Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/185

Rh administration, a change of officers and clerks had taken place.

It is a well-known fact that the mode in which the General Government appoints its officers is very far from giving security for the proper discharge of their duties. We have seen about ten or twelve different collectors of the New York Custom House since 1847, and in all probability each new administration would have paid off part of its political liabilities by appointments to offices in connection with immigration. The place of general agent or treasurer of the Commission would have been eagerly sought after, as the salary connected therewith is larger than that of any one subaltern of the Collector of Customs in New York. The interest of the ruling party would have been paramount, of course, to the interest of the immigrant. And how many clerks and assistants rotated into office would withstand the temptations held out in the immigration business, which would be greater than in any other branch of the civil service? When, according to the statement of a Commissioner of Internal Revenue, it costs one hundred millions in bribes, theft, and embezzlement to collect three hundred millions of revenue, I do not think I exaggerate when I state that the immigrant, if handed over to the mercy of the regular office-holder, would not leave New York without having been fleeced out of at least one-half of his property. Certainly, so long as Mr. Jenckes's Civil Service Bill, or some such measure, has not become the law of the land, it will be a cruelty and an aggravation of the existing evils to make the change referred to.

While New York has to endure nearly all of its evils, the other States reap most of the benefits of immigration. New York protects and shields the immigrant in his health and property, and the rising communities of the West flourish upon the fruits of her vigilant care. Our State acts, so to speak, as a filter in which the stream of immigration is purified: what is good passes beyond; what is evil, for the most part, remains behind. Experience shows that it is the hardy, self-reliant, industrious, wealthy immigrant who takes his capital, his intelligence, and his labor to enrich the Western or Southern States. As near as a calculation can be made, it has been ascertained that out of one hundred