Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/36

Rh and giving medical attention to the incoming hosts, as many as 7,000 having arrived in one day.

We are fortunate in having associated with us a large number of earnest and hard-working missionaries, representing every race and religious denomination, whose constant presence not only brings comfort and help to the arriving alien, but also acts as a powerful protection against extortion or abuse of any character. Every year since coming under federal control the conditions surrounding the immigrant have improved, until today he is absolutely free from organized plunder.

In former days, as one of the state commissioners said in 1869, they were robbed and plundered from the day of their departure to the moment of their arrival at their new homes, by almost every one with whom they came in contact. They were treated worse than beasts and less cared for than slaves, who, whatever their condition may be in other respects, represented a smaller or larger amount of capital, and as valuable chattels received from the owners some help and protection.

There seemed to be a secret league, a tacit conspiracy on the part of all parties dealing with immigrants, to fleece and pluck them without mercy, and hand them from hand to hand as long as anything could be made out of them. The thousands who died from ill treatment on the voyage were thrown into the ocean with as little ceremony as old sacks or broken tools. If crosses and tombstones could be erected on the water as on the western deserts, the routes of the immigrant vessels from Europe to America would long since have assumed the appearance of crowded cemeteries.

While every means is employed by the federal government to provide precautionary measures, petty extortion from immigrants will exist as long as credulity and ignorance exist on one side and human depravity on the other; but I can confidently assert that every legitimate means, almost amounting to paternalism, is exercised by the immigration service to give the arriving immigrant that first impression of our laws and form of government that will place him on the road to good citizenship, while at the same time strictly carrying out the present defective laws. In every other kind of function which comes within the purview of govern- ment officials, the thing to be dealt with is merchandise or finances, while in the immigration service we have to deal with people. No two persons will look alike, nor can any rule be established that will make human beings equal ; therefore the result of inspection must depend, in a large measure, on the dis- cretion of the examining official. The best law in the world, with poor offi- cials, would be of little protection to the country, while the present law, in- sufficient as it is in many respects, has done wonders in keeping out undesira- bles. Immigration inspection should be considered just as much a patriotic duty as is fighting for the honor of the flag. By our present system of selection, the officers charged with this delicate, responsible, and most important duty are chosen for their positions under the same methods and with the same test as would be applied to men whose duty is to weigh coal, merchandise, or add up accounts. Under the present con- ditions, the authority to pass immi- grants is mainly in the control of the officers who were originally appointed, not because of their zeal or sympathy with the spirit which prompted immi- gration legislation, but because they had knowledge of foreign languages, which enabled them to converse with the incoming aliens. Special induce- ments should be given to natives of the United States who will fit themselves linguistically, in addition to the other