|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 19
The precise details of selection, and the machinery, are mere matters of
detail. But the consular service, as long ago suggested by Catlin,
Schuyler and others, seems to offer the proper base of operations. We have
already recommended charging consuls with vis�ing certificates from
police, medical, and poor-relief authorities. We should further require
that declarations of intention to migrate be published (somewhat as
marriage banns are published) at local administrative centers
(arrondissement, Bezirk, etc.) and at United States consular offices; the
consular declaration should be obligatory; perhaps the other might be
optional, though in all probability foreign governments would co�perate in
demanding it. These validated declarations of intention should be filed in
the consular offices. When notice comes from the United States Department
of Labor that so many laborers will be admitted from such and such
district, the declarations are to be taken up in the order of their
filing, and the proper number of persons certified for admission. The
apportionment of admissions from each country might be calculated on a
basis of its population, also upon the nature of the employment offered,
and upon the desirability of the alien himself, his general
assimilability, his willingness to become naturalized, to adopt the
English language and the American standard of living among efficient
workers, etc.,--all as proved by past experience with his countrymen. This
plan, in so far as it provides for a sliding scale of admissions, is in
line with that proposed by Professor Gulick. He advocates making all
nations eligible for admission and citizenship, but would admit them only
in proportion as they can be readily assimilated. This would admit
annually, say, five per cent of those already naturalized, with their
American children. The principle here seems to be that we can assimilate
from any land in, and only in, proportion to the number already
assimilated from that land. But the difficulty of applying such a test
lies in the complexity of the assimilative process. No measure yet exists
for assimilation. Anthropologists are convinced that various strains in
the populations, for example of France, or Great Britain, which have been
dwelling together for centuries, are not by any means assimilated. Mere
naturalization is not a sufficient test of assimilation; it is only the
expression of a desire to be assimilated; and it may only be a device for
the promotion of business success here or in foreign parts, as we have
already indicated in the case of the Greeks. Hence in working out the
basis of a sound immigration policy, it would seem more practicable to
consider first the question of economic utilization rather than
assimilation. This, of course, does not exclude from the Secretary of
Labor's judgment the category of assimilability as one of the factors in
determining the apportionment of admissions.
It will appear that the plan outlined above limits immigration policy to
purely national and economic considerations. But it is, as matters now
stand, a national question. And it must remain so for some time to come,
even if we are reproached with a narrow Mercantilist economics. The
admission of aliens is not yet a fundamental international _right_, or
_duty_; it is only an example of _comity_ within the family of nations.
And the matter must rest in this state of limbo until we develop some
institution or method of registering our sentiments of internationalism,
and especially of determining _international surplus_. As it is idle to
talk or dream of abolishing poverty until at least the concept of social
or national surplus is pretty clearly fixed and its realization either
actually at hand or fairly imminent, just so is it vain to expect an
international adjustment of the immigration problem on economic grounds
until the existence of an international surplus is demonstrated, and the
methods of apportioning it worked out.
How soon we may expect these things it is not our province to predict. It
is too early to pass final judgment on Professor Patten's dictum that
inter-racial co�peration is impossible without integration, and that races
must therefore stand in hostile relations or finally unite. But it is
perfectly apparent that we have a long way to travel before the path to
integration is cleared. Such assemblages as the First Universal Races
Congress which met in London in 1911 can do much to prepare the way. But
it must not be forgotten that the German representative at that Congress
pleaded for the maintenance of strict racial and national boundaries, and
summed up his plea in the rather ominous sentence: "The brotherhood of man
is a good thing, but the struggle for life is a far better one." Meanwhile
we need not anticipate serious international difficulties in the way of
the sliding-scale plan; for foreign governments are watching the tide of
immigration with mixed feelings. They welcome the two or three hundred
million dollars sent home annually by alien residents in the United
States. But they also resent the dislocations of industry, the fallow
fields, the dodging of military service, and the disturbance of the level
of prices which such wholesale emigrations inflict upon the mother
country.
Since the protagonists of unrestricted immigration have taken largely an
economic line of argument, it seemed desirable to accept their terms, and
meet them on their own ground. But I should not wish to be misunderstood
as limiting the immigration question to its economic phases. When we have
said that the _latifondisti_ of Southern Italy are in despair at the
scarcity of laborers to work their lands at starvation wages, and that the
railway builders and mine operators of America are equally anxious to have
those selfsame South Italian laborers for their own exploitive
enterprises, we have told a bare half of the tale. There remain all those
cultural, educational, political, religious and domestic variations and
adjustments which make up the general problem of assimilability of the
alien and of the strength of our own national digestion. America had a
giant's undiscriminating appetite in the great days of expansion from 1850
to 1890. But there are many signs, economic and other, that we can no
longer play Gargantua and continue a healthy nation. An unwise engineer
sometimes over-stokes his boilers, and courts disaster. Is it not equally
possible that national welfare may suffer from an over-dose of human fuel
in our industry?
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|