Unrestricted immigration is doing much to cause deterioration in the quality of American citizenship. Let us resolve that America shall be neither a hermit nation nor a Botany Bay. Let us make our land a home for the oppressed of all nations, but not a dumping-ground for the criminals, the paupers, the cripples, and the illiterate of the world. Let our Republic, in its crowded and hazardous future, adopt these watchwords, to be made good all along our oceanic and continental borders: "Welcome for the worthy, protection to the patriotic, but no shelter in America for those who would destroy the American shelter itself."--_Joseph Cook._ It is not the migration of a few thousand or even million human beings from one part of the world to another nor their good or bad fortune that is of interest to us. We are concerned with the effect of such a movement on the community at large and its growth in civilization. Immigration, for instance, means the constant infusion of new blood into the American commonwealth, and the question is: What effect will this new blood have upon the character of the community?--_Professor Mayo-Smith._ It is advisable to study the influence of the newcomers on the ethical consciousness of the community--whether there is a gain or a loss to us. In short, we must set up our standard of what we desire this nation to be, and then consider whether the policy we have hitherto pursued in regard to immigration is calculated to maintain that standard or to endanger it.--_Idem._ II ALIEN ADMISSION AND RESTRICTION _I. Method of Admission_ [Sidenote: Chief Ports of Entry] How do immigrants obtain entrance into the United States? New York is the chief port of entry, and if we learn the conditions and methods there we shall know them in general. The great proportion coming through New York is seen by comparison of the total admissions for 1904 and 1905 at the larger ports: Port 1904 1905 New York 606,019 788,219 Boston 60,278 65,107 Baltimore 55,940 62,314 Philadelphia 19,467 23,824 Honolulu 9,054 11,997 San Francisco 9,036 6,377 Other Ports 22,702 24,447 Through Canada 30,374 44,214 [Sidenote: The Floating Gateway] The proportion for New York is not far from eight tenths of the whole. Hence it is true, that while the "dirty little ferryboat _John G. Carlisle_ is not an imposing object to the material eye, to the eye of the imagination she is a spectacle to inspire awe, for she is the floating gateway of the Republic. Over her dingy decks march in endless succession the eager battalions of Europe's peaceful invaders of the West. That single craft, in her hourly trips from Ellis Island to the Battery,[13] carries more immigrants in a year than came over in all the fleets of the nations in the two centuries after John Smith landed at Jamestown."[14] [Sidenote: Human Storage Reservoirs]