n, and also ticket agent on commission for the
steamship companies. His confederates are stationed along the entire
route at connecting points, from the villages of Croatia to the saloon
in Chicago. In Croatia they go among the laborers and picture to them
the high wages and abundant work in America. They induce them to sell
their little belongings and they furnish them with through tickets. They
collect them in companies, give them a countersign, and send them on to
their fellow-agent at Fiume, thence to Genoa or other port whence the
American steerage vessel sails. In New York they are met by other
confederates, whom they identify by their countersign, and again they
are safely transferred and shipped to their destination. Here they are
met by their enterprising countryman, lodged and fed, and within a day
or two handed over to the foreman in a great steel plant, or to the
"boss" of a construction gang on a railway, or to a contractor on a
large public improvement. After they have earned and saved a little
money they send for their friends, to whom the "boss" has promised jobs.
Again their lodging-house countryman sells them the steamship ticket and
arranges for the safe delivery of those for whom they have sent. In this
way immigration is stimulated, and new races are induced to begin their
American colonization. Eventually the pioneers send for their families,
and it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of the immigrants in recent
years have come on prepaid tickets or on money sent to them from
America.[67]

The significance of this new and highly perfected form of inducement
will appear when we look back for a moment upon the legislation
governing immigration.

=Immigration Legislation.=--At the close of the Civil War, with a vast
territory newly opened to the West by the railroads, Congress enacted a
law throwing wide open our doors to the immigrants of all lands. It gave
new guaranties for the protection of naturalized citizens in renouncing
allegiance to their native countries, declaring that "expatriation is a
natural and inherent right of all people, indispensable to the enjoyment
of the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."[68]

In the same year, 1868, the famous Burlingame treaty was negotiated with
China, by which Americans in China and Chinese in America should enjoy
all the privileges, immunities, and exemptions enjoyed by citizens of
the most favored nation. These steps favorable to im