Page:The Overland Monthly, Jan-June 1894.djvu/234

170 committee of 1889 found the condition of affairs to be about the worst in our history.

What has been accomplished since that report? Measures designed to afford some relief were passed by Congress during the session of 1891, although without adequate appropriations to enforce them, and various individuals have been debarred from landing. But by this time we are well aware that the undesirable classes are not numbered by units or tens, but by hundreds and by thousands. Will further legislation reach the latter? No question can have a more direct and immediate bearing on American civilization.

As for the law lately passed, (March, 1893), it is open to very serious objections. Some of its provisions have been tried and found wanting. When the bill in its present form came up for passage in the House, all the remarks made, with but a single exception, indicated the lack of confidence in the proposed remedy. One speaker lamented that the bill went so short a distance in the direction it professed to go. Another member, thoroughly familiar with the subject, said in summing up the defects of the bill that it was not worth passing. But even were adequate laws passed, the question of vital import to the country is, whether such laws will be enforced and made effective. Many stringent regulations appear in the annals of immigration, but no radical or permanent reform. Agitation, legislation, superficial and temporary improvement, recurrence of the evil when public attention is diverted, about describes the situation.

Perhaps the exclusion of the Chinese may be instanced as one exception in the long list of failures to regulate immigration. Chinese exclusion is somewhat of a misnomer, as the constant arrivals from Mexico and British Columbia plainly bear witness. That the entrance of the Chinese has been greatly checked, however, may freely be conceded. Restrictive laws were framed at last that seem to have met the test of constitutionality. But it required (1) a struggle of years on the part of a whole section of the country, that was (2) practically a unit on the Chinese question. And then (3) the Chinaman had no vote.

No treatment of the subject would complete without at least passing reference to the published report of the special Treasury Commissioners who were detailed to investigate abroad the mysterious influences that underlie the present criminal and pauper immigration from Europe. The same papers that] published, some time ago, outlines of this report, contained also accounts of the united efforts of press and pulpit in New York City to reform and purify the social and political atmosphere. Much stress is laid in the commissioners' report upon the organized system and combination to transport beggars, criminals, and imbeciles, to this country, in which foreign officials are largely implicated. This, however, is no new thing. The friendly governments of Europe have engaged for years in this work, and are responsible in no small degree for the social condition of our large cities; although when these same conditions precipitate an outbreak like that at New Orleans, the same governments manifest much surprise as well as horror at the occurrence.

This commissioners' report does not contain any especially novel features, though it indicates the persistence and deep-rooted nature of the evil. It is referred to here, because in the columns of the press it stood in such striking antithesis to the accounts of the union of press and pulpit to promote municipal reform.

In an article published two or three years ago the writer endeavored to show that many of the greatest industrial and social problems of our generation—intemperance, Mormonism, etc.,—are traceable largely, in some cases almost