ned. We call a person an immigrant who comes to us from a
distance of at least a few thousand miles, and from a country that
differs from ours in the forms of government as well as in customs and
manners. We would surely not call a person an immigrant who comes from
a village of Maine or New Hampshire to Boston, nor even if he should
come from the far South or from the extreme West.

Yet, what is the difference? He is a person who has left his native
home, who is as much a stranger among us as the one who comes across
the ocean. His manners may be as different from ours, his features may
show at a glance, whether he is a southerner, a western man, or
whether he comes from down east; even his language may be strange on
account of the peculiar accent which he gives his words, and the
idioms which he uses. It may frequently happen that two people, who
both think they speak the English language will be unable to
understand each other, on account of the difference in dialect. The
new-comer may prove to be as much, or even more, of an undesirable
element among us, as the one who comes from Ireland or China; his
presence in the labor market may tend as well to reduce the rates of
wages as if he had come from Hungaria or Bulgaria. There is no denying
the fact that a locomotion has taken place, that an individual has
transplanted himself from one place to the other, either on account of
the urging of his venturesome spirit, or for the sake of finding a
better market for his abilities, or driven out by force of adverse
conditions. There is little difference whether a person leaves Russia
on account of his dissatisfaction with the government, or an arbitrary
legislation which deprives him of his opportunities; or whether he
leaves a village in Nebraska because he finds he is unable longer to
withstand the grinding process of the land sharks, or the sweating
system of the factory owners. His intentions are to better his
condition; precisely the same as are those of him who crosses the
Atlantic. The one will sell his all to pay his passage on the steamer,
the other to pay for his railroad ticket, and both will arrive
penniless. Yet the one is called an emigrant or immigrant, and the
other is not, although the distance from which the latter comes may be
the same or even greater than that from which the former hails.

In order to distinguish between these two classes of migration, I call
this latter one "Inter-migration," and desire