As to the political effect of immigration: Among our cities the two most conspicuous examples of misgovernment are New York and Philadelphia. In each the dominant political machine is scandalously corrupt. But it is far more audacious, far more cynically and openly contemptuous of public opinion in Philadelphia than in New York. Philadelphia is an “American” city; New York is a “foreign” city. In Philadelphia the corruption seems almost hopeless; in New York the element to which every movement for betterment looks--not in vain--is the “foreign” element. The weakness of Tammany’s control over the masses of “German-Americans” and “Italian-Americans” and “Jewish Russian-Americans” is the chief reason why it does not feel easy and secure in the enjoyment of plunder. Cities where the “foreign vote” is preponderant may be corrupt; but so also are cities where the native American rules undisputed. Manifestly, the causes of political corruption are deeper than immigration, are not aggravated by it. And since our most hopeful States politically are for the most part those into which immigration from abroad has been pouring in a vast and steady stream for fifteen years, is there not sufficient ground for the confident assertion that the newcomer with his untainted passion for Democracy and his new-born hope of rising in the world is one of our tremendous political assets? As to the industrial effect. The overwhelming mass are farmers or unskilled laborers. But the wages of unskilled labor cannot be much depressed. In all ages and in all countries the unskilled laborer has got just about enough to keep him alive--never much more, often a little less. In America, as a whole, the condition of unskilled labor to-day is better than it ever has been. The fact that we have so much rough work to do in developing our vast raw resources makes America the best market for unskilled labor the world has ever seen; and it will be many generations before that rough work is completed, so inadequate is our supply of unskilled labor in proportion to the demand. In the trades the competition of the immigrant has not lowered wages. There again we have more work to do than there are workers. _The forces that have operated unfavorably upon wages are notoriously not forces of competition among wage-earners, but forces tending to abolish competition among employers for the services of the skilled laborer._ And in combating these forces, is the immigrant a help or a hindrance? Does his vote go for tyranny or for freedom?