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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