say that the steamship lines are responsible, directly or indirectly, for this unnatural immigration is not the statement of a theory, but of a fact, and of a fact that sometimes becomes, indeed, if it is not always, a crying shame.... [Referring to Contract Labor Inspector John Gruenberg] He shows quite clearly that all of the steamship lines engaged in bringing aliens from Europe to this country have persistently and systematically violated the law, both in its letter and spirit, by making use of every possible means to encourage the peasants of Europe to purchase tickets over their lines to this country. They have issued circulars and advertisements, and made use of extensive correspondence, through their own agents in this country and in Europe.”

The law referred to is Section 7 of the Act of 1907, repeating in substance Section 4, Act of 1891 (p. 111). The ease and persistency with which this provision, carefully worded as it is, is violated, furnishes a striking example of the difficulty of passing statutes which shall be capable of enforcement, especially in foreign countries, to put a stop to practices which are universally conceded to be undesirable.

The second great source of stimulation to emigration is the labor agent. His operations are extensive and diversified, and always in direct violation of the contract labor law. That section of the immigration statutes, as previously pointed out, is so sweepingly drawn as to make any immigrant, not in the excepted classes, who has received the slightest intimation that there is work awaiting him in this country, a violator of the law. But the economic advantage to employers in this country of importing European labor under contract to perform services in the United States at much less than the market rate of wages, is so great, that, as in the previous case, human nature cannot resist the temptation, provided the chances of escaping detection are sufficiently good. And this part of the law, like that relating to advertising, is of such a nature as to make it susceptible of continued and extensive evasion by unscrupulous persons, possessed of such skill and craftiness as characterize the typical contract labor agent. While there is no way of estimating the extent of this practice, there is no doubt that only a very small proportion of the present immigration, from the Mediterranean countries at least, is innocent of the letter of the law, strictly interpreted. This is not to say that they are under actual contract to labor, but that their coming has been encouraged by some sort of intimation that there would be work awaiting them.

By a recent opinion of the Attorney-General, two essential points have been laid down in the construction of the contract labor laws, as follows:

“(1) That they ‘prohibit any offer or promise of employment which is of such a definite character that an acceptance thereof would constitute a contract.’

“(2) That the prohibition to encourage the immigration of an alien by a promise of employment is ‘directed against a promise which specially designates the particular job or work or employment for which the alien’s labor is desired.’”^[126]

Even under this somewhat liberal interpretation of the laws, wholesale violations undoubtedly go on. In the words of the Immigration Commission, “In this way hundreds of immigrants are annually debarred at United States ports as contract laborers, while doubtless hundreds of thousands more are admitted who have practically definite assurances as to the place and nature of their employment in this country.”

A fuller description of contract labor in general, and of that particular form of it which is known as the padrone system, will be given in another connection. The point to be emphasized here is that it operates as one of the great causes of our present immigration, and that it continues to exert a powerful, and probably increasing, influence, in spite of all the efforts of the legislators and officials of the United States to check it.

The third source of stimulation to emigration is the earlier immigrant himself. He is probably the greatest factor of all in induced immigration, and his influence is utilized in various ways by both emigration agents and labor agents, and made to contribute to the success of their efforts.

Every stream of immigration must have its origin in some few individuals, who, the first of their region, break the ties of home and fatherland, and go to seek their fortune in a new and far-away land. Upon their success depends the question whether others from the same district shall follow in their footsteps. If they fail in their venture, it serves as a discouraging factor as respects further emigration from that region. But if they succeed, and win a position which makes them envied in the eyes of their fellow-countrymen, it furnishes a powerful stimulus to further emigration. Sooner or later, there will be some who succeed from every region, and the example of a few successful ones is likely to far outweigh numerous failures. Something like this is going on in countless remote districts of the south European countries, and has gone on for decades in every country which has sent us numbers of immigrants.

Take a typical example. Some Slav peasant, in a little village of Austria-Hungary, of a more ambitious and adventurous disposition than most of his fellows, hears of the opportunities in America, and being dissatisfied with his present lot, decides to try his fortune in the new world. His first “job” is in a mine in some small town of Pennsylvania. Accustomed as he is to a low standard of living, he is able to save a considerable part of the wages which seem munificent to him. From time to time he writes letters home, telling of his prosperity. Eventually he saves up enough to purchase a little store or saloon. Of course there will be a letter telling about that. These letters are wonderful documents in the eyes of his friends and relatives at home. Correspondence does not flourish in these regions, and the receipt of any letter is a matter of great importance. The arrival of a message from across the sea creates an impression which it is almost impossible for an American to comprehend. The precious missive is read aloud in the coffee-houses, and passed from hand to hand throughout the village. It may even travel to neighboring hamlets, and make its impression there. The neighbor in America, and his career, become the foremost topic of conversation for miles around.

In time all this has its effect. A small group of the original emigrant’s former neighbors resolve to try their luck too. The most natural thing, of course, is for them to go to the place where their friend is. He helps them to find work, tides them over difficulties, and in various ways makes their life easier and simpler than his had been. Each of these newcomers also writes letters home, which go through the same round, and add to the growing knowledge of America, and the discontent with European life in comparison. Once started, the movement grows with great rapidity, and the letters from America increase in geometrical proportion. Other nuclei start up in other places, recruits are drawn from more distant villages, and the first little trickling stream becomes a swelling tide.

This is what has come to be known as the chain-letter system. Multiplied by hundreds of thousands, the foregoing example serves to illustrate the irresistible network of communications which is drawing the peasants of Europe to every part of the United States. This is recognized by all authorities as probably the most powerful single factor in stirring up emigration from such countries as Italy, Austria-Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, etc. Its effect has been graphically described by a Greek writer in the following words:

“‘Such a one, from such a village, sent home so many dollars within a year,’ is heard in some village or city, and this news, passed like lightning from village to village and from city to city, and magnified from mouth to mouth, causes the farmer to forsake his plow, the shepherd to sell his sheep, the mechanic to throw away his tools, the small-grocer to break up his store, the teacher to forsake his rostrum, and all to hasten to provide passage money, so that they may embark, if possible, on the first ship for America, and gather up the dollars in the streets before they are all gone.”^[127]

This is a perfectly natural influence, and obviously beyond the power of any legislation to check, even if that were desirable. When inspired merely by a friendly interest in the home neighbors, a desire to keep in touch with them, and a little personal vanity, it is probably the most harmless of any of the forms of stimulation. When, as all too frequently happens, the underlying motive is sinister and selfish, it becomes a source of the greatest deceit and injustice.

When the pioneer emigrant returns to his native village, after some years of prosperous life in America, his influence and importance are unbounded. He becomes in truth the “observed of all observers.” Groups of interested listeners and questioners gather round him wherever he goes, and hang on his words in breathless awe. His fine, strange clothes, his sparkling jewelry and gold watch, his easy, worldly manners, all arouse the greatest admiration. He has to tell over and over again the story of his career, and describe the wonders of that far-away land. If such a one is returning to the United States, it takes no urging on his part to induce a number of his countrymen to accompany him; they are fairly clinging to the skirts of his garments, to be taken back. Even if he has come home to remain, his constant example is there to inspire the youth of the village to follow in his path. So the “visit home” and the “returned immigrant” add their weight to the influence of the stream of letters. How universal this condition has become is evidenced by the fact that in 1909 only 6.3 per cent of all the immigrants admitted to the United States were not going to join either relatives or friends, according to their statement; in 1910 the percentage was only 4.9. In 1912 it rose to 7.5. About six times as many go to join relatives as friends.

Many of the letters from America contain remittances from the immigrants to their friends and relatives at home. Often these remittances take the form of prepaid tickets,^[128] complete from some European center or port to the city in America, where the sender is waiting. Then their influence is absolutely irresistible. The transportation companies make every effort to make the passage as simple as possible, and railroad companies in this country make special immigrant rates, to be used in connection with such tickets. A large part of the induced immigration of the present day is also assisted immigration. It is a perfectly natural thing that an immigrant in this country should wish to be joined by certain of his relatives on the other side, and, if he is able, should send them the means to come. This has always been done. In the middle of the nineteenth century E. E. Hale wrote that a large part of the letters from Irish to their friends in this country consisted in acknowledgments of remittances, and requests for more. The remittances in 1850 are said to have amounted to about four and one half million dollars. Prepaid tickets were also in use at that date. It is manifestly impossible to estimate correctly the extent of this business at the present time. According to the official reports, in 1910, 72.5 per cent of the immigrants had paid for their own tickets, 26.5 per cent had their tickets paid for by a relative, and 1 per cent by some one other than self or relative. But this showing rests solely upon the immigrant’s own statement, and is undoubtedly an underestimate. The suspicion of immigrants whose passage is paid for them, which characterizes our law, leads many to practice deceit in this matter. For instance, it is almost impossible to believe that all but 5.4 per cent of the Greeks had paid their own passage. An examination of the figures shows that there is a larger proportion of passages paid by some one besides the immigrant among the old immigration than among the new. This is explained by the fact that the old immigration has more of a family character, and that immigrants are sending for wives and children. This can be understood only by comparison with the sex and age tables.^[129]

Even when these remittances are not in the form of prepaid tickets, nor are even intended to pay passage in any way, they exert a powerful influence in stirring up immigration, through the tangible evidence which they furnish of American possibilities. There could be no stronger proof of the success of immigrants in the United States than the constant stream of gold which is flowing from this country to Europe.

For the sake of clearness, these different forms of stimulation have been discussed separately. In practice, they overlap and combine in a variety of complicated relations. The emigration agent is often himself a returned immigrant; if not, he utilizes all the influences which arise from the letters, visits, and remittances of actual immigrants to further his ends. The letters from America are often misleading or spurious, used by labor agents in this country to entice others to come. The prepaid ticket is susceptible of a wide variety of uses. Assistance to emigrants is often furnished, not by well-disposed friends and relatives, but by loan-sharks, whose motives are wholly selfish, and whose sole aim is to secure usurious rates of interest for sums advanced, which are amply protected by mortgages.

As a result of this complex of motives and forces, America has become a household word even to the remote corners of Europe, and he who wishes, for any reason, to stir up emigration from any region finds a fertile field already prepared for him. It is amazing to find how much an ignorant Greek peasant knows about conditions in America. The economic situation is, of course, the prime interest. But there is also a good fund of information about social and political subjects. There are of course many misconceptions and errors, but it is evident that the lines of communication between the European village and the American city are very well established. Similar conditions prevail in all the immigrant-furnishing countries.

It is impossible to say to just what extent our present immigration ought to be classified as induced. It is probable that only a very small part of the total immigration is wholly free from stimulation to some degree. Certain it is that a very large proportion of it is thoroughly artificial and induced. The getting of immigrants is now a thoroughly developed system, planned to serve the needs of every form of interest which might profit thereby.^[130] As to the quality of such immigration, something has already been said. There is evidently nothing about the immigrants themselves, or the way in which they are secured, that serves as a guarantee of their serviceability or value to this country; as to their own prospects, we can do no better in closing this chapter than to quote the words of the Commissioner General; these various operations “often result in placing upon our shores large numbers of aliens who, if the facts were only known at the time, are worse than destitute, are burdened with obligations to which they and all their relatives are parties,—debts secured with mortgages on such small holdings as they and their relatives possess, and on which usurious interest must be paid. Pitiable indeed is their condition, and pitiable it must remain unless good fortune accompanies the alien while he is struggling to exist and is denying himself the necessaries of decent living in order to clear himself of the incubus of accumulated debt. If he secures and retains employment at fair wages, escapes the wiles of that large class of aliens living here who prey upon their ignorant compatriots, and retains his health under often adverse circumstances, all may terminate well for him and his; if he does not, disaster is the result to him and them.”^[131]