Women labor union members; Women labor union members -- United States
New York has already accomplished excellent results, and more
important still, has shown the direction, in which other states may
both follow and coöperate. A few years more may see us with interstate
legislation insuring the better care and protection of immigrants all
over the country, interstate legislation being the curiously
indirect method which the United States has hit upon to overcome
the imperfections and deficiencies of its national instrument of
government. One of these days may even find the Federal House at
Washington taking over, in other lines besides that of foreign
workers, the functions outlined for it in the first instance by the
daughter states.
The United States Government has recently entered a new field in the
passage of a law, authorizing the protection of immigrants in transit
to their destination, and providing for the establishment of a station
in Chicago, where the immigrants will go on their arrival, and will
thus be protected from the gross frauds from which they have so long
suffered. The present administration also promises an experiment
in the development of the Bureau of Information in the Immigration
Department.
It is not so easy for any of us to give the same dispassionate
consideration to the problem that is with us as to that which has long
been settled, and has passed away into the calm atmosphere of history.
And truly, there are complications in the present situation which our
fathers had not to face. And first, the much greater dissimilarity in
training, mental outlook, social customs, and in the case of the
men and women from eastern Europe, not to speak of Asia, the utter
unlikeness in language, makes mutual knowledge and understanding much
more difficult, and the growth of mutual confidence, therefore, much
slower.
No one has yet analyzed the effects upon the nervous system of the
migrating worker, of the unsettlement of habits, and the change of
surroundings and social environment, working in connection with the
changed climatic conditions, and the often total change in food. This
is one phase of the immigrant problem which deserves the most careful
study. And when, as too often in the case of the Russian Jew, this
complete alteration of life is piled on top of the persecutions so
many of them have endured, and the shocks so many have sustained
before leaving their native land, the normal, usual effects of
the transition are emphasized and exaggerated, and it may take a
generation or longer before complete Americanization and amalgamation
is brought about.
The longer such a change is in being consummated, the more is the
new generation likely to retain some of their most characteristic
qualities permanently; to retain and therefore to impress these upon
the dominant race, in this case upon the American nation, through
association, and finally, through marriage. Especially is this a
probable result where we find such vitality and such intensely
prepotent power as among the Jews.
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