The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and FlowSteiner, Edward Alfred
History
The Immigrant Tide, Its Ebb and Flow
Steiner, Edward Alfred
United States -- Emigration and immigration
One of the most liberal Jewish rabbis in this country, whose addresses
teem from the most extreme optimism as to the future of his race in
America, will be amazed to hear that because he was invited to preach
the baccalaureate sermon in a Western state institution of learning, a
large number of the class absented itself from that service. In
commenting upon it, I heard one of the number say to another, in
unacademic, campus language: "Tough luck, boy. They've invited a Sheeny
to preach our baccalaureate. It's an insult to the class!"
The fact that twenty per cent. of the students at Columbia University
are Jews, has led a number of Western boys to say to me: "We won't go to
Columbia. There are too many Jews there."
No less brutally frank expressions I have heard in the shops in which I
have worked, and in hotel lobbies where I have loitered; so that while I
may not regard the Jewish problem as the most serious in the general one
of immigration, I certainly regard it as one of the most sensitive to
approach and one of the most difficult to solve.
I usually ask four questions regarding every immigrant group, and the
answer determines, in my own mind at least, the desirability of its
coming to the United States. The four questions are:
First, Do we need them? By that, I mean, will they perform some useful
function which is necessary and which the earlier comers cannot or will
not perform? This is entirely an industrial question and can be safely
answered only by the economist, who knows the field in all its bearings.
My conviction, based upon no such accurate knowledge, is that we most
need those groups which live by their muscle, rather than by their wits;
the toiler, rather than the trader. If my theory is correct, this would
exclude many Jews; although I am sure that they have performed many
important functions in the industrial sphere, both in the realm of
manual labour and out of it. Some such discrimination seems to me fair,
for it would bar classes, rather than races, and would affect equally
other commercial people, such as the Greeks, Armenians and Syrians.
Whether or not this first question is fundamentally sound, of one thing
I am sure. Half the ill feeling against the Jews would vanish if they
would give themselves in any large numbers to the mechanical trades and
to agriculture.
Second, Does the group which seeks admission have the same economic
ideals which characterized the earlier groups?
This refers to standards of living as well as to standards of making the
living.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account