The Jews of America were thus even better prepared to receive a large number of Jewish immigrants at the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century than they were ten years before. There was also at this time a smaller number and a much smaller proportion of helpless people among the Russian refugees, for those who lived in the interior of Russia, outside of the “pale of settlement”, and would have remained there had it not been for the expulsions, were as a rule active and fairly successful men, and therefore better able to take care of themselves than those whom poverty or lack of employment forced to emigrate. Many more found relatives and friends here than in 1881–82, and among those who were here there were also many more who could be of assistance to new arrivals than in former times. As a matter of fact, Jewish immigration from the Slavic countries had then assumed its natural form, which it has retained ever since, except in the years following the massacres in the present century. Most men come to kinsmen or personal friends, who are willing and able to assist them in finding their way. A large majority consists of wives and children, of parents and other near relatives, who come because they were sent for and because the breadwinner or the most energetic member of the family has previously established himself here and demands their ♦presence, or feels certain that they will soon be able to provide for themselves. The helpless Jewish immigrant who has nowhere to go and nothing to do when he arrives, is now very rare, and has been rare for the last two decades. The number of the new immigrants needing assistance immediately after their arrival had been reduced to such a small fraction that those having the interest of the Jewish masses at heart began to express their opinion that it would perhaps be better if organized charity would leave them alone altogether. At first this opinion was uttered mostly in the Yiddish press or at meetings of immigrants. But in time there came not only a still further improvement in the general condition of the Jews, and also a further diminution in the number of helpless immigrants, but the voice of the immigrant-citizen became more potent in communal affairs. The folly of appeals, in which the wants of that class were exaggerated, became apparent; a large number of the employees of charitable institutions, and even some of the directors, were now Russian or Galician or Roumanian Jews, with a closer acquaintance with the needs, and also with the lack of needs, of the new arrivals. Much of the friction due to the resentment against help, which was rendered sometimes with more ostentation than the circumstances required, was obviated under the altered conditions, and the ground was prepared for a new co-operation of all elements of the community.