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 EMIGRANT

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EMIGRANT

commencing in the first years of the eighteenth cen- tury. These immigrants were then nearly all Presby- terians, few Catholics being among those taking pas- sage prior to the Revolution. Arthur Young, in his " Tour in Ireland " (1776-79), declares that " the spirit of emigrating in Ireland appears to be confined to two circumstances, the Presbj-terian religion and the linen manufacture. I heard of very few emigrants except among manufacturers of that persuasion. The Catho- lics never went; they seemed not only tied to the country, but almost to the parish in which their an- cestors lived." In a message to the " Representatives of the Freemen of the Province of Pennsjdvania and the Three Lower Counties", Lieutenant Governor Patrick Gordon declared, on 17 December, 172S, that he had "positive orders from Britain to provide by proper law against these crowds of Foreigners who are yearly po\^T'd upon us. It may also require thoughts to prevent the importation of Irish Papists and con- victs, of whom some of the most notorious, I am cred- itably informed, have of late been landed in this River."

The earliest American organization for the care of immigrants was the Charitable Irish Society of Bos- ton, Massachusetts, founded 17 March, 1737. Says its charter: "Several Gentlemen, Merchants and Others of the Irish Nation residmg in Boston in New England from an ,\fTectionate and Compassionate con- cern for their countrjTiien in these Parts, who may be reduced by Sickness, Shipwrack, Old age and other Infirmities and unforseen Accidents, Have thought fitt to form themselves into aCharitable Society for the relief of such of their poor and indigent Countrymen ". The Managers, according to the rules, were to be " Na- tives of Ireland, or Natives of any other part of the British Dominions of Irish Extraction being Protest- ants and inhabitants of Boston". This anti-Catholic rule did not last long, for representatives of the Faith were members of the Society in 1742, and to-day they are in the majority on its roll.

In Philadelphia the Hibernian Society for the Re- lief of Emigrants from Ireland was organized on 3 March, 1790. Mathew Carey was its secretary, and Commodore John Barry, Jasper Moylan, George Meade, and other Catholics prominent in those daj^s were among its first members. The Hibernian Soci- ety for " the aid of distressed Irishmen and their de- scendants" was started at Savannah, Georgia, in March, 1812, and emigration from Ireland being con- stantly on the increase, other societies were formed in New York, notably the Emigrant Assistance Society in 1S2.5, with Dr. William James Macneven, one of the United Irishmen of 1798, at its head. It was the canal- and railroad-building era, and the aim of this society was to take care of the new arrivals and direct them where to find empIojTnent. It was the prede- cessor of the Irish Emigrant Society founded, also in New York, in 1841, through the efforts of Bishop Hughes, with Gregory Dillon as its first president. Out of this organization ten years later came the Emi- grant Industrial Savings Bank, which in subsequent years developed into one of the greatest financial msti- tutions in the country.

As New York was the great entrepot for aliens, the Legislature, by act of 5 May, 1847, created the Board of Emigration of the State of New York to protect from fraud and imposition alien passengers arriving at New York, and to care and provide for the helpless among them. The president of the Irish Emigrant Society was ex-officio a member of this commission, and at Castle Garden, which became the official land- ing depot, its agents were recognized officially in their arrangements for the care of the incoming immigrant. In addition to looking out for the welfare of the immi- grants, a banking department was organized by the society to transmit money to Europe, to secure pas- sage tickets over the ocean and the railways, to ex-

change the money brought in by the immigrants, and safeguard their material interests generally. In this way many millions of dollars, as well as several mil- lions of immigrants, have been safely cared for tWough the instrumentality of tliis society. The discounts and commissions in these financial transactions paid its expenses and left a surplus which is given in charity, so that it win benefit either the immigrants or their descendants. The law by which the State of New York established the Commissioners of Emigration was declared by the Supreme Court, in May, 1876, an unconstitutional regulation of commerce, and an usur- pation of the powers of Congress. In the twenty-nine years of its existence it had collected by a head-tax from the immigrants the sum of 811,239,329. The re- sponsibihty of caring for the immigrants was then taken over by the Federal Government, in July, 1891. The State commission was abolished, Castle Garden abandoned, and the LTnited States landing station es- tablished on Ellis Island under the supervision of the Treasury Department. Here, as under the State con- trol, the representatives of the Emigrant Aid Societies are accorded all facilities for protecting and assisting those who need their help in starting out in the New World.

For the protection of Irish immigrant girls the Mis- sion of Our Lady of the Rosary was founded in New York in 1881, through the efforts of Charlotte CJrace O'Brien, daughter of WDHam Smith O'Brien, the Irish patriot of 1848. At her solicitation — she was not un- til several years later a Catholic — Cardinal McCloskey appointed the Rev. John J. Riordan chaplain at Castle Garden, and he began there the work of the mission which exercises a moral influence over the steamship companies to protect the girls on board their vessels, and watches over and assists the girls at the landing depot. From its opening to the end of 1908, fully 100,000 girls were cared for by the mission, all free of charge. It is supported by voluntary contributions.

The increase of immigration having thus been recog- nized as a fact calling for charitable action, the Ger- man Society of New York offered advice and syste- matic assistance to German immigrants, but took no interest in their religious welfare. Its president was ej; officio a member of the State Emigration Commission. In 1866, at the Catholic Congress held at Trier, Peter Paul Cahensly, a prominent merchant of Limburg, Prussia, suggested the establislmient of the St. Raph- ael Society for the systematic protection of German emigrants, both at the point of departure and the port of landing. Three years later the plan was adopted at the Congress which met at Bamberg in Bavaria, and was taken up with much energj' throughout Germany. Connexion with the Linited States was established through the Central Verein, which, at its convention in New York, in 1868, created a committee of five for emigrant affairs. The agents of this body looked after the affairs of the immigrants at New York, but re- ceived only a waning support from their fellow Ger- mans. In 1SS3 Peter Paul Cahensly crossed the ocean to New York, travelling, as Miss O'Brien had done, in the steerage, so that he might learn by personal ex- perience the wants and hardships of the immigrant. At his suggestion a branch of the St. Raphael Society was formed in New York, with Bishop Winand M. Wigger of Newark as its president. Not much prog- ress was made by this society until 1882, when the Rev. John Reuland was sent over from Germany to manage its bureau at New York. As an adjunct to it, a hospice called the Leo House was established under a separate corporation in 1889. It cost S95,000. The Sisters of St. ,\gnes have charge of the Leo House, which is the residence of the chaplain in attendance on the German immigrants. From 1889 to 1 November, 1908, there were 51,719 immigrants cared for by the St. Raphael Society. Since the decline of German im- migration after 1895, the Leo House has also enter-