Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 66.djvu/255

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6. All administrative matters relating to naturalization should be committed to one central government bureau.

7. It should be made a crime against the United States to sell or transfer declarations of intention, and it should be provided that after sufficient proof has been submitted to a court, establishing the fact that a certificate is fraudulent in any respect, said certificate shall be canceled of record.

These legislative suggestions of the attorney-general are as comprehensive as they are timely, and will probably be accepted by Congress as a basis for curative legislation. The card index system now employed by our immigration officials, for recording the name and date of arrival of each and every alien, could be elaborated so as to contain a physical description as well. This would prove valuable as a means of identification as outlined in the second suggestion of the attorney-general.

The economic effects of immigration can not be accurately judged by the total number of immigrants landed each year at our ports. Hundreds of thousands go back to Europe each year, and a very large proportion of those traveling in the steerage to Europe are returning aliens. In spite of our immense total of yearly steerage arrivals, the percentage of foreign born in the United States is not increasing and is slightly less than it was ten years ago. Therefore in considering the effect of numbers, our judgment should be based upon census reports of the foreign born population. In regard to occupation and geographical distribution, we must also judge the alien after he is established here, rather than by the statement he makes to the immigration officials upon arrival. During years of industrial depression, the number of aliens returning to Europe is much increased, and while no claim is made that these birds of passage are desirable immigrants, it must be admitted that they do not add to our burdens in times of trouble by swelling the army of the unemployed. On the other hand, we have to consider the excess of males of competitive age (15 to 45) among immigrants, and their unequal distribution. Their geographical distribution is such that 86 per cent, are settled in the states east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio rivers. Their distribution by trades or occupations is also unequal, as shown by the relatively small number engaged in tilling the soil, compared with the enormous number engaged in mining and sweat shop occupations.

One of the chief offenses charged to the immigrant is reduction of our wage standards. There are other factors more potent in depressing wages than immigration, some of which are not connected with it in any way; others are associated with it so intimately that it is difficult to separate them from it. These factors are obscured in the minds of many by the fact of our increasing immigration, and some are prone to charge the sum of their effects to immigration alone.