But all this is now a thing of the past. Not only have the religious and political motives almost wholly disappeared in favor of the economic in modern immigration, but the European immigrant of to-day is in no sense going to a new or unknown land, when he embarks for the United States. American life and conditions, particularly economic conditions, are well known in those sections of Europe which furnish our large contingents of immigration. The presidential election, the panic, the state of the crops in the United States, are familiar topics of conversation.[344] Almost every individual in the established currents of immigration has at least one friend in this country. Many of them know exactly where they are going and what they are going to do. To a host of them the change is no greater than to go to the next village in their native land, perhaps less so. For as likely as not, just as many of their friends and relatives are awaiting them in the new country as are lamenting them in the old. Neither is the voyage to-day, bad as it is, beset with the uncertainties, hardships, and perils which used to characterize it. The way is cleared for the travelers at every step. If their ticket is not actually supplied to them from America, probably all or part of the money with which it is purchased came from America. At least they may now secure a ticket direct from a European center to their ultimate destination in America, and every stage of the journey is facilitated by the ingenuity of financially interested agents. Induced immigration has always existed since the days when the press gangs in the coast towns of England carried inducement to the point of abduction. But probably never in the history of our country has artificially stimulated immigration formed so large a part of the whole as now. There is nothing, therefore, in the modern conditions of immigration which serves as a guaranty of high quality in the immigrants. One other element which concerns the quality of the immigrant, and therefore should be mentioned in this connection, is the immense increase in what may be designated temporary or seasonal immigration. The prominence of this type of movement in recent years has radically modified the industrial aspect of the situation.[345]