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state is naturally attractive. Some come to escape military service, others with the idea of making money and returning to their native land. Density of population and the accompanying excessive competition in the struggle for existence also play a part. Hundreds of letters telling of the general prosperity in America and contrasting this with the condition at home, do their work with the disheartened peasants. It is said that half of our immigrants come on tickets paid for by friends in America. The large employers of labor, and even the States themselves, are constantly calling for laborers. Ours is a huge, half-developed country, and the development of our resources, particularly the coal and iron industries, the cotton; rice, cane, and tobacco industries, and the railways demands thousands of helpers. [Illustration: Several hundred people on a ship.] Emigrants bound for America. The steamship companies which have found an extremely profitable business in the transportation of immigrants have used various means to increase the numbers. Agents are said to be in all European countries soliciting trade. Associations for the assistance of poor emigrants have been formed in various European cities--this is especially true among the Jews who, by means of societies such as the "Hebrew Shelter" of London, have aided thousands of Roumanian and Russian Jews on their way to America. [Illustration] Entrance to Emigrant Station or "model town" in Hamburg. Built for emigrants waiting to sail. Although most of the European countries have placed restrictions upon emigration, these restrictions unfortunately do not retard the emigration of the undesirable classes. As a result America was called upon early to legislate on this problem. The first act was in 1819 and was aimed to regulate the transportation of immigrants. The laws of 1875, 1882, 1891, 1893, and 1903 dealt with the class of immigrants to be admitted. The acts did not accomplish the end for which they were framed, and the question was taken up again by Congress which, after a lengthy discussion, passed the act of 1907. No great change in policy was effected by this law which, for the most part, only revised the wording of the old laws and modified the methods of regulation. The head tax of two dollars, hitherto levied on each alien, was doubled but was made inapplicable to immigrants from our insular possessions or to aliens who had resided for a ye
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