Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 64.djvu/241

Rh Side tenement in New York City. The Mediterranean races, Syrians, Greeks and southern Italians, who are unused to a cold climate, and who often have insufficient clothing, also establish in their crowded 'quarters' splendid foci for the dissemination of disease. The Hebrews, Syrians, Greeks and southern Italians, invariably crowd the most insanitary quarters of the great centers of population. And the various filthy and infected, though perhaps picturesque, foreign 'quarters' constitute to-day the greatest existing menace to the public health.

There are many view points from which our immigrant problem may be judged. There are extremists who advocate the impossible—the complete exclusion of all immigrants, or the complete exclusion of certain races. There are other extremists who pose as humanitarians and philanthropists and who advocate an act of lunacy—removing all restrictions and admitting all the unfortunate—the lame, the halt, the blind and the morally and physically diseased—without let or hindrance. Neither of these extreme positions is tenable. The debarring of all immigrants, or the unjust discrimination against any particular race, is illogical, bigoted and un-American. On the other hand, the indiscriminate admission of a horde of diseased, defective and destitute immigrants would be a crime against the body politic which could not be justified by false pretense of humanity or a mistaken spirit of philanthropy.

The sane, logical position must fall between these two extremes. It is necessary for us to restrict and debar, if possible, all undesirable immigrants. A jealous regard for the public weal may demand measures and standards which seem to the humanitarian and philanthropist selfish and inhuman; but charity begins at home, and it is the" right of Americans to exclude the undesirable and to employ whatever measures and set whatever standards may seem necessary to exclude any class which menaces the social or physical welfare of the country.

If we debar any undesirable class of immigrants under the law, we should endeavor to make the law as nearly perfect as possible and debar all undesirable classes. We debar the immigrant with trachoma, syphilis, leprosy or favus; also the insane, the epileptic and the idiotic, but we admit the immigrant with poor physique, unless it is so marked as to make him undeniably a public charge.

There should be but one standard of physique for the immigrant, no matter whether his destination be the Pennsylvania mines or the New York sweat-shops. The skilled laborer should be expected to possess the same rugged physique as is now expected of the unskilled laborer. The standard should be fixed by law by comparison with other well-recognized standards of physique, and should be sufficiently high to exclude all who could not beyond doubt make a living at