IS IT PRACTICABLE TO REGULATE IMMIGRATION?[1]
In other words, are not the "expellant influences of Europe "coupled with "the attractive influences of America" too strong for us to resist? A recent examination of certain Congressional records and official documents suggested the disquieting question. In answer, the appended extracts from that record may or may not appear conclusive; but they certainly warrant the question, which in the light of more than fifty years of experiment and failure cannot well be deemed premature! Great as the evils of unrestricted immigration are admitted to be, history has yet to record any real restriction. The various barriers erected at Castle Garden and elsewhere do not seem to have deserved the name. They have had about as great an influence over the rising tide of immigration as that which is commonly ascribed to the familiar domestic utensil of Mrs. Partington, when applied to the waves of the Atlantic.
The materials for a history of our foreign immigration are abundant and accessible, needing only to be compiled and arranged. Indeed the full significance of the subject can hardly be estimated until we realize that it has a history, that the difficulties of today are practically the difficulties of twenty years ago, of thirty, and of fifty years ago, and that these difficulties and the ultimate peril are foreshadowed in the annals of the eighteenth century.
In tracing the record of immigration, it would be convenient to divide the past century into two periods of nearly equal length. The evils of immigration and its perplexities were first recognized about 1838, and since that time there have been frequent attempts to discover a suitable remedy. The half century of national existence prior to 1838 witnessed no efforts to regulate and no practical experience with the problem. It was a period of theory rather than fact, or rather the period when theory preceded fact.
But this period of theory should not on that account be ignored, as it had no small influence on subsequent events. Tradition ascribes to the earlier part of the nineteenth century, or the close of the eighteenth, the origin of several abstract political maxims, which have been thought to indicate our true immigration policy, and enable America to fulfill her responsibilities to "the human race." According to one of these maxims, the country was destined for the "asylum of the oppressed." Another, still more sweeping in scope, made it incumbent upon us to be "the refuge of the nations." In this practical age and period of stern fact it seems odd that these vague generalities should retain much force or vitality, yet they are constantly to be encountered in current literature.
The age responsible for them, however, was one of protest and revolt. The colonies of Great Britain had furnished a "refuge" and "asylum "for the victims of religious intolerance and political proscription, and such victims America was always to welcome. But to apply to present conditions the terms referred to seems almost absurd. And as has been so apparent in recent discussion, it involves a very plain matter in a hopeless confusion of thought. It is a condition which confronts us, not a vague and irrelevant theory. We are nowafford-
- ↑ No such thought has been apparent in recent discussion. It is generally assumed that immigration evils will be corrected, and various remedies are proposed. But practical men manifest great distrust of the remedies. During the recent debate in Congress an experienced member of the House declared that the present laws are of no practical use, and that the examination of arriving immigrants was a mere farce. In short, the remedies don't reach the disease.
