278 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
Four-fifths of the immigrants to the United States are received at the special immigration station on Ellis Island. Immigration to this country was encouraged until recently. The first evidence of restriction was the Act of Congress of 1875 pro- hibiting the importation of prostitutes from China and Japan. The Act of March 3, 1893, excluded certain classes, and since then immigration in the broader sense has practically come to a standstill. At present the immigration to this country is but very little larger than that to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The actual immigration to the United States under the new law is as follows :
In the United States Came to join Leave as immigra-
Fiscal year Total landing before immediate family tion proper
1893-4 219,046 29,782 90,887 98,377
1894-5 190,928 45,280 69,637 76,011
1895-6 263,709 48,804 95,269
Of the 233,400 arriving on Ellis Island during the calendar year 1896 only 108,563 could be classified as immigrants proper.
Immigration from the less desirable nationalities is decreasing. The number debarred from landing has increased absolutely and relatively, and the number returned at the expense of the steamship companies because they had become a public charge within one year after landing has materially decreased. This indicates more scrutiny on the part of those charged with the enforcement of the Act of 1893.
The winnowing process is commenced on the other end of the line. The number deterred from risking their money in purchase of passage was probably over a hun- dred thousand last year. The exclusion process is continued on Ellis Island by a searching examination and returning the undesirable ones. Should any foreigner become a public charge before the expiration of one year for a cause not previously existing, he may be, and many are, returned at the expense of an immigration fund. Exclusion by a monetary test is not sufficient guarantee, and consular certification is impracticable. A moderate educational test for the protection of American civiliza- tion and the American standard of life is desirable.
Exclude all undesirable persons and at the same time see that the most desirable immigrants are properly distributed over the country, then there will be no longer any immigration problem. J. H. LENNER, Annals of the American Academy, July 1897.
The Labor Movement. The labor movement is not yesterday's movement, of some men against others, but it is the movement of MAN. Men and measures are its way marks for the recognition of human rights and personal values in the working world. It should be based on a broader knowledge of economic history, economic life and economics.
"The slave labor of antiquity and the serf labor of the Middle Ages constitute the background for the story of the rise of the modern laborer." Laborers of old were more wretched in their poverty, incomparably less prosperous in their prosperity ; were worse clad, worse fed, worse housed, worse taught, worse tended, and worse governed than modern laborers. The transition from Serfdom to Wages was effected by the silent working of economic forces, through the influence exerted by "The Black Death," and by the ever increasing need for more money on the part of the lords in lieu of services from the serfs.
The Industrial Revolution was evolutionary in character in spite of the sudden- ness of its beginning and the rapidity of its pace. It ushered in commercial depres- sions, irregularity in work and lack of employment, sudden fluctuations in prices, industrial strikes and the clash of classes. Child labor became profitable and children were compelled to toil from 4 A.M. of a cold winter's day for thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and even eighteen hours a day under the most heartrending conditions. Some were even sold as part of a bankrupt's effects. Indeed child slavery obtained in the factory towns of England.
The Factory System was inaugurated during the industrial revolution, and the domestic system of manufacture gradually disappeared. Several great inventions made this possible. These inventions were not conceived in a flash by a genius, but were the gradual completion of a process that had been unfolding itself under the spur of necessity.
